for that he had read in his books of those same Seven, my Black Man’s kin, who chose neither Heaven nor Hell, but to circle the globe forever, seeking misery. For the Roke was one of those who thinks magic can be made with silly schoolmasters’ tricks, calling angels down and devils up to do your bidding with equal ease, so that you never have to touch any task with your own hands, if it can at all be helped.
A marriage was arranged between the Roke and my Lady’s Grisell, to give him cause to journey between their holdings. And once we came all together, she showed us where the Stane was kept, in that same empty
brugh
she had been cast from. Beneath the Dourvale hill we made our compact, swearing in together, and spilled our blood upon the Stane’s skin, softening it for our purposes—bound ourselves together for all times, with one thing only left wanting.
There must be a sacrifice,
I told them.
Nothing for nothing, neither on this globe, nor out of it. We must all give up part of ourselves to see this through, or the working fails.
What will the world be hereafter, when we are done?
Lady Glauce asked me, to which I replied:
Better than this or worse, yet in no-wise the same. I fear for my children,
she said,
who have already lost so much, without ever knowing it.
To which I answered:
But ’twill be
their
world, at last, an we say our spells a-rightly—a world fit only for us who are born apart, touched with the invisible. We will no more be hunted, but hunters; no more slaves, but kings. ’Tis worth all things to gain such a prize, is’t not?
And the fee?
What you will. An eye, a finger, a cut of flesh . . . that hair of yours, perhaps, which grows so long and greenly.
I would pay the price, an it bring me what you promise,
she told me.
Still, I mis-doubt; ’tis a great hazard.
And here the Roke laughed, saying:
Yet all great Projects be bought by blood, m’Lady Mother, as Hermes Trismegistus does say—and all birth through blood likewise, as every woman knows, of high or low estate.
Say so again when we see what
you
give up,
she told him. And there it was left for the instant—he and she went one way, to celebrate the wedding feast, while my sisters and I went t’other, to gather ourselves for what was to come.
We would have remade this world, between the five of us. But in the end, my Lady loved this foul place best just as it is, since it bent to her name and degree. Far better to keep your hand than risk all to gain more—or less—than any of us might know, is what she no doubt thought. So even whilst I and mine laid in our preparations, she planned for our downfall.
Two nights gone, we returned to the
brugh
and stood encircled with Lady Glauce and the Roke, casting ourselves together into that place where all paths meet and the Seven may pass by each other without touching, so as not to be put back together as One. Then we began our sacrifices, he first using his sword to clip away a finger-bone, then Jonet the dead eye through which she saw her ghosts. I myself ran a blade under one pap, ready to cut it free like a pitched boil. ’Twas then I felt my Lady in my head, and knew her true intent. All unnoticed, she had let her childer and husband enter through the low road, that they might add their strength to hers—but before I could call on my angel, I saw another of his kin step in behind, laying hands upon these two betrayers’ shoulders. In an instant, the Stane’s power fell from us to them, and every thing was undone.
Then they were gone away through air and darkness, my Lady’s get and all, I know not where even now, but that it lies so far beyond your grasp that you would never find it did you care to seek for them. And though the Roke and his wife have since returned to his own place, we three awoke on cold grass, in a circle of our enemies.
They found us uponn the hill-side, Jonet Devize’s dittay had read, Dolores remembered. And set uponn us in our sleep, by Glauce Lady
A marriage was arranged between the Roke and my Lady’s Grisell, to give him cause to journey between their holdings. And once we came all together, she showed us where the Stane was kept, in that same empty
brugh
she had been cast from. Beneath the Dourvale hill we made our compact, swearing in together, and spilled our blood upon the Stane’s skin, softening it for our purposes—bound ourselves together for all times, with one thing only left wanting.
There must be a sacrifice,
I told them.
Nothing for nothing, neither on this globe, nor out of it. We must all give up part of ourselves to see this through, or the working fails.
What will the world be hereafter, when we are done?
Lady Glauce asked me, to which I replied:
Better than this or worse, yet in no-wise the same. I fear for my children,
she said,
who have already lost so much, without ever knowing it.
To which I answered:
But ’twill be
their
world, at last, an we say our spells a-rightly—a world fit only for us who are born apart, touched with the invisible. We will no more be hunted, but hunters; no more slaves, but kings. ’Tis worth all things to gain such a prize, is’t not?
And the fee?
What you will. An eye, a finger, a cut of flesh . . . that hair of yours, perhaps, which grows so long and greenly.
I would pay the price, an it bring me what you promise,
she told me.
Still, I mis-doubt; ’tis a great hazard.
And here the Roke laughed, saying:
Yet all great Projects be bought by blood, m’Lady Mother, as Hermes Trismegistus does say—and all birth through blood likewise, as every woman knows, of high or low estate.
Say so again when we see what
you
give up,
she told him. And there it was left for the instant—he and she went one way, to celebrate the wedding feast, while my sisters and I went t’other, to gather ourselves for what was to come.
We would have remade this world, between the five of us. But in the end, my Lady loved this foul place best just as it is, since it bent to her name and degree. Far better to keep your hand than risk all to gain more—or less—than any of us might know, is what she no doubt thought. So even whilst I and mine laid in our preparations, she planned for our downfall.
Two nights gone, we returned to the
brugh
and stood encircled with Lady Glauce and the Roke, casting ourselves together into that place where all paths meet and the Seven may pass by each other without touching, so as not to be put back together as One. Then we began our sacrifices, he first using his sword to clip away a finger-bone, then Jonet the dead eye through which she saw her ghosts. I myself ran a blade under one pap, ready to cut it free like a pitched boil. ’Twas then I felt my Lady in my head, and knew her true intent. All unnoticed, she had let her childer and husband enter through the low road, that they might add their strength to hers—but before I could call on my angel, I saw another of his kin step in behind, laying hands upon these two betrayers’ shoulders. In an instant, the Stane’s power fell from us to them, and every thing was undone.
Then they were gone away through air and darkness, my Lady’s get and all, I know not where even now, but that it lies so far beyond your grasp that you would never find it did you care to seek for them. And though the Roke and his wife have since returned to his own place, we three awoke on cold grass, in a circle of our enemies.
They found us uponn the hill-side, Jonet Devize’s dittay had read, Dolores remembered. And set uponn us in our sleep, by Glauce Lady
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