The Fickle Winds of Autumn

Kira promised herself that she would concentrate fully as she hurried across the springy moss plateau and took up her place amongst the other girls.

She congratulated herself for not even stopping to look down at the wonderful sparkling carpet as it glittered beneath her boots.

From her position, about half-way between the centre and the outside of the circle, she could see that the devotional musicians had already taken up their places inside the edge of the Grove, their drums and horns poised to play.

Beyond them, stretched along the outer perimeter, behind the sacred boundary of the corner stones, the rest of the assembled Believers, sightseers and stragglers had gathered by the warmth of several glowing braziers, dotted around the edge of the raised forest glade.

Large clusters of priests and nuns, each in their different coloured robes and vestments, had grouped themselves between the stones and the centre of the great circle; while the five young Apprentices stood facing their master, in a direct line between him and the five stone monoliths, in order to focus their own powers, and help to amplify the potency of his great artful mind.

And at the very centre of it all, resplendent in his fine ceremonial regalia, and clearly relishing his primacy in the spot-light, stood the Grand Harmonist himself.

Kira breathed in the sweet rich smoke of the heavy censer which Hettie swung as she moved between the girls, purifying the air with its pungent scented fumes.

The two Sisters moved briskly around their wards, diligently handing out and lighting long tallow candles to each of the novicellae to symbolise the innocent virtues of their great Mother Moon.

As they approached, Kira held out her hand in anticipation.

Sister Enid reached for the last candle, but hesitated as Maud grasped her arm.

“Perhaps it would be better if Kira was left to concentrate more fully on the purity of the chant, rather than having the responsibility of holding a sacred flame, Sister Enid?”

“Yes, I agree Sister Maud. It will be a long and difficult recitation, and a very tiring ceremony - we certainly don’t want her showing the rest of us up by dropping her candle and starting a fire.”

They both moved past her and took up their own positions near by.

A slight disappointment prickled across Kira’s thoughts, but she told herself that she didn’t mind too much - at least it left her free to glance around at the rest of the ceremony for a few moments, without the burden of looking after one of the blessed lights.

She hid her hands deep in the pockets of her cloak so that their emptiness was less conspicuous, and reasoned that this also stopped her from fidgeting - and besides, it was warmer.

She inhaled the tense, expectant air, thick with perfumed smoke, thrilled to be finally taking part in a real, genuine ritual after all the dull hours of monotonous practice in the convent.

And not just any ritual - a chance for humans to save themselves from the terrible scourge of the witches; not only now, but if they were successful, once and for all - an event which would truly mark a momentous occasion in the great and dusty annals of history.

The nuns had taken pains to studiously impress on her that never in the memories of those still living had such a large gathering of priests and magikants been assembled; and even the most experienced practitioners were unsure if the spell would actually work, lending an uneasy trepidation to the stilled evening air; but, as the nuns had insisted, so desperate was the situation for those afflicted by the blight of the witches, so tenuous their grasp on survival, that anything and everything had to be tried.

Kira swallowed hard against the dryness of her mouth and tried to push her anxious shoulders back into their place.

She had been taught about the world of magik in dull, draining lessons, but had failed to take much of it in.

But this - this!was so much more exciting and immediate; even under the shadows of night, the colours and sounds were so much more vibrant and alive than anything she had ever encountered at the dreary nunnery. Her eager senses drank it all in thirstily - the hopeful scent of the incense; the faint whispering agitation of magik in the atmosphere; the soft yielding of the pliant moss beneath her feet.

Her tense fingers played apprehensively with the insides of her pockets, counting down the moments until the ceremony began and she would have to play her part.

Finally the preparations were complete, and a solid, tangible hush descended across the landscape. Each cleric stood positioned at their allocated place ready to aid the chant; each magikant steadied their breath and gathered their energy for the tiring ordeal that was about to begin.

It seemed to Kira as if even the surrounding trees held their leaves still, as the heavy air crackled with potent anticipation.

She gathered her breath and steadied herself. Her ears ached in the deep silence; her skin rippled with expectant goosebumps; the solemnity of the profound occasion pressed in all around her; she scrunched her stubborn toes down into the soles of her boots, determined not to fidget; determined to play her part; determined to prove her worth to her classmates and everyone else.

The first moon reached Her towering zenith and the ceremonial horns blew out a great bass note, steady and reverberating, across the stillness of the Grove, shaking at its very foundations.

A nervous acid excitement welled up from Kira’s stomach; but she refused to acknowledge it and focused intently on her first word.

In a startling, thrilling unison, the disparate groups of voices sang out the powerful opening note, shocking the air around them into dense colours and vibrations; the primordial tones rising, ringing with a fervent purity, blending seamlessly into a vast fabric of sound.

The chant swelled and continued in low rhythmical intonations, following the coercive resonance of the sacred drums, and grew in intensity to an all-engulfing reverberance of expressions and notes; the ancient words vibrating through the night air, the cadence of their rhythms and harmonics merging and reinforcing each other, across the tangled, deliberate acoustics of the Grove, and formed a charged and potent mystical enchantment, which seemed to raise the living soul of the ground itself, until it was lost, high up in the mysteries of the velvet firmament above.

Delighted and disorientated, close to the centre of the swirling, resonant glory of the song, Kira fought back the swell of joy from behind her eyes, so overwhelmed and startled with the intense beauty and power of the ceremony that she struggled to chant at all. The memory of her lessons drifted and refused to settle in her head, forcing her to redouble her focus and concentrate fiercely on her words, intent on playing her part in the vibrating hypnosis of the chant.

The candle-flames held by the other novicellae swelled in sympathetic response to the incantation and danced to its sublime resonance. Kira now regretted not having one herself so that she could examine this effect close up.

But she must focus and empty her mind of these distractions; she must fulfil her harmony and give her all to help the spell.

The abrasive blare of the horns and the passion of the voices enveloped her and rose as one glorious concordance of sound, echoing across the far distances of time; rising in pitch and timbre, increasing in rhythm and intensity; surging through the congregation and through every pulsing atom of Kira’s being; calling out to her, vibrating her very soul; consuming her with the raw beauty of its elemental energy.

What was this profound unnerving sensation of joy?

Would she ever experience such allure and wonder again?

But she must not think; she must focus.

She tried to fight her inquisitive eyes as they were drawn towards the Grand Harmonist. She watched enraptured as he raised his arms towards the sky and the sleeves of his robe fell back to reveal a series of intricate symbols buried deep beneath the skin of his forearms, glowing in a blue iridescence against the darkness of the evening. All around the great circle of the Grove, his Apprentices, and the other men who could wield the magik, followed his lead.

His eyes rolled back, white into his head, so that he was no longer distracted by the shallow truths of this world, but could focus instead on the certainties of the next. As the saturation of the chant and his thought deepened, his whole body began to radiate with an intensity of blueness, visible even through the luxurious cloth of his fine robes.

The other magikants did likewise, their bodies shimmering with subtly different shades of blue, each colour demonstrating their knowledge in one of the five essential disciplines of magik.

The glowing halo of energy from each magikant rose and wriggled and twisted as its subtle fingers sought out and joined with its neighbour, until each of the colours had linked into an incandescent chain of scintillating brightness.

The five pulsing, flickering threads were drawn inexorably towards the magnetic presence of the Harmonist, who commanded the centre of the Grove; the great conduit, the one great living poly-born; the one with the daunting ability to wield and manipulate all of the differing forms of the restless, living magik.

As he kept up his ardent, deep intonations, he reached out high above his head, and wove the individual strands together, creating a tapestry of thought and mind, which slowly projected up in a steady column of azure light; a beacon of dazzling blue, which pierced the darkness of the sky, threatening the moon with its bright intensity, stretching up toward the pale distant stars, before it mushroomed outward and spread to cover the Grove with a dome of its perfection.

The deep rhythm of the chant continued unbroken; the heavy vibration of the drums; the blaring insistence of the horns; the magikants and priests and novicellae and nuns, all in a concentrated unison; higher and wider the blue light spread, each sound and syllable of the ritual pushing and driving at its limitless boundaries.

Kira’s body tingled to her teeth; the thrilling sonorous fervour resonated through her; the sweetness of the incense intensified, shuddering under the gleaming radiance of the spell.

She trembled, unsure if this was caused by her own excitement or the sharp chill which had descended across the Grove, as the mild evening air departed and left the night temperature to hover with uncertainty, not knowing which way to turn. She pulled her cloak tighter against the subtle disquiet.

But she must focus! She must play her part properly and be a credit to her convent. She scrunched her toes down into the souls of her boots and closed her eyes to the fascinations and distractions of her surroundings, determined to concentrate.

But the sparking dome of energy was now so bright and radiant that she could still sense it through the red and pinks and blues of her eyelids.

She fought against its intrigue; breathed slowly and focused on the words she must say, the notes she must sing, and gradually began to sink into a calm immersion.

The repetition of her lessons flowed back through her, soothing and sorting the jumble of her mind; she remembered her part in the great harmony and thrilled to the emotional impetus of the full, sumptuous ceremony.

But there it was again - the nagging disappointment of thought; that somehow the majesty and importance and colour of the occasion would all be wasted if she did not look at it, if she was not fully alert and alive to witness it.

Her agitated mind refused to stay completely immersed in the meditation of the chant, and the distraction of her ideas bubbled to its surface.

She could not refuse her eyes their urge to see, as they blinked themselves back open to feast on the glorious pageantry of the crowd and the wonders of the ceremony.

How did the others do it? How could they maintain such discipline?

She looked up for inspiration at the distant stars which poured themselves out across the opened sky and hoped that this might calm her and give her something more intense than her own curiosity to concentrate on.

But the constant stars appeared to shift and swirl above her; and from the corner of her eyes, the flickering orange of the braziers and ceremonial candles began to doubt themselves, wavering uncertainly, and hesitating into shades of blue and yellow.

She narrowed her puzzled eyes. She had been forbidden to move, but allowed her head to turn as she peered cautiously at the blackness of the tree-tops which surrounded the Grove.

The shadowy branches of the trees quivered with movement; their slender fingers danced without a wind to conduct them; their yellowing leaves of Autumn’s cloth rustled nervously without a guide.

Perhaps the power of the Great Spell had awoken them from an ancient slumber and forced them into life? Perhaps they had been animated by the very urgency of the incantation itself?

Across the clear stillness of the evening, fine suggestions of mist began to gather anxiously around the edges of the Grove, silhouetted by the brightness of the dome and the purity of the moon.

Kira rubbed her troubled fingers together inside her cloak to ward off the night chill and pulled it tighter around her as an unexpected pocket of cold air brushed against her skin.

Her questioning eyes continued to stare as, in a moment of confused wonder, one of the trembling branches darted out into the night sky, independent of its tree; then another, and still more - each seeming to have a life and a movement of its own - until a dark constellation had gathered high along the skyline of the Grove, above the encircling trees, and glided silently towards its centre.

All around, the chant continued as before, gathering richly in intensity: the thick foundation of the drums; the ancient fervour of the words; the shimmering luminescence of the Great Spell; a light haze of vapour from the smoking pomander by Hettie’s side.

But the cold, damp scent of fog began to push its way forward, past the fragrant sweetness of the incense, and banished all thoughts of the sacred thirteenth harmony from Kira’s head.

Risking the fury of the nuns, she couldn’t help but look around to see if anyone else had noticed this unusual sight - but in their devout obedience, all of the other novicellae had their eyes resolutely closed, full in the sincerity of their concentration, absorbed only in the content and emotion of their chant, seeing nothing but the purity of their arcane words.

Behind her, the Harmonist himself continued his powerful and relentless intonation, dominating the Heart of the Grove, weaving his great tapestry, oblivious to the strangeness of the trees, as the column of radiant energy beamed out from his pivotal focus, taller, stronger; its blue curve arcing out in purity across the trusting land.

Kira’s attention was caught by a growing uneasy rumble which rippled out amongst the crowd along the far perimeter.

Her keen eyes sensed its disturbance as several of the assembled Believers looked skyward and pointed; jerking their arms up at the dense collection of twigs and branches which floated high above them, and grew in shape and definition as they drifted ever closer.

One of the crowd shouted out a shrill cry of alarm which pierced through the reverence of the ceremony, but they were too far away and the chanting of those close to her made it impossible for Kira to catch what was said.

Several other onlookers broke from their allotted positions along the outer edge of the Grove and ran towards the priests in the centre, waving their arms frantically and pointing up at the shadows in the darkening sky; their shrieking voices at last reached Kira’s straining ears:

“Witches! It’s the witches! The witches are upon us!”