Gabe and Isobel arrived at the indicated clearing right on time, an hour before sunset. They had a knapsack between them, shaded lanterns - it was blackout, of course. And they had themselves. Gabe had tucked the most condensed of his canes into the knapsack, folded up so it was no more than a foot long. But he’d also worn the boots that made it less necessary. They’d been warned it might be a bit of a walk, and Gabe had correctly translated that as “miles, plural”.
He didn’t expect he’d be able to keep the boots on, so he’d also wrapped his ankle with a charmed bandage, for support. It was enchanted further to be entirely invisible to those who didn’t know it was there. Isobel had watched him, as he’d done it, without comment other than “What should I know, sir?”
She knew where the potions case was, that he might need something from there before they could make their way home. If it came to that. What he’d said was, “Know where your journal is, know how to get back to Rufus, all the small landmarks, tell them to me as we go. And we’ll see what happens.”
Gabe had no idea what the night would bring, but he’d taken no chances. He’d left a pile of letters and notes on his desk at home, the one he knew Rathna wouldn’t look at unless he didn’t return, or didn’t return alive. Aunt Witt would be shocked.
For the first time in his life, all his case notes and reports and commentary on Isobel’s apprenticeship were entirely up to date. He’d left letters for everyone he loved, pages of them, that he’d been writing on and off over the past few days, his pen skittering across the pages. Everything he wanted to make sure he’d said, if he couldn’t later.
And if they weren’t needed tonight, well, they’d be on record. Maybe someone would find them amusing eighty years from now, after he’d died from old age. He hoped that would be the case, but the rumoured deaths from this group earlier bothered him. He was not elderly now, and it was not a season that called for insulating bear grease, but there was no telling what magic would demand.
If a sacrifice were demanded of him, at least Gabe had the training to answer that challenge fully and properly. He didn’t know about anyone else. Isobel was not fully trained, and had an entire life ahead of her. George - or whatever his name was - had power in him, and Theano, as well, but he was quite sure they had different skills than Gabe’s own.
The one thing Gabe knew was that magic had infinite forms. He could feel it warring in him, the need for caution and preparation, and the knowledge that there were things that could never be planned for. His mind had caught - obsessively, he was quite aware of that - on the risks here. That might be because there was a real risk.
More likely it was that he had been terribly worried about Rathna. He continued terribly worried about the war, about the planes flying overhead and the bombs dropping in increasing numbers. Never mind whatever the ride with the Wild Hunt, with the terrifying glory of the Fatae riders, might have changed for him that he couldn’t begin to unravel.
Worrying about one solitary ritual, no matter how potent, was a lot more manageable than worrying about everything. Rathna and Mama had been very tolerant about it, so much so that he’d done his best to stop fixating on the worries. That had only worked so far, but at least they’d had other, far better conversations in the last few days.
Someone was waiting for them there - George, in a hooded coat. He nodded once at them and said. “It’s a mile or two.” Without comment, he went on further into the forest, through the trees, into a clearing. They had no way to leave word for Rufus. They’d have to rely on location charms and landmarks.
The walk was three miles as Gabe counted it, winding on paths and dirt roads deeper and deeper into the trees. A vast swath of oaks, proper English oaks, with others here and there. Gabe caught the murmuring of a nightjar, the flick of a fleeing tail of a deer, the little rustles in the underbrush of smaller wildlife. He didn’t stop and try to spot them. This was not the time.
Finally, they came into a clearing, and Gabe knew exactly where they were, coming into the realm of the Knightwood Oak. He and Isobel had been here in, what was it, March? Yes. The day they’d come back from the Naked Man. They were in the southern part of the Forest, still, not Geoffrey’s own lands, but that was better. Likely better.
There were a dozen people in the clearing now, each taking up a place in a large loose circle just south of the massive oak. The tree must have been two dozen feet round, give or take, a true queen of the forest. They ringed a circle, the same circumference as the tree that had been marked out in brushwood. The centre had five candles in little metal cans, but no one stood inside the brush, not yet.
Gabe hesitated, then glanced at George. “May I pay my respects?” He nodded once at the tree, to make his intention clear.
“Do. And then I will take you to do the same to our Rose of the wood.”
Gabe set off, nodding agreeably without focusing on anyone too closely, with Isobel at his side. Those assembled were on the older side. Gabe himself was, so far as he could tell, one of the youngest there, and that made Isobel near two decades younger at the least. Four people stood together, near each other, two men, two women.
The women must both be in their seventies, both with the sort of deceptively innocent matronly demeanours that one ignored at one’s peril. Not at all like Mama, but Mama would get one glimpse and veer toward them in any room as the most interesting companions. The men were an intriguing contrast to each other. One was leaning into the conversation, the other looked almost bored. The interested one had the look Gabe suspected others saw on his face all the time, of repressing a dozen comments and interjections, knowing that wouldn’t go over well. He had a rather chaotic goatee, from what Gabe could see from this angle, and enough hair for it to be a tad wild.
Gabe walked over to the tree, made a slight bow, and then pressed his hands to the bark. This wasn’t his specialty. Normally he didn’t do well with trees. They moved in a pace he found tremendously challenging to match for more than a few breaths. Even so, he’d learned enough from Rathna how to listen to them better.
This one was ancient indeed, old enough to have had solid roots when the Pact was made, though she’d still been quite young then, barely out of saplinghood. She recognised him, the way trees often recognised those who had particular attention for the land magic. Gabe sent a little of his own magic out into her, a brush of gratitude and acknowledgement.
Isobel came up and as Gabe removed his hands, she did the same little gesture, the same press of palms against bark. When she pulled away, Gabe offered his arm, and George was waiting to bring them to the little group of four. When they came over, George cleared his throat. “Lady, as I promised, a little youthful vigour.”
The elder woman inclined her head slightly, secure in her place here. “We welcome all willing aid. Follow what we do, and you will do well.” It had an echo to it, some instruction or blessing from an older text, the sort Alexander or Geoffrey would be able to put their finger on immediately. Gabe inclined his head without speaking, and after a moment George led them to take their place in the circle.
Time passed, perhaps half an hour, until there were fifteen, sixteen, seventeen people standing in a loose circle. A few more men, and the group was about even men and women. Isobel was still the youngest by far. There was no man here but Gabe who was of an age to enlist, and only one other woman near his age.
At some sign from the eldest, most of the others began to strip their clothing off, piece by piece, leaving their clothes folded in a neat pile by whatever bag they’d brought. Gabe did not hesitate at the clothing, though as he had told Isobel he much preferred ritual robes. He did pause at the boots, before deciding he would deal with what would come and go barefoot. At least his ankle was wrapped, he’d have a little support there.
That done, they were each guided to an entrance in the brush, met by someone with a smoky incense and a bowl of fragrant water to dip their hands. Gabe murmured the prayers he’d learned at Mama’s coaxing, back when he was tiny. They were about purity of heart, nobleness of spirit, and washing away all that did not serve.
He took up a place to the northwest, as someone lit the candles in the centre, setting them to flickering. Then three hooded lanterns in the southeast, where Hitler must be, the direction they were loosing their arrows. A bare minimum of light, one didn’t want the Home Guard or air-raid wardens, or, for that matter, the Luftwaffe to spot anything. At least the tree cover overhead would be a help with the last.
Someone walked around the boundary three times, scattering some sort of powder. Gabe could smell the light, almost citrus note of the vervain, a hint of lavender, a touch of mint, and something he couldn’t quite identify under the more obvious scents. At least four herbs in the mix, quite possibly more.
The eldest woman processed into the centre of the circle, standing before the candles in their tins, somehow bringing every mote of attention into her hands, despite the oddity of the setting and tools. This was no workroom, as Gabe was used to. And it was certainly nothing like the Temple of Healing or the ritual room at Schola, or any of the other places he had done rituals in the past.
Somehow, she made this be a place of power, as if she were calling it into being like Rathna coaxed a portal to life. It was not an order by sheer force of will. It was not a fantasy made of wisps of illusion and enchantment. It was something far more solid than Gabe had realised was likely, outside the boundary of the Pact.
When the woman spoke, her voice had power behind it, a harmonic ring much like a harp. “Join hands. We will dance. As we dance, think only ‘You cannot cross the sea, you cannot come’. Follow my lead, or the lead of my maiden, as it builds.” She indicated Theano, who stepped forward from halfway across the circle, nearer to Gabe and Isobel.
Then her voice grew deeper, a vibrating resonance. “Listen to the words of the Great mother, who of old was also called among men Artemis, Astarte, Dione, Melusine, Aphrodite, and by many other names. At mine altars the youth of Lacedaemon in Sparta made due sacrifice.” She paused, as if normally the rite had some other word or phrase there, then continued, “For I have come to sweep away the bad, the men of evil, all will I destroy!”
The last word almost had thunder to it. Brief though the speech had been, Gabe could see the power of it resonating. They were all there, wherever they came from, because they wanted to do this one thing, with everything they had. As one, they stepped, moving sunwise, motion by motion. It began slowly.
In Albion, there would have been a ritual drummer, almost certainly. There would have been a floor, one of the ancient great halls, where you could hear the steps, the deliberate stomps, the way the stone or wood became part of the music. Here, there was only the rustle of steps in the grass, the slight noise of skin on skin, then someone clapped with hollowed hands, and others picked it up. This was also not Gabe’s great gift, building a rhythm piece by piece, so he kept to the anchoring beat. To his right, he heard Isobel pick up something more complex and syncopated.
They circled and circled, murmuring at first. “You cannot cross the sea. You cannot cross the sea. You cannot cross the sea. You cannot come. You cannot come. You cannot come.” Many of the others - though not all - seemed to know how this went, as if they’d done it before and not just once. Six or seven of the seventeen, perhaps. Others, like Gabe and Isobel, were simply picking it up as they went.
That was the thing. Gabe could feel the magic being coiled up. Not as Alexander would do, not as Cyrus did in the Council dances now. Not as Gabe himself might do, certainly, for all this kind of ritual wasn’t his usual line of magical work. Entirely too many people, for one thing, for his sorts of workings. But whoever was guiding it, that eldest woman, was competent. She was making a glorious orb of it, twining and living, being given shape and form just as was needed.
It built and built, the steps moving faster and faster, until Gabe’s heart was pounding in beat with the throb in his ankle. Somewhere in there, the woman to his left reached out to take his hand. He reached for Isobel’s. They were circling then with no sound but the chant; voices getting rougher with strain. Gabe had no thought for anything now but the rising power, nothing but the goal, the burning need to keep the harm away on the far side of the water. You shall not come. You cannot come. You cannot cross the sea.
Then, all of them answering the same signal, the dance changed from circling to rushing inwards toward the light at the centre, hands raised. Then they fell back, like a great wave. It was a tidal wave made human, formed by bodies dripping with sweat, heaving for breath, drawing every last ounce they could to send their will into the world.
Somewhere in there, Gabe gave himself over to it utterly. He had not been asked a question, not the way the Fatae had meant, and it did not matter. He was here. His heart was beating with the land, for the land, twining with the deep, far-ranging roots of the tree, the connection from branch to leaf to branch to root that ran through the forest, all out through the lands of Albion.
He could feel the sparkles of the stones held by other groups, the way he knew where he was in relationship to the one in the pocket of his folded clothes. They spread out behind his eyelids like stars in their constellations. Each one slotted into place across the south of England, then spreading out west through Wales, and north, even a few up into Scotland.
The arms rose, they fell. They rushed in and drew back. Over and over, endlessly, what felt like hours and hours. Gabe had gone far beyond counting, far beyond any sense of his body, as if he were riding again with the Wild Hunt. His feet felt like they barely touched the ground, his limbs moved without his will. All that mattered was the dance and the thought. He drew on that memory, as much as he could, what their magic and power had felt like.
Something rushed through him, answering that call as nothing else he’d felt in his life had. It seemed that the land herself had been waiting for the moment. All the desire for growth and flourishing greenness had been waiting to explode through the door he made into the world. He could only make a doorway, make a portal as Rathna made portals, and do his best not to get in the way. This was wild magic, and it was magic of people who had lived and loved and chosen this land over and over and over again, through millennia.
Everything went black, then everything went quiet. There was nothing, just the dark and the void and the stillness. He didn’t know how long he was there, in that umbral space beyond desire or meaning. He could barely think, just drift there, as if everything had rushed through him and left him a shell. If this was it, if this was what sacrifice felt like, at least right now, he didn’t hurt.
He hung there in that liminal space, not moving, not thinking, barely breathing. Somewhere in there, he was aware he was still himself, that there was a him who could consider and measure the pain he was or wasn’t feeling. He couldn’t move, though, he certainly couldn’t bring himself to any sort of action, even inside his own head. Everything kept spinning away, beautiful, fragile, and entirely insubstantial.
When he remembered how to move again, everything changed. All of him was in pain. His ankle, most of all, but everything else, too. Something hard was under his hip, something else bumped an elbow that felt bruised, every muscle in his legs and back and arms complained at the slightest twitch. There was some sort of cloth over him, with a warming charm, but he shivered despite that.
Something in the movement changed the world around him. There was a hand, very lightly resting on his shoulder. “It’s morning. Well past dawn. They’re all gone.” Isobel’s voice, quiet. “Rufus is on his way. Potion?”
Gabe could only nod once, before even that effort was too much. There was the click of his potions case, the sound of two vials being moved, then Isobel was pressing one into his hand. He didn’t try to look at it, just drained it. Then the other. The first was a painkiller. He’d regret the effects in a few hours, but that should allow him to get home. The second was a stamina restorative, the aftertaste on that always took a moment to announce itself.
“How long?”
He didn’t even know whether he was asking how long until Rufus would meet them, or how long he’d been unconscious. Isobel answered both of them. “Ten or fifteen minutes, maybe. The last of them only left half an hour ago. And you’ve been out a good few hours. Three others collapsed, fully.” She hesitated, then added, “There was some joking about how young folks don’t have the stamina they used to.”
Gabe half-rolled onto his back, and regretted that too, but it let him blink at her. “You all right?” He should have asked immediately.
Isobel sounded amused. “I’ve already taken my potions, sir. You took the brunt of it, or - no, that’s not the word. You made yourself into the brunt of it. I think the priestess knew, but I don’t know who else figured it out. No one asked me. Just checked to see if you needed anything, and didn’t bother us. I cast a look-away charm once they’d gone. I didn’t know if we’d have ramblers or what out.”
“Good.” His voice cracked on the last part, then he let his head roll back. “Wake me up when there’s a horse.”