The wicker man stood to the south, facing across the chalked lines toward the bare, shield-shaped patch of earth they had all crossed to enter the ritual area. The silver bowl of blessed water rested in the western point, and the scent of burning herbs rising from the eastern point’s brazier filled the clearing. Only the upper portions of the wicker man would be visible from beyond the surrounding topiary maze.
Save for the wicker man, Glover found it all very familiar. Normally, the golden-tipped spear stood at the southern point, but this was no normal ritual. This was a ceremony of high sacrifice, the holiest of druidic rituals. Bound within the wicker were the six chosen sacrifices, the scions of untainted blood. Each limb held one, another lay wrapped within the body and the last was curled in the head. Gordon stood before the manikin holding an unlit torch, half-concealed by the flowing sleeves of his plain white robe. He seemed pensive and subdued. Was he contemplating his forthcoming role?
The symbols were all in place; it was time to begin. Gordon abandoned his vigil in front of the wicker man and walked to his place near the center of the ring, careful to avoid stepping on any of the chalked lines. As he reached the unfinished pentacle he was to stand in, he was met by David Neville. Gordon took his place, and young Neville completed the diagram. Across the clearing, the druids moved to their stations, ghostly white shapes drifting in the dark. Each wore a ritual robe topped off with the golden brow band and head cloth of an initiate. Sir Winston, leader of the ceremony, was distinguished from his peers by a heavy gold pectoral bearing the sun-in-splendor insignia of his totem.
Everything was in order. Glover could find nothing amiss, nothing to hint that Hyde-White might be right. The ceremonial ring was laid out exactly according to the specifications in the ritual they had all worked out. The geometries were accurate, the symbols appropriate. What could go wrong?
Neville stood in the center of the ring, naming each participant and building the protective magics. Glover studied the archdruid. Neville appeared steady and in control; only a touch of anticipation marred his calm. A faint glow was beginning to manifest around him as the energies awoke.
Glover joined the circle, adding his energies to the spell. Neville continued around the ring until he reached Hyde-White. With the inclusion of the fat man, the ritual circle was complete. Glover noticed Hyde-White’s aura was subdued, as if he had not wholly committed himself to the ritual. A less competent shaman might have fatally flawed the ritual by such reservation, but Hyde-White’s power was well above the commitment needed.
Neville led the opening chant, his reedy voice ringing out to be answered by the combined voices of the other druids. He called upon the earth to heed their call, offering praise to all that was natural and stating the Circle’s commitment to restoring the land’s balance. He paused before making the offer of sacrifice.
Neville nodded to Gordon, who held his unlit brand on high. Gathering strands from each of the druids’ power, Neville wove them into a lance of light and speared it toward Gordon. The amber beam struck the torch, igniting it in a burst of flame and sparks.
To the accompaniment of the rhythmic spell chant, Gordon walked to the edge of the ring and faced the wicker man. He held the torch to the end of the manikin’s left arm until the flames caught. Then, he thrust it deep into the leg and released his grip, leaving it to kindle another nest of hungry fire. He bowed to the wicker man before returning to his place in the center of the pentacle and facing Neville.
“We give holocaust. Let the sky accept our offering,” he said.
The druids continued their spell song, raising their volume as the fire spread through the wicker man. Sanchez, the first of the sacrifices to be consumed, died without a sound. The druids sang louder.
The shriek of tearing metal and the crack of splintering wood ripped across their voices, forcing the chant to an abrupt halt. The cacophony issued from somewhere near the house. Glover searched for the source.
Behind the outbuildings, an unkempt shape was rising. The irregular mass of shifting material humped up into a huge, dark mass of refuse and debris until its top was several meters higher than the roof of the nearest structure. The thing taking shape beyond the hedges lurched, its bulk shifting toward the circle. It might have been tottering, about to fall, but a second lurch dispelled that illusion. Whatever the thing was, it began moving toward them.
“David,” Sir Winston called calmly above the excited questions of the other druids. “We must not be interrupted.”
“I will hold it, father.”
David Neville eased his energies from the complex that the druids had created. Glover pushed harder, taking his share of the slack. His concentration was lacking, for his eyes were continually drawn to the approaching entity.
The growing light of the burning wicker lit the shape. With each step it became more defined. From an amorphous thing, it was resolving itself into a gnarled and hulking man shaped of refuse from the midden heap and fragments of the abandoned carriage house. It was a golem made of trash, and its outline was the same as that of the wicker man.
One of the sacrifices screamed, the flames burning through his drugged haze, and the thing jerked. Piece by piece, Barnett’s car, an ancient petrol-burning antique, tore itself apart, chunks whirling free to soar through the air and join with the mound. It grew and shambled forward.
David Neville faced it from within the ring of hedge. He was careful not to step past the safety of the magical barrier provided by the chalked circle. He stood straight, arms outstretched and palms raised to beseech aid. “By the powers of sky, I command thee. By the powers of the earth, I bid thee be gone. I stand firm on the land, caressed by the wind, and cast thee forth.”
Attuned to the astral, Glover could see the energy gather around David before bursting forth to strike the thing. The glittering darkness of the monster’s aura absorbed the power, swallowing the bright beam as if it had never been. Glover’s mouth went dry. Young Neville was a prig and a snob, but he had power and specialized in dealing with astral entities. Glover had seen him dismiss unruly spirits often enough. Whatever this was, it already had power enough to resist him.
A gap opened in the chest of the trash thing, a dark maw fanged with leaf springs, bumpers, and metal fragments, and a stream of semi-liquefied garbage spewed forth to drench Neville. He staggered back, retching. The pool of refuse at his feet solidified and trapped him where he stood. Dripping tendrils of slime hardened, freezing his motion. His legs disappeared, encased in the ever-deeper flow of filth pouring from the horrid monstrosity. Neville tried again to shout the formula of dismissal, but the commands gurgled to a strangled stop as the growing mound overtopped his head and entombed him.
The thing convulsed, apparently collapsing in on itself as if Neville’s dismissal had finally taken effect. It was a false hope. The narrow bridge of offal and rubbish expanded where it met the golem. A bulge, like a pig in a python, moved along the connection of garbage. The greater part of the monster’s bulk formed that bulge as the great mass outside the maze transferred itself along that slender bridge. The mound that concealed young Neville thickened, ballooning out as the mass concentrated. The debris pile stretched and contorted until the trash thing reformed its shape and stood on the spot where he had opposed it.
Barnett cast a spell at the monster, flames arcing from his outthrust hand to splash against the hulk. Steam and smoke billowed up, but though small fires flickered on the affected area, the garbage golem did not react to the attack.
Hyde-White stood riveted in his trance, sweat rolling in sheets across his vast expanses of flesh. Like Glover, he gathered in the strands of power as druids left the ritual to devote their energies to fighting off the intruder. The younger man had little time to appreciate the old man’s struggle; assimilating his part of the added burden was taxing his own control.
The other druids cast spells and attempted their own banishments. Their efforts had some effect; the monstrosity seemed confined between the outer and inner protective rings of the great chalk circle. Fitzgilbert ventured too close to the thing and was struck by a flailing limb of rusted metal and decaying wood. Debris showered them as he collapsed to the ground, his neck broken by the blow.
Glover’s arm was seized in a bone-racking grip. Hyde-White had crossed the ring. Leaving his place had been a necessity for the fat man; the trash thing occupied that space now. “Andrew, now you see what Neville’s obsession has led us to. He has no control over this corrupted spirit. As I feared, there is a flaw in the ritual, and so this thing has been spawned. If the sacrifice is completed, there is no telling what strength it will have.”
Glover stared at the monstrosity. It was fascinating, at once compelling and disgusting. Its power was enormous, but its very unnaturalness was the final proof of Hyde-White’s argument. “We must stop it.”
Hyde-White’s chin disappeared in the folds of flesh that hid his neck as he nodded. “If the spell is broken suddenly, there may be a backlash. I will guard the link with Neville while you do what must be done.”
What must be done.
Glover looked at the wicker man. The flames had already consumed its left half and were spreading. Where it had burned fiercely, the sacrifices were no longer moving. Corbeau lay bound within the mannequin’s right arm. The fire ravened closer, and he was beginning to stir as the heat and excitement penetrating through his drugged haze. So much effort to get him here, and now it was spoiled by Neville’s arrogance.
In the center of the circle, the older Neville stood tall and straight, the golden sickle raised above his head. His eyes were closed and his lips moved as he feverishly spoke the words of the ritual. “—We offer blood to the earth. Let the land drink from this divinely ordained vessel and be refreshed.”
Gordon walked toward him, intoning the prayer of offering, naming himself as the gift and offering his own blood to revitalize the land. He knelt before Neville, stretching his head back to offer his throat.
Glover couldn’t allow royal blood to feed the monstrosity. Hoping he was not also destroying the land’s hope, he gathered his power and sent it in a blast that ripped the right arm from the wicker man in an explosion of green witchfire. Corbeau screeched as the arcane energies shredded his flesh and boiled his body fluids. It was a faster death than the creeping sacrificial flame, but no less harsh.
“You fool! What have you done?” shouted Neville as he stumbled across the ring to seize Glover.
“Stopped your abortion.” A sweep of his arm broke the old man’s grip.
“You have destroyed all we have worked for!”
“I have saved it. Look!”
The giant garbage golem swayed wildly. Tilting at nearly forty-five degrees from the vertical, it suddenly lost cohesiveness and shattered into its component elements. The stench of decay and putrefaction burst over the clearing as rusted metal and rotted organic matter pelted the ground. The half-decomposed corpse of young Neville lay amid the debris, white bones gleaming in the firelight.
“See what you have done, old man, and what your warped ambitions have cost you. Your son lies dead. That’s a price you’ll have on your conscience to the grave. Pray it won’t be burdened by worse. We can only hope that your folly hasn’t cost us the land.”
“What are you talking about?” one of the others asked. They had gathered around the quarrelers.
Glover stabbed a finger at the heap of debris that had stalked their ceremony. “That. We all saw how that thing grew as the sacrifices were consumed.” He turned his wrathful face on Neville. “Had you completed the ritual, that thing would have been empowered beyond our worst fears. You would have spawned a scourge for the land.”
“No!” Neville’s face was twisted with denial. “It would have been destroyed. The corruption would have been swept away.”
Glover sneered at the desperation in Neville’s voice. The man couldn’t even convince himself. “Then why did it disperse when I interrupted the ritual?”
Neville’s eyes darted across the assembled survivors. There was no comfort for him in those faces. “I—I don’t know,” he mumbled.
“Well, I have seen enough to know. You have misled us, old man. Your way has been shown to be flawed and unwholesome. We must find another way to restore the land. We must hope that it can yet be done, and that your perverse meddling has not closed the door.”
Barnett made a show of turning his shoulder away from Neville. “Glover, you are the one who saw what needed to be done. What should we do now?”
“Whatever is necessary,” Gordon said. When all eyes were turned to him, he added, “I was ready to give my life that the land be restored. Who could ask for more commitment? I need only be shown the way. If you see that way, Master Glover, I will follow your lead.”
“It is an awesome responsibility,” Glover said.
“Which you have shown yourself strong enough to take on.”
Glover’s spirit soared. Acclamation from His Highness! Hyde-White had been right. Opportunity was rising before him; he would be a fool and a weakling if he did not seize it. He tried to mask his elation, to present a properly stern face as Ashton, who had been Neville’s student, removed the archdruid’s pectoral from the old man and held it out to Glover. His hands trembled as he accepted it.
“I serve the land as you do, Highness. As you have come to understand, we must all do whatever is necessary to see it healthy again. As leader of this Circle, my goal will be to see the land restored to its glory. Nothing shall deter me.”
He felt the strength of his conviction as he spoke. He would do anything to see the land saved. Behind him, he felt Hyde-White’s presence, massive and supporting.