Earth, Sky, Fire and Rain - Chapter 38 (26/5/08)

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Alisaura

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Disclaimer: A work of pure fanciful fiction. No harm intended.

One little swear in this chapter... that's all. :wink:



end of chapter 37:
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"You seem pretty sure of this other solution," Andrew said. "Can I ask what it is?"

"You should like it," I said, smiling. "I'm going back to the circle."

"Will you let me know how you go?"

"All right," I said. "Thanks again."

"You're welcome, Lisa," he said. I hung up.



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Chapter 38:
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Another couple of days passed. There was silence from Ed's camp, and I wondered if he was making preparations. I hoped his dreams had eased off – now that I was on this path, I had still been dreaming every night, but not always the same thing. Everything was coming together, and I became more and more sure that this was the right thing to do.

I packed a bag with clothes for a few days, and called the B&B in Ystradffin. This early in the year, they would be able to accommodate me at short notice. I told the landlady I would call back when I had concrete dates.

I thought about what else I could do to prepare. The fragments Eleri had told Mag were burned onto the inside of my skull, there was no point in rehearsing those. I considered finding robes or something, but Mag hadn't worn robes. I wondered if we should try to wear stone-age clothing, but I didn't know where to start looking. And surely these hypothetical spirits wouldn't care what we were wearing? The important thing was what we did, and the intentions in our hearts. The states of our minds... or of my mind, specifically. I was supposed to play the role of Ritemaster. Mag had used those mushrooms... With some trepidation, I wondered if they still grew in the area.

I didn't remember Mag having any sort of mystical objects of special significance... Ewain's ceremonial knife had been something like that, and I wondered if Ed was going to take it with him. Maybe we could use that to draw the blood... I flinched at the very thought. No, not that one. Mag had had her own knife... I would try to find that, I decided, the same way Ed had found Ewain's.

It seemed I would have some work to do once I got out there.


I was poring over the maps I'd made of the valley, and the geophys scans, when the phone rang again. I wasn't surprised this time to hear Ed's voice.

"So, are you sure you want to do this?" he asked me.

"I am," I said. "I haven't felt so sure about anything in a very long time, it feels like."

"I know what you mean," he said.

"How are you? I mean, are you still...?"

"The dreams changed as soon as you emailed me back. I've been dreaming about all the other rituals that happened up there, the raising of the stones... it's horrible to see those people killed again, but it's not as bad as... the other one."

"I've had the same thing, more or less," I said.

There was a brief pause. "How soon can you be there?"

"I could go any time," I said. "I'd prefer a weekday, though."

"You haven't told Glen about this, have you," Ed guessed after a moment.

Damn, he was sharp. "No. But he told me he trusts me, and I don't want him to think that I've gone mad again. He'll try to stop me, or talk me out of it, and he might even have a go at you. I love him like crazy, but this doesn't really have anything to do with him. It's something I need to do, and want to do. I'll explain it all to him afterwards."

"Are you s... No, okay, it's your decision. That has nothing to do with me."

"Thanks." Only a touch of sarcasm.

"I was thinking of the night of the 25th. That's a Friday, and it'll give us a few days to get there. Does that work for you?"

"Yes," I said, thinking. I would get there a day or two early. "I need to do some things beforehand."

"Like what? I didn't think you had any more information about the ritual...?"

"I don't, but we can't use your... Ewain's knife. I'm going to see if I can find Mag's."

"I see."

"Well... I'll see you on the 25th, then?"

"All right. Thank you, again, Lisa."

"Don't thank me until we know if it works, okay?"


I left a note for Glen on the Wednesday, having made a booking at the B&B. It simply said that something had come up, I would be out in the field for the rest of the week, and that I would call him. I felt bad about even lying by omission, but I was too afraid of how he might react. I didn't want the fragile certainty I'd found to be challenged by his disbelief.

The drive to Ystradffin passed in a haze of loud music and disjointed thought. I barely paid attention to the road, it was a miracle I didn't crash into a hedge or get lost or something. Part of me still couldn't believe that all this was happening, but I was caught in the momentum now. Things were moving forward with the weight of inevitability. I wondered how much grief could have been saved if Ed and I had figured this all out sooner, but obviously things had happened this way precisely because we couldn't have figured it out any sooner.

The equinox had been and gone, and the days were getting longer, but I'd left late in the day, and it was getting dark by the time I arrived and checked into the B&B. I looked over the geophys again before I went to bed, but I was fairly sure I knew where to dig.


I dreamed Mag's death again that night. I woke up shaking, and desperately alone. Could Glen have really agreed to go along with this? I didn't know, but in that moment, I wished he was there in any case. I hoped I hadn't woken anyone up – the last thing I needed was more tension with the locals here.

On the other hand, I'd had the opportunity to solidify in my head where Mag and Alun's hut had been, and to be sure that she had left her knife there, and not in the Ritemaster's hut. I obviously had no idea whether Alun had left it there when he'd gone, or whether the place had been ransacked as the village fell apart. But I had to try. I'd use a modern knife if I had to, but it seemed fitting to use Mag's, if I could.

Thursday morning saw me climbing into my car, to head out into the field. The sun stood an hour above the horizon, shining fitfully between dull clouds. Smoke lay hazy over the village, and mist clung to the valleys beyond. Through the mist, my instinct drew me unerringly to the site of Mag's village, and I pulled up a short distance from where I thought her hut had been. I saw the hole Ed had dug some distance away, over Ewain's hut – at least, I saw evidence of the hole. He seemed to have gone to some effort to fill it in again, and I wondered how long it had taken him. I only had a day or two, and I didn't have time to excavate the entire hut, not if it was under four feet of dirt.

I walked in circles over my chosen spot, and finally I just stuck the shovel into the earth and began to dig. Instinct again.

By the time my stomach was insisting on some lunch, I'd dug down to the blackened remains of the hut. (And I was absolutely filthy.) It was little more than a horizontal layer of charcoal and ashes, since the whole village had burned, and most of the things in the village were made from combustible materials. After eating quickly, I began prising more solid-looking lumps out of the ground, hoping for stone artefacts.

I found the circle of rounded river stones that had been the hearth, and was briefly overwhelmed by Mag's memories of cooking meals over it for Alun, in the days before she had become the Ritemaster. A small bone carving made me re-live the day Alun had given it to Mag, as a token of his intentions towards her. A stone awl brought back the long evenings spent making the various clothes and items they used in their day-to-day lives.

The hole had expanded into a trench – once I'd found the hearth, I aimed outwards in the direction of where Mag had kept her personal belongings, against the wall. The trench was filling up with darkness as the shadows lengthened outside, when the shovel scraped against something solid, and a chunk of compressed ash and dirt dislodged itself from the ground. Even before I clambered out of the hole with it and wiped the soil away, I knew what I would see. The dark grey sheen of fine flint, the chalky coating left on the end of the hilt. As I cleaned my prize on my already-dirty shirt, I saw that the shovel had chipped off some of the blade's edge, leaving it razor-sharp again. I knew better than to test it against my finger – freshly chipped flint could be sharper than a surgeon's scalpel.

I held the knife in my hands, in the orange light as the sun touched the horizon. The hide wrappings around the handle were long gone, of course, but it could still be held. It was dizzying, to hold something so familiar for the very first time. Mag had made it herself, as part of her training as an acolyte. She had never been the most accomplished toolmaker, but the knife was serviceable, and she had been quite fond of it.

I looked back at the trench I'd dug, and the large pile of dirt next to it, and finally felt the aching of my muscles. I hadn't done that much heavy labour for some time, and I was feeling my lack of fitness. I told myself I'd fill it in tomorrow, before Ed arrived. And before I ventured into the nearest patch of forest.


I dreamed again that night, of course. This time I was in the forest clearing again, on my spurious search for spirit mushrooms. It seemed my subconscious was prodding me along, and I was content to let it. I had nothing else to guide me.

I hoped that whatever might be left of Mag's spirit would find some sort of peace after I did this ritual; the peace she'd been trying to find in the clearing that day.


----------------------------------------
"Whose idea was it to hire a car, again?"

"Don't look at me. I wanted to bring me bike, but no."

"And where do you think you were gonna strap a drum to your bike?"

"That's what the car's for, right?"

"I know you've read maps before, I've seen you. I was driving, you had a map, and you told me where to go. And we got there. Why is it different now?"

"That was a very long time ago. And I didn't use this road when I was here last, I don't know what possessed you to turn left back there."

"You did! You told me to!"

"Keep your eyes on the road, for feck's sake... And people think I'm a bad driver."

"We could've taken a taxi."

"What, all the way from the airport?"

"Why not? Hell, we could've taken a chopper and just landed right there, hit the drum, stabbed ourselves, and gone home again."

"Come on, that's ridiculous."

"And why are we doin' the incognito thing? There doesn't seem much point out here."

"I... It just seems easier. We can sort all that out later, if we have to. Let's worry about one thing at a... Wait! We need to turn right there, go back!"

"Aw, fuckit..."

----------------------------------------


The forest had receded a great deal since Mag had been alive, and the nearest stand of trees to the old village was rather further away now. And that wasn't even original forest, but the edge of a pine plantation. I'd done enough research on these mushrooms to be sure of what they looked like, and my expedition was not made in vain.

I went back to the village for a meal, late in the afternoon. I wandered around aimlessly afterwards, full of nervous energy. Uncertainty began to creep in again, and I wondered if I should call Glen. Just to let him know I was okay. I went back to the B&B.

"Hello?"

"It's me, Glen," I said. I hoped my voice didn't sound as apprehensive as I felt.

"Lisa, is everything okay? You left so suddenly. Are you working?"

"Not as such," I admitted.

"What does that mean, then? I've been so worried... Leaving notes and vanishing isn't like you."

"I'm fine, I'll be fine."

"Something's not right. Where are you?" He was starting to sound really concerned.

"Glen... Do you trust me?"

An ominous pause. "Yes, Lisa, I told you I trust you. And I do. But that doesn't stop me from worrying..."

"Then trust me, love. This will be over soon."

Shite. I'd meant to say I'd be home soon, but my arm was already hanging up the phone. I thought of calling back to clarify, but I didn't want to give Glen the chance to weasel the details out of me, because that really would worry him. I imagined I would have a lot of voicemail messages from him when I got back into range of a mobile phone tower.

The sun was sinking towards the western horizon. Something told me it was time I headed out to the circle. I would have to build a fire, after all, before it got dark.

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I really like the way you write this, Ali. It makes for such believable characters and happenings. It's a strong fic and that's for sure.

...waiting impatiently...



btw, it looks like I'll have to make my own fic regarding one, rodent-skinned, loin clothed Bono doesn't it? :lol: Pfft... ok, so lemme see; :scratch: no large animals about, so he either goes nekid or finds some small creature with which to clothe himself...Ok, I think there should be a shortage of small rodents too...:evil::evil:
 
I really like the way you write this, Ali. It makes for such believable characters and happenings. It's a strong fic and that's for sure.

...waiting impatiently...



btw, it looks like I'll have to make my own fic regarding one, rodent-skinned, loin clothed Bono doesn't it? :lol: Pfft... ok, so lemme see; :scratch: no large animals about, so he either goes nekid or finds some small creature with which to clothe himself...Ok, I think there should be a shortage of small rodents too...:evil::evil:

Aw, thanks YDW, and everyone :hug:


And :lol:! Yes, I think only you could do that idea justice... :giggle:

:bono: What's goin' on? I appear in the wilderness nekkid, with only grass and insects to cover me shame... :uhoh: Not even a small rodent in sight! :tsk:
 
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