(This is a draft of a work in progress…it needs fine tuning and more)
Lord Dilwen walked apart from the remaining four up a steep hill and into a clump of trees. Taking his bearings, he walked westward through these trees until he came to an outcrop. There he climbed around rocks and boulders until he found what he was looking for. It was called “Idris’ Chair” and it looked out onto a valley below.
Lord Dilwen had to carefully step down a very narrow path till he could climb into the stone chair. It was not cut or hewn, but of a natural shape. Deep and wide, it was a place of great lore and mystery. Only those who had the power to command these mysteries would dare to sit here. Only one who had training and was conversant with magical powers would dare to touch its stone. Those Druids who had meditated on it had trans formative experiences, such that either they awoke the next morning enhanced, wise or dead.
These high points served as windows to the Otherworld. Lord Dilwen had demons to command and he needed these sacred stones for his personal protection. Respect and regard on earth was very different than what was batted about in the ether.
Lord Dilwen settled himself into the cupped bottom of the stone chair. Dusk was settling fast and the first star of the heavens was clear and high. Soon the moon would rise in the western sky before him, a beggar’s cup a quarter full. It was the right time, and the forces could be called to him with this moon’s rising.
Lord Dilwen stretched his arms out on either side of the stone arms. It would be cold tonight, the spring very new and tender, but he knew he would be past feeling discomfort. The trance he would slip into would make him insensate to all elements. Only those creatures that would float through the portal of his mind and into his essence would matter. Commanding the demons and spirits he needed would be tricky. Some would try to lure him over the side of the chair, his body to fall to the rocks below. He would have to discern the tricksters from the ‘helpful’ ones, and this would tax his strength.
Taking out a stone from a pouch threaded through his belt, he held it in his right hand, and traced the labyrinth cuttings on this slightly larger than palm-sized stone. He hummed a particular tune, and to a hidden listener, it would sound out of tone, an eerie scale of strange notes. Over and over his hand traced the same lines on the stone.
The birds had settled in for the night and the wind picked up and blew sounds like low notes from hollowed out bones. He knew the trance, the altered state was approaching, and the serpent’s tails on his wrists started to twitch. Lord Dilwen’s eyes rolled back in his head and his neck fell backward, his shoulders cradled by the hard stone.
I call out to you, the powers of the Universe, those foul and fair. I have need of your counsel, I have need of your power. Come to me, horrid Morrigan, Come to me, in t-Ellen trechend- come to me three headed Ellen, and give me your wisdom.
The wind picked up and a moaning was heard around the valley below. A low cackle floated up on the breath of the wind and circled the stone chair. The night was dark, and the beggar cup of a moon seemed to telescope, to move closer to earth, to enlarge itself and spread like a sickening smile across the sky, east to west.
Lord Dilwen knew that the power was upon him, for his breathing slowed and he could feel his heart beat lessen. A warm, caressing air embraced is old bones. He knew he was being tempted by some demonic spirit. It would call out to him in whispers, for him to-
Stand up and come to me! Come to me, my dearest lover, step out into the night time air, walk to me, I am waiting, waiting.
This was the first temptation, and he willed his loins to shrivel. It was a seasoning, a seasoning of unholy lust that was calling within his mind, and it was false. His manhood had not shown such vigor in years, and this was the first telling of the temptation.
He shook his head and raised his arms and the tattooed serpents crawled up and down his arms, their mouths opening and their tongues flicking. One hissed, the other snapped his jaws, and the whispers moaned and disappeared…for now.
Lord Dilwen would not sleep tonight, for to sleep would be to seal his death. There would be no awakening on the morrow. His limp body would be found either in the chair, stone cold and dead, or his carcass on the rocks below in the distant valley.
Still his hand did not stop his tracing the tracks of the labyrinth. He hummed a different and as discordant tune and around midnight, the wind picked up from the north and blew hard down the valley. Lord Dilwen was to be granted the presence of some spirit, and perhaps it would be the great Morrigan herself. But there would be a price to pay, there always was.
The wind blew hard from the north, the north being the Land of the Dead. There would one find the Great Morrigan, who picked the bones and flesh from the battle fields.
Suddenly the air was filled with a foul odor. Lord Dilwen knew what this plague was, because it was one sent by the foulest forces of the Underworld. It was another attempt to frighten him away, but he had smelled death many times before, this particular sweet-sickening scent of putrefaction. He had been on battle fields where the stomachs of combatants had split in half, and had stepped in their fouled guts with their staggering last steps. He had smelled the land when plague took entire villages, and had arrived days later when the stench could be smelled a mile away on the wind. No, this was not of the earth, it was a huge swarm of red-ochre colored birds, the birds of the dead- whose breath withered fields and orchards and suffocated any man or beast they passed close by. Lord Dilwen tied a cloth over his nose and slowed his breathing. He knew it was a test, another one to see how strong he was, and how much he could stand. After a while, the birds disappeared, but the valley was befouled with their droppings. Where the shit landed, there were burn marks in the grasses and trees would look in the morning as if they were struck by lightning.
Suddenly, the wind picked up again, but this time no foul stench from birds. A vapor appeared in the valley and swirled and gathered, entwining like a coven of ghosts. It rose and exploded, and formed again, tendrils shooting off the tops and sides, then an updraft of energy exploding it all over again. The wide smile of the moon constricted as if even this cosmic form was diminished by what was happening in the valley below. This vapor formed again and again, slowly rising up towards the place where he sat.
Lord Dilwen continued to trace the lines of the labyrinth. He reached into his pouch and pulled out the dried leaves of mugwort, sacred to the Morrigan. For him to eat would be certain death. This would leave him paralyzed in a dream, and he would not be able to move. But spreading it before him on the ground would be an offering. He also took a clear quartz crystal, her stone, and placed it on the left arm of the stone chair.
When the swirling vapor reached level to his chair, it suddenly burst into a multi-colored display of streamers shooting out into the air, disappearing with a fury of energy. Lord Dilwen felt a presence and looking to his left spied a huge crow.
Ah! Goddess Morrigan! You are honoring me with your presence. I have come for your counsel and bring you gifts.
No sound came from Lord Dilwen’s mouth, but a tinkling of what could be called celestial music, or to mortal ears, a well tuned wind chime. It was answered by a rude calling, a cackling, a low, menacing call not expected from a crow.
I already know what you want, Lord Dilwen. You have called me from my labors to answer that of a mortal’s concern? What interest do I have meddling in the affairs of such creatures?
to be continued….
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2009
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