Sacrifice in the Wind

Sacrifice in the Wind

It is a seemingly endless hike. For days Vin trudges through the wilderness, through thick forest and across rocky streams. At night the traveler huddles next to a campfire.

Finally there are signs of a town. The tired hiker skirts around campgrounds and occasional buildings. And now on a steep hillcrest Vin gazes upon a sprawling suburb, gleaming with glass and concrete.

Vin steps inside a tavern from which waft spicy scents of lunch. A waitress hands the traveler a menu.

Vin, ravenous for a good meal, orders rare beef and a Coke. When the waitress brings the lunch she sits down at the next stool. "You're a traveler," she says in a darkly throaty voice. Tiny braids cascade to her waist. She exudes a scent of jasmine.

"Yep, I've been hiking now for about a week," Vin replies, mouth full of meat. "I've been all over."

The waitress' face is soft and full of curiosity. "Do you have a place to sleep?" she asks.

Vin pauses a moment and looks her long in the eyes, then says, "no."

"Then stay at my place tonight and tell me about your pilgrimage. I'm Diana; I have a roommate, Elinor. I'm sure she'll want to hear your stories too."

"OK. Thanks. By the way, I'm Vin. When do you get off work?"

"A couple of hours. Come back at four."

At four,the two walk to Diana's apartment, on the second floor of an old house not far from the bar. When she opens the door to her unit, they are greeted by Elinor, relaxed on a sofa, reading.

Diana looks at Elinor with a grin and says, "Meet Vin." She laughs. "Do we have some wine? Vin, do you prefer white or red?"

Elinor laughs. "I've got a new blush in the kitchen that would be perfect."

Diana smiles sweetly. Elinor jumps off the couch and gets the chilled wine and some goblets.

"A party tonight!" she sings as she sets the refreshments down on the coffee table.

The sweet wine really goes to Vin's head. Elinor lifts her goblet to her red-painted lips, and with a hearty toast to the evening drains the cup.

"Let's go to the city! Vin, we'll show you our town." Diana says this while grabbing my hand and dancing around the revitalized hiker.

"This is the Solstice, you know. We should share the beauty of this time. Let's go!"

Diana and Elinor go into the bedroom to find some festive clothes. Vin riffles through the tattered backpack, hoping for something presentable. Something clean and silk.

"Let's go to the Firestream Theatre," says Diana, as the three stand by the door deciding where to start.

"Oh, yeah," says Elinor, "the Demons are playing tonight." They wait for the bus.

They get off the bus near the Theatre, and walk inside a hall so large they can barely see the far wall. The place is well known for its special effects: there are torches on the walls, caged in wire. The small fires writhe and bend at the slightest breeze.

A torch wafts above their heads as they seat themselves near the stage. In the darkness of the hall the lights flicker on their faces eerily.

A waitress, her dreadlocks black and long, approaches the table from the darkness. Her teeth show fiercely white under her grin, and her nose flares with some undercurrent of excitement.

"A drink, a drink," croons Diana. "Red wine all around please."

The band begins to set up on the stage. The Demons are locally famous for their unusual instruments. Soon the stage sports an array of huge drums and even larger brass bells; even a bull-roarer awaits its player.

An oak branch graces the front of the stage, gnarled and majestic.

After the setup is complete, the stage sits empty for an hour or two, waiting for the show to begin.

Diana, Elinor and Vin are perfectly content to wait, because they feel like they've known each other from past lifetimes.

The band leader appears on the stage. He greets the audience with a cheer for the Solstice. His tattoos flash reds and blues in whorls and intricate mazes across his nearly naked body. His gold necklaces flash across his chest like the breastplate of an Atlantean priest.

The tables are hushed as the band leader picks up the oak shaman stick and turns around three times, slowly. Suddenly he lets the branch drop, and howls with a fierceness that rips down everyone's spine like a dying man's curse.

The rest of the band comes on the stage. The female singer, Lila Strong, wears a blue gown of thin gossamer. Her blonde hair is sprinkled with a rainbow of glass beads that flash like dew. She dances with unutterable grace around the band leader, and then picks up a piccolo, sending a lunar trill through the flesh of everyone in the hall. Then she takes up a huge brass bell and sends seven low, slow notes into everyone's bones.

The rest of the band come on the stage with electric guitars, and the drummer sits down at his drums.

"Romance," sings the beautiful Lila. The drummer hits his drums. "Romance, ancient and true." A riff from an electric guitar.

And silence. Diana touches Vin's arm lightly and smiles. The torch on the pillar close to the table flickers but there is no breeze.

In the silence and the stillness, Lila sways slightly, and turns slowly, three times, in a small circle, and as she walks her hair is riffled by some strange wind, and her dress lifts and plays in the same subtle breeze.

Bo brings more wine and as she puts the glasses on the table, she greets the guests with a wry, crooked grin, as if there were some madness churning underneath her skin. Vin can smell the fear in her pores. She comes close and whispers: "Look at the singer. Look closely at her flesh." Vin takes a look and notices that her face is distorted. Are ghosts, or astral snakes, writhing in her skin? Vin wonders.

Bo laughs, and knocks a full glass of wine onto the floor. She laughs again, swinging up her head--it knocks the pillar lightly, just enough to loosen the torch. A bit of flame ignites the hair of a young woman at the next table--people scramble to douse her with wine and water, but the fire has caught and spread; it leaps through the hall like demons freed from their brass box.

Crowds scream and scuffle for the exits. A few are trampled. The Demons try to save some of their costly instruments, grabbing them and running for the exits. But the band leader is stabbed for his expensive guitar, and Lila, with a wail of anguish, pulls the dying young man out the door.

On the sidewalk she stoops over him, and caresses him, while his blood streams over her, soaking her dress and smearing her arms and legs with wet crimson. Elinor and Vin run to help, lay him out straight and notice he's dead. All they can really do is try to comfort the heartbroken Lila.

Bo saunters up murmuring: "It's ok. It's ok." She pulls Diana to her and hugs her. "It's ok," she says to the sobbing Diana. "I live close to here. Let's take Lila there."

Elinor and Vin each take an arm of the grief stricken singer. Bo leads them a couple of blocks to her apartment building and up a dark flight of stairs to her tiny studio. Bare and plain as it is, there is comfort here. Bo doesn't care if the blood gets on the couch. While they make the woman as comfortable as possible, Bo slips out to the kitchen and returns with a tray of glasses. Giving each one, she says, "this is an herbal mixture. It should give you some energy. We have some work to do tonight, my friends. I tell you in a bit what I've planned, and why I've brought you here."

They sit on the floor in shocked silence, sipping the bitter tea. Lila is asleep on the couch, her bloody dress draped around her body like a wet shroud.

Bo breaks the silence. "What a switch! The calm after the storm--or should I say, before the storm?" She chuckles. "We have entertainment here that makes the Firestream Theatre look like a puppet show." She looks Vin closely in the eyes. "You have ancient wisdom. I can tell."

"So, so," Vin shrugs guardedly.

Bo continues: "What better time than Midsummer to evoke ancient memory? By wind and breath we can bring the ancient dead into this room. Look--here's our medium."

Vin feels a chill as connections click into place.

Bo continues: Here we have a perfect link between life and death--she's got fresh-killed young lover on her breath--his dying kiss, no less!"

Diana shivers. "This is grisly. This is black arts. This is necromancy." Vin whispers to her: "wait; there's beauty here and it's not just a silly show. We have a space here between the worlds. We can learn much."

Bo slips some herbs under the sleeping woman's nose, saying, "this will give her a full night's sleep." She smiles at Vin. "What do we do now?"

"Well, I guess we should start at the beginning. We have easy access to the present physical reality. Let's start with that." Vin focuses on the lady and her robe of blood, imagining her lover with the shaman branch, his wild and eerie scream sounding like a curse of loathing. The complex sound--for there was joy at the core of the scream--seems a passage to the underworld. Vini tries to reproduce it. It's hard but the others get it. They all try to reproduce the call.

Lila's face has gone pale. The skin and bone structure vaguely cloud into the features of her dead lover. His voice speaks chilly and thin from his moving lips: "I'll do one thing for you, before I go beneath the wind. I do this for my lover's sake, because you helped her. Tell me what you want."

Bo laughs. "There are four of us. Somewhere in human memory is an ancestor common to us all. Some grandmother whose blood runs in all our veins."

Vin gets the picture, and nods enthusiastically.

Bo continues: "Some extraordinary person from the past who understood her times and also knew how to tap into the vast world soul."

The words are music to Vin's ears.

The spirit of the band leader agrees. Vin feels a nervous thrill, and looks at Diana, whose eyes have clouded--they aren't looking at Vin's face, but at inner sights from the collective unconscious. Vin catches glimpses in her eyes. Patches, fleeting memories, from decades, from moments. Down human history go Vin, along with Diana, and the others too. Generations whiz by, as grinning skulls morph to baby heads and back to dust again.

They reach a scene and focus in. Dozens of people mill around in a great marble hall. Gaily dressed courtiers and ladies in masks bask in the glow of hundreds of candles in gold and silver holders. The shadows are long and melancholy in the vast grey hall.

The revelers seat themselves at the sound of a horn. A long wood table is set with costly plate and crystal, and laden with meats and the most exotic condiments to be found.

The lady of the court, resplendent in scarlet, her face well rouged and beautiful, dips her hand in rosewater and calls to her page. Weak of knee, the lad bends close for her to whisper. He almost faints at the blend of spice and flowers and sweat from her shapely flesh. The lady laughs. "Don't faint, boy; don't die yet. We'll die together. I'll slay ye slow and hot."

Her lord, Count Lanzus, laughs lightly. "La, Lady Laia, you are a tease!" He takes a drink of wine from his golden cup. "The devil's in your tongue, and whoring."

Lady Laia laughs. "It pleases me, my lord, to see him faint with desire."

Suddenly the feast is disrupted by the entrance of Moripa, the sorcerer and wealthy alchemist, who sweeps through the doorway in his dark robe, carrying his great staff of ebony. A page leads him to his seat, and he picks up his jewel encrusted goblet with a wry grin and a sly wink at Lady Laia.

"Sir," she says, all smiles, "I see you've brought your randy wand."

He laughs. He grunts. He barks "Haw! Haw!" and raps his staff twice on the marble flooor. The lady grins wickedly. Moripa brags, "I've brought my friend tonight, my servant--a rogue, a fool, a miserable wretch--" He points with his wand toward a far corner of the hall, deep in shadow. Out steps a pitiful looking man, his raw feet blue from cold and bleeding, his dirt-creased face thin and sad, his hands trembling to be in such costly company.

The sorcerer calls out, "Come here, man! Come and seat yourself next to me!" The banqueters murmur, but no one will say nay to the powerful magician. "Come, man! Come, eat! We've got food to spare, rich wines from all over Europe all waiting to be tasted. Look at those rags you have on! The latest style, I'd say--just like this year's old lace in seductive tatters around the jeweled neck of a court whore. Look at the dew ye sport! Look at the dark specks that encrust your legs and arms! And the perfume of them! Far exceeding anything I've smelled in any cesspool! Come on, man--sit down!"

As the street person walks eagerly toward the heavily laden table, a shadow passes over the feasters. Some ladies weep for him out of pity. They pass him plates, and invite him to eat, as a page gives him a chair next to Moripa. The beggar wolfs a roll and then another as a court lady fills his plate.

"Go to! Go to!" haws Moripa. And he pounds his black staff twice as the court ladies give him baubles as gifts, bits of fur, tiny diamonds to remember them by. The beggar stuffs his gifts into his filthy leather purse and passes to his lips the world's most costly wine.

"Bring him a drinking horn! calls out the sorcerer. "We'll toast the Unicorn tonight--drink from his cup, the horn of the narwhal beast, brought by brave sailors from the farthest western seas!"

"The Unicorn?" Lady Laia, who seems confused, asks in an uncharacteristically wavering voice. The Unicorn responds only to innocent love. The wizard's malicious eyes blaze. "Animal spirits tonight! We'll drink blood of beast tonight!"

A page presents the horn to Moripa. "Rare--rich and rare!" He haws again, sounding more surly with every cup he drinks. He fills the horn with wine and passes it to the street man. "Drink now," he growls with glee. "I know you've never had anything like this before. It's very pricy."

The homeless man drinks and the narwhal horn seems to come alive in his grasp. Its matter writhes like electricity passing through jello. He laughs for the first time, his broken teeth ghastly in his gaping mouth.

He hands the horn to his neighbor, who recoils at first, but the spell is on him as his lips touch the wine. The heavy foulness seeps into him, and as he drinks more, a shadow creeps all over his body and face. He wipes his mouth on his silk sleeve and filth flows like excrement to his golden velvet vest. He doesn't care. He laughs and passes the horn on. Soon the revelers are tatters and filth, and Moripa, the wizard king of the beggars' court, haws loud and raw.

He chooses his queen: Lady Laia, whose scarlet velvet robe has frayed with the foul spell of the enchanted horn. Her face is haggard, worn and flaccid, her chalky flesh loose in the jowls. Her gems no longer shimmer in the candlelight, but lie dead and oily on her clothes and skin. She seats herself on the other side of the magician, and winks at the page who follows her. She whispers with foul breath in his young ear: "I am wicked; I am sly; but I have pure love in my veins, and am worthy of the Unicorn. You'll see: I have a mystery between my breasts surpassing even Moripa's understanding. Meet me in the shadows when I go; be discreet."

She excuses herself from the table. She slips the narwhal horn under her dress as she goes. She sits down against a pillar in the shadowy far corner of the hall and takes a little casket from around her neck. Its virtues are unharmed; the silver gleams faintly in the dim place. She snuffs a little of the finely powdered unicorn horn kept in the tiny locket, and sprinkles the rest into the narwhal.

Instantly she is transformed--but not to her former self. Her scarlet dress has become gossamer. She laughs: "Only through putrefaction could this change be made! That is alchemy!" Her page gasps and holds out his hand for the horn. He takes a drink and they vanish into air. Out of Moripa's range of power, out of the filthy court of his megalomania. Into the wind.

The scene fades. The four time travelers find themselves on a new current of memory going back farther in time. A fast medley of time passes by. The current slows, and they focus on an ancient town of brick and stone, red-orange against a sky that shimmers hotly, deeply azure around a brilliant, brassy sun.

The Midsummer feast has just begun. The procession winds through the narrow streets; hundreds of folk sing to the drums and flutes that pass by on gaily decorated wooden carts. Among the carts, the largest holds a throned goddess, a woman in a silver mask.

An old crone slips out of the crowd lining the street and ducks into a doorway. She steps inside her simple home, where herbs steep at a brazier. She stoops and mixes some more herbs into the brew. Long and thick they steep, the vapor rising ever more pungent, curling like ghosts in the fragrant air. The woman watches for a portent, and soon it's given.

"Rising air!" she whispers; "rising air, now hover close and gather thick and heavy. Condense!" Outside, solemn music plays, as the old woman conjures. The goddess cart has almost made its way to the great temple.

The woman murmers: "Blood tonight--the sacrifice tonight! Congeal, dim mist, and hover close: ye'll be of earth tonight!" She stokes the fire under the brazier, gives the herbs another stir, and takes an earthenware jar into her arms as she opens her door. She walks into the crowd of worshippers, and taps a young man on the arm--he is a friend of hers, and he stoops to hear her message. "Look, son--take this jar to the temple. Bring me back a few drops of the fresh-killed victim's blood."

"Blood of beast," she murmers, as she slowly walks back home. In a dark hour of the night the young man knocks softly at the door. The woman, rubbing sleep from her tired eyes, tips the jar over the simmering herbs. The pungent steam rises hot and steady, then flutters.

A ghostly shape, misty and small, a windy form that seems cold and dreadful--yet strangely beautiful--a stormy spirit, wild with movement, appears over the brazier. The witch mutters: "Here's perversity. Wind's breath, I give you this!"

She drops a little wine into the steaming bloody brew. The shape thickens, becomes more opaque, full-bodied--and the old woman, ecstatic, caresses it with her bony hands, to give it even more defined form.

"Heu! Heu!" she cries: "I've got you now, wise wind--however tenuous you are! Between the worlds you are, fey wind--and clothed now in my thought! So take my features, and form my face, and be my mirror now."

She fixes her gaze on the form, and a woman's face defines itself--it is her own. The ghostly wrinkles in the misty face are whips of wind in the cloud that is more like a storm of energy and disharmony. The thick white steam bristles with wild, askew motion--and on the witch's mirror-face play hard, sharp flashes, all sparks of frenzied energy.

The woman shrieks. The pain of the sparking burns her flesh and the whipping cloud wrenches her with a burden of pain too intense. She crumples to the hard dirt floor. From there she gazes up at her face over the brazier.

She asks in a quavering voice: "show me the future. Travel on the wind. Show me what will become of my work tonight, and the sacrifice."

A rushing sound fills the room; a wind stirs the witch beneath her skin, and she shivers, but the wind is not of the earth--nothing stirs in the room but the glowing coals and the writhing face of steam that curls up from the brew. The tempest grows within the woman's memory and carries her forward.

On the wave of prophecy the haggard woman rides, sweeping over centuries, generation after generation. She rides the collective current to our present, and here the current stops. She surfaces in Lila, sleeping on the couch, whose face takes on a wizened look. The young woman's pale cheeks exude a wrinkly, cloudy mist. From her closed lids blaze two fierce and ancient ghostly eyes.

A mist floats throughout the dim room, glowing and curling like ethereal smoke. The face of Lila grins wry and wide. The myriad wrinkles of the ancient witch are little creases, gnarled and twisted, in the beautiful young face--and they are all the wands of Moripa. The form hisses, and sings:

Haggard, ancient, wise and dead,
seek me only who know dread
and love your fear.

Drink to me a brew of parts--
blood, wine, and salty hearts--
then come near.

Kill your loathing! Pay your price!
Come to me in storm of strife!
I am wisdom's ear.

There is silence as Bo opens her eyes. She looks at Lila. On her face is now Moripa's flaccid flesh, the malicious eyes agleam with cold brilliance, the lines as hard as his wand. Bo wails, "the wind! What about the wind?

Out of the hissing strife of Moripa's face howls a vast, empty-sounding voice, his voice. "Ye see my shadow, see my light--choose now and I'll show you!" A darkness falls upon their eyes and hearts, so thick that their senses dim and they ride back to the court. The banqueters have devolved even further, and now wail in their fetid filth. The lord of the court, Count Lanzus, stumbles stealthily until he finds Moripa's wand and scrambles with it to the shady corner where the narwhal horn sits calmly on the cold stone floor, a drop of liquid left in it. A wind whispers to him: "Drink from the horn!" He lifts the narwhal to his lips and drinks the drop, and, holding the wand, dissolves to air--almost.

The heavy staff, the coal-black wand, weighs him to earth, and yet he's become ethereal--a darkly misty light, like a glowworm in the night.

The trance is lifted. Moripa laughs from the lips of Lila, whose pale and haggard face bears the imprint of Moripa and the ancient witch in perfect fusion, the distillation of joy from sorrow, the work of Lady Laila.