The Screaming Stone: The Otherworld Series Book 2 (6 page)

“What o’ the west?” Finn inquired still watching Robert in the kitchen.

“The west is where the dead rest.  That is where the apples go,” she said placing the plate of apple slices on Annie’s couch.  “Now, Robert will draw a circle with his spirit powder.  You three,” she said pointing to the human compass points.  “Will be on the outside of the circle and Robert will be in the center facing towards the west.”

“And whatever you do, no matter what you may see or hear do not break the circle,” Griffin warned.

“Why?” Duncan asked.

“Just don’t,” Kat replied simply.  “As a matter of fact don’t speak at all unless Sam speaks to you.  Now for the really tough part,” Kat said pausing for dramatic effect.  “Sam is a skull,” she said throwing her arms out.

“That’s what’s in the box?” Duncan asked incredulously.

“I don’t want to see that,” whispered a pale Finn.

“Really?” Kat challenged.  “You’re a warrior,” she said slapping his shoulder playfully.  “I’m sure you’ve seen much worse.”  Finn replied by violently shaking his head apparently too dumbstruck to speak.

“Kat,” Griffin growled at her through clenched teeth.

“What?” Kat asked defensively crossing her arms across her chest.

“Uh, Kat I get the feeling they might have
known
each other,” Annie explained, as she kept her eyes glued on an obviously distressed Finn.

“Wait,” Kat said holding her hand over her heart momentarily stunned.  Had it not been for the pale and distraught looking Finn, Duncan would have found the expression on Kat’s face comical.  Her tiny bow mouth was o-shaped and her heavily outlined eyes were wide and round in shock.  “You mean like
knew
each other in that special way?”

Annie gave Finn a sympathetic look that pulled hard at Duncan’s heart.  The subtle and grandiose expression of a human face was something he had thought he had forgotten during his long imprisonment in the Otherworld.  The passion of the Sidhe had been bred out of them centuries before even Aine had been stolen.  Without the light and life of the natural world they had forgotten how to feel the essence of life.  He had thought his goddess, his princess was different.  Until he met Annie he had never questioned that belief until now.  She might be angry at him, hell she might even hate him, but she did it with passion and feeling.

“Yes in that way,” she repeated.  “I think that is how Finn and Robert are related,” she explained never taking her saddened eyes off of Finn.

“Oh shit,” Kat said covering her mouth in horror; not over the curse that slipped so easily from her but from her callous explanation as to what was in the box.  Sometimes it is better not to know.

“Kat,” Griffin quietly interjected.  “Maybe it’s time for you and Finn to join the others?”

Kat hypnotically nodded her head as a misty film of unshed tears covered her usually bright blue eyes.  Without further coercion both Kat and Finn turned and left leaving the two humans and one confused Faeriedae alone in the dark.

Duncan watched closely as Robert began the ceremonial ritual of calling forth his ancestor from beyond the land of the setting sun.  In his own time druids had practiced magick beyond the gaze of those not talented in the mystical arts.  The Fae and Sidhe practiced their craft more openly but drew from a power hidden within the individual.  This was ritual.   This was power.  Robert like Griffin and Kat had an ability to tap into and focus on the energy that embraced the natural world and bend it to the will of man.  They were weavers, taking the threads of magick that surrounded them and using them to craft their spells.  They were more in touch with the natural world around them the Fae gave them credit for.  Even his own mental description seemed to tarnish what he was witnessing with awe.

“
Balance
,” a small unknown voice whispered inside him.

Suddenly, he understood.  One simple word had made everything so very clear.  He finally saw Robert as the perfect specimen of balance. A female soul blended with the male form, a warrior mixed equally with a witch, white colored with black, light aligned with dark and Fae melting into human.  He was beautiful and he was perfect.  That thought seeded itself in his mind, took root and wanted to grow.  A flash of light and the smell of sulfur drew his mind outside of itself as he sat a silent witness to something he would probably never see again.

Robert’s steady fingers had struck a match and were lighting a black candle, “To draw in the energy,” he calmly stated.  Then using the same match he lit a white candle, “To send out the energy.”

Balance

He took in a deep steady breath as he extended his left hand over the black candle and his right hand followed suit over the white candle both hoovering inches above the steady unwavering flame.  He held them still until the steady flame began to flicker and dance beneath his palms.  At first the candles waivered, one independent of the other, until finally under Robert’s skillful guidance their movements began to synchronize and the two candles came into balance with each other.  Once he was assured of the candle flame’s acceptance of his will he removed his hands and settled them above the white bowl that contained the spirit powder.

“I give a sacrifice.  My blood to my blood,” his words flowed from his mouth with the calm confidence of a waterfall leaping from the earth’s edge.  Robert produced a small pin-like object and pierced the forefinger of his right hand and squeezed with his left milking the tiny wound until several drops of blood fell into the spirit powder.  He then held up a small dagger and passed it equally through both candle flames before using it to blend the spirit powder and blood.

When he was finished he laid the dagger on the plate that contained the apple slices before returning his attention to the white bowl.  He grasped the bowl firmly between his two palms and lifted it skyward as an offering to the west and spoke a few quiet words in a language Duncan did not understand.  A few moments of silence passed and Duncan waited, heavily feeling the anticipation.  His eyes were so riveted on Robert’s every move that until he began sprinkling the spirit powder on the ground he had forgotten that anyone else was in the room.  Robert created a circle with spirit powder in a clockwise pattern passing Duncan first before moving on towards Griffin who was sitting calmly in the east, he continued on in a slow perfect circle until he passed a transfixed Annie in the north and ended where he began, at the exact center point between the black and white candles.

Robert quietly resumed his position inside the circle facing the west and without another spoken sound slowly opened the mysterious box.  The energy in the room shifted.  The temperature dropped and for the first time since stepping foot in the New World Duncan felt cold.  His breath left his body in tiny clouds of condensation alerting him as to how quickly he was breathing.  He focused on Robert’s breathing and then Griffin’s; both men seemed to have their breathing under control as they took deep, even steady breaths.  Annie it seemed was having just as much difficulty as he was.  He caught her eye and encouraged her to slow her breathing as he coached her through big deep even breaths.  It was an exercise that benefited both of them.

There was no sound, even the breath of four living beings could not be heard when Robert slowly dipped his steady hands inside the box and pulled out an ornately adorned skull.  The vision of death was so decoratively jeweled that it momentarily stunned him.  For never in all his long life had Duncan ever seen death so beautifully attired.  A thin intricately crafted line of copper metal work wove across the brow and continued around the skull creating a circlet befitting an ancient queen.  Several small stones that he could not identify in the darkened space reflected in the soft glow of the candle lit room with one large stone winking and gleaming proudly in the center just above the skulls hollow eyes.

Robert raised the beautiful face of death until its sockets, devoid of eyes, stared into his own living amber jeweled eyes.  “In the eyes of the ancestors I gaze.  My own end I see face to face.”

Duncan’s own breath escaped his body as if death itself had stolen it from him in order to fuel life’s kiss.  His lungs did not struggle; they did not burn as they too seemed wrapped within the magickal sightless stare of death.  When his own breath returned to his body he felt slightly weaker.  He considered asking the others if they too felt death pull at their life’s essence, but Kat’s warning about remaining silent stopped him and he quickly closed his open mouth letting the question die in his throat.  Anything he expected in the next few moments of time were beyond his comprehension as it seemed death had a sense of humor.

“It ‘bout time you had an honest chin wag with me Robert Sim-an-oh!” the skull scolded.

The previously calm Robert flinched in startled fear as the powerful voice erupted from inside the unmoving skull.  Duncan too looked around the room, his eyes unwilling to believe that such a loud voice could come from something that no longer contained life.  His mind had convinced his eyes and ears that what he heard, what he was seeing was beyond possible; even in the Otherworld he had never seen or heard of such magick existing.  How was it possible that these mortals could communicate with those who were no longer in the land of the living?  The Fae, the Sidhe and especially Manny, would love to have access to such rare magick.

“Don’t you flinch boy, else I be givin’ you some-ting to flinch ‘bout.”  When Robert quickly nodded in understanding her accented voice softened slightly as it continued its directions.  “Now then, in whose company is I present?”

Robert dutifully escorted Sam around the circle pausing briefly before each living being so she could see them.  Neither Robert nor Sam spoke as they paused before each person.  The room grew thick and heavy under the uncomfortable silence as the anticipation of what Sam would say began to build.  As much as Sam’s voice had terrified him when she first spoke Duncan hoped she would speak again and soon, if only to alleviate the strange pressure he felt building up inside of him. When Robert returned to his position he pivoted her sightless sockets again towards his face and Sam spoke again.

“Only one man be knowin’ hows much I fancy me some apples an’ ‘is face no’ be in this here company.”

“He uh-uh,” Robert stuttered clumsily over his words.

“His sorrow took him from here,” Annie spoke up, breaking the rules, but saving Robert from further embarrassment.  Duncan’s eyes flew to Annie as she had broken Kat’s rule.  No one else spoke for a moment or two and Duncan began to grow concerned that they had lost contact with their oracle before she even had a chance to hear them and help them.  Robert had said that Sam was touchy he hoped Annie did not upset her. 

“Hmm,” grunted Sam.  “Spoken like the true royalty you is.”

Duncan caught Annie’s eye again this time for the briefest of moments before she threw her attention back towards the pretty death Robert clutched delicately between his palms.

“This be company I have no’ sat with in an age.  An’ I be sensing a heavy weight an’ question.”  When no one immediately volunteered to speak her tone grew once again harsh and impatient.  “Come on boy out wit it!”

Robert blinked suddenly in surprise as Griffin exhaled another calming breath that settled like a comforting blanket over the room.  “We are at a crossroads and need your guidance on which way to turn,” Robert stated as Griffin’s soothing presence guided his steady even words.

The room grew silent for the space of three heartbeats and Duncan could have sworn the face of death turned to speak directly to him.

“Daughter of Earth and Sea and Son of Air and Fire together shall join freeing the ancients from old ones who seek to mire. The children of Danu and their earthly kin who together create divine, one sacrifice on stone shall step and create a new healthy line.”

At this point the strange became bizarre.   Duncan held his tongue, on this one point he was sure, but the warrior witch and his deathly token picked the silent scoffing thought from his private mind and made it public.  Apparently his ability to shield his mind from the prying eyes of others did not extend to those who lived in the lands of the west.

“The Shiny one don’t tink too much of rhyming tellin’s o’ what will pass.  So I is gonna break it down plain an’ wit me own flair.  This child must not go alone to stand on the screaming stone.  See,” she said with a click of her non-existent tongue.  “Rhymes can be simple,” she told Duncan.