Lord of Mountains: A Novel of the Change Read Online Free Page B

somewhere Someone was smiling a little at that, and perhaps Sam Hill himself, beyond the Gate where all things were made plain.
    Then she sobered completely and opened herself to the night and the place. Something like a keening touched her inwardly, a thread of lament leavened with pride.
    Yes
, went through her.
This is the proper ground. Here where the bones of the earth are laid bare and the names of the dead and the minds of mourners have rested for generations.
    Sacredness grew like a pearl, sometimes around the most unlikely bits of grit. That didn’t make its power any the less real. They were come to ask aid and guidance of the Powers; near the turning point of Samhain—and to make battle magic. They came to invoke the Dark Mother in Her most wrathful aspect: Scathach, the Devouring Shadow Beneath, She Who Brings Fear. And the God Who was storm and sky and war, the spear from heaven, the bright-maned Stallion who fought for the herd and sanctified the land with his blood in turn. All things were holy in their proper place and season, even the most terrible.
    “Let it begin,” she said, lifting the staff, until moonlight gleamed on silver.
    “Let it begin,” said the man beside her.
    His face was masked with the fox, and his tone solemn-stern. Nigel Loring never did anything unless he did it properly; some corner of her warmed with the settled love of middle age.
    Rudi—Artos in the Craft—drew the Sword of the Lady, and a slight gasp ran through the celebrants. He paced deosil, sunwise, around the perimeter of the standing stones, and initiates with torches took up positions at the Quarters. Others followed with salt and water.
    “
I conjure you, O Circle of Power, that you may be a meeting-place of love and joyand truth, a shield against all wickedness and evil, a boundary between the world of humankind and the realms of the Mighty Ones…
    The Sword traced patterns against her eyes, or perhaps the eyes of her soul; patterns of light and darkness, veils huger than worlds falling endlessly through memory and time.
    “
Hear you the words of the Star Goddess, the dust of whose feet are the hosts of heaven, whose body encircles the Universe…And you who seek to know Me, know that your seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.
    Her voice rose in somber triumph: “
For behold, I have been with you from the Beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire!”
    She lit the fire made ready before the altar-stone, and it cast shadows stark against the great menhirs. Sparks rose upward to join the starry Belt of the Goddess and the full Moon; the clean hot-sweet smell of the burning applewood joined the strong musk from the thurible and filled the clean emptiness of the desert night.
    Then the Calling. She had felt that as a oneness with all that was. Now it was storm and darkness and lightning and whips of ice.
    The robed figures behind her began to pace the circle, and their voices rose in turn, to the light plangent notes of a harp:
    Darksome Night and Shining Moon
    Balance of the dark and light,
    Hearken ye our Witch’s Rune,
    As we perform our sacred rite!
    Rudi laid the Sword of the Lady on the altar, beside the censor and the cauldron and the Book of Shadows. A white flash seemed to consume her, and instead of humankind pacing a circle it was as if the world and the universe beyond were pivoting on this spot of space and time.
    Her son’s strong voice called: “I am the Lady’s Sword, guardian of Her sacred wood, and Law. Let the Powers aid Their people now, as we defend them.”
    The covens replied, their voices in an eerie unison, not like a frightenedmass of near-strangers that need had assembled. Some distant part of her knew that they were an instrument for a greater will to play upon this night:
    Mother of the harvest fields,
    Goddess of the silver moon,
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