The Dark Chronicles Ch. 01

So I came, eventually, to Gaul where once the Romans were, and summonsed a small ship to sail at my command to the Isle of Albion my Mother, my Queen. When I landed under the high white cliffs, I made send a fast message ahead of me to the Sisters, that they might welcome me and hear my long songs, for I sing of many things. The minstrel Maerlyn!

I jest, my voice is weak and I cannot sing. But my tell, by the Goddess, you cannot quieten an old fool, my tell goes on forever.

Yet I heard back soonest, before I departed. Nyneve wrote me and I read her scroll, ink on linen, a rolled scroll:

'We are come upon you half way,' she wrote, 'do not come to Glas, for we come half way too. My sister Vivyane and her blood kin, we come half way. Remember the babe, Nymue of Vivyane born? She is grown, and surpasses us, a mighty witch and Daughter of the Goddess now. She is upon us, truly, the girl Nymue is born of bird and sea, and five cruel waves brought on her moon and blood. Meet us half way, Maer Maerlyn, for it is soon half summer.'

Little Nymue, who I dandled on my knee when she was just small! Little Nymue grown? By the Goddess, have I been away that long? Ah me, that child! Grown? I could not credit it, yet the Sisters said half way and half summer, and the little one there.

And five waves, how could that be, at the end of the long Atlant? I did not know the oceans joined, but five waves? I knew I must discover when, and make another mark on my map, and guess upon the joining up of waters. I knew the days and distance in the one big ocean all around Indee, and it was a constant speed the waves moved there, and fast. Once I knew what days passed in the ocean Atlant, I would guess what distances there were between. Was the world so small? And the dragen so quick?

But Nymue grown? Her palest blue eyes, like ice on cold water, and her rich red hair! Ah me, I'm grown too old. That little pale girl, all grown!

So I made my way to the great plain where the trees stand far off and are distant, far over the horizon. On the day before half summer I camped down where the old wooden circle lay, made of great trunks of trees but all fallen and gone now, beside the river Avyn where it makes a great loop. A gathering was there, tents and fires made in rows where dogs ran and children too, until they were hushed by their mothers and made to turn away in respect. But the smallest ones were cheeky and quick, and their bright eyes peered at me from behind their mothers' legs. I winked at some of them as I passed by, and heard their laughing chatter as I walked on. "The Maerlyn is here, look, there, dressed in white."

More a dirty grey, I think, for the dust collects and the train drags upon the path. Perhaps I should be more ceremonial, with a high head piece or some such to suit the part, but the priests of Rome do that. I don't wish to be stained like their souls, the stupid fools. The Christ of an only god and his mother with a cunt for an ear? Where's the sense in that? But the rolling back of the rock from the grave, that was good theatre, a clever touch. I wonder if I shall remember that, when it's time for me to go? We'll see. But hush, here we are.

Before me laid out was a large tent, with four high poles at the entrance, smoke curling from its thatched roof. I was made welcome by a sloe eyed girl, dark and small, with hair twisted around all black and thick, and she was the second daughter of some distant lord upon a pilgrimage. Her father tried to impress, but he was a thickun from the north by the wall, and kept on about four black horses. I could not make out what he meant, but he was good natured and had a barrel of honey mead wine, so a good fellow too.

I did not tarry long with him, because I had to be at the henge before dawn and wanted sleep before the breaking of day. The girl was sent to warm my back, and she curled behind me snug and sweet. I was tired from the day, and did not touch her even though she offered, with her small hands and high breasts. She was warm against me, and her breath sighed in her throat like a tiny wind as she fell into sleep.

"Tell your father I thank him, he's a generous man," I smiled at her and whispered on. "Just make it all up in the morning, you're a good daughter, tell him what you will."

My old staff still stiffens in my hand and in a tight girl's place, yet it's a slower thing now. Sometimes it's enough just to feel the hot young heat of life by my side, and know that it goes on forever. She warmed my back as I slept, and was peaceful like a sleeping cat by the hearth. A sweet young maid.

"Maer, it is time. The moon is high and full and lightens our way. It is mid of the night and we need our procession." Ah good, I had around me a small group of acolytes who knew the ancient ways, and would do justice as we moved along the old paths. I envied those who first made the ceremonial way, a thousand years years gone but still sung in the song. They would have seen the wide way cut white, the chalk piled high against green grass, straight and white, glowing under the moon. Now, time and rain have softened these ancient places and their marks are fading lost. But we know, and walk the ways.

The land sloped up away from the river. We the small group of us made our way up the long slope, mayhaps half a mile as a man walks, then turned our eyes to the west and saw in the long distance the stones made high and in a ring, capped and round. Under the high white moon the henge stood grey and silver, and we proceeded towards it, a silence upon us, for this was a sacred place. It is best to hear a sacred place in silence, the better to hear it talk. We made our way, and I led.

Our ceremonial way was a steady pace, and behind us to the morning came that first wash of a cooler breeze, as the sun far off began to warm the land, to caress the sleeping Goddess in his hands. This day was the single day, the half summer, when the day was longest, aye, but would grow shorter still. The great wheel turned and with it our fortune, always on. Sometimes I ponder it, a thousand years more, a thousand thousand, but even my magination fails that.

This day I was to be outside the circle, watching in. The sun expected new magick, an initiation, a christening. This old fool was long ago dunked in the water of the stream, and my tokens had long forgotten who they served. Mine own skin was left, and it my strength, and my bones. And my memories. They leak from my eyes, sometimes, and trace my skin. But no matter, it's not my day today.

I stood by the leaning stone that shadowed the first sun's glimpse and pointed into the greater place, cunningly aligned and grey in the high moonlight. This was a foretell, the moon full on the half summer's rise. A portent then, and a pivot in time and place. I greeted the stone, old friend, and touched my fingertips to its skin. Comfortable cold, my hand was warm. The young maid's heat lingered, and my old belly throbbed warm. Ahh, so it's that magick? I had forgotten that, my first ceremony, so long ago. Yey in truth mine old cock didn't forget; a singular mind, tight focussed for a tight, hot place.

Looking on, the sky lightened a fraction, with a glimmer pink like the first bud of a nipple. The soft mistral dropped and the grass was still, a faint shimmer of morning dew spread light upon the tops. A mist of tiny spider webs was gossamer fine all around and the land lay veiled with the finest sheen, all a ready to vanish and disappear with the light.

"Maer, look, they come." My young leftenant pointed back, and my eyes sharpened, an old trick, and I saw.

"Go to your place," I said, and he did. I watched the new ceremony begin, and it was slow walking. My Sisters knew their times, better ever than I did. So I waited, knowing that they knew their perfect pace. Ah Goddess, is that third one there the little Nymue, grown? Oh, the sweet thing. Even then, far off, I was struck blind and could not rightly see, but could not strip my eyes from her. But her hair, where is her rich red hair? She shines pure white, she dazzles me.

The line of women followed the same path down the centre of the cursus that we men had walked. At the front of the line I could see the tall figure of Nyn Nyneve, honoured by her age, the eldest of the Sisters. Vivyane followed her, and her honour was the motherhood of the sorceress, the new witch. Both the older women were garbed in the green and brown of the field and earth, in symbol of that which grew and that which buried.

In the third place, sheathed in long white and a virtuous gown, walked the young woman, Nymue of the five waves, as I knew her now to be. Her feet were bare that she could feel the skin of the Goddess beneath her, and she walked and was white against the slowly rising dawn. The collar of her gown was threaded with the long feathers and the short feathers of all her tokens and animates. I saw that she had flown with birds of white and grey and black and brown, small and large. The feathers circled the back of her long white hair like a high crowned crest, and she was initiate and commander, the same both at once, the white Nymue as I knew her now to be.

Nymue was no longer the young girl I knew before my long departure. Now she was strong and a woman, but still young with it. She walked confidently down into the high stones of the first carved circle, that was circled around with high curved lintels. Some were fallen and broken, for the henge was an ancient place, mysterious in how it was made, but ancient stones still standing.

It counted clever. Some holes were for the moon and all its rises and retrogrades, its backward moves; and the stones knew where the sun rose and fell. This day the sun would rise behind me, and the long shadow of the leaning stone point straight towards the gap between the highest stones, massive high. The half summer sun would rise straight and true, fair between the high rocks.

The procession paused, and a low chant began and a ringing of small bells. The chimes echoed around the stones and answered the first notes with their second sound. Cleverly the chanting voices and other ringing bells weaved sound around the place and a slow rhythm started, liken to a dream but in the waking time. Nymue began a small dancing movement, and she began to turn and weave around the Prescel ring of stones all blue and grey, brought from a far mountain. I knew the distant quarry place, and the spirits in the stone walked them here, I am sure. There could be no other way.

Nymue danced on, and I saw a spirit in her, a trancement and a spell. As I watched I slowly understand the hex she made, to trap the bright Lord to her will. I wondered how one yet twenty turns could know this spell. Where had she learned this maze? I thought I knew the land's paths and ways, but I could see from her clever patterns that Nymue knew them too. I had learned fifty years or more for my know, yet here she was, Nymue of the thousand ways, and barely grown. I wondered if I had anything to teach her, or if she knew it better already, and might teach me.

As I gazed upon Nymue, the sky shifted from a silver grey to a brightening light, and between me and the standing stones, the leaning stone cast the first shadow, and the bright Lord Sun was coming. Between the narrowest, tallest stones, the mightiest ones, Nymue's dance halted still, and she stood with her arms stretched wide that she felt both rocks. She paused just for a moment, and I saw her heaving breasts as she fast breathed from her dance. I came down closer, but am a man, so could not enter the ring, not this day. The high Lord Sun would come this half summer day and want a woman, not some old man, so I stayed beyond the circling stones.

Nymue stepped back three paces from between the stones, and two small maids, carefully instructed, dragged in from the other side a wide fur, huge it was, from a stag. They made it straight, and had small pillows too, and made an open bed. They ran away and were gone.

Vivyane her mother went to the daughter and they kissed, full hard on their lips, and small blood was bit on Nymue's lip by her mother there and it was an annointment. Nymue stood, yet her mother was taller, so I knew the girl might stand by me and look at my chest. I am tall and thin. Her wide, high fan of tokens and long feathers disguised her height. Nymue was not so tall, but stood it so, and her spirit made her tallest of all. Next to her, I would always crawl on my knees.

Vivyane reached for Nymue's throat and undid a clasp there. The white gown slid like snow from a mountain and pooled to Nymue's feet and the girl stood naked. She faced away from me, so I saw the smallness of her waist and the spread of her curved hips, and her back. Nymue's beautiful hair was tied in three places, long white snow down her body. She stood there, and the shape of her was a pleasure for this old man. Pah, I am too old, she needs a young man.

But this day, she was to bed the Sun Lord, spread her thighs wide for his fuck of the morning light, right between her legs and up into her sweet cunt that I could only imagine in my dreaming ways. But fuck, that magining was enough, I felt a throb in my loins. My old prick began to thicken and stretch, and the Sun Lord's not even here yet with his strength.

I waited. The shadow from the stone moved along the grass, the Sun soon to shine above the portal stone and knock there, for entrance.

Nymue lay on the skin, and from the outside of the circle I watched as she caressed herself with her own hands, pressing her hands down hard onto her nipples, and they stood tight. Her hands were slow, but I could see they knew the shape of her body and I saw a dip of her fingers between her legs and a first slide there, her hair a thick white fur against her pale flesh. There was a trance upon her, and she lay between the stones. Nymue cried out, and her voice was like a bird, a wailing cry.

The sound of her voice lurched into me, and my prick grew harder. Around me, I sensed my leftenants too were wanting to fuck, and in the circle, the women a fucked upon their fingers, urging Nymue on with their own magick entanglement. The stones watched, and the Sun rose above the portal stone. The land shimmered, waiting for the moment when the Sun King rose up from the distance of the far horizon. I looked back upon the east and there he was, rising red and round; the thick long rod of the portal rock become his shaft, all illumined veined and red, rising high up from the earth and the Sun rose hard.

His huge roundness was perfectly aligned, and the shaft of his half summer glory was long and straight and true and glowed all upon the place. He the Sun Lord moved and shone between the tall stones that were made to receive him and this bright morning fuck of powerful light.

From between the stones I heard the crooning cry of a woman, "Ah h Lord, mine own cunt widens for your heat, fuck into me," and it was Nymue on her back, her cunt arched up between her legs thrusted high, her legs wide to welcome in the light. Her body shuddered golden in the morning beams of the rising Sun, and his golden shining rod thrust down into her with all the heat and shafting fuck of the Sun Lord morning risen.

And Nymue was blazed gold and crying out in his hands hot in her flesh and skin, and her fingers spread apart the folds of her cunt so the Lord Sun could fuck into her this half summer's day. With a keen that echoed into the stones, Nymue collapsed weak on the ground and twitched and writhed there, a glowing in the light, and her body grew still.

"Do not touch her, she soars!" Nyneve's shout warned the truth, and Nymue lay there, her eyes agone from her face and rolled back white. I could not see her fly, but knew that she did, her sex magick undaunted by the strength of this place. By the Goddess, Nymue now the strongest witch of all the Sisters and some of them very strong indeed; that she dared to take the Lord on his day and live, where others had bellies cut red and a sacrifice and died, in earlier years, when not a one was ready.

I leaned against the rock, my cheek against the old stone there, and spread my fingers wide to embrace the warming heat. Around me, the air shimmered and a strange crackling sound came upon the world and an odd scent like air around a waterfall, a crispness. I stood away from the stone and took some paces back. Looking away from the henge, but near it and wide, I saw down upon the grass a strange veil, some strangeness along the ground, a hazing light. Within the light I could see whole bands of taller grass bend and snap, shaping a strange pattern all amongst the grass.

I knew of circles and hexes made on these wide plains, seeing them with their spirals and mazes, and wondered on them, but did not know how they were made. But the grass would bend, corn especially, and patterns made that only a bird could see. Ah, a bird, Nymue on high, soaring. Of course, she will know and might tell, when the trancement stops.

The morning sun rose away and up from the shafted rock, and his prick was gone, Nym Nymue fucked and a high priestess now, for the Goddess and the Sun Lord both. The sun arose and it was the longest day, all to shorten and shrink and grow cold and midwinter. I wondered then if white Nymue would return to this place when covered in snow, or was this day high magick enough, and she strong?

Inside the circle, Nymue still was fallen between the tallest stones, her body not moving, completely still. Nyneve bade the small maids to take skins and cover the priestess and quickly come away, so not to disturb her flight.

I stole away to the place where the grass shimmered and hazed, and was astonished to see great curves in the grass made there, great circles and small, huge spirals made in the grass. The stalks were all bent, laid in patterns interwoven, laid this way and that. I looked to the sky, but it was cloudless blue. Up highest high, where my sharpest eyes could just see, I saw a soaring white bird and knew that Nyymue still flew, her trancement thick and the Sun's golden seed still in her, high above all the Goddess to see. I would speak with her later, when Nymue was all recovered.

Meanwhile, my curiosity was first in my mind, and I bade to me good leftenants and made them to measure and map, to draw this strange geography that I might know it like a bird does. All above and looking down, spinning around this sacred place. I pondered on it and wondered if the ancient makers, dragging stone and standing rock all ringed around, had they made their stones to remember twisted patterns in the grass? This whole place is circles and circles, marked in stone and dug upon the ground. Did another Maer like me, long ago, make a geometry when the high ice melted back and this land lay smooth and new like a baby? I imagined soft smooth skin, and thought that he might have, when the Goddess first woke from the cold.

Later, back away in the tents and camps along the river Avyn, I went to the Sister's tent and was greeted there by Nyneve and Vivyane. They looked upon the girl with the white hair who still lay curled and sleeping, out of her trance now but tired.

"Maer, she is mighty now and powerful, an elemental thing. Do you know it, and why?"

"Nyn," I replied, respectful of her wisdom, and I wondering too, "I do not know it, but see it like you do. Know this, there is some work upon the land, and methinks we might all be called upon." I sat and wondered, and look upon the small shape of the white priestess sleeping there. "Nymue, I think, might have much magick to make, and mysteries too. She is powerful." I looked upon the girl, and there must have been something in my eyes when I looked.

"Care upon you, Maer Maerlyn, take care upon yourself. Do not become seduced by her."