Facing the altar at last:
"Ye Guardians of the Watchtowers of the North! Oh, Lady of Earth, Gaia! Boreas, North Wind and Khione of the Snows, Guardians of the Northern Portals, you powerful God, you strong and gentle Goddess… "
At last all had been cleansed and purified: with Water and Earth, Air and Fire. She stood with the Wand and Scourge in her hands, facing the coven as the High Priest called:
"Hear you the words of the Star Goddess, the dust of whose feet are the hosts of heaven, and whose body encircles the universe!"
Juniper's eyes rose, beyond the heads of the coven and the rustling dark secrecy of the trees, to where the stars made the Belt of the Goddess across the night sky, frosted silver against velvet black. Her lips moved, but she was hardly conscious of the words that rang out:
"I who am the beauty of the green earth and the white moon among the stars and the mysteries of the waters, I call upon your soul to arise and come unto Me. From Me all things come and unto Me all must return Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you. 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 triumphantly:
"For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire!"
The stars seemed to open above Juniper, rushing towards her as if she were falling upward or they into her, through galaxies and the veils of nebulae whose cloak was worlds beyond counting. But that infinity was not cold or black, not empty or indifferent. Instead it was filled from edge to edge with a singing light, from unknown Beginning to unimaginable End radiant with an awareness vast beyond all understanding. So great, yet that greatness looked on her, at her, into her, the atom of being that was Juniper Mackenzie.
As if all that was lifted her in warm strong arms, and smiled down at her with an infinite tenderness.
Sight and sound returned; she was conscious of tears streaming down her cheeks, and of the High Priest's tenor singing:
"We all come from the Dark Lord
And to Him we shall return
Like a leaf unfolding
Opening to new life… "
And the Maiden's alto weaving through it, the words mingling without clashing:
"We all come from the Goddess
And to Her we shall return
Like a drop of rain
Flowing to the ocean… "
Higher and higher until the song became one note and broke on the last great shout of power like a wave thundering on a beach…
With that she was herself once more, among her own in the Circle; yet still glowing with thankfulness. Only a handful of times had she felt this so utterly, but that too was good-some joys could only be had rarely, or you would break beneath them…
When the working was done and the Circle unmade, the coven making its way down the nighted trace, Chuck drew her aside.
"Something special happened, didn't it? I could feel it. I think most of us did."
She nodded solemnly. "I think… I think the Goddess promised me something, Chuck. I just don't know what."
Twenty-one
Michael Havel leaned back against his saddle and gnawed a last bite off the rib; he took a quick drink of water afterward, and a mouthful of bread as well. Angelica's homemade BBQ sauce had real authority, as well as lots of garlic.
I can just about handle it now, he thought. After years of pouring Tabasco over MREs to hide the taste. It would have killed me when I was Eric's age.
Most of the people in his neck of the woods clung to Old Country cooking habits, and Finns thought highly seasoned meant putting dill in the sour cream.
The eating part of the Bearkillers' homecoming celebration was about over; mainly variations on meat and bread, but well done; the grateful smell lingered, along with woodsmoke and livestock. It was full dark now, with a bit of a chill in the air and only an enormous darkness around their fires. Somewhere in the distance a song-dog howled at the stars, and he could hear horses shifting their weight and snorting in the corral behind the wagons.
He flipped the bone into the fire, watching as it crackled and hissed and then burned when the marrow caught. Not far away a hound pup followed the arc with wistful eyes, but she was lying on a pile of them already, stomach stretched out like a drum. Havel was thinking of naming her Louhi, after the Old Country sorceress who could eat anything.
And Christ Jesus, it's good to be home.
Will Hutton wailed a note or two on his new harmonica and set it down again.
"You really ready to get back on the road?" he said.
"You haven't been back but half a week, and busy as hell that whole damned time."
Havel nodded. "We've about outstayed our welcome in the Kooskia area if we aren't here for good," he said. "We'll start south tomorrow. Josh and Eric and I were doing fifty, sixty miles a day most of the way back."
A smile. "Tiring him out was the only way to keep Zep-pelt from playing that goddamned accordion. Christ Jesus, if you knew the hours I'd suffered listening to those things as a kid, and watching the old farts lumber around dancing to it! And the kraut version is even worse."
"He 'n' his lady did seem a mite sore when they got in," Hutton grinned. "Fact is, though, he's not bad on that squeeze-box at all."
Havel shrugged; he didn't want to argue a point of musical tastes. "So five or six miles a day with the whole outfit will be a rest-cure."
"That slow?" the Bearkillers' trail boss said.
Havel nodded: "I don't want to travel too fast; Pendleton or the Walla Walla country by July or August-we can hire out to help with the harvest, or just pick some out-of-the-way wheatfields nobody's working on and help ourselves- and Larsdalen in say October, November. By then the sickness ought to be burned out, and until then we don't go near cities."
"Bit late for plantin' surely?"
"Not in the Willamette. You only get occasional winter frosts there; you can put in fall grains right into December, and graze stock outside all year 'round."
Will frowned, turning the mouth organ over in his battered, callused hands. "Don't like what you told about this Protector mofo," he said. "Don't much like it at all."
Havel grinned like a wolf. "The guy seriously torqued me off, yeah, I admit it, but I'm not just looking for a fight. The Willamette's still the best place going, and I don't think Mr. Protector is going to stay satisfied with what's west of the Columbia Gorge, either. From what he said, he already had his eye on the waterways inland, too-and you can sail all the way up to Lewiston, if you hold the locks. That's cheap transport nowadays."
Hutton's lips pursed in thought. "Bit far to reach, things bein' the way they are."
"Not him directly. But remember that deal I told you he offered me? One gets you five that's his boilerplate-and every would-be little warlord within reach of Portland gets the offer. No shortage of them; they're like cockroaches already. Give them some organization and backup, and things will get nasty all over this neck of the woods."
Ken Larsson nodded. He and Pamela Arnstein were sitting close with their hands linked; that had surprised Havel and flabbergasted Eric when he got back, but even Signe and Astrid seemed to be taking it in stride.
Ken spoke slowly, deep in thought: "Not surprising, given what you told me about his academic background. I think he's jumping the gun a little-it's a bit early to try for full-blown feudalism. But it's certainly more workable than trying to keep the old ways going."