Phoenix and Ashes

Oh, those words, and that delicious, delicious despair! People were saying now what they had not even dreamed of thinking before—not "if he's killed, but "when." Women sent off their men with that despair in their hearts, open and acknowledged. And if any of their men came home at all, no matter how damaged, they thanked God and thought themselves lucky. Every time the telegraph-girl came riding into Broom on her bicycle, that despair followed her like the wake of a boat, spreading through all the village until she brought her anticipated, but dreaded burden of bad news to her destined door. There was no other reason for a telegraph to be sent to anyone in Broom except for the most dreaded of reasons. "Killed in action." "Missing in action" (which was the other way of saying "blown to bits and we can't find enough of him to identify"). "Wounded and dying."

And every time the telegraph-girl entered Broom, Alison knew it, and reveled in that wash of fear and anguish. She'd even sent a telegraph or two to herself, when deaths were few, just to trigger it, and the power it unleashed. For all the inconveniences that the war had brought, this was worth it, and if only it could go on for three, four, five more years—

She made a mental note to strengthen those demons of illness she had sent to America. Not tonight, but soon. The longer the war lasted, the greater her power would be.

There was no traffic tonight; none at all, not even when they passed through Enstone itself. Not a foot-traveler, not a cart, certainly not an auto. There was some small activity around the pub, two men going in as they passed the first houses in the village, but no one came out during the time they were on the Enstone to Ditchely road. Not that she had expected any fellow travelers, but she was pleased that things were so quiet.

Alison had an electric torch, but she didn't use it; she was navigating by the "feel" of things, rather than looking for landmarks. After a bit less than an hour of the four of them plodding down the uneven road between the high hedgerows, she began to sense what she was watching for, southwards, off to the side of the road, a sluggish, stagnant pool of power that had not been tapped in a very long time.

"Watch for a gap in the hedge to the right," she ordered. "It will probably be a stile going over, but there might actually be a path."

But it was the crossing road that they saw first, and only after looking closely for it, found not only a stile but a path, off to the right.

Both hedge and stile were in poor repair, as reported by Warrick Locke, who went over first. Now Alison used her torch; the last thing any of them needed was to be lamed by a sprained ankle at this point!

The path lay along the line and under the shelter of another hedge, but now it was clear to Alison where their goal was, and a tingle of anticipation made her want to hurry the others towards that wooded enclosure whose trees shielded imperfectly the glow of power that roused sullenly at her presence.

The enclosure was little more than a couple of wooden railings; they went over and pushed through the holly and other undergrowth to arrive at her goal.

It stood upon a small mound, an arrangement of six stones forming the remains of what had once been a large, chambered structure. A tomb, perhaps; at least, that was what the old men she had questioned in Enstone had said it was, the tomb of an ancient tribal chieftain long dead before the Romans came. She didn't much care; two powerful ley lines ran through it, and it had been made other use of for some time after its former occupant had been looted away by Romans searching for British gold. The largest of the stones was a good nine feet tall.

She wedged her torch where it could best illuminate the interior of the tomb, and set Warrick and the girls to making the place ready, while she slipped out of sight long enough to don her robe. She usually didn't bother with ritual robes, but this was too important and dangerous a ceremony to leave anything to chance. Besides, the things she intended to call might not recognize her authority without her robes. When she re-entered the tomb, Warrick had already gotten the altar-cloth laid out on the ground, and had lit candles and stuck them wherever he could, to save the batteries on the torch. The others' modern clothing would have looked very out-of-place if they had not worn simple black. Instead of being glaring anachronisms, they looked like minor acolytes of no particular order.

The candles, stuck in places sheltered from the breeze, flickered very little. Alison was struck by how timeless the scene seemed. There was nothing to tell that this was 1917—or 1017—or even the first century Anno Domini.