Merlin's Mantle, page 5
I ruffled my fingers through Merlin’s hair and we continued down the forest path, leaves and twigs crunching under our feet. Up ahead, I could see my sacred tree, its branches reaching high into the sunny sky.
As we approached, the transformation amazed me. Where before the tree had appeared sickly, its bark oozing black ichor, now it was the picture of vitality. Its branches were full of verdant green leaves that rustled in the breeze. The trunk was a healthy brown, and I sensed the pure magic of Annwn coursing through it.
I reached out and placed my hand on the bark. Closing my eyes, I focused my druidic senses, trying to detect any remnants of the dark energy from before. But there was nothing. Only the bright song of the lifeforce that flowed from the world beyond the gateway.
How was this possible? In a few hours, it was as if the darkness had been completely cleansed from this place. Had the cultists’ spell expired that quickly? Or had something else neutralized their magic in the interim?
I opened my eyes with a furrowed brow. While part of me was relieved the tree and the surrounding forest felt normal again, the rapid shift didn’t sit right.
Remember that weird uncle? If he leaves too fast, you can usually be sure he’s got something planned that isn’t altogether wholesome. Because weird uncles—and dark magics—never leave before you want them to.
Something bigger was at play here. This return to normalcy was just the calm before the storm.
Emilie must have noticed the concern on my face. She came over and gave my arm a reassuring squeeze.
“What is it?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I’m not sure. But something about this doesn’t feel right.”
I scanned the surrounding trees, reaching out with my senses. There were no obvious signs of dark magic, but the lingering unease remained.
Emilie followed my gaze. As she surveyed the area, her eyes settled on a large boulder nestled at the base of a towering oak. She tilted her head thoughtfully.
“Do you think that rock might show us what happened here?” she asked.
I raised an eyebrow. Emilie was suggesting we try lithomancy—the divination art of reading stones. It was an obscure practice, even amongst druids, but it ran in my blood. It was how my father had recorded his memory in the sigil stone that still sat in my truck’s cupholder.
Certain stones had a way of recording events that occurred in their vicinity—especially events that involved the use of magic.
That’s one reason many people think they see ghosts. A specter might appear doing something routine. Going up and down the stairs, for instance. Sometimes someone will see a spirit that appears to be reliving their death… over and over again.
Talk about a nightmarish way to experience the afterlife.
Except this kind of “residual haunt” isn’t really a haunt at all. Most times, it’s because of the presence of limestone or other mineral deposits on the property. Running water, like an underground spring, can amplify the phenomenon. It’s usually an event in the past that’s been imprinted or recorded on the stone through either intense or repeated psychological energy.
Everyone has a little magic in them. Most people can’t wield it in any fantastic way. But performing a habit or the experience of anguish—like at the moment of someone’s death—can leave behind echoes in the stones.
Think of it like this. If you want to carve something into a stone, you can either use a very aggressive instrument to do the job quickly, or you can use something more common to cut away at the stone little by little until a crevice forms. Agony was like an aggressive instrument. Habit was like a dull knife. Both did the job—eventually.
That’s how stones worked when they recorded events from the past. Since the cultists had used a dark magic in the area, and since the stone had been accustomed to the magic that emanated from the sacred tree for the last decade-plus, there was probably a lot that the stone could reveal.
“Great idea.” I pinched my chin. “Your music, combined with my magic, could coax out the memories stored in the rock.”
Emilie nodded, unslinging her violin case from her back. “Then let’s give it a shot.”
I tightened my grip on my oaken staff as we approached the boulder. This type of divination required intense focus and energy. I would have to channel my druidic power into the stone while Emilie played, opening a window into its buried past.
Though we wouldn’t have to go too deep. We were looking for events that occurred just hours before. And if the cultists’ activities were responsible for the other murders detailed in the detective’s folder she gave me, I could find a correlation between the cultists’ rituals and each attack.
Placing one hand on the boulder’s craggy surface, I raised my staff and nodded to Emilie. “I’m ready when you are.”
She tucked the violin under her chin and played, the haunting notes ringing out through the quiet forest. I closed my eyes, sensing the tendrils of her spellweaving intertwining with the tree’s natural magic. The stone grew warm under my palm as images took shape in my mind’s eye.
I saw the cultists gathered around the tree, cloaked and chanting. I heard echoes of their cryptic incantations. I watched as they wove an intricate spell, darkness amassing around the gateway.
Then a man stepped forth, crimson robes billowing as he traced an arcane symbol in the air. But the symbol didn’t leave a trace of magic behind that I could examine. The next thing I knew, with a force like a punch in the face, I was jarred out of the vision.
“Damn it! Did you guys see that?”
Emilie nodded. Merlin did, too. “What butt heads!” Merlin piped up, rubbing his forehead. “That hurt. They kicked us out of there!”
I nodded. “Butt heads, indeed.”
Emilie sighed and shook her head. “Don’t encourage him. And watch your language in front of the boy.”
I shrugged. I’d heard Emilie say “shit” dozens of times in front of Merlin. It was her favorite word. Based on the tone of her voice, though, I decided it best to simply apologize rather than challenge her credibility. A lesson learned after a decade of marriage. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said damn it. I meant dag gummit!”
Emilie rolled her eyes. “And butt heads?”
“What? You mean to tell me those guys aren’t butt heads?”
Emile smirked. “Not the point, dear.”
I chuckled and turned my attention back to the stone. “Clearly, they don’t want us seeing what they did here. Did either of you get a good look at the symbol on their robes?”
I trailed off as Merlin retrieved his “Big Chief” tablet and a charcoal pencil from his backpack. He sat in the grass, crossed his legs, and drew.
Emilie and I stepped up behind him and examined his sketch as it came together. “That’s it!” I exclaimed. “Every detail.”
Merlin nodded. “It’s connected to their magic. Didn’t you see the symbol in the air over the tree? Just before they booted us from the vision?”
Emilie and I exchanged glances. “We didn’t.”
“It was the same symbol,” Merlin said. “It’s all connected somehow.”
“Merlin, that’s brilliant!” I clapped him on the shoulder. “Now we just have to figure out what it means.”
Emilie peered at the image, then lifted her violin again. “I might be able to use this to focus my magic. Interact with the pattern itself. Now that we have the pattern, we should be able to get past whatever energy disrupted the vision before.”
She resumed playing, and the notes vibrated through the air. The symbol glowed faintly, as if responding to her melodic spell.
I tensed, gripping my staff and placing my opposite hand back on the stone. If we could unravel the significance of this sigil, it might finally give us a lead on who these cultists were and what they wanted with the gateway.
Emilie’s music swelled, and the surrounding air shimmered. The symbol from Merlin’s tablet appeared as a glowing three-dimensional projection, rotating slowly. As it turned, I could see it was more complex than I first thought. Where the circles intersected a peculiar glow emerged.
The projected symbol began interacting with the shimmering air, like plugs fitting into sockets. Some kind of magical grid appeared in mid-air around us. Like a giant piece of translucent graph paper laid over everything.
“It’s working!” Merlin whispered excitedly.
Abruptly, ghostly figures flickered into view within the grid. The cultists! There they were, gathered around the gateway tree again, shrouded in their crimson robes.
As one, they chanted in an eerie, unknown language. Their hoods shifted, and I saw flashes of inhuman visages—animal heads like those of the Egyptian gods. Then those too flickered, the robes too, revealing ordinary human faces and three-piece suits.
It was like these men, whoever they were, had taken off from a stockholder’s meeting to go perform a murderous ritual in the park.
Who the hell were these guys?
Magic crackled through the pattern web as the cultists’ chanting reached a fever pitch. Dark energy snaked around the symbol, the tendrils of ichor flowing between each robed figure and the intersections of circles within their sigil. Almost like their symbol was some kind of portal, drawing dark energy from whatever dark realm my tree connected to and charging up each cultist with nasty.
“Stand down!” a voice echoed from a distance. I turned and saw… myself. It took me by surprise. Whenever you find yourself looking at yourself… well… it can be jarring. I almost didn’t recognize my voice if only because no one sounds the same as they think they do in their own head. We were seeing what happened a few hours ago, before my encounter with the cops.
“Do not interfere, Druid! This is none of your concern.”
Everything happened as I’d remembered. Only now I saw more of their magic at work. This wasn’t dark chaos. It was intricate, organized, magic. Not the sort of thing amateur cultists might conjure up. These people—whoever they were—knew what they were doing. They’d probably been studying their craft all their lives.
After that, it was over. The cultists dispersed in different directions, their spell complete. The vision faded away even as the cultists’ dark energies receded. In seconds, the tree and the surrounding forest was back the way it was supposed to be.
Emilie lowered her violin, looking troubled. “I don’t understand. Who are they?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. But I think we just glimpsed the tip of something very big and very dangerous. I should consult my father’s memory. Perhaps he’ll recognize what we’re facing.”
8. Lithomancy
The vision cast by my father’s sigil stone started the same as always—I stood in the center of the ancient grove, surrounded by towering standing stones and a massive oak at its heart. The sky above shimmered with unearthly light, not quite real, but close enough to fool my senses.
I took a deep breath, steadying myself. This was no mere daydream or flight of fancy. The sigil stone in my hand connected my mind to an imprint of my father, a copy of his memories and personality captured at the moment of his death. It was him, or at least as close as magic could recreate.
I knew Em was waiting in the driver’s seat of our truck, watching for trouble while I communed with Dad’s ghost. Probably bored out of her skull, wishing she could join us. But the stone’s magic kept me locked in a trance, and given the dangers we were facing recently, one of us needed to stay on the look-out. It was safer for everyone if I tackled this solo.
A form coalesced beside me, becoming the spitting image of my late father, Diarmid. Though not truly him, the sigil stone had copied his appearance flawlessly.
“Dad, we’ve got big trouble,” I said.
I explained everything—the robed cultists I’d seen in the woods, the strange symbol they’d cast into the air, the way they’d manipulated the ancient tree connecting our world to others. He listened patiently, brow furrowed.
When I finished, Dad let out a long sigh.
“I cannot say who these men are,” he said, “but the sorcery you describe is ancient indeed. Tell me more of their magic, son. I will explain what I can.”
I nodded, trusting his wisdom even if he was just an echo. “Their power felt old, primal. I tried to stop them, but it was like they were immune to my magic.”
Dad traced his fingers across the bark of the tree at the center of the grove. It wasn’t an actual tree—just the memory of one, like the rest of this vision scape. “The ancients saw more than we credit them for. They knew existence was built on hidden patterns—as modern science confirms. Snowflakes, crystals… the microscopic level teems with sacred geometry. The ancients believed this was the language of the Gods, the very blueprint of creation.”
“The grid those men manipulated—it’s like the fabric of space and time itself. Einstein knew it, as did the ancients.”
I frowned. “So, what’s the significance of this? Why would anyone want to mess with something so fundamental?”
“I cannot say what their agenda is,” Dad said. “But throughout history, there have been those who sought to control the sacred grid. The Druids knew of it, as did masters in the Far East and ancient Egypt. The Egyptians called it the Net—they worshipped ‘Netters’ who shaped reality through it. In modern times, some tried to tap this power for themselves. They specifically sought places in the world where the veil between worlds is thin and used those gateways to draw destructive energies into the world.”
I tilted my head. “Which might be why they’re performing their ritual around the tree in Forest Park. It’s connected to Annwn.”
My father nodded. “Or it was at one time. If there’s no gatekeeper to guard the portal, it wouldn’t take much natural ability to reconnect the tree to a different realm. The most likely culprits belong to a school of thought known as the Weavers.”
My chest tightened. “The Weavers. So these cultists… they’re connected to Egyptian religion?”
Dad pursed his lips. “Yes and no. Many of the methods they use come from ancient Egypt, but they’re eclectic. They use a variety of rituals and practices from a variety of secret traditions.”
I shook my head. “It’s like exploiting nature for human ends with no reverence for larger realities, for its beauty. As if the natural world exists to serve our warped ideas about progress and prosperity.”
“If they truly can manipulate the grid at will, there’s no telling what chaos might follow.” At this point my father was pacing between the standing stones on each side of the grove. It was all I could do to keep up with him. “You must understand, the sages and wise men of old revered the grid. They understood how to benefit from the fabric of reality. They bent the grid, but never tried to change it fundamentally. The Weavers are more like children who, having learned that they can tear apart a computer, tinker with it to achieve a desired result. They don’t know what they’re doing. Chances are they damage the interface through their experimentation.”
I frowned, trying to wrap my head around it. “So, these cultists—they’re manipulating a divine blueprint of reality?”
My father nodded. “Something like that.”
“But what kind of god are they dealing with? Are they connecting with one god, or many? Monotheism, or polytheism?”
Dad laughed. “Those are human concepts, Elijah. If the Divine Source is infinite, it transcends such limited categories. The Divine Source is both a unity and a plurality. Monotheists focus on the unity of divinity because the idea of competing deities is too frightening. No one wants to be collateral damage of petty squabbles between gods. But no single divine ‘person,’ at least insofar as we think about what a ‘person’ entails, can encompass the infinite. Those who worship many gods simply try to respect divinity’s many aspects. Even if they conceive of their deities as multiple gods, it’s still the same Divine Source that monotheists pursue. Both views are limited, and both contain truth.”
“Well that just doesn’t make sense. How can someone say ‘there’s only one God’ and not be at odds with someone who reveres many gods?”
He smiled wryly. “Your Western world wants to explain everything and doubts what it can’t comprehend. There’s only a conflict here in your mind because you refuse to allow a notion of Divine Source that’s greater than the limitations of the human mind. Think about it. If you could fully understand the Divine, it wouldn’t be Divine at all. The surest sign that you’re worshiping an idol of human invention is that your God concept makes too much sense.”
“You’re suggesting that we should pursue something absurd?”
“Not at all! I’m saying that any attempt to define Deity fully and completely is absurd by definition. The ancients were more comfortable with mystery. They honored mystery and resisted the urge to investigate and domesticate it.”
I sighed, rubbing my temples. “This is making my head hurt.”
“What’s important is that these Weavers must be stopped. I cannot say if the murders littering the wake of their rituals are a part of their design or an unintended consequence.”
“They sent a monster after my Merlin! Why are they attacking my son?”
“Perhaps they’ve come to see him as a threat. Then again, maybe it was by coincidence. The shire is a place of intense divine energy. If these cultists are manipulating energy drawn through the tree in the park, like attracts like. Perhaps they weren’t seeking you so much as they were drawn to the energy of the place surrounding the shire.”
I shook my head. “It felt more malevolent than that.”
My father stopped pacing, faced me, and grabbed my shoulders. “I cannot tell you if that’s the case because my insight is limited to the memories I had at the moment of my death. Know only this. When the Weavers have acted in modern history, the travesties that followed far exceeded whatever benefit they hoped to achieve.”
