Sarwat Chadda - Dark Goddess

It was logical. It had a basis in reality.

It was a lie.

The truth had a basis in another reality. Had she really met the devil here? Had he really unleashed his celestial numina , his supernatural light, almost blinding her and nearly destroying Temple Church?

Like the thrones of ancient kings, nine high-backed chairs had been arranged in an irregular circle between the effigies of the ancient patrons lying in stone on the floor.

Elaine and Father Rowland sat apart on smaller stools, observing, but not belonging.

The Knights Templar. Arthur, the Templar Master, looked tired and was turning his wedding ring around, never a good sign. Gwaine sat opposite, in his usual position of conflict. In the gloomy light his wrinkles looked like deep crevasses, and his eyes were lost in the pits under his lined brow. Gareth, Bors, and Mordred watched impassively. Billi looked at the Sièges Perilous -two chairs draped in black cloth, commemorating the Order’s dead. Kay and now Pelleas. Percy’s old position, marshall, was now Lance’s.

Billi kept her head low as she crossed the circle to her seat between Mordred and Bors. Mordred gave her a sympathetic smile as she passed. The church was unheated, and Billi’s breath puffed out in a great white cloud as she took her seat.

“Now that we’re all here, maybe we can get down to business,” Arthur said. He stood up and went to the center of the round. “Pelleas’s death and the girl: Vasilisa Bulgakov.” He lowered his head. “Father Rowland will lead a requiem Mass for Pelleas tomorrow night. Attendance, it goes without saying, is mandatory.” He beckoned Elaine forward. “Tell us what you know.”

Elaine came to the edge of the circle. “While you’ve all been catching up on your beauty sleep, I did some sniffing around. Vasilisa and her family came to England four years ago, when she was five. They’re originally from Russia-from Karelia. It’s up north on the border with Finland.”

“That’s important?” asked Gwaine.

“It’s pretty wild. Lots of wolves.” Elaine opened up her folder and handed out a sheet of scanned pictures. “Of all the packs, they hunt Spring Children most eagerly.”

The photos were of the patio outside Vasilisa’s parents’ farmhouse. The light exposed something Billi hadn’t noticed last night. The flagstones bore strange carvings.

“These are petroglyphs. Copies of the ones found in Karelia. The original is over five thousand years old. This one”-she pointed at a stick figure with two circles for breasts and branchlike hands. In one hand was a disk, in the other a crescent-“it’s the Polenitsy’s goddess image.”

“Eorpata,” muttered Gwaine. Billi frowned. He would always use ancient Greek or Latin when English would do just as well. Fortunately, she knew ancient Greek. Unlike Mordred.

“Man-killers,” Billi whispered to him.

Elaine nodded. “The Polenitsy are an all-female werewolf pack descended from the original Amazons. Out of all the werewolves, they follow the ways of the goddess closest. You might call them fundamentalists.”

“They’re a long way from home,” said Arthur.

“They could be desperate. Oracles aren’t common. The Bodmin pack no longer hunts Spring Children, and neither do the Irish wolves, the only other big pack nearby.” Elaine tapped her nails on the top of Gareth’s chair. “I’m convinced they’re the ones after Vasilisa, and they are not going to back down quietly. They’re old-school.”

“And we’ll deal with them the same way we’ve dealt with all the others,” said Gwaine.

Elaine didn’t reply, but Billi could see her doubts. She turned her attention to the photographs. There were markings above the image of the Polenitsy goddess symbol. She could just make out a crucifix. Not like the plain cross of Western Christianity, but the Russian Orthodox cross, with three horizontal bars, the lowest one slanted.

“What’s this?” She pointed at the cross.

Elaine continued. “I think the Bulgakovs were, in their own crude way, trying to guard against the goddess. A lot of people believe the crucifix is the perfect defense against all the Unholy.”

“It didn’t work,” snorted Bors.

“Believing in something doesn’t make it real,” said Arthur. “So is Vasilisa an Oracle?”

Elaine shook her head. “I don’t know yet. Her parents knew something was up. But she’s young, and even if she does have powers, they’ll manifest themselves irregularly and she’ll have no conscious control of them.”

“But Kay was showing telepathic powers at nine-the same age as this Vasilisa,” said Billi.

Elaine laughed. “Kay was an extraordinarily powerful psychic. We won’t come across his like again. No, if Vasilisa has some talent, it won’t be at Kay’s level.”

“Don’t you have tests or something you could do?” Billi continued.

“You can’t just stick a meter in her and get a reading.” Elaine held up her hands, fingers out. “There are six classes of Oracle: mentalists like Kay-mind reading and all that telekinetic stuff. Then you’ve got the mediums, or spirit-talkers, as they’re called nowadays. Healers. Elementalists. The fire-starters, and finally the prophets.” Elaine closed her hands into fists. “Youngsters usually have a bit of ability in each, but that settles down into one or two fields by puberty. Kay was amazing…” There was more than a hint of pride when Elaine talked about her last, best pupil. “He still retained powers in mind-reading, spirit-talking, and prophecy well into his teens. But it’ll take time to pin Vasilisa down, assuming she is psychic, of course.”

“You still haven’t answered the question,” interrupted Gwaine. “Is she an Oracle?”

Elaine scratched her chin. “The werewolves would call her a Spring Child. They believe the goddess will reward them with a good spring and bountiful hunting if they sacrifice Oracles to her during the full moon. The spirit of the child is taken by the goddess, renewing her, and the body is eaten by the pack.”

“Good God,” whispered Mordred.

“They’re called the Unholy for a reason,” replied Billi. “But human sacrifice was fairly common in primitive religions.” She’d studied how the followers of the goddess would take their victim, all garlanded in flowers and jewels, toa sacred spot, be it a cave or glade or lake. After killing the victim, the priestess, in the guise of the goddess, would then butcher the body and pass it among the faithful.

“And this goddess? Who is she?” asked Mordred.

“Gaia. Hecate. Morrigan. Isis,” said Elaine with a shrug. “She’s the goddess of nature, the wild, and of magic. She’s been revered since prehistoric times, and each culture had a different name for her. But the Polenitsy call her by her old, old name.” Elaine looked around the circle. “Baba Yaga.”

“But she’s just a name from fairy tales,” said Mordred. “She’s not real.”

“No, she’s real, all right. An ancient, wise, and very evil old witch.” Elaine’s eyes narrowed as she observed the young squire. “And once people worshipped her as much as we do our gods now.”

“The tales must have begun with someone, I suppose,” said Gareth.

Elaine nodded. “Imagine someone coming to your tribe. She can control the elements. Read minds and speak with the animals. Heal injuries with a touch. What would you think?”

“You’d think she was a god,” agreed Mordred reluctantly.

Elaine pointed at the crucifix on the far wall. “Is her story so different from his?” Arthur snorted. “You’re saying Baba Yaga is like Jesus? You’re going to burn in Hell for that, Elaine.”

“Time passes,” continued Elaine. “Baba Yaga’s powers wane. The new religion rises, Christianity, and together with advancing civilization it drives her deeper into the wilderness. Year by year, century by century, people forget. Only a few still remember the old religion, and among them are the Polenitsy. They feed her the souls of the Spring Children; she absorbs their powers, memories, and lives and is kept going, weak and decrepit, but alive.”