Blue Shaman: Caverns of Ornolac

By Hugh Malafry

Caverns of Ornolac is volume two of the Blue Shaman Trilogy. Obsessed with the mystery of Caron's resurrection, the shaman Morgon Kara undertakes to weave a pattern that will betray the secret and subject the knight to him. Returning to Europe with the lost hallow, the stone of sovereignty, Caron is drawn into the intrigues of an ancient order that made and destroyed both Cathar Church and Knights Templar, and sees in him their once and future king.

Blue Shaman Trilogy

Volume 1:  Stone of Sovereignty
Volume 2:  Caverns of Ornolac
Volume 3:  Master of Hallows

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 21, 2009
• ISBN: 9781467857246

Hugh Malafry

Hugh Malafry is Fulbright and emeritus  professor of mythology and world literature.  He  lives in Victoria, Canada

Book preview

Book Two

Caverns of Ornolac 

1

Thresholds 

Marie Madelon de Faucon was lounging in her garden in the August sun eating an orange, when word came of the Cailleach Branwyen’s intent to cross over from Wales.

Child, she wrote, I will journey from Caer Myrddin. In a month you will meet me at the court of Lotharingia in Nancy. From there, Magda, we will travel together to Bavaria, and rest at Waldheim through Samhain; thence to Verona, and by sea to Occitania, where I will dwell with you a season.

Old nuisance, she said. The Lady Madelon did not relish a journey from Occitania to Lorraine, let alone Bavaria, in winter. Make her embassy comfortable, Arlette. The maid lowered her eyes at the slight; she would offend neither the Cailleach nor her mistress.

It annoyed Magda to be called child, but the Cailleach was ancient of days and steeped in the habit of authority. Very well, it was not for long. With any luck this journey through her realms would be the Cailleach’s last act of domination, and when it was done she would inherit the power of the Blood Royal in Branwyen’s stead.

Domina, her maid said, Branwyen’s bard Perrin says he has a song the Cailleach commands him sing for you, and as well an extraordinary gift from the old one. Also, your servant Nofodei has come from Paris.

Business first: I will see Nofodei, Arlette. Let Perrin wait a little, I think.

Magda stretched out on her chaise longue, ate an orange slice, and let the taste and the sun penetrate her senses. Arlette ushered in Nofodei and he approached the Domina timidly. It wasn’t Magda’s station, he was used to pandering to authority, but this woman in her flower was wonderfully fair, and her beauty awed him. His hand trembled slightly as he gave her the paper from the king’s councilor and keeper of the seal, Guillaume de Nogaret. She threw back her head, closed her eyes and fell still with the sun full on her face and said nothing. In the silence he admired the fall of her dark chestnut hair, and the curve of her neck to her breast.

He thinks this will work does he? Magda rose languidly; her presence too much for him, Nofodei took a step back.

De Nogaret is skilled in these matters. It is the same strategy used when he swept up the Jews in a single night; took their properties and banished them.

Very effective, Magda said.

He will send this matter to all his sénéchals weeks before the appointed day, with instructions on pain of death not to open the brief until the night of October 12th. This is what he will say. Noffodei gave her the second document. He was amazed her hand trembled not at all as she cracked the king’s seal.

"’Persons worthy of faith causing us to tremble with violent horror.’ Dear me, she said, such excess: ‘No doubt that the enormity of the crime… offense to the divine majesty… a pernicious example of evil.’ Could he not simply have given instructions?"

There must be no doubts among the lords, and they must have reasons to explain their acts against the Templars, Nofodei said.

Well, it will serve its purpose, but worth the man’s life who implicates me.

It will never happen, Nofodei assured her. Incarcerating Squin was brilliant. He gained the warden’s ear and won de Nogaret. Squin has listed charges against the Templars, to which I have added my own, and as you supposed we found the king was more than willing to take accusations as the evidence he needs to act.

And de Nogaret has released Squin from prison?

When he finishes his testimony, Nofodei said.

You are good and faithful servants. Magda touched his arm and Nofodei shivered at her touch. You both are deserving of my gratitude and will be much rewarded.

One small matter, Noffodei said delicately. De Nogaret has found in the past the pontiffs reluctant in the matter of the Templars; may I assure him Clement will not interfere.

They can be a troublesome lot, Magda said. "Let me see, how did Benedict put it? ‘…not credible that men of such religion should be so forgetful of their salvation, as to do these things," Magda mimed. "’We are unwilling to give ear to this kind of insinuation.’’

That sentence on the pope’s lips cost the Templars 200,000 gold florins, Noffodei said.

I will have an end to this, Magda said. I have told Clement we have withdrawn our protection of the Templars, and will not oppose the church in the matter. Undoubtedly, Philip has already approached him for assurances. You may insinuate there will be no change of heart, though say not how you know it.

So, the Templar’s fate is sealed, Noffodei said. This time it will cost everything and profit them nothing.

Even so, it is not a matter for satisfaction. Magda did not want to seem unfeeling. One must always give one’s subjects hope.

Just so, Domina.

We support this purging of the Templars only because, unresponsive to the will of the Blood Royal, they are grown dangerously arrogant.

I know it, Domina.

The Cailleach gave them one last chance to prevail in a quest for the Stone of Sovereignty, she said, and they failed us in that.

Most assuredly, Domina.

And now the Cailleach has left their fate to me, and I grow altogether weary of them; I will have an end to it.

And so you shall, Nofodei said. Friday, October 13th the time appointed.

God hasten the hour, and do see Squin is sent home to me.

She had no choice did she? The Templars had failed successive generations; lost Jerusalem and the Holy Land, resisted the purge of the Cathars, and failed to return the Stone of Sovereignty. The Blood Royal had been more than patient; Branwyen too indulgent. And now, ever inconvenient, the old nuisance returned from Wales and would once more, as she was swift to remind Magda, view her titular realms before ceding them. Well, it had to be done.

Will that be all Domina?

She dismissed him softly with a generous smile of promise. Noffodei bowed and left reluctantly, feeling jealous of Squin who had her ear. His lingering look was not lost on Magda: She knew her power over the weakness in men and gave only what she chose. She was a goddess was she not? Everyone said so: A presence radiant as the dawn, her admirers told her, whatever that meant. Flattery aside, she knew her allures were real and together shaped a beauty a goddess might envy. Prince Paris would have chosen her over Helen, she thought; in another age kingdoms would have fallen for her, and who knew, they might still.

It was hard to believe it of the Cailleach, but men had once spoken of her as a great beauty, and that was a melancholy thought for a summer’s day. In time she, too, would be old and like the Cailleach must command rather than beguile, for men desire the maiden, honour the mother, but abhor the crone. While her influence was great in the hearts of men, she must instill the habit of authority, obedience to her will, and fear of consequences.

Arlette returned to remind the Domina of the Cailleach’s bard.

What is this mysterious gift? Magda asked.

"He says a gift of wondrous alchemy: A confection of xocolatl from some foreign shore to delight the senses; as rare as any poem, Perrin says. He bids me tell you even Philip of France will not know of it, but did he would send a thousand ships to the ends of the earth to fill their holds with this treasure."

He is a poet and a liar, she said. "However, last he brought kahve from the Turks. She gestured to her empty cup. And it is wonderful with oranges."

He has brought more.

Send me Perrin: I will hear his song; and more kahve, Arlette.

Perrin came, harp slung over shoulder, carrying a box wrapped in hammered gold foil papyrus that immediately caught Madelon’s eye.

Perrin, how nice to see you again, she said eyeing the gift. Your journey was without incident?

Swift and sure, Perrin said, and pleasant it is to be again in the land of troubadours.

Not so many of your brethren as before. The church has seen to that, she said. But you will not want for company among ladies who live to inspire songs of love’s longings.

Perrin was a hazel eyed youth of Magda’s years, tall and of medium build, with a tousle of yellow hair, a sunny face that spoke innocence or naiveté, and a gentle spirit that endeared him and his craft to women.

I am pleased to hear it, but there will be little time. The Cailleach will leave Paris within the week for Nancy, where I must presently join her. She bids me tell you she will crown this journey through her realms by ceding them to you.

It is well, Madelon said. You have a gift for me?

I am first to sing a song that will sweeten all the more the surprise within.

Of your own devising? Madelon asked.

I am but the voice, Perrin said.

I can scarce take my eyes from so comely a gift.

The art is Egyptian; the taste of another world.

"You call it xocolatl?"

"Rare and wonderful with kahve and oranges," he said.

Verging on insolence, Perrin set the gift on Madelon’s lap and took up his harp. She realized he was not intimidated by her, and that made him all the more the fool. When the time came she would dispose of this one and get another poet more to her liking.

Shall I begin?

Magda nodded. She was dying to open the box, and had begun already with care to seek its seal.

One morning the noble lord, Bran, lamenting the loss of his father to treachery, is walking on the cliffs over the sea, Perrin began. On the air comes music so beautiful it lulls him to sleep. He awakens to the sun setting on the western horizon and a beautiful woman who stands before him holding out a silver branch. He reaches for it and she vanishes.

Is this a song or a story? Madelon asked.

A preamble is needful, Perrin said, a setting for the jewel.

Very well, amble on.

Later, in his cups with companions, the woman again appears and sings of the land where the silver branch had grown. She tells him she dwells in the islands of the blessed, where there is neither sickness nor despair, where there is no want of food or comfort; days and nights are like summer and no one ever ages. She tells Bran to come to her in the blessed isles, and the next day he gathers a company of men to do so.

The point, Perrin?

True beauty is of the Otherworld; this but a passing shadow.

And the Cailleach bade you tell this tale?

Studied and delivered as she intended.

Doubtless there is more, Magda said.

On the morrow Bran sets forth upon the sea. The number of his men is three companies of nine, Perrin continued. When they have been at sea two days and two nights, they see a man in a chariot coming towards him across the sea.

Again in his cups, is he Perrin? Magda asked.

No, lady, Perrin said seriously. It is Manannán mac Lir, god of the sea, who tells Bran he will need the second sight to find the blessed isles. He tells him, also, that a son with the wisdom to dwell at once in both worlds will be born to him; that he will be a great king who comes after him.

A most curious tale, Perrin; how is one to dwell at once in both worlds?

It is his who learns to see things twice, Perrin said, "once to look clearly upon the facts of this world; twice to see the truths of the other revealed in this."

Say on.

"And these words Manannán mac Lir sang to Bran that he might learn of the second sight, and walk the path of beauty.

What is clear sea for the prowed craft of Bran is a plain of delights with profusion of flowers for me in my two-wheeled chariot.

Do you say, Magda interrupted, that the world we see is not all the world there is?

Perrin paused patiently. It is that we live in worlds not realized; that whatever we may think we see it is not all there is, and that the Otherworld and this world are one though we see it not.

Your mistress is mystic, Magda said.

A woman of the Sidhe, Perrin agreed, and continued. Speckled salmon leap forth from the womb of the white sea upon which you look; they are calves, bright-coloured lambs, at peace, without fear in the land of Manannán mac Lir.

Enough, I have many affairs of state and have not time for lambs and speckled salmon. It seems Branwyen warns me not to take things by their appearance. She might simply have said so and spared us both.

There is more, lady.

More riddles? Magda frowned at Perrin. Riddle me this Inkhorn, when did poets first become fools?

I think, lady, when first they tried to please women.

More fool you; were it not for fawning women you would have little profession. Well, you may tell your mistress I heard what you have said and will think on it. He was after all the Cailleach’s bard and it was politic, so Magda softened visibly. And we shall hear the whole of it later, Perrin, for now I have duties.

Returning from the Otherworld, Perrin said hurriedly, Bran discovers time is not what men think. An age has moved on and he does not comprehend the timelessness of time, or how the unchanging manifests within change, and.

Enough. Magda shouted. Perrin winced at her ferocity. Be gone Perrin. We will not speak of the passage of time on a day as lovely as this.

Domina, forgive. Perrin withdrew awkwardly.

When Perrin was gone – poets are tiresome creatures who pretend to much and deliver little - Madelon opened the Cailleach’s intriguing gift, carefully preserving the precious papyrus of Egyptian craft, for it was wondrously wrought, and she dearly loved curious things.

Within the wooden box were six rows, each row with eight dark mounds of a confection, about the size of a walnut. She considered for a moment the Cailleach might contrive to poison her, but rejected the thought as ludicrous; her succession was as important to Branwyen as to herself. Magda took one of the Cailleach’s otherworldly confections, cautiously touching it with the tip of her tongue before biting, and for the first time tasted chocolate. Scarcely breathing she sat in silent rapture, unable to speak or touch another to her lips. If there was an Otherworld this was surely its forbidden fruit.

Morgon Kara took pleasure in the smell of mown grass, the threshing of ripe grain, the pungent fields of onions, the sweet almond scent of apples and apricots, and the smell of the dust when it sprinkled rain. It was all bliss; that time of year when the earth in fulfillment rises to meet the sun in warm embrace. The sun warmed his back in the morning; there was ecstasy in a drink of cool water in the heat of the day, and at last peace in the pleasure of tired muscles at sundown and the fellowship of rejoicing in the gift of earth’s good things. In time of harvest the shaman worked from dawn to dusk in the fields of his high mountain valley, joining with villagers to gather in the crops. But for all its simple pleasures, this year Morgon Kara’s labours cast a dark shadow on the earth. Caron had betrayed him, Maia abandoned him, and he was feeling old.

In the evenings he ate with the villagers but did not linger on. Instead, the shaman returned to his sanctuary in the old temple, where the river flowed from the caverns into the light of his sheltered valley. There he lit his fire and fell deep into meditation on what had become of him. He had thought to possess Caron when he returned the Stone of Sovereignty to the Blood Royal. It was a good plan, for men are made vulnerable by what they most desire, but Maia thrust him too soon into a contest over Caron and he had lost. What was worse, at the last Caron appeared to have loosed the power of the stone in an apocalypse of light that dissolved the patterns they wrought to possess him. It was a spectacular illusion, and for a moment one might almost believe the shining ones had returned.

As the matter settled in him he realized it was not so much Caron as Flegetanis of Alexandria who stood against him. Maia had insisted the old master of hallows was an inept alchemist playing with powers he scarce understood, but Morgon Kara knew Flegetanis was a skilled mage who knew something of the power of the stone and had bound Caron’s heart to him.

That fact defined his way forward: Avoiding Flegetanis he must supplant the old sage in Caron’s heart. He would have that chance when Caron returned the stone. Would that Maia understood her haste, for she had abandoned him bruised by the encounter with hardly a word. Day after day as he healed in the aftermath of his rout, he called upon her in the silent hours of the night. She came not again but once to him, and only to mock: I know how to take a lover, and when to dispose of him, she said. And thee I give to death.

Hour after long hour before his night fire, Morgon Kara sought communion with his familiar. If she heard him she would not come. And night after night the shaman tried to cross over into the Otherworld, but found his power so diminished that where once he traveled freely he could not go. He comforted himself in time it would come again. For now, all that remained at the end of the night were the ashes of his fire, and Maia’s voice on the morning air whispering, Thee I give to death.

There was a youth, Purusha, of fourteen years, with whom Morgon Kara worked the harvest. Unlike his fellows, who hardly dared speak to the shaman, Purusha felt on easy terms with Morgon Kara, and even presumed from time to time to propose conundrums and press the shaman for solutions.

If the universe is infinite where is it? he asked. If the universe is finite what is it inside? Next, he would ask, how long is time? Some say it flows like a river, but does it move in a circle the way water flows to the sea and returns as rain. Or is it a spiral, returning on itself as an eagle rising on the air in flight? Or is time just a straight line extending from nowhere to no when? And if there is nowhere and no when, does all of space and time exist in the present moment, and if so where is there room for it in an instant? He was full of questions.

Purusha’s mother, Prakriti, was a handsome woman in her mid thirties, and daughter of one of the chief men, which Morgon Kara assumed gave the youth his boldness. Purusha had no father, but Prakriti had once wed a young man of the village who had died in the mountains the year Purusha was born, and all assumed the child was by him, even though some whispered otherwise.

From the time she was a youth Prakriti found favour with Morgon Kara, for she was full of craft, knowing every herb nature offered for healing, and instinctively gifted in the wisdom of the body. Morgon Kara taught her earth magic, and the art of attunement with the body’s life force; the way of healing hands to seek the current and clarify the flow; and the use of gemstones, and precious metals of copper, silver and gold as affinities to select, intensify and focus the life currents. When Morgon Kara was away she stood as healer for him in the village, and over time learned to sense his presence and in need draw upon his force. Morgon Kara had so come to trust her that when he journeyed in the Otherworld it was Prakriti who watched over his unconscious body. Indeed, so close was she to him that it was whispered the child’s father was not as supposed but Morgon Kara himself, though none dared raise the question, and Morgon Kara knew the truth of it.

He was a favorite of your friend Caron, you know. Prakriti brushed Morgon Kara’s arm in passing. He was spoiled with the attention paid to him. If he becomes bothersome simply shoo him off. She smiled sweetly and went off to her work of digging onions.

But she need not have spoken. Morgon Kara humored Purusha even in those times when he preferred his own silences, because the youth had the makings of a shaman, and would eventually seek his own answers to those questions, and the art of supernal magic from Morgon Kara. But for now Purusha was undisciplined energy. In a moment you could find him haying or picking apples, and in another asking difficult questions; or as the older folk rested, running wildly and mindlessly in play with his companions chasing a leather ball on the grassy hillside. But this late autumn day as the light declined, and Morgon Kara felt as he always did at the sun’s setting a growing desolation at the loss of his powers, he found the youth’s demands upon him increasingly aggravating, and that is when it happened.

If I were to come before the lord of death, Purusha said, what offering should I make him that he take not my life?

Do not think on death, Purusha, Morgon Kara said, live while you have the gift of life.

But Purusha pressed him. If I should come before the lord of death, is there anything of this world that will win his favour?

He thinks everything of this world belongs to him, Morgon Kara said, how is there anything you could give him that he would not already consider his own?

But Purusha did not hear him and repeated the question a third time. If I should come before the lord of death, what shall I give him so that I do not cease to be but, as I have heard my mother say, like you live forever?

Go and play, Purusha, this is not the time.

In a moment the mood changed, and Purusha ran off with nothing on his mind but light and air to play tumble ball with his fellows down the hillside of grassy banks. Morgon Kara turned away from the youth, sat on an old stone wall on the terraced hill, and watched the sun slowly decline into a wedge of hills in the western range.

Caron has gone west, he said to the setting sun, and until I am come again into my power there is nothing I can do.

It was then Purusha struck him. It wasn’t intentional of course, but after the day’s restraints and full of energy he had simply run and tumbled mindlessly with his fellows down the grassy hill. If it had even entered his mind, he would have fully expected Morgon Kara to catch and stop him, before he went over the low rock wall on which the shaman sat. It was one of those perfect expectations of youth, totally caught up in life, assuming always the elders were simply there. And Morgon Kara was there, but the impact of the robust fourteen year old careening into him hurled the shaman from the rock ledge, and though falling but a few feet he hit his head upon a stone and swooned. In full flight Purusha followed right after and fell beside him unhurt, buffeted in his fall by Morgon Kara’s body. His eyes met Morgon Kara’s and they locked fiercely.

Sorry, Purusha said.

But Morgon Kara’s mind was dark with rejection, and his heart filled with the desolation of his loss and feeling of being abused. He looked back into the youth’s eyes and for a moment his consciousness took in all that had happened to him, and at the last Maia’s rejection and her words.

Thee I give to death, he whispered.

Morgon Kara’s mind crumbled like earth sinking into water. Purusha was wide open, suddenly overtaken by fear of the destruction of what he had thought indestructible. He took the shaman’s curse deep within, and eyes wide with disbelief fell silently beside him into the well of the setting sun.

I would have time with Siduri before I depart, Caron said.

Would you? There was resistance in Flegetanis’ voice and it irked Caron that it should be there.

Out of Egypt they had fair winds and following seas, and without incident Dimitrius brought his master’s ships ashore at Kato Zakros in Crete, where Flegetanis did business. In good time Flegetanis would return to Egypt to tell the Caliph how the Vizier Rasheed met his death at the hands of his own men, but for now there were more pressing matters.

After resting a day by the sea, Dimitrius led the others on the high road above the tombs of Nekron Gorge for the interior town of Zakros; there Flegetanis kept olive groves and vineyards. From there he would lead the party overland to the port of Agios Nikolas in the north, where he would arrange passage on Venetian ships for the freed European slaves. Shirazi and Siduri took their leave, and after so much hardship promised a feast for the senses when they came to Zakros.

There had been no time to speak in the course of the journey, and Caron assumed that was Flegetanis’ intent in holding back. When the party was gone, Caron sat silently beside the old man on the fallen stones of a Minoan palace, stared out into the sunlit azure blue sea, waiting for what would come next. But Flegetanis said nothing, and so at last Caron broke the silence.

You knew it would come to this, didn’t you?

Flegetanis closed his eyes and lifted his face to the sun. Come to what?

Rasheed would blackmail you.

It was in his character; he wanted what I had.

You knew it would lead to confrontation.

When it came it was quite useful, wasn’t it?

You were prepared. You knew precisely when it would happen.

I knew your return would precipitate a crisis; I let it take shape.

But how did you know when or even if I would return?

Like a change of weather, you feel things, Flegetanis said. When we’re not all caught up in ourselves feelings become sense, and we sense things coming.

Knowing what’s coming takes a prophet.

Life is sowing and reaping, Flegetanis said. The seed anticipates the harvest.

Caron thought the explanation facile in light of what he had seen. He was anxious to be with Siduri, but Flegetanis had a way of moving gradually into things. Is that why we stayed back, to talk?

Flegetanis bared his chest and sat silently, an old man delighting, as if for the last time, in the sun that rose each day to meet him all the days of his life. I rather thought we might go fishing, he said.

That evening after a meal at the taverna they rested well. At first light they took a small skiff from the village and sailed a mile northeast from Kato Zakros to a still bay near Karoumes. Caron was full of questions, but Flegetanis left him to his thoughts and by mid morning had caught a dozen fine fish and Caron nothing. It was hot in the open sun on the water, and tired of the game of patience Caron took off shirt and shoes and slipped over the side of the boat. I’m going to take a look below. Flegetanis nodded and drew in his line.

The water was luminous and Caron could see into the deep as into a valley; there were ruins on the bottom. He dove toward an ancient stone breakwater and roofless but standing cottages covering about two acres; the village a heap of fallen stones, and pillars of an old temple. Schools of fish sheltered among the ruins, gliding restlessly to and fro like people about their business in the streets. Caron turned to the sun gleaming through the glassy face of the waters above; swam toward it, broke surface, and panting clung to the side of the boat.

A town, he said."

Pretty little village it was, Flegetanis said. I remember it in the sun.

You remember it?

So many lovely things have perished. All around this sea there are sunken ruins: On Malta megalithic stones buildings of a vanished race; stone roads that disappear into the water.

Caron pulled himself over the gunwales back into the boat. What happened?

What always happens; human strife, time and tides.

Caron saw he would get no more from him so he cast his line, but after half an hour of silence still caught nothing.

Stop trying and ask, Flegetanis said.

Ask the fish?

Ask life. Say, ‘what do you want to give me today?’ Life knows what you need: Ask and open your heart to receive it.

Caron mended his line. I must go you know. I remember what happened at Montsegur. I cannot let that happen to the Templars.

Appealed to your honour, did he, your shaman? Showed you things to come; gave you purpose? Flegetanis said.

Showed me the graveyard of the Templars, Caron replied. Told me, if I was quick to return the stone, the future might yet be changed.

For all the time you’ve been away you might as well have dwelled in another world, Flegetanis said. I know your sense of purpose drives you, but if returning now that purpose no longer exists, what then?

I owe those who died on the road to Jerusalem. I led them, and I failed.

You purpose revenge?

It would not be unjustified.

It makes a tangled web, Flegetanis said.

One must act, Caron said, you can’t catch a fish without showing up.

It appears you can’t catch a fish for showing up. Flegetanis caught another and drew it in alongside the boat.

Caron laughed. You’re a black magician Flegetanis, he said, drawing in his line, a wave of your staff and the fish come swimming to their doom.

It was in jest and he intended Flegetanis take it so, but the old man did not. I’ve lived long enough to know the difference between magic black and white, he said gruffly.

Flegetanis lay off fishing, took a drink of water from a skin and carefully gathered up his line. It was an exercise in patience being near him, for the task at hand always seemed to absorb Flegetanis, as if it was the most important thing under the sun. Tell me Caron, he said, when he was done, is it a good thing to give alms?

And where did that come from?

Flegetanis smiled through his wrinkled eyes. Just fishing, he said.

Well, yes, of course, Caron said.

So, if you come upon a poor man on the road and he begs alms, you oblige him.

God loves a generous heart.

It would be the good thing to do wouldn’t it, Flegetanis agreed, like bringing the stone to the Blood Royal to ransom the Templars. You see that as a good and generous act, and it’s important to you that everything you do is good.

Of course.

But, now suppose your beggar is a drunkard; he takes the money you’ve given him to the tavern, falls into quarreling over a jest and kills a man. What do you say now: Was it good to have given him alms?

It was still the good thing to do, Caron said.

Good even though it cost a life?

I cannot be responsible for what a man does with what he’s given.

You are not your brother’s keeper?

I did not say that, Caron objected.

No, but the point is you enabled him. And though you intended good, it had evil consequences.

Should I not have given alms?

Flegetanis shrugged. Who knows?

Caron helped him pull the stringer of fish out of the water then sat silently watching Flegetanis untangle the fish. Is there more to this puzzle of knotted circumstance?

"There’s always more isn’t there? That’s the point: Existence is an endless weave of action and reaction, and we could go on and on wondering about the consequences of any act.

For instance, suppose the man your beggar slew in his drunken rage was a murderer, hired to kill a good man and his children over disputed lands. What then of your alms giving?

In balance it was good; it cost a corrupt life but saved innocent lives.

So it seems sometimes you should give alms and sometimes not, Flegetanis said, but how will you know? Your good act may have good or ill consequences. It’s also true that sometimes the acts judged ill, say not to give the beggar his alms, may have good consequences: He does not enter the tavern but in the village finds employment, and serves a cause from which much good comes.

How is one to know? Caron said.

It is all speculation what shall come of any act, Flegetanis agreed. In truth the mind has not the competence to know the outcomes, and calculating loses itself in a labyrinth of suppositions and incomplete judgments.

The wise say is more blessed to give than to receive.

And so it is, but being wise they also know that sometimes not giving is giving, Flegetanis said, and you bless in the act of holding back.

Is it perhaps more what motivates the act than the act itself?

There you have it, Flegetanis agreed. The content of the act is everything. It is where the sages meet and find common ground. There is a higher consciousness that transcends judgments of good and evil; there you may sow the seed, and trust the harvest, whatever for the moment it may seem.

That will take some thought, Caron said.

It will take some experience, Flegetanis said. "Things are rarely what they seem, and life sets us tasks we think we understand to accomplish what we do not yet understand.

But in this journey to ourselves, we may try our motives by asking if they are in any wise selfish, or whether they spring from a pure heart.

Where before he’d felt resistance, it now appeared Flegetanis agreed to the journey. Flegetanis anticipated him. Besides you, two of your party survived the ambush on the road to Jerusalem, Flegetanis said. One of them, Squin de Flexian, returned to tell a tale of betrayal and slaughter. The world has moved on, and your return will disturb them greatly.

Who was the other?

Miguel Don Perando, a much suffering knight; always impulsive, he has become an angry man.

Where do I begin? Caron asked.

"Roland of Waldheim is your link to the Templar hierarchy. Your return fulfills the quest the Cailleach set for their redemption; all who honours her must honour that. More I cannot say.

Dimitrius will see you to Trieste, and from there you can take horse to Bavaria. I will draw a map for Waldheim. Travel as Daedalus, Greek dealer in rare manuscripts. Roland will rise to the name, and when he learns you come from me you will have occasion to determine how far you may trust him.

Do you fear he may betray me?

You should assume he will, Flegetanis said. And the Blood Royal will want of you more than the stone: You fulfill their prophecy of the coming of a Grail King.

I will be done with it and return here to you and Siduri.

Though they offer you a kingdom?

The wind freshened and over the sea a dark squall line appeared moving toward the bay. Caron hoisted the sail and the little boat lifted on the wind toward Kato Zakros. I have no desire for a kingdom, he said.

It is the way of men to burden others. Because you meet their expectations, they will enlarge you with their love: They will bind you by honour, duty, and desire to serve them, and so entangle you in their need.

And is this wrong?

Flegetanis shrugged. "It is an old snare. Better to diminish yourself and discover what you mean to them."

If I am loved should I not return that love?

Once honoured among the Blood Royal; everyone sought to be close to me, Flegetanis said, stroking his grey beard, for the advantage it brought them, you understand. When I fell out of favour my admirers melted away. I was the same man I had always been, but of no further use to advance them.

He knew whereof Flegetanis spoke, but surely this was different. This was his shining moment. In fulfillment of the quest, he returned the bearer of the Stone of Sovereignty. He had accomplished something wonderful, and he should be acknowledged. Otherwise, he thought Flegetanis right: It was poor compensation to lose oneself to gain a kingdom. I can hold my own, Caron said.

You do not know them, Flegetanis replied. Crossing the Blood Royal is like crossing a swollen river. There are deep undercurrents to sweep you away: It may take all you are to remain upright and conscious.

I have stood with the shining ones.

In my strength, Flegetanis said, now you must come into your own.

If you would not have me make this journey, just say so.

Would you listen? Caron said nothing. Flegetanis laughed. I have come to believe it is a way you must go to complete your ascent into the King’s Chamber.

He had had no intention of returning to the Great Pyramid; no intention of walking the paths of Osiris to the King’s Chamber as Flegetanis insisted, but he felt shame to say it, and turned away looking toward the darkening horizon. It is too far to return to Kato Zakros before the storm breaks.

Flegetanis pointed toward a cove and Caron made for it. The ascent that opens beyond the Queen’s Chamber, the Na-Akhu-El call the Chamber of Ascension. You must meet its challenge before you come to the great step that leads on into the King’s Chamber.

Enough, Caron protested. My eyes darkened; I could not see; I could not move forward; there is nothing there.

Flegetanis ignored his protest. It always begins with darkness. At Jeezeh I said you suffered loss of subtle substance, and so your consciousness of the oneness of the worlds, he said. You live because of what others have done for you, now you will walk the path needful to restore your own fine substance; you must give in return what you have been given.

I am content to live and care for Siduri.

Failing this, she may not be content to do so with you, Flegetanis said.

Caron’s hand slipped at the tiller; the boat came hard about; the sail whipped across the transom and near knocked Flegetanis into the sea but he anticipated.

Sorry, Caron said, the boat again stable.

Flegetanis steadied himself. "To dissipate all ill influence and enter into the light, you must prove your truth in living.

You are a book sealed with seven seals, Flegetanis said. The way of loosing the seals is written in the substance of the Chamber of Ascension, a way established of old by the Na-Akhu-El sages for the regeneration of subtle substance. And also written therein it is that no man shall come into his power without the loosing of the seals.

Distracted, and full of cares, Caron made for the shore. I might have hurt you, he said, ruefully.

Patience, patience, Flegetanis said. Your reaction gives me occasion to tell you that your trials have already begun, and the first step to the temple of light is patience.

My trials begun?

In two days Dimitrius leaves for Trieste.

But I would have time with Siduri.

Flegetanis braced himself for landing on the beach. If you return there will time enough, he said.

If I return?

And if my daughter still cares.

Caron ran the skiff hard upon the beach.

Morgon Kara found himself in a suspended state of consciousness, hung between the worlds, looking down on his own body. He had not wanted to hurt the youth, but the curse entered deep into his soul and now Purusha fled him. His own condition was wretched, but finding Purusha was the way forward. He watched Prakriti run toward them. She would care for their fallen forms; the rest was up to him. It was not lost on Morgon Kara that this may be Maia’s snare.

Souls in distress invariably shaped a pattern for themselves reflecting their loves and their fears, their hurts and desires, and clung to it. Purusha would do the like; he must find the youth before he did something irreversible. When the impulse to heal rose upon him, Morgon Kara felt his substance knit and the way within open; the shaman crossed over.

He found himself standing with Purusha in Whiter Morn on the threshold of Dolmen Arches. The nexus was familiar but coming with Purusha had altered the landscape. The great Dolmen range that rose in three peaks beyond the arches was gone. Instead, the three arches opened on a great blue sun illumining a path that began where they stood. He could not see what lay beyond but was enchanted, and like Purusha tempted to walk into the sun’s light. Having no idea what had become of him, Purusha hesitated. One moment he was running down a fall hillside; the next stood with the shaman on the threshold of an unknown world. His heart remembered the moment that brought him here. Fearing he was very near death Purusha panicked, and ran from Morgon Kara as if from a demon.

Out of the immediate radiance of Dolmen Arches the blue sun vanished, and the sky turned red with last light of evening. Purusha fled down the hillside through a field of dusky blue poppies toward a precipice that fell away into abyssal depths, where the thread of a river ran. Morgon Kara pursued but the faster he ran the more desperate the youth became, and flying from his fear came ever closer to fulfilling it. Morgon Kara called after, but the youth fled to the precipice, and as if in a dream leaped fearlessly into the void. In air he became a swallow and soared over the abyss that opened beneath him. Morgon Kara was amazed; already young Purusha had the art of shifting shape to need. But the shaman knew the game, leaped after and became a hawk in flight.

The swallow fluttered trying to gain height in air, but the cold magnetic force that rose out of the chasm, drawing all that is exhausted back to itself, drained his strength. The bird faltered and fell like an autumn leaf. The hawk folded his wings, set its eye on the swallow, heeled over and dove.

Above the river the swallow broke and like a bat out of a cavern fluttered blindly in the light over the surface where the river whorled and coiling like a great serpent descended into the earth. The hawk swooped in, clasped the swallow in his talons, and settled on the embankment. The hawk became a man, the swallow a boy, and Purusha stared curiously into the shaman’s fierce, hurt face. Forgive me, Morgon Kara said, drawing the youth to his breast, it was not meant for you, this fate, but me.

Beyond the vortex where the river descended into the earth rose a white marble porch and two pillars marking an entrance into a cavern mouth. The opening was a wedge between two great roots of an ancient yew that broke through the strata above and disappeared into the strata below. Morgon Kara and Purusha stood on a path along the river bank that ended in three steps and led up to the great porch. The river flowed from the east to this western entrance into the earth, and along its banks was a mooring. It had not appeared to Morgon Kara in just this way before when he had come in search of others on death’s door, but he had come for Purusha and his substance had given this form to things. Nevertheless, Morgon Kara knew the nature of the place to which they came; they stood here on the lowest threshold of the parting of the ways, where all things are weighed in the balance; those not fit to continue in the ascending current descending into the fires at the center of the earth to be reshaped anew in creation.

There are things; faces in the water. What is the river? Where does it go? Purusha was not looking to the porch or into the soft gloom of the cavern beyond, but staring into the dark water of the swift flowing river, where it curled before plunging into the earth.

Water seeking fire, Morgon Kara said. Everything has its time, Purusha. In darkness life kindles the seed, greens in the light, rocks the grain in the wind, and falls in the harvest sun. Life makes; life destroys; life carries off in the flux forms of no further use to it. Here even life’s affinities return for renewal into the fires at the center of the earth.

So things may come again?

Like spring.

But what happens to me? Purusha said. I saw faces in the water; what if one of them was mine?

If a man is no more than dust of the earth caught up in the forces of creation, never awakening to the deeper impulse of life, like grass he flowers and withers. With the things of the world he has his season and is no more, and but for the sowing of his seed, each after his kind, he dissolves in the cycle of forces that made him and time carries him off.

Purusha turned his face away unable to face the descending current no matter how Morgon Kara spoke of it, and nodded instead to the cavern mouth. What is this other place?

It is a parting of the ways, Morgon Kara said.

A woman appeared in the cavern mouth and for a moment Morgon Kara felt shame and bowed his head to her. The one has become three, Purusha whispered. And, indeed, when Morgon Kara looked again three stately women, each white robed and cowled, stood in her stead, the one on the near bank, another in the arch within the roots of the yew where first she appeared, and the third on the other bank across the vortex where water fell into fire. They stood staring silently at Morgon Kara and Purusha but said nothing; nor did the shaman engage them for he knew what they were. But Purusha was not so circumspect. He wanted to know everything. Who are they? Are they death?

No, but we are very near death. Morgon Kara silenced him. If we are to return we must not offend. The nearest drew her cowl back; she was youthful and fair, her eyes palest blue and her hair was white like harvest wheat.

But what are they? Purusha insisted.

What is, what was, and what is to come: these three spin, weave, and unravel the skein of life, and are the doom of men.

The others have already entered into the Telling, the closest said. She was maidenly in her manner. Why do you linger? As she spoke eyes shining with expectation peered out from the darkness of the cavern mouth at them.

Morgon Kara said nothing, but Purusha was never shy. What is this place? he asked her.

Where lives are weighed in the balance, in the making and unmaking of things, she said.

You are at death’s door, Purusha, Morgon Kara cautioned. Say no more and we may yet live.

I want only to know what they want.

Everything, Morgon Kara whispered. It is not this youth’s time, Morgon Kara said to the woman. What would you have in return for his life?

We wish none harm. He may enter and walk the path of affinities, seeking his oneness with the sun, and if his heart is pure return to the realm from whence he came.

These words emboldened Purusha. He liked the idea of finding his affinity to the sun. He began to think the shaman had brought him here on purpose, and that he needed to learn all he could while he had the chance. What is the river? Purusha called out.

Man questions everything, but what he really wants to know is what is to become of him when he comes before us. The woman smiled at him. Do not fear the night journey Purusha. There is only life. Even the blind force of those who never awaken to anything more than impulse, gathers, she said lowering her hand toward the vortex into which the river plunged, and so enters again into the tree of life. She gestured to the roots of the tree that framed the cavern mouth.

Is it not also the tree of death, Morgon Kara said.

We do not judge as men judge good and evil, she replied, but value to Life in a life lived.

It is not our time, Morgon Kara said.

She was used to the boldness of shamans who oft contested the timeliness of the Calling and simply waited for him to make his case. But she was what she was and the force of her drew him; he felt on the brink of losing himself when she who stood in the midst of the porch before the solemn arch drew back her cowl. She was handsome and motherly, and in her Purusha saw his own mother and would go to her. Morgon Kara squeezed his shoulder and this time he said nothing, for he had begun to realize they might be in difficulty.

He speaks true, the mother said. They are not called: It is not their time, neither the shaman nor the youth. She whose influence gave the shaman to death overstepped herself and imposed this fate.

I have unfinished business before my life is judged for good or ill, Morgon Kara said, hopefully.

The Telling is beyond judgment, transcending good and evil, she said. Were it not so few would find their hearts lighter than the feather of truth, and man would have ceased to be.

In the way of the Makers our only concern is the keeping of the way of the tree of life, the closest to him said, and in the balance the value of a life to Life. It was ritual.

She who stood on the other bank watched on silently, but the maiden who stood near came closer and he glowed in the heat of her radiance as she approached. At arm’s length she offered Morgon Kara a white, red tipped feather. He did not take it, for he knew the rite. Yet still she held the feather out to him. Take it, she insisted.

Like Maia you will give me to death, Morgon Kara said. If I take it your sister on the other bank of the river will grasp my heart and weigh it against the feather; if found wanting, I shall cease to exist.

She smiled first at the youth then Morgon Kara and came so close he could feel her breath upon him; it was like the end of the heat of summer and the scent of her was like autumn apples. Not so, she said, except it come to pass that life has no further use for you.

You will need it to journey. The third woman spoke, and her voice carried across the flood. Certain it is shaman if you do not take the feather you shall not leave this place. Keep it for remembrance, until you come again your heart as light. Her voice was uncompromising, and she did not draw back her cowl.

He thought the child should at least live, and for his sake put out his hand to take the gift. She smiled and instead slipped the feather in his hair and kissed him on the forehead; he felt a surge of spring rise in him like fire from the center of the earth and the three were gone, returned into the womb of the world. Still shining eyes stared out of the cavern’s depths at them for a moment, and then they, too, were gone.

And Purusha was gone, awakened to his life in the mountain valley where Prakriti tended to their fallen forms by her fire. She rejoiced in the awakening of her son, and wondered after the fate of the shaman. For his part Morgon Kara found himself alone in the dark on Commons Green, where Grandfather Tree stands cradling the stars among its branches above the village of Whiter Morn. It was an hour before dawn, and in the distance, in anticipation of the day, light gleamed in the windows of Inn at Parting of the Ways.

2

The Shapers 

Did you not see this coming?

Caron shouted into the wind. The storm broke with a great swell in the bay; the two men struggled with the waves breaking about them to land the skiff on the pebble beach. Flegetanis went back for his fish; a wave swept his feet from beneath him and beat his ankles with a rattle of stones. He slipped and fell but clung tenaciously to the gunwales of the boat. Caron grasped his arm and pulled him with his string of fish ashore. Flegetanis hobbled painfully up the beach away from the waves while Caron secured the skiff by its bowline to a drilled stone anchor rock high up the beach. The rain broke in stinging squalls and the horizon darkened like night.

There’s a cavern above. Flegetanis shambled off; Caron followed. We can shelter there.

Caron scurried to catch up and help the old man in his climb up the narrow path of the cliff face. It took nearly half an hour to climb three hundred feet above the sea in a battering wind that threatened to sweep them from the rock face. The trail widened onto a rubble strewn hillside high over the water and a dozen small gnarled fig trees that made a grove and sheltered the cavern mouth. Flegetanis slipped in among the trees and disappeared into the narrow aperture. Caron hesitated and stood among the fig trees in the beating rain, preferring the range of elements to the overwhelming sense of confinement that came over him at the thought of entering that hole in the earth. Who knew where it went?

Flegetanis reappeared at the entrance. Have at least enough sense to come in out of the rain. Inside, Flegetanis pulled an old sack out of a crevice in the shadows and took out kindling and a flint. The wind boomed and the rain beat at the cliff side but the fig grove broke its force at the cavern mouth. We’ll have a fire shall we?

It will fill the cavern with smoke. But Caron took the sticks and with his knife began to whittle little curls of wood for tinder. It was dry and would make a good fire.

No, there’s a draft. Flegetanis continued to poke around in the darkness and came up with candles, plates and an iron pot.

Caron took the flint and started the fire, one eye on Flegetanis wondering what he was up to. Seeing him here was incongruous. He had known him as a wealthy merchant, at home in his garden and Nile villa; he had memories of him as apothecary, librarian, and adept in the ways of the Ancients. But to see the old man at home in this rough cavern preparing to cook a fish and confessing he had come here many times before; this was a different Flegetanis than even Jakob had known.

His humor on the waters seemed to have given way to a kind of reverie and invitation to Caron. You’ve come here before, Caron said, rising to it.

To remind myself, he replied. Flegetanis walked toward to cavern mouth where he could feel the spray of rain beating through the fig trees. We paused here in our journey. Fifty of us, if you can imagine, sheltered nine days from a rage of elements in this cavern. The sea was rising and we thought the sun would never shine again.

Where did you sail?

We were three ships bound for Egypt. We lost one vessel but not the lives, and landed near what is now Sais in the Nile delta.

You missed landfall in Alexandria?Caron had a small fire going and Flegetanis warmed his hands before it.

It was in the time when first the Lord Osiris journeyed to the land of Jeserit.

Caron looked up at Flegetanis, and for a moment he saw him an old wizard through the smoke and flame: He was distracted, turned inward and full of thought, and must have misunderstood. But Flegetanis was firm in his purpose. We sailed on the flood from Atlantis through storm and driving rain to where our helmsman said the sun would rise again.

It is a myth you recall?

You think I’m dotty? Flegetanis was angry. Caron had rarely seen him irritable.

I didn’t mean that.

We sheltered in this cave in a tempest of elements, in the time of the Flood, when the rider of the storm returned, he said. In his passage he cracked the lovely earth in her bones, loosed the fountains of the deep, and the mantle of waters above fell in the great deluge. We were swallowed up in darkness and sailed in search of the wellsprings of the day.

Caron was humbled by his intensity, and feared he had deeply offended the old man. But Flegetanis took up the small fish, gutted and cleaned out the bloodline, split its back and set it in the pan. I read once words of an eastern sage, Flegetanis said. He advised ruling a kingdom as one would cook a little fish.

How is that?

Flegetanis sprinkled a little wine from the skin he carried into the pan. Hardly at all, he said.

Caron laughed and returned to tending the fire. It is a good story, Atlantis, he said. Plato attributes it to an Egyptian priest.

A good story, Flegetanis agreed.

And stories like this, I think, are your way of remembering things?

If they remind us of the kinds of things that happen, stories are useful, Flegetanis said.

Better, I think, history. If we think on what we have done, we may restrain ourselves from doing so again, Caron replied.

And what is history but myth let loose in time, Flegetanis said.

Caron came close and warmed himself before the fire. I think we are all driven by old sorrows, he said.

"Older than sorrow is the way of the First