A Night in the Lonesome October

October 30

There was not a great deal to do today. And tomorrow will likely be the same. Till night. Those of us who remain will gather atop the hill at midnight. We will bring kindling, and we will cooperate in the building of a big fire. It will serve as illumination, and into it will be cast all the bones, herbs, and other ingredients we have been preparing all month to give ourselves an edge and to confound our enemies. It may stink. It may smell wonderful. Forces will wrestle within it, play about it, giving to it a multicolored nimbus, and occasionally causing it to produce musical sounds and wailings amid its crackling and popping. Then we will position ourselves in an arc before the thing our divinations have shown us to be the Gateway, which we have already determined to be the stone bearing the inscription. The openers and their friends will stand at one end of the arc, the closers at the other. All will have brought the tools they intend to employ. Some of these are neutral, such as the ring, the pentacle, the icon, to take their character, of opening, or closing, from the hands of those who wield them; others, the two wands, one for opening, one for closing, will naturally be held by those of these persuasions. Jill holds the Opening Wand, my master the Closing Wand. The forces of the neutral objects will support the efforts of that side for which they are employed, which makes the outcome sound like a simple mathematical affair. But it isn't. The strength of the individual counts for much; and these affairs seem to generate strange byplay as well, which contributes to overall dispositions of power. And then there is the matter of experience. Theoretically, everything should be conducted at a metaphysical level, but this is seldom really the case. Still, no matter how physical it may get, the reputation attached to Jack and his knife generally grants us considerable protection against mundane violence. We tend to maintain our positions in the arc once the ceremony has begun, and sometimes things happen to players during its course. There is a sort of psychic circuit established among us. It need not be disastrous to break the arc, though it may be a courting of mischance somewhere along the line. Preliminary rites will begin, as a matter of individual choice, often at odds with one another. The power will build and build. To back it in its shifting, psychic attacks may be shot back and forth. Disasters may follow. Players may fall, or go mad, catch fire, be transformed. The Gateway may begin to open at any time, or it may await the invitation of the Opening Wand. The resistance will begin immediately. The Closing Wand will be employed, and any ancillary forces that may feed it. Eventually, at the end of our exercises, which may take only a little while, though conceivably they could last until dawn (and in such a stalemated case, the closers would win by default), the matter will be decided. Bad things happen to the losers.

But one thing remained undone. I headed up the road. I had to find Larry. I had delayed too long in telling him the truth about Linda Enderby. Now I also had to tell him what the vicar had divined, and about the silver bullet that awaited him. This could call for a radical revision of his plan.

I barked and scratched at his door several times. There was no answer. I circled the place, peering in windows, scratching, barking repeatedly. No response. It seemed deserted.

Rather than depart, however, I circled again, sniffing, analyzing every scent. His was strongest to the rear of the house, indication of his most recent departure. Nose low then, I followed the trail he had left. It led back to a small grove of trees at the rear of his property. I could hear a faint sound of running water from within the grove.

Making my way through it, I discovered that the small stream which traversed his property had here been diverted to the extent of filling a little pool before it departed. Small, humped bridges crossed the stream, both the entering flow and the departing one. The ground had been cleared for some distance on both sides of it and covered with a layer of sand. A number of fairly large, mossy rocks were artfully disposed, yet in an almost casual-seeming fashion. The sand was raked in swirling patterns. A few low plants grew here and there about the area.

Beside the largest of the rocks, facing east, Larry sat in a meditative posture, his eyes more than half-closed, his breathing barely discernible.

I was loath to disturb his meditation or the peace of the place, and had I known how long he might be about it, I would have been willing to wait, or even to go away and return later. But there was no way for me to tell, and since the news I brought him involved the safety of his life, I approached him.

«Larry,» I said. «It's me, Snuff. Hate to bother you… .»

But I hadn't. He gave no sign of having heard me.

I repeated what I had said, studying his face, his breathing. There were no changes in either.

I reached out and touched him with my paw. No reaction.

I barked loudly, several times. It was as if I hadn't. He had gone pretty far, wherever it was that he had gone.

So I threw back my head and howled. He didn't notice, and it didn't matter that he didn't notice. It's a good thing to do when you're frustrated.