The Tower: Part 4: Yule
The Tower: Part 4: Yule
Post #37: In which the Sacred Consort returns ...
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Chattan sensed movement nearby. Something small heaved itself out of the pine needles and duff next to him under the sheltering spruce boughs. When Chattan caught its scent, he lifted his lip in a soundless snarl. The little creature trundled away, out from under the tree’s shelter toward the clearing, and Chattan’s sharp eye caught similar slow movement approaching from other directions. They were small rounded shadows, gleaming with points of light as they gathered among the candles in a loose ring around the oval clearing. The firelight revealed the salt and pepper spines and long noses of hedgehogs, each encrusted with ice beads, brilliant as crystals in the candle and firelight. Chattan could hear their soft grunting and squeaking.
Someone began a slow drumbeat. Chattan couldn’t see who it was from his vantage point, as the fire burned between him and the drummer. The steady, reassuring beat was like the forest’s heartbeat, slower than Chattan’s pulse, elemental, simple, and mesmerizing. Chattan watched as the beat loosened tense shoulders and hips. The Rusalka stood near drums or held other instruments in their hands. Others threw back their hoods. The two young women, also robed in white, mingled with the Rusalka. The handsome man who had held the trident joined the dancers, along with the dark-haired man with a limp. The second of the older men joined the musicians, and Chattan suspected it was he who drummed.
Baba Yaga squatted near her black cauldron, looking both pleased and not so pleased as she surveyed the clearing, overhung with icy chandeliers suspended from the trees and ringed with glowing candles and the glittering hedgehogs. The skull’s dome rested in front of her, and in each hand she held a long slender bone. She added the sharp tap tap of bone on bone to the drummer’s resonant beat, and, as though on cue, the flute and strings wove up through the beat together, ethereal and uncanny.
In the beginning, the music lifted the dancers on gossamer wings of silver and frost. They moved as silent and weightless as Chattan himself in their white robes. Even the man who limped revealed an odd, lurching grace, his body lithe and supple. The man with the trident mingled with the graceful women, dancing with confident strength and sensual enjoyment.
Other drummers joined in, and the beat swelled, became complex and compelling, the flutes and strings rising into their own demanding melodies, circling around the drums. Hood after hood was thrown back, and the Rusalka begin to flow and flicker from shape to shape, now with skin glowing paler than their white linen and sheets of hair in every shade from pale frost to ebony, and a moment later appearing with a clot of matted, knotted hair and the hideous visages of hags, snaggle-toothed, leering, squint-eyed and chicken-necked.
Chattan could feel power rising; the untamed, chaotic power of the Maiden, She, the female, the chalice, the cup and the cauldron. He sat still, but his own thick hair rose in anticipation and his genitals felt heavy between his back legs.
The music strengthened like a gale, like a mighty wave, like the rising sun. The one Baba Yaga called the Maiden threw off her robe, her hair heavy streaks of pale and darker shadow. She had small, firm breasts and strong thighs and was utterly unselfconscious in her nakedness. She laughed with pleasure, and the handsome man echoed her laughter. One by one, the Rusalka discarded their robes as well, and now the clearing became a flickering kaleidoscope of shapes and forms as the Rusalka flowed from their human aspects into those of animals and back again. Chattan found himself grateful they couldn’t take their merfolk shapes as well. The confusion of human and animal was enough to watch. Feathered wing, curving breast, sharp-toothed snarl, bare buttock bunched with muscle, the sinuous shape of a flat-headed snake dancing on its tail, a boar’s fiery small eyes and sharp tusks, all flickered and flashed in the clearing. He saw the smudge of pubic hair, pelt of bear, fox, wolf and cat. He glimpsed a bat’s membranous wing curving through the air with a graceful arm.
Baba Yaga abandoned her skull drum and sprang to her feet, uttering one eldritch shriek after another, which tore open the crystal-studded sky as she danced among them, turning and whirling. A Rusalka with an owl’s wing, smudged buff and grey, and round golden eyes hooted, low and deep; Chattan remembered nights muffled in fog and snow blurring winter outlines of grey and dark green. Again and again, she gave voice to her longing, seeking, inviting, signaling her knowledge that life must go on. A vixen sat on her haunches, muzzle pointed into the icy treetops, and gave a strangled cry, a combination of bark, shriek and screaming cat that made the hairs on Chattan’s neck rise again; the sound of a February night of musk and ice. Gradually, bellows and growls, shouts and ululating cries filled the night, and the net of the drumbeat held it all together.
All the while, the dancers danced. As though released by the sound of their own and other’s voices, the dance grew frenzied. Sweat gleamed on bare skin and Chattan smelled flesh flushed with awakened blood and the musky scent of arousal, of springing hair and humid hollow, though outside the sacred circle the frigid air became further chilled by the frosty fingers of the breeze. Not a drop melted from the trees surrounding and overarching the clearing. The small bejeweled keepers of the circle retained their icy glitter.
As the power built, Chattan watched the sensual celebration of body, not another’s, but one’s own. Women cupped their own breasts, rested their hands in the groove of their groins, luxuriated in the sweep of hair against neck and shoulders. Now most of the Rusalka chose to dance in their animal or hag form, and Chattan saw the powerful and secret sexuality of the crone who lives irreverently and playfully in her particular collection of bones and flesh, freed by age from the responsibility of bearing life and attracting a mate. Baba Yaga hopped among the dancers, cackling with glee, her up-curving chin and down-curving nose knitted together by a foul tangle of hair, withered buttocks waggling, hard potbelly rotating lewdly above a snarl of dark pubic hair, sagging breasts swaying. She was elemental. She was hideous. She was the essence of persistent life.
The men mingled with the other dancers, as unselfconscious as the women, dancing unashamed in varying degrees of erection, passing their hands along their lean flanks and the width of their chests, leaping, turning, punching and kicking the air in a primitive male display of strength and power, demonstrating their fitness as the sacred He, the Seed-Bearer, the potent phallus of life.
The exchange of touch was not for this night. The power of the Maiden was pure, raw and independent, smelling of wary interest and ambivalence. She chose her own seduction in her own time, from the apex of her power. Tonight was for the raising of sensual awareness and the snarling, clawing surrender to emptiness demanding to be filled, to life commanding renewal.
The music changed, the rhythm loosening, releasing the dancers into slower movement. Every chest heaved. The flickering transformation of the Rusalka diminished. Strings were no longer plucked. A lone flute wandered like a silver star and fell silent, leaving only the steady drumbeat.
Chattan stood and shook himself. He slipped out from under the spruce’s ice-coated boughs on silent feet and leapt lightly over the hedgehogs and candles enclosing the clearing. As he landed on the dry ground, the drumming stopped abruptly, and in the dance’s sudden death the power splintered and scattered, leaving the warm center and melting back into the watchful, icy-eyed birch wood. The crystal chandeliers hanging above the clearing from the trees began to drip. The hedgehogs left their guardianship and bumbled away, plain little creatures in their everyday muted spiny coverings.
Chattan sat, examining every face in turn with calm dignity. He breathed in the warm fire and flesh-scented air and began to purr, a deep, rumbling vibration that filled his chest and throat and pulsed in his bones.
“Hah!” said Baba Yaga disagreeably. “You took your time.”
She stalked to Clarissa and planted herself toe-to-toe before her. “You, chit, will take a trip with that one,” she nodded at Vasilisa, “and those fishy fellows. You will not go through the portal to Rowan Tree, not until you return. You leave in two days.”
She stepped back and clapped her hands. The fire and candles abruptly went out, leaving behind no scent of burning. Chattan felt the icy little breeze ruffle his thick fur, seeking to steal his warmth. Hastily, the humans and merfolk found their clothing and dressed. The Rusalka, not as bothered by the cold, donned their robes with less urgency and gathered their instruments.
“Go away,” said Baba Yaga. “I’ve had enough of your pasty faces. Be off!” She pointed at Poseidon, who gave her his mischievous grin. “Except you. You stay here.”
Chattan regarded her, unmoving, unblinking and still purring. When she glanced at him, he lifted his lip slightly in a snarl, showing sharp white teeth. “Don’t you snarl at me, kitty cat,” she said sourly. “Slink back where you came from. There’s nothing for you until tomorrow night. Scat!”
Chattan rose and, in a single thrust of his powerful hind legs, leapt over the extinguished, half-melted candles and disappeared into the woods.
CHAPTER 13
CLARISSA
The abrupt end to the magical dance left Clarissa feeling shattered. One moment she moved in the center and source of power she hadn’t dreamed of, and the next she was back in the strange wood in her own skin, exhausted, cold, bewildered and feeling as though pieces of herself remained scattered in the clearing to melt and disappear or be carried away to the hidden winter beds of the hedgehogs or forever lost among the ranks of black and white birch trees stretching, silent and cold, in every direction.
Though minutes ago she’d been warm and vivid with life in nothing but her skin, now the borrowed linen robe and hood felt thin and inadequate. She’d pulled on supple wolfskin boots so hastily that a fold chafed her ankle into rawness with every step. Vasilisa strode ahead, lighting the way with the fiery skull. Clarissa felt too tired to frame a single question, and at the same time too wound up to sleep ever again.
Vasilisa’s tiny cabin was warm and quiet, a haven in the icy birch wood’s heart, vibrating with such uncanny power. Clarissa sat wearily on a stool and watched dully as Vasilisa lit a lamp, fed the fire and hung their cloaks on pegs by the door. She limped slightly, as though injured or weary, but her face glowed with joy.
For some reason, Clarissa resented her delight.
“She can’t stop me,” she said, wanting to wipe away Vasilisa’s contented smile and the peace illuminating her face. “I’ll go through the portal to Rowan Gate if I want. I’ll go tomorrow.”
“She can stop you, you know,” said Vasilisa with calm certainty. “She’s more powerful than you can imagine. If she says you’re not to go, that’s the end of it. Poseidon intends to go and visit the one called Sedna, and evidently Marceau, you and I go with him. Morfran wants to come, too.”
“But why must I go? Seren needs me! He’s waiting for me!”
“I thought he didn’t know you were coming?” Vasilisa raised an inquiring eyebrow.
Clarissa, caught, looked away. “I’m going to surprise him.”
“You still can, after we see Sedna. Perhaps she needs you more than Seren does.”
“I’ve nothing to give a sea guardian!”
Vasilisa shrugged. She’d been heating water as they talked, and now she thrust a hot drink into Clarissa’s hands.
“Drink. Do you realize it’s nearly dawn? We danced for hours.”
Clarissa drank gratefully. “I didn’t think about the time. It might have been one hour or six. Nothing mattered but the dance, and that power!”
“Yes. Together we raised both the Maiden and the Horned King. It was more than I hoped for.”
“What Horned King? I didn’t see him.”
“You did. The lynx.”
“That was a lynx? But he wasn’t horned. Just the black tufts on his ears.”
“Cerunmos, the Horned King, takes many forms. Last time he appeared as a great white stag with mighty antlers. He was Sacred Consort to Artemis and part of the Rusalka’s fertility cycle. Now he’s risen again in a new form, and he’ll join with the Rusalka in the second part of the Imbolc ritual. He gives me hope we can find a way to repair the Yrtym.”
Clarissa swayed on her stool. Vasilisa took the cup out of her hand. “Go to bed. You’re exhausted. We’ll talk again after some sleep.”
Clarissa obeyed, burrowing gratefully under the warm wolf skin cover. As she sank into sleep, she saw again the clearing under the star-strewn sky, the trees laden with diamonds, the strange little grunting hedgehogs, crusted with jeweled fire, and the proud cat with his powerful hindquarters, pale gold gaze and thick coat.
It would make a good story.
She would tell it to Seren…
ASH
Ash, who had heard a great deal about Baba Yaga from Mirmir and others, had no desire to meet her. At the same time, he itched with curiosity to see her for himself. Izolda suggested he and Beatrice conceal themselves under the Yaga’s house perched on chicken legs. The legs themselves were wrapped in scarves, and it would be by far the warmest vantage point from which to watch the dance. The light, Izolda assured them, would illuminate the parts of the clearing in which the dance took place.
“I’ll take you to the clearing at dusk,” she said. “As my sisters and I arrive, you can fly in from a different direction and find a good place to watch from. No one will notice. Baba Yaga will likely not show herself until we’re assembled.”
Accordingly, as they approached the clearing, lit by a bonfire, Ash and Beatrice flitted away from Izolda, staying in the trees’ cover until only a few feet separated them from the strange little hut on chicken legs. The door, with a window to each side, reminded Ash irresistibly of a face, but it overlooked the dancing floor. They approached from behind. He darted out of the trees and into the shadow beneath the hut, feeling like a fugitive.
The scarves around the chicken legs were loose-knit and wooly. Ash squirmed his way beneath the wrapped material, and for a moment the leg quivered, as though feeling him there. Ash and Beatrice froze. When the leg stood still again, Ash settled himself, slowly and carefully, hanging upside down from his fuzzy perch, so he and Beatrice could look out and down on the clearing, where another group joined the Rusalka as candles were lit and instruments unwrapped and set out. With his back against the warmth of the chicken leg and nestled in the scarf’s folds, he felt quite comfortable. Beatrice, as always, was protected by Ash’s thick brown fur and warmed by his body heat.
For a few minutes, they watched the proceedings with interest. Then, Ash heard footsteps in the house above them, and even as he tensed in anticipation a slam like an explosion made him flinch. Beatrice squeaked in alarm.
“Shhh!” said Ash.
Slowly, the chicken legs began to bend. The knee joint of the leg they sheltered against was considerably below the level of their perch, so Ash simply clung on and hoped for the best. When the hut had lowered to the ground, Baba Yaga hopped nimbly off the doorstep. She moved, Ash thought, exactly like a grasshopper.
The ground in the clearing was quite dry and covered with last season’s dead growth. Izolda had told them Baba Yaga could keep the clearing both dry and warm, though the rest of the forest was encased in ice after an afternoon of freezing rain, followed by subzero air.
As Baba Yaga stalked toward a terrified-looking young woman, Beatrice murmured, “There’s Clarissa.”
“Yes, and the other with the fiery skull is Vasilisa,” Ash whispered.
“King Poseidon has the trident, and the man with him must be Vasilisa’s father, Marceau.”
“The young man with the limp is Morfran,” said Ash. “He’s paired with one of the Rusalka.”
“Sofiya,” said Beatrice, “the one with the golden owl eyes we saw outside the bathhouse when we came.”
“Shhh,” said Ash again. “I want to hear what they’re saying.
He felt both amazed and amused by Baba Yaga’s macabre figure. She was dressed in a filthy grey tunic, perilously short. Long, sharp-looking nails tipped her bare feet; he knew they were of iron. Her hair tangled in a clot around her head, and in profile her long nose dropped down to meet a sharp, upcurving chin. He thought Clarissa showed remarkable bravery in standing up to her.
Baba Yaga’s voice was harsh and cracked, and when she lifted it into a shriek Ash cringed and Beatrice tucked her black head against his chest.
“Look,” he whispered a moment later, and felt her part his fur again to watch.
One of the Rusalka lit thick white candles and scattered them around the dancing circle. These, with the bonfire, Vasilisa’s fiery skull and Poseidon’s trident, crowned with three candles, served to light the clearing. As Ash and Beatrice watched, small creatures moved toward the dancing circle from the forest on every side. At first, they were shadows on the shadowed ground, but as they drew nearer, they caught and reflected the light like crystals in the sun. They stopped among and between the candles, closing in the circle, and Beatrice said, wonder in her voice, “Hedgehogs.”
They were hedgehogs. Ash could hear their grunts and squeaks. Their spiny humped backs were encrusted with ice beads, glittering and coruscating in the dancing light, as though the winter forest floor wore a crown.
The music began and Beatrice exclaimed over the shifting forms of the Rusalka, but Ash could hardly tear his eyes away from Baba Yaga. She squatted over a human skull, two slender bones in her clawed hands, adding her own drumming to the rhythm, and he stared, fascinated. As the music built, she appeared to grow bored with her contribution and sprang into the dance, screeching and cackling, stamping her feet, clapping, raising her arms and lifting the hem of the tunic to expose sinewy drooping buttocks and a shadow of dark hair at her groin. Ash, repulsed, couldn’t look away, though the dancers swirling around her were unearthly in their combined beauty and power. Human and creature, they circled within the crystal web of the birch wood, held by the central figure of the Sacred Hag, Baba Yaga. He hadn’t imagined such power.
Tearing his eyes away, he sought Izolda. Men and women alike had shed their clothing and boots, and it wasn’t easy to identify a particular form among the constantly shifting and flowing Rusalka, but Izolda was the only one with naked wings.
She danced with quiet intensity, slightly apart from the others, her wings lifting her small, slight body into the air for seconds at a time. As he watched, her body rippled with thick, short fur like brown velvet, and then became pale flesh again with small breasts and a slim waist rounding into hips.
For the most part, the Rusalka did not fully take the shape of either human women or animals, but blended the two aspects as they danced, as though the music called forth everything they were. Ash wondered if they danced in water, if such a thing was possible. If so, did they blend their merfolk bodies into their dance as well?
With a surge of arousal, he imagined what it might be like to mate with such a creature as Izolda.
In silent fascination, he and Beatrice watched as the dance intensified and the dancers, led by Baba Yaga, gave wordless voice in the icy night. Music and snarl, shriek, howl and scream wove seamlessly together as the Rusalka’s shapes flowed from one form to another. To Ash, it was as though the Imbolc night unfolded the entirety of its power, from the diamond-strewn night sky to the musk of rot and root. Baba Yaga and the Maiden stood at the center, both primal, one a dark and hideous shadow and the other beautiful and powerful as an ice storm. Around them whirled the dance of life, male and female, primal and elemental.
Ash became aware the music gradually slowed, the intensity of the dance quieting. He took a deep breath, and it felt like the first he’d remembered to take in a long time. One by one, the instruments’ voices faded away. The man called Marceau had been the first to play. Like the other musicians, he’d joined the dancers in between periods of making music. Now, as the flutes, strings and other drums fell silent, the dance ended with his simple rhythm, like a heartbeat, but Ash could hear a new sound, one not made by an instrument.
With a graceful bound, a four-legged shape leapt over guttering candles and hedgehogs at the circle’s edge. At its sudden appearance, the drumbeat stopped abruptly, though the new sound continued.
“Oh!” said Beatrice, and Ash knew she, too, felt the dance’s power shatter and scatter far and wide among the sentinel birch trees. The low bubble of warmth in which the dance had taken place burst, and Ash could hear the drip, drip, drip of ice on the trees overhanging the clearing as the warm air was released. The hedgehogs edged away, squeaking and grunting among themselves, no longer jewels in a forest crown, but plain, in shades of wood and leaves.
The dancers stood still, arrested, every eye on the creature that had broken the spell. It sat, quite at its ease, a stocky figure in a thick brindled coat with black-tufted ears. Pale gold eyes examined each face.
“It’s a lynx,” breathed Ash.
“No,” said Beatrice. “It’s Cerunmos, reborn. It’s the Horned King, the Sacred Consort.”