092 - The Witching Road

Nothing. Not a sausage.

*Prrrrt*

Whilst he had been on the move he'd felt fine, but now Magnus' belly bloated unnaturally, seemingly inflating with every step.

The shrine courtyard was just as he remembered, inside it was the same mess of bones and empty wine gourds, the same well worn tracks between the knee high bones where he could see Kujata had worn a path pacing back and forth through the trash.

He proceeded tentatively into the inner rooms, farting and groaning and calling out "Kujata!" to no response.

By the window was her tall backed wicker chair, but no brass telescope and no bell. She's gone. She's really gone, taken all her things and gone . . .

Just like that? Is that it? Is there anything around here . . any sort of clue, anything at all . .

Magnus looked around the room finding nothing and soon returning to the window and the chair, his eyes coming to rest on the chair itself. Sighing, Magnus sat at the chair by the window, watching the sky pass by.

Kujata. The Heavenly Bull, the Celestial . . feared and hunted across the stars . . she had sat right here with her telescope, bell, and note book, waiting for the stars to align. Where would she have gone? Run off into the stars? From me? From my red-gold threads?

What am I to do in the now, eh?

Well . . ain't you got all the skill to hunt Celestials, Magnus? The Seer songs, the divination of Mens from the Martial Courts - you've got them all, right?

Right! Right here . . all I need is something connected to the Celestial, to Kujata - hah! This very chair!

In his mind were all kinds of skills and techniques, Magnus only had to pick one and try it - if it worked or not what had he to lose?

He gathered an aura of Mens, concentrating the yellow energy around his eyes. It felt like a pressure, as if someone were pressing down directly on his eyeballs - a slow accumulation at first, growing and focusing Mens. The world around him took on an unearthly colour, like looking through a yellow glass.

Looking at the wicker chair he begun to see small sparks of light, unfocused - like red flies flickering in the air - all on the window, on the chair, on the floor where Kujata had paced - on the mouths of the many wine gourds and on the bones - everywhere she had surely touched there were tiny sparks - residue of her aura.

These sparks were all over the shrine, thicker in some places - but no matter how he looked at it, not a single spark was outside the formation - neither on the ground nor in the skies - no trace of Kujata having stepped foot outside the shrine, no sign of her being anywhere at all.

Teleportation? Transmigration? The Alchemists had formations that could transport people to distant stars . . but those were huge and complex mechanisms requiring vast amounts of energy and housed within whole segments of the Revolving Tower. Could there be some ancient formation here? Something from ancient times? No . . that was unlikely . . unlikely, but not impossible.

Right - the next technique - a Seer song . . which one?

"Ahem." Magnus cleared his throat. "Garrrrbaaann . . . gaaarrrbaaannzzooooo . . *prrrt!*"

Hoo. I'm not sure the song is meant to go like that Magnus, ha!

"Shut it Hob. Gaaaaarrrrbb - *prrt* - aaaannnnnzzoooooo . . ." Magnus' voice warbled, the song forming invisible tendrils in the air, repeating the same syllables time and again every now and again punctuated by a gaseous release.

The more Magnus repeated the simple phrase the more solid his voice became, each phrase sounding in every corner of the shrine. The specks of light flowed together, pulled by the song into a single shape - that of Kujata.

Magnus kept singing whilst carefully forming a glyph in the air with a strand of Animus. He nudged the glyph, sending it out onto the light form and solidifying it within an Alchemical formation.

"Haah, haaah," Magnus panted, his brow thick with sweat. Three powers used for a single effect . . it would normally require a Seer, a Martial Court Cultivator, and an Alchemist to accomplish what he had just done - Magnus felt exhausted, as if he'd been running full tilt for an entire day.

Success! Kujata's light form solidified and anchored! Next . . now all he needed to do was direct it . .

A soft new tune guided the light-form Kujata to where her aura was thickest - around the wicker chair and the window sill. It seemed to potter about a bit, moving its ghostly arms in a strange fashion and finally turned to the window, leaping out in a single bound - Magnus followed. The light form went straight into the courtyard, to the corner where the fire pit was, and sat down.

Here?

The light form sat in place, refusing to move no matter what song Magnus sung. There was nothing strange about this corner of the courtyard, unless . . unless Kujata . . ah hells.

"Kujata!" Magnus roared at the empty space. "It's no good! I know you're here!" He lifted a large rock from the corner of the courtyard and tossed it at the light form.

Bang!

The rock smashed against an invisible barrier, vanishing into the empty space.

"Kujata!"

"Alright! Alright! I give!" Kujata replied, the formation instantly dissolving. "I give. How the devil did you . . ah hells, it's no good, is it? The Alchemists have cracked the woods-for-trees formation?"

In the empty space there now stood Kujata, wearing a filthy shirt, the brass telescope and bell on the ground next to her.

"Not quite," Magnus shook his head. "But it is most certainly, ahem, outdated. Ten thousand years out of date, isn't that right?"

"Something like that." Kujata no longer seemed to be shaking in the same ways she had in the Ether, her panic having subsided somewhat. "I didn't expect . . I didn't expect you back so quick."

Magnus shrugged his shoulders.

"We've got a lot to talk about, ain't we?"

"Sure." Magnus pointed his finger at her, producing a red-gold thread.

"No! I . . . please Magnus!" A look of terror returned to her face.

"We've a lot to discuss . . but first, I think we'd best get a couple of things clear 'big sis'. I've had my suspicions but . . I'm not a Celestial, am I? You wouldn't be so afraid of a Celestial, would you?"

"You are! You most certainly are a Celestial, Magnus! A Celestial and . . please, stop! Put your thread away!"

"No. I don't think I will stop, big sis. You've told me plenty . . but you ain't told me what I want to know." Magnus waved the thread in front of her. "The candle, the woods-for-trees formation, they are all ancient - lost knowledge. The Alchemists, all the other Celestials - the Alchemists have them, don't they? All powerful, able to destroy planets - a lie, right? A lie . . what sort of power is this? What sort of power has a Celestial got where all they do is devour and steal, hey? You know what this thread is, what the red and the gold mean, don't you?"

"I know! Magnus! I'll tell you everything!" Kujata's eyes were wide in fear, her lips quivering. "Celestials are . . Celestials were Gods, put it away!"

Magnus retracted the thread back into his finger.

"Gods, you understand? You know what it means?" Kujata still shook, but maintained at least a semblance of calm now that the thread was gone. "The whole universe, the above and the below - Celestials ruled it all. For millennia, for eons - as long as there was man, there were Celestials to rule them, in every corner of the universe . . ten thousand years ago . ."

"Parasites. Isn't that what you mean? Not Gods - the Alchemists have it written - Celestial parasites, surviving by devouring the lives of others." Magnus responded, the word 'parasite' causing Kujata to wince. "You, the Heavenly Bull, right? Ten thousand years . . . you've lived that long?"

"Do I look that old, Magnus? Looks can be deceiving, right? I am that old - and older, much older. Celestials . . we are not parasites!” Kujata sunk to the ground, suddenly appearing far more ancient. Her youthful dark skinned face grew deep wrinkles, her black hair became white. "It's not a long story, Magnus . . not something I'd wanted to keep hidden or secret, just . ."

"What am I? What is the red-gold Vigour? You said 'gnosis' and 'ascension' - what do they mean? What does it mean?"

"It means that you have seen them. You know, right? I didn't see it at first . . the golden light, I'd never thought . . but you've seen them, the ones above - the dreamers, the dream that isn't a dream . ." Kujata's voice trailed off. “We were Gods"

“What happened?”

“We were Gods. . we made a mistake. Just one mistake. Ten thousand years ago, a mistake which saw us all abandoned, saw us all cast from our churches, thrown out of the world of man, and hunted across the stars.”

“What mistake? What did the Celestials do to bring this on themselves?”

“We . . ah hells. A single planet, a single star system . . it all began there, Magnus, on a single world - on Earth.”