"You take too much upon yourself," Raeburn said. "In the final analysis, it will be for the lord Taranis to decide whether or not the bargain I offer him is acceptable - and it is I who offer it, not you! Come. We have important work to do."
With these words he blew out the candle and stepped outside, the dagger casket still cradled under one arm. Taliere alighted after him, his back stiff with disapproval, but made no further argument, though he moved as if his limbs were weighted with lead as the two of them trudged along the trail that led to the stones of Callanish.
They saw the stones as they crested Cnoc an Tursa, stretched before them in the windswept moonlight like an inverted cross, with the sleeping village of Callanish silent in the distance. As they drew nearer, a faint shadow as of ground fog seemed to obscure their view of the central circle of the stones.
The black bulk of the bull waiting just outside the circle was all but invisible behind the white robes of those attending it. Barclay had robed after arriving at the circle, though his weathered face was set and uncharacteristically pale in the starlight. Mallory had his medical bag tucked under one arm. Richter stood between two of the stones with a wand of birch wood in one hand, surmounted by a fragment of rock crystal.
"Lynxmeister, I give you charge of the circle," he said in a low voice, offering the wand to Raeburn with a brisk dip of his chin. "Taoiseach, the nemeton is prepared."
Bowing, Raeburn handed off the casket to Barclay, then took the wand from Richter and stepped aside, back pressed against one of the stones. He could feel familiar power stirring in his hand as he held the birch wand aloft and the others fell into processional order behind Taliere: first the two assistants flanking the still docile bull, then Barclay and Mallory, and finally Richter, bringing up the rear. When all were in position, Taliere thrice struck the ground between the two stones with the butt of his staff, then lifted his eyes toward the icy stars as he clasped the staff with both hands.
"This is the hour appointed," he whispered, in a tone both hushed and resonant, "the hour of darkness that belongs neither to the sun nor to the moon. This is the hour of blood and prophecy. Let all who hunger come forth from the darkness and be present at the feast!"
The light wind seemed to die, giving way to an expectant hush. The winter stars shone out with sudden, fierce brightness, as if the intervening air had been thinned and rarefied by an abrupt shift in altitude. As the hush lengthened, Taliere drew himself up and stepped through the gap into the compass of the ring.
Those behind him followed, the bull snuffling in mild protest, for where the air outside the circle had been dark and clear, here within the perimeter it was luridly brightened by the glare of oil lamps set at the four quarters. Once all the members of the procession had passed within, Raeburn stepped inside the circle and scribed his wand three times across the gap between the two stones, then laid it across the threshold in final sealing. Content for the moment to let Taliere take center stage, Raeburn positioned himself beside Barclay, standing with his back to one of the stones, and nodded his readiness for Taliere to continue.
The old Druid moved to the center stone, between it and the darker depression of the ruined cairn, and halted to bend at the waist in profound obeisance. For a moment he remained thus, silent and with head bowed, gnarled hands knotted together around the neck of his staff. Then slowly he straightened and solemnly began to chant.
The language he used was not Scots Gaelic, but an ancient Celtic dialect called up out of the distant past. Soft at first, his voice accumulated pitch and force, sending dissonant echoes ricocheting eerily around the circle from stone to stone, though Raeburn knew that the sound could no more pass outside than the light of the lanterns could. The chant peaked to a crescendo, then ceased. In the heavy silence that followed, as Taliere turned to regard his fellow celebrants, his gaze took on an otherworldly sharpness, as did his voice.
"Know ye that this is the place of oath-fasting, sacred to the Lords Elemental. Know that these stones were erected to honor Them; nor will They abandon this site for so long as the stones themselves retain their memory.
"To quicken that memory, I invoke Earth in the presence of Cailleach, Mother of All," he continued, raising his staff, "and Fire in the person of Gruagach. the Long-haired One. Water I invoke in the presence of Shoney, Lord of the Western Seas. But it is to Taranis, the Thunderer, Lord of the Air, that I stand ready to offer sacrifice. May he be pleased to accept our oblation, and look with favor upon the petitions that we bring!"
On cue. his two assistants led the bull forward into the shadow of the monolith. Barclay accompanied them at Rae-burn's signal, opening the ash-wood box to offer it in oblation.
Laying aside his staff, the old Druid reverently drew out the ancient meteoric dagger, cold and deadly in the starlight. Pivoting to face the standing stone, he elevated the dagger before him in both hands.
"Here is the instrument of sacrifice!" he announced. "Be present, Lord Taranis, in this blade, born of a stone which fell from the sky. Taste and savor the blood we offer in token of our devotion."
With this invocation, Taliere turned again and advanced on the bull. Hitherto docile, the big animal flung up its crowned head in sudden uneasiness, snorting in wall-eyed alarm, and it took the combined strivings of both handlers to steady the animal until Taliere could again work his charm.
But then the bull stood unflinching, hooves planted wide as Taliere moved a step sideways and drew back his arm. And as one of the handlers seized the animal by its nose-ring and wrenched its head upward, a darkling glimmer seemed to shiver along the ancient dagger, lending it life of its own.
"Taranis!" Taliere cried, as a stunning surge of strength drove his arm down and then up in a deadly arc, the blade rending the vulnerable throat and piercing deep into the brain.
With a hoarse bellow, the bull started back, but it was already dying. Nonetheless, the violence of its recoil tore the dagger loose - for Taliere would not relinquish it - widening the wound and sending a dark fountain of blood spraying outward from severed arteries.
But the big animal was already sinking ponderously to its knees, its crowned head weaving. As Taliere stepped clear, his attendants moved in to steady the dying beast. At the same time, the old Druid raised a blood-drenched arm to point the dagger at Mallory in a summons not to be denied.
Mallory was ready, though he had not expected the compulsion that accompanied the gesture. Almost without volition, he found himself scurrying closer to press a large stainless-steel basin under the bull's streaming throat, watching it fill as the animal bled out its life.
He did not remember returning to his place beside Barclay, though the bowl of blood steaming at his feet testified that he had done so. Taliere had shed his feathered mantle and was watching the bull's final agonies, the handlers drawing back as it slowly rolled onto its side and was still.
But Taliere was not finished. Bidding the handlers stand back with another imperious gesture of the ancient dagger, he approached the bull again and, in another display of uncommon strength, bent over the bull's still-twitching carcass to plunge the blade into the belly, ripping open the body cavity with a single stroke.
A tangle of entrails spilled onto the ground in a noisome effusion of blood and digestive juices, steam softly rising above the body opening. Back at Mallory's side, Barclay went a little pale, but Raeburn only moved a half step closer to observe.