‘That is my own beautiful one talking now,’ crooned the old beldame, in a honeyed voice. ‘But have no fear, the night is young, and we shall reach the meeting-place of the Covens before the hour when our Master will appear.’
Tanith was holding herself stiffly as she walked. Her golden head thrown back, her eyes dilated to an enormous sizethe muscles at the sides of her mouth twitched incessantly as the old woman’s smooth babble flowed on.
They crossed the road, although Tanith was hardly conscious of it as, with Mizka beside her, she stepped out, a new strength surging through her despite her long and tiring day. Then as she mounted an earthy bank a dark and furry presence brushed against her legs, and looking down she saw the golden eyes of a great black cat.
For a moment she was startled, but the old woman chuckled in the darkness. ‘It is only Nebiros,’ she muttered. ‘You have played with him often as a child, dearie, and he is so pleased to see you now.’
The cat mewed with pleasure as Tanith stooped for a moment to stroke its furry back. Then they hastened on again.
For hours it seemed they tramped over the grassy tussocks, up gently-sloping hills and down again into lonesome valleys unbroken by trees or cottages or farmsteads, ever on to the secret place where the Satanists would be gathering now, until old Mizka, walking at Tanith’s left, suddenly pulled upclutching at her arm with her bony hand.
‘Shut your eyes, dearie,’ she hissed in a sharp whisper. ‘Shut your eyes. There is something here that it is not good for you to see. I will guide you.’
Tanith did as she was bid mechanically, and although she could no longer see the rough ground over which they were passing, she did not stumble but continued to step forward evenly at a good pace. Yet she had a feeling that she was no longer alone with the old woman, but that a third person was now walking with them at her right hand. Then, a low voice, bell-like and clear, sounded in her ears.
‘Tanith, my darling. Look at me, I implore you.’
At the shock of hearing that well-loved voice, the curtain lifted for a moment and Tanith opened her eyes again. To her right, she saw the figure of her mother dressed in white as she had last seen her before she had set out to some great party where she had died of a sudden heart attack. Round her neck hung a rope of pearls, and her head was adorned with a half-hoop of diamond stars. The figure shone by some strange unnatural light in the surrounding darkness, seeming as pure and translucent as carved crystal.
‘My dear one,’ the voice went on, ‘my folly of encouraging your gift of second sight has led you into terrible peril. I beg you by all that is good and holy to draw back while there is yet time.’
Despite the urging hand which clawed upon her arm, Tanith stumbled for the first time in the long grass and, wrenching her arm away, stood still. In a flash of insight which seared through her drugged brain, she knew then that old Mizka was not a living being, but a Dark Angel sent to lead her to the Sabbat, and that her mother had come at this last moment from the world beyond as an Angel of Light to draw her back again into the safety and protection of holy things.
Mizka was babbling and crowing upon her left, urging her onward with a terrible force and intensity. The words ‘power’ ‘crowning your life’‘mastery of all’ came again and again in her rapid speech, and Tanith moved a few steps forward. But her mother’s voice, imploring again, came clearly in her ears.
‘Tanith, my darling, I am only allowed to appear to you because of your great danger, and for the briefest space. I am called back already, but I beg you in the name of love that we had for each other, not to go. There is a better influence in your life. Trust in it while there is still time, otherwise you will be dragged down into the pit and we shall never meet again.’ Suddenly the voice changed, becoming cold and commanding, ‘Back, Mizka back whence you came. I order you by the names of Isis, mother of, Horus, Kwan-Yin, mother of Hau-Ki, and Mary, mother of Our Lord.’
The voice ceased on a thin wail as though, all unwillingly, the spirit had been drawn back while its abjuration to the demon was only half completed. With a wild cry and arms outstretched, Tanith dashed forward to the place where that nebulous moon-white being had floated, but where the apparition of her mother had been a second before, only a little breeze ruffled the long grasses. A feeling of immense fatigue bowed her shoulders as she turned towards old Mizka and the cat. But they too had vanished.
She sank upon her knees and began to pray, feverishly at first and then less strongly, until her tongue tripped upon the words and at last she fell silent. Almost unconsciously she rose to her feet and found herself, the night wind playing gently in her hair, standing upon a hill-top gazing down into a shallow valley.
A new and terrible fear gripped at her heart, for she saw below her, by the strange unearthly light of a ring of blue candles, the Satanists gathering for their unholy ceremony, and knew that evil powers had led her feet by devious paths to the place of the Great Sabbat that she might participate after all.
She stood for a moment, the blood draining from her face, quick tremors of horror and apprehension running down her body. She wanted to turn and flee into the dark, protective shadows of the night, but she could not tear her eyes away from that terrible figure seated upon the rocky throne, before which the Satanists were making their obscene obeisance. Some terrible uncanny power kept her feet rooted to the spot, and although her mother’s warning still rang in her ears, she could not drag her gaze away from that blasphemous mockery of God proceeding in a horrid silence a hundred yards down the slope from where she stood.
Time ceased to exist for Tanith then. An unearthly chill seemed to creep up out of the valley, swirling and eddying about her legs as a cold current suddenly strikes a bather in a warm patch of sea. The chill crept upwards to the level of her breasts, numbing her limbs and dulling her faculties until she could have cried out with the pain. She watched the gruesome banquet with loathing and repulsion, but as she saw those ghoul-like figures tilting the bottles to their mouths she was suddenly beset by an appalling desire to drink.
Although her limbs were cold, her mouth seemed parched; her throat swollen and burning. She was seized with an unutterable longing to rush forward, down the slope, and grab one of those bottles with which to slake her all-consuming thirst. Yet she remained rooted, held back by her higher consciousness; the vision of her mother no longer before her physical eyes, but clear in her mentality just as she had seen it, tall, slender and white-clad, with a sparkling hoop of star-like diamonds glistening above the hair drawn back from the high, broad forehead.
At the defamation of the Host, she was seized by a shuddering rigor in all her limbs. She tried to shut her eyes but they remained fixed and staring while silent tears welled from them and gushed down her cheeks. She endeavoured to cross herself, but her hand, numb with that awful cold, refused to do the bidding of her brain and remained hanging limp and frozen at her side. She endeavoured to pray, but her swollen tongue refused its office, and her mind seemed to have gone utterly blank so that she could not recall even the opening words of the Paternoster or Ave Maria. She knew with a sudden appalling clarity that having even been the witness of this blasphemous sacrilege was enough to damn her for all eternity, and that her own wish to attend this devilish saturnalia had been engendered only by a stark madness caught like some terrible contagious disease from her association with these other unnatural beings who were victims of a ghastly lunacy.
In vain she attempted to cast herself upon her knees, to struggle back from this horror, but she seemed to be caught in an invisible vice and could not lift her glance for one single second from that small lighted circle which stood out so clearly in the surrounding darkness of the mysterious valley.