Adam’s Pilgrimage part 9: The Exorcism, afternoon May 21st
as played via e-mail
It’s late
afternoon by the time you both reach the
“Hear we are!” sighs Victor, dropping his daysack
outside the circle and motioning for you to put down your much heavier
rucksack. He stands by the Cockpit Stone and surveys the fells in all
directions. He seems very content, evidently he loves
it out here.
"Let's get
going!" invites Adam.
Nodding
brusquely, from the daysack Victor first produces a
picnic rug, which he spreads before the Cockpit Stone. Then he brings forth a
roll of canvas containing some odd looking medical utensils which he checks
individually before rolling it back up again and secreting it about his person.
He catches you
watching him check the instruments and grins, “Trepanning instruments – just in
case.” Your senses tell you he’s only partly joking and eka-Adam
silently mimes having a hole drilled in his head and then points at you,
grinning in fiendish amusement.
Adam isn't
amused.
Obviously
oblivious to the gleeful caperings of eka-Adam, Victor next produces a pale blue robe, which he
gives to you, and a white linen robe, which he dons himself. “Blue for the
acolyte; white for the priest – it’s wise to follow tradition in these
matters.” He sounds completely serious now.
Victor kneels on
the picnic rug facing the Cockpit Stone from within the circle, gesturing to
his left. “Take your place and we shall commence with addressing the altar.”
Adam will don
blue robes as appropriate and will take his place as directed.
Eka-Adam kneels next to you and the Woman in
White next to Victor. Victor still gives no sign of noticing either protagonist
but then you see the Woman in White glance critically at you before whispering
in Victor’s ear. At this Victor throws a similarly critical glance your way.
You’re sure
you’re not mistaken; Victor definitely reacted to whatever the Woman in White
told him about you.
“Just how much
do you trust this man?” murmurs a low voice from your left, “Enough to let him
cut a hole to your brains? You’ll be lucky to lose just an arm!”
Adam will ignore
the comments from eka-Adam.
“We shall be
calling upon an aspect of the Mother Goddess once worshipped in these parts.”
Victor quietly explains. “She is a deity of several aspects but we are
concerned with her aspect as a healer. Her name is Epona
and her symbol is the galloping horse.” Victor grins, “I thought her most
appropriate in view of where you started.”
Facing the altar
again, Victor begins to intone in manner redolent of ritual. “Great
Mother! Great Queen! We, your humble supplicants, are come to this, your
holy place, to ask that you lend your power to drive out that which ails this
acolyte, Adam.”
Victor draws a
deep breath and Adam’s senses tell him he’s momentarily reluctant to go on, as
if afraid of what’s to come. “In return for your aid we offer worship, we offer
prayer and we offer sacrifice upon your altar. Great Lady aid
us in our endeavour.”
Victor falls silent.
After a pregnant pause he nudges you with his elbow, gesturing with his eyes.
Evidently you’re supposed to say something. Eka-Adam
and the Woman in White both look at you expectantly; Victor seems to have his
eyes closed.
Adam will take a
handful of oatmeal and an apple, place them on the altar, bow before it
and say, “Epona, I leave these food offerings to you
and ask for your aid in this purification ritual.” After which, he will find
the piece of glass from the church which may help in the ritual.
Excellent! Every
little helps. J
Victor nods in
approval but eka-Adam comments, “Do really want to
put your faith in a woman who fed her son to the dogs?”
“That’s not
true!” exclaims the Woman in White defensively, “I was framed!”
“By recent, doctored
accounts,” he sneers, “but we both know the oldest versions of the tale had the
story aright.”
“And
what of you, you disgusting, unnatural creature? Were we to recite your foul deeds we might
never leave this place.”
“I’ve never
claimed to be anything other than what I am;” eka-Adam
smiles broadly, “I’m just pointing out that you and your sisters aren’t quite
as white as you seem.” He shifts his gaze back to you, “Think of me as a force
of nature.”
“Don’t listen to
him! Oh he can be forceful but there’s nothing ‘natural’ about that piece of
slime.”
Victor sets
about his own preparations giving no indication of overhearing this slanging match. He also places an apple on the altar and
two cubes of sugar. “I know it’s not traditional but they do smack of ‘horseness’.”
Then he places
on the Cockpit Stone, precariously amidst the offerings, what looks like a
small silver trophy about four inches high. You can just read on the side…
...ictor
...llington
...-England
…npionships
…2002
He then brings
forth (how much can this daysack hold?) a large
hip-flask. Victor’s white robes hide the Cockpit Stone but Adam hears the sound
of pouring liquid. Then he turns and holds the trophy in both hands out to Adam
where he kneels. There’s a reddish, acrid smelling fluid in the cup.
Adam will take
the trophy in both hands. How acrid is acrid? Bad wine or
something worse? Vinegar perhaps? Does Adam
recognise the smell.
It smells of
both wine and vinegar and when you taste it, you realise it’s a watered wine
just turning to vinegar. Definitely not a recreational drink
but surprisingly good as a thirst quencher.
Also since Adam
has the reading emotions power and a really high psychology score (75) what
does he make of the woman and eka-Adam?
They utterly
loathe each other and want to see each other humiliated as well as destroyed.
Their view of Adam is more complex. Both regard you as something more than a
mere pawn but both would gladly harm you if it meant destroying the other.
Strangely, eka-Adam might be less likely to kill you to be rid of the
Woman in White as your destruction would mean his, or at least that of his
current home. She probably has little to lose from your death.
By the way, she
was genuinely rattled by eka-Adam’s gibes; he touched
a sore point and it occurs to you that she has a history of sacrificing loved
ones for the ‘greater good’.
Victor replaces
the cup on the altar and kneels again next to you, eyes closed in thought.
After a few minutes silence he murmurs, “In a few minutes we will begin the
ceremony of exorcism. In this interval, I want you to go over your pilgrimage,
of your thoughts and experiences, both mundane and extraordinary, and focus
your mind on the task of purging this taint from your psyche.”
Meeting Charles
Walton on Meon hill because it was the first time
Adam really felt things were getting spooky and surreal. He realised Charles
must be a ghost and yet he helped him down from the hill and gave him a real
item which may still prove useful.
The
College Arms Inn where a nasty woman refused him accommodation because it was
straight down to earth after the ghostly encounter and he just had to say ‘sod
it’ and go to another inn.
You fondle the
piece of church glass as you go over these two events in your mind. As you do
so, you wonder whether Charles Walton was on your side or not; whether the
piece of glass, which even now you can feel has some indefinable spiritual
quality, is a good thing or a bad?
It occurs to you
that Walton expected you to show the glass to the woman, but you don’t know
whether that would have had a good or a bad result. Because the glass is
untested, you realise that Charles Walton himself is untested.
You realise that
these two most significant (to you) episodes of your pilgrimage are also the
most ambivalent; you don’t know whether they ultimately point the way to
freedom from the taint or descent in to shoggothhood.
You can feel
Victor stirring next to you, getting ready to begin the ritual. At this moment
you have several choices and your innate spirituality makes you realise your
choice here may be critical:
a) remain with your current foci and accept that you enter the
ritual in a mentally ambivalent state (when Victor obviously wants you to be in
as positive a mental state as possible);
b) try to
resolve the good-bad issues over your choices, with the realisation that
failure to tease definite meaning from what may ultimately be a meaningless
episode will leave you in the same situation as a); or…
c) refocus on two other episodes from your pilgrimage with a
much clearer meaning.
Which do you
choose?
a)
With a muffled
grunt Victor rises, breathes deeply twice while facing
the ‘altar’ and then moves to stand before you. Laying his hands gently on your
shoulders, he murmurs quietly, “Empty your mind of everything but those recent
events which have the most meaning for you; concentrate only on them and their
significance. Presently you will begin to find an inner peace within but don’t
strive for it, dwell only on the important highlights of your pilgrimage and
let the rest come naturally.”
You can feel a
light breeze on your face, contrasting with the warmth of Victor’s hands, both
feel quite pleasant.
Doing as bidden,
you think of Charles Walton and the landlady of the College Arms inn. An old
hand at meditation, you continue to fondle the green glass charm, waiting to
slip in to a transcendental state.
But it’s a
struggle, just like in Penrith three weeks ago. You
replay in your mind your leave-taking from Charles Walton and your conversation
with the landlady over and over again, sometimes you throw the glass in the
gutter or not, in others you reveal it to the landlady, or not; each time the
result is different, contradictory. You cannot find the meaning. Does it have
any meaning?
You are dimly
aware of Victor’s voice intoning something but you can’t quite hear the words.
The weight of his hands bows down your head; their heat makes you feel
uncomfortable and you detect the beginnings of a headache.
Then a subtle
change of wind brings the faint stench of putrescence, perhaps a sheep rots not
far away, there’s always a few on the fells.
You get the
feeling that it shouldn’t be like this. You wonder how long it will be before
Victor notices.
Adam will use a
meditation technique if he is able. He recognises the stench and will mentally
move away from it as if walking away from a rotten sheep until he can no longer
smell it.
You try taiji but Victor now seems to be kneading your scalp rather
firmly; the headache grows. You try to mentally move away from the putrid smell
but it seems to follow you. Dimly you hear the Woman in White say, “What you
have to understand is that the taint is you!” but you’re not sure if
she’s saying it here and now or you’re simply remembering what she said in your
dream on Bowland Fell. You can hear a male voice
chuckling sardonically nearby.
The headache is
getting worse.
Then suddenly
the pressure and heat goes from your head and Victor is kneeling in front of
you, shaking you gently by the arms. “What’s wrong, Adam!” He looks concerned,
something has shocked him. “You were laughing; why are you fighting me?” From
his expression you suspect the laugh wasn’t a very nice one.
“The taint
doesn't want to give up,” Adam replies.
Victor seems
flabbergasted. “The taint doesn’t want…?” he parrots and his frown of concern
deepens. “You talk as if it has some volition of its own; as if your will is
subordinate to its desires, but you are the active participant in this
ritual.” He stops for a minute, apparently considering what he’s said. “Can’t
you separate yourself from the taint?”
Adam will reply,
"I'll give it a go". He'll focus on pushing the taint into his left
foot and then into the ground. He'll use the energy in the glass to aid his
efforts.
You try to
‘push’ the taint in to your foot but almost immediately realise that it’s not
going to work; what is there to ‘push’? And without Victor’s help not a lot is
happening except that headache’s coming back.
“Give it a go?”
Victor echoes incredulously. “This is not about ‘giving it a go’. Either we do
this thing or you stay as you are and give up your vocation as a spiritual
healer.” It occurs to you that Victor obviously hasn’t heard the Woman in
White’s prognosis for failure.
Victor shakes
his head sadly. “Adam, it sounds as if your heart’s not in this.”
OK Adam will
take a new focus, that of the dream where the Shoggoth
was exorcised and Adam’s arm had to be cut off. This will focus his mind on the
right thoughts (hopefully) for getting rid of it. In the dream it was a success
so that's positive.
He'll say he needs a few moments to refocus.
Victor responds
by asking how many fingers he’s holding up (three) and asking you to follow his
finger. This is the sort of thing you’ve done when testing a patient’s
consciousness level or checking for concussion. You must sound a little dazed
to someone standing outside your skull.
By an effort of
will, you refocus. The headache starts growing immediately but this time you
feel you can master it – it doesn’t stop aching but somehow you find you don’t
mind.
You concentrate
on your dream, how the Woman in White held the hand-axe and Victor wielded the
maul. Your eyes are drawn to the roll of canvass concealing Victor’s surgical
tools.
Then that stench
returns. This time, instead of trying to ‘move away’ you elect to thrust it
from you and your morale begins to build as you feel you can master this too; it
doesn’t go away but it is much reduced.
You’re now aware
of Victor’s hands on your scalp again, of their welcome heat as the temperature
falls in the gathering dusk. He’s chanting some prayer to Epona
in a language you don’t understand but which sounds strangely familiar. You are
dimly aware of the Woman in White and eka-Adam
bickering again but this time their voices are in the background and Victor’s
becomes clearer as you listen.
After a while, eka-Adam’s voice becomes a faint whine in the background,
irritating like a mosquito buzz but no more threatening. Victor is still
speaking in that language but now the Woman in White, close to your right,
whispers a translation in your ear…
“Lady of the hooves curse
this foulness;
“Drive this evil from out your supplicant.
“If his Skin be tainted - flay it from his flesh;
“If his Blood be tainted - let
it vent from his veins;
“If his Breath be tainted - tear out both
his lungs;
“If his Bones be tainted - break them to flinders;
“We ask you to Curse this evil with naked,
bleeding, breathless, bone breaking death.
“Roses we give thee,
“Apples we give thee;
“Drive this evil forth and make it no more than dust.”
As your confidence builds, you wonder if you could now do that trick of forcing the taint in to one part of your body?
Adam will do the
following meditation breath positive energy in though right leg and out through
his left leg. At the same time he will imagine the taint coalescing in a black
ball and moving out through his left leg along with any other negative energies.
Victor has
chosen well; while not the most powerful of sites, the energy here is very
accessible and very pure.
However you
quickly find you have to vary your plan slightly. The energies flow upward
through both legs and you find yourself unable to push against the flux.
Instead, using the incoming flux to help you, you believe you could divert it
in to an upper extremity. The choice is down to either arm or your head.
You feel it
would be easiest to go for your left arm, partly because it was the left arm in
your dream and partly because you can feel the taint has a leftward tendency.
With you calmer mindset, you realise this may not be unconnected, as is the
fact that all day the Woman in White has been to your right and eka-Adam to your left, as they are now.
Though the left
arm would be easiest, you are confident that you could trap it in the other arm
or your head if you choose.
FYI, the head is
not as horrific a choice as it would seem; with mouth, nostrils and ears, there
are plenty of holes for nastiness to exit without requiring trepanation – we
are assuming the taint to be purely spiritual, of course, but it may also
require expellation of a humour (eg
phlegm), in which case the head is unquestionably the best alternative as
either arm could require amputation of fingers or hands.
All this is
taking longer than you think; it is now quite dark.
Left arm it is.
With the aid of
the energy flux coming up from the circle, confining the taint to your left arm
is almost effortless. You go through the mental equivalent of mopping up
spillages around your psyche but in what feels to you a surprisingly short time
you are sure only your left arm remains tainted – an amputation at this moment
would cure all your troubles.
However that
doesn’t seem to be Victor’s intention. You emerge from what feels like a deep
dream. It’s dark, the circle lit only by a crescent
moon which itself looks to set soon. Victor is kneeling before the altar, a few
feet from you. It’s quite cold, though not freezing.
You notice three
things, one encouraging, another more worrying and the third only to be
expected. The good thing is that only the Woman in White is visible, her loose
dress billowing and swirling in the moonlight most fetchingly as it as she dances
about the circle. There is no sign of eka-Adam. The
expected thing is that you are completely, utterly ravenous.
However, the
disquieting thing is that you can’t feel your arm; it’s quite numb from just
below the shoulder.
You now feel you
could push the evil that has plagued you deeper in to your arm. This will be
marked by returning sensation to the upper parts of your arm but eventually
there will come a point when you will be unable to push it any further. What
happens then depends on a lot of things but perhaps you need to talk to Victor
first?
At this point,
the Woman in White swirls over to Victor and crouches for a moment to whisper
in his ear. He starts and turns, half rising as she dances away after giving
you a knowing look. You catch a murmur of song as she breezes past you in the
dark. It takes a moment to realise that she’s actually dancing to ‘Comfortably
Numb’ the song from Pink Floyd’s The Wall – which strikes you as a little
incongruous for an ancient Celtic goddess.
“Ah-ah! Back with us then?
You look a lot better, if a little cold.” He moves over and crouches down
before you. His manner is completely different now,
evidently he’s much happier with how things are going since your last chat.
“How are you
feeling?”
“Ravenous! The taint
is now in my left arm. After a rest I might be able to push it further into the
arm. Are you able to rid me of it?”
Behind you the
Woman in White swirls through her dance, each time she comes close you can hear
the words of the song: …‘Is there anybody
in there?’…‘Is there anyone at home?’
“Let me see” asks Victor, taking your left
hand in his. “I’m afraid fasting is all part of the vigil but I have a little
snack to fortify us before the walk back to the car after dawn.”
…‘Can you show me where it hurts’
He turns to
rummage in his day-sack but regretfully only to hand you a slim torch. “Here,
hold this!” He returns to perusing your hand again. “You’ve been using a
psychic channelling technique to spiritually confine the tainted essence in
your arm, haven’t you?”
…‘My hands felt just like two balloons’
He brings both
your hands together to compare them, taking the torch back. “See here how your
hand has swollen up? That’s water retention, that is. I’ve seen it in similar cases
before.”
…‘This is not how I am’
He drops both
your hands and watches the left fall limp to your side. “Interesting!” he
comments, unrolling the canvass roll holding his surgical tools.
…‘Just a little pinprick’
He hands you the
torch again; his other hand holds a wickedly sharp dissecting needle. “Can you
feel anything in your arm at all?”
“No but I may be
able to push the taint further into the arm. I'll try now.”
The Woman in
White is still dancing and singing…‘You
may feel a little sick’
Victor nods
slowly but you think his mind is on something else, “I’m going to investigate
the extent and degree of your paralysis; can you feel this…or this?” He pricks
the palm of your hand, you feel nothing but hunger is making you feel a little
nauseous.
…‘I do believe it’s
working’
Pushing the
sleeve of your robe up, he continues up your arm but only when he reaches your
bicep do you feel the needle, though your channelling is beginning to work now.
…‘There is no pain, you are receding’
By this time your
efforts to push the taint further down your arm are bearing fruit. “It’s
fascinating to see the process at work.” Victor remarks and spends a few
minutes following the dead zone as it retreats down your arm to below the
elbow. As he continues to prick holes in your arm, you notice your hand on the
edge of the torchlight ripple and undulate as if some parasitic worm is moving
under the skin.
I'm sure this
will make Adam feel a little queasy but he'll continue nevertheless.
The Woman in
White still dances and sings quietly to herself …‘Come on it’s time to go’
Victor sighs,
“But this isn’t getting the job done; let’s get on with it, shall we?”
But as he begins to rise, Victor’s eye
catches your hand just as a sausage-sized ripple of flesh worms across your
palm. “What the…?” he exclaims and quickly bends to take a much closer look.
Simultaneously,
the Woman in White breaks her dance to peer over your shoulder, still singing
that Pink Floyd song.
‘I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now’
Of course, with the torch full on your
hand, there’s no movement at all now. But it’s obvious that Victor saw
something… You know your body well – you’ve had it all your life, after all –
to your eye, your left hand and lower arm look hairier and more muscular than
they did an hour ago.
“Did you see
that?” asks Victor: something in his voice is ambivalent; true, he’d like
corroboration to prove to himself that he’s not seeing things, but another part
of him doesn’t want it to be true.
Slowly the fist
clenches and unclenches but it’s not you doing it.
The Woman in
White whirls away again to resume her dance; she’s still singing but you miss a
line or two until she circles back.
Adam will steal
some of the Woman in White’s words and say, “I caught a glimpse of something
out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't say what it was. It's time we did
something to get rid of the tainted energy for good.”
…‘The dream is gone’, comes
a momentary interjection as the Woman in White swirls past again.
Another
worm-like thing crawls beneath the skin of your hand, obvious to both of you.
Victor shudders. You realise something about this has affected him profoundly.
The term ‘scales fallen from his eyes’ strikes you as pertinent; you think he
is awakening to a reality that you’ve lived with for the last couple of years.
‘I… have become… comfortably numb’
Nose wrinkled in
disgust, Victor tries to probe the thing with his surgical needle but it’s too
mobile. His probings are less controlled, more
violent, and he creates a couple of gashes in your hand but you feel nothing.
…‘The show must go on’, the Woman in
White at last ends her dance and her song in one triumphant stanza right in
your ear (the right one). Disconcertingly, she remains at your shoulder,
panting breathlessly. “If his Blood
be tainted - let it vent from his veins” she commands vehemently,
quoting her own scripture.
Breathing
deeply, Victor pulls himself together and nods, as if making his mind up about
some difficult problem. “Errm…” he clears his throat,
nervous about what he’s about to say, “Would you object to surgery? I think we
need to lance your hand.”
“You can lance
away. It's time I told you something. I shouldn't because I signed the Official
Secrets Act but I think you need to know. The ‘tainted energy’ is part of an
evil alien life form.”
Victor throws
you a dark glance. “If you’d said that even ten minutes ago,
I’d have thought you deluded.” Then he reaches for his canvass roll
again, choosing a slim, sharp scalpel that glints wickedly in the last rays of
the setting moon. “You should probably look away”, he says, reaching for your
hand.
But at that
moment your dead hand suddenly takes on a life of its own, wrenching itself
from Victor’s grasp. Thrashing wildly, it fetches Victor a couple of hard
punches before you wrestle your own arm to the ground, pinning it with your
other hand. It clearly does not like the knife.
Victor, blood
pouring from his nose, crouches to bring the knife to bear but even the two of
you can’t bring the whole forearm under control enough to allow a clean cut and
the wormlike thing beneath the skin moves too quickly, around the hand, up and
down the arm, for Victor to follow.
After several
minutes of hard work produce just a couple of fruitless gashes on your hand,
Victor leans back, wiping the congealing blood from his face. He feels his nose
tenderly as he thinks.
“We’re not
ready. It’s only
I was thinking
is it possible to get the Shoggoth into a psychic
battle?
Are you asking
me or Victor?
Remember the
Woman in White's words, “What you have to understand is that the taint is you!”
Is it possible to fight yourself? OTOH, in one way you've already been engaging
it psychically, that's why it is where it is, why you can no longer see eka-Adam.
In many ways,
what Adam is experiencing is a battle going on inside his head, which is why
time seems a little strange. You are actually choosing the terms on which the
battle is waged. Victor is taking a scalpel to Adam's left hand because Adam chose
to focus on dream-Victor cutting off his left arm.
Adam has shaped
the reality by this choice, had you elected to focus on the bullfight, for
example, then it would probably have come down to some sort of physical combat
within the Cockpit Stone circle, if you'd chosen to focus on Biddulph Grange, it might have been some form of hide and
seek but just how much of this is real Adam will only find out at the end.
Actually, after
an initial false step, I believe Adam's doing excellently. :-)
OK back to Adam
focusing on sending the taint down the extremities of his left hand and
hopefully out of one of the holes (cuts).
Once Victor
withdraws and takes his scalpel with him, your hand seems to calm down and you
quickly manage to attain a mental state from which you can resume pressure on
the taint.
As you feared,
it’s getting harder and harder to restrict it further but by deeply submerging
yourself in your meditation you manage to totally concentrate on the job in
hand (excuse the pun) and as the hours pass you can feel more and more of your
arm as it’s freed from the grip of the taint.
To most people,
it would look as if you were lightly asleep in a sitting position and outwardly
nothing betrays the vicious psychic war raging within. However, you know you
are stronger now and the end is inevitable, in this place with Victor’s
ministrations.
But while
victory is certain, the war is far from over and you’re shocked when Victor
pulls you out of your trance with a ringing slap across the face. “Wake up!
Adam, wake up!”
Abruptly you
know several things: a) this is a crisis; b) Victor has been desperately trying
to break your trance for some time; c) you can’t breath.
Having hit you
once, Victor sees he doesn’t need to again and instead drops
both hands to your throat. For a second you think he’s trying to strangle you
himself, then you realise he’s trying to prise your
own hand from your throat!
Adam will put
his right hand through the gap and open up his body thus breaking the grip. If
he includes his stomach muscles this should be no problem at all.
Your right arm
has the leverage and breaks the throttle-hold of your left, though with a very
hard fight – you really don’t think you could have won without Victor’s help,
the hand is incredibly strong and about twice the physical size of your left.
However, you
quickly realise that you now have control of all your arm down to the wrist,
which in many ways makes everything easier – as long as you keep the hand away
from anything it can hold, it’s completely helpless,
despite its hideous strength.
You and Victor
stand, panting, as you hold your left arm above the wrist. Victor’s cleaned his
face but there’s dried bloodstains down the front of his robe. “It’s nearly
dawn. I’m ready! Are you?”
Adam will take a
few deep breaths and reply "yes!"
Victor licks his
lips and nods toward the altar. “Put it on the stone.” A stray footfall betrays
the Woman in White close behind you. You’re getting a strange feeling of
déjà-vu.
Adam will do
just that.
The tableaux bears an eerie resemblance to
your dream: in the dim light of pre-dawn, you hold your left hand out to the
slanting altar of the Cockpit Stone; the Woman in White stands to your left,
her hands supporting yours at your wrist (the first time you can recall her
touch – her grip is strong); Victor rejoins you to your right, a fresh blade in
his hand.
Concentrating as
hard as possible on suppressing the taint, you lay your hand on the altar. The
fingers writhe on the massive hand, flexing well outside the limits of the
joints. Swart and hairy, it looks more like some hideous, tentacular
beast than a human appendage.
As Victor lowers
the knife, the fingers try to curl round but the Woman in White firmly plants
her hand, pinning them to the rock.
The flesh starts
to pulse in waves, as if the hand is trying to tear itself from your arm. As
Victor pauses for a moment, selecting the right second and place for the cut,
the Woman in White suddenly leans forward and plants a kiss on the blade.
Then the knife
descends, cutting a deep wound along the line of the first knuckle to the base
of the thumb. Immediately, blood spurts forth, followed by a black, iridescent
substance somewhere on the borders of solid and liquid.
Suddenly you feel pain, both the savage
agony of a cut to the bone and also the numbing ache of a bruised limb.
Instinctively you try to pull back from the stone but Victor and the Woman in
White hold your wrist in a vice-like grip, squeezing the pollution out of the
wound like a foul paste from a tube.
Now upon the altar writhes a globule of
stinking, putrid iridescence,
pulsing and contorting as if trying to find a shape to exist in.
The three of you fall back and Victor gurgles a
strangled cry as he falls to his knees. “I curse this evil with naked,
bleeding, breathless, bone breaking death!” screams the Woman in White.
Then some hot, dark liquid gets in your eyes and, unable to see, you fall to the ground, where everything goes dark.
When you awake, the circle is bathed in the weak light of the sun. Victor is busy with your hand, cleaning the blood before bandaging the wound, which is deep and about two inches long. It hurts! It hurts a lot but it's now normal size and no longer hairy, a good match for your right again.
Victor looks decidedly grey and from the smell you’d say he’s thrown up, though you’d have thought there should be nothing in his stomach. He gives you a wan smile as he finishes the bandaging. “It’s gone, but I don’t know where. It was on the altar when I last saw it but it must have rolled off.”
Adam thinks it's time to see if the magic
still works. He'll try his Reiki first to help himself out and then on Victor
(to help his sanity) if he is willing. In the meantime he'll say, "Thank
you Victor! I owe you a big favour." Then after a pause he'll say,
"Any chance of a bite to eat, I'm famished?"
Once your hand is bound up, Victor gets you
an apple, a cereal-type bar and a bottle of cheap mineral water from his
day-sack but declines to eat anything himself.
With the aid of your meditation skill (see
below) you settle yourself enough to get the Reiki energies flowing. Obviously
you’re not at your best but it feels easier somehow – and that shadow in the
corner of your eye has gone.
The day is dawning bright but clouds are gathering.
As you knock back the water, you see in the distance a white horse galloping
toward the sun. By the time you’ve finished the meagre rations, Victor has
packed up all the kit, including the now very soiled robes. Aside from the
blood, apple cores and the occasional hoof print in the circle you’d never know
the events of last night had happened.
Victor accepts your offer of spiritual
healing and as a result some of his cheerfulness returns on the walk back along
with his appetite. He has to get back to
Congratulations! It’s now the morning of
Tuesday May 22nd and you are successfully rid of the evil taint from Silbury Hill.