Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [356]
“There is?”
“I think so.” He told her about the grimoire, the mixture of careful notes and crazed rambling—and about his own passage through the stones of Craigh na Dun.
“The second time, I thought of you,” he said softly, and traced her features with a finger in the dark. “I lived. And I did come to the right time. But the diamond Fiona gave me was no more than a smear of lampblack in my pocket.”
“So it might be possible to—to steer, somehow?” Brianna couldn’t keep a hint of hope from her voice.
“There might be.” He hesitated. “There was a—I suppose it must have been a poem, or maybe meant to be a spell—in the book.” His hand fell away as he recited it.
“I raise my athame to the North
Where is the home of my power,
To the West
Where is the hearth of my soul,
To the South
Where is the seat of friendship and refuge,
To the East
From whence rises the Sun.
“Then lay I my blade on the altar I have made.
I sit down amid three flames.
“Three points define a plane, and I am fixed.
Four points box the earth and mine is the fullness thereof.
Five is the number of protection; let no demon hinder me.
My left hand is wreathed in gold
And holds the power of the sun.
My right hand is sheathed in silver
And the moon reigns serene.
“I begin.
Garnets rest in love about my neck.
I will be faithful.”
Brianna sat up, arms wrapped around her knees. She was silent for moment.
“That’s nuts,” she said, finally.
“Being certifiably insane is unfortunately no guarantee that someone is likewise wrong,” Roger said dryly. He stretched, groaning, and sat up cross-legged on the straw.
“Part of it is traditional ritual, I think—given that the tradition is ancient Celt. The bits about the directions; those are the ‘four airts,’ which you’ll find running through Celtic legend for some way back. As for the blade, the altar, and the flames, it’s straight witchcraft.”
“She stabbed her husband through the heart and set him on fire.” She still remembered as well as he did the stink of petrol and burning flesh in the circle of Craigh na Dun, and shivered, though it was warm in the shed.
“I hope we won’t be forced to find someone for a human sacrifice,” Roger said, trying and failing to make a joke of it. “The metal, though, and the gems … were you wearing any jewelry when you came through, Bree?”
She nodded in reply.
“Your bracelet,” she said softly. “And I had my grandmother’s pearl necklace in my pocket. The pearls weren’t hurt, though; they came through fine.”
“Pearls aren’t gemstones,” he reminded her. “They’re organic—like people.” He rubbed a hand across his face; it had been a long day, and his head was starting to throb. “Silver and gold, though; you had the silver bracelet, and the necklace has gold, as well as the pearls. Ah—and your mother; she wore both silver and gold, too, didn’t she? Her wedding rings.”
“Uh-huh. But ‘three points define a plane, Four points box the earth, five is the number of protection … ’ ” Brianna murmured under her breath. “Could she mean that you need gemstones to—to do whatever she was trying to do? Are those the ‘points’?”
“Could be. She had drawings of triangles and pentagrams, and lists of different gemstones, with the supposed ‘magickal’ properties listed alongside. She wasn’t laying out her theories in any great detail—didn’t need to, since she was talking to herself—but the general notion seemed to be that there are lines of force—’ley lines,’ she called them—running through the earth. Every now and again, the lines run close to each other, and sort of curl up into knots; and wherever you get such a knot, you’ve got a place where time essentially doesn’t exist.”
“So if you step into one, you might step out again … anytime.”
“Same place, different time. And if you believe that gemstones have a force of their own, which might warp the lines a bit …”
“Would any gemstone do?”
“God knows,” Roger said. “But it’s the best chance we have, aye?”
“Yes,” Brianna agreed, after a