Chapter 6

6

"W ater is the boundary between worlds." Roman placed a heavy glass dish onto the table. "It holds magic like nothing else. It can hide you. It can kill you. Water is your element. Why?"

"Snow and ice?" Finn guessed.

Roman nodded. "Exactly. Go out back and bring me a small icicle."

The kid took off. Roman filled the bowl to about an inch from the rim and retrieved a small mirror, paper, and a pen from his office.

Finn came back with a small icicle.

"Sit."

Finn sat at the table.

Roman took a piece of paper and drew a cross set on its side, two intersecting lines connecting the square's corners. He crossed each corner with a smaller line and showed it to Finn.

"Morena's znak."

"Znek?"

" Znuck . Rhymes with puck . Means symbol. That's your goddess's sigil." Roman held up the mirror.

"It's a stylized snowflake. Except snowflakes have six sides."

"This one has four. Ancient Slavs didn't know about hydrogen bonds or hexagonal lattice. Morena pauses flowing water. Her sigil stands for halting, keeping still, stopping in its tracks. It's a powerful ward. We are going to use it to freeze-frame a memory. Use the icicle to draw it on your forehead. Doesn't need to be precise. Just do the best you can."

Finn scribbled with the icicle on his forehead.

"Drop it into the bowl."

The icicle landed in the water.

"Repeat after me. ‘Mother Morena, light of winter…'"

"‘…light of winter…'"

"‘Life- preserving, snow-bringing, guardian of seeds, keeper of roots…'"

"‘…roots…'"

"‘Peer into my mind and bring forth a memory.'"

"‘…memory.'"

"‘Let me see the face of my enemy.'"

"‘…enemy.'"

"Look into the bowl and think back to your nightmare."

Finn stared at the water.

Magic moved. A thin layer of ice sheathed the surface, clear like glass. Within it, an image formed like a photograph appearing in a Polaroid. A tall man in a complex garment standing in front of a plain stone altar. Behind him, a symbol glowed, a wheel with eight spokes, drawn in the air with thin, smoldering lines, like glowing wires burning against wood.

Six spokes ended in sharp triangles; another, at seven-thirty o'clock, was severed in half; and the top one, pointing straight up, split in two just before it reached the outer rim.

Three rings, the smallest inner ring at about one-quarter of the radius, and then an outer, double ring. So three and then multiples of two, specifically four and eight. Those were these people's sacred numbers.

A dark gray robe with bright yellow panels, not cinched or belted, but cut narrow at the waist; long gray sleeves, close-fitted; dark gray gloves; two thick cords hanging from the shoulders, caught with metal clamps and ending in long tassels; and over it, a bright yellow cloak or over-robe, draping over the shoulders and arms, over the top part of the chest, and forming a layered hood. Beautiful fabric, embroidered with complex patterns, almost brocade-like, but not nearly as heavy, judging by the drape. The edges of the hood and the hem of the robe were tattered and fraying.

Roman had never seen anything like this before. The cut of the robe was definitely martial, more battle monk than ceremonial clergy. None of the symbology on the fabric rang any bells.

The deep hood hid most of the priest's face, leaving only the bottom half of his face exposed. Olive complexion, short, dark beard. That told him exactly nothing.

The priest held a long knife in his gloved hand, curved like a talon, with the same wheel symbol etched on the blade.

That was it.

The wheel didn't look like it was from any religion Roman knew, but there was something vaguely familiar about it. It invited comparison with the dharmachakra, the wheel of dharma. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism all used it. In Hinduism, it was associated with the sun, light, and knowledge. In Buddhism, it represented Buddha's teachings. The dharmachakra was an auspicious sign. This wheel was anything but. It didn't look right.

It didn't feel right, either. The glowing symbol felt oppressive, a weapon such as a buzz saw blade rather than a chariot wheel.

He had seen it somewhere before, but where?

"Did the priest say anything in your dream?" he asked.

"No."

"Did you hear any voices, anything at all besides Morena?"

"No."

"Alright. You can let it go."

Finn relaxed and the ice melted, taking the image with it. "What now?"

"Now we dig deeper."

"How? Another obryad?"

"No. We're going to make coffee and then we're going into my office, where we will look through a bunch of old books until we find something that fits."

Finn blinked.

"It's not all blood and flashy magic. A lot of it is scholarship. Get used to it."

* * *

"I see what you mean about the dharmic wheel." The tiny brown-headed nuthatch hopped back and forth, studying the drawing. "Harmony and symmetry are the point, and this is nothing like that. It's not a chariot wheel."

"No, if it were a chariot wheel, there would have been a solid circle to denote the axle, but the spokes intersect in the center."

"Exactly. It's not a nautical wheel, either. It's something vicious."

Roman rubbed his face. In the chair by the window, Finn stared at the massive tome in his lap, his eyes glazed over. The shepherd puppy had fallen asleep by his feet.

After the mercenaries collected the mage squad he'd hurled into the woods, they had dug in and gone quiet. A couple of hours ago Fedya, the smallest koloversh, brought an update: the client was coming in person.

They needed to figure out what they were dealing with before that client arrived. Forewarned was forearmed. Except he and Finn had been at this for hours now and had come up with nothing. He'd sent a koloversh to Dabrowski as a last resort.

"But does it look familiar to you?" Roman asked.

"That's the damnedest thing," Dabrowski said through the bird. "It does. Either I've seen it before or read about it. Otherworld alone knows where or when. Your apprentice is wilting."

Roman glanced at Finn.

The kid sighed. "Do we really have to know all of this?"

"Yes," Roman and Dabrowski said at the same time.

"But these are other people's gods."

"And if we were living in a world with just one god, it wouldn't be an issue," Dabrowski said.

"We would have much bigger issues," Roman said.

"True," the druid agreed.

"You won't be serving the God, Finn. You will be serving a god," Roman said. "The problem with clergy is that we don't just minister, we seek to convert, and many of us view other religions as rivals."

The nuthatch hopped around. "Indeed. Lock five priests from different cults into the same room for an hour, and at the end you have an equal chance of either harmony or a theological bloodbath. You won't know which it is until you open that door. It's like the Schr?dinger Synod. Although synod isn't exactly the best term…"

Roman had to cut him off before Dabrowski veered off on a tangent.

"The point is, you need to know who you are dealing with and what they are capable of. And religions grow and evolve all the time, so you must keep up. Druids like Piotr here can be monotheists, duotheists, or polytheists. Some reject the concept of a deity altogether, and yet when they gather, they have no problem performing the same rites and rituals, and all of them follow the same fundamental ethics. Chop an oak sapling in front of them and see how united they will get."

"Why?" Finn asked.

"Because Druidry is both a religion and a way of life," Dabrowski said. "It is a path, a journey, measured in time rather than distance, which all of us undertake together. Life is fundamentally spiritual, nature is unknowable, and none of us have a monopoly on the truth."

"But what do you believe?" Finn asked.

"I believe that—"

The dog door flap thudded, and a huge raven flew into the office and landed on Roman's desk.

Damn it all.

"There you are," the raven said in his mother's voice.

The nuthatch cringed. "Hello, Mrs. Tihomirov."

"Petya. And what are you doing here?"

"Leaving, actually." Dabrowski hopped off the table and flew off into the house.

Coward.

Roman sighed. "Yes?"

"Yes? That's all you have to say to me?"

Chernobog, grant me patience...

"I know this is a hard time of the year for you. The whole family is at the house celebrating and you are stuck out here alone like some frozen mushroom. I made your favorite pirogi. I kept waiting and waiting to see if you would reach out. I didn't want to smother you."

The Void is darkness, the Void is peace, I am within it, wrapped in its cold embrace, and I am at peace…

"You do not call. You do not answer. Is your phone broken? No? You probably unplugged it again. You do not send a word with one of your critters. For three days I have waited."

Nothing reaches the Void for it is the beginning and end of all things…

"Finally, I come to check on you and find you surrounded by some zarazas who try to shoot my bird, you look like death warmed over, and all you can say to me is, ‘yes'?"

Within the Void I am serene.

"What an ungrateful son I have. Why haven't you killed them yet? What have you been doing?"

Chernobog, grant me patience.

"As you can see, I have company." Roman glanced at Finn. "This is Finn, Morena's new priest. Finn, this is my mother, Evdokia, the Head Witch of the Witch Oracle."

The raven pivoted to Finn, who stared back like a deer in headlights.

"Finn is my guest. The dickheads outside are soldiers-for-hire, and they've been hired by their client to apprehend Finn. If I kill them, that wouldn't solve the problem, would it? It would just postpone it because we don't know who the client is, and they will try again."

The raven peered at Finn.

A few seconds passed.

A few more.

"Ha!" The raven cackled. "Karma!"

"What?"

"That's the consequence of your own actions sitting in that chair. And this one was a long time coming."

Roman stared at Finn. No, there was no way. "He isn't mine."

"Would that he was! If he were your child, that would be a miracle. One I would joyously welcome. If you managed to sire a son, I would strip naked and run around the woods like one of those Beltane nudists."

Roman squeezed his eyes shut before his brain had a chance to grapple with that mental image. "Mother!"

"What is wrong with you? You are thirty-four years old. I can see gray hair on your head. How is it you haven't made any babies yet?"

Void…

"Have you had yourself checked?"

"For what?" he snarled.

"For low sperm count."

Roman groaned.

"How is your testosterone? Or is that you are having trouble sealing the deal? If you're having equipment malfunctions, I have herbs for that—"

"Mother!" he roared.

"And now you are yelling at me. Because why not, go ahead, yell at your mother, who was in labor with you for two days."

"Every year the labor gets longer. Maybe your memory isn't what it used to be."

The raven fell ominously silent. Oh shit.

"It's been twelve years, sweetheart," Mother said, sadness filling her voice.

Oh, Nav no.

"Every year you and I reenact this play, where I come and nag so you know we care, and every year you run away and refuse to talk about it. Let it go. Nobody blames you. Nobody ever blamed you, for it was never your fault. It's time to rejoin the living, don't you think? Find someone to love. Stop punishing yourself and let yourself breathe a bit. We miss you. Your father—"

Anything but that talk. Not again. He grabbed the drawing of the wheel and thrust it in front of the raven. "What does that look like to you?"

The raven sighed and studied the drawing. "Some New Age otsebyachenna. It's not even symmetrical."

"Do you think Dad might know?"

"Your father is into his third cup of medovuha. He told me he loved me a few minutes ago, so I wouldn't count on it."

The raven pivoted to Finn again. "Is your sister coming?"

"Yes," Finn said.

"Good." The raven turned to Roman. "Life comes full circle, son. If only I was here to see it. Unfortunately, your own sister just walked through the door, so I must go. Deal with your mess and come down to see your family. Bring your guests, too."

The awareness died in the raven's eyes. It sat there for another moment confused, shook its feathers, and flew out the back door.

Full circle . Now why did that ring a bell…?

Something stirred in his head. Some weak fragment of a memory.

"What's otsebyachenna?" Finn asked.

"Made-up nonsense. Something you came up with yourself without any foundation or research."

Full circle…

The flock of kolovershi rushed into the room, followed by the iron hound.

"What is it?"

Something sparked on the edge of his awareness, a jagged, nasty kind of magic like lightning woven of razor blades. They had run out of time.

Roman rose. "The client is here."