But that was a fear she could face once this night was past. The procession was beginning to move now. Eilan allowed Caillean to assist her to her feet and started up the hill.
The Druids were chanting; their song pulsed through the warm air.
“Behold, the holy priestess comes,
Sacred herbs are in her crown;
The golden crescent in her hand…”
Even after five years, there was always that moment of surprise when Eilan felt the first wave of expectation from the assembled crowd. And she had certainly forgotten the nausea, and the sickening lurch in consciousness as the drugs began to take hold. She fought back the flicker of panic as the world whirled around her. She had sought this; whether out of faith or cowardice she was not sure, but this time she wanted the world to go away.
Lady of Life, to You I entrust my spirit. Mother, be merciful to all Your children!
Years of practice had given her full control over the techniques of focus and breathing that loosed the spirit from the body. The herbs in the potion aided the process, as if her head had been shattered like a broken bowl so that Other could flood into her, tossing her consciousness aside like a leaf on a stream.
Eilan felt the priestesses assisting her into the chair, and the unsettling sensation of falling even though she knew they were lifting her. Her spirit swung between earth and heaven; there was a slight jerk as they set the chair atop the mound, and she was free.
She was floating in a golden mist, and for a time it was enough simply to enjoy the sense of being safe, protected, and at home. Suspended in this certainty, the fears she had left behind her seemed transitory, even absurd. But the silver cord that still tied her to her body would not entirely release her, and presently, ever reluctantly, the mist thinned enough so that she could see, and hear.
She looked down upon the huddle of blue robes in the tall chair and knew it for her body, dimly illuminated by the embers of the great bonfires to either side. The priests and priestesses made a circle with the people behind them, pale robes on one side and dark on the other in two great curves of light and shadow. The great mass of folk who had come for the festival darkened the hillside; points of fire winked from the booths and tents of the encampment that had sprung up around it. Beyond stretched the patchwork of field and forest, with the pale glimmer of roads cutting through the trees. Without curiosity she noted a swirl of motion in one part of the crowd, and further off a more regular movement along the road from Deva, and the gleam as metal caught the light of the setting moon.
The Druids were invoking the Goddess, twining all the incoherent imaginings of the people into a single, mighty image which was at the same time as various as there were people to echo their call. Eilan saw the power they were raising as a swirl of multicolored light and pitied the fragile human form into which it was descending. Now her body was almost hidden; the energy was taking shape; she saw a female figure, heroic in stature and splendid in form, though the features could not yet be seen.
Eilan drew closer, wondering what face the Lady would wear for this gathering.
And in that moment, the disturbance in the crowd reached the center; she saw the red gleam of swords and heard male voices harsh with anguish crying, “Great Queen, hear us! Cathubodva, we call you—Lady of Ravens, avenge your sons!”
Ardanos turned, his face contorting, to silence them, but the intensity of emotion in that call had done its work. A whirl of dark-winged shadows fluttered across the circle as a sudden chill wind stirred the fires; and the figure in the chair seemed to expand suddenly and sat bolt upright, flinging the veil aside.
“I hear your summoning, and I come,” she said in the language of the tribes. “Who is it that dares to call on Me?”
The murmur of fright that had swept the circle faded to absolute silence as a man limped into the circle of firelight. Eilan recognized Cynric, a bloody bandage around his head and a naked sword in his hand. “Mother, it is I who call you—ever have I served you! Lady of Ravens, arise now in wrath!”