This was where he’d been tethering before he’d come to Tuscany. Up these mountains, the slopes possessed battlefields scored with trenches and tunnels, where Italians and Austrians had fought in World War One. On these ravaged tracts, tens of thousands of troops had lost their lives. A colourful array of weaponry had been used: heavy artillery, mortars, machine guns, flamethrowers, as well as the more natural deaths by landslide and avalanche. The pockmarked terrain of the land was mirrored in the ravaged souls who still wandered its slopes. Many war-torn souls were tethered easily, willingly in fact; their essences so lost that when they saw the smoky light of an Enodian’s sluagh, they mistook it for Heaven’s light.Theo had tethered a fair handful here over the last few days.
Battle sites like this, as well as the history of warfare, both ancient and modern, were detailed areas of study for Enodians. It was how they saw the world, a patchwork of battlegrounds that stitched together, made a whole. Theystudied Politics and Current Affairs too. A useful context to apply the other crafts they employed to tether sluagh. They looked for signs of death to come in earth through the practice of Tassology. Any sediment from the Earth could be used to scry for signs of coming death. The most common materials used were tea leaves and coffee grounds. Although, Theo’s particular preference was wine sediment. Of course, it took a certain amount of discipline and exposure to the practice to glean a clear reading through that medium.
As well as Tassology, the Endoians practiced Hydromancy and Astrology, reading the signs of coming death in the water and stars. Watching the ripples on bodies of water allowed Enodians to decipher the signs from Lord Netherworld. On clear nights too, such as this, Lady Night unveiled places of forthcoming death; where the next major tethering grounds would be. The dazzling array of stars glittering above the mountains were alluring, but Theo focused on the task at hand. With a promise to give Lady Night the attention she deserved soon, he continued the trek up the mountain ridge.
When he reached the ledge of the mountain and a sheer cliff face … he stepped off.
The air roared past him as he fell, a metre, two, his descent accelerated. Then, he opened his soul and unleashed the power of his sluagh. The rippling arches of flame and smoke cascaded through the cold mountain air. Like mist his network of sluagh permeated him. He always smirked when evanescing through the Night. He couldn’t help thinking of all the golden eagles he’d tethered as a kid. Until the age of eleven, Enodians only tethered animal sluagh. He had favoured golden eagles, stalking the Scottish heathland for the mighty bird. He now felt those long ago animal spirits rise in his being. They wound through him, remembering their majestic flight, catching the thermal currents, and soaring along mountain ridges.
When the sluagh horde stitched Theo back together on the mountainside, it was further up. The rush of travelling through the night was always dizzying. Flying but falling, travelling down yet up. He knew he hadn’t only chosen these mountains for the blooms they offered but because plummeting through the night air was the thrill he always needed to feel himself. The chill mountain air mixed with the soulfire in his lungs and heat pouring off of his body, caused his breath to roll in clouds around him. He loved the feel of the two conflicting landscapes: the fire within and the cold without.
Now on the mountains’ ridge, the scent he’d ascended for filled his nostrils. The Edelweiss’ powdery perfume. So many lovers in the past had risked life and limb to bring back this particular bloom for their sweetheart. As Theo inched towards the ledge to claim the blooms, he grinned.
Only the best for Donna.
He’d chosen something a little exotic as his offering. Something a bit different like Donna. Growing up in the Cairngorms in Scotland, heather and thistle, blueberries, sloe and rowan were the offerings he’d first foraged. It didn’t matter what buds and fruits one offered, only that they were fresh enough to call the dead back into the living world.
By three in the morning, Theo was once more stepping from the Netherworld portal out of the pond. His fresh face and the bouquet of fruits and flowers belied the hundreds of kilometres he’d travelled. A shifter would have caught the fragrant Alpine air and fauna that clung to his clothes and hair, but for miles around, only sleepers and the dead ranged.
Once more, Theo walked into the vineyard, the grounds resting comfortably in the silence of the night.
Perfect. The musicians had retired.
Taking his wildflowers and berries, he deposited them on one of the crates. The crescent moon provided enough light for his ceremony. He pulled out a swiss army knife, then drew the blade across his palm. He squeezed his fist so that droplets of blood beaded onto the flowers and fruits.
‘Sanguis mei sanguinis,’ Theo murmured, using the Latin language, sacred to Lady Night and Lord Netherworld.
The network of sluagh housed in his soul permeated his blood. Their soulfire enshrined the offering and the powdery floral scent suffused the night air. He felt his tethered sluagh trying to reach out within him like baying dogs. He reined them in, refusing their fervour. This offering wasn’t for them.
A presence stirred. Someone watched. The scent was working, the sugary perfume intoxicating. Theo knew that it must be a potent offering as even his sluagh who he kicked down, still yapped and nipped. Was Donna rising from the earth? He could feel her presence getting stronger. It emanated with such significant power that it once more brought a ripple of memory. The purply aura that he’d seen on the Cairngorms flashed through his head.
He stifled the thought.
He pinpointed where Donna was just as
