by an adept.
Face flushed with excitement, Crowley pointed to a small stage set in the centre of the cavern. ‘Bring the Daemon to the altar,’ he boomed, ‘and Lady Aaliz, if you would approach through the unformed part of the pentagon, being careful not to step on the rest of the design.’ He pointed to the pentagon painted on the floor of the cavern that surrounded the altar, indicating the one missing side. ‘Now, my Lady,’ said Crowley, ‘if you would please kneel in the direction from which the dawn light will enter our temple.’
The Lady Aaliz did as she was bade.
‘Have the Daemon kneel facing the Lady Aaliz.’
None too gently the Witchfinder forced Norma into the pentagon and pushed her down so that she was face to face with Aaliz, the girls forming human bookends to the altar. ‘Ah, the perfect yin and yang,’ mused Crowley. ‘The perfect antipodes: one blonde, the other dark.’
A trio of musicians seated at the very rear of the temple began to play, the music they conjured from their instruments cacophonous, disturbing and somehow alien.
In the corners of the cavern incense burners were lit and acrid red smoke began to drift through the temple. The smell that tugged at Norma’s nostrils made her head swim, and she began to feel strangely divorced from reality.
A priestess set a golden tray bearing two goblets – one containing Norma’s blood – on a stand to the side of the altar. Once the woman had retreated from the pentagon, Crowley turned to address his small audience. ‘The altar has been encased in this pentagon for two reasons: it seals the altar from the Demi-Monde, which makes it a more
… comfortable place for the Spirits to occupy, and secondly, it forms a magical barrier that safeguards onlookers from the occult forces our spells will release.’ He stooped down and with two swift swishes of a piece of chalk and a few muttered incantations closed the pentagon.
Satisfied, he moved to stand behind the altar, then spread his arms and called out, ‘I command ABBA, the deity that rules this, the Demi-Monde, to send the soul of Aaliz Heydrich to the Spirit World there to inhabit the body of Norma Williams.’ Crowley walked around the altar nine times waving an incense burner to and fro, wafting thick, acrid smoke over the two kneeling girls.
‘First, the Lady Aaliz must drink the blood of the Daemon and by doing so subjugate its will and its astral power.’ He offered the golden chalice to Aaliz, who, with obvious relish, drank down the thick, red liquid.
‘Now, Daemon, drink this.’ Crowley noted the look of revulsion on Norma’s face. ‘Do not worry, it is not blood. This is zelie, a potion made from the hallucinogenic plant called ayahuasca that grows in the Hubland: its use was much favoured by the shamans of Old Rodina. To this I have added the juice of boiled fly agaric mushrooms, to make a cocktail to unlock your mind from the hegemony of your will.’ Norma reluctantly downed the draught. The tart red liquid made her head spin.
‘Join hands,’ commanded Crowley and Norma unthinkingly stretched out her hands towards Aaliz, who intertwined her fingers around hers.
‘Let the Rite of Transference commence.’
The seven men and five women who made up Ella’s bodyguard gathered expectantly around the basket. She found the way they looked at her vaguely disconcerting: they really did believe they were in the presence of someone truly holy. The problem was she didn’t have a clue what to say to them. As she gazed into those trusting, imploring eyes, she wondered what she, little Ella Thomas from New York City, could say that would inspire these people, that would give them hope. She turned to the greatest speech-writers in history for inspiration.
Thank you Mrs Little and her English Lit class.
‘Friends, Demi-Mondians, countrymen, lend me your ears.’
Now a little from the greatest speechifier of them all, Winston Churchill.
‘We have seen joined the greatest battle in the history of the Demi-Monde. It is a battle between good and evil; between those who wish to be free and those who wish to enslave them; between those who would embrace understanding and tolerance and those whose philosophy is infused by hate. But it is a battle that must be won. It will not be an easy victory. We see stretching before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering. But we must be victorious. We must have victory. Victory at all costs – victory in spite of all terrors – victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival. And make no mistake, my friends, we now fight for our very survival.’
Though JFK wasn’t bad either.
‘Let the ForthRight know we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure this victory and the success of liberty and equality within the Demi-Monde. Let the ForthRight know we wish a new world order, one where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace is preserved.’
Not forgetting the inimitable Martin Luther King.
‘My friends: I have a dream that one day this world will live out the truth in the creed that all men and all women are created equal. I have a dream that even the ForthRight, with its vicious racists and a Leader whose lips drip with the bile of detestation and subjugation, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that one day people will be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their souls.’
A little touch more of Churchillian rhetoric.
‘So I ask you to go forth and spread the message that all of the Demi-Monde must unite against the plague that is UnFunDaMentalism. Tell the people of the Demi-Monde that we must unite to wage war by land and by river. We must wage war with all our might and with all the strength ABBA has given us. We must wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. Tell them we must fight and we must be victorious.’
And round it off with a dash more Martin Luther King.
‘But be assured that one day the chimes of freedom will ring out through the Demi-Monde proclaiming the coming of a world where men and women, black and white, HerEtical and HimPerialist, will join hands as equals and as friends. That is my message. I pray to the Spirits to keep you safe and to give you the courage and the strength to face the trials to come.’
After she had finished speaking an unnatural silence descended on her audience. Then one of the twelve – the long, beanpole William Penn who had been so assiduously scribbling in his notebook as she had been talking – stood up. There were tears trickling down his cheeks. ‘We pledge, Lady IMmanual, that we will take your message to the Demi-Monde. We pledge that your message of democracy and the defiance of tyranny and injustice will be spread to all the Sectors. We pledge to work night and day to rally the Demi-Monde to defy the evil of the ForthRight and of UnFunDaMentalism. We pledge our undying loyalty and allegiance to our Saviour, the Lady IMmanual and the creed of IMmanualism.’
Bloody hell.
Then the twelve knelt before Ella, who, remembering what she had seen the televangelists do on TV, went around placing her hand on each of the bowed heads whilst intoning, ‘May ABBA be with you.’
At last Vanka intervened. ‘Well, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for everything. Best of luck with your preaching. Go forth with the blessing of the Lady IMmanual and all that. Yeah, go forth and multiply. Now we’ve got to be going.’ He hopped into the basket and held out a hand to Ella. ‘C’mon, then, time to go flying.’
Once his two passengers were safely in the balloon’s basket, Vanka nodded to William Penn. ‘If you would cast off the mooring ropes.’
There was a judder, a lurch and slowly the balloon began to rise.
‘What did you think, Vanka,’ she gasped as she watched the ground begin to slowly recede, ‘about what I said down there?’
‘I think if you carry on making speeches like that the IMmanualites will never let you leave the Demi-Monde.’ He beamed at her. ‘And if that’s the case, I might even be persuaded to become one myself.’
As Trixie walked to the Rangoon side of the Anichkov Bridge she saw a deputation standing waiting to greet her. Unconsciously she ran a hand through her sweat-drenched hair, trying to make herself just a little more presentable. She almost laughed: after what she had been through it was a ridiculous thing to worry about.
Two of the deputation stepped forward. The leading woman was tall and well-made, and despite the rather severe cut of the trouser suit she was wearing appeared elegant and quite feminine, thanks to the wonderful
