Lorens, on the other hand, was starting to feel much more relaxed and had started chatting to the people around him.
"It really is a party!" he said to Brida, smiling. He had come there expecting something extraordinary, but it turned out it was just a party, and much more fun than the parties held by his fellow scientists.
A little way off stood a man with a white beard, whom he recognized as a professor from the university. He didn't know quite what to do, but, after a while, the professor recognized him, too, and raised his glass in greeting.
Lorens felt relieved. Witches were no longer hunted, nor were their sympathizers.
"It's like a picnic," Brida heard someone say. Yes, it was like a picnic, and that made her feel rather irritated. She had expected something more ritualistic, more like the Sabbaths that had inspired Goya, Saint-Saens, and Picasso. She picked up the bottle beside her and began to drink.
A party. Crossing the bridge between the visible and the invisible by means of a party. Brida was intrigued to know how anything sacred could possibly happen in such a secular atmosphere.
Night was falling fast, and people continued to drink. Just as darkness threatened to submerge everything, some of the men present--without performing any specific ritual--lit the fire. That is how it had been in the past. Before fire became a powerful element in the rituals of witchcraft, it had been merely a source of light. A light around which women gathered to talk about their men, their magical experiences, their encounters with incubi and succubi, the much-feared sexual demons of the Middle Ages. That is how it had been in the past--a party, a huge popular festival, a joyful celebration of spring and hope, in an age when being happy was a challenge to the Law, because no one could enjoy themselves in a world made only to tempt the weak. The lords of the land, shut up in their dark castles, gazed out at the fires in the forests and felt as if they'd been robbed--those peasants were eager for happiness, and no one who has experienced happiness can ever again feel at ease with sadness. The peasants might then expect to be happy year-round, and that would threaten the whole political and religious system.
Four or five people, who were already slightly tipsy, began dancing round the fire, perhaps in imitation of a witches' Sabbath. Among the dancers Brida saw an Initiate whom she'd met when Wicca commemorated the martyrdom of the sisters. She was shocked. She had assumed followers of the Tradition of the Moon would behave in a way more in keeping with that sacred place. She remembered the night she had spent with the Magus, and how drink had hindered communication between them during their astral travel.
"My friends will be green with envy," she heard someone say. "They'll never believe I was here."
That was too much. She needed to get a little distance, to understand properly what was going on, and to resist a strong desire simply to leave and go home before she became entirely disillusioned with everything she'd believed in for nearly a year now. She looked for Wicca, and saw her talking and laughing with some of the guests. The number of people dancing round the fire was growing larger all the time; some were clapping and singing, accompanied by others keeping time by beating on the empty bottles with sticks or keys.
"I need to go for a walk," she told Lorens.
A group of people had gathered round him, fascinated by what he was telling them about ancient stars and the miracles of modern physics. However, he immediately stopped talking and asked:
"Would you like me to come with you?"
"No, I'd rather be alone."
She left the group and headed off into the forest. The voices were growing ever louder and more raucous, and everything--the drunkenness, the comments, the people playing at being witches and wizards around the fire--became mixed up in her head. She had waited so long for this night, but it was turning out to be just another party, like one of those charity dos, where people eat, get drunk, tell jokes, and then make speeches about the need to help the Indians in the Southern Hemisphere or the seals at the North Pole.
She began walking through the forest, always keeping within sight of the fire. She walked along a path that gave her a view from above the central stone. However, seen from high up, the view was even more disappointing: Wicca was busy circulating among the different groups, asking if everything was all right; people were dancing around the fire; a few couples were already exchanging their first drunken kisses. Lorens was talking animatedly to two men, perhaps about things that would have been fine in the setting of a bar, but not at a celebration like this. A latecomer entered the wood, a stranger attracted by the noise, in search of a little fun.
She recognized his way of walking.
The Magus.
Startled, Brida began running back down the path. She wanted to reach him before he got to the party. She needed him to help her, as he had before. She needed to understand the meaning of what was going on there.
Wicca certainly knows how to organize a Sabbath," thought the Magus as he approached. He could see and feel the free flow of energy among the people present. At this phase of the ritual, the Sabbath resembled any other party; it was important to ensure that all the guests were on the same wavelength. At his first Sabbath, he had felt very shocked b
y all this. He remembered calling his Teacher over and asking him what was going on.
"Haven't you ever been to a party before?" his Teacher had asked, annoyed at the Magus for interrupting an interesting conversation.
Of course he had, the Magus said.
"And what makes for a good party?"
"Everyone enjoying themselves."
"Men have been holding parties since the days when they lived in caves," said his Teacher. "They're the first group rituals we know of, and the Tradition of the Sun took it upon itself to keep that ritual alive. A good party cleanses the minds of all those taking part, but it's very difficult to make that happen; it only takes a few people to spoil the general mood. Those people think they're more important than the others; they're hard to please; they think they're wasting their time because they can't make contact with anyone else. And they usually end up the victims of a mysterious form of poetic justice: they tend to leave weighed down by the astral larvae given off by those people who have managed to bond with others. Remember, the first road to God is prayer, the second is joy."
Many years had passed since that conversation with his Teacher. The Magus had taken part in many Sabbaths since then, and he knew that this was a very skillfully arranged example; the collective energy level was growing all the time.
He looked for Brida. There were a lot of people there, and he wasn't used to crowds. He knew that he needed to partake of that collective energy, and he was quite prepared to do so, but first he needed to reaccustom himself. She could help him. He would feel more at ease once he had found her.
He was a Magus. He knew about the point of light. All he needed was to alter his state of consciousness and the point of light would appear in the midst of all those people. For years, he had searched for that light, and now it was there only yards away from him.
The Magus altered his state of consciousness. He looked again at the people gathered there, this time with a changed perception, and he could see a vast range of different-colored auras, all of them, though, were shifting closer to the color that would predominate that night.