Miss Magic

"'Tis time. "

Without any more words, they gathered to the middle, around the small table that served as an altar. A candle glowed in the center, and appropriate offerings of wine, shells and fruit were placed around it.

She turned to Robert, and without a word he drew his dagger. Silently, she took it, raising it above her head and saluted the Mother. Then the Father. Passing the blade through the flame, it glowed with a blue light.

The roomful of people joined hands, forming a circle. Now she would invoke the blessings of protection from the otherworld. Taking Roberts's dagger from the flame, she started at the North. The blue light glowed in slim tracer as she pointed it at the earth beneath her, and the shining blue maintained it's light as she walked around the cluster of mortals, drawing the circle where they would invoke the energy to focus, to work magic, to work love.

Because that is what it was going to take. A lot of love to o'erthrow the hatred growing in the hearts of the people. Hatred of the cruel oppression that was devouring their lives.

"The circle of light..." breathed Robert. The hottest point of flame that burned most pure had been transformed to the white witch's blade tip. Lightening crackled and licked at the four points of the compus. The heavens themselves rolled back until the stars winked into view above the small honest band of worshiper's heads as they linked hands which glowed with power.

"What do you see in the reflection of the blade?" He sighed. The pendant on her breast flowed with the new born power of the gathering in their unified strength. Each had been fasting for days in hope of this moment.

"See for yourselves..."
A man strode through the high arching doors of a monestary in one of the bastard Church of England's strongholds upon their fair land.

He was an emissary familiar to Robert, whose eyes grew cruel at the sight of him.

"Montegue!"

"Yes! Straight from the bowels of hell!"

"Look!"

"His Lordship, Duke Wilmington. They are all in one place! If only we had known, we could have seen them all with their heads rolling back to the hell they came from."

Quiet...listen..."

The Frenchman was darkly handsome with lacy finery at his wrists and neck as he bowed before his lordship and handed him a be-ribboned scroll. At the Earl's side stood a representative of the Queen's church, who blessed the document and unrolled it before beginning it's reading.

"Aaaahemmmm...see the seal of the high bishop, himself, giving us welcome to proceed with the will of the church upon this heathen shore. All peoples residing here forfeit their lands and freedoms unless submitting themselves to baptism in the Church of England and giving oath to their fealty under our holy dominion. It is done, sire."

The scene stood hot and sure in Robert's eyes even as it faded from his dream like view. The hands grew tight within his grasp from those who stood at each side of him. "We are none too early, My lady! Scarce do you grace our homeland shores than our doom is pronounced upon us. They mean us all harms way now and have the might to enforce it. Both Catholic and Protestent will go in hiding, but it is the age-old beginning of our Druid lore which they seek to disperse forever."

His voice trembled with passion. The small group before him seemed so few against the strangeness meant to wipe them from the face of the earth. The belief in another world in after death did not hurry these war mongers to it; rather, it brought disgrace upon this world and those who worshiped its nature.