All around the circle, heads bent. I bowed my head as well, though no one could see. For so many years I had feared my aunt, and fought her, and in the end, tried to forget her. And yet she had done the work of Avalon and done it well. Having managed my own household for a dozen years, I could in some wise appreciate her achievement now. Were there things that Ganeda could teach me?
Dierna handed the pouch of incense to Ceridachos, and he cast a handful onto the pyre, which was now well alight.
“The dead has her release, and the answer to all questioning,” she said gravely. “It is those who remain who suffer now, from loss, from memory, from regret for things left unsaid or undone. Let us pray now for the living left behind…” Her hand swept out in a wide circle to include us all.
Pray for me! I thought grimly, amazed to discover that even my astral body could shed tears.
“Oh Thou Lady of Darkness, lift Thou the darkness that lies upon our souls. As Thou hast cut the thread of life, break Thou the bonds that constrain our spirits, lest our feelings should bind the one we would set free.”
It came to me in that moment that I was not the only one who might have had mixed feelings about the Lady of Avalon, and the spirit of any adept could make a dangerous ghost. The community had the best of reasons for making sure nothing held her here.
Now the incense was being passed around the circle. As each one threw a pinch on the flames I heard the words, “Thus I release you,” followed sometimes by a murmured message of more personal farewell. Smoke and sparks billowed upward to join the stars. And though my fingers could not grasp the incense, I too moved close to the pyre, and with all the truth of my being, offered the woman who had in so many ways shaped my life both forgiveness and farewell.
“The Lady bounds life with death, and out of death creates life anew,” said Dierna when all had finished. “We are the children of earth and starry heaven. By our response to this loss let us transcend it.” She took a deep breath. “I bear now the ornaments of the High Priestess. I pray to the Goddess to give me the strength and the wisdom to lead Avalon!”
As the night drew on the others made their vows, then drew aside to keep watch as the pyre became a framework of glowing lines, and the central core, which had been built with faster-burning fuel, fell to ash. And just as the eastern sky was beginning to pale with the approach of the sun, I willed myself to approach the heap of coals and ashes that remained.
“Lady, it was you who exiled me, but the Goddess who showed me my way. By example and by opposition you taught me much. Though I walk now in the world beyond the mists, I will do so as a priestess of Avalon!”
I drew back, for suddenly the world was filled with light as the newborn sun rose above the eastern hills. And in that moment, the dawn wind, rising, lifted the ashes like a swirl of smoke and swept them outwards to fall like a blessing upon the green turf of the Tor.
It had made me shiver sometimes, when I first learned of that custom, to think that I might be treading on what was left of Caillean or Sianna or one of the legendary priestesses who had followed them. But in truth, the earth of the Tor was just as holy as they. Their dust hallowed it as it blessed them. They were one and the same.
The priests and priestesses stirred from the stillness of their vigil as if released from a spell. As Dierna looked up, her eyes widened and I knew that she, alone among that company, could see me standing there.
“This should be your place,” she whispered, touching the ornaments she wore. “Will you return to us now?”
But I shook my head, smiling, and using the full imperial obeisance with which I had always honoured the Lady of Avalon, I bowed.