Phoenix and Ashes (36 page)

She
lit a bedside candle, changed into her night-dress, climbed into bed, and
settled in for a read.

Within
a few paragraphs, she knew that her hunch was right. Her mother’s
workbook had paragraphs that were very like a condensed form of what she found
here.

Mind,
these books were altogether too wordy. But she was used to that; the great
classic writers tended to be just about as wordy; they were just better at it.
The study of alchemy, according to this philosopher, had
never
been
about finding ways to change base metal into gold. That particular
transmutation itself was merely a philosophical expression for the evolution
and maturation of a human spirit…

To
change one’s own self from the heavy, leaden soul who could scarcely lift
his eyes to the heavens, much less soar among them, to the winged, pure, and
precious intellect that could neither tarnish nor be debased.

The
Philosopher’s Stone was not a
thing
, but a
process
—as,
so the book said, a spell was not really a
thing
but a
process
.
Spells were the processes by which a magician imposed his or her will on the
surrounding universe. The Philosopher’s Stone was the process by which
the magician transmuted his or herself into a state in which he or she could
understand the universe. Maybe even become one with it.

And
if her mother’s workbook had been dense with symbolic meanings, this book
was overflowing with them. Nothing, it seemed, existed without having double
and triple meanings. Not even the most commonplace items. A broom was a broom,
and a means of cleansing, the symbol for cleansing, and a symbol of the
cleansing power of Air. Even the old gods were merely symbols for other things,
powers, emotions, stages on the life-journey.

But
here were the old, familiar friends—Earth, Air, Fire, and Water… if
you knew what to look for, you quickly realized that the man who wrote this
book understood Mastery. The book was written in such a way that those who were
not magicians could take it as pure philosophy—but for those who were,
this book, and probably some of the others, were a guide beyond the practical
application of magic into the theory behind it.

And
when you knew the theory and the philosophy, you could create your own pathways
and applications.

Slowly,
with much reading and rereading of the same paragraphs, things began to fit
into place.

She
had originally intended to concentrate only on her own Element, but it soon
became clear that this was a bad idea. Not only were the powers and meanings of
all four Elements incestuously intertwined, but after all, Alison was an Earth
Master and Reggie an Air Master. To defeat the
one
and help the other,
she had to learn about
their
Elements, and at that point it made
little sense to skip learning about the Antagonistic Element to her own, Water.

She
finally felt her eyelids growing too heavy, and set the book aside, blowing out
the candle, phrases from the book still echoing in her mind as she drifted into
sleep. She didn’t understand them yet—but soon—soon—

…
the first step must be into the first Sphere, the Sphere of Imagination, for
Intellect must be the servant of Imagination, and not the master…

Eleanor
woke slowly, with the strangest feeling—as if, once she had put the book
down last night, she had gone into dreams only to find that in her dreams she
was still trying to come to grips with what she had read. Except that in the
dream, there was something or someone helping her grasp it.

And
the moment she woke, she realized that she
did
grasp some of what
she’d been reading, and had put it together with what had been in the
workbook.

In
fact, that was exactly what she needed to do—start putting things
together, since all things were connected, and each had aspects of the rest.
The only actual starting place was the intellect, which led into the
imagination. After that, the imagination led everywhere.

She’d
been trying to think of all of the Planes of her mother’s book—or
“Spheres,” as the Alchemy book called them—as being separate,
and that things somehow passed from one to another. But it wasn’t like
that at all;
everything
was layered on top of everything else, and
everything coexisted at once. The physical world that everyone saw and lived in
was overlaid with all of the magic worlds. The difference between a regular
person and a magician was whether or not you could see each layer.

Which
was why those nasty little gnomish things in the meadow had seemed to dig their
way into the ground without actually disturbing it; they weren’t really
digging into the
ground
, they were moving themselves out of the Plane
of the “real world”—which the alchemy book called
“Middle Earth,” and into one of the lower Planes, probably the Dark
Earth Plane, where she couldn’t see them anymore. And the Salamanders
couldn’t follow, both because they weren’t creatures of Earth and
because they weren’t creatures of the Dark Ways. Every Sphere had a
corresponding Dark Side, and as a Light Path magician, you didn’t want to
go there, unless you absolutely had to. Not because you could get hurt, but
because you could get seduced and corrupted unless you were very, very careful.
You
couldn’t
go there, if you were a Light Path Elemental.

She
could have, if she had known how to get her imagination to move her awareness
into the Plane of Earth, because humans were uniquely able to move among all
the Planes. But she wouldn’t have been comfortable there, because it
wasn’t her Element, either
.

Imagination.
That was the key. Whatever she could imagine, if she could do it well enough,
and believe in it, she could see.

Intellect
ruled the Middle Earth, which lay between the Spheres of the Light Path and the
Spheres of the Dark. It reflected both, though the balance shifted as affairs
in the Middle Earth itself shifted, and as the balance of power between the
Light Path Spheres and the Dark Path Spheres shifted.

Those
who subscribed only to Intellect could never move beyond the Middle Earth. But
those who explored Imagination and Intuition found the way into the other
Spheres open to them.

And
once you learned the symbolic logic of those other Spheres, you knew how to
manipulate
your
magic, and how to counter the magic of other Elements
than your own. Now, that meant that Eleanor would have a fighting chance of
undoing what Alison had done to her, even if she wasn’t as strong a
magician as Alison. It didn’t take a hammer to crack a nut; a little
pressure applied at the right place would split it open. What was more, Eleanor
had a shrewd hunch that Alison’s spells only worked against her on
this
Plane. Once she learned how to move among the Planes, she could travel them
relatively unhindered.

Once
I learn to move among the Planes, once I really understand the Plane of Earth
magic, I will find the key to break her spells
!
She knew that; it made
perfect sense. Knowledge and understanding, not force, were going to be the
keys to her shackles
.

But
to do that, to be able to step beyond this Middle Earth and into the rest, she
would have to do a lot of work. She had once thought that preparing for the
examinations to get into Oxford was hard work. This would be ten times harder.
She was going to have to go completely beyond what she had always taken as
“the truth” into a whole new set of truths—and then believe
in them. Well, no one said it was going to be easy.

She
got up and ran through her usual chores in an absentminded fashion; her hands
and body did the work, while her mind repeated some of what she thought she was
beginning to understand from the books.

It
might have seemed odd, but amid all those philosophical musing, she did not
forget to wash all those cotton shirtwaists and linen skirts she had brought
down from the attic, nor to put them up—well out of sight of the bedroom
windows—on lines in the garden to dry. It seemed very strange to be doing
all these intensely common and practical things while her head was buzzing with
alchemical esoterica.

And
as she worked, she kept remembering links to the symbology of even the most ordinary
things—as she scrubbed, she was also thinking.
Water, is the Sphere
of Emotion; although there are emotions associated with all the Elements, they
all have more strength here in Water. Especially the nurturing
ones—that’s the Light Path, though, the Dark Path is the emotions
that destroy, like a flood washing everything away in its path. And Water is
mutable—solid to liquid to gas and back again, so it represents change,
while unchanging Water, the Dark Path, is stagnation. And nothing can grow without
it, so it also has an aspect of growth, but too much water can kill, so
there’s death. It can purify and pollute. It can fill or drown. The
alchemical creature is the Hippocampus, showing the links among Water, Air, and
Earth. Water is hard to control because it’s hard to contain, not as hard
as Air, though
.

And
then that, and a whiff of flowers, sent her into
Air, the Sphere of
Mercury, the Sphere of Memory. The strongest memory-trigger there is, is scent.
More of a Sphere of Intellect than Emotion, though Mercury is changeable and
volatile, more so than water. The Zephyr refreshes, the Tempest sweeps away.
Too much Air can intoxicate, too little and you die. It can cleanse, too, or
destroy. Mostly, it’s too thin to support emotion, or at least, intense
emotion. Memories generally come at a distance; you can forget how you felt
when you went through those incidents originally. Pride, though; there’s
pride there. And that’s why Mercury is the god of liars, because people
lie to bolster their pride and maintain their pride. And thieves, because
thieves are proud of their skill. That’s the Dark Path; there’s no
reason why you shouldn’t take pride in your work, and there’s
nothing wrong with change. Hardest of the Elements to contain, but not so hard
to control, since Fire devours it, Water ignores it, Earth deflects
it—the Alchemical creature is the Phoenyx, even though the Phoenyx is
also a Fire Elemental, showing the links among Air, Water, and Fire
.

Scrubbing
the floor led to—
Earth. Alison’s Element. The Sphere of
Passion—Love, on the Path of Light, Lust on the Dark Path. Seduction,
which sits on the line between the two Paths. Not changeable, no—it takes
a lot to force the Earth to change. Passion is a really useful thing; you
can’t really create something that will live without it. Passion is an
implacable force, like an avalanche—once you start it, it takes a long
time to stop it
. Maybe that’s why she had to wait until I was in an
emotional breakdown before she could bind me.
The Dark Path isn’t
stagnation though—it’s rot or sterility. Creator and Devourer;
Earth is, among others, the Goddesses Erda and Hera, who are both prone to
creation and destruction
. There may be a key to defeating Alison in that,
but what is it?
The Alchemical creature is the Gryphon, showing the links
among Earth, Air, and Water, even though the Gryphon is also an Elemental of
Air
.

She
mused over that while she cooked, then lingered over her breakfast, having come
around to her own Element at last.
Fire—Sphere of Anger. Mars. The
Alchemical Creature is the Dragon, showing the links among Air, Earth, and
Fire. The Dragon of the Light is wise and ancient, the Dragon of the Dark is
almost mindless and constantly in a rage. Fire cleanses and destroys. The Dark
Path is the Fire that only devours, I suppose, since there is no Fire that is
not in a state of constant change. The Light Path would be the Fire that
cleanses
?
Or maybe the Fire that serves, instead of the uncontrolled
fire that eats everything in its path. I suppose Anger can be productive;
righteous anger, but what a narrow divide between Light and Dark! Righteous
anger should lead you to Justice, which is why Justice is also here, but…
but Justice is blind, and there is no Mercy in the Sphere of Fire. Justice
?
Judgment is more like it. And Anger, like Fire, is hard to control and the
most apt to turn and destroy the person trying to control it.
Hate—channeled anger. How do I control my anger
?
Because if I
don’t, it will control me…

Intellect
and imagination, that was what it had to be. That was what it seemed to come
down to. Somehow she had to use both. No wonder Fire was supposed to be the
most dangerous of the Elements!

And
the most seductive; anger was intoxicating, she knew that already. And when
anger ran out—

Another
branch on the Dark Path—Despair. Oh, I know the taste of that. Despair,
because it’s Self Hate; yes, that belongs here in Fire, too. Like Fire,
Despair devours what sustains it… and Despair can coil you right back to
Anger again, unthinking Anger, the kind that just lashes out
.

She
almost wished she had never picked up that book; never read what was in those
pages. Sarah’s way had been so much simpler!

Sarah’s
way would never have gotten me where I need to go
.

She
had to become a Master if she was going to break Alison’s hold on her.
She was beginning to think that there were masters and there were
Masters—those who used their magic, and those who really, truly
understood it. And maybe Alison hadn’t gotten to her Mastery by following
this course, but—

But
if she hasn’t, then that may be her weakness. If she’s gone the
simpler, most direct route to power, it means she’s left all those other
paths that are still there unwatched, unguarded. It’s like having a
fortress and leaving all the windows open while you carefully lock the only
door
.