The Change is now. Are you ready?

The prologue of the first book of 11 volumes I am authoring. Enjoy. Soon available as an audio book and an audio/video book currently in production, whilst I also pen a chapter for a new co-authored book named Inspired Creators and expand the village series with Book One.

The Call – Book Zero

The Village Series

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Prologue

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The night felt preternaturally dark, but still he kept moving.?He had been walking for around four hours. When he stopped for a moment to look up, he could make out the lightless form of the mountain.?A firmament of brilliant stars, the Milky Way, stretched across the sky.?

The few tools he needed for ceremony were swaddled in a multi-coloured cloth, pushed deep into a soft leather bag that hung on a broad leather strap across his right shoulder.?The bag bounced comfortably on his hip.?

?His mouth was dry, but the dryness was more about the knowledge of the work he must do on this lightless night, than a lack of water.?

?He was sure he had remembered everything.

?In his right hand was a staff of hard, straight wood that had been his constant companion for the past two years.?He had taken it from the forest in the mountains near where he had been living with nature, communing with the earth, soil, rocks and stones, the wind and the clouds, the streams and the rain, the sun and the fire of the rough camp he had called home.?

?The staff had been present at every moment, every ceremony, he had performed in preparation for this night.

?Every day of those two years he had also woven a web, danced a pattern into the staff so that it could become the primary tool for this work.?Without warning, Elias swung the staff in an arc around his head and completed the movement with a flourish that saw its tip extended at arms’ length in front of him.?

?The muscles on his upper arm and shoulder rippled with the effort and the wind picked up as the movement came to a close.?He dropped the staff back to touch the earth and began using it to assist him in climbing the slow slope under his calloused feet.?

?A fresh breeze carried the scent of the surrounding eucalypt forest to his nostrils and pushed gently at his back, urging him onwards and upwards.?The undergrowth began to change shape and scent as he passed the concealed entrance.?This was the first clearing.?His beginning ceremonial place, selected for him by the elders on an earlier journey precisely twenty years ago.?

?From this mountain, there were hundreds of invisible threads running deep underground to similar sites all over the planet.?Elias could feel the thrumming of these tendrils of power, these ‘songlines’ directly underneath his feet.?

?They excited him, added energy to every step and he lengthened his stride to bring himself to the power spot a little sooner.?

?More time spent in meditation before he began the dawn ritual would just add to the impetus of his work, so it was worth the effort.?The ley-lines under him were sending him a surge of energy, coursing through the muscles of his legs, filling his first chakra and pouring upwards to his heart.?

?He marched on and up as the slope became steeper.?

?The undergrowth gave way to giant crystalline boulders and tall, white-trunked eucalypts that sang a rustling, clacking song in the wind.?It sounded like the rhythmic clatter of clap-sticks around a fireplace where the ancestors had burned black-wattle bark and travelled, to gain wisdom from the Dreamtime.

?Elias swung onto the first level place on the side of the hill and paused for a moment.?Though the night wind was cool, the pace he had been going left him bathed in a sheen of shining sweat.?

?He flipped the staff to his left hand, lifted the strap of the leather bag over his head, placed it on a flat rock back a little from the edge and peeled his shirt off.?

?The wind had been a good travelling companion to this point.?For the main ceremony at dawn, he would need it to be calm.?Beginning with the staff in his left hand he began weaving a series of intricate patterns in the air.?He passed the stave from hand to hand.?Considering his powerful frame he danced in a surprisingly agile way.

?Then he brought the base of the stave down firmly on the damp soil and muttered a few unintelligible words.?

?The wind dropped instantly.?

?A smile creased his face.?Being attuned with the weather was a favourite of his.?Elias’ natural place, his mastery, was with fire and earth, so having mastery of the wind and water had taken him longer, had required more discipline and a more torturous accessing of his ancestral memories.?Now, they too recognized him and respected his ministrations.?

?He silently thanked the spirits of the land, the Rainbow Serpent and his spirit animal, Dirawong, the goanna.

?With the calming of the wind came silence.?Even the animals of the night felt his power.?

?Elias pulled his shirt back over his frame and picked up the bag.?He slung the strap easily over his shoulder, weighed the staff comfortably in his hand and set out once again to the final ceremony place.?Not far now.?

?Further down in the low hills and the valley, with the wind now absent, a mist began to gather, shrouding the dank, tree-covered hills in a grey cloak.

The only sound was the padding of his bare feet on the stone as the mist rose gently.?It remained just a little behind him as he climbed toward the summit.?The highest point was soon the only piece of the earth still visible above a sea of grey-white brume.?

?Almost there now.?

?He glanced slowly from left to right, shivering despite the mild exertion of his climb and activated the ‘seeing’ that opened other worlds to him.?On both sides now he could see the wraith-like images of those he was about to summon.?Nothing frightening for him, nothing to fear, just the semi-opaque images of each of them going about the business of their day or night, not yet aware of the call.?

?Ah, perhaps not all of them were completely unaware.?The shaman woman, Tisa was wide awake and doing some of her own work, with all that paraphernalia she used.?He smiled at that.?She did weave her magick with great skill and beauty.?All those things she used as tools suited her somehow.?Feathers and crystals, things wrapped up in swatches of cloth, plant parts, animal skins, bones and sigils.?Different choices, same direction.?

?His smile broadened.?It would be very good to see her face-to-face once more.?

?There was the muted ‘ooom, ooom, ooom’ of a Tawny Frogmouth and a disturbance of wings.?He smiled again.?Tisa was sensing him too and had sent her messenger to visit him, to let him know she was aware.?So at least one of the twelve would need no further invocation.?

?The others though were not so present, perhaps choosing to be so, for any number of reasons.?Ah, there.?Petra saw him.?

?Some would be cloaking themselves, some had no idea and others had many things to do in everyday life.?Still others were simply sleeping and this would come to them in the dream.?Victor was already taking the steps they had both agreed would be needed to bring the next generation up to speed.?

?Ariah had become too old and unwell to make the journey, but her daughter Rena didn’t have any knowledge of this or the changes that were coming.?Victor would remedy that swiftly, in his usual abrupt manner.

?Elias paused in his solitary march and took a moment to inhale deeply and exhale slowly and gently.?His warm breath misted in the air to match that approaching him from behind.?

?The place he was seeking was now a climb up almost vertical rock.?A cold, steel chain was pegged into the stone to aid the climb when it became too steep.?He barely needed to touch it, but it was a reminder to collect all of his faculties as he lifted his frame up and up, his staff more hindrance than help, scaling the steep, stone wall to arrive on a plateau.?It was covered by low, patchy grass, scratching scrub and the twisted trunks of a species of acacia tree.

?He turned around to face the valley.?

?It now seemed a much greater rise than it looked from below, but perhaps that had to do with the rivers and tendrils and dervishes of mist that flowed and danced where once there was solid earth.?

?Elias sat.?The cool stone chilled his backside, thighs and feet as he crossed his legs.?He removed the bag, laid it at his side and placed the staff across his lap.?Closing his eyes, his hands went to the two places on the staff almost indiscernibly worn a little deeper.?

?At best estimate he still had four hours before dawn, so there was plenty of time to centre himself.?The mist rose even further, breached the summit and wove around him so that he was shrouded in its cloak of cool wetness.?

?Breath in and out, slow and measured, brought his attention to also shrouding the energy that welled in him.?It wouldn’t do to announce himself before time.?

?Visioning that point just behind his navel, light in the darkness of his physical body, he realized that containing it until the time was right had been the principal work of his entire life.?

?The mountain, the boulders, the soils and rocks and sand and stone could feel him.?A barely perceptible shudder ran through the bedrock, perhaps reaching all the way down, and all the way back in time, to when this mountain had last spewed lava and life.?She had been one of the colossal volcanoes of the Dreamtime.

?What might have been hours, but for Elias was a timeless experience, passed as he sat in that meditative pose.?His staff gently thrummed with the energy channelling through it.?Now he must go to the ceremony place.?

?He rose silently, stretched his back, arms and legs then shook his body from head to toe to get the blood flowing.?While the air was now quite cold and damp, his skin steamed a little, following the trail of steam that was his exhaling breath.?Elias checked that he had everything.

?His staff held firmly in his left hand, Elias pushed through the sparse brush to the open space hidden from the view of all but the few who climbed up to this place.?This was the ceremony place, hidden in plain sight by the words and the dreams of the sisters, the Aunties who tended the mountain.?

?He placed the bag on the ground and laid the staff nearby, pointing to where the sun would rise in just an hour or two.?The mist swirled suddenly and the ceremony space became totally transparent, the air almost alight, cerulean sparks tinkling in a dome over the space for those with the eyes to see.?

?Elias frowned in concentration.?There must be no doubt that it was right timing for this.?He lifted the soft leather flap of the bag, drew out the coloured cloth and unravelled it gently as he had done so many times before.?The blade of the knife glinted blue in the sparkling light.?

?With his right hand, Elias embraced the carved wooden hilt, spread the cloth out in front of him and carefully placed the knife with the blade angled to the place where dawn would break.?He collected the hard, wooden staff, lifted it to the sky and began to wend and weave in a dance, round and round the full circle.?

?Sometimes he whirled so fast that everything was a blur.?Sometimes he was almost completely still, as if frozen in time.?In every moment it was a dance of incredible beauty.?

?The thicker end of the staff emitted an almost imperceptible sound that could have been voices of the people of this land, could have been the rush of wind or water, the roar of a fire, the rumble of stones cascading down a mountain, the song of a cathedral choir, a solitary catbird, wildcats fighting or a child’s sleeping breath.?

?From that same place came a light like lightning and fire, dragon’s breath and dying breath, mist and madness.?That light, that sound, wove a magnificently intricate dome above the space, above the man – locked tight to the earth in an astounding geometry of lines and frequency.

?Elias, the Conjurer, the Caller, the gatherer, then drove his staff deep into the solid rock, both hands reverberating with the effort of his dance and that final impossible thrust of timber into solid bedrock.?

?Now he dare not release.?

?At the apex of the dome there remained a hole into the sky, perhaps a metre round.?It began to glow.?As Elias stood there gripping his staff with both hands it increased in brilliance until he was completely engulfed in an effulgent glamour that bound him and his staff inextricably in rock and air in the one moment.?It was absolutely impossible for him to move, but he remained relaxed, for he had no need to move.

?Not yet.?

Completely motionless, Elias was the rock and the ether.?The light poured down over him and that staff of wood and was drawn further into the stone beneath his feet.?He remained that way until the inky blackness of the night began to give way to the soft light of dawn.?

?As sunlight began to pierce and dispel the mists that shrouded the land, the light pouring through the dome diminished gently until it blinked out.?Summoning all his strength, Elias broke free of the thrall in which he was held, drew the staff out of the stone, and laid it down.?

?He sat cross-legged on the stone and reached for his knife. In perfect alignment with the distant horizon, he drew the blade one hundred and eighty degrees, from precisely north through the eastern lightening sky, and finally directly south.?

?The dome folded back until it formed an arc above and behind him.?In front, from where he stood, Elias could now see each of those he was summoning but for one, positioned equidistant from each other across the one hundred and eighty degrees of the arc.?That one felt closer somehow.?He saw others too, those who would not come.

?Placing the knife back on the stone, he faced the rising sun and in a voice rippling with the power he had just experienced, he said simply,

?“It’s time my friends.?Be bold and come.”