Free Veneficus: Stones of the Chosen by Chris Page

kindly. “After Avebury we will go to another special place nearby, also made of ringed stones. This place is called Stonehenge. It is the great council seat of the raging cowerers, the place where they have their Equinoctial Festival of the Dead. It is not time for the festival yet - that is a few weeks away - and as you know we must attend on that day. Our visit today is purely educational so that you will understand a little more about the ways of such matters at the appropriate time.”
    Twilight wiped away a tear. He was beginning to understand the enormity of the task they faced as teacher and pupil. And in seven years time, the entire responsibility would be his. It didn’t seem such a long time now.
    “I am frightened. There is so much to be learned,” he said quietly. “Must you depart this earth in seven years, and if so, will I be able to call on you?”
    “It is a perfectly natural feeling, but remember this. Fear is the jailer of reason. You will soon learn to conquer its icy grip. Ofttimes you will feel overwhelmed by the tide of wrongdoing you will be expected to subdue. One against the multitudes. But do not despair. Your power is your strength, and it is always greater than the forces that would overthrow you. Learn to trust it. There is always a path, a way to overcome every obstacle. Part of my job is to ensure you have the means to discover that path. And don’t forget your loyal birds. They will always be by your side. Yes, I must depart this earth at the end of seven more years, and no, you will not be able to call on me. The death of a veneficus is a finite affair. When you have laid my body to rest under one of the mighty stones of Avebury, you will don the full mantle of the enchantments with pride and confidence. That is my remaining task on this earth, and I will see that it is accomplished.”
    “Why do we have to attend the Equinoctial Festival of the Dead, and what will we do there?”
    “When the ancients began to understand how the complicated existence of erring humankind affected the world, and how the errant behavior and deeds of the past influenced and affected the present and the future, they decided that a system of retribution should be put in place to punish, when dead, those who had led an unworthy life. In those far-off days, and still to some extent today, people were judged on their courage. Mettle spoke for all. As a result the ancients set up a system whereby all cowerers, whatever the reasoning, had their souls confined to a minute droplet of moisture within a great, raging charnel mist. The confinement did not result, as envisaged, in a manifestation of future goodness but turned the countless millions of cowerers into a screaming, raging mass, whose rage is directed at the ancients for the entrapment of their tortured souls. In the sarcophagal mists there is no place called Oblivion, no eternal rest. The screaming souls of the cowerers are trapped. There is a powerful legend that says one day these raging mists will break through the sarcophagal barriers that bind them to the mist and sweep across the earth in a screaming mass of undiluted hatred. Many thousands of years ago venefici were placed by the ancients to police the cowerers. We are the only people who can commune with them, their only link with the live world. And that communing can only take place throughout the first day of the Autumn Equinox when the mists are at their most active. We soothsay them, listen to the tortured pleas of their elected representatives, soothe, placate, and maintain … then we listen again, and again, always soft-voiced to contain their rage. Our role on behalf of mankind is to maintain them as the charnel mists. It is a wasteland from which they must never be released.”
    “And if they are released?” Twilight held his breath, already knowing the answer to his question.
    “It would be the end of mankind as we know it,” said the long magus in little more than a whisper.