The Enchantress Will See You Now

Apparatus | There’s something infernal in the refrigerator and I dare not open the door, not yet, lest it escape, though it has already, at least partly, perhaps from that witch bottle I was working on, or some old batch of potions, but there’s no use ignoring what needs to be confronted, with a protective circle chalked on the scullery floor and all appropriate incantations, and a stout pair of safety goggles, maybe a cigarette and a quick cup of spiced wine, though I can barely squeeze into the library with all the stacks of books and charts that Mordred is supposed to be cataloguing, and where is Mordred anyway these days, taking longer and longer to return from the supermarket, that boy, no discipline, no direction, and behold the trembling flames of the candles, so slender, so bright, with dusk nearly falling and that thing rocking on its little rubber feet.

Method | That time of the night when the kettles are bubbling and the work is taking form, and the stars are fast in the firmament, and a pot is warming on the stove, and there appears no end to the propositions hanging in the balance, a dozen spreadsheets open, a hundred books spread on the long table, between beakers and eye glasses and drying herbs, thoughts turn to Camelot and the course of events, and yes there have always been swords in stones and, gods know, there always will be, these cycles must inevitably repeat themselves, but what of it, with my ailing brother and his banished champion, his disgraced wife, his feckless band of knuckleheads, the kingdom falling into disorder, a situation that will reach even here, to my remote forest kingdom, if things are not done, interventions are not made, if thought is not given and faults are not mended, if the scaffold is left to fall in on itself, but first things first, we have to brew the tea because nothing is accomplished without first a measure of hemlock and feverfew, nightshade, nettle and one or two more specialised ingredients.

Results | Beneath the covers yet unable to sleep, with wolves howling in the early morning and a mist woven in the trees, and the forest road churned up and muddied, but then the passage of Mars through the house of Capricorn does always draw this frustration of endeavours, and disturbance in the humours, and a furnace in the blood, and the consumption of everything in its resin, and me, perhaps I have studied these motions for too long, so long have they burned their circuits into my past and future, until all the tracings have been scratched over, and everything rubbed out, and only the brittle present remains, a cold particle, pale in the dawn.

Analysis | This coffee, apparently, and the news bulletins arriving one after the other, Morrigan, as in war goddess, as in savage, as in bloodthirsty, Morgan as in lamia, as in phantom, as in devourer, as in screech owl, Mordred as in unfortunate, as in sea-born, as in doomed, and then the chemical bonds between elements, Arthur and Guinevere, Guinevere and Lancelot, Lancelot and Elaine, and the confusions they create, notwithstanding all those princes I have trapped in labyrinths, some of them still treading those corridors, and besides all the reflections caught in the scrying glass, in my inner eye, I am like all tricksters, and Antion’s Ex Alta Clarum or the Pseudo Lillith have very little to say on the subject but I do find mention in Casus et Sapiens, buried deep within the chapter on mercury, and from the booksafe I have studied the Cwpan Arian again and again in search of illumination, and the calf bindings of De Fortunatae Stellarum are in pieces due to the constant turnings of its pages in search of invocations to the gods of earth and sky, night and sun, storm and sea, and all this by the King of Cornwall’s daughter.

Conclusion | I suppose something must be done but I don’t want to do it, though somebody has to, and not everyone has the means, maybe not anyone, even Merlin now, in his new condition, with barely an afterglow of the powers once at his command, unexpected turn that it is, and distress to those who follow in the path, but then are we too not subject to restless tides, where the giants lie in the earth and ancient forces wane, and however much we turn the pages of our books and pore over their texts for clever readings and hidden lore, however long we mix our compounds and train our scopes on the celestial machine, what little we decode, there is, and always will remain, countless more of that expanse fading from our sight.