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Without regular maintenance, the Dome could collapse. My family have put so much into the Dome over the years that if it fell, it’d take us with it, certainly if we were in Mannith at the time, perhaps even if we were farther away. And on top of that, decades of change and decay would descend on the town in one fell swoop. For my family and for the local people, I need to do this. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
My father always encouraged me to practice my core meditations, but it tended to be a case of do as I say, not as I do. Today though, his mind is deep in the earth, his eyes glowing brighter than the torches encircling us, or the full moon above. Nowadays, Dad tends to rely on his reputation and influence, rather than pure magic. Sometimes I forget where Bren and I got most of our power from.
Not that the genetic contribution was entirely one-sided. Mum’s powers aren’t as spectacular, but she’s a strong practitioner in her own right, and tonight, she looks it, too—dressed every bit as extravagantly and revealingly as her daughters despite her extra decades.
“Mannith is a blessed place,” my father intones, like he’s on stage. “It’s always drawn something from the rivers and mountains that surround it, but for the last hundred and fifty years, it’s our power and our sacrifices that have protected it from the decay facing the wider country, the wider world. But that power must always be restored and maintained if we wish our beautiful town to flourish.”
The words are simply a statement of intent, something to focus our minds and our magic. I presume they’ve been the same every year for the century or so this Ritual has taken place. Even so, it’s strange to hear such dramatic phrasing emanating from Dad. Odd to hear someone so in love with power and material things talking about rivers and mountains like the old hippies he despises.
I shake my head to clear my brain. The Ritual is no time for rational, cynical thoughts. You need to be led by instinct and the unconscious. The drugs and hunger are meant to help, but my conscious mind’s trying to fight back.
My father throws up his arms, pointing them towards the visible moon and the usually invisible apex of the Dome. In this light and this mindset, I can see it flickering in the sky above me.
“Tonight, we rebuild the Dome,” he intones, then lets his mind sink still further into the earth below and the Dome above and stands there utterly frozen, barely breathing. It’s our cue to move.
Mum, Chrissie, and I walk at a stately pace, marking out a triangle on the ground. Once we arrived at Summer Hill, my relatives gave me a few pointers, but they were barely necessary. Though it’s the first time I’ve done this, the movements feel instinctive, like I’m drawing on some sort of ancestral memory.
In the same way, I know that the women around us will be moving in a clockwise circle and the men beyond them in an anti-clockwise one. I’m barely aware of them in the here and now, though, just of an overwhelming sense of movement. It feels disconcertingly like we’re the only still things in existence and the world is spinning around us.
At each corner of the triangle, we pause, kneel on the ground then stand and point our arms to the sky, like I’ve been instructed. In normal circumstances, it’d feel like the world’s most basic yoga class, but right now, every step and every bend and stretch is imbued with significance. We go around three times, then stop in our original spots, arms raised and stretched. All around us, the others continue to move in their opposing concentric circles.
So far, pretty much anyone could have done the steps. The movement and the concentrated desire has stirred up a mass of power within the circle. Now we need to capture and use it. That’s the trickier part. A weak practitioner or someone entirely without powers would feel and achieve nothing. Someone stronger but not strong enough would risk blowing themselves apart. Even at our level, the risk of failure or death would be unacceptable without all the preparation and protection.
The power and energy surrounds me like a living thing. Power seeks power, and no one would disagree with the fact I’m the strongest of the inner three. I draw it towards me like I sucked in the air that night at the casino, without anyone having to tell me what to do. Soon, I’ll direct it back out. I can tell now that maintaining the Dome’s not a million miles away from throwing up a bubble of silence or protection, it’s just on a much larger and more permanent scale.
I clasp my left hand to my chest to hold the power there and breathe slowly and steadily. The power wants to burst free or tear me in two, but I keep it in check through sheer force of will.
With what remains of my conscious brain, I glance across the clearing. Mum and Chrissie have their left hands at their chests in an identical gesture, but their right hands are drawing daggers from their garters.
My own hand moves to my dagger, my subconscious entirely in control. As one woman, we swipe our weapons across the back of our left hands—not deep enough to do any permanent damage to the muscles and ligaments, but deep enough that there’s immediately a lot of blood. There should be a lot of pain, too, but I’m far too detached from my physical body to feel a hint of it. I hold out my injured hand and let the power flow upwards from the palm as the blood drips down from the back.
I’ve seen the temporary scars on my relatives’ hands after previous Rituals, so I knew something like this was coming even before I was finally briefed. It’s unpleasant, but it’s not the aspect I’d worried about.
“We give our power to the sky and our blood to the earth,” my father intones, coming back from his trance so that he can speak. “We give ourselves to Mannith to secure its protection.”
Some whisper of my own power and aura is drifting upwards. Hundreds of metres above our heads, it’s mingling with the translucent representation of the edges of the Dome. Sliding into place. Sealing cracks and smoothing rough areas. It’s just my mind creating a literal, visual representation of something intangible and beyond human comprehension, but it looks very real. As does the way my blood pools and expands, far more of it on the ground than has really left my body. Soaking into the earth, repairing the fissures.
My father waves his arms and my hand heals instantly, though the unreal blood continues to swirl below my feet.
“Blood and magic are worthy gifts,” he says. “But our Dome must be strong, and a greater sacrifice is needed.”
It was probably disingenuous of me not to mention that there’s a bound and mesmerised man in front of my father and one each in front of me and my two companions.
Apparently, they are all human Sadler loyalists who volunteer themselves and are well-rewarded.
This is the bit of the Ritual I’d heard rumours about and been dreading. We need to cut them, and do it deeply enough that we get a decent quantity of their blood to add to ours.
I know we’ll heal them afterwards, but it still goes against everything I believe to hurt someone that badly and in such a coldly pre-meditated manner… even though they’ve consented, and even though it’s for a good cause. I ought to feel utterly sick, but all the preparation keeps most of my emotion at bay.
Even so, my hands are trembling, but I manage to copy the others by kneeling and raising my dagger. And then the magic in the air starts to override both my conscience and my consciousness.
I thought I’d struggle to so much as pierce my volunteer’s skin. Instead, everything from the increasingly wild people around me to the moon to the drugs to the burn of power to my father’s voice to wanting to be part of something is screaming at me to take my kill.
It’s hard. Harder than any time I tried to suppress my powers and resist the lure of magic in London. But I retain enough control over myself that I manage to strike the right balance and make a relatively token cut.
But whether they were overcome or whether it was deliberate, the other three plunge the weapons deep into their volunteers’ chests.
I don’t scream. On the outside, I barely react at all. I’m far too detached from my body for that. Insofar as I’m having clear emotions at all, the chief one is regret at my own weakness and a sense of not quite belonging.
