18.2: I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul

Summary: Spike summed up the plan so eloquently, I thought I’d let him remind us. “You mean do we know what all that mumbo jumbo about numbers and kabbals, dark matter and mathematical transfiguration formulae means?” Spike shook his head. "Not a jot." He picked up a sword and strode to the position marked as his on Willow's diagram. "Does it matter?"

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Chapter 18: Part Two. I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul.

Willow returned to the small folding table outside the perimeter of the outer binding circle. A pewter offering bowl dominated the center: the embossed tree of life swaying across its surface in the eerie shadows cast by the lamplight. Celtic knots encircled the rim; gold and silver reflections battled in the highly polished interior. “Spike, I’ll need your watch,” she said placing a small wooden card box beside the bowl. She lit the adjacent incense cone and began the conjoining spell.

“As is the human body so is the Cosmic body. As is the human mind so is the Cosmic mind. As is the microcosm so is the Macrocosm. And as is the atom so is the Universe.” She took the incantation cards from their sandalwood box and beckoned Wesley, Drogyn and Lorne to join her. They formed a circle around the table and held hands while Willow continued the spell.

“Grant us thy domain of primal strength, accept us and the powers we possess.
Mind and heart and spirit join, let the hand encompass us all.”

She turned a card and walked towards the pentagram.

“Spiritus... spirit,” she said handing the card to the first pair, Connor and Angel.

“Animus... heart.” The second she gave to Spike and Buffy. Spike unfastened his broken watch and passed it to her.

She pocketed the timepiece and turned the third card. “Sophus... mind,” she said smiling at Fred.

“Manus… hand.” Willow paused, waited for Fred to morph into Illyria’s form, then offered her the final card.

At Willow’s nodded signal, the five warriors of the pentagram spoke in unison as they moved to their allotted places. “We enjoin that we may bind one with the other. We implore thee. Admit us.“

The conjoining spell finished, Willow lit a second incense cone, took the bowl and a votive candle from the table and moved to the center of the pentangle.

One by one, the others lit a candle.

“Air,” said Angel.

“Water.” Connor’s hand shook slightly.

“Fire.” Spike shot Buffy a reassuring grin.

“Earth.” Buffy lit the fourth candle.

“Elements gather in this sacred place, around the fifth that has no face,” said Illyria lighting the last one.

Willow placed Spike’s watch with the offering bowl beside the mirror. She lit the candle and placed it in front of the mirror, then poured water from jug to bowl as she performed the scrying ritual.

“Fire burn and water run. Neath the moon and ‘neath the sun. Seeking, searching, bear to find. In the heart and through the mind.”

A faint rumbling shook the mirror. Pinpoints of light sparkled in the dancing liquid; they bounced from side to side, following the inner curvature of the offering bowl. Faster and faster they flew in time with the percussive beat, until they formed a continuous boundary of light. The rumbling stopped. The liquid cleared, became still as glass; an image formed, faint at first then clarifying, solidifying into the image of Wolfgang Hartram.

"By air and earth, by water and fire, so be you bound, as I desire. By three and nine, Your power I bind."

Willow hurried to the safety of the outer binding circle. Her hair began to glow, lost its coppery sheen and turned white. Radiance suffused her; blue-white waves flickered towards Drogyn. She reached for his shield, bathing it in luminescence as he stepped forward to begin the summoning.

“By the power of the circle of Ismene... By the power of the circle of Ismene, I command you Hyle. Come! I command you Hyle. Come! I command you Hyle. Come!” demanded Drogyn, circling the pentagram. The shield trailed silver streams of light, orbitting the outer ring, binding it beneath Willow's powerful protection.

A contorted figure materialised in the centre of the star; the wolf’s head thrashed, twisted, and howled with rage. “Who dares summon Hyle?” Hartram’s voice growled from the depths of the beast’s jaws. He looked into the mirror, touched its tarnished surface and smiled as his human face took form; the feral grin stopped at his eyes. “I am that which was before all things were given form. Before the Word. Before the Big Bang. Where Chaos was, there was I. Yet you….”

“What is it with you evil types and the long-winded speechifying?” Spike raised the sword and swept a high breaking traverse cut to the right side of Hartram’s neck. “All mouth and no trousers I reckon.”

Hartram stepped into the swing with crossed arms. He grasped the sword along its blunt edge, extending his arms as he followed through. He wrenched the sword from Spike's grip and flung him into a marble pillar.

“You cannot destroy us. We are immortal. We are invincible. We are….”

“A Royal pain in the ass?” cried Buffy. She swung the axe. The blade sang as it whirred through the empty space where Hartram had been.

He struck her with the pommel of Spike’s sword. The force slammed her into Connor, sending them both reeling to the ground.

Angel charged. He swept his sabre upward to block the sword. Hartram’s fist punched him from the circle where he landed beside Spike.

"Time for a re-think of the tactics, Old Man," quipped Spike. "Lorne. A weapon. It's time for a little Butch and Sundance."

"We already did that," Angel grunted, rubbing his bleeding jaw.

"Action replay." Spike laughed delightedly as he caught the sword hilt tumbling towards his outstretched hand.

The two vampires launched themselves back into the fight, morphing into vampface, fangs descending, blades sparking as they passed through the power shield.

"One-way door. Neat." Spike grinned.

Before either of them could strike, Connor heaved Buffy aside and plunged the Dao up into Hartram’s groin.

Hartram crumpled, his blood staining the turquoise ripples of terrazzo.

“Wow!” Connor beamed at Angel. “I could get used this. Didn’t think it was gonna be that easy. I…"

A savage blow felled him from behind. He staggered to his knees, blood streaming from the gash in his head.

Angel winced at the sight of Connor’s injury. “It isn’t.” He dragged Connor to one side. “Lorne, take care of him.”

Hartram pulled the blade out from his groin and flung it away. “As I was saying…” He strode out of the inner binding circle, past an immobile Illyria, and ripped Connor from Lorne’s grasp.

“You cannot destroy us, miracle boy. We are Legion. We are more than three in one.”

Angel, Buffy and Spike rushed Hartram from the left and he spun Connor through 90 degrees to slam into them. The force tumbled them in a heap, scattering the bowl and smashing the jug.

Beyond the outer circle's perimeter, Wesley and Willow faced one another and held hands. Lorne retrieved the spinning scrying bowl, seated himself on the floor between them, held the bowl with the tree of life against his chest, and began to sing.

#"The natural cards revolve ever changing..."#

“The Green Man,” Hartram mocked. " Small earth magic cannot prevail against us." He turned to the mirror and pointed at the glass. "The Gates of Pulon Odoß. Open and let the darkness return." The shuddering began again, as the gates materialised and inched apart.

#"May the long time sun shine upon you, all love surround you.”

Lorne sang on, clutching the card and swaying to an inner rhythm.

#" And the pure light within you, guide you all the way on."#

Willow and Wesley joined him, their voices steady. They followed his lead through the intricate melody.

“We are three plus one. Unalterable, indivisible, the perfect Supreme Being.” Hartram approached the seated couple, frowning in frustration when the power shield halted his progress.

“As once was I.” Illyria advanced, a blue whirlwind spiraling chaotically around him, knives slashing. ”Things change. Now - I am more.”

Connor staggered back up, joining her as she attacked, striking low where she struck high. He swept his knife across the hamstring of Hartram’s leading leg, bringing him down at their feet.

As Hartram fell, Illyria plunged the stiletto into his heart.

Connor sliced upward. “Three plus one is indivisible huh?” he snarled. “Someone flunked math.” He followed the curvature of the knife blade and drove it higher.

Hartram screamed, an inhuman bellow vomiting from his mouth as the guts spilled from his torso. The noise took shape, growing, writhing; a huge horned creature filled the room with darkness. It flailed impotently against the walls, roared its frustration, faded, then dissolved.

Illyria tilted her head curiously. “This Dark Matter is but a chimera,” she observed.

“Only for a given definition of chimera.” Fred’s brown eyes replaced the Illyrian blue. “Phantom energy, hypothetically speaking, is a form of dark energy with the equation of state w is greater than minus 1. It could easily cause the expansion of the universe to accelerate so quickly that the Big Rip would occur.”

“We’d better set about our own big rip then,” said Spike. He offered Buffy the axe. “This one’s for you to do.”

She averted her eyes from the viscera spilling from Hartram’s body, swung the weapon down, and severed the head with one blow.

Willow slumped as the power left her, glad that her head thrummed with effort. She wasn't eager to hear Angel and Fred finish the dismemberment.

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"Is that it?" asked Buffy, leaning against the pillar. "Have we won?"

"Not quite." Wesley released Willow's hands. "There's the little matter of returning the Senior Partners to their proper place." He picked the three books from the ground and approached Hartram's dismembered corpse, stepping between patches of gore and entrails. He grimaced at the grim scene beneath his feet.

Drogyn lay his shield aside and joined Wesley. He waited as Wesley opened each book in turn and placed them beside the relevant body part.

"The Wolf – intellect – the head." Wesley opened the first book beside Hartram's severed head.

"The Ram – instinct and passions – the testicles." He tore a strip from the bottom of his shirt, wiped the blood from the floor and lay the second in place.

"The Hart - emotion and sentiment – the heart." Wesley lowered the third and nodded to Drogyn.

"Hold fast to the Law of the last cold tome. Where the earth of the truth lies thick on the page," Drogyn intoned solemnly.

"The Wolf. The Ram. The Hart." Wesley closed each book in turn.

Willow held a lighted candle and stood beside Drogyn.

"Candles’ flame burning bright, by your flame on this night, trap all evil, seal it well. In each tome, may it remain, never to be loosed again."

Drogyn picked the books from the ground and together they walked towards the mirror.

"Do not ask to know my name. Go yea back from whence you came. " Drogyn placed the books in front of the mirror, struck it three times with his sword and watched them disappear between the closing gates.

"Have we done enough?" asked Buffy. She looked round at her battered and bloody comrades.

"Sending the Senior Partners to another dimension is merely a return to how things were," replied Wesley. "Will it stop The First? I doubt it. So long as there are human beings to be corrupted, there will always be evil in this world."

"And we'll continue to fight it," said Angel, his arm around Connor's shoulder. "For one soul at a time."