The Wyvern Street Irregulars

As the sun set, the Wizard closed the curtains in the west study and lit the fire in the south fireplace. The newly-made High Priestess and High Priest were in the workroom, making final adjustments to the preparations for the work ahead. The Wizard and Maurice had the study to themselves for the moment; Susan and Robert were keeping Terry busy in the kitchen, and the others of the newly formed coven were busy setting up the front apartment as temporary covenstead or getting themselves moved into rooms in one of the apartments upstairs. Downstairs was still packed with guests and well-wishers, and probably would be for days.

Work ahead? What work ahead?

In the workroom, Debbie and John looked at each other. In the study, so did The Wizard and Maurice.

It came to them all that it was time for Debbie and John to head back to the covenstead. Debbie smiled and whispered to John "The Fool will watch over us!"

Marie and Marny entered the study through the north-east door. They looked as if they were almost laughing. "I was worried on account of some puny little species on some puny little planet in some puny little backwater galaxy?" Marie exclaimed.

Marny winked at her. "How quaint!"

The Wizard, Maurice, Marie and Marny drifted into the workroom. Debbie and John bowed to them, winked, closed the door behind themselves as they left.

The workroom setup was pretty much the standard layout. A primary colour draping each wall, starscape above, circular carpet depicting the earth, quarter-candle colours matching the wall colours, east yellow, south red, west blue, north green. Ho hum. Business as usual. Altar to the east tonight: Debbie and John obviously figured divination would be the main thrust of the working.

Circle already cast, so Marie cut an entrance in the north-east quadrant. Entering, she closed her eyes briefly scanning all around before arming herself with the sword. She knew Maurice liked the challenge approach when they weren't working coven-style. Ha! As if anyone who got this far needed challenging - or, if they needed it, could be stopped by little old her and a few feet of razor-sharp Damascus steel! Hmm, on second thought... ahem. She swished the blade a few times. Nice. John approached the entrance. She stepped forward, sweeping him into a one armed embrace, swordarm extended beyond him to menace the others. "Be there any who challenge my right to my man?" she snarled. "Thought not!" Kiss, whirl, he's in. Hee hee. Okay, steady down, put down roots again, focus. Your turn, Maurice! She gestured toward him with the sword. He approached until the tip of the blade was mere millimeters from his adam's apple.

The challenge: "Who are you, and what brings you to this place?"

The response: "I am the driver, and my chariot brings me."

Okay, fair enough, if she can play so can he. Smiles all around. Kiss, whirl, he's in. Curtsey at the Wizard, reverse the sword, offer it to him. Wanna kill me? No? Awww that's sweet of you. Kiss, whirl, he's in. Clockwise sweep across the entrance, lay blade down lined up as if its the bottom of a door closed across where the entrance had been, to show that it is closed. Turn, survey the circle. Evidently she's earth tonight, as the Wizard is toward the east, Maurice the south, Marny the west.

All link hands, bow, sit. Relax. Root. Focus. Feel the element behind you. Sense the elements behind the others. Yes, Debbie does good work. The circle is well prepared. Open eyes. Everyone ready? Okay then: release hands. Archangels? Archangels. Starting with? North. Okey-dokey. All stand, all face North, vibrate the name: U-RI-EL.

The north is hers, so she gets to make chummy. Bow. "Uriel, Great and Powerful Archangel of Stability, Paragon of Endurance, Upholder of the Eternal Now and the Great Wheel of Time! We your fellow servants, friends, and toilers in the Ways of Justice, Discipline, Patience, and stark hard bottom-line Fact invite you to witness, uphold and, if necessary, correct, our rite and working this night. So sayeth I, Marie Covener of Wyvern Street Circle, in all good faith."

"So sayeth also I, the Wizard of Wyvern Street, in all good faith."

"So sayeth also I, Maurice Charioteer of Wyvern Street Circle, in all good faith."

Pause. Sense. Uriel? You there? Wow! You sure are! Thank you dearly. Nods all round. Opposites? Opposites. All face South, vibrate the name: MI-CHA-EL.

Maurice's turn. "Michael! Mighty Archangel and Warrior, Paragon of Valour, Defender of the Good and Vanquisher of Evil! Let Uriel bear witness that we your fellow servants, friends, and warriors in the Ways of Courage, Encouragement, Healing and Might Righteously Wielded invite you to witness, uphold and, if necessary, correct, our rite and working this night."

Handy fellow, Uriel. With such a witness the round of so-sayeths can be dispensed with. Pause. Sense. Michael? Michael! Hi, you hunk! Nods all round? Yes, nods all round. All face west, vibrate the name: GA-BRI-EL.

Marny's turn. "Gabriel! Gentle and Powerful Archangel, Messenger of the Truth of Divine Love and Mercy! Let Uriel and Michael bear witness that we your fellow servants, friends, and cupbearers in the ways of Love, Mercy, Salving, and the Truth of the Divine invite you to witness, cleanse, and, if necessary, salve any suffering caused by, our rite and working this night."

Pause. Sense. Gabby? Gabby! Everyone senses Gabby? Yes. Last in place but first in honour tonight: the biggie of the Divinatory Arts, Raphael. All face east. Which being the direction of the altar tonight, a bit of respect for the altar from everyone. Okay. Vibrate the name: RA-PHA-EL.

The Wizard's turn. "Raphael! Archangel of Signs, Symbols, Sigils, Signets, Languages, Ciphers, Codes and Encryptions, all Representations and Forms that Knowledge and Wisdom, Mind and Thought wear! Let the Archangels here gathered bear witness that we your fellow servants, friends, and seekers in the ways of Knowledge, Meaning, Understanding and Wisdom invite you to aid, inform, illuminate and clarify and, if necessary, correct any errors in, our rites and workings, interpretations and cogitations this night!"

Pause. Sense. How the heck does anyone know whether Raffy is there or not? If he isn't how can anyone know anything? If you know how to nod is that proof enough? Whatever. Who would think such weird thoughts if that nimrod wasn't messing with their mind? The altar has eight corners, four at the top and four at the bottom, total eight, the number of Raphael's Sephira: obviously he's been here all along, Q.E.D. Hey thats a new one! Hi Raff! Smile. Nods all around.

Telltale grains of salt on the Pentacle showed that it, too, had already been prepared. The Wizard lifted it from the altar. "Where are we?" He asked. He placed it in the centre of the carpet. "We are here." They sat down around it. "Where is here? Here is East of the Ford of the Ox,

Maurice: "South of the New Bridge,"

Two clues was enough; Marny rubbed them together: "West of Agricola," he said, but his mind didn't want to stop at that, he wanted to figure it out, maybe come up with a less pedestrian way of wording it. What are the meanings, allusions, associations, correspondences and so on of Agricola? Maybe it was sufficiently unpedestrian as it was and he wasn't well versed enough in Agricolish to see that?

Marie smiled. "North of the Old." Oh great, I'm a Crone, am I going to grow a wart on my nose? She reached to touch her nose, but by the time her finger got there she had turned the gesture into the classic knowing tap instead of actually checking for a wart, and winked at Marny.

They sat in silence for a while, relaxing, adapting to to the atmosphere, allowing their minds to draw up the many associations conjured by their actions so far. Marie and Marny's usual workings at home with the coven did not involve the Archangels; this was a Wyvern Street Circle style of working, harking back to legends of wartime witchery from back in the twentieth century. Their minds swept out over their mental maps of Halifax, visualising the borders of the area specified, touching upon various places within the enclosed portion of the city. Seeing the Archangels standing guard. They wondered about other parts of the city. Why had the Wizard set the borders in these particular places? Who dwelt in the other parts of the city? They thought of places outside those borders: the Blue Moon bistro for example. One World Cafe. The Armoury. Stadacona. They thought of places inside the borders: FRED, where the Bank of Nova Scotia used to be, on the corner of North and Agricola. Across from Gus's, which presumably was just outside the border, being on the east side of Agricola. Hmmm. They remembered that bank, the tellers who used to handle the Freya money. Wondered how the teller who had gone to the Cayman Islands was doing nowadays. Had that been the only Bank of Nova Scotia in the district? What banks were still present? The Royal Bank on the corner of Almon and Agricola, of course. The Credit Union on Young Street in the building where Mountnet Internet had been. That Royal Bank was kittycorner to the buildings they had once upon a time hoped would become "Pagan Corner", but those buildings were outside the specified borders of Wyvern Street. Hmm. The other building they'd been considering way back then, next to what had been the Bank of Nova Scotia, was now Bach's Cafe. Hey, Gus's Tavern is just outside the border too. Hmm.

The Wizard and Maurice gave them plenty of time. When Marie finally looked questioningly at them Maurice produced a map and smoothed it out on the carpet. They could see that he also had a map of Nova Scotia at hand. The Wizard drew aside a curtain on the side of the altar and indicated an atlas and globe within. "Take a good look," the Wizard instructed them. "This is where we are, and we hope that it might also be where you would like to stay for a while."

"And the children?" Asked Marie.

"You tell me. What does your intuition tell you now that you are here?"

Marie paused, thought, sensed. Spread her hands over the map. "Hmm, interesting. It certainly feels safe here, that is no surprise. But I don't feel worried about the kids either. Why is that?"

The Wizard shrugged. "Again, you tell me. I wonder though whether whatever you were sensing is related to people or to place. That is why we have the other maps."

Marie thought some more. "I don't feel any need to keep the kids in town. I accepted without a second thought the fact that they'd be going back to the covenstead with Susan."

"How do you feel about taking on this region known as Wyvern Street as your new covendom? Eventually this whole building would be the convenstead, starting with the front apartment for now."

Marie and Marny looked at each other. Town Witches? Did they really want to live in town again? Marny asked the Wizard "why now?"

The Wizard shrugged again. "No hurry. But we've watched you two for quite a while, we think you're who we want to run this place when I move on, and it might be good to give Debbie and John free reign at the old covenstead without you two hovering over them..."

Marie smiled. "Yes, I think Debbie would appreciate that!" She squeezed Marny's hand. "What do you think, shall be be townies again?"

Marny sqeezed back, beamed a big happy smile. "How could we turn down such an amazing offer!" He made a little sitting bow to the Wizard. "You never cease to amaze us!"

The Wizard beamed back at him. "Good! Excellent, in fact." He turned to Maurice. "In that case, I think it is time we started work again on the Unarmed Forces base."

Maurice nodded. "I've been looking forward to that." He smiled at Marie and Marny. "It will be a good excuse to get out of town for a while now and then."

Marny raised an eyebrow. "Unarmed Forces? I haven't heard that term for years."

This time it was Maurice's turn to shrug. "Not everyone is Wiccan," me smiled. "A lot of folk aren't even into ritual magick. Some don't even like to mention any particular religion. Unarmed Forces is one of the terms we use to avoid sectarian issues and terms related to any particular faith."

Marny nodded. "Not necessarily associated with the concept of Adeptus Major, eh?"

Maurice smiled. "Not necessarily." They all knew of various tradition's claims that at the Grade of Adeptus Major the concept of a spiritual hierarchy is not merely theoretical.

"Interesting. Does the Unarmed Forces have any particular required reading that we Wiccans might not be familiar with?" Marny asked.

"Oh I expect you've covered most of the usual material," Maurice replied. "'The Prince', 'The Art of War', Herbert's 'The Godmakers' and maybe the 'Dune' series, a good spread of hard science fiction - Niven, Pournelle, Asimov, Clark, Heinlein, Robinson... the usual. I doubt you'd find many surprises. We know you've read pretty much everything we'd recommend, that is part of why we thought you might be good candidates to take over this place. As the Wizard said, we've been watching you quite a while. We think you've been coming along quite nicely."

Marny smiled, gave Maurice a little bow. "Thank you kindly. You've guided us quite adriotly."

Maurice bowed back. "I'm glad you think so. Well then, welcome aboard."

The wizard spoke up. "All settled then. I doubt if whatever was bothering you, Marie, will bother you here in town, at least not within the border we've set out. I think I'll see if Debbie and John would mind if I visit the Covenstead for a while. Maurice, you'll be available if Marie and Marny need you here?"

Maurice nodded. "If that is okay with them?" Looking the question at them.

Marie and Marny smiled. "Oh that would be lovely," said Marie.

The Wizard smiled. "In that case I think I'll take the map, atlas and globe out to the Covenstead and see whatever there is to see out there. As Maurice already told you, it is no longer your concern." He smiled. "He told you true." Maurice handed him the province map, he gathered up the atlas and globe, and Marie let him out of the circle. "Expect me when you see me," he smiled, closing the door behind himself as he left the room.

Once Marie was seated again, Maurice drew attention back to the streetmap. "So, Milord and Milady, any questions about your new demesne?"

Marny looked at Marie, then back at Maurice. "I think we should at least walk the perimeter before the night is over. Then spend the next while refamiliarising ourselves with all of the streets. Some of this area we've known for years, but other parts we have hardly ever, or maybe even never, set foot upon."

Marie nodded. "I would like to visit all of the churches in the area, too. Plus we should join the Imagine Bloomfield group, it is obviously no coincidence that was brought to our attention today."

"Obviously," smiled Maurice. "Although you should know too that word on the street claims someone has offered the city six million dollars for that land; apparently someone wants to tear it all down and build condominiums."

Marie frowned. "Hmm. I'm not sure that is something we should interfere with, if it does turn out to be true. I have to wonder why the city can't build condominiums itself above a commiunity centre and use them to finance the centre, but we are really naive about local politics. Maybe the developers can see to it somehow that condos run by the city would lose money instead of making money, or something?

Maurice shrugged. "Truly I do not know that stuff either. I haven't dabbled in politics. Thats not to say that I don't hope that you two will though." He smiled. "Consider it part of why we'd like to have some well brought up active Wiccans in the neighborhood."

Marie smiled sourly. "Aha, the plot thickens. Okay then, we'll dabble in politics. Anything else?"

Maurice shook his head slightly. "Lots of little things, no doubt. You likely know various of the groups around town but maybe we should touch base about them at some point. We should think too about who else you might want to move in to this building, such as whether anyone from the old Covenstead might want to join you in town and whether you have any good prospective coveners already lined up here in town, maybe folk who hadn't been able to move out of town to join you out there?"

Marie and Marny looked at each other. Marny shrugged. Marie turned to Maurice again. "If anyone out there wants to join us I'm sure Debbie will let us know. I'm not sure if anyone in town actually lives within the borders of Wyvern Street, it almost seems as if the boundaries have been set specifically to avoid encroaching on the homes of anyone that we actually know in the local community. Except, no doubt, some Unarmed Forces types?"

Maurice smiled and nodded. "Yes, I think you will find there are some Unarmed Forces types in the area. But you are right that the borders were not intended to encroach. If you extend the line south along Agricola you'll see that it even slices apart Gus's and K-PC and the One World Cafe into separate sections." A thought seemed to hit him. "You've read Casteneda, of course?"

They smiled. Of course they'd read Casteneda. What was he thinking of? Stalking, maybe? "Yeah...?" Marny replied in a questioning tone.

"Oh, nothing I can pinpoint. Just nice to know you've read it. Parts of it seem to come to mind quite often when I wander the streets, I'm not entirely sure why."

Marny nodded. "Me too. Something to do with his stuff about stalking, I think. But I'm not really sure either. We've walked the streets together a few times, though, and Casteneda came to mind then."

"Tonight we'll stalk the perimeter then," said Marie. "And maybe a bit more than just the perimeter, we'll see how it goes. You've obviously put a lot of thought into some kind of geomancy or streetmancy or some such thing, I expect there is a lot we can learn along those lines."

Maurice shrugged. "It is very speculative. But I do like to muse about such things. Take the commons, for example. When the Pope came he set up in the North-East quadrant. When the Stones came recently they set up in the South-East. The public rituals tend to be in the South-West when they're on the main commons; sometimes they're on the South Commons. The North-West is rumoured to be where some kind of possibly ritual slaying took place back in the 1970s. Does any of that mean anything? I don't know. It is simply data. Make of it what you will."

"Will... Will I Ams... there is a Williams Street on the west side of the commons, isn't there?" Asked Marie.

"Yes there is," Maurice replied. "I Ams is a brand of food for pets too. I remember someone insisting once upon a time that it was the only brand a certain cat would eat." He shrugged again. "Such speculations are like temura, which is said to be worse then useless to anyone less than an Adept. If Ellen Cannon Reed is correct about Wiccan High Priestess and High Priest being equivalent to Adeptus Minor you two presumably can use such data when and where they're useful and see their irrelevance when and where they're not useful. You presumably know that people can pick pretty much anything as windows into their intuitions; just be aware that streets and automobiles and license plates and such are some of the things that I have chosen to use."

They nodded. Equivalent to Adeptus Minor or not, this stuff was certainly part of what they'd been taught in their branch of Wicca. They figured pretty much any branch of Alexandrian or 'Ellen Cannon Reedian' Wicca would cover such stuff. But what about Anthonian traditions? How would Maurice react if they mentioned something out of a Piers Anthony 'trilogy'? Marie and Marny consulted each other silently. Finally Marie turned to Maurice. "Have you read much Piers Anthony?"

Maurice grinned broadly. "There are some Xanth novels I've not read. Other than that I think I'm familiar with most of his stuff. Let me guess, you're wondering whether the television only talks to crazy people or does it talk to Incarnations too?"

Marie shrugged, with a slightly sheepish smile. "Something like that, yeah."

Maurice smiled. "Let me set your mind at ease. When the television talks to you it might not mean you're crazy, but maintaining a room in such a state that its television also talks to your students or visitors might be difficult." He spun the altar around, swept aside a curtain to reveal a small television, turned it on.

"It is time for the penguin on top of your television to explode," it said.

He turned it off again, shrugged. "There is no penguin on top of the television," he apologised.

Marie and Marny smiled broadly nonetheless. "You're right," said Marny, "even here in circle it is hard to maintain that much focus. That wasn't too awful though."

Maurice shrugged. "The Wizard is better at it. I didn't even choose a channel. That was really more like bibliomancy than the kind of constant relevance experienced by the Incarnations in Piers Anthony's novels."

"You're pretty much 'in circle' all the time, aren't you?" Marny asked.

"That is one way of putting it," Maurice admitted. "A formal circle such as this is different of course, but the whole world is a circle and so too is the solar system, not to mention the galaxy and the local group of galaxies. A lot of it is just a matter of scale. Part of what I associate with the Charioteer is being at the centre and the circumference both at once. A moving meditation, I suppose you could call it."

"So you've probably been in states where it seemed like everyone you meet is speaking from their Higher Self instead of their everyday self?" Marny asked.

"Of course. More usual though is simply the constant run of coincidence. Synchronicity.

Marie smiled. "Good. Our walk around the perimeter could be quite interesting then. There aren't that many people we can walk with and still stay in tune with synchronicity."

Maurice nodded. "Sometimes it seems as if some faction or factions deliberately tries to squash synchronicity; as if clocks are intended to destroy it rather than to facilitate it. Even though the ostensible purpose of running things by the clock is to synchronise things."

Marny smiled at Marie. "No wonder we like this guy. He's as crazy as we are!"

Marie smiled too. "Okay! I think we are going to like being townies. What do we need to know about the logistics of this place?"

Maurice looked thoughtful. "There is no mortgage. The Wizard doesn't like to use mortgages. There are no rents either. The Wizard doesn't like to use rents because doing so brings in all kinds of legalese that can be counterproductive. From a legal standpoint anyone who lives here does so as guests. That can be very handy with the kind of problem student that might otherwise disrupt the place by using tenancy legislation to stick around when they are no longer welcome. Is that a problem?"

Marie shook here head. "I don't think so, not for us. But that is because we trust the Wizard. I can see where it might be a problem for others."

Maurice nodded. "It certainly is a problem for some folk. Bottom line though from our point of view is those who find it a problem are not ready, maybe aren't even be the kind of people we're looking for. Maybe you two take your 'two perfect words' more seriously than some folk that we've met."

Marie smiled. "Maybe so. From our point of view that is basic to Wicca."

"There you go then. Just another part of why we've had you two in mind for so long. Do you mind if I ask about the logistics of the old covenstead?"

"Currently we own the place," Marie replied, "Debbie and John, Susan and Robert are tenants. But we've been saving part of the rents so that we'll be able to help them get set up with places of their own when the time comes. I suppose now we should be thinking about deeding the place to Debbie and John."

"Maybe," Maurice replied. The Wizard and I have discussed such matters many times, but we're still not sure how best to handle them. According to various supposed Occult Orders and such, temples are owned by a Magus or maybe by all Magi in common, and run by a Magister Templi. But we are far from convinced that most such Orders actually have any real Magus or Magister Templi. Ellen Cannon Reed seemd to think that stations beyond the Abyss are not attainable by living people; if that is so then no living people could truly hold such ranks. It is a problem. We are not at all enamoured of the idea of merely using such titles ceremonially without regard to any kind of underlying reality to them." He looked at Marny. "Do you use the line "High Priest and Magus" in your rituals, such as when summoning, stirring and calling the quarters?"

Marny frowned. "No, I never liked that. It would be nice if a High Priest was a Magus but as long as we do not believe it to be so we do not like that line. We prefer to keep such technical terms technical rather than degrade them into commonplace slang or colloquialism."

Maurice smiled. "I suspected as much. I had noticed you never styled yourself a Magus any of the times I attended your circles."

"As far as I know I am nowhere near Magus yet," Marny replied. "I can believe, following Ellen's scheme of things, that I might qualify as a Minor Adept, I can even agree with "Dancing to the Melody that in a sense a kind of natural Adept might be almost commonplace nowadays. But beyond that? Who knows? Some folk who claim Grades beyond Minor Adept, or even just Minor Adept itself, do not even seem to pass as natural adepts as described in "Dancing to the Melody. Most who do seem to pass in that way seem rightfully suspicious of most hierarchic systems."

Maurice smiled. "Makes sense to me. Supposedly a Major Adept is adept at all forms of magick, so maybe we could propose to attempt to achieve Major Adept together? Plus since we're all familiar with Piers Anthony's 'Incarnations' books lets recall that in those books Incarnations are exempt from Karma while in office, and thus associate the television trick with Exempt Adept? Uh, not the bibliomantic trick I just did; remember that an Incarnation's television is synchronistic all the time, not just momentarily when consulted briefly like bibliomancy."

Marie and Marny looked at each other, shrugged. "Sure," said Marie. "That sounds as reasonable an idea as any I've heard on such matters. Here's a question for you though: the world seems to be on the edge of developing translation devices, not up to the standards of Star Trek's universal translators but still, web pages can be translated to some extent for example. We have wondered if that could be associated with the Grade of Magister Templi. The question though is would a person have to actually program such a device themself in order to demonstrate the Grade of Magister Templi, or would it suffice to say "make it so" and have it be so? If the latter, then maybe the existence of such devices show that somewhere, whether incarnate or not, a Magister Templi might have been in action at some point in the last few decades?"

Maurice smiled broadly. "Ah, this is good, this is very good. The Wizard and I have discussed such things, but there has been a terrible lack of others to discuss them with. Do you remember when the media started on about cold fusion? The association of the translator with the sphere of Understanding seemed obvious, but we had also speculated further that a demonstration of Magus or Ipsissimus maybe ought to involve something like cold fusion or faster than light communication or even faster than light travel. But we had the same uncertainty that you have just mentioned: should someone have to go into a lab and build cold fusion or faster than light or should it suffice to simply say let it be so. We did not decide, and the media backed off on the cold fusion. If we had decided with certainty, with our Magickal Wills, that merely saying let it be so would suffice, would cold fusion have become true? I'm sure you must have read Ursula K. LeGuin's 'Lathe of Heaven'?"

Marie and Marny both nodded assent. Yes, of course they had read it. "Surely," said Marie, "you must often have experienced that annoying aspect of synchronicity where it can even start to seem impossible to really do anything because as soon as you think of something it pops up in your life out of nowhere? We have had that happen so often that we figured it has to be the case that the Ipsissimus or Magus or Magister Templi or whatever would merely decide that a thing happen and it would happen; the grunt-work would be taken care of by the gnomes, or technicians, or lab-workers, or whatever other mechanisms synchronicity might have access to."

"Remember the first time you took me walking?" Marny asked Maurice. "You told me that if we wanted to see a bar-fight we could, it was up to us. We could turn a corner and see a brawl outside a tavern, or choose not to do so. I chose not, because I have no desire to see fights nor even for them to happen.

"I remember," said Maurice. "Then later I took you for a drive, and showed you that street full of police cars.

Marny nodded. "I think we can agree then that our criteria would not require the Magus or Ipsissimus or whatever to actually do the grunt-work. Thus if we associate faster than light or teleportation with Magus or Ipsissimus instead of with the sphere of Understanding we can deduce that a Magus or Ipsissimus has been at work sometime in the last decade or so, being as how there have been various claims of various faster than light stuff or teleportation stuff the last few years."

"That is pretty much what the Wizard and I had figured," Maurice replied. "But of course it says nothing about whether any such entities are actually incarnate. Maybe they cause such things from a discarnate position."

Marie smiled. "Could be. I love this stuff but maybe we should come back to earth for a while. We still have our perimeter patrol ahead of us, and I'd also like a bit of a tour of this building since we are going to be living here. Then too, we are presumably in this circle to do some kind of divination. Maybe we should at least do a Tarot reading?"

Maurice nodded. Marny opened his belt pouch, brought out the deck, shuffled it some, passed it to Marie. Marie shuffled it some more then set it before Maurice and let him cut. She dealt three cards: past, present and future. Turned over the 'past' card: the six of swords. A journey from troubled waters to smooth waters. Or in some decks, science. Either way, it seemd to fit. The 'present' card: the ten of pentacles. Wealth. Material security. Quite apt. 'Future' card: the nine of pentacles: gain. A story progressing from troubled mind to material security with more material gain on the way.

"Alright then," said Marie. "We seem reasonably well in tune. Shall we take down the circle and go for our walk?" Marny and Maurice nodded assent, and they all stood.

Marie addressed the east. "Raphael! We thank you for your presence and your aid! Be welcome to stay as long as you wish, this temple is yours as much as ours! May all good be ever with you... Blessed Be!"

Maurice addressed the south. "Michael! We thank you for your presence and your aid! Be welcome to stay as long as you wish, this temple is yours as much as ours! May all good be ever with you... Blessed Be!"

Marny addressed the west. "Gabriel! We thank you for your presence and your aid! Be welcome to stay as long as you wish, this temple is yours as much as ours! May all good be ever with you. Blessed Be!"

Marie addressed the north. "Uriel! We thank you for your presence and your aid! Be welcome to stay as long as you wish, this temple is yours as much as ours! May all good be ever with you. Blessed Be!"

They bowed their heads and waited. Sometimes the Archangels had messages to impart. Marie sensed their continued presence, so addressed them all. "All ye archangels here assembled, know that we go now to walk our borders. Be ye welcome to accompany us! Blessed Be!" She looked around at the lamps signifying the elements, looked a question at Maurice.

"Leave the elements in place for now," said Maurice. "Who knows what we might find when we walk the perimeter."

Marie nodded, picked up the sword, opened a gateway. Maurice and Marny passed through. Marie followed, closed the gateway beyhind her, placed the sword back on the threshold. They sensed the Archangels sweep outward into the city, out to the designated borders of the Wyvern Street demesne.

In the study, Susan awaited them with the coffee and dessert trolleys. "Debbie and John have gone back to the Covenstead with Anna," she told them. "The Wizard went with them. Jason and Megan wanted to stay though, Robert has them in your apartment. The Wizard told them you were going to stay, and they promised to get to school on time even if we don't get home until late."

Marie nodded assent. Jason and Megan, she and Marny's son and daughter, had come into town with Susan and Robert. They had also brought Debbie and John's babe in arms, Anna. "Good idea. There is no need to rush them home, being up a little late shouldn't be a problem."

Susan nodded. "It is early yet anyway, it gets dark early so it looks later than it is. The Wizard seemed to think they'll be staying with us at least until the end of the school term?"

"That seems most likely," Marie replied. "Unless the Wizard decides they should move into town sooner. He, Debbie and John will decide that, I expect. It is no longer our concern." She smiled at Maurice.

"Maybe the children would like to accompany us," Maurice suggested to Susan. We are about to take a walk. After coffee, that is." He bit into a cinnamon bun.

Susan looked at Marie. Marie shrugged. "Sure, lets make an outing of it. We are going to walk around the entire chunck of the city that the Wizard watches over from this little stronghold. It is to be our new Covendom, it seems."

Susan raised her eyebrows. "Wow, good for you! The old Covenstead is really going to be Debbie and John's then, eh?"

Marny nodded. "Yes indeed. Hopefully Jason and Megan will be able to stay there until school is out, but basically we are moving out. This will be our new base for however long the Wizard wants us here. How Debbie and John want to arrange the old Covenstead from now on is up to them. Maybe they'll move into our section and let you have theirs."

Susan smiled. She like that idea. "Maybe Terry will find a partner and take over our old apartment!"

"Stranger things have happened," Marny replied. "He and Angela did seem to hit it off, didn't they?"

Susan winked at him. "Maybe. We'll see. How did the divination go?"

"Six of swords, ten of pentacles, nine of pentacles," said Marie. "So I'd say it went quite well."

The north-east door opened: Robert, Jason and Megan entered. "Megan said you'd sent Angels out in all directions so must be finished?" Robert asked.

Marie smiled at Megan. "Well, we didn't send them, exactly, Megan. But we are about to walk around this part of town, and we invited the Archangels to accompany us if they wish to. I guess they decided that they do wish to. Do you want to bring some hot chocolate in a thermos?"

Jason and Megan nodded eagerly. "Maybe some doughnuts too?" Jason suggested. At Marie's nod of assent they headed back to the kitchen to fetch thermos and lunchboxes.

"A couple of big thermoses for coffee too, please, Jason!" Maurice called to them just in time as they left. "You never know how long such an expedition is going to end up being," he explained to the room in general as he handed out hip-flasks for liquor. "So feel free to take a bit of whatever fortifications you fancy." He poured Irish whiskey carefully into a flask. "I'll bring a cell-phone, so we can call a cab at any moment if we choose. But this is to be an adventure, so theres no telling where we'll end up." He walked over to the north fireplace, which as usual was unlit, and reaching into a vase on the mantel he proceeded to bring out heavy brown rolls and toss one each to everyone. "Rolls of loonies. Who knows, we might meet some buskers or streetpeople." He winked at the kids, who had returned laden with thermoses and lunchboxes just in tome to get tossed their rolls of coins. "Or even some vending machines or something. In fact we should go out the back way so we can tell Roger he has new neighbors."