Brida

Then one day, she met another man. This man knew nothing of the Traditions, nor did he have a point of light above his left shoulder or the special light in his eyes that reveals someone to be your Soul Mate. Love, however, is no respecter of reasons, and she fell in love; as far as she was concerned, her time with the Magus had come to an end.

They quarreled and fought; he begged and implored. He subjected himself to all the usual humiliations endured by people in love. He learned things he never dreamed he would learn: hope, fear, acceptance. "He doesn't have the point of light above his left shoulder," he argued, "you told me that yourself." But she didn't care. Before she did finally meet her Soul Mate, she wanted to know other men, to experience the world.

The Magus set a limit on his pain. When he reached it, he would forget all about her. For a reason he could now no longer remember, he did reach that limit, but instead of forgetting her, he discovered that his Teacher was right--emotions were like wild horses and it required wisdom to be able to control them. His passion was stronger than all his years of studying the Tradition of the Moon, stronger than all the mind-control techniques he had learned, stronger than the rigid discipline to which he'd had to submit in order to get where he was. Passion was a blind force, and it kept whispering in his ear that he must not lose that woman.

He could do nothing against her; she was a Teacher, like him, and she had learned her trade over many incarnations, some filled with fame and glory, others marked by fire and suffering. She would know how to defend herself.

However, there was a third party involved in this furious struggle. A man caught in destiny's mysterious web, a web that neither Magi nor Witches can understand. An ordinary man, perhaps as in love with that woman as he was, a man who wanted her to be happy and to do his best for her. An ordinary man, whom Providence's mysterious designs had thrown into the middle of this battle between a man and a woman who knew the Tradition of the Moon.

One night, when he could stand the pain no longer, he ate of the forbidden fruit. Using the power and knowledge that the wisdom of Time had taught him, he removed that man from the woman he loved.

He did not know to this day whether or not she ever found out, but it may well be that she had already grown tired of her new conquest and didn't much mind his leaving. However, his Teacher knew. His Teacher always knew everything, and the Tradition of the Moon was implacable with those Initiates who used Black Magic, especially to influence that most important and most vulnerable of human emotions: Love.

When he confronted his Teacher, he understood that the sacred vow he had made was impossible to break. He understood that the forces he thought he could control and use were far more powerful than he was. He understood that he was on his chosen path, but that it was not a path like any other. And he understood that in this incarnation he could never leave that path.

Now that he had erred, he had to pay a price, and the price was to drink that cruellest of poisons--loneliness--until Love felt that he had once more been transformed into a Teacher. Then, the same Love that he had wounded would set him free again and finally reveal his Soul Mate to him.

You haven't asked me anything about myself. Aren't you curious? Or can you use your powers to see right through me?"

His past took no more than a second to flash through his mind, just long enough for him to decide whether to allow things to happen as they would in the Tradition of the Sun or to speak to her about the point of light and thus interfere in fate.

Brida wanted to be a witch, but she hadn't yet achieved that ambition. He remembered the cabin high up in the tree, when he had come very close to telling her; now he was tempted again, because, having lowered his guard, he had forgotten that the Devil is in the detail. We are all masters of our own destiny. We can so easily make the same mistakes over and over. We can so easily flee from everything that we d

esire and which life so generously places before us.

Alternatively, we can surrender ourselves to Divine Providence, take God's hand, and fight for our dreams, believing that they always arrive at the right moment.

"Let's go," said the Magus. And Brida could see that this time he was serious.

She made a point of paying the bill; after all, she was the King of the Night. They put on their coats and went out into the cold, which was now less bitter--in a matter of weeks, it would be spring.

They walked together to the bus station. A bus was due to leave in a few minutes. Out in the cold, Brida's feelings of irritation were replaced by a terrible confusion, which she could not explain. She didn't want to get on that bus; everything was wrong; it seemed to her that she'd entirely failed to achieve her main objective of the evening and that she needed to put everything right before she left. She had come there to thank him, and yet she was behaving just as she had on the previous two occasions.

She didn't get on the bus, saying that she felt sick.

Fifteen minutes passed, and another bus arrived.

"I don't want to leave," she said, "not because I drank too much and feel ill, but because I've spoiled everything. I haven't thanked you as I should have."

"This is the last bus," said the Magus.

"I'll get a taxi later, even if it's expensive."

When the bus left, Brida regretted not having got on it. She was confused. She had no idea what she wanted. "I'm drunk," she thought, and said:

"Let's go for a walk. I need to sober up."

They strolled through the empty village, with the streetlamps lit and all the windows dark. "It's just not possible. I saw the light in Lorens's eyes and yet I want to stay here with this man." She was just an ordinary, fickle woman, unworthy of all that she had learned and experienced through witchcraft. She was ashamed of herself: all it took was a few glasses of wine, and Lorens--her Soul Mate--and everything she'd learned in the Tradition of the Moon were suddenly of no importance. She wondered briefly if she'd been wrong, perhaps the light in Lorens's eyes wasn't the light spoken of in the Tradition of the Sun. But, no, she was merely fooling herself; no one can fail to recognize the light in the eyes of their Soul Mate.

If she were to meet Lorens in a crowded theater, without ever having spoken to him before, the moment their eyes met, she would know for sure that he was the man for her. She would find a way of approaching him, and he would welcome her approaches, because the Traditions are never wrong: Soul Mates always find each other in the end. Long before she knew anything about Soul Mates, she had often heard people speak about that inexplicable phenomenon: Love at First Sight.

Any human being could recognize that light, without any need for magical powers. She had known about it before she knew of its existence. She had seen it, for example, in the Magus's eyes, the first time they went to the pub together.

She stopped.

"I'm drunk," she thought again. She must simply forget all about it. She needed to count her money to see if she had enough for a taxi fare back. That was important.

But she had seen the light in the Magus's eyes, the light that showed he was her Soul Mate.