Always Forever (19 page)

"Cernunnos," Tom said.

"It resides in a bower, ready to be wakened." The archetype rose and looked
towards the dark horizon as if something were calling it.

"Where?" Tom asked.

"On the Hill of Giants, where the Night Rider awaits his challenges. But
time is short. The protection is diminishing and soon the link will be broken."

"How long have we got?" Veitch was afraid the information had come too
late for them to act on it.

"Not long."

It was a vague answer, but it was obvious the archetype would not or could
not elucidate. It began to ease back down the slope of the cairn. "Now-"

"Wait," Veitch said humbly. "Can I walk with you? Just for a while?"

The archetype paused, then held out a shadowy hand. It felt like velvet in
Witch's fingers. The archetype hauled him out effortlessly and they both slipped
down to the ground. Veitch felt uplifted, sensing on some deep level the heroic
essence. It felt more like energy crackling in the air than a person at his side, but
when he cast a surreptitious glance, it was unmistakably Robin Hood. They
moved across the road to the nature reserve beyond, keeping low like animals.
Veitch was sure some of whatever constituted the archetype was rubbing off on
him. His senses were sharpened, his spirit was soaring, as if he had consumed a
quantity of drugs or was in the grip of some spiritual fervour.

When they had crossed a barbed wire fence into a field on the valley slopes,
Veitch couldn't contain himself any longer. "Show me," he whispered like a
child.

The archetype seemed to smile. In one fluid movement it took the bow from
its back, fitted an oddly fashioned arrow and loosed it. Veitch heard the twang
as the arrow neatly severed the top strand of barbed wire on the fence about
thirty yards further down the field.

"'mazing." He did feel like a child again; a wizened memory of playing one
of Robin Hood's Mettle Men in a Greenwich backstreet was given new flesh. It
was the kind of feeling adults spent all their life searching for, but which he had
convinced himself didn't exist anywhere in society. And perhaps it hadn't before;
but now things were different.

The archetype appeared to read his thoughts. With an expansive gesture, it
said, "This night is magic, alive with potential. Here you are connected to the
infinite."

His feeling of exaltation grew stronger until every part of his body was tingling. He felt heady from the potency of the experience; it was truly religious,
like he was about to turn towards the face of God. "What does this all mean?"
he sighed.

"This is how existence should be." The archetype knelt on one knee to touch
the grass gently. "Dreams start within, then grow bigger until one can live
within them. There are no boundaries; anything can happen. Fluidity, hope,
expression." He fixed a gaze on Veitch that was almost electric. "Mythologies
were never intended to be only stories. Dream hard enough and you can exist
within them: neither reality, nor fantasy: just one realm of infinite possibilities."
He made another wide gesture. "Look. The stories live. All of this exists within
the age of heroes, as it was intended."

When Veitch looked around, he noticed for the first time shadowy figures
standing away on the field boundaries or amongst the nearby trees: old heroes,
some he recognised, with shining swords and armour, crowns and shields, but
many he did not; yet he felt he knew them all. The wonder washed over him in
such force he was driven to his knees.

It was at least an hour later when Veitch made his way back to the cairn. A
shooting star cut an arc across the sky. Tom was still inside, smoking the remnants of a joint while humming gently to himself.

"Weren't you worried about me?" Veitch said as he emerged from the
tunnel, his face beatific.

"I knew you were in good hands. Did he give you an education?"

Veitch was unable to restrain his smile.

"Good," Tom said. "Make the most of your contact with the great beyond
for tomorrow we have a life to save and choices to make which could wipe the
smile from your face."

Veitch didn't hear him; he was looking up to the stars, for the first time in
his life feeling he was a part of something enormous; feeling that there really was
hope for him.

om and Veitch stayed in the cool confines of the cairn until the sky turned
gold and purple, and then a powder blue. It was going to be a fine day.
Witch's mood had remained ecstatic as he babbled through the final hours of
darkness about what he had experienced with the archetype. Tom could see some
long-neglected part of him had been touched by the encounter. He was loath to
bring Veitch down with discussion of what lay ahead, but it had to be done; the
archetype had stressed time was short.

After a brief, unappetising breakfast of roots, herbs and edible flowers Tom
had foraged from the surrounding hedgerows and fields, the conversation turned
to Shavi. Veitch was surprisingly confident, his usual strategic caution stifled by
his joy that there was still hope he would see his friend again.

"You know where Shavi is?" Tom chose his words carefully as he gently
prodded the small campfire that had taken the chill off the early morning air.
"Not where his body is, but where he is."

"The Grim Lands. Or the Grey Lands."

"Two names to describe the same place. It's the Land of the Dead, Ryan."

Veitch shrugged.

"Doesn't that fill you with dread? It's been a source of nightmares for the
human race since the dawn of our people, and with good cause."

"Don't start getting all negative." Veitch's body language showed he didn't
want to hear any of Tom's cautionary tales. "Over the last few months I've seen
and done things that would have had me screaming like a bleedin' idiot when I
was just some chancer down in South London. Everything's a nightmare-that's
the way it is these days. You just get on with it. So let's get on with it."

Tom cursed under his breath. "I knew it would be like this. You never listen
to advice, do you? If you are not prepared before you go into the Grim Lands,
they may never allow you to leave."

"They?" Veitch's brow furrowed. "Me?"

"Well, I'm not going in there. It's your responsibility, and besides, I don't have that wonderful Pendragon Spirit coursing through my system. And did you
think the Dead would just allow some breathing, heart-pumping warm memory
of lost times waltz amongst them and take away one they consider their own?
The Dead have their own rules and regulations, their own beliefs, their own jealousies and hatreds. And the Grim Lands themselves are ..." He looked down so
Veitch could barely see his face. "... not a pleasant place for the living."

Veitch shuffled into a sitting position, annoyed that his good mood had
been driven from him. "I'm sick of all this," he said obliquely.

"I'm sorry for having to say this, Ryan." Tom surprised himself at the sincerity in his voice. "You need to know. The archetype told us what you always
believed: that there's still hope. But the outcome is never assured in these things.
You need to understand that the danger of entering the Grim Lands would be,
for many, insurmountable." He paused. "But if anyone can do it, you can."

Veitch brightened at the vote of confidence.

"But as I warned Shavi in Edinburgh, there is a great risk in allowing the
Dead to notice you. A price might be demanded that could be too much for you
to bear-"

Veitch waved a dismissive hand. "There's no point telling me that sort of
stuff. You know I'm going to do it. I've got to go in for Shavi. How could I leave
him there if there's a chance I could bring him out? That's what it's all about for
me. Yeah, we might be able to do something to stop everything going belly up.
But friendship, that's the important thing. You stand by your family, and you
stand by your mates. Nothing comes up to that. Not even saving the world."

Though he didn't show it, Tom was impressed by Veitch's sense of right and
wrong, and his understanding of obligation, traits he thought had long been
abandoned since the nineteen-sixties, the decade he most loved. "As long as I
know you're going into this with open eyes."

"So how do I get there? Don't tell me there's some big doorway in the
graveyard."

"If only it were that easy. Firstly, we have to go to where Cernunnos has
deposited Shavi's body for safekeeping."

Veitch began his regular morning routine of stretching to help prepare his
muscles for the day ahead. "The Hill of Giants."

"That is one of its names, though it is more commonly known as the Gog
Magog Hills, just outside Cambridge."

"Funny name."

"In the old tales, Gog and Magog were the last of an ancient race of giants.
They are supposed to sleep under the hills, with a giant horse along the way, and
a golden chariot beneath nearby Mutlow Hill."

Tom winced as Veitch cracked his knuckles, one after the other, oblivious to
the Rhymer's displeasure. "So, just to prove I've been listening, all these old stories you keep going on about actually mean something, though not usually
exactly what they say."

"They are an approximation, couched in metaphors."

"So, what does this one mean? No real giants, right?"

"That needn't trouble you for now. I merely tell you this to underline that
we will be travelling to a place of great power and significance. The ancient races
were drawn to the hills for that power, in much the same way they revered Mam
Tor. On the windswept summit is Wandlebury Camp where Boudicca and the
Iceni plotted their revenge against the invaders. The Romans themselves took
over the site later."

"And that power's keeping Shavi's body safe?" A breeze blew along the floor
of the glen, rustling the trees, making the phone wires sing.

"That and the fact that the hills have a guardian."

"Yeah?"

"The archetype mentioned him-the Night Rider. In the legends he was
supposed to have ruled Wandlebury Camp ages ago, and no mortal could ever
defeat him. Those brave enough would ride out to the camp on a moonlit night
and call, `Knight to knight, come forth!' He would ride out on his jet black stallion and happily accept the challenge. A further story from Norman times
claimed a knight called Osbert went out to try to put the legend to rest. He
managed to unseat the Night Rider and even took the black horse home to
Cambridge, but was wounded in the thigh in the process. The horse disappeared
at dawn, and on every anniversary of the battle his wound opened up and bled
as if it were fresh."

"So what part of that load of old bollocks is true?"

Tom bristled at Witch's typically irreverent reaction to the old myths and
legends he held dear. "I'm sure you will soon find out," he replied tartly. "The
Night Rider has rarely been seen throughout the centuries-the Gog Magog
Hills is a particularly lonely spot-but all who speak of him talk of a great
threat which is not explicit in the stories. There is danger there, make no mistake. If such a powerful place requires a guardian, it would be a fearsome
guardian indeed."

"You expect me to be surprised?" Veitch kicked out the fire.

"I'm a little concerned that you're not taking this seriously-"

"I've had enough of taking things seriously. Since what happened to Ruth
it's like that's all I've done. And if everything is going to end soon I don't want
to end it like that."

"Fair enough. Then the next question is-"

"How the hell do we get there in a hurry? I mean, Cambridge!" Veitch
paced around anxiously. "It's, what, five hundred miles away? No cars or planes
or trains. That's crazy!"

"Horses," Tom suggested.

"Still take too long."

"A boat. We could sail up the Caledonian Canal, down the east coast to the
fens-"

"No offence, mate, but I honestly don't fancy getting in a leaky old tub with
you unless it's a last resort. I hate water." He sighed. "If it's the only option I'll
do it, 'course I will, but it's still going to take too long."

"Well, what do you suggest?" Tom snapped. "We've gone back to the
Middle Ages. A horse and a boat are top-of-the-range technology!"

Veitch chewed on his lip in thought. After a while he cast a sly glance
towards Tom.

"What?" the Rhymer said sharply.

"Back at Tintagel when the crow man forced us over the edge of the cliff,
you did something-"

"No," Tom said firmly.

Veitch squatted down next to him. "Yeah, you did, you did. You moved us
all the way from Tintagel to Glastonbury. What's that? A hundred miles? Just
like that!" He snapped his fingers.

"No."

"Stop saying no or I'll punch your head in."

Tom couldn't decide if he was joking. "What I did then was a one off. I'd
been taught the principle, but I'd never been able to do it before. I don't have
the ability. I don't."