Always Forever (29 page)

Veitch was still enthused with all the energies his encounter with the archetype had instilled in him; to him, he had met Robin Hood, a hero of Britain
whose good deeds transcended time. Veitch barely dared admit to himself how
much that excited him; and how much he wanted something similar. He
wouldn't even mind dying if he could become a hero people would remember,
wiping out in an instant the petty, twisted parts of his nature, the waste he'd
made of his life.

For the first time in many years, Tom was feeling bewildered, and it wasn't
from the two joints he'd smoked in quick succession as he ambled around the
cairn, fascinated by the shape of the stones, their colour in the sun. He'd lived
for hundreds of years. His memory was a vast library stretching into deep, subterranean chambers, but his own character he knew with weary boredom. Or thought he did. But Veitch, rough, uneducated, shallow, had made several sharp
comments during the course of the night that suggested he didn't know himself
very well at all. In his own eyes, he was compromised by the complexity of an
age when things could no longer be seen in black and white. To Veitch, he was
a hero, a conclusion born from observation, for not so long ago the Londoner had
railed against his mythological status. What had Veitch seen that he couldn't see
himself? It troubled him, yet excited him a little too. But it was a frisson
nonetheless, and for anything that stirred his blood after such a long life he was
eternally grateful.

When he finished his last joint, he peered over the top of the cairn and
shouted, "It's time."

"You know you're not supposed to drive on that stuff," Veitch said as he
wandered over. "I'm not so sure I want you in charge when we're throwing ourselves into the Universal Transporter."

"Oh, shut up. We had a name for you back in the sixties."

"I have a name for you right now. Get on with it."

They crawled on their bellies through the symbolic tunnel until they were
sitting cross-legged inside the cairn. After the previous night, when the stones
had been alive with the crackling blue energy, the place looked flat and dead,
but they both could feel the vitality deep down in the earth, waiting to be
brought out.

"You're sure you're ready for this?" Tom said.

Witch peered up into the blue September sky. "It's for a mate. I'm ready."

"As long as you know what you're letting yourself in for. Don't forget-this
isn't a test. No trial runs."

"In life or anything else. Just get on with it."

At first Tom was annoyed that Veitch hadn't grasped the true dangers of
what they were attempting, but as he watched the Londoner's face he saw that
wasn't right; Veitch simply didn't care. The dangers paled into insignificance
compared to what they might achieve: bringing a trusted, much-loved friend
back from the other side of death.

"So what do we have to do?" Veitch asked blithely.

"We rip out our souls and throw them to the four winds."

Veitch shrugged.

Tom shook his head wearily before taking in a deep breath to clear his head.
The drug lifted him one step beyond day-to-day existence. Closing his eyes, he
said in a dreamy, hypnotic voice, "Stone has strange properties. It vibrates, did
you know that? It collects and responds to the energies at the heart of everything. That's why so many ghosts are seen in places made of stone-castles and old houses and monasteries. The power affects the brain, raises the consciousness. Lets you see the Invisible World." He took another deep, calming breath.
"These old, sacred places, these circles and cairns, were constructed out of stone
for that reason, not simply because that was the only material at hand. The peculiar qualities of stone made it easier to release the stored energy our ancestors
needed to transcend. All they had to do was make the stones vibrate. Do you
know how they did it?"

Veitch was gripped by Tom's mesmerising voice weaving a spell around him.

"Sound. All these places are designed for auditory effect. Consider the
fougous in Cornwall. The great chambered cairns. They have the sonic qualities
of the best musical halls. The perfect pitch, the exact timbre. All are achieved
within their confines. Yet they look so rough, just thrown together." To illustrate his point, he made one low note, which bounced around the walls without
losing any of its sharpness. "When this place was complete, with a roof of stone
to contain the sound, it would have been even more effective. Primitive woodwind instruments, carved from bone or wood, rhythmic chanting, the tools of
the shaman the world over. Sound has power. Music has power-even on a mundane level. Yes, sound releases the energy in the stone, but it shifts something
in our brain too, making us more receptive to the transcendent experience.
That's why hymns are sung in church. The music provides direct access to the
god centre, helping us to see the wonder that is around us all the time."

He waited for Veitch to make some deflating comment, but his companion
was rapt. Tom hadn't expected that. He was only really using the rhythm of his
words, the rise and fall of the sound levels, to make Veitch more receptive to the
kind of sonic manipulation he was describing. And there he was, actually
listening.

"So, it's like pop songs ..." Witch winced. "Tell me if I'm being stupid, all
right? But it's like some crappy little pop record. You hear it on the radio or
somethin', and suddenly that moment that you heard it is ... locked in. It's,
like, more real than all the moments around it. Brighter, you can remember
what things smelled like and sounded like, all the detail, even years after, when
you've forgotten every other moment that got you to that point."

"You have it." Tom restrained a smile of deep affection. "Now, say no more.
Prepare yourself. Don't see or smell or touch. Hear."

Veitch closed his eyes, surprised at how centred he felt. Even the anger that
in recent times had become a constant background buzz had faded away.

Tom took another deep breath and when he released it, he made a low, rumbling sound deep in his throat, sustaining it until every part of the breath had
been expelled from his lungs. Sooooooooooooooooo. Another breath, and then he repeated the sound. This routine continued, building up a mantra that filled the
whole of the cairn. After a while Veitch felt confident enough to introduce his
own chant into the breaks when Tom gathered his breath. It created a constant
wall of sound swirling around the walls in ripples and eddies.

The first thing Veitch noticed was a tingling in his fingertips. Gradually
that sensitivity progressed along his arms, while a similar force rose up from his
spine, like a snake sinuously progressing round the bony stem, a sensation he
recognised from the time Ruth had practised her sex magic on him. Flares burst
at different points as the snake passed on its journey towards the back of his
brain.

All around, the sharp edges of the stones were limned with the now-familiar
blue glow. And it wasn't just in the stones, but in the ground, and in Tom, and
in him, everything linked.

The snake passed his shoulder blades, wriggled its way up to his neck, ready
to make that final leap. Veitch prepared himself for the rocket ride he had experienced previously.

Only this time it was different. At the final moment, he heard, or thought
he did, Tom utter a word, one that he couldn't remember a second later, but
which was filled with a tremendous weight of power, and then he felt like he
was slipping into a warm bath. The tension was stripped from him in an instant;
the tingling transferred to his groin; he felt as light as a leaf caught in the wind.

A tremendous sense of well-being washed over him. No problem was
important, no financial worries, no argument with his friends or his family, no
doubts about his own abilities; not even death. He was consumed with perspective, of being part of something enormous, that crossed the boundaries of time
and space, life and death. From that vista, everything dragging him down was
meaningless. The true meaning was all around.

He wanted to communicate this enlightenment to Tom, but when he
opened his eyes again all he saw was blue. It wasn't a flat colour, more like a diffuse light, a glow, a liquid, warm and enriching, but he wasn't drowning or
choking. Out of curiosity he tried to call Tom's name, but either his vocal chords
wouldn't respond or sound wouldn't travel in that medium.

Where was he? he thought without any panic. Floating ... drifting ... happy
... content ...

There wasn't any sense of real motion. It reminded him of lying in the sun
in the back garden as a teenager, floating in a ring at the lido on a Saturday afternoon. Cocooning. No need to worry about anything at all, ever again. In fact,
all negativity had been thoroughly expunged from his thoughts; he couldn't
think of anything unpleasant even if he tried. He found himself dwelling on the truly good things in his life: the moment he first saw the mermaid swimming
next to the boat on the way to Caldey Island, his friends, particularly Church,
his role model whom he admired more than anything; and then Ruth, whom he
loved in a way he had never thought possible, so acute it was almost physically
painful not to be with her.

And that thought did trigger something unpleasant in his head, just the
faint tremor in the deepest reaches, but it was there. What was it? Why
wouldn't it go away and let him enjoy the experience of floating?

What was it?

Something ... something about Tom. No, something Tom had said. His
head was stuffed with candy floss, in consistency and sweetness; dredging up any
kind of rational thought progress was a struggle. Ruth. Tom. Ruth.

And then he had it. Tom had warned him of the dangers of getting lost in
the blue fire, of its seductive qualities that would make him not want to return
to the real world. It was seductive, but if he didn't go back he would never see
Ruth again; all the joys of the Blue Fire paled next to that.

The thought that he might already be trapped brought a bubble of panic,
but the moment it surfaced he was moving. The blue sheen in front of his eyes
still looked the same, but he could feel motion; he was shifting, faster and faster,
until he felt he was speeding at a hundred miles an hour.

Before he could consider any further action, he sensed a presence beside him,
Tom, although he could see nothing but blue when he looked around. More, he
could sense his companion's mind, and what he saw there left him with a potent,
bittersweet sensation. Laid bare was Tom's affection for all the travelling companions, which was both a shock, and humbling. But lying behind it all was a powerful self-loathing triggered by Tom's fear of what the Tuatha De Danann had
truly done to him. He felt like an outsider, filled with a loneliness Veitch could
not even begin to imagine; the only thing that gave his life meaning was the
Brothers and Sisters of Dragons and the success of their mission.

Then he was moving again, only this time Tom was directing him. Soon he
was whizzing faster even than he had before. A burst like TV interference
crackled across his mind; another; and another; and then he was overcome with
a monumental anticipation.

Another burst of static, and images began to flash across his mind so fast he
could barely keep track. Some, though, were important enough to stick: Ruth,
standing on the deck of a storm-tossed ship as black tentacles lashed through the
air; Church, standing at a pool as the grim spectre of a woman rose out of the
waters; Church and Ruth, sitting close beside each other on a cabin bed; the vampiric Baobhan Sith, grey and merciless, rising from the dusty ground; Laura, sitting in a damp warehouse, her skin an odd tinge of green, and a figure with white,
papery skin scarred with inky-black veins looming over Church.

The images and the pure blue of the energy vanished with the feeling of
passing through a membranous wall. For a brief moment an unending whiteness
filled both his vision and his thoughts, and then he was thrust roughly into sensation: the wind and sun on his skin, the sight of trees and sky, the smell of fresh
vegetation, made all the more powerful by their brief absence. It was followed
by the realisation that he was several feet above the ground. He had no chance
to prepare himself-he hit hard, winding himself. There was a crunch a split
second later as Tom landed beside him.

"Can't you do anything about re-entry?" Veitch sat up, irritatedly rubbing
his bruised ribs. His annoyance was less to do with the pain of the landing than
the fading memories of his overwhelmingly joyous experience in the Blue Fire;
it had left him hollow and dissolute. He controlled his rumbling temper when
he saw Tom was undergoing the same separation pangs.

The Rhymer struggled to his feet, obviously in some discomfort, plucking
his spectacles from a bush where they had landed in the fall. They were on a
gently sloping hillside in the deep shadow cast by heavy tree cover, although the
sun burned brightly on a grassy path cutting through the wood nearby. There,
the last Brimstone butterflies of summer fluttered amongst the burdock flowers.
Bees buzzed lazily round the boles while midges danced in a sunbeam. The chattering of birds was everywhere. The air smelled dank and peaty from the leaf
mould that covered the wood floor, obscured in areas by patches of bramble and
nettles and the occasional pile of coppiced wood.

"I saw things. Just before we got here." Some of the images lay heavily on
Witch's mind, pregnant with meaning he couldn't discern. "Church. And
Ruth ..."

"I noticed that the last time." Tom grumpily checked his faded haversack to
ensure nothing had fallen out. "When you are about to exit the energy stream
you pass through an area where you can see through time and space. Neither of
those things are fixed anyway, except in your limited perceptions."

Veitch checked his watch. Barely a second had passed since they had been
in the cairn at Corrimony.