The Rings of Poseidon (22 page)

"Where?"

"Atl-Andes. I've known since this afternoon.
Your expression when you saw the ring was enough."

"Ah," he said, nodding, "Now I understand.
That would account for your little fainting episode."

"What did you intend to try and do with
it?"

"I spent more than a hundred lifetimes
searching for the rings. As an Egyptian priest, a Phoenician sea
captain, two or three prehistoric chieftains, the governor of a
Roman province, a Moorish pirate. I have lived as an eccentric
Renaissance Gentleman with nothing better to spend money on than
archaeology. I found this in Egypt." He produced the silk-wrapped
bundle and unwrapped it to reveal a dagger. The blade was bronze,
polished to deadly sharpness and the hilt was shaped like a
monstrous scaly leg with evil claws. "Perhaps you recognise it. The
rings, the ritual knives and so on, they're all safely hidden a few
seconds in the future, and they'll stay there waiting for me to
start the new age. And I'm almost ready."

His laugh was hollow and empty and evil. "I
spent a lifetime as a wealthy Victorian, looking for this ring and
for the talisman. I had begun to think they were lost, but I just
need the talisman now. So far this dig doesn't seem to have turned
it up, but it might yet."

"What did you intend to do now?" asked Alicia
again.

"I was going to take the ring and post it to
myself at the University. I don't want it going to some museum. I
intend to use the rings to recover the crystal from Atl-Andes."

"Atl-Andes is a myth to most people and deep
beneath ocean, lava and volcanic waste now. What is lost there is
beyond recovery."

"I said I would recover it. I could do the
most extra-ordinary things if they were called for."

"I suppose you're going to come back as a
squid or something."

"Sneering won't help you."

"And now that I've stopped you, what do you
intend to do?" asked Alicia.

"You haven't stopped me, just caused a little
change of plans. When you disappear at the same time as the ring
people will assume a connection. We shall have to go for a
drive."

He held up his hand with the ring on, fingers
splayed. Alicia followed his hand with her eyes. "You were once my
slave - now you are my slave again," he said, vibrating the words
in the air around him. "To the car."

Alicia turned and, as one in a trance, began
to walk in front of him back around the end of the cabin and across
the field to the car.

"Get in," said the professor, opening the
rear door, and Alicia climbed in silently. "She won't give you any
trouble," he added to Juliana, and shut the door. He let himself
into the front passenger seat himself.

"Slight change of plan," he said. "Drive to
the stone circle on the Rackwick road."

"Who's she?" asked Ian, indicating
Alicia.

"My student in charge of the dig. You must
have seen her before."

"It's dark!"

"By a strange coincidence she was a sacrifice
at the original dedication ceremony of the rings. In Atlantis. She
actually remembered me, so I had to bring her along."

"Once a sacrifice..." said Juliana, rather
nastily.

"Quite," agreed the professor.

A glance told Gill that Alicia's room was
empty. "Quick, the Portacabin," she said to Steve in a loud
whisper.

"Keys," said Steve, "She said she'd leave
them on the table." In the moonlight they were instantly visible.
"If she went to the cabin she wasn't expecting to get in." The two
of them headed for the Portacabin to check there first. "I wonder
if she dressed," said Gill, hesitating. "I'll go back and check."
Gill turned back while Steve went on into the empty cabin. He
looked around by the light of the rising moon and saw the filing
cabinet drawer open. He looked inside the drawer, pulling it
further open and straining his eyes in a vain attempt to see its
contents. There simply wasn't enough light. He glanced across to
the calor gas stove and saw the matches. It took three matches to
be certain, but he was satisfied that the ring had gone. Turning
abruptly he glanced around the cabin and then started for the
door.

It looked to Gill as if Alicia had dressed
hurriedly and gone out with bare feet, since her socks and trainers
were still by her bunk and her night-dress was lying half off it.
She glanced out of the window. Two figures were just outside the
field and one was closing the gate.

Gill recognised the foremost of the two
figures as Alicia by her build, but there was something odd about
the way she moved. In the dim light there was no sign of any
weapon, but she felt certain all the same that her boss was not
going voluntarily. She dashed out of the caravan and met Steve
coming out of the cabin.

"There's a couple of people just leaving the
field," she said in a loud whisper, "and I think one of them is
Alicia."

"Let's have a look," muttered Steve, and ran
towards the gate. A distant car door slammed and an engine
started.

Steve turned and ran back in the direction of
the caravans. "If we're going to follow them it's going to have to
be in the Landrover." he said to Gill between breaths as she caught
up with him.

She answered, "You get the Landrover started
and turned round while I go back for that amulet." and started to
run back to the caravan before Steve could argue.

The lights of a car snapped on and the beams
of its headlights lit up the road.

"Jawohl mein Kommendant!" he muttered to
himself as he climbed into the vehicle "Anything you say." though
he didn't really mind so much and was impatient with curiosity
himself.

He held the heater plugs on for a few seconds
to make sure the vehicle started easily. He didn't want to rouse
the rest of the camp if he could help it. The engine fired first
time and he turned it towards the gate, driving slowly by the light
of the moon until Gill jumped in. Rather to his surprise the rear
passenger door opened as well as the front one and a still dressing
Manjy was bundled in by Alan who ran to the gate and opened it,
before climbing in the back himself at the same time as Gill
scrambled into the front next to Steve. He drove out onto the road
with the doors still swinging shut and Manjy tucking a blouse into
her jeans.

"I must have woken Manjy the first time I
went back and I met Alan coming out of the other caravan just now,"
said Gill. "What woke you?"

"I wasn't asleep. I was reading," said
Alan.

By the time the Landrover turned onto the
road, there was no sign of the car.

"They went in the direction of Linksness,"
remarked Steve.

"Can you follow on just side lights?" Gill
asked.

"I think there's enough light. I'll try."
answered Steve. He had driven the road daily going to the ferry, so
he did know it reasonably well and there was a moderate light too.
They rumbled on at around twenty-five miles an hour for nearly ten
minutes without seeing anything, driving past the turning to
Rackwick and on into Linksness. Steve stopped alongside the turn
down to the landing stage.

"They won't have driven to the ferry, because
it doesn't arrive 'till mid morning." said Steve. "Where to
next?"

"I'll try the hotel car park," said Gill,
opening the door and jumping down.

She ran the short distance to the hotel and
disappeared into the darkness at the side. Steve presumed she was
looking for the car the professor had taken that afternoon, but
couldn't see why she needed to know.

Less than two minutes later she ran back into
view and panted up to the Landrover. "Gone," she said as she
scrambled in.

"If the car's gone I presume the Professor
has gone as well," said Steve.

"I'd bet anything that's who was with Alicia,
and I think I know why." Gill said. "The question is where?"

Chapter 19

Inside the circle of rough, ancient and
uneven stones was an altar stone.

"Lie there!" commanded the professor in a
voice that brooked no argument.

Alicia obeyed and he put down the briefcase.
He opened it as he said "In Medieval or Renaissance times, when
Christianity dominated, it was enough to use a consecrated host to
achieve power. However, in these days of weakened belief I need
something a little stronger.

"You'd better both robe up," he added to the
other two, taking a folded garment from the briefcase.

The garment turned out to be a full length,
grey, one piece, hooded robe, rather like a cassock, which he
pulled over his head and tied round his waist with a rope of
twisted material. He picked out of the briefcase the beautifully
carved dagger and continued to Alicia.

"Very fortunate for me that you interfered
when you did, my dear. I'm going to send both the ring and the
dagger a few seconds into the future and come back for them later,
in another incarnation. For that I shall need a great deal of power
and your death is going to provide it. You recognise the knife. It
took one of your previous lives as well."

He turned to the other two, who were pulling
on similar robes. "I will need you both as well," he added, and
told them, "Stand one at each end of the altar."

They took their places.

"I will retrieve the other things and leave
everything here for you to watch over while you wait for me."

From his briefcase the professor took a jar
of incense, a thurible and charcoal. "Light this, Juliana, and when
it's burning, charge the circle," he said.

The charcoal had been soaked in a saltpetre
solution and dried and, when Juliana struck a match and touched the
flame to it, there was a sparking and sputtering as it lit. She
swung the thurible until the charcoal glowed, then held the censor
out while Ian spooned incense onto the smouldering coals. She
walked solemnly round the circle, sending the scented smoke
spiralling into the still air. When she had completed her circle
she resumed her place at Alicia's feet.

In Linksness, Steve suddenly backed the
Landrover into the ferry turning and set off back towards the
camp.

"Where are we going," Gill demanded.

"I think I know where he's taken Alicia?"

"Where?"

"Do you remember one of the local men talking
about a stone circle just off the Rackwick road?"

"Vaguely."

"Well, I mentioned it to him yesterday and he
seemed to know all about it. I don't see why he's gone there, but
I'll bet that's where he is."

Although the others couldn't see her in the
dark, Gill's face showed an expression of dawning comprehension.
She sounded excited, as she said, "You're right, I'm sure of it.
And I think I know why."

"I'm glad somebody knows something," Alan
remarked, frustrated that both were being obscure,

The Landrover swerved right onto the much
bumpier road and bounced about as Steve drove far too fast on just
his sidelights.

"I don't have the map here," he said, "but
it's two or three miles of straight road to the circle. That's
somewhere off to the right about a couple of hundred metres from
the road."

"We'd better start watching carefully soon,
then," said Gill. "We don't want them to see us coming if we can
help it."

"I will start with a banishing ritual," said
the professor. "I don't want any other influences interfering with
the operation."

He went to the east of the circle, where he
was joined by the woman. He drew a pentacle in the air and she
censed his handiwork with the thurible. The professor moved to the
south of the circle.

The banishing ritual took time, but the
atmosphere of the circle had changed. Before it had been quite
neutral - just a cluster of old stones which was mildly interesting
if one was interested in such things. Now there was a 'deadness'
that even the untrained and non-pyschic person could have felt.

"That's better," said the professor, "Now to
the real business." He unwrapped the knife again and laid it on
Alicia's stomach.

Ian spooned more incense onto the glowing
charcoal in Juliana's thurible and then they took their places at
Alicia's head and feet again.

"I think that's the professor in the cloak,"
whispered Gill, her breath coming in gasps, "and that's Ali lying
on the rock."

"What on earth is she playing at?" wondered
Steve.

"She can't help it. I think she's somehow in
his power."

"I'll soon stop him," said Steve, and
straightened up. Before anyone could hold him back, him he stepped
into the moonlight. "It would be rather a shame to destroy that
beautiful ring," he said.

"It would not only be a shame but, as far as
you're concerned, it would be impossible." said the professor and
added, turning Steve's own words around arrogantly, "You really
can't stop me," and he held up his hand to display the ring,
fingers splayed. "You will stand there and witness," he said. "When
I have finished, you will kill me and for all I care you can be
blamed for both deaths. With your record you'll certainly have some
explaining to do." Steve froze as if rooted to the spot.

"I can always come back in a future
incarnation. I'll make sure the ring and this dagger don't have to
wait too long for me. Of course, lesser people sometimes wait a
long time for their next incarnation and they don't really remember
much about their past. I do. I've learned to control the time
between incarnations to my own ends, so I'll be back and there's
nothing you can do about it."

Alan put his mouth close to Gill's ear and
whispered, "There's obviously a great deal of power in that ring
and I don't see how we can stop him. It's a pity we haven't got the
talisman from my story."

"We have," Gill whispered back. "And I'm
wearing it."