Always Forever (34 page)

Veitch surveyed the light through the trees. "Okay, enough talk. Get on
with what you've got to do."

"That's easier said than done." Tom wandered around the pattern left by
Lethbridge's excavations, swatting away the wasps that assailed him continually.
Although to Witch his meanderings looked random, Tom was actually following the tracings of Blue Fire in the land that Veitch had not yet learnt to see.
The camp was a potent source of the earth energy, scything in sapphire strands
across the grass, pumping through arteries as wide as a gushing stream, reaching
through capillaries into the roots of trees and bushes. The Blue Fire added new
shape and meaning to the barely discernible pattern Lethbridge had uncovered.
The archaeologist had instinctively uncovered a figure that was spiritual in
nature, rather than an exact outline on the hillside: a true representation of an
ancient figure of worship, carved through ritual and prayer by the ancient people
who first inhabited Wandlebury Camp, kept in focus by the Celts who followed.

But it wasn't just a figure. It was a mandala for reflection, allowing direct access
to the spiritual realm, as well as one of the ancient people's landscape markers for a
defence against incursions from Otherworld-and also a doorway. Near the top of
the outline, at the large circle Lethbridge had identified as the head of the figure,
the Blue Fire flowed back and forth between this world and the next. Tom knelt
down, steeled himself, then thrust his hand into the current of flames.

"My body is the key," he whispered.

From Witch's perspective Tom's hand disappeared up to the wrist in the
soil. For long minutes nothing happened, until soft vibrations began, growing
into a deep rumbling and a shaking in the ground that made his knees buckle.
A large section opened upwards like a trapdoor, trailing soil and pebbles.
Beyond the mass of hanging roots, Veitch could see a dark tunnel disappearing
down into the depths.

He made to duck into the opening, but Tom waved him back. "This is for me,"
he said. "You must stay here to prepare yourself for what is to come. I will attempt
to be back with the information we need by sunset. But if not, flee this place until
the sun rises on the morrow. Do you hear me? Do not stay during the night."

Veitch agreed silently. Tom nodded goodbye before diving into the hole like
the White Rabbit. It closed at his heels with a thunderous shaking, leaving
Veitch alone with a growing sense of apprehension.

deep shiver ran through Tom as the ground closed behind him. He was far
more fearful than when he had entered the Court of the Yearning Heart;
another scare on the top of so many others. He had been afraid of losing himself
in the Blue Fire, witnessing the deaths of the people he had grown to call
friends, seeing the End of Everything. At times he felt fear was taking over.

Yet it was also uplifting, if it was not contradictory to view fear in that way.
For so many centuries he hadn't been truly afraid of anything, hadn't felt anything at all, except for a brief period of enlightenment in the sixties. To know
he could still feel was almost a price worth paying.

The tunnel drove directly into the heart of the hill, although he knew it was
not a tunnel at all. The air was filled with aromas that soothed his heart: hashish,
reminding him of warm California nights, red wine plunging him into a
memory of a shared bottle with a pretty woman in a hippie dress at the side of
the road in Haight-Ashbury, soft rain on vegetation, bringing him back to that
first morning at Woodstock.

In the same way that it wasn't a tunnel, none of those pleasant fragrances
were truly there; it was the reality, welcoming him with cherished memories,
making him feel good.

So why was he afraid? Not because of some incipient threat, certainly, but
because of immensity. What lay ahead was the infinite, the source of all
meaning. And who could look on the face of God and not be destroyed?

Veitch sat on the trunk of a fallen tree, tapping his foot anxiously. Doing
nothing felt like needles being driven into his body. He would rather fight one
of the Fomorii than sit quietly; if he admitted it to himself, he actually enjoyed
that pastime. While the others were talking their usual intellectual rubbish, he
often reflected on the time beneath Edinburgh Castle when he had hacked one
of the creatures into bloody chunks. He recalled the super-heated haze that fell
across his mind, the adrenalin driving his limbs, the smell of the gore, the
uplifting weariness that followed the exertion.

The fading image left an emptiness that disturbed him. Had he always been
that way? Surely there had been a time when he could appreciate peace.

His thoughts were disturbed by movement in the branches overhead.
Golden flitterings shifted quickly amongst the pattern of light and shade that
made up the green canopy. At first he thought they were butterflies searching
for the last nectar of summer, but there were too many of them and the activity
was too localised. He counted twenty? Thirty?

It was the gossamer-winged tiny people he had seen before in tranquil
places. The perfectly formed little men and women moved through the treetops
with grace, like sunlight reflected off a belt buckle.

Searching for a position that allowed him to view the soaring creatures more
easily, Veitch slipped from the trunk so he was lying on the ground with his
head resting against it. Their flight, the wild shifts of light they engendered,
was hypnotic. There was a definite calmness about them, but he was dismayed
to find he was only aware of it in a detached way; he couldn't feel it, and at that
moment it was all he wanted in the world.

"Come to me," he whispered.

There was no way they could have heard his words, but they altered their
flight patterns, some of them hanging in midair, as if listening, or musing.
Veitch caught his breath, waited, but after a few seconds they returned to their
rapid dipping and diving. Sadly, he closed his eyes, thinking of Ruth to cheer
him, remembering when they had made love, the smell of her hair, the look of
intelligence and sensitivity in her eyes. He loved her more than he had loved
anything in his life. If he could have her, his life could be just as he had dreamed
as a boy, when he had pictured himself as the storybook hero. A random tear
crept out under his eyelashes, surprising him. He blinked it away hastily, not
really knowing from where it had come.

When he opened his eyes one of the tiny golden creatures was hovering just
above his belly, observing him with a curious expression. The fragility of it was
profound, something that went beyond the construction of its body to the very
depths of its spirit. He felt that if he touched it, its body would break apart and
its soul would disappear into the afternoon breeze. Its eyes were large and dark
and it blinked slowly, like a baby observing its parents. Its cheeks were high and
refined, its hair long and flowing, like some nineteen forties movie star. The
skin, golden from a distance, now looked like the glittering Milky Way.

"You're made of stars," he whispered in awe.

The faintest smile crept across the creature's face. Here was ultimate innocence, supreme peace, a being not troubled by hate or anger or lust or desire for
revenge. It held out a hand, fingers so delicate it was hard to imagine how they were formed, and as it moved the air shimmered around it. Slowly, so as not to
scare it away, Veitch reached out one long, calloused finger until it was almost
touching the creature's hand. He didn't go the final millimetre for fear of overstepping some unknown boundary, but the little figure merely smiled again and
reached out the extra distance. When they touched, it felt like honey was
flowing into his limbs. Suddenly tears were streaming down his cheeks, soaking
into his shirt, and he had no idea where they came from either; there were so
many it seemed as if they would never stop.

When they did finally dry up, the creature touched his finger once more and
then, with a movement that might well have been a parting wave, rose up to its
companions, casting regular backwards glances at Witch's prostrate form.

Veitch watched them for the better part of an hour, his face beatific, but no
thoughts that he recognised crossed his mind. And then, with the sun dappling
his skin, he drifted into the first peaceful sleep he had had for years.

While he slept, the Woodborn stirred in their silent, leafy homes all around;
knowing in his sleep they could not be discovered, they looked down on the still
form, frail and insubstantial next to their mighty trunks. And, being spirits, they
felt deep currents and saw more than eyes could ever see. After a while a soft
shower of leaves fell from their branches all around the sleeping figure, like tears.

Tom thought of Van Morrison singing about "Summertime in England," about
Cream in "White Room," the Stones doing "Sympathy for the Devil" and The
Doors cranking up "Five to One." Old man's music, Laura would have called it, before
rattling off a list of percussive-heavy songs that had been released in the past week.
She missed the point. Music was the great communicator. It had nothing to do with
fashion; it was part of the central nervous system, linking old memories and sensations and new ideas, joining everything of human experience up into one whole, a
single bar releasing it in a torrent. Old music, new music, Gregorian chants,
country and western tearjerkers or opera, it didn't matter; it was all power.

Right then, it was a barrier, blocking out all thoughts of what lay ahead.
The best songs from his internal jukebox, the soundtrack to his life.

The tunnel curved down and up, and down again. Its serpentine progress
reminded him of the tunnels beneath Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh and the Fabulous Beast that slumbered there. Like that site, it was a direct access to the force
that bounded everything, but unlike Arthur's Seat this place had-or at least he
expected it would have presence; intelligence; whatever it was that the Blue Fire
encompassed. The Godhead, he supposed.

"Giants in the earth, you see," he muttered, disturbed at how his words rattled off the walls with a force that changed their tone.

During his time with the wise men of the Culture, he had heard talk of the
giants-the metaphor giants, not the real ones that existed in times past. The
Culture had understood the power of stories for communicating vital, instructive information, and how metaphors imprinted on the subconscious much
better than bald facts. And this metaphor was quite transparent to the trained
eye: something like men, only greater, stronger, more vital, something to provide awe and wonder, and a little fear too, responsible for great feats of creation,
now sleeping beneath the earth.

How could he explain something so monumental to a man like Veitch, who
thought deeply about nothing? Veitch hadn't even grasped the enormity of what
was being planned. Crossing over to the land of the dead was not some weekend
jaunt; humanity had been barred from it for a reason. And only a higher power
could grant access.

"Thomas the Rhymer." The voice shocked him, and not because it used the
name by which he had moved from humanity to legend, now rarely heard. It was
American, barely above a whisper and faintly mocking; and it was familiar.

The empty tunnel ahead filled with a faint, drifting luminescence, like
autumn mist caught on a breeze, and when it cleared a figure was leaning
against the wall, a bottle of Jack Daniels clutched in one hand.

"Jim?" For a second, Tom forgot where he was. The face, angelic, thicklipped, framed by a lion's mane of hair, transported him back to the Whiskey on
Sunset, when his bored wanderings had begun to show him a little meaning for
the first time in centuries.

"They were good times, right, Scotty? Good times for poets. Peace, love and
understanding. Not bread and brutality." Morrison wandered forward shakily,
his stoned smile unable to hide that troubling edge to his character. He tried to
focus on Tom, but the cannabis laziness of his left eye kept hindering him. It
was the charismatic Morrison Tom remembered from their long, rambling discourse about life and the universe and politics, not the one who had died bloated
and bearded in a Parisian bathtub.

The sight was initially disorienting until Tom's razor-sharp mind cut
through the shock. "A memory," he said dismissively.

"More than that, Tommy." He proffered the bottle; Tom waved it away.

"A memory given shape."

"You could be on the right road there. The road to excess." He chuckled. "Leads
to the palace of wisdom, Tommy. But you still haven't hit that nail on the head."
Morrison lurched beside Tom and slipped a friendly arm round his shoulders.

Morrison's body had substance, and smelled of whiskey, smoke and sweat,
just like the real Morrison had.

"I'm your ..." He drifted for a moment while the drug thoughts played
across his face. "Not a guide, exactly. Not a muse. I'm an angel to you, Tommy.
Yeah, an angel in leather."