Ravens Gathering (27 page)

For a moment, Martin stared at Claire.  He wasn’t sure
what he wanted to see in her face.  Maybe an impish grin to let him know
the whole story was a wind-up.  Instead, she simply looked back at him,
her expression earnest.  He sensed that she wanted him to accept what she
was saying, but would understand if he didn’t.  There was no desperate
neediness there, no wild-eyed mania.  He turned to look at the
others.  They were all sitting back and watching, curious as to the
outcome.

“Are we really that much of a threat to ourselves?” he asked
at last.

“More than we realise.”

“When you say ‘we’, do you mean we, the Order, or we, the
human race?”

“Right now, I mean the human race.  We constantly
strive for more: more money, more possessions, more convenience, more things to
make our lives
easier
.  So we build things, and then build
replacements that are better.  In the process, we use up our natural
resources, poison the world we live in, and generally give ourselves even more
to strive for in the future.  And that’s without taking into account the
evil that lurks inside us.”

“All of us?”

“Each and every one.  We have the capacity for good and
bad.  Both are in there, and it’s up to us to decide which path to lean
towards.  Do I really need to give you examples of the evil men do to each
other?”

Martin shook his head.  He hadn’t needed to come home
to find evil: it was in the news every day of the week, from the raw brutality
of domestic violence to the slaughterhouse of war.

“So we’re steadily destroying ourselves,” he said
thoughtfully.  “And you jump in and avert disaster at every turn.”

“No.  That’s not our job.”  She smiled at the look
of bewilderment on his face.  “If it was, we’d have headed off Hitler and
Stalin and
Pol
Pot and every other psychotic madman
that ever existed.  We aren’t here to save every individual from
harm.  We only act if there’s a threat to the survival of the human race
or the existence of the Earth itself.”

“So how does that fit in with what’s happening in Ravens
Gathering?”

“I said earlier that the farm is an outpost of the Order,
and that we are sentinels.  Our job is to watch for a man who is a
potential threat to both.  That might seem a bit extreme as we are only
talking about one individual, but he has a unique characteristic.  He can
travel through time.”

“What’s he called?  The Doctor?”

Clearly, Martin’s humour was lost on them.  They all
looked puzzled.

“We don’t know his name,” Claire said earnestly.  “For
ease, we refer to him as the Raven.”

“Okay,” Martin said, deciding he needed to take some control
of the conversation before it became too weird.  “Tell me, then, how does he
get about?  Is it an old fashioned Police Box or a
DeLorean
?”

More puzzled looks.

“Do you mean, how does he travel through time?” Adam asked.

“Yes.”

“He has an amulet that is directly connected to the
Source.  It gives him the ability to travel through time. 
Fortunately for us, he doesn’t understand exactly how it works, so he doesn’t
know the full extent of its powers.”

“How come?”

“Because he stole it.”

“And presumably it didn’t have an instruction manual with
it.”  Martin was thinking aloud and didn’t expect a response.  “So he
can travel through time with it?”

“Yes.  But that seems to be all he can use the amulet
for.  So when he does travel, he always finds himself in the same place.”

“Which is why he keeps turning up in Ravens Gathering,”
Martin said.  “And that’s why you guys are on watch here.”

“That’s right.”

“I think you’d better explain some more about this Raven.”

Adam nodded to Claire.  It was clearly time for her to
pick up where she left off.

“I’d better just explain a bit more about time travel,
because it’s a difficult concept to appreciate.  The principles seem
straightforward enough.  You move from one time to another.  But
there are nuances that are sometimes hard to comprehend.  For instance,
the Raven comes from a time around three hundred thousand years ago.  We
don’t know how old he is, but suspect he’s probably in his thirties or
forties.  But, because he’s travelled in time, he’s actually lived for
longer.”

Martin frowned exaggeratedly.  He wanted her to
elaborate, but didn’t want to speak again.

“Let me give you an example.  You’re
thirty-three.”  He hadn’t told her that, but he realised that, with his
repeated claims to have been eight in nineteen sixty-four, she didn’t have to
be a rocket scientist to do the maths.  “Let’s say you make a jump forward
in time by a hundred years.  Then you stay there for a year, before coming
back to the current time.  How old do you think you’ll be?”

It felt like a trick question, but he went for the obvious
answer anyway.  “Thirty-four?”

“You’ll have lived thirty-four years, but you won’t have
physically aged at all.  While you’re out of your own time, you can’t
age.  In practice, it’s not as precise as I make it sound.  Time will
have elapsed in your absence.  Not at the same pace, but it does go by. 
We don’t understand why that is, or how it happens.  There’s no science to
this.”

That’ll disappoint a lot of writers, Martin thought.

“It seems to be the Source’s way of ensuring that you don’t
accidentally populate the same moment in time twice.  Because that would
be weird, wouldn’t it?  Meeting yourself.”

That would be weird?

“So every time he travels forward in time, he does age, but
only by the period he is gone from his own time.  Does that make sense?”

He nodded, urging her on with his eyes.

“What that means, then, is that the Raven could have lived
the equivalent of several centuries, but is physically still a relatively young
man.  Does that make sense?”

Martin nodded slowly.  He was pretty sure he’d taken it
all in, but planned to ask questions at the end if he was still unsure.

Beside him, Martin was conscious of Mason shifting in his
chair.  They’d been sitting for three quarters of an hour now, and Mason
was a big man.  He guessed it could get very uncomfortable for him. 
The others seemed to be as captivated by Claire’s explanation as he was, and
were sitting stock still.  Even though they surely had already heard it,
there was no lack of interest.

Claire went on: “If you’re clear on that, the next thing to
consider is why the Raven keeps coming forward in time.  You remember I
talked about there being a capacity for good and evil in each of us?”  As
Martin nodded, she continued: “In practice, most of us tap into both at
different times in our lives.  Some find a strong leaning towards one or
the other, and that leaning can be enhanced by exposure to the Source.

“We haven’t been able to properly identify the Raven within
his own time.  But what we do know is that he was able to tap into the
Source.”

“Like you guys,” Martin put in.

“Yes.  Like us, he is a sorcerer.”

“A sorcerer?”  Martin made no attempt to conceal his
incredulity.  “Are you joking?”

“Where do you think the word sorcerer comes from?” Adam
asked.  “It means someone who is able to use the Source.”

“Which means,” Claire added, “he has the ability to connect
with the rest of the natural world.  Not in a way that’s all-seeing,
all-feeling, but if he wants to control another human, animal, or even a flock
of birds, he can do.”

Recognising the sincerity of their words, Martin’s feelings
were already shifting, and the implications of their explanation made him
uneasy.  “But he
is
a human being?”

“Oh yes.  Flawed in many ways, like the rest of
us.  He’s not invincible.  We know that for certain.  But that
doesn’t mean we should underestimate him.  Back at home, we know he was
already very powerful before he stole the amulet.  But he’s greedy and
wants more power.  Discovering the ability to travel in time has the
potential to give him that.  Do you understand how?”

Bearing in mind that everything she’d told him so far was
news to him, Martin hadn’t had time to work that much out.  He shook his
head.

“Can you imagine taking a Chieftain tank three hundred
thousand years back in time?”  She paused to let that one sink in.

It took a few moments for Martin to think that
through.  “My God!”  The idea was horrifying.  “He’d destroy
anyone and anything he came across.  History isn’t my strong point, but
I’m guessing weaponry wasn’t too well developed back then.  A few spears,
maybe a bow and arrow?”

He was treated to Claire’s warm smile.  She was amused
at his ignorance, but he was comfortable with that.

“Some societies were a little more advanced, but the point
is the same.  Nothing could destroy the tank.”

“You made that sound as if it actually happened.”

“It did.  In nineteen sixty-four.  Though we
didn’t appreciate that was what he’d done until after the event.  We were
too late to stop it going.”

“In fairness,” Adam added, “we couldn’t really intervene
anyway.  We already knew about the tank in advance.  The Order has
records that refer to it, so we knew it would have to go back.  We can’t
change what’s already happened.”

“We also can’t let him know we’re on to him,” Claire
continued.  “As you’ve probably gathered by now, we know what his plans
are, and we know that he will eventually die in his own time.  But there’s
still a risk that he might have transported some equipment to other points in
history, with the potential for devastation there.  It might not be caused
by him, but by some other person stumbling on to it and using it.  For
that reason, it was felt by members of the Order that, as an extra safeguard,
he needed to be monitored.”

“For three hundred thousand years?”  Martin couldn’t
keep the incredulity from his voice.

Adam responded with a modest smile.  “Possibly
longer.  It took us a long time to find him.  We didn’t know where he
was based geographically, so we didn’t know where to look for him, either then
or in future times.  It’s fair to say that the Order had its work cut out
for it.”

“We only narrowed him down to this area about seventy
thousand years ago.”  It was Claire again.  “Of course, I’m
generalising about the timing.  When you’re dealing with numbers this big,
being out by even a few thousand years doesn’t make a lot of difference.”

“So a group of us moved out here,” Adam came back, “and
we’ve been watching over the area since.  At first, his visits were very
sporadic.  There could be gaps of a thousand years or more between
sightings.  And we probably missed him on some occasions.  It took us
a while to realise that the ravens were a sign that he was coming.

“We think he started coming more often when he realised that
the technology was changing more rapidly.  For centuries, armies had
fought with weapons that were essentially just variations on swords, spears and
glorified hammers.  Then we started to see widespread use of gunpowder,
and with that came various types of guns and bombs.  The internal
combustion engine sent developments into overdrive.  More importantly for
him, he could travel further.

“You see, one of the major limitations for the Raven must
have been his ability to travel.  He can tap into the Source, but that
doesn’t mean he can fly or simply transport himself through space.  So he
was restricted by how far he could physically travel from this area.

“We all know now that gunpowder, for instance, was widely
used in China centuries before it came to Europe.  But we didn’t know it
until relatively recently.  And if
we
didn’t know it here in
Sherwood, how would he know?  But we had trains appearing in the
nineteenth century, and we’re pretty sure he used the railways to go to
different parts of the country.  We suspect he even travelled over to
mainland Europe for a while.”

“
Suspect
?  Weren’t you following him?” 
Martin’s earlier resolve had disappeared.

“No.  We never do.  Our aim is to be aware of when
he arrives, and when he returns.  And whether he has anything to take back
with him.  Remember, if we get too close, he might realise what we’re
doing.

“But do you see what I’m getting at?  There have been
more technological advances in the last two hundred years than there have been
in all of the time that has preceded them.  So we think he’d realised
this, and become more focused on his search for weapons he can use in his own
time.”

“Do you know what else he’s taken?  Besides the tank, I
mean?”

“Not everything,” Adam said.  “Not with any
certainty.  But we do know he took some guns with him.  Those seem to
have been taken back in the nineteen thirties, so are probably next to useless
beside the tank.”

“And whatever else he picks up on his next visit,” Martin
added thoughtfully.

“Which is already happening.”

“Hence the comment Claire made earlier,” Martin
deduced.  “That he’s back.  The person who was responsible for Betty
Sullivan...” He just caught himself in time.  “...having sex with her
son-in-law.”

“That’s right.  But this time there’s something
different.  This time you turned up as well.”

Martin was conscious of them all studying him
carefully.  They were obviously looking for something.  The problem
was, he hadn’t got a clue what it was.  Eventually, he felt he had to say
something.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

There was no immediate response.  All five of his
roommates simply continued to look at him.  It was Jennifer who broke the
silence.  She had barely spoken since he’d arrived, so he’d assumed she
was only there because she was Adam’s wife.  He adjusted that assumption
rapidly.

“You’re lying.”  The words should have been spoken with
a degree of petulance, like they came from some bratty teenager who couldn’t
get her own way.  Instead, her words were a simple statement of fact.

He opened his mouth to respond, but realised his, “No I’m
not!”
would
sound like a bratty teenager’s petulance.  So he held
back for a moment, collecting himself, all the time aware of Jennifer’s eyes on
him.

She’d been pretty much in the background and, like Mason and
Croft, left Adam and Claire to do all the talking.  It was clear now that
her role was to observe, and he guessed she’d been doing that diligently.
 It was also apparent that she wasn’t in the habit of taking prisoners.

“Tell us the truth, Martin.”

Somehow, he didn’t think she was going to give him the
option.  Although he hesitated for a moment longer, he realised that it
was actually a relief to finally share what he’d been experiencing.  And
after everything he’d just been told by these guys, they were hardly likely to
fill the room with mocking laughter.

“The truth is I can’t explain exactly why I’m back in Ravens
Gathering.  Something drew me back.”  He paused, expecting one of his
hosts to jump in with a question, but, having done her job, even Jennifer was
waiting patiently for him to carry on.  “I’ve always had dreams, ever
since I was a child.  Well, pretty much the same dream, really.  It
comes and goes.  It’s not there all the time.  In fact, there was a
point when I didn’t have it for two or three years.  But I suppose it’s
always been there in the background.

“Anyway, it became more regular earlier in the year. 
At first it was a couple of times a week, but it built up quite rapidly until
it was there every night.  I can’t explain what changed.  There was
no detail in the dream that seemed different.  I just had a strong sense
that it was calling me home.  And that’s why I’m here.”

This time when he paused, Jennifer must have sensed his
unwillingness to continue.

“Don’t stop there.  Tell us everything.”

He shot her a look, but she didn’t seem inclined to back
off.

“While I’ve been here, I’ve been up to the clearing in the
woods at the back of Forest Farm.  The dream always ends there, and when I
arrived in the village it seemed like the natural place to go.  So I’ve
seen the ravens.”

“They aren’t the only ones,” Adam said, “but the clearing is
the focal point.”  Martin was conscious that Adam was watching him
expectantly.  Though what he was expecting to see was still a mystery.

“It was creepy up there.  I felt threatened, even though
they were just birds.  And there was something else I felt while I was up
there.  Obviously the familiarity.  Apart from the dream, I played up
there when I was a kid.  But there was a sense of loss as well, a kind of
melancholy.  It only started to lift when I came away, but it’s still not
gone completely, and the last time I was there was early this morning.”

Glancing round the room, he knew he had their attention,
even though what he was describing was pretty humdrum compared to time travel
and talk of an ancient order.  He also saw sympathy.  It wasn’t
obvious in all of them, but it was definitely there in Claire’s eyes.

“Then there have been some strange things happening in the
village.  I’ve not been involved, but as I became aware of them, there was
a sense that I was somehow connected.”  A terrible thought occurred to
him.  “If this Raven could force people to do things, is it possible he
could have taken control of me?  I mean, maybe if he did...”

Adam leaned over and rested a reassuring hand on his
forearm.

“If the Raven made you do something that would normally
horrify you, he’d make sure you were aware of it.  He seems to gain
strength from negative feelings.  If you can imagine, in the modern day
what Betty and Ray did would still cause a shock.  But, rightly or
wrongly, we live in a more tolerant society now compared to the early
sixties.  Back then, it would be hard to imagine the scandal it would
raise, not to mention the emotional upset for everyone involved.  The
Raven would have taken the emotional pain as a kind of psychic energy.  It
would make him stronger.  That’s why he forced Betty and Ray together.”

“So what you’re saying is, if I’d killed that dog and stolen
the van, he’d have made sure I was conscious of it.  That way, he’d be able
to feed off my guilt.”

“Not to mention your anger and frustration at not being able
to stop what you were doing.  So, no, you can be confident that you
weren’t directly involved.”

“But I was connected?”

“You say you were, so only you can know for sure.”

“How, though?”

Looks passed amongst the members of the Order.  Martin
didn’t know what they signified, but it was clear they were keeping something
from him.

“A few minutes ago, Jennifer told me to tell the
truth.  It’s obvious there’s something
you’re
not telling me. 
Truth goes both ways, you know.”

“We’re not trying to hide anything from you, Martin.” 
It was Claire.  “Having said that, there are things you need to discover
for yourself.”

“How long do you think this one will take?”

“Just a few seconds.  I think this one is worth you
taking a crash course in.”

From the tone of her voice, he suspected he wasn’t going to
enjoy the crash course.

“You said your dream ends in the clearing.”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me who’s there?”

“Will it make a difference?”

“I think so.”

“Okay.”  He bowed his head, thinking for a moment,
trying to bring the faces into his mind.  “Well, my parents are
there.  And so are my brothers and sister.”  He hesitated, then
corrected himself.  “Actually, no, Colin isn’t there, just Matt and
Janet.”

With his head down, he didn’t see the pained expressions
cross the faces of the three Hawthorns.

“Some other families are there.  The Salthouses, the
Paynes
, the
Dakins
and the
Wheelers.”  He frowned, trying to picture them all.  “Actually,
they’re not all there, either.  None of the younger children are
there.”  He looked up as it struck him.  It was something he’d never
noticed before.  “This isn’t a dream, is it?  It’s something that
really happened.”

“We’ll come to that soon,” Claire reassured him.  “Just
think about who else is there.”

The image of the clearing grew in his mind.  He could
see the tree trunks flickering in the glow of firelight.  Families were
mingling, parents and children together.  They were moving around
rhythmically, as if dancing to some unheard beat.  Sweat rolled down their
faces, though whether from their exertions or the heat of the fire that blazed
in the centre of the clearing, he couldn’t tell.  And standing amongst
them all was a stranger.

“There’s a man.  He’s tall and thin.  Dark
hair.  Long.  His face is pale.  He’s got dark, staring
eyes.”  Lost in the images of the dream, he suddenly felt the urge to pull
out of it.  He still didn’t understand everything he’d seen.  Maybe
didn’t want to.  His eyes re-focused, coming to rest on Claire’s face.

“That was him, wasn’t it?”

Inexplicably, there was sadness in Claire’s eyes.  They
even looked a little watery.  She nodded, apparently unable to trust
herself to speak.

“I was there, wasn’t I?” he persisted, looking at the others
for help now, since Claire didn’t seem able to verbalise.

Beside him, Adam swallowed hard and nodded.  He cleared
his throat, coughing out some of the emotion he was feeling.  “You were,”
he agreed.

“So I saw him in nineteen sixty-four.”

“And he saw you,” Adam said.  “From what you’ve
explained, I’d say he must have formed some kind of psychic connection with you
in those few moments.  What caused it is anyone’s guess.  But since
then you’ve been dreaming about him, and when it was time for him to come back,
you were drawn here too.  Just like the ravens.”

“What does that
mean
?”

“Honestly, we don’t know.”

“Well what do the ravens do?  Do they help him in some
way?  Are we going to see something like
The Birds
?”

Perhaps predictably, he was met with blank stares.  But
he tried again just in case.

“You know, the Alfred Hitchcock film? 
Tippi
Hedren
, Rod Taylor?” 
He shrugged.  “You’re just not movie fans, are you?”

Mason and Croft shrugged back, but they were smiling at him
as if they had a joke to share.  Their roles as heavies were long past.

“You’re right about the movies.  We don’t really have
any interest in that or in television.  We’re aware that they’re there,
but we have more important things to deal with.”

“Only once every twenty-five years,” Martin pointed out.

“At the moment,” Adam reminded him.  “But with even
faster advances in technology, he could start coming more often.  Our
vigil has to be a hundred percent.”

“Fair enough.  But what about the ravens?  What do
they do for him?”

“In our experience, they seem to act as watchers for
him.  They act as his eyes and ears.  Other than that, we can only
speculate.  It just seems that they’re drawn to this area when he is
due.  When he leaves, they go too.”

“So I could be acting as his eyes and ears too?”

“If you were, you’d know about it.”

“How can you be sure?”

“It’s happened before.  Trust us on this, Martin. 
We’ve been dealing with him for long enough.  We’ve seen connections made
where he is aware, and where he isn’t.  If you don’t know, he
doesn’t.  And we’ve been watching you since you arrived in the
village.  We know the signs, and you aren’t displaying them.”

“Is there a chance that could change?”

“It’s possible, but we’ll cross that bridge if we come to
it.”  Adam looked at his wife.  “Has he told us everything?”

“Everything he can,” she said.

“Good.”  He smiled amiably at Martin.  “Now we
need to tell you what we want from you.”