The Rings of Poseidon (21 page)

What I must do was seek a boat leaving that
same day: but to stow away, seek passage or volunteer as one of the
crew? Boats were always seeking crew and sailors seemed a close
bunch. A master of ship might have little heed for priests.

I turned at the end of the street and went
over the bridge across the second canal - four circular canals
divided the city, you recall, and the trade docks were along the
second canal. I went towards them, watching the pinnacles of the
palaces and temples on the inner rings of the city as if for the
first time. It might be the last time I looked upon them!

There were two ships in. One was unloading
grain and looked likely to stay here in Cercenes for days. The
other, 'Gate of the Sun' she was called, looked to be making ready
to sail. I thought I would try my luck with her master.

The drum beat kept a time easy for even an
inexperienced oarsman to follow, and we slipped round the maze of
canals in little time. The city is a good walk from the sea but the
main channel is wide, straight and deep. Once out in open water we
shipped our oars, the crew hoisted our sail and the helmsman set a
course round the island and across the true ocean, for that was
where 'Gate of the Sun' was bound. Atlas, the nearer of the two
great volcanoes, was in full sight, his wreathe of smoke clearly
visible in a cloudless sky. I could almost believe the old
children's tale that Atlas was a giant. The mountain really did
look to be supporting the sky, though I knew it wasn't true.
Perhaps our ancestors had believed it.

After two or three days sailing you could see
nothing but the top of Atlas reaching the far skyline, like a
smoking finger. I thought about the new high priest. It was all too
clear that he planned to rule with six henchmen. It was also clear
that he didn't entirely trust them, hence the talisman. I did not
see how Tagg-Andes or anyone else could stop him. I slowly,
carefully, thoroughly, angrily called down the wrath of the gods
upon him. I cursed him to his doom.

All the cursing made me feel a little better,
but probably did him no harm at all. Eventually the top of Atlas
fell from sight, the wind dropped and we got out the oars
again.

After the noon break on the sixth day there
was a sudden sound. The sea and air shook. The sky began to fill
with the smoke of a great volcano and the sea became an uneasy
calm. There was a kind of greasy swell, like dirty water when you
cool heated metal in it. Then a great wind came and we drove before
it: a hot and fiery wind. The ship sped over the water, hastened by
that fierce furnace of a wind, but we could see a great wave coming
towards us. A wave like a great and towering cliff. A wall of water
many mastheads high.

I do not know whether the high priest was yet
struck down, nor whether my curses had been heeded, but the gods
were none too pleased about something!

Chapter 18

"Well," said Carol, "I never had any
experience of that sort when I tried it on. What was it and why did
he?"

"It's a long story," said Alicia. "I'm not
sure I know where to begin."

It was Manjy who began the story. "It seems
as if all of those connected with the university part of this dig
have lived past lives which involved the ring," she said. "When one
of us puts the ring on, like Alan did, he or she experiences a past
life involving the ring."

"And you all had experiences like that?"

"Yes," Alicia said. "Steve, Gill, Frank and
Manjy all had stories. So did I."

"Well, not admitting that I believe any of
it, what is the story of the ring?" asked Carol.

"It would probably be best if each person
told their own story," said Alicia. "Steve, you start."

"I was the bloke whose bones you dug up over
there," began Steve, and told a summary of his story.

"Whose story came next?"

"Mine," said Gill, "I was a priestess,
possibly at Woodhenge from some of the events." She went on to give
Carol the main points of her tale - Gaïn, Faya, and a passing
mention of the ring and why she sent it north.

Each of the other three added a potted
version of their own story, until the story of the ring was as
complete as they knew it.

"Reincarnation is difficult philosophical
concept for most Europeans," Alan remarked.

"And most Americans," added Frank. "Not to
mention rocks from the sky, Atl-Andes, which sounds like Atlantis
thinly disguised, metal rings in the stone age and so on."

"I don't have too much of a problem with
reincarnation," said Alan, "and Alicia will vouch for some off beat
ideas I have about the usually accepted timescale of
prehistory."

Alicia nodded. "It was Alan that set me off
thinking about the chronology of prehistory and where a copper age
might fit in. Mind you," she added to Alan, "if you'd kept your
ideas out of exam papers you might have done better."

"I'm not so steeped in traditional
archaeological ideas as you," said Steve. "I don't find the
concepts so hard to take. In fact, most of the ideas flow on from
one another if you accept the first one."

"One thing strikes me about all your
stories," observed Carol. "In each one somebody came close to
getting the ring. I'd watch it if I were you."

"I intend to lock this ring away very
carefully," said Alicia, getting up and putting the ring securely
in a filing cabinet which she locked and checked before putting the
keys into her jeans pocket.

"There's a bunch of things we haven't managed
to figure out," said Frank, "Most of all we can't explain the
coincidence of a group of people with past lives involving the ring
- if that's what they are - being in one place at one time. For
instance, why did I come on an exchange to this particular
dig?"

"Even allowing for interests which would make
the thing more likely, there seems to be more than coincidence at
work," answered Alan. "I mean take Alicia. Her past life
experiences might make her more interested in archaeology in this
incarnation, but it would still need something more than
coincidence to get together a team of people connected with the
ring. It seems as if there is a plan or something."

"But what plan?" asked Frank, voicing the
thoughts of all of them. "And, more to the point, whose plan?"

"Just maybe ..." said Alicia, and hesitated.
"I'm not going to say anything yet, but I might know - not who is
doing the planning or how it's being done or what he, she, it or
they want us to do about it - but at least why."

She clearly wasn't going to say anything more
that night, so the group broke up, Alicia locking the Portacabin
firmly behind them.

"I'll leave the keys on the caravan table so
you don't have to disturb everyone when you get things started
tomorrow," Alicia told Steve as he went to turn the generator off.
She glanced knowingly at Gill. "No sense in everybody waking at the
crack of dawn."

Steve gave them all time to light the gas
lamps before he turned off the generator, plunging the camp into
darkness, and went to join Gill in her room.

* * *

There were only three street lamps in
Linksness and two of them were out at this time of night. Towns and
cities in Britain and the developed world generally tend to have
street lights blazing all night, supplemented by the lights of
shops, blocks of flats, late sleepers and early risers, so that a
large town lights up the distant sky and is never itself truly
dark. Even dark corners are only relatively dark and whether
darkness is perceived as a threat, a cloak for crime, a licence for
lovers or simply an inconvenience it is usually incomplete in
cities. The average Briton or American would, no doubt, find the
darkness of a dark and rainy night in one of the world's unlit
places very formidable. However, this was not the darkness facing
the Professor when he left the hotel in Linksness that night.

Actually, to a city dweller like Professor
Harrington, it did look totally dark outside when he first looked
out of his bedroom window. He flicked the curtain back into place,
telephoned the bird watcher and then dressed quietly. He pulled on
a thick sweater, picked up his briefcase, switched out the main
light and exited softly into the hallway, leaving the small bedside
light switched on.

The car park was partially lit by the one
street light still on, lighting the junction of the island's 'main'
road and the road down to the ferry. However, the glow filtered
through the branches of some trees and round the end of the hotel
building. This left most of the car park in shadow, but a starry
sky gave off much more light than anyone would have expected and
the moon, not yet risen but already lightening the sky, helped. As
a result the professor found his way to the car and unlocked it
easily. The sudden noise of the starter motor sounded incredibly
loud in the silence of the night on Hoy, but seemed to have
attracted no attention. Nobody came to a window and no bedroom
lights came on.

'Obviously,' he thought, 'the people of Hoy
must be sound sleepers.'

He eased the car into gear, slid out of the
car park and turned south towards the site of the dig.

There was no traffic. In fact there were no
signs of life. The camp was in darkness as the Professor drove past
and turned down a short track to a farm. He pulled up beside the
bird watcher's station wagon and stepped out of the car as a porch
light snapped on. A man came out, followed by a woman shrugging on
a jacket against the cool night air.

"Is it wise for you to go out at night
Juliana, now that you're pregnant?" asked Professor Harrington.

"Why on earth shouldn't a woman go out at
night, just because she's preg ... How on earth did you know that?
I haven't even told Ian yet."

"Never mind. I have plans for that baby, so
take care of yourself."

Ian frowned but said nothing as the Professor
continued, "Now you're up and about you may as well come with us. I
am going to post the ring to myself in Warwick. I shall leave it
with the other rings and reincarnate as your offspring. That way I
can establish the new order while I'm still young, instead of being
already an old man."

He held the rear door of the car open for the
woman.

When Ian had settled into the front seat
beside the professor, he backed the car out of the yard, turned it
around and drove back down the lane onto the main road. Alongside
the field where the camp was located, Professor Harrington stopped
the car, doused the lights and slipped out. He reached back into
the car for his briefcase and took out the University's spare set
of keys to the cabin and caravans. He searched through it again and
pulled out a silk- wrapped bundle, then he turned to leave.

He paused a moment. "Get into the driver's
seat and wait for me. I may need to leave in a hurry," he
whispered, and closed the car door quietly behind him.

The night was still and cool, the sea was
breaking only very gently on the beach with a soothing and almost
inaudible hiss and the moon had now risen - a waning crescent on
the eastern horizon. The Professor experienced no difficulty in
finding his way through the open gate and across the field to the
camp. He walked round the back to avoid going near the tents and
went round the end of the Portacabin to the door. The door was, of
course, locked. He fumbled briefly with the keys before he went in
and closed the door silently behind him.

Why Alicia woke up and couldn't sleep she
didn't know. It might have been a noise of some kind but, if so, it
wasn't repeated as she listened intently. No, it was more a matter
of lying awake and 'knowing' - though she wasn't at all sure about
'knowing' what. When she looked out of her window and saw a shadowy
figure cross the field towards the back of the cabin, she wasn't
all that surprised or even scared. She got up out of bed and
reached for her dressing gown then changed her mind, pulled off her
night-dress and dressed quickly in sweater and jeans. The door of
her room she left ajar for quietness, but the caravan door shut
with much more of a 'click' than she intended as she crossed the
soft grass in her bare feet.

The click woke Gill. It was only a slight
noise in her room, but this was only the second night without
sleeping pills - and she had been taking them for two years. The
light of the rising moon fell on Steve's face, relaxed in sleep,
and she hardly liked to wake him. But wake him she did. "Steve!"
she hissed in a loud whisper. "Steve!"

"Ugh?" he responded sleepily. "What is
it?"

"I don't know, but I heard something." They
listened carefully and heard the faint bang of the Portacabin
door.

"That's someone trying to be quiet," said
Steve and, much more wide awake now, he got out of bed and pulled
on his jeans. When he quietly opened Gill's door he could see the
door to Alicia's room still ajar.

He drew back into Gill's room and said in a
loud whisper, "Alicia's door is open, but I'm not sure I ought to
go waltzing in there to see if she's awake."

"All right," said Gill, emerging naked from
the covers, "I'll get dressed."

The flashlight beam wandered over the table
and picked out the filing cabinet. It snapped off and the Professor
moved across the cabin by moonlight. The light snapped on again to
peer at the lock for a moment and again to peer inside the drawer
as he took out the ring and stuck it on his finger. He turned, the
drawer still open.

Alicia entered. "Hello Professor." Her voice
was low but clear. "I was expecting you to come back for the
ring."

"Were you," he said coldly. "Why."

"It would be impossible to forget those eyes
in a thousand lifetimes."

"Eyes?"

"You were the high priest. Your eyes were the
last thing I saw."