by Ian Cook
The light shrank back again to a small bright ball, which started to flicker at its edges. Slowly, it became a dancing flame. As she watched it, a man’s face became visible to one side, followed by his crouching body, lit up by the glow.
There was a certain sensitivity about his face. His eyes were pale blue and twinkled with intelligence. He was fine-featured and, with his luxuriant red beard, he had the look of a bohemian artist. But for his extraordinary attire, he would not have drawn a second glance in a modern city.
He was wearing a leather cap, tied under his chin by leather straps. A pair of antlers was fixed to the top of the cap. As he stood up, she saw that his body was covered by a long sack-like garment, made up of a patchwork of various fur pelts crudely stitched together in a checkerboard fashion. Odder still, sea shells were tied on to the longer pieces of fur, so that they rattled when he moved. Long leather strips hung in profusion from the pelts, to form a fringe around his legs below the knees. Around his neck, he wore a necklace of pierced shells strung on a leather thong.
The flame came from a small bowl, perched on a rock-mound, which contained a greasy looking liquid, together with a wick made of twisted strands of fur. The light fell on to a rough wall, which stretched away on either side into the darkness. Occasionally, the flame sputtered and flared momentarily to light up other walls and part of a rock ceiling. Rebecca realised she was in a cave. As the man moved, the sounds from the shells echoed, and she sensed the cave was very large.
The man reached for a leather flagon and drank from it. Next, he picked up another small bowl, this one full of red liquid. He dipped his finger into it and stood, staring at the wall for a full minute.
Then, he started to paint on the wall with his forefinger. He drew an outline first, quickly and intuitively, stopping only to dip his finger into the pigment. Sometimes, he changed to another bowl containing a black liquid and switched colours. He alternated between them, occasionally wiping his finger on a piece of fur next to the bowls.
Gradually the figure of a stag took shape, heavily stylised, but easily recognisable. A natural bump in the rock became its swollen flank, and cracks in the wall became parts of the antlers, so that the living rock and the paint combined to become the stag.
The form of the animal completed, he took a step back, studied it and closed his eyes as if meditating. Opening them again, he stepped forwards, picked up the bowl of black pigment and marked a series of small dots inside and outside the form of the animal.
A happy expression spread over his face, as if he were satisfied with his finished work. Dipping his whole hand into the red liquid, he smeared it on his face, before picking up the bowl and pouring the remaining contents into his mouth. He then placed his hand palm-down on to an unpainted part of the rock close to the painting and blew the contents of his mouth in a spray on to and around his hand. When he took his hand away, the outline of it was clearly imprinted on the bare rock.
Stepping backwards again to view his work, he studied it for several minutes, wiping his hand on the piece of fur. He then lifted his head, sniffing the air, and pawed the ground, first with one foot, then with the other. Finally, he gently shook his antlers and, leaving the lamp on the floor of the cave, turned and disappeared into the darkness.
Jim crept silently over to Rambo, who was glued to the screen.
“What’s going on? Why’s she gone so quiet?” whispered Jim.
“I don’t know,” said Rambo, glancing up. “But the cerebellum’s still very active.”
CHAPTER 52
As Rebecca gazed at the lamp, hypnotised, the white light stopped flickering and grew in size, until the image of a full moon appeared, the features of the lunar landscape clearly discernable. Below the moon, she could see the sea, glittering with reflected moonlight.
From the shoreline, a dark forest stretched sharply upwards, eventually thinning to a barren landscape of rocks and boulders, strewn over a hillside.
High above, the moon lit up a range of snow-covered mountains, which soared dramatically into a crystal-clear sky. Never before had she seen stars shining so brightly.
She felt her senses intensely heightened as the sweet, distinctive scent of pines drifted around her and a warm breeze brushed her cheeks. It was as if some long lost primordial sense had been switched on in her brain, so that she was omnipresent, part of everything, yet independent of it, like a visiting spirit.
About two hundred yards up the hill was a cliff-face, cut by deep gullies and gorges, which disappeared into blackness. At the base of the cliff, she could make out dark areas, where quick little movements caught her attention. She realised these were the entrances to caves, from which human figures were emerging, picking their way through the boulders. Rebecca knew instinctively that they must be prehistoric cavemen.
They arrived in small groups; dark-haired men and women of all ages, although children were noticeably absent. With their long unkempt hair, the men exuded a sense of brute animal strength. Although barefoot, they seemed quite untroubled by the rough terrain.
Threading their way through the trees, they headed towards a glade in the forest where moonlight filtered through the surrounding woodland, casting shadows on the rough grass. And there, in the centre of the glade, Rebecca could see the focus of all this activity: a roughly-hewn pillar of rock, about ten foot high and leaning slightly to one side. The pillar was covered in swirling, labyrinthine carvings.
The cavemen were chattering excitedly, their voices highpitched, obviously anticipating a major event. Their number swelled rapidly, and crude animal-skin flagons appeared, evidently full of some kind of liquor, since everyone drank enthusiastically as they were passed around.
She involuntarily tensed when the drumming started, as the memory of events on Easter Island flitted through her mind.
A group of men was seated next to the monolith, with drums made out of hollowed tree-trunks between their knees. The rhythms of the drumbeats soon became intricate and subtle, and Rebecca, as before, began to feel her pulse quickening.
Then, as if at a predetermined signal, the gathering split into two, with the women forming a large circle around the men. In time with the drumming, the women started clapping and chanting, so that layers of different sounds floated over the clearing.
Spreading out, the men chose individual patches of grass. Slowly at first, and then rapidly, they started whirling on the spot in an anti-clockwise direction. Like clumsy dervishes, they turned at an identical speed, one arm pointing to the ground, the other held aloft. There was little elegance involved, but the desired effect soon became apparent as their eyes glazed over.
It was only when the tempo of the drumming and clapping slowed that they came a halt and drifted out of the circle. As each man moved away, they gradually formed another circle to enclose the women. Then the men took up the clapping, and the drumming became more urgent.
The women were not dancing so much as jumping. Forming a long line, they put their hands on each other’s hips and snaked around inside the circle. With each jump, they thudded their heels into the ground, setting up a solid beat under the clapping and drumming. Initially, the line of women moved like a primitive conga dance, their hips swaying and brushing provocatively against the men. Then a pattern emerged. One woman took the lead and danced in ever-decreasing circles, the others following her, so that they formed a spiral. Reaching the monolith in the centre of the glade, the woman changed direction and led the line back out in the same spiral, until they were again brushing up against the men.
Now, a long unearthly howl drifted through the glade. At the entrance to one of the caves, Rebecca recognised the antler-headed caveman who had been doing the painting. Raising his head to the moon, he howled again, pawing the ground with his feet. He bounded with gazelle-like grace from boulder to boulder, through the trees towards the glade. Reaching it, he ran around the outside, leaping high into the air. Then he howled once again, and the clapping and dancing stopped abru
ptly. Moving towards each other, the men and women started to pair off and embrace, with various couples drifting towards the privacy of the deep forest.
Rebecca found herself unaccountably drawn to these happenings. She became flushed and dry-mouthed with excitement. She instinctively wanted, and yet was unable, to join in.
But, in one swift instant, any deep feelings of physical desire turned quickly to sheer horror. There in the laboratory, she let out a scream. “No! no!” Her arms by her side started shaking.
Larry rushed over to Rambo. “I really think we should end this.”
Rambo’s hand hovered over the switches.
Rebecca was frantic. In the heat of the ritual, nobody had noticed the rustling of the leaves, or the watchful faces peering through parted branches in the surrounding forest.
At some signal, the intruders burst into the glade. They were clearly a different race, tall athletic men. They were also armed, some with long wooden clubs, others carrying sharply-pointed spears.
The resistance of the cavemen was token. A few men quickly took stock, lowered their heads and charged bull-like in an attempt to butt their opponents. Some succeeded but, without weapons, were either speared in the back or were simply clubbed to the ground and brutally beaten about the head.
The antler-headed man himself did not even attempt to escape, but stood at the edge of the clearing, almost camouflaged by the trees. Then he, too, was seen and offered no resistance when he was grabbed by two of the invaders and dragged into the centre of the clearing. They tore off his headgear, exposing his long red hair, and forced him on to his knees next to the monolith.
Rebecca had already sensed who would appear next. A figure she knew only too well emerged from the forest. Dressed in just a loincloth made out of a fur pelt, the man had the head of a bird.
Without ceremony, he quickly wrapped a leather thong around the red-haired man’s neck and started to pull.
CHAPTER 53
“Right – that’s it,” said Rambo, shutting down the scanner and taking the mask-like device from her face.
For Rebecca, the visions were only just beginning to fade. She stopped screaming. Opening her eyes a little, she was dreading what she might see next. What she actually saw were the faces of Rambo, Larry and Jim, filled with anxious concern as they leaned over her.
“It’s all right, Rebecca, it’s all right now. You’re here with Jim and me, Larry. You’re quite safe here.”
As if after a particularly powerful nightmare, Rebecca was still not sure which world she was in, or whether the terror-laden world of her visions had really vanished.
“What happened, Rebecca?” asked Jim. “Can you talk to us? It was amazing. Did you know you were speaking in all sorts of different voices? Really different voices, and different languages even. There were men’s voices coming out of your mouth. It was extraordinary. But then what happened? You started to scream just now.”
“Jim – she’s in shock. Give her time,” said Rambo, checking Rebecca’s pulse.
Rebecca, still half in her other world, could not speak. She looked around, trying to adjust to the fact that she was once again in the safety and quietness of the laboratory. The visions were beginning to fade, and she was struggling to recall precisely what she had just seen. Then her eyes opened wide and once again filled with terror.
“It was him!” she gasped. “It was the bird-man. The priest. And it was Neferatu! I know it was Neferatu.” She looked at the three of them in turn. Did they understand what she was saying? “And he was strangling someone. Another man. It was another sacrifice.”
“Who was he strangling?” asked Larry gently.
“A man with antlers on his head. I’ve seen him before. He was the man doing a painting in a cave, painting a deer. And then it was as if he became the deer himself – he was moving like a deer. And he had red hair.”
“He sounds like some sort of prehistoric shaman,” interjected Jim.
Rebecca looked up at him. “I don’t know who he was, but I know Neferatu killed him.”
“What else did you see?” asked Rambo.
“There were people like cavemen dancing around, clapping and chanting. The deer-man was leaping about. It looked as if they were all about to have some sort of orgy. They were starting to pair off and go into the forest.
Then it happened. But I couldn’t do anything – it was all so fast. Another group of men rushed out of the forest and started attacking the cavemen. I could see them coming, but I just couldn’t warn them. I tried to shout to them, but they couldn’t hear me. The attackers just speared them and really laid into them with clubs. It was so horrible – there was blood everywhere. Everyone was screaming. There were bodies all over the place.”
She put her hands up to her head in a futile attempt to blot out the memories.
“It’s okay, Rebecca. You’re safe. It’s all over now,” said Larry, putting his hand on her shoulder.
She shook her head slowly. “At the beginning it was so lovely. I saw my mother. You know, both my parents are dead now, and it was quite reassuring. Then I saw my grandfather. He died, too, five years ago.”
“Wasn’t there someone speaking Gaelic?” asked Jim, his eyes alive with excitement.
“Yes, I think so. There was a Highlander with straggly red hair in a kilt and tam-o’-shanter. It could have been Gaelic I suppose, but I have no idea what he was saying.”
“Yes, he was speaking Gaelic,” Wally called over. Wally was busy disconnecting the digital camera. “He was saying, ‘Don’t be afraid’.”
“You went quiet for a bit after that,” said Jim. “We weren’t sure what was going on.”
“Hang on,” said Rambo. “Let’s just help Rebecca sit up.”
They listened as Rebecca described the town and the harbour. “I think I was watching a girl escape in a boat. A woman was helping her, maybe her mother. They both had the same red hair. They seemed quite important, and they were beautifully dressed, like they were royalty. Two soldiers were with them, Roman soldiers, I think. Then this horrible mob appeared! And guess who was leading them! Neferatu again! What is this man? It was definitely Neferatu. But he was wearing a toga.”
“Surprise, surprise,” said Larry. “You know, you were speaking Latin yourself at that point, in two different female voices. You had a funny accent and you were speaking too fast for me to pick up much. But I could make out the name ‘Cleopatra’ and ‘go now’ and ‘the gods be with you’. I’ll have to listen to it again.”
“Well, I did Latin at school,” said Rebecca. “Everybody seemed to be speaking Latin. I heard the older woman say ‘Cleopatra’. And one of the soldiers called the older woman ‘Selene’.”
Larry and Jim looked at each other, bewildered at hearing the names ‘Cleopatra’ and ‘Selene’.
“The girl only just managed to escape,” Rebecca went on. “And Neferatu was in a fury. The girl was in a small boat, but it was heading towards a larger one, with masses of oars sticking out of it. I suppose it was a galley.”
“What about this Cleopatra and Selene?” said Larry. “It seems all wrong to me. The Cleopatra we all know about had a daughter called Selene. Now in Rebecca’s vision, it was the other way around. Cleopatra was the girl, and Selene was the older woman, possibly her mother, and they both had red hair. And what was Cleopatra escaping from? Where was she going? If it was Neferatu, why would he be after her? It’s all quite intriguing.”
“But before all that, you were speaking in another strange man’s voice!” said Jim. “Who was he? And what was he saying?”
“I think I recognised him,” said Rebecca. “He was the one who rescued me at the Stones. The one called Ptolemy. I knew he was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying.”
“I should have managed to record it,” said Jim. “Hang on.” He went back through the recording and pressed ‘Play’.
Rebecca listened, looked at Jim and then shook her head in disbeli
ef. “But that’s not me,” she said.
“Actually, it is,” said Jim. “That was you speaking a few minutes ago, Rebecca.”
“No, no. It can’t be,” she said. “I don’t believe it.”
“Larry – didn’t you say it was classical Greek, Rebecca was speaking?” said Jim.
“But I don’t know any Greek!” she protested. “It’s definitely classical Greek,” Larry replied. “But this must be the first time, for hundreds of years, that anyone has heard it spoken like that.”
“It’s just not possible,” said Rebecca, shaking her head. She looked bewildered and horrified.
“Don’t worry, Rebecca,” said Larry. “It doesn’t make any difference to the person you are here and now.”
“Your brain will be functioning now in its normal way,” said Rambo. “If you like, I can show you the images on the screen. You’ll see nothing has changed permanently. But I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it before during a scan. The changes in brain activity were amazing. First of all, the brain activity in the parietal lobes almost stopped. That does sometimes happen when people meditate. But then the cerebellum became active, and that’s plain weird. That’s a first.”
“What do you mean, the cerebellum?” asked Rebecca.
“It’s the part of the brain at the back of the head,” said Rambo. “Normally it’s associated with very finely co-ordinated movement, like playing a piano or driving a car. But you were just lying still. It was as if the cerebellum had another function, as if some kind of sixth sense were switched on in your brain.”
“Now I feel like some sort of freak,” said Rebecca.
“No, no, you’re fine,” said Rambo. “There’ll be a perfectly good explanation, you’ll see.”
“You know,” said Jim, “if that really was Ptolemy, it would be interesting to know what he was saying. It sounded urgent, as if he were trying to give a warning.”
“It was certainly ancient Greek,” said Larry. “Ptolemy was most likely to have been taught by Aristotle, like Alexander the Great. I’ll work on it. And maybe we should take another look at the inscription on the Sun-Stone. We might find out who Ikar was, apart from being Neferatu’s accomplice who fought with Ptolemy at the Newton Stones. He seems in some way to be associated with the Sun-Stone.”