Before them was a shallow valley. Across from them, crowning the opposite rise was a small copse of beech trees, the undergrowth that lay beneath them thick, dark and, from this distance, impenetrable-looking. To Madden’s trained eye there seemed to be a strange artificiality to what at first glance he had assumed to be a natural feature. Whether it was due to the way it seemed to conform to the contours of the landscape or something else, he didn’t know.
“There’s the wood,” said Slythe pointing. “Just be careful on the slopes. It can be quite treacherous, especially after the rain, when it becomes muddy.”
Taking his warning to heart, Madden and Walker carefully descended into the shallow valley bottom before making the uphill trudge. Walker slipped twice, his movements impeded by the holdall he was carrying, but he avoided any serious hurt.
Eventually they reached the top and approached the ring of dark trees.
“Although my gamekeeper cleared a bit of a path into the interior a few days ago, it’s still very overgrown, so we’ll need to hack some of this vegetation away,” said Slythe. Gripping his scythe, he stared into the thorny barrier before them. “I think if we start about here where the bramble’s less thick.…” He made a serious of rather ineffectual swipes at the wiry foliage.
Madden nodded to Walker, who rested his equipment bag on the grass. The two of them then joined Slythe in hacking and chopping their way through the coils of bramble and trailing weeds and thicket. It was hard going, the thorns tearing cruelly at every inch of exposed skin and snagging at their clothing, and on one occasion Slythe came close to accidently severing Walker’s hand with a particularly careless swing.
They were all hot and tired after only thirty minutes of work, and their progress was slow and painful.
Sweating, Walker turned to Slythe and said: “Just what the hell was your gamekeeper, or whatever he is doing in here in the first place?”
“He—he was looking for his dog. It ran off while he was out here and he heard its barks.”
“And why’s he not helping?” There was a tinge of anger in Madden’s voice. He was not overly fond of physical labour, preferring to sit in cosy libraries or pontificate about ancient sites from the comfort of the lecture hall. Not that he was adverse to the odd field trip now and then, but that didn’t involve this intensity of labour—after all, that’s what students were for.
“Unfortunately, he’s had to go home. A sudden family bereavement, I understand. I’ve given him as much leave as he needs. He’s a nice fellow and very good at his job. Besides, if it hadn’t been for him and his mangy mutt, this thing would’ve remained undiscovered.” Slythe renewed his savage attack on the jungle-like undergrowth, the broad swings of his scythe now making some inroads.
“I’m getting fed up with this,” cursed Madden. “If I’d have known it was this bad, I’d have got a team of students down to do the clearing.”
“We still could,” replied Walker. “If we were to get—”
“I can see the stone!” shouted Slythe excitedly. “Not much more now. See, just through that gap in the trees.” He pointed into the shadowy interior where sunlight dappled and filtered through the leaf-filled tree branches high overhead. “That must be it.”
Both Madden and Walker peered to where the other indicated. It was mostly dark and shadow-filled, and there still remained a lot of chest-high foliage between them and it; but there was something there, something tall and towering, half-hidden amongst the weeds and warped tree trunks.
Their morale bolstered somewhat by this tantalising glimpse, they set about their difficult task once more. Cursing from numerous stings and grazes, and swinging their tools as though macheteing a path through a jungle, they set about fiercely, trailblazing a way forward.
After ten minutes they were rewarded for their not inconsiderable efforts by their first real view of the solitary standing stone. Emerging from the slightly raised ground, half-screened by a gnarled tree trunk and festooned with a net-like mass of weeds and ivy, the stone stood nearly nine feet high. It was by and large irregular in shape, yet still maintaining a certain degree of rectangularity to it. Large patches of moss and lichen covered its uppermost part. In many ways it conformed to the usual details of a standing stone, and yet there was a strange feature that immediately caught Madden’s eye.
Almost on eye level, what appeared to be a perfect circle, maybe a foot or so in diameter, had been removed from it by means unknown.
“There, gentleman, is your stone.” Slythe gestured towards it, one arm extended.
“This is certainly unusual!” Hacking away the brambles that lay between him and the stone, Madden struggled forward. The circular hole had him truly perplexed and, on nearing and giving it a cursory examination, his initial thought was that it had been drilled straight through.
“Well I’ve never seen any—” Walker stopped mid-sentence and looked down as his right boot made an unsavoury-sounding crunch on something. Looking down, he was mildly shocked to see that the ground, under the weeds, was strewn with small bones and animal skeletons. “God! Look at this!”
Madden’s initial excitement now turned to revulsion as he looked down at his feet and saw the dull white scattering of small skulls, femurs, and ribcages that were strewn around.
“I wonder what animal did this? A fox, perhaps?” Having no real knowledge of British wildlife, it was the best suggestion Walker could offer. “Anyway, I’ll just go back and get the holdall.” He turned and went for the equipment bag.
“It could be foxes,” said Slythe, absently, his eyes fixed instead on the upthrusting stone with a strange kind of adoration.
Madden returned his attention to the megalith. “I’ve never seen anything like this in all my life. This circular hole is most intriguing. It looks almost perfect. Certainly there are similar things, Men-an-Tol in Cornwall and The Long Stone in Gloucestershire, but there’s a certain something about this one that has me perplexed.” He waited until Walker had joined them. “Let’s clear the base and scrape some of this lichen off, see if we can find this writing.”
Using their trowels, the two archaeologists scratched at the surface, clearing away the mysterious hump of earth and the animal bones that surrounded the base of the stone. Delicately, they then set about removing the larger patches of moss and lichen. It did not take them long to discover the very faint, indeed almost imperceptible, lines of weird, unrecognisable symbols, which ran in horizontal bands around the stone.
* * * * * * *
In Slythe’s large study, Madden and Walker pored over the rubbings they had made, examining the tiny markings with the aid of powerful magnifying lenses. Neither of them could offer any immediate explanation, each as baffled as the other by the inscriptions. However, Walker was becoming increasingly convinced that it was indeed some form of proto-script, perhaps some Runic precursor, whilst Madden remained doubtful.
“Any idea as to what it is?” asked Slythe from where he sat at the end of the table puffing on his pipe, his presence momentarily forgotten by the two experts, such was their level of fascination in their work.
Madden looked up. “Not as yet. It really is an enigma. Doctor Walker’s of the opinion that it might indeed be an as yet unidentified text, but I’m not so sure. I think a more detailed epigraphical examination is warranted before we can reach any genuine conclusion.” He straightened his glasses. “Such petroglyphs can be notoriously hard to interpret clearly.”
“Is it translatable?” asked Slythe.
“Hard to say,” answered Walker. “If it is indeed some form of incipient language, then it’s nothing with any known parallels. It could take years to decode. If it is indeed a language.”
Slythe looked disappointed. “If it is a language, surely you’ll be able to decipher it sooner than that?”
“I’m afraid not. We’ve got nothing even remotely contemporary to compare it with. It’s clearly not related to Latin, so we have to rule that out as a possible contemporary s
ource. We really will be guessing in the dark, I’m afraid.” With a shake of his head, Walker returned his focus to the rubbing before him.
“What about the hole? Does that have any significance?”
“I daresay those who put it there believed that it did,” answered Madden. “Such things have been accredited with fertility and recuperative powers. However that’s getting into the realm of New Age weirdness.” He shook his head. “And that’s something we always stay well clear of.”
“Yes,” laughed Walker. “Whatever you do, don’t mention the druids.”
Half an hour passed, the two scholars becoming more and more agitated in their discussion. One of them would mention some point or other, only for the other to instantly dismiss it.
In the end they seemed no closer to any form of conclusive agreement, each as entrenched in their own private view as the other. For whereas Walker had come round to the idea that it was a groundbreaking discovery, the lettering authentic and suggestive of a primordial, pre-Sumerian writing system, Madden was not so easily convinced. For one thing, there was no easy means of dating the stone, nor could it be taken as a given that the writing matched the date that the stone was put in position.
“Well, there’s little more that can be done other than to make an accurate record of this find,” said Madden, resignedly. “I’ll see if anyone in the linguistic department can make anything of this, but I’m not hopeful.”
“One more archaeological mystery,” sighed Walker, delicately rolling up the pieces of paper. He then put them in a long cardboard tube for safekeeping.
“I’d like to thank you, Mr. Slythe, for all of your help,” said Madden. “And obviously if we do succeed in finding out anything of interest, we’ll keep you informed.”
* * * * * * *
Madden was in his small office arranging his lecture notes for the new term starting in January. The university was closing down for the Christmas holiday, and this was the final day before all of the students went home. It had been a tiring last couple of weeks, and consequently he had largely forgotten about Rupert Slythe and the peculiar megalith. After the initial thrill of its discovery and having shown the rubbings to some of his fellow academics—none of whom had been able to make anything out of it—he had tucked them away in a drawer meaning to return to them at a later date.
The phone on his desk began to ring. He picked it up.
“Professor Madden. It’s Rupert Slythe.”
“Ah, Mr. Slythe, how are you?”
“Fine. I’m glad I managed to get through to you. I’ve been calling your office for the past few days, and I was beginning to think that you’d gone on your Christmas break.”
“Today’s the last day of term, thank God.”
“Anyway, two things: firstly, I was wondering whether you’ve had any success in translating the writing on the stone; and secondly, and more importantly, I was wondering if you could come over here. There’s something I’d like you to take a look at. I think it may be important.”
“In answer to your first question, I’m afraid that I’ve been unable to make any sense of the inscriptions, nor can anyone else. And as for coming over, well—”
“I do think it’s important.”
“Tell me what it is.”
“I can’t really describe it, but I’m sure it will interest you.”
“Very well. Let me just check when.” Madden consulted his diary. He would be busy over the weekend marking end of term essays, and it was a good two-hour drive to Farthing Downs Manor. However, he was planning to spend Christmas Day at his sister’s, so he could combine the two as she lived relatively nearby. “What about next Friday, Christmas Eve?”
“I’ll be out that day, I’m afraid.” Slythe’s voice sounded rather sorrowful. “What about the Tuesday before?”
Madden sighed. “Very well. I’ll see you then.”
* * * * * * *
During the two-hour drive to Slythe’s stately home, Madden couldn’t get a certain nervousness out of his system. It had started that morning, developing slowly yet surely, the nibbling at his senses now a gnawing at the pit of his stomach, making him feel nauseous.
It was a glorious morning, similar to the day he and Walker had come out here, the low sunlight gilding the trees and dazzling off the road.
Momentarily lost in his own thoughts, he cursed as he missed the turning that led to Farthing Downs Manor. The road was empty, so, checking his rearview mirror, he reversed and was just about to turn into the side road when suddenly a huge flatbed truck laden with cut timbers roared out from it. There was a squeal of breaks and somehow disaster was narrowly avoided. A bearded, irate driver rolled down his window and hurled a torrent of verbal abuse at Madden before speeding off again.
Badly shaken, Madden took several deep breaths, his whole body tingling, the hands that grasped the wheel rigid; the knuckles white. That had been a near thing and no mistake.
In the distance he could hear the thundering sound of another approaching truck. He pulled the car into a lay-by and waited until this second, tree-laden lorry had passed. Once he had regained his composure, he then pulled into the side road and drove carefully and cautiously towards Slythe’s house.
Upon arrival he was greeted by the man himself, his attire the exact same as on their previous meetings.
“Good morning, professor.”
“Mr. Slythe. I’m pleased to see you again.”
“You look a little tense.”
“Oh, just a close shave back there at the turnoff.”
“One of the timber lorries?”
“Yes. Bloody idiot driver.” Madden combed his hair back.
Slythe removed a silver hipflask from his pocket. “This might calm your nerves a little.” He offered it to the other.
Madden unscrewed the top and took several hearty sips. It was good whisky. He wiped his mouth dry. “Anyway, just what is it you want me take a look at?” he asked, handing the hipflask back.
“I found a book that might interest you.” Slythe gestured for his guest to make his way inside the house. “It’s in my study.”
“A book? What kind of book?”
“A very old book.”
They entered the house and went into the study.
There were people in there. A dozen or more. People in dark suits.
An aura of sheer confusion threatened to engulf Madden completely. What was this?
Sweat popped out on his forehead, and he could feel his heart thumping away in his chest. He was feeling dizzy, his vision blurring somewhat. Unsteadily, he lowered himself into a chair. His brain was swimming, his vision now ebbing and flowing in pulsing waves making things look kaleidoscopic. Faces crowded closer. There was a dull throbbing in his head, a pounding in his brain that grew to a booming crescendo. There was cruel-sounding laughter. Then everything went dark and he slumped out of the chair, landing awkwardly on the carpet.
* * * * * * *
Slowly, painfully, Madden opened his eyes, and a terrifying realisation struck him. His hands were bound tightly with thick cord, as were his feet. He was lying bare-chested on the hard floorboards of an empty garret room, the dying sunlight shining in through a high window. A gag had been stuffed into his mouth and there was a terrible taste on his tongue. His head ached.
Raging fear raced through him. Wrenching his aching neck muscles, he tried to turn his head, to see if there was anything in the room that might assist him to escape from this terrible predicament. But there was nothing.
What the hell was going on? It seemed clear to him that Slythe must have drugged him—no doubt something he had slipped into the whisky in the hipflask he had drunk from. The real question was what was the motive behind this abduction, and critically, just how was he going to escape? The window was far too small for him to use, so that left the door. But first he would have to try and struggle free.
With difficulty, he managed to slide his thumbs under the thick rag that had been wrapped aro
und his mouth. Then it was just a case of wiggling it back and forth, slackening it so that he managed to pull it free and peel it down over his jaw. The cord around his wrists had been tightly fastened however, and without a knife— A sudden idea came to him. He doubted whether it would work, but given the circumstances it was as good a plan as any.
Rubbing his heels back and forth, he managed to work his right boot off. He shifted his body down, taking a bootlace in his mouth before rolling towards the wall and, using that as a support, he clambered first to his knees and then to his feet, the boot dangling from between his clenched teeth. He gathered the boot into his hands, offered a small prayer of thanks for its sturdiness and then threw it as hard as he could at the window.
It was a poor shot, missing the window by a foot or so.
He had no option but to try again. It was a difficult procedure; bending, retrieving the boot in his mouth, and trying to throw it with bound wrists, but mercifully on his fourth attempt the window splintered. On his ninth attempt it cracked, and after several more hits it broke but he lost his boot. What he got in exchange was a scattering of glass shards.
Hoping against hope that the sound of the breaking window would not alert anyone, Madden scurried over to the fragments of window and, taking a shard, began sawing through the bonds at his ankles. He got cut and he got sliced but the need to escape drove him through the pain and soon his legs were free. Now came the hard part.
Wriggling free from his other boot, he then began collecting some of the glass in it. He walked over to the door, and pushed a shard into the door jamb, wincing as it gashed through his thumb. Bright red, coin-sized splats of blood covered the floorboards. Using his boot he tapped the shard in further. He then began cutting, sawing at the cords on his wrists, hoping that the glass was firmly lodged. He was in luck, and after a few minutes he cut through the last strands.
“Thank you, God,” he muttered. He reached for the door handle and twisted it.
It was firmly locked.
* * * * * * *
Sometime later a key turned in the lock and the door opened. It was opened by a man in a white, hooded robe. In one hand he held a gun. He looked somewhat surprised to see Madden standing before him, believing him to be bound and gagged. There were two more men, dressed similarly, behind him.
The Chaos of Chung-Fu Page 12