Veitch nodded thoughtfully. Tom thought how like a schoolboy he looked, taking a lesson from a stern master.
"So what's going to happen?"
"I don't know."
"Jesus!"
"I told you-I'm no expert. I'm just trying to do the best I can. This is the right spot, a powerful spot. The drug will condition our minds. Then we'll try to make contact with something that can help us."
Veitch cursed. "I wish you'd told me this before. I wouldn't be sitting here with you now."
"Why do you think I didn't tell you before?"
"You know what it sounds like to me? The Deerhunter. Bleedin' Russian roulette. All the things out there… Christ! You're saying we should call something in and take a chance it's something good. Shit!"
"If you put your faith in the universe, it often helps you out."
"What, if you jump off a bridge something will catch you?"
"Now you're being silly." He lit the joint, took a long draught, then passed it over to Veitch. "This is a ceremony-"
"No more Doors, all right? Get with the decade."
Tom slowly raised his eyes to the glittering stars. Beyond the cairn they could hear the wind shuffling through the trees. "Old stories."
"What?"
"Myths and legends are our way of glimpsing the true language of existence. In them we can see the archetypes. The real meaning of numbers and words and symbols. Those talismans you fought so hard for-they are not simply a Sword, a Spear, a Stone and a Cauldron. The Sword is the elemental power of air and represents intellect. The Spear is fire, the spirit. The Cauldron is water, compassion. The Stone is earth, existence. We just have to be clever. Ignore the worldview imposed on us by the Age of Reason. We have to go back to sensing the mystery at the heart of life. That is the only way forward."
"So we tell each other stories?"
"All of human society is based on stories, Ryan. They're not just words, they're alive; powerful. There's a theory about things called memes. In essence, they're ideas that act like viruses. You put an idea out into the world-tell it to a friend, get him to pass it on-and soon the idea filters out into society and everyone begins to alter their way of behaving to take the new idea on board. The idea-one person's idea-has actually changed the shape of society. That's the modern way of explaining it. Stories are memes, very powerful ones, because they speak directly to the subconscious using archetypes." He watched Witch's face intently, still surprised the Londoner could maintain his concentration; perhaps he truly was changing. "Stories shape lives. People pick up little lessons from them, believe a certain way to act is the correct way, grow more like their heroes. If you have stories riddled with cynicism, the world will grow more like them, over time. Our myths today are Hollywood movies and TV. In America, in the eighties, there was a crime series called Hill Street Blues. The police who saw it started to mimic the way the characters acted, altered the way they went about their business on the streets. An entire culture was changed by one story. In ancient Sumeria the citizens took on board the worldview expressed by their archetypal hero Gilgamesh. He defined them."
Veitch coughed and spluttered as the smoke burned his lungs. "I get it. Down in Deptford I knew some villains-small-time wankers, you know-they saw that film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and started dressing and talking like the geezers in it."
"Exactly. Stories are our dreams, Ryan, and we dream our society and our reality. If we dream hard enough, we can make it what we want. If we dream hard enough."
"Shavi said something to me like that."
"Oh?"
"Not the same, really. But like it. He said if I dreamed myself as a hero I would be. If I saw myself as a sad loser, that's the way I'd stay."
"Everything is fluid, Ryan. Nothing is fixed."
Veitch rubbed his eyes as Tom appeared to grow hazy; he didn't know if it was a trick of the drugs or if it was really happening. His attention moved to the dark rocks of the cairn walls. Occasionally ripples of blue light flickered amongst them. In that place it felt like anything could happen. He steeled himself. Tom's quiet, lilting voice was like a magical spell, weaving an atmosphere of change around him.
"I know what you're talking about," Veitch heard himself saying. "You want us to dream up some of those old stories to show us what to do. Arky-what?"
"Archetypes. Symbols that take the shape of something we can understand. Things that speak with power."
"Listen!" Veitch started. "Did you hear that?" It had sounded to him like a hunting horn, echoing mournfully along the glen.
Tom was watching him like a raptor. "What are you dreaming up, Ryan?" he asked softly.
"I don't know." Had he really heard it? An image of the Wild Hunt intruded roughly on his mind and he began to panic.
Tom placed a calming hand on his knee. "Something is rising from your subconscious-"
"Can this place do that?" The drug gave an edge of anxiety to Veitch's thoughts.
"The Blue Fire is the base stuff of everything, Ryan. It's there to be shaped and controlled, and this place was designed to focus that ability."
"Things are happening." Veitch chewed on a knuckle. He felt he could hear something moving through the deeply wooded slopes of the glen away near Loch Ness, although it was obviously too far for any sound to truly travel. "I was thinking of Robin Hood. When you were talking about stories… It was something my dad read to me once…"
"The slightest thought, if focused enough, would be all it takes, Ryan."
"But Robin Hood, like… I remember what Ruth said. That was one of the names for-"
"Cernunnos, yes. The gods are archetypes given form, but the archetypes are bigger than them." He paused. "I'm not making any sense, am I?" He took another drag on the joint, as if determined to make it worse. "But perhaps that is the right archetype for this moment, Ryan. You may think the thought surfaced randomly, but there is no coincidence in this world."
"Robin Hood." Veitch's voice was heavy with anticipation; the atmosphere in the cairn was charged. The blue light had grown stronger, unwavering now, casting a sapphire tint over everything. He took the joint back and drew on it deeply. The sharpness of the rocks faded into the background and the light took on greater depth.
"Robin Hood," Tom mused. "The hunter in the deep, dark forest of the night. The rebellious force against the oppressive control of rigid authority. Wild creativity opposing the structured thought of the Age of Reason."
The words washed over Veitch, whatever meaning they held seeping into him on some level beyond hearing. Another blast of the hunting horn, not too far away. Now Veitch could tell it was different from the sound of the Wild Hunt's horn; not so menacing, almost hopeful.
"But be careful." Tom's warning sounded as if it came from the depths of a well. "If you lose control of the archetype, its power can overwhelm you, tear you apart."
"I wish you hadn't said that," Veitch snapped. "It's a bleedin' meme, isn't it? It's in my bleedin' head now."
"At least you were paying attention." Tom took several calming breaths; Witch realised the hippie felt anxious too. "My warning will focus your mind. You won't lose control."
"Yeah. Keep telling me that."
Feet rattled the stones on the road beyond the gate of the cairn compound. Rhythmic breathing that could have been a man's but was more like an animal's filled the air.
"He's here," Tom said, redundantly.
Veitch felt his muscles clench with tension, barely able to believe it was something he had done, and with such little effort; but that tiny, out-of-the-way place felt so supercharged he was convinced he could do anything here.
"Speak to him," Tom whispered.
"Me?" More panic; that wasn't one of his strengths, but then he thought how well Shavi would have done in the situation and that gave him the courage to continue. "Hello." His voice sounded too fragile. He tried again, stronger this time.
The sound of scrabbling echoed as something moved up the side of the ca
irn, seeking footholds amongst the tightly packed stones. A silhouette appeared over the rim, looking down at them.
"Hello," he repeated once more.
The figure squatted on the roof's edge, watching them both sitting crosslegged on the stone flags. As it shifted, Veitch caught sight of a face filled with wisdom and kindliness, but also righteous defiance. There was certainly a beard, but while he saw the features, they were forgotten in an instant after his eyes lighted on them; this was all faces, all humanity boiled down. The indefinable, tight-fitting clothes were of the Lincoln Green he had anticipated from his storybook of old, but at times they appeared to be vegetation rather than fabric or leather; and growing out of the figure itself. Strapped across his back was a bow of gnarled wood that also seemed oddly organic.
"I heard your call." His voice, which came from everywhere at once, was comforting and fatherly; the tension eased in Witch's shoulders immediately.
Instinctively, he knew how to talk to the visitor and what to say. "We're looking for help. Guidance." He was surprised to hear his own voice sounded disembodied too. "We've got this big job to do. A big heroes' job. Saving the world and all that. But things have gone pear shaped. We don't know what to do next."
The figure stood up gracefully and walked slowly widdershins around the precarious lip of what remained of the roof. Veitch watched his progress until he grew dizzy. Then, after what felt like an age, the figure spoke. "Every story is like a wave crashing against a beach, and there are as many stories as there are waves. There is the height when the sun sparkles on the white crest and the dark trough when shadow turns the water to slate. Each appears the end of something, but it is only when the surf runs over the sand that the equal importance of both can be seen in the journey to the shore." He turned on his heel and began his circular journey in the opposite direction. "In your story, times are unduly dark, but you maintain hope; I feel it shining from within you, and that is good for the heroes' work. I feel, too, your pain at the loss of one close to you."
A deep silence fell over the scene; waiting.
"We need five of us to continue," Veitch began. "There have to be five Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. You know, the Pendragon Spirit. One's dead now. What are we going to do?"
"There are no boundaries." The words echoed amongst the stones. "The emerald silence of the green wood stretches on to infinity. You pass through wooded acres and appear to move on, to a new place and new sights, but it is the same wood."
Veitch was struggling to understand, but he knew perfectly why the archetype was continually speaking in metaphors, the root of the true language.
The figure squatted down once more to look at them, as if invisible cycles had come into alignment, focusing its intent. "The shaman is gone, but he can be returned."
"Shavi?"
"You may fetch him back from the Grim Lands, the Grey Lands."
"How?" Tom interjected. "There is no return for our kind."
"Special circumstances have seen fit to forge a pathway. The link still remains between the shaman's corporeal form and his essence."
Witch looked to Tom, puzzled but hopeful. The Rhymer pondered on this information briefly, then asked, "What special circumstances-"
"Your patron has chosen to preserve his form-"
"Cernunnos," Tom said.
"It resides in a bower, ready to be wakened." The archetype rose and looked towards the dark horizon as if something were calling it.
"Where?" Tom asked.
"On the Hill of Giants, where the Night Rider awaits his challenges. But time is short. The protection is diminishing and soon the link will be broken."
"How long have we got?" Veitch was afraid the information had come too late for them to act on it.
"Not long."
It was a vague answer, but it was obvious the archetype would not or could not elucidate. It began to ease back down the slope of the cairn. "Now-"
"Wait," Veitch said humbly. "Can I walk with you? Just for a while?"
The archetype paused, then held out a shadowy hand. It felt like velvet in Witch's fingers. The archetype hauled him out effortlessly and they both slipped down to the ground. Veitch felt uplifted, sensing on some deep level the heroic essence. It felt more like energy crackling in the air than a person at his side, but when he cast a surreptitious glance, it was unmistakably Robin Hood. They moved across the road to the nature reserve beyond, keeping low like animals. Veitch was sure some of whatever constituted the archetype was rubbing off on him. His senses were sharpened, his spirit was soaring, as if he had consumed a quantity of drugs or was in the grip of some spiritual fervour.
When they had crossed a barbed wire fence into a field on the valley slopes, Veitch couldn't contain himself any longer. "Show me," he whispered like a child.
The archetype seemed to smile. In one fluid movement it took the bow from its back, fitted an oddly fashioned arrow and loosed it. Veitch heard the twang as the arrow neatly severed the top strand of barbed wire on the fence about thirty yards further down the field.
"'mazing." He did feel like a child again; a wizened memory of playing one of Robin Hood's Mettle Men in a Greenwich backstreet was given new flesh. It was the kind of feeling adults spent all their life searching for, but which he had convinced himself didn't exist anywhere in society. And perhaps it hadn't before; but now things were different.
The archetype appeared to read his thoughts. With an expansive gesture, it said, "This night is magic, alive with potential. Here you are connected to the infinite."
His feeling of exaltation grew stronger until every part of his body was tingling. He felt heady from the potency of the experience; it was truly religious, like he was about to turn towards the face of God. "What does this all mean?" he sighed.
"This is how existence should be." The archetype knelt on one knee to touch the grass gently. "Dreams start within, then grow bigger until one can live within them. There are no boundaries; anything can happen. Fluidity, hope, expression." He fixed a gaze on Veitch that was almost electric. "Mythologies were never intended to be only stories. Dream hard enough and you can exist within them: neither reality, nor fantasy: just one realm of infinite possibilities." He made another wide gesture. "Look. The stories live. All of this exists within the age of heroes, as it was intended."
When Veitch looked around, he noticed for the first time shadowy figures standing away on the field boundaries or amongst the nearby trees: old heroes, some he recognised, with shining swords and armour, crowns and shields, but many he did not; yet he felt he knew them all. The wonder washed over him in such force he was driven to his knees.
It was at least an hour later when Veitch made his way back to the cairn. A shooting star cut an arc across the sky. Tom was still inside, smoking the remnants of a joint while humming gently to himself.
"Weren't you worried about me?" Veitch said as he emerged from the tunnel, his face beatific.
"I knew you were in good hands. Did he give you an education?"
Veitch was unable to restrain his smile.
"Good," Tom said. "Make the most of your contact with the great beyond for tomorrow we have a life to save and choices to make which could wipe the smile from your face."
Veitch didn't hear him; he was looking up to the stars, for the first time in his life feeling he was a part of something enormous; feeling that there really was hope for him.
Chapter Five
In League With The Stones Of The field
Tom and Veitch stayed in the cool confines of the cairn until the sky turned gold and purple, and then a powder blue. It was going to be a fine day. Witch's mood had remained ecstatic as he babbled through the final hours of darkness about what he had experienced with the archetype. Tom could see some long-neglected part of him had been touched by the encounter. He was loath to bring Veitch down with discussion of what lay ahead, but it had to be done; the archetype had stressed time was short.
After a brief, unappetising breakfa
st of roots, herbs and edible flowers Tom had foraged from the surrounding hedgerows and fields, the conversation turned to Shavi. Veitch was surprisingly confident, his usual strategic caution stifled by his joy that there was still hope he would see his friend again.
"You know where Shavi is?" Tom chose his words carefully as he gently prodded the small campfire that had taken the chill off the early morning air. "Not where his body is, but where he is."
"The Grim Lands. Or the Grey Lands."
"Two names to describe the same place. It's the Land of the Dead, Ryan."
Veitch shrugged.
"Doesn't that fill you with dread? It's been a source of nightmares for the human race since the dawn of our people, and with good cause."
"Don't start getting all negative." Veitch's body language showed he didn't want to hear any of Tom's cautionary tales. "Over the last few months I've seen and done things that would have had me screaming like a bleedin' idiot when I was just some chancer down in South London. Everything's a nightmare-that's the way it is these days. You just get on with it. So let's get on with it."
Tom cursed under his breath. "I knew it would be like this. You never listen to advice, do you? If you are not prepared before you go into the Grim Lands, they may never allow you to leave."
"They?" Veitch's brow furrowed. "Me?"
"Well, I'm not going in there. It's your responsibility, and besides, I don't have that wonderful Pendragon Spirit coursing through my system. And did you think the Dead would just allow some breathing, heart-pumping warm memory of lost times waltz amongst them and take away one they consider their own? The Dead have their own rules and regulations, their own beliefs, their own jealousies and hatreds. And the Grim Lands themselves are…" He looked down so Veitch could barely see his face. "… not a pleasant place for the living."
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