Always Forever

by Mark Chadbourn

  "You're made of stars," he whispered in awe.

  The faintest smile crept across the creature's face. Here was ultimate innocence, supreme peace, a being not troubled by hate or anger or lust or desire for revenge. It held out a hand, fingers so delicate it was hard to imagine how they were formed, and as it moved the air shimmered around it. Slowly, so as not to scare it away, Veitch reached out one long, calloused finger until it was almost touching the creature's hand. He didn't go the final millimetre for fear of overstepping some unknown boundary, but the little figure merely smiled again and reached out the extra distance. When they touched, it felt like honey was flowing into his limbs. Suddenly tears were streaming down his cheeks, soaking into his shirt, and he had no idea where they came from either; there were so many it seemed as if they would never stop.

  When they did finally dry up, the creature touched his finger once more and then, with a movement that might well have been a parting wave, rose up to its companions, casting regular backwards glances at Witch's prostrate form.

  Veitch watched them for the better part of an hour, his face beatific, but no thoughts that he recognised crossed his mind. And then, with the sun dappling his skin, he drifted into the first peaceful sleep he had had for years.

  While he slept, the Woodborn stirred in their silent, leafy homes all around; knowing in his sleep they could not be discovered, they looked down on the still form, frail and insubstantial next to their mighty trunks. And, being spirits, they felt deep currents and saw more than eyes could ever see. After a while a soft shower of leaves fell from their branches all around the sleeping figure, like tears.

  Tom thought of Van Morrison singing about "Summertime in England," about Cream in "White Room," the Stones doing "Sympathy for the Devil" and The Doors cranking up "Five to One." Old man's music, Laura would have called it, before rattling off a list of percussive-heavy songs that had been released in the past week. She missed the point. Music was the great communicator. It had nothing to do with fashion; it was part of the central nervous system, linking old memories and sensations and new ideas, joining everything of human experience up into one whole, a single bar releasing it in a torrent. Old music, new music, Gregorian chants, country and western tearjerkers or opera, it didn't matter; it was all power.

  Right then, it was a barrier, blocking out all thoughts of what lay ahead. The best songs from his internal jukebox, the soundtrack to his life.

  The tunnel curved down and up, and down again. Its serpentine progress reminded him of the tunnels beneath Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh and the Fabulous Beast that slumbered there. Like that site, it was a direct access to the force that bounded everything, but unlike Arthur's Seat this place had-or at least he expected it would have presence; intelligence; whatever it was that the Blue Fire encompassed. The Godhead, he supposed.

  "Giants in the earth, you see," he muttered, disturbed at how his words rattled off the walls with a force that changed their tone.

  During his time with the wise men of the Culture, he had heard talk of the giants-the metaphor giants, not the real ones that existed in times past. The Culture had understood the power of stories for communicating vital, instructive information, and how metaphors imprinted on the subconscious much better than bald facts. And this metaphor was quite transparent to the trained eye: something like men, only greater, stronger, more vital, something to provide awe and wonder, and a little fear too, responsible for great feats of creation, now sleeping beneath the earth.

  How could he explain something so monumental to a man like Veitch, who thought deeply about nothing? Veitch hadn't even grasped the enormity of what was being planned. Crossing over to the land of the dead was not some weekend jaunt; humanity had been barred from it for a reason. And only a higher power could grant access.

  "Thomas the Rhymer." The voice shocked him, and not because it used the name by which he had moved from humanity to legend, now rarely heard. It was American, barely above a whisper and faintly mocking; and it was familiar.

  The empty tunnel ahead filled with a faint, drifting luminescence, like autumn mist caught on a breeze, and when it cleared a figure was leaning against the wall, a bottle of Jack Daniels clutched in one hand.

  "Jim?" For a second, Tom forgot where he was. The face, angelic, thicklipped, framed by a lion's mane of hair, transported him back to the Whiskey on Sunset, when his bored wanderings had begun to show him a little meaning for the first time in centuries.

  "They were good times, right, Scotty? Good times for poets. Peace, love and understanding. Not bread and brutality." Morrison wandered forward shakily, his stoned smile unable to hide that troubling edge to his character. He tried to focus on Tom, but the cannabis laziness of his left eye kept hindering him. It was the charismatic Morrison Tom remembered from their long, rambling discourse about life and the universe and politics, not the one who had died bloated and bearded in a Parisian bathtub.

  The sight was initially disorienting until Tom's razor-sharp mind cut through the shock. "A memory," he said dismissively.

  "More than that, Tommy." He proffered the bottle; Tom waved it away.

  "A memory given shape."

  "You could be on the right road there. The road to excess." He chuckled. "Leads to the palace of wisdom, Tommy. But you still haven't hit that nail on the head." Morrison lurched beside Tom and slipped a friendly arm round his shoulders.

  Morrison's body had substance, and smelled of whiskey, smoke and sweat, just like the real Morrison had.

  "I'm your ..." He drifted for a moment while the drug thoughts played across his face. "Not a guide, exactly. Not a muse. I'm an angel to you, Tommy. Yeah, an angel in leather."

  Glancing at him askance, Tom caught sight of a blue light limning his wild hair, a halo, not golden like the ones the mediaeval Christian artists painted believing it more fitting for a sun king, but its true colour. "You're the voice of the Godhead. A form which my mind can communicate with."

  "Godhead? Yeah, well ... whatever you say, Tommy. But I've gotta tell you, there's some serious shit a little way ahead. Blow your mind, Tommy. Better to turn back now. You sure you don't wanna drink?"

  "I have to go on. I need information ... more than that ... a blessing."

  "It's your head, Tommy. I'll walk with you aways. You remember, you can turn back any time."

  "I need to speak to the giant." There was a potency to the air-the effect of the Blue Fire, Tom knew-that made him almost delirious.

  "No giants here, Tommy. But ... yeah, maybe we can do that. Come on, let's go to the bar."

  There was a subtle shift in the air, as if paper scenery had been torn away in the blink of an eye. Suddenly Tom was standing in the Whiskey a Go Go, breathing in the familiar odours of stale beer and old smoke, thick with the LA streetlife of 1966. Krieger, Densmore and Manzarek were perched on stools at the end of the bar, chatting lazily with Elmer Valentine, the ex-vice cop who coowned the joint. Tom looked around, dazed. The stage was all ready for the first set of the night-at that point in their career, The Doors were the house band, yet to record their first album. "Incredible," he muttered. It was just as he remembered, only more so. How could it have been plucked from his mind when he was seeing detail he was convinced he had never noticed before: the woman with the bright red hair and headband marked out with astrological symbols, the bikers near the stage, like barrels with arms of oak, blue from tattoos.

  "This was the start of things," Morrison said, quietly; his voice rarely rose above a whisper. "For you, for me, for a way of life. The last time of innocence, Tommy. When this innocence died, the last chance of the world went with it. After that, everything was just livin' on borrowed time. There had to be a change."

  Tom nodded. "There did."

  Morrison ordered two shots of Jack. Tom eyed his suspiciously before knocking it back with one swift movement. He didn't know what he expected-a taste like fluffy clouds-but it burned the back of his throat and made him cough. "Real." He held the gla
ss up to the light. "I suppose I should have been prepared. I've wittered on about the impermanence of so-called reality often enough."

  "That's right, Tommy. You wish hard enough, you can live in any world you want. Nothing is fixed. It's like ..." He went druggy-dreamy, his hand floating through the air. ". . . smoke. You see shapes in it. A face. A dog. You look away, look back, see something different."

  "Christ," Tom sighed. "I hope I don't sound like this when I'm off my face."

  "You know, you got all these people whinin' about how the world is a pile of shit," Morrison continued. "Well, it's their own fault. They want it different, they should do something about it. You can't trust your eyes, you can't trust anything, and a big wish can change it all. I ani the Lizard King, Tommy. I can do anything."

  Tom had to drag himself out of the seductive reality that had been presented to make him feel more comfortable. It was easy to slip into it, but wasn't that the point the Morrison thing was making? People settle for the reality shown to them when there could be a better one just a thought away. With an effort, he managed to retreat from his surroundings to gain perspective, and then things did begin to make more sense: he was in a place that allowed direct access to the force that lay behind the Blue Fire and it was communicating with him. He couldn't allow himself to be distracted, or this fake reality to take over.

  "I want to talk about that, Jim." He called the barman for another shot, but this time he sipped it slowly. "All this ..." He gestured widely. ". . . it reminds me of the last true happy time in my life, perhaps the only really happy time, when I thought there were values that mattered all around. There was an alignment between the things I held dear to me and the world without. I was always a hippie," he smiled ruefully, "even when I was a mediaeval spy." His face hardened. "But now ... now there is something worth fighting for. A world to change. That's why I'm here, to appeal for the rules to be ... not broken, bent slightly. For a good cause. For something worth believing in." The illusion that was not an illusion closed in around him again. He eyed Morrison, who was staring into the coloured lights above the stage where the roadies fiddled with the settings on the amps. "You always were a spiritual man, Jim. When you weren't being a drunken oaf and a bastard to women."

  "I was a product of my times, Tommy. Hell, you remember the fifties! But we're all flawed, aren't we? Even the greatest. There are no saints in this world. You just have to make sure the balance tips on the side of the angels, that's all. With our nature, that's the best you can hope. No saints, no heroes, just people who try their best most of the time, and fuck up the rest."

  "And you think you did that?"

  He stared into his shot glass for a long moment, then grinned broadly at Tom, downed the drink and ordered another. "At least I can say I was trying."

  Morrison's voice had taken on such an odd quality Tom was drawn to stare deep into his eyes. He was mesmerised by what he saw: stars, whole galaxies, swirling in their depths. "You're very good at making things real."

  Morrison's smile was oddly serious. "There are no Fixed Lands, Tommy. Everything is spirit, you know that."

  "I suspected it."

  "It's all a matter of perception. You see things a certain way to make you feel comfortable, but there is no space and there is no time." Morrison was altering before his eyes, although it was in such a subtle way-the cadence of his voice, a change of expression-Tom couldn't quite put his finger on it. He fixed Tom with a deep, unwavering stare that had the weight of the universe behind it. "I told you, Tommy. You can wish things the way you want them to be if you know how. Is that predestination?"

  Tom couldn't bear the weight of his gaze, broke it to stare at the optics behind the bar.

  "We are all gods, Tommy."

  Tom's head began to spin. The words were delivered simply, but there was something hidden deep in them that suggested here was the most important message of all. His heart started to pound as he attempted to peel the true meaning from the heart of the comment, but before he could ask any further questions, Morrison held up his hand to silence him. He shook his head slowly; his eyes told Tom there would be no further discussion on that subject.

  Tom was overcome with the drugged atmosphere; his thoughts ebbed and flowed and he was drawn continually to detail in the surroundings, instead of the heaviness that was building up in his thoughts.

  "Tell me," he asked hurriedly, "the gods ... the ones who call themselves gods ... the Tuatha De Danann ... do they speak for you? Are they part of you?"

  Morrison smiled mockingly. "Me?"

  "You know what I mean."

  He thought about this for a while, his eyes glinting in the flashing coloured stage-lights. "The gods reflect aspects of what lies beyond," he began in his whispery voice. "Some reflect it more than others, some better than others. But that light shines through all living creatures, Tommy. Even the smallest is a part of something bigger. It's all linked."

  Once more the grip of the illusion loosened slightly, as if he was caught in the ebb and flow of a supernatural tide. "I'm running out of time, Jim. I can't afford these diversions. You must help me to stay on the path."

  Morrison nodded slowly. "You want help."

  "I need to talk to the giant, Jim. The physical representation of the source. You must take me to it."

  "You know what you're getting into?"

  "I know my mind might not be able to cope with it. It's a risk I'm prepared to take."

  "Yeah? But you know what you're getting into with the big shit back home. You know what I'm getting at?"

  "Yes. I'm aware of it."

  "But do you know?" His eyes went hazy, focusing through the walls of the club, across Sunset and LA, across worlds. "There are things moving out there that haven't been seen in your place for a long, long time, man. It's like when you move a rock and all these spiders come running out. They were born way out, and I mean way out. Right on the edge of the universe, where there's no light. They don't like the light. They're worse than your worst nightmare, man. You can't even dream these things."

  "My friends and I have no choice, Jim." But a chill ran through him nonetheless.

  "Just so you know, though." He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a small blotter with little pictures of Mickey Mouse and offered one to Tom. The Rhymer declined. Morrison swallowed one and washed it down with the Jack. "I wouldn't be doing my job properly if I didn't do the warning thing. These are bad times, Tommy. It's the End of Everything. Some people would be running and hiding-"

  "It may well be the End of Everything-'

  "Don't listen to me, listen to them." He motioned over Tom's shoulder. The Rhymer turned round to see The Doors, the roadies, the barflies had all disappeared. In their place were a mass of people Tom instantly recognised as Celts. Long-haired and dark of eye, some had distinctive sweeping moustaches. Others were prepared for war, their manes matted with a bleaching lime mixture that made it stick out in spikes like latter-day punks. "I called them to announce sadness," Morrison said with a faint smile.

  One of them moved forward. He had a face of unbearable seriousness, framed by long hair, eyes limpid with emotion. Beside him were two women, sisters, skin like porcelain, hair shining black. Tom saw pride in all their faces, and strength. "In the days before days they washed across the land like a giant wave from the cold, black sea." The man's voice appeared from nowhere although his lips were not moving. "We fought, and died, and fought again. And died. Many, many of us driven to the Land of Always Summer."

  "See?" Morrison said, tapping Tom firmly on the chest.

  The Celt shook his head slowly from side to side. It moved jerkily, like an old movie rattling through a worn projector. There was the faintest smile on his face, despite the darkness of his words. Tom watched it curiously until he realised he was seeing defiance and self-belief and righteousness.

  "The hand of bones comes for all," the Celt began. He pointed at Tom. "Fear is right, but fear must not rule. Death means the same to all
, however they might die. But life has value. How you live, with fear at your back. What choices you make. Do you turn your back and live? Or do you face the threat and die? Which has more value? Which has more meaning?"

  Tom looked at Morrison. "You're not very good at presenting an argument." Morrison smiled, unabashed.

  "Know this," the Celt continued, "you know no fear like the fear you will know in times to come. Your death will be the worst death imaginable. But you will not die enfeebled. You will go as you should have lived, with the blood in your head and a song in your heart."

  Tom turned back to the bar and finished his mysteriously full glass. "You're wasting your time. I'm under no illusions. Apart from this one. Remember, I can see the future. Not all of it, granted, but snapshots. Once you have that gift you stop worrying so much about what's to come."

  Morrison made a clicking song in his cheek and raised Tom's eyeline with a finger. On the periphery of Tom's vision, the bar was warping. The row of optics stretched into infinity, the lights above the low stage were running like treacle. The whole of it swelled, then receded as if it were scenery painted on the rubbery skin of a giant balloon.

  "Is everybody in?" Morrison leaned in close to Tom and whispered in his ear, "The ceremony is about to begin."

  Tom turned slowly on his stool, but the bar was already gone. Instead he was standing on a grassy area next to a wooden roundhouse with a turf roof in a night torn by lightning of such ferocity he bowed his head. There were other houses around, half hidden in the unnatural gloom. A cacophony of frightened animal noises filled the air-pigs, sheep, cattle and horses. The boom of thunder sounded like cannon and there was a cruel wind making him stagger from side to side. But there was no rain, not even the slightest hint of it.

  Morrison's eyes were lost to the acid. "You see the future, you say, but you don't see everything."