The Rings of Poseidon

by Mike Crowson

  Chapter 22

  “There's the sign to Boloña. Turn right here," said Alan, glancing at the map again.

  Manjy, who was taking a turn driving, slowed the car and turned right. They had been barely two hours on the road: at first only a country lane through farmland and then the main Cadiz-Algeciras road, level and fairly straight. Latterly there were high hills all around, some with towns or villages clinging to them.

  "I notice there's both a hotel and a filling station at the turn-off." said Gill from the back adding, "Are hotels called 'hostales' in Spanish?"

  "Only the cheaper ones," Alan said cryptically, and went on to explain that the main difference, apart from price, was to do with whether they offered dining facilities. "Full dining and they're 'hoteles'," he said. "Less than full, down to no restaurant at all, and they're 'hostales'."

  The minor road, rather less than two cars wide, wound steadily, but not steeply, up towards a ridge between two rugged mountains. Rocks lay tumbled below high crags, as if shaken loose by some past earthquake.

  At the crest of the ridge they could see a sandy beach stretching golden and empty below them, the vivid blue of the Atlantic and, beyond the sea, the hazy outline of distant mountains.

  "That must be north Africa," said Alan, consulting the map. "Morocco, I think. And the ruins are somewhere to the right, close to the beach."

  Manjy drove quite slowly, though there were few other cars or people and not many buildings either. There were about a dozen vehicles in the car park. The road led alongside the ruins, which were clearly extensive and firmly behind a wire fence. There was a path down to the beach with two or three restaurant-bars. However, the way from the car park was closed to vehicles by a barrier and a sign which read 'Prohibida a Pasar'.

  "Entrance is free. Guided tour each hour," said Alan, translating the sign by the entrance.

  "The next trip is just over quarter of an hour," Manjy said, glancing at her watch.

  "Let's walk down to the beach while we're waiting," said Alan. "I could murder an ice cream," he added.

  "The chain-link fence is just along the front and dividing it from the car park," observed Gill.

  "Yes. It looks like an ordinary three strand wire fence dividing it from the fields further over," Alan agreed.

  "I still want to look as closely as we dare without attracting attention and study the route we'd have to take in the dark. I don't want to break a leg on some unexpected obstacle," said Gill.

  They were all archaeologists and such ruins were interesting in a general sense, as well as being a hiding place for the rings. They could see a number of columns still standing, and the walls of buildings were several feet high. Roads and squares were paved. Clearly this wasn't just a villa: no holes in the ground with a bit of mosaic - it was a whole town.

  There were only three other people in the tour, but the guide didn't seem to mind the smallness of the group and his English was reasonable. He explained that systematic excavations had occurred only recently and that there was still a lot they didn't know. The ruins were of a town called 'Bella Claudia' but probably originally called 'Baella' and, seemingly, entirely built up round the making of a sauce highly prized in Rome. The main ingredient was tuna fish caught here and the sauce itself was made at a factory just outside the walls, which he would show them later. The town had had a Forum (a sort of 'town hall'), three temples, the workshops and homes of various artisans, paved streets and walls. Water had been brought down from a spring on one of the mountains by aqueduct, most of which remained, and a drainage system, which also was largely intact, emptied into the sea. It was all very impressive.

  At 'three temples' Gill pricked up her ears. One temple was to Mercury, one to Vesta and one to Neptune.

  "Let's see," said Manjy, "Vesta was the goddess of hearth and home. Neptune was god of the sea."

  "I imagine he'd have been popular with fishermen," observed Alan.

  "Wait a minute," said Gill. "Wasn't Neptune the same god as Poseidon? Manjy, you're the classics specialist."

  "Neptune is the Roman name for a god the Greeks called Poseidon, yes - effectively they're the same person," said Manjy, "I bet that's the hiding place," she paused for a moment. "And that's a somehow 'stirring' ruin still, with those broad steps up to raised remains. It must have been even more imposing when it was complete.

  "Well, let's finish the tour," said Gill.

  The guide explained that archaeologists had discovered a cemetery on the nearer hillside, about a mile away, and were working there. He seemed to imply that more work should be done on the factory, which he showed them next.

  "You tend to think of a 'factory' as something that didn't exist before the industrial revolution," Alan remarked, "but this was big. It must have occupied more than an acre."

  There were great stone mixing and cooking bowls with a heating system and arrangements for filling containers. The whole thing was vast and must have employed a lot of people. The remains were reasonably well preserved, with the greater part of the walls and most of the pillars supporting the roof remaining, though the roof itself had gone and the level of the sandy soil around had risen over the years.

  "Some of the pillars are Roman style," said the guide, "but some appear to be older. They are Phoenician style."

  Language problems made it impossible for them to be certain whether part of the factory was much older or whether it was just that the styles varied.

  "Perhaps it predated the Romans," said Gill. "They may have just taken it over and extended it."

  After the tour the three of them went for a coffee in the middle one of the three cafes. The choice was arbitrary, there being no way of deciding between them. "I think I'll have something longer and colder," said Alan, and ordered a beer and two coffees. They sat outside, under the shade of a straw veranda and looked at the beach and the sea. It was a quiet and restful scene, the sun was getting hotter and there seemed no hurry to do anything.

  "We may as well eat here and then sleep somewhere," said Gill. "It looks as if we can get into the ruins quite easily after dark."

  "You're going to try the ritual?" asked Frank.

  Gill did not answer directly. "Manjy, have you got that photograph with you?" she asked.

  "In the car."

  "So are the papers relating to the ritual. We'll get them later. If the arrow on the photograph points to a spot in the ruins of the temple of Neptune I'll read through the ritual again with a view to trying it tonight."

  She paused while the waiter brought the drinks and Alan told him they had decided to eat. The man was not much older than them and very friendly. He told them the restaurant was busier at weekends and in July and August, when cities like Seville were too hot for comfort. Right now they were able to order at leisure and have their meal brought to their table quickly.

  "This wall runs east-west," said Gill, "and there are a couple of trees here. If we go round to the north side of the wall there should be some shade. I'll get the papers and the photographs. I want to get my bearings."

  "With the natural or the supernatural?" asked Alan.

  "Both," replied Gill seriously.

  "I'll go to the car for you," said Manjy. "I need the loo, so I've got to wander around and look for one anyway.

  "Round the side of the cafe where we had dinner," said Alan.

  He and Gill flopped down in the shade and Manjy joined them later. The Spanish habit of having a siesta seemed eminently sensible.

  Gill re-read the papers concerning the ritual for the umpteenth time and was at last beginning to understand them. The scientific side of her from this incarnation didn't really accept the ideas, but other, deeper chords from other lives were struck. She began to understand exactly what she must do, though believing it was another matter.

  The first part of the ritual must be done standing, since it involved moving about. There were images to visualise - she wondered whether she would be able to do that sufficiently well. He
r assistants in the ritual would need to visualise as well and she wondered whether they could do it.

  "At least archaeologists spend a lot of their time trying to picture what something or other must have looked like in its original state," she thought. "Maybe that will help."

  The latter part involved crossing into the astral. Since that meant leaving her physical body she would need to lie down.

  "I wonder if I'll be able to project," she thought to herself. "It will be a real let down if I can't!"

  She looked at the papers yet again. "I start with the banishing ritual of the pentagram."

  She reached for her notebook and her biro from her bag to make notes of the sequence.

  "Well that's easy enough, drawing pentagrams in the air. Then I follow the paths as indicated by the ritual, past the guardians as shown on the Tarot cards. That's okay, but this is all early medieval: you'd expect something earlier. Oh well. Then you throw incense appropriate to Binah - what the hell's Binah?....the great all mother; the sea. Aha. Appropriate to Poseidon. Then you lie down and project. To do that I'll wear the talisman as protection in case anything nasty fancies my body while I'm out of it."

  Alan sat up rubbing his eyes and saw Gill reading, but by now she was resolved and ready. "I think it's 'go' for tonight," she said.

  "We may as well enjoy the rest of the day," Alan said, "We won't be able to start work 'till late, because the Spanish keep very late hours."

  "I'm missing Steve," Gill told him. "I fancy a swim and a sunbathe, but I'd much rather be sunbathing with him."

  Manjy woke up and shook herself. "Did you bring your swimming things with you?" Gill asked her.

  "Yes," she said, thinking that a 'nice' girl from her community didn't wander around the beach half dressed. 'Dammit, I'm going to be unconventional for once,' she thought, and all three of them went to get their things from the car.

  There were no changing facilities but the beach was almost empty. So Alan and Gill both risked changing in public. Manjy disappeared into the toilet at the cafe and came out in her swimsuit. Nobody seemed to notice. The water was pleasantly warm and the slope of the beach gentle, but there was no sign of any lifeguard, so they took no risks.

  They towelled themselves dry, rubbed on more sunscreen and lay down to sunbathe a while.

  "I want to walk back a little way on that road and study the lie of the land," said Gill.

  "All right," said Manjy, "Let's all go soon. We have quite a few hours to kill. Do you think we ought to book in at that hotel you saw?"

  "I don't know," answered Gill doubtfully. "We might have trouble sneaking out again to visit the ruins. Then, if we're successful we could be carrying things to which we wouldn't want to draw attention. We don't want anyone asking awkward questions, do we?

  Manjy saw the point. "Yes," she said, "I can see that. Perhaps we should just sleep in the car tonight.

  "It's around six already," said Gill. "If we look over the route into the ruin, then top up the tank at the filling station on the main road and have a meal somewhere it will be nine or later. There won't be a lot of time to do more than have a nap before we go into action."

  They agreed to roughly Gill's plan for the evening.