Ancient Echoes

by Robert Holdstock

  ‘The reptilian brain …’ Brightmore went on. ‘It’s an old expression for the primitive brain, the primal urges.’

  ‘Thank you, Steven.’

  ‘But will you see dinosaurs?’ Brightmore shrugged. ‘Who knows? Depends on your childhood reading. If you do, they’ll be RIRs. From the conscious filtering down. Do you see? From your imaginative experience in films, in books, in museums. What was that boy’s name, Angela?’

  Angela frowned, shaking her head. Brightmore added:

  ‘The one who encountered marine monsters from the Jurassic – in a landscape straight out of the End of the World!’

  ‘Oh … right … Whitlock, I think. Michael Whitlock?’

  ‘Michael Whitlock!’

  Jack was irritated by the feeling of being excluded from this discussion. ‘And he was … what? What was he?’

  ‘He was a boy who accessed his own Hinterland – in a chalk pit, wasn’t it? – and could make imaginary objects real. Or so it was claimed. He had other things wrong with him, but his own private Hinterland was rich with Received Image Representation. RIRs. He was a lad of twelve. You’ve lived and seen more, of course, Jack, but as an adult your imagination is probably far less effective, so it’s likely to be a more narrowly-focused landscape than that particular boy’s. You probably won’t even recognize your ‘real’ life when you see it; that’s one of the purposes of this trip. Bring back an account of the Deep beyond the Hinterland! The only other thing to warn you about: we have no way of knowing how dangerous your experience will be.’

  ‘Dangerous? Dreaming, dangerous?’

  Brightmore controlled a moment’s exasperation. ‘You won’t be dreaming. This is not dreaming, Jack. You must be clear about that before you go. And besides, a shock strong enough to kill doesn’t only have to happen in the waking world. One of the population groups of the Hinterland, we think, are Early-Trauma-Induced Protecting Entities – multiple personalities, as they are commonly known. E-tipes, if you want the acronym! They are permanent because they come from the neo-cortical experience of trauma. Others, such as past lives, visions, myth-imagoes – or mythagos depending on what source you read – are more diffuse, coming from the primal Unconscious. But don’t forget – if they’ve latched onto a landscape in the Hinterland, then they’ll be functioning – and you can interact with them.’

  ‘And Greenface? Greyface? The bull-runners?’

  ‘They don’t fit at all with what we understand. The whole of your shimmering experience is an externalizing of the Memory, Event and Story activity inside your skull, but we can’t know from which zone they have surfaced. Always assuming, of course, that they haven’t lodged in you from outside–’

  ‘Like parasites …’

  ‘Like parasites. Assuming that isn’t the case, then the only way to locate their origin is by questioning them. You have one of those entities outside and one inside. Since I can’t comprehend on any level how an escapee from your preconscious mind can be living in a ghost city, I’d prefer to concentrate on the science and send you inwards. The supernatural I’ll leave to Angela and Ghostbusters.’

  Angela made a derisory sound from across the room. They’re connected, Steve. The potential field inside has everted and inhabits external space. What’s so hard to conceive in that?’

  He said nothing, and Angela added, ‘You’re so uncomfortable with anything that isn’t encased in bone. I’m criticizing you, Steve.’

  ‘I’m aware of it.’

  ‘Inside skull: This good! Outside skull: This not good. Am I right?’

  Ignoring her, Brightmore swung round from the screen, thoughtfully watching Jack. ‘The shimmering on your body … it did actually stink, didn’t it?’

  ‘It did. Of marshes on one occasion, desert on another, woodlands, forest a lot of the time.’

  ‘And a glow, a real glow, real light–’

  ‘And sound,’ Angela reminded him. ‘I could hear distant sound.’

  ‘But nothing recorded, nothing on the video.’

  ‘Not the sound,’ she said. ‘The light, yes. The organic chemicals, yes. But the voices … only perceptible by one or two of us.’

  ‘Only you, actually,’ Jack said with a quick glance at her.

  ‘Only me, of course,’ she responded with a frown.

  Brightmore said: ‘Conclusion: that the presence in the conscious mind of the entities and their baggage of landscape and emotion affects the body’s metabolism. This produces a reflection of the complex carbon chain chemicals in their environment, includes a more obvious visual aura than those many people can already detect, and all this is biologically possible. But the sounds Angela heard – voices, panic, whatever – those were illusory. Either that, or you’re part of the shimmering game as well.

  ‘He does treat it like a game. I can’t deny it,’ Angela said as they lay close together in bed, turning the pages of Jack’s notebook. ‘Christ, your handwriting’s awful. I’d never realized how awful. I can hardly read it.’

  ‘A sign of brilliance, according to my mother.’

  ‘But not of illumination. What does that say, for example?’

  ‘Swamp, Interland, Savima.’

  ‘Oh, right. Steve’s been laying that on you, has he? It’s part of Jandrok’s work. You remember Jandrok?’

  ‘I don’t remember Jandrok. No.’

  ‘He’s the French psychologist who gave me a hard time when I was writing my paper on archaeo-stories. Ten, eleven years ago? You were away on the moors, feeling horny. We’d only just started to do it. You were missing it.’ She nipped his ear and squeezed him affectionately, stroking him gently. ‘Remember now?’

  ‘Please! I’m trying to concentrate.’ He turned pages deliberately. ‘I’m looking for the bit about Dinosaurs. If I’m going to meet T. Rawhead Rex in this Shadowland, I want to be prepared.’

  He had meant it light-heartedly, anticipating a smile, but Angela turned sharply away and picked up her own book.

  ‘I’ve done something wrong?’ he asked carefully, staring at her naked shoulders.

  ‘A little less of the Rex,’ she said angrily. ‘A little more of the …’

  ‘A little more of the …?’

  ‘Shit! Forget it!’

  ‘A little more of the “shit, forget it”?’

  She let her book drop to the floor, exasperated, but stayed turned away from her husband. ‘I’m sorry, Jack. I’m concerned about you, that’s all. I don’t know how dangerous the trip’s going to be. And I don’t like being left alone with Natalie. I don’t like this Glanum place. You see it, you seem to take it for granted. But I can feel it too. It’s like being in an icy, stone alleyway, a cold wind blowing, just stone walls and a feeling of desertion. Steve is probably right. I am a part of it.’

  ‘Then don’t pull away from me. Angie? Please don’t pull away from me.’

  After a moment she turned over, meeting his gaze briefly. Her smile was very thin. ‘Let’s have a look,’ she said tiredly. She tugged the notebook from his hands and turned the pages. For a minute or so she scanned the content.

  ‘You can read it? Despite my coded scrawl?’

  ‘Just about. This is more or less a summary of Jandrok’s structure for the pre-conscious. Swamp, Savima, Windom, Maelstrom and the Deep.’

  The full horror of Brightmore’s seminar came back to him, but he liked Angela’s closeness. She was – of all things – very reassuring, and he needed reassuring. ‘You’re so sexy when you use strange words. Those strange, incomprehensible words. Those strange, dirty, incomprehensible words.’

  ‘Shut up and read.’

  ‘Talk dirty some more,’ he teased.

  ‘Not funny.’

  ‘Go on. Say “Savima”.’

  ‘It’s a fusion of Savannah and Anima, and relates to archetypal landscape. Shut up and read.’

  ‘I don’t want to read. I want to Rawhead.’

  ‘I haven’t the energy.’

  ‘Your body is a fie
ld of potential. Weren’t you aware of that Angela? A field of potential. A veritable meadow of potential.’

  She was amused at last. ‘Oh God. And now you and your dog, and a bottle of pop, and Old Mother Riley, and her cow, all want to mow that meadow?’

  ‘I love that song. God knows why. As English folksongs go, it’s a bit obvious.’

  ‘It’s the adolescent in you. Weren’t you aware of that Jack?’ She tossed the notebook to the floor.

  ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘Let’s Rawhead.’

  She looked up at him, and for a second he thought she seemed confused. But she whispered, ‘No. I don’t want to Rawhead. I want to make love. Let’s keep Jandrok and all the other rawheads for the cerebral side of things.’

  ‘I obey.’

  ‘I’m glad you obey.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re glad I obey …’

  17

  ‘From the earlier tests, you’ll have seen how the level we call the Hinterland is confused, malleable, certainly dreamlike. Although you have some control, there are other factors at work in the shaping of the zone. Mainly, though, the Hinterland will be constructed out of your own idea of crossing-over places, thresholds, if you like: gateways, forest edges, churches, walls and so on. However you visualize the abstract notion of the barrier between conscious and unconscious.

  ‘We’ll send clothing, supplies and survival equipment through with you, but check it carefully; it may not hold its integrity during the transmission. Once at this first level, you’ll have to look for the ways deeper, if that’s where the woman – Greenface – has gone. But it’s likely she’ll have left signs, traces of her presence. Again, from your earlier description, she was watching you from there, from the main Hinterland … or at least, from somewhere similar.’

  There were so many questions to be asked, so much to be explained, so much reassurance needed …

  ‘Will I always arrive in the same Hinterland?’

  ‘Short answer: Yes. Qualification? Hope so. So far, our research suggests that once you’ve hardened the passage inwards, paved the way, if you like, then that will be your base camp whenever you enter the Hinterland. At any time in your life. But remember: it’s confused. It’s malleable. It’s dreamlike.

  ‘From this surface skin of the pre-conscious, there will be hundreds of portals to the deeper zones–’

  ‘And I’ll recognize them … how?’

  ‘I was coming to that. Probably simple paths, or caves, the space between trees; arches of carved stone, doorways, small pools of water, beckoning figures. Think fantasy. There’s nothing new; everything in your head is programmed by the familiarity of mythology, and has been for more than a million years. You might even look for the edge of an overhang or cliff. Abrupt breaks in physical space are often linked with the tunnels. Also, keep watching for shifts in time; and for any broken integrity in the space around you, or the event that’s occurring. One thing we’re beginning to find is that some of the leakage from the conscious mind surfaces in the pre-conscious in discreet form: it might be someone you know, a grove or glade, a cave, maybe an oracle! We might be able to talk to you if you find such an inlet into the Deep.’

  Brightmore was almost on a high as he talked, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he typed notes, thoughts, speaking aloud to Jack, who sat nervously on the couch inside the Midax frame, which would soon be his home for a day or more.

  His lightweight rucksack was open before him, half packed, the clothing in, the pistol and knives wrapped carefully. He looked almost forlornly at the camping supplies, dried high protein foods, sugars, packet soups. He had always enjoyed camping and trekking through Europe’s mountains, but somehow … it didn’t feel right to be eating packet soups in a dream.

  He watched Brightmore at work. He’d had this briefing before, but he was encouraged and reassured by the psychologist’s repeated description of the realm to which his subject would soon be dispatched.

  ‘Won’t I be able to catch fish? Eat the fruit of the Hinterland’s lush orchards?’

  ‘Of course. If they’re there. If you’re successful. I meant to ask you … Have you ever hunted game?’

  ‘No. I don’t like the idea of it.’

  Brightmore laughed. ‘Then pray for a foodstore!’

  ‘How do I get back?’

  ‘We bring you back, or you return on your own. From the Hinterland you can call us easily enough, so just make your way back to the white-stone plaza – the church. I want to suggest to you that you don’t stay in the Midax Deep more than a week as you perceive it. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Brightmore swivelled round from the AppleMac then came over to the Midax frame, checking the glucose drip, the leads, the contacts. ‘You’d better finish packing. You need to memorize everything that’s in the bag. Then say your goodbyes.’

  He was matter of fact, almost curt, more interested in the project than in the subject, or at least, that’s how it appeared to Jack as he slowly filled the Gore-tex rucksack, pressing spare boots and rainproof trousers onto the top, then drawing the strings tight.

  He went to the children’s room and sat with Angela for a few minutes, watching Natalie as she played with Owein, Brightmore’s slightly younger son. The girl was totally in charge as they fitted together the parts of a model magic castle.

  ‘I think I’d have been happier being told I would simply be dreaming. I’m so full of the idea of a long journey it feels like I’m leaving for ever. And for the rest of you it’s only a day.’

  ‘It might be longer for us. We’ll be with you all the time, and let you explore as long as it seems to us that you’re safe. Maybe as much as four, five days.’

  ‘I don’t want to get stuck there for years.’

  ‘You won’t. Nobody yet has entered the Midax state for more than a day; and they all said their subjective experience had lasted less than a week. So it’s goodbye for a month maximum.’

  ‘A month … I’ve only got packet soup for a week!’

  ‘You’ve got survival rations for a month. Assuming they come through. All you need to find is water.’

  ‘Water? Water on the brain! Plenty of that! Ah well, time to go, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ll try and be with you,’ Angela said. ‘This is a first for me too.’

  He hugged Natalie, and kissed her. He tried to look into her eyes, but she was earnestly trying to return to the magic castle, an ordinary child, with an ordinary child’s self-centredness.

  Angela took him back to the Midax frame, then kissed him.

  ‘Bon voyage. Behave yourself!’

  PART FOUR

  Beyond the Hinterland

  18

  I have emerged safely in the Hinterland again, the evening world of red sun and broad shadows, and I have found clear evidence that someone has been here recently, living in the cathedral. It is not exactly the same church: the statues around the great doors are no longer saints and bishops, but hunched human figures with grotesque faces. The doors are the same, but there is now a second entrance to the left, a vast, vertical wooden gateway between the upright forms of animals: lions, chimaeras, horses, and two great bulls, all on their hindlegs, all curiously distorted, with their inner limbs and the bulls’ horns forming the arch above the doors. Across the piazza, other buildings crowd together, white-façaded, marble-pillared.

  Shortly after surfacing, I ran down the steps, away from the church and the Bull Temple, and looked back, my eyes finding difficulty in focusing against the crimson glare of the sun. The red cliffs still rise behind the cathedral, a great curved wall enclosing the ruins and the piazza in a tight embrace. This massive curtain wall of rust-red rock opens towards tall woods, formed of broad-trunked, twisted trees.

  Everywhere I look there are gaps and tunnels, passages and even a valley stretching away from this place of my imagination. This is a more complex Hinterland than before, more enclosed yet more defined. The cliffs above me are not hard-edged rocks but flowing, or
ganic curves, as if the limbs of human giants and the trunks of massive trees have all been petrified and pressed together, slowly rusting.

  Sharp lights glint and gleam among the folds of the cliffs, and in places I can detect traces of carving around the narrow fissures and crevices that suggest portals into the deeper world. But the façade of the rose-red city of Petra has gone, eroded, perhaps, made older, or perhaps obscured by new growth.

  Although I have spoken the contact code aloud, there is no response, no sense of the presence of the outside world, of Angela, keeping her eye on me! For a few minutes in this strange land I’ve felt very lonely, more than a little afraid. But I know there is a routine to be followed. It just doesn’t seem to be–

  Nothing is quite as I–

  It’s so twilight – end of the world. Cold wind from the woods, though. I guess that’s my way out, my way deeper …

  There was a routine to be followed, and despite my confusion, I held on to that mental list as if it were a talisman. Or do I mean touchstone? The routine included entering the church and trying to re-engage with the talking statues, but the sight of those monstrous creatures guarding a second sanctuary – the Bull Temple – has made me apprehensive. It took a while to understand why – the connection with the bull-runners – and I suspect that this is because of some slight ‘jet-lag’ in my memory.

  Despite the ranks of fabled, fabulous and monstrous beasts that guard the gates, the main figures are the bulls, their heads extending out across the steps, curved horns casting long shadows across the piazza. They frighten the spirit in me, and I am avoiding wandering too close to them.

  I began the routine by inspecting what had been brought into existence with me.

  The clothes I’m wearing are intact, corduroys and leather jacket, and the compass and my watch are through as well. But the pistol is now a flare gun and the knives have mutated to vegetable knives, short-bladed and ideal for paring but not, I suspect, for defence. The rainproof pack has mutated from a carefully prepared bag, designed to support a long hunting trip, to the sort of back-pack I might take on holiday to the Mediterranean, full of summer clothes and sandals; there are three pairs of bright blue paisley swimming briefs in place of my rain-proof over-trousers! The packet soups have changed to packs of toffees, and I feel a certain comfort in that. I’m not unduly concerned about most of the items that have changed, since the only items of any true worth are the photographs of Angela and Natalie, taken on that holiday in the Perigord. I’ve brought two, just to be on the safe side. Earlier, I sat for a long time on the stone steps staring at the pictures, trying to imagine Natalie standing by me, holding my hand, touching my face, so physically close to me while here I’m preparing for a journey beyond the cliffs, to a territory that has never been mapped, and only ever glimpsed a few times, images that suggest great danger, great hardship.