Always Forever (18 page)

Veitch followed until they were both sitting on the damp stone flags, backs
against the rough rock walls, the stars scattered overhead.

"In times past you wouldn't have seen the night sky." Tom's voice echoed
oddly against the stones. "There would have been a roof over us. Probably torn down by some stupid farmer to make his field boundaries. That brief journey
through the tunnel into here is one of those symbols I spoke about earlier."

"The new language?" Veitch thought for a second. "The true language."

"It was a mark of distinction, between the real world without and the Otherworld here, a shadowy place where the outside rules didn't hold. It was supposed to symbolise death, too, and birth, or rebirth. Here, we are reborn into a
new world of mystery and magic." He took out the tin in which he kept his
hash. "Here we are stoned, inznzaculate. "

"I know that one," Veitch said. "The Doors."

Tom slowly rolled a joint, crumbling a portion of hash into the tobacco.
"Then you had better prepare yourself for weird scenes inside the goldmine."

"A mate of mine used to smoke all the time. Off his face, morning, noon
and night. Didn't mind the odd one myself, like, just to chill, but I couldn't do
it like he could."

"Then he was a very stupid person. Would you buy a missile launcher and
go out taking potshots? These drugs are sacramental. Those who use them for
hedonism are like stupid children stealing the church wine."

"What do you mean?"

"Crowley had it right." Tom looked up from his task, saw the blank look on
Veitch's face. "Aleister Crowley. A self-styled magician a few decades back. He
was actually quite good, though I'd never have told the arrogant bastard to his
face. I spent a weekend with him at Boleskin House, his place here on the shores
of Loch Ness. He summoned up what he thought was the god Pan. I think it
was Cernunnos playing games with him, but I digress. Crowley had no time for
people who used drugs like a few pints down the local, because he knew the
power of them; their capacity for touching the sacred. Throughout history
ancient cultures have used psychoactive substances for breaking the barrier
between the real world and the invisible world. That's why I use them, and why
Shavi used them."

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
cairn, 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-"