Entangled (48 page)

‘So the bottom line,’ Matt summarised an hour later, ‘is there’s this girl Ria twenty-four thousand years ago who’s the only person in the world with the balls to stand up to Sulpa and stop him slaughtering the Neanderthals. This matters to us because if Sulpa gets his way with the Neanderthals he devours their primal goodness and transforms it into evil – which he then uses to complete his jump into the twenty-first century. Our secret weapons are Ria and Leoni. We also have a supernatural ally – the Blue Angel. She’s the same being who’s called “Our Lady of the Forest” here in the Amazon and, as we all know, she has many other forms and identities as well. She’s what the ancients would have called a goddess, I guess, and she’s used her power to entangle Leoni with Ria in some sort of advanced, hard-to-understand quantum manner that potentially gives them the strength to defeat Sulpa. Since Our Lady of the Forest is also the spirit of the Ayahuasca vine it’s not surprising she’s used altered states of consciousness to bring them together. I’d say our task is to make certain Leoni can keep returning to Ria’s time-frame – which means more Ayahuasca – and to protect her physically and spiritually while she’s there.’

Bannerman spoke next: ‘I don’t claim to understand this transpersonal experience we’ve all just had, I don’t understand how past and present can intersect, and I particularly don’t understand how a socalled hallucination can give the same instructions to different people.’ He took a breath: ‘As a scientist I could dig into all this for years – as a matter of fact, I intend to do so – but – whatever’s happening here is extraordinary enough to justify setting the science aside for now.’ He locked eyes with Leoni: ‘Despite the difficult journey you obviously had
last night, the proposal seems to be that you do more Aya sessions while the rest of us provide you with a safe space in which to explore … these experiences … I’m ready to go with that if it’s truly what you want.’ He looked around the room. ‘I think we all are.’

‘It’s absolutely what I want,’ said Leoni. ‘I can’t explain it. How I feel about Ria. But I’m not going to let Sulpa get his hands on her if there’s any way I can prevent it.’

‘My one concern …’ Bannerman hesitated.

‘Yes?’

‘My one concern is the way the Aya hit you last night. I’ve studied the medical literature and generally the brew is safe. But a few individuals have had exceptional reactions. There have been deaths. A handful of people who were already mentally unstable became psychotic …’

‘I don’t believe it’s going to kill me or drive me mad,’ Leoni said, cutting him short. ‘This is the first worthwhile thing I’ve ever done in my life and I’m not going to stop now.’

From the corner of the room where Don Emmanuel lay came a loud groan. The little shaman sat up wrapped in a sheet and gabbled some sentences in Spanish.

Leoni became alert as she recognised her own name, followed by the names Apolinar and Jack.

Strange.

She didn’t remember anybody mentioning Jack to Don Emmanuel.

Little by little Ria’s consciousness returned, as though she had dived deep into a pool of darkness and was now swimming up again – up, up, up towards the light. She could hear sounds of movement around her, shuffling footsteps, a fire crackling, and further off the grunts and bleats of a herd of red deer. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know exactly where she was and she felt no fear when a small leathery hand touched her face and smoothed back her hair. The contact was gentle and compassionate, as though her own long-lost mother had returned to comfort her, and her stomach rumbled at the homely smells of rabbit roasting nearby.

A disturbing memory clamoured for her attention – the golden-haired spirit girl who’d warned her of Sulpa’s vile creature buried in her thigh. Her fingers strayed to the place where Grondin had cut deep with his flensing knife, but the ragged wound he’d made was mostly healed with no swelling and very little pain.

Then everything else came back to her in a rush. The ghastly deaths of Hond and Rill. The show trial. The treachery of Murgh and Grigo. The almost unbelievable massacre of the Clan. Everyone she knew and loved, slaughtered like animals by Sulpa’s demonic army.

Could it be so? Could such a terrible thing really have happened?

Surely it must all prove to be some nightmare? Not the truth.

Surely not the truth.

She opened her eyes to find herself prone on a bed of soft skins. Ancient oaks towered overhead and sweet morning light diffused down to her through their leaves. Merina, the magic woman of the Uglies, was kneeling by her side, gazing at her with sadness: ‘The Clan is no more, Ria. This is something you must accept …’

Ria choked back a howl of anguish: ‘There are survivors. I will find them.’

‘If there are survivors we will help you find them,’ pulsed Merina, ‘and bring them to safety here.’

Ria raised herself on one arm and turned sideways to face the magic woman. ‘Where’s Brindle?’ she asked, fearing the worst. ‘And my two Clansmen – Bont and Ligar? Are they OK? What about Jergat and Oplimar? And Driff, the Illimani kid? They were all injured in the fighting.’

‘All have been given healing,’ Merina reassured her. ‘All are well. They will come to us soon.’ Her brown eyes twinkled: ‘
You
needed much healing, Ria. While you slept. So many wounds on such a small body. But you have fought the evil one! And lived to fight another day! Few can say that.’

‘I did nothing, Merina. It was Grondin turning up with a hundred braves who got us out of there.’

‘You did much! Grondin himself has told me. Brindle has spoken. Oplimar and Jergat, too. You are clever. You have courage in battle and keep a clear head. You are young but others look to you to lead them. Spirits chose you to fight the evil one – that’s what Brindle’s father said.’

‘I don’t believe I’ve been chosen by anybody.’

‘I was told to give the five throwing stones to you and you alone, Ria of the Clan. You
have
been chosen! This also you must accept.’

‘The stones are gone.’ For some reason Ria felt guilty as she admitted it, but she refused to hang her head. ‘All five of them.’

Merina smiled: ‘Don’t grieve their loss. I’ve heard how well you used them. Besides’ – an image of the blue woman appeared in Ria’s mind – ‘Our Lady of the Forest has other gifts for you. You must eat the Little Teachers tonight.’

The hundred braves who had rescued Ria and her companions from the massacre were from the Uglies’ outlying camps. Grondin had found them on the south side of the Snake, already on the march towards Secret Place. While the braves had fought the Illimani and escaped on the river, their females, children and elderly had completed the journey overland. The result was the population of the Ugly hideaway had more than doubled since Ria had last seen it two days before. But the floor of the vast Cave of Visions easily accommodated every member of the enlarged community.

Ria sat with Bont, Ligar, Driff, Jergat and Oplimar in places of honour next to Brindle and Grondin. As Merina had promised, all had received
the healing magic of the Uglies and even the more severe injuries were mending well. Ligar, crippled by a spear thrust deep into the muscle of his buttock, was on his feet again and could even run. Brindle, knocked out in a dead coma by an axe blow to the head, was wide awake, animated and excited. Ria’s aching rib no longer troubled her. Her other wounds, including the laceration of her thigh muscle where Grondin had cut out Sulpa’s creature, had closed and healed and seemed to have been inflicted months before, not yesterday.

Despite all her sorrow Ria was happy to be reunited with Brindle and she too felt energised when she should have been paying the price of days of beatings and accumulated exhaustion. ‘Healing channels the Life Force,’ Brindle explained. ‘Of course it wakes you up.’

After yesterday’s fight against the Illimani, the events of the escape, and the miraculous healings they had witnessed and benefited from, Bont and Ligar were changed men. Everything they had ever been told or believed about the Uglies had been proved wrong, they admitted to Ria, and they found themselves not amongst cruel, stupid savages as they had feared but amongst kind-hearted and intelligent human creatures who had saved their lives and brought them to refuge here in this hidden place. When Ria asked the two Clansmen to join in tonight’s vision quest they agreed, accepting her promise they would not come to harm from eating the mushrooms the Uglies called the Little Teachers.

Driff sat close to Ria, glowing like the others from the healing process. She knew Grondin and Brindle had both thought-talked with him, but so far she hadn’t been able to do the same. Since he’d saved her from certain death she was more open to the idea of forgiving him for being an Illimani but she still wasn’t sure she liked him at all. He was good-looking, fast on his feet, strong and well put together, and yesterday he’d fought …

(like a demon).

But he still had a long way to go before she could start thinking of him as a friend.

Soon Ria could feel the Little Teachers beginning to take effect.

She breathed in deep. She was ready for this.

A wave of giddiness struck her but she forced herself to her feet and found her way to the same patch of the rock wall, bone white and glistening, that had attracted her attention three nights earlier. Once again
she stood before it and brought her eyes close to its shimmering reflections. Then the dizziness surged back. She crumpled in a heap to the floor and felt herself leave her body and pass through the rock into the tunnel of water and sky that lay beyond. She surrendered to the current and allowed it to sweep her out of the night of the cave and into the bright daylight of the spirit world with its familiar twin suns.

Ria had expected she would arrive again in the meadow of green flowers, but this time, although she was provided with the same body wearing the same strange clothing as before, the tunnel brought her out at a different location – high up on a hillside overlooking a broad valley. In the valley floor sat a camp like none she had ever imagined. A thousand times larger than the Clan’s camp, it consisted of countless towering structures of wood and stone arranged in a perfect circle and surrounded by a vast stockade.

Standing with her head turned in profile a few paces lower down the hillside was the spirit woman with deep blue skin whom the Uglies called Our Lady of the Forest. She was awesomely beautiful and dressed in wondrous garments that shimmered and changed colour with any slight movement she made. Her voice was rich and strong: ‘I can help you defeat Sulpa. He is my enemy as well as yours.’

‘You’re a spirit,’ said Ria as she reached her side, positioning herself a little higher up the slope so their eyes were at the same level. ‘You look like a powerful one. Why don’t you just defeat him yourself?’

‘I cannot defeat him in your world.’

‘I heard that. My friend Brindle told me, but I didn’t believe him.’

‘Nevertheless, it is true …’

‘I should have known! The Uglies never lie about anything …’ Ria paused and thought back. ‘Brindle said Sulpa is a demon.’

‘Amongst the very worst of demonkind.’

‘And that you had him chained up for a long time, but he escaped?’

‘He fled into a human body where he is beyond our power. In that body, if he is not stopped, he will destroy your world.’

‘I’m going to stop him.’

‘I have confidence in that. It’s why I chose you … and one other to fight alongside you. She is the first of three gifts I bring you today.’

Out of nowhere the blue woman had conjured a peculiar square wooden frame, about two spans on each side, with what looked like a sheet of glistening water stretched tightly across it.

‘Look here,’ she said. She held the frame up for inspection.

At first Ria saw nothing, was not even sure what she was expected to see, until slowly, in the shining surface, the face of the golden-haired girl began to appear.

‘I know her,’ she whispered. She craned her neck to peek behind the frame. ‘She saved my life. Is she a spirit? Like you?’

‘She is human. Like you. Her name is Leoni. She too fights Sulpa.’

‘Then why do I only see her in dreams and visions?’

‘Because she is not yet born.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘She lives a thousand generations in the future …’