Jack of Ravens(73)

‘What are you doing here at night? Nobody comes here at night. Nobody comes to any of the old sites any more. They’re all dead and dried up.’ His eyes flashed from side to side anxiously; he appeared on the edge of sanity.

Shavi’s first thought was that the man was a drunk or a drifter, but there was an indefinable quality to him that made Shavi think again. ‘I came because of a dream,’ Shavi said after a second.

The man’s erratic movements ceased and he stared deeply into Shavi’s eyes. ‘You dreamed of the stones?’

‘Every night.’

‘And you came because of dreams? You’re not lying to me, are you, you bloody young idiot?’

‘I am not lying.’

‘Are you one of them?’ His stressed, anxious tics returned in force. ‘You can’t be one of them. They’re gone. Lost. Dead. Don’t exist any more.’ He sat back against the stone, nursing his staff in his lap. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Shavi.’

‘Bloody idiot name. Are you one of them?’

‘I do not know.’ The man began to grow agitated again, so Shavi added hastily, ‘I do know that I am supposed to be here. Something strange has come into my life … a feeling that this is not the way things are meant to be.’

The world is the way anyone with the strongest will makes it. That’s just the way it is.’ The hungry gleam in the man’s eyes told Shavi his instincts were right: somehow the man was connected to the growing mystery.

‘Who are you?’ Shavi asked gently.

A flash of paranoia came and went and then the man said roughly, ‘I’ve got lots of names, but you can call me the Bone Inspector until you know me better.’ When he saw Shavi looking at him quizzically, he snapped, ‘It’s a name and a job description. I guard the ancient sites all across the country … here, Stonehenge, Boskawen-Un, Callanish, all of ’em. Have done for years.’

‘Guard them from what?’

‘None of your business!’ He caught himself, punched the turf. ‘I’m the last in the line of a group that called themselves the Culture. You’d know ’em by another name. They were the keepers of wisdom, passed down from one generation to the next by word of mouth only.’ The Bone Inspector suddenly jumped to his feet. ‘We can’t stay here talking! They’ll be coming for us soon!’

‘Who will?’

‘The ones who rule the world. I’ve been running from them, and hiding … travelling by night, sleeping in ditches. They want me dead because I’m the only one who knows about the stuff that’s been forgotten. Even though they’re dead the old sites still have something … they help me hide from the ones who’re after me.’

‘You are not making a great deal of sense,’ Shavi said quietly.

‘You think I’m crazy, do you? Well, that shows what you know.’ He rapped Shavi’s head with his knuckles. ‘Thick.’

The Bone Inspector grabbed Shavi and tried to haul him away, but Shavi resisted. ‘I cannot go. I was brought here for a reason.’

‘If you stay here, they’ll have you. They don’t allow anyone to get close to the old ways.’

‘If you know what is happening, please tell me.’

Whatever the Bone Inspector saw in Shavi’s eyes calmed him. ‘All right. I reckon you might be one of them after all. And if you are … well, there’s hope.’ He looked around like a cornered animal. ‘I’ll show you, that’s what I’ll do.’

The Bone Inspector bounded away so quickly that Shavi had to scramble to keep up with him. Scraps of the Bone Inspector’s crazed mutterings floated back. ‘Ancient knowledge … secrets encoded in the landscape, so it’ll never be lost. But you need eyes to see … think smart, different from the way you were taught …’

Shavi caught up with the fragmentary commentary at one of the stones. The Bone Inspector patted the megalith a little too enthusiastically. ‘Everything they taught you in school is wrong. There’s a secret history that went on behind the scenes of what most people saw. And it’s all about this.’

‘The standing stones?’

‘No, you idiot. The stones are just markers.’

‘For what?’

‘The power that’s in the land … telluric energy, the Blue Fire – the Pendragon Spirit. Call it what you will.’

‘Ley Lines?’

The Bone Inspector cackled. ‘The New Age idiots were right all along. Isn’t that a punch in the eye? Every sacred site, whether it’s a stone circle, a spring or a cathedral, they’re places where the spirit fire is strongest, where you can tap into it if you know how. And this place was the most powerful of all.’