Jack of Ravens(74)

Shavi glanced at the row of stones disappearing into the gloom. Avebury was such a big megalithic complex that it encompassed the whole of the modern village: rings of stones, two processional avenues snaking out on either side. The books he’d read in recent days told him that archaeologists considered it just part of a vast site that had once stretched for miles, taking in nearby Silbury Hill and scores of other smaller prehistoric remnants.

‘They call it a dracontium,’ the Bone Inspector said, ‘a dragon temple, because the two avenues make a snake in the landscape with the temple at the heart. Dragons … serpents – that’s just another way of describing the power that runs through the land, and through us, too. There was a time when this whole world was the Kingdom of the Serpent. Now …’ He shook his head. ‘You want to see how bad it’s got?’

He loped across the clipped grass like a wolf until he reached another stone. ‘This one’s called the Devil’s Chair,’ he said. ‘Everything is a secret. You have to look past the surface, find the key that unlocks hidden doors. They’re everywhere if you know how to look.’

‘Doors to where?’

‘Here, there and everywhere. We run round this three times widdershins. That’ll raise whatever sparks of energy are left in the ground. That’s the key, you see. The key to everything.’ His eyes were wild and white in the dark. Too long hiding and running from whomever he thought was pursuing him had taken its toll. He grabbed Shavi. ‘Once we’ve done that, you follow me. And don’t fall back, all right?’

The Bone Inspector ran anticlockwise around the stone. Shavi followed, unsure whether he was making a fool of himself. After the third circuit, the Bone Inspector spun off towards a steep embankment. He led Shavi down the other side, across a road, through a gate and two rows of concrete pillars that marked the site of stones long since uprooted.

‘West Kennet Avenue. Not long now,’ the Bone Inspector said breathlessly.

A change had come over the atmosphere: it was electric, and Shavi could feel his fingers and toes tingling. The ground rumbled, and to his astonishment he saw the turf rising ahead of him to reveal a gaping hole.

‘Underground we go,’ the Bone Inspector chanted.

They scrambled along a loam-stinking tunnel for fifteen minutes until it widened into a space whose boundaries were lost to the dark. A thin, flickering blue light emanated from faint deposits on the floor.

The Bone Inspector suddenly thrust an arm across Shavi’s chest, halting his headlong rush. As Shavi’s eyes adjusted to the half-light, he saw he was standing on the edge of a sharp drop.

‘Not so long ago that would have been filled with a lake of Blue Fire.’ A hint of awe laced the Bone Inspector’s voice; he sounded saner and more measured now he was underground. ‘It was magnificent. You felt as if you were a god just standing at the edge.’

‘Where has it gone?’

‘Where’s it gone? Where’s it gone?’ The Bone Inspector rubbed feverish fingers through his lank hair. ‘If I knew that, I’d know everything. It was dormant before, when men thought science could solve all their problems. It looked as if it was coming back for good, but then …’ He gripped his skull as if he was trying to crush it. ‘Why can’t I remember? What’s wrong with my head?’

‘We must stay calm,’ Shavi said comfortingly.

‘Calm? The Blue Fire is the lifeblood of everything! If it’s gone, what do you think that means? We’re all dead men walking around, only we don’t know it. There’s only a residue at the old sites – the scum left behind after it went down the drain.’ The Bone Inspector grabbed Shavi’s shirt and hauled him so close that Shavi could smell the old man’s foul breath again. ‘If you really are one of the Five, then you’ve got to find it. That’s your job. Bring back the power in the land. Set us all free!’

Once Shavi had calmed the Bone Inspector, he encouraged him to explain what he meant by ‘the Five’. Soon Shavi had heard about the champions of Existence who came together to protect the land, bound as one by the Pendragon Spirit.

‘Five. Always five. That’s the magic number,’ the Bone Inspector said. ‘When one lot does what’s required of them, they sail off into the sunset until the next crisis, when Existence calls another Five.’

Shavi didn’t know whether to believe the Bone Inspector’s story. From anyone else it would have sounded ludicrous, but coming from him, in that place, it rang true somehow. ‘If I am one of them,’ Shavi began, ‘who are the others?’