Paul woke slowly, his mind groggily separating itself from his dreams.
He’d been with Julie and the kids, the four of them together.
They’d been somewhere, already the details were retreating into some inaccessible corner of his mind but he knew they’d been happy, laughing, walking along, enjoying each others company.
Expecting to see Julie’s long, auburn hair spread on the pillow next to his he rolled over and opened his eyes to the sight of dusty hay and an unpleasant, prickling sensation on his cheek. He blinked, disorientated for a moment, until it all came flooding back in a rush of memories.
‘Oh God!’ he groaned.
It must have been late afternoon, judging by the mellow sunlight filtering through the roof-tiles and here he was in an old barn, somewhere in France, hunted not only by the police but by a particularly sinister bunch of mind-reading aliens, and in the company of an ancient, neanderthal crone!
Why couldn’t he just have stayed with Julie?
They could have worked out their differences.
God, he realized, all it would have taken was a little more flexibility on his par, and then, instead of being here, he could be safely in bed, looking forward to a good mug of tea and chat with Julie, propped up on clean pillows, maybe a fry-up for breakfast and an afternoon cheering Chris on in a school football match.
Paul heaved himself slowly up to a sitting position, the thought of a fried breakfast, 3 slices of bacon, an egg sunny-side up, fried bread and maybe a tomato, set his stomach growling in anticipation.
Jesus, he was hungry. And thirsty. His mouth was parched and his tongue and teeth felt rancid and furry.
He picked random strands of dried grass from his hair and clothing before making his way stiffly down the rickety ladder to the barn floor below. The Magur was nowhere to be seen.
His eyes scanned around the clutter of discarded objects, catching sight of a battered, enamel saucepan hung from a nail in the wall. The enamel was badly chipped in places, rusty metal showing through but it would hold water.
He remembered from that morning that the barn was sited in a valley, maybe there was a stream in the trees beyond and so the hope of a cup of tea was not a total impossibility.
Paul squeezed past the barn doors cautiously. Outside the weak winter’s sunlight bathed the field and surrounding trees in an ambient, golden light.
He could hear birds chirruping in the branches overhead and the distant hum of a tractor engine somewhere over the hill.
It was hard to believe, surrounded by this tranquil scene, that those ominous Agents were out there somewhere, hunting for him.
Paul picked his way past moss covered boulders, parting the creepers that hung from ash and hazel saplings till he heard the telltale, gentle gurgle of moving water.
It wasn’t much of a stream, more of a trickle of brackish, leaf-filled water winding its way between the rocks and tree roots of the valley floor but he followed it down, until, just beyond a large boulder he found a small pool, big enough to fill his saucepan.
Paul splashed water over his face and neck, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
It was ice cold and refreshing. He dabbed ineffectually at his face with his mohair jumper in an attempt to dry himself, looking down at the swirling sediment in the pool. If he’d been a boy scout he’d probably have known to fill the pan before stirring the water up, but it was too late now, he thought, dipping it into the cloudy pool and heading back to the barn, holding it delicately in front of himself.
As he came out of the trees, amongst the tattered brambles and small splaying elders, Paul’s eye was caught by the bright orange shine of berries, standing out starkly against the mottled greens and browns behind.
Still balancing the saucepan of water, he approached to take a closer look.
Rose hips!
Weren’t they one of the ingredients in Julie’s herbal tea mixes?
Come to think of it, he was sure he’d heard they were a good source of vitamin C. Maybe you could even eat them, he thought hopefully.
He began plucking them off their thorny stems, the spikes hooking into the mohair of his jumper as he dropped the rose hips into the pan. Well, it might not be quite PG tips but it was the best he was going to manage now.
When there were two dozen or so bobbing around in the water, Paul figured he had enough and set off back towards the barn.
As soon as he entered, he saw the Magur, squatting peaceful yet alert in the shadows as if she had never moved. He thought of asking her where she’d been but decided instead to stick to practical matters where he had a chance of getting an answer he’d understand,
‘Could I borrow ... ‘ he hesitated, not sure what to call it, ‘your fire?’ adding a ‘please’ as an afterthought.
The Magur silently untied her leather pouch and from it withdrew the clay pot which she held out to him.
Paul cautiously opened the lid, not sure exactly what he was expecting to find.
Inside, nestled in a bed of grey ashes, lay a nugget of what looked like coal, not much bigger than a walnut.
Paul gently blew on it, watching an orange glow spread around its contours. He searched in his pockets for something to light, his hand withdrawing the crumpled street map of Paris.
The memories of that panic-stricken flight across the city rushed back to him. It seemed like an age ago, a memory from another lifetime but how long had it really been?
Two days?
Just two days!
Well, he couldn’t see that he’d be needing the map again, he thought, tearing a fine strip from its edge, dangling it carefully over the glowing ember and blowing, until a delicate finger of flame climbed up the paper.
Dropping it on the dusty, cobbled floor at his feet, Paul quickly added a handful of hay.
He hastily gathered twigs and splinters of wood until he’d built a tiny pyramid, the flames greedily licking upwards, crackling and popping as the fire gained strength.
Before long Paul had a satisfying blaze going, on which he perched the saucepan, propped between a couple of heavier logs.
While waiting for the water to boil, he wandered aimlessly around the barn. He lifted up and examined some rotten horse harness, the leather brittle and cracked, hair padding bursting from its seams.
There was an ancient plough and some kind of machine that could have served for chopping straw or maybe slicing root vegetables, he wasn’t sure but there was nothing that could be of any conceivable use to him, he thought, until in the far corner, leaning against a dusty crate of empty bottles, Paul spotted a pair of wellies.
He gingerly picked them up, peering past the dusty cobwebs inside them and then shook them upside down. A flurry of debris fell out; dried grass, strands of sheep's wool, shredded cardboard and thin plastic.
It smelt rank and wild, probably some kind of rodents nest, he concluded.
Still, they appeared to be serviceable, without any evident holes or rips and would undoubtedly be more suitable than his sodden, black brogues.
Paul tried them on, a little large perhaps but they’d definitely do. He smiled as he imagined the mystification of the owner finding the wellies replaced by a pair of office shoes. Mind you, from the look of this place, no-one had been in here in fifty years.
It felt kind of sad, Paul thought, as he placed his brogues neatly against the wall. His shoes, though admittedly a lot worse for wear, were the last little bit of his old identity, the Paul Sutherland he was just three days ago and leaving them behind felt like he was symbolically abandoning the very last vestiges of who he was.
Paul carefully stoked the fire under the saucepan, dipping his finger in hopefully to check the temperature.
Still only tepid, he sighed, continuing to nose aimlessly around.
The wellies were a bit clumpy but dry feet were worth sacrificing for. Besides, his fashion sense couldn’t really get much worse whatever he put on his feet.
Paul was investigating an ancient circular saw, idly
spinning the pulley and watching the huge rusty blade turn on its axle when his eye caught sight of something that could be more than just a little useful.
An upright, black bicycle!
It had some old hessian sacking draped over it which Paul excitedly pulled off, imagining how a bike could help eat the miles of their journey away.
He checked the tyres first, they were both flat but there was a pump neatly clipped onto the frame. Paul lifted the bicycle out and set it upside down in the middle of the floor. It was solidly built, weighing probably twice as much as a modern bike and had no gears. Still, it had to be better than walking.
Paul tried turning the pedals but the chain stuck, the rivets of the links seized with rust.
Refusing to be disheartened he collected a jar of used, tractor engine oil from a dirt encrusted barrel by the door and dripped it on to the chain, working at the links one by one to free them.
Forgetting all about both his hunger and his need for a cup of tea, Paul busied himself with the bicycle till he had it up and running. The inner tubes even appeared to be holding their pressure.
A column of steam rising from the saucepan on the fire caught his eye and he hurried over to pick it up, gently blowing on it till it was cool enough to sip.
Apart from a vaguely metallic flavor it tasted of nothing more than hot water but he drank it down anyway, picking out the plump rose hips from the gritty sediment left at the bottom.
He popped one in his mouth and bit into it, only to spit it out immediately. He might be hungry but it would take more than one day without food before he’d try that again.
All this time the Magur had been squatting motionless in the doorway gazing out silently at the countryside. Now she turned her attention to Paul saying,
‘Do you still wish to know how it is to be Magur?’
Paul had completely forgotten the question having been absorbed in practicalities since waking and took a moment to reply.
‘Yeah, I guess I do ...’
‘Come then and let us prepare to leave, as in showing you, once again we will make our location visible to the Invaders.’
Paul did as he was asked, treading the last embers of the fire out and wheeling the bicycle outside.
Was it OK to take it, he wondered uneasily, or was it stealing?
He hesitated for a moment as the moral dilemma passed through his mind. It would be very useful - and whoever owned it certainly hadn't used it for a long time but did that justify him taking it?
Paul chewed his lip in indecision, finally resolving that saving the world might be a reasonable excuse, though how it would stand up in court he didn’t know.
He closed the barn doors, replacing the chain as he’d found it early this morning, the setting sun a red globe in the western sky.
It was strange to be always traveling at night, he mused. He missed the light and warmth of the daytime, all he’d seen of today was it’s sunrise and sunset. All the same, he knew it would be foolish to show his face in the villages they passed through, when there were people about who might recognize him from the news flashes.
As soon as Paul had the handlebars in his grasp, the Magur approached him, her thin arm extended from beneath her furs, her index finger reaching out to his forehead.
As it made contact, Paul’s consciousness was engulfed in a brilliant, white, electrical flash. His mind reeled back, his eyes blinking hard until his vision cleared.
Even though he hadn't moved from the spot, everything he saw was suddenly profoundly different.
His gaze swept around the wooded fringes of the field and over the grassy hillside, realizing as he did so that he wasn’t so much seeing as perceiving the countryside, responding to an energetic aliveness so intense that everything he looked at appeared to be consciously looking back at him.
His gaze focused in on the Magur still standing expectantly in front of him.
Where before he’d noticed the calm wisdom of her eyes, the deep folds and wrinkles of her skin, now her entire face appeared to have come to life as if every cell was emitting energy, vibrating and pulsating colored lights outwards around herself. In fact, the space surrounding her appeared to be buzzing with a golden light. It wasn’t just the Magur but everything seemed to extend beyond its physical boundaries into the air all around it.
Reality appeared to have lost its hard definitions, each thing energetically blurring into the next.
He stared fascinated, feeling as if he could read so much more, communicate and take in so much more deeply the essence of who she was, by watching the flow and swirl of energy emanating from her, than he ever could have done before. It wasn’t just his sight, Paul realized, but all his senses; smell, touch and sound had all enlarged their range of perception from anything he’d ever known before.
‘Come we must leave,’ she said, interrupting his rapt amazement. Paul swung his leg over the crossbar and pushed down hard on the pedal and the ancient bicycle rolled, bouncing on the rough ground down the track skirting the bottom of the field.
Paul turned his attention to himself as he pedaled gently along the valley under the overhanging branches of the woods.
He felt more alive than he ever had before, more deeply aware of his body, his feet steadily pedaling, his arms balancing his weight. He could feel the pulses of electricity passing through him as his brain communicated directly to his muscles, nerves and organs. From the crown of his head, past his throat and down his spine, he perceived energy zapping up and down, firing triggers and impulses of information at the speed of light. The whole effect was literally mind-blowing. In fact, Paul realized, his mind felt incredible, at once totally aware, yet at the same time infinitely spacious and free of the clutter of random anxieties, judgements or memories that normally occupied it.
‘So is this what it’s like to be you?’ Paul said out loud.
The Magur laughed,
‘Yes, though of course for me it is not a novelty, it just is ... You are now as close as you can get to experiencing a restored genetic program, the twelve strands of your DNA reactivated and re-connected to your twelve centers of perception.’
Yes, Paul thought, that was it!
His entire body was now conscious and busily in communication with itself and everything around it. It was as if his awareness had escaped the confines of his brain and was now issuing from every cell in his body. There was a pure joy in this feeling that went beyond anything he’d ever even dreamed of. Without his mind busy labeling and analyzing his experience, he was free to simply be in the present moment.
Paul smiled, then grinned and chuckled. Just being alive here and now was so perfect, at once so simple and yet so profound, that all he could do was laugh at the wonder and magnificence of it.
Paul looked round for the Magur but she appeared to have vanished.
‘We shall speak telepathically,’ came her voice in Paul’s mind. ‘In that way I do not have to exert the effort of manifestation.’
And Paul knew as he heard her words, that there was no question of challenging their validity. Of course ESP was possible, right here, right now, he was doing it!
The track followed the edge of the woods in the valley bottom, keeping roughly parallel to the stream until it came to a crossroads with a narrow tarmaced lane. Following the Magur’s instructions, he turned left past a scattering of stone houses and barns and then right onto a main road which led towards a village.
Several cars passed him but Paul kept his head down, face concealed from view. They turned off the road past a derelict railway station, its wooden shutters and gables cracking and grey with age and neglect and onto a wide, grassy track behind, that must at one time have been the railway line.
‘They will have difficulty finding your trail now,’ the Magur said, as Paul found himself steadily pedaling into thick woodland, steep tree crowded embankments rising up on either side.
Carried in on the breeze Paul could hear the ominous whup, whup, whup of helicopter
blades approaching in the evening sky. The Magur had been right to get them away so quickly he thought, staggered at the speed with which the Agents were able to track him.
He was fairly sure that concealed down here by the network of tangled branches, in the gloom of the settling dusk they had little chance of spotting him and by the time the Agents followed his trail, he would have put miles between himself and the stone barn.
Nevertheless, a buzz of adrenaline shot through his body and he pushed down hard on the pedals, picking his pace up .
Paul cycled determinedly along, as the gloom of the dusk settled more deeply, the yellow moon eventually rising on his left.
Looking up he noticed something strange occurring in the branches of the trees around him. They seemed to be flashing short, sharp blasts of green and purple light, which streaked directly towards him and then withdrew so rapidly he couldn’t be sure if he hadn't just imagined them. But the more he watched, the more certain he became.
Not only that, but it seemed as if once they’d noticed his presence, more colored pulses were streaking down the track, passing the information on to the trees ahead.
It was indisputable to Paul in that moment that not only were the trees surrounding him alive and conscious but they were communicating with each other.
There was something so awe-inspiring about these tall, motionless beings, their consciousness so incomprehensibly different to his own.
‘Wow!’ Paul breathed, as the flashes of light rained down on him.
How could he have lived 40 years around trees and never had an inkling that they were conscious, thinking beings, he thought, gazing at the tangled branches, the gnarled and twisted trunks with a new trembling respect.
Imagine if everyone could have this experience, it would radically change the way humanity related to the forests of the Earth, he thought.
The track passed under an arched stone bridge and Paul pedaled through the deep blackness and back out into the dappled, silvery moonlight beyond. Suddenly aware of another presence, Paul saw perched on a long bough overhanging his path, a pair of large, yellow eyes staring with a piercing intensity down at him. Paul stared back, mesmerized, wondering what kind of creature it was and instantly, without him knowing how it happened, his consciousness seemed to shoot out of himself and he found himself staring down at a man on a bicycle in the moonlight below.
His beak opened, emitting a wild shriek into the night.
His vision was razor sharp, picking out every sodden leaf and blade of grass below in minute detail. Paul felt the power of his wings as they unfolded and spread, launching him into the air, adjusting his wing tips fractionally as the ground shot up to meet him.
And just as suddenly, he was back in his body, on his bicycle, wobbling from side to side erratically, the owl still visible through the tree trunks, swooping gracefully away into the night.
Wow!
That was amazing!
The Magur's voice sounded clearly in his mind,
‘You see how easy it is to merge your consciousness.’
‘Wow!’ Paul repeated inarticulately, overwhelmed by his borrowed shamanic abilities.
‘So could I do that again?’ Paul wondered.
‘Tonight you can,’ came the reply, ‘with your twelve strands of DNA and your chakras spinning you are free to explore the multiple avenues of existence.’
‘So what about tomorrow and the next day?’
‘That is what I am here to teach you,’ she replied. ‘Your genetic connections need time to reforge but by practicing maintaining a quiet mind, a clear intent and an open heart you will make rapid progress.’
It sounded to Paul like some kind of Buddhism but still, it would be worth the effort of practice to have that kind of power.
It was truly amazing, Paul thought, so amazing that words couldn’t really encompass it. There was so much more to nature and to himself than he could have believed was possible and the potential of exploring the multiple life-forms of Earth was a truly exciting concept.
Could he do it with people too? Jump into their minds?
He answered his own question. Of course, wasn’t that how the Magur could so effortlessly read his thoughts.
Paul’s feet mechanically turned the pedals and he moved on through the night, the trees abruptly ending as the railway track emerged into open land, undulating fields bordered by crumbling stone walls, gently rising on either side of him. A pair of deer stood frozen on the track ahead of him, their heads motionless, ears pricked up alert and watching.
Paul focused clearly and sent out a message,
‘It’s OK. I won’t harm you ... I’m just passing by.’
The deer stared back as he steadily approached, before picking their way leisurely off the track onto the verge, their heads swiveling and eyes riveted to Paul as his bicycle creaked past them, on down the track.
Paul restrained the whoop of glee he felt welling up in his chest.
He could do it!
He could talk to animals and not only that, they could understand him!
He looked up into the sky, struck suddenly by the brilliance of the stars above him. They looked like he had never seen them before, the band of the milky way, a million pinpoints of light arching over his head.
Keeping his hands firmly balanced on the handlebars, he tilted back his neck to better appreciate their staggering beauty and complexity, noticing that rather than being random, the stars were arranged in three dimensional clusters, connected by invisible geometrical pathways to each other.
Paul was struck suddenly by a realization that went deep into his core, that there was a meaning and profound purpose in the patterns of the stars. He couldn’t clearly define why or how he knew this but knew he was seeing the expanse of the glittering galaxy strung out above him from a level of awareness that by-passed his rational, thinking mind.
He thought briefly of how he’d scoffed at Julie’s interest in astrology but was it in fact him who’d been wrong, closed to the possibilities that his logical, conditioned mind couldn’t understand?
There was so much more to the Universe than he’d ever considered.
It was so incredible, so perfect in its mysterious, incomprehensible harmony that all you could do was be grateful to have the privilege to be a part of it.
In that moment, Paul saw himself more clearly than he’d ever done before.
Here he was, a man wearing an assortment of clothes and oversized wellies riding an antique bicycle through the night. But none of that mattered, he realized, what you looked like, what you wore, or what your job was. All that really held any meaning was the quality of your consciousness, how you used that spark of awareness that made you alive.
He thought of his relationship with Julie and the kids and a flicker of pain passed through him, as he saw himself for who he’d been, a selfish, narrow minded, controlling and judgmental man.
Who was he to ridicule and belittle Julie’s attempts to broaden her understanding of life? And why couldn’t he just let Tara be who she needed to be, without forcing her into living his missed opportunities?
All Chris ever wanted was a dad to spend some time with, when all he got was lame excuses. From the 4x4 club to DIY jobs and overtime, everything was always more important, and Chris was left to grow more disillusioned in his father every day.
In fact, Paul realized, those empty promises he made were the same ones his dad had made to him, as he breezed off to the pub leaving Paul crestfallen in the hallway.
It was all so obvious, Paul thought, the trimmings might be different but inside he was nothing more than a carbon copy of his own father.
And moving to London? What was all that about?
It was nothing more than a self-centered, pathetic attempt at re-finding his youth, at the rest of the family’s expense.
The epiphany rocked him and he vowed in that moment that if he came through this adventure alive, he’d be a new man, honest and unconditional. There
was an excitement inside him as he imagined his potential, the husband and father he could be.
As the night wore on, the dew settled in tiny droplets on Paul’s hair and the stars pulsed their unknowable wisdom from across the Universe down all around him and still Paul cycled determinedly onwards.
He could feel the experience the Magur had given him retreating as he noticed his habitual thoughts creeping back into his mind, clouding his previous clarity, but nevertheless, after the events of this night, he felt more open to the wonder and magnificence of the world he lived in than ever before in his life. It was an experience that would change his beliefs about reality for ever.
He hesitated to use the word, up until now never really having grasped what it meant but what he’d seen tonight was a spiritual revelation in its truest sense.
Human life would be revolutionized, he realized, if everyone could really see the depth and expansiveness of the natural world that was hidden there all the time.
There was no doubt about it, the Invaders had a lot to answer for in severing the human race from themselves and the rest of the planet.
The story was no longer an abstract tale from the depths of history but something that was affecting him and everyone else every moment of their lives.
If the crystal really had the potential to free the Earth from the Invaders and reopen this awareness to everyone, then he truly had, as the Magur had said, the most important mission in human history. Paul knew inside himself that the Magur had clinched her deal tonight.
Whereas before he had been going along with the Magur’s plans, as much by default as anything else, now he had a clear, definite motivation to get the crystal to wherever the hell Alesia was.
Human life seemed so worthless, so irrelevant in its obsessions with money and progress and power when there was a world of true wonder, of oneness and connection with all of life just waiting to be discovered, that was of so much more value.
The long night wore on, but Paul, immersed in the profundity of his own thoughts didn’t seem to notice the miles slipping by. It wasn’t till the pale light of another dawn brought a dusky color to the landscape around him that he became aware of quite how hungry he was. His stomach felt a tight, gripping ache that was almost painful in its intensity.
Yesterday, before meeting Jurgis and Petras, he’d felt hungrier than he’d ever been before, but now, as he pedaled wearily forward, Paul realized it had been nothing.
Somehow, somewhere, he’d have to find a decent meal and somewhere to sleep if he wasn’t going to pass out with exhaustion long before the morning of the 21st ever arrived.
Sleeping by day and traveling by night, Paul found he’d become confused, losing track of the time or the date. He tried to re-count the days since that fateful evening when Elodie had plunged him into this unreal adventure, thrusting the crystal into his unwitting hands.
That had been the 15th, he’d gone to Paris on the 16th, ending up that night at the Punk’s farm. So ... Paul tried to remember, so much seemed to have happened in so little time. He’d slept the best part of the day away on the 17th, walked all night and slept again in the deserted barn on the 18th, so that would make this morning the 19th, he reasoned.
The sun was throwing its first dazzling rays over the horizon, lighting up a beautiful frosty morning, ice crystals sparkling magically on the grass on either side of the track, his tyres crunching a thin coating of ice on the puddles he rode through. He was certainly having luck with the weather, he thought, if it had carried on raining like it had that first night, he’d probably be dying of pneumonia by now.
With Crousti’s heavy flying jacket zipped tightly around him, he knew he didn’t have to worry too much about the cold. As he approached a high, stone bridge, the Magur’s voice, absent for the last few hours suddenly spoke into Paul’s mind.
‘It’s time to stop, here’s your breakfast ticket.’
Paul squeezed his brakes and came to a halt, looking to each side, seeing no-one and nothing but trees and fields.
‘Where?’ he asked.
‘Down below,’ she replied.
Paul dismounted and looked over the bridge. He could see below him a handful of old trucks and a couple of brightly painted coaches parked up in a rough circle on a patch of graveled wasteland bordering the road.
Paul wondered if it was perhaps a circus or some kind of traveling show but on closer inspection the vehicles seemed just too scruffy. There was a Bedford lorry, with a horse box body into which the owner had added mismatched windows and a door with a panel of stained glass.
Opposite, across the blackened fire was another smaller flatbed truck with a tiny, romany red caravan hitched at an odd angle to its tow ball, so its back end was close to touching the gravel. Celtic knot work patterns were neatly painted across the back in yellow and green, and a thin column of smoke had just started to rise into the still, morning air from its chimney.
The coach parked directly below him caught his eye. It was painted a shiny, dark green with thin, yellow lines highlighting the curves of its bodywork. Half of its windows were paneled in with pine boards, the ones remaining draped in colorful Indian-looking curtains.
A woman in her thirties with a mop of tangled dreadlocks tied up over her head in a scarf and a heavy, black coat clumped out of the bus and busied herself poking broken bits of pallet between two smoldering logs. Paul looked on, wondering if he dared approach and ask for some food.
They must be travelers, Paul concluded, remembering pictures of New Age Travelers he’d seen years back in the early 90s, a collection of anarchists and drug-dealers if he remembered rightly, not the type of people he would normally want anything to do with.
But that was before, Paul thought, and if he’d learnt anything since arriving in France, it was that his judgements about people could be startlingly wrong. As Paul debated with himself how to approach and what to say, two skinny, mongrel dogs pushed out of the open coach door.
They sniffed around, raising their hind legs to urinate in turn on the coach wheels, before one of them, sensing his presence, looked up to the bridge and let out a series of short, staccato barks.
Well that clinched it, Paul thought, as the woman too looked up and saw him peering down from behind the stone parapet of the bridge. He’d risk it and hope they were friendly. The Magur hadn’t been wrong yet in her choices.
Paul lifted the bicycle frame onto his shoulder and with difficulty slid and scrambled down the steep embankment to the vehicles below. The dogs ran to meet him, barking excitedly and wagging their tails and Paul wheeled his bike past them towards the fire.
As he got closer, he saw the caravan had a cardboard and black marker pen sign gaffer taped under its window, “HAND SIGNALS ONLY” and Yes! the vehicles had British plates. Well that would certainly make things easier being able to communicate in his own language, but even so, English or not, approaching a total stranger and asking for a free breakfast was not something Paul felt overly confident about.
The woman put a heavy, black, cast-iron kettle on the fire and straightened up to stand calmly watching him approach, hands on hips, a neutral expression on her face that was neither friendly nor hostile.
As Paul got to within speaking distance he said,
‘Hi, erm, I don’t mean to bother you but I was wondering if ... erm ... ‘ he knew he was sounding ridiculous but somehow he just didn’t know how to spit it out and say what he wanted. It would have been a damn sight easier if he had some money or something to offer in exchange ...
A man about Paul’s age poked his head out of the bus doorway to listen. He was wearing an old, tweed flat cap perched on his shoulder-length, black hair and an unlit, hand rolled cigarette dangled from his lip as he warily eyed Paul up and down.
Paul tried to carry on, feeling more self-conscious every second,
‘It’s just that I’ve had a long journey and nothing to eat or drink so ...’
The woman cut his pathetic monologu
e off, as smiling for the first time she said,
‘You trying to blag a cuppa or wot?’
Paul grinned back with relief, feeling suddenly unsteady on his feet, his head starting to spin,
‘Yes, p ... please, he stuttered.
‘Well, why didncha say so then? Take a pew, kettles on.’
Paul lowered the bicycle and let himself sink onto the ground, breathing deeply till the faintness seemed to have passed.
‘Come far have yer?’ she asked conversationally, continuing to pull loose boards of wood from the pile of broken pallets beside her. She had a pleasant cockney accent that could have come from anywhere in the south-east of England.
‘Ummm yeah, I guess I have,’ Paul answered evasively, aware that he’d have to come up with some kind of a story to explain his exhausted appearance at their doorstep so early in the morning, with nothing but a vintage bicycle.
The man meanwhile, had slipped his feet into a pair of unlaced para boots and came to join them at the fire.
‘I’m Rusty,’ he said nodding at Paul.
‘Kosmic Kate,’ the woman added, looking up at him.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Paul replied, ‘I’m Paul,’ realizing as he spoke that he should have given a false name but in his present state of hunger and exhaustion he’d forgotten to be cautious.
He wondered if he should offer his hand to shake but decided not to.
‘You ‘aven’t come all the way from Blighty on that ol push bike ave yer?’ Kate asked, glancing up at him again.
‘No, I’ve hitched a bit and walked ... ‘ Paul replied and Kate nodded, seeming to accept his answer.
‘So, going to Alesia are yer?’ Rusty asked, pulling a burning splinter of wood from the fire to light his fag.
Paul’s heart skipped a beat.
How could they possibly know about Alesia, he thought frantically?
Could this be a trap?
What should he say?
He realized his mouth was hanging open and abruptly shut it as Rusty continued.
‘There’s thousands of us on the move, the filth’ll have no chance blocking this like they did at the Henge. It’s gonna be the biggest fuckin' festival in history man!’
Something in Paul’s mind clicked. Could this be the “party” that Crousti and Toxico had seen advertised on the internet?
‘Do you mean the technival?’ he asked uncertainly.
‘Naw man, we’re going to the End of Time Crystal Healing Festival. Alesia’s at the centre of the biggest ley-line convergence in Europe.’
‘We’re gonna meditate in the New Age,’ Kate told him.
Paul’s mind reeled, a “crystal” healing! Could it be a coincidence?
And at Alesia too of all the places?
It was uncanny, but, he supposed if there were other people headed to the same spot as him, it could definitely give him some cover. But even more than that, he realized, with lots of minds focusing on crystals and Alesia, the Agents mind-reading thing would be useless, giving him the chance he needed to slip through their net.
Somehow events seemed to have turned very much in Paul’s favor.
The kettle had started to boil, a thin plume of steam erupting from its spout into the cold, morning air and Kate disappeared into the bus leaving just Rusty and Paul sitting opposite each other around the fire.
Lowering his voice, Rusty leaned forwards and fixed Paul with a sharp look,
‘Ere mate. Not on the run are yer?’
‘No, of course not,’ Paul blustered.
How could he know, he thought frantically? Was it that obvious?
Rusty smiled knowingly but said nothing and Kate re-emerged with a teapot and a collection of chipped mugs, milk and sugar.
Paul ladled several spoonfuls into his tea, sipping the piping hot, sweet fluid gratefully, as another couple joined them at the fire.
Dreadlocks, a weeks growth of stubble and rags seemed to be the fashion and Paul smiled wryly realizing he didn’t actually look too much out of place as he was introduced to Denzel and Big Suze. They looked him over suspiciously from his oversized, green wellies to his grubby fur-lined jacket, firing a barrage of questions at him,
‘Who are you then?
‘You ain’t a traveller are ya?
‘Where you going? And where d’you come from?’
Paul did his best to reply, though his answers if anything seemed to deepen their mistrust of him. Rusty stepped in, changing the subject,
‘So what the fuck was that roadblock about last night?’ Rusty asked, passing Denzel a cup of tea, ‘fucking mental these French pigs!’
‘Why, what happened?’ Paul asked, feeling instinctively that it somehow concerned him.
‘Well, they pulled us over, a whole load of ‘em,’ Denzel started, happy to re-count the tale, until his eyes fell on Paul and he changed his mind, stopping in mid-sentence. Rusty carried on where Denzel had left off.
‘They ‘ad dogs, guns, you name it, but were they bothered about the vehicles MOT’s or insurance?’ he asked. ‘Were they fuck! They didn’t even look!’
Big Suze interrupted,
‘Yeah, they found my blim tin and a jar of dried shrooms, I thought we were well in the shit. They just left it! But d’you know what they took?’ she asked incredulously, ‘my dowsing pendulum and that lump of rose quartz that Mad Maggie gave me!’
Paul wasn’t surprised but kept his mouth shut. He knew he could explain the strange actions of the police and although a part of him would have loved to share his story, he knew it would be foolish and his best plan was to say as little as possible.
‘You know what it is,’ said Kate, ‘Babylon’s scared of our power. We’re bringing in the Age of Aquarius and they know it. It’s the same reason we couldn’t get near Stonehenge or Avebury.’
Denzel chuckled,
‘You ain’t called Kosmic Kate for nothing!’
Paul finished his tea and Kate poured him another cup. Crazy as she might sound, she had half the story figured out, Paul thought to himself.
The conversation moved on.
‘Well they’ve got no chance of blocking this party,’ repeated Rusty. ‘There’s loads of people piling up from Spain and I heard there’s a couple of sound systems coming from Prague. We’re gonna be unstoppable.
‘Yeah, if we can go more than ten miles without breaking down. We’ve lost half the convoy since the ferry,’ Denzel added, ‘and it’s took us three days to get this far ... what with the TK losing power on every hill and your dodgy alternator.’
They drank more tea as the winter sun rose higher and more of the travelers emerged from their vehicles. They all reacted to Paul with the same suspicion, seeing straight away that, despite his scruffy appearance, he wasn’t one of them.
‘Sure he ain't a journo or undercover?’ demanded a heavily built bloke with thick, blond dreadlocks snaking down his back but for some reason Paul couldn’t quite fathom, Rusty seemed to have taken a liking to him.
‘Na, leave the fella alone Welshy, he’s all right he is.’
Welshy grudgingly backed off, ignoring Paul much as the others had done.
Paul was happy just to sit by the fire letting their conversation wash over him.
Big Suze brought a frying pan out to the fire and started cooking pancakes and Paul got his nerve up to ask another favor,
‘Is there any chance I could get a lift with you to the festival?’ he asked Rusty.
‘Yeah, don’t see why not,’ he replied adding, ‘you can chuck your bike on the flatbed, right Denzel?’
Denzel shrugged his acceptance. Paul couldn’t believe his luck.
Concealed in amongst a convoy of travelers he’d be a lot harder to find and if they were going to Alesia, well, maybe it wasn’t going to be as hard as he’d thought.
There was still the question of moving into the Magur’s dimension when he got there, but, well, he’d just have to take things one step at a time and worry about it when he
got there.
Paul accepted a pancake gratefully; hot, sweet fried banana oozing out of each end as he bit into it.
Rusty meanwhile had fetched a tattered map of France from the coach dash and he opened it up on the gravel, head bent in concentration.
‘So how far is it to Alesia?’ Paul asked.
‘We’re about here ... ‘ said Rusty, pointing to a stretch of yellow road marked D73 and Alesia's somewhere round here,’ he pointed at another spot maybe 30 or 40 miles to the east. ‘Thing is, they’re not announcing the site till late on the 20th ... s’the only way they can make sure the old bill don’t shut it down before we get there. There’s a temporary site some place called St Germaine, however you pronounce that, a whole load of us are meeting there. So if we can make it there today, then we’re all ready to pull on soon as the real site’s announced.’
‘Time to tat down, rev up and fuck off,’ Denzel announced and the group broke up, everyone attending to their own vehicles, collecting and tidying their possessions away.
Rusty had unbolted the front grille of the coach and had his head and arms deep inside over the engine.
‘Pass us the 1/2 inch spanner would ya mate?’ he said as Paul wandered over to look.
Paul rummaged through the grimy tool box at his feet and passed the spanner to Rusty’s oily hand.
‘Ta. Alternator was playing up last night. We had no fucking electrics, no headlights, nothing for the last hour.’
With Paul’s help holding a crow bar as a lever, Rusty retightened the pulley bolts and straightening up, he said confidentially, checking that no-one else was within earshot, ‘Listen mate, I’ve had a bit of trouble with the law in my time, used to do a bit of direct action, know what I mean?’ Paul waited apprehensively, not sure where he was leading.
‘Well, I know you’re wanted. Saw your face in the paper last week,’ he tapped his nose, ‘I’ve got a good memory for a face, however good the disguise.’
Paul kept silent, neither admitting or denying it and after a tense pause, Rusty continued,
‘I think I’d know a terrorist when I met one and you ain't the type. I dunno what you’ve done and if you don’t wanna tell me that’s you’re business right, but, all I’m saying is, you wanna come along with us, we won’t say a word.’
Paul felt he really should say something, he just didn’t know what.
‘Thanks ... You don’t know how much I appreciate it. It’s just a bit of a long story and well, I don’t think you’d believe me even if I did tell you.’
Paul wheeled his bicycle over to Denzel’s flatbed, relieved that Rusty hadn’t pushed for an explanation and busied himself lashing it on with a length of frayed polypropylene rope.
Soon the vehicles were ready to move, the fire had been doused with water from a plastic butt and the charred remains chucked in the ditch.
The Bedford horse box fired up with a blast of black smoke from the exhaust and maneuvered till it was nose to nose with the coach.
They connected both batteries with a pair of jump leads and with a wheezy rattle the coach engine was running.
‘Come on mate, ‘op in,’ shouted Rusty from the drivers seat and Paul climbed in, stepping over a collection of coats, hats and wellies, a spade, bow saw and axe on hooks above them. Paul made his way back and sat on a low sofa facing an old fashioned, cream colored cooking range, behind the driver’s seat.
The vehicles pulled out onto the road, the TK horse box in front, then Rusty’s coach and the rest of the motley convoy of aging trucks, vans and caravans following behind. Paul made himself comfortable and took a good look around.
It was amazingly cosy and well designed, every bit of wall space that wasn’t a window taken up with shelves, where jars of rice, beans, lentils and tiny pots of herbs and spices held in by wooden laths, rattled and chinked together as the bus swayed on the road.
Next to the range, Paul could see demijohns of different colored home-brews quietly bubbling through their airlocks and at the back, a bed as wide as the coach could just be seen behind heavy embroidered curtains.
Paul relaxed into the comfort of the sofa. It might only have been midday but for Paul it was well past his bedtime.
After a few minutes Kate came to join him, offering him the butt end of a joint.
‘So, you into the Mayan prophecies then?’ she asked.
‘Er, no,’ Paul admitted, feeling a bit ignorant, ‘but I have heard of them.’
‘Well, the Mayans made a calendar way back and predicted tomorrow to be the last day of this era. It’s well exciting.’ Kate leaned towards him, obviously on one of her favorite subjects. ‘It all ties in with astrology, you know, the end of Pisces and start of Aquarius. But the Mayans had everything predicted, global warming and the crazy weather, earthquakes, hurricanes and shit like that, it’s all coming true man!’
‘Armageddon?’ Paul questioned.
Kate opened the range door, throwing her roach into the fire box and turned back to him,
‘It might sound crazy and everything but they reckon realities are gonna, like split, and the New Age will happen in, a parallel reality or something.’
Paul thought about her statement a moment. Yes, it did sound pretty crazy but not quite as crazy as it would have sounded last week. Paul smiled to himself as he listened to her talk, amused that he could now be so open-minded to her off the wall theories. He’d changed more than he knew in the last few days.
‘Pluto’s moved into Capricorn,’ Kate rambled stonedly on, ‘which is going to bring on the collapse of all structures based on lies and deceit. That’s the Catholic church and the world bank out for a start! It’s happening man! We’re living in a historic moment.’
The bus slowed down to a stop and they both looked up.
The TK at the head of their convoy had pulled onto the verge, hazard lights flashing.
Rusty sighed,
‘Not a fucking ‘gain,’ and they all climbed out to see what the trouble was.
Welsh Dave had lifted the flap on the side of the cab up and was fiddling with the lift pump on the engine block.
He turned as they arrived,
‘Sorry man! Still keeps losing power on the uphills, engines just cutting out,’ he said despondently.
‘Must be crud in the tank,’ Rusty volunteered.
‘Yeah, or air in the fuel-line.’
They stood clustered around the TK, waving the occasional car past as Welsh Dave cracked the injectors open one by one. Paul looked nervously up and down the road, feeling uncomfortably vulnerable, standing around in broad daylight.
Just how long would it be before a passing gendarme turned up and then what would he do?
It didn’t seem as if they were having any luck with the truck as Dave repeatedly tried to turn the engine over, without success. A memory from maybe ten years ago came to Paul’s mind. He’d gone for a weeks off-roading on the green lanes of Derbyshire when he’d got his first Landrover . He’d punctured the diesel tank on a rock whilst fording a stream and they’d had to by-pass the tank and fuel-line to get going again.
‘What about putting it on syphon feed?’ he suggested, trying to remember how it’d been done.
Everyone turned to look at him as he continued,
‘We would just need a jerry can and a couple of meters of fuel-line.'
‘Hey, not a bad idea mate,’ said Denzel, smiling at Paul for the first time, ‘there was a garage a couple of miles back the way. I’ll blat back and see if they’ve got a bit. Coming?’ he asked Paul, who although pleased to be asked, hesitated, unwilling to risk contact with anyone who might have seen the recent headlines.
Rusty stepped quickly in,
‘You’re all right mate. You stay with Kate and the coach,’ he said, giving him a wink, ‘I’ll go.’
They unhitched the caravan and roared off in the little flatbed leaving the rest of the group milling around on the roadside smoking roll-ups and chatting.
The weather
was getting colder Paul noticed and a bank of ominous looking cloud was amassing on the eastern horizon.
Twenty minutes later Denzel and Rusty were back with a length of plastic pipe. Jubilee clipping one end to the injector pump inlet and dangling the other into a jerry can of diesel on the truck cab floor they soon had the engine running and were ready to move again,
‘More useful than you look ain’t ya?’ Rusty joked as the convoy rolled forward.
Paul settled back on the sofa, feeling pleased with himself for being able to help. It must be early afternoon, he thought yawning and his lack of sleep was catching up with him. The convoy rolled along, passing picturesque, stone villages where the few people out and about stopped and stared at their motley procession of ancient vehicles. Paul slouched down lower on the sofa not wanting to risk being seen and pretty soon found his head lolling and his eyelids dropping closed.
He was jolted awake from his doze by a loud exclamation from the front of the coach,
‘Fuckin’ bollox!’
Paul's eyelids flew open and looking forward he saw a column of steam rising up and obscuring the view out of the windscreen.
Christ! Paul thought sleepily. Not again! How long could it take to cover 30 miles.
The convoy again inched off the road, one wheel on the verge, precariously close to the ditch and everyone got out. The weather was definitely changing for the worse, and the cloud bank that before had been in the distance was now overhead obscuring the sun, and there was a smell in the air that foretold the arrival of snow.
Once the front grille was unbolted the problem was obvious. The fan-belt, brittle and cracked with age, had finally snapped.
‘Where the fuck are we gonna get another belt?’ Rusty asked, holding up the frayed length of rubber.
‘I’ve got a spare but it ain’t gonna be long enough,’ said Jools.
‘Got anything we could bodge one out of?’ Denzel asked, scratching his mop of hair.
No-one answered as they all thought, a chill wind rising up around them, rubbing the bare tree branches overhead together, until Paul’s sleepy mind had another brain wave.
‘Would a bicycle inner tube be any good?’ he asked.
Rusty’s face lit up,
‘Good one mate. S’gotta be worth a go. We’ve only got 15 odd miles to go to St Germaine and there’s gotta be someone on site who can help.’
Climbing up on the flatbed, Paul un-roped his bike and unbolted the front wheel from the forks.
‘Wish all hitchhikers were as useful as you mate,’ Rusty joked as they levered off the tyre from the rim and pulled out the inner tube. Squeezing it over the water pump, alternator and cam pulleys, Rusty knotted the tube as tightly as he could and cut off the ends. They refilled the radiator from their water butt and turned the ignition key.
It looked dodgy, Paul thought peering in, the knot on the inner tube causing the belt to wobble erratically as it raced over the pulleys but maybe it would get them as far as they needed to go.
Once back on the road, Kate presented Paul with a sandwich of curried lentil burgers slapped between two wedges of whole-meal bread.
‘Reckon you’ve earnt yourself some dinner,’ she said grinning.
Paul ate gratefully.
As soon as the food hit his stomach, he was overwhelmed with a wave of tiredness that weighted his eyelids, slumping down into the softness of the cushions, Paul sank into sleep.
Paul awoke suddenly in darkness, the only light a cosy glow glinting out from the air hole in the range door.
Someone had taken his wellies off and draped a patchwork, wool blanket over him. Jesus! He must have been really deep asleep. There was no telling what time it was, Paul thought groggily, wishing for the twentieth time that his watch wasn’t broken.
From outside he could hear a violin being played, the occasional voice raised in a call or a laugh and over and behind it all, a reverberating, deep, reggae bass-line seemed to hold all the sounds together. With so much going on outside, maybe it wasn’t that late after all.
Paul lay for a moment in the warmth and comfort letting himself wake up, listening to the jumble of sounds washing over each other, blending and clashing at the same time.
There was something so beautiful and simple about this cosy bus parked up on a cold night, about the traveler's whole lifestyle, that it reminded Paul of the feelings of youth, before career choices and mortgage worries had drowned his sense of freedom.
His bladder was bursting and one thing he knew Rusty and Kate didn’t have was a toilet. He’d have to go outside.
He sat up slowly, pulled back the curtain and looked out of the window. They were parked in a huge, tarmac car park, next to a low industrial building. Beyond it, Paul could see a town rising steeply up to a floodlit, stone church perched on the top of the hill, the houses haphazardly clustered on the slopes below it, their tiled roofs set at crazy angles as they spilled in a series of terraces downwards to the flat land around.
It was a beautiful sight, Paul thought, organic and medieval, the floodlights picking out the graceful yet mighty buttresses that surrounded the main body of the church.
But what really took Paul’s breath away was the foreground, as on every side of Rusty’s coach was a sea of buses, trucks, car roofs and canvas awnings stretching across the car-park in a random, chaotic sprawl, a couple of double-deckers poking out above it all. He could see groups of people gathered around small fires and smoke drifting up to the oppressive low clouds above.
Paul pushed his feet into his wellies and stumbled to the door. The night was cold, colder than it had been yet, cutting through his thin, mohair jumper and almost painful in his nostrils as he breathed in. Paul picked his way through the chaos of vehicles, past humming generators and the occasional growling dog, making his way through the maze to the edge of the car-park.
Once his bladder was emptied, he hurried back through the site, past a fire where a blond woman in a top hat was furiously playing an irish jig on a fiddle, accompanied by a couple of bodhrans. Further on, another group were pounding african djembes, whooping and laughing as the rhythms built up in speed and complexity.
No one spoke or paid any attention to him as he strode through the hubbub of the site, keen to get back to Rusty and Kate’s coach at the far end of the car-park. Once inside, Paul slid the heavy door closed on its rollers.
The dogs raised their heads from the floor as he stepped over them, thumping their tails up and down lazily a couple of times before again falling asleep.
It was luxuriously warm in the coach and Paul settled himself under the blanket with a sigh of satisfaction.
Somehow, whether through blind luck or the help of unseen forces, Paul didn’t know, but the last leg of his journey across France had panned out better than he could have imagined. The fact that the Magur remained absent, Paul reasoned, was a good sign, meaning that he must be on the right track.
Well, whatever happened next, this time tomorrow, for better of worse, Paul thought, his adventure would be very nearly over.
Listening to the sounds of the night, safe in the warmth and comfort of the coach, Paul again slipped into sleep.
Paul was awakened by a hand roughly shaking his shoulder.
His eyes opened and Rusty’s gaunt, stubbly face swam into focus.
‘Wake up mate! We’ve got trouble!’
Paul sat up, instantly alert. Looking out of the window he saw the cold, grey light of dawn laying over the sleeping site and a thin flurry of snow was falling from low, heavy clouds, starting to settle on the roofs and windscreens of the surrounding vehicles.
Parked along the road on two sides of the site, Paul could just see a line of blue gendarmerie cars and minibuses, protective steel mesh covering their windows, their blue flashing lights reflecting off the low cloud above. Piling out of the police vehicles and efficiently spreading into an orderly line surrounding the site, were dozens of armed, black clad riot police.
With
their visored helmets, batons and perspex shields, they looked like they meant business.
‘Might be time to make yourself scarce,’ Rusty said, as Paul heard the shrill blast of a whistle followed by orders shouted in the cold morning air.
Paul didn’t need telling twice. In a moment he’d jammed his feet into his wellies and grabbed his flying jacket.
‘Thanks for everything. Hope to see you at Alesia,’ Paul babbled as Rusty wrenched the coach door open.
Adrenaline pumping through his body and realizing that every second counted, Paul flung himself out of the door, hearing Rusty’s,
‘Good luck mate!’ as he set off, running as fast as he could away from the police cordon towards the industrial unit, his only remaining escape route.
Paul ran hard across the car-park to the far side of the site, passing travelers who were emerging from their vehicles, oblivious of the falling snow, all eyes anxiously turned towards the spreading, black line. He reached the industrial unit and skidded round the corner, sprinting past a couple of steel skips and piles of stacked pallets to take a flying leap at the wire mesh fence. His fingers gripped the cold wire and in a couple of seconds he’d flung himself over to land on the snow covered grass of a large garden. But as Paul picked himself up and prepared to run he heard another piercing whistle blast. He looked over his shoulder, praying he hadn’t been spotted and saw maybe 60 or 70 meters away, a gendarme with his arm outstretched towards him, shouting in rapid french
‘Allez-y!
‘La-bas!
‘Allez-y!’
Immediately a group of black-clad riot police broke from the line, sprinting from the roadside toward him. The gendarme jumped into his car and sped forward down the road obviously hoping to cut Paul off from in front.
‘Shit!’ Paul cursed, increasing his speed, intent only on getting as far away as possible from his pursuers. He could see a prestigious house at the end of the garden, just visible through the bare branches of a tree-lined avenue. Paul realized his best bet was to keep away from the road and he altered his course, racing diagonally across the lawn for a low stone wall bordering the neighboring garden.
He scrambled over it, his breath coming hard and fast in the freezing air and decided to risk a glance back. Several of the police had scaled the wire mesh fence already and were running hard across the garden directly towards him.
The falling snow didn’t help and even if he could find somewhere to hide, his footprints would be child's play to follow.
As Paul's feet pounded across the next garden, the sound of his pumping blood loud in his ears, he tried frantically to think of some kind of plan.
Heading towards the town would be suicidal, he realized, as the police would soon have the roads cut off but going the other direction towards the open countryside didn’t seem to offer much more hope.
The second garden was bordered by a higher wall with a steep drop on the other side down to a stream choked with brambles and elder bushes. Paul scrambled over the wall, the cracks between the stones providing easy foot and hand holds and jumped down into the soft earth. He leapt the stream, landing badly with one foot in the water and pulled himself up, his fingers clawing at the icy mud on the opposite bank.
Making a rapid decision, Paul dropped back down into the water and splashed his way upstream. At least in the water he’d be obscured from view and leave no trail to follow.
The stream was shallow, the water-level staying just below the top of his wellies as it flowed languidly over a bed of flat-stones and he made good progress. He brushed the undergrowth that bent over the stream away from his face as he waded along, searching the banks for a hiding place.
Suddenly a familiar voice sounded in Paul’s mind.
‘Paul,’ it said, ‘remember you must focus. Remember what you have learnt.’
About time you turned up, Paul thought, splashing his way onwards. 'What do you mean by focus anyway?’ he asked.
‘Reality is fluid. Embrace that knowledge and let your molecules align with the natural world.’
Just ahead, an ancient walnut tree spread across the stream and grabbing onto the rough bark of an overhanging branch, Paul swung himself up to stand, his back pressed against its trunk.
‘They are only human police,’ came the Magur’s voice, ‘you have the power to beat them.’
Paul, realizing that despite his instinct to keep running the Magur's advice was worth taking, concentrated on calming his racing heartbeat and trying to find that connection with nature that had been so strong the night of his bicycle journey.
‘Remember, you, the tree you are holding, the stones beneath your feet, are all just atoms in vibration.’
Paul willed himself to focus, feeling a deep calm rising from within him as he did so. He directed his mind towards the tree, asking fervently.
‘Please help me ... I need to access you.’
As the verbal request passed through his mind, Paul felt that strange shift in energy take place and instead of being a scared, hunted man flattened against the trunk of a walnut tree he felt his identity start to fade and then vanish. He was no longer Paul Sutherland, accountant, father, he wasn’t even necessarily a human but instead, if he could define it, he would have said that he was a point of consciousness, without either form or identity.
Three, black clad men were now splashing toward him. As they drew nearer he could see their faces beneath their helmets, their eyes intensely scanning the banks on either side. They carried automatic rifles loosely in their arms and as their soaked, gortex trousers splashed past, Paul could hear the staccato crackle of voices from the closed circuit radios strapped to their belts.
Yet despite their proximity he felt no fear, just a clear, composed awareness as their eyes slid over his figure in the shadows against the walnut trunk and passed onwards.
Paul, watching their backs disappearing into the undergrowth surrounding the stream, murmured a word of thanks and as he did so he felt his sense of identity slide silently back into place.
He’d done it! Somehow he had succeeded in merging with the tree but now was not the moment to sit back and congratulate himself, he thought. The first hurdle might be over with the police search now concentrating further upstream, but he still had to get himself away from the town, without being seen and back to the obscurity of the woods and fields. Could he just stay here, hidden all day, he wondered, till their search had moved on. No, he’d freeze, his only choice was to keep moving.
Paul lowered himself into the water, wiping away the snow that had settled on his eyebrows and lashes and preparing to backtrack, when he stopped, his ears picking out an ominously familiar noise just audible over the gentle murmur of the flowing water. His eyes turned automatically upwards to the skies, searching the chaos of falling flakes but he could see nothing.
The sound however was swelling and he knew with a sinking feeling in his heart that up above him, somewhere in the swirling whiteness, choppers were closing in. No sooner had Paul thought it, than he saw them, descending suddenly through the cloud cover, they banked round in tight formation and then broke up, spiraling and circling lower and lower as they prepared to land.
The Magur's voice was loud and urgent in Paul’s ears as she vocalized what he already instinctively knew,
‘Agents are here. We must get out!
‘Make for the church on the hill.’
Paul blinked in incomprehension.
Was she crazy?
Heading back into the town would be madness, the streets crawling with the police he’d just succeeded in evading.
Why not the other way, away from the manhunt and off into the distance?
‘The church is built on an ancient earthworks, it is an energy accumulator. If you can get there we can use the power of its energy matrix to escape,’ the Magur’s voice explained.
‘What do you mean escape?’ Paul queried, ‘escape where?’
‘To the other side, the dimension of the ancien
t people.’
Suddenly in that moment, as Paul watched the snowflakes vanishing into the water swirling around his feet, it all just felt too much, too difficult.
Sure he’d had plenty of luck but could he escape the ruthlessness and power of the Agents again? He doubted it.
Reaching into his pocket he pulled out the crystal and holding it out in front of himself he stated bluntly,
‘You take it ...’
‘I’ve got no chance now. It’s yours ... ‘
The snowflakes silently settled and melted on the dimly gleaming crystal sat in his upturned palm, as the Magur's voice sounded loud again in Paul’s ears.
‘Paul,’ she urged, ‘without you the crystal can do nothing. I have told you it must be done in your reality, if you give up you condemn the Earth and humanity to another cycle of exploitation. Come on! You can do it!’
Paul could hear the drone of the helicopter’s rotors as one of them swung in low over him, pulling his attention back to the present. He shrugged, pocketing the crystal again. There was nothing for it but to do his best and if they caught him, well, at least his conscience would be clear in the knowledge he’d done all he could.
Paul set off, climbing out of the stream bed, up the bank and into another garden. From here the town rose steeply in a series of terraces and Paul, looking upwards, figured he’d keep to the gardens for as much of the climb as he possibly could, though it felt like sheer madness to head back into so much danger.
Paul heaved himself over another wall and skirted a long stone barn, keeping as low as possible. There was only one helicopter in the sky above now, circling over the rooftops, which meant the others must have found places to land.
Paul wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Knowing there were Agents ahead on the ground, possibly waiting for him, wasn’t a reassuring thought.
At the gable end of the barn, a narrow, paved alleyway wound upwards and Paul stopped to catch his breath and reassess his options.
All around him, behind the reverberating racket of the searching chopper, Paul could hear the sounds of whining sirens and shouts carrying across the softness of the snow-laden morning air. Maybe his best bet would be to make directly for the church, he thought, after all, creeping from back yard to garden was going to take ages and with this many police around it was only a matter of time before he was spotted.
Forcing himself to make a decision, Paul glanced quickly up and down the alley to check the coast was clear, put his head down and pelted as fast as he could up the steep incline.
He’d gone maybe 50 meters before the alleyway was intersected by a small road. As he labored towards it, his breath coming in rasping gasps, he heard the sound of running feet. Instantly Paul flung himself into the recess of a small stone doorway, shrinking himself back into the shadows as a dozen uniformed gendarmes ran past only a couple of meters in front of him.
His breath partially recovered, Paul stepped out into the open, ready to continue, when two vans tore down the street, in the direction they still believed he’d run.
Paul froze but the vans roared by in a blur of dark blue leaving their exhaust fumes hanging amongst the snow flakes and he was fairly sure they’d passed too fast to have noticed him. Waiting till the glow of their taillights was out of sight, he set out on another fear-filled sprint. The alleyway suddenly became steeper, giving way to a series of shallow, stone steps, the ancient, wooden houses crowding over his head, letting only the occasional snowflake find its way down to the shadowy steps below. Paul took them two at a time until they ended abruptly, opening out onto a spacious, paved, market square.
On three sides stood tall, timber framed houses, their upper stories cantilevered over the square, creating a covered terrace supported on sturdy oak posts. Clustered in small groups at shop doorways all around the walkway stood anxious villagers, gazing upwards through the mist of swirling flakes as the helicopter swooped in low over the square and sped off again, disappearing behind the roof-line.
Opposite Paul, with an imposing sculpted crucifix dominating the square in front of it, squatted the impressive, towering bulk of the church, flanked by enormous, aged buttresses, its tower rose up, vanishing into the snow.
Despite the amount of people about, Paul thought, scanning the far edges of the square, surprisingly he could see no uniforms, so putting his head down and squinting his eyes against the snow, Paul set out on his final dash.
On reaching the massive oak doorway, Paul grabbed the latch, flung himself through and slammed it closed. An array of candles stood in front of an alcoved altar opposite him, their flames guttering in the draught of the opened door.
Paul bent over double, breathing hard for a moment before straightening, he spotted a heavy iron bolt.
It might buy him a few precious moments he thought as he slid it closed behind him. He gazed down the nave of the church feeling the sense of solemnity it’s high, fluted columns and ornate stained glass windows exuded.
‘Magur?’ he questioned into the empty silence. ‘What next?’
Instantly her voice was there,
‘You must go to the crypt. There is our source of power.’
‘Well, where the hell is it?’ Paul demanded impatiently but as the words came from his mouth, he heard the helicopter’s deafening drone closing in and looking up he saw its shadowy silhouette through the altar windows.
As Paul gaped, momentarily frozen, the centre window shattered into a thousand flying shards of colored glass raining down over the altar below. Paul could see the figure of an Agent descending smoothly on a wire dangling from the belly of the helicopter.
‘The small door beneath the organ,’ urged the Magur. ‘Move! Now!’
Paul snapped into action, obeying without thought, he turned his back on the Agent, now clambering through the stone mullions and pelted towards the high, shining cylinders of the organ. He skidded to a stop on the polished stone floor, wrenched the door open and flicked on an antique, brass light switch. Instantly a string of bare bulbs illuminated a narrow, spiral staircase with a metal handrail leading downwards. Paul followed the pools of light down, supporting his weight on the handrail and vaulting three steps at a time until the staircase ended at the start of what Paul presumed was the crypt. It was a long, low-ceilinged, arched room built of large blocks of rough-hewn stone. Shadowy recesses containing inscribed, stone tombs opened off to each side and at the far end he could see another low, wooden door.
Paul ran the length of the crypt, stooping slightly to avoid hitting his head and lifted the door latch. He flicked on another light switch revealing yet more stone steps leading downwards. There was nothing for it but to go on, he realized, bolting the door behind him whilst trying to suppress the feeling of suffocating claustrophobia that this lower, narrower staircase gave him. He knew he was heading like a rabbit into a dead-end trap and prayed the Magur had a good trick up her sleeve, when he reached the end.
The staircase abruptly ended, giving way to an even more confined tunnel which sloped steadily downwards, twisting spookily as it went. Paul found himself strangely disorientated as he ran, hunched forwards, balancing himself against the dripping, slimy walls of the tunnel with his hands. It went on an on, the dim hanging bulbs placed so far apart that as one pool of light faded behind him, he could only just make out the start of the next as the tunnel continuously curved, spiraling ever deeper underground. With every step downwards, Paul’s sense of oppression and dread seemed to grow, keenly aware of the Agent only a minute or two behind him at the most. He must be off the hill and deep inside the Earth by now, he reckoned, when suddenly the tunnel opened up into a larger, circular, domed room, built of impeccably smooth and closely jointed grey stones. Paul stood up to his full five foot ten inches with a sense of relief.
In the centre of the floor, a mound of rough granite seemed to erupt upwards and he made his way instinctively towards it. He stopped in his tracks open mouthed as the tiny, gnarled figure of the Ma
gur shimmered into existence in front of him. He’d seen her miraculously appear before but it didn’t make it any less spectacular.
‘Come to me!’ she commanded, as squatting, she placed one bony hand on the granite lump and extended the other towards Paul.
As his hand made contact with hers, several things seemed to happen at once.
Watching the Magur’s hand on the stone, Paul was aware of another reality sliding into place, so that for a moment, like two photographs superimposed over each other, Paul could see not only the Magur squatting in the underground stone chamber but also crouched on a grassy hillside, the clear blue of a winter’s sky above her.
At that moment, behind him, an Agent burst from the mouth of the tunnel into the chamber, an automatic pistol held on steady arms, pointing directly at Paul.
His heart lurched in terror, the reality of the chamber asserting itself more strongly over his vision as the sight of that other open-air world wobbled and faded. From a thousand miles away he heard the voice of the Magur,
‘Focus on me Paul! Trust yourself and follow.’
And with a supreme effort, Paul wrenched his attention away from the grim faced Agent and back to the Magur’s liquid eyes.
As he did so the stone walls and domed ceiling of the chamber, the gun and the Agent faded rapidly from sight, leaving Paul stood on the cropped grass of a hillock, the Magur squatting serenely beside him and an enormous, tapering shard of granite rising upward into the pale blue of the wide open sky.
Back in the empty chamber the Agent let the weapon drop to his side whilst his other arm reached to a tiny, electronic gadget concealed behind his ear.
He slowly removed his mirrored glasses, revealing a pair of oval, slit-pupiled eyes which stared grimly at the spot where Paul only moments before had disappeared and his dispassionate tones echoed eerily around the walls of the chamber as he said clearly,
‘He jumped.’
The Commander: December 20th