Ryan sighed, staring at the little glowing screen of his iPhone in the dark. He still had no connection to check on Daniel. It had taken a week of enjoying the web cams back in the U.S. before Ryan had finally, and very reluctantly, agreed to make the trip. So far it had worked, and he was just starting to relax a bit, but out in the middle of nowhere, a flaw became apparent.
Suddenly a hand closed over the screen and he looked up, startled. Matt was frowning at him. “C’mon,” Matt whispered. “Put it away. You can check on him later. Anna needs our help. At least make a show of looking even if you don’t really care.”
“Of course I care,” Ryan muttered, putting the iPhone into a pocket with an effort. He knew the pendant was more precious to Anna than even his golden cross was to him. It was a family heirloom that her aunt had given her, and she’d confided that inside the diamond were strange letters that only a jeweler’s glass let you see, but no one could read them. Losing it had been bound to happen sooner or later, as she was always pulling the pendant back and forth on the chain, stressing the fragile lock. His eyes went over to where Eric was leading her by the hand toward the monument, a large flashlight he’d found in the car sweeping back and forth.
Matt turned toward them. “Then let’s go.”
“Right.” Ryan fell in beside him as they marched up the gravel path, passing the circular earthen bank and ditch and a ring of holes in the ground to enter Stonehenge. Few of the center stones remained and most of the larger sarsen stones that he recognized from pictures were gone, too. “So what did they say this place was for?”
“Solstice rituals or something.”
“It’s a lot of trouble to go through just for a ritual, isn’t it?” Ryan asked, laying a palm on a cold stone. It was huge, ponderous, and formidable. Someone had put a lot of work into this. “They must weigh a ton.”
“Twenty-five tons, to be exact,” corrected Matt. “The big ones came from twenty miles away. It makes you wonder what they really did here. It does seem like a lot of work for just a ritual.”
“How long ago was this built?” the big guy asked.
Matt smirked. “You weren’t listening at all earlier, were you? Something like 3000 to 1600 BC.”
Ryan glanced around at the open countryside, wondering if a passing cop car would see Eric’s flashlight and show up to arrest them for trespassing. Then he noticed something and went off to investigate, stepping around a toppled stone to discover that the air beyond it tingled strangely, like he’d walked into an electrical field. A faint light shone near a pair of giant stones with a third stone lying across the top. On the trilithon’s surface, a few feet above the ground, three oddly shaped lights were glowing blue. Had the moon shone brighter he might never have noticed. When he stopped beside them, he found Anna’s pendant lying there in the grass, reflecting the glow on its silver parts. He picked it up absently, staring at the trilithon.
After a moment, he realized they’d stopped here earlier to see an ancient carving of a dagger and axe on the stone. The glowing symbols were beneath these and seemed vaguely familiar, though they hadn’t been here before. He’d seen such symbols in fantasy role playing games.
“Norse runes,” he said to himself, trying to remember how to read them. They were a form of alphabet used for communication, divination, and magic. With every moment, more lines of text appeared on the once dark and silent stone surface, letters swirling around the monolith to cover all sides.
“Guys!” he called in amazement. They turned to see words of blue fire igniting their way up the stone surface, covering the lintel stone on top.
Eric called, “Get away from there, Ryan!”
He blinked at the suggestion and then realized Eric’s instincts about danger were infinitely better than anyone he knew. He backed away, but on seeing looks of fear on their faces, jogged toward them, meeting at the center of Stonehenge.
“What the hell is going on?” Matt asked.
“I think we should get out of here,” Anna said, taking the pendant from his hand.
Moments later, every monolith burst into blue flames. An arc of fire spread between them and to places where missing or fallen stones now reappeared like ghostly apparitions from the past. The outer ring of sarsen stones encircled them as flames raced around the lintel stones on top, starting at the original entrance to the site and coming around again. They were the first ones in ages to see the full shape of Stonehenge as it was meant to be, but they didn’t have long to admire it. As the flame wave circled to where it started, everything disappeared in a blinding flash.
Ryan could hardly see for all the swirling and flashing lights surrounding them, a vortex of air drowning everything out. It looked like Anna was screaming. He tried to step toward her but couldn’t move his feet. He looked down and saw only blackness below him. The earth was gone, as were the huge stones and the sky.
While he watched, Matt’s jeans and shirt changed to a long, dark robe, a staff appearing in one hand. Startled, Ryan looked at Eric, who now wore leather from neck to toe, a bandoleer of knives across his chest and a short sword at one hip. Then this disappeared and for a moment he was naked before his Earth clothes returned. Ryan’s eyes went to Anna just as she switched from bare to her normal clothes, and a moment later she wore a long white robe. He glanced down at himself and saw a suit of golden armor, a big sword strapped to his waist and a golden lance in one hand. Then
