Church pulled Ruth close, draping an arm across her shoulders; he still felt warm and fuzzy from Manannan's drink. 'I think it's time we stepped up our investigations.' She rested her head on his shoulder, enjoying the comfort of contact after the stress of the day. 'There's something very strange and disturbing going on here. We've been moving through it, seeing and hearing little parts of it. I think it takes in Cormorel's murder, and… lots of things.'
'Would you like to elaborate, or are you going to keep talking vaguely just for the hell of it?'
'I don't know what else to say. It's a gut instinct.' In his arms, she felt soft and hard and warm and cold all at the same time. 'I think if we don't find out what's going on, we're going to lose everything.'
'What do you suggest? An inquisition? You know they won't tell us anything.'
'I suggest it's time to go searching for the Walpurgis. Tomorrow. Just after dawn.'
An hour before first light they came upon the third of the Western Isles. Taranis summoned Manannan from his cabin and together they surveyed the rocky outcropping. A thick column of smoke rose from the island and settled in a pall across the area, the underside of it a dull ruddy brown from the fires that raged there.
Manannan did not even bother dropping anchor. Taranis moved to mobilise the crew. The itinerary was dropped instantly and they set a course for the island they called the Green Meadows of Enchantment, with the certain knowledge that the vile corruption of the Heart of Shadows had extended to the very walls of their home.
'There weren't really giants,' Veitch said as they wandered down the hill from Gog Magog House.
'There were so.' Tom's face had grown sterner as the day passed. He had been quite rude to Robertson, who had refused to come with them to an area he claimed was cursed. 'Even in my time, before the Queen got her hands on me, there were still a handful of giants scattered around the island. Some died off, some wandered through to T'ir n'a n'Og. But they're not the kind of giants we're interested in right now.'
'So… what? These are short giants?'
Tom snorted with irritation, even though he knew Veitch was only trying to provoke him. 'There are giants in the earth,' he muttered to himself. 'How little they knew.'
They crossed the path and made their way alongside a defunct electric fence that once kept sheep from the nature preservation area. The early afternoon sun was hot. Flies and wasps buzzed along the tree line, while darting mosquitoes made brief forays from the pond. Under the trees the atmosphere had grown sweaty and oppressive. Tom picked his way amongst the brambles, scrambling over fallen trees and amongst the thorny bushes, with Veitch following easily behind.
'So, is it going to be a surprise, then?' Veitch continued to gibe. 'Like always. Blowing up in my face at the last minute. Like in the Queen's court?'
'You were warned about that.'
'Well, you didn't do a very good job of it, did you?'
'Sorry. I underestimated your stupidity.'
Veitch said something obscene, but Tom had already picked up his step until he arrived at an area where the topsoil had been cleared to reveal mysterious patterns on the ground.
With a puzzled face, Veitch attempted to make head and tail of them. 'Looks like one of those ink blots they show you when they think you're crazy.'
'The Rorschach Test,' Tom noted. 'That's quite fitting. Everyone who comes here sees in these patterns what they want to believe.'
'Not what's actually there?'
'Nothing is actually there, anywhere. You've not learned anything in all this, have you?'
Veitch stared at him for a long moment, then said, 'I've learned you're a-'
'Archaeologists have been digging around here for decades, ever since the famous antiquarian T. C. Lethbridge excavated this site on the south side of the ring in late 1955 and 1956.' Tom rested his hands on his knees so he could lean forward to get a better look. 'He pumped metal rods in the ground, claiming he found different depths, bumps, shapes underneath the surface which marked out this. He christened this the Gog Magog figure. All told, he claimed he'd discovered a sun goddess, two other male figures and a chariot.'
'You're talking like it isn't true.'
'Not in the eyes of archaeologists who came after him. All of Lethbridge's work here is steeped in controversy. Academics and the usual amateur historical sleuths who want to be seen as professional claim there is absolutely no evidence for Lethbridge's claim. All this is a figment of his fevered imagination. But if there's one thing we've learned, it's not to trust the establishment. Is that not so?'
'Too bleedin' right.'
'The occult groups always backed Lethbridge because they knew truth does not always come in facts and figures, quantifiable evidence.'
'You've lost me again.' Veitch's attention was drifting amongst the trees, searching for any signs of threat. For a while he had been aware of a deep level of unease that he couldn't quite understand. He was good at sensing obvious danger near at hand, or even more subtle signs of peril, but this was different; it was almost like the threat was there but not there, buried very deeply or watching from such a distant place it could barely be called a threat. But he felt it nonetheless.
'Whatever they say, there were certainly some hill figures carved on this site,' Tom continued. 'There are many antiquarian sources which confirm that. And with these hills bearing the name Gog Magog, and the house on the summit, it doesn't take a great detective to know who this sacred site was dedicated to.'
'Giants?'
Tom sighed, clambering on to the rough pattern and kneeling down so he could sweep it with his fingers. 'You should know by now, no one knows anything about the past. Every historian and archaeologist has theories, and yes, they can make convincing arguments. The ones who shout loudest set the agenda. But the clever man ignores their voices and looks closely at the evidence. And once he realises all of it is conflicting, he understands: Nobody. Knows. Anything.'
'But you know it all, right?' Veitch took the opportunity to check his weapons: the crossbow slung across his back, the sword secreted in his jacket, the dagger strapped to his leg. All in place, all ready for action.
'Who is Gog Magog? Who are they? They are there in the Bible, in Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature. In one account, Gog and Magog are two hostile forces, in another Gog comes from the country of Magog. But the Bible is adamant they or he is a force for evil in the final battle between God and Satan. The Battle of Armageddon.'
'So they're evil?' Veitch had the blank expression that always irritated Tom.
'The Bible is a book, Ryan. The Church likes to pretend it's the word of God, but as we all know, it's the word of God as edited by men, by councils of the religion's great and the good for hundreds of years after Jesus lived. Many of God's words were thrown out to present a more cohesive story. And man is flawed, so the Bible tells us. Ergo, the Bible is flawed and cannot be wholly trusted.'
Witch chuckled. 'They'd have you dragged out and stoned for that in some places.'
'Then they would be morons,' Tom said sourly, 'mistaking intellectual questioning for blasphemy. It's all a matter of intent.' He stood up and stretched his old limbs. 'In the Guildhall in London are two wooden effigies of Gog and Magog, supposedly the last of a race of giants. And that itself is a mistake of history, for in ancient times they were statues of Gogmagog, a twelve foot Goliath, and Corineus, the Trojan general who threw him to his death. Or perhaps we listen to another story that says Gog and Magog are two mythical London heroes. Or Geoffrey of Monmouth, the mediaeval historian, who said Gogmagog was a giant chieftain of Cornwall. Or are we, indeed, talking about the giant oak trees at Glastonbury, sole survivors of an ancient Druid grove and ceremonial path? No one knows anything.'
'So is this the time for your catch phrase? Mythology is-'
11 — the secret history of the land. Exactly. We read between the lines. We look for common threads. We search for the metaphors that all the old stories are reaching for. Giants in the earth, Ryan. A sacred site since the earliest times of man, their bodies buried far beneath our feet, along with a horse, the familiar metaphor for wild energy, for fertility, and the chariot of spiritual transcendence. People believed in this enough to keep the myth alive for thousands of years. Isn't that astonishing? Doesn't that shout out about the power that resides here?'
Veitch surveyed the light through the trees. 'Okay, enough talk. Get on with what you've got to do.'
'That's easier said than done.' Tom wandered around the pattern left by Lethbridge's excavations, swatting
