They joined the tail of the group processing along the river towards the Durrington Walls henge and the nearby Woodhenge. It was going to be a beautiful day. The sky was a clear blue and an age-old peace lay over the fields, copses and hedgerows; five thousand years wrapped up in one moment. Church wondered briefly if the magical transformation that had come over the site had something to do with the power infused into the land through generations of reverence, a store of sacred energy that, right at the end of time, had started to transmit.
His thoughts were brought to a halt by their arrival on a ceremonial path leading from the river into a bewildering chaos of noise and activity. For thousands of years the site, unlike Stonehenge, had been buried beneath the rolling Wiltshire countryside. Now temporary roundhouses and ramshackle huts stood side by side, specially constructed for the Solstice celebrations of life and death as they had been in the distant past. Within a week they would all be dismantled, the tribes that had gathered there returning to their homes across Britain, and even across the sea to mainland Europe.
It reminded Church of the Glastonbury Music Festival, families and friends gathered in small communities amongst the larger sprawl of their people, campfires everywhere, the smell of cooking food, impromptu music performances with drum and voice, and a general sense of celebrating life.
The contemporary people Church had witnessed earlier wandered around the camp in a dream, welcomed by their ancestors and called to the fireside where they were offered meat carved from the roasting animals.
Shavi beamed. 'If only it was always like this.'
While Shavi took Rachel, Ruth, Laura and Veitch to explore the camp, Matthias and the other members of the Culture guided Church and Tom to a peaceful enclosure slightly removed from the chaos. Allowing himself one backward glance as Veitch took Ruth's arm, Church fought a pang of jealousy.
In a roundhouse, beside a fire, a warm herb infusion was served in wooden bowls while the Culture sat on the straw. Church was increasingly concerned about Tom, and couldn't shake the feeling that the Rhymer was receiving visions he didn't want, or couldn't bear, to share. Occasionally, he would drift into a reverie, jerking himself alert a moment later with tears in his eyes.
'It is good to be back in the world,' Matthias said when all had received their drinks. 'Our society has existed since the dawn of mankind. You knew of us, True Thomas, before you were stolen from your home, but by then we were only spoken of in whispers.'
'I could have done with you then. We all could have over the last few centuries,' Tom said. 'We were left alone, without teachers. That made us children trying to find our way in a dangerous world.'
'If we could have found a way to survive here, we would have,' Matthias replied. 'But it wasn't gods or beasts who tried to destroy us, it was our own kind. Fragile Creatures. The seekers of power. The warmongers. Our work was to cater to the spiritual needs of the people, to guard the knowledge they need to grow and prosper, and to stand as sentinels, and guides, to the invisible worlds that cluster close to our own. We were a tremendous force for good, yet we were seen as a threat by those who wanted control.'
'The Void saw you as a threat,' Church said. 'Those who bought into the Void's philosophy were just the tools that carried out the dirty work.'
'Driven from our groves, hunted to the point of extinction, we fled to the Otherworld where we survived on an island in the Dismal Marsh. Unable to tend to our people, we were dissolute and broken in spirit.' He bowed his head. 'It took time for us to renew our purpose. But then we became aware that the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons were active once more, and that knowledge brought the Blue Fire back to our hearts. If you were fighting to oppose the Void, how could we remain in hiding?'
'See?' Tom said pointedly to Church. 'You keep thinking of yourselves, with your own shallow perspective, only looking around the tiny sphere of your immediate influence. You don't realise that simply by moving through the world you are changing all of Existence. The connections ripple out, altering the pattern.' He sighed. 'How am I supposed to drum some sense into your head? Step back and see the big pattern, and all your petty little concerns fall into perspective.'
'It's hard to believe everything happens for a reason when you're wading through life's little miseries,' Church snapped.
'That's the point.' Tom took out his tin and methodically began to roll himself a smoke.
'One other thing was responsible for our return to the world at this time,' Matthias continued. 'The First called to us.'
Church was shocked. 'The First called? To you?' The oldest and greatest Fabulous Beast was the recipient of the full power of the Blue Fire, and Church had been convinced he was the only one who shared a link with it; even then, when his mind intertwined with the Beast's, he saw with its eyes and felt what it felt, but he never gained any sense of its consciousness. They were always together, and separate.
'We were as astonished as you, Brother of Dragons. We protected the First in the Far Lands when it was most under threat, and during all that time it made no contact with us. Indeed, we thought it was incapable of communication with humans. But it summoned us back here, to this place, to help empower the land, and through that to empower the First. Our ritual today, at the dawning of the Solstice, focused the full force of the Blue Fire in this land on the greatest of the Fabulous Beasts.'
'That's why I'm here,' Church said. 'To take the First back to the Far Lands to help us in the battle.'
'Hmm,' Tom mused. 'Do you think there are any coincidences?'
'When all the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons gathered in London, I hid it close to the city so it could make its way here to Stonehenge when the Void was looking elsewhere,' Church said.
'There is a secret you must know,' Matthias said. 'The First has two forms. It is a Fabulous Beast, and it is the purest form of the Blue Fire that speaks through a human avatar. A force for Life, and a force that can be used for destruction, both interconnected. The First told us that this is important. It is a mystery that is also a key to what comes next.'
'You need to think about that,' Tom said.
'Is that one of your subtle hints?'
'Time is running out for subtlety. I haven't been able to tell you anything because it's important you learn all this yourself. We're never going to get to heaven if you haven't learned how to find the path.'
Church was puzzled by Tom's odd choice of words. It prompted another flash of himself lying on a table being observed, and he rubbed his temples forcefully to drive it away. 'It's not all about me,' he said with irritation.
'Actually, it is. And it always has been.' The weight of Tom's gaze upon him was almost unbearable, and so much lay behind it, a sucking vacuum that he had to resist or be lost in it for ever.
'I don't want to know.' He stood up suddenly and marched out of the roundhouse and into the crowd where he lost himself physically in the celebration. But he couldn't escape his thoughts, which increased in gravity during the course of the day until he became filled with dread about what lay ahead. Everything was about survival in the face of the Void, but somehow, in a way that made no sense to him, it was really about even more than that.
Towards the end of the day, he found Matthias standing beside him as he watched the sun moving down the sky. 'The mysteries will never be revealed to you. They can only be discovered by your own contemplation, ' the leader of the Culture said.
'My mystery?'
'All mysteries. We are all stories unfolding. The author, be that your unconscious or some higher power depending on your point of view, will leave clues for you to decipher the meaning beneath the chain of events. But no good author would make everything plain. Revelation is passive and easily forgotten. Discovery is active and imprints on your mind and soul for ever.'
Breathing in the woodsmoke and the smell of cooking meat, and listening to the sound of jubilant voices, Church realised how much of an outsider he felt. 'I've had enough,' he said. 'Of the mysteries. Of the struggle. The heartache. I want it all to end. A happy ending, like they have in the stories.'
'Happiness is found in the strangest places,' Matthias said. 'For some people, it can only be felt by seeing it ignited in others.'
'I don't want to be a hero either.'
'But you are. It is in your nature — you could not be anything else. You have risen above your flaws. You have kept travelling along the road when the obstacles would have driven others to the wayside. As you will keep travelling now, even though you feel this way. Am I right?'
Church nodded dismally.
