'You didn't cause it,' Tom said flatly. 'What you saw this evening is just the first of many outrages. Some you will be at the heart of, many will happen without your involvement.'
Church had reached his limit. 'You're driving me mad, saying things like, `Oh, that's because of the blue fire,' whatever that means, or pretending you have intimate knowledge of the habits of mythical creatures. Why should we believe anything you say?'
There was no outburst in response. Tom merely stared into the middle distance thoughtfully as he gently rubbed his chin. 'How can I explain things to you when you have no frame of reference to understand them?' Then: 'Unfortunately I don't have any credentials to show you. All I can say is that I've seen unmistakable evidence of what's occurring. You'll have to accept me on trust until we know each other well enough to discuss the past.' He held up his hand to silence Church's protests. 'But if you're looking for some kind of proof, there is something I can show you.' He dipped into a hidden pocket and pulled out his tobacco tin and a small block of hash which he used to roll a joint.
'I don't think this is the time to get off your face,' Church said.
'This isn't for pleasure,' Tom replied. He lit the joint and inhaled deeply. 'Before the Christian era, psychoactive substances were used by most cultures to put them in touch with the sacred. And that's what I'm about to do now, to show you so you understand what lies behind it all.' He closed his eyes in meditation for a short while, then said, in a gentle voice barely audible over the wind and the fire, 'The people who put up these stones were smoking as they sat here, looking at the stars. In the fougous and under the barrows, beneath the cromlechs, in the circles and the chambered cairns, they were eating sacred mush rooms and ingesting hallucinogens thousands of years before the so-called Summer of Love. It helped man touch the heart of the universe.' He blew a fragrant cloud into the breeze. Then he said in a strong, powerful voice: 'You have to understand that magic works.'
'Magic as in spells and funny hand movements and all that mumbo jumbo,' Church said tartly. 'Sure, why not? A few hits on that and I'll believe in anything.'
'Magic as in influencing people and events without having any obvious direct contact with them,' Tom said, calmly but forcefully. 'Magic as in beings with abilities you can only dream of. An old word for something that may lie just beyond science, that has its own strict rules, that operates with subtle energy flows and fields. A completely different way of looking at how the world works.' Church's expression remained unchanged, so Tom walked over to the nearest standing stone. 'Science says this is just a lump of rock stuck in the earth. Magic says it's something more. Look at it closely, along the edge silhouetted against the sky.'
'What am I supposed to be looking for?' Church said.
'Look close and look hard. Dismiss nothing as a trick of your eyes. Believe.'
Ruth and Church stared at the point Tom was indicating and after a few minutes Ruth said, 'I think I can see a light.'
'Keep looking,' Tom pressed.
Church shook his head dismissively, but then he squinted and after a second or two he seemed to make out a faint blue glow limning the edge of the menhir. The more he stared, the more it came into focus, until tiny azure flames appeared to be flickering all around the ancient stone. 'What is that?' he asked in amazement.
'Magic,' Tom replied softly. He slowly held out his right index finger to the stone and an enormous blue spark jumped from the rock to his hand; a second later the force, whatever it was, was running to him directly, infusing him with a soft sapphire glow. Still smiling, he raised his left hand palm upwards; shimmering shapes danced in the air above it. Church thought he glimpsed faces and bodies, but nothing stayed in focus.
'Static electricity,' Church ventured without believing it himself. 'An electromagnetic field given off by geological stresses.'
Tom simply smiled.
'Does it hurt?' Ruth asked.
'I feel like I could run a hundred miles.' He drew in a deep, peaceful breath. 'This is the power in the land. Earth Magic. The Fiery Network. Science can't measure it so science says it doesn't exist. But you see it.'
Church felt his mood altering in proximity to the crackling display; he was overcome with an exuberation that made him want to shout and jump around. Negative thoughts sloughed off him like mud in the rain; he couldn't stop himself from grinning like an idiot.
Tom broke off the display and returned to his seat by the fire. 'Belief in a new way-the true way-won't happen in a night, but all things flow from this and once you accept it you'll truly understand.'
'But what is it exactly?' Church's intellectual curiosity had been piqued alongside the buzz his emotions had received.
'The vital force of the world, the thing that binds humanity and the planet together. An energy unlike any other, spiritual in essence. If you look closely enough you'll find it within you as well as within the earth.'
'The New Agers always said there was something like this.' Church felt a shiver wash through him; he felt deeply affected in a way he couldn't understand.
'The ancients knew about it. The Chinese call it chi, the dragon energy, for it's always been linked with the Fabulous Beasts who are both its symbol and its guardians. That's why the standing stones were raised, the old stone chambers, the earliest churches. To mark the sacred sites where the energy was strongest, to channel it, to keep it flowing freely. But when the so-called Age of Reason came, it was discounted by the new generation of thinkers-it couldn't be quantified, bottled, replicated in a laboratory. And as that new way of seeing the world took hold, the people forgot it too. Over time it became dormant. For centuries no one could have stirred it, however hard they tried. But with the change that came over the world at the turn of the year, it awoke again. Now a few of us know how to raise it briefly, but it still needs to be woken completely, to become the vital force once more. And this,' he added, 'is the first sign that the world is now a very different place.'
'How do you know all this?' Ruth asked.
'I was called. Informed-'
'Called by whom?'
He smiled at the insistence in her voice. 'If you must know, by a gentleman called the Bone Inspector. Any the wiser?'
'That's an odd name.'
'He's an odd man. His people have been linked to the land for millennia, the custodians of secret knowledge and ancient ritual. He guards the old places where the blue fire burns the brightest. He felt the changes first. Perhaps you'll meet him one day and then you can ask him all these questions yourself.'
'This is making my head hurt,' Church said. 'People who guard the old places?'
'The best way to approach this is to forget everything you thought you knew,' Tom said bluntly.
'Okay,' Church said, 'you've convinced me you've got some sort of insight, but there are still a lot of questions to be answered-'
'At least I have your attention now,' Tom said acidly.
'Then what is going on?' Ruth asked. Beyond the ruddy glow cast by the fire, the night seemed too dark; past the comforting bulk of the stones the shadows seemed to rise up from the plain. 'Why are all these things happening now?'
Tom crimped out the joint. 'Everything changed, suddenly, dramatically, sometime around the New Year.' He prodded the fire with a broken branch, sending a shower of sparks skyward. 'The world's turning away from the light. History is cyclical, you should know that. Empires rise and fall, knowledge is learned then lost, and sometimes things that seem gone forever return unannounced. There's a basis for all legends, folklore, fairytales-'
'Symbolism, rites of passage, religion,' Church interrupted. 'A way to pass important wisdom down the generations so it can be easily understood by those learning it.'
'All true, of course. How very erudite of you. But some of it is literal. As I understand it, the world used to be a very different place. You saw the Fabulous Beast so this is undeniable-creatures of myth once walked this land, old gods, ancient races, things you would think existed only in the imagination. And the old stories are our way of remembering this time of wonder and miracles.'
Church glanced at Ruth; Tom's words were an echo of what Kraicow had begun to say. 'There's no archaeological record-' he began, but Tom waved him silent.
'Somehow, for some reason, all these things were swept away to'-he made an expansive gesture-'some other place. But now-'
