The doors of the temple crashed open behind him as an irate Hepton dragged his equipment inside, almost tripping over an urman, who shuffled out of his way.
“Bloody fuzzy wuzzies!” he muttered.
Tulliver shook his head and ignored him.
The Lieutenant looked up from his rocky lectern. “Tulliver! Thank God. Is your machine safe?”
“As safe as it can be around here,” said Tulliver, irritated that Everson’s first thought was for his bus.
“What about the Alleyman?”
“Werner?” said Tulliver. “Crashed, but not before he showed me something I think you ought to see. It concerns the wall we found in the canyon. I’ve reason to believe that it may be part of something much bigger altogether.” Tulliver unwrapped his package. “Werner told me he’d seen a pattern etched across the landscape. I think the canyon wall and the crater strip are part of it.”
Everson raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. We’ve managed to send a Morse signal along the Strip back to the canyon earlier. They seem to be made of the same metal.”
“Really? Thanks to Hepton, unbelievably, now you can see, too. Werner took this negative plate from thirteen thousand feet. We got the chatts to mix up some sort of developing fluid.”
“It’s not perfect. We didn’t have anything with which to fix the image,” said Hepton. “It’s not my fault.”
Tulliver passed the negative plate to Everson, who held it up in a shaft of light.
He frowned with concentration as he studied the image.
“What am I looking at?”
Tulliver took him through it, pointing out the tracery of geometric lines across the landscape, clearer for being reversed.
“They look like some kind of roadways across the landscape, or some sort of sacred geometry, perhaps; see how they radiate out from various points,” he said.
“Reminds me of Jeffries’ pentagram on the Somme, sir,” said Atkins, peering at the pattern.
“That occurred to me, too,” admitted Tulliver. “It’s more than that, Everson. If you are right about the wall and the Strip, it would seem to indicate some sort of superstructure underpinning the landscape. The chatts believe it to be a kind of geomancy, divine proof that GarSuleth wove this world for them. And another thing, these reverse lightning bolts–”
“Riley calls them telluric discharges,” said Everson.
“–these telluric discharges seem to emanate from points where these lines converge and intercept. Here and here, for instance,” he said quickly pointing out nodes on the rapidly darkening glass plate. “If you ask me, there’s a much bigger mystery at the heart of this than mere chatt theology. I’d stake my life on it.”
“Hmm.” Everson nodded thoughtfully. “The urmen believe these telluric discharges are the agonies of Croatoan, imprisoned and tortured in some chatt version of hell.”
As they studied the image on the plate, Tulliver felt a faint tingling in his hands. He lifted his arm, inspected his palm, and turned it over. The hairs on the back of his hand stood on end, as if a static charge were building. He looked at the rocks and noticed out of the corner of his eye, in the cleft between them, the same kind of peculiar shine; as if the air had been polished to a high patina and worn thin in the process. He couldn’t think of any other way to describe it.
“John,” he said in measured tones, “I think you should step away from the boulders.”
A faint intermittent buzz started to issue from the two halves.
“He’s right, sir, better step back,” said Riley, foregoing military conduct and grabbing Everson’s braided cuff.
By now the other urmen were moving back, all except Tarak, who watched the proceedings with growing concern. Ranaman held the metal-clasped book, mesmerised by the sudden activity, as small writhing threads of white-blue energy began to spit between the two halves. As they built in power to a crescendo, crackles of energy leapt from the rock to the walls of the dome like Tesla arcs.
“The Heart of Croatoan begins to beat!” cried Ranaman, his voice filled with wonder and triumph, his hair now billowing out with collected static.
“No!” cried Riley, dropping to the ground. “Get down and for gawd’s sake take off yer battle bowlers if yer wearin’ ’em!”
Bolts of energy, attracted by Ranaman’s proximity, leapt across the space and earthed through him, jerking him like a crazed marionette. He let out a strangled scream that cut off abruptly as the bolt vanished. He dropped to the ground, a broken puppet, as if it had been all that was holding him up. The book skittered between the two halves of rock.
There were moans and screams from the urmen, who got up and stampeded for the temple doors, knocking the crouching Fusiliers and tankers aside.
Tendrils of blue-white energy spat out from the split rock to lick the inside of the dome before dying down as if someone had turned a dial, leaving one or two stray arcs that still sparked and spat intermittently between the halves.
Everson looked back past Ranaman’s body to the rocks. The fallen book lay in the cleft between them.
Everson made to go back and get it, but Perkins grabbed him.
“It’s too dangerous, sir.”
“We need the book, private!”
Tarak hesitated for a second, and then bolted past Ranaman’s body towards the sacred rocks.
“No, son!” yelled Perkins.
Tarak knelt low by the rocks, stretching his hand out to reach the tome. Fingers flexed as he strained to reach for the book. Small arcs of energy snapped angrily about it, like electric teeth. Undeterred, Tarak edged into the cleft and grasped the book firmly. As he retrieved it, clasping it to his chest, a bolt of energy arced out and struck the book, propelling him back across the chamber.
Perkins began to drag himself on his belly and elbows across the dirt floor towards the urman.
Then, from outside, the shouts and screams began, accompanied by the sound of rapid rifle fire.
INTERLUDE 4
6th April 1917
My Dearest Flora,
Still no blessed tank. Would you believe it? We did meet up with the RFC chap, though. Not blagged a go in his aeroplane yet, then again, I’ve been a bit busy. Still, when all is said and done, we had a grand ride in a hot air balloon. You could see for miles. Who says the Army is all hard work and no play?
Having said that, we’ve come down to Earth with a bit of a bump now. The place where we are now is completely overgrown, it’s worse than your dad’s vegetable patch. I think we might have to do a bit of weeding.
Mind you, we do actually have all the modern conveniences – and your Mama worries about us poor lads at the Front. We have Electricity at the moment. All I need is a smoking jacket and an armchair while I read my book and look at photographs and I’ll be right at home. I know my Grandma doesn’t hold with it, and I can see why. I very nearly did have a smoking jacket! The Company Quartermaster Sergeant wouldn’t have been too happy about that.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ON THE FLOOR of the temple, Alfie shook the prostrate Tarak by the shoulders, as the indoor lightning played over his head. Splayed on his back, Tarak still clutched the book tightly to his chest.