“Oh wow!” cried Wilhelmina, rushing to the wall.
“Magnifico!” chimed Brother Lazarus with a clap of his hands. “Straordinario.”
“It is extraordinary,” agreed Kit. “They were working on this one when I was here.” He shined his torch on the woolly mammoth, the body of which was now fleshed out in greater detail than when he had last seen it.
Just then his light began to dim. “Uh oh,” he said, giving the flashlight a shake. “We’d better move along. We can always come back.”
Kit and Mina switched off their torches to preserve the batteries, and the three hurried on. Kit led them to the main passage and from there to the outer entrance of the cave, pausing briefly a few metres from the opening. “Here we are,” he said, blinking in the relative brightness of the daylight streaming in through the ragged gap. “Out there is nature in the rough. It is strictly no frills from here on,” he told them. “Is everybody still keen to meet the Flintstones?”
Wilhelmina translated for the priest, who nodded his head. “Sole purpose of visit,” Mina replied for both of them.
“Right, let’s do it.” Kit stepped to the outer opening and into the light. “Stay alert and be ready to run at all times.”
Kit went first, taking a good look around before climbing through the opening. Wilhelmina came next, followed by the priest, and all three stood on the sloping escarpment shielding their eyes from sunlight as they took in the scene before them: a verdant valley bounded by sheer cliffs of white limestone rising up on every side. The trees and shrubs were in full leaf, and the air was hazy, full of insects, and warm.
“It was winter,” he said, raising a hand to the faded greens and ripening golds of early autumn. “Just a couple days ago it was winter.”
“A couple of days for you,” Mina reminded him. “We obviously haven’t got the time frame calibrated for a proper match.” Seeing the disappointment on his face, she added brightly, “Still, with any luck we’re probably not too far off the mark.”
“I hope you’re right,” he said. “In any case, we’ll soon find out.” He started down to the valley floor, sliding on the loose scree. With a last look around for lurking predators, Kit started towards the slowflowing river that was now but an oozy trickle at summer’s end. They walked along, keeping close to the wall of the gorge, picking their way over the rocks, now in bright sunlight, now in shadow.
Occasionally Kit paused to get his bearings, recognising various landmarks and bends in the river. The sun was dropping behind the towering cliffs by the time they reached the place Kit identified as the winter camp of River City Clan. His heart beat a little faster at the sight, and he bounded up the narrow trail leading to the stony ledge where he had last seen En-Ul and the others.
The ledge was empty now, all signs of habitation-recent or otherwise-completely scoured away. All that was left were a few dried leaves and powdery white dust.
“They’re gone,” he said, his voice heavy.
Brother Lazarus took a look around, then turned and said, “Sie kommen im Winter hierher, richtig? Winter wenn sie hier kommen, korrigiert?”
“Yes,” Mina confirmed, “they only come here in winter-that is correct.” She turned to Kit. “That’s what you said, right?”
Kit nodded. “Then they might be back at the river camp.” He thought for a moment. “That’s miles from here, and I’m afraid we’re going to lose the light. Much as I’d like to make contact right now, that can wait. I think we should press on to the Bone House. First things first.”
“Whatever you say, captain,” replied Wilhelmina.
Returning to the valley floor, he led them along the river to a nearby trail that climbed up the cliffside and out of the gorge. “This is the way out,” he said. “The Bone House is up on high ground in the middle of the forest just beyond the canyon rim.”
Kit pushed a relentless pace up and out of the gorge and wasted no time making for the place where he had helped the young clansmen erect the shelter made from the skeletal remains of animals. He had no difficulty finding the place; the crevice where they had gathered the bones was still there, as was the wide circular clearing in the woods.
But the Bone House itself was gone, and in its place was an enormous yew tree with shaggy brown bark and short needles of deepest green. The tree’s trunk was gigantic-a half dozen people or more would have been required to link hands to reach around it.
“Well,” concluded Kit unhappily, “needless to say, this was not here before.” He shook his head. “Look at this thing.” He indicated the great spreading branches, dark in the gloaming wood. “It’s a thousand years old if it’s a day!”
Mina and Brother Lazarus gazed at the tree and at the blue patch of sky above. The light was fading fast.
“Dies ist der Ort, sind Sie sicher?” asked the priest.
“He’s asking if you’re sure this is the place,” translated Mina. She started pacing off the distance around the massive yew.
“Yes-I mean, I think so,” replied Kit. He gazed around the almost perfect circle of the clearing. “This is it. This is where the Bone House stood. But obviously we’re way off course. It looks like we’ll have to go back and start over.”
“Maybe not,” said Mina.
“What do you mean?”
“Check your ley lamp, Kit.”
He pulled the device from his pocket to see that it was shining with an intense blue light. “I knew it! The ley is here all right. That hasn’t changed.”
Mina completed her circuit of the tree and came to stand beside Kit, ley lamp in hand. They held the two gizmos together; the blue lights combined to bathe their faces in a radiant glow.
“ S ehr gut,” murmured Brother Lazarus, taking his place beside them.
“A very good sign,” agreed Mina. “The ley is here and it is highly active.”
The electromagnetic force of the ley continued to build, intensifying to an extent they had never witnessed before. The indigo lights pulsed with an ever-increasing strength, and the ring of yellow lights on Wilhelmina’s ley lamp flashed and blinked with random bursts, as if tracing the violent surges of power swirling around them.
“Ow!” cried Mina, dropping her lamp and clutching her hand.
“What happened?” said Kit. “Wha-Yikes!” He dropped his device too. The heat had suddenly spiked to an unbearable level.
Mina held out her hand. The palm was red where the flesh was burned. “That’s never happened before.”
Even as she spoke, there was a faint sizzling sound. Threads of white smoke emanated from the little holes in the brass carapace of Mina’s ley lamp, followed by a soft pop like that of a cork withdrawn from a bottle. Instantly the lamp went dark.
A second later Kit’s lamp fizzled out too, and the air carried the distinct whiff of ozone.
“I guess that’s that,” said Kit.
Brother Lazarus took Mina’s hand and examined the burn.
“We know the ley is here-no doubt about that,” said Kit, taking in the yew’s massive trunk, hard as iron and big as a house growing right in the middle of the ley. “Now all we have to do is figure out what to do about this whacking great tree.”
On the Road Again
Human beings are made to travel, it seems. And a lot happens on roads. Most ancient cultures revered the road as a sacred place-the Celts, for example, considered the junction where two roads crossed a holy place. Certainly, the road is a metaphor for change and transformation-originating, perhaps, in tales such as Homer’s Odyssey and expressed in modern terms in books like On the Road by Jack Kerouac.
In Hollywood “the road” is enshrined in a genre all its own: the road movie. From the larky string of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby productions such as The Road to Rio all the way to Thelma and Louise and extending even to absurdities like Dumb amp; Dumber, the road movie is both a symbol and a celebration of the innate spiritual desire to change, to be transformed. As physicist Werner Heisenberg, a man who knew something about the elusive nature of reality and its effects on the human spirit, put it, “The human race seems to love nothing more than a long detour.”