Jack of Ravens kots-1

by Mark Chadbourn

  ‘That’s why I’m doing this. There’s danger. I want you away from me until I’m sure it’s safe.’

  ‘We could go to San Francisco.’ Marcy was leaning in the doorway thoughtfully. ‘There’s a lot of energy out there, a lot of kids moving down … organising.’

  ‘All right,’ Gabe said. But you’ll join us, right? Every month we’ll put a small ad in the local paper, telling you where we are.’ He masked his sense of abandonment and went to pack his bag.

  Tom was smoking in his room while Niamh lounged nearby, listening to music. Church told them about the Libertarian. ‘We need to hit the road, keep on the move.’

  ‘He’ll find you wherever you are,’ Tom said dismissively. ‘This is his world.’

  It was Niamh who raised the most pertinent question. ‘If he could have found you at any time, why did he feel the need to come to you now, in this place?’

  Church considered this and realised Niamh was right. The Libertarian would not have seen the need to send a message unless he perceived a threat. But what was it?

  10

  After Gabe and Marcy left, the atmosphere in the apartment was tense. Tom had very little patience with Church and showed it at every opportunity. Church wanted to head to New Orleans. Tom flatly refused to set foot in the south while civil rights were being resisted. Tom wanted to go to Mexico to check out the sacred mushrooms that Leary had investigated. Church wasn’t interested.

  Finally Tom stormed out and disappeared for two days. When he returned he had an armful of cheaply produced magazines, all of them garishly illustrated. He tossed them at Church.

  ‘See what’s happening? Existence is organising. People are hearing the call, rising up. But if they’re going to make a difference they need a king to lead them.’

  Church flicked through the magazines: articles on ley lines and Earth power, calls to arms against the Vietnam War, for civil rights, against the force for repression that was manifesting across the world, academic discussions of the occult, Wicca, Sufism, all sorts of Eastern spirituality.

  ‘Freedom equals Life. Love equals Life,’ Tom said. ‘Control equals Anti-Life. This is war. And you’re needed.’

  ‘You sound like one of those hippies out on the West Coast.’

  ‘When you want to destroy something you give it a name so you can mock it. Even the filids of the Celts knew that. But maybe these hippies are right.’

  Church lay back on the cushion and closed his eyes. ‘I don’t want to argue, Tom,’ he said wearily.

  ‘Well, I do. You sank into depression after your woman died, and I can understand that — I’ve fought against it ever since I walked out of the Court of the Final Word. A broken heart’s a terrible thing, but you can’t stay sinking down in the black waters for ever-’

  ‘It’s not just Ruth. What I saw in the Court of the Final Word showed me that the human race is nothing-’

  ‘That’s what they want you to think.’

  ‘The Demiurge, the Void, whatever you want to call it — it rules this world already and pretty soon it’s going to control the Far Lands, too. It’s beyond powerful, Tom. Surely you can see that. I’m one man. I can’t make a difference.’

  ‘One man or woman can change everything.’

  ‘More stupid hippie talk.’

  Tom studied Church for a moment and then began to collect his magazines.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Church asked.

  ‘What you should be doing. I’ve been living in fear ever since I was dragged out of my life and into this whole miserable business. But I don’t have the luxury of being scared any more.’

  ‘You’re very clever, Tom, but you’re not going to make me feel guilty.’

  ‘The Blue Fire and everything it represents has been sleeping for a long, long time, since the Age of Reason came in at least. But now it’s being woken again. By ordinary people, Church — normal, everyday people filled with hope, who need help. Somewhere out there are new Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, who may well be the most powerful in generations. They need someone to shape them, before Veitch gets to them, or the Libertarian, or Salazar.’

  ‘How are you going to find them?’

  ‘That’s my problem now.’

  Church listened to Tom in his room packing his haversack, and soon after the front door slammed. He’d left all his records for Niamh with a warm, affectionate note, but for Church there was only a silence that spoke volumes.

  11

  1966 was a year of running away. Church and Niamh travelled to New Orleans and then to Boston, and finally to Maine, as far away as possible from the conflict that was beginning to grip the rest of the nation.

  In San Francisco the Grateful Dead staged the first light show in front of 10,000 people, and Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company performed at the Fillmore with Janis Joplin. Anti-Vietnam War protests brought tens of thousands onto the streets of New York City in March, and two months later another 10,000 marched on Washington DC.

  At the same time the FBI was working hard to ensure that LSD had a bad press, and the Bureau launched a raid on Timothy Leary’s Millbrook Mansion, arresting him for possession of marijuana. Leary, in true showmanship style, refused to take it lying down. In September he held a press conference announcing the formation of a psychedelic religion, the League for Spiritual Discovery, where he called on the world to Turn on, tune in, drop out’.

  Church found himself growing closer to Niamh by dint of shared time and experience; they were rarely apart. At first she was difficult to comprehend. Over meals she would tell him sad stories of the Golden Ones unable to find their way back to their mythic homeland where they would finally feel complete. She wove tales of adventure, magic and mystery that reached back long before humanity ascended. The gods in those stories were alien and unknowable, but gradually he came to understand Niamh as a woman who was a product of her culture, struggling to come to terms with her own mortality and emotions that had been repressed by her upbringing.

  And as she listened intently to his own account of his childhood, and the dreams he had nurtured in his formative years, he accepted that she had fallen in love with him. The moment when he finally recognised her feelings for him was ironically banal, as she sat next to a beaten-up mono record player, listening to Songs for Swingin’ Lovers over and over again as she struggled and failed to comprehend his love for the music of Frank Sinatra. She felt more at home with the bands Tom had championed, the groundbreaking guitar music of the Yardbirds, the Beatles and the rest, and she was unaccountably happy when Church would sit and listen to them with her.

  It was in the late autumn that everything changed. The trees were a mass of red and gold and the leaves rushed back and forth along the empty sidewalks of the small town in which they had rented a white clapperboard house. As they walked, deep in conversation, through the late-afternoon woodsmoke and wind hinting of coming snow, Church became aware of a man waiting under an oak tree ahead. His hair was fashionably long and he wore frayed denim and a battered military surplus jacket. It was only as they neared that Church realised it was Lugh, his golden skin resembling a honeyed Californian tan.

  Niamh was understandably happy to see him, yet underneath it Church sensed a deep unease. Lugh hugged Niamh and then greeted Church with surprising warmth, but his smile faded quickly.

  ‘Sister, dark days are drawing in across the Far Lands. The Enemy is growing in power, and their forces are making incursions into our territory. I fear war is imminent.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear that, brother, but it is not unexpected.’

  ‘Some of our people who have an affinity with the Fragile Creatures have fled here to the Fixed Lands. Those who remain refuse to acknowledge the threat.’

  ‘They still can’t see it?’ Church said. ‘They’ll be indulging themselves while their courts burn around them.’

  ‘As you are aware, Brother of Dragons, my people are slow to recognise the nature of reality beyond their
own fields.’ He turned to Niamh. ‘My sister, I ask you to return to the Far Lands to attend to the needs of your court. Defences must be established. The ruling council you left in place has neither the wisdom nor the popular support to do what is necessary.’

  Niamh turned to watch the leaves falling from the tree to hide her conflicting emotions, though Church could see the sadness in her body language. ‘This is a beautiful place, brother, and there is an abiding peace, too, if one looks carefully. I understand my responsibilities to my court, but here-’

  ‘I understand, sister,’ Lugh interjected without judgment. ‘I wish you well and hope to see you again in more glorious times.’ He made to go, but then turned to Church. ‘Take care of my sister, Brother of Dragons. There is fragility even in the hearts of the Golden Ones.’ And with that he walked away until he was lost in a flurry of golden leaves, and when they had passed, he was lost to the Earth itself.

  ‘Why didn’t you go with him?’ Church asked.

  Niamh’s eyes brimmed with tears. He had never seen her cry before. ‘You know why.’

  ‘Don’t do it for me, Niamh.’

  ‘That is what Fragile Creatures do, is it not? They make sacrifices for love.’

  ‘I-’

  Niamh pressed a finger to his lips to silence him. ‘I know you do not love me. That is not the point. Love is not an arrangement that demands reciprocation. I know my heart, and I must be true to it, whatever the outcome.’

  He stood beneath the tree amidst the falling leaves and watched her walk away, a small figure, lonely and sad, not a god at all.

  12

  Later he found her in her room, listening to the Beach Boys. ‘Pack your bag,’ he said. ‘We’re moving on.’

  ‘I thought you were happy here.’

  ‘This last year with you, just travelling and thinking, it’s been as close to idyllic as I’ve ever experienced in my life. But it’s time to get back to work.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Put some flowers in your hair. We’re heading west.’

  13

  San Francisco, October 1966

  San Francisco was a city on the brink. A diaspora had swarmed across America to the city by the Bay, building their capital in just six blocks centred on Haight Street and Ashbury Street. In 1965, 15,000 people lived there. Within two years it had exploded to 100,000, with more arriving every day off the buses from the sticks, in their Swinging London miniskirts or Beatles haircuts, their denim and tie-die, and Victorian and Edwardian fashions raided from thrift stores. The freaks and the hippies had their own stores, their own newspapers, their own medical centres and legal advice, their own bands and their own currency, usually LSD and marijuana, but sometimes sex and food.

  It was a place that hung between worlds. To the east was the poor, black Fillmore neighbourhood and to the west the wealthy Pacific Heights. To the north was the Panhandle, an idyllic green retreat that led to Golden Gate Park, and beyond that was the political activism of the University of San Francisco.

  The minute Church stepped off the bus into the swarming crowd, most of them barely old enough to be out of high school, he could feel the influence of the Blue Fire. This wasn’t like Krakow when they had visited John Dee. There the atmosphere had been pure, invigorating and electric. Here it was conflicted, ebbing and flowing, and at times there was almost a sourness in the air that was suffocating the energy.

  ‘Can you feel it?’ he said to Niamh. ‘This place is gearing up to be a battlefield.’

  ‘It is … exciting.’ Niamh looked around at the strange faces and extravagant costumes with a faint sense of wonder. It reminds me of the Far Lands.’

  San Francisco was filled with big, old Victorian houses where rooms could be cheaply rented. They found a place on Page, just up the street from a condemned mansion where Big Brother and the Holding Company and some of the other San Franciscan bands hung out. As Church stashed his clothes, he realised this was a lull before the ground started shifting under his feet. Big things were coming, events that had been 2,300 years in the making. He hoped he was up to it.

  Police were everywhere, watching the colourfully dressed men and women with contempt and barely repressed aggression. As he moved through the streets, Church realised he was being watched, too. One cop followed him for half a block before making a phone call.

  As they made their way to the newspaper offices to check the small ads, they came across a disturbance. A freckle-faced woman in a gold-starred headband was raving about monsters that had killed her boyfriend in Golden Gate Park. Church wondered if she was having a bad trip, but she didn’t have the telltale disoriented look about her.

  ‘It’s started,’ Church said.

  In the park, a group called the Diggers were handing out free food to the hungry kids, and leaflets urging the local businesses to distribute their profits to the community. One of them directed Church to a thick copse where a huddle of people had gathered.

  The victim was young, probably still shy of his eighteenth birthday. His face was covered with weeping sores that looked like the latter stages of some plague. Fearful of infections, Church pulled Niamh away, but not before he had noticed something else: where the skin was peeling it looked as if there were scales just beneath the surface, and on his forehead two protrusions had broken through like horns.

  Church caught one of the Diggers, a pale-faced man in a leather hat named Jerry. ‘I don’t know what’s going on around here any more, man,’ he said, concerned. He doled out a bowl of rice to a painfully thin girl. ‘People seeing far-out things-’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  He shifted uncomfortably. ‘Monsters, they say.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s just crazy talk, but … It’s not just one or two. Not the real freaks. A lot of regular guys. That chick said she saw something weird kill off her boyfriend. It’s like the Outer Limits, you know?’ He returned to the food, but Church could see he wasn’t alone in his uneasiness. The sour mood was visible in the faces of many who passed, jumping from one to another like a plague as the strange stories were passed on.

  14

  After two days of exchanging notes, Church and Niamh finally met up with Gabe and Marcy in the I-Thou Coffee Shop, a hippie hang-out filled with beatnik poets, polemicists, writers, musicians and other movers and shakers of the local scene. They were not alone. Tom was there, surly-eyed and suspicious, with a young woman with long, black hair and hypnotic grey eyes.

  The first thing that struck Church was how much they had changed. Marcy’s delicate features only emphasised the hardness of her new militancy, with her Malcolm and Martin T-shirt, tight denims and biker boots. Gabe had grown his hair long and wore a Day-Glo ‘Never Trust a Prankster’ T-shirt. A camera hung around his neck. Tom, too, had embraced the hippie aesthetics. His prematurely greying hair was tied in a ponytail and he wore glasses with one red lens and one blue.

  ‘Better late than never,’ he muttered.

  Gabe hugged Church warmly and Marcy kissed him on the cheek before fetching coffees. Tom introduced the other woman as Grace. He fixed Church with a stare: ‘A Sister of Dragons.’

  Grace opened her eyes wide. ‘This is the one? The first?’

  Church felt uncomfortable with Grace’s uncontained awe, but Tom said pointedly, ‘She recognises the important role you are supposed to be playing in events.’

  ‘I’m here now,’ Church snapped guiltily.

  ‘If it’s not too late. Things are already in motion.’ Tom contained himself and changed the subject. ‘Grace is a member of a coven up on Divisadero. Two weeks ago her use of the Craft started achieving astonishing results.’

  Grace looked scared. ‘I had to leave the coven. I mean, there are more witches in San Francisco than musicians, but suddenly everyone started getting spooked out by me.’

  ‘She’s the first,’ Tom said. ‘We’ll find the others soon. This is the time, this is the place.’

  In the performance area at the side of the floor
, a poet was chanting, ‘The doors of perception are opening,’ over and over again.

  ‘But first,’ Tom said, ‘we have to make you whole.’

  15

  In the twilight, the mist rolled up the streets from the bay. For once the Haight was unnaturally still. Inside, the atmosphere was tense. The ambience had been designed for introspection with candles, incense and soft, ethnic music in the background. Gabe and Marcy had agreed to retreat to Niamh’s room; they appeared to have been arguing. Grace had pushed the furniture back in the lounge so she could mark out in salt her sacred space. Tom, Niamh and Church sat at three of the cardinal points and in the centre of the circle was the lamp.

  ‘So, like, do we get a genie if we rub it?’ Grace said.

  ‘Something like that.’ Church had yearned for the missing Pendragon Spirit to be a part of him for so long, but now it was about to happen he was apprehensive. Once he was whole again he would be out of excuses. ‘You know that once it’s inside me again I’ll light up like a flare in the Enemy’s perception.’

  ‘You can still turn away from this,’ Niamh said.

  Tom had been watching Church all afternoon as if he expected that very thing. ‘Sooner or later you’re going to have to take a stand. Might as well be sooner.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say.’

  Grace completed her ablutions and began the ritual. For ten minutes she chanted and whispered, and just when Church thought nothing was going to happen, the atmosphere in the room altered perceptibly: the shadows lengthened and the temperature dropped several degrees. Their breath clouded as webs of frost formed on the inside of the window.

  Grace sat silently for a moment, and then blue sparks began to crackle around the lamp, building in intensity. They became tiny jagged lines of lightning until suddenly a column of Blue Fire roared up from the lamp’s spout. In the flames, Church saw a familiar face.