The Stone Messiahs : Book Two - The Circle

By Kit Gleave

The Terracan, Vicehorn, the Tel bi Ree are all gone, fallen to dust. Only those known as the Four survive the 60 forgotten millennia, thrown across an ocean of time to find the Dreaming Stone and open the path back to the stone builders, the Cad a Hoi. But would those who inherited the quest understand it The Baron Moncrieff thought he did but it robbed him of his reputation, health and finally his life. It led him to ever more desperate treks into the high places of the world, searching for "The bright shining hills". But no one believed his mystic ramblings and within a few years of his last journey he was dead. Now the dream passed to his grandson, Thomas. He too would begin to seek answers to the mystery. With the aid of his friend, Lumpy, he would search in secret for the two warriors locked in a stone. He had read the Prophecy and seen the first glimmers of its truth. So armed only with his love of the old man and the need to understand his own dream he too would keep faith and await the Messiahs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781447582540

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e9781447582540_cover.jpg

The Stone Messiahs

Book Two - The Circle

Kit Gleave

Copyright © 2006 Kit Gleave

All rights reserved

Cover design by author

9781447582540

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1 - Ghosts, Dreams and Flying Machines

Chapter 2 - The Birmingham Melt

Chapter 3 - The First Nail

Chapter 4 - Conference in No-There

Chapter 5 - Olusha and the Khan

Chapter 6 - More Ghosts

Chapter 7 - Breakfast

Chapter 8 - Gifts, Ghosts and Conspiracies

Chapter 9 - The Hatfield Caper

Chapter 10 - The Green Glass Enigma

Chapter 11 - First Contact

Chapter 12 - Battles and Truths

Chapter 13 - The Prophecy

Chapter 14 - Coonishinook

Chapter 15 - The King and the Kitchen Mouse

Chapter 16 - The Box

Chapter 17 - The Gem

Chapter 18 - The Cave

Chapter 19 - Whispers from a Distant Age

Chapter 20 - Meetings in the Night

Chapter 21 - Friends, Fakes and Confusion

Chapter 22 - Waking

Chapter 23 - No Way out - One Way In

Chapter 24 - Filly’s Jump

Chapter 25 - Sun Bright at Night

Chapter 26 - Scenario on a Staircase

Chapter 27 - Secret in the Cellar

Chapter 28 - Flight of the Gem

Chapter 29 - Circles within Circles

Chapter 30 - Moon Dark in Day

Chapter 31 - Dormitory

Chapter 32 - Journey in the Land of Fire

Chapter 33 - The Dreaming Stone

Chapter 34 - Dormitory Awakes

Chapter 35 - Liat

Epilogue

About the Author

The Stone Messiahs – The Circle concludes the story started

in The Stone Messiahs – A Child of Two Worlds.

The opinions voiced in this book are not necessarily those of the author.

To Isobel, the original Centanawatuc

Acknowledgements

Firstly, I must thank my two trusty editors, Isobel, my wife, and the ever perceptive Josie Jennings. I would be lost without them. Then, of course, there are all those, whose encouragement and goodwill have helped so much in times of difficulty. In this, I tip my hat to my old friend, Jim Collins, his unswerving optimism always a tonic when the world turns grey. Roger Homsy must be thanked for modelling and remodelling for the cover shots and Dave Q, for getting it all rolling. A special thank you to Michael Tabb of the William Herschel Society, Bath, his work on the timing and positioning of the eclipse was of enormous help. Though I took licence by moving the event from spring to autumn and from dawn to midday I thank Michael (as one thanks the weather man for fine weather) for getting me within one year of the date I needed.

Also there’s the annoying, irascible and immensely kind Peter Elcock who read to me all the books my dyslexia had denied. I calculated he spent at least 7,000 hours over 15 years and read everything from Anderson to Zola. The Stone Messiahs would have been the poorer without him.

I must also thank Dixie Press for their tireless and admirable work in taking my pages and fashioning them into a book. God bless.

Finally, there is one who I shall name only as my friend. Without his thoughtfulness I would not have lived long enough to complete the Stone Messiahs. His death gave me back my life and any plaudits other than that would be utterly redundant.

Prologue

The young acolyte sat crossed-legged beside the sleeping form of the old Yaterno, spreading softened beeswax on thin sheets of lime wood to pass the hours of his vigil. The night was clear and sharp, and a full moon, low in the west, cast soft shadows onto the dusty floor of the tiny room. All was silent. The Great One stirred and the scribe put the bees-wax to one side and leaned close to his master. But Yokernytaramynapcapsong, greatest of the Yaterno, didn’t open his eyes or make a sound so the scribe returned to the preparation of his sheets.

Yok knew it at once: Ny, the Sleeping Stone. He had rested beside it in those happy few days prior to their trek east ahead of the last fall. He raised a hand to its quartz-flecked surface. To his surprise it felt warm and he stroked it gently as though it were the trunk of his beloved mammoth, Sagatoo. A hand squeezed his shoulder and he turned with a start.

Moshon Da smiled down at him. ‘Hallo, old friend.’ She bent and kissed the bridge of his nose.

Yok blinked, for here was the great seer in her youth, a plain girl, tall and gangly, with a high brow and a thin hooked nose made all the more prominent by her bald pate.

‘So, Mother, ‘he glanced about, ‘this is your realm?’

‘Well, I come here in my sleep. It’s the thrall of Ny.’ She held her arms out. ‘You see me now as I’ve always seen myself, how I’ve always felt inside, regardless of the years.’ She gave a little laugh, no longer the harsh bark, but a lighter less troubled sound. ‘Well, Yok, it would seem we’ve both nearly run our course. One or two things then I’ll sleep the sleep of ages, once more. And you,’ she grinned and flashed her eyes, ‘you’ll do the other thing. I’m not sure if I envy you or not.’

‘Will you never join us on the other side, Mother?’

‘Shame on you, you old goat, as if you had prior knowledge of the hereafter.’

It was Yok’s turn to grin. ‘I have a soul, it must go somewhere.’

‘A soul? Perhaps. You have imagination, but then death is the end to imagining.’ She gave her head an enquiring tilt. ‘Then again, maybe if it can be imagined it can exist?’

‘Perhaps we each imagine our own heaven.’

At once, her light demeanour fell away. ‘Ah, yes, my profound and astute little Yaterno, perhaps indeed. We can but wait.’

‘What is it, Mother? Why have you brought me here?’

‘I’ve missed you, what else? I feel there will be so little I can do from my slumber and that, believe it or not, frightens me. Even I need reassurance at times. It all still hangs by such a slender thread. Does Tontith have the carving?’ Yok nodded. ‘And the red stone, has he found it?’

‘Fear not, Mother, he’s found the stone. He sits there most evenings in the warm months. I’ve taught him all I know of the quiet moment and the unseen principle. He’ll be fine. Remember what you taught me: circles within circles. Don’t worry on his behalf. Now tell me, what of the others?’

‘Covreea has built a high keep over Ny and Tozar Lak. I’ve still work to do there.’ She sighed. ‘There’s a greater picture, Yok, something vast but I don’t see it as yet, like Coonishinook and the boys it’s all too far from my ken.’

They sat together for some time, speaking of the past. She took his hand and braided the hair of his wrist as she had done once in his youth. She had told him that all those that followed his ways would do likewise. At the time he hadn’t known what she meant, but he had learned. When she had finished he lifted his hand and examined it. It was a hand he had not seen in a long while, steady and strong. He looked down at the rest of his young body. ‘I like this realm, Mother of the World, it has possibilities.’

‘I’m glad you like it, old friend, and I would love to stay but I have a world of my own to worry over.’ She kissed him once more and was gone.

Yok blinked and looked about. She had vanished and so had Ny. He stood up, surprised at the spring in his step. His head felt light and he began to caper, singing an old bawdy ditty from his youth. He stopped abruptly, fearful that he might be overlooked, but there were none to witness his exuberance. For a moment he felt lost, not knowing quite what to do. He shaded his eyes and looked out across the rolling grassland. Some way off he could see a herd of mammoth, grazing in a water meadow. This couldn’t be, surely? His heart leapt as he recognized his beloved Sagatoo. He began running and calling with shrill, whistling hoots. The great beast heard and started towards him, the massive helical tusks raised against the skyline as it bellowed its own greeting.

Yokernytaramynapcapsong pressed his forehead into the callused corrugations of Sagatoo’s knee then looked up into the tiny watery eye and smiled. Of course, he thought, how foolish of me not to realize. What else would I imagine for myself?

The young acolyte closed his master’s eyes and knelt for a few minutes in contemplation. His master had awakened for a few last moments but he had not inscribed the Great One’s last words. He would do it later. After all they were timeless and would never leave him: Remember you are loved.

The Prophecy will come to the listening house

To call the king and the kitchen mouse.

Chapter 1

Ghosts, Dreams and Flying Machines

The vast head of the wolf snake reared up but Glenish managed to hold his ground. The fangs, as long as a man’s forearm, scythed down towards his head and he gritted his teeth as the huge jaw snapped shut about him then abruptly vanished, leaving naked bodies to scatter into the woods. He gave chase, smashing and clattering through the underbrush, arrows singing from his bow. Nothing could be trusted, least of all the trees. They writhed, moved and melted from sight. One leapt at him and launched a sting whisper but his arrow was notched and the shaft struck home. The tree vanished leaving a naked body dead before him. Suddenly, their dratted whispers were everywhere. One hit his thigh and he dropped to the ground, his leg numb and nerveless. A banshee wail pierced the air and with terrified eyes Glenish shrank back, as from the tree tops a huge and unnameable beast with flaming eyes, claws outstretched, fell screeching towards him.

Lumpy jerked awake with a gasp. The grill above the radar was screaming an alarm. He looked up and saw a sheer wall of stone, speeding towards him out of the afternoon sun. Hollering curses he fought the controls, swerving the helicopter, banking it through eighty degrees, its left skid sparking on the granite mass before he managed to drag it, whirling up, out of harm’s way. Lumpy, his heart thumping like a steam hammer, wiped a hand over his face. ‘Stupid fool!’ He spat the words aloud and continued muttering self recriminations as he checked the instruments. He had come off autopilot when the sat-nav went on the fritz and then, the thought alarmed him, he must have simply dozed off for a moment. Gritting his teeth he pulled the Motter back on course and tried the satellite positioning system again. This time it seemed to be fine, the original program presented itself and started running. He relaxed a little.

Twenty metres above the pine forest, Nail-Eye-1’s complex probes, quartered and re-quartered the floor of woodland below. But for all their electrical sophistication the ghosts of another age still haunted their echoes and confused the screens, the rusted and rotted fabric of the old world still able to whisper its deceit into Lumpy’s instruments. With a lower sweep the signal would become stronger but no less confused. Certainly not worth flying at tree top level, one near miss a day was enough for any man.

So Lawrence Humphrey Dolittle eased his stocky form back in the pilot seat and pulling the data-flex from his shoulder pocket scrolled up the Tribe-clan Herald’s evening ponderword and pondered. He was a solidly built man of thirty-six with square shoulders and a square weather-beaten face that held untidy, but firm and expressive features. Features that flinched suddenly as the radio barked in his earphones.

‘Moncrieff to Nail-Eye-1. Lumpy, where are you? Y’on.’

The pilot adjusted his throat mike. ‘Here, Boss.’

‘Sorry, did I wake you?’

The taunt reminded him of his near miss and gave him a shudder but he said nothing and checked the display on his console. ‘I’m a little north of the Tor about…oh not again!’

‘What’s up?’

‘Give me a minute, Boss. Y’on and down.’ The readout from the SPS had thrown another tantrum. He had set the entire search pattern into the computer ten minutes before lofting. It should have taken him due north and then west to skirt the Mendip Hills. But flicking to manual he saw he was flying north-north-east, nearly forty-five kilometres from the Tor.

He flipped the radio switch. ‘Nail-Eye-1 to Moncrieff. Y’on.’

‘Lumpy, what is it?’

‘Well, either I’ve gone crazy or the SPS has. At the moment I’m at a location some fifteen kilometres short of Braker’s ridge and Fort Churchill. I think I’d better head back on my own reckoning. I know the country well enough but you’d better have the tower stick a flag on my backside.’

There was a short delay then Baron Moncrieff’s voice came back. ‘Er, yes, OK. Are you all right?’

‘Never better,’ he lied, ‘why?’

‘No reason. I’ll see you when you get back. There’s something I want to discuss with you. Come and see me when you’ve eaten. Y’on and down.’

Switching back to the automatic systems Lumpy sat for some moments looking at the display. He hated it when electronics went haywire. Burn out and you knew where you stood, but when they screwed up like this, he pulled a sour face, it could not only be deadly but it could take forever to analyze the fault. He put the craft back on manual and began a preliminary check. With his pocket compass clipped to the knee of his flight suit he stabbed out the sequence to clear the SPS screen. The system check button flashed four times and the screen flickered back showing: Re-enter Command.

Lumpy turned for home, tapped in the coordinates for Tor Manor then steered the aircraft 40 degrees off line. He switched back to autopilot. The SPS at once executed a perfect 40 degree correction, adjusting for Lumpy’s deliberate error. It automatically checked height and speed then began displaying perfectly sound topographic information. But Lumpy knew different. The topography was correct for the countryside between him and Tor Manor but according to the simple compass on his knee he was gradually turning back the way he had come. ‘Creepy,’ he said aloud and once again switched off the whole system and went to manual. He dragged the Motter round in a bone crushing turn and headed home. He wouldn’t fall asleep again he was too vexed, and what was more, hungry.

When the snows had come the Tor had been just far enough south to survive their glacial onslaught, its great mound standing like a defiant sentinel amidst the ancient flood plain. It had once been a place of holy retreat, a refuge from war and hunger and all the vagaries of an uncertain world, but no longer. Now it looked outward, bristling with towers and dishes, domes and dipoles, the full silver and white panoply of electronic communication. Some called it an eyesore; a blot on the landscape. But Lumpy could never see it as such. To him it was a thing of beauty, not just because he had overseen much of its design or that it was the beacon that always guided him home. No, it was more. It was a conduit for human dreams and aspirations, the means by which a person could cross the earth and back in seconds. But over and above this it was a monument to the failure of the monstrous Children. Never would he tire of seeing it rise above the horizon, especially as it did now on a warm, late summer evening. Then, he thought, it looked like the great city of legend, Arimathea, home and resting place of Saint Arthur. Its central tower thrust sky-wards like the sword of X-calibre, festooned with a myriad of winking jewels. And in the soft air it seemed to hover, glimmering in space, supported by columns of light from the arc lamps at its base.

From this height even the less attractive installation buildings and barracks of the cabal guard could be imagined as something more mystical. But little could help the imagination disguise the large, ugly, brick and sandstone manor house that stood a kilometre to the north. Though it lay at the centre of well tended grounds, with an ornamental lake and well manicured privet maze it still jarred the eye and ruffled the senses. Built 160 years before, Tor Manor was the home of Baron Thomas Orlando Moncrieff, First Prefect of Nailand and the Normandy Reaches, Adjudicator of the Northern Cabals, President of Moncrieff Communications and Aerospace Industries and Secretary of the High Northern Alliance. Arguably the most powerful man on earth, certainly the most troubled.

Lumpy dropped the Motter square in the centre of the luminous H of the helipad, snapped off the H.O. splitter and shut down the computer. He pulled the wafer and jumped down to terra firma. Two of Ganju’s maintenance men were waiting to look the machine over. He held up the pearlescent oblong of the wafer between two fingers and told them to check the SPS thoroughly and replace it with a new one from stock. With deferential nods they quizzed him on its failure for a few minutes then left, clearly nonplussed, to tow the aircraft into one of the sheds.

To the side of the main entrance to Tor Manor lay a flight of steps that led down to a stone corridor and kitchen. A large room, warm and inviting, it was the informal heart of the house, the one place where the household met as friends and rank was observed in name only. Lumpy opened the glass-panelled door leading from the stone flagged hallway and looked in. Dolly was standing with her back to him, busying herself at the sink. ‘OK, Dolly?’ he asked pulling a chair noisily from the table. The kitchen maid jumped and spun round, her bright young face flaring at him.

‘Commander Dolittle, I swear I’ll swing for ya one day, creeping up on a girl like that.’

Lumpy gave a friendly guffaw. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to give you a start. Tell the truth I’m absolutely starved and the Baron wants to see me soonest. Could you find me something smartish?’

Dolly wiped her hands on her apron and angled him a reproachful look. She ladled out a deep bowl of stew and placed it before him with a hunk of poppy-seed bread.

‘Last kitchen call, so ya just in time.’ She grinned at him as if such a thing would have made a difference to him getting fed. Dolly had been the kitchen maid for three months. She was an attractive young woman with light auburn hair and brown enquiring eyes. It was a strong, symmetrical face, with a fine well shaped nose and an ample mouth which, like her eyes, echoed a wilful turn of mind. The daughter of indigent parents she had run away at fourteen and become a wayward, a street mouse. But the life had been hard and now at nineteen she had settled at the manor and while content her early scrapes and tears could occasionally show, robbing her bright face of its youth.

‘There’s more if ya want it, Commander,’ she indicated the stove with her thumb. ‘Maggie made fresh earlier.’

Lumpy shook his head. He ate with a concentrated gusto for ten minutes then pushed the cleaned and virtually pristine bowl away and stifled a belch with the back of his hand. ‘Thanks, Dolly, I was in need of that.’

‘Good,’ she seemed genuinely pleased, ‘tea?’

‘Er,’ he glanced at his wrist, ‘yeah, but then I got to fly. The boss wants to show me something, lord knows what.’

She filled a mug from the pot on the stove and placed it before him. ‘What’s it ya looking for, Commander?’ She glanced at him sideways as if there were some conspiracy.

‘Oh, well, apart from maybe making an uncovering, which is always helpful to the advancement of science, not to mention very lucrative,’ he winked and rustled his finger tips, ‘it’s also his lordship’s hobby. Like his grandfather he loves old ruins and I help with some of the groundwork. It gives me a chance to fly more and I never argue with that.’

‘You love flying, don’t ya?’

‘Absolutely, to fly is to live.’

‘When ya gonna take me up in ya Motta?’

Lumpy’s solid features crinkled into a grin. ‘When I got time and not before. You’re a saucy minx, Dolly Christmas, do you know that?’

The young kitchen maid beamed and nodded, pleased at being on such easy terms with a man of rank. The only aristocrats she had ever known had either wanted to buy her favours or cuff her when she refused the offer. But Lumpy knew something of how she felt and had not hidden his sympathy of her lonely childhood, tramping the streets of Exeter and London. She also knew something of him. At meal times she would listen and occasionally, especially in wine when he became enthused, she would hear below the Harvard accent the softened tones of a countryman of humbler origins.

She returned his grin. ‘I don’t mean no disrespect, Commander, you do know that, don’t ya?’

‘Of course I do. Where’s Maggie, off to the flictures with her sister no doubt?’

She just nodded and for a moment they sat in silence, listening to the familiar sounds of the huge cooking range.

‘I’ll take you up sometime, Dolly, but the boss has had me run ragged of late.’ Lumpy shrugged. ‘I think he’s worried about His Holiness and the eclipse. You know how he likes things to be just right.’

‘Yeah, exciting though ain’t it?’ She looked down at the tabletop, where she was drawing small circles with her index finger. ‘Will Maggie and me get to meet him, do ya think?’

‘If you behave yourself, mind your p’s and q’s.’ Lumpy’s face was filled with mischief.

‘Oi!’ She shoved his arm. ‘Don’t tease, go on tell us.’

‘Dolly, he makes no distinctions between people, the high and the low are meaningless terms to him, so of course he’ll want to meet you.’ He swallowed the last of his tea and put the empty mug down with a thump on the scrubbed wooden table. ‘I’d better see what the boss wants.’ He pinched her chin and pointed a finger at her. ‘Sweet dreams, Dolly, see you tomorrow.’

‘And you, Commander.’ She pulled the empty crockery towards her and stood up. She didn’t move straight away but watched him climb the stairs up into the house, then, with a little shrug turned to the sink to wash his mug and bowl. She could have put them in the machine, but she didn’t, she washed them carefully, by hand.

Moncrieff’s second office was a corner hived off from the comroom by a half-glazed partition, his main office being on the ground floor. A filter room from the main complex on the Tor, nothing of importance to the cabal went unread, unheard or unseen here. Other than their head offices in Lisbon the comroom was the heart of the Moncrieff Empire and the High Northern Alliance. Lumpy tapped the glass door and pushed his head in.

‘Come in, Lumpy.’ The Baron’s voice was clipped and aristocratic.

‘You really want me, Boss, because I’m shot?’

‘Mm, yes, I do me old mucker, sorry.’ He was sitting with his elbows resting on the table, his chin pressed to clasped fingers. He raised his head and for a brief second stared at his friend, his dark eyebrows pinched, his wide set eyes seeming to scan Lumpy’s face. ‘You got back OK then?’

‘Clearly. It was the SPS, dratted thing decided to have a mind of its own.’

The Baron raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? Interesting.’ He stood up and walked round his desk, beckoning Lumpy back out into the main body of the comroom. ‘Take a look at this.’ He produced a thin remote from his top pocket and aimed it at the wall to their left. The image that formed was an aerial view of a glacial valley.

‘Where was it taken from?’

‘S-Eye-2. It’s here I want you to look at.’ He drew a cursor over an area of scrubland that held no particular distinguishing features. ‘This, believe it or not, was once a city called Birmingham. But look at this,’ he pointed the remote again and the image flicked to a high altitude, wide-angle view, ‘it’s the snowline forty years ago. Now watch the same map reference taken at one year intervals.’ As the images flickered by, the dates appearing in the corner of the screen, Lumpy could see the ice receding.

‘Seems quicker than I would have imagined. I knew the snowline was retreating but I thought it was the last couple of hot summers or so.’ Lumpy watched the recording a few times. ‘That looks pretty constant though.’

‘I fear so. I hope to know more tomorrow. Hester says she’ll have her figures. The other groups, however, seem to be dragging their feet, silly buggers know what’s going on but prefer to remain with their heads firmly stuck where the sun…anyway that’s not exactly what interests me right now. Look,’ he froze the image at its earliest date, ‘just here, I’ve christened it the Birmingham melt. Watch how a hole appears in the ice and as the seasons pass it doesn’t refreeze even in the depths of winter.’ The video began to run through the cycle once more and sure enough though tiny, on the overall scale it was definitely there. The original view returned to the screen, ‘This is the site where the hole appeared. The glacier has scoured the earth to a depth where all the remains of the old city have been scraped away, no more scattered readings from the reinforced concrete, just a beautiful trench for us to start work.’

‘And you want me up there first thing, no doubt?’

‘If you would, Lumpy. I, well, you know I always have high hopes, but this time there’s something I want you to look for, I won’t say what but use all your major telemetry, really sniff about for me. See if you can find something, anything and I mean anything.’

Lumpy grinned ruefully. ‘You mean the usual. OK, Boss, I’ll get some shut-eye. N’night.’

Moncrieff sat in an easy chair with a balloon of cognac, swirling the contents absentmindedly. Lumpy was right the last three summers had been long and hot, the winters wet and abnormally mild. But while that might just be a temporary hike, sun flares, natural cycles, whatever, there was no doubt the climate had changed and the ice receding far quicker than anticipated. He knew this would change the shape of the map. As the waters trapped in the ice-cap were released the flooding would be catastrophic, the weather dangerously unpredictable. But also, as new land was laid bare there would be opportunities for further lucrative uncoverings. Land grabs would be inevitable, cabal precincts would be contested, almost certainly with deadly force. Diplomacy under such conditions would be virtually impossible. With the upheaval of so much power and wealth the usual rats would come scuttling from their middens. Well, let them. Lumpy had clearly been tired or he would have realised his faulty SPS had, in fact, been making a beeline for the Birmingham melt site.

He scowled into his empty glass and poured himself another half measure. Swirling it about the balloon he sniffed and flexed his shoulders. ‘Relax man.’ He realised he had said the words aloud but continued, if only to cut the silence he felt pressing upon him. ‘Worry about that later, after all if Lumpy has any luck tomorrow we’ll be in another world. Let it unfold, just let it unfold.’

Chapter 2

The Birmingham Melt

The summer of 2536 had been long and hot and now, as autumn approached, the wheat fields that covered what had once been the Somerset wetlands lay before Lumpy like a swaying sea of gold. At a height of fifteen metres he gunned the helicopter’s engines and the ripe ears parted in a rolling wake as he skimmed north at 240 k.p.h. Although the Baron preferred the term, Seeker Plotter, Nail-Eye-1 was, in its true guise, a Dragon Class Hunter Killer. Made by Mott Engineering Company, a subsidiary of Moncrieff Aerospace, Nail-Eye-1 carried, in place of its usual armoury, a huge array of geological survey equipment. It was black and sleek and emblazoned below its blister windows was the Moncrieff coat of arms: a circular field of white with the letter M overlaid by a stylised nail, under this in gothic script the famous motto: Willing to starve.

Keeping one eye on his pocket compass, Lumpy sat back and took out his data-flex to peruse the news. The tiny ceramic engine gave off no more than a light throaty hum and the hypnotic threshing of the rotor blades soon had his eyes drooping. He awoke, startled, to a two-tone chime and a plasma-drift read-out flashing: Hovering. He had arrived.

Lumpy yawned and looked down, checking the terrain below. It was, for the most part, glacial fallout and shattered scree left by the gigantic wall of ice that was now some hundreds of kilometres to the north. He switched to a standard search pattern and the craft started a slow sweep of the flattened valley floor. A metropolis had once stood on this site, now there was no sign of it.

He took the Motter up another hundred metres but again he could find nothing out of the ordinary. The photographic read-outs from deep infrared to the high ultra violet showed nothing. The gravity readings, sonar and X-ray interferometry merely confirmed the geological map on the screen before him. However, he would do the job thoroughly. He cut to manual and did a dozen low-level passes over what the boss had called the Birmingham melt, but it produced nothing. Finally, he tacked back and forth so low that dust and fine shale was blown from under the machine in coiling grey clouds. Then he heard it. Faint as it was, it was there, a beep in his earphones. He pulled the Motter over in a steep bank and flew over the same spot, he heard it again and this time he saw the gravimeter give the tiniest spike.

Lumpy brought the craft down as close to the anomaly as he could. Taking a handset he got out and tried to find the extent of the effect. Finally, he climbed between the skids of the Motter, waving the gravimeter back and forth; the cause of the effect had to be somewhere close. Five minutes later he found it in an area no larger than the top of his thumb. The figures on his handset whirled and the screen went blank. He reset its sensitivity; it blanked again. Eventually, he got a reading that set him back on his heels. What in God’s name was it? It seemed that at this tiny spot gravity dropped by a massive twelve percent. For a moment he felt dizzy and put a hand out to steady himself only to snatch it back instantly. He reared up in panic, cracking his head on the underbelly of the Motter, dropping the gravimeter.

He wasn’t quite sure what had happened. His vision was blurred. He closed his eyes and pressed them gently with the balls of his hands, and slowly the world came into focus. He rolled from under the skids, got to his feet and looked around, not quite sure what it was he was seeing. Neither was he sure if the cacophony in his ears was external or internal, a tinnitus of some kind. But he quickly realised it was external, familiar even. After all he had been to enough fairs in his time. He looked about. It was certainly a fair of some kind. There were the usual musicians, jugglers, acrobats, but no rides. There were traders everywhere touting their goods. Some had their wares laid out before them on the ground while others sang the quality of their goods from the openings of sumptuous tents. The smell of hot food wafted on the air, sweet and savoury, until Lumpy felt quite hungry. This, he thought, was a market put on in the old style.

Bemused, he stood staring. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he should be taking stock but a sense of calm amusement seemed to have superimposed itself. He continued to look about, the small voice of caution fading from his mind. Suddenly, he realised with a jolt of both shock and pleasure that here and there in the jostling crowd he could see the occasional naked form. It rang a tiny bell but before he had time to focus on it, out from the crowd stepped four of the most beautiful young girls he had ever seen. All in their middle or late teens they were completely naked and seemed to dazzle the eye as if their laughter and enthusiasm were transmitted as light. Lumpy stood entranced, not so much at their nakedness as at their ease and lack of embarrassment. Though many just ignored them some of the clothed people gazed upon the group with a very mixed response indeed.

There were wide-eyed smiles and scarlet blushes from the men while old ladies stood in groups, discussing at length the finer points of this scandalous behaviour. The little huddle of naked girls expanded as others of all ages and sexes joined them. At first they seemed greatly excited with much pointing and turning of heads, but slowly the hubbub faded and they became quiet, almost reverential.

Lumpy felt a tingling run down his back, was he the focus of this rapt attention? Were they looking at him? Surely not. He turned slowly about. The scene that met his eyes removed what shreds of reality remained to his befuddled mind. Moving towards him were two massive stones, floating on a cushion of blue-green light. Atop the stones, one on each, like two proud figureheads, a boy and a girl stood holding hands, smiling at each other. In love, Lumpy thought, if he were any judge. But if this strange and beguiling image was not enough, behind them, walking with a rolling stride, came an elephant larger than anything he thought possible, and on its back stood a huge howdah like an untidy tenement, rocking and swaying to the animal’s gait. There was a roar from the crowd at his back. He turned but saw nothing except the deep glacial valley in which he had landed. Yet the roar grew louder until it filled not just the whole valley but his entire being.

Lumpy awoke to a splitting headache. He was lying between the skids of the Motter, holding his head and groaning. He muttered to himself, ‘Who on earth lives on an elephant?’ and climbed out from beneath the belly of the aircraft. Inside the cabin he checked his head for bumps or bleeding but there was none. He drank some water and checked his eyes for pupil response. Happily, there was no sign of concussion. But regardless of the strange dream that now seemed to be fading from his memory something very odd had happened. Setting the coordinates for Tor Manor he noticed that his hand was shaking. Sitting back he looked at it. Slowly, it came back. He had found a tiny area with a strange drop in gravity. It had made him feel dizzy and he’d put out a hand. That was when he’d hit his head, when an invisible hand took his and pressed it in a firm grip.

Chapter 3

The First Nail

In the spring of the year 2036 Maria Ann Moncrieff gave her husband Frank a son and heir. The child was named after his father and grew strong, tall and well favoured. The Moncrieffs, a wealthy farming family, gave the young Frank the best of everything, content that the boy would one day step into his father’s shoes. But he was cut from a different cloth to the father and as he grew he became evermore wilful and wild, more often to be found poaching his father’s salmon streams or carousing in town than studying for his pre-planned future. Inevitably, regardless of his mother’s attempts at peace, he and his father lost favour in each other’s eyes. At age seventeen with angry recriminations still ringing in his ears, Frank turned his back on wealth and position and joined the European contingent of the United Nations’ Peacekeeping Force.

Here the young man found his niche. Brave and foolhardy, he sought the special training that would allow him to come face to face with an uneasy world. He was not disappointed. From Antarctica to the Moroccan Sahara he helped quell the natural unrest resultant of thirst, hunger and too many mouths. With a distrust of authority he shunned advancement and after nine years, and one too many near misses, Sergeant F. Moncrieff put in his papers. If all went well he would be outward bound for the Mars colony and a new life within the year. Three months before his embarkation, on 9 February 2062, eco-zealots known as The Children of Ludd unleashed Jenny’s Loom. Its cocktail of engineered viruses spread a skeletal hand across the face of the earth with the speed of a suborbital cruiser. Within two months the ten billion souls of earth had been reduced to less than 300 million, all slain by the merciful hand of Ludd’s Children.

In every land the human race plunged into the barbarisms of a new dark age. Cities and forests, petrochemical and nuclear plants, burned and blackened the skies. Winter came to the earth and the poles grew, grinding mankind ever closer to the edge of extinction. But the ice became a common enemy, forcing humanities’ ragged remains to consolidate against its frigid onslaught. Slowly, the roaming packs of scavengers began to reorder their lives. Fiefdoms of a few hundred sprang up, the law maintained by ruthless iron hard warlords. Men like Frank Moncrieff.

In the autumn of the year 2093 the first Baron Moncrieff sat a kilometre from the stronghold of his last adversary, Baron Hugh Pengillic, and passed a jaundiced eye over his camp.

Small groups of war weary men sat about small disconsolate fires, gambling, drinking, or, like him, merely staring with sullen minds. Here was an image half remembered from his meagre education so long ago: was it Shakespeare, Mort Arthur? What did it matter? They now lived their own dark age. But here was no theatre, no boyhood tale, just a mindless repetition of a scene that had been played out many times in other fiefdoms by other barons a thousand years before. Since then the human hand had reached up for the stars only to be brought low by its own hubris. What had really happened? Had the gap between knowledge and wisdom become too great? Were dark ages a part of the human psyche, a mass expression of its midnight soul, nature’s way of dealing with wilful ignorance? The Baron took a swill of his stale beer and threw off his dull muse with a duller curse. Here was no place for philosophy, only the study of war and the reign of necessity held any currency now.

He shivered and pulled his cloak tight about him, giving the listless embers of the fire a prod with the toe of his boot. A tongue of flame licked the air for a brief moment and the glint of a sword caught his eye. He looked up. A man stood before him, holding his blade horizontally, examining the edge. It flashed blood red from the enlivened fire, blood and fire, perhaps the emblem of the campaign, or an emblem of his life.

‘Do we fight tomorrow, my lord?’ The man’s voice sounded monotone and far off.

He didn’t recognize him, perhaps he was an assassin. He didn’t care, and just remained staring at the sword and the glint of its message: blood and fire. The man walked away.

His mind wandered, tacking across his life to a time so long ago that the memories seemed to be those of another. He remembered a young man on a farm in a different world, warmed and pampered by the gift of electricity, a gift stolen by the Children of Ludd. But that was the least of their larceny. They had destroyed the very thing they were sworn to protect. Nature itself had been decimated. Mankind robbed of its compass and its bearing. The gardener had poisoned the garden. Now they could only become part of its wounded heart. All of humanity’s potential condemned to flow like the fetid and polluted waters that washed meaninglessly across the planet’s face. A strange anger stirred within him, a flame of revenge sparked and grew. The Children had achieved only misery. He would put it right. The warmth of the electronic age must be reborn. Suddenly, it was as if the world had shifted about him, an uneasy sense of disconnection made him sit up to steady himself. He closed his eyes and a line came to him, a saying from his distant education: There is nothing more powerful than an idea that has come of age.

Inside the heart of Frank Moncrieff, a metamorphosis took place. No longer was the need to survive enough. The old world would have to live again lest the monstrous Children prevail. He would no longer lift his sword in anger. The killing had to stop. He took his famous, circular shield of white wood and lifting a hot iron from the smithy’s fire burned upon it the words: Those who are willing to starve together need never know hunger. Naked, he strode to Pengillic’s Hold and nailed the shield to the vast door of the keep. Two days later Pengillic returned the shield with a request for parley. Thus, the idea was born. It survived and came of age. Unstoppable, it slowly crossed the face of the shrunken and shattered world. Thus began the legend of Frank the Nail and the rule of the House of Moncrieff.

The year 2502 started ordinarily enough. The Dixie Yank consortium made a vicious pre-emptive takeover of the Sioux Magic and Mayhem Corp; the son and heir of Khan MacNauty-Huo’s dynasty married; and Lady Ellison Moncrieff, wife of the sixteenth Baron, died. By year’s end there had been several corporate skirmishes, a christening and a funeral. Also, deep within the earth a strange heart started beating once more and an ancient and lonely mind reached out to the lonely widower, T.H. Moncrieff. For the first time in nearly 60,000 years the Prophecy of the Terracan re-entered the world of man, Cotnish man.

Chapter 4

Conference in No-There

The Baron tapped the Lisbon coordinates into his data-flex and slipped it back in the arm pocket of his morning coat. He stood close to the dressing mirror and adjusted the mother-of-pearl cameo at his throat. He was a tall, slender man that many would consider handsome. However, his were not the symmetric and tailored looks favoured by the media, but tougher and less compromising, his face showing a severity born of the problems of authority and the often dire necessities of office. From a small pocket in his waistcoat he took a comb and teased back a few wayward strands of hair. Among the cabals the seventeenth Baron was known as a shrewd man, astute and knowledgeable, yet reliable and fair in business, attributes he had worked hard to achieve. But he wouldn’t have liked to own up to his love of fashion. While he detested vanity in others he accommodated his own sins by reminding himself of his otherwise frugal lifestyle. He stood back and with a final hitch of his shoulders decided he would do and made for the comroom on the floor below.

There, on the opposite wall to his office, stood a booth, a white cube, two metres on a side, containing a desk, a chair and a keypad, beside which lay a tiny headset. He settled this comfortably in his ear while tapping a short code into the pad, then stood for a moment, looking at his watch. At precisely nine o’clock, as the minute hand touched twelve, he initiated his data-flex with a slap of his biceps and waited. A second later a flat red beam of laser light passed over him from head to toe, followed by beams of green and blue. The pattern of lights repeated, each time getting faster until they blurred to one, leaving the Baron contained in a ball of brilliant white light. The walls of the booth appeared to melt and vanish and he was left standing at the head of a large oblong table in a mahogany-panelled boardroom over 1500 kilometres away in Lisbon.

There were four others in the room all of whom stood, as, out of a flickering haze, Baron Moncrieff materialised. ‘Good day, Chairman,’ they chimed together.

The Baron beamed each of them a welcome. ‘Good to see you all, do please sit.’

It was a small, but very select, gathering of the top members of the High Northern Alliance, each an old and trusted friend. To Moncrieff’s left sat Hester Toron, President of C.T. Statistics, and next to her the stocky form of Manny Goldman, Agronomist. Closest to him on his right sat Olusha Zano, of Zan-Bio Techniques, and next to her and the only non-cabal head, Ambassador Mahmoud Ericson, head of the H.N.A.’s Diplomatic and Facilitator’s Office. As the Baron held the quarterly chair for all Alliance business he brought the meeting to order.

‘Computer, we’ll forego the minutes of the previous meeting, but begin recording.’ He turned to his left. ‘Well, Hester, while it’s good of you to give us this preview of your figures I can’t help feeling somewhat anxious.’

Hester Toron was a dark skinned, middle-aged woman, slender, with cropped, silver-grey hair. She wore a close-fitting sleeveless jacket with a high mandarin collar in teal brocade, and tight three-quarter length pants to match. Although neither tall nor severe in appearance, she still managed to convey a sense of command. She stood for a moment, glancing through her data-flex. She put it to one side and looked to the Baron. ‘Thank you, Lord Thomas. Well, I don’t think any of you came expecting good news and while the outlook is gloomy there is, I think, no reason for despair. Certainly, the fears that have bothered us for so long are sadly no longer conjecture. The figures have been double checked. Both Baron Drepp at Comp-Log and Zane Okpik of the Inuit Group concur with my findings. The projections presently accepted for global warming are, unfortunately, woefully short sighted.’ She let the words settle for a moment before continuing. ‘It’s getting warmer quicker than we previously thought, perhaps as much as three degrees over the next 200 years.’

The group sat in silence for a full thirty seconds absorbing and weighing the news. These were fears that had been in the public realm for a long time and yet human nature appeared, as ever, quite capable of dual thinking. Whilst happy to be thrilled in books, TV and film by apocalyptic visions, doing something about the problem was clearly too expensive plus, what was more, it turned ugly fiction into unpalatable truths. In the end it