The Bride Wore Black Leather (18 page)

“Can you still find the way to the centre?”

“Yes. The way’s so clear it’s like a straight path to me.”

“Then we should press on,” said Julien. “Get to the centre and Green Henge.”

“You think we’ll be safe there?”

“Probably not. But that’s where the answers are. That’s where we’ll find the Sun King.”

“Still not telling me everything, Julien . . .”

I headed forward into the maze again, taking lefts and rights without even thinking about it. Julien strode along beside me, frowning with deep concentration. Thinking about whatever it was that he wasn’t ready to tell me yet. I made myself stick to a steady pace. Whatever was after us might attack if it thought we were fleeing. I could hear movement in the adjoining rows, soft, padding footsteps, drawing nearer, then falling away as I constantly changed direction. And there was a feeling on the air, on the clear, quiet air; of something powerful and very patient, following a ritual as old as Time itself. The maze wasn’t simply a maze. It was a testing ground, a proving ground . . .
Only the pure of intent will reach Green Henge . . .
I stopped when I saw the first body. It was human once, but that was a long time ago. It hung suspended, half-in and half-out of the hedge wall. So withered and desiccated, every drop of moisture sucked out of it, that I couldn’t even tell whether I was looking at a man or a woman. No clothing, no possessions, nothing to identify the body. One mummified hand thrust out of the dark greenery as though begging for help that never came. The face was a dry mask: no eyes, lips drawn all the way back from the dusty teeth. Thorns from the hedge were thrust deep into the body from all sides, holding it in place.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Julien said quietly.

“They left him here,” I said slowly. “The Sisters. The Very Righteous Sisters . . . They had to know he was here, but they left his body in the hedge. As punishment, or an example, or a warning . . . Because if he wasn’t worthy, he wasn’t worth bothering about. It isn’t right!”

“She,” said Julien.

“What?”

“This was a woman,” said Julien. “Look at the hip-bones. We have to go on, John. We can’t do anything for her.”

“I know. We have work to do. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.”

Julien surprised me by clapping me on the shoulder approvingly. “You have a good heart, John. I don’t care what anyone says.”

I made myself smile. “It’s usually you saying it, in one of your editorials.”

“You sell papers, John, I’ve never denied it.”

“Then how come I never see any royalties?”

I didn’t actually feel better but managed to fake it for Julien. We moved on. Heading for Green Henge. Where somebody had better be waiting with some bloody good answers.

We passed more bodies along the way. Always dried-out pitiful things, mummified, hanging half-in and half-out of the hedge walls. It didn’t look like a good way to die. The faces were always the worst part, teeth showing clearly in wide-stretched mouths. As though they’d all died screaming. A cold, dangerous anger burned within me.
We don’t do sacrifices. We’re not that kind of Druid.
I wasn’t sure I believed that any more. If I ever had. I might not be able to help these people, but I could still avenge them. I caught Julien looking at me worriedly and realised I was scowling fiercely, my hands still clenched into fists. I made myself relax, a little.

“Is there any chance these bodies are fakes?” I said roughly. “Maybe . . . seeded through the maze; atmosphere for the tourists?”

“No,” said Julien. “I would have heard. I think these people died trying to get to the centre of the maze. Or trying to get out of it.”

“Because they weren’t in the right spiritual frame of mind?” I said. My voice sounded ugly, even to me.

“Perhaps. There is something at work in this maze, John. I can feel it. And not only whatever it is that’s still following us.” He stopped abruptly, so I had to stop with him. “I keep hearing noises, footsteps, and what might be breathing, but I haven’t even caught a glimpse . . . And after all these years of living in the Nightside, I am really hard to sneak up on.”

“Same here,” I said. “It keeps moving in on us, then falling back. As though . . .”

“As though it wants to get to us, but it can’t!” said Julien. “As though something is preventing it, holding it back!”

“Any idea what?” I said. “I’d really like to know. I’d feel ever so much more comfortable.”

Julien shook his head. “How far are we, from Green Henge?”

“Almost there,” I said.

“Is your gift telling you that? Is it telling you anything else about the maze?”

I frowned, despite myself. “There’s a power here, inside the maze. Nowhere near the same level as Green Henge, but still . . . definitely a power. Set here long ago, for a purpose . . . To weed out the unworthy; isn’t that what Sister Dorethea said? But whatever it is, it feels vague to me, uncertain. I can’t seem to get a handle on it.”

“Wonderful,” said Julian. “Marvellous. Terrific. I really must make a mental note to load myself down with any number of powerful weapons and devices the next time I agree to accompany you on a case.”

“You came looking for me, remember?” I said.

“So I did. I must be getting old.”

We pressed on, and only half a dozen turnings later we were suddenly out of the hedgerow maze, or more properly, into the great opening at its centre. A huge open space, bigger even than the size of the maze had suggested. Someone was playing tricks with Space again. But what really took my breath away was the Standing Stones. Not one Circle, but many. Dozens and dozens of rows, of circles of menhirs, spreading out for as far as the eye could see. Great slabs of ancient Stone, twenty or thirty feet high, hundreds of prehistoric menhirs, and all of them covered in a thick layer of living greenery. Not the spiky grey-green vegetation of the hedge walls; this greenery was a brilliant emerald, bursting with life and health, radiating the wild verdant energy of Green Henge.

Julien and I stood close together, feeling very small in the face of such a huge thing. A presence, as well as a power.

“No wonder the Sisters call it a Garden,” I said finally. “But why did they allow the Stones to become so overgrown? Or was it always like this, from the beginning?”

“Not that I ever heard,” said Julien. “Is it a Druid thing?”

“Not that I ever heard,” I said.

“This . . . wasn’t simply allowed to happen,” Julien said slowly. “This is why the Stones allowed themselves to be transported here. To become . . . Green Henge.”

I looked back the way we’d come. The shadowy hedgerows were still and silent; and if anything in there was still watching us, it kept itself to itself. I shrugged quickly and strode forward into the Circles of Standing Stones. Julien moved along with me, staring openly about him like a tourist. I had more pride though the sheer presence of the Stones beat on the still air like a silent endless heartbeat, demanding respect. I gave each Stone plenty of room as I passed, looking carefully straight ahead. The full moon seemed to fill half the sky overhead, shining directly down on the Stones, bathing them in a shimmering blue-white glare. A light so intense, I could feel it tingling on my bare face and hands.

We seemed to walk for ages, through one Circle of Stones to another, but eventually we reached the centre, and stopped. A single long Stone lay on its side, on the ground, in the exact centre of all the Circles. No greenery touched it, its dull grey surface pitted and pock-marked. Half-buried in the dark earth by its own weight. My first thought was
Sacrificial Stone
, but there were none of the dark blood-stains on it that I’d seen on the outer wall. Julien smiled broadly, his face full of a simple awe.

“Can you
feel
that, John?”

Of course I could. There was the maze, and there was Green Henge, and then . . . there was something else. Something equally as powerful, perhaps even more so, but very young, as opposed to the ancient presence around us. Suddenly the glowing moonlight was gone, blasted aside by a burst of brilliant sunshine, as the Sun King came striding out of the Stones to join us. The whole of Green Henge was bathed in golden sunlight, rich and glorious, perhaps for the first time in centuries. The greenery surrounding the Standing Stones seemed to writhe and twist in ecstasy, expanding under the pressure of the sun’s warmth. A great choir of voices rang out, filling the evening air, surrounding the Sun King as he walked towards us, an angelic choir singing Hallelujahs. And the Sun King came to a halt, to stand before Julien and me, his presence beating on the air like an endless roll of thunder . . . prophesying the storm to come.

“Too loud, man!” said Julien. “Turn it down! I can hardly hear myself think!”

At once, the angelic chorus shut off, and the slow silence of the evening returned to Green Henge.

“Hello, Julien,” said the Sun King in a warm, pleasant voice. “It’s been a while. Miss me?”

“You know I did,” said Julien. “What’s with the new music? When did you go religious? What happened to the rock and roll?”

“That was then, this is now,” said the Sun King. He smiled easily on Julien, and on me; and even I was impressed by the sheer grace and spirituality blazing off this man. Whatever else he was, whatever else he might have become during his long absence, I had no doubt at all that the Sun King was the real deal.

He was dressed in his Coat of Vivid Colours, a long, linen coat blazing with psychedelic colours and patterns. It reminded me irresistibly of the interior of the Hawk’s Wind Bar & Grille. Underneath that he wore only a pair of faded blue jeans. His chest was bare, and so were his feet. He had a great mane of jet-black hair, falling half-way down his back, and a broad, square face with a prominent nose and a wide, smiling mouth. He wore tinted John Lennon granny glasses, pushed well down on his nose so he could peer over them with gleaming dark eyes. He opened his arms suddenly to Julien, and the two men stepped forward and embraced each other fiercely, with much back-slapping and loud, happy cries. I stayed back, feeling a bit left out. This was two legends meeting, after too long apart. I felt like a footnote. The two old friends rocked back and forth together, saying each other’s name over and over, and finally they stepped back, looked each other over at arm’s length, and gazed into each other’s face.

“You haven’t changed a bit, Julien,” said the Sun King. “All these years, and you still look exactly the same as I remembered you.”

“I could say the same of you,” said Julien, grinning broadly. “I waited for you, you know.”

“Of course you did,” said the Sun King. “I wouldn’t have expected anything else.”

Julien slowly stopped smiling. He let go of the Sun King and stepped back. “You look the same; but you’ve changed. The man I remember never once gave me any cause to fear what he might do.”

The Sun King shrugged easily. “I never meant to be away so long. I never meant . . . that you should all have to wait so long. For my return. Time passed differently inside the Tower, while I communed with the Entities. They had so much to teach me . . . But Julien, I have to ask. What the hell happened? To the Dream, to everything we believed in? Why did it all fall apart without me? I was only ever the messenger, not the message! I was expecting all of you to take up where I left off and carry on. To make the new and glorious world we promised ourselves.”

“You were the Miracle Man,” Julien said steadily. “When you left, you took the miracles with you. There was never anyone else like you. We fought our battles, day by day, inch by inch, and we did achieve many of the things we believed in. If not always in the ways we expected. But day by day, and inch by inch, the world wore us down.

“The miracles were never the point!” snapped the Sun King. He wasn’t smiling any more. He didn’t even try to hide his anger, but he made himself nod respectfully to Julien. “When I came back, you were the first one I thought of. Took me a while to track you down—in the Nightside, of all places. You always said you’d never come back here after the light you found in San Francisco. But here we both are. I knew you’d want to see me, so I put all this in your head. So you’d come here. And here I am. You are still my oldest and dearest friend, Julien; even if neither of us is who we were when we first met. Even if it appears . . . we no longer care about the same things.”

“You’ve been messing with my mind?” said Julien. His voice would have made anyone else beware.

“I always did,” the Sun King said complacently. “I changed the way people thought just by being near them. You saw me do it; but you never gave a damn as long as I was changing minds you disapproved of. You still believe you can talk me out of what I intend to do, don’t you? But be honest, Julien. This world you live in, this brave new modern world, this marvellous scientific twenty-first century . . . Is it the future we hoped for, the world we wanted to make? Where have all the beautiful people gone?”

“You were supposed to come back and save the world, not destroy it,” said Julien.

“Save, destroy; it’s all in the way you look at it,” said the Sun King.

“What happened to you?” said Julien, his voice rising despite himself.

“What happened to you?” said the Sun King. “The Great Victorian Adventurer? I was so proud to have you as my friend, back in good old San Fran. The hero of one age, who became the hero of another. Who gave up God and Empire for something better, something finer. We walked in glory through the streets of Haight-Ashbury, Julien. Walk with me now, through the streets of the Nightside. It can be like it used to be, when we were young and had the world at our feet.”

“I can’t,” said Julien Advent. “You’re not the man I remember.”

“I haven’t changed,” said the Sun King. “Not really. You only think I have because you’ve got old, inside. Look at you, Mr. Suit and Tie man. You wear that cloak like you’re ashamed of it. I still wear my colours, proudly nailed to my mast.”

“You would have loved the New Romantics,” I said, to remind them I was still there. And then wished I hadn’t as the Sun King turned his tinted glasses and fierce gaze in my direction. Having the Sun King look right at you was like being punched in the head by a spotlight. His presence was overwhelming; you couldn’t think of anything or anyone else. So I deliberately looked away and made a big deal of adjusting my white trench coat, so it fell comfortably about me.