The Flames of Time (Flames of Time Series Book 1) (30 page)

We talked of many things again, the journey I was on, my journal keeping, home and my friends. But we both knew it was all just a polite preamble, and eventually I saw the fire coming into view that Marlow had spoken of in his dream. I felt the warmth from the flames on my face from quite a distance away, and could only imagine how hot it must be for the circle of shimmering and strange figures I saw gathered much closer around it.

As I looked upon them now, I realised it was these figures that had also interrogated and asked questions of me in my first dream, but that I hadn’t recognised their form and nature at the time.

I stopped a short distance behind the circle of figures, unsure that I wanted to move any closer to them, unsure I wanted to stay, but not knowing what else to do. Eventually it was my father who spoke, and helped me to decide.

‘You’ve come a long way my son,’ he said simply. ‘But this is no place for doubts and uncertainties. The flames of time that burn so brightly at the centre, can consume one not ready to look upon their brilliance or feel their heat. We cannot stay here for long.’

I knew what he was saying was the truth, it was almost as though the heat from the fire was felt not upon my skin but upon my doubts, and even so far removed it was becoming more than I could take. But just as I was about to leave, I saw Marlow approach out of the darkness a little further around the fire.

He was walking and talking with a tall Maasai man wearing a lion skin across his back, who for a moment reminded me of the Shaman Nelion, or rather as I imagined he would have looked when he was young.

The brightness of the fire seemed to grow a little as they approached, forcing me to take a few steps further back into the darkness. But even as I stepped away, I could see the circle of figures around the fire break and make way for Marlow and his companion, and then, with scarcely a heartbeats hesitation in his step I saw Marlow step forth toward the fire.

How that blistering inferno arose to meet his presence, the explosion of heat and pain was unbearable as the flame suddenly brightened and grew in its intensity. I was forced to withdraw further, even as the figures that had been standing so comfortably around the fire threw themselves away from the now scorching heat.

Only Marlow’s companion and one or two other figures remained, forcing themselves to stand against the searing heat, almost physically forced back by the incendiary power. I couldn’t stand to even look at that white-hot furnace, but before I fled into the cooling darkness I saw Marlow as he stepped into the centre of that impossible flame, arms extending outward as though in welcome, letting the fire wash over him, feeling and embracing its purifying touch. It was an agony to stand for even that moment to watch, before I allowed my father to pull me away into the night.

I couldn’t imagine the force of will it must have taken to step into that blaze of light and heat, let alone to stay there. I only hoped it was worth it to Marlow when he awoke.

We moved out amongst the stars again for a while, my father stopping off to show me Harry, as he walked and talked with someone I presumed to be his old professor. I wasn’t sure because the man seemed too young to be the person of whom Harry had referred. But they seemed to be engaged in some intense conversation, and to be walking once again around the site of the Singing Stones, looking at the wall paintings and smoke marks and who knew what else.

There was no sign of Jean, so after seeing Harry, we simply walked and talked some more, until eventually we’d made it back to the camp where I once more said good bye to my father, before laying down to rest.

CHAPTER 20 – ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

I awoke early the next morning clear-headed but slightly tired as though I hadn’t quite had as much rest as I could’ve done with. The sun was already up, but our camp was still firmly in the shade, so it was a bit on the cool side. Fortunately Jean had obviously been up and around for a bit, and had rekindled the fire to warm the rest of us, before disappearing off somewhere.

He returned a few minutes later with a couple of canteens full of water and some more wood for the fire. He immediately greeted me upon seeing that I was awake, and promised hot coffee within half an hour now that he’d got some water.

While the water was heating, I took the opportunity to go and wash and freshen up beside the nearby spring, and when I returned I discovered the coffee ready and Harry already awake, but obviously feeling the effects of the previous night, much like myself.

‘Well your potions definitely do the job Jean,’ he started, with a good-humoured smile, ‘but I don’t think you’ve got the recipe down to quite such an art as old Nelion.’

‘Practice, my friend, that is all I need,’ Jean retorted with mock seriousness. ‘Once I have experimented upon you another ten or twenty times I should have something comparable!’

‘Well I’m happy to say my friends,’ responded Harry with a strange glint in his eye, ‘that particular pleasure will not be necessary.’

I didn’t quite understand what he was driving at for a moment. But Jean was as ever ahead of me. ‘Do you mean to say, your dream has revealed something to you?’ he asked warily.

But before Harry could answer we were all distracted by Marlow suddenly starting in his sleep, and coming awake. He’d been sleeping perfectly quietly while we were talking. It was unusual for him to sleep in for longer than the rest of us, but Jean had checked on him at least once, and come away without any concern.

But now as he sat up, he was wild-eyed, and almost delirious. He seemed to look around not seeing us for a moment, and then as he spotted the fire he stopped and gazed fixedly at it. We’d all gone over to see that he was alright, but he wasn’t aware of us, and seemed to be talking nonsense, with just the odd word being audible for us to understand.

I couldn’t tell what he was rambling on about, and he wasn’t responding to us, but then suddenly his face set into a mask of steely determination, and for the first time in my life I saw rage enter those unnervingly calm eyes. For a moment then I was afraid of him.

Yet it was what he was saying that really transfixed us. ‘Selene’ he said over and over again. ‘Selene hold on. I will bring it to you, just try to stay awake… Selene wait for me.’

And then as suddenly as he’d woken, he again fell unconscious, and we had to place him back on his sleeping mat.

None of us were quite sure what to make of it or what to do. Jean checked Marlow’s pulse, to discover it beating quickly, and his eyes could still be seen to be moving frantically beneath his closed lids, but for the moment he was still.

‘Is it the drug?’ asked Harry bluntly. ‘Did he drink too much, and he’s unable to awake properly?’

‘No,’ responded Jean quietly, ‘it cannot be the drugs.’

‘But I thought you were concerned about their potency,’ asked Harry slightly confused.

‘Yes, yes I am indeed concerned about both their strength and their effect,’ answered Jean rather too frankly, ‘but that is why they are still in my pack, and last night I gave you all nothing more than a mild sleeping draught.’

‘What… but why?’ Harry stammered out in his incomprehension. But now was not the time for such questions, and after trying to form his question for another moment, he abandoned it to turn his attention to what we could do for Marlow instead.

‘What are you thinking Jean?’ he said getting back to the matter at hand. ‘Is there anything we can do to help him?’

‘I do not know,’ Jean replied obviously still thinking, ‘I have never known Robert to experience or suffer from such a condition before, though it is far from uncommon. I have heard that such dispositions can often be relieved by reassuring the subject about whatever it is that troubles them.’

‘He was talking about Selene,’ I said, ‘something about bringing something for her. Though why he should be concerned about such things I cannot imagine.’

‘I think I can imagine,’ Harry responded rather thoughtfully. ‘He wasn’t just talking about bringing something for her, he was talking to her as though she were in trouble, perhaps even dying.

‘Now I cannot imagine what that circumstance might be,’ he continued, ‘Neither can I say what vision or dream Rob might have been having, but I do know, no matter what our differences with these women, he’d still go out of his way to help if they were in danger.’

‘Then we must reassure him that she is safe, and perhaps this will help him to awake,’ suggested Jean.

It took only a few moments of Jean’s calm voice assuring Marlow that Selene was well and safe before his pulse started to slow and he seemed to relax before falling back into a more normal sleep. We were still too concerned to try and wake him, feeling it better to let him come around, or at least out of that state of deep sleep, in his own time.

As we watched and waited we began to talk again about the previous evening. I knew Harry had some news he wanted to share, but I was also curious as to what had happened to Jean.

‘It was without doubt a strange evening.’ Jean began after I put the question to him. ‘When those drums began again, it was almost as though I were transported back to Africa. I saw each of you drink the sleeping draught I had prepared, but even knowing what it was, I still felt myself wanting to join you and drink also.

‘But I struggled against it. Telling myself over and over that it was all just foolishness, until eventually I gained enough control to dash the bowl into the fire. As I look back now I cannot imagine why it should have been such a trial. But by the time I came back to myself, and was able to look toward your care, you had all obviously been unconscious for some while.

‘I do not recall looking at the time, or even having much sensation of it passing. And even after I had made you all more comfortable by moving you back to your sleeping mats, still the drums continued to sound, ever more distant and faint, but still calling to me, until eventually I too fell into unconsciousness. I dreamt much as I had done back in Africa, of things and people now passed, but without the force and persuasion of before.

‘I do not know why, but I awoke several times in the night, long enough to check upon each of you before once more falling back to sleep. The rest you know.’

‘How is it possible that we could hear those drums again,’ asked Harry, ‘let alone feel such a strong compulsion upon hearing their sound?’

But none of us had any answers for him on that point, so we moved on again and I asked him about what he’d meant earlier on when he’d said we wouldn’t need to try this little experiment again.

‘I know where there is a full set of intact and pristine tablets.’ he said quite simply, ‘And I don’t mean I know where they are roughly, or even that I’m just fairly sure they’re there. I mean I can put my finger on them exactly, because we’ve all already been there.’

I was simply too shocked to speak, his entire manner and tone was so confident and matter of fact, as to be almost comical, I simply couldn’t believe he was saying what he was saying. Eventually Jean managed to collect his wits and beg for an explanation.

‘Well, you may well want to kick me when you hear,’ Harry said half-amused and half-apologetic. ‘You remember when all this started, we travelled to the Singing Stones, and drank that potion, just like we’ve just re-enacted?

‘Well, I was a bit giddy with the entire experience afterward, which might explain things a little. But do you remember, I said that in my dream I’d seen a strange, almost clock-like symbol carved deep into the stone of that overhang, but it wasn’t there the following day.

‘At the time I simply didn’t realise the significance, not until we found that same symbol carved into the threshold stone at Uruk. Well… don’t you see? I dreamed that symbol was carved into the rock face of that great overhang, but when I looked for it the following day, all I could find was a hunting picture painted onto the surface of the stone…

‘Of course,’ exclaimed Jean, ‘It would be the simplest thing in the world to fill in the carved stone symbol with mud or clay, and then to paint over the entire thing, especially with the thick paint used by the Maasai for their wall painting. It would perfectly disguise the mud on the stone.’

‘Precisely,’ echoed Harry. ‘Well, when I drank the potion again this time, I again met my old professor. But this time I was prepared, I explained about the symbol and the tablets we’d found or been beaten to, and asked him whether we’d ever find a full set of intact tablets.

‘Well he showed me that night in Africa again, all beneath the stars and fire-lit overhang, as we drank the potion and then fell asleep. It was strange to see it again, and even stranger to see my own sleeping form and that clearly visible symbol where it was carved into the stone. The remains of the previous lot of mud plaster clearly visible on the ground beneath it. I even saw the mud being reapplied afterward and the hunting scene being painted back over the top again.’

‘So that must be the set of tablets taken by the African seeker,’ I said, thinking out loud. ‘And the Maasai obviously know about the symbol, so how can you be sure the tablets are still there?’ I asked, expecting Harry to have just not considered this.

Harry was looking altogether more serious now, and although he didn’t look flustered or put out by my question, I could tell there was something he wasn’t sure how to tell us. Jean had obviously picked up on Harry’s changed expression too, and tried to reassure him.

‘Come now my friend,’ he said encouragingly. ‘There is little point in your hesitation, what after all can you have to add that could be more amazing than what you have already told us?’

I saw a wistful amusement enter Harry’s expression then as he began to answer.

‘I know the tablets are still there,’ he said simply, ‘because I know the person who brought them to that spot and placed them in the cliff, is also still there, guarding them, and waiting for someone to claim them.’

It was a good job I was already sat down, I felt as though the ground had gone from under my feet. I just looked at Harry unable to believe what he’d said. Jean stood up and then sat down again, and then somehow managed to find his voice.