No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories

THE LUSTSTONE

One

The ice was only a memory now, a racial memory whose legends had come down the years, whose evidence was graven in the land in hollow glacial tracts. Of the latter: time would weather the valley eventually, soften its contours however slowly. But the memories would stay, and each winter the snows would replenish them.

That was why the men of the tribes would paint themselves yellow in imitation of the sun-god, and stretch themselves in a line across the land east to west and facing north, and beat back the snow and ice with their clubs. And frighten it back with their screams and their leapings. With their magic they defeated winter and conjured spring, summer, and autumn, and thus were the seasons perpetuated.

The tribes, too, were perpetuated; each spring the tribal wizards—the witch-doctors—would perform those fertility rites deemed necessary to life, by means of which the grass was made to grow, the beasts to mate, and Man the weapon-maker to increase and prosper upon the face of the earth. It was the time of the sabretooth and the mammoth, and it was the springtime of Man, the thinking animal whose destiny is the stars. And even in those far dim primal times there were visionaries.

Chylos of the mighty Southern Tribe was one such: Chylos the Chief, the great wizard and seer whose word was law in the mid-South. And in that spring some ten thousand years ago, Chylos lay on his bed in the grandest cave of all the caves of the Southern Tribe, and dreamed his dream.

He dreamed of invaders!

Of men not greatly unlike the men of the tribes, but fiercer far and with huge appetites for ale, war, and women. Aye, and there were gross-bearded ones, too, whose dragon-prowed ships were as snakes of the sea, whose horned helmets and savage cries gave them the appearance of demons! But Chylos knew that he dreamed only of the far future and so was not made greatly fearful.

And he dreamed that in that distant future there were others who came from the east with fire and thunder, and in his dreams Chylos heard the agonized screams of the descendants of his tribe, men, women, and children; and saw visions of black war, red rape, and rivers of crimson blood. A complex dream it was, and alien these invaders: with long knives and axes which were not of stone, and again wearing horned helmets upon their heads to make them more fearsome yet. From the sea they came, building mounds and forts where they garrisoned their soldiers behind great earthworks.

And some of them carried strange banners, covered with unknown runes and wore kilts of leather and rode in horse-drawn chairs with flashing spokes in their wheels; and their armies were disciplined thousands, moving and fighting with one mind…

Such were Chylos’s dreams, which brought him starting awake; and so often had he dreamed them that he knew they must be more than mere nightmares. Until one morning, rising from his bed of hides, he saw that it was spring again and knew what must be done. Such visions as he had dreamed must come to pass, he felt it in his old bones, but not for many years. Not for years beyond his numbering. Very well: the gods themselves had sent Chylos their warning, and now he must act. For he was old and the earth would claim him long before the first invaders came, and so he must unite the tribes now and bring them together. And they must grow strong and their men become great warriors.

And there must be that which would remain long after Chylos himself was gone: a reminder, a monument, a Power to fuel the loins of the men and make the tribes strong. A driving force to make his people lusty, to ensure their survival. There must be children—many children! And their children in their turn must number thousands, and theirs must number…such a number as Chylos could not envisage. Then when the invaders came the tribes would be ready, unconquerable, indestructible.

So Chylos took up his staff and went out into the central plain of the valley, where he found a great stone worn round by the coming and going of the ice; a stone half as tall again as a man above the earth, and as much or more of its mass still buried in the ground. And upon this mighty stone he carved his runes of fertility, powerful symbols that spelled lust. And he carved designs which were the parts of men and women: the rampant pods and rods of seed, and the ripe breasts and bellies of dawning life. There was nothing of love in what he drew, only of lust and the need to procreate; for man was much more the animal in those dim forgotten days and love as such one of his weaknesses. But when Chylos’s work was done, still he saw that it was not enough.

For what was the stone but a stone? Only a stone carved with cryptic runes and symbols of sexuality, and nothing more. It had no power. Who would remember it in a hundred seasons, let alone years? Who would know what it meant?

He called all the leaders of the tribes together, and because there was a recent peace in the land they came. And Chylos spoke to those headmen and wizards, telling them of his dreams and visions, which were seen as great omens. Together the leaders of the tribes decided what must be done; twenty days later they sent all of their young men and women to Chylos the Seer, and their own wizards went with them.

Meanwhile a pit had been dug away from the foot of the great stone, and wedged timbers held back that boulder from tumbling into the pit. And of all the young men and women of the tribes, Chylos and the Elders chose the lustiest lad and a broad-hipped lass with the breasts of a goddess; and they were proud to be chosen, though for what they knew not.

But when they saw each other, these two, they drew back snarling; for their markings were those of tribes previously opposed in war! And such had been their enmity that even now when all the people were joined, still they kept themselves apart each tribe from the other. Now that the pair had been chosen to be together—and because of their markings, origins, and tribal taboos, the greatest of which forbade intercourse between them—they spoke thus:

“What is the meaning of this?” cried the young man, his voice harsh, affronted. “Why am I put with this woman? She is not of my tribe. She is of a tribe whose very name offends me! I am not at war with her, but neither may I know her.”

And she said: “Do my own Elders make mock of me? Why am I insulted so? What have I done to deserve this? Take this thing which calls itself a man away from me!”

But Chylos and the Elders held up their hands, saying: “Be at peace, be at ease with one another. All will be made plain in due time. We bestow upon you a great honour. Do not dishonour your tribes.” And the chosen ones were subdued, however grudgingly.

And the Elders whispered among each other and said: “We chose them and the gods were our witnesses and unopposed. They are more than fit for the task. Joining them like this may also more nearly fuse their tribes, and bring about a lasting peace. It must be right.” And they were all agreed.

Then came the feasting, of meats dipped in certain spices and herbs known only to the wizards and flavoured with the crushed horn of mammoth; and the drinking of potent ales, all liberally sprinkled with the potions of the wizards. And when the celebrant horde was feasted and properly drunk, then came the oiled and perfumed and grotesquely-clad dancers, whose dance was the slow-twining dance of the grossly endowed gods of fertility. And as the dance progressed so drummers took up the beat, until the pulses of the milling thousands pounded and their bodies jerked with the jerking of the male and female dancers.

Finally the dance ended, but still the drummers kept to their madly throbbing beat; while in the crowd lesser dances had commenced, not so practised but no less intense and even more lusty. And as the celebrants paired off and fell upon each other, thick pelts were tossed into the pit where the great stone balanced, and petals of spring flowers gathered with the dew upon them, making a bower in the shadow of the boulder; and this was where the chosen couple were made to lie down, while all about the young people of the tribes spent themselves in the ritual spring orgy.

But the pair in the pit—though they had been stripped naked, and while they were drunk as the rest—nevertheless held back and drew apart, and scowled at each other through slitted eyes. Chylos stood at the rim and screamed at them: “Make love! Let the earth soak up your juices!” He prodded the young man with a spear and commanded him: “Take her! The gods demand it! What? And would you have the trees die, and all the animals, and the ice come down again to destroy us all? Do you defy the gods?”

At that the young man would obey, for he feared the gods, but she would not have him. “Let him in!” Chylos screamed at her. “Would you be barren and have your breasts wither, and grow old before your time?” And so she wrapped her legs about the young man. But he was uncertain, and she had not accepted him; still, it seemed to Chylos that they were joined. And as the orgy climbed to its climax he cried out his triumph and signalled to a pair of well-muscled youths where they stood back behind the boulder. And coming forward they took up hammers and with mighty blows knocked away the chocks holding back the great stone from the pit.

The boulder tilted—three hundred tons of rock keeling over—and in the same moment Chylos clutched his heart, cried out and stumbled forward, and toppled into the pit!—and the rune-inscribed boulder with all its designs and great weight slammed down into the hole with a shock that shook the earth. But such was the power of the orgy that held them all in sway, that only those who coupled in the immediate vicinity of the stone knew that it had moved at all!

Now, with the drumming at a standstill, the couples parted, fell back, lay mainly exhausted. A vast field, as of battle, with steam rising as a morning mist. And the two whose task it had been to topple the boulder going amongst them, seeking still-willing, however aching flesh in which to relieve their own pent passions.

Thus was the deed done, the rite performed, the magic worked, the luststone come into being. Or thus it was intended. And old Chylos never knowing that, alas, his work was for nothing, for his propitiates had failed to couple…

Three winters after that the snows were heavy, meat was scarce, and the tribes warred. Then for a decade the gods and their seasonal rites were put aside, following which that great ritual orgy soon became a legend and eventually a myth. Fifty years later the luststone and its carvings were moss-covered, forgotten; another fifty saw the stone a shrine. One hundred more years passed and the domed, mossy top of the boulder was hidden in a grove of oaks: a place of the gods, taboo.

The plain grew to a forest, and the stone was buried beneath a growing mound of fertile soil; the trees were felled to build mammoth-pens, and the grass grew deep, thick, and luxurious. More years saw the trees grow up again into a mighty oak forest; and these were the years of the hunter, the declining years of the mammoth. Now the people were farmers, of a sort, who protected limited crops and beasts against Nature’s perils. There were years of the long-toothed cats and years of the wolf. And now and then there were wars between the tribes.

And time was the moon that waxed and waned, and the hills growing old and rounded, and forests spanning the entire land; and the tribes flourished and fought and did little else under the green canopy of these mighty forests…

Through all of this the stone slept, buried shallow in the earth, keeping its secret; but lovers in the forest knew where to lie when the moon was up. And men robbed by the years or by their own excesses could find a wonder there, when forgotten strength returned, however fleetingly, to fill them once more with fire.

As for old Chylos’s dream: it came to pass, but his remedy was worthless. Buried beneath the sod for three thousand years the luststone lay, and felt the tramping feet of the nomad-warrior Celts on the march. Five thousand more years saw the Romans come to Britain, then the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings, and still the luststone lay there.

There were greater wars than ever Chylos had dreamed, more of rape and murder than he ever could have imagined. War in the sea, on the land and in the air.

And at last there was peace again, of a sort. And finally—

Finally…

Two

Garry Clemens was a human calculator at a betting shop in North London; he could figure the numbers, combinations and value of a winning ticket to within a doesn’t matter a damn faster than the girls could feed the figures into their machines. All the punters knew him; generally they’d accept without qualms his arbitration on vastly complicated accumulators and the like. With these sort of qualifications Garry could hold down a job any place they played the horses—which was handy because he liked to move around a lot and betting on the races was his hobby. One of his hobbies, anyway.

Another was rape.

Every time Garry took a heavy loss, then he raped. That way (according to his figuring) he won every time. If he couldn’t take it out on the horse that let him down, then he’d take it out on some girl instead. But he’d suffered a spate of losses recently, and that had led to some trouble. He hated those nights when he’d go back to his flat and lie down on his bed and have nothing good to think about for that day. Only bad things, like the two hundred he’d lost on that nag that should have come in at fifteen to one, or the filly that got pipped at the post and cost him a cool grand. Which was why he’d finally figured out a way to ease his pain.

Starting now he’d take a girl for every day of the week, and that way when he took a loss—no matter which day it fell on—he’d always have something good to think about that night when he went to bed. If it was a Wednesday, why, he’d simply think about the Wednesday girl, et cetera…

But he’d gone through a bad patch and so the rapes had had to come thick and fast, one and sometimes two a week. His Monday girl was a redhead he’d gagged and tied to a tree in the centre of a copse in a built-up area. He’d spent a lot of time with her, smoked cigarettes in between and talked dirty and nasty to her, raped her three times. Differently each time. Tuesday was a sixteen-year-old kid down at the bottom of the railway embankment. No gag or rope or anything; she’d been so shit-scared that after he was through she didn’t even start yelling for an hour. Wednesday (Garry’s favourite) it had been a heavily pregnant coloured woman he’d dragged into a burned-out shop right in town! He’d made that one do everything. In the papers the next day he’d read how she lost her baby. But that hadn’t bothered him too much.

Thursday had been when it started to get sticky. Garry had dragged this hooker into a street of derelict houses but hadn’t even got started when along came this copper! He’d put his knife in the tart’s throat—so that she wouldn’t yell—and then got to Hell out of there. And he’d reckoned himself lucky to get clean away. But on the other hand, it meant he had to go out the next night, too. He didn’t like the tension to build up too much.

But Friday had been a near-disaster, too. There was a house-party not far from where he lived, and Garry had been invited. He’d declined, but he was there anyway—in the garden of the house opposite, whose people weren’t at home. And when this really stacked piece had left the party on her own about midnight, Garry had jumped her. But just when he’d knocked her cold and was getting her out of her clothes, then the owners of the house turned up and saw him in the garden. He’d had to cut and run like the wind then, and even now it made his guts churn when he thought about it.

So he’d kept it quiet for a couple of weeks before starting again, and then he’d finally found his Thursday girl. A really shy thing getting off a late-night tube, who he’d carried into a parking lot and had for a couple of hours straight. And she hadn’t said a word, just panted a lot and been sick. It turned out she was dumb—and Garry chuckled when he read that. No wonder she’d been so quiet. Maybe he should look for a blind one next time…

A week later, Friday, he’d gone out again, but it was a failure; he couldn’t find anyone. And so the very next night he’d taken his Saturday girl—a middle-aged baglady! So what the Hell!—a rape is a rape is a rape, right? He gave her a bottle of some good stuff first, which put her away nicely, then gave her a Hell of a lot of bad stuff in as many ways as he knew how. She probably didn’t even feel it, wouldn’t even remember it, so afterwards he’d banged her face on the pavement a couple of times so that when she woke up at least she’d know something had happened! Except she hadn’t woken up. Well, at least that way she wouldn’t be talking about it. And by now he knew they’d have his semen type on record, and that they’d also have him if he just once slipped up. But he didn’t intend to.

Sunday’s girl was a lady taxi driver with a figure that was a real stopper! Garry hired her to take him out of town, directed her to a big house in the country and stopped her at the bottom of the drive. Then he hit her on the head, ripped her radio out, drove into a wood and had her in the back of the cab. He’d really made a meal of it, especially after she woke up; but as he was finishing she got a bit too active and raked his face—which was something he didn’t much like. He had a nice face, Garry, and was very fond of it. So almost before he’d known that he was doing it, he’d gutted the whore!

But the next day in the papers the police were talking about skin under her fingernails, and now he knew they had his blood-group but definitely, too. And his face was marked; not badly, but enough. So it had been time to take a holiday.

Luckily he’d just had a big win on the gee-gees; he phoned the bookie’s and said he wasn’t up to it—couldn’t see the numbers too clearly—he was taking time off. With an eye-patch and a bandage to cover the damage, he’d headed North and finally holed up in Chichester.

But all of that had been twelve days ago, and he was fine now, and he still had to find his girl-Friday. And today was Friday, so…Garry reckoned he’d rested up long enough.

This morning he’d read about a Friday night dance at a place called Athelsford, a hick village just a bus-ride away. Well, and he had nothing against country bumpkins, did he? So Athelsford it would have to be…

It was the middle of the long hot summer of ’76. The weather forecasters were all agreed for once that this one would drag on and on, and reserves of water all over the country were already beginning to suffer. This was that summer when there would be shock reports of the Thames flowing backwards, when rainmakers would be called in from the USA to dance and caper, and when a certain Government Ministry would beg householders to put bricks in their WC cisterns and thus consume less of precious water.

The southern beaches were choked morning to night with kids on their school holidays, sun-blackened treasure hunters with knotted hankies on their heads and metal detectors in their hands, and frustrated fishermen with their crates of beer, boxes of sandwiches, and plastic bags of smelly bait. The pubs were filled all through opening hours with customers trying to drown their thirsts or themselves, and the resorts had never had it so good. The nights were balmy for lovers from Land’s End to John o’ Groat’s, and nowhere balmier than in the country lanes of the Southern Counties.

Athelsford Estate in Hampshire, one of the few suburban housing projects of the Sixties to realize a measure of success (in that its houses were good, its people relatively happy, and—after the last bulldozer had clanked away—its countryside comparatively unspoiled) suffered or enjoyed the heatwave no more or less than anywhere else. It was just another small centre of life and twentieth-century civilization, and apart from the fact that Athelsford was ‘rather select’ there was little as yet to distinguish it from a hundred other estates and small villages in the country triangle of Salisbury, Reading, and Brighton.

Tonight being Friday night, there was to be dancing at The Barn. As its name implied, the place had been a half-brick, half-timber barn; but the Athelsfordians being an enterprising lot, three of their more affluent members had bought the great vault of a place, done it up with internal balconies, tables, and chairs, built a modest car park to one side—an extension of the village pub’s car park—and now it was a dance hall, occasionally used for weddings and other private functions. On Wednesday nights the younger folk had it for their discotheques (mainly teenage affairs, in return for which they kept it in good repair), but on Friday nights the Barn became the focal point of the entire estate. The Barn and The Old Stage.

The Old Stage was the village pub, its sign a coach with rearing horses confronted by a highwayman in tricorn hat. Joe McGovern, a widower, owned and ran the pub, and many of his customers jokingly associated him with the highwayman on his sign. But while Joe was and always would be a canny Scot, he was also a fair man and down to earth. So were his prices. Ten years ago when the estate was new, the steady custom of the people had saved The Old Stage and kept it a free house. Now Joe’s trade was flourishing, and he had plenty to be thankful for.

So, too, Joe’s somewhat surly son Gavin. Things to be thankful for, and others he could well do without. Gavin was, for example, extremely thankful for The Barn, whose bar he ran on Wednesday and Friday nights, using stock from The Old Stage. The profits very nicely supplemented the wage he earned as a county council labourer working on the new road. The wage he had earned, anyway, before he’d quit. That had only been this morning but already he sort of missed the work, and he was sure he was going to miss the money. But…oh, he’d find other work. There was always work for good strong hands. He had that to be thankful for, too: his health and strength.

But he was not thankful for his kid sister, Eileen: her ‘scrapes and narrow escapes’ (as he saw her small handful of as yet entirely innocent friendships with the local lads), and her natural, almost astonishing beauty, which drew them like butterflies to bright flowers. It was that, in large part, which made him surly; for he knew that in fact she wasn’t just a ‘kid’ sister any more, and that sooner or later she…

Oh, Gavin loved his sister, all right—indeed he had transferred to her all of his affection and protection when their mother died three years ago—but having lost his mother he wasn’t going to lose Eileen, too, not if he could help it.

Gavin was twenty-two, Eileen seventeen. He was over six feet tall, narrow-hipped, wide in the shoulders: a tapering wedge of muscle with a bullet-head to top it off. Most of the village lads looked at Eileen, then looked at Gavin, and didn’t look at Eileen again. But those of them who looked at her twice reckoned she was worth it.

She was blonde as her brother was dark, as sweet and slim as he was huge and surly; five-seven, with long shapely legs and a waist like a wisp, and blue eyes with lights in them that danced when she smiled; the very image of her mother. And that was Gavin’s problem—for he’d loved his mother a great deal, too.

It was 5:30 p.m. and brother and sister were busy in workclothes, loading stock from the back door of The Old Stage onto a trolley and carting it across the parking lot to The Barn. Joe McGovern ticked off the items on a stock list as they worked. But when Gavin and Eileen were alone in The Barn, stacking the last of the bottles onto the shelves behind the bar, suddenly he said to her: “Will you be here tonight?”

She looked at her brother. There was nothing surly about Gavin now. There never was when he spoke to her; indeed his voice held a note of concern, of agitation, of some inner struggle which he himself couldn’t quite put his finger on. And she knew what he was thinking and that it would be the same tonight as always. Someone would dance with her, and then dance with her again—and then no more. Because Gavin would have had ‘a quiet word with him’.

“Of course I’ll be here, Gavin,” she sighed. “You know I will. I wouldn’t miss it. I love to dance and chat with the girls—and with the boys—when I get the chance! Why does it bother you so?”

“I’ve told you often enough why it bothers me,” he answered gruffly, breathing heavily through his nose. “It’s all those blokes. They’ve only one thing on their minds. They’re the same with all the girls. But you’re not just any girl—you’re my sister.”

“Yes,” she answered, a trifle bitterly, “and don’t they just know it! You’re always there, in the background, watching, somehow threatening. It’s like having two fathers—only one of them’s a tyrant! Do you know, I can’t remember the last time a boy wanted to walk me home?”

“But…you are home!” he answered, not wanting to fight, wishing now that he’d kept his peace. If only she was capable of understanding the ways of the world. “You live right next door.”

“Then simply walk me!” she blurted it out. “Oh, anywhere! Gavin, can’t you understand? It’s nice to be courted, to have someone who wants to hold your hand!”

“That’s how it starts,” he grunted, turning away. “They want to hold your hand. But who’s to say how it finishes, eh?”

“Well not much fear of that!” she sighed again. “Not that I’m that sort of girl anyway,” and she looked at him archly. “But even if I was, with you around—straining at the leash like…like a great hulking watchdog—nothing’s very much likely to even get started, now is it?” And before he could answer, but less harshly now: “Now come on,” she said, “tell me what’s brought all this on? You’ve been really nice to me this last couple of weeks. The hot weather may have soured some people but you’ve been really sweet—like a Big Brother should be—until out of the blue, like this. I really don’t understand what gets into you, Gavin.”

It was his turn to sigh. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he said. “The assault—probably with sexual motivation—just last week, Saturday night, in Lovers’ Lane?”

Perhaps Eileen really ought not to pooh-pooh that, but she believed she understood it well enough. “An assault,” she said. “Motive: ‘probably’ sexual—the most excitement Athelsford has known in…oh, as long as I can remember! And the ‘victim’: Linda Anstey. Oh, my, what a surprise! Hah! Why, Linda’s always been that way! Every kid in the school had fooled around with her at one time or another. From playing kids’ games to…well, everything. It’s the way she is and everyone knows it. All right, perhaps I’m being unfair to her: she might have asked for trouble and she might not, but it seems hardly surprising to me that if it was going to happen to someone, Linda would be the one!”

“But it did happen,” Gavin insisted. “That kind of bloke does exist—plenty of them.” He stacked the last half-dozen cans and made for the exit; and changing the subject (as he was wont to do when an argument was going badly for him, or when he believed he’d proved his point sufficiently) said: “Me, I’m for a pint before I get myself ready for tonight. Fancy an iced lemonade, kid?” He paused, turned back towards her, and grinned, but she suspected it was forced. If only she could gauge what went on in his mind.

But: “Oh, all right!” she finally matched his grin, “if you’re buying.” She caught up with him and grabbed him, standing on tip-toe to give him a kiss. “But Gavin—promise me that from now on you won’t worry about me so much, OK?”

He hugged her briefly, and reluctantly submitted: “Yeah, all right.”

But as she led the way out of The Barn and across the car park, with the hot afternoon sun shining in her hair and her sweet, innocent body moving like that inside her coveralls, he looked after her and worried all the harder; worried the way an older brother should worry, he thought, and yet somehow far more intensely. And the worst of it was that he knew he was being unreasonable and obsessive! But (and Gavin at once felt his heart hardening)…oh, he recognized well enough the way the village Jack-the-Lads looked at Eileen, and knew how much they’d like to get their itchy little paws on her—the grubby-minded, horny…

…But there Gavin’s ireful thoughts abruptly evaporated, the scowl left his face, and he frowned as a vivid picture suddenly flashed onto the screen of his mind. It was something he’d seen just this morning, across the fields where they were laying the new road; something quite obscene which hadn’t made much of an impression on him at the time, but which now…and astonished, he paused again. For he couldn’t for the life of him see how he’d connected up a thing like that with Eileen! And it just as suddenly dawned on him that the reason he knew how the boys felt about his sister was because he sometimes felt that way too. Oh, not about her—no, of course not—but about…a boulder? Well, certainly it had been a boulder that did it to him this morning, anyway.

And: Gavin, son, he told himself, sometimes I think you’re maybe just a tiny wee bit sick! And then he laughed, if only to himself.

But somehow the pictures in his mind just wouldn’t go away, and as he went to his upstairs room in The Old Stage and slowly changed into his evening gear, so he allowed himself to go over again the peculiar occurrences of the morning…

Three

That Friday morning, yes, and it had been hot as a furnace. And every member of the road gang without exception looking forward to the coming weekend, to cool beers in cool houses with all the windows thrown open; so that as the heat-shimmering day had drawn towards noon they’d wearied of the job and put a lot less muscle into it.

Also, and to make things worse, this afternoon they’d be a man short; for this was Gavin McGovern’s last morning and he hadn’t been replaced yet. And even when he was…well, it would take a long time to find someone else who could throw a bulldozer around like he could. The thing was like a toy in his hands. But…seeing as how he lived in Athelsford and had always considered himself something of a traitor anyway, working on the link road, he’d finally decided to seek employment elsewhere.

Foreman John Sykes wasn’t an Athelsfordian, but he made it his business to know something about the people working under him—especially if they were local to the land where he was driving his road. He’d got to know Big Gavin pretty well, he reckoned, and in a way envied him. He certainly wouldn’t mind it if his Old Man owned a country pub! But on the other hand he could sympathize with McGovern, too. He knew how torn he must feel.

This was the one part of his job that Sykes hated: when the people up top said the road goes here, and the people down here said oh no it doesn’t, not in our back garden! Puffed up, awkward, defiant little bastards! But at the same time Sykes could sympathize with them also, even though they were making his job as unpleasant as they possibly could. And that was yet another reason why the work hadn’t gone too well this morning.

Today it had been a sit-in, when a good dozen of the locals had appeared from the wood at the end of Lovers’ Lane, bringing lightweight fold-down garden chairs with them to erect across the road. And there they’d sat with their placards and sandwiches on the new stretch of tarmac, heckling the road gang as they toiled and sweated into their dark-stained vests and tried to build a bloody road which wasn’t wanted. And which didn’t seem to want to be built! They’d stayed from maybe quarter-past nine to a minute short of eleven, then got up and like a gaggle of lemmings waddled back to the village again. Their ‘good deed’ for the day—Goddam!

Christ, what a day! For right after that…big trouble, mechanical trouble! Or rather an obstruction which had caused mechanical trouble. Not the more or less passive, placard-waving obstruction of people—which was bad enough—but a rather more physical, much more tangible obstruction. Namely, a bloody great boulder!

The first they’d known of it was when the bulldozer hit it while lifting turf and muck in a wide swath two feet deep. Until then there had been only the usual stony debris—small, rounded pebbles and the occasional blunt slab of scarred rock, nothing out of the ordinary for these parts—and Sykes hadn’t been expecting anything quite this big. The surveyors had been across here, hammering in their long iron spikes and testing the ground, but they’d somehow missed this thing. Black granite by its looks, it had stopped the dozer dead in its tracks and given Gavin McGovern a fair old shaking! But at least the blade had cleared the sod and clay off the top of the thing. Like the dome of a veined, bald, old head it had looked, sticking up there in the middle of the projected strip.

“See if you can dig the blade under it,” Sykes had bawled up at Gavin through clouds of blue exhaust fumes and the clatter of the engine. “Try to lever the bastard up, or split it. We have to get down a good forty or fifty inches just here.”

Taking it personally—and with something less than an hour to go, eager to get finished now—Gavin had dragged his sleeve across his brown, perspiration-shiny brow and grimaced. Then, tilting his helmet back on his head, he’d slammed the blade of his machine deep into the earth half a dozen times until he could feel it biting against the unseen curve of the boulder. Then he’d gunned the motor, let out the clutch, shoved, and lifted all in one fluid movement. Or at least in a movement that should have been fluid. For instead of finding purchase the blade had ridden up, splitting turf and topsoil as it slid over the fairly smooth surface of the stone; the dozer had lurched forward, slewing round when the blade finally snagged on a rougher part of the surface; the offside caterpillar had parted in a shriek of hot, tortured metal.

Then Gavin had shut her off, jumped down, and stared disbelievingly at his grazed and bleeding forearm where it had scraped across the iron frame of the cab. “Damn—damn!” he’d shouted then, hurling his safety helmet at the freshly turned earth and kicking the dozer’s broken track.

“Easy, Gavin,” Sykes had gone up to him. “It’s not your fault, and it’s not the machine’s. It’s mine, if anybody’s. I had no idea there was anything this big here. And by the look of it this is only the tip of the iceberg.”

But Gavin wasn’t listening; he’d gone down on one knee and was examining part of the boulder’s surface where the blade had done a job of clearing it off. He was frowning, peering hard, breaking away small scabs of loose dirt and tracing lines or grooves with his strong, blunt fingers. The runic symbols were faint but the carved picture was more clearly visible. There were other pictures, too, with only their edges showing as yet, mainly hidden under the curve of the boulder. The ganger got down beside Gavin and assisted him, and slowly the carvings took on clearer definition.

Sykes was frowning, too, now. What the Hell? A floral design of some sort? Very old, no doubt about it. Archaic? Prehistoric?

Unable as yet to make anything decisive of the pictures on the stone, they cleared away more dirt. But then Sykes stared harder, slowly shook his head, and began to grin. The grin spread until it almost split his face ear to ear. Perhaps not prehistoric after all. More like the work of some dirty-minded local kid. And not a bad artist, at that!

The lines of the main picture were primitive but clinically correct, however exaggerated. And its subject was completely unmistakable. Gavin McGovern continued to stare at it, and his bottom jaw had fallen open. Finally, glancing at Sykes out of the corner of his eye, he grunted: “Old, do you think?”

Sykes started to answer, then shut his mouth and stood up. He thought fast, scuffed some of the dirt back with his booted foot, bent to lean a large, flat flake of stone against the picture, mainly covering it from view. Sweat trickled down his back and made it itch under his wringing shirt. Made it itch like the devil, and the rest of his body with it. The boulder seemed hot as Hell, reflecting the blazing midday sunlight.

And “Old?” the ganger finally answered. “You mean, like ancient? Naw, I shouldn’t think so…Hey, and Gavin, son—if I were you, I wouldn’t go mentioning this to anyone. You know what I mean?”

Gavin looked up, still frowning. “No,” he shook his head, “what do you mean?”

“What?” said Sykes. “You mean to say you can’t see it? Why, only let this get out and there’ll be people coming from all over the place to see it! Another bloody Stonehenge, it’ll be! And what price your Athelsford then, eh? Flooded, the place would be, with all sorts of human debris come to see the famous dirty caveman pictures! You want that, do you?”

No, that was the last thing Gavin wanted. “I see what you mean,” he said, slowly. “Also, it would slow you down, right? They’d stop you running your road through here.”

“That, too, possibly,” Sykes answered. “For a time, anyway. But just think about it. What would you rather have: a new road pure and simple—or a thousand yobs a day tramping through Athelsford and up Lovers’ Lane to ogle this little lot, eh?”

That was something Gavin didn’t have to think about for very long. It would do business at The Old Stage a power of good, true, but then there was Eileen. Pretty soon they’d be coming to ogle her, too. “So what’s next?” he said.

“You leave that to me,” Sykes told him. “And just take my word for it that this time tomorrow this little beauty will be so much rubble, OK?”

Gavin nodded; he knew that the ganger was hot stuff with a drill and a couple of pounds of explosive. “If you say so,” he spat into the dust and dirt. “Anyway, I don’t much care for the looks of the damned thing!” He scratched furiously at his forearm where his graze was already starting to scab over. “It’s not right, this dirty old thing. Sort of makes me hot and…itchy!”

“Itchy, yeah,” Sykes agreed. And he wondered what sort of mood his wife, Jennie, would be in tonight. If this hot summer sun had worked on her the way it was beginning to work on him, well tonight could get to be pretty interesting. Which would make a welcome change!

Deep, dark, and much disturbed now, old Chylos had felt unaccustomed tremors vibrating through his fossilized bones. The stamping of a thousand warriors on the march, roaring their songs of red death? Aye, perhaps. And:

“Invaders!” Chylos breathed the word, without speaking, and indeed without breathing.

“No,” Hengit of the Far Forest tribe contradicted him. “The mammoths are stampeding, the earth is sinking, trees are being felled. Any of these things, but no invaders. Is that all you dream about, old man? Why can’t you simply lie still and sleep like the dead thing you are?”

“And even if there were invaders,” the revenant of a female voice now joined in, Alaze of the Shrub Hill folk, “would you really expect a man of the Far Forest tribe to come to arms? They are notorious cowards! Better you call on me, Chylos, a woman to rise up against these invaders—if there really were invaders, which there are not.”

Chylos listened hard—to the earth, the sky, the distant sea—but no longer heard the thundering of booted feet, nor warcries going up into the air, nor ships with muffled oars creeping and creaking in the mist. And so he sighed and said: “Perhaps you are right—but nevertheless we should be ready! I, at least, am ready!”

And: “Old fool!” Hengit whispered of Chylos into the dirt and the dark.

And: “Coward!” Alaze was scathing of Hengit where all three lay broken, under the luststone…

7:15 p.m.

The road gang had knocked off more than two hours ago and the light was only just beginning to fade a little. An hour and a half to go yet to the summer’s balmy darkness, when the young people would wander hand in hand, and occasionally pause mouth to mouth, in Lovers’ Lane. Or perhaps not until later, for tonight there was to be dancing at The Barn. And for now…all should be peace and quiet out here in the fields, where the luststone raised its veined dome of a head through the broken soil. All should be quiet—but was not.

“Levver!” shouted King above the roar of the bikes, his voice full of scorn. “What a bleedin’ player you turned out to be! What the ’ell do you call this, then?”

“The end o’ the bleedin’ road,” one of the other bikers shouted. “That’s where!”

“Is it ever!” cried someone else.

Leather grinned sheepishly and pushed his Nazi-style crash-helmet to the back of his head. “So I come the wrong way, di’n I? ’Ell’s teef, the sign said bleedin’ Affelsford, dinnit?”

“Yers,” King shouted. “Also no entry an’ works in pro-bleedin’-gress! ’Ere, switch off, you lot, I can’t ’ear meself fink!”

As the engines of the six machines clattered to a halt, King got off his bike and stretched, stamping his feet. His real name was Kevin; but as leader of a chapter of Hell’s Angels, who needed a name like that? A crude crown was traced in lead studs on the back of his leather jacket and a golden sovereign glittered where it dangled from his left earlobe. No more than twenty-five or -six years of age, King kept his head clean-shaven under a silver helmet painted with black eye-sockets and fretted nostrils to resemble a skull. He was hard as they come, was King, and the rest of them knew it.

“That’s the place I cased over there,” said Leather, pointing. He had jumped up onto the dome of a huge boulder, the luststone, to spy out the land. “See the steeple there? That’s Affelsford—and Comrades, does it have some crumpet!”

“Well, jolly dee!” said King. “Wot we supposed to do, then? Ride across the bleedin’ fields? Come on, Levver my son—you was the one rode out here and onced it over. ’Ow do we bleedin’ get there?” The rest of the Angels sniggered.

Leather grinned. “We goes up the motorway a few ’undred yards an’ spins off at the next turnin’, that’s all. I jus’ made a simple mistake, di’n I.”

“Yers,” said King, relieving himself loudly against the luststone. “Well, let’s not make no more, eh? I gets choked off pissin’ about an’ wastin’ valuable time.”

By now the others had dismounted and stood ringed around the dome of the boulder. They stretched their legs and lit ‘funny’ cigarettes. “That’s right,” said King, “light up. Let’s have a break before we go in.”

“Best not leave it too late,” said Leather. “Once the mood is on me I likes to get it off…”

“One copper, you said,” King reminded him, drawing deeply on a poorly constructed smoke. “Only one bluebottle in the whole place?”

“S’right,” said Leather. “An’ ’e’s at the other end of town. We can wreck the place, ’ave our fun wiv the girlies, be out again before ’e knows we was ever in!”

“’Ere,” said one of the others. “These birds is the real fing, eh, Levver?”

Leather grinned crookedly and nodded. “Built for it,” he answered. “Gawd, it’s ripe, is Affelsford.”

The gang guffawed, then quietened as a dumpy figure approached from the construction shack. It was one of Sykes’s men, doing night-watchman to bolster his wages. “What’s all this?” he grunted, coming up to them.

“Unmarried muvvers’ convention,” said King. “Wot’s it look like?” The others laughed, willing to make a joke of it and let it be; but Leather jumped down from the boulder and stepped forward. He was eager to get things started, tingling—even itchy—with his need for violence.

“Wot’s it ter you, baldy?” he snarled, pushing the little man in the chest and sending him staggering.

Baldy Dawson was one of Sykes’s drivers and didn’t have a lot of muscle. He did have common sense, however, and could see that things might easily get out of hand. “Before you start any rough stuff,” he answered, backing away, “I better tell you I took your bike numbers and phoned ’em through to the office in Portsmouth.” He had done no such thing, but it was a good bluff. “Any trouble—my boss’ll know who did it.”

Leather grabbed him by the front of his sweat-damp shirt. “You little—”

“Let it be,” said King. “’E’s only doin’ ’is job. Besides, ’e ’as an ’ead jus’ like mine!” He laughed.

“Wot?” Leather was astonished.

“Why spoil fings?” King took the other’s arm. “Now listen, Levver me lad—all you’ve done so far is bog everyfing up, right? So let’s bugger off into bleedin’ Affelsford an’ ’ave ourselves some fun! You want to see some blood—OK, me too—but for Chrissakes, let’s get somefing for our money, right?”

They got back on their bikes and roared off, leaving Baldy Dawson in a slowly settling cloud of dust and exhaust fumes. “Young bastards!” He scratched his naked dome. “Trouble for someone before the night’s out, I’ll wager.”

Then, crisis averted, he returned to the shack and his well-thumbed copy of Playboy…

Four

“This time,” said Chylos, with some urgency, “I cannot be mistaken.”

The two buried with him groaned—but before they could comment:

“Are you deaf, blind—have you no feelings?” he scorned. “No, it’s simply that you do not have my magic!”

“It’s your ‘magic’ that put us here!” finally Hengit answered his charges. “Chylos, we don’t need your magic!”

“But the tribes do,” said Chylos. “Now more than ever!”

“Tribes?” this time it was Alaze who spoke. “The tribes were scattered, gone, blown to the four winds many lifetimes agone. What tribes do you speak of, old man?”

“The children of the tribes, then!” he blustered. “Their children’s children! What does it matter? They are the same people! They are of our blood! And I have dreamed a dream…”

“That again?” said Hengit. “That dream of yours, all these thousands of years old?”

“Not the old dream,” Chylos denied, “but a new one! Just now, lying here, I dreamed it! Oh, it was not unlike the old one, but it was vivid, fresh, new! And I cannot be mistaken.”

And now the two lying there with him were silent, for they too had felt, sensed, something. And finally: “What did you see…in this dream?” Alaze was at least curious.

“I saw them as before,” said Chylos, “with flashing spokes in the wheels of their battle-chairs; except the wheels were not set side by side but fore and aft! And helmets upon their heads, some with horns! They wore shirts of leather picked our in fearsome designs, monstrous runes; sharp knives in their belts, aye, and flails—and blood in their eyes! Invaders—I cannot be mistaken!”

And Hengit and Alaze shuddered a little in their stony bones, for Chylos had inspired them with the truth of his vision and chilled them with the knowledge of his prophecy finally come true. But…what could they do about it, lying here in the cold earth? It was as if the old wizard read their minds.

“You are not bound to lie here,” he told them. “What are you now but will? And my will remains strong! So let’s be up and about our work. I, Chylos, have willed it—so let it be!”

“Our work? What work?” the two cried together. “We cannot fight!”

“You could if you willed it,” said Chylos, “and if you have not forgotten how. But I didn’t mention fighting. No, we must warn them. The children of the children of the tribes. Warn them, inspire them, cause them to lust after the blood of these invaders!” And before they could question him further:

“Up, up, we’ve work to do!” Chylos cried. “Up with you and out into the night, to seek them out. The children of the children of the tribes…!”

From the look of things, it was all set to be a full house at The Barn. Athelsfordians in their Friday-night best were gravitating first to The Old Stage for a warm-up drink or two, then crossing the parking lot to The Barn to secure good tables up on the balconies or around the dance floor. Another hour or two and the place would be in full swing. Normally Gavin McGovern would be pleased with the way things were shaping up, for what with tips and all it would mean a big bonus for him. And his father at the pub wouldn’t complain, for what was lost on the swings would be regained on the roundabouts. And yet…

There seemed a funny mood on the people tonight, a sort of scratchiness about them, an abrasiveness quite out of keeping. When the disco numbers were playing the girls danced with a sexual aggressiveness Gavin hadn’t noticed before, and the men of the village seemed almost to be eyeing each other up like tomcats spoiling for a fight. Pulling pints for all he was worth, Gavin hadn’t so far had much of a chance to examine or analyse the thing; it was just that in the back of his mind some small dark niggling voice seemed to be urgently whispering: “Look out! Be on your guard! Tonight’s the night! And when it happens you won’t believe it!” But…it could simply be his imagination, of course.

Or (and Gavin growled his frustration and self-annoyance as he felt that old obsession rising up again) it could simply be that Eileen had found herself a new dancing partner, and that since the newcomer had walked into the place they’d scarcely been off the floor. A fact which in itself was enough to set him imagining all sorts of things, and uppermost the sensuality of women and sexual competitiveness, readiness, and willingness of young men. And where Gavin’s sister was concerned, much too willing!

But Eileen had seen Gavin watching her, and as the dance tune ended she came over to the bar with her young man in tow. This was a ploy she’d used before: a direct attack is often the best form of defence. Gavin remembered his promise, however, and in fact the man she was with seemed a very decent sort at first glance: clean and bright, smartly dressed, seriously intentioned. Now Gavin would see if his patter matched up to his looks.

“Gavin,” said Eileen, smiling warningly, “I’d like you to meet Gordon Cleary—Gordon’s a surveyor from Portsmouth.”

“How do you do, Gordon,” Gavin dried his hands, reached across the bar to shake with the other, discovered the handshake firm, dry, and no-nonsense. But before they could strike up any sort of conversation the dance floor had emptied and the bar began to crowd up. “I’m sorry,” Gavin shrugged ruefully. “Business. But at least you were here first and I can get you your drinks.” He looked at his sister.

“Mine’s easy,” she said, smiling. “A lemonade, please.” And Gavin was pleased to note that Cleary made no objection, didn’t try to force strong drink on her.

“Oh, a shandy for me,” he said, “and go light on the beer, please, Gavin, for I’ll be driving later. And one for yourself, if you’re ready.”

The drinks were served and Gavin turned to the next party of customers in line at the bar. There were four of them: Tod Baxter and Angela Meers, village sweethearts, and Allan Harper and his wife, Val. Harper was a PTI at the local school; he ordered a confusing mixture of drinks, no two alike; Gavin, caught on the hop, had a little trouble with his mental arithmetic. “Er, that’s two pounds—er—” He frowned in concentration.

“Three pounds and forty-seven pence, on the button!” said Gordon Cleary from the side. Gavin looked at him and saw his eyes flickering over the price list pinned up behind the bar.

“Pretty fast!” he commented, and carried on serving. But to himself he said: except I hope it’s only with numbers…

Gavin wasn’t on his own behind the bar; at the other end, working just as hard, Bill Salmons popped corks and pulled furious pints. Salmons was ex-Army, a parachutist who’d bust himself up jumping. You wouldn’t know it, though, for he was strong as a horse. As the disc jockey got his strobes going again and the music started up, and as the couples gradually gravitated back towards the dance floor, Gavin crossed quickly to Salmons and said: “I’m going to get some of this sweat off. Two minutes?”

Salmons nodded, said; “Hell of a night, isn’t it? Too damned hot!”

Gavin reached under the bar for a clean towel and headed for the gents’ toilet. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Eileen and Gordon Cleary were back on the floor again. Well, if all the bloke wanted was to dance…that was OK.

In the washroom Gavin took off his shirt, splashed himself with cold water, and towelled it off, dressed himself again. A pointless exercise: he was just as hot and damp as before! As he finished off Allan Harper came in, also complaining of the heat.

They passed a few words; Harper was straightening his tie in a mirror when there came the sound of shattering glass from the dance hall, causing Gavin to start. “What—?” he said.

“Just some clown dropped his drink, I expect,” said Harper. “Or fainted for lack of air! It’s about time we got some decent air-conditioning in this—”

And he paused as there sounded a second crash—which this time was loud enough to suggest a table going over. The music stopped abruptly and some girl gave a high-pitched shriek.

We warned you! said several dark little voices in the back of Gavin’s mind. “What the Hell—?” he started down the corridor from the toilets with Harper hot on his heels.

Entering the hall proper the two skidded to a halt. On the other side of the room a village youth lay sprawled among the debris of a wrecked table, blood spurting from his nose. Over him stood a Hell’s Angel, swinging a bike chain threateningly. In the background a young girl sobbed, backing away, her dress torn down the front. Gavin would have started forward but Harper caught his arm. “Look!” he said.

At a second glance the place seemed to be crawling with Angels. There was one at the entrance, blocking access; two more were on the floor, dragging Angela Meers and Tod Baxter apart. They had yanked the straps of Angela’s dress down, exposing her breasts. A fifth Angel had clambered into the disco control box, was flinging records all over the place as he sought his favourites. And the sixth was at the bar.

Now it was Gavin’s turn to gasp, “Look!”

The one at the bar, King, had trapped Val Harper on her bar stool. He had his arms round her, his hands gripping the bar top. He rubbed himself grindingly against her with lewdly suggestive sensuality.

For a moment longer the two men stood frozen on the perimeter of this scene, nailed down by a numbness which, as it passed, brought rage in its wake. The Angel with the chain, Leather, had come across the floor and swaggered by them into the corridor, urinating in a semicircle as he went, saying: “Evenin’ gents. This the bog, then?”

What the Hell’s happening? thought Harper, lunging towards the bar. There must be something wrong with the strobe lights: they blinded him as he ran, flashing rainbow colours in a mad kaleidoscope that flooded the entire room. The Angel at the bar was trying to get his hand down the front of Val’s dress, his rutting movements exaggerated by the crazy strobes. Struggling desperately, Val screamed.

Somewhere at the back of his shocked mind, Harper noted that the Angels still wore their helmets. He also noted, in the flutter of the crazy strobes, that the helmets seemed to have grown horns! Jesus, it’s like a bloody Viking invasion! he thought, going to Val’s rescue…

It had looked like a piece of cake to King and his Angels. A gift. The kid selling tickets hadn’t even challenged them. Too busy wetting his pants, King supposed. And from what he had seen of The Barn’s clientele: pushovers! As soon as he’d spotted Val Harper at the bar, he’d known what he wanted. A toffy-nosed bird like her in a crummy place like this? She could only be here for one thing. And not a man in the place to deny him whatever he wanted to do or take.

Which is why it came as a total surprise to King when Allan Harper spun him around and butted him square in the face. Blood flew as the astonished Angel slammed back against the bar; his spine cracked against the bar’s rim, knocking all the wind out of him; in another moment Bill Salmons’s arm went round his neck in a stranglehold. There was no time for chivalry: Harper the PTI finished it with a left to King’s middle and a right to his already bloody face. The final blow landed on King’s chin, knocking him cold. As Bill Salmons released him he flopped forward, his death’s-head helmet flying free as he landed face-down on the floor.

Gavin McGovern had meanwhile reached into the disc-jockey’s booth, grabbed his victim by the scruff of the neck, and hurled him out of the booth and across the dance floor. Couples hastily got out of the way as the Angel slid on his back across the polished floor. Skidding to a halt, he brought out a straight-edged razor in a silvery flash of steel. Gavin was on him in a moment; he lashed out with a foot that caught the Angel in the throat, knocking him flat on his back again. The razor spun harmlessly away across the floor as its owner writhed and clawed at his throat.

Seeing their Angel at Arms on the floor like that, the pair who tormented Angela Meers now turned their attention to Gavin McGovern. They had already knocked Tod Baxter down, kicking him where he huddled. But they hadn’t got in a good shot and as Gavin loomed large so Tod got to his feet behind them. Also, Allan Harper was dodging his way through the now strangely silent crowd where he came from the bar.

The Angel at the door, having seen something of the melee and wanting to get his share while there was still some going, also came lunging in through the wild strobe patterns. But this one reckoned without the now fully roused passions of the young warriors of the Athelsford tribe. Three of the estate’s larger youths jumped him, and he went down under a hail of blows. And by then Allan Harper, Gavin McGovern and Tod Baxter had fallen on the other two. For long moments there were only the crazily flashing strobes, the dull thudding of fists into flesh, and a series of fading grunts and groans.

Five Angels were down; and the sixth, coming out of the toilets, saw only a sea of angered faces all turned in his direction. Faces hard and full of fury—and bloodied, crumpled shapes here and there, cluttering the dance floor. Pale now and disbelieving, Leather ran towards the exit, found himself surrounded in a moment. And now in the absolute silence there was bloodlust written on those faces that ringed him in.

They rolled over him like a wave, and his Nazi helmet flew off and skidded to a rocking halt…at the feet of Police Constable Charlie Bennett, Athelsford’s custodian of the law, where he stood framed in the door of the tiny foyer.

Then the normal lights came up and someone cut the strobes, and as the weirdly breathless place slowly came back to life, so PC Bennett was able to take charge. And for the moment no one, not even Gavin, noticed that Eileen McGovern and her new friend were nowhere to be seen…

Five

Chylos was jubilant. “It’s done!” he cried in his grave. “The invaders defeated, beaten back!”

And: “You were right, old man,” finally Hengit grudgingly answered. “They were invaders, and our warnings and urgings came just in time. But this tribe of yours—pah! Like flowers, they were, weak and waiting to be crushed—until we inspired them.”

And now Chylos was very angry indeed. “You two!” he snapped like a bowstring. “If you had heeded me at the rites, these many generations flown, then were there no requirement for our efforts this night! But…perhaps I may still undo your mischief, even now, and finally rest easy.”

“That can’t be, old man, and you know it,” this time Alaze spoke up. “Would that we could put right that of which you accuse us; for if our blood still runs in these tribes, then it were only right and proper. But we cannot put it right. No, not even with all your magic. For what are we now but worm-fretted bones and dust? There’s no magic can give us back our flesh…”

“There is,” Chylos chuckled then. “Oh, there is! The magic of this stone. No, not your flesh but your will. No, not your limbs but your lust. Neither your youth nor your beauty nor even your hot blood, but your spirit! Which is all you will need to do what must be done. For if the tribes may not be imbrued with your seed, strengthened by your blood—then it must be with your spirit. I may not do it for I was old even in those days, but it is still possible for you. If I will it—and if you will it.

“Now listen, and I shall tell you what must be done…”

Eileen McGovern and ‘Gordon Cleary’ stood outside The Barn in the deepening dusk and watched the Black Maria come and take away the battered Angels. As the police van made off down the estate’s main street Eileen leaned towards the entrance to the disco, but her companion seemed concerned for her and caught her arm. “Better let it cool down in there,” he said. “There’s bound to be a lot of hot blood still on the boil.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Eileen looked up at him. “Certainly you were right to bundle us out of there when it started! So what do you suggest? We could go and cool off in The Old Stage. My father owns it.”

He shrugged, smiled, seemed suddenly shy, a little awkward. “I’d rather hoped we could walk together,” he said. “The heat of the day is off now—it’s cool enough out here. Also, I’ll have to be going in an hour or so. I’d hoped to be able to, well, talk to you in private. Pubs and dance halls are fine for meeting people, but they’re dreadfully noisy places, too.”

It was her turn to shrug. It would be worth it if only to defy Gavin. And afterwards she’d make him see how there was no harm in her friendships. “All right,” she said, taking Cleary’s arm. “Where shall we walk?”

He looked at her and sighed his defeat. “Eileen, I don’t know this place at all. I wouldn’t know one street or lane from the next. So I suppose I’m at your mercy!”

“Well,” she laughed. “I do know a pretty private place.” And she led him away from The Barn and into an avenue of trees. “It’s not far away, and it’s the most private place of all.” She smiled as once more she glanced up at him in the flooding moonlight. “That’s why it’s called Lovers’ Lane…”

Half an hour later in The Barn, it finally dawned on Gavin McGovern that his sister was absent. He’d last seen her with that Gordon Cleary bloke. And what had Cleary said: something about having to drive later? Maybe he’d taken Eileen with him. They must have left during the ruckus with the Angels. Well, at least Gavin could be thankful for that!

But at eleven o’clock when The Barn closed and he had the job of checking and then shifting the stock, still she wasn’t back. Or if she was she’d gone straight home to The Old Stage and so to bed. Just before twelve midnight Gavin was finished with his work. He gratefully put out the lights and locked up The Barn, then crossed to The Old Stage where his father was still checking the night’s take and balancing the stock ledger.

First things first, Gavin quietly climbed the stairs and peeped into Eileen’s room; the bed was still made up, undisturbed from this morning; she wasn’t back. Feeling his heart speeding up a little, Gavin went back downstairs and reported her absence to his father.

Burly Joe McGovern seemed scarcely concerned. “What?” he said, squinting up from his books. “Eileen? Out with a young man? For a drive? So what’s your concern? Come on now, Gavin! I mean, she’s hardly a child!”

Gavin clenched his jaws stubbornly as his father returned to his work, went through into the large private kitchen and dining room and flopped into a chair. Very well, then he would wait up for her himself. And if he heard that bloke’s car bringing her back home, well he’d have a few words to say to him, too.

It was a quarter after twelve when Gavin settled himself down to wait upon Eileen’s return; but his day had been long and hard, and something in the hot summer air had sapped his usually abundant energy. The evening’s excitement, maybe. By the time his father went up to bed Gavin was fast asleep and locked in troubled dreams…

Quite some time earlier:

…In the warm summer nights, Lovers’ Lane wasn’t meant for fast-walking. It was only a mile and a half long, but almost three-quarters of an hour had gone by since Eileen and her new young man had left The Barn and started along its winding ways. Lovers’ Lane: no, it wasn’t the sort of walk you took at the trot. It was a holding-hands, swinging-arms-together, soft-talking walk; a kissing walk, in those places where the hedges were silvered by moonlight and lips softened by it. And it seemed strange to Eileen that her escort hadn’t tried to kiss her, not once along the way…

But he had been full of talk: not about himself but mainly the night—how much he loved the darkness, its soft velvet, which he claimed he could feel against his skin, the aliveness of night—and about the moon: the secrets it knew but couldn’t tell. Not terribly scary stuff but…strange stuff. Maybe too strange. And so, whenever she had the chance, Eileen had tried to change the subject, to talk about herself. But oddly, he hadn’t seemed especially interested in her.

“Oh, there’ll be plenty of time to talk about personalities later,” he’d told her, and she’d noticed how his voice was no longer soft but…somehow coarse? And she’d shivered and thought: time later? Well of course there will be…won’t there?

And suddenly she’d been aware of the empty fields and copses opening on all sides, time fleeting by, the fact that she was out here, in Lovers’ Lane, with…a total stranger? What was this urgency in him, she wondered? She could feel it now in the way his hand held hers almost in a vice, the coarse, jerky tension of his breathing, the way his eyes scanned the moonlit darkness ahead and to left and right, looking for…what?

“Well,” she finally said, trying to lighten her tone as much as she possibly could, digging her heels in a little and drawing him to a halt, “that’s it—all of it—Lovers’ Lane. From here on it goes nowhere, just open fields all the way to where they’re digging the new road. And anyway it’s time we were getting back. You said you only had an hour.”

He held her hand more tightly yet, and his eyes were silver in the night. He took something out of his pocket and she heard a click, and the something gleamed a little in his dark hand. “Ah, but that was then and this is now,” Garry Clemens told her, and she snatched her breath and her mouth fell open as she saw his awful smile. And then, while her mouth was still open, suddenly he did kiss her—and it was a brutal kiss and very terrible. And now Eileen knew.

As if reading her mind, he throatily said: “But if you’re good and do exactly as you’re told—then you’ll live through it.” And as she filled her lungs to scream, he quickly lifted his knife to her throat, and in his now choking voice whispered, “But if you’re not good then I’ll hurt you very, very much and you won’t live through it. And one way or the other it will make no difference: I shall have you anyway, for you’re my girl-Friday!”

“Gordon, I—” she finally breathed, her eyes wide in the dark, heart hammering, breasts rising and falling unevenly beneath her thin summer dress. And trying again: “Tell me this is just some sort of game, that you’re only trying to frighten me and don’t mean any…of …it.” But she knew only too well that he did.

Her voice had been gradually rising, growing shrill, so that now he warningly hissed: “Be quiet!” And he backed her up to a stile in the fence, pressing with his knife until she was aware of it delving the soft skin of her throat. Then, very casually, he cut her thin summer dress down the front to her waist and flicked back the two halves with the point of his knife. Her free hand fluttered like a trapped bird, to match the palpitations of her heart, but she didn’t dare do anything with it. And holding that sharp blade to her left breast, he said:

“Now we’re going across this stile and behind the hedge, and then I’ll tell you all you’re to do and how best to please me. And that’s important, for if you don’t please me—well, then it will be good night, Eileen, Eileen!”

“Oh, God! Oh, God!” she whispered, as he forced her over the fence and behind the tall hedge. And:

“Here!” he said. “Here!”

And from the darkness just to one side of him, another voice, not Eileen’s, answered, “Yes, here! Here!” But it was such a voice…

“What…?” Garry Clemens gulped, his hot blood suddenly ice. “Who…?” He released Eileen’s hand and whirled, scything with his knife—scything nothing!—only the dark, which now seemed to close in on him. But:

“Here,” said that husky, hungry, lusting voice again, and now Clemens saw that indeed there was a figure in the dark. A naked female figure, voluptuous and inviting. And, “Here!” she murmured yet again, her voice a promise of pleasures undreamed, drawing him down with her to the soft grass.

Out of the corner of his eye, dimly in his confused mind, the rapist saw a figure—fleeting, tripping, and staggering upright, fleeing—which he knew was Eileen McGovern where she fled wildly across the field. But he let her go. For he’d found a new and more wonderful, more exciting girl-Friday now. “Who…who are you?” he husked as he tore at his clothes—astonished that she tore at them, too.

And: “Alaze,” she told him, simply. “Alaze…”

Eileen—running, crashing through a low thicket, flying under the moon—wanted to scream but had no wind for it. And in the end was too frightened to scream anyway. For she knew that someone ran with her, alongside her; a lithe, naked someone, who for the moment held off from whatever was his purpose.

But for how long?

The rattle of a crate deposited on the doorstep of The Old Stage woke Gavin McGovern up from unremembered dreams, but dreams which nevertheless left him red-eyed and rumbling inside like a volcano. Angry dreams! He woke to a new day, and in a way to a new world. He went to the door and it was dawn; the sun was balanced on the eastern horizon, reaching for the sky; Dave Gorman, the local milkman, was delivering.

“Wait,” Gavin told him, and ran upstairs. A moment later and he was down again. “Eileen’s not back,” he said. “She was at the dance last night, went off with some bloke, an outsider. He hasn’t brought her back. Tell them.”

Gorman looked at him, almost said: tell who? But not quite. He knew who to tell. The Athelsford tribe.

Gavin spied the postman, George Lee, coming along the road on his early morning rounds. He gave him the same message: his sister, Eileen, a girl of the tribe, had been abducted. She was out there somewhere now, stolen away, perhaps hurt. And by the time Gavin had thrown water in his face and roused his father, the message was already being spread abroad. People were coming out of their doors, moving into the countryside around, starting to search. The tribe looked after its own…

And beneath the luststone:

Alaze was back, but Hengit had not returned. It was past dawn and Chylos could feel the sun warming their mighty headstone, and he wondered what had passed in the night: was his work now done and could he rest?

“How went it?” the old wizard inquired immediately, as Alaze settled back into her bones.

“It went…well. To a point,” she eventually answered.

“A point? What point?” He was alarmed. “What went wrong? Did you not follow my instructions?”

“Yes,” she sighed, “but—”

“But?” And now it was Chylos’s turn to sigh. “Out with it.”

“I found one who was lusty. Indeed he was with a maid, which but for my intervention he would take against her will! Ah, but when he saw me he lusted after her no longer! And I heeded your instructions and put on my previous female form for him. According to those same instructions, I would teach him the true passions and furies and ecstasies of the flesh; so that afterwards and when he was with women of the tribe, he would be untiring, a satyr, and they would always bring forth from his potent seed. But because I was their inspiration, my spirit would be in all of them! This was why I put on flesh; and it was a great magic, a gigantic effort of will. Except…it had been a long, long time, Chylos. And in the heat of the moment I relaxed my will; no, he relaxed it for me, such was his passion. And…he saw me as I was, as I am…”

“Ah!” said Chylos, understanding what she told him. “And afterwards? Did you not try again? Were there no others?”

“There might have been others, aye—but as I journeyed out from this stone, the greater the distance the less obedient my will. Until I could no longer call flesh unto myself. And now, weary, I am returned.”

Chylos sagged down into the alveolate, crumbling relics of himself. “Then Hengit is my last hope,” he said.

At which moment Hengit returned—but hangdog, as Chylos at once observed. And: “Tell me the worst,” the old man groaned.

But Hengit was unrepentant. “I did as you instructed,” he commenced his story, “went forth, found a woman, put on flesh. And she was of the tribe, I’m sure. Alas, she was a child in the ways of men, a virgin, an innocent. You had said: let her be lusty, willing—but she was not. Indeed, she was afraid.”

Chylos could scarce believe it. “But—were there no others?”

“Possibly,” Hengit answered. “But this was a girl of the tribe, lost and afraid and vulnerable. I stood close by and watched over her, until the dawn…”

“Then that is the very end of it,” Chylos sighed, beaten at last. And his words were truer than even he might suspect.

But still, for the moment, the luststone exerted its immemorial influence…

Of all the people of Athelsford who were out searching in the fields and woods that morning, it was Gavin McGovern who found the rapist Clemens huddled beneath the hedgerow. He heard his sobbing, climbed the stile, and found him there. And in the long grass close by, he also found his knife still damp with dew. And looking at Clemens the way he was, Gavin fully believed that he had lost Eileen forever.

He cried hot, unashamed tears then, looked up at the blue skies she would never see again, and blamed himself. My fault—my fault! If I’d not been the way I was, she wouldn’t have needed to defy me!

But then he looked again at Clemens, and his surging blood surged more yet. And as Clemens had lusted after Eileen, so now Gavin lusted after him—after his life!

He dragged him out from hiding, bunched his white hair in a hamlike hand, and stretched his neck taut across his knee. Then—three things, occurring almost simultaneously.

One: a terrific explosion from across the fields, where John Sykes had kept his word and reduced the luststone to so much rubble. Two: the bloodlust went out of Gavin like a light switched off, so that he gasped, released his victim, and thrust him away. And three, he heard the voice of his father, echoing from the near-distance and carrying far and wide in the brightening air:

“Gavin, we’ve found her! She’s unharmed! She’s all right!”

PC Bennett, coming across the field, his uniformed legs damp from the dewy grass, saw the knife in Gavin’s hand and said, “I’ll take that, son.” And having taken it he also went to take charge of the gibbering, worthless, soul-shrivelled maniac thing that was Garry Clemens.

And so in a way old Chylos was right, for in the end nothing had come of all his works. But in several other ways he was quite wrong…