The Paradise War

Chapter 11 The Crossing

Getting to Carnwood Farm proved tedious, but not difficult.

There was, it turned out, a train service from Edinburgh to Inverness, from Inverness to Nairn, and a bus from Nairn to the Mills of Airdrie. We could walk from there to the cairn.

It was after four in the afternoon, and already dark, when we reached Nairn on the Moray Firth.

We stayed the night at a bed-and-breakfast place overlooking the sandy sweep of the bay. After a rousing breakfast of kippers, porridge, scrambled eggs, oatcakes, and coffee, provided by our plump and fastidious landlady, we bundled ourselves along to the bus stop in the town square. At ten past eleven in the morning, a maroon bus rolled up; we boarded and rode to the Mills of Airdrie. The driver dropped us off at the Carnwood Farm road; we stood beside the weathered sign and the bus rumbled on.

We walked through rich farmland, dusted now with a white powdering of windblown snow. The day was cold and misty, the wind crisp out of the north. A day to stay indoors by a fire. We spoke little. The professor seemed preoccupied with his thoughts, so I did not disturb him.

The chill silence unnerved me. It seemed as if we were trespassing, intruding in forbidden lands. The thick Scottish mist made everything appear broody and unearthly, and every step carried us deeper into this alien place.

Presently, the road led down and we descended into the small valley, arriving again at the stone bridge across the meandering Findhorn river. We crossed the bridge, continuing on into Darnaway Forest. The woods were quiet. The trees seemed sunk into winter hibernation.

Carnwood Farm appeared exactly as I had last seen it. The close-clustered buildings, the fields, and the broken, moss-grown tower beside the farmhouse-all exactly as before. This time, however, it seemed that the air of emptiness and abandonment I had noticed before clung more heavily to the place. In this serene and secluded part of the world, the silence was almost oppressive-a physical force gripping the land, choking off all sound. Even from a distance I could tell that the Grants were not at home.

Nettles insisted on knocking at the door, just in case. But no one answered; Robert and Morag were elsewhere. So we continued on our way to the cairn, following the deep-rutted farm road across the compact hills. As before, we met no one on the road-until we arrived at the gate leading to the field and glen which contained the cairn. And there, where Simon had parked his car, sat a gray van with the initials S.M.A. lettered on the side, and some kind of logo.

Upon seeing the van, the professor stopped in his tracks. «What is it? What's the matter?» I asked.

Nettles turned and looked across the field towards the glen. «Is the cairn down there?»

«Yes,» I told him. «It's just there-where you see the tops of those trees.» I pointed out the line of treetops just visible above the broad flank of the hillside. «Do you wan-«

«Listen!» snapped Nettles.

«What? I don't hear anything.»

«Quick! We don't want to be seen!»

«I don't hear anything,» I protested. «Are you sure?»

«Hurry!» Nettles began running back along the road to a small rise where a stand of trees overlooked it. I followed reluctantly and joined the professor on hands and knees, peering at the road from behind a large ash tree.

I squatted beside him, listened for a moment, and decided we were being overly skittish. I was about to say so when I heard the soft burr of a car's engine and wheels on gravel. I rose up to look at the road below us. The professor grabbed my wrist and yanked hard.

«Get down!» he rasped. «Don't let them see you!»

I slumped down beside him. «Why are we hiding?»

The sound of the vehicle grew louder and then I saw it on the road below, not more than fifty yards from us-a standard-looking, gray van, with the same logo painted in white on the side: a representation of the earth with rings radiating outward from it like ripples or emanating vibrations. Beneath the logo were the letters S.M.A.

«Down!» rasped the professor as the second van rolled to a stop behind the first.

Two men climbed out of the vehicle, passed through the gate, and struck off across the field towards the glen. We watched them until they were out of sight.

«Well, they're gone. Now what?» I asked.

Nettles shook his head gravely. «This is not good.»

«Why? Who were they?»

«For many years, different groups have been pursuing the secrets of the cairns and rings and stone circles, attempting to force entry into the Otherworld. The men we just saw belong to such a group, and a very dangerous one at that: the Society of Metaphysical Archaeologists.»

«You're joking.» I would have laughed if Nettles had not been so serious. «Metaphysical archaeologists, is that what you said?»

«They are scientists, for the most part-rather, they are men acquainted with scientific principles and techniques. I have run into them from time to time at various sites, conducting their 'researches.' They would love nothing more than to know what we know, and I have reason to believe they would stop at nothing to obtain this knowledge.»

«You can't be serious.»

«Entirely serious!» the professor exclaimed. «We've got to think this over very carefully. We can afford no mistakes at this juncture. Care for some chocolate?» He reached into a deep pocket, withdrawing a large bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk which he unwrapped and passed to me.

«You think they know about the cairn?» I broke off a piece of chocolate and popped it into my mouth.

«I think we must assume that they do.»

«But maybe they don't know. Maybe they're just looking around. Yeah, they're just looking around,» I offered, trying to convince myself. «Anyway, we should go down there and find out if they've seen any sign of Simon.»

«You're right, of course.»

I climbed to my feet and scrambled down to the road. We approached the parked vans, walked around them to the gate and would have started across the field to the glen-but Nettles thought better of it. «Let's go another way.»

«What other way?»

He pointed up the road a little distance, to where I could see the line of the glen curve as the stream wandered among the hills. «We can follow the water.»

«Whatever you say. Lead on.»

A mile or so along, the road dipped to meet the glen. We found a sheep trail along the brookside and began making our way back towards the cairn. Almost at once, the trail entered a thick wood. Dark and silent, every step a creak or a crack– I thought we must sound like an mob of buffalo bulling through the bracken. In the gloom of the close-grown wood the sheep trail disappeared, and we soon had our hands full, parrying low branches and preventing twigs from poking out our eyes.

We thrashed our way along, stopping every few minutes to listen-I don't know what for. What I heard was crows.

Faintly, at first. But each time we stopped it seemed that there were more crows, and louder than before. Judging from the racket, they were gathering in the wood for the night. Soon their raucous croaks and squawks were all around us, although I could not see any of the birds. We continued on, the day growing colder, the sky darker.

Carnwood Cairn stood in the center of the glen. As before, it presented an unassuming aspect to the world: no more than a hulking heap of earth and moss-dark stone, very nearly shapeless in the feeble light. I gave it a cursory glance, for the thing that commanded my immediate attention was not the cairn, but the crow: a big, black, spread-winged menace watching us with a baleful bead of an eye from a low branch, its sharp black beak open. I fought down the urge to pick up a stick to protect myself.

Preoccupied with the crow, at first I did not see the camp set up on the further side of the glen. Nettles nudged me with his elbow and I looked in the direction he indicated. I saw a large canvas tent surrounded by the gear of what appeared to be an archaeological dig: lots of wooden stakes driven into the ground with white plastic flags on them, a gridwork of string overlaying a shallow excavation where the snow and dirt had been cleared away, shovels and picks standing in piles of fresh-dug earth. On a pole before the tent hung a blue flag bearing the words Society of Metaphysical Archaeologists, and the vibrating world logo in white.

Two men in khaki overalls hunched over their work at the grid, one sitting on a camp stool and holding a large drawing board, the other on his knees scraping at something with a trowel. Their backs were to us, and, because of the crows' unearthly racket, they had not heard our approach.

«What now?» I asked softly.

«I'd like to examine that cairn.»

I looked at the men, and something told me that they were not likely to let us, or anyone else, come near the cairn. «I don't think that's going to be easy,» I muttered.

«No,» Nettles agreed, his eyes narrow and sharp in the gloaming. «Nevertheless, we have come all this way.»

Twilight comes early to Scotland this time of year. Still only mid-afternoon by the clock, the sun was already sinking towards the west. The time-between-times would soon be upon us. The realization filled me with dull alarm. My heart palpitated, jumping awkwardly in my chest. My stomach felt like a ball of worms.

The professor stepped into the clearing in the glen. «What are you going to do?» My voice grated like the sound of the crows filling the trees around us.

«Hello!» Nettles called, stepping boldly into the clearing. «Hello, there!»

I watched him stride boldly towards the men, then plucked up my sagging courage and followed. «Hello, hello,» he called, flapping his hands amiably, the very picture of a Hail-Fellow-Well-Met eccentric.

The two men's heads turned as one, their eyes automatically swinging towards the sound of the disturbance. Despite Nettles' kindly greeting, neither man smiled. Their faces remained expressionless and unwelcoming.

Together, Nettles and I trooped up to the digging site. The man with the drawing board put it aside and stood up. He opened his mouth to speak, but the professor did not allow him the first word. «Oh, this is splendid,» Nettles burbied, «I had not expected to find anyone here. It is so late in the year.»

Again the man drew breath to speak, but the professor rushed on. «Allow me to introduce myself,» he said. «I am Dr. Nettleton, and this is my young colleague, Mr. Gillies.»

He placed his hand on my shoulder as I stepped beside him.

«How do you do?» I said.

«I was just saying to my friend here,» Nettles continued, «I hope we don't come too late. I see that we haven't. Indeed, I think we have come just in time. You will be packing up soon, I should think, and-«

«What do you want?» the man with the drawing board asked bluntly. The crows in the treetops squawked loudly, shifting in the upper branches like wind-tossed rags.

«What do we want?» the professor replied, ignoring the man's rudeness. «Why, we have come to see the site, of course.»

«It's closed,» the man declared. «You're going to have to leave.»

«Closed? I don't think I understand.» Nettles blinked at me in apparent confusion.

«This is a private dig,» the man replied. «The public is not allowed.»

«The public!» Nettles reprimanded lightly. «I assure you, my good man, we are not the general public.»

«We have a special interest in this site,» I added. I could feel my armpits dripping inside my coat.

«Maybe you didn't hear,» the second man said, pointing his trowel. He slowly stood. «The dig is closed. You don't have permission to be here. You'll have to leave.»

«But we've come a very long way,» the professor protested.

«I'm sorry,» the first man said. He seemed about as sorry as a sackful of snakes. «You had better leave.» He shot a glance at his partner, who tossed aside the trowel and took a deliberate step towards us.

Just then a head poked out from the flap of the tent. «Hello!» it called, and all four of us turned as a tall, distinguished-looking man with a nattily-trimmed gray beard emerged. Unlike the others he was dressed in a long, dark coat and wellington boots. «Andrew,» he said, stepping quickly over the tools and debris scattered around the site, «why didn't you tell me we had visitors?» To Nettles and me he said, «I'm Nevil Weston, project director. How do you do?»

«Pleased to meet you, Mr. Weston, I daresay,» the professor replied, managing to convey a slight irritation at the way we'd been treated thus far. «Dr. Nettleton and my colleague, Mr. Gillies,» he announced. «We have no wish to disturb you, but, as I was telling your friend here, we have travelled a very great distance to see the site. We have a particular interest in the history of this locality, you see.»

«I quite understand,» Weston replied. He nodded to his men. «Thank you, Andrew, Edward. I'll deal with this.» He smiled at us, but the smile lacked any real warmth. «It's just that this is a privately sponsored project, so regrettably we cannot allow visitors without prior permission. It is the policy of the board of directors, I'm afraid. It's out of my bands.»

As he talked, Weston stepped between us, turned us around and began gently to escort us away from the cairn. It was smoothly done, but Nettles was not diverted. He stopped dead. «Oh, I know how it is, believe me. We wouldn't dream of interfering.» He turned to the cairn. «But we've come all the way from Oxford, you see.»

«Yes,» Weston agreed sympathetically. «I'm sure we can work something out. Perhaps you would like to call again tomorrow. It's getting late; we'll be closing the site for the evening very soon.»

Nettles stepped toward the cairn, and put out a hand, as if imploring it to help him. «That's quite out of the question,» he said. «We had no way of knowing it would be occupied, you see. We've made other arrangements.»

«I'm sorry,» answered Weston firmly, flashing his empty smile again. I could see him coming to the end of his tether.

«He's right, professor. It is getting late,» I said, breaking in abruptly. «Maybe we should go.»

Nettles sighed heavily; his shoulders sagged. «Yes, I suppose you're right,» he said; but he did not move.

To Weston I said, «Perhaps you wouldn't mind if we just had a quick look around the cairn before we go? Wouldn't take a minute.» I tried to make it sound as if this simple request was too reasonable to refuse. «We have a very long way to go tonight. Won't take a minute, and it would mean so much to us both.»

I could see the refusal forming on Weston's lips. Whatever these metaphysical archaeologists were about, they were certainly a hardhearted lot, secretive and hostile. It all added up to nothing good. Before Weston could answer, I played my trump card. «That way,» I explained to Nettles-for Weston's benefit-«we wouldn't have to bother Robert and Morag with any of this.»

Nettles, bless him, was as sharp as his namesake. «Yes,» he agreed quickly, «I'm sure the Grants would rather not get involved in our trifling affairs. Mr. Grant is such a busy man. One doesn't like to disturb him unnecessarily.»

I could see Weston weighing the risks his refusal would bring. He hesitated, and I moved to close the sale. «A quick walk around, and we're on our way. What do you say?»

«Very well,» he said. «I really shouldn't allow it. But, as we're here as the Grants' guests, I definitely wouldn't like them disturbed.»

«Oh, I couldn't agree more,» replied the professor happily. «Come, Lewis, let's just take a quick look round the cairn before we go.» He was already moving away from Weston as he said it.

We walked quickly to the cairn. At our approach a tremendous fluttering ruckus took place in the trees above us. I looked and saw dozens… scores… hundreds of crows flocking to the upper branches of the nearby trees. Their black shapes against the iron-dark sky gave me an eerie feeling. The birds raised an unholy racket as they hopped from branch to branch and flitted from tree to tree, scolding, shrieking, challenging.

On reaching the base of the cairn, Nettles pulled me close. «Ignore them,» he said; I could not tell whether he meant the crows or the men. I fell into step beside him as we stalked around the cairn on the rough, overgrown ground. Weston watched us, his arms crossed over his chest and a pained expression on his face. As soon as we were out of Weston's sight, Nettles said, «What was it you said you left for Simon?»

«A bank card,» I replied. «I left his Barclaycard-I stuck it in a crack at the entrance.»

«We must try to retrieve it,» he said. «It would not do for them to find it.»

We rounded the cairn and came in sight of the tent and the excavation beyond. The two men had not moved. They watched us as we continued on around. Weston stood where we had left him, waiting for us to finish our circumnavigation of the cairn. As we drew near him, Nettles said, speaking loudly, «You see, Lewis, this is quite in keeping with cairns of this age. The stone is undressed; it will have come from the glen nearby-they used whatever came readily to hand… .»

With a nod to the frowning Weston, we continued our inspection amid a raucous chorus of crow complaint. Their awful shrieking filled my ears. I gazed up into the branches of the circling trees and almost fell over backwards: every twig, bough, and limb of every tree in the glen was occupied by the ragged black form of a squawking crow. There were so many crows it was scary. Masses of birds! Fluttering, flapping, rippling over the branches. Crows by the treeful. And they were angry!

«What's with these crows?» I wondered.

«They are guardians of the threshold,» replied the professor.

«I thought you said the man with the dogs was the guardian.»

«Oh, there are any number of guardians. Their purpose is to daunt the unworthy. Ignore them and you will pass by unharmed; fear them, and they will tear you to ribbons.» Nettles' eyes scanned the cairn wall beside us. «Now, where is the entrance? I have not seen it, have you?»

«No-but we should have passed it. That's strange. .

Continuing our circuit, we came upon the camp once more. The two men had joined Weston, and all three were standing in consultation together, watching us. Nettles made a show of pointing out something to me, waving his hand airily. «Don't look at them,» he said softly. «I did not see the entrance you described.»

«Neither did I. But there was one. I swear it.»

«We will look again.»

Once more around the cairn. The crows flapped and screamed, raising a horrific din. Scores circled the cairn, turning the air black with their darting wings. I kept stealing fearful glances skyward as' we hurried around the base of the cairn. As a result, I missed the entrance once again. How odd. «It's got to be here,» I insisted. «Simon went in-I went in!»

We came abreast of where the three stood waiting. «Well, that's fine. Good,» Weston said, stepping forward. When we did not slacken our pace, he called, «Here! I think that's enough. Here, now! Stop!»

«Go on looking,» Nettles instructed. «I will keep them busy for as long as I can.» He continued beside me for a few more steps. I felt his hand on my arm. «Good luck, Lewis.»

Then he stopped. I glanced quickly over my shoulder and saw that Weston was hastening towards him. Nettles raised his hand, as if in farewell, then turned to confront Weston. The cairn wall took them from view as I passed out of sight.

I hurried over the uneven ground, searching the cairn wall for the entrance we had somehow missed again. The sound of the screaming crows filled my ears, as scores of black shapes erupted from the winterbare branches and took to the sky overhead. The crows! Of course, I thought, the crows were distracting me and trying to prevent me from finding the opening.

I hurried on, slipping on the long, wet grass that grew at the cairn's base, scanning the undulating mound beside me for the dark hole through which Simon had vanished. Awful shrieks assaulted the air. If I stepped one foot nearer the cairn, the birds would attack. They would swoop down and peck my eyes out. They would rip me to bloody tatters with their sharp beaks.

Again I rounded the side of the cairn facing the camp. I saw Weston and his henchmen clustered around Professor Nettleton. The one called Andrew had a hand on Nettles' arm and was attempting to lead him away. Nettles, hands waving wildly, voice lifted in rebuke, was doing his best to distract them. I put my head down and raced on.

As I drew even with them, Weston saw me. But I was already dodging away again, around the base of the cairn.

«Stop him!» Weston shouted, his voice sharp as a gunshot in the stillness. Andrew released the professor's arm, and he and his colleague leaped after me at once.

I ran on, my only thought to keep the cairn between me and my pursuers. But, pounding over the uneven turf, I caught my foot on a stone. I fell, sprawling headlong onto the wet turf. Instantly, the crows were on me, dropping from the sky like black buzz-bombs. They flew at me, wings flashing, buffeting, glossy black beaks snapping like scissors. I threw my arms over my head to protect my face, and wriggled through the long grass, struggling to regain my feet.

Ignore them, Nettles had said. With an effort of will, I lowered my hands and pushed myself up off the ground. The big, angry birds shrieked bloody murder as they swooped and dived, executing their mad challenge, but I turned my eyes away from the crow-filled sky and looked instead at the cairn wall. I heard the rustle and slash of their wings all around me, but I was not grazed by a single feather.

Bless you, Nettles, I thought. It works!

The thought had no more than crossed my mind, when I heard a low grating sound next to me-the sound of stone grinding against stone. I had no time to wonder what it might be, for I looked at the section of cairn just ahead of me and saw the doorway. I do not know how I could have missed it before, but there it was-smaller even than I remembered and half hidden by that wiry little thicket-a squat fissure at the base of the edifice.

Without a second thought or a backward glance, I threw myself at the hole, shrugging off the pack and tearing at the thicket with my hands. There! I saw the glint of blue plastic-the Barclaycard! Just where I had left it. I reached out to take it; I heard footsteps thudding behind me-and loud curses as the crows turned their attack on my pursuers. The dark entrance of the cairn yawned before me. I could smell the dry musty scent of the cairn's interior. I swallowed hard and lunged into the entrance, banging the top of my head as I tumbled into the deep blackness of the cairn. Little sparkly stars danced before my eyes. I squeezed my eyes shut igainst the pain, and slumped back against the stonework to rub the throbbing goose-egg already rising on my temple.

When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the world I knew.