The Doomsday Key and The Last Oracle with Bonus Excerpts Page 17

  His transportation stared back at him, equally unsure, stamping a hoof for emphasis.

  “The Fell Pony,” Dr. Wallace Boyle said as he worked among the assembled horseflesh. “You’ll not find a heartier pony on God’s green earth. Perfect for mountain trekking. Sure-footed and strong as an ox.”

  “You call these guys ponies?” Kowalski asked.

  Gray understood his partner’s consternation. The dusty-black stallion being saddled for Gray had to stand over fourteen hands, almost five feet tall at the withers. It chuffed into the cold air and scraped a hoof into the half-frozen mud.

  “Ack, be still already, Pip,” a ranch hand said as he gave the saddle cinch another tug.

  The group had left Hawkshead by car an hour ago. Wallace had guided them to this horse farm deep in the mountains. Apparently the only way to reach the excavation site from here was either on foot or by horseback. Wallace had called ahead and arranged for their four-legged transportation.

  “The Fell Pony has a long tradition in the region,” he continued as their mounts were tacked. “The wild Picts used them against the Romans. Viking farmers used them as plow horses. And the Normans who came later made pack animals out of them to haul lead and coal.”

  Wallace rubbed the neck of his brown gelding and climbed up into his saddle. His terrier, Rufus, trotted through the assembled horses and lifted his leg on a fence post. The dog’s initial distrust of Seichan seemed to have settled into a wary truce. He gave her a wide berth as she slipped a toe through a stirrup and leaped smoothly atop a sturdy-looking bay mare.

  “‘Fraid you’re going to have to excuse ol’ Rufus,” Wallace had explained back at the pub. “Set in his ways, he is. And I’m embarrassed to say he’s a bit of a bigot. Took a bite out of a Pakistani grad student last spring.”

  Rachel had looked aghast.

  Seichan had not reacted at all. She merely stared at the dog until its tail sank, and it retreated into its master’s shadow. Afterward she joined them at the table.

  Rachel, having been recognized, had come clean about their true intentions with Wallace, though she kept some details sketchy. She didn’t mention the mummified finger.

  The professor had listened soberly, then shrugged. “No worries, lass. Your secret is safe with me. If I can help you catch the boggins who killed Marco and sent your uncle to the hospital, then all’s the better, I say.”

  So they had set off.

  But even now, they still had a long way to go.

  Gray mounted his stallion, Pip, and after a bit of a shuffle, they left the farm and headed overland. Dr. Boyle led the way atop his gelding. They followed single file up a winding trail.

  Gray had not been on horseback in ages. It took him a good mile to feel comfortable, to fall into an easy rhythm with his mount. Around him, the English fells climbed higher and gathered closer. Off in the distance, the snowy crown of England’s highest mountain, Scafell Pike, shone in a last blaze of fire as the sun sank away.

  As they trekked, a wintry silence blanketed the highlands. All that was heard was the crunch of snow under their ponies’ hooves. Gray had to admit that Wallace’s estimation of their mounts was not all bluster. Pip seemed to know where to place each hoof, even through the snow. Going downhill, the stallion never lost his footing and kept a steady balance.

  Another two miles, and the way opened enough for Gray to sidle his mount next to Rachel and Seichan. The two had been whispering together.

  As Gray joined them, Rachel struggled to free her plastic canteen. Seichan noted her difficulty and dropped her reins. Guiding her horse with her legs, she freed a thermos and unscrewed the top.

  “Hot tea,” Seichan said and held a cup out to Rachel.

  “Thank you.” Rachel took a sip, the steam bathing her face. “Ah, that’s good. It warms right through you.”

  “It’s a special herbal blend of mine.”

  Rachel nodded her thanks again as she finished her tea and passed back the cup.

  Ahead, Kowalski slouched in his saddle, half-asleep, his head nodding, trusting his pony to follow behind Wallace’s.

  They rode through a sparse forest of alder and oak, over ferny bracken in a landscape of snow-covered turf and icy trickles of streams. Gray was glad to be on horseback, not trekking on foot. Unlike Rufus, who didn’t seem to mind as he trotted alongside them, hopping from hillock to hillock through the damper areas. The air grew colder as the sun sank away.

  “How much farther, do you think?” Rachel asked. She kept her voice hushed. The cold silence of the place had that effect.

  Gray shook his head. Wallace had refused to give any more detail than “far up in the wilds of the fell.” Still, Gray didn’t worry about finding their way back. Before he set off, he had activated a handheld GPS unit in his pocket. It monitored their trail, leaving little digital bread crumbs to follow.

  Rachel huddled deeper into her heavy jacket. Her breath puffed into the cold air. “Maybe we should have waited until morning.”

  Seichan spoke hollowly. “No. If there are any answers out here, the quicker we find them and move on, the better.”

  Gray agreed, but right now a roaring fire sounded pretty damn good. Still, he noted a strained set to Seichan’s lips. She kept her eyes fixed straight ahead of her.

  Dropping back, Gray used the moment to truly observe the two women. They were studies in contrasts. Rachel rode easily, swaying in a relaxed but ready manner, adapting to her new environment. She spent much of the time looking around her, taking it all in. Whereas Seichan rode as if into battle. She was plainly a skilled rider, but he noted how she corrected even the slightest misstep by her pony. As if everything had to bend to her will. Like Rachel, she also took in her surroundings, but her gaze darted about, pinched with calculation.

  Yet despite their differences, the two women bore some striking similarities. Each was strong-willed, confident, challenging. And at times, they could take his breath away with a single glance.

  Gray forced his attention away as he realized there was one other trait both women shared. He had no future with either one of them. He had closed that chapter with Rachel long ago, and it was a book best never opened with Seichan.

  Lost in private thoughts, the group continued silently through the mountains. Over the next hour, the trek became a blur of rocky escarpments, snowy cliffs, and patches of black forest. At last they crested a rise and a deep valley appeared ahead. The way down was staggeringly steep.

  Wallace drew them to a halt. “Almost there,” he said.

  Under a crisp starry sky, they’d had little difficulty riding in the dark, but below lay true night. A dark wood filled the valley.

  But that wasn’t all.

  Against that black canvas, a few ruddy glows dotted the forest, like tiny campfires. They would’ve been easy to miss during the day.

  “What are those glows down there?” Gray asked.

  “Peat fires,” Wallace said, blowing into his gloved palms to warm the ice from his beard. “A goodly part of the fells is covered in peat. Mostly blanket mires.”

  “And that would be what in English?” Kowalski asked.

  Wallace explained, but Gray was familiar enough with peat. It was an accumulation of decayed vegetable matter: trees, leaves, mosses, fungi. Piles of it formed in damp areas. Deposits were common in places where glaciers had retreated and carved out a mountainous landscape, like here in the Lake District.

  Wallace pointed down into the valley. “Below is a forest growing out of one of the deepest peat bogs in the region. It stretches thousands of acres from here. Most of the peat deposits in the region only go down ten feet or so. The valley here has spots that are ten times as deep. It’s a very old bog.”

  “And the fires?” Rachel asked.

  “Aye, that’s one good thing about peat,” Wallace said. “It burns. Peat has been harvested as a fuel source for as long as man has been around. For cooking, for heating. I suspect such natural fires as those below are wh
at gave ancient man the idea to start burning the bloody muck to begin with.”

  “How long have these valley fires been burning?” Gray asked.

  Wallace shrugged. “No saying. They were smoldering when I first came here three years ago. Creeping slowly underground, they’re all but impossible to smother. They just burn and burn, fed by a bottomless well of fuel. Some peat fires have been known to burn for centuries.”

  “Are they dangerous?” Rachel asked.

  “Aye, lassie. You have to be careful where you step. Ground may look solid, even covered in snow, but a few feet below could be a fiery hell. Flaming pockets of peat and rivers of fire.”

  Wallace tapped his mount with his heels and began his descent into the valley. “But no worries. I know the safe paths. Don’t go straying off on your own. Stick to my heels.”

  No one argued. Even Rufus moved closer to his master’s side. Gray pulled out his GPS unit, making sure it was still tracking their route. On the small screen was a topographical map. A line of small red dots traced their trail back out of the fells. Satisfied, Gray returned the device to his coat pocket.

  He noted Seichan staring at him. She glanced away, a bit quickly, when caught.

  Wallace led them down a switchbacking path into the valley. Loose scree and crumbling turf made for a treacherous descent, but Wallace proved true to his word. He got them safely to the valley floor.

  “Keep to the trail from here,” Wallace warned and set off. “What trail?” Kowalski mumbled.

  Gray understood his partner’s confusion. Ahead lay a flat stretch of snowy open ground. The only features were a few mounds of heather and a handful of lichen-covered boulders that looked like huddled stone giants. To the far left, a rosy glow shone from a patch of black turf outlined by green sphagnum moss. Smoke smudged upward against the snowy backdrop. The cold air smelled like a burned ham.

  Wallace took a deep breath. “Reminds me of home,” he said gustily as he exhaled, his brogue thickening. “Nothing like the scent of burning peat to accompany a nice dram of Scotch whiskey.”

  “Really?” Kowalski perked up, his nose in the air.

  Wallace led them in a winding route among the tall boulders. Despite his warnings, he seemed little concerned. Most of the fires were at the edges of the valley. A few were even up in the higher hills. Gray knew that such hot spots were usually started by wildfires that burned down into the subsurface, then smoldered there for years. The edges of the peat deposits were the most vulnerable to such penetration.

  Beyond the open stretch, the wall of dark forest opened. Snow-laden boughs reflected the starlight, but below the bower, the way was pitch-black. Wallace had prepared for that. Leaning down, he clicked on a lantern tied to his saddle. As in a cave, the single lamp had a long reach.

  They headed into the forest, still keeping to single file. The air grew less smoky. The forest was a mix of myrtle, birch, and pine, along with massive oaks that looked centuries old. Their trunks were gnarled, their branches still encrusted with dry brown leaves. Acorns littered the snowy ground, which accounted for the number of squirrels that chattered and fled from their path.

  Gray saw something larger scurry off, low to the ground.

  Rufus made an aborted lunge toward it, but Wallace yelled, “Leave it be! That badger will skin your nose straight off your face.”

  Kowalski eyed the dark forest with open suspicion. “What about bears? Do you have any in England?”

  “Of course,” Wallace said.

  Kowalski stepped his pony closer to the man with the shotgun.

  “We have plenty of bears in our zoos,” Wallace continued with a smile. “But none in the wild since the Middle Ages.”

  Kowalski scowled at the man for scaring him, but he didn’t move away.

  They continued through the old forest for another half hour. Traveling in the dark, Gray became thoroughly lost. The dense forest hid any landmarks.

  Finally, the trees fell away and another field opened. Starlight bathed a wide shallow hollow almost an acre in size. Grasses and bracken poked from the fresh snow that covered the hollow, along with stumps of trees that had been felled to open the area.

  It was otherwise unmarked—but it was not empty.

  To one side stood two dark tent-cabins. Heavy fabric stretched on steel frames. Beside them, squares of excavated peat were piled into tiny pyramids, ready to burn as heat for the cabins. But no one was here. During the winter months the site was abandoned due to the threat of heavy snow.

  Still, it wasn’t the dark campsite that drew everyone’s attention. Gray stared into the center of the hollow. The excavation site was marked off with yellow survey strings that crisscrossed the area in a large grid. As if trapped in this string web, giant stones rose from the ground in a crude ring. Each one towered twice Gray’s height. Atop one pair of stones lay a massive slab, forming a crude doorway into the circle.

  Gray remembered Wallace’s description of the Neolithic sites that dotted the region. Apparently he had found a new one, one lost for ages in this bog forest.

  “Looks like a little Stonehenge,” Kowalski said.

  Wallace slid from his saddle and took his pony’s lead in hand. “Only this site is older than Stonehenge. Much older.”

  They all dismounted. A rough sheltered paddock stood near the cabins, where they walked their ponies and set about unloading saddles and rubbing down their mounts. Kowalski fetched water from a nearby stream.

  Wallace explained about the discovery, how clues found in the Domesday Book had led him here, to a place marked in Latin as “wasted.” “I found no trace of the town itself. It must have been razed to the ground. But while hunting, I came upon this stone circle. It was half-buried in peat. An untrained eye could easily have mistaken it for ordinary boulders, especially as they were covered in lichen and moss. But the rocks were a type of bluestone not native to the fells.”

  His excitement grew as he talked. With the ponies settled, Wallace led them over to the stone ring. He carried his lantern. Gray also removed a flashlight from his saddlebag. As a group, they climbed over the survey strings and crunched through the ankle-deep snow. The stone ring sat in a square of excavated soil. Over the years, teams of archaeologists had been slowly digging the rocks free of the layers of peat.

  “The stones were half-buried when I first stumbled here. Their monstrous weight sank them into the muck over the passing millennia.”

  “Millennia?” Rachel asked. “How old is the place?”

  “I’ve dated it to two thousand years older than Stonehenge. That corresponds to the time of the first settlers to occupy the British Isles. To give you some perspective, that’s a thousand years before the Great Pyramids were built.”

  As they reached the dark ring, Gray flashed his light toward the nearest stone. Cleared of moss and lichen, there was no doubt it was man-made. Crude petroglyphs had been etched into the side facing Gray. The carvings covered the entire exposed surface—but it was all the same motif.

  “Spirals,” Gray mumbled, drawing Rachel’s attention.

  She joined him, as did Wallace.

  “A very common pagan symbol,” the professor said. “Representing the soul’s journey. This example is almost an exact replica of stone markings found at Newgrange, a pre-Celtic tomb complex in Ireland. Newgrange was dated to around 3200 B.C., about the same age as this ring, suggesting they were likely built by the same tribe of people.”

  “The Druids?” Kowalski asked.

  Wallace scowled. “Och, where did you learn your history, young man? Druids were Celtic tribal priests. They didn’t come onto the stage for another three thousand years.” He waved an arm to encompass the Neolithic stone ring. “This is the handiwork of the earliest tribe to settle the British Isles, a people who were here long before the Celts and Druids.”

  Kowalski merely shrugged, taking no offense at this slight to his knowledge.

  Wallace sighed. “But I guess I understand how most people mak
e that mistake. The Celts revered this lost people, believed them to be gods, even incorporated that culture into their own. They worshiped at these old sites, folded them into their mythology, believing the ancient stones to be the home of their gods. In fact, what’s considered to be high Celtic art today is based on these old pagan carvings. Ultimately, everything traces back to here.” Wallace pointed to the towering henge stones. “But the bigger question remains, who were these ancient ring-builders?”

  Gray sensed Wallace’s excitement stoking higher. It looked like he had more to say, something that he was still holding back, ever the showman. But before he could continue, Rachel interrupted.

  “You better see this.”

  She had circled to the far side of the stone and stood within the ring. Her arm pointed to the surface of the stone on that side.

  Gray and the others stepped over the survey strings to join her. He lifted his flashlight. There was only a single symbol carved into the rock on that side. Turning, he shone his light across to the other standing stones—twelve in total, he noted. Each was marked with the same symbol.

  “The quartered circle,” Gray said.

  Wallace nodded. “Now you know why I was so sure that the diary of that medieval scholar, Martin Borr, pointed straight here. The mark was drawn on his journal.”

  Gray turned in a slow circle.

  What did it all mean?

  Facing the first stone again, Gray contemplated its significance. Spirals on one side, a pagan cross on the other. He realized it was the same pattern as the two symbols burned into the leather satchel: a spiral on one side, a cross on the other.

  Gray faced Rachel. He read the same understanding in her eyes. He also knew what she was thinking. If they wanted answers, it was high time they came clean with Dr. Wallace Boyle.

  8:42 P.M.

  Wallace studied the artifact. He sat at a card table in one of the tent-cabins, the lantern at his elbow. Rachel sat next to him. She warmed her hands on a cup of tea. It was the last from Seichan’s thermos. She sipped it, appreciating the heat if not the slight bitterness. She would have preferred a dollop of cream with it, but the tea went a long way to chasing the last of the chill from her body.