Stones Of Power - The Complete Chronicles Of The Jerusalem Man Part 112

'I healed it,' said Shannow.

'I think you did more than that,' said Meredith. Tsis is right-your skin is looking less wrinkled and ancient. You're getting younger.' He sighed. 'Good Lord, what wonders could be achieved if we had more of those Stones!'

The Deacon shook his head. The Guardians had them, but the Stones were corrupted - just like everything man touches. Sipstra.s.si has its dark side, Doctor. When fed with blood the result is terrifying. Look at the creatures yonder, the Bloodstones in their brows. Once they were Wolvers, gentle and shy. Look at them now. Consider the Bloodstone himself: once he was a man with a mission, to bring back the earth to a Garden of Eden. Now he is a destroyer. No, I think we would all be better off without any Stones of power.'

Beth called out to Meredith, to come and help her prepare food. The doctor moved away and Isis sat beside Shannow.

'You are sad,' she said.

'You see too much,' he told her, with a smile.

'I see more than you think,' she said, her voice low. 'I know who you are.'

'Best to say nothing, child.'

'I felt as if I was floating on a dark sea. Then you came to me. We merged when you drew me back. We were one - as we are one now.' She took his hand and squeezed it, and he felt a sudden warmth within his mind, a loss of loneliness and sorrow. He heard her voice inside his head. 'I know all of your thoughts and concerns. Your memories are now mine.

That's why I can tell that you are not an evil man, Jake.'

'I am responsible for the deaths of thousands, Isis. By their fruits shall ye judge them.

Women, children - an entire race. All dead by my order.' Harsh memories erupted into his mind, but Isis flowed over them, forcing them back.

'That cannot be changed . . . Deacon. But an evil man would not concern himself with guilt.

He would have no conception of it. Putting that aside for a moment, I also share, now, your fears about the Bloodstone. You don't know what to do, but in your memories there is one who could help. A man with great imagination and the powers of a seer.'

'Who?' As swiftly as she had merged with him, she was gone, and Shannow felt the pain of withdrawal, a return to the solitary cell of his own being.

'Lucas,' she said, aloud.

He looked into her beautiful face and sighed. 'He went down with the Fall of the world hundreds of years ago.'

'You are not thinking,' she said. 'What are the Gateways, if not doorways through time?

Amaziga took you back to Arizona. Could you not travel the same route? You must get Lucas.'

'I have no horse, and even if I did it's a three-day ride to Domango. I haven't the time.'

'Why go to Domango? Did not Amaziga tell you that the stone circles were placed where the earth energy was strongest? There must be other places where they did not place stones, yet the energy is still there.'

'How would I find one?'

'Ah, Deacon, you lack the very quality that the Stones need. You do not have imagination.'

'Meredith has already pointed that out,' he said testily.

'Give me the Stone,' she ordered him. Fishing it from his pocket, he placed it in her hand.

'Come with me,' she said, and he followed her upstairs into Mary's old room. She opened the shutter. 'Look out and tell me what you see.'

'Hills, the slope of the valley, woods. The night sky. What would you have me see?'

Placing the Stone against his brow, she said,'I want you to see the land and its power.

Where would a circle of stone be placed? Think of it, Deacon. The men who erected the stone circles must have been able to identify the power points. Draw from the Sipstra.s.si.

See!'

His vision swam and the dark grey of the night landscape began to swirl with colour- deep reds and purples, yellows and greens, constantly shifting, flowing, blending. Rivers of colour, streams and lakes, never still, always surging and vibrant. 'What is the colour of power?' he heard her ask, as if from a great distance.

'Power is everywhere,' he told her. 'Healing, mending, growing.'

'Close your eyes and picture the stone circle at Domango.' He did so, seeing again the hillside and Amaziga's Arizona house, and the distant San Francisco Peaks.

'I can see it,' he told her.

'Now gaze upon it with the eyes of Sipstra.s.si. See the colours.'

The desert was blue-green, the mountains pink and grey. The rivers of power were lessened here, sluggish and tired. Shannow gazed upon the old stone circle. The hillside was bathed in a gentle gold, flickering and pulsing. Opening his eyes, he turned to Isis. 'It is a golden yellow,' he said.

'Can you see such a point from here, Jake?' she asked, pointing out of the window.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

When will we have peace? That is the cry upon the lips of the mult.i.tude. I hear it. I understand it. The answer is not easy to voice, and it is harder to hear. Peace does not come when the brigands are slain. It is not born with the end of a current War. It does not arrive with the beauty of the Spring. Peace is a gift of the grave, and is found only in the silence of the tomb.

From the Deacon's last letter to the Church of Unity * * *

Isis moved out into the yard, enjoying the freshness of the predawn air. Several of the wolf creatures were stretched out asleep, but she sensed the presence of others within the ruined barn. She could feel them now, their pain and anguish, and as she crossed the lines of power that stretched back from them to the Bloodstone her limbs tingled and stung.

Concentrating hard, she narrowed her eyes. Now she could see the lines, tiny and red, like stretched wire, pulsing between the servants and the master, pa.s.sing through the house, burrowing through the hillsides. Her body aglow with Sipstra.s.si power, she stared intently at the lines- severing them, watching them wither and fail. An instant later they were gone, snuffed out like candle flames.

Walking steadily forward, she approached the first sleeping beast. Reaching down she touched its brow, her index finger and thumb taking hold of the Bloodstone shard embedded there. The evil contained in the shard swept back over her and, for the merest moment, she felt a surge of hatred. It was an emotion she had never experienced and she faltered. The Bloodstone turned black and fell away from the wolf.

'I do not hate,' she said aloud. 'I will not hate.' The feeling pa.s.sed, and Isis knew she was stronger now. 'Come to me!' she called. 'Come!'

The beasts rose up, growling. Others poured from the barn.

Now she felt the hatred coming at her like a tidal wave. Isis absorbed it all, draining it of energy and purpose.

A creature lunged forward, rearing up before her, but Isis reached out swiftly to touch its huge chest. Instantly she merged. Its Wolver memories were buried deep, but she found them, drawing them up into the beast's upper mind. With a cry it fell back from her.

Isis let her power swell, enveloping the mutated animals like a healing mist and sending the power out over the mountains and hills. One by one the beasts dropped to the ground, and she watched as their great size dwindled, the dead Stones falling from their brows.

Then the power left her, drifting away as the dawn light crept over the eastern mountains.

Tired now, Isis sat down. A little Wolver padded across to her, taking her hand.

The Deacon strode across the yard, holstering his pistols. The Wolvers scattered and ran, heading away into the distant hills.

'I felt him, Deacon,' she whispered. 'I felt the Bloodstone.'

The Deacon helped her to rise. 'Where is he?'

'He has rebuilt a ruined city a day's ride from Pilgrim's Valley. He has warriors with him, black-garbed men with horned helmets. And the Jerusalem Rider, Jacob Moon.'

'Evil will always gather evil,' said the Deacon.

'The wolf creatures were linked to him, feeding him. Now the supply has stopped,' she said.

Then he'll have to go hungry.'

She shook her head. The horned riders will come, Deacon. The war is only just beginning.'

Jon Shannow stood on the brow of the hill, the Sipstra.s.si Stone in his hand. There was no circle of stones here, and no indication that there ever had been. Yet he knew this was a point of power, mystically linked to others throughout time. What he did not know was how to harness that power, how to travel to a given destination.

Was it just imagination, or were there sets of co-ordinates needed by the users?

Back in Babylon he had learned that there were certain windows in time that would enable travellers to move across the Gateways with minimum energy from Sipstra.s.si. How did one know when such a window was open?

Closing his fist around the Stone he pictured the house in Arizona, the paddock, and the red jeep, the sun over the desert. The Stone grew warm in his hand. Take me to the world before the Fall,' he said.

Violet light flared around him, then faded.

There was the house. There was no red jeep there now. The paddock was gone, replaced by a tarmac square and two tennis courts. Beyond the house he could see a swimming-pool.

Shannow stepped out of the circle and strolled down to the building.

The front door was locked. Leaning back he kicked hard at the wood, which splintered but did not give. Twice more he thundered his boot against the lock, then the door swung inwards.

Swiftly he moved across the living-room. It was sweltering hot inside, and airless. Out of habit he wandered through to the lounge, flicking on the air-conditioning unit. He grinned. So long away, yet as soon as he returned he thought of the wonderful comforts of this old, doomed world.

Moving back to the main room he plugged in the computer leads, engaged the electricity and watched the screen flicker to life. Lucas's face appeared.

'Good day, Mr Shannow,' said Lucas.

'I need you, my friend,' said the Deacon.

'Is Amaziga with you?'

'No. I have not seen her in twenty years or more.' Shannow pulled up a swivel seat and sat before the screen.

'She left here some time ago for Brazil. My dates are confused. I think there must have been an electrical storm. What is today's date?'

'I don't know. Listen to me, Lucas. The Bloodstone is in my world. I need your help to destroy it.'

'There is nothing in your world to destroy it, Mr Shannow. As long as it lives it will feed. If you deny it blood, it will go dormant and wait - go into hibernation, if you will. But there is no weapon capable of causing it harm.'

'The Sword of G.o.d could have destroyed it,' said Shannow.

'Ah yes, but the Sword of G.o.d was a nuclear missile, Mr Shannow. Do you really want to see such a weapon descend on your land? It will wipe out countless thousands and further poison the land for centuries.'

'Of course not. But what I am saying is that there are weapons which could destroy him.'

'How can I help you? You can have access to all of my files, but few of them have any direct bearing on your world, save those which Amaziga supplied.'

'I want to know everything about Sarento. Everything.'

'The question, surely, is which Sarento. I know little about the man who became the Bloodstone.'

Then tell me about the Sarento you know, his dreams, his vanities, his ambitions.'

'Very well, Mr Shannow, I will a.s.semble the files. The refrigerator is still working and you will find some cool drinks there. When you return we will go over the information.'

Shannow strolled through to the kitchen, fetching a carton of Florida orange juice and a gla.s.s. Sitting before the machine he listened as Lucas outlined Sarento's life. He was not a primary survivor of the Fall, though he sometimes pretended to be, but was born one hundred and twelve years later. A mathematical genius, he had been in the first team to discover Sipstra.s.si fragments, and use them for the benefit of the people who became known as the Guardians. While he listened Shannow remembered the struggle on board the restored t.i.tanic, and the disaster in the cave of the original Bloodstone. Sarento had died there, Shannow barely escaping with his life.

There was little new to be learned. Sarento had been obsessed with the thought of returning the world to the status and lifestyle enjoyed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It was his life's work.

'Has that helped, Mr Shannow?'

Shannow sighed. 'Perhaps. Tell me now of the Gateways, and the points of power on which they were built.'

'You have me at a disadvantage there, Mr Shannow. The Gateways were used by the Atlanteans until the time of Pendarric and the first Fall of the world. Whether they were built by them, or not, is another matter entirely. Most of the ancient races are lost to us. It could even be that the world has Fallen many times, wiping out great civilisations. As to the power sites, they are many. There are three near here, and one is certainly as powerful as that upon which the ancients erected the stones. The earth is peppered with them. In Europe most of the sites have churches built upon them. Here in the United States some have been covered with mounds, others bearing ancient ruins. The people known as the Anasazi erected cities around the energy centres.'

'Do you have maps in your files?' asked Shannow.

'Of course. What would you like to see?'

'Show me the deserts of Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada.'

'Do you have more specific instructions?'

'I want to see all the energy centres, as you call them.'

For more than an hour Shannow pored over the maps, Lucas highlighting sites of power.

'More detail on this one,' said Shannow. 'Bring it up closer.' Lucas did so.

'I see what you are getting at, Mr Shannow. I will access other data that may be relevant to this line of enquiry. While I am doing so, would you mind if I activate the television? It annoys me that my date and time sections are down.'