Alys Clare - Ashes of the Elements

Perhaps it was as well, for Josse’s peace of mind, that he didn’t know it.

* * *

More by luck than judgement, Josse found himself back at the grove with the fallen trees. In the midst of congratulating himself on his skill, he was suddenly overcome by an urge as strong, if not stronger, than the strange emotion he had felt underneath the yew tree. Not understanding, and with the sense that he was outside himself, a witness to his own actions, he stepped slowly across to the larger of the trees. Putting out his hands, he held them palm-downwards above the great trunk.

At first he felt nothing. Then, right in the middle of each palm, he began to feel a tingling. It grew swiftly in strength until it was almost burning him, only just tolerable. And, at the same time, he was hit with a devastating sadness, a mourning, almost, for the vast dying thing that lay at his feet.

Moving across to the smaller oak, he repeated the action. This time, as well as sorrow, there was anger.

Someone had killed this tree, deliberately.

And the forest was furious.

Josse felt that fury. Standing there, a profound, deep dread upon him, he began to shake with fear.

Summoning his courage, he stepped away from the fallen trees. Squaring his shoulders, standing up straight, he said softly, ‘“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff do comfort me…”’

He trailed off. No, it was not evil that he feared. He stood in awe of some vast natural power, but it was not an evil force. He was sure of that.

Comforted by the familiar words of the psalm, he took some deep breaths, then set out to explore the far side of the clearing.

Beyond the spot where, according to Josse’s theory, Hamm Robinson, Seth and Ewen had been digging for treasure, there seemed to be another disturbance in the forest floor. Josse hadn’t noticed it the previous night, but now, staring at it, he began to wonder. If he’d been right about the treasure being Roman in origin, then might that not suggest there were other relics of the Romans in this area of the forest?

He made his way carefully to the edge of the clearing. There were stones there, ancient, worked slabs of stone, forming the rough shape of a right-angle … The remains of two walls of a building?

Pushing his way into the undergrowth, Josse followed the line of the better-preserved of the walls. And came to a gap, spanned by a flat slab. A doorway?

Stepping back to have a better look, he tripped over something. Feeling with his hands, he found a circular stone, broken off at an angle.

Hurrying now, he searched first to the right, then to the left. And quickly found five more round stones.

They were, he was certain, column bases. Which, from what little he knew about Roman buildings, strongly suggested that this edifice had been a temple.

He circled the walls, finding the remains of a stone floor, and, leading away from the entrance, a paved road, badly broken up, overgrown, all but gone.

But it was evidence enough. The Romans — or someone — had built a temple here, deep in the forest. They had mined here, that Josse knew already, built their roads here. Now, if he were right, it must be concluded that they had also buried something very valuable out here.

We must come back here with a proper working party, Josse thought, bring ropes and-

He heard voices.

Muttering voices, speaking quietly as if anxious not to be heard.

Very close at hand.

Moving as silently as he could, Josse hurried back into his temple. Crouching down behind the ruined wall, he pulled down a branch of hazel to cover his head and peered out into the clearing.

Two men were approaching the fallen trees, carrying what looked like a spade and a sack. They were still muttering, and Josse thought he could detect fear in the higher pitched of the voices.

‘… still ain’t happy, all the same, not after you-know-what,’ one was saying.

‘Shut up and dig,’ said the other.

And Ewen and Seth clambered down into the hole under the trees and began to shovel out earth.

Josse watched them for some time. Periodically one or other would emerge, put something in the sack, then disappear into the ground again.

When the noise came, it scared Josse as much as it did Seth and Ewen.

It was a humming sound, rather lovely at first. Sweet, like singing. Or chanting, perhaps.

But then, as if the strange music had slid into a scale that no human ever used, it began to chill the very soul. As it grew louder, making the night air vibrate with its sound waves, Josse, crouched down behind his walls, trying to make himself small. Trying to make himself invisible. For, illogical though it was, he was assailed by the fear that there were people out there, watching him from their hiding places, deep-set eyes penetrating the shadows, lighting on him, knowing him …

He felt a moment’s pity for Seth and Ewen, out there in the middle of the clearing, exposed and vulnerable. Ewen had his hands over his ears, Seth, clutching the half-full sack to his chest, was trying to look challenging, but succeeding only in looking afraid.

‘Oo’s there?’ Seth shouted. His words made no echo: their sound was instantly cut off, as if someone had closed a mighty door.

‘I’m off!’ Ewen sobbed, running and stumbling out of the clearing. Seth began to go after him, but just at that moment the humming stopped.

Seth stood quite still, looking all around him as if suspecting a trap.

But there was no further sound.

He climbed back into the ground, coming up again, grunting with effort, bearing some large object in his hands. Stuffing it into the sack — with some difficulty — he had a last look around the clearing, then, slinging the bulging sack over one shoulder and picking up his spade in the other hand, set off after Ewen.

Josse gave him a few minutes’ start, then, coming out from his hiding place, moved stealthily back into the clearing. Staring first down the path which the men had taken, then around the circumference of the encircling trees, he began to suspect his eyes were playing tricks.

Either that, or-

No. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

What Josse thought he saw was a figure.

Human, and, by its slenderness, female. Robed in white, a little stooped. And, in her hand, a long wand.

But it must have been his eyes, seeing imaginary sights. Because, when he rubbed them hard and looked again, she was no longer there.

Josse clutched at his talisman. He felt the point of the sword press into his hand, and the small sharp pain brought him back to himself.

It was just the effect of the forest, he told himself, of the watchful, silent trees, of the ancient workings, the ruined buildings and edifices of a long-gone people. And that humming — that dire, haunting humming — was probably no more than some weird effect of the wind in the branches.

But the night was still and calm.

There wasn’t any wind.

He tried to stay calm. Telling himself that he was making a rational decision, that the dark, swooping waves of alien power he could sense emanating from the dense wood all around him had nothing whatever to do with it, he concluded that there really was no purpose in staying out any longer. That, for all the good he was doing, he might as well head back to the Abbey. He was on the point of doing just that when another, very different, sound seared through the forest.

It wasn’t humming, this time. It didn’t even begin as a sweet sound, and there was no suggestion in it whatsoever of music, of singing.

It was a scream.

A human scream, beginning faintly, swiftly escalating to a high-toned, vibrant pitch of sheer terror.