Peter - Chapter Seven

Peter - Chapter Seven
Drips fell on Peters face rousing him to consciousness. Beside him the three dogs and Lipton slept on. Their makeshift shelter had done its job bar the odd leak. Outside the rain had stopped though the green hillside was sodden. The fire smouldered still but no flames or dry kindling was nearby to re spark it into life. Sleep had been deep and he recalled no dreams but the faces of dead freinds were still fresh in his mind. Those who died young from heroin had been reanimated by the archangels. They had returned to dismiss any remaining hunger for opiates the shamans still had.
Like many relationships, addiction seldom ends in a single decisive moment, like a rock hurled out in to the pond, crashing through the waters surface, never to be seen again. Think more of the flat pebble, scimmed across the surface, touching periodically into periods of relapse of reducing length to the final slide of confusion before sinking slowly away. The two ex addicts never spoke of it again nor touched again the brown powder that had killed so many of their friends and blighted large chunks of their lives. Too many broken resolutions. Too many words spoken in hope more than faith had rendered vocalising their decisions pointless. Both quietly knew they had been released. Psychedelics have this power. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, exposed to the brutal truth, profound enough to induce a quantum shift, their private shame forced into deep, unavoidable focus. Not to pretend their would be no grieving. As profoundly as divorce from a partner once deeply loved, echoes would be heard for years. Darkness and horrific dreams. Tears and sorrow as the chemistry of their brains and bodies restabalised and receptors, desensitised by years of powerful opiates retuned to the finer reading of the bodies own subtle but natural endorphins.
As the brothers packed their rucksacks, pissed on the campfires final embers and fed the dogs a clearer perspective descended. Both brutally cleansed, their recuperating systems, stripped of protective endorphins were opened up once more to pain and, in a broader sense to a more inclusive reality.
L, "any reason you saw the three hill forts line to Clun as appropriate for our return? I mean, we've both been bang at the gear. We both had to knock it on the head. Jesse or no Jesse. We'd be dead in a year or two. I see that. Getting out of our comfort zone makes sense, but why here? Why Shropshire?"
P, "I've been meaning to come back here since I moved down Stroud, all three hill forts I've been up but I'd just done them as hikes. Never checked out any mystical power. Never figured out their connection. I needed to see if Skree and Notpil were what we thought. Jesse promised archangel status but Jesus said fuck all about it. Somehow I assumed the druggy cunt would have taken an interest, if not got involved himself. Isn't Christ part of all that angel shit? Besides, I've unfinished business here. I left this area due to a mental breakdown. Psychiatrists called it that. I was too broken to figure it then. But there was a smell. Something I smelt when I was in the Orkneys. Stench of the craft. Dark craft. I had to get you sorted too."
L, "I had JC down as part of the holy trinity shite myself, angels to boot. But to be fair, I'm bang with you on his philosophy but he barely gives a fuck about changing the world no more. He's still on site down Glastonbury. Hammering the drink. Not that I blame the cunt. He did his bit and you can't ask more. I'd had half a mind to say bollocks to it all myself. But I just couldn't get a link on Notpil. Being archangel sounds well cool but it's fuck all like being shamans. I know your more clued up on the mystical shite. I had to test him out. Sorry if the hanging business freaked you out. How else could I test if Notpil would intervene? What is the point of being archangel if it floats about outside your control?"
P, " I get where you're coming from. I loved being shamans. In a way I wish that's all we were still. I loved tripping out, travelling through different dimensions. But it's just you. Just me, diving in and out of differing realities. Sure we could learn shit, bring cures back, big medicine for the struggling. But archangel, mate. Fuck me! That's awesome. Scares me , mind. Really fucking scares me."
L, " with great power comes great responsibility, as peter Parker knows. I still can't get a proper grip on it. So through the sacraments we can link up to some displaced consciousness that otherwise floats about. Floats off if we don't use it too, as far as I can see."
P, "well, I can't see that. It's like owt. I used to be good at ice skating. Had advanced certificates. I stopped going for a couple of years and, yes, it was still there. But I was totally out of practice. Took a good while to re attain my previous skill, truth be known I never got as good as I was. But I reckon I could have, had I put the work in. Fuck, Lipton, most people don't realise they have mystical abilities. They ignore every thing that don't fit their dull view. Every weird occurance that they can find no bracket for they ignore. Call it a dream, hallucination. But they all have the potential. Archangel, mind. We're honoured. All this shit, out of body experiences, astral planing, precognition, shamans, witches, voodoo, Christian Mystics; as far as I can see it's all the same thing. Different cultures use different words, but in essence they're the same human potentials."
L, "still, it's going to take some practice."
P, "fuck yes it is! Mind the time we first summoned up Gabriel? We thought we were meeting the old Genesis singer!"
L, "and what a soft cunt he turned out to be! Still haven't forgiven him about the trains in Box tunnel. Nearly killed us, the cunt. And, when I challenged him to a square go what does the shiteing cunt do? Fucking bottles it!"
P, "are you still banging on about that? Fucks sake! He stopped the ghosts for us. You're. Fucking archangel now and can you change the train time tables?"
L, "I haven't had any time to practice. There's no comparison."
P, "next time we go looking for subterranean rock and roll empires you can summon up Phil Collins then, see where that gets you."
L, "if I'm summoning up any drummers for assistance it'll be Phil Taylor, not Phil fucking Collins."
P, "aye, fair do's, Philthy Animal RIP. Last thing you need when your in the underworld is some bald short arse coming in the air tonight!"
L, "I'm still scoobied, Pete. When we were on the Jesse quest it was clear cut all the way. I'm still not sure what we're doing here in Shropshire."
P, " that right? I saw you reading that Shropshire Star. Are you trying to tell me you haven't been drawn to this? When the teenage suicides started I thought it was some goth craze. Flash in the pan. I've read about it before. You do get suicide epidemics amongst youths. Every now and again it happens. Virtually always hangings too. One lost kiddy goes for it, perhaps their bird next, then others follow suit. As though once the idea has been set in motion the doors of possibility somehow open for others to top themselves. Perhaps they see the kudos that follows. Teenagers are always on about being 'for real'. Being called a fake is the ultimate insult. Everybody loves you when you're dead. Psychologists reckon most suicides don't really want to die. They'll do the washing up. Tidy their clothes. Stuff like that. As though a part of them thinks death isn't terminal."
L, "silly fuckers. Teenagers haven't even developed fully formed personalities."
P, "the human brain doesn't finish growing till we reach twenty five. Since I read that I've thought back myself and I don't reckon I was fully'me' till I reached my mid twenties. I struggle to remember how I thought in my teens."
L, "too much dope smoking in your case, Pete."
P, "for sure. I'd steer kids away till their twenties, if I had any. Still, those early mushroom trips were what rendered us shamans."
L, "reluctant shamans. I thought it was just a laugh, like glue sniffing back when I started."
P, "me too. But given what I know now, I wouldn't have done half so many trips. Looking back, for every time we opened dimensions or learned cosmic truths, there were another ten trips where we just enjoyed the lights.."
L, "who knows. I see it like learning guitar. You have to get all the bum notes out before the tunes come. It's like any other learning process. Martin Gladwell and all that, 10,000 hours to become skilled at anything. There's many think they can bypass the years of meditation Buddhists and that put in, some even then never experience the mystical. But same goes for psychedelics. It takes hard work and discipline to really learn how to use it. Some Mystics frown on it, think it's a trivial short cut. I don't see it that way at all. It takes many trips to become skilled. Few have the strength. I'd say it's easier the Buddhist routes. Safer anyway. And rarely do they get to our level. I remember us trying to list them and we couldn't name more than twenty in Britain who have true access to the mystical. No doubt there's a few we've not come across, but we've met most, in one dimension or another."
P, "you're probably right. There were many who dabbled. Tripped a few times, found it too much and never got over that initial shock. In fact, when I think of it most just saw the chaos. Lacked the discipline or commitment. It took a good ten trips before I really got over that sudden shift in consciousness. I did something like a thousand trips, both acid and mushrooms before I hit eighteen. Of them all, from that period of my life, perhaps just a dozen took me through. It's that anxiety that spoils it for most. They spend the whole time trying to hang on to normal reality, whatever that is, it's only once you let go, abandon yourself, let it take you where it will, that the real, significant learning begins. These days, I trip far less often but when I do I'm no longer scared. Some of it is knowing when not to do it. Knowing no straight heads are going to disturb you. But some of its age. I reckon any road."
L, "we didn't know what we'd found. There were no road maps, just sixties knobheads who'd written a script they thought was right. I mean their idea of set and setting, your headstate at the time and a safe environment, that was right. But the other stuff? We just did it anywhere. Gigs, parties, festivals, golf courses at night. Parks, woods, lakes. I remember walking through the city many times, avoiding beer monsters where we could, doing battle with the fuckers where we couldn't."
P, "I give it up once I turned twenty. Thought my head was too mashed. Slipped into other drugs. That's where the real problems began. It was thirty years before I realised. It was the other drugs that killed so many freinds. Sent others mad. Once I dipped my toes back in the waters I knew I had to get clean of all other drugs. Just stick to what I began with. The odd well placed psychedelic. I read about shamanism and understood what it had all been. Thirty years, lost at sea, till my shamanic emergence."
L, "same thing. But we pulled it round. We're here now. Though what the fuck were doing you still haven't let on."
P, "I lived round here before. Twenty odd years back. During my lost years. I'd abandoned faith in the other. You know, the mystical shit. Proper materialist. Took the straight route. Had a straight middle class girlfriend. She bought a derelict cottage. I renovated it. I'd arrived from college having graduated. I gave up travelling before and saw a life as a craftsman. Teacher. Once the cottage was done I assumed my girlfriend would come back and we'd live there, so I got some lecturing positions. I'd seen some of the local remnants of pagan rituals. Green man stuff. I'd read somewhere about Clun being the centre of the dark side of British witchcraft. I couldn't see what was happening back then. It was like all the shamanic learning from my youth was just a fad. I couldn't see the attacks for what they were. I had what I thought to be a mental breakdown. Never saw the connections. The Fred West trial was on. I did mushrooms, it let the witches in. They saw the media fed me a steady flow of the Wests crimes. The horror filled my head. Couldn't see a way to fight it. Psychiatrists numbed me with pills. I drank. First got a taste for opiates. Nearly took my own life. I ran. Moved to Stroud. Looking back, mind, they knew what I was, or what I could be. There's other darker shit that I'll tell you some other time. They drove me out. That madness near killed me. Then, some ten months back I began to see the suicides in the press. Saw how it was developing. I know what they're up to Lipton. I've seen it before on Shapinsay in the Orkneys. They're harvesting them. I can't see anyone else bar us that can stop them. And I want fucking revenge. Those fuckers near killed me. There's more. Much more. If you want to fuck off back to site I completely understand. But I have to do this. They took fifteen years of my life. Psychiatrists, mental hospitals. If you can't hack it ok. But I've no choice. Kids are dying. They're bringing on the dark. You want more details? Of course you do. I'm sorry."
Peter stood looking off towards the hill fort by Aston on Clun. Lipton could see him shivering in anger, rage or fear. Maybe just the cold chill of withdrawal. He knew not exactly what. Peter had stuck by him through thick and thin. Fuck, he'd just saved his life, even if he had been some kind of archangels avatar. Peter knew he was asking a lot. He thought he saw figures but from this distance he could not be sure. Climbing his hill fort. His sole sanctuary during his solitary years of psychosis in Shropshire. This dark period had been the pivotal point in his life. Where his wild ferocity for life had hit a wall. Four of his freinds had died during his brief two year window in Shropshire. Doctors, science had dug him deeper into a pit.
L, "I don't know what sort of shite you're getting me into but if they fucked you up by barely trying then you'll need some help. Two days back I was swinging from a tree. I honestly thought that was me done. Now I'm not exactly happy you turned up and saved me. From what you say you have looked death square in the face too. From that point on what does it matter. I care not if I die. If you are entering this with equal lack of personal concern, I say yes! Let's fucking do the cunts. If we die? So fucking what. There's no one else going to do this. I'm with you Peter, it's just you and me, it's always been just you and me. If we go down let's take some of them evil fuckers with us."
Peter smiled back at Lipton, his eyes aflame with life.
P, "these fuckers are as bad as it gets. They eat babies. I've seen it, Lipton. Shapinsay, 1988. Nearly got me there too. This time we have the power. We can bury their twisted faces. Let's do the fuckers."
And with that they were committed, death or glory. As it had always been.

The three witches of Clun had begun the implementation of their plot a dozen moons back. Twenty skulls of youths taken by their own hand within their prime, harvested before their bodies were soiled by sexual congress yet abundant with hormones, brains intact, was the prime and potent target required for their scheme. A ritual stipulation. A hex of ancient border provenance, only once in history performed.
The witches bloodline had been preserved by the inter breeding of four families. Genetic weaknesses incurred by such inbreeding were a consequence of the eugenic purification necessary for the compounding of power though any significant mutations were minimised by strict arrangement of marriages. The heritage stretched back much further but the merging of the descendants of Titus Brock, Aston Gable, Jack Black and Arbor Clun forged the Clun Coven. Albions most powerful. Witchcraft had other focal points. Isolated communities in the Orkney Islands, Cornwall, Deep Wales and Ireland but the Clun Coven could rightly claim dominance. They heald, still hold the purest connection, the ancestral lineage.
There is no written history of Druidism. Not from within, only the Roman descriptions of a culture beyond their understanding. Toward the latter years of Roman occupation a systematic genocide of the old religion took place. In simple practical terms, native religion, just like gnostic Christianity, drew on first hand religious or mystical experience. This was personal and no one within their cultures saw need to question anyone, man, woman or child who was fortunate enough to experience the numinous or the divine. All were equal beneath powers much greater than theirs. Orthodox Christianity held its unique access to the divine came from a priesthood who took authority only from the apostles. Though many of the apostles never had visions and were jealous of Mary Magdalene who Jesus loved the most as she had many mystical experiences. These apostles were also now long dead and impossible to ask anyway. Further, the priests of the Orthodox Church had no mystical experiences, no first hand experience of the one. Instead they claimed God only bestowed the mystical on long dead apostles, calling the transcendence in the common people mental illness. For them, faith, despite a great silence was valued more over the trance fugue of people they thought skanks. A great jealousy of the gnostic and pagan mystic visionaries grew. Through torture and murder justified by their rigid claims to be the one true church, a concept anathema to the gnostic and pagan mind, they sought to destroy those that threatened their power. A war that echoes down the ages to this day; the Orthodox Church justifying all its brutality through Faith, against the Mystics of all creeds who need no faith for they see the other as clearly as any reality.
Since the advent of farming and the specialisation of labour the native British developed a complex and powerful elite body of people. Living outside normal society these were a breed apart. Where perception of what we would call other dimensions was evident in a child, male or female they would be given over to the Druids, usually before puberty where they entered an environment where their aptitude could by nurtured. By segregation those with mystical bent gathered and bred together forming a class that operated separate from the regular folk. The apprenticeship was a full twenty years before a Druid was deemed qualified to advise and help a community. Living separately in a culture without written language the skills were what we would deem a tacit knowledge. A craft. Druidism was a practiced skill, not a referral to written text but the combination of something from within aligned to a structured ritualisation. Their qualification came from first hand mystical experiences. It's broad sweep accepted the authority of those of sight. No quibbling over rightful interpretation of second hand stories but the direct communion with the other. Through the rigorous interbreeding of those with the genetic predisposition to see beyond the vail, the potency of the Druids knowledge intensified to a great power. In times of need where problems arose that were beyond the auspices of tribal leaders, a Druid would be invited in from their isolated and strictly private encampments. Failing crops, demonic possession, anything beyond the reality framework of normal folk could initiate the call for a Druid. Already an acceptance of the material over the spiritual had seen British culture progress to a condition where the two had diverged. An early form of scientific reason got people through their day to day endeavour but a realisation that there was far more remained. Rather than stoop to superstition the Druids were recognised as experts in a field beyond normal scope. Much like today where we must take the word of advanced scientists on quantum matters, not understanding but accepting their learned authority, so too the Druids occupied a space of trust.
As Roman culture shifted from the persecution of gnostic Christians. Those who had experienced the mystical on the freedom Christ had delivered, the truth, that knowledge came from within, not from the priests who hijacked the teachings of previous visionaries, Gnostics were ostracised by the Orthodox Church. Christs teaching, the idea of a free universality of gods word, more often delivered to the poor and meek than the religious hierarchies, lasted barely two hundred years before being usurped and privatised. Gnosticism continued, but as a secretive, underground sect of private meetings. The true revelation that we are all equal in the eyes of God. That the mystical could touch anyone from beggar to thief, from fisherman to shopkeeper undermined the political authorities. God, the universal consciousness was evident in all things, all places. No church, no temple or man made structure had any greater value than a field, a woodland clearing or a cheap room where Gnostics could meet. Through the drawing of straws the services were randomly led by any member of the group, male or female. The touch of the divine could find anyone. No priest or self important or elected individual had any greater authority or unique contact to God. Such hubris ran against Christs teaching and gnostic belief. Only through the governing overclass of Roman invaders and native collaborators irrefutable and unique control of the religious impulse could power over the common people be maintained. Hence an Orthodox Church, claiming its authority from connections to now dead apostles held the writings of dead men delivered their unique connection to the divine. The Orthodox Church and its unqualified monopoly of the spiritual through its lot in with the Roman Empire. The empire abandoned its multiplicity of gods and twixt the two a fresh dictatorial over class justified its material greed through the lie of divine authority. Not only gnostic Christians but other shamans, pagans and Druids were a threat to the spiritual allegiance of those within the reign of the military Italian rulers. In tests of faith, those outside the Orthodox Church were burned, tortured to death. The truths they had witnessed could not be denied no matter the cruelty. No extended execution unto death would see them renounce their beliefs. Sure, they could lie, but this was like saying they were horses, not men. Torture could make anyone say anything, but it couldn't alter fact.
As Roman Christianity spread through Britain the occupation was enforced by the destruction of pagan sites and the rebuilding of Christian churches on this sacred ground. Druids and their belief was driven deeper into the wilds as Christian Romans drove home their dominance through the ritual execution of those still practicing the old religion. The remnants of Druidism was driven to Albions darkest corners. Some took to the Scottish islands and hid there. Cornwall hid others. Ireland, always that step further became sanctuary for some. But the main body of Druid culture made its last stand in the Welsh border counties.
The Druidic connection to the other and its supervision of the spiritual needs of the area now known as the Home Counties was provided by the sects led by Jack Black and Titus Brock. As the Roman genocide spread from the south east, these two Druids were driven north west. Each ritual slaughter of a Druid saw the mutilated bodies exposed on crosses, their heads on pikes for villagers to witness the Roman Christians new gods dominance over the old religion. At night, while others slept, the families and friends of these two active Druids would reclaim the skulls returning them to Black and Brock who through the eating of the dead Druids brains infused the powers of the deceased with their own before moving on, keeping one step ahead as the Roman genocide progressed. With the decimation of the lower practicioners of the old religion the intensity of the powers of Black and Brock grew. Each brain eaten meant one less Druid but for Brock and Black, though on retreat deeper in to the countryside, one more Druidic souls power.
Driven first into Wilshire, the two esteemed Druids found sanctuary in safe houses. Few native Britons remained strong enough, others through pragmatism converted to orthodox Christianity to avoid Roman persecution but a bold minority, steeped in paganism from birth provided a hidden room for the night, a meal for the hunted, or spread misinformation, helping the two most powerful wizards in these isles in their race to survive.
Rarely staying longer than a night in any one place, often sleeping rough to leave a cold trail, the two parted. Arranging to meet up in twelve moons time at Cley Hill close to the Warmonster settlement, Brock made north of the county for Avebury, Black to Stonehenge, hereby doubling the chance of preserving the connection to the divine wisdom and power of druidry. What faced Titus Brock at Avebury and Jack Black at Stonehenge was to affect the course of British magic. A pagan spiritual connection to the female earth consciousness and also to the male divine universal consciousness, had been at the heart of Druidic practice. Through the connectivity to sacred trees, rocks and waters, the Druid mind could join with the consciousness within. This unity of human Druidic mind with tree, stone or water consciousness formed a seperate awareness, a blurring of the particles of perception connecting directly through root, soil and moisture to the earth force. A unity of Man and Gaia. Living as animals in cyclic harmony with the planets seasons, Druids worked with the grain of life. Roman Christianity had no connection to the divine. Christs gnostic followers carried on his word that lay closer to Druidic thought and sentiment but through hijacked validity the Roman Christian spread of destruction ran counter clockwise, against the grain, in opposition to Mother Earth. In their arrogance the greater body of western civilisation came to believe only humans had souls. That the mystical, even consciousness, was the preserve of Man. Unlike other animals that were tied to the cycles of the earth, expressions of their environment, aspects of something far greater, Christian man believed they were above the laws of nature. Through their gift of reason and their unique possession of souls they argued the environment, other animals were all there for them to use as they saw fit. This line of thinking continued after Galileo and Darwin into scientific humanism. A secular Christianity. But where Darwin stalled hubris through the realisation we were just animals, incapable of transcending our animal nature, and where Christianity had the built in brake to human hubris in the concept of original sin, scientific humanism genuinely thought mans reason could transcend the laws of nature. We could destroy our environment, use all resources safe in the knowledge our unique gift of reason would think of a way to save us. This arrogance and stupidity looks like leading to the greatest extinction in the planets history. But back to our fleeing Druids.
Having passed word he was making for Stonehenge only to trusted initiates of the old religion, Jack Black felt quietly confident that all would be well once he reached the stones. Roman patrols regularly passed by on their rigid roads but amongst the many locals who too used this ancient landmark for meetings and trade despite its religious functions now banned, he could surely slip unnoticed. Dressed as a hooded traveller, only those on the know would recognise him. As he slipped by the outlieing burial mounds he wondered how Titus was fairing at the equally busy Avebury. The wind whipped across Salisbury plane stinging his face so he stooped in his progress, not scanning far ahead, eyes surveying the more immediate. From a thicket of trees a small boy appeared, waving him over whilst furtively glancing first ahead where Blacks path led, then back as though to check for pursuers. Following the child's eyes Black too checked he wasn't being followed before stepping off track to see what the lad was about.
Boy, "Druid, sir! Please heed my warning. Today Romans came to our village, looking for your kind. They battered my father. Asked him where Druids might be hidden. Two the soldiers named. Two they sought. Black and Brock. They aim to burn out their powers. My father told them to go fuck their kin, for indeed they were a proper set of cunts. When he was broken and able to resist no more they forced open his mouth. Locked his jaws apart with a short oak spar, the thickness of your mid finger, sir. Then all four relieved their bladders in to his mouth. They had been hearty at the mead, I smelt it on their piss, sir. They told my father, 'drink our holy water so that you may gain forgiveness from our Lord, Jesus Christ.' My father stayed strong, sir. Spoke nothing but now he lies in need of medicine."
Black, "and your mother, was she hurt? Others? Brothers, sisters? Did the soldiers hurt anyone else?"
Boy, "not the women folk, sir. We had warning Romans were coming so my father sent them off to hide in Pittock Wood. Only the men remained. Ned, Obon and me. It is to Pittock Wood I go now. To bring my mother and sisters home to aid my father. He lies, limbs snapped as branches and drenched in the soldiers mead waters. The stink is unholy, sir. Unholy!"
Black, "then you must hurry. Here. This black tar must be broken off into lumps the size of a yew berry. Melt it in hot water and mix with strong ale. Your father must drink this. It will help him with the pain."
Black broke off a healthy chunk off his lump of opium. Bound it in a tight woven cloth and handed it to the boy. Rummaging in his bag he found the coca leaves, reserved for emergencies.
Black, "and you, boy. Chew these. They will give your legs strength and your brain will not tire whilst you chew. But these Romans, to where were they bound?"
Boy, "onward to the stones. They were but four in the gang that knocked my father to the ground but their number on the road to the stones is legion. Their camp is made at the Henge. Their gangs have been to all surrounding hamlets and villages. You must run and hide for they aim to try all heretics. To execute any who won't bow to their God and emperor. Proper dogs cunts, sir. I fib you not"
Black, "now run, boy. Find your womenfolk and return them to your father. If Romans ask, you ain't seen me, right? And be sure to save the opium for your father. A demons curse on you, boy, should you nibble off the chunk for a selfish gouch!"
The boy ran off, emboldened by the coca leaves as a stark, cold determination descended on him. The plant leaves of Mother Earth guiding him on his mission.

Jack Black sat. Took a long restorative draught from his hide flask of mushroom concentrate. The Liberty cap would free his mind to clarify his route. The spirit in which they stewed would assuage any fear. He knew what 'heretic' meant to the Roman Christians. Any who was touched by the mystical. Such was their jealousy at the fickle hand of their own god. Why were peasants party to the glory of the divine whilst they must make do with a silence and faith? Any who would or could not hand over their spiritual autonomy over to their Orthodox Church was a heretic in Roman eyes.
As a Druid, Black had served his twenty year apprenticeship. Negotiated a thousand dimensions. Seen the light each time he took the sacramental Liberty cap, just as Gnostics saw the light through Syrian rue and mimosa hostilits root bark, just as shamans saw the light through ayuashka. Those who experienced the mystical first hand were but branches of the same tree, tributaries of the same river. Those who never experienced the mystical grew bitter. Only vindicated through the authority of other, now dead apostles.
He knew well the many hidden paths from the outer burial mounds to the stones through which he could sneak by but curiosity got his subconscious hungry. He had not witnessed first hand the cruelty of a Roman trial. And who could they have caught? The Druids were being ethnically cleansed from the country, from the very soil from which they grew. Brock and Black knew their sanctuary could only lie beyond Roman occupation. Beyond Offas Dyke. Above Hadrians Wall. Or on the islands to the north. It was his duty to observe the heathen practices of the Roman dullards and report what he learned so others could be prepared. So they could hide the subtle give away signs the rigid Roman mind could perceive. For their religion was at stake. Their species under threat.
As the mushroom concentrate took hold, Black checked his attire for any conspicuous detail he may have overlooked then, taking the lower lie of the land as pathway, walked cautiously the remaining two miles to Stonehenge as night gradually fell.
He could hear the drunken shouting of the Roman soldiers as the stones came into sight. Near on a thousand people were focused there including the straggling groups that strayed off in all directions. The Roman soldiers were but a tenth of the gathering but it was they who orchestrated the rituals taking place. They who formed the heart of the cluster of humanity, or inhumanity, one might argue. Like the growth rings of a felled oak the darkness spread outward. After the Roman pith of the tree the heartwood was built of collaborators first. The next ring sycophants, foolish in their assumption that through dobbing in their own to the invaders they might avoid their ire. Next the agnostic, open to opportunities these disciplined Italians might bring. Then the curious that formed the greatest number and finally those like Brock who sought to witness this cancerous tainting of their homeland. And through an opening in the crowd, smaller Roman gangs returned, bringing in the accused for trial. The boy had been right, thought Brock. These Romans were a proper bunch of cunts.
Jostling his way through the crowd Jack pushed and shoved the drunken locals aside in his quest for an anonymous place from which to view proceedings. Positioning himself a layer or two from the clearing and using a stone from the outer circle to obscure himself, Black poised, seeking out faces that he may know. The furtive sycophancy could easily rowse a grass, hungry for Roman approval. Six Braziers of beaten iron holding roaring blazes of burning branches cast light on to the scene before the public. Stonehenge degraded to an arena of humiliation and ritual torment. To one side lower ranking soldiers surrounded six or seven terrified looking locals. Two women wept and wailed, three, no four men shrieked out accusations. Spitting out the names of Druids, denying any truck with them or the old creed. Only one of the prisoners looked calm and reserved. Fatalistic, perhaps, resigned to his face. Titus Brock, his face bruised and streaming blood from a deep looking gash above his right eye stood with straightened back and folded arms.



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