The Burning Man

8

The cauldron of the southern Sahara was beginning to heat up. The first curve of the sun wavered in the haze on the horizon, but the moon and a scattering of stars still glowed ghostly in the lightening sky.

‘Hard drive.’ Church was swathed in a scarf wrapped tightly around his head to keep the biting sand at bay.

‘I do not know how Laura continues to hang on, neither alive nor dead,’ Shavi said.

‘I hope you’re both satisfied,’ Tom said harshly. ‘Three days we’ve wasted on this wild-goose chase. Veitch must be halfway to China by now.’

‘You really think we could just let her die?’ Church replied.

Before them lay a complex of standing stones that stretched for miles: a circle of flat stones surrounded by four pairs of tall stones, and further afield megaliths that rose up ten feet above the desolate landscape.

Shavi indicated some of the stones. ‘You can still see the solstice and cardinal alignments. Here in Nabta, this circle was used six thousand years ago, and probably earlier. At least a millennium before Stonehenge. Is that not amazing?’

‘Wonderful,’ Tom said tartly.

‘Religion, science and human society, all coming together at one point. The Egyptian civilization started here.’

‘Is there enough Blue Fire left in the sand?’ Church asked.

Shavi scanned the ground. ‘Thin currents, but I believe it will do.’ He shielded his eyes from the sun. ‘The Blue Fire is starting to dry up now that it has been cut off from the source. Soon we will not be able to travel between here and Tir n’a n’Og. We will be trapped on Earth.’

‘That’s what the Enemy wants,’ Church said. ‘To cut us off from the universe.’

Hunter emerged from the truck with Laura in his arms. ‘Are we ready to do this?’

‘Are you?’

‘Why haven’t I got a sword like yours? That would make things so much easier.’

‘You think?’

‘A warrior without a weapon? Not good.’

‘Stop moaning and find something,’ Tom snapped. ‘You’ve been complaining about that ever since I met you. Anyone would think you didn’t want a weapon.’

Hunter laughed quietly, and then made his way into the centre of the circle. ‘All right, throw the switch. Press the button. Say the magic word. A whole new world in which to indulge myself. I like the sound of that. And nobody knows my reputation.’

‘Good luck,’ Church called.

Tom and Shavi moved to the tall menhirs on either side of the circle. When the rising sun clipped the top of the stones, they placed their right hands firmly on the rock. The earth energy pulsed beneath their fingertips, increasing in force with each beat of their hearts until it rushed upwards to form a blazing azure structure high over the circle. Discharges crackled amongst the stones.

Church had one last sight of Hunter, cocky and grinning, with Laura in his arms, and then there was a flash of blue light and they were gone.