The Chalice by Phil Rickman Page B

his
friend, that he could bathe in her aura. Jim left the canvas wedged into the
easel and manhandled the whole painting to the house. He propped it against the
open door and turned to accept the night.
           The cottage was tiny but satisfyingly isolated, reached by a track
too narrow for a car. Ten years ago, although his worldly goods were few, the
removal men had been less than euphoric.
           But Jim still was, much of the time. Especially when the sun
had gone, leaving its ghost to haunt the lush, sloping grass in the foothills
of Glastonbury Tor.
           Behind the cottage was a wooded hillside which was always
immediately activated by the dying sun. He could almost feel it starting to
tremble with the stirring and scufflings and rustlings of badgers and rabbits and
foxes and owls.
           Before him, the dark brown fields rolled away into the tide of
mist on the slopes of the Tor and the cottage snuggled into the huge ash tree
which overhung it, as if its only protection against the night was to become
part of this great organism.
           The way that Jim himself wanted to go into the final night. To
be absorbed, become part of the greater organism, even if it was only as
fertiliser.
       He grunted, startled.
           Two extra shadows were creeping along the hedgerow.
     
    Headlice saw the little
tubby guy in his garden, with his red face and his tweed hat. What a waste, eh?
People like that could go and live in nice suburban cul-de-sacs and leave the
power places for them that could still feel the electricity.
           He dragged Rozzie into the shadow of the hedge. 'Ow!' she
screeched. 'Friggin' thorns.'
           'Thorns round here are sacred,' Headlice told her. 'That Joseph
of whatsit, when he landed and planted his stick, it turned into a thorn tree,
right?'
           'That's Christian. '
           'It's still earth magic' Headlice gazed up towards the Tor,
very big now, almost scary in the flatlands. One side of the tower sucking the
very last red bit out of the sky, the other side, the one closest to them,
sooty-black.
           He was glad they'd been sent first, to find their own way
through the tangled undergrowth to the Tor. This was how a pilgrimage ought to
end. Except he wished it wasn't Rozzie.
           A fragile half moon had risen in a thin mist above the holy
hill's eastern flank.
           'Fuckin' magic, in't it?
           'You ain't seen nuffin yet.' Rozzie smiled secretively. 'Stop
a minute, willya? I've done me friggin' ankle.'
           Headlice gritted his teeth. 'Been better off bringing Molly.
Least she knows the country.'
           'Yeah,' Rozzie said. 'And you could shag her afterwards right?'
           Headlice said nothing.
           'What you had in mind, ain't it?' Rozzie said. 'You're   a transparent little sod.'
           OK, so maybe he did wish it was Mol he was with. Sure; she was
fat. Fat ish. But she was nice-looking.
Open, when Rozzie was closed-up. Despite - and he'd always known this - her not
being what she made out. Plus she smelled nice.
           When they crossed the lane, only a hedge between them and
where the ground started to rise, Headlice wanted to climb over and scramble
up, but Rozzie said they'd better find the gate Mort had told them to use. When
they reached it they could see a glowing path of concrete: chippings and stuff
had been put in, with steps. All the way to the top, it looked like. For the tourists.
Sacrilege.
           There was a collecting box inviting visitors to contribute
towards Tor maintenance. Oh yeah, like patching up the concrete path? Balls to
that.
           And then there was a National Trust notice board for the thicko
tourists. Headlice started to read it anyway, striking a match and holding it
close to the print.
     
    Tor is a West Country word
of Celtic origin meaning a hill. Glastonbury Tor is a natural formation