Hallucinating (16 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

...eating greens...

Survival from Samhain to Yule is not going to be easy. If they eat their rations sparingly they will survive a month. Many communities will offer them food payment in return for music, or these communities will barter; but such largesse and trade is random. A week could pass and they might meet nobody—then lots of meetings all together. But if the food they acquire is perishable, it will not last. Hunting and trapping are tasks too sophisticated for them to countenance.

Then there are the animals. The ponies can survive off grass. When there is snow, the foursome can brush or dig it aside for the ponies to eat. But the whippets are different. They need meat and biscuits, though they have the advantage of eating any scraps they can find, including carrion.

It is going to be tough, yet they must survive. They must continue the quest. They must experience every aspect of nature, of society, of culture, and from these things they must wring their songs.

It is going to be tough.

Despite the scorn Nulight feels for Deputy Smark, he does not deny—even in public, to the interloper's face—that the priest's knowledge of winter plants is essential. It transpires that many plants Nulight has never heard of are edible, all pointed out, picked and cooked by Deputy Smark to the advantage of the group. Fat-hen leaves? Nulight does not know them, yet they are like tangy spinach, while Shepherd's Purse leaves are mild and peppery. Older watercress plants can be picked and eaten, while the roots, stems and leaves of the milk-thistle are nutritious. Dandelion roots can be found by searching for the leaves, instantly recognisable. Then there are two species of fungus: oyster, and velvet shank.

It's gritty fare and somewhat boring, but in quantity it supplements their supplies, so that they eat what they carry at half the usual rate. As for the dogs, they are sad, quiet and thin, but they are surviving. And they bark at night when they are disturbed, which is their one and only job.

On the first day of December they are searching for a campsite; it is cold and clear, with a frost settling. In his head Nulight is playing the only music suitable to this landscape: Klaus Schulze's "Mirage". The quartet find a copse on a hillside, and although it is far from ideal they decide to camp there, finding a small quantity of dry wood for the fire and a drift of bramble and nettle behind which they can set up tents—out of the wind, which is cold. Nulight, Kappa and Deputy Smark are looking out over the valley below the hill, which contains the remains of an abandoned village.

A flash of light enlivens the sky: satellite junk descending, burning up in the atmosphere, a common enough sight in the mid twenty-first century.

"Woah!" Nulight enthuses.

"Make an anti-wish," Kappa says, squeezing his hand.

"All right."
I wish for there not to be a single person opposing the quest.

"Superstitious nonsense," says Deputy Smark.

Nulight is annoyed. Then he is angry. His anti-wish was an innocent moment, a whim, a play, made knowing that anti-wishes, just like wishes, are a fantasy. But they have a purpose; they reinforce beliefs. "Why don't you leave us alone?" he tells Deputy Smark.

"You need me, remember?"

Nulight turns around and says, "Not any more, man. Yeah, sure, we've learned off you. We agreed you'd leaves us at Yule, but I want you gone now, okay? So go."

Deputy Smark says nothing.

That evening, as they sit in bruised silence around the campfire, Nulight conceives a plan. In the village below he has noticed a church, its grounds overgrown and full of ivy that strangles the other weeds: green upon green. A church...

A little while after midnight, when the camp is quiet and all are asleep, Nulight and Kappa (and the mutts, for the couple do not want lots of barking when they return) go down into the valley, where they head for the church. The place is indeed in poor condition, ivy and bindweed, nettles and suchlike, and they forge a way along the single path to the building, which they enter through the broken main door. Kappa gets out her matches while Nulight gathers firewood. The church is made of stone, of course, but there are alot of wooden items around the inside walls, and all the seats are made of wood. They shove their material against one wall and then they set light to their bonfire.

Nulight grabs Kappa's arm. "The bible over there on the lectern! We've got to burn that." He spins around. "And all those hymn books."

Kappa says, "No! Burning books is wrong."

"Sweets, we've
got
to!"

Kappa hesitates, and Nulight pounces.

"All right, a deal," he says. "We'll rescue the bible and one hymn book, but we burn the rest, yeah?"

Kappa hums and haws, and eventually she agrees. The fire is going well by now. They throw fifty-odd hymn books upon the blaze, then run out of the church carrying the bible and the last hymn book. They head for the lych gate, where they pause. Already the wooden seats inside the church have caught light, and it is clear that the building is going to be burned out. Nulight has wanted to do something like this for many years, heh heh heh. He is pleased.

His gaze is attracted to the many gravestones in the church yard. "We need to sort them out too—"

"No!" There is a tone in Kappa's voice that he knows. He has gone too far.

"Uh?"

"No," Kappa repeats. "You and me have a problem with Christianity—not with individual Christians. We're
not
desecrating graves, is that clear?"

"Hmmm..."

"We're not, Nulight. These people might have family around here, and if you desecrate graves you're attacking them."

Nulight shrugs. This time her pragmatism has got the better of him. Luckily for his sanity it isn't always that way.

...to York and beyond...

They are frightened by York.

The city is smoking—a ruin. No sign of people moving about, though there are many birds flying overhead, crows and ravens mostly, and they hear lots of dogs barking. But no sound of car or of bike, and no voices. Just weather noises.

Nulight has heard the songs of the bards and he knows the nightmare that urban life turned into when the aliens came, but this is the very first time that he has seen it with his own eyes. The entire group feels as he does: sickened. It is hard to imagine what must have happened here. And that is lucky for them.

They move on. Snow is falling and the land is white and cold and depressing. Nine miles north of York they come across a settlement of stone houses called Brandsby, which lies close to a wood. As, hesitantly, they approach this settlement, a large man with a full black beard emerges from a nearby oak copse, to eyeball them.

"Ho there!" he cries, in a voice any baritone would have been proud of.

Nulight waves back. He feels shy—the York experience has shocked him. But Yule is only a day away and they all want to settle somewhere for the winter solstice celebrations. Maybe, Nulight thinks, they can play in Brandsby and get a good Yule supper into the bargain.

Barrel-chest man is approaching. "Ho there!" he repeats.

Nulight takes a few steps forward and says, "Winter greetings to you."

"Who are you, may I ask?"

This is a jolly man. He must be one of the locals. "We're the New Pagan Troubadours," Nulight replies. "D'you live in Brandsby?"

"I have many friends here. You play music?"

"Music's our speciality, yeah," Nulight replies.

"Then you must stay with us over Yule. Well met! I am Quercus Power."

Nulight is pleased. There is a long tradition of hospitality at the cold solstice. He introduces the band, then turns to Deputy Smark. "You'd better go, priest," he says. "This is a pagan celebration and your kind aren't wanted. The bargain is done, it's over." He pauses, then adds, in what he hopes is a more friendly voice, "Man, thanks for all the plant info. Useful. Yeah."

Deputy Smark nods, glances at Quercus Power, then replies, "All right. The six weeks are up. But we will meet again. I confess myself interested in the songs that you will end up with." He nods, looks smug, then says, "See you on stage."

And with that he turns around and walks off into drifts of snow, vanishing into mist alongside the oak copse.

"One mixed up dude," Nulight remarks. "What stage?" He turns to face Quercus Power. "Hey, you mentioned food? We're all starving, man. D'you have any dog-food?"

"We might have."

"Good. Hey, so you're Ilex Power's bro?"

Quercus Power grins. "So you've met my other half. I wouldn't call him a brother, but neither is he an enemy. We're like night and day."

Nulight nods. "You'll be day, I s'pose."

"Correct."

They stroll all casual and relaxed into Brandsby, where they meet the locals, kiddies, hounds, goats and all, and then the Norse elders who run the place. Actually this is quite a sophisticated set-up. Brandsby has electrical power, big reserves of food, houses to spare, and quite a healthy attitude given the circumstances. Sort of polite and hedonistic at the same time. Nulight notices at once that these dudes are
really
into their Viking deities, though not the warlike ones—they have selected the ones they need and like—and this seems to give the place stability. Ah—they spell Yule
Jol,
good heathens that they are.

Things are looking up for tomorrow. There is a big hall with speaker stacks—good sized wooffers and sharp tweeters—and also turntables, synths and mixers, and the usual spaghetti of wires and cables. The NPT's are asked to play a set, and it is requested that Djo does a DJ set, which she agrees to once she has seen what vinyl is available.

They chill. With locals they swap gifts of candles—pagan style—symbolising the beginning of the return of light, of the sun. Later a deal is done regarding food and suchlike, a complicated mess of bartering and payment for services rendered that Nulight lets Djo sort out. She has the head for numbers. After a couple of hours they have supplies for the forthcoming weeks plus food for the mutts, who really are looking unhappy now, with their ribs and everything showing. Half their bartering items have been used. Still, it is Midwinter. Supplies are needed.

Sleep is easy to find, the settlement quiet, at peace, the weather cold and crisp and white and silent. They emerge from their beds around noon next day and prepare for the beginning of the Yule festi, which will begin when the sun sets. There are trestle tables laden with goodies: chicken meat, bowls of potatoes and all manner of veggies, plus stacks of bread and butter; also tubs of yoghurt, honey and cream, plates of herbs and other leaves, eggs, nuts, etc. Not bad for a settlement that could so easily have gone down the tubes after the invasion. And Nulight thinks,
Blessed Be
to Baldur and Sif and Freyr and Freya and any others of the Northern Tradition who are worshipped here.

Sperm points out that there are special goodies here too: space cakes, shrooms, and even, for the brave only, amanita muscaria. The bottles of blue wine, though, are slightly suspicious...

Come sundown, in a hall created from the ground-floor rooms of a stone house, the ceremony begins, and of course it is led by Quercus Power, who at this moment comes into his own for six months. The
Jol
log is burning bright. Though it is the darkest day of the annual cycle, the time of least light, it is also the beginning of the waxing of the year, and this is symbolised by the presence of Quercus. It is cloudy, though, and they see nothing of dusk.

Then they get stuck into the food. A happy atmosphere is abroad, people laughing and chatting, many of them asking the foursome about their travels, the people they have met, and of course their quest. After a couple of hours of feasting the foursome perform their first set, a medley of old songs from the previous century that goes down well. There are three hundred punters here, and they are a great crowd.

More feasting follows, and the booze is broken into. Merriness is now abroad. Approaching midnight, the foursome perform their second set, a medley of songs done acoustic stylee from the thirty or so albums released on the Voiceoftibet label. This also goes down well. There is a short break. Kiddies are being put to bed; elsewhere alot of folks are tired from drink and cannabis. Djo prepares her decks and when everybody is back and up for it, she begins her DJ set. Nulight watches from the side of the stage. Somehow... well, this feels wrong. He can't focus on the feeling more than that, a vague unease...

Without warning Djo stands up straight and stares out into the crowd. She slams her fist down onto the table and the needle jumps off the vinyl, stopping sound in an instant. The crowd, who had been jumping and waving to her trance action, also stop, but there is no booing, just surprise.

Djo walks up to the open mike and says, "This is wrong. I'm sorry, I really am, but this is totally wrong. No—hear me out. This is important. What was I doing? I was trying to create something, some music for you, out of other people's work. That theory's all wrong. It's lazy. In effect I'm a sampler, I'm sampling other people's music and using it to create something. I'm not doing that any more. This whole DJ thing—for decades it's been just a collection of personality cults. DJs aren't
musicians,
but if they claim they are then they're
thieves.
You should be put in jail for theft. I should have been. I broke an ethical law, I sampled stuff and used it as if I was making some piece of patchwork." She shakes her head, as if in disbelief at her own naivete. "What was I
on?
I'm rejecting all that. Never again. From now on you take the D and the J off my name. I'm not going to be lazy any more, I'm not creating any more lazy music out of other people's stuff." She grins. "I'm an apostate. I'm a musician, I play keyboards, synths... you know, this has been something of a personal dilemma for me, well, for
ages
... anyway, er..."

She glances back to Nulight and Kappa. Nulight runs onto the stage with his percussion and begins the little loop that underpins the Lughnasadh song. In seconds Kappa is strumming at his side and Sperm is reaching for his Sony. Djo walks back to where the harmonium has been placed, on a table underneath a mike, and they launch into John Barleycorn. The crowd are too surprised to boo. They watch. The sweaty, dancey atmosphere had gone, but luckily the crowd have come down—just enough, in fact, for them to mellow out to this gorgeous harvest-time tune.