Curtis attempted to sound like his old angry self. He picked up the two parts of the skull; the First Man’s. ‘Does it come out of these? The voices? Those fabulous airy-fairy notions!’ He banged them down onto the kitchen table.
The second he did so, a shape hurled itself from the green gloom outside to slam against the back door. Through white fragments of shattered glass, held in place by the plastic membrane, all they could make out was a shape - a dark, angry shape driven by pure rage. The door jerked on its hinges. Heather screamed. Even Mr Hezzle flinched. Frightened into submission, Curtis gasped, ‘My God,’ and with shaking hands managed to pour himself another glass of wine. The figure charged the door again. It held... just.
Eden hurried to the table.
‘He wants this!’ She picked up the sections of skull.
‘Miss, you don’t know everything about him. Even though he might have been feeding information into your head. There are dangers - ’
‘I do know that the First Men were the kindest and wisest men in the world. Your ancestors knew it; the Romans recognised them for what they were. The First Men were identified as having the entire pantheon of gods dwelling inside of them. What’s more, he’s been entrusting his knowledge to me without me ever realising it. Ever since I came here, I’ve had the strangest dreams. My mind began to work in a way that it’s never done before. I understand so much about him without being told.’ Eden smiled, her face growing rapturous. ‘Can you imagine the impact of the First Man on the human race? He can elevate humankind into a new species - one that will have a longer life... no, more than that: a better quality of life. Now, the last one is outside. He’s here to deliver the Gift’
Curtis trembled. ‘What’s she talking about?’
‘Curtis. Thousands of years ago ancient people realised that if they interbred with the species of man-like creatures known at the First Men the children produced by that union would be more intelligent, highly resistant to disease, and have much longer life-spans. They realised that together they could produce a superior breed of humans.’
Mr Hezzle waited anxiously for a moment, expecting another violent assault on the door again. When the creature didn’t return he pulled out a chair. ‘Mr Laird. Sit down, please. There are things I have to tell you. This notion of interbreeding two species goes back two thousand years. Even now it would be considered revolutionary - nay, utterly terrifying to the outside world. That’s why down through the centuries the villagers kept the existence of the First Men a secret. And that Homo sapien women were bearing the children of the First Men. Here we are, in a little Yorkshire village, creating a race of super humans simply by making love. Yes, indeed, children were born. They enjoyed long life-spans, their intelligence was higher. When bubonic plague swept the country, or there were outbreaks of cholera or smallpox those cross-bred individuals were immune. I’m one of the few remaining products of that particular experiment. I’m one hundred years old. I’ve never had so much as a common cold. And I daresay I could complete The Times crossword a sight faster than anyone here. However, we were fearful in Dog Lands. We knew that in centuries gone by the Church would have exterminated us if they discovered a new species of Man living in their midst. We’d be condemned as abominations. The Devil’s bastards. That fear also resulted in us being extremely reluctant to move out of the area. We stayed put in Dog Lands for generation after generation. Consequently, a small gene pool resulted in inbreeding, which led to such a low fertility rate that by today our brave new race of men has dwindled to half a dozen geriatrics, myself included. So you see, our great world-changing experiment has failed. And failed woefully.’
‘In that case,’ Eden said, ‘we should invite somebody else to join this debate.’ With a thrill of excitement she crossed the kitchen. ‘And he wants his kinsman’s skull.’
Eden threw the top bolt open.
Mr Hezzle flinched. ‘No, whatever you do, don’t open that door!’
The lower bolt was removed and Eden turned and looked at them, a look of triumph on her face before she raced outside into the whirl of storm winds. Thunder pounded the house. She smelt electricity in the air. A wild, savage force that promised violent death in its touch.
15. Friday Night: 9.30
Eden ran in search of the First Man, the primeval creature, who might be the last of his kind. In her hand she held the two pieces of skull. A welcome gift. Then she’d learn wisdom from the one whom the Romans called Theopolis, the city of the gods. At that instant a shadow sped through the garden gate in the direction of the dyke. The water gleamed there in the deep, straight channel like liquid metal. The colour of lead. The essence of a dull reality, waiting to be transmuted by alchemy into something higher and ineffably golden. The First Man could work a unique change on the body. He’d transform a humanity limited by its mortality and restricted intellect into men and women with minds as precious as gold.
Mr Hezzle pursued her. He shouted warnings as she raced along the side of the water-filled dyke. Yet a giddy elation gripped Eden. She couldn’t stop chasing that swift figure if she’d tried. Thoughts of miracles to come intoxicated. Marvellous possibilities whirled through her head. Excitement made her blaze within. Stars burned in her blood; anything was possible in the next five minutes. Anything. Anything. Anything...
... Eden glimpsed fish gliding through the water of the dyke. Her mind appeared to swim like those creatures through a different medium altogether. The First Father had begun to exert his own particular magic. She remembered Mr Hezzle claiming that the First Father could reach into your head. That he could pipe his own memories, his own dreams, directly into one’s unconscious mind. The water channel ran away into the distance, straight as an airport runway. Twenty feet wide, ten feet deep. Centuries ago it had been etched deep into the face of this land to drain swamp water.
‘Eden, stop!’ Mr Hezzle cried.
But she couldn’t stop. Waves of emotion rolled through her. The urge to run as fast as she could after the shadow had her in a grip so muscular she gasped with something that merged pain with ecstasy. Her thigh muscles ached, pains shot through her feet, but there was a sweetness to it. This sweet pain felt so good after confinement in her aunt’s house. This is good; this is beautiful; this is release.
Ahead, the shadow figure effortlessly sped through lush grass. It enticed her to an extraordinary destination; she knew that. Thunder clouted her ears. It shook the earth. Pregnant-looking clouds: swollen, huge, overwhelming, soon to break with waters unimaginable... how they’d sweep this flat land. A realm of fields, ditches, fences, solitary farmsteads, lonely trees, and, in the distance, the church ruin: clumps of masonry formed hunched goblin forms in the centre of the graveyard.
Eden ran faster, terrified lest the mysterious figure should slip away. If only I could see you properly... You reached out to me. You filled my mind with new worlds of thought. Now I want to look into your face... Yet the gloom of the impending storm still hid him from her. He was shadow - that’s all. Shadow, movement, a distant, half-glimpsed figure. ‘Wait... please wait... I’ve got something for you... ’ She held up the sections of skull. The thick, bony bulge of the brow above an eye socket pressed against the sensitive skin of her palm. ‘Stop.’
Emotion rolled through her with same power of the thunder now pounding the earth into submission. Longing, hope, yearning, excitement, terror, pain, exhaustion, exhilaration - each one vied for supremacy within her; each one triumphing for domination of her soul before being usurped in a near instant. Hope, terror, longing, dread, elation: they pulsed. The flow of sensations made her dizzy. At times she wondered if she’d fallen into a strange kind of sleep as she ran. The dimensions of the world were shifting. Grass blades swelled beneath her running feet. They expanded until they were as thick and as green as cucumbers. The clouds seemed to reach down to run cold fingers through her hair; she felt their icy touch on her scalp. Th
e figure in front of her grew elongated... now it seemed a hundred feet tall. Odd lights burned in its limbs. As if within that body it contained stars won from the heavens. Fragments of memory skittered through her. For a moment, it seemed none of this had ever happened. Eden Page rode the train again, the smell of the fire at home still in her nostrils. When could the builder start work? Would the insurance payout cover the cost of the entire kitchen? The turbaned man in the carriage solemnly intoned, You should always respect omens... beware, beware, beware... Then she was up to her shoulders in the pit in her aunt’s garden. Scooping out bowls of mud. She stood in the grave of one of those creatures. Molecules of decayed flesh, mixed with fertile mud, stuck to her bare hands. Strong odours of burning, wet soil, damp grass, old wine... And that’s when the alchemy occurred. Nothing less than revelation blazed through the fibres of her being. Her old life, the job in the student lettings office, the apartment in a drab quarter of town, the sequence of fleeting love affairs, and the unfulfilling routines of the past were all meaningless. Quite frankly - all of it bloody pointless. Being here at this moment in time - that’s what was important. Because being here in this muddy stretch of rural England went beyond the profound, the monumental and the momentous. Simply, she was poised to be present at the birth of a new world. A time as pivotal as when a primordial ape-creature struck two stones together to make fire. Or uttered the first word of rational speech.
Eden Page vaulted over a fence. The water in the dyke was rising up. Soon it would overflow. Would those lead-hued waters engulf her? Was her destiny to drown here? No she mustn’t let that happen. Already her life had become woven with that of the individual she now so desperately followed.
Mr Hezzle’s words came to her from when he spoke about the First Man in the kitchen just minutes ago: ‘Yet he has this way of making his voice appear from other things... like from those bones. Sometimes when he calls, it comes out of the fields, out of the air, or even out of a storm like this.’
These waves of emotion... the way the world around her had become distorted... how grass stems became plump and bloated... how far off things became near: the ruined church lay a mile away yet she saw its ruins suddenly magnified; the mad profusion of ivy that penetrated cracks in the stones; she saw graves... the hardened soil split open with the ease of breaking apart freshly baked pies... oh, but what kind of fruit lay inside... what fillings... what flavours? Did the First Man really feed those notions into her head? Was he truly responsible for changing how she perceived the world? Had he reached out a mysterious, unseen hand and touched her soul? Eden gasped - a sense of wonder that merged with utter terror erupted inside of her.
Eden didn’t realise when it first happened but she’d fallen. She lay sprawling amongst thick grass that swarmed over her like vines. Her heart pounded. The water in the dyke rose. In that dark liquidity were shapes. Panting, she stared at what drifted there by the dozen. They were pear-shaped vessels... no, it’s more than that... they were like inflated balloons. Completely transparent. A liquid as black as gloss paint filled those sacs. Through the membrane she glimpsed moving things. I’ve seen those before. Back when I had that attack of vertigo in the excavation pit. Even then the First Man must have been showing me visions of the future. He needs me...
And when she looked, from where she lay at the edge of the watercourse, looked while the storm winds tore and rippled the grass, looked as her mind spun wildly on twin streams of horror and fascination, she saw what moved and twisted and pulsated and lived inside the tightly stretched membrane. Inside the transparent eggs, each the size of a beach ball, were figures. The glossy, black liquid washed over the naked bodies, but she discerned baby-like forms, with small arms and legs, yet possessing heads with adult faces. From smeared faces pairs of bright, intelligent eyes gazed through the membrane at her. The current in the dyke carried the shapes downstream. More rose to the surface to present their homunculus cargo to the light of that stormy day before slipping away. The urge gripped her to leap into the water to retrieve those inflated balloons. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself swimming to the bank with one, then tearing open the sac - the black liquid would gush out over her hands - that done, she’d draw out the tiny figure, wipe the black stuff from its face with handfuls of grass then -
‘Miss!’
An iron grip prevented her from leaping into the dyke. Dazed, she turned to see the man there. His prominent nose almost touched hers as he eased her from the water’s edge.
‘Don’t go in. The banks are too steep. You’d never climb out again.’
‘But I’ve got to save them... they’re being washed away... ’
‘Save what, Miss?’ Mr Hezzle kept a grip on her arm.
‘The First Man must have made them... they’re like babies, but have the faces of fully grown adults... ’
‘Remember, what I told you, Miss? Back at the house? About what he can do? He has strange thoughts. Somehow he makes them come out of objects; for instance, sometimes it’s from out of a tree, or the ruins of that church over there. It can seem as if the trees or the walls talk to you, or they look like other things; it can make you feel as if your heart will burst with excitement. Or terror.’
‘I saw them. Little men in transparent bags with something like black oil; as if they were in wombs... they floated down that... ’ She regarded the dyke. ‘They were there.’
Water reflected a grey sky. The stream tugged at strands of green weed; nothing else.
‘He made me see them?’ she asked.
‘He does that to others, too. And me. I heard a call come from your aunt’s house... from those bones... but they’re dead like any bones found in the earth. There’s nothing special about them, any more than the bones of a dead king or a scientist or an artist are any more special than the bones inside us both. But he made me hear the bones call my name. I lay awake at night... all the time I could hear them crying. It gets so you’re excited by the sound - as well as scared.’
She began walking. The shadow figure was far away now. ‘I want to talk to him.’
‘No.’
‘But we’ll lose him.’
Mr Hezzle sighed. ‘You’re a brave one, I’ll give you that. You’ve got guts. Nearly everyone I’ve ever seen, who got anywhere near him, turned and fled. They couldn’t cope with his effect on them. They panicked. I’ve seen grown men jump into that dyke just to get away. More than one poor wretch has drowned doing that.’
‘I’m not frightened of him,’ Eden said with conviction. ‘I’ve been reading about the First Man. What’s more, he’s reached out to me. Mind to mind. Just as you say he can. I figured out what he is. The Gift will transform our lives.’
‘I was right. You are intelligent. But you don’t know everything about him.’
‘He belongs to a different race of humans?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s the last of his kind?’
‘That, too.’ Mr Hezzle released her arm as he realised she’d regained her senses.
‘So, I need to talk to him.’
‘He won’t talk, Miss. He can’t.’
This gave her pause. ‘Why?’
‘Eighteen hundred years ago: there were just two of the First Men left. Brothers. That’s the elder of the pair.’ He nodded at the part-burned bone in her hand. ‘The younger brother knew he’d be the last one. He knew other things, too... ’ Raindrops hit the grass. ‘Miss, we’re going to get soaked if we stand out here. Come back to your aunt’s house. I’ll explain there.’
‘No. Tell me now.’
He shrugged. ‘If that’s what you wish.’ Thunder rumbled. Across the fields a blue vein of lightning burned bright against black cloud. ‘But you’ll get only the basics of it. It’s not safe to be outdoors. When the land is flat like it is here it turns people into targets for lighting. Not many trees, you see.’
She cast yearning eyes along the path; the shadow figure had gone. Eden ached to meet him. ‘The figure we saw today, was that the younger brother?’
‘That it is. Eighteen centuries ago, both knew that their time was nearly up. They lived in a thatched hut just where Dog Star House is now. Inside their bodies was the seed that would transform us Homo sapiens, into a species that would be as wise as them. The things they could do. They could heal the sick. They drained marshes. They knew how to farm the land better than anyone. And to smelt new kinds of metals that never rusted.’
‘What else?’
Lightning flashed closer, and a crack of thunder broke overhead. ‘I said that you’d get the short history. You might not fear this kind of weather.’ He turned up his collar. ‘I do. See that? Lying in the field over there?’ He nodded at a pale blob in a far-off meadow. ‘A cow. Just this minute she got struck by lightning. She’ll have been dead before she hit the muck.’ Rain fell harder. ‘Come back to the house, miss.’
‘No.’
‘Don’t think of trying to find him. You won’t. Unless he wants to be found, then you’ll wish you hadn’t.’
‘Something happened to him, didn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘This is it. The short version. Then I’m going whether you come or not. The two brothers were the last of their species. They lived long lives. Longer than any of us. But then the older of the brothers started to fail. He might have been a hundred years old or a thousand years old. Nobody really knew. So he decided his younger brother must be the keeper of the Gift. They worked together to change the brother’s biology. Whether it was through thought, or by drugs they concocted, nobody knows. To all intents, however, he became immortal. He’d live for as long as it took for human beings to understand his teachings and for him to father enough children to start a new race of human beings.’ He shuddered as the storm grew closer. ‘You know, we might assume that if the body doesn’t age the mind wouldn’t age with it. But when the brother died, and my ancestors buried him, the last of the First Men suffered the solitude. He spoke to us, but didn’t relate to us in the same way as he could with his brother. So although his body never aged, his mind did. Ultimately, he was flesh and blood. Imagine his life: He’d find love with a woman; there were children. I’m one of the descendents. Of course, he would live forever. The human woman inevitably grew old and died. He took other wives. But each time, of course, they aged... they died... they were mortal. The First Man grieved. It reached a point where he couldn’t bring himself to make friends or to take another wife. Although his children were long-lived eventually sheer old age took them. He and only he was immortal. For some reason, he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, repeat the process on others that gave him such longevity. He didn’t age. He didn’t get ill. Generations in this village came and went; he retreated from life. How long it took I don’t know. It might have been a thousand years after he watched the first Romans approach his house and recognise him for what he was, but at last his mind gave out.’ He shrugged. ‘My grandmother said even though his body couldn’t die of grief his mind did. The thinking part of him, the part that reasoned, and remembered, and knew who he was, just evaporated. It left behind a brain with animal instincts only. As far as I know, he hasn’t talked to anyone in generations, or even uttered a single word.’ Mr Hezzle sadly shook his head. ‘See that horse in the field over there? Now the First Man is as intelligent as him. Like a beast he gets hungry, gets tired, gets angry - that’s all. Are you sure you won’t go back home now, Miss? We’ll catch our deaths.’