A strange thing happened then, almost as if the tangled growth recognised my determination and gave up the battle. I started to pull myself up to a sitting position and a clump of thorn bush came with me. I stopped to pick it off my habit and could see that it wasn’t attached to the ground. It was dry and bare of green leaves but so were nearly all the bushes in the forest. Only a few ground plants had started on their summer coats.
I shifted my position so that I could get a hand round the back of the mass that had been attached to me. My arm was scratched quite extensively but I would deal with it later. I felt a void behind and tugged the bush, tentatively: it came away easily. I pulled it to one side and was rewarded with the sight of a tunnel, about four feet high, going into the hedge at an angle. I crawled along it and encountered a sharp left-hand bend and could see reflected light. I continued towards it and had to turn equally sharply right. The end was about six feet away. I crawled through and out and stood up to look around myself, hands on hips.
I was at the edge of the clearing with just a few trees between me and the open ground. A glance at the nearest tree confirmed that it was oak, the sacred tree, as were its fellows. Those surrounding the clearing were arranged in a perfect egg-shaped oval. Egg: the symbol of life. The smaller end pointed east towards the rising sun. The ground was about a hundred feet across its narrow axis, half as much again along the broader. A line of pruned oaks created a short avenue from the north to an inner circle about thirty feet in diameter. The circle was the symbol of the Wheel of Life and the avenue continued beyond it on to the southern end. I had been in enough similar places - larger and smaller - to know where I was. Beyond any shadow of a doubt, it was a Druid glade.
The Druid religion’s initiates and priests had always, from before the Milesians came to Erin, practised their secret rites well away from the prying eyes of ordinary folk. Indeed, the penalty for spying on their rituals was death but I wasn’t afraid. I was a Christian but a convert; I had been a Druid, a full Initiate. I wasn't forbidden on this ground.
This glade was well hidden but I didn’t waste much time considering the reason. The distance between the fertile coastal plain and the inhospitable mountains was not great. Barriers like the hedge were a protection for the unwary as much as a guard to keep the glade pure. In any case, the thickness and rough state of the grass around the area indicated that it was quite old and probably no longer in regular use.
I crossed the open ground to the inner circle. The grass was dew-damp and cool underfoot although not enough to penetrate my shoes. My ankles got wet as the grass was long but I was used to it, it didn’t bother me at all.
Within the inner circle was a slab of stone; the old altar, once used for blood-sacrifices. I made straight for it and stood in the place the presiding priest would have regarded as his own. I was facing due south, which meant that the sect that had used it was not one of the out-and-out sun-worshippers. Their altars faced east, towards the dawn. So this place wasn’t dedicated to golden-haired Lugh, the sun-god, son of the Daghda. More likely Tanaros the Thunder god had been worshipped here then, or a local deity of which I wasn’t aware - but the south could also be the direction of the Underworld, the kingdom of the Hollow Hills. I looked around for any indications that would guide me but there were none. It was a perfectly ordinary Druid glade. The altar had been scrubbed so that the top surface was almost clean but some blood still adhered to it. That was to be expected. They were so keen on blood sacrifices that the sea itself would be unlikely to wash the stone completely spotless. But it also indicated that it may be in more recent use than I’d originally thought. Probably a few chickens had met their end here as the adherents had sought to read messages in their death-throes and bloody entrails. The Roman legions had effectively ended the more grisly practices of the ancient cult.
I put my hands out and on to the altar; I was going to lean on it and drink in the atmosphere. I liked the feel of ancient places of worship and the devotion that had inspired them. The atmosphere was usually peaceful and quiet, even though many of them were associated with blood-sacrifice. In older times, before the coming of Christ, people had conducted their worship as well as they could, their rites and rituals being a pale imitation of the real Sacrifice to come. God seemed to remember where His people had done their best to worship. Most old places still had the resonances of their earlier role, imperfect as it was. Many had been reconsecrated and perhaps the time would come when I could persuade Owain to allow a small chapel to be raised in this high and lonely place. It might be suitable.
I rested my hands on the altar and was completely unprepared for what happened next.
It hit me like a physical blow. It felt disgusting. It had a texture as if it was covered with cold slime. It heaved like a bog – like a living creature from a nameless and evil swamp. Gorge rose from my stomach. I recoiled and my body doubled up for a moment while I tried to retch, but there was nothing to come; the evil was outside, not within me. I lost contact with the altar and, as suddenly as it had started, the attack was over. I stood up again and looked around, confused for a moment. I had not so much a real and present headache as the memory of one, although I knew I’d had no Vision. Not, at least, the sort of Vision I was used to.
I approached the altar again, and with greater caution. I studied it with care but noticed nothing out of the ordinary. It was a large slab, probably of granite, polished on the top surface where it had been cleaned. Veins of quartz were visible and they shone like lightning where they intersected the sacrificial plane. Down the centre was a narrow groove and the top sloped slightly from either side towards it. This was to keep and collect blood and to channel it to a chalice at the eastern end, to my left. So far, there was nothing unusual.
Tentatively I reached out with my left hand and touched the solid stone again. I experienced a vaguely nauseous feeling, but nothing overwhelming. This was not reassuring, however, and it was with great trepidation that I brought my right hand over to the altar and placed my two palms on the top. It was as if I’d completed a circuit, the experience was the same as before. I leaped back in alarm and the feelings faded as suddenly as they’d arisen.