Free The Amulet by William Meikle Page B

the ward apart from Harris remembered seeing them.
    * * *

I put the papers down and lit another cigarette.
    "What is this shit? It's like a teenager's episode of The Twilight Zone ," I said.
    " Doo -doo doo -doo," Doug sang, in a passable imitation of the theme tune. "Just keep reading. You must be close to the bit that concerns you by now," he said.
    I sighed loudly to let him know how disgusted I was, but in reality I was keen to keep reading. I needed to know how my singing friend was connected to the case...
    * * *

Harris had another visitor soon afterwards. This man has never been identified, but some have suggested that it was a distant relative of the Johnson who had financed the expedition to Ur. Yet others would have you believe it to be Arthur Dunlop, although why a Glasgow gangster would be interested in esoteric acoustical studies has never been explained. Whoever it was, they were to have a profound effect on John Harris's life afterward.
    The man funded Harris's research for the next year. Even while lying in a hospital bed, Harris broke all ties with the scientific establishment, and no more is recorded of his work, either in note form or on any computer we can find.
    On leaving hospital, Harris went straight back to the Hunterian Museum. The University wanted to deny him access to any more of their exhibits, but it is recorded that the Museum received a large charitable donation in the winter of '87. After that, Harris had no trouble continuing his studies. It seems his benefactor was at work behind the scenes.
    Harris immersed himself in the Ur tablets, studying everything that had ever been brought out of the ancient city. Now that he knew how their music was constructed, he was on a quest to translate as much of it as he could find, and find out what uses the people put it to.
    It is to be conjectured that the direction of his research was by now being directed by the mysterious benefactor. Whatever the cause, his search took on an increasingly esoteric, even occult, tone. By spring of '88 he had what he believed to be a full incantation, a song used by the peoples of that time to contact their gods.
    It is unclear whether Harris actually believed in the power of what he had discovered, or whether it was merely an academic exercise. What is clear is that his benefactor was a believer. An experiment was set up in Maes Howe on Orkney.
    It is also clear that the benefactor was a man of some influence, for they were able to hold the test on the spring equinox, inside one of the biggest Neolithic sites in Europe. Apart from Harris, all that is known of the participants is that there were two others, and that one may have been a woman.
    Most of what happened next is speculation and is taken from depositions of farmers and other islanders.
    At sunset, just as the sun's rays penetrated the inner sanctum of the mound, Harris began his chant. Strange lights were seen in the sky-silver and blue globes of energy that hovered over the Howe and the nearby stone circle, the Ring of Brodgar.
    They say that the sound of the singing rang through every stone circle, every burial chamber, in the whole of the northern hemisphere, with reports on file from Malta, Carnac, Germany and from the Serpent Mound in North America. It is even said that vibrations were detected in the stones on Easter Island.
    All along the coast of Scotland, Viking longships were seen coming ashore. A busload of Japanese tourists was surprised when a forty-foot serpent dragged itself from Loch Ness and went to sleep on the shore near Urquhart Castle. At Culloden field and Bannockburn the sights and sounds of the old battles were played out, as if time had suddenly gone haywire. At St Andrew's golf course groups of men in plus fours and wielding hickory golf clubs were seen playing the road hole on the 'Old Course'. And in Dunvegan Castle, strange, piping sounds were heard, and the 'Fairy Flag' fluttered in its frame. Out in the North Atlantic, a new