Montrose shrugged. "You'd have to inquire of my master." And that son of a whore Demetrius.
"Since he isn't aboard," Katrina replied dryly, "you reduce me to conjecture. Perhaps the Smiling Lord aspires to Charon's throne. People whisper that all the Deathlords do. Perhaps your master hopes a string of successful raids against Stygia's enemies will further his ambitions."
"That's an interesting hypothesis," Montrose said. Actually, as far as he'd been able to judge, it was the exact truth.
The Ferryman smiled thinly at his show of discretion. "And who better to lead the crusade that that legendary Cavalier hero, the Marquess of Montrose? All the sorrows of your life could be laid at the door of religion, couldn't they? I imagine you despise Heretics."
Montrose wondered just how much Katrina could tell about him, simply by looking at his face. Perhaps a wraith's entire history and personality were recorded in the invisible deathmarks graven on his countenance, if another ghost were Oracle enough to decipher them. At any rate, he didn't want to discuss his private emotions with the Ferryman. He was seldom comfortable discussing them with anyone. Perhaps he could redirect the conversation to more general topics.
"I think I'd dislike Heretics," he said, "even if I hadn't died trying to put young Charles back on his throne. Because they're a menace. Even the few who aren't actively plotting insurrection sow the seeds of discontent with their blather about paradisical realms beyond the Underworld and higher powers than the Deathlords. And they're contemptible fools besides. While people are breathing, we invest extraordinary hope and faith in some particular religion. Frequently we even wage war on our neighbors if they want to use a different Prayer Book. And afterwards, when tve die, we discover to our horror that the afterlife is nothing like what our priests and bishops taught us to expect. Our deities are nowhere to be found. At that point, rational men renounce the whole idea of gods and messiahs. But Heretics simply invent new religions, and commence the wretched farce all over again."
"Spoken with considerable fire," Katrina said. "A person would almost think you wanted to lead the expedition. And yet you didn't, did you? Had you grown too fond of your concubines, and the dreams your Sandmen wove for your amusement? Or were you afraid that some rival courtier would steal your master's favor while you were gone?"
Montrose swallowed another surge of anger. "I don't know why you're baiting mc, Ferryman, but I'm too grateful for your aid to take offense. Jeer away, and I'll bear it with as good a grace as I can muster."
"I'm trying to rouse you," Katrina said. "You're treading a dangerous path."
Montrose snorted. "Really! Do you say so? And my journey thus far has been so serene and uneventful!"
"I'm not talking about the common perils, phantasms, and portents of the Tempest. Something else, something strange and powerful, is lying in wait for you. A threat you must confront, and not merely for your own sake."
Montrose's eyes narrowed. "And what, precisely, is that?"
Katrina sighed. "I don't know. I can't see it."
Montrose couldn't help smiling. "This is just like half the romances in the Grand Archives. The Ferryman always warns the protagonist, and the warning is always too cryptic to be of any use. It's just as annoying in real existence as I always imagined it would be."
"Now," Katrina said, "you're mocking me."
"I don't mean to. But how did you expect me to react to such a vague report? Curl up in the bottom of the boat and blubber in terror? I already know I'm headed into danger. I'm sure the Heretics pose a considerable threat. But I'll handle them."
"Perhaps," said Katrina, "and perhaps not. Your Shadow is stronger than I'd hoped, and stronger than you imagine. But it's as pointless to second-guess fate as it would be to counsel you any further." A brisker note entered her voice. "What will you give for passage to the Shadowlands?"
Montrose frowned. "If you recall, I already paid you. With information."
"That was for removing you from the water," Katrina replied, "and giving you the draught of Liquid Hate."
"You're too greedy by half," Montrose growled. His fists clenched, and he pried them open again. He didn't truly want to assault Katrina, and not just because he wouldn't have stood a chance. Grasping or not, she was his benefactor. It was the elixir seething through his system, and the seductive, malicious whisper of his Shadow, which insisted otherwise.
"If you don't want to pay," Katrina said reasonably, "you can simply disembark."
Montrose looked around. As he'd expected, there was still no land in view. And though he was in better shape than when she'd taken him aboard, he still doubted that he was strong enough to escape the Tempest under his own power.
"What do you want?" he sighed. "If I write you a note, the Smiling Lord will open his coffers for you; but you'll have to call at the Isle of Sorrows to collect your booty. All I have in my immediate possession are these sodden rags on my back."
"I rarely put in at the Weeping Bay," Katrina said, "and I don't believe your garments would flatter me. What I require is a service."
"What is it?" Montrose asked warily.
"Nothing that will harm you, or compromise your loyalty to your master." She held out her hand. Suddenly a dagger with a curved darksteel blade, a silver hilt, and a carved owl's-head pommel lay across her palm. Montrose jumped. "When you see this knife, forbear." The weapon blinked out of existence again. "Agreed?"
Bewildered, Montrose shook his head. "I don't even understand what you mean."
"You will when the time comes," Katrina said. "Do we have a bargain?"
Montrose shrugged. "You have me at a considerable disadvantage. So if it won't conflict with my duty to my master, I suppose so."
"Then hang on," the Ferryman said. She trimmed the sail, then pushed the tiller to starboard.
As the lateener came about, Montrose sensed a zone of fractured space yawning just a few yards in front of the bow. Even in his enervated condition, he didn't see how he'd missed it until now, unless Katrina had just created it by force of will.
As the boat glided through the gate, St. Elmo's fire crackled up and down the mast, filling the air with the smell of ozone. A tingling crawled over Montrose's skin, and his tangled hair did its best to stand on end.
The electrical phenomena ceased as soon as the lateener cleared the portal. Suddenly, towering walls blocked out most of the sky. Peering about, Montrose saw that Katrina had transported him from the open sea to a river hissing through a narrow canyon.
More rapidly than Montrose would have imagined possible, Katrina lowered the sail, dismounted the mast, and then leaned on the tiller. The lateener turned toward the canyon wall, space splintered, and an opening appeared in the rock. Beyond it, water roared and plunged into darkness, down an incline so steep it was nearly a waterfall.
The lateener shot over the edge and plummeted, in virtual freefall until it splashed down at the bottom of the torrent. By all rights the impact should have swamped it, or dashed it against one of the jagged rocks looming in a semicircle before it. But somehow Katrina kept it afloat and steered it through a gap.
The boat hurtled on, down a cramped subterranean channel, with boulders rarely more than a yard away. Montrose supposed he ought to be afraid. If the craft crashed into a rock or overturned, the accident might not destroy him, even in his weakened condition. But it might well cripple him, and the rapids could easily sweep him deeper into the caverns, separating him from his guide and leaving him in desperate straits again.
And yet he wasn't frightened. The precipitous, bucking flight of the fragile craft, the bellow of the rapids and the icy kiss of the spray, filled him with a joy he'd nearly forgotten, the same exhilaration that had once possessed him when he took a horse over a series of challenging jumps, or led his men to triumph at Alford and Kilsyth. Forgetting his frailty, laughing, he gripped the rail and raised himself up, the better to savor the ride.
Gradually the passage widened. The current grew gentler, its echoing
roar fading to a murmur. The lateener glided into a circular grotto with a domed ceiling. Luminous crimson crystals studded the walls, providing a dim red illumination.
Montrose grinned at Katrina. "That was amazing. My teacher Adrain was a great Harbinger, but I don't know if even he could have taken a boat down that channel."
The Ferryman smiled slightly, then picked up an oar and rowed the sailboat to a dock hewn from the surrounding limestone. A flight of crude steps climbed from the platform to a cavity in the rock. "This is your stop," she said. "You'll find the Shadowlands at the top of the stairs."
Montrose wondered fleetingly how she was going to exit the grotto. Perhaps she meant to open another portal, though at this point, he would scarcely have put it past her to sail back up the rapids. "Thank you again," he said.
"Remember your promise," she answered. "And remember yourself. Remember why the Skinlanders still hold you in their hearts."
He didn't know how to respond to that, so he simply inclined his head. Then he clambered out of the boat and headed up the steps.
As he stepped through the gap, the world shifted, and he found himself standing in St. Giles's Cathedral in Edinburgh. A lovely place even though, for him, the moonlit stained-glass windows were sooty and broken, the stonework chipped and cracked, and the pews riddled with rot. A hint of decay underlay the scents of candles and frankincense, and the whispered prayers of the old woman across the chamber seemed to buzz and reverberate unpleasantly.
Montrose grimaced. He'd never quite grown accustomed to the way the Shroud, the barrier separating the living and the dead, warped a wraith's perception, encrusting his Shadowlands surroundings with a patina of ugliness and decrepitude. Another good reason to stay in Stygia!
But as always, for some reason, the white marble statue directly across from him was immune to the effect. Or at least he found it so. Another wraith, for whom it had no special significance, might have perceived it differently. Heedless of the elderly worshipper, knowing she couldn't see him, he approached the monument.
It was a carving of himself, clad in armor and lying in state. The steel sword beneath the stone hand was one he'd actually carried into battle. Above the image glowed the arms of his staunchest comrades—Gordon, Aboyne, Hay, Macdonald, Airlie, and his own cousins—rendered in stained glass. At the center of them all gleamed his own red roses and golden sea-shells, with the Montrose device—Ne oublie, Do not forget—underneath.
As usual, the statue filled him with a profound ambivalence. By reminding him of his victories, it made him proud. But it also struck him as a mocking tribute to a fool and a life misspent.
Because in the end, everything he'd achieved on the battlefield had been undone by schemers and traducers whispering behind closed doors. As he'd blundered through life, drunk on a bookish idealism, one trusted associate after another had betrayed him for expediency's sake. In the end, even the young King for whom he'd risked everything had sold him out. Charles had repudiated him when him he'd already set sail for Scotland, a political ploy which kept the people from rallying around him and all but guaranteed his expedition's ruin. VanLengen's treachery had merely administered the coup de grace.
Fortunately, in his postmortem existence, Montrose had learned to put his own interests first, to scheme as craftily and act as ruthlessly as any foe. And thus he was faring far better as a Hierarch than he had as a champion of either the Kirk or the Scottish crown.
Every feeling the statue inspired, the nostalgia and bitterness alike, invigorated him, made him more real, fortifying him against the corrosive power of the Void. Wraiths generally found it easier to gain and exert strength in locations which reminded them powerfully of their mortal existences. That, perhaps, was why Katrina had delivered him here instead of taking him to the Mississippi.
The drawback was that such sites exerted a fascination that made it difficult to tear oneself away. Some wraiths found it impossible, and spent eternity lurking near their graves or wandering the corridors of their earthly abodes. Finally, two minutes after he'd resolved to take his leave, Montrose squinched his eyes shut and wrenched himself around, turning his back on the memorial.
He strode to the nearest exit, pressed his hand against the seemingly worm- eaten panel, and shoved. The door wouldn't budge.
He scowled at his own deficient memory. He'd momentarily forgotten that here in the Shadowlands, wraiths and their surroundings existed on different levels of reality. It required extraordinary measures to move any object that properly belonged to the realm of the living.
Montrose hesitated, then stepped at the door. He couldn't resist bracing for an impact, but of course, there wasn't one. He slipped through the panel as if it were made of air, Outside, the night was cool. A half moon peered through shreds of cloud, and the easterly breeze carried the murmur and scent of the firth. Montrose strode down the cobbled street, wondering where the Quick kept the "airport," and how it would feel to fly inside a machine.
FIVE
As the chubby blond secretary ushered him into the nondescript conference room, Bellamy studied the three men who were already sitting around the Formica- topped table. Linus Hanson, his boss: a bald gnome with round, gold-rimmed glasses, his features arranged in their customary expression of grave consideration. Carlton Nolliver, one of VICAP's resident shrinks, sleepy-eyed and puffy-faced, fidgeting nervously with a Tic Tac dispenser. Rumor had it that he was constantly spritzing or sucking some kind of breath freshener to kill the telltale smell of alcohol. And Bill Dunn, the emissary from the Special Affairs Department. His shaggy black mane, msset suede jacket, and chinos made a marked contrast to the conservative suits and haircuts—pretty much the mandatory uniform for the average FBI man—of his companions. He'd also opted to defy the ban on smoking in Federal offices, a transgression Hanson would never have tolerated from one of his subordinates. An acrid blue haze hung in the air around him.
As far as Bellamy could see, none of the trio had brought a rope, but he still felt like the guest of honor at a lynching.
"Good morning," Hanson said. "Would you like some coffee?"
"No, thanks," Bellamy replied. He'd drunk too much already, parked in the waiting room. Another cup and he'd be bouncing off the walls.
"That will be all then, Betty," Hanson said. The chunky secretary departed, pulling the door shut behind her. "Have a seat, Frank."
"How bad is it?" Bellamy asked.
"Let's not lose sight of the fact," said Nolliver, "that it isn't all bad." He tapped the stack of manila files on the desk before him. "Your tests came back negative. You didn't have any drugs or alcohol in your system, and your EEG and CAT scan are normal."
Bellamy grimaced. "Is that good? If it had turned out that somebody slipped me mescaline, we'd know why I wigged out and we could get on with our lives."
"It's damn good from where I sit," Hanson said. "It means that I don't have to fire you, and you don't have a brain tumor or some other terrible disease."
"But something drove me crazy," Bellamy said heavily. "I almost shot a policeman who only wanted to calm me down."
"But you didn't," said Dunn, a puff of smoke billowing from his mouth. "You didn't hurt anybody. So don't beat yourself up over that."
"I wish we did know what happened to you," Hanson said. "The facts simply don't add up to anything much. A known mental patient—-"
"Ex-mental patient," Bellamy murmured, not certain why he'd bothered to correct him.
Hanson frowned. "Since you were convinced he needed to go back to the sanitarium, I'm not sure what difference that makes, but have it your way. An ex- mental patient gets drunk and babbles a preposterous story. For a second you imagine you see a shadowy figure in a dark room, but when you blink, it disappears. After you take Waxman outside, you think you see another goblin rear up from behind your car. Waxman drops dead of a heart attack—according to the autopsy, he was past due—and you go into a..." He glanced at Nolliver.
"Fugue state," the psy
chiatrist supplied.
"Thank you," Hanson said. He looked back at Bellamy. "You see ? There's nothing to go on. If you could remember anything else... ?"
"I'm sorry," said Bellamy, feeling like a pitiful excuse for a trained observer, "I can't." He turned to Nolliver. "You could try hypnotizing me again."
The ruddy-faced psychiatrist shook his head. "Judging from our first two attempts, it wouldn't do any good. The memory is gone beyond recall. Besides, it's my professional opinion that, at least on a superficial level, you assessed your situation correctly when you worried that Waxman's delusions were contaminating your own thinking. That phenomenon's called a folie a deux. It's more common than you might imagine."
"In other words," Bellamy said, "I didn't need LSD or a brain tumor to go crazy. I just had naturally had it in me." He looked at Dunn. "Or do you think there could be another explanation?"
In the past, Bellamy, like most of his peers, had derided the whole idea of the Special Affairs Department. It had seemed ludicrous that a law enforcement agency with real, flesh-and-blood felons to catch should devote any of its resources to investigating reports of Bigfoot and little green men from outer space. Now he was glad that Hanson had requested SAD to participate in the current inquiry. But something weird had happened in East St. Louis, and it was just possible that Dunn could throw some light on it.
But the agent in the leather jacket shook his head. "I'm sorry, Frank. I wish I could help you out. But nothing in your story rings any bells. Of course, it's like Division Chief Hanson said. What you told us is incredibly vague. It's hard to extract any details to correlate with the information in our database. Not"—he grinned wryly—"that that would be likely to do any good anyway. I'll be straight with you. SAD has been poking around alleged haunted houses and crop circles since 1952, but it's not like we've actually learned anything. It's still an open question whether the paranormal even exists.
"I can tell you this. We keeps tab on Satanists and other potentially dangerous occultist cranks." He smiled again. "We feel honor-bound to do a little honest police work once in a while. As far as we've been able to determine, none of the cults and covens in our files has anything to do with the Atheist murders. And a couple years back, we checked out Eric Weiss. We concluded he was a charlatan. There was no indication of genuine wild talents. And Waxman didn't even participate in the trickery. He was just a flake who answered the phone and licked envelopes."
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