“Is that what you want?” A demon would want to stay.
“Yes.”
“I believe you. I don’t know why, but I do.”
His hand slipped the cloak clasp free. “Send me back, and you may keep this.”
Neave! I could buy all Mistdale for that! She searched his eyes. What demon would pay to be sent back before wreaking havoc across the land? Her hand closed over it, and he surrendered it willingly. She swallowed, throat dry. “Dorian, there is truth to be spoken.”
“I know the pin’s value. It’s real. Keep it. It’s yours.”
Her hand closed over it and greed rose in her. What a life she could have! And she had prayed for abundance and the blessing of the Old Ones’ Powers. She shook her head to clear the avarice which tasted bitter on her tongue. “There is truth to be spoken,” she insisted. “I may have brought you here. I’m not sure. The Gate might have opened even without me. But there is one thing every child of the Dales knows. A Gate works only one way. Nobody ever goes back.”
It was so in all the tales. But is it really true?
“You won’t even try?”
She forced the clasp back into his hand and folded his cold fingers over it. “Keep your wealth. I’ll try the Gate with you once more. But you ought to learn to swim first.”
He glanced at his sodden clothing. “I had forgotten. If there is a Gate, it must be at the bottom of that pool.”
“No doubt. I can’t believe it will function twice in one night—or even in one year. The moon has to be just right to activate the Power of the Old Ones.” And she described what she had found by following the watercourse.
From the bemused expression on his face, she thought that the simplest things must be alien to him. “It must be terrible where you come from,” she finished.
“It has its moments. But, no. On the whole it is beautiful.” His eyes went unfocused, and he spoke in snatches as if remembering: “Snow-covered mountains, and houses with golden glowing windows...and off in the distance, the city, cupped in steep mountains...the streets outlined with chains of blue or amber lights on either side of a red stream and a white stream of pure light...the tall buildings patched with lighted windows...the blue lights of a copter pad...the winking flashes of red, yellow, and green traffic lights. There is sadness under the lights, and much tragedy, but no, it’s not terrible. I suspect that here, it just may be terrible.”
Colored lights. He came from a place of brightly colored light. He could not be evil. She threw her arms around him to console him. “Dorian, it’s not terrible here. The world can be harsh, but it is also wonderful.”
His arms went around her and she felt the soggy cloth of his garments against her back. He whispered in her ear, “If it has many as beautiful as you, it has to be wonderful. But I am afraid, Remora, that I will find no rest here.”
Beautiful. As me. She squirmed free and plucked his clothes from his arm. Spreading them over the makeshift rack again, she said, “As for rest, we can build up the fire and sleep safely enough.”
“It is not the practice of my kind. But I will stay and guard while you sleep. I will be gone before the dawn.”
The sun. She had forgotten what he’d said of the sun. “What kind are you? You look human.”
“I was. Once. But that was long ago.”
“What manner of creature are you now? Of the Light—or of the Darkness?”
The ghost of a frown creased his forehead. His hesitancy to claim the Light sent a quiver of dread through her, but before he could voice his answer, a wild yammering erupted from the pass behind them.
Dorian spun to face the approaching menace, falling into a wary crouch as he swept her behind him with one long arm.
Out of the darkness loomed a churning wall of scraggly gray beasts, gaunt and long-legged four-footers. “A pack!” she gasped, knowing they had no chance against this. The runners were long-snouted, with terrible fangs.
As the leaders hesitated before the watch fire, Remora grabbed Dorian’s hand, pulling him back into the rocks. “This way! The Old Ones’ pool. It’s our only chance!”
Tugging his hand, she ran into the defile toward the Old Ones’ circle. If the fire just held the beasts long enough!
Scratched and bruised, she reached the circle and ran for the entry, knowing somehow that to gain protection she had to enter there. At the archway, she found the waning moonlight casting a shadow over the right-side pillar, and in that darkness she could still see the glowing circle.
The runes were clearer, but they were moving more slowly, sluggish now as if running out of energy.
Behind them, the baying of the pack closed in, but it was broken by occasional snarls and indignant yelps as the beasts fought among themselves. All of that faded from Remora’s consciousness as she stared at the runes marching solemnly around the glowing circle. As they moved, they shifted and changed, and she fancied she could understand.
She was drawn deep into the center of the light until she saw with an inner knowledge divorced from ordinary sight. It was as if she knew this place as the builders had known it. Here was the Gate, and back there where the pack fought was the Way, a pass cut through the living rock of the mountains; the very pass she had used. But now it was crumbling and seemed a natural part of the landscape.
Off to her left had once been a small village perched atop and within the mountains. This whole region had been honeycombed with passages. Up ahead, on the other side of the Gate structure, was a cave that accessed the passages, a cave once used for food storage.
As she strained to make out what mysteries might be contained in that cave, the vision faded leaving only the knowledge that the stone circle was no longer a refuge. Its energies would not return for another century.
She came out of it with Dorian’s hand clenched about her upper arm in a bruising grip. He was poised on the balls of his feet, peering back into the darkness as if he could see what approached. “Come on, Remora! Wake up!”
There was movement in the shadows behind them, and flashes of gleaming white teeth, glowing eyes. “This way!” she whispered, and yanked him along into the circle.
They skirted the pond which was cold and dark now. Behind them, the beasts gathered at the gateway, milling about in confusion, yammering as if gathering courage for a final assault. The power will only last a few more moments.
“Run!” she urged Dorian.
They skinned through a narrow slit between two uprights, and clamored up the other side of the cup that held the circle. Skidding, smothering yelps at twisted ankles and scraped shins, they climbed.
“Here!” she gasped. “It has to be here!”
“What has to be here?” asked Dorian, surveying the tumbled mess of boulders before them. Small twisted bushes, and stunted trees dotted the crumbled cliff. Outlined blackly against the moonlight, they seemed menacing.
With a shiver of foreboding, Remora scrambled frantically up the cliff, searching. “A cave mouth. It’ll be safe. The runners won’t go very deep into a cave.”
“How do you know?”
I hope! “The circle told me.”
He only nodded. Then he climbed straight up the side of a large boulder, topped it, and stood peering into the inky blackness above. His head swept right and left, like a hunting serpent.
She watched, overcome with the matter-of-fact way he had accepted her explanation. No one had ever done that before. She didn’t pause in her search, scanning the jumbled shadows for a dark opening. She knew just what it had to look like, and that, she concluded later, was why she missed it.
“There! A cave!” His whisper was harsh with suppressed excitement. A moment later, she never knew how, he appeared beside her without a sound. “Come on, I’ll help you.”
Now, he chose a slanted path, cutting back and forth to find solid footing as if he could see perfectly. He gripped her arm above the elbow, and her fingers closed on his wrist. His strength was phenomenal. She felt as if he levitated her up
the difficult rises. And he wasn’t even panting when they reached a small, wedge-shaped hole between two boulders.
It wasn’t anything like the spacious entry she had seen. But then neither was the broken cliff like what she had seen.
They wriggled through the hole and found the space opened out around them. Only then did she think that they should have brought some dry wood to build a fire in the cave mouth to discourage the runners until dawn drove them away. Failing so much, they could still have used a brand or two from the fire to make a torch. Stupid!
“Well, there’s no choice. We’ll have to go that way.”
“I can’t see a thing.”
“But you can smell, can’t you?”
There was a repellent odor lingering on the air. “Something probably denned here. Let’s hope it’s not home.”
He took a cautious step forward, holding onto her fingers to pull her along into the dark. Their feet crunched something foul as they stepped. “Bats!” he spat.
“What?”
“I don’t know what you call them, but they’re harmless. That’s not what I smell.” His face flashed whitely as he glanced back toward the dim glow of the entry. “I don’t want to go down there.”
“There should be a long tunnel that opens out into a large chamber, and another tunnel on the other side that leads out to the open air beyond.”
He took another cautious step forward. “The circle told you?” His tone was not the slightest bit mocking.
“The Old Ones, who built the circle...I know what it was like when it was built and used. They stored food in this cave.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Uncounted centuries.”
“Then that can’t be the smell.”
As they ventured forward, picking their way carefully over the dung, she felt the shudder of revulsion rippling through him. Her own gorge was rising, and she gagged.
“Maybe we won’t have to go very much farther. The stench has to repel the creatures chasing us.”
“Maybe.” If not, it’d be better to face the relatively clean death the beasts would give than to go on into that!
Still, she was not ready to give up her life or her chance to find Arvon. Evil can be vanquished. I hope.
Her ears told her they were in a narrow tunnel now. Progress became a nightmare of endurance. She clenched her jaw, her breath hissing between her teeth, feet leaden.
She forced her mind to narrow down to the image of the way out that had to lie ahead of them. It had to be there still. Just keep going, she told herself, and we’ll get there somehow. I’m not going to let this stop me.
She had nearly lost touch with everything else but that one determined thought when they rounded a curve, and suddenly found themselves in a wide chamber. But now it was filled with a sickening bluish glow, and the odor became a vile miasma that gagged Remora. She couldn’t breathe.
She’d barely glimpsed the walls of the cave, festooned with shapeless lumps of something foul, when Dorian turned and pushed her back. “God! Let’s get out of here. We can’t get through that!”
Retreating into the dark, she clung to him for a moment, digging in her heels to stop the huge man in his tracks. His arms came around her in a protective gesture, and something in her responded sharply. But this was not the time for that. She pushed away. “Listen. We can’t go back. The way out has got to be ahead.”
“Better the wolves than that. Something ghastly has grown out of whatever the Old Ones left here. Besides, that was so long ago that the other tunnel may have been crushed by now. Something has changed this place. I mean, you don’t ordinarily store food where the walls drip water!”
She thought about it. The mountain had shifted. He was right. “We can’t go back,” she repeated. “It’s not long until dawn. Maybe if we wait here?”
He cast a glance toward the softly glowing turn in the passage. “I can’t. Whatever happened here, Remora, it was an evil thing. I cannot, I will not abide here.”
That spoke to something so deep in her she found herself retreating before him despite her resolve. And in that defeat she also found a leap of triumph in her breast, a relief of a tension she’d forgotten was there. He’s not of the Dark! If he was, he’d have found that place like home.
At a wider spot in the tunnel, he squeezed by her, his blanket-clad body against hers, and she felt him trembling. Something here repelled him even more strongly than it did her. When he took the lead again, he drew her along with such speed that she was hard put to keep from stumbling.
The way back seemed longer than the way in. Eventually, though they heard the disconsolate baying of the pack, echoes multiplying their numbers.
At last, he paused. Putting both huge hands on her shoulders, he brought his face close to hers so she could feel his cool breath on her face. “You wait here. If they smell you, they’ll attack. There’s a chance, maybe it’s an outside chance, but worth a try, that I can send them away even before dawn. I’m willing to risk it, but you’ve got to give me time. Wait until I call you.”
His instruction was delivered in that calm, commanding tone she had obeyed all of her life. She whispered, “Very well,” and stopped herself before adding lord. “Dorian. Be careful. You don’t know how vicious they can be.”
“On my world, there are creatures much like these called wolves. When they’re hungry, very little will stop them.”
“Oh, these runners are hungry. They’re always hungry. And they love human flesh.”
“Good. Then I may have an advantage.”
And then he was gone into the darkness.
She waited. Her ears brought her nothing except the snuffling and arguing of the pack. Once he was beyond arm’s reach, she heard not a whisper of movement from Dorian.
She waited an eternity, and there was nothing. Her mind showed her Dorian lying unconscious, fallen in the dark. Then she saw the runners, catching his scent, and attacking his helpless form, not even baying their triumph as the man was unconscious and hardly more than carrion. The constant murmuring of the pack she heard could be them feeding. Vision or imagination? She’d never seen anything from current time before, but then most people who saw did see in the present, too. She had to go check.
It took less courage to creep toward the pack than it had to stumble into that horrible odor. Bracing one hand on the wall, she shuffled and groped toward the entry.
The last rays of the setting moon combined with the first hint of false dawn made the entry seem bright before Remora’s eyes. As she neared the end of the tunnel, where it opened into the wider chamber inside the entry, she made out Dorian’s form, prone at the mouth of the tunnel, just as she’d seen. His head was toward the entry, his feet to her, and his face was buried in his elbow.
Beyond his head, not three body-lengths away, gray shapes paced and wheeled, grumbling though not feasting on Dorian. But he’d said the sun’s rays were deadly to his kind. With his ability to see in the dark, she didn’t doubt that sun would hurt his eyes.
As she crept up to Dorian’s feet, the pack became more agitated. Milling faster, they edged toward him, threatening growls rumbling as teeth bared. She saw his chest rise. He’s not dead! A runner snapped at her, snarling.
Flinching, she realized she was about to cause the very vision she had feared. And when they finished with Dorian, they’d turn on her. Before she could do anything, Dorian gathered himself and rose soundlessly to his full height. His white face was frozen in a forbidding mask as he snarled out of the side of his mouth, “Idiot! I told you to wait! They’re not wolves, but I almost had them!”
As he said this, the leader of the pack leaped into the air, hurtling at her. Rooted to the spot, she braced herself to die but her hands came up to ward those awful teeth away from her throat. Suddenly she was staring into Dorian’s partially blanketed back.
She felt rather than saw the animal’s impact on Dorian, and heard something issue from Dorian’s throat that wasn’t at a
ll human. And then he was pushing forward into the pack.
Dorian heaved the pack leader among his fellows and snarled at them in a command that could not be disobeyed.
Dorian continued to advance, animals whirling about his knees, venturing to snap at his heels and the edges of his cloak. He grabbed the leader by the scruff of the neck and threw him toward the entry, snarling commands.
One of the runners dared snap at Dorian’s hand, gouging the flesh beneath the thumb. Instead of withdrawing the injured member, Dorian made a fist and punched the offending animal in the nose. It whimpered and retreated.
At that, the leader slunk toward the entry, and the pack followed, bellies to the ground, tails between their legs. Slowly, as the sun rose outside, the animals lowered their front paws over the lip of the cave mouth, found purchase, and, one by one, crawled out into the daylight they hated.
Dorian, still trembling, lips compressed, blocked their access to Remora, driving them out into the light.
And the sun rose. Relentlessly the light increased.
But Dorian refused to give ground. Occasionally he had to lash at one of the reluctant runners. By the time the last had crawled out onto the tumbled mountainside, the sun, had obliterated the stars, and diffuse light reached almost to Dorian’s feet. Dorian edged back, squinting at the glowing triangle of the entry.
“Let me look out. The light must hurt your eyes.”
He let her edge by and crawl to the lip of the cave. The last of the runners picked their way carefully down the broken cliff face. They had the skill and grace of the mountain-born, and she found herself hoping she’d not have to face anything like them out on the Waste.
When the last stragglers were down, they ran in circles baying their defiance, and then they took off into the dawn.
“It’s all right,” she called back. “They’re gone.”
When there was no answer, she turned to find him still as a statue in the same spot where she’d left him. Her shadow stretched out behind her, but sunlight had crept onto his legs. His face and hands seemed to glow in the light.
Through the Moon Gate and Other Tales of Vampirism Page 11
