To his surprise, Dr. Hazzard herself stood there. The tension on her face had eased and she answered his unspoken question.
“Link is not in any danger. The bullet passed clear through, slicing some muscle, but nothing that won’t heal. There is some nasty gravel imbedded in the skin—probably from when he fell—and a lot of blood loss.”
“I’m glad.”
“Strip and let me take a look at you. I’ll help with the shirt.”
While Jay removed his trousers, retaining his shorts, she punched a tab and the examining table lowered so that he could get onto it without strain, then raised again. She touched his head, tilting it so that she could look into his eyes. Jay blushed, realizing that this was the first real woman since his mother to touch him.
Dr. Hazzard didn’t appear to see the blush, or if she did she almost certainly dismissed it as the result of her removing his ruined shirt with a pair of scissors. She tut-tutted at the slash the tire iron had left.
“Lovely, lovely job, Jay. That’s your name, right?”
“That’s it.”
“You’ve been hit in the head. You’ll need stitches in your back and on your forehead. And you have contusions and minor abrasions everywhere. I’m going to give you a tetanus booster, just in case. You’ll live, but you’ll hurt.”
She did things with various sprays and ointments to numb the skin and repaired him with quiet efficiency. Jay found himself liking her a great deal.
“Doctor, is Link your kid?”
“Noticed the resemblance, did you? Yes, Link’s mine, my one and only.”
“I’d like to see him. Is he awake?”
“Awake and insisting on seeing you. When you’re patched up, I’ll show you where to go. I can’t let you chat for too long.”
“And Drum. Is he okay?”
“A concussion. Since he lives alone, I’ve convinced him to accept a room overnight while we make certain that there’s nothing serious. He has agreed with remarkable grace. He should be sleeping now. The pain medication we gave him will make him dopey.”
“I like him.”
“So does Link. So, I suppose, do I, though I wish he wouldn’t encourage Link to do such dangerous things.”
“Dangerous? A church service is hardly dangerous, ma’am.”
Dr. Hazzard smiled at him. It was a nice smile and her eyes were amazingly green.
“Enough on that. I have a waiting room of ‘impatients’ to deal with. Marco will bring you a new shirt—we keep a few spares. Once you’ve changed, walk slowly. You’ll find Link in room A-23.”
Jay obeyed and found Link’s room easily. The orderly Tom was leaving as he approached the door and Link, seeing Jay, waved him in.
“Thanks for coming,” Link said, taking a deep breath, “and thanks for saving my life.”
“And the same,” Jay said, grinning. “I would have been flattened if you hadn’t come out just then.”
“I think the store owner was in league with them. He kept finding excuses to delay. Finally, I gave up and punched my eft stick into a vending machine—and when I came out…”
“I couldn’t let them take the Spinner,” Jay said awkwardly, wondering if he had violated some Veritean rule, “or should I have?”
“No, I’m glad you didn’t, but you against the six of them…”
They stared awkwardly at each other. Shorn of hat, loose shirt, and sunglasses, sitting up in bed in a hospital gown, Link was still androgynous, but also more obviously female—especially if one knew to look for the signs. There was a fullness to the lip, a length of lash, a fineness of bone. Jay realized that he was staring and blushed again.
“You—felt,” Link said.
“Yeah,” Jay said, turning even darker red.
“My real name is Alice Hazzard. My family is rich and well-known. I wanted to establish myself as a reporter without having people cater to me on that point. It’s easy enough to do in Virtu, but in Verite I kept being dismissed as a rich brat.”
“So you gave yourself a virt persona, except in Verite!” Jay grinned, thinking how odd that both of them were effectively doing the same thing—him as Jason MacDougal, Alice as Link Crain.
“Drum doesn’t know. At least, I don’t think he does. I met him professionally and he’d only researched as far as those credentials. I think. Sometimes, I’m not sure.”
“Your mom?”
“Knows. Appreciates it. She’s doubly wealthy—family money and then some annuities dating back to an accident she had before I was born. She knows how hard it can be to get people to take you seriously.”
“You look a lot like her. Don’t people guess?”
“I don’t come here often. When we’re out together, I’m Alice. Link is just for work.”
They chatted for a while more, then Tom returned.
“I have been told that the patient is to rest. Jay, you may stay in the clinic or leave, as you wish.”
“I’ll call for my ride.”
Jay and Alice looked at each other, suddenly sixteen and awkward.
“Thanks again.”
“Right. Bye.”
Jay left. He called Milburn. The android, seeing that he was very thoughtful, did not bother him with idle chatter.
SIX
Jay D’Arcy Donnerjack heard the banshee howl.
When he had returned from the Verite to the castle in Scotland some days before, it had seemed to all those who anxiously (though covertly) watched him, that the experience had not changed him in any detrimental fashion.
Dr. Hazzard’s expertise had tended to his wounds so skillfully that when the stitches and bandaging were absorbed there would not even be a scar. (Something about which Jay, himself, had mixed feelings.) He had told of his adventures with the proper mixture of awe and braggadocio, recounted the wonders that he had seen, and returned to his studies and virtventures.
Yet, sometimes, when he explored with Mizar or practiced aerial maneuvering with Alioth (Phecda, of all his childhood playmates, had not returned with any frequency after his discovery of their duplicity), a look would come into his dark eyes: wistful, thoughtful, brooding. Then some might wonder if the adventure had changed him more deeply than he had admitted—even to himself.
And so it was with him when Jay D’Arcy Donnerjack heard the banshee howl.
He was seated in his chambers reviewing irregular Latin conjunctions for his lesson with Dack when he first heard the throbbing wail. First on one note, like sobs barely contained, then rising to a shrill pitch as the sorrow found its voice. It spoke of despair, of hopelessness, of loss beyond mortal knowledge. Jay felt the hair on his arms rise.
“What was that?” he asked Dubhe, who was perched atop a high-backed chair, a quiz list in his long-fingered paw.
“I don’t know. The wind?”
“I’ve never heard the wind sound like that—and I’ve lived here all my life.”
“And I’ve never heard anything like it, except perhaps in a broken form on the edges of Deep Fields. Where are you going?”
“To find out what it is.”
“But it could be dangerous. Send one of the robots.”
“No. I want to know.”
“Jay…”
“Stay here if you want.”
“And worry?” Resignedly the monkey leapt down, walked on knuckles and hind legs to Jay’s side. “I’m with you. Just remember, bud, you’re my passport. If you get hurt, I’m a stranger in a strange land.”
“The robots will take care of you. Dack likes you. C’mon. You’re stalling. It might stop.”
The wail sounded again. Longer, more drawn out. When they stepped into the corridor, it seemed to be coming from the upper reaches of the castle. Jay turned that way: Dubhe climbed up his back to ride on his shoulder.
“You’ve gotten taller.”
“It happens.”
“I think you’re going to be as tall as your father, maybe taller. How long do humans keep growing?”
“
I don’t know. Hush, now. Don’t distract me. I’m trying to track that sound.”
“I know.” This last muttered. Jay grinned.
Jay moved along the corridors, head held high to catch the faintest echoes of the cry. He had learned tracking from Mizar, who, if he did not recall his origin, still retained his most basic programming in full. Almost unconsciously, Jay weighed and discarded options, letting his feet carry him up, through the long gallery, out to one of the battlements.
The day was fine, the mist having been chased away by the winds. Out on the waters of the North Minch he could see the white shapes of fishing boats (ironically, the luxuries of Virtu had increased, rather than diminished, the market for the same in Verite). Yet, despite the sunlight and the comparative warmth of the day, something chill lurked on the battlements, something of shadow and sorrow. When Jay crossed the threshold, it wailed.
“Who? What are you?” Jay said, dismayed to hear a faint quaver in his voice.
The wailing figure stirred, solidified somewhat. Now, Jay could see that it was a woman clad in a long ivory-colored shift gathered beneath her breasts with a pale ribbon. She wore a veil that hid her face, but the hair that escaped from it was black and lustrous.
“Who are you?” Jay repeated more firmly.
“I am the caoineag of Castle Donnerjack,” she said, her voice soft, so he had to step closer to hear the words. “I bring you warning, John. Death comes for you. Flee while you can.”
“Flee? Death? Do you mean the Lord of Deep Fields? Why should I flee? This castle is proof against him.”
“Is it?”
She paused and Jay remembered his own doubts on that subject. Dubhe, grabbing rather harder than necessary on his right ear, had apparently remembered the same.
“Where can I flee?” Jay said. “Death is everywhere. If this castle is not protected against the Lord of the Lost, then what is?”
“He is the Death Lord of Virtu, John,” the caoineag said. “Although, as his assaults on this castle have shown, he can affect events in Verite, still you may be safer there. It will take him longer to find you among the teeming hordes.”
“Verite,” Jay said, and unaccountably, an image of Alice Hazzard blossomed in his mind. “Yes.”
“Jay, don’t leave me!” Dubhe whined. “If He comes here and gets in and finds me and doesn’t find you, it’s going to be monkey flambe!”
“I’ll take you, Dubhe,” Jay promised.
“Can you trust him?” the wailing woman asked. “He is a creature of the Lord of the Lost. He may lead his master to you.”
“I’ll trust him.” He studied the veiled figure. “What I can’t figure out is why I should trust you.”
“I am the wailing woman of Castle Donnerjack,” she said simply. “The Irish call us banshee. It has always been the role of our kind to warn of disaster.”
Jay frowned. He wished he had time to look up the terms in his databank, for it seemed to him that such creatures were not usually so helpful.
“I’ll tell Dack I need a skimmer,” he said, wondering how long he would need to argue with the robot. Perhaps the bracelet would help. “Thank you, uh, miss.”
He was turning away when a crackling in the air froze him in place. All around the battlements, the projectors concealed within the gargoyles and crenelations flared and glowed violet.
“Too late! Too late!” the caoineag wailed. “Death has begun his assault.”
“I guess I should go to Dad’s office,” Jay said, remembering the other time this had happened.
“The Dark Lord will penetrate those defenses and you may be assured that he is now prepared for you if you flee into the Verite. Too late! Unless… What is the phase of the moon?”
“Full.”
“Then I may yet be able to save you. Run to your father’s office and activate whatever may delay the Lord of Entropy, then run to the door in the cellars.”
Already moving, Jay asked, “The one that leads into the tunnels?”
“The same.”
“Why should that forestall Death?”
“There is more on heaven and earth—in Virtu and Verite—than you know, John D’Arcy Donnerjack.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“I warned you rightly once, did I not?”
“Maybe to drive me out into the arms of Death’s minions.”
“The choice is yours, John. I will be waiting.”
And she vanished. Jay pelted down the corridors, Dubhe slung around his neck, clinging to him like a skinny, flapping cape. Once in his father’s office, he pressed the sequence of buttons that he recalled from the first time.
“Bracelet,” he said, “why aren’t you advising me?”
“I am disturbed,” it said. “There was something in the caoineag’s speech that troubled me.”
“Like she was lying?”
“No, like I should have known her. I cannot access the data fully. It is as if Donnerjack, in creating me, excised memory of this information from me, but that it permeated enough of whatever he did that I know something, but not enough.”
“What do you feel?”
“Sorrow. Joy. Loss. Pain. Vengeance.”
“Wow! How about trust?”
“There is nothing to indicate that I should not trust, but nothing to indicate that I should.”
“Great. How about the theory that Death can penetrate the castle defenses?”
“Probability is that he will, if he maintains the assault.”
“Then I’m caught if I stay, caught if I go.”
“Quite possibly.”
“Then I go.”
The bracelet offered no further comment and Dubhe’s audible chattering teeth were his response. Two at a time, Jay bounded down the steps. He paused by Back’s office.
“I’m going down into the tunnels, Dack.”
“The generators have activated, Jay. Are you certain it will be safe?”
The bracelet said, “He should be as safe there as anywhere, Dack.”
“Very well, sir,” the robot responded.
Jay noticed that Dack never argued with the bracelet. He wondered if it was programming, or some deference the robot accorded to John Senior but not to his son.
In the kitchen, Jay paused long enough to stuff three rolls, a wedge of cheese, a handful of cookies, and a couple of bananas into a bag. He didn’t know how long he would be hiding, but he wasn’t about to starve to death while he was doing it.
Then, down the long steps, unhook the key from a nail by the door, grab the flashlight he kept stashed in the top bin of a wine rack, and open the heavy door. It squeaked. It always squeaked—even after he oiled the hinges. Jay had resolved that the squeak was built into the design.
“Come on, Dubhe,” he called to where Dubhe trembled on the stair. “Death is coming in behind you. He’s not going to look for you here.”
“I know… Monkeys aren’t tunnel creatures. I’m fighting my base programming.”
“Try activating the self-preservation routine,” Jay said dryly. “I’m heading in.”
Jay shone the flashlight down the tunnel. Behind him, he heard Dubhe muttering something remarkably like, “Oh, my fuzzy ears and whiskers.” He bent, set the monkey on his shoulder, and closed the door. As an afterthought, he shot the dead bolt.
“Where’s our mystic guide?” Dubhe said after they had walked a few paces.
“She’ll show,” Jay answered with more confidence than he felt.
They walked on, following in a general sense the paths that would lead them to the underground lake. A blue glow from a side passage intercepted them. Jay turned, hoping to find the caoineag and seeing instead the crusader ghost, chain in hand as always.
“Och, lad, you’re well out of your way. Cum w’ me an’ I’ll bring you to where you should be goin’.”
Jay followed. “How do you know where we’re going?”
“Your… guide told me to find you. She’s clearin’ the way of its gu
ardian.”
“Way? Guardian? Where are you taking me?”
“To the Eldritch Lands, lad, the places of the sidhe. The banshee knows the way from days before.”
“Have you been there?”
“Aye, time and again. ‘Tis a fine change from the dreamin’.”
“And we’ll be safe there?”
“Dinna ken, that, lad, but will you be safe anywhere? The Grim Reaper wants to settle a bargain made, a bargain sealed. Can you outrun your fate?”
He jerked on his chain as he said this. Jay frowned.
“I can certainly try.”
“Aye, lad, like the old laird and lady, stubborn to the core. Fine good it did them, in the end.”
“I’m still alive,” Jay reminded him defiantly.
“Aye.”
Their conversation had brought them to a dead-end passage. It was brighter than the rest by the addition of another glowing blue wraith, this the caoineag. Behind her was a circle darker than the rest of the wall. At first, Jay took it for a shadow and glanced around to see what had cast it. Then he realized that this must be the portal.
“The guardian gone?” the crusader asked.
“Yes.” The caoineag sounded weary. “The incantation had its effect.”
“Can you be teaching it to the lad?”
“We will speak of that. Come along now, John. I will go first so that you will know that you have nothing to fear.”
Jay kept all his distrust to himself. Dubhe squeezed his ear, but otherwise the monkey held his peace. A duck of the head, a sense of cold, then he was through; a clank of chain told him that the crusader ghost had come after.
The place where he found himself was a rocky hillside overlooking a distant sea. It could have been on Eilean a’Tempull Dubh but for the standing stones that stood ranked and unmovable.
The caoineag leaned against one of these, her head bent, her hand braced against the stone as if she was drained of strength. Jay noticed that both the crusader ghost and the caoineag appeared more solid in this place. Through the minute rips in the crusader’s tunic he could see oily skin tanned dark by exposure to Arabian desert sunlight. The caoineag’s veil, however, was more opaque and all his searching gaze could find of her features was a sense of mournful dark eyes.
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