Gravelight

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  But not to drown. Wycherly shook his head, trying to dislodge the image of the white shape moving beneath the surface of the river. He could live through this. Wycherly took a deep breath, trying to hold onto the objective reality before his eyes.

  Climb. Get out. Get away. You can outrun this if you try. On hands and knees he began to crawl up the stairs.

  He reached the top of the stairs, and . . .

  . . . rolled onto his hack. The river gravel was harsh through his shirt, and his legs were still in the water, hut Wycherly didn't care. He was safe.

  Out in the water, the dragon's eyes sank slowly heneath the surface. He could hear Camilla screaming from heneath the waters as the warm blood drained out of her, leaving her pale and cold. . . and hungry.

  The chill of the river seemed to cut into his hands and knees like sharp rocks as he struggled away from her He thrashed around in the water, seeking anything like solid ground, but the bed of the river seemed to liquify as he struggled, pulling him deeper

  He was in trouble. That despairing realization was something to cling to in the moment before it vanished. In trouble. Blindsided once more by failure he could not predict, much less guard against.

  The river stole his senses one by one, until, blind and helpless, he fled the white shape sliding through the water, shark-mouthed and predatory. The shore was so very far away, spangled with colored lights — they did not promise safety, but a witness to his death.

  Escape. He had to escape. The cold was burning him now. He could feel his heart hammering in his throat and taste his own blood billowing through the water. He did not mind dying, but he could not bear the thought of the innocents who would suffer because his work had been left undone.

  With his last reserves of strength Wycherly lunged forward, struggling as the lamia seized him —

  And in a brief moment of clarity realized he was not drowning, but falling.

  Falling.

  FOUR

  THIS SIDE OF THE GRAVE

  Methought I saw my late espoused Saint Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave. Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined. But 0 as to embrace me she inclined, I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.

  —JOHN MILTON

  THE HEAVILY LADEN WINNEBAGO MOTOR HOME HAD

  left Glastonbury, New York at dawn, its destination the small Appalachian hamlet that had seemed so easily accessible on Dylan Palmer's survey map a few weeks before. But as the hours wore on toward dark, it began to seem (as in the words of the old adage) that you couldn't get there from here.

  There were four of them in the overloaded RV—Dylan and Truth and the two grad students, Ninian Blake and Rowan Moorcock, neither of whom was allowed by the Institute's insurance company to drive the Winnebago. Truth wasn't even certain that Ninian could drive—there were times that the boy seemed so vague and dreamy that Truth was surprised he'd made it as far as graduate school.

  ''Boy?'' He's at least twenty-four; you aren't exactly old enough to be his mother, Truth admonished herself.

  Ninian Blake was gaunt, weedy, and obsessive—more like a

  slacker/hacker than an embryonic parapsychologist—and reminded Truth more than a little of herself at the same age. He was strongest in psychometry, the ability to read the traces events had left behind in inanimate objects, though his psychic ability was frustratingly erratic. Other than that, Ninian nearly matched the textbook stereotype for a nineties psychic—long black hair and bemused brown eyes, known neither for his fashion sense nor his social graces. He got along well enough with the rest of the Institute's staff—or possibly didn't really notice them—except for one person.

  "Are we there yet?" Rowan asked from the back, her tone only half-joking. Holding on to the countertops for support, she made her way cautiously to the front of the vehicle and peered out. She was wearing a long-sleeved purple T-shirt with two firebreathing dragons locked in mortal combat silkscreened on it in acid colors. Cargo shorts and hiking boots completed the outfit. The bright yellow earphones for her Walkman were around her neck, their cord leading down to a bright orange fanny pack.

  Rowan Moorcock was a strong psychic talent who had accompanied Dylan to a number of haunted houses in Europe and America as his trance medium. Freewheeling, easygoing, and so matter-of-fact about her abilities that it was easy to forget that a large percentage of the human race still considered them freakish. Rowan entered trance to the strains of the loudest possible rock music played through the earphones of her Walkman, and, when particularly baffled, took omens from her gaming dice to unlock her psychic gift. If Rowan were asked to define Ninian Blake in one word, it would probably be "pretentious," and Ninian would probably reciprocate by calling her "superficial."

  Truth stifled a sigh, and peered at the road map spread out across her lap. "The man in Pharaoh said we had to go back to State Road 92 and pick up 28 and look for the turnoff into Morton's Fork from that. It should be marked something like 'Watchman's Gap Trace,'" Truth recited from memory.

  The Winnebago heeled over alarmingly as Dylan negotiated a curve in the road—posted forty-five miles per hour—at a maidenly thirty miles per hour. Truth, looking out at a sheer right-hand drop, could only applaud his conservative attitude. The area was beautiful but wild, and she didn't relish attempting to explain to the Institute's director what had

  happened to two fee-paying students, a hundred thousand dollars' worth of temperamental recording equipment, and their extremely expensive mobile unit, should the Winnebago be in even the mildest of accidents.

  "We found 92," Dylan said hopefully.

  "We always find 92," Rowan muttered under her breath. She swung her heavy red braid back over her shoulder and assumed a spurious look of cheer.

  "Look!" Truth said. "Isn't that it?"

  Warily putting on his flashers—the headlights were already on, though it was still an hour and more to sunset—Dylan pulled to a halt. When the RV stopped, Ninian came up to the front and joined the others staring out through the windshield. The headlights cast their wan daylight radiance on a patched narrow turnoff that angled sharply up and back.

  "Is that Route 28?" Ninian asked doubtfully.

  In contrast to Rowan's party-girl informality, Ninian was almost painfully formal, wearing a collarless long-sleeved black shirt, baggy pleated pants with sneakers, and a photojournalist's vest with brimming pockets. His hair was long, but it was pulled back into a excruciatingly neat tail of hair.

  "I don't know whether it is or not, but it's the only turnoff I've seen anywhere along this road," Dylan responded. "If we're going to be lost, let's be lost somewhere new."

  Half an hour later, no one in the van had the heart to remind Dylan of his bold words. The vehicle mched up the narrow road at a stately fifteen miles per hour, but no one complained; the road's potholed surface was treacherous, but it was too narrow for Dylan to be able turn the Winnebago around and go back. And the sun was sinking rapidly; despite July's promise of long summer twilights, the illumination that remained once the sun had sunk below the crest of the mountains was more harm than help.

  Truth suspected that they actually were heading in the right direction to reach their destination—the turnoff was the only possible route. If only the crumbling road weren't so narrow. The feeble attempt at a guardrail someone had put up on the outer curve of the turns only served to underscore the sheerness of the drop-off beyond. She only hoped they didn't meet a car going the other way.

  "Hey—look at that!"

  Rowan pointed over Truth's shoulder, and a moment later Truth saw what Rowan was pointing at: a place where the greying, white-painted wood was freshly broken. Something had gone over the side and into the valley below—and not that long ago.

  "Somebody didn't have a nice day," Rowan said, and Truth could only agree. The drop-off there was not as steep as it was elsewhere along the road, and both women could see the scars of the tires on the earth, the battered tree trunks, and the glass surround
ing the base of the boulder where the crashing car had obviously come to rest,

  "At least it means there's some traffic along this road," Dylan said lightly. Truth bit her lip. She wanted to tell him to be careful, but it certainly wasn't Dylan Palmer's driving that worried her—if she could say that anything was truly worrying her.

  You're just edgy. And you've been edgy all spring. Since, in fact, they'd really set the date for the wedding. Truth twisted her emerald-and-pearl engagement ring around her finger, fidgeting. She turned on the radio, hitting the AUTO-SEEK button to allow the antenna to search for the strongest signal. Maybe some music would distract her.

  But all that the machine could pull in was a mushy hash of static, through which only an indistinct mutter of voices could be heard.

  "Great!" Dylan said happily. "I should have thought of that for myself Morton's Fork is a radio dead area. If we can't pull in anything, maybe we're getting closer."

  "Or the radio's broken," Ninian pointed out.

  "How can this be radio dead?" Rowan demanded, gesturing at the mountain panorama spread out before every window. "We're on top of a mountain—what could be interfering with a signal?"

  "Any number of things—natural magnetism or radiation, placement of transmitters, distance," Dylan said in his best professorial voice.

  As he drove, he began to lecture his two students upon the importance of being familiar enough with the laws of physics to keep from assigning a supernatural explanation when a natural one would do. Students who came to the Bidney Institute intending to take its degree program in parapsychology were often surprised that one of the freshman offerings was a course on famous frauds and debunking methodologies, but the Institute had no more interest in being defrauded than any private person did—and a real stake in being able to separate the true paranormal man-

  ifestations from the work of the con men, frauds, and hoaxers that the psychic sciences invariably attracted.

  Truth let Dylan's words wash over her—she had heard this lecture many times, in one form or another, and agreed with its sentiments as well as he did. But was that enough to build a shared life upon? She didn't think it was. And there was more—so much more—that they disagreed upon.

  At the heart of the matter was that Dylan preferred to watch, to study, to record the situation in full without altering it. And Truth felt she ought to intervene, even if she didn't completely understand what was happening, in order to make things come out the way they should.

  ''Be sure you're right, then go ahead/' But the words usually attributed to one of America's most beloved presidents failed to comfort her. It was so hard to know when you were right.

  Another twenty-four hours brought Sinah no more clarity. She had walked the floor all night, drank endless cups of tea, but found no real answers.

  Still, the fiery vision seemed to mark a turning point of a sort—as if, though no one in the village would speak to her, there was something in Morton's Fork that would. Something hovering just out of reach. Something that could help.

  Or maybe she was just going mad. You pays yer money and you takes yer choice, Sinah told herself mockingly.

  She smelled smoke several times several times through the night, but each time as the flames rose she could not keep herself from struggling, and each time the vision had faded before it had really begun. I'll never get anywhere at this rate.

  By the time dawn came she was able to force herself to lie down on her bed and sleep for a few hours, but when she awoke again the rest of the day—and the night to come—stretched before her like a jail term with no end. She had to do something more than wait passively to fill the empty hours. A walk. That's what I need. Clear my head, tire me out.

  The day was sunny but cloudy—why did no one ever say a day was partially sunny, instead of partially cloudy?—so Sinah threw a waterproof poncho into her backpack before starting off. She chose her destination on impulse: the burnt-out sanatorium that lay in the direction of Watchman's Gap. Her vision had possessed such a sense of reality, as

  though it were a replay of something that had truly happened. And the ruins had burned. She knew that much. Fire in fact to counter fire in fantasy? Well, it's worth a try.

  But when she had locked her front door behind her she hesitated, as if she weren't sure whether she wanted to see what came next or not. With an angry shrug, Sinah finally forced herself to move. There was nothing on earth that she was afraid of except herself, and she knew just where she was, didn't she?

  Yes. In trouble.

  As she walked, she kept a wary eye on the sky. Unlike California, where the residents expected 360 cloudless days a year, an Appalachian summer was changeable, capable of raining and shining at the same time. And storms here were quick and violent.

  She'd just come in sight of Wildwood Sanatorium when a storm of another sort hit. Formless, intangible, but intensely real, the force of the borrowed emotion threw Sinah to her knees and wiped away the summer day.

  Terror. Black, intense, and final; emotional and physical agony powerful enough to make her weep. It was there and gone, fading like a cry for help that had taken the caller's last strength. But there's no one here to touch — no one in sight — where did it come from? Sinah was on her feet again and running in the direction the psychic cry had come from before she had quite collected her wits; running toward the ruin.

  He isn't dead. Her first really coherent thought since hearing the mental shout came as Sinah knelt beside the man lying on the ground. He was lying on the bank of Little Heller Creek, one of the many tributaries of the Astolat. The creek might be only a few inches deep, but it could drown an unconscious man who fell face-down into it. He'd been lucky.

  He was no one she knew, and not from around here: He showed none of the marks of malnutrition and inbreeding that distinguished the native-born of Lyonesse County from their more fortunate flatlander cousins. Sinah hesitated only a moment before touching him, then reached out and rolled him onto his back. The surface of his mind was still with unconsciousness; he was blank, as were those she touched who were lost in dreamless sleep.

  His skin was paler than hers: the skin of a convict or a computer hacker—some sort of social subspecies who never saw the sun. There was

  a strawberry blush beginning to dawn across the cheekbones and nose; he was a real redhead, hair a shade between copper and strawberry blond, with the pale copper lashes and brows that went with such dramatic coloring. A young man, somewhere close to her own age, but there was an odd graininess to his skin that suggested illness or drink to Sinah's trained eye. She wondered how long he'd been out here.

  Having spent her life trying to shut others out, Sinah lacked the skills to probe further, and told herself she would not have chosen to in any case. Still, she wished there was someone here to tell her who he was and how he'd gotten here—both to Morton's Fork and into his current trouble.

  And just what are you going to do with him now? an inward voice asked her. Though he wasn't musclebound, he still weighed more than she did, and she couldn't carry him anywhere—nor could she get someone to come and move him for her; the natives of Morton's Fork were barely on speaking terms with her.

  "Hey? You?" Sinah said tentatively. She dipped her hand in the icy water and flicked some drops at his face.

  The effect was immediate and electrifying. With a rush, all the architecture of his mind woke to life again, dragging itself up through the veils of unconsciousness. Sinah tasted a faint, grudging anger—confusion, and fear, but most of all a strange blankness, as if the hot immediacy of his real feelings had been somehow siphoned off.

  He opened his eyes. They were a startling pale brown, almost light enough to be called amber. Sinah removed her hand from his face; her sense of him receded slightly, but she could still sense his emotions swirling through each other in a shifting, changing panorama that only she could perceive.

  Fear spiked and then receded as he got a good look at her.

  '',
, . pretty eyes — too thin — looks like a normal girl — blackout? Haven't had a real drink in three days at least; not long enough; it isn't fair — " Fragments of his internal monologue came to her like scraps of a conversation being held in the next room. His inner voice jumbled into unintelligi-bility when he spoke.

  "Hello? I don't suppose you've seen a St. Bernard with a cask of Benedictine around its neck?" His voice was educated, cultured, with a sort of flat drawl that placed him squarely on Long Island, New York to Sinah's theater-trained ear.

  "I think they only send them out for skiers."

  Sinah sat back on her haunches to put as much distance between them as she could, but there was no real way to shut out the chaotic spill of his thoughts and feelings when she was this close. She'd need to be at least thirty feet away, and no one could spend their entire life staying thirty feet away from every other human being.

  Wary approval. Assessment, its measuring of factors flashing by faster than verbalization could keep up. She had a sense that he was surprised to be here—as if he had evaded some danger—but whatever peril occupied his thoughts, it was not concrete enough to come to the surface of his mind.

  "Well, I'll just have to manage on my own, then," the man said. She almost had his name, but it flitted from her mental grasp like a recalcitrant goldfish.

  "I'll do what I can. My name's Sinah. What's yours?"

  Musgrave-failures on. "I'm Wycherly Musgrave. Call me Wych."

  A cascade of powerful images accompanied his words—all unpleasant. Sinah never got the option of learning about people slowly, or of discovering the mitigating circumstance. She had it all, and all at once: the North Shore and its Green Mile, hereditary wealth and unmet expectation. Alcoholism. Violence.

  Vicious spoiled drunken rich boy said Wycherly's mind.

  "Let's get you up, then," Sinah said evenly.