I've got the motor running and see if they'll hold a charge. They might not, of course—"
Impulsively, Truth reached out and ruffled his wheat-blond hair. "I think she's got a crush on you, Dylan."
"Ah." Dylan smiled. "All women do, Truth—didn't I warn you about that?" He stepped forward and put his arms around her, and Truth snuggled into his warm solidity, glad to leave the puzzles and problems of the day behind.
She was dreaming. Blackburn's sidhe daughter, Mistress of Shadow's Gate, rode upon the back of the white mare. The red stag bounded ahead, her guide through the Otherworld, and behind her loped the black dog and the grey wolf — tenacity and ferocity; loyalty and cunning. Surrounded by her kindred spirits. Truth searched the Otherworld.
In the dim distance, the sparks of working Blackburn Circles burned bright, and scattered among them like brief candles were the lights of the powerful on other paths: Wiccan covens. White Lodges, the Brotherhood of the Kose. . . .
She was searching for something else.
Abruptly, the white mare was no longer running over the featureless plains of the Otherworld; the animal's legs splashed through the icy water of a running stream, and a wholly realistic forest had sprung up in what had been trackless mist. A leafy branch brushed Truth's cheek, and the red stag was nowhere to be seen.
In the Otherworld, which had no shape save that which human minds gave it, such definition was a warning sign that she was intruding into territory which some entity had made its own. At the same time Truth realized that she was not dreaming — her body might be asleep in Morton's Fork, but her spirit was roving in an equally real though intangible realm, doing what New Agers called "lucid dreaming."
Time to go.
Truth tried to turn her mount, and felt a faint thrill of disquiet when the mare did not even slow her headlong pace. The White Mare was one of the four Guardians of the Gate, servants and protectors of the Gatekeeper — an extension of her will. Her servant should not disobey her like this!
Truth struggled to leave the Otherworld by any means possible: to wake, to dismount. She could not — it was as if she were frozen in place, cut off from her Will and carried forward no matter what her wishes.
no MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY
A moment later she realized why.
Once she had stood beside Thome Blackburn upon a hill of vision, before a Gate barred by spinning sword blades, behind which sidhe armies waited to ride forth into the world of Men. She had closed that Gate and locked it with the force of her intention in a realm where words were made real — but the Gate she had closed was not the only Gate that lay between the pleasant worlds of Men and the dread realms of the Lords of the Outer Spaces.
There was the clash of water upon rocks. Deep in her bones Truth felt its un-governed power — a spinning whirlpool in a turbid river that lured swim.mers to their deaths — and knew that there was no keeper for this Gate. If there were, it would not stand as it did — open to any entrant, able to pass things that should remain safely locked in the world beyond.
"IT IS POWER AND I SHALL HAVE IT."
The symbolic nature of the Otherworld turned the churning whirlpool to a silver snake, a gleaming serpent that struggled vainly in the hands of a tall man who bore the dark aura of a magus about him.
"Leave the Gate alone. It is nothing to do with you," Truth said. He was not the Gatekeeper. The Gates answered only to women; it was women's magic to open or close them.
"IT IS POWER—AND I SHALL HAVE IT," the dark man repeated. Cold flames played about his body, as though he stood on a pyre, and the coldness radiated from him as strongly as heat. Coldness — control — power —
Truth's Guardians had long since vanished, driven from her side by this man's antithetical power. Truth had no choice but to face him alone, to learn why she'd been brought here; to free the serpent, to find the Gate's Keeper if she could —
To close the Gate herself if she could not.
But first, she must put an end to this charade. Summoning all the force of her directed will. Truth sketched a glyph in the air between herself and the dark usurper. It burned as she shaped it; a tangible silver knot; fire against ice.
"I charge you to go from this place; to deliver up what you have seized; by Fire and Air, by Earth living and unliving, by Water and —"
He swept his hand down, and in it was a sword she had not seen before. Her glyph dissolved like smoke.
"Best go back to your kitchen, witch-girl; you've met your match in Quentin Blackburn! By blind Azathoth and the Black Christ: Eno, Abbadnio, lluriel—"
Each of the Names he spoke seemed to swarm out of his mouth like clouds of insects, surrounding Truth and stinging the strength from her limbs. She hadn't rec-
GRAVELIGHT
ognized htm for what he was, and now it was too late: If she couldn't escape this attack she'd pay the price for her bravura.
Truth summoned her power once more, and summoned, too, its animal aspects: dog and wolf, horse and stag. The magus's attention wasn't entirely focused on her: He was wrestling with the serpent he still held, trying to bend the power of the Gate into another weapon to attack her. At the moment that he was most distracted. Truth turned and ran, on foot now in the tangling forest.
She heard a crashing in the underbrush; a moment later she saw the grey wolf pacing her as she ran. The wolf was power, but it was also danger; there was always the possibility that it could turn upon her if she were weak enough. The black dog would never turn upon her, but this more reliable servant would never act independently of her, either.
Behind her, she felt the darkness gathering for another try at her. If Quentin Blackburn — that name! — could make her a sacrifice to the Gate's insatiable appetite, he would have gained further power over it.
And she would be dead.
There was a flash of moon-whiteness through the underbrush ahead, and Truth threw herself against the body of the white mare and twined her fingers through its mane, letting the force of the spirit-animal's flight draw her up onto its back. A few moments later — if such a thing as time could be imputed to the events of the Otherworld — Truth and her Guardians had broken free of the last of the tangled undergrowth, and were running free upon the plains of the Otherworld once more. Quickly Truth dismounted, dismissing her companions, and retreated further, down the spiral stair into manifestation, into matter. . . .
Wycherly's first conscious thought was that nothing hurt. He was wise enough to know that this meant that something ought to hurt, and to He very still until he woke up completely and remembered what it was.
He was lying in his bed in the cabin in Morton's Fork. The sun was up—cautiously he located his left wrist, and moved the arm enough to bring his wristwatch into view. It was the day after he'd gone to bed—he made sure of the date—and a little after noon. His face, his neck, his arms—they all felt raw and stiff. Sunburn, to add to his luck.
Where was Luned? He couldn't remember whether she was supposed to be here or not—or what he'd said to her yesterday. Probably something ghastly—if there was one virtue he could claim, it was consistency.
He risked a more athletic move, and was rewarded with pain that raced like summer lightning across his nerves. Strained muscles—from
the fail yesterday, from the car crash the day before. Wycherly grinned in triumph, pleased to have remembered that much. He wasn't seriously injured, only stiff. If he was careful, he could move without causing himself too much pain. And he needed to see if the ankle—he remembered that too—would bear his weight.
He threw back the covers and looked down. His ankle was the size of a young cantaloupe and mottled with greenish bruises.
He wasn't sure he could walk on that after all.
This is just. . . jolly, Wycherly thought to himself, irritated past emotion. Alone, trapped, unable to move . . .
It might not be as bad as it looked.
He thought longingly of a bath, hot water up to his neck and fresh
clean clothes. Fat chance of that here in this rural retreat. Wycherly sighed. He wasn't sure why coming to stay here had seemed like such a good idea.
Because you're drinking yourself to death. Because you just smashed up yet another car — without insurance — while your license was suspended. Because you need to know . . .
What? Wycherly shook his head. Whatever answers he thought he needed, they certainly weren't to be found here. There wasn't anything in Morton's Fork except poverty, disease, and nothing.
Other than the Addams Family Hotel up there on the hill.
The burnt-out shell of Wildwood Sanatorium—so like present company—was an oddity in an otherwise ordinary area, and Wycherly welcomed the thought of anything that might distract him. He felt as if someone had inserted sand beneath his skin, like the rhinoceros in Kipling's "Just So" story. Soon, if he were unlucky, it wouldn't be sand, but bugs—hallucinations of bugs in his skin, in his clothes, crawling all over the walls—
With effort, Wycherly wrenched his mind away from that unpleasant forecast. It didn't have to happen. Not if he was careful, and prudent. He could start by getting out of bed.
Carefully, wincing and snarling at every motion, Wycherly levered himself upright. He rested his good foot on the floor and then, grabbing the bedframe to steady himself, began to put weight on the bad foot.
No good. Wycherly fell back to the bed, panting. It wouldn't support him. But maybe if he strapped it back up again . . .
"Hello?"
It wasn't Luned. He leaned forward and through the open bedroom door he could see Sinah step through the unlocked front door. She was wearing shorts and a bright sleeveless blouse, and her soft brown hair was pulled back under a scarf, California-style. The round, tortoiseshell-rimmed sunglasses she wore made her look like an archetypal Hollywood actress.
No, not Hollywood . . . Broadway. Recognition was very nearly a tangible weight in his mind.
"Wycherly?" Sinah called again.
The moment she stepped over the threshold Sinah felt as though she'd slipped back in time fifty years. The only stove was a big, black, potbellied monster and the refrigerator looked like something out of an old movie. Its door was hanging open, and there didn't seem to be anything inside but beer. Automatically, Sinah walked over and closed it. The cabin interior was dim, stiflingly hot; she could feel Wycherly's presence, a faint painful turmoil.
"Here," Wycherly's voice called.
Sinah turned and walked into the bedroom, approaching Wycherly with less reluctance than she'd felt yesterday. Any distraction, however unpleasant, was better than sitting and probing her own mind for the traces of Athanais de Lyon.
The bedroom was tiny, furnished in early Sears-Roebuck. An ornate brass bed dominated the room. Wycherly was sitting on the edge of the bed, a fold of sheet thrown across his midsection. Sunburn striped his face and body in random splotches, angry and painful-looking. He stared warily. She felt a sense of failure strong enough to choke her, a paralyzing inadequacy; his reality beat against her mind insistently, drowning out the presence of Athanais de Lyon.
"I came to see how you're doing," Sinah said. Bracing herself, she walked into the proximity that would allow her to feel not only Wycherly's emotions, but his thoughts.
Anger, stupid cow coming back here to meddle Fear. donH let her see me like this Hatred, should have expected it they always do The only thing that would let him function effectively with another person was the one thing he was denying himself Alcohol.
The empathy that was her curse and her gift reached out to him. Better than anyone else on earth, Sinah understood exactly how he felt.
"I'm doing just fine," Wycherly said. There was a pause; Sinah watched as he seemed to realize that something more seemed to be needed. "It wasn't as bad as I'd thought."
"I see," Sinah said, taking another step forward. "Can you stand on it?"
Wycherly glared, unwittingly providing her with the answer. He'd already tried and it hadn't worked out.
"Well, it looks like I showed up just in time," Sinah said, forcing a brightness she did not feel. "I brought some things you might need; Epsom salts, liniment—"
"Give me my clothes." Wycherly's voice was a harsh, peremptory bark. Sinah stopped.
"Do you treat all your good Samaritans this way?" she snapped back.
"It depends on what's in it for you," Wycherly said sullenly.
Sinah laughed shortly. "It must be your body, since it can't be your sweet temper. Look, let's call it a truce, okay? You need help, and I'm willing to donate a few hours to the cause. And after that, I don't care what happens to you."
"Yeah. No one does." The words came out with an edge of self-pity that she could feel he hadn't intended.
"Look. I'm sorry, okay? I'm tired and everything hurts, and besides that, it's damned inconvenient. I just wish I—" Wycherly sighed harshly. "Look, could you get me my clothes? They're on the floor somewhere."
They were, in fact, on the floor at the end of the bed. Sinah picked up the ripped and filthy items with distaste.
"These?"
"They're what there is. My luggage was delayed."
"There's a clean shirt in the other room," Sinah said, tossing him the pants. She went back out into the other room.
The shirt was right where she'd seen it—nice enough once, but now mended with careful rows of stitching. Apparently Mr. Musgrave was hard on his clothes. She went back out to the Jeep for her supplies—and his other shoe. Wycherly's mind-voice faded until it was only a faint mutter in the background, like an oncoming storm.
Her presence here this early in the morning couldn't really be chalked up to altruism. Like a bad movie playing in a constant loop just below the surface of Sinah's mind, Athanais de Lyon was there, and three cen-
turies had not dimmed her avarice—or her malice. Though her enemies were long since dust in their graves, Athanais still wanted revenge.
And Sinah would be her instrument.
No . . . Sinah pressed clammy hands to her temples and closed her eyes tightly, leaning against the Jeep.
It had taken her nearly a year to recoup her fortunes once she'd reached the Maryland Colony and longer to find a spoiled priest that she could bend to her will — one who knew the local dialects and had connections to the savages in the West. . . .
A vision of these mountains—not as they were, but as they had been when only the deer and the Tutelo roamed these hills—burned behind her eyes.
"Stop it," Sinah said aloud. Vm me! Vm me!
And if she wasn't, who was she?
Sinah drew a ragged breath. Was this what happened to all her kind eventually? Was it what had happened to her mother? Sinah closed her eyes tightly, fighting back tears. When you acknowledged that you needed help, help was supposed to arrive. But if she could not find help in Morton's Fork, she did not know where it could be found.
Maybe nowhere.
Meanwhile, the thought of being alone was intolerable. She needed other minds, other thoughts to drown this usurper—and like it or not, Wycherly Musgrave was the only person she could get.
SIX
CRUEL AS THE GRAVE
She is older than the rocks among which she sits: like the vampire,
she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave;
and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen
day about her . . .
— WALTER PATER
WHEN SINAH CAME BACK INSIDE, WYCHERLY HAD HIS
pants on and had made it out to the main room, clutching at a chair.
"Well, you're stubborn, aren't you?" Sinah asked, smiling to take any sting out of her words. His pain and craving beat at the edge of her senses like heavy surf.
"So I've been told," Wycherly drawled. He lowered himself to a chair and began putting on his shirt.
"I know who you are, you know. I saw you in New York, in this little off-Broadway thing. You were playing a woman—" Wycherly pushed his hair b
ack out of his face with both hands, leaving the shirt unbuttoned. "Don't remember the name—but you were wearing this sleeveless pink sundress thing—"
A ridiculous urge to laugh bubbled up in Sinah's chest. There was no point in being irritated when people recognized her—not if she'd chosen to work in a field where notoriety was both the goal and the fate of those
who worked there. But Wycherly Musgrave was the last person she'd have pegged for a fan.
"That's Adrienne. You saw Zero Sum Game. I'm surprised you remember—it closed more than a year and a half ago," Sinah said kindly. "The movie's coming out this December."
"I remember you," Wycherly repeated. He looked away, as if he'd embarrassed himself "Anyway, you said you were an actress yesterday."
"So I did," Sinah agreed blandly. "And what brings you to Morton's Fork, Mr. Musgrave?"
She already knew the answer—as well as he did, anyway, which wasn't very well at all—but it was the sort of oblivious social question that people who weren't freaks asked each other, whether they wanted to know the answers or not.
"I thought it would be quiet," he said, and beneath his words, the thought: '7 came to Casablanca for the waters.''
She smiled—at the unspoken answer, not the one she was supposed to have heard. "If you'd ended up in that river you'd have had a bit more quiet than you cared for," she said. Not to mention water.
Wycherly smiled a twisted smile and didn't answer. But he didn't have to. The words came to her mind as clearly as if he'd spoken them: And how do you know I wouldn't care for it?
"Are you sure you're all right here alone?" Sinah blurted out.
Wycherly turned in his seat and stared at her, his pale eyes a wolf-yellow in the dim light. Under the impetus of Wycherly's mind, Sinah saw herself as he saw her: potential threat. Not even prey—she could deal with that—but as something that had no particular value to his life . . . yet might still cause him trouble.
"And you are?" he said, and meant: Who the hell do you think you are, Little Miss Movie Star? Think you're going to star in some live-action roleplay-ing Beverly Hillbillies-manque at my expense?
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