Gravelight

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  And there wasn't a wizard's cave up on the mountain that demanded human sacrifices every summer when the moon was full.

  But there was.

  She knew there was. And until she gave it its due sacrifice, no one was safe.

  No one was safe at all.

  "I had a bad night," Sinah said, in answer to Truth's look of shock at her appearance. She knew she looked terrible—the chameleon who'd dazzled producers and audiences with her charisma was revealed at last as a wan little hedge-wren, all her illicit fairy glamour stripped away. A few hours ago she'd managed to pull on last night's discarded clothes, but they hung on her, slovenly and unkempt, as though she'd somehow lost a dozen pounds between yesterday and today. She hadn't even been able to manage perfunctory makeup.

  "Come in," Sinah said dutifully, though every word was an effort.

  "Sinah, I'd like to introduce my colleague, Dr. Dylan Palmer. Dylan s going to accompany us up to the sanatorium this morning, strictly as an observer," Truth said.

  "Sure." She was too tired to argue; too tired even to be surprised that she had not known he was there. Her Gift was gone. Wearily she turned away from them and headed in the direction of the kitchen. Maybe a good cup of strong coffee would lend her the energy she lacked.

  Behind her, Truth and Dylan stared at each other blankly for a moment, then Truth stepped into the house and Dylan followed, shutting the door behind him.

  "Was she like this when you left last night?" Dylan asked.

  "No," Truth said, frowning in the direction of the noises coming from the kitchen. "Upset, certainly—that was an ugly scene with Wycherly— but calm."

  "Did he come back last night, I wonder?" Dylan asked.

  There was a crash from the kitchen.

  When they got there, it was to find Sinah kneeling on the floor, weeping hopelessly. The shattered remains of the glass coffeepot she'd filled— then dropped—were spattered across the brick floor.

  Truth and Dylan exchanged a quick look of agreement, then Truth guided Sinah back out into the living room while Dylan cleaned up the mess in the kitchen.

  "What is it?" Truth asked, kneeling in front of Sinah and looking up into her face.

  Sinah's skin was nearly the color of the pale-oyster leather couch on which she sat. All the color, the vibrancy, which Truth had seen in her yesterday was gone, and she seemed to have aged ten years overnight.

  "Is it Wycherly? Did he come back? Did he hurt you?" But Truth's own wards gave no hint of any active magical tampering around Sinah— only the faint aura of linked power that marked her as one of the Gatekeepers.

  "No. I haven't . . . seen Wycherly." The words were dragging, weary, and when Truth took Sinah's hands in hers the fingers were icy cold.

  "Are you all right?" Truth asked again. Sinah seemed almost as if she

  was in shock, yet without the overlay of emotional agitation that Truth would expect.

  "I know he thinks he killed that girl, Luned," Sinah said in a low voice. "But he didn't kill her—I did. Because I didn't do what I was supposed to do—I killed her. Me." And no matter how many deaths there were, they would not be enough if the Great Sacrifice was not made: one of the bloodline, one of her kin . . .

  Truth put her arms around Sinah. The room was not overcooled, but Sinah's body was chill, and she shuddered as if she were in the grip of a fever.

  'Tm so tired," Sinah whispered against Truth's cheek. "I just want to die. ..."

  Truth held her tightly, knowing there was nothing she could say that would ease Sinah's black depression. It was the Gate, she told herself. Things would be better once they'd faced it.

  "I made coffee," Dylan said, coming into the living room with a mug in each hand. He looked from Truth to Sinah and raised his eyebrows inquiringly. Truth shrugged, minutely.

  "And if you're willing to turn me loose in your kitchen, I can guarantee an extravagant breakfast," Dylan added. "You look like you could use a good meal." He held out the mug invitingly.

  With an effort painful to see, Sinah drew herself together and smiled at him. "What's that they say, Dr. Palmer? You can never be too rich or too thin?"

  She took the mug, and drank down the steaming liquid as though it were tap water.

  "Ugh," she said, setting the empty cup on the coffee table. "What's in that?" But a little color had come back to her cheeks, and she looked more substantial.

  "Strong coffee, lots of sugar, and a splash of cream. Good for what ails you," Dylan said cheerfully. "Feeling a little better?"

  Sinah made a face. "Yes. I think so. And I think I'll take you up on that offer of breakfast, Dr. Palmer."

  "Please. Call me Dylan."

  While Dylan cooked, Sinah disappeared to shower and change, reappearing just as Dylan slid the first omelet out of the pan. She'd changed to

  natural cotton jeans and a sleeveless coral linen blouse and her hair was held back by a matching coral silk scarf. She'd also added a deft touch of makeup. Yet underneath that careful camouflage, Truth could see that nothing had really changed at all. Sinah Dellon was a woman nearly at the end of her tether.

  Truth had set the table while Dylan cooked, finding the dishes and utensils in the neat kitchen without trouble. Now she and Sinah settled into their places while Dylan served.

  "Omelets—and fresh biscuits—and coffee not mucked up with all that sugar; you'll make some woman a perfect husband some day," Sinah joked, raising the mug to her lips.

  "I already have, I hope. Truth and I are engaged; we'll be getting married in December."

  Will we? Truth carefully did not look toward him, knowing her face would betray things she did not want him to see. She forced a smile and concentrated on her eggs.

  "That's wonderful," Sinah said dutifully. She'd taken a biscuit, and was methodically crumbling it onto her plate, without eating it.

  Breakfast went quickly—Dylan really was a good cook—and between them, the two researchers managed to bully Sinah into eating at least half her omelet. Truth cleared away the dishes—Dylan had cooked, after all—and was just returning from stacking them in the dishwasher when she heard him say:

  "Do you have any questions or reservations about what we're going to do here today? You don't have to do this, you know."

  He was sitting next to Sinah, his hand over hers.

  "But I thought ..." Sinah sounded bewildered.

  "Yes, she does," Truth said, her voice hard. She strode toward the table.

  Both of them turned toward her. Truth held back her fury with an effort—though if she summoned the lightning to strike Dylan dead this instant, it would not only serve him out for his meddling, but give Sinah proof that the Unseen World was real.

  "I thought we'd agreed that you were here as an observer, Dylan," Truth said. "Sinah has already agreed that what she needs to do is go up to Wildwood with me to try to close the Gate."

  "Has she?" Dylan asked. "I'd like to hear that from her."

  / will never forgive you this, Dylan, Truth thought with icy anger. She

  had never tampered with his work, and now he was meddling in this most dangerous, most vital task of hers.

  But Sinah was looking at Dylan with a strange smile on her face, an expression that transformed it until Sinah appeared almost to be another woman entirely.

  "You think it isn't there, don't you? You think your leman is chasing shadows, don't you, city boy? You're wrong. It's there. Come and see it."

  It was as if someone else had stepped in to Sinah's body. Her voice held a mocking lilt, and the vowels were blurred and stretched into a kind of English accent Truth had never heard before.

  "Come and see," Sinah said, and laughed.

  Disassociation. Multiple personalities, Truth thought automatically. But hearing her. Truth felt a small thrill of fear. She'd taken it utterly for granted that Sinah would be her ally the next time she faced the power of the Gate.

  But what if Sinah had something different in mind?

  FOURTEEN


  THE NATURE OF THE GRAVE

  In ev'ry grave make room, make room! The world's at an end, and we come, we come. — SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT

  there'd been a four-wheel-drive vehicle parked in Sinah's driveway last night, but Truth saw no evidence of it this morning. It meant that they were forced to use Truth's rented sedan for the drive up to the ruined sanatorium. When they reached the battered iron gates, Truth switched off the ignition.

  "This is as far as we go by car. The road gets pretty rough from here on. I don't think the car can make it."

  Dylan and Sinah got out of the car without comment. Truth went around to the trunk to retrieve her bag of working tools. She wasn't sure what help they'd be, but she felt better for having them with her.

  "Look, Truth—" While Sinah loitered near the ruined pillars, Dylan had come around the back of the sedan to join Truth.

  "Get away from me." Truth's tone was deadly. She did not even glance toward him. "You're here to observe? Observe. And keep your mouth shut."

  I

  GRAVELIGHT 25I

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Dylan recoil, saw the tardy awareness of the irrevocable insult he'd dealt her appear in his eyes. His mouth went hard, bracketed by white lines of tension, but he said nothing more. Truth walked past him as if he didn't exist.

  "It's a nice day for a walk, isn't it?" Truth asked Sinah when she reached her.

  Though it was still morning, the air was luminous with mist, promising a high, hazy, August scorcher to come. The colors were much brighter than they had been on the rainy evening Truth had visited here—today the green of the surrounding undergrowth seemed especially brilliant, almost electric. Each breath brought the mingled sensuous smells of decay and growth, of fresh earth and growing things.

  "I guess so. I just want to . . ." Sinah shrugged.

  "Come on then," Truth said, taking her arm. The two women began to walk up the overgrown drive, toward the sanatorium itself.

  The trees that had grown up—volunteered, in the local vernacular— among what had once been rolling lawns were fewer than Truth would have expected. She saw the white marble bench that she'd become so familiar with on her last visit sitting alone in a ring of deer-cropped grass; beyond it was a sundial, tipped on its side. Ahead she could see the gap in the trees that indicated the sanatorium building itself.

  As she and Sinah came closer, first grass, then trees, then underbrush dwindled away, until they walked over a flagstoned drive laid in the midst of sterile brown earth covered only by drifts of fallen leaves and the dried twigs and fallen branches left by winter storms. Truth stopped and looked around.

  "It's as if it were . . . blighted, somehow," Dylan said softly.

  And that wasn't right. Truth thought, puzzled. The Gates were the Gates of Life Itself—they should be surrounded by abundance, not sterility.

  Ahead, the few remaining pieces of the bearing walls reared up into the sky. Eighty years of wind and rain had done their work upon the stone, but there was none of the softening and erosion that plant life would have caused. The site stood as stark and sterile as if it were a palace on the moon. Gingerly, Truth ascended the broad steps to the archway in which had once hung an ornate door.

  "Careful," Sinah warned her.

  Truth gazed out over the enormous ruin. The scope of the destruction was breathtaking; the sanatorium looked as though it had been bombed, not burned. In its heyday, it must have been magnificent.

  "Quentin said he was going to make it the grandest spa there ever had been," Sinah said in an odd remote voice, this time with the flattened accent of the hills.

  Truth glanced toward her. Sinah's mouth was drawn, her face almost masklike. Truth wondered what the other woman was experiencing, but kept her own shields firmly in place. She did not want to confront the power of the Wildwood Gate until the moment she meant to challenge it, lest she be drained by fending off its strength.

  "Where do we go from here?" Truth asked. To her left she could see Dylan working his way around the edge of the ruin, as if he were looking for something. So long as he stayed away from her, she didn't care what he did, Truth told herself. She turned back to Sinah.

  "Down. We have to go down inside—to the Black Altar."

  Truth followed Sinah as the younger woman picked her way carefully around the exposed edge of the basement's crumbling ruin to the black marble stairway that led down into the hidden sub-basement. She was aware that Dylan followed them, but did not let the knowledge penetrate her concentration. There was no room for ego here in the presence of such power.

  Truth's psychic walls had never been meant to stand against the power of the Gate itself, a force so much a part of her that to deny it was like denying her own nature. By the time she and Sinah reached the deepest level of the ruins, Truth felt as if she were moving underwater, as giddy and detached as if she'd been sniffing nitrous oxide.

  She reached out and took Sinah's hand, and felt Sinah's fingers cold and trembling within her clasp. Though Truth knew from experience that telepaths did not like to be touched, Sinah's hand tightened over hers, as though any human presence was a comfort in this place.

  It was cool and dark here so far below the surface, where the warmth and light of the sun so rarely penetrated. The leaves of fourscore autumns had been ground to a soft, pale dust beneath their feet, and lay like strangely colored snowdrifts in every corner. The exposed brick and pipe on the walls above their heads gave both women the curious feeling of be-

  ing behind the scenes, as though some great and secret show were taking place just out of sight.

  Sinah did not need to tell her where to go. Truth could feel the Gate, as though the two of them walked on very thin ice indeed across the surface of a maelstrom of enormous power.

  "It's there," Sinah said. She pointed.

  In the dimness it was hard to make out any details, but for Truth it was as if her astral sight overlay the real world, outlining everything in sharp silver fire. She could see the altar Sinah had spoken of, and behind it the cave opening, and the steps leading down to the spring in the rock below. The entire sanatorium had been built directly over this spot.

  Just as Shadow's Gate was. Did Quentin Blackburn have any more idea than Thome did of what he faced here?

  She heard the sound of a footstep scraping over the powdered leaves, and knew that Dylan had joined them.

  "What do I have to do?" Sinah said. Her voice sounded young and frightened.

  "You'll need to open yourself to the Gate," Truth said. It seemed that a wind only she could feel was rising, catching both of them up in it. "Just relax. I'll be right with you. There are some words that you should say, but your intent will be the most important thing."

  Truth kept her voice soothing, lulling, and saw the other woman begin to relax. "It isn't for us to tamper with the Wellspring," Sinah said breathlessly.

  "But you won't be," Truth said, encouragingly. "You've always asked it for favors, haven't you? Now you're just asking it to close. Don't think you're here to force it against its nature. No one has that kind of strength."

  "All right." Sinah reached out her hands, and now she and Truth stood facing each other, holding hands directly above the Wellspring. Truth reached out with her mind, matching her energy field with Sinah's and using it to gently pull Sinah with her into the Otherworld.

  "What is this place?" Sinah stared around herself.

  She was alone. The sky was grey, the ground was grey, everything was grey and light less, except that she could still see.

  She wasn't sure what she'd expected — all she had to go on were her ancestral memories, but whatever they had led her to expect, it wasn't. . . this.

  She was standing in the middle of a graveyard. Shattered and broken tombstones, laid out in no recognizable pattern, stretched as far as the eye could see. The stones seemed to rise up toward the top of a hill, and on its summit was a lifeless, twisted oak tree, its trunk only a darker shade of grey than t
he surroundings. Its branches reached toward the sky like the broken hands of torture victims.

  "Truth?" Sinah whispered. ''Dylan?"

  No response came. She looked down at her hands — she was as grey as this eerie landscape, as colorless, and as doomed.

  Her nerve broke. Her ancestresses had believed devoutly in the pains of Hell, and now Sinah ran as if the jaws of Hell pursued her — as if this nightmare had a finite area, something she could outrun.

  The ground was soft and unpleasantly springy beneath her feet. There was no movement to the air, as though this place, for all its seeming vastness, was actually locked somewhere inside a very small box, away from light and life and air. The tombstones made an obstacle course to her flight; she collided with them and bounced off them, the pain of the impact telling her that this was no dream or hallucination, that this was somehow a real place that she had come to.

  At last, winded and staggering, Sinah tripped over a tree root — how could she have? there were no trees save the one in this awful place — and fell sprawling. When she looked up, she found herself upon the steps of a vast and ruined cathedral she had not seen before.

  "Truth?" Sinah whimpered again. Truth, please come help me, I'm all alone here and I'm so frightened. . . .

  At last it occurred to her to reach out for the power of the Wellspring, to draw upon it to defend herself just as generations of Del Ions always had. But it didn't work — instead of the pure cold light, inhuman in its power, what she touched was foul, unclean, as noxious as apiece of maggoty meat.

  "Welcome, Child of the Sacred Spring."

  Sinah turned toward the voice, welcoming the sound — any sound — in this dead silent place . . . until she saw what had made it.

  The doors of the cursed cathedral were open, and in its dim recesses she could see a crude altar formed from a shapeless lump of stone. Upon it crouched the thing that had spoken — huge and horned and goat like, yet horrible in the way no animal could be. She felt its hunger like an assault, and scrabbled backward on hands and knees. Where was the Gate Truth had said she must lock? Where was the Wellspring she must guard?