“Stay safe, for the love of Bride,” she murmured, and slipped away, gripping his main-gauche like a talisman against evil.
By now, her eyes had adjusted to the dim light. She picked her way carefully along the rough floor, seeking any crevice that could offer some hidden escape. Indeed, as she crept farther from the entrance, the cave seemed not to be growing darker. A diffuse silver light, like the glow of a cloudy morning, thinned the darkness, giving her hope that she might indeed find another exit.
Pulse quickening, still wary, she slipped around a bend and squeezed through a narrow passage. Here, for certain, it was growing brighter—
A rough-walled chamber opened before her, clusters of stalactites dripping from the high ceiling. The walls glistened with mica, as though someone had thrown handfuls of glittering silver dust over the stone. Clusters of faceted quartz, ranging in color from pale rose to milky white, glowed along the walls.
But it wasn’t the hidden chamber’s uncanny beauty that stole her breath, nor clenched her belly like a knotted fist.
For that, she blamed the mirror.
It stood on its pedestal overlooking the chamber, a tall gleaming oval of polished glass mounted in a silver frame, its surface opaque as milk. Radiance spilled from it to illuminate the chamber until the crystal walls seemed to breathe, alive and astir with light.
Her mother’s voice whispered in her memory.
“’Tis an awesome gift...even pure-blooded Fae can only walk between worlds where the Veil is present. Ye can go places none of us can venture—enchanted lands that have receded so far into the mists even the Fae can’t find them.”
A portal then, placed on the shifting border of the Summer Lands. Where might such a mirror take her if she led Zamiel into it?
For she knew by instinct this glass was no common magick. It pulsed with power, breathed it, hummed with energy she could feel in her bones. The lesser mirror she’d encountered was a mere trinket in comparison.
Cold fear prickled her skin, but her belly fluttered with unsettling anticipation. When she’d gone into the first mirror, its magick had enveloped her like a warm embrace. She’d felt safe, sheltered, secure in the power that thrummed through her. In a great mirror such as this, mighty talisman of the magick that was her Faerie birthright, what more might she feel? What might she be empowered to do?
With a start, Linnet realized she stood directly before the glass. She must have approached it unknowing, drawn by the siren song of magick that hummed in her blood. She gripped a nearby pillar—a cluster of pale citrine as tall as her shoulder—as though she might stumble into the mirror by mistake.
With fear and wonder, she gazed into the glass.
Before her, the swirling mist parted. A graceful shape took form—a broad silver chalice, glowing softly, clear light spilling like water from its depths. The light soothed her like a mother’s lullaby, the promise of solace and healing and peace.
Her indrawn breath sounded like the sea in the hushed chamber. By instinct, she fell to her knees and crossed herself. At the Christian gesture, the floor trembled. A fine dust of glittering mica cascaded down like snow. The crystal walls seemed to sing around her, in a pitch just beyond human hearing.
Could it be the Grail she beheld, floating beyond the timeless mists, the sacred cup Christ raised at the Last Supper? Could this possibly be the holy chalice He’d consecrated to share the Sacrament of Communion—the Catholic Church’s most hallowed rite?
“Sweet mercy,” she whispered, her throat aching. “How am I worthy of this?”
“You’re more worthy of that vision than any creature I know,” someone murmured behind her.
Gasping, Linnet scrambled to her feet. A spike of alarm drove every whisper of reverence from her head.
Behind her stood a woman, a tall, willowy goddess clad in a kirtle of deep crimson. A river of black hair spilled to her hips beneath the circlet that banded her brow. Bold beauty stamped her strong features, and her black eyes glowed with infinite power.
Both the sickle-shaped knife at her belt and the silver crescent at her throat were strikingly familiar.
The midwife Modron, her mother’s long-ago friend, had worn such a knife. And so had the gypsy girl Morgause.
Even as the thought struck her, the statuesque form rippled and altered, thickening into the seasoned midwife in the autumn of life, then slimming to become the fresh-faced girl in her salad days.
“I am Maiden, Mother and Crone,” she said in her low, resonant voice, and resumed once more her own voluptuous body. “Like the Goddess herself, whose priestess I am.”
With that, Linnet knew her.
“Morrigan,” she whispered.
The priestess inclined her head. “No doubt you’ve heard endless calumnies of me, for I am much maligned. My half sister Rhiannon, in particular, has always misunderstood my motives and thought the very worst of me. In truth, I want no more than you want—a land united under the peaceful rule of my Deity. Am I to be called witch and monster for that?”
A land united under Morrigan, the voice of the Goddess. The woman’s ambitions were rather more personal than she implied. Although Linnet had never known the witch as her friend Rhiannon had done, she recalled well enough the purpose Morrigan had proclaimed before all the Faerie court. She longed to wear the double crown no sovereign had worn since Arthur’s time, and queen it over Fae and mortal realms.
Wordlessly Linnet shook her head. She could not be drawn into fruitless debate, when neither of them would waver. Time was too dear for that, with Zamiel awaiting her return, fighting for both their lives.
“Ye’ve caused a fine clishmaclaver,” she said, “to bring me here. Ye bewitched me to erase my memory, so I’d not recall the trouble ye caused, so I’d be blind and powerless when ye made yer move. Ye herded me from London to yer wee wagon in the woods. Ye flung me at yer mirror so we’d come to Tintagel, where my ever-loving mother waited to make yer case. Now ye’ve herded me here, to this cave. Or was that my brother’s doing?”
Morrigan’s lush mouth tightened with distaste. “Jasper Norwood was a nuisance whose petty ambitions and tiresome erotic fantasies were none of my doing, I assure you. Thanks to his time in the Summer Lands and certain talismans he acquired there, he was well warded against Faerie magick. Else I should have been rid of him long since.”
Linnet tilted her head, uncertain whether to believe her. “What is it ye want from me then?”
“I want you to be Queen.” Morrigan spread her hands, a gesture that drew the eye to the silver rings banding her smallest fingers. A Faerie glamour, she recalled, that dimmed the Fair Folk’s bright beauty, allowing them to pass among mortals. Modron had worn such rings, and no doubt Morgause had too beneath her cloth wrappings.
Well was she called mistress of illusion.
“I want you to rule at my side, Linnet Norwood. Or shall I call you Linnet Tudor, heir to Henry Tudor and James Stuart? I want you as my ally, queen of these mortal isles, as I am Queene of the Summer Lands—an alliance to usher in a golden age of peace and prosperity for mortal and Fae.”
Morrigan sighed. “And for that dream of peaceful coexistence, I am reviled.”
“’Tis a fine dream, aye, if the Tudors and Stuarts had no proper heirs,” Linnet pointed out. “But they do—and me no more than a jumped-up bastard England would never accept, unless ye’ve the power to glamour the whole isle. What’s more, I’ve no ambition to rule more than my own rightful lands. Ye could have simply asked me, aye? I’d have told ye straight out.”
The other woman gestured, conceding the point rather too easily.
“Perhaps you’re correct, child, and I’ve been too indirect. ’tis a failing of mine, I fear. But I did want you to gaze into the mirror, and discover whether indeed you possessed the power—as I suspected—to walk between worlds. Thanks to my efforts, you came into your magick.”
Involuntarily Linnet glanced toward the mirror, where the silver chalice pulsed softly in a
sea of mist. “Is that—what I think it is?”
“Yes and no.” Morrigan glided forward to lay her long hand on the frame. “One of the ancient Mysteries we study on Avalon is that all the Gods are one God. For you, a Christian, this is the Holy Grail, as it was for Galahad and all Arthur’s knights. For them, this was the sacred vision that sundered the fellowship of the Round Table and scattered Arthur’s strength to the four winds—a fatal weakening from which he never recovered.”
That was true, as far as it went. As a child in love with Faerie tales, her only escape from the Purgatory of her life, Linnet had pored over the rich verses of the Arthur legend in Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur and other wondrous tales. The Grail had torn the Knights of the Round Table asunder.
But it was Morrigan’s son, the bastard Mordred, who challenged his father’s kingship on the mist-wrapped shore of the Summer Sea.
“For me,” Morrigan resumed, “as a priestess of Avalon and the Goddess, this is Her chalice—one of the high holies, a sacred Hollow. Arthur’s blade Excalibur, the sword of fire, is another. In either guise, under any name, the chalice is the Cup of Truth. Any man or woman who drinks from the Sacred Well will see hidden truths revealed.”
Linnet gazed in wonder at the glowing vessel. She trusted Morrigan not at all, but no evildoer could counterfeit the profound sense of solace that flowed from the blessed image.
Surely it was sacrilege to foul the sacred relic with human lips. In Grail lore, those who drank from the Cup—like Sir Galahad, the only Arthurian knight to succeed in his quest—were seized with such heavenly rapture they died of it.
Linnet was well content to gaze upon the Grail—if Grail it was—from afar.
Yet, as she looked into the mirror, she became aware of its subtle pull, the same sort of magick that had drawn her into Morgause’s enchanted glass. This portal was a greater power, crafted of rare and priceless glass framed in silver, while the lesser mirror had been only polished steel bound by wood.
Such a thing of beauty this was. She found herself raising a hand to touch it.
Shivering, she clasped her hands firmly behind her back.
“This is a powerful mirror, aye?” she asked.
“The greatest ever made,” Morrigan said softly. “This is the Faerie Glasse, crafted by the Faerie Queene herself. Through it, only one with your specific magick may pass.”
“Where do they go?” Despite her resolve to keep clear of the thing, a reluctant fascination tugged at her. No doubt of it, something in this glass called to her.
“They pass through the Glasse unto realms that have drifted so far from this plane, receded so far past the Veil they are myth even in the Summer Lands. Forgotten realms that have sunken beneath the waves like Atlantis, Hy Brasil, Ys...and the nearest of these, lost in Arthur’s time, only a thousand years past—the City of Lions, lost Lyonesse.”
A current rippled through Morrigan’s rich voice as she spoke the ancient names. These legends, too, Linnet been raised upon, drinking them in with her mother’s milk.
In the old lays, Lyonesse was the land where tragic Sir Tristan loved his king’s lady, fair Isolde. Too, it was the land where Arthur fought Mordred to the death. No wonder Morrigan was moved by it—the place where her son died, the death of all her hopes.
“Only through the Faerie Glasse,” the witch murmured, gazing into its depths with naked longing, “may these ancient lands be visited. And only by those who possess the gift of Passing, as you do—one of the rarest of all Her gifts. It has not been seen among us in generations, child. That is why you are so precious.”
“Ye don’t have it, this gift?” Surprised, Linnet tore her eyes away from the mirror, a connection surprisingly difficult to break. “Rhiannon said ye were the greatest witch in the Summer Lands.”
“I’m a priestess, not a witch,” she said curtly. “My sister has never understood the difference. But aye, my gifts are illusion, herb-lore and foresight. I am, first and foremost, a seer. And my visions come from the Goddess, for her glory, not my own petty gratification.”
She said more in this vein, about her devotion to the Goddess, the need to restore the balance between Christian and pagan.
But Linnet’s attention had slipped back to the enchanted oval and the glowing chalice that floated there—wide and round as a bowl, mist swirling from its depths. The floor of the cave seemed to tilt toward it. She found she’d drifted several steps closer to the relic, just to avoid losing her balance on the steeply sloping ground.
Be careful, aye? she admonished. Ye don’t want to slide into the thing.
Resolute, she stepped back, but her heel came down on a stone that rolled beneath her feet, pitching her forward instead. Alarmed, she flung out a hand and caught the silver frame, warm and soft as butter beneath her fingers. It pulsed with hidden energy like the beating of a secret heart. The glass was close enough to touch, foggy with the vapor of her breath.
Confused, unsettled, terribly drawn to the ensorcelled thing, she blurted, “I don’t want to—”
Morrigan’s voice sounded low in her ear. “Yes, you do.”
The hard push against her lower back caught Linnet by surprise. Reeling forward, she reached to catch herself, but her outstretched palms sank into the mirror’s surface as through empty air.
She felt herself falling forward into the portal and screamed.
At the last instant, a hand closed around her ankle, and she felt the sudden tug of weight. Wildly she kicked out at it, but could not break the stubborn grip. Yet the Power that had seized her would not be denied.
The magick dragged both of them forward and hurtled them into the void.
* * *
Zamiel was running, leaping from boulder to boulder, darting around outcroppings in the shadowy cave that seemed to jump out at him from nowhere.
One moment he’d been stationed at the entrance, gamely fending off various half-hearted sorties from Jasper’s men. He’d no idea what the man must have told them, but he’d heard scattered mentions of Faerie gold and supposed the idiots had some notion Linnet could be ransomed for it, or knew where some was hidden.
Still, they were no match for a well-motivated former Dominion like himself. He’d enjoyed scattering mayhem among them, but began to grow bored with the business, and likewise sensed their own enthusiasm for the venture waning.
Give it another few minutes, and—
He heard nothing and saw nothing, but the sudden certainty invaded his mind that Linnet was in danger.
Mortals often exhibited a maddening reluctance to follow their instincts, but Zamiel felt no such hesitation. He imagined Gabriele, unable to manifest without moonlight, leaning forward from Heaven to whisper in his ear.
And he was off, leaving Jasper’s ruffians to make what they would of it, tearing through the subterranean gloom of the cavern, knowing Linnet’s very life depended on his speed.
He found the narrow passage without difficulty, drawn to the pale unnatural light spilling from its depths. He bulled through the opening, leather jerkin scraping roughly against the stone, and exploded into the hidden chamber in time to see the mirror swirling with silver light, Linnet stumbling toward it, and the tall black-haired woman in her crimson kirtle—the woman who must be Morrigan—pushing her into it.
Howling, Zamiel sprang forward, knowing all the while that he’d be too late to prevent her. Dread seized his heart in a crushing fist.
Linnet would vanish, she could go anywhere, utterly beyond his reach or Heaven’s. She would need him, and he wouldn’t come, and both of them would be utterly alone.
Despair ripped his heart asunder, no less powerful than the divine grief that rent the curtain of the Temple at the death of Christ. Blind with anguish, he turned his face toward Heaven and cried out to the only source of light and hope and comfort he’d ever known, until Linnet.
“JEHOVAH...”
A Force like a great wave swept him up, high as a mountain, vast and unstoppable as
the sea, and sent him hurtling forward.
Zamiel caught a fleeting glimpse of Morrigan’s white face turning toward him in dismay, hands clapped over her ears while the Holy Name echoed around her, as he catapulted past. Ahead, Linnet was vanishing into the mirror’s misty depths, her scream unraveling in the empty space between worlds.
Summoning every iota of his God-given strength, he flung himself toward the mirror, extended full length and reaching...
An instant before he would have crashed into the glass, his hand closed around Linnet’s ankle. Zamiel clung like grim death to the woman he loved as the magick swept them into darkness.
Chapter Eighteen
Someone was calling her name, low and urgent, and Linnet had the feeling he’d been calling for some time. But it was hard to hear through the ringing in her ears. Her entire body was vibrating like the great bell at St. Paul’s, every bone in her body aching, her mouth dry as cloth.
“Linnet?” Now she recognized Zamiel’s voice, desperate, even anguished. “For the love of God! Can you hear me?”
Don’t do that, she thought muzzily. Call on God, and ye’ll bring the roof down.
Yet the hard surface beneath her remained reassuringly steady. She spread her palms across the warm stone. The briny smell of the sea filled her nostrils, subtly different from the salt tang of the Cornish coast. Damp air brushed her skin and stirred loose tendrils around her face.
“My dearest love, can you hear me?” His voice again, tender in her ear. She gave a little sigh. If only she were his dearest love.
The warm tickle of breath, scented with wine and cloves, caressed her cheek. Then his mouth covered hers—a kiss that made her tingle, goose bumps rising on her skin, like a Holy Sacrament. She gasped and opened her eyes.
Against the brittle blue of a summer sky, Zamiel’s face filled her vision, silken black hair streaming down on either side. Indigo eyes burned like coals in his ashen face as he peered anxiously at her. But what amazed her was—
“Yer face,” she rasped. She cupped his cheek and marveled as the rough velvet of whiskers scraped her fingers. “Ye’re growing a beard!”
Laura Navarre - [The Magick Trilogy 02] Page 29
