Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  Someone had conveniently lit torches—the interfering brothers, she concluded gratefully—for there was not one window in this part of the structure, and how could there be? This Greathall was actually inside the belly of the mountain. She shivered, rattled by the idea. She crossed the huge room slowly, drawn by the mysterious double doors set into the wall at the other end. They towered above her, wrapped in bands of steel, and above the arched opening bold letters had been chiseled.

  "Deo non fortuna," she whispered, driven by the same impulse to speak in hushed tones that she'd suffered in Caithness's chapel.

  She pressed against the massive doors and held her breath as they swung inward, revealing the central hall Balder had spoken of. Wide-eyed, she moved forward with the dreamy gait of a sleepwalker, riveted by what lay before her. The flowing lines of the hall commanded the eyes upward, and she pivoted slowly, arching her head back and marveling at the ceiling. Pictures and murals covered the vast expanse, some of them so vibrant and realistic that her hands begged to touch them. A chill coursed through her as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing. Was she gazing up at centuries of the history of the McIllioch? She dragged her gaze downward, only to discover new wonders. The walls of the hall held portraits. Hundreds of them!

  Jillian glided along the wall. It took only a few moments for her to realize she was walking down a historical genealogy, a time line done in portraits. The first pictures were chiseled in stone, some directly into the wall, with names carved be neath them—odd names she couldn't begin to pronounce. As she worked her way down the wall, the methods of depiction became more modern, as did the clothing. It was apparent that much care had been given to repainting and restoring the portraits to maintain their accuracy over the centuries.

  As she progressed down the time line toward the present, the portraits became more graphically detailed, which deepened her growing sense of confusion. Colors were brighter, more painstakingly applied. Her eyes darting between portraits, she moved forward and back again, comparing portraits of children to their subsequent adult portraits.

  She must be mistaken.

  Incredulous, Jillian closed her eyes a minute, then opened them slowly and stepped back a few paces to study an entire section. It couldn't be. Grabbing a torch, she moved nearer, peering intently at a cluster of boys at their mothers' skirts. They were beautiful boys, dark-haired, brown-eyed boys who would certainly grow into dangerously handsome men.

  She moved to the next portraits and there they were again: dark-haired, blue-eyed, dangerously handsome men.

  Eyes didn't change color.

  Jillian retraced her steps and studied the woman in the last portrait. She was a stunning auburn-haired woman with five brown-eyed boys at her skirts. Jillian then moved to her right; it was either the same woman or her identical twin. Five men clustered around her in various poses, all looking directly at the artist, leaving no doubt as to the color of their eyes. Ice blue. The names beneath the portraits were the same. She moved farther down the hall, bewildered.

  Until she found the sixteenth century.

  Unfortunately, the portraits raised more questions than they answered, and she sank to her knees in the hall for a long time, thinking.

  Hours passed before she managed to sort through it all to her satisfaction. When she had, no question remained in her mind—she was an intelligent woman, able to exercise her powers of deductive reasoning with the best of them. And those powers told her that, though it defied her every rational thought, there was simply no other explanation. She was sitting on her knees, clad in a disheveled plaid, clutching a nearly burned-out torch in a hall filled with Berserkers.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 32

  grimm paced the terrace, feeling like a fool. he'd sat across the table and shared food with his da, managing to make civil conversation until Jillian had arrived. Then Ronin had mentioned Jolyn, and he'd felt fury rise up so quickly he'd nearly lunged across the table and grabbed the old man by the throat.

  But Grimm was intelligent enough to realize that much of the anger he felt was at himself. He needed information and was afraid to ask. He needed to talk to Jillian, but what could he tell her? He had no answers himself. Confront your da, his conscience demanded. Find out what really happened.

  The idea terrified him. If he discovered he was wrong, his entire world would look radically different.

  Besides, he had other things to worry about. He had to make certain Jillian didn't discover what he was, and he needed to warn Balder that the McKane were on his heels. He needed to get Jillian somewhere safe before they attacked, and he needed to figure out why he, his uncle, and his da were all Berserkers. It just seemed too coincidental, and Balder kept alluding to information he didn't possess. Information he couldn't ask for.

  "Son."

  Grimm spun around. "Doona call me that," he snapped, but the protest didn't carry its usual venom.

  Ronin expelled a gust of air. "We need to talk."

  "It's too late. You said all you had to say years ago."

  Ronin crossed the terrace and joined Grimm at the wall. "Tuluth is beautiful, isn't she?" he asked softly.

  Grimm didn't reply.

  "Lad, I…"

  "Ronin, did you…"

  The two men looked at each other searchingly. Neither noticed as Balder stepped out onto the terrace.

  "Why did you leave and never come back?" The words burst from Ronin's lips with the pent-up anguish of fifteen years of waiting to say them.

  "Why did I leave?" Grimm echoed incredulously.

  "Was it because you were afraid of what you'd become?"

  "What I became? I never became what you are!"

  Ronin gaped at him. "How can you be sayin' that when you have the blue eyes? You have the bloodlust."

  "I know I'm a Berserker," Grimm replied evenly. "But I'm not insane."

  Ronin blinked. "I never said you were."

  "You did too. That night at the battle, you told me I was just like you," he reminded bitterly.

  "And you are."

  "I am not!"

  "Yes, you are—"

  "You killed my mother!" Grimm roared, with all the anguish built up from fifteen years of waiting.

  Balder moved forward instantly, and Grimm found himself the uncomfortable focus of two pairs of intense blue eyes.

  Ronin and Balder exchanged a glance of astonishment. "That's why you never came home?" Ronin said carefully.

  Grimm breathed deeply. Questions exploded from him, and now that he'd begun asking he thought he might never stop. "How did I get brown eyes to begin with? How come you're both Berserkers too?"

  "Oh, you really are dense, aren't you?" Balder snorted. "Come on, canna you put two and two together yet, lad?"

  Every muscle in Grimm's body spasmed. Thousands of questions collided with hundreds of suspicions and dozens of suppressed memories, and it all coalesced into the unthinkable. "Is someone else my father?" he demanded.

  Ronin and Balder watched him, shaking their heads.

  "Well, then why did you kill my mother?" he roared. "And doona be telling me we're born this way. You may have been born crazy enough to kill your wife, but I'm not."

  Ronin's face stiffened with fury. "I canna believe you think I killed Jolyn."

  "I found you over her body," Grimm persisted. "You were holding the knife."

  "I removed it from her heart." Ronin gritted. "Why would I kill the only woman I ever loved? How could you, of all people, possibly think I could kill my true mate? Could you kill Jillian? Even in the midst of Berserkergang, could you kill her?"

  "Never!" Grimm thundered the word.

  "Then you realize you misunderstood."

  "You lunged for me. I would have been next!"

  "You are my son," Ronin breathed. "I needed you. I needed to touch you; to know you were alive; to reassure myself that the McKane hadn't gotten you too."

  Grimm stared at him blankly. "The McKane? Are you telling me the McKan
e killed mother? The McKane didn't even attack until sundown. Mother died in the morning."

  Ronin regarded him with a mixture of amazement and anger. "The McKane had been waiting in the hills all day. They had a spy among us and had discovered Jolyn was pregnant again."

  A look of horror crossed Grimm's face. "Mother was pregnant?"

  Ronin rubbed his eyes. "Aye. We'd thought she wouldn't bear more children—it was unexpected. She hadn't gotten pregnant since you, and that had been nearly fifteen years. It would have been a late child, but we were so lookin' forward to havin' another—" Ronin broke off abruptly. He swallowed several times. "I lost everythin' in one day," he said, his eyes glittering brightly. "And all these years I thought you wouldn't come home because you dinna understand what you were. I despised myself for havin' failed you. I thought you hated me for makin' you what you are and for not bein' there to teach you how to deal with it. I spent years fightin' my urge to come after you and claim you as my son, to prevent the McKane from trackin' you. You'd managed to pretty effectively disappear. And now… now I discover that all these years I've been watchin' you, waitin' for you to come home, you were hatin' me. You were out there thinkin' I killed Jolyn!" Ronin turned away bitterly.

  "The McKane killed my mother?" Grimm whispered. "Why would they care if she was pregnant?"

  Ronin shook his head and looked at Balder. "How did I raise a son who was so thickheaded?"

  Balder shrugged and rolled his eyes.

  "You still doona get it, do you, Gavrael? What I was tryin' to tell you all those years ago: We—the McIllioch men—we're born Berserk. Any son born of the Laird's direct line is a Berserker. The McKane have hunted us for a thousand years. They know our legends nearly as well as we do. The prophecy was that we would be virtually destroyed, whittled down to three." He waved his arms in a gesture that encompassed the three of them. "But one lad would return home, brought by his true mate, and destroy the McKane. The McIllioch would become mightier than ever before. You are that lad."

  "B-b-born Berserk?" Grimm stuttered.

  "Yes," both men responded in a single breath.

  "But I turned into one," Grimm floundered. "Up on Wotan's Cleft. I called on Odin."

  Ronin shook his head. "It just seemed that way. It was first blood in battle that brought the Berserker out. Normally our sons doona turn until sixteen. First battle accelerated your change."

  Grimm sank to a seat on the wall and buried his face in his hands. "Why did you never tell me what I was before I changed?"

  "Son, it's not like we hid it from you. We started tellin' you the legends at a young age. You were entranced, remember?" Ronin broke off and laughed. "I recall you runnin' around, tryin' to 'become a Berserker' for years. We were pleased you welcomed your heritage with such open arms. Go, go look in the blasted Hall of Lords, Gavrael—"

  "Grimm," Grimm corrected stubbornly, holding on to some part of his identity—any part.

  Ronin continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "There are ceremonies we hold, when we pass on the secrets and teach our sons to deal with the Berserker rage. Your time was approachin', but suddenly the McKane attacked. I lost Jolyn and you left, never once lookin' west to Maldebann, to me. And now I know you were hatin' me, accusin' me of the most vile thing a man could do."

  "We train our sons, Gavrael," Balder said. "Intense discipline: mental, emotional, and physical trainin'. We instruct them to command the Berserker, not be commanded by it. You missed that trainin', yet I must say that even on your own you did well. Without any training, without any understandin' of your nature, you remained honorable and have grown into a fine Berserker. Donna be thrashin' yourself for seein' things at fourteen with the half-opened eyes of a fourteen-year-old."

  "So I'm supposed to repopulate Maldebann with Berserkers?" Grimm suddenly fixated on Ronin's words about the prophecy.

  "It's been foretold in the Hall of Lords."

  "But Jillian doesn't know what I am," Grimm said despairingly. "And any son she has will be just like me. We can never—" He was unable to finish the thought aloud.

  "She's stronger than you think she is, lad," Ronin replied. "Trust in her. Together you can learn about our heritage. It is an honor to be a Berserker, not a curse. Most of Alba's greatest heroes have been our kind."

  Grimm was silent a long time, trying to recolor fifteen years of thinking. "The McKane are coming," he said finally, latching on to one solid fact in an internal landscape deluged by intangibles.

  Both men's eyes flew to the surrounding mountains. "Did you see something move on the mountains?"

  "No. They've been following me. They've tried three times now to take me. They've been on our heels since we left Caithness."

  "Wonderful!" Balder rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation.

  Ronin looked delighted. "How far behind you were they?"

  "I suspect scarcely a day."

  "So they'll be here anytime. Lad, you must go find Jillian. Take her to the heart of the castle and explain. Trust her. Give her the chance to work through things. If you had known the truth years ago, would fifteen years have been wasted?"

  "She'll hate me when she discovers what I am," Grimm said bitterly.

  "Are you as certain of that as you were that I killed Jolyn?" Ronin asked pointedly.

  Grimm's eyes flew to his. "I'm no longer certain of anything," he said bleakly.

  "You're certain you love her, lad," Ronin said. "And I'm certain she's your mate. Never has one of our true mates rejected our heritage. Never."

  Grimm nodded and turned for the castle.

  "Be certain she stays in the castle, Gavrael," Ronin called to his back. "We canna risk her in battle."

  After Grimm had disappeared into Maldebann, Balder smiled. "He dinna try to correct you when you called him Gavrael."

  Ronin's smile was joyous. "I noticed," he said. "Prepare the villagers, Balder, and I'll rouse the guards. We put an end to the feuding today. All of it."

  * * *

  CHAPTER 33

  it was early afternoon whan jullian finnaly rose to her feet in the Hall of Lords. A sense of peace enveloped her as she laid the last of her questions to rest. Suddenly so many things she'd overheard her brothers and Quinn saying when Grimm had been in residence made sense, and upon reflection she suspected a part of her had always known.

  Her love was a legendary warrior who had grown to despise himself, cut off from his roots. But now that he was home and given the time to explore those roots, he might be able to make peace with himself at long last.

  She strolled the hall a final time, not missing the radiant expressions of the McIllioch brides. She stood for a long moment beneath the portrait of Grimm and his parents. Jolyn had been a chestnut-haired beauty; love radiated from her patient smile. Ronin was gazing adoringly at her. In the portrait, Grimm was kneeling before his seated parents, looking like the happiest brown-eyed boy in the world.

  Her hands moved to her belly in a timeless feminine celebration as she wondered what it would be like to bring another boy like Grimm into the world. How proud she would be, and together with Grimm, Balder, and Ronin, they would teach him what he could be, and how special he was—one of Alba's own private warriors.

  "Och, lass, tell me you're not breeding!" a voice filled with loathing spat.

  Jillian's scream ricocheted off the cold stone walls as Ramsay Logan's hand closed on her shoulder in a painful, viselike grip.

  * * * * *

  "I can't find her," Grimm said tightly.

  Ronin and Balder turned as one when he stormed into the Greathall. The guards were ready, the villagers had been roused, and to the last man Tuluth was prepared to fight the McKane.

  "Did you check in the Hall of Lords?"

  "Aye, a brief glance, enough to assure myself she wasn't there." If he'd looked longer he might never have dragged himself back out, so fascinated was he by his previously unknown heritage.

  "Did you search the whole castle?"
r />   "Aye." He buried his hands in his hair, voicing his worst fear. "Is it possible the McKane got in here and took her somehow?"

  Ronin expelled a gust of air. "Anythin's possible, lad. There were deliveries from the village this afternoon. Hell, anyone could have sneaked in with 'em. We've grown a bit lax in fifteen years of peace."

  A sudden cry from the guardhouse compelled their instant attention.

  "The McKane are comin'!"

  * * * * *

  Connor McKane rode into the vale waving a flag of Douglas plaid, which, while it confused most of the McIllioch, filled Grimm with rage and fear. The only piece of Douglas plaid a McKane could have obtained was the one from Jillian's body. She'd worn the blue and gray fabric at breakfast only this morning.

  The villagers were bristling to fight, eager to demand satisfaction for the loss of their loved ones fifteen years past. As Ronin prepared to order them forward, Grimm laid a restraining hand on his arm.

  "They have Jillian," he said in a voice that sounded like death.

  "How can you be sure?" Ronin's gaze flew to his.

  "That's my plaid they're waving. Jillian was wearing it at breakfast."

  Ronin closed his eyes. "Not again," he whispered. "Not again." When he opened his eyes, they burned with the inner fire of determination. "We won't lose her, lad. Bring the McKane laird forward," he commanded the guard.

  The McIllioch troops emanated hostility but drew back to permit his approach. When Connor McKane drew up in front of Ronin he scowled. "I knew you'd heal from the battle-ax, you devil, but I didn't think you'd recover so well from me killing your pretty whore of a wife." Connor bared his teeth in a smile. "And your unborn child."

  Although Ronin's hand fisted around his claymore, he didn't free the sword. "Let the lass go, McKane. She has nothin' to do with us."

  "The lass may be breeding."

  Grimm went rigid on Occam's back. "She's not," he countered coolly. Surely she would have told him!