Ysabel

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  Impulsively, he said, “Why did you put that skull and the other thing under the cathedral?”

  Cadell looked at him. He actually seemed surprised. “Why do you think I did?”

  “I have no idea why you did it.”

  “No, I mean, why do you think it was me?”

  Ned felt himself flushing. “Well, I mean . . .”

  “He told you I did?”

  This kept happening with these two. He could never get his balance. Now he was trying to remember if Phelan had actually said so, in as many words.

  “He led us to think so.”

  “And why would I have done something like that?”

  “To . . . to bait him. Because he was searching for you?”

  “Down there? Really?”

  Ned swallowed.

  “There’s been nothing there for a thousand years,” Cadell said.

  “So . . . so what would he have . . . ?”

  “He wanted to bring you in. Obviously.”

  “It isn’t obvious at all.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “But why?”

  “He sensed you, read you as someone linked to this world.”

  “Before I knew it myself? ’Cause I had never—”

  “That can happen.” It was his aunt, interjecting. “Happened with me that way. Someone knew me before I understood anything.”

  “But why would he want me?” Ned protested.

  Cadell’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “He looks for ways to balance matters.”

  “He threatened us with his knife!”

  “One of his knives,” Cadell said dryly.

  “He never once asked for . . . he never . . .” It was hard to form thoughts suddenly, cause words to make sense. He was trying to replay that first morning in his mind, and he couldn’t.

  “The Roman? Ask for something?” Cadell was still amused. “That he would never do. He sets events in motion, and takes what he can use.”

  “He said you like to play games.”

  “That’s true enough.”

  “He kept telling me to stay away. That there was no role for me.”

  The smile remained. “Do you know a better way to draw a young man? To anything?”

  Ned felt anger surge. “The dogs outside the café? Was that you?”

  “That was me.”

  “Playing games?”

  “I told you I didn’t expect you to come out. Neither did he.”

  “This makes no sense!” Ned cried. “When would he have had time to steal those things? And get them to the cathedral? Why did it look like him?”

  “Not difficult. He made a bust of himself long ago, for her. You could have thought of that—which of us is the sculptor?”

  Ned swallowed.

  “For the rest . . . we both sensed you as soon as you arrived. I was curious, he was more than that, it now seems. He needed you more. It wouldn’t have been difficult to learn who your father was—and where he was going that morning, Ned.”

  First time he’d ever used Ned’s name.

  “I imagine, if you bother to check, you’ll find the two things were stolen from the museum storage the night before you found them. He had them with him and was watching to see if you went inside the cathedral that morning. If you hadn’t, he’d have tried something else. Or not. He’ll never have only one thought, you know.”

  “Oh, God,” Ned said.

  “Should we believe you?” Meghan Marriner asked quietly.

  Cadell looked at her. “You’ve given me a great deal, coming here, and I’m grateful. A debt. I have no reason to lie.”

  There was a silence. The round tower rose above them. A backdrop.

  “I told him something,” Ned said. “When he left.”

  “And that was?” Cadell’s voice changed, a rising note.

  Ned drew a breath. “I told him I’d sensed her . . . Ysabel . . . in the cemetery.”

  That tension again, as if the air around them were a stringed instrument, vibrating.

  “And now you’re angry with him and telling me?”

  “I feel cheated.”

  Cadell shook his head. “He does what he can. We don’t fight the same way.”

  “He can’t fly, or summon spirits,” Kimberly murmured.

  “Neither of those, no.”

  “And he has to be there when she’s summoned?”

  The big man nodded. “He’s at risk, otherwise. There have been times she’s come to me simply because he wasn’t there.”

  “Unfair,” Meghan Marriner said.

  “Why would it be fair?” He turned to Ned. “You must hear what I am trying to say: everything else, everyone else, is insignificant. It is about her. It always has been since he came through the forest.”

  Ned looked away, fists clenched. “Fine. None of us matter a damn. I get it. Well, now I’ve told you both. Keeps it even.”

  “He kept it even, too,” Kim said, still quietly. “At the villa. Wounded himself.”

  Cadell laughed. The amusement angered Ned now. “I wouldn’t have done that, I confess it. He’s a different man.”

  The Celt stood up, shirtless again, the bandage white in the moonlight. You were made aware of ease and power as he moved. “I must go.”

  “Does it matter, what Ned said about the cemetery?” Kim asked.

  “Of course it does. A place she’s been?”

  “You’ll go there now?”

  Cadell nodded. “I may even meet him there. Which would be amusing.” He glanced at Ned. “I’ll tell him he’s disappointed you.”

  “You can’t fight each other,” Ned said quickly.

  Cadell smiled. “I know. She forbade that, didn’t she?”

  He turned to go down the slope that would take him towards the city. He stopped and looked back. Phelan hadn’t done that.

  “Move away from us,” Cadell said. “Let it go. You’ll hurt yourself. It doesn’t have to happen.”

  Then he went from them, disappearing down the path.

  NED’S MOTHER PACKED her kit. When she was done, they started back the way they’d come. Ned didn’t use the flashlight, the moon seemed bright enough. He walked ahead, could hear his mother and aunt behind him.

  “You understand all this, I guess?” his mother said.

  Aunt Kim walked a few steps without answering. “Some. Not the details, but I know things like this can happen.”

  “You know, because of before?”

  “Of course.”

  “And Ned’s . . . like you?” His mother’s voice was tentative.

  “Not quite the same, but yes. You know the family stories, Meg. You grew up with them.”

  “I know. I don’t like them.”

  “I know.”

  Stars overhead and the wind. Ned put up his jacket hood. He was still trying to deal with anger, this new feeling of having been abused by Phelan that first morning. A con job, a guy doing the shell game on a sidewalk table. Drawing him in with that underground deception. Then telling him to go away, in the cloister—just another way of luring him?

  He remembered the man’s fury, coming down off the roof. Surely that had been real? Maybe . . . maybe Ned had moved faster, ended up closer, known more than Phelan had expected?

  Right. Like he was going to figure this out, however hard he worked at it.

  He put his hands in his pockets. Tried to see it from the other man’s point of view. Outnumbered by Cadell, who had the spirits with him, Beltaine coming, far less power than them, needing to know where the summoning would be, and then this kid with a link to their world shows up . . .

  Ned sighed. He could see it.

  He just couldn’t get past the anger. This version of the story made him feel so naive, so stupidly young. He forced himself to remember Phelan at Entremont, telling them how to leave, and when, to save their lives. Cadell wouldn’t have killed them there, but Brys would have. And he could have, that night.

  It was hard to stay angry, and as ha
rd to let go of it.

  He heard his mother again. “Kim, do you have any idea how difficult this is for me?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I wonder. I can’t lose Ned the way I lost you.”

  That got his attention.

  After a few more steps, his aunt said, carefully, “Meg, I was changed, I wasn’t lost. Maybe it was my fault, but I didn’t have enough in me to make it easier for you. By the time I did . . .”

  “It was too late. Old story?”

  “Old story,” his aunt agreed.

  He heard only their footsteps on the path for a while. Then his mother said, quietly, “Did they die? Your friends?”

  Ned strained to hear. This was all new to him.

  Aunt Kim murmured, “One did. A darling man. Saved everything, really. One stayed there. One . . . found what she was, and joy in the end. Dave and I came home.”

  “And were punished?”

  “Oh, Meg. Don’t let’s go there. I did something important. You pay a price, sometimes. Like you, when you go to war zones.”

  “It’s not the same thing. Nothing near.”

  “Near enough.”

  He heard his mother make a sound that could have been laughter, or not. “You’re being a big sister. Trying to make me feel better.”

  “Haven’t had much chance.”

  The same sound again.

  “I made it worse for you, when you came back, didn’t I?”

  Aunt Kim said nothing. She couldn’t, Ned realized: she’d either have to lie, or admit that it was true, and she wouldn’t want to do either. He felt like an intruder again, listening. He quickened his pace, moved farther ahead. He took out his cellphone and dialed his uncle. It was picked up, first ring.

  “Where are you?”

  “On our way back. It’s okay.”

  “Everyone?”

  “We’re fine. It was pretty intense.”

  His uncle said nothing.

  “Honestly,” Ned said. “We’re fine.”

  “Where are Kim and your mom?”

  “Just behind me. They’re talking.”

  “Oh.”

  “We’ll be there in a few.”

  “I’m here,” his uncle said.

  He hadn’t been, for all Ned’s life. It was a nice thing to hear. He said, “We won’t have a lot of time. We have to focus now, to get her back.” His math teacher talked about focusing all the time.

  His uncle cleared his throat. “Ned, I was going to say this before we went to bed. You need to think about the possibility that we won’t. We’ll do what we can, but it isn’t always poss—”

  “Nope,” Ned Marriner said. “Uh-uh. We’re getting her back, Uncle Dave. I’m getting her back.” He hung up.

  He found himself walking faster, the urgency inside him strong suddenly, anger and fear. He needed to run, burn some of it off.

  He heard a sound ahead of him.

  Same snuffling, grunting as when they’d come this way. He stopped dead, breathing quietly. His mother and aunt were well behind him now.

  He was about to turn on the flashlight when he saw the boar in the moonlight.

  It was as he remembered it. Huge, pale-coloured, nearly white, though that was partly the moon. It was alone, standing stock-still in his path—as it had the last time, in the laneway below.

  The animal returned his gaze. He knew by now this wasn’t a simple sanglier like those that had rooted up the field beside the villa.

  There was an ache in his chest, as if too many things were wanting release. He said, “Cadell’s gone. He went down the other way. So’s Brys. The druid? He’s really gone. I’m sorry. There’s just me.”

  He had no idea what he expected. What happened was that, after a moment, the boar turned its back on him.

  It turned and faced east as Ned was—as if rejecting him and all he’d said. As if saying just me meant nothing to this creature, or worse than nothing. As if he didn’t mean anything at all, wasn’t worth looking at.

  It did look back once, though, then trotted away—surprisingly agile—into the brush beside the path and was swallowed by the night.

  “And what the hell did that mean?” Ned Marriner said.

  They came up beside him. “What is it?” his mother asked.

  “That boar, same as before.”

  His aunt looked around. “It’s gone?”

  He nodded.

  Kimberly sighed. “Let’s go, dear. Don’t make yourself crazy trying to understand all this.”

  “Can’t help it,” he said.

  But he walked on with them, and at the end of the path they turned right and came to the barrier and went around it. Dave was on the other side, leaning against his car. Kim went forward and put her arms around him, her head against his chest.

  They heard her say, “I told him you could have taken him apart.”

  Dave Martyniuk chuckled. “You did? Good thing I stayed behind then, isn’t it? You tired of me? Ready for widowhood?”

  “He was trivializing you, honey. I didn’t like it.”

  Dave kissed the top of her head. “Trivializing? Kim, I’m a middle-aged lawyer who plays Sunday rugby for the district team and can’t move for two days after.”

  Ned heard his aunt laugh softly. “Yeah, so?” she said. “What’s your point?”

  “That does remind me,” Ned’s mother said brightly. “I really need to review the quality of security being sent out with me. What good’s a gimpy rugby player in Darfur anyhow?”

  Dave Martyniuk looked at her, over top of Kim’s head, which was still against his chest. He grinned. “Fair question.”

  Meghan shook her head. “No, it isn’t. And you know it.”

  “I know it too,” Ned said. “I saw you this afternoon, remember? That was no weekend rugby thing.”

  “You haven’t seen our team play,” his uncle said. “Ned, you want your uncle killed soon as you meet him?”

  Ned shook his head. “Not in a hurry for that, no.”

  Dave said, “The truth? I do know how to fight. I’ve made sure I still do. But this one—both of these—are in their own league, their own world. I talked a good game in the villa because I wanted them taking us seriously, but I’d have died up there if he wanted me dead.”

  Silence. They were completely alone at the end of the road, in the middle of a night.

  “What’d he wind up doing?” Dave asked.

  Meghan said, “Kim cleaned him up again, then Ned told him he’d sensed Ysabel in Arles. He’s going there.”

  Dave looked at Ned. “Why did you do that?”

  Ned shrugged. “I told Phelan when he said goodbye. Guess I was being fair.”

  “Think anyone else will be?”

  Ned scuffed at the gravel. “Maybe not.”

  Kimberly let go of her husband, stepped back a little. Her hair was very white in the moonlight. “I’ve decided not to like her,” she said.

  Uncle Dave pretended to be startled. He looked at Meghan. “What? After all these years!”

  Kim punched him in the chest. “Not my sister! I adore my sister.”

  “I haven’t deserved that a whole lot,” Ned’s mother murmured.

  “Not the point,” Kim said.

  “Shouldn’t it be?”

  Her sister shook her head. “No. And the one I don’t like is Ysabel.”

  Her husband laughed aloud, startling Ned. “Oh, God. Don’t let her know,” he said. “You’ll completely ruin her life this time around if she finds out Kim Ford feels that way.”

  His wife hit him again. “Be quiet, you.”

  Dave was quiet. It was Ned who said, after a moment, “Don’t hate her. Don’t even dislike her. She’s outside that. Even more than they are.”

  The other three looked at him.

  “Can’t help it,” his aunt said stubbornly. “The two of them play this game of hide-and-seek and then the loser gets killed for her? I don’t like it, that’s all.”

  “You haven’t s
een her,” Ned said. “It . . . makes a difference. It’s what they’re all about. I don’t think she has a lot of choice either.”

  “Hold on,” his mother said.

  They turned to her. The moonlight was on her face.

  “You didn’t say one would be killed, Ned.”

  “But I did,” he said. “That’s what she . . .”

  He stopped. His heart was suddenly hammering again.

  “You didn’t, dear,” his mother said, very gently. “Neither did Kate. I wrote it down.”

  They were staring at her.

  Meghan Marriner looked at her son.

  “You said sacrificed.”

  CHAPTER XVII

  Sunrise, the first gift in the world. Promise and

  healing after the hard transit of night. After a darkness beset with beasts—imagined and real—and inner fears, and untamed, violent men. After sightlessness that could lead one astray into ditch or bog or over cliff, or into the clutch and sway of whatever spirits might be abroad, bent on malice.

  Morning’s pale light had offered an end to such fears for centuries, millennia, whatever dangers might come with the day. Shutters were banged open, curtains drawn, shop doors and windows were unlocked, city gates unbarred, swung wide, as men and women made their way out into the offered day.

  On the other hand (in life there was almost always another hand), daylight meant that intimacy, privacy, escape from the unwanted gaze, silence for meditation, the solace of unseen tears on a pillow—or of secret love on that same pillow before, or after—were so much harder to claim. Rarer coinage, in the clear light.

  It is more difficult—much more difficult—to hide and not be found.

  BUT SHE WANTS to be found. That lies at the heart of this. She is prepared to become angry that they have taken so long and she remains alone.

  Unfair, perhaps, for she’s made this difficult, but they are supposed to love her beyond words, need her more than breath or light, and she has spent a second night outside and solitary, and it has been cold.

  She is not unaccustomed to hardship, but neither is she immune to longing. Seeing them both at Entremont when she came through to the summons has kindled need, desire, memory.

  She would not let them know this, of course.

  Not yet, and only one of them, after. But these sensations are within her now and, lying awake, watching stars traverse the open space to the south, as if across a window, she has been intensely, painfully aware of them, of lives lived and lost.