Ann Gimpel (19 page)

She sat on his lap and wove her arms around him. He pulled her close, and the fear that had surged at his last words subsided a little. Laying a hand against her head, he turned her face so he could kiss her.

“
Mo croi,
” he murmured, pulling away. “Keep everyone safe.” He set her on her feet, got to his, and walked purposefully from the kitchen. “You’ll have time while I’m gone,” he called over his shoulder. “You can read her journals for yourself.”

“Wh-Where will your body be?”

“In our bed, lass.” He did turn then and gave her a broad wink. “Take good care of it.”

She curled herself around his body through the night. The next day, she settled in with Marta’s journals. What she found was so unsettling that it was hard to keep reading. Once she’d lost Ryan, there had been a part of the woman that went mad—or became highly irrational, to put a kinder spin on things. Aislinn wondered how Marta had managed to hide her craziness from the Old Ones.

Other than occasional trips outside, Rune never left her side. Bella flew into the bedroom and stood watch over Fionn. Aislinn tried to interest her in water and food, but the bird ignored her.

On a hunch, Aislinn riffled through drawers in the study and found photographs she assumed were Marta. She considered double-checking her assumption with Rune, but the wolf was edgy. He seemed to be asleep for the moment, and she didn’t want to bother him.

The pictures were vaguely disturbing. Marta had been a tall, muscular woman, with long, coppery hair and clear, green eyes. She was built more like a man than a woman, with broad shoulders and a square jaw. In the pictures that included her husband, she towered over him by a good six inches. Aislinn squeezed her eyes shut to clear the afterimage from one particular photograph and then looked at it again. She shook her head. No matter which angle she chose, Marta didn’t look entirely human. Something about her eyes and her posture were almost more Lemurian than human.

After searching further, Aislinn found family photographs with an older couple. Who were they? Marta’s parents? She didn’t look much like either of them, but perhaps she’d been adopted. Aislinn rubbed her eyes. The older couple had a distinctly alien cast as well. She shoved the pictures back in their drawer, feeling uneasy.

“Yeah,” Aislinn mumbled, “if those were Marta’s parents, what happened to them?” They couldn’t have been more than about sixty or so. Had they been forced into the vortex, too? Returning her attention to the lines of careful script in Marta’s journals, Aislinn hunted for something, anything, about the woman’s parents. Coming up dry, she started on some of the earlier years. When she surfaced, light was fading from the sky. Pushing heavily out of the upholstered leather chair she’d sat in for hours, she stretched and walked into the kitchen, where she flipped on the tap and splashed cold water on her face to clear her head.

She’d found references—lots of them—to Marta’s parents in those earlier journals. Apparently, they’d also been doctors—a pediatrician and a surgeon. But the references had ceased abruptly the year Marta finished medical school and began her residency in Internal Medicine.
Why? What the fuck happened to them? The damned Surge wouldn’t happen for another ten years.
The elder couple’s disappearance would also have predated Rune, who likely wouldn’t know anything, even if she asked. Marta hadn’t had children, and she’d done a hell of a job playing overprotective mother with her wolf.

Marta’s parents weren’t the only element missing from the last thirteen years of journal posts. Other than a brief notation about her marriage and another about her husband’s death, Marta hadn’t written anything of substance about Ryan, either. Why? What was it about him that Marta didn’t want to risk putting on paper? Speaking of that, why was she still using paper and not doing her journaling electronically? Unless they were hidden away extremely well, Aislinn hadn’t found a computer anywhere in the house. Not that it would have mattered, since the electricity to power them was long gone, but the lack of such a common device was another unexplained oddity.

Nibbling on leftovers from the night before, she tried to make sense of what she’d read. Fionn had been right about one thing. The urgency in Marta’s postings had escalated dramatically right before her death. It was hard to say whether something real lurked behind her frantic scribblings, or whether her insanity was spiraling out of control.

Because she couldn’t do anything but wait, Aislinn culled through the study and selected an old underground novel,
Islandia,
by Austin Tappan Wright. By the time she realized it was a fictionalized account of a place like Mu—or maybe Atlantis—the story had sucked her in. She read herself to sleep, lying next to Fionn. When morning came and he hadn’t returned, she began to worry. She’d had a restless night, waking with her heart in her throat twice, sure Fionn was dead. She’d even called up her mage light to look at his body to make sure he was still breathing. After the second time that happened, she gave up on sleep and went outside into the dawn with Rune. She tried to get Bella to come along, but it was like the raven had turned into a statue. Who knew? Maybe she’d sent her astral self after Fionn.

Gazing at pink edges on the eastern horizon, Aislinn longed to forget the last three years, just for a moment. The sunrise was normal, damn it. Why couldn’t everything else be? She tried talking with Rune, but the wolf was uncharacteristically silent. When she finally understood that he wanted to be left alone, she worked her way back through the wards and into the house, using the back door, since it wasn’t booby trapped like the front and she didn’t have to spend half an hour re-sheathing blades.

To kill time, she read
Islandia
and made a pan of something like biscuits with real flour. She didn’t realize how sick she’d gotten of pine nut flour until she concentrated heat in the oven with magic to bake them. They smelled incredible and melted in her mouth when she broke off a corner to taste, not able to wait for them to cool. She found unopened jars of homemade preserves and spread a strawberry-esque one lavishly on a hot biscuit. It tasted amazing.

Aislinn moved her feast into the study and read some more. When she looked out a window, she was shocked to find that it was growing dark. Fionn had been gone two days. Was he coming back? What if he’d run into some sort of trouble? She bit her lower lip, not liking that thought at all.

She considered the gateway beneath her. She knew how to activate it. Or she thought she did. That information had been in the journals, mostly because it was a trial-and-error process and Marta had memorialized her attempts.

By the next morning, Aislinn had made up her mind. She hadn’t slept well again and felt incredibly out of sorts. It was stupid for her to spin her wheels waiting for Fionn. She could go into Taltos, look around, and come back, probably before he returned, the way things seemed to be going. At least then she’d have something to contribute to their combined knowledge.

If there was anything to combine with.

She had a bad feeling about Fionn’s protracted absence. Aislinn pressed her tongue against her teeth. She really didn’t know Fionn very well, but assumed his caring for her was genuine. Surely he wouldn’t stay away unless he was stuck somewhere. Or dead.

That clinched it.
I’m going. No point in waiting to be rescued. I gave up on that when I left Daddy lying dead in the Bolivian mountains. Or maybe it was when Mother marched into the vortex.
She thought about the wolf. He’d scarcely said a word to her in the last twenty-four hours. Should she take him?
I’ll let him decide.

“Rune.”

The wolf trotted into the bedroom. When he looked at her, his eyes were sad.

“I am going into Taltos. Would you like to come?”

He sprang onto the bed in a single leap and licked her face effusively.
“I thought you’d never ask. Waiting has been eating into my guts like the frothy sickness.”

Surprised, she hugged him and then maneuvered around so she could get dressed. The clothing she’d found at the McCloud Fishing Lodge was coming in handy. She donned black multi-pocketed pants, a black knitted top, and tossed the black Gore-Tex jacket over everything. It had been cold the last time she was in Taltos. She shoved her feet into her battered boots and went rifling through Marta’s drawers until she found a black watch cap she could tuck her bright hair under. She hesitated over a pair of black wool gloves from the same drawer and then slid her hands into them. They were too big, but at least they’d cover her skin. If she’d had greasepaint, she would have blacked her face. As it was, she pulled the turtleneck top up to cover her chin and called it even.

Chapter Eighteen

G
etting Rune down the ladder by herself wasn’t easy. He outweighed her. She tried to talk him into going down backward like she did, but he insisted on tackling the rungs nose first. It was a good twenty-foot drop to the packed earthen floor of the basement. After several false starts, she told him to back up into the kitchen, where she joined him and used magic to jump them down.

She ran her hands over the place in the wall that had drawn Fionn, but it didn’t feel quite right. Moving back a pace, she shut her eyes, opened her Mage senses, and sent them outward. When she felt something connect, she walked toward the feeling, letting her magic guide her.

Fionn had been partially right. The glowing portal she unearthed was close to where he’d laid his hands.
Maybe the gateway shows itself differently to different sorts of magic wielders.
Before she lost her nerve, Aislinn began the incantation that would open a path into Taltos. Her heart beat so hard against her ribs, she feared it would come right out of her chest. Her mouth was dry, and she licked nervously at her lips. For a few moments, nothing happened, and then the rock wall moved inward, making a groaning sound as stones grated against one another.

Without waiting for her, Rune bounded through the opening, tail pluming. Aislinn hurried after him. She waited for the portal to swing shut, understanding from Marta’s directions that she’d need to mark the spot so she could find it from this side. In the muted glow from her mage light, she piled rocks in a pattern that looked different from all the other rocks littering the tunnel floor and then imbued them with a jot of magic that would light when she called to it. Glancing around, she wished she knew if this tunnel was the same one she’d wandered through during her first visit
.
Things felt different to her astral self, so she couldn’t tell.

She looked for Rune and found him silhouetted against the pervasive gloom a few paces away. Catching him up, she said,
“Little talk, mind or no.”

He nudged her with his nose to show he understood. She shivered slightly. It was cold and damp in the tunnel. She was glad she’d layered on warm clothes.

Which way should I go?
Cautious not to use too much magic, she sought the most expedient route to the surface. Mostly, she saw this as a reconnaissance so she could figure out where things were. If the harmonic ran through the tunnel, there might not be a reason to ever leave it, but she needed some above-ground landmarks. According to Marta, the harmonic started under the library. It was most vulnerable there, and that was where she’d planned to sabotage it.
Let’s see what I find.
Aislinn had never been one to trust someone else’s magic. The couple of times she’d done that, she’d been sorry, and it had been a good object lesson.

Ever so gently, Aislinn tried to sense if any Old Ones lurked nearby. She used a form of radar, where she sent magic outward. It pinged back at her differently if it encountered life forms between her and the direction she’d chosen. When her power returned to her, sweet and clean, she let out a tense breath. It whistled loudly, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.
Whoops. Need to be more careful.
Other than her mage light, which she dimmed to nearly nothing, she shuttered her power within herself and started walking.

The tunnel widened after a few hundred yards. Light filtered in from somewhere, so she doused her mage light completely. The tunnel floor was definitely moving upward. She hugged one wall and proceeded slowly. In another hundred feet, it became obvious that she was heading for an opening.

She made a clucking sound low in her throat. Rune, who was ahead of her, stopped and waited. She sank a hand into his fur.
“Stay close. Merge with me.”

Wolf senses exploded into her brain. She smelled Old Ones, heard them. They were close. Why hadn’t her own magic picked up on them? Aislinn shoved that worry to a back burner, intent on determining where the Old Ones were. Understanding slammed into her.
They’re walking right over my head.
As the tunnel closed on the surface, she was probably directly under their buildings. And right under their noses. Making herself still as the rocks, she listened, blessing Dewi for the ability to understand their language.

“I tell you, we need to bring the girl back here. She holds the key, since we lost the other.”

“She does not want to come.”

“I can sweeten that pie. She’s besotted by one of those Celtic pests. If we lure him here, she’ll follow.”

“Really? Which one?”

They sound like a bunch of gossipy old women.
In spite of her fear, Aislinn suppressed a grin. Wait, what had they just said? She strained to pay attention to the guttural clicking sounds.

“…living where our special one was.”

“Yes, unfortunate that she never saw herself in that light. She hated us.”

“We should have intervened after she trapped her parents and diverted their magic—”

“Yesssss,” someone interrupted with a hissing sibilance. “I told you at the time that she had to be reprogrammed, but did any of you listen to me?”

“We can all see clearly behind us,” another said in a placating tone. Was it Metae? Aislinn thought she recognized the intonation.

One of the Old Ones made a gagging sound, which cut off the other’s words.

A new voice chimed in. “The parents were loyal, but their daughter fought us at every turn, clinging to her human side. Bah! We barely had enough power to keep Taltos intact. Dealing with her would have drained us.”

“Surely we could have managed one lone human...”

“You have the memory of a sand fly. It is not that we did not try. She was uncontrollable, especially after she corralled her parents and tapped into their magic.”

“Ssssssht. That is not to be spoken aloud.”

“At least it maintains the gateways so we don’t have to—”

The sound of a sharp slap and a scuffle ensued. Though Aislinn listened for several minutes, hoping to find out more, conversation halted abruptly.

A flurry of movement up ahead sent her racing back down the tunnel. Aislinn didn’t know if the Old Ones had somehow sensed her presence, but she wasn’t waiting around to find out. She tried for silence, but rocks crunched under her boot heels. She ran by feel, using Rune’s hyper-tuned senses for guidance.

“Back again, little one?”
trumpeted in her mind.

She screeched to a halt, gaze scanning the darkness. Rune vibrated against her. He’d be growling if she hadn’t told him to maintain silence. Aislinn flattened herself against the tunnel wall. Pulling Rune next to her, she disengaged from his mind to keep him safe.

“Dewi?”
Her mind voice was tentative. She didn’t want to antagonize the creature in case Fionn was wrong about who it was.

“You know my name.”
The dragon sounded pleased.
“And I know yours. MacLochlainn. I recognize your blood. Flee, child. I will keep the Mu-spawn at bay. They revere me, but only because they have mistaken me for another.”

Herding Rune, she sprinted for her rock pile. She’d hoped to find out more, but maybe this was good enough for a first trip. It seemed the dragon would be an unexpected partner.
Don’t get
too excited,
she told herself, recalling it had been Marta’s ally, too. Maybe Dewi wasn’t all that picky, since it looked as if Marta had murdered her parents.

Risking a small tendril of magic, Aislinn hunted for her marker, gratified to see it flare twenty feet ahead. She started her spell before they got there and slipped through the space in the rocks as soon as it was big enough to accommodate her and Rune.

As the door scraped shut, making so much noise that she was certain it would give them away, she heard Dewi assuring the Old Ones there’d been no one but them in the tunnels all day. Heart pounding in her throat, Aislinn collapsed onto the dirt. She hadn’t realized how frightened she was.
That’s because I didn’t let myself think about it.

Rune sidled up next to her and lay down, putting his head in her lap. “I was useful.”

“You certainly were.”

“That means I can go next time.”

Until Rune said it, Aislinn hadn’t realized she planned to go into Taltos again. Once she heard it spoken, though, she knew she’d return over and over. Either she’d destroy Taltos or die trying. For a moment, she wondered if Dewi could help Fionn. He wasn’t back yet. If he were, he would have been waiting in the basement to chastise her. Or worse, he would have come through the gateway after her.

Calling up her mage light, she got to her feet. The first thing she needed to do was locate Marta’s parents. The Old Ones seemed to think she’d done something to them, which probably meant bones were located somewhere around this house.

“Rune, did you know Marta’s parents?”

“No. She never talked about them.”

Aislinn trod carefully. She didn’t want to upset Rune, who’d idolized Marta, despite the fact she’d treated him like a child. “The conversation you helped me overhear when you merged with me… Well, it suggested Marta’s parents may be somewhere in or around this house. Could you either look for them, or lend me your senses?”

“We can do both, starting with the basement, since we are already here. What am I looking for?”

Well, what are we looking for?
“I’m not sure. Corpses or people in some sort of stasis. Not dead, but not exactly alive, either.”

Rune made a whuffy sound, his attempt at humor. “Anything unusual, then.” He bent his nose to the wall nearest them and walked a circuit. Merging her senses with his, Aislinn stayed put. No need for her to follow along.

When they didn’t find anything, she jumped them to the kitchen, where they kept looking. By the time that she stood at the top of a spiral staircase leading to the attic, she wondered if the Old Ones might have been mistaken. They’d searched everywhere else, including the yard and a falling-down garage out back with two cars in it: a Subaru wagon and a Toyota sedan. Since they sat well outside Marta’s wards, both had been looted for parts.

The attic door was locked. She blasted it with magic, but it didn’t budge. Fanning power around her, she discovered more warding. Fortunately, Marta hadn’t been particularly creative. She’d found one type of warding that worked and used it over and over.

It still took Aislinn close to half an hour to hack her way through. When she stepped into the large room running the length and breadth of the house, the air had a stillness to it that reminded her of a mausoleum. A few pieces of antique furniture were scattered about—mostly tables and chairs. Old chests with black metal banding and hasps sat in a row against one wall. There were no windows, and unlike the rest of the house, dust was thick.

“They are here.” Rune’s voice sounded from behind her.

Aislinn’s Mage senses agreed. But where were they? She scanned the empty room, returning to a place in one corner that felt odd. “It’s illusion,” she muttered and strode across the attic toward the strange-feeling place. She stopped before she got there, having learned that Marta’s wards packed quite a punch.

She sent her magic forward, but it zapped right back at her. Aislinn tried again from a slightly different angle. Two hours later, she’d tried every spell and counter spell she’d ever learned, to no avail. Absolutely convinced that if she could only neutralize the binding, she’d find Marta’s parents in some sort of suspended animation, Aislinn hissed in frustration.

“She protected them well,” Rune observed.

Aislinn started to say something, but bit back the words and shielded her mind. No point in telling the wolf that Marta’s parents had scarcely been willing victims. For one thing, she didn’t know for sure. For another, if she couldn’t figure out how to get to them, it was a moot point anyway.

Curious about the chests, she lifted their lids. Two of the four were empty. The others held clothing and bedding. Some of the clothes were lovely, fine silks in bright colors and soft woolens, but Aislinn wasn’t in the mood. She turned toward the stairs. “I can’t do any more tonight.”

Once she wound down the staircase and made her way back to the kitchen, she was shocked to find that it was night again. There hadn’t been any way to judge the passage of time in the windowless attic. Where had the day gone? How long had she and Rune been in Taltos? It hadn’t seemed like even an hour had passed, but it must have been much more than that.

Stuffing one of the previous day’s biscuits into her mouth, she chewed automatically. Still no Fionn. What did that mean? She wondered if he’d be able to unearth Marta’s parents. “Doesn’t matter,” she muttered around a mouthful of biscuit. “He’s not here.”

“Where do you suppose he is?” Rune asked. “Bella is still checked out. I think she went with him.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I think the same. And I have no fucking idea where Fionn is. He was supposed to be back two days ago.”

“When are we going back to Taltos?”

Aislinn thought about it.
Since I’m on my own again, I can make my own schedule. I suppose that’s one advantage.
“How about as soon as I’m done eating?”

Back in the tunnel, she rebuilt her cairn and checked to make sure her magic-imbued marker was still intact. This time, she led them in the other direction.
Were these tunnels here before the Old Ones built Taltos, or did they excavate them for some reason?
Borrowing Rune’s senses, she listened for the harmonic. Even with his sensitive ears, she could barely hear it—and that was only because she knew it had to be there. It was a subtle hum, well below the range of human ears.

They headed deeper into the mountain. She’d just rounded a corner when something made her stop. It wasn’t anything she could put her finger on, but the fine hairs at the back of her neck tingled.
Magic. And not mine.
Balancing on the balls of her feet, she debated whether to go back. She hadn’t learned a damned thing this trip, though. What was the point in risking discovery if it didn’t bring her closer to a solution?

Small rocks beneath her feet slid downhill. It became a struggle not to simply ride them down. What was happening? Was it an earthquake? One that had happened without perceptible shocks or sound? It felt as if she was on a conveyor belt. She grabbed at a large rock outcropping and held on. Rune swept by, all four paws grappling for purchase. She made a grab for him and missed.