Gravelight (37 page)

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Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley

BOOK: Gravelight
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The long drive back to Morton's Fork was unnaturally quiet, with everyone in the car afraid of saying the wrong thing; apparently Rowan and Ninian had argued as well, for they stared fixedly out of opposite windows and didn't even try to break the silence.
The car passed through the main street of Morton's Fork—closed and dark at nine o'clock—and past the pale bulk of the camper; a modern American luxury abandoned in a place that was anything but. Dylan swept the sedan up Watchman's Gap Trace toward Sinah's house without even asking Rowan and Ninian if they wanted to be dropped off first.
Sinah's house was a beacon. Every light in the place was
on, and inside, Truth could see Sinah moving around. The stained glass windows gave the house the look of a Christmas tree ornament as they pulled up out front. The Jeep Cherokee was still missing, and Truth knew that she had to ask Sinah where Wycherly had gone; now the stakes were too high for her to just let something like that slide.
“Thanks for a lovely evening,” Truth said when the car stopped, struggling to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. As she opened the car door and stepped out, she realized that she'd meant to stop at the camper for her toiletries and a change of clothes. Well, maybe Sinah could loan her something.
“Goodnight, Truth,” Ninian said, and Rowan waved. She saw Dylan take his hand off the wheel to rub his eyes, and knew he felt as tired and frustrated as she did. She waved—to the students—and turned away, reaching in her purse for Sinah's keys. Behind her she heard the sound of the car backing down into the road.
Sinah had dressed and made herself up carefully, but the makeup stood out chalky and clownlike on her pale, pointed face. She tried to smile at Truth, but she could not hold the expression. It came and went, flickering across her face.
“Everything okay?” Truth asked.
“If you mean, ‘am I still here and haven't had any nightmares on-or-off Elm Street,' yes. But what comes now? I know you've called in some kind of specialist witch-doctor, but I can't do what you want, Truth—I can't!”
Truth had to be careful not to push Sinah too far—she'd already had a glimpse of how ruthless the personality overlay of the bloodline could be in reacting to a threat. She thought that danger would end when the Gate was closed, cutting Sinah off from its power and from those archived memories. It was an unsettling experience for anyone when the Unseen came looking for them, and for a Gatekeeper, heir to enormous power yet raised without an inkling of its existence …
“Relax, Sinah,” Truth soothed. “Nobody's asking you to do anything tonight, and I'm sure we can deal with anything that might turn up tomorrow. Do you think you can sleep now? Or shall I turn my skills to beating you at poker?”
Again the on-off flicker of a smile from Sinah. “Wycherly—” she stopped and grimaced. “Wycherly was giving me his sleeping pills—Seconal—he had a prescription for them.”
“Borrowing prescriptions isn't a good idea,” Truth said automatically. But the barbiturate would interrupt Sinah's Stage Three sleep—the dreaming stage—which should protect her from nightmares—or worse. “Is the prescription still here?” she asked reluctantly.
Sinah went into the kitchen to see. Truth knew that some of the younger woman's oddly docile behavior came from shock—Truth had hit her with a lot over the last twenty-four hours, and she'd been under a tremendous strain for a long time before that. It was no wonder that when someone with a decisive personality crossed her path—and Truth felt that decisive was a reasonable description of someone who had also been called “meddling,” “bossy,” and “managing”—Sinah was willing to obey her in an almost childlike fashion.
“Here they are.” Sinah came back from the bathroom carrying a brown-and-white bottle. “They were in his shaving kit. He just left everything.”
“Did he take your Jeep?” Truth asked, and Sinah nodded reluctantly.
“The day you first came up here. Later that night.”
“Have you seen him since then?” Truth asked. “I went by his cabin tonight on my way back to town, but it didn't look as if he'd been back there.”
Sinah shook her head. “He … he'll be back when he gets ready,” she said, her voice shaking with the effort it took for the words to seem casual. Truth didn't have the heart to press her further.
Seconal was a pretty strong narcotic, but one night's
use—or two, or three—shouldn't kill or addict Sinah, and if a pill could make the difference between dreamless sleep and a night spent tormented by jangled nerves …
“Why don't you go ahead and take one?” Truth suggested. “Whether you get much rest or not, it'll put you out for eight hours.”
“That's what Wycherly said,” Sinah said, sounding more adult now. She took the bottle into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
Truth watched her go, wondering if it was Sinah she'd been talking to, or … something else. Truth only had experience of the negative aspects of the Gates, but somewhere in the tangled web of Sinah's inherited memories must be the remembrance of a time when the Gate's guardian wielded its power consciously, for hele and ill. The Gates were supposed to control the Earth's fruitfulness—And if Sinah could control such power, what else could she do?
Truth thought back to the sterile, blighted area surrounding the burned sanatorium and felt a vague disquiet. Despite what Thorne had once believed, the worlds of gods and men were
not
meant to be merged, and average people could get into enough trouble here in the World of Form without adding in divine or supernatural abilities.
“Well, goodnight,” Sinah said, coming back from the kitchen. “I'll go on up to bed now. Are you sure you have everything you need? The loveseats both fold out—there are sheets in the linen closet—or you could just bunk in with me. It's a California King, so heaven knows there's room enough, and I plan to be dead to the world.”
She heard what she'd said, and winced. “Unfortunate choice. Let's say, ‘sleeping soundly,' okay?”
“Goodnight, Sinah. I'm sure I'll be fine,” Truth said.
And no matter how primitive the accommodations, they'd be better than lying beside Dylan in the camper, feigning sleep and wondering if he were doing the same thing.
Perhaps it was the stresses of the day or just being in an unfamiliar place, but Truth didn't feel the least inclination to sleep. She read—Sinah had a jackdaw-eclectic collection of books, including Truth's biography of Thorne Blackburn—and eventually she admitted that she didn't intend to go to bed at all.
What am I waiting for?
she asked herself.
She was hardly expecting another magickal assault—the effects of the tainted Gate seemed to be place-bound, and she'd had little indication that Quentin Blackburn was likely to seek them out. But just in case, Truth went around the house once more, blessing and sealing the place at every door and window with the star-in-circle that the followers of her tradition saw as a symbol of Man in the midst of the natural world. When she was done she looked in on Sinah, who was sleeping peacefully. The younger woman had fallen asleep with the bedside light on, an open book in her hand. Smiling to herself, Truth turned out the light and closed the book.
But snug below again with a cup of coffee and a book, Truth had to admit that she felt no more settled than before, even though she was absolutely certain that no malignant forces could enter here.
But just because she and Sinah were safe, did that mean she could say the same for the other residents of Morton's Fork? Today was the 11th of August—the 12th, rather, since it was after midnight—and August 14th was the peak date for the disappearances in Morton's Fork.
Truth wasn't sure what had happened to Luned Starking—though she suspected that Sinah was right, and the girl had gone to the Gate—but she did know that Morton's Fork was the sort of place from which people tended to … disappear—through the Gate, or otherwise.
And there's nothing you can do about it,
Truth told herself firmly. The Wildwood Gate was not hers to control, and she could hardly mount a one-woman foot patrol of the area to discourage trespassers.
But on sober reflection, there was one thing she could do.
Listening very carefully for sounds that would mean Sinah was awakening, Truth opened the front door and stepped outside. The heat and humidity of the August night made it feel as if she were stepping into veils of wet silk. Truth's blouse and slacks immediately wilted and began to cling.
The air was electric—there would certainly be a storm here within a day or so, a week at the most.
Why not now? Weather was the first magick, easiest to control: fire and storm, wind and wave, the deep heartbeat of the dreaming earth … .
She felt the power begin to gather in a tingle at the base of her skull, in the location of the oldest part of the brain. It spread, sketching the pathways of the nerves, until Truth had become a vast creature of light and energy, a creature so ethereal that the very air was solid enough to touch. With wings of energy borrowed from the veils of Earth Herself Truth reached out, touched high-riding clouds, created voids in the sky to harry them on … .
Soon the waxing moon was hidden by clouds, and the wind was rising.
That should take care of that,
Truth thought to herself half an hour later, as she listened to the rain drum steadily upon the roof of Sinah's house. Anyone answering the lure of the Wildwood Gate would be much less likely to venture out on a night like this than on a clear one. The Gate's medium was suggestion: if it truly had the power to yank its sacrificial choices from their miles-distant beds and drag them into its presence, Truth had not seen any evidence of it. And though the human mind was remarkably suggestible, it was likely to think a soaking rain a good solid reason for staying home.
Truth, curled up with her book, did not even think to wonder about how easy, how obvious, that solution had been, nor how uncanny she would once have thought it to summon storms with a wave of her hand.
THE GAP IS THE GRAVE
And my large kingdom for a little grave,
A little little grave, an obscure grave;
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
I GUESS I MANAGED TO SLEEP A LITTLE AFTER ALL.
Truth uncoiled herself from her cramped position on the loveseat. From the light shining in through the fanlight over the door, it was around five in the morning—maybe even earlier.
Truth got to her feet, doing shoulder-rolls to work out the last of the stiffness. Still not sure what had awakened her, she went upstairs to look in on Sinah. She found the younger woman sound asleep lying in a position that suggested she'd fallen from an airplane. The blankets were on the floor.
Truth smiled as she covered her up again. No, Sinah's sleep remained undisturbed. So what could it have been?
Still wondering, she walked to the octagonal clear-glass window at the eastern end of the loft and looked out.
After the storm of the night before, the sky above was colorless and clear. The second floor of the building was roughly at treetop level; she could see the entryway of the house below, its brick courtyard empty. Mist from the river
formed a solid bank of white in the distance, and mist hung in the air, blending and softening the shapes and colors. Truth pushed open the window, wanting a breath of the coolness that would so quickly be gone in the fullness of the day. She leaned her head out and took a deep breath. Everything seemed remade, just for this moment.
She heard the sound of an automobile engine.
Wycherly, coming back? It didn't sound like the Jeep Cherokee's engine, but she couldn't be sure. Quickly closing the window, Truth hurried downstairs.
She opened the front door and stepped outside. For a moment she thought the sound was gone, but then she heard it again. It didn't sound like the powerful engine of a four-wheel-drive vehicle, but whatever it was it had to be using Watchman's Gap Trace—there was no other road near enough to hear. The sound faded into the distance again, moving on. Whoever was using Watchman's Gap Trace, the old schoolhouse was not their destination.
Suddenly an unwelcome suspicion took possession of her. She didn't want to think it, but somehow it seemed so likely.
And it won't hurt you to check
, Truth told herself, as she ducked back inside to leave a note for Sinah.
“Are we there yet?” Rowan Moorcock asked. Despite her question, the redheaded psychic strode up the overgrown drive of the sanatorium ahead of the two men, unimpeded by the weight of her heavy backpack.
“What do you expect to find, Dr. Palmer?” Ninian Blake asked. Though it was still relatively cool, his long black hair was held back with a rolled bandanna tied around his head, and his face was beaded with sweat. He wore a backpack as heavy as Rowan's, but despite his obvious discomfort, he made no complaints.
“I'm not completely sure, Nin,” Dylan replied. “When I was up there yesterday with Truth, I got a very strong sense that there was
something
there—and there's definitely a stone altar that's been the focus of some sort of cult activity.
I want to take a look and see what else we might have missed, get pictures of what's there, that sort of thing.”
“Which cult?” Ninian asked, smiling faintly at his own might-be pun.
“Something not all that common,” Dylan said, “but let's see what the evidence suggests. I'll save the lecture until we get up there—and down.”
Warned by his previous experience, Dylan led them north, on a more-or-less direct route to the black staircase that led down into the depths of the ruins.
“Whoa,” Rowan said, looking down.
It was a little after six in the morning, and the day's air of peace and serenity gave the lie to the experiences Dylan had borne witness to yesterday morning. But he knew better than to trust any subjective impression in dealing with a haunting or potential haunting.
That was what worried him about Truth.
For a woman who had spent most of her adult life emotionally isolated—and Dylan had known her ever since she'd first come to Taghkanic as a lonely and defensive young graduate fiercely determined to quantify the Unseen World and reduce its phenomena to columns of numbers in a printout—Truth was much too quick to trust now that she'd reached an accommodation with her past and her Magus-father's legacy. She believed in the presence of a Blackburn Gate—in Quentin Blackburn's continued presence—and in her mission to seal the Gate, no matter the cost.
It never occurred to her that the site might be haunted by something else entirely—something that played on her deepest desires and hopes and fears, twisting them to its ends.
Dylan sighed. He didn't want to see her hurt—physically, mentally, or professionally. There'd been a certain amount of talk about her after she'd published
Venus
Afflicted
, even though the book had been scrupulously accurate, containing only the verifiable facts about Thorne's life
and none of the lurid speculation. But the fact that she'd chosen to write about a magician at all inevitably attracted to her some of the aura of the lunatic fringe that she'd spent her entire adult life lashing out against—and parapsychologists, like Caesar's wife, needed to be not only above reproach, but above suspicion.
Their field was littered with the histories of those who had crossed the line, believing their subjects instead of studying them objectively. His stubborn, reckless darling could end up among their number all too easily.
And worse, she could end up dead.
“The most dangerous place in all the world for an unprotected medium is a haunted house
.” Professor MacLaren's oft-repeated aphorism echoed in Dylan's ears. Despite Truth's insistence that her abilities came from training and not inbred psychic gifts, Dylan suspected that Truth possessed the same psychic gifts that her aunt, her mother, and her half-sister did. In which case—if Wildwood Sanatorium were a true haunting—Truth was the last person Dylan would want anywhere near it.
“It seems odd that the building would burn so thoroughly,” Ninian said, breaking into Dylan's thoughts. “Wouldn't it have been built out of brick and stone and stuff? Where are they? And if it did burn, where's the wreckage? It would have fallen in.”
Ninian was still breathing quickly, and he'd taken the opportunity of the halt to slide the backpack containing the recording equipment from his shoulders and lower it gently to the ground.
“For that matter,” he added, sounding indignant, “where's the water? It rained katzenjammers last night; you'd expect a hole in the ground to be full of water.”
“It looks like a bomb site,” Rowan said. “Like something at the bottom blew up and disintegrated everything else. Brrr.” She hugged herself and shivered. “Cold up here.”
Dylan glanced at her sharply. He didn't feel any chill, and Rowan's constitution was normally as robust as an ox's. But Rowan Moorcock was also an experienced psychic—Dylan
had used her mediumistic abilities on more than one of his ghost-hunting expeditions.
“Anything?” he asked quickly.
“No …” she said doubtfully, and then shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Ninian? Any twinges?” Dylan asked then. After criticizing Truth so thoroughly for leaping headlong into psychic danger, he wasn't about to drag his young students into an identical mess.
“You know me, Dr. Palmer; deaf as a post,” Ninian said with a slight smile.
While that wasn't entirely true—Ninian scored particularly well on tests for psychometry and precognition—it was true that his abilities were far less dependable than Rowan's. Since Ninian was that rarity—an adult, healthy, sane, male psychic—neither he nor Dylan complained too much about the comparative weakness of his gift.
“Okay. Let's go down, then. Mind the cameras—they cost more than you do,” Dylan said.
“Not since my last tuition bill,” Rowan mourned, leading the way.
Truth watched the three figures disappear over the edge of the ruins from the concealment of a stand of trees just south of the site. She'd come here overland from Sinah's cabin, unable to lose her way now that she was keyed—however roughly—to the local Gate.
So Dylan was stealing a march on her—throwing a little party here to which she was not invited? Truth smiled mockingly. She could not quite suppress the unworthy thought that it would be nice if something he couldn't handle came and smacked him down—that would teach him to dismiss her warnings out of hand like the ravings of a spoiled child!
A moment later she sternly rebuked herself for even thinking such things. Hand anyone over to the evil of the grey place from which she'd rescued Sinah? Never!
Truth frowned. Neither the Gate nor Quentin Blackburn
seemed to have any Material Plane power that did not stem from indirect suggestion—and Dylan was always going on and on and
on
about the precautions he took when investigating a haunted house. The place was dangerous, but Dylan was a professional trained to investigate such things. He shouldn't be in any danger.
But she'd still feel better if she stayed around and kept an eye on matters, not that Dylan would thank her for it. Cautiously Truth stepped from behind the tree and started up the rise to the ruin.
It took the three researchers about half an hour to make it all the way down to the sub-basement and unpack their equipment.
The temple area was reasonably large—although there was no real way of telling what size it might actually have appeared to be when it was fully paneled and furnished. Though the floor was covered with powdery leaves from seasons past, so many other things that ought to have been here were not—melted ritual implements, for example. Of course, they could have been looted sometime in the last eighty years, yet everyone the three of them had spoken to in their weeks in Morton's Fork had said that the sanatorium was a shunned place, a place that none of the natives would go near.
Whether or not anyone had stolen from the burnt ruins, all that remained were the steps leading down into the sub-basement and some sort of opening in the east wall—a tunnel or an alcove. The opening was the sort of thing that you'd expect anyone to investigate, but yesterday neither Truth nor Sinah had given it a second glance, as though they couldn't see it.
Or as if they already knew what was there.
“Nin, have you got one of the high-powered lamps out yet? I want to take a look at something,” Dylan said.
“Steps,” Rowan said comprehensively.
“Old steps,” Ninian added. “At least we know where the
water goes now. The floor must be slanted.”
Dylan's lamp shone on a rough-hewn rock wall. Beneath his feet were steps—smooth and shallow and worn, with treads of irregular depth, but obviously man-made. The opening exhaled dampness even in this humid air: the scent of wet rock and fresh water.
“Can you see the bottom?” Rowan said, arching over Dylan's shoulder and trying to get a better view.
“No,” Dylan said. “The staircase curves around at an acute angle. Let me see if I can—”
He took a step forward, off the temple floor, and immediately felt a flash of warning strike through him. If the lamp should fail, if there was something down there …
“Let's leave this for last,” Dylan said, taking a step back and switching off the lamp.
Both Rowan and Ninian had worked with Dylan before, and fell into their routines with the familiarity of previous experience. The first priority was to document the ritual purpose of the site: Ninian held the light while Dylan photographed the altar from various angles and Rowan did reference sketches showing the layout of the entire area.
“Whoa, an actual Satanic ritual altar,” she joked.
“Not really,” Dylan said, gently correcting her. “Satanism is a Christian blasphemy—The Church of the Antique Rite claims to be pre-Christian in its basis and aims.”
“The Church of the Antique Rite?” Ninian said. “What would
that
be doing this far west and in somebody's basement? Didn't they insist on meeting in blasted churches anyway?”
“And if they did, what would a non-Christian sect be doing meeting on Christian holy ground anyway?” Rowan added. “It doesn't make any sense!”
“Ah, that would be the Templar influence … .” Dylan said, falling easily into lecture mode.
As he continued going over the walls and floor carefully for any signs that might be left from The Church of the Antique Rite's visitation, and photographing some areas for
later study, Dylan briefly outlined the history of the cult much as he had to Truth, reminding both of the young parapsychologists that many of the spontaneous phenomena associated with hauntings and visitations could be produced both by conscious intent—as with the group of researchers in Toronto who had created their own ghost entirely out of whole cloth—and by an extended period of religious worship.

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