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Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley

BOOK: Gravelight
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“I—yes—no—I don't know.” Sinah jumped to her feet, knocking the rickety chair backwards as she rose. Covering her face with her hands, she ran for the only possible refuge—the Winnebago.
“Miss Dellon!” Sergeant Wachman also stood. “I didn't mean—”
“Maybe if you'd tell us what you needed, we could be of more help,” Dylan Palmer said. His words were cordial, but his tone was not. “We'll be happy to be of assistance, but I think you'd better leave Sinah alone.”
“It isn't a good idea to threaten an officer of the law in these parts, Sunny Jim,” Wachman said. The placidity was gone; now his broad, fair face looked like that of an animal about to charge.
“It's just that all the recording equipment is in there,” Rowan said, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the air,
“And if any of it breaks, it comes out of Dylan's salary. Besides, Sinah's been through a lot lately, with nobody here but us willing to talk to her or anything.” Rowan flashed Wachman her sunniest smile, obviously intent on using her femininity as a weapon.
And, thought Truth wryly, Rowan's tactics seemed to work just fine. Wachman relaxed, though he didn't resume his seat.
“So you use machines—not psychics?” He sounded oddly disappointed. “Isn't Miss Dellon working for you?”
“Maybe you'd better tell me why you're asking all these questions,” Dylan said. “And what you came here for. I'm sure it wasn't to pass the time of day.”
For heaven's sake, Dylan-lighten up! You're the one who always says how important it is to get along with the locals!
Though she wanted to run after Sinah and see if she was all right, Truth didn't dare move and disrupt the delicate balance of the scene. The last thing any of them needed was to spend tonight in jail.
“I came,” Sergeant Wachman said heavily, “to see if one of you
parapsychologists
had enough witch blood in him to hoodoo me up some place to start on that Starking girl,'cause this mountain's a big place, and she could lie where she is till she rots if we've got nothing to go on and a trail seventy-two hours cold.” His face flushed red with embarrassment and anger.
There was a stunned silence from the other four. Whatever any of them had expected from a county sheriff in rural West Virginia, it hadn't been something like this.
“Well, for heaven's sake, Sergeant Wachman, you don't want Sinah for that,” Rowan said matter-of-factly. “You want me.” She looked pleased and relieved to have solved the problem so easily.
Truth was almost sure Rowan's obliviousness was an act, and a good one. But with Wachman's attention fixed firmly on Rowan, Truth was finally able to get up and slip away.
“Sinah, are you all right?”
Sinah whirled around with a gasp when she saw her.
“It's gone, Truth—it's all gone. I'm all alone!”
There was little that Truth could do for her—though Sinah had apparently never wanted her power, she was understandably upset now that it had vanished. At least Truth was able to reassure Sinah that Sergeant Wachman's interest in her was professional, nothing more.
“He just wants a psychic to help him look for Luned, that's all. I think Rowan's agreed to help him.”
“A psychic?” Sinah said blankly. “Like on TV?”
“Everything all right in here?” Dylan asked, opening the door.
“Just nerves,” Sinah said quickly. “He wants a psychic?” she repeated, so Dylan could hear.
“He's grasping at straws,” Dylan said in a mild voice. “And it can hardly hurt for Rowan to try a little remote-location work for him with the map. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, he's no worse off than he is now.”
“Many police departments will consult psychics as a last resort,” Truth said for Sinah's benefit. “It's a pity that the psychics usually aren't that reliable.”
“If the Institute gets its Central Registry program off the ground, that could change. It would be a place where people could not only find a referral to a professional psychic, but consult their track record as well,” Dylan said, speaking to Sinah.
“Sort of a Ghostbusters Blue Book,” Sinah said with a wan smile. “Well, I don't deserve a listing in it.”
“But Rowan does.” Dylan stepped inside and squeezed past them, opening one of the boxes full of odds and ends and rummaging through. “Truth, do you remember where we packed the test kit?”
The camper rocked again as Rowan climbed in. “Hi. Sergeant Wachman's gone to get a big topo map of the area for me to work off, so I thought I'd come get my music. I brought the Walkman in here—now where did I leave it?” Rowan began opening drawers and poking through them.
Had Rowan spent last night here? A stunning flash of jealousy flared through Truth. How dare she? Truth turned to go, but there was someone else now in the camper's narrow doorway.
“This looks like the stateroom from
A Night At The Opera,”
Ninian said. “But since everyone else is here, I thought I'd come in, too. That guy worries me.”
“Oh, he's nice!” Rowan protested. “He's just a cop.” She finally located the bright yellow Walkman and its headphones, and began untangling the cord. “And a cop's gotta do what a cop's gotta do.”
Ninian made a grumbling sound but said nothing else, slithering past the others to sit down in the driver's seat.
“Now—where are the tapes? We crammed everything in here so fast last night when the storm hit—it was that or get washed away, and you should have seen the three of us here wondering if the Winnebago was going to be the next thing to go,” Rowan rambled on obliviously.
Truth felt the tension in her chest ease, and smiled sourly. It was a more reasonable explanation than the one she'd come up with—even if Dylan did want to cheat on her, he'd hardly do it with one of his student advisees.
What was happening to her? Truth wondered worriedly. She wasn't acting—she was
re
acting—dancing like a puppet to some invisible pull on her strings.
But who was the puppeteer?
“Wups!—there he is! Gotta go,” Rowan said, and bounced out the door again, both hands full.
“Rowan!” Dylan shouted, too late to catch her. “Dammit, I can't find the kit!”
“It's in here.” Truth stooped and pulled out a built-in drawer under the couch in the back. “Remember? You put it there so you could find it easily.” She dropped a small cardboard box into his hands.
“Oh. Right.” Dylan had the grace to look sheepish. He opened the box. The pendulum—a lathe-turned, brass plumb-bob on a length of heavy fishing line with a ring at the end—was right on top. He scooped it up. “Thanks, Tru.”
Truth smiled at the odd, light shortening of her name. When Dylan left the camper, Ninian followed him.
“Do you want to lie down for a while, Sinah?” Truth said. “You can use the couch here; it's no trouble.”
“No,” Sinah said, squaring her shoulders as if in defiance of her inner demons. “I'd like to watch. I've never seen a psychic work before.”
“Now, this might not work,” Rowan was saying in a didactic voice.
The small card table in front of the camper had been cleared, and the enormous topographical map that covered the local area was laid out.
“I
know
it won't work,” growled Wachman.
“—because forensic psychometry is a specialized field, and since I don't know anything about police work, I could misinterpret what information I do get, or it could be too vague to do you any good. I might tell you to look by running water, for instance, and what good does something like that do you? But let's see what I get. Have you got a photo? Something she wears frequently?”
“This is the best we've got. It's a couple of years old.”
Wachman was plainly impressed by Rowan's brisk matter-of-fact dismissal of her possible accuracy. He produced a picture; obviously a school photo. In it Luned stood, scrubbed and grave, wearing a yellow dress and staring fixedly into the camera. Rowan took the picture between her fingertips and laid it down on top of the map.
“Okay.” She took a deep breath, and Truth realized that for all her breezy demeanor, Rowan was nervous.
“Got the pendulum? Oh, and somebody needs to mark the hits.”
“I've got a pencil,” Dylan said, dropping the pendulum into her hand. Rowan's fingers closed over it as if it were a lifeline—but only for a moment. She began shaking out the line. When she had it unkinked, she lay it top of the map and reached for her headphones. She slipped on her
earphones and settled the Walkman in her lap. There was a pile of tapes on the corner of the table.
“What are you going to do?” Wachman asked, a little uneasily.
“I'm going to rock,” Rowan said absently, and pushed the button on her tape player. Instantly the driving sound of guitars could be heard seeping around her earphones as the music took up in midphrase. Ninian—out of Rowan's sight-line—winced, and Truth sympathized. How could anyone bear to listen to that stuff when it was as loud as that?
Incredibly, Rowan turned it up even louder. Truth heard a howling that was probably the lead singer but sounded like the Wild Hunt in full flight. Despite the pounding rhythm, Rowan did not move to the music. Instead, she sat perfectly still, her left hand in her lap, and slipped the first finger of her right hand through the ring at the end of the pendulum's cord. She held her arm straight out above the map, so that the weight at the other end of the cord hung free directly over the center of the map.
“Rowan and I work together frequently,” Dylan told Wachman. He spoke in a normal voice; there was no way Rowan could possibly hear him over the hammering of the music. “She uses music to shut down outside stimulus and trigger an altered state. Every psychic practitioner has his or her own method; I'm afraid that parapsychology isn't a very exact science as yet.”
“And you think this is going to work,” Wachman asked dubiously. Whatever he'd come to them expecting, this obviously wasn't it.
“That depends on what you mean by work,” Dylan said smoothly. “Rowan is certainly going to enter a trance. She may or may not be able to pinpoint some search locations on the map for you. And whether what she finds turns out to be accurate or not is something I can't tell you in advance.”
“Fair enough,” Wachman said, mollified.
The pendulum began to move almost immediately, at first swinging back and forth, and then settling into a circling motion familiar to Truth.
“Hit it,” Rowan said, when the pendulum stopped.
Dylan made an X on the map and stepped back again. The pendulum began circling again almost at once.
“And she isn't moving it?” The question this time came from Sinah. Dylan turned to her and smiled.
“Of course she's moving it, but at a preconscious level, in response to stimuli uncensored by her conscious mind. At its most basic, the trance state is the splitting of the conscious and unconscious minds so that a dialogue can be enacted between them. Rowan's clairvoyant—what that means in essence is that she's receiving information outside of normal perceptual channels. Most people do, to some extent—what else is a hunch, after all, but acting on information you didn't know you had?—but either the clairvoyant receives more information, or has better access; we're not quite sure which.”
“You don't seem to know a heck of a lot, do you?” Wachman grumbled.
“Maybe not,” Dylan said agreeably. “But at least we know we don't know it.”
“Hit it,” Rowan Moorcock said again.
“Well, according to my calculations, you found the general store, the Starking house, and the old Dellon cabin—all places she's been before, but where we already know she isn't now. But these other two are worth checking out.” He rolled up the map. “I'll just drive on up and see what kind of mischief Davey's gotten himself into. Thanks for your time—and the coffee.”
Wachman strode off purposefully to the green and white sedan still parked out in front of the general store and got in.
“Did you get anything else?” Dylan asked Rowan quietly.
Rowan was rubbing her temples, and it was one of the few times Truth had seen the girl looking anything less than ebullient.
“Yes, Dylan. I didn't want to say anything, but—I think she's already dead. I think she's drowned.”
GRAVE WORDS
There is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave—under the deep deep sea,
Or in the wide desert where no life is found.
—THOMAS HOOD
“I CAN'T BEAR THE THOUGHT OF JUST STANDING AROUND here waiting,” Sinah said with a shudder, as the others prepared to resume their daily tasks. “And I suppose I have a few phone calls to make—to my business manager, for one thing,” she added reluctantly. “But maybe you could swing by in a few hours, Truth, and we could run down to the IGA in Pharaoh? I'm sort of stranded without the Jeep—Wycherly borrowed it, and he hasn't brought it back yet,” she added for Dylan's benefit.
“That will be fine—around three, then?” Truth was reluctant to let Sinah out of her sight, but what harm could it do, really? If Sinah meant to sacrifice herself to the Gate there was little Truth could do to stop her when it came right down to it.
“Perfect. And why don't all four of you come to dinner tonight?” Sinah added. “It won't be fancy, but you can at least get your laundry done and take a few showers without rationing every drop.”
“That would be great,” Dylan said. “I'm afraid my plans
for today are to drive the camper to someplace called—I swear this is true—Bear Heaven, to get the tanks flushed and topped up. Having the camper's a damn sight better than sleeping on the ground, but for every advantage, there are equal and opposite drawbacks. That's Palmer's Law.”
“See you tonight then,” Sinah said, smiling. She waved and started off up the road.
“And where do
you
suppose Wycherly Musgrave is?” Dylan asked Truth, when Sinah was out of earshot and Rowan and Ninian had left for their check-sites. It was the closest thing to a civil conversation they'd had in days, and Truth was absurdly grateful for it.
“Probably back in Long Island by now—that is, if he hasn't wrapped Sinah's car around a tree somewhere. Three guesses who the wrecked Ferrari over there in the junkyard belongs to,” Truth said absently.
Dylan glanced briefly in that direction, where a flash of the car's blood-red paint job was still visible among the rusted wreckage of older cars.
“And what are your plans for the afternoon?” he asked, leaning back against the side of the camper.
“Well, I was going to write up my notes, but if you're going to be driving my office …” Truth said, striving for a light tone.
“You could come with me.”
Once she would have accepted such an offer without question; now, recent events made her wary, searching the innocent statement for hidden traps and tests. She sighed.
“Dylan, we need to talk,” Truth said.
“I know,” Dylan said. He sat down at the table. Truth followed suit, bracing herself to be honest—and to accept honesty in return.
“Lately it seems as if we've been going off half-cocked in opposite directions. Why didn't you tell me you were going up to the sanatorium this morning?” she asked.
Dylan considered the question, giving it full weight before he spoke.
“Frankly, I didn't want … I don't know what I didn't want. But the way you've been acting since you got here … well, it isn't like you, Truth.”
“I'm afraid it is like me,” Truth said soberly. “People change, Dylan. Mostly in their teens and early twenties, of course, when everything else is changing so much that it just sort of fits in. But I guess I'm sort of a case of arrested development, Dyl. I held the line against everything for so long that when I gave up doing it I guess I changed more than either of us was expecting.”
“Maybe you did. But I love you, darling, no matter what crack-brained notions you have. I just don't want to see you hurt. You're so reckless … .” Dylan said, his voice trailing off as he envisioned the scope of Truth's recklessness.
His expression made her laugh. “Me? Oh, no, Dylan; if you want recklessness, take Rowan! I swear it made my blood run cold to listen to her offer to tweak the tail of that psychic locus just to hear it squeak. I know what I'm doing, Dylan, even if it doesn't look like it. I'm as careful as I can be.”
Dylan got to his feet as if he could no longer contain himself. He stood, half turned away from her, one hand pressed against the back of his neck as if unconsciously he were trying to make himself submit to something.
“Look. All kidding aside, I know you … believe in magick. But in our little corner of the world you can easily get a distorted view of how accepted it is. You've studied Thorne's life—in fact, you wrote the book. Are you ready to expose yourself to that much … ridicule?” he finished in a strained voice.
This was hard. She'd expected it to be, but its difficulty had already exceeded her expectations. It would have been simpler if Truth had simply told Dylan that she didn't love him, didn't care, wanted nothing more to do with him.
That wasn't true. But unfortunately Truth wanted him on terms of complete honesty, complete openness—and she didn't think that was possible.
“If I have to become a laughingstock I will—for what's right. It isn't that I believe in magick, Dylan; magick believes in me. And … I suppose I haven't told you everything about what I learned over the last few years. I suppose if I'm going to be … open about my beliefs, we need to discuss that most of all.”
Now it would come—the open break between them.
“All right,” Dylan said, as warily as any man would under the circumstances.
Truth took a deep breath and willed down the rising tide of her stormy emotions. She had only one chance at getting this right, but the words must be said.
“You know that Thorne claimed he'd been fathered by a Bright Lord of the
sidhe—
a nonhuman force. Well, it's the truth. He was. I have as much proof of that as I'll ever need. And I'm his daughter. I'm … not quite human, Dylan.”
Her throat was raw with the effort it had taken to force out the words, bald and unpersuasive though they were. Dylan did not laugh—but would any man laugh when the woman he loved confessed to being delusional? If he did not trust and believe in her, her confession could seem like nothing else to him.
Dylan ran a hand over his forehead. He was sweating.
“I know that Blackburn …” he began. His voice died. “You'll have to give me time, Truth. I'm sorry. This is a lot to take in.”
And there's more. There's my life's work—and it isn't sitting in a sterile cubicle at the Institute juggling numbers!
“Yes. I know. I'm sorry.” Trite, meaningless words—but what else could she say?
I'm sorry,
Dylan, love
.
I'm sorry
.
“Why didn't you bring this up before?” The desperation in his voice made her heart ache.
Because I thought I could ignore it, pretend it didn't matter. We weren't planning on children, after all. Because I thought I could pretend to be a normal human being.
“I'm sorry, Dylan,” Truth said again.
They sat there in silence for a long time, not looking at
each other, until Truth finally got up and walked off in the direction of the general store. While she was inside buying supplies to make up for a missed breakfast, she heard the camper's engine start up and saw it move slowly up the street.
She'd never felt more desolate in her life, but Truth told herself stubbornly that it wasn't yet time to despair. If Dylan could accept what she'd told him this morning, they would have a basis for discussion of all the rest.
If he could not, Truth would leave as soon as the Gate was sealed, and do her best not to see Dylan Palmer ever again.
“This is a wicked place,” Michael Archangel said simply, gazing down at the Black Altar.
To earthly eyes, Michael Archangel was a tall man of indeterminate age, with the black hair and eyes and olive skin that bespoke a Mediterranean heritage. He wore a dark suit that was peculiarly out of place here in the rambling, overgrown ruins of the burnt sanatorium, and looked like any mundane businessman.
But Truth knew he was more than that—much more. She kept her second sight well barricaded whenever she looked toward him, but the presence of what he was beat against her shields like constant sunlight. Someday, inevitably, there would be war between them, as Michael followed the Right-Hand Path, the path of Light—and Truth did not.
If there had not been that unspoken thing between them, Truth could have liked Michael. He was the one whom Light Winwood, Truth's sister, had chosen for her life partner. And though he could never be her ally, Truth trusted Michael to be true to his own nature. Michael Archangel was the closest thing to a White Magician that Truth knew.
It was early on the morning of August 14—and the sub-basement temple at Wildwood Sanatorium was cold and threatening. Today there was not even the sight of blue sky and sunlight in the world above to warm them: The day was misty and overcast, unusually cool for August, and the
stone walls seemed to radiate cold. Truth, Michael, Dylan, and Sinah stood once more before the altar stone that symbolized Quentin Blackburn's power.
Truth's problems with Dylan were worse than ever—they had both carefully avoided each other last night at Sinah's. Later there would be time for Truth to talk to Dylan, to make a clean end to things as she knew she must. But now Truth must set her private griefs aside in the face of the responsibility she bore.
Beside Truth, Sinah twisted nervously.
Truth had not wanted Sinah to be here for this, but she hadn't really been able to think of any good argument to keep Sinah away. Sinah was terrified of Quentin Blackburn and the grey place she had been trapped in on the Astral Plane, even more than she was afraid of the bloodline and her duties as Gatekeeper. When Truth had told Sinah that Michael would be coming to put an end to all that remained in this world of Quentin Blackburn, Sinah had demanded to be present, and Truth still needed her cooperation—or the cooperation of whatever ancestral memories dwelt behind Sinah Dellon's grey eyes—to seal the Wildwood Gate. So Sinah had come with them when Michael had picked Truth up at Sinah's house this morning.
When Michael had arrived at Sinah's, Dylan had been with him. Truth could not imagine how they'd connected, or what they'd found to talk about. Or what Dylan had told Rowan and Ninian—left behind in town—for that matter.
“Have you heard anything from Wycherly?” Truth asked, to distract Sinah from what Michael was doing. “He's probably going to need to make a statement to the sheriff's department. He was probably the last person to see Luned alive, if she kept house for him.”
By now the consensus in the Fork was that Luned Starking was dead. Soon the rumors would begin that Sinah had caused the death. Truth hoped she'd have the sense to be far from here by then—once the Gate was sealed.
Sinah shook her head. “He didn't kill her,” she said, her voice shaking with the effort it took to force the words out.
Michael stepped forward and brushed his fingers lightly across the top of the Black Altar, his mobile features twisting in distaste at what he felt there. After a few moments he straightened from his examination of the altar and turned to the three who were waiting.
“There is sufficient evil here that I may act. Are any of you believers?” he asked in his deep voice. “I know that
she
is not,” he added, indicating Truth.
Sinah shook her head uncertainly, while Dylan's answer, to Truth's surprise, was a strong “Yes.”
“Very well.” Michael's eyes met Truth's briefly, and she experienced a searing shock of recognition, of a sense that she knew his true name—
Then it was gone.
“I will ask you, Truth, and Ms. Dellon merely to keep still minds, and to place your trust in the power of the Light. The Darkness finds its power in your weakness; if you have faith, you will come to no harm.”
Truth could not quite believe that—it was a fundamental dispute about the use of Man's capacity to know and do that was at the root of Truth and Michael's conflict—but this was not the time to argue. Let Sinah trust in Michael, if she could; Truth would trust her own strength to protect her, and do nothing to hinder what Michael intended to do.
Michael extended his hand to Dylan, who stepped forward. Then Michael turned to the case he had brought with him and began to remove its contents, setting them upon a small folding table which he had also carried here.
Most of what she saw was familiar to Truth—the apparatus of High Magick was nearly universal—but some of them were unique to Michael's path: the monstrance containing the consecrated wafer which Michael held to be the actual body of his god; the vial of viaticum; a long, narrow strip of violet silk, embroidered with the symbols of his faith. When he had everything he would need set out, he draped the
stola
about his neck, kissing the ends of it before and after he did so.

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