The Adept (10 page)

“Good morning, John. Thank you,” Adam said. As he ran a gloved hand over the grey’s satiny neck and down the near front leg, the animal whuffled softly and presented its face to be scratched.

“And good morning to you, too, Khalid,” he murmured with indulgent compliance. “Ah, you like that, don’t you? Are you and Poppy ready for a little outing?”

“Oh, he’ll, give you a good ride today, sir,” John said with a chuckle, finishing with the mare’s girth and moving on to bridle her. “Not that there’s a mean bone in either of them,” he added, for Peregrine’s benefit. “You shouldn’t have any trouble, Mr. Lovat, if you’ve ridden much at all.”

“I used to hunt, when I was still at school,” Peregrine offered.

“Well, then, you’ll do fine with this lady. And she’ll keep pace with that great grey lump there,” he said, giving Khalid an affectionate smack on the rump as he led the mare past. “She should give you a very good ride.”

After John had given him a leg up and helped him adjust his stirrups, Peregrine waited for Adam to mount and then fell in behind him as they walked the horses out of the stableyard. The mare moved out obediently in response to his legs, clearly ready to be off, if called upon to do so, but making no demands—a perfect lady, as John had maintained.

They continued walking for the first ten minutes, to let the horses warm up—and let Peregrine accustom himself to being in the saddle. Then, after a short trot along a drainage ditch that separated two fields, they set off across a rolling pasture at a canter. In deference to Peregrine’s long hiatus from riding, Adam took them through gates rather than jumping fences and hedges, reining back to a walk as they approached the wooded slope of Templemor Hill.

It was Adam’s intention to have Peregrine look at the castle ruins with an eye to locking in on some of its resonances from the past. He had set the stage in his previous day’s lecture, and it had occurred to him that the artist might find it less threatening to look at a structure rather than at a person, as he began allowing his talent of seeing to reassert itself. Ahead, through the ragged lattice of wind-stripped branches, the jagged ramparts of Templemor gleamed gold-grey in the morning mist—a classic Z-plan fortalice with two headless stair turrets jutting from opposite corners of a roofless keep.

Adam stood and stretched a little in his stirrups as they approached, wondering what the man riding at his side would see when asked to look beyond the mere physical of the ruin. He was not seeking or expecting anything for himself, content merely to be present as facilitator and guide for Peregrine, as the younger man learned to harness his gifts.

Guard relaxed, then, he was startled when suddenly, in the space of an eye-blink, a fragment of his own past intruded on the present. As if by magic, a shaft of sunlight lanced through the bare branches above them and struck the castle walls, fanning in an eye-dazzling corona of golden
sunfire. The alchemy of light suspended time and reason, and revealed, standing before the ruined doorway of Templemor, a tall, bearded man wearing the red, eight-pointed cross of the Knights Templar on the shoulder of his white mantle, gauntleted hands resting on the hilt of a great, two-handed broadsword planted in the earth before him.

Between one startled heartbeat and the next, the vision vanished. Adam blinked several times, hoping to recapture it, but ghosts of even older memories briefly surfaced instead, all unbidden—sitting at a table littered with scrolls in an ancient library . . . standing, at the prow of a papyrus funeral boat drifting along the west bank of the River Nile . . . then Khalid stumbled on a root, and the present moment reasserted itself, and he was once more Sir Adam Sinclair of Templemor, riding toward a derelict castle in the misty brightness of a Scottish morning.

Shaken more than he hoped he showed, Adam glanced aside at the young man riding at his knee, but Peregrine seemed not to have noticed, his gaze set attentively ahead on the sun-dappled ruins. Relieved—for frightening Peregrine was the last thing he wanted to do—Adam set himself to deciphering what the vision meant.

It was not a warning of danger, as such—though the image of the armed knight might symbolize a need to be watchful, and perhaps presaged a future necessity to dispense justice on some level. In more general terms, however, such an unsolicited and unregulated intrusion of his past into his present usually signaled change—a subtle shift in the balance of powers that governed the wheeling of the universe, such as sometimes required his intervention. The warning he had received on the Inner Planes had hinted as much.

But the focus of any Impending threat remained unclear; and until he understood the nature of the coming shift in balance, he could only watch and wait, until he had more information. In the meantime, his immediate concern must be for Peregrine—who, he was beginning to suspect, was being thrust into his life at this particular point in time for more reason than mere happenstance. He glanced again at Peregrine, briefly wondering whether he was doing the right thing, where Peregrine himself was concerned. Thus far, the young artist’s far-seeing had encroached only slightly upon Adam, other than in his professional capacity. The artist had come to Adam as patient to physician, wanting only to be “cured” . . . but Adam, quickly discerning the root of Peregrine’s “problem,” had more or less taken it upon himself to convert that problem to an asset—not to shut off Peregrine’s special sort of seeing, but to channel it.

That was not what Peregrine had asked for. Nor was it too late to pull back and simply “cure” him, as: he had requested—though a point of no return could not be too far away, if Peregrine learned as quickly as Adam was beginning to suspect he might. Right now, today, Adam still might put Peregrine and his wayward talent at arm’s length, simply by retreating to the role of
only
a psychiatrist, agreeing that the far-seeing was a mental aberration, helping him learn to blot it out, as he first had wanted. And any questioning of Adam’s professionalism, if Peregrine later spoke about his methods to anyone else, might be dismissed as the delusions Peregrine himself had posited from the beginning.

Reverting to mere psychiatry was not really an option in Peregrine’s case, of course—though Adam always made himself examine all the likely permutations, before taking that plunge of deeper commitment on the Inner Planes. For good reason, he still might back off; but the potential reward was worth a great deal of risk: another Adept restored, ready, to take his place in the Work of the Light—and possibly, a valuable ally for Adam himself. Most compelling of all was the fact that Adam Sinclair, as medical practitioner, spiritual healer, and warrior of the Light, was constitutionally incapable of turning away someone in need, whom he had the ability to help.

So. Now to see what Templemor had to offer Mr. Peregrine Lovat. Adam already had intimations that energies were stirring, or he would not have glimpsed visions of his own, merely approaching the ancient site. Casting his gaze ahead, and putting his own concerns out of mind,
Adam led the way into the narrow clearing surrounding the base of the old tower house, casually pointing out a knee-high series of foundations, just outside the castle wall, and several piles of cut stone off to their left.

“I see the lads
have
been busy,” he said, reining in and dismounting. “Most of those foundations are from the old outbuildings. The piles of stone are debris they’ve hauled out from inside, where walls fell in and roofs collapsed.

We’ll leave the horses here to graze while we explore.”

He forgot to worry about Peregrine while they saw to the horses, caught up in the changes just since his last visit, but a week before. The ivy was gone, for a start, and the trees formerly growing atop the first floor vaulting had been ruthlessly rooted out, along with the debris in which they had been growing. Pleased, Adam led the way toward the doorway of the castle itself.

“That was probably a family crest, there above the door.”

Adam said, pointing out a blurred irregularity in the stone.

“I’ve always assumed it was the same as the phoenix you saw in the great hall, up at the house, but it could be different Sinclair crest, or something else altogether. Unfortunately, it’s so far gone that we may never know for certain.”

There was no response from Peregrine. Adam glanced back over his shoulder. The artist was standing at the bottom of the steps leading up to the entryway, his sketchbook clutched tightly in front of his chest, his expression all at once pained and rigid.

“Peregrine? What’s the matter?” Adam asked sharply.

The young artist started slightly at the sound of his name, eyes screwed to mere slits behind his glasses, and looked hastily, at the ground.

“I don’t think I ought to have come here,” he said softly.

He swayed on his feet and staggered backwards. Swiftly Adam sprang to his side and guided him to a seat on a block of stone at the edge of the clearing.

“Whyever not?” he demanded.

“It’s this cursed, bloody ghost-sight of mine!” Peregrine said between gritted teeth. “If I could only blot it out—”

“No, that’s the last thing you want to do,” Adam interposed with soft urgency. “Don’t fight it. Don’t even try to control it for now. Just relax and let the experience run its course.”

“But—”

“I said relax,” Adam said. His voice this time carried sharp note of command as he laid a hand across Peregrine’s furrowed forehead, steadying his head with the other hand behind. “Relax, Peregrine,” he repeated, more quietly, “I want you to go back into trance for me, like you did the other night. Fighting isn’t the answer. Relax. Remember your dream. Remember . . .”

Under Adam’s hands and persuasion, some of the tension eased out of the younger man’s taut form. His eyes remained closed, and when he finally settled down enough to take a deep breath and let it out softly, Adam took his hands away and moved back a step.

“That’s better,” he said, watching his subject closely.

“Just keep your eyes closed and listen to me. Don’t you see?”

This is precisely why I brought you here today—to give you chance to test out your various levels of vision. I thought a structure would be easier than people. Before we can explore ways of selectively controlling what you see, we need to find out what happens when you make no attempt to control it at all.”

Peregrine shook his head dreamily. “I know what you’re saying, but it’s so—confusing. I can shut out some of the confusion, if I look straight at whatever it is, but the images in my peripheral vision—” He paused to swallow noisily.

“Even with my eyes closed, I still see more than I should. It’s like—like trying to see through a bunch of transparencies all stacked on top of each other.”

“A good analogy,” Adam agreed, “but if you’ll only stop struggling, the storm of images may subside of its own accord. What did your other selves say in the dream?”

“Be still,” murmured Peregrine. “Be still, and know that thou art lord of—Good God!” His eyes popped open. “Do you think I’m
causing
the turbulence?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Adam said, sitting carefully on another block of stone. “Do what your other selves told you to do.
Be
still. Relax and breathe deeply.
Close your eyes again for a moment, until you find your balance. Concentrate on each breath as you take it, in . . . and out . . .”

Peregrine obeyed. His chest rose and fell. The rigid lines of tension eased in his face. After a long moment, his fingers eased their death grip on the sketching pad.

“Good,” Adam said. “Now open your eyes and draw what you see—whatever you see—just as you did that first night in the library. It’s perfectly all right.”

Peregrine cracked his lids a cautious chink. Colors—green, grey, brown—shimmered giddily before him. He took another deep, slow breath, then opened his eyes wide.

The scene in front of him flickered and flashed, oscillating between one state and another like a holographic projection. One moment he was looking at a derelict ruin, open to the sky; the next, he was seeing a manorial keep with its roofs and windows intact.

“Don’t tense up,” Adam’s deep voice advised from somewhere off to his left. “You’re seeing beyond the mere physical now, and that’s good. Just let the images flow.”

Peregrine managed a slight nod of acquiescence. As he continued to gaze unresistingly at the castle, even a little bit
beyond
the castle, the vision of a different Templemor began to stabilize, building up layer on layer. The twin stair turrets were capped off with square overhanging garret chambers, their crow-stepped roofs snugly overlaid with slates. The heraldic crest above the door, so badly weatherworn in the present, now showed a sharply-cut and freshly-painted device of a Maltese cross surrounded by seven stars—not the phoenix rising from the flames, as he had seen in Adam’s house. The motto underneath the crest read,
Morte nunquam reget:
“Death shall have no dominion.”

Peregrine blinked—slowly—but the image did not dissolve away when he opened his eyes. More confident now, and catching a little of the satisfaction that he could actually keep the thing in focus, he opened his sketchbook and began rapidly to draw . . .

After a few minutes, Adam came to look on over the artist’s shoulder. Under Peregrine’s deft, busy hands, the ruin was transformed on paper into a stout tower-house, half fortress, half manor. The dormer windows sported heavy wooden shutters, and there were shot-holes in the flanking stair turrets to allow for protective fire across the main block of the building. Short parapet walks along the sides of the two overhanging garret chambers commanded a guarded view of the ground below.