Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 01, page 30
And even if they had, how lost could she get in something this small? It wasn't as if she were daring Hampton Court Maze. Truth started down the path.
She'd just had time to get inside, for the high boxwood hedges to cut off the light and for her to realize how really foolhardy an idea it was to come in here after dark when . . . something . . . changed.
If this had been California and not New York, Truth would not have hesitated to name it an earthquake; it had the same rolling disorienting quality that made its victim need to stop and remember his own name. She felt as though she'd tripped over a step that wasn't there, although the path was perfectly smooth.
Then she realized that something was burning—she smelled the smoke and heard the crackle of flames like far-off gunfire. She turned.
There was no hedge between her and the burning house. She started forward, and stopped as the realization came to her that something was wrong, that a fire like this could not have spread in the few minutes she'd been out of the house. Then she realized that the house that was burning was not the one she had left.
The burning house was a long low rambling white clapboard structure, its small windows set high under the eaves. It was filled with fire, and every window showed the hot gold of a jack'o'lantern's eyes. Shadow's Gate—just as it had been the night it burned, as it had been in 1872, one hundred twenty-three years before.
As if she possessed the clairvoyance she tested in others, Truth stared into the fire and seemed to see through it—to see with snapshot clarity a whitewashed bedroom with a high-canopied tester nestled beneath its slanting ceiling. The fire was all around, but even the fire had not eradicated the lacy sprays of blood that patterned the walls of the room.
In the middle of the room stood a man, his skin baked glistening red by the flames and his shirt soaked with blood and sweat, holding an axe and sobbing as he plied it past all necessity. Bringing it down again and again, though its targets had long since ceased to struggle and, even, to breathe.
Elijah Cheddow. Who, on this site, had killed his family and vanished— burned to death in a fire he himself had set. And no one had ever known why, though Truth was beginning to suspect.
The flame-fed vision faded as a section of roof caved in, sending a pillar of sparks skyward. In the distance she could hear a bell tolling to waken the villagers of Shadowkill to the disaster in their midst.
But somehow, for all its horror, the scene Truth watched held no power to frighten—its emotional impact was as diminished as if it existed in the shadow of even greater terror, of power which—once bound—must be fed.
"I know a bank where the wild time grows," a familiar voice said behind her. "No, don't turn around."
She glanced sideways as Thorne spoke, and as she looked away from the fire felt it suddenly cease, tucked back into the past once more. The evening breeze rustled in the leaves of the boxwood hedge.
"Hello," Truth said, and then, reluctantly: "Hello, Father."
The fear she had not felt watching the fire came now—not of Thorne Blackburn, but for herself, her sanity. She understood now what Michael had been trying to tell her about leaving while there were things she didn't know—about leaving while she still had the serene certainty that there was only one way to see the world.
"Wouldn't you like to walk down the drive and get in your car and leave? You could send for your things—and if you don't get them, so what? You dress like a straight anyway," Thorne added with faint scorn.
"Why should I leave?" Truth forced herself to ask. Now that I'm finally beginning to find out who I really am. She stared straight ahead at the hedge-wall of the maze. She could still see the entrance off to her right. There was no house burning there now.
Or should that be ... yet?
"So you could always be certain about everything—including your sanity," Thorne said in response. "You're not like the others—you're my daughter. And you don't even understand what that means," he added.
Don't I? When blood calls to blood?
Truth turned around abruptly. There was no one there. She glanced up the path, although she knew that if someone had been standing there they had not had time to get out of sight.
She reached out her hand and brushed the leaves. There was no path through them.
"I'm already crazy," Truth said aloud. "I've read about hallucinations— they aren't like this. Normal people don't see things that aren't there and have conversations with people that don't exist. And what about Light?"
There was no answer.
"Thorne!" Truth's voice was preemptory, demanding, the question of reality set aside. "What about Light? What will happen to her if I go? She won't go with me. She's your daughter too—our blood—what will happen to her?"
I'm standing out here in the dark yelling at the bushes, Truth realized suddenly.
"Thorne? Father?" Oh please ansiver me.
"The Light and the Truth are the Way," Thorne Blackburn said. Truth couldn't tell what direction the voice was coming from, though she could hear the smile in his voice that told her he was pleased with his own cleverness. "And the Way is the Way of the Pilgrim. Your blood has chosen for you, daughter. Beware." The voice faded like a theatrical special effect.
"Oh Jesus Christ!" Truth snapped in nervous exasperation. Not another florid melodramatic cryptic warning! She thought of all the things she wanted to say to Thorne Blackburn at that moment and decided that none of them was suitable for addressing one's father, living or dead.
I'm going crazy. I'm having all the arguments with my father I would have had when I was a teenager, only I'm not a teenager and he's dead.
But it doesn't seem to change anything. . . .
Truth retraced her steps quickly and went back into the house.
Wherever Michael had gone with Light that afternoon, they were both back at the house in time for dinner. Fiona was also at the table, carefully not looking at Truth.
Julian presided over them like an antique god over his unruly children, coaxing, chiding, and proclaiming by turns. He reserved a special smile for Truth, and it warmed her as if she still stood before the fire that had burned tonight in the parlor fireplace. Only later did she realize it should have triggered an associative memory of her vision of the burning of the previous Shadow's Gate, but it was as if those memories were in a class by themselves, untouched by mundane reality.
Conversation eddied around her, excited and anticipatory. The Circle would be working tonight, beginning the rituals that would culminate in the Opening of the Way. The Circle would meet every night from midnight until dawn right through a week from Monday—Halloween—for six hours of Blackburn's elaborate theatre sacre. On Halloween night they would start at dusk, and work the final ritual of Thorne's liturgy—the one that would reconnect the worlds of Gods and Men.
And then what?
Though she'd been here only a few days, Truth had become fond of most of Julian's Circle: the aloof Donner; Hereward with his backhand mockery; Ellis, who seemed always to be consciously satirizing himself; Caradoc, whose involvement in something this outre appeared so out of character; Gareth who wanted so passionately to belong—and who was so unsuitably in love. They weren't just dry case histories in a monograph on cults—they were people heading for disaster as surely as if they'd been let loose in an armory to play with the guns.
Why was she so sure of that?
The question took on fresh urgency the longer she considered it. She was—she was having some sort of breakdown, because if she was not, what was happening to her?
And Thorne kept harping upon the fact that she was his daughter, as if that fact put her in a special class of danger—but what?
The longer Truth stayed at Shadow's Gate, the more questions—and fewer answers—she had.
The members of the Circle excused themselves directly after dinner; Truth gathered that there were a number of preparations that preceded the ritual. Julian hung back, and, when she got to her feet, walked with Truth back into the parlor.
The lights were turned low, and the fire in the fireplace was burnt down to coals. The litter of glasses, abandoned from the predinner cocktails, was still present. Truth walked over to the fireplace, staring down into the dying fire. Who was Thorne Blackburn—and what was his daughter?
Julian came up and put his arm around her; his hand was warm where it cupped her shoulder. She could feel the thrum of power running through him, like the low purr of an idling engine.
"Your equipment should have recorded some interesting data by tomorrow," Julian said.
"I hope so," Truth said, but even the possibility of graphing the fluctuations in energy produced by the workings of an occult Lodge could not distract her from the feeling of doom that hung over her.
"Tell me that you'll join us," Julian urged. "For Thorne's own blood to be absent from the scene of his greatest triumph would be a crime, don't you agree?"
"Light will be there," Truth said without thinking.
"True," Julian agreed. "But all Thorne's children should be."
"I ... I'll think about it," Truth said as she had before.
"I'll even admit that part of my desire is purely selfish: If you aren't working with us, I'll hardly see you at all in the next week," Julian added.
"Are magicians supposed to be selfish?" Truth asked, striving for a light tone.
"Join us, and I'll show you just what magicians are," Julian said, his voice a velvet promise. But he took her continued refusal in good humor and, kissing her lightly upon the forehead, departed to his magick.
After he was gone she almost wished she had gone with him. She'd never before noticed how flat and empty Shadow's Gate seemed at night— as if, in Julian's absence, it was a theater without a play.
She glanced at the mantel clock. Nine twenty-three. So much for the frantic night-life of the super rich. Truth yawned, remembering how short on sleep she'd been these past few days. An early night would do her no harm, either.
She went upstairs to her room. The bed was turned back—it must be Irene who did these things, as Truth could not imagine this much domesticity from Fiona, nor that Fiona would do these things for her even if she did them for everyone else—and her nightclothes were laid out. She'd just write up the day's events in her diary before turning in.
She undressed and got ready for bed, switching on the enormous tape recorder as she did so. Most of the failures to record psychic phenomena, Dylan had always said, stemmed from failure to turn on the recorders. Truth wouldn't make that mistake—especially as events at Shadow's Gate seemed to wait on no particular calendar.
The massive reels began slowly to turn, and the needles flickered alertly across the dials. The machine made a muted "open mike" sound, faint enough that it could not be heard even from a few feet away. Each reel held twelve hours of tape—the machine should be set up to record through nine-thirty tomorrow morning. Truth checked that all the wires were tucked carefully out of the way—to minimize disruption, none of the Institute's ghosthunting equipment ran off house current; each had it own massive rechargeable battery pack, which should power it for at least a week. And a week's time was all she needed.
She pressed the "test" button. The battery's LED display lit redly: 87 percent power. More than enough.
Testing the recorder's battery reminded her of Julian's warning about battery life at Shadow's Gate, and she tested the cellular phone, dialing her home number and being rewarded with the sound of her answering machine. The phone was working, at least.
She hesitated over trying Dylan again and finally dismissed the idea. It was late, she was tired—and the equipment was working as well as it was going to, anyway. Truth got into bed with her journal and began to record the day's events.
She was feeling pleasantly sleepy by the time she was done, and got up to take one last look at the recorder.
It wasn't working.
It took her a few moments to register the fact. How could it not be running? Nevertheless, the needles all lay flat at the end of their dials, and all the status lights were out.
Had the plug worked loose? But this equipment was designed to foil poltergeists—the plug was locked into the battery with two metal flanges. Truth flipped up the guard on the battery's "test" button and pressed it, but the LED display stayed dark.
But it had been working earlier. It had been at nearly full charge earlier.
She glanced at the wall socket. She could plug the recorder directly into the house current. It was tempting, but she already knew how untrustworthy the power was here—if she plugged the recorder into the house she risked a power surge that would scramble its delicate little innards for good. Sighing, all thought of sleep banished by exasperation, Truth switched off the reel-to-reel and unhooked it from the battery pack. She plugged the battery into the wall, where a green "charging" light and a weak flutter of needles reassured her that the laws of physics still worked.
What about the others? Truth groaned, belted on her bathrobe, shrugged her feet into slippers, and went downstairs.
There were three cameras and a polybarometer in the library. The battery pack on one of the cameras was dead; the other three batteries showed 33, 17, and 40 percent power, respectively, although they'd all been between 80 and 90 percent when she'd hooked up the equipment and tested it. The timers on all three cameras were scrambled as well; not knowing the cycle for the manifestations centering on the library, Truth had set them each to take a picture once an hour. One of the cameras had run through its entire roll of film already—Truth winced; as Dylan had said, the fast film was expensive—and one had been reset to take a photograph every six hours. The third had been changed to manual operation.
It would be so comforting to think this was sabotage, Truth reflected. Comforting, but unlikely—Julian had shown very little interest in interfering with her investigations, and she doubted that was an act.
She switched the polybarometer to the battery with the 40 percent charge—though at the rate the batteries were draining it probably wouldn't last out the night—and looked around for outlets to plug the other three batteries into for charging. She found outlets for two in the library—the batteries seemed to charge normally once they were plugged in, at any rate—and decided to forget about the other one for the time being. At least she now had some proof of Julian's claims about failing batteries.
When she was done with the equipment in the library, sleep seemed the farthest possible thing from her mind, and a rumbling in her stomach reminded her that she'd been too keyed up to eat much at dinner.
A nice cup of cocoa, as Irene would say, heals all wounds. That's what I need.
The thin line of light beneath the door warned her that the kitchen was already occupied, but although he was the only possible person who could be there tonight, Truth wasn't really prepared to see Michael standing in front of the stove, intent upon a saucepan.
His jacket and vest were thrown over a chair and the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to just below the elbow. His shirt collar was unbuttoned as well—without the armor of his formal dress Michael seemed absurdly young. The strong odor of chocolate wafted up from the saucepan as Michael gave its contents another stir.
"I guess we both had the same idea?" Truth said. She supposed she ought to be embarrassed showing up in front of Michael in a robe and pajamas, but it was a good heavy robe and the pajamas were far more concealing than many street clothes. And Michael was not her idea of a romantic object, anyway. There was something too . . . alien . . . about him.
What a peculiar thing to think. Light likes him.
"Cocoa?" Michael said. He smiled at her. 'There's enough for two."
Truth nodded, and took one of the brownies left over from the evening's dessert and sat down at the kitchen table. Michael brought over the saucepan and two white china mugs. Deftly, he poured each of them full and sat down.
"Julian plans to close the house in November," Truth said, approaching her subject obliquely.
"I believe he would," Michael said.
"Would," not "will." "Don't you believe him?" Truth challenged.
Michael met her eyes directly, and once more Truth had that unsettled feeling of peril.
"I believe that Julian believes . . . that there is no reason to plan beyond October thirty-first," Michael said carefully.
"The day of his final ritual," Truth amplified. Michael nodded.
Was Michael implying that Julian was crazy? And how reliable a source was Michael anyway, if it was sanity that was in question?
"What do you suppose will happen, when . . ." When he finds out it hasn't worked, Truth couldn't quite bring herself to say.
"Let me ask you a question in turn: What do you think Julian will do with the power he gains from opening the way for pagan gods to walk the Earth once more?"
"Thorne Blackburn always said that Opening the Way would inaugurate a new golden age," Truth said slowly.
"Admirably vague," Michael said with an angry smile.
"So you think Julian doesn't have the human race's best interests at heart?" Just what I need; another inconclusive conversation with a nutcase. Well, at least this one's alive.
"Do you?" Michael shot back. "Think carefully: Pure altruism is nearly as rare as disinterested kindness in this world."
"1 thought you were supposed to be his friend," Truth said, starting to get annoyed. Her feelings for Julian were too confused to withstand much examination, but she did know that she didn't like hearing this tissue of innuendo from Michael.
"I am his friend," Michael said. "Perhaps the only one he has left— and certainly the one he needs most."
"Well isn't that just peachy for both of you," Truth snapped. She drained her cup and stood up. "Just tell me one thing, Michael: You hate magick, don't believe in studying the unknown, and you think Julian's crazy. Just what are you doing here?"
Michael looked up at her, and in his eyes Truth saw a fury and pain that made her irritated frustration seem in the worst of taste, as if she mocked a man who had already received his death wound.
