Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 01, page 9
Watching Irene's face, Truth could see honest concern and worry reflected there. Earlier Irene'd spoken of Light as a full partner in the Blackburn Work, but now she was acting as if Light were a wayward child.
"I'll send someone to look around," Julian said. "She may have gone outside without anyone seeing. Gareth—?"
"There's no need for that. She's here now," a deep voice said.
A man and a woman stood in the doorway.
That must be Light, Truth thought inconsequentially.
The woman was slender, almost frail. She wore a tunic and wide trousers in a silky pale material. Truth was too far away to see her eyes, but the brighter light of the hall haloed the girl's long silver hair with an almost unearthly radiance.
Unearthly. That's for sure. She looks almost like the Hollyivood version of a psychic.
Truth's exposure to mediums was fairly limited, as what the Institute jokingly called their care and feeding fell more within Dylan's sphere, or even Professor MacLaren's. What Truth knew was more or less what everyone knew: a medium was a natural psychic, sensitive to the emanations of what some of the more old-fashioned among them still called "The Spirit World"; one who, when in trance, served as a conduit for other entities to communicate with the living world. Or seemed to, Truth reminded herself with the habit of a professional skeptic. Dylan's psychics located ghosts for him in the haunted houses that were his pet projects, but Light—an odd name, but no stranger than Truth's, or, in fact, anyone's here—seemed almost to be a spirit herself.
"Julian!" Light ran to him with a childish openness and flung her arms around him, hugging him tightly. "I'm sorry I went out, but I saw them again—the red stag and the white mare—and 1—"
"And now you must greet our guest, Light," Julian said with fond firmness. He placed a hand on Light's head and looked up at Truth. "Light is our psychic, and sometimes gets . . . easily distracted. Don't you, little one?" he said indulgently.
Light shook her head violently. Her voice and gestures were those of a much younger woman, and Truth felt a sudden pang of protectiveness. She had no sense that Light was mentally impaired, but it was obvious that she was unequipped to deal with the modern world unaided.
"I was not distracted!" Light protested, still taking no notice of Truth. "I was following the red stag. The red stag and the white mare; the gray wolf and the black dog; red and gray and black and white, the four wardens of the Gate," she singsonged excitedly.
"But you must not follow them into the wood, child. Though they mean you no harm, there are other dangers in the wood," said the man who had entered with her.
He was easily two inches taller than Julian, with curly black hair that shone blue where the light hit it. The deep voice was faintly foreign, with a lingering trace of an accent Truth couldn't quite place. She looked up, into his eyes.
Falling, and in place of the Light and the Word was darkness and the fire eternal—
With an effort, Truth dragged herself out of. . . what?
"Hello, I'm Truth Jourdemayne," she said, almost as if daring him to contradict her. Feeling oddly formal, she held out her hand.
He took it, bowing over it in an equally formal fashion. Truth forced herself not to recoil at the touch. Power blazed through his skin; her hand tingled harshly, and surreal images exploded behind her eyes like fireworks. Why was he here—and what was he doing in this disguise? These were not his clothes—this was not his place!
"And the last of our band appears. Truth, this is Michael—"
"—Archangel," the tall man finished, releasing her hand and looking into her eyes once more. The brief hallucination vanished, and Truth saw that Michael Archangel's eyes were black, the division between iris and pupil nearly invisible, and his skin was the clear pale olive of a Renaissance icon's.
"It would be less unusual rendered in my native Greek," he continued, "but it was Anglicized so long ago that it does not seem worth the trouble to change it back."
Truth stared at him and then at her fingers. They looked normal—why had they tingled with that ascetic fire? And where had that alien certainty come from? She'd never seen this man before in her life!
"The Archangel Michael, captain of the armies of God," Julian said mockingly. There seemed to be an edge to his bantering now that Truth didn't remember hearing before.
"Who will put down the Serpent in the last days, and cast him utterly into the Abyss for all time," Michael agreed, as if finishing some sort of catechism.
"But meanwhile, doing research in our collection," Julian said smoothly. He disentangled Light from himself and gave her a gentle push in Irene's direction. "Run along and find Irene, sweetheart. She'll get you something to drink."
Light smiled at them sunnily, including Truth in this silent welcome, before turning away.
"If you'll excuse me," Michael said, strolling after Light.
Julian watched them go, a faint preoccupation on his face.
He doesn't like Michael and Light being together, Truth thought with that new unreasonable certainty. Why? She forced herself to disregard this intuition; it would be so easy to convince herself that this inner voice was always right—and that was where delusions of great occult power came from.
"Who is he, Julian?" Truth asked, knowing the question sounded juvenile and still unable to keep from asking it.
"An old school chum of mine, actually. Not what I suppose you'd call a believer; he's using my collection to do some research work of his own," Julian said. "But not a skeptic, either. Michael's allegiance remains . . . uncommitted."
Truth and Julian were still standing more or less in the middle of the parlor. The others had scattered into comfort: Hereward was sitting on the oyster sofa talking to Fiona, who was perched on its arm, her hemline riding perilously high. Ellis, as was only to be expected, was standing near the sherry decanter, his glass full once more.
Gareth, surprisingly enough, had gone over to join Michael and Light. One of the other men—Donner or Caradoc, she wasn't quite sure—was explaining something to Irene with expansive gestures; the other was seated at the opposite end of the couch.
An ordinary family gathering—if you happen to be the Addams Family, Truth thought unfairly. She wondered who all these people were, really, and how Julian had gathered them all together. Surely people weren't named things like 'Hereward' and 'Caradoc' in this day and age.
/f I were practicing magick, I'd probably want an alias too, Truth thought reasonably, and turned her thoughts back to Julian.
"What do you think of the Blackburn collection, now that you've had a chance to look it over?"
"I've barely begun," Truth protested, "but I can already see that it will take me weeks to really get a handle on what you have there." That, and a native guide. "Just how valuable is your collection without a copy of Venus Afflicted?" she asked boldly. "Irene told me about it this afternoon," Truth added, noting Julian's look of surprise.
He took a moment to choose his words before he spoke. "A complete collection is always more valuable than an incomplete one, of course. My collection is reasonably representational, allowing for the fact that magickal records and artifacts have always been simultaneously considered deeply confidential and highly ephemeral, so that most collections simply vanish upon their collector's death."
"But—?" prompted Truth, who knew she hadn't heard an answer yet.
"I would give my immortal soul to hold Venus Afflicted in my hands," Julian told her flatly. "Assuming I believed I possessed one," he added, to lighten the moment.
Truth was fortunately saved from any need to reply by the chiming of a small bell.
"Dinner," Gareth said, his voice echoing Truth's feeling of relief.
The dining room of Shadow's Gate more than lived up to the rest of the house's Rockefeller-era opulence. It could easily have accommodated a table twice the length of the one that was there, and as it was, the eleven diners had ample space to spread out along its white-damasked length.
Above, two enormous Waterford crystal chandeliers filled the room with sparking light. The floor's opulent parquetry was covered by an immense Aubusson carpet in cream tones, and a brace of dazzlingly ornate silver candelabrum stood ready to light on the marble-topped ebonywood sideboard along with a number of single silver candlesticks.
The room was half-paneled in the style of a bygone age, and from the wainscoting to the ceiling the walls were covered in a golden silk brocade. An arched set of double doors led out into the house's central space, and two smaller doors led to the kitchen and the butler's pantry.
Julian went to the head of the table and gestured to the foot.
"As our guest of honor, the place of honor is yours," Julian said to Truth, gesturing to the foot of the table.
"Oh, I couldn't. Really," Truth said, hesitating in the doorway.
"Julian, really!" Fiona cooed in falsely-honeyed tones. "You'll make her feel quite conspicuous." Fiona slithered into the seat at the foot of the table with an alacrity that suggested it wasn't her usual place, and shot a look of defiant triumph at Truth.
Truth sensed a sudden tension in the room, like a whip-crack of distant thunder, but Julian said nothing, merely drew out the chair at his right.
"Here, then," he said, smiling. "So I can monopolize your conversation throughout the meal."
The others all settled into new places around the table. Truth was amused to find that Ellis Gardner then seated himself on her right, obviously glad of a fresh ear for his tattle. Truth wondered if it was a good idea to cultivate him: On the one hand, you learned everyone's secrets— a version of them, anyway—but on the other hand, most other people wouldn't talk freely to you once word got out that you were companioning a scandalmonger.
Scandalmonger. Now there's an old-fashioned word! Wonder where that came from?
Michael graciously allowed Irene to take the seat on Julian's left before settling himself next to her with Light on his other side. Truth, gazing across the table into Michael's midnight eyes, had the feeling that more was going on here than a dinnertime game of musical chairs, but brushed the thought aside. It was nothing to do with her, after all.
The soup course was passed, and Truth thought longingly of her room at the Shadowkill Bed-and-Breakfast, far from all these passions and factions and seething hidden agendas. Once there, only see if she ever came back to Shadow's Gate!
But you'll have to. Your work here isn't finished yet, an inner voice reminded her.
The thought checked her as if it had erected a physical barrier. It was true. She'd barely even begun to outline her biography of Thorne Blackburn, and she already knew that most of the material she needed to write it was here in Julian's collection. Julian's collection, Irene's memories . . .
She glanced across the table to where Light sat between Michael and Gareth. Light looked up when she felt Truth's eyes on her, and smiled shyly before ducking her head again. Truth felt an answering smile tug at her own mouth. And while she was meddling, she'd better also find out from Irene just what Light's position was in this odd extended household, and if Light were being . . . exploited in any way.
"Some wine, Truth?"
She was roused from her list-making reverie by Julian's question. She nodded, and he poured her glass full of a sparkling straw-colored vintage.
"I am not one of those who believes the path to power lies in denial and asceticism," he said, smiling at her. "Certainly there are occasions upon which fasting and petition are appropriate, and then I employ them, but how much more true is it that we must understand what range of information our senses can provide if we are to fully master them?"
"You know I understand very little of your . . . practices," Truth said frankly. After the sherry, she wasn't sure she wanted another glass of wine immediately, but everyone else at the table, even Light, was drinking, and besides, she'd have a full meal to offset its effects. "Is that what Blackburn believed?" She raised her glass and sipped.
"In this as in all things, you behold me his pupil," Julian said, smiling.
"I'd like some wine, too, Julian," Fiona said, raising her glass meaningfully. Hereward, laughter in his eyes but his face as irreproachably blank as a butler's, poured her glass full from the second bottle at the foot of the table.
"Not that Julian hasn't found some improvements to make to the Master's Work," Irene said cheerily, interrupting Fiona as if she hadn't heard her.
"If the Work is to succeed, we can't regard it as some sort of received truth, to be trifled with only at our peril. The Wheel turns," Julian said.
"And Julian," Ellis said sotto voce in Truth's ear, "intends to be on top of it no matter how much it turns."
Truth glanced toward him, an automatic social smile on her face. It was an impression of Julian she'd already collected for herself, but knowing that about him only seemed to make him more exciting.
What was Shadow's Gate turning her into?
Dinner was a long and lavish affair, though its accoutrements fell short of the hordes of liveried footmen that the dining room seemed to call for. The food was expertly prepared and its presentation worthy of a four-star restaurant, but in the modern day, throngs of convenient servants such as peopled the Gothic novel were not so easily come by. The cook and one assistant brought the food to the table, after which the diners served themselves.
The talk—and the wine—flowed freely, conversation ranging from such homely topics as possible future difficulties with the property's well to the latest movies. It was a warm easy camaraderie that made Truth feel like an accepted member of the group.
The only faintly sour note was Fiona's continuing dislike, but that was easily understood. Fiona's attraction to Julian was obvious—even if it didn't seem to be mutual.
It was just like a Shakespeare comedy, Truth mused to herself. She wondered if the tangled affections at Shadow's Gate would sort out as easily and neatly as the ending of an Elizabethan play, with all these various sets of mismatched lovers finding their proper mates. Meanwhile, Gareth loved Fiona, Fiona loved Julian. . . .
And who did Julian love? Light?
No, Truth decided upon careful consideration. Julian's feelings for Light were not those of a would-be lover. She glanced across the table to where Michael was deep in a soft-pitched conversation with the silver-haired girl. Maybe it was Michael who loved Light; oddly, Truth had the feeling that Julian disapproved of that relationship. Why, if he didn't want to take Michael's place? Surely, if he disliked Michael Archangel so much, he would not have him as a guest in his home.
The cook and his assistant came in again just as the last diners were finishing—Truth, who had been watching for it, saw Julian surreptitiously push a button with his foot—and began to clear away. When Truth saw Gareth and Donner get up to help she started to rise also, and was stopped by Julian's hand on her arm.
"Rank hath its privileges," he said. "Hoskins likes to leave as soon as the dessert course is ready, so we tend to give him a hand. But it's out of the question to ask an honored guest to work."
"Dessert?" said Truth weakly. She couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten this much: clear soup, roast beef and roast potatoes, vegetables glazed and poached and broiled, and half a dozen different hot breads had only been the beginning.
In a few moments the table was cleared and Hoskins's assistant came out wheeling a cart that held new glasses, plates, and silver. Behind Davies came Hoskins himself, carrying a huge tray that proved to contain several different kinds of pastry.
"Irene told me you have reservations at a place in town. Now that you've had a chance to assess the collection, do you think I might persuade you to stay here instead?" Julian asked as the tray was being carried around.
Truth hesitated. In her experience, so generous an offer rarely came without strings, even though she hadn't seen any yet. And despite the convenience of such an arrangement, and the enticing proximity of Julian Pilgrim, Truth still felt that Shadow's Gate was somehow a challenge to her that she wanted to assess before accepting. It would be easier to think the matter over somewhere outside the overwhelming presence of the house.
"While I don't think I could do my book without what you've gathered here," she began, tactfully.
"Then it's settled," Julian said. "You'll—"
Whatever he was about to say was drowned out by a whip-crack of thunder. The lights gave a moth-wing flutter.
"Here we go again," said Gareth, slipping back into his seat.
"What he means is," Hereward said, reaching for his own dessert as the tray passed him, "is that sitting in the Storm King's backyard, you've got to expect the occasional storm."
"I just wish it were occasional," Caradoc said. "At least the power failures provide good practice at getting around by candlelight."
The tray was presented to Truth. Urged on by Julian, she selected a poached pear, which seemed to be the least caloric of the offerings.
"Do you lose power often?" Truth asked. Storm King, she recalled, was the name of one of the local mountain peaks.
"Usually just a matter of flipping a circuit breaker," Caradoc said, "which is our resident techno junkie's purview"—Gareth bowed where he sat, grinning—"but sometimes the whole area goes."
"If you can't see the lights down in Shadowkill when you look out the third-floor window, give up," Gareth said. "It means the power's out all over Shadowkill Township and probably northern Dutchess County as well."
Light giggled, a silvery, elfin sound. "I like storms," she confided shyly. Truth smiled back.
"So do—" she began, but broke off as the lights flickered again to the accompaniment. Truth put down her fork.
"I've really enjoyed the evening, but I think if it's going to storm I'd really better get going," Truth said firmly. She'd have enough trouble finding the Bed-and-Breakfast in the dark without having to find it in the dark during a storm.
"But Truth! Surely you're staying?" Irene said incredulously.
"There's plenty of room," Gareth added.
"I was hoping you'd accept my invitation to write your book here," Julian said, "but even if you will not, surely a night's hospitality would not be too much? I'd hate to send someone out to find an unfamiliar destination in weather like this."
