Ann Gimpel

by Earth's Requiem (Earth Reclaimed)

  “Enterprising soul, wasn’t she?”

  “Now that you mention it,” Fionn said with a grin, “she certainly was. How’s dinner?”

  “Barley’s not soft yet. Maybe another twenty minutes. Keep talking.”

  “Obviously, she barely made a dent in the library, but she did find ancient tomes that detailed the fall of Mu. They also prophesied many future events, including what would happen during the last Surge.” He stopped and raked a hand through his hair. “I guess when that came true, it rattled Marta. Magic or no, she saw herself as a scientist, and she became desperate to know what else was in the library. She tried to bring books back here, but they’d only go as far as the gateway. The first time she tried, when she realized she was back in her basement sans book, she hustled back to put the book away before anyone noticed it sitting out by itself.”

  Fionn pursed his lips. “Marta got caught sneaking the book back into the library. The Lemurians weren’t terribly organized then. She played the gee, I was experimenting with magic I don’t understand card, and they let her go with exhortations that she was never to return.”

  “But she didn’t listen,” Aislinn interrupted. Since her concoction didn’t need anything but time, she settled next to Fionn and Bella.

  “She did for a while,” Fionn said, a serious note in his voice. “After the Old Ones started herding masses into the vortex and after losing her husband, she felt compelled to find answers. I understand better why people ran into that damned thing like lemmings, though. They were hypnotized. Marta was careful to sedate Ryan if she had to leave for very long. She was frightened of what might happen if he left the house without her.”

  “I remember that day.” Rune, who’d been pacing as he listened to Fionn, spoke up. “I tried to tell Father not to leave. It was like his body was there, but his mind had left. When I took hold of his pant leg with my teeth, he hit me. He’d never hit me before. I was so shocked, I let him go.” The wolf whined. “I wish I would have thrown my body over his. If I had known, I would have.”

  “Not your fault.” Aislinn bent and stroked him.

  “It wouldn’t have mattered what you did,” Fionn said. “Once the Old Ones put out the call, it was impossible to ignore. Anything shy of rendering him unconscious wouldn’t have worked. Somehow, they did nose counts of who they called versus who threw themselves into the vortex. They would have known he was missing and upped the ante.”

  “I knew they had some way of figuring out who had magic and who didn’t. Was their system so precise that they could tack it down to every individual on Earth?” Aislinn felt flabbergasted. It was hard to breathe.

  “According to Marta, yes.” Fionn looked more discomfited than she’d seen him before.

  So, he’s feeling it, too, she thought and tugged at the neck of her shirt. The kitchen suddenly felt far too warm.

  “Och aye, lass, how could I not?” He inhaled sharply. “Anyway, once Marta lost her husband, she became far less cautious. Guess she felt she didn’t have much left to lose.”

  “Me.” Rune sounded hurt.

  Fionn nodded. “Sorry.” He beckoned with an open hand, and Rune came to him. “I don’t really know how she felt, I was just conjecturing. Desperation probably played a role. Her notes suggest she felt time was running out. She found something in one of the books that made her believe the Lemurians and dark gods were linked. That one couldn’t exist without the other. Sort of like the dark and light halves of the human psyche. Dewi told her something that may have clinched that, but she didn’t put what it was in her journal.”

  “Damned inconvenient,” Aislinn muttered.

  He waved her to silence. “If you think about it,” he continued, “it makes sense. The Lemurians have been here since Mu sank, and they never caused any problems. Enter the dark gods, and suddenly, they found the power to throw their weight around. They were always arrogant asses. I’m certain they sat around wishing they could rid Earth of everyone without magic for millennia. They’ve been trying to recreate Mu ever since they lost it. Everyone there had magic—to varying degrees, of course.”

  It was hard to sit still. Aislinn got up to check their food. What Fionn said made sense. And it was good news—sort of. Getting rid of the dark gods was still an impossible task, but for some reason, it felt slightly less impossible than before. She dished up the thick broth, filled a couple of glasses from the sink, and ferried everything to the table.

  “So what was Marta trying to do?” Aislinn asked around a mouthful of food. She’d waited for Fionn to start talking again, but he’d been silent.

  He laid down his spoon. “Because she didn’t see how she could tackle the dark gods—”

  Aislinn snorted and nearly choked. “No shit. At least if you’re a woman, you can’t get anywhere close to them without forgetting about everything but opening your legs. Wonder if Perrikus’s mother has the same effect on men.”

  “She does. For the love of God, woman, stop interrupting after you’ve asked a question.”

  Aislinn shot him a look that she hoped was all injured innocence. “I get why Marta targeted the Old Ones. What I wanted to know was how she planned to get rid of them. There.” She clapped her mouth shut. “I won’t say another word.”

  “You just did.” But he was smiling. “Apparently, there’s an energy balance the Lemurians need to maintain Taltos. She was trying to subvert it enough that they’d have to leave.”

  Aislinn opened her mouth to ask how, but bit her tongue.

  “Excellent.” His smile grew broader. “You may not be learning, but at least you’re trying.”

  “Good to get credit for something,” she muttered sotto voce.

  “Anyway, there’s a harmonic running through Taltos. Its source is an underground tunnel—probably the place you met Dewi. Marta planned to disrupt it for long enough to change its oscillation and pitch permanently. I think Dewi was essential to her plan, but I’m not positive about that.”

  “That’s all it would take?” Aislinn was incredulous. “Another harmonic would make them leave?”

  “Marta seemed to think so,” Fionn said thoughtfully. “I am not so certain. The Lemurians are the Third Race. I believe them more resilient and resourceful than that, but I may be wrong.” He scraped the bottom of his bowl. “If a different harmonic only severed their connection with the dark, it wouldn’t really matter if they left.”

  “If they’re the Third Race, what am I?”

  “Fifth.”

  “Who was in between?”

  “Didn’t they teach you anything in school?” He looked genuinely surprised. “That would be those who sank along with Atlantis.”

  Biting off a snarky comment about it being hard to get an education after the world imploded, she asked, “Would you like more?” He nodded, so she took his bowl and ladled more dinner into it.

  “What I really should do,” he said, “is confer with some of the others. Now that we’ve sat and talked things through, it would be foolhardy for any of us to test the gateway without knowing more than we do.”

  “The other who?”

  “Celtic gods.”

  Oh, sorry I asked… “How are you going to travel to Ireland?”

  He gave her another odd look. “The same way you met Dewi: astrally.”

  Aislinn thought about it. She wanted to do something other than wait around while a bunch of ancient gods chewed the fat, but the stakes in this game were particularly high. If they went in hell for leather and screwed up, no one else would even know where they’d gone. And if they died, all of Marta’s painstakingly gathered knowledge would be for naught. She raised her gaze to his. “How long would you be gone?”

  Something like relief lit his face, and she knew he’d been afraid she was going to put up an argument. “Not more than a day or so. Dep
ends who I can raise on short notice.”

  “When do you plan to leave?”

  “Are ye so anxious to be rid of me, then, lass?” His eyes narrowed. “Doona be getting any ideas in that flame-red head of yours. Ye will wait here with the bond animals till my spirit returns to my body.”

  “Stop with the Irish already.” She blew out a breath, then sucked in another to buy herself time to get her temper under control. She didn’t understand how something as simple as an Irish dialect could make her feel things so acutely.

  “Okay.” His gaze hadn’t left her face. “You didn’t answer me.”

  “No, I don’t want to get rid of you—at least, not most of the time. And I will be here when you get back. Unless you take years or something. Then I might not be.” Getting up, she carted their dishes over to the sink and walked back to the table.

  He drained his water glass, pulled a flask out of a pocket, tipped it to his mouth, and swallowed. He held it out to her, but she shook her head. “Come hug me, lass.” He opened his arms invitingly. “I would prefer to feel you against me through the night, but I will leave now. I fear there’s not much time to waste.”

  “Something else in the journals?”

  She sat on his lap and wove her arms around him. He pulled her close, and the fear that had surged at his last words subsided a little. Laying a hand against her head, he turned her face so he could kiss her.

  “Mo croi,” he murmured, pulling away. “Keep everyone safe.” He set her on her feet, got to his, and walked purposefully from the kitchen. “You’ll have time while I’m gone,” he called over his shoulder. “You can read her journals for yourself.”

  “Wh-Where will your body be?”

  “In our bed, lass.” He did turn then and gave her a broad wink. “Take good care of it.”

  She curled herself around his body through the night. The next day, she settled in with Marta’s journals. What she found was so unsettling that it was hard to keep reading. Once she’d lost Ryan, there had been a part of the woman that went mad—or became highly irrational, to put a kinder spin on things. Aislinn wondered how Marta had managed to hide her craziness from the Old Ones.

  Other than occasional trips outside, Rune never left her side. Bella flew into the bedroom and stood watch over Fionn. Aislinn tried to interest her in water and food, but the bird ignored her.

  On a hunch, Aislinn riffled through drawers in the study and found photographs she assumed were Marta. She considered double-checking her assumption with Rune, but the wolf was edgy. He seemed to be asleep for the moment, and she didn’t want to bother him.

  The pictures were vaguely disturbing. Marta had been a tall, muscular woman, with long, coppery hair and clear, green eyes. She was built more like a man than a woman, with broad shoulders and a square jaw. In the pictures that included her husband, she towered over him by a good six inches. Aislinn squeezed her eyes shut to clear the afterimage from one particular photograph and then looked at it again. She shook her head. No matter which angle she chose, Marta didn’t look entirely human. Something about her eyes and her posture were almost more Lemurian than human.

  After searching further, Aislinn found family photographs with an older couple. Who were they? Marta’s parents? She didn’t look much like either of them, but perhaps she’d been adopted. Aislinn rubbed her eyes. The older couple had a distinctly alien cast as well. She shoved the pictures back in their drawer, feeling uneasy.

  “Yeah,” Aislinn mumbled, “if those were Marta’s parents, what happened to them?” They couldn’t have been more than about sixty or so. Had they been forced into the vortex, too? Returning her attention to the lines of careful script in Marta’s journals, Aislinn hunted for something, anything, about the woman’s parents. Coming up dry, she started on some of the earlier years. When she surfaced, light was fading from the sky. Pushing heavily out of the upholstered leather chair she’d sat in for hours, she stretched and walked into the kitchen, where she flipped on the tap and splashed cold water on her face to clear her head.

  She’d found references—lots of them—to Marta’s parents in those earlier journals. Apparently, they’d also been doctors—a pediatrician and a surgeon. But the references had ceased abruptly the year Marta finished medical school and began her residency in Internal Medicine. Why? What the fuck happened to them? The damned Surge wouldn’t happen for another ten years. The elder couple’s disappearance would also have predated Rune, who likely wouldn’t know anything, even if she asked. Marta hadn’t had children, and she’d done a hell of a job playing overprotective mother with her wolf.

  Marta’s parents weren’t the only element missing from the last thirteen years of journal posts. Other than a brief notation about her marriage and another about her husband’s death, Marta hadn’t written anything of substance about Ryan, either. Why? What was it about him that Marta didn’t want to risk putting on paper? Speaking of that, why was she still using paper and not doing her journaling electronically? Unless they were hidden away extremely well, Aislinn hadn’t found a computer anywhere in the house. Not that it would have mattered, since the electricity to power them was long gone, but the lack of such a common device was another unexplained oddity.

  Nibbling on leftovers from the night before, she tried to make sense of what she’d read. Fionn had been right about one thing. The urgency in Marta’s postings had escalated dramatically right before her death. It was hard to say whether something real lurked behind her frantic scribblings, or whether her insanity was spiraling out of control.

  Because she couldn’t do anything but wait, Aislinn culled through the study and selected an old underground novel, Islandia, by Austin Tappan Wright. By the time she realized it was a fictionalized account of a place like Mu—or maybe Atlantis—the story had sucked her in. She read herself to sleep, lying next to Fionn. When morning came and he hadn’t returned, she began to worry. She’d had a restless night, waking with her heart in her throat twice, sure Fionn was dead. She’d even called up her mage light to look at his body to make sure he was still breathing. After the second time that happened, she gave up on sleep and went outside into the dawn with Rune. She tried to get Bella to come along, but it was like the raven had turned into a statue. Who knew? Maybe she’d sent her astral self after Fionn.

  Gazing at pink edges on the eastern horizon, Aislinn longed to forget the last three years, just for a moment. The sunrise was normal, damn it. Why couldn’t everything else be? She tried talking with Rune, but the wolf was uncharacteristically silent. When she finally understood that he wanted to be left alone, she worked her way back through the wards and into the house, using the back door, since it wasn’t booby trapped like the front and she didn’t have to spend half an hour re-sheathing blades.

  To kill time, she read Islandia and made a pan of something like biscuits with real flour. She didn’t realize how sick she’d gotten of pine nut flour until she concentrated heat in the oven with magic to bake them. They smelled incredible and melted in her mouth when she broke off a corner to taste, not able to wait for them to cool. She found unopened jars of homemade preserves and spread a strawberry-esque one lavishly on a hot biscuit. It tasted amazing.

  Aislinn moved her feast into the study and read some more. When she looked out a window, she was shocked to find that it was growing dark. Fionn had been gone two days. Was he coming back? What if he’d run into some sort of trouble? She bit her lower lip, not liking that thought at all.

  She considered the gateway beneath her. She knew how to activate it. Or she thought she did. That information had been in the journals, mostly because it was a trial-and-error process and Marta had memorialized her attempts.

  By the next morning, Aislinn had made up her mind. She hadn’t slept well again and felt incredibly out of sorts. It was stupid for her to spin her wheels waiting for Fionn. She could go into Taltos, look
around, and come back, probably before he returned, the way things seemed to be going. At least then she’d have something to contribute to their combined knowledge.

  If there was anything to combine with.

  She had a bad feeling about Fionn’s protracted absence. Aislinn pressed her tongue against her teeth. She really didn’t know Fionn very well, but assumed his caring for her was genuine. Surely he wouldn’t stay away unless he was stuck somewhere. Or dead.

  That clinched it. I’m going. No point in waiting to be rescued. I gave up on that when I left Daddy lying dead in the Bolivian mountains. Or maybe it was when Mother marched into the vortex. She thought about the wolf. He’d scarcely said a word to her in the last twenty-four hours. Should she take him? I’ll let him decide.

  “Rune.”

  The wolf trotted into the bedroom. When he looked at her, his eyes were sad.

  “I am going into Taltos. Would you like to come?”

  He sprang onto the bed in a single leap and licked her face effusively. “I thought you’d never ask. Waiting has been eating into my guts like the frothy sickness.”

  Surprised, she hugged him and then maneuvered around so she could get dressed. The clothing she’d found at the McCloud Fishing Lodge was coming in handy. She donned black multi-pocketed pants, a black knitted top, and tossed the black Gore-Tex jacket over everything. It had been cold the last time she was in Taltos. She shoved her feet into her battered boots and went rifling through Marta’s drawers until she found a black watch cap she could tuck her bright hair under. She hesitated over a pair of black wool gloves from the same drawer and then slid her hands into them. They were too big, but at least they’d cover her skin. If she’d had greasepaint, she would have blacked her face. As it was, she pulled the turtleneck top up to cover her chin and called it even.