“If ye do no’, ken ye this, I shall destroy ye. I have no qualms in killin’ ye now. Ye will die.”
“No. I will survive and you will die. Eventually. Perhaps I should keep you temporarily, for you lighten my day.”
Flexing his hands, Morghan strained, angling his upper body toward his foe. “I shall lighten yer head from yer shoulders, like ye had done to m’ brother. Yers would be a more fitting sacrifice to my mind.”
Brandr Ur waved one hand in dismissal. A vision popped into Morghan’s head, blazing with the heat and crackle of invisible flames. He saw himself bound by a chain wrapped thrice around one ankle. A multi-tipped cap sat low on his head, the bright colors burning to vision accustomed to the gray.
Brandr Ur lounged upon a velvet-lined, gilded throne, twirling the free end of the chain. He spoke. “Pagas did not wish to entertain me. He saw no glory in such a position at my side. You, blood of my blood. How say you?”
Tearing the belled cap from his head, Morghan shouted, “I will no’ be toyed with, ye pretender god.”
“Pretender god?” Brandr Ur lay one hand on his chest. Then he rose, stretching to his full height and tugged the chain until Morghan sprawled at his feet. “There is no pretense in me, prince. I shall return to the god-form I held so long ago, return and claim my true place. The place you and your kind denied me.” He tossed the chain to the side and gave Morghan his back. “Get up, fool. I came to you this day to give you the opportunity to worship me. Not that I believed you would.”
The elemental, the throne, the chain disappeared. Morghan opened his eyes to the muted landscape, and Brandr Ur’s back as he stalked away. But the elemental’s voice echoed still in his head.
::Remember my words, blood of my blood. Listen. Feel. I think you may be pleased with the happenings. Or... perhaps not. Either way, I will not again stand before you until the night of my liberation. Two nights, prince. Two nights for you to use as you will, until one way or another... you are mine.::
Sudden silence brought Morghan no comfort, for the elemental’s words confused him. What should he listen for? There was never anything new, nothing worth listening for. Yet, in the silence, a vibration tickled the back of his neck. He chased the tickle with his palm and turned from Brandr Ur’s valley. The awareness crawled over his scalp to the center of his forehead, drawing him toward his own claimed area of the world between worlds. Listening to a hum building in the air, he allowed the pull to move him forward. The hum called to him in familiar, dulcet tones. He paused, shook his head but couldn’t clear the rising chant from his mind. Someone was...
“Nay,” he cried. “Nay, ye must no’.” Panic rose with sour bile in his throat, strangling the breath from his lungs. His heart pounded a ragged, staccato beat. The cold sweat of dread coated his skin and he shivered. “Coralie, ye must no’,” he choked out. “Do no’!”
Finding strength in his fear, he ran.
Sixteen
The trio gazed at each other in silent communication before Chance and Breanna moved behind Coralie to form a loose triangle. Gowthaman eased closer to Breanna. She acknowledged him with a faint smile when pressed the journal into her hands. “I’ll bring this back safely to you.”
He ached to shout, to cry to the rising moon he didn’t care if the book were lost, torn to shreds, disintegrated. He didn’t care about a book. He cared about her safety, her return. To him. Instead he swallowed heavily and said, “I know.”
They stood, hands touching over the leather cover. He knew she was distracted, her mind racing to make sure she’d discovered and dealt with every conceivable contingency. Say something. Tell her. “Breanna? I...”
Expression clear, she focused her bright blue eyes on him. Words stalled in his throat. His declaration of love would potentially be another burden for her to carry into an already too dangerous mission. He couldn’t. Tell her.
Coralie’s low chant flowed with increasing intensity and a musical trill. He curled his fingers around Breanna’s, lifting one of her hands from the journal. She held the book close to her chest with the other hand and tilted her head in question.
Tell her. Coward. Yes, he was a coward. Looking into her beautiful eyes, he sighed then spoke in a whisper. “Be safe.”
With another of her soft, sad smiles, Breanna leaned closer and pressed her warm lips to his cheek. Heat burned through him and a brief spasm tightened his hand around hers. All he needed to do was turn his face, take possession of her lips and kiss her as he had before. As she was meant to be kissed. A simple act to show her the strength of his love.
“We will,” she whispered then turned away and his opportunity dissolved.
Wind tossed the surrounding branches with a cacophony of creaks and rustling. Breanna took a step forward, tightening the triangle. Her heart thumped with heavy doubt and sadness. She should have told Gowthaman how much she loved him... at least one more time. The empty cold at her back told her he had moved away, back to the safety of this world. Caressing the leather journal, still warm from his hands, was a way to hold him close to her heart. When they returned, she’d make sure he knew exactly how important he was to her. She shook her head as old movie lines sang a countermelody to Coralie’s chant. ...is another day... just a day away... always tomorrow.
Please, let there be a tomorrow for us.
With the strength of will she’d seldom had need to call upon, Breanna tucked away her love and concerns to focus on her companions. Whether it was because of Coralie’s chant or some other force from beyond the veil, fierce, windy blasts kicked up waves on the normally placid loch. A faint, lighter patch of gray expanded in the darkness, hovering low over the water. Mist swirled in spirals within that gray, parting then closing in a silent, mesmerizing dance. Each time the spirals parted the mist the faint opening grew larger, closer.
She gasped as though the air was being sucked from her lungs. Forces pulled at her, drawing her closer to the veil, tugging on her heart and lungs. It hurt to breathe.
Breanna glanced at her brother. Appearing unaffected by the forces manipulating her, Chance continued to bounce on the balls of his feet, eager and ready to go. His face had settled into that odd, listening expression but his eyes were focused on the veil.
Coralie’s chant continued, whispering past her lips, yet raging over the loch to the veil, bringing the swirling mist closer still. Her eyes were fierce and intent, but the softness of a smile remained on her lips.
An echoing roll of rumbling thunder crashed across the loch. With a grinding rip the fabric between worlds rent asunder, spilling the mist and dead silence over them. Coralie’s chant dissolved into the silence and she lowered her arms.
“’Tis time. Go.”
Breanna took a deep breath and counted to five slowly as she released the air from her lungs. The edges of the narrow disturbance fluctuated, rippling with the wind, but the opening remained stable. Taking a step to the side, she bumped shoulders with Chance.
“Ready?”
“You know it.”
“On the other side then?”
He tilted her a smile and sketched a mock salute. “The other side, Sis.”
Hand gripped tightly around his sword hilt, Chance leaned back on one foot then leapt forward, easily clearing the few feet between the edge of the brae and the hovering opening. In the space of a breath, his hand appeared at through the veil, giving the signal it was safe for the others to cross.
Coralie touched Breanna’s hand, nodded then followed Chance’s leap, slipping through the tattered opening. The hem of her skirt fluttered briefly in Scotland’s clear air before disappearing into the world between worlds.
Breanna waited a few seconds watching the steady sway of the opening then glanced back at Gowthaman. Silently she sent him a message filled with hope and her abiding love.
His stricken expression faded and in its place he offered her an encouraging smile. Had he felt her thoughts, or was he merely sending her off with his hard won encouragem
ent? She held fast to the thought he’d understood her message of love, clasped the journal, fought to keep from closing her eyes and leapt.
Hands steadied her when she stumbled forward on hard, rocky ground. Straightening, she turned in a slow circle. Searlait had explained the gray of the world between worlds, but the words hardly prepared her for the utter lack of color. Even the clothing they wore had faded to a drab camouflage of gray. She spread her hands and looked down at herself wondering if she looked the same to the others as she did to herself.
Breaking the heavy silence, Chance cleared his throat and asked, “Sis? Where’s Gowthaman’s book?”
The book? She’d held the journal tightly in her hand when she jumped through the veil. Whipping around, she stared back at the narrow opening. The veil hadn’t totally repaired itself and she peered through the thickening membrane to the human world.
“Oh no,” she cried. Behind the gauze-like veil the thin leather journal lay on the scuffed ground at the rocky edge of the outcropping. She took one step forward.
Chance clutched her arm. “Why’d you leave it?”
“I didn’t.” Breanna pushed against the world-separating veil with one hand. Like a rubbery balloon, the membrane bulged outward at her touch, but she couldn’t break through. The more she fought against the force, the more the magic thickened and pushed back.
“Ye’ll no’ be able to get through. ’Tis said to be part of the punishment—to be able to see but no’ escape.”
Bree leaned her shoulder into the solidifying mist but turned her face toward Coralie. The Alfar-Sindu gnawed on her thumbnail, an action Bree found strangely disconcerting. Bree straightened. “We’re not being punished, Coralie.”
“Aye, I ken. ’Twas just somethin’ Morghan said afore he no longer could reach me in my dreams. Forgive me. ’Twas no’ important.”
Slapping her hands against her side Breanna voiced her frustration. “No, it’s not. How am I going to get Gowthaman’s book? I don’t remember everything he told us. What if I do something wrong? How will we get back?”
Chance curled his fingers painfully into her shoulders and turned her to face the veil again. “Bree... look.”
Gowthaman closed his eyes a second before Breanna entered the world between worlds. He couldn’t bear to witness her disappearing into the gray nothingness. She was too vibrant, too alive to be trapped there. His heart was breaking.
Nightshade clasped his shoulder in a firm gesture of support. Unable to look at the edge of the outcropping Gowthaman turned away before opening his eyes. He would wait there on the hilltop until she returned in two night’s time. Longer if need be. No matter how long it took.
“Something’s wrong,” Nightshade stated in a harsh whisper.
“No.” Gowthaman jerked, turned and took a single step toward the thin veil. Shadows moved on the other side, the forms of those who had just passed through. But the veil had almost completely healed itself. He moved closer and tripped over a loose object.
He frowned at the obstruction then widened his eyes in disbelief. His journal. Why had Breanna dropped the journal? Did she not understand she needed the information recorded there, information he had not the time to impart to her? Echoing cries of anguish filled his brain yet somehow he kept from voicing his pain to the darkness. She had to have the journal.
With Nightshade at his back, he moved as close to the edge of the brae and the still swirling pattern of the veil as he dared. Four feet of empty space separated him from the magical portal. Striving for objectivity, he studied the churning mass of gray. The opening was closing in upon itself, healing the tear. But he could see through the world between worlds, at least well enough to recognize Breanna standing just on the other side, her hands outstretched, pressing against that unforgiving fabric.
A tiny flash of relief stole his breath. She was trying to reach through, trying to get back, to retrieve the journal. He bent, grabbed the slim volume and held it out. Leaning precariously over the cliff edge, he pressed the book against the thin, swirling fabric of the veil. There was no give, no indication anyone or anything had recently passed through.
A low growl of panicked frustration rumbled in his throat and he leaned into the book. One foot slipped off the loose rock. Nightshade wrapped his hand in the back of Gowthaman’s shirt preventing him from falling into the dark loch. When Nightshade pulled him back, he violently shrugged off the other man’s hands and stretched forward again, willing the book to slip into the world between worlds.
At the other side of the veil Breanna attacked the barrier with her sword, but when he flattened his palm against the spot not even a single vibration indicated her hits. Renewing his determination with a curse, he shoved the journal against the unyielding veil.
Nightshade grasped his arm and yanked him away. “That’s no good, man.”
He shook with combined fury and anguish. He slapped journal with the flat of his hand. “They need this. They won’t be able to get Morghan... to get home. Breanna...”
“The world between worlds will not accept your journal.”
Gowthaman jerked away and glared at the vague gray patch in the night air. Their magic had been constructed so that this simple evidence of the veil should remain in place for two days, allowing the party to return after Morghan was found. If they succeeded in opening the veil before Morghan was with them or before the appointed time, the next chance for rescue wouldn’t come for over three hundred years. Breanna didn’t know of his suspicions. “I have to get this to her. It is imperative. I could not tell her everything.”
“Think, Gowthaman.” Nightshade took a step sideways and peered at the veil. “They aren’t fighting the magic anymore. They understand they can’t open the veil again for two days. If they come back now to try and get your book, their mission has failed.”
“It will fail anyway and we will lose them. They need this.” Gowthaman shook the journal at Nightshade. “Do you not understand—”
“I understand. And I understand that the world between worlds has rejected your notebook. You need to accept the alternative.”
“There is no alter...”
Nightshade stood with his arms crossed over his chest, speculation filling his face.
“Alternative.” Gowthaman dropped his journal and stared at the splayed pages. “Yes, there is one alternative.”
“You know what you have to do.”
Gowthaman winced at the powerful conviction in Nightshade’s voice. “I know,” he retorted with a strange rise of righteous anger, then repeated softly, “I know.”
If the journal was ejected by the world between worlds, there was only one way for Breanna to have all the information contained on the linen pages. Only one way.
He would have to follow her... into the world between worlds.
“Hurry, man,” Nightshade urged. “The opening is gone, but the veil looks thinner there in the lower left edge of the swirl. No time to think. Go.”
If he stopped to think, he would not be able to face his fear. Gowthaman bent and found the area Nightshade indicated. Even if the veil allowed, there would be barely enough space to crawl through. The area shrank as he hesitated.
“Move.”
He bristled at Nightshade’s order then focused the anger into momentum. Bending low, he aimed for the last bit of thinned veil, held his hands before him like a diver and jumped. The membrane-like surface stretched. His legs flailed in the open air. Spray from the wave covered loch chilled his skin. He was falling. He had failed.
Smooth suction held his arms and shoulders in place, keeping him suspended above the dark water. Then the membrane flowed down his back, sucking at his skin. Solid gray formed beneath him and he crawled forward as the veil sealed behind him.
A slight, moist pop sounded when he pulled his foot free. Curled into a ball with his eyes closed, Gowthaman collapsed on the gray, dusty earth of the world between worlds.
Nightshade tapped Gowthaman’s journal thoughtful
ly. He took a step back from the drop off at the edge of the brae and watched the swirling clouds settle into little more than a misty blur in the night sky. For good or for ill, four people now faced an unforgiving world, a little known foe, and those things, known and unknown each held within themselves. He scrubbed a hand over his face. If the few tales he’d heard of the world between worlds were true, the principle battles would be those waged within.
Shaking off the feeling that by not giving in to the protective impulse to jump after Breanna he had somehow missed a strange opportunity, Nightshade turned back to the manor. Those waiting there would be anxious to hear how the night’s events culminated.
Even though Jayse and Lucidea expected an immediate, full report, he ambled along the path. The electric buzz skimming the back of his neck when the veil was open disappeared and he knew the magical portal was gone. In two nights he would join the others here on the brae and wait for the rescue party’s return.
“Be safe, baby girl. Don’t make Nightshade have to tell your folks you’re gone.”
He ran his thumb along the edge of the journal. Gowthaman was stronger than the librarian thought himself. The rescue party would be fine. Bree and Gowthaman would be fine. Maybe this was the kick needed to bring baby girl the happiness she deserved.
Yet, with that hopeful thought hovered a measure of dread.
Nightshade paused at the edge of the loch and stared across the surface of the black water. Few bright stars reflected and danced upon the water, adding to his unease. Like those who entered the world between worlds, his most diabolical enemy was himself. And his past.
He’d grown tired of this incarnation of Nightshade. While his old friends Derrik and Tommy had never questioned him, he saw a wealth of inquiries in their granddaughter’s eyes. This time, Breanna wasn’t going to let go until she knew the answers, until she really knew him.
Perhaps it was time. He snorted back a dry chuckle. Time to come out of yet another closet.
“Nightshade, that you?”
Blue Keltic Moon (Children of the Keltic Triad) Page 14