Heartlight

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Colin glanced over them. “Hess a members?”; “Spandau Lodge”; “Templar link—extermination of Freemasons.” He riffled through the rest of the folders in her files, but found nothing that looked useful.

  Sanitized Nothing here, not even the notes for the dissertation she sent Dylan.

  Colin sighed, getting to his feet. “You’re just lucky she …” He stopped as a sudden thought struck him. You’re just lucky she mailed you a copy before it disappeared, too. But …

  “Dylan, when did you get Rowan’s dissertation?”

  Dylan stared at him as if he were mad, then went back to the living room and brought back the binder. “September fourteenth. I made a note on the title page.”

  Colin took the dissertation from him. September 14. Over a month ago. But Dylan, like any other harried professor with too much paperwork, had not thought a dissertation could be such an urgent matter.

  Until now.

  “And when was the last time anyone saw her?” he asked.

  “August,” Dylan said slowly. “As far as I can be sure. Between the end of the summer session and the start of Freshmen Orientation.”

  “So she mailed this a fortnight after she disappeared,” Colin said. “About six weeks ago, now.” Another thought struck him. “Did you spill anything on it?” He rubbed the title page between his thumb and forefinger, listening to it crackle.

  “No. It was like that when it came. It must have gotten damp in the mail. She was lucky I could read it at all; ink-jet printing dissolves when you get it wet … .”

  Colin walked back into the living room, riffling the pages in his hand. There was something nagging at the back of his mind.

  It was only reasonable that Rowan had destroyed her notes and drafts—or hidden them elsewhere—if she’d thought her apartment might be searched. It would keep her hunters guessing about how much, precisely, she knew. But why mail Dylan a copy of her dissertation after she’d already “disappeared”? She had to assume that Dylan was under surveillance as well—in fact, she knew he was, after he’d told her about those phone calls he’d received. But she’d taken the risk anyway. Why? To send him a message?

  Old customs, old habits half a century abandoned began to stir in the back of Colin’s mind. Tricks of tradecraft that had been carefully instilled in one generation through careful training had become the prime-time entertainment of the next. How many of them had Rowan known, and how many had she used?

  “There was no note or anything with it?” Colin asked.

  “No,” Dylan said slowly. “I was surprised that she’d mailed it instead of dropping it off, of course, but when I saw what it was about I figured she was just trying to stay out of my way until I’d calmed down. By the time I thought to check the postmark or anything like that, the envelope was long gone.”

  Colin opened the manuscript and turned back the covers. He held up the title page, peering through it toward the light of the living room window. There were lighter marks on the paper, almost like a watermark—but who used erasable, watermarked paper to computer-print a manuscript on?

  Dylan watched him uncertainly.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure yet.” Colin sniffed at the page. Did it smell faintly of lemon?

  There was a floor lamp standing by the couch; Colin removed the shade and switched it on.

  “Oh, come on, Colin, that’s a copy of her dissertation!” Dylan burst out. “What are you looking for—secret messages in invisible ink?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m looking for,” Colin told him grimly. Invisible messages, written in an ink any agent—any person—could easily buy and legitimately possess: lemon juice. The stuff of old-time spy stories, long since passed into common currency.

  Under the heat of the lamp, straggly lines of brown text slowly appeared under the heat of the bulb. They covered the title page, written between the lines of printed text.

  “Dear Dylan. Hope you figure this out. Attached are transcripts and notes. I’m copying everything here and stashing the originals in a safe place—Nin can find the key if he looks around the place and the rest should be obvious. Somebody has to do something, and I guess it’s me. I hope you aren’t too mad” the words stopped abruptly, as if she’d meant to write more, and hadn’t.

  Dylan’s face was a study, caught halfway between a sense of the ridiculousness of the situation and real worry at the fear that had caused Rowan to stoop to such a method of sending her message.

  “Who’s ‘Nin’?” Colin asked, handing the page to Dylan. Bringing up the writing on the rest of the manuscript was going to be a long and tedious task; it would be faster to find the originals Rowan mentioned.

  “That would be Ninian Bellamy, I guess,” Dylan said. “They’ve worked together on several occasions—they were in the graduate program together—but I wouldn’t have said they were close. I suppose I’d better call him. He’s still in the area.”

  Dylan picked up Rowan’s phone and dialed a number. It seemed a tacit agreement between them that even if the police were sometime to be called in on this case, there was nothing to find here, no forensic evidence that they could disturb.

  From eavesdropping on Dylan’s side of the conversation, Colin gathered that Ninian was surprised to hear from Dylan and hadn’t known that Rowan was missing.

  “He’ll be here in about forty minutes,” Dylan said, hanging up.

  After that, there was nothing to do but wait. Colin was tempted to work on the manuscript, but restrained himself. The writing was safe for now—invisible. There’d be time enough later. Colin leaned back on the couch, closing his eyes. He had not slept well last night, and most of today had been spent traveling. The merciless inelasticity of age reminded him that he did not have the reserves of youth to draw upon; all strength was gone, taken by time, leaving only the skill behind.

  But sometimes skill alone was enough, if the skill were great enough … .

  He must have dozed off, because it seemed to Colin, with the reasonable illogic of dreams, that he was reading Rowan Moorcock’s dissertation, and that it held the answers to questions he had puzzled over in vain all through this life. So this is what it was all for. How simple—and how tragic … .

  He was jarred awake by the sound of the doorbell ringing. Colin got slowly to his feet, shaking off the veils of sleep.

  “I’ll get it,” Dylan said, and a moment later, “Hi, Nin.”

  Ninian Bellamy looked like a tubercular Victorian poet translated into the modern age. He had long straight black hair pulled back into a ponytail, and his skin was the milk-pale color of the Black Celt. His eyes were pale grey under straight black brows, and he wore a dark tweed jacket with a black band-collar shirt buttoned all the way to the throat. As an eccentric touch to his somewhat formal outfit, he wore high-topped Converse sneakers instead of dress shoes.

  “Glad you could make it,” Dylan said. “How’s the dowsing business going?”

  “Well enough,” Ninian said, shrugging with awkward embarrassment. He did not seem so much hostile as simply confused about the reason for his presence.

  “You remember Dr. MacLaren,” Dylan said. “Colin, this is Ninian Bellamy, a former student of mine.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Ninian said formally, though he kept his hands in his pockets.

  Colin nodded to himself. If Ninian was making a living as a water-witch—an ancient profession that modern business was willing to employ without understanding it—he undoubtedly had a fairly high degree of psychic potential, and most psychics didn’t like to be touched.

  “I attended a lecture series of yours a couple of years ago, though you probably won’t remember,” Ninian said.

  “And stayed awake? I’m flattered,” Colin said, making a small joke to defuse the gravity of the situation.

  “It was interesting,” Ninian said, as if by way of explanation. He looked back at Dylan. “You want to tell me why the police aren’t here if Ro’s been missing for a
month?” he asked.

  “Because”—Colin answered for Dylan—“we can’t prove that anything’s happened to her. I think she’s in trouble—she left some information about it cached and a note saying you’d have the key to the depository.”

  “Me?” The young man was obviously startled. “I haven’t seen Ro in over a year. I wasn’t the one who went for a doctorate in forensic psychometry that’d take two extra years.”

  Colin picked up the bound manuscript containing Rowan’s invisible ink message and passed it to Ninian. Ninian stared at it and shook his head, then looked at the other side of the page.

  “Thanks a lot, Ro,” he muttered, closing the manuscript and handing it back to Colin. “Look, do you mind if I make myself some coffee before I try to figure out what she was thinking—and I use the word in the loosest possible manner. I was up all night trying to find an old sewer line about ninety miles north of here, and I’m sort of bushed. I hate looking for water—it feels like banging on a sore tooth,” he added, half to himself.

  “The deli’s around the corner,” Dylan said, but Ninian shook his head.

  “I might as well make it here. She owes me coffee, for dragging me out like this.”

  “You’ll have to take it black,” Dylan warned. “Val’s cleaned out the refrigerator.”

  Ninian shrugged and walked off into the kitchen, still carrying the sheet of paper. He might not be Rowan’s closest friend, but he seemed to know his way around her apartment.

  Colin sat down on the couch, prepared to be patient. Ninian wasn’t one of his own people; he might not be used to working with the quick decision that Colin preferred. But on this occasion Colin had no choice: he needed everything that Ninian could tell them, however little that might be.

  But Rowan must know as well as anyone the strange limitations that bound the use of the psychic gift. How could she expect Ninian to find what an ordinary search could not?

  “Yuck,” Ninian said comprehensively from the other room.

  “What’s wrong?” Dylan demanded apprehensively.

  “I don’t know who put this in the freezer, but it’s time to throw it out. Ro’d never eat something like that, and it’s already melted anyway—see?”

  Ninian walked back into the living room, opening the carton of ice cream that Colin had noticed earlier. There was a thick fuzz of ice crystals atop a smooth white surface two inches below the top of the carton—it was as if the ice cream had melted into liquid and then been refrozen.

  “Well, toss it, then,” Dylan said. “Or put it back in the fridge—we can take it out with us when we leave.”

  Ninian went back into the kitchen, and the other two heard clattering as he looked around for coffee and sugar.

  Invisible ink, Colin thought, still half-drowsy. Boys’ Own Paper cloak and dagger stuff. Why not believe in a literal key as well, hidden somewhere that Ninian would find, once he started looking for it? But he wouldn’t come here unless someone found the note and called him—he said himself that he hadn’t seen Rowan since he graduated. So someone would have to call him. But if it wasn’t someone he trusted, he wouldn’t be rummaging around the kitchen … .

  Colin got up and walked quickly into the kitchen, an odd expression on his face. Ninian was leaning against the wall, apparently intent on disproving the adage that a watched pot never boils.

  “Why wouldn’t she eat the ice cream?” Colin asked. “Doesn’t she eat ice cream?”

  “Not that brand,” Ninian said absently. “It’s full of additives. She always buys Haagen-Dazs or something like that. That’s why I was looking in the freezer. I hate black coffee.”

  “And you were going to use ice cream in it,” Colin said, half to himself, “but only if it was a premium brand. Which is all Rowan Moorcock ever bought.”

  “That’s right.” Ninian was watching Colin, an odd expression on his face.

  Colin opened the freezer and took out the carton, hefting it in his hands.

  “Heavy,” he said. Oddly heavy, for a hair-full carton of air-puffed ice cream.

  … but if Dylan found the message, he’d call Ninian, and the first thing Ninian would do would be to make himself coffee. But there wouldn’t be any milk, because Rowan told Val to take the milk away. So he’d use the ice cream, the way he often did … .

  Colin opened the carton, picking up the spoon that Ninian had laid out, and began digging into the ice cream. The spoon penetrated only an inch or so before hitting something hard.

  “There’s something in here,” Colin said aloud, setting the carton into the sink. Reaching for the faucet taps, he turned the hot water on full strength.

  The ice cream melted quickly away to reveal a slab of solid ice with something frozen inside, trapped like a fly in amber. Colin levered the ice out of the carton—wincing at the cold—and set it in the sink.

  A block of ice, sandwiched between two slabs of ice cream. A ruse that would fool almost any searcher—even one who was tearing the house apart—but not someone who knew Rowan well.

  But why such a large slab of ice, if all she needed to hide was a key?

  The streaming water slowly melted through the cloudy ice. By now Dylan had come into the kitchen as well, watching the frozen contents of the block slowly appear. When the kettle boiled, Ninian poured the water over the ice, and then rinsed the objects with the tap to cool them.

  “A necklace?” Dylan was baffled.

  Lying in the sink were a small silver key and a heavy gold chain as thick as a pencil, made of squared-off links that looked vaguely similar to an anchor chain. It held a large pendant, roughly three inches long. Colin picked it up and laid it, faceup, on a square of paper towel to dry.

  “It’s a crucifix,” Dylan said.

  “It’s broken,” Ninian said, reaching out and trying to turn the carved ivory figure right side up. Colin stopped him before he touched it.

  “No,” Colin said. “Leave it alone. That’s the way it was meant to be.”

  He gazed down at the red-haired, one-eyed figure hanging inverted from an upright cross, the body marked all over its surface with the bleeding rune-symbols.

  The three of them returned to the Bidney Institute after that. Ninian had come along. Though Colin really didn’t want him involved, there didn’t seem to be any real way to discourage the boy.

  “This should take care of our secret writing,” Dylan said, laying the stack of papers—Rowan’s unbound dissertation—on a long table in the lab. “I suppose running the pages through a laser printer might have the same effect, but it’d be a little riskier.”

  Reaching up, he pulled a rack of lamps into position over it, and switched them on. The table was suddenly bathed in hot orange light.

  “Infrared,” Dylan said. “From what you’ve said, this should make Rowan’s notes become visible.” He took a paper from the top of the pile and lowered the lamps over it. After a few seconds, faint brown writing began to appear.

  “Okay,” Ninian said, watching the writing darken. “I’d kind of like an explanation. If Ro’s fallen into the clutches of the Committee to Reelect the President or some other bizarro cult, I want to know what we’re supposed to do about it.”

  Dylan looked expectantly toward Colin.

  Toller Hasloch was dead. He had been dead for more than two decades—since Christmas Day 1972, over a quarter of a century ago. That his perverse, twisted doctrine was still alive was something Colin had never doubted—why, then, was seeing this symbol again such a profound and unwelcome surprise? It did not mean he was alive, Colin told himself, but the certainty he fought felt very much like fear. He took a deep breath.

  “I’m going to make a long string of assumptions, which might change once we’ve read Rowan’s dissertation and the notes she concealed in it—and Dylan, if you can remember any of the names of the people who talked to you about her, that would be a great help.”

  Colin walked over to the table and reluctantly picked up the rune-cross again. It wa
s heavy, ceremonial, made of gold and enameled ivory—an expensive piece of custom jewelry at the very least. The back was plain smooth gold, decorated with a series of shallow holes like a pattern of buckshot or a fragment of a star map.

  Who had it belonged to? How had Rowan come to have it, and why had she kept it? Colin turned it over in his hands, but the tiny, tortured figure gave him no answers.

  “Rowan began by investigating the historical Thule Group. Somewhere along the way, her investigation shifted to its modern descendant, which to my certain knowledge is still active in this country. As she became aware of the Thule Gesellschaft, it also became aware of her, and began investigating her in turn. She’s been missing now for about six weeks.” The vast empty space of the Bidney Institute’s main laboratory seemed to take the words as he spoke them and blot them out, even from memory. Most of the light came from the heat lamps, and their furnace-mouth illumination made the three men look like demons on holiday from Hell.

  “We have every reason to believe she’s the one who mailed the annotated copy of the dissertation to Dylan a month ago, indicating she was free then.”

  Ninian shifted uneasily at Colin’s choice of words, running a hand over his hair. In the orange light, his expression was difficult to read.

  “We have three possibilities open to us. She may still be hiding, she may be a prisoner of the Thulists, or she may already be dead. In any of these scenarios, the police—or, I suppose, the FBI, since this is a kidnapping—will be of no help.”

  Colin did not mention his conviction, evolved slowly over the decades, that the higher one went in the ranks of the government intelligence community, the more likely it was that any inquiry about the Thule Group would be reported directly to the people Rowan had been investigating—the Thulists themselves. To say such a thing aloud still seemed tantamount to irresponsible paranoia in his mind.

  “I can’t find her,” Ninian said, a little desperately. “You know that, Dylan. That isn’t what I do.” He covered his eyes with his hand, as if he wanted to blot out everything he was hearing—and thinking.