Gravelight

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  But. . . why? The Wildwood Gate has rejected me, and of all the people on earth, I should be most immune to its lure. This can't be any of its doing — what's going on here?

  The bag over her shoulder clinked as its contents shifted. She was hungry, and thirsty, and she could feel the tingling effects of sunburn even through the sun block she'd carefully applied this morning. Her working tools seemed to get heavier by the moment. Nothing seemed farther from actuality just now than the cold perfection of her sidhe heritage.

  At that moment, as if Nature Herself were goading Truth, a fat, cold marble of rain spattered against the back of her neck. It was followed by another, and another, as the storm finally broke. Within moments Truth was soaked to the skin, wet and freezing. It was, somehow, the last straw.

  Hardly caring what she was doing. Truth seized the power of the storm, meaning to turn it upon the force that was tormenting her. She felt the energy rise in her, crescendoing toward its climax, but before it reached its peak it was snatched away as if it had never been. As dark

  tidal forces sucked at Truth, she realized she'd managed to accomplish one thing here today.

  She'd gotten the Gate's attention.

  She struggled through the rain to the tree where the man — her lover, her father, her son — waited for her. Rain slicked back his flowing hair, plastered his shirt to his chest. He raised his eyes to hers; smiled and stretched out his hands.

  She raised the hammer and the spike.

  No!

  Truth tried to pull herself free of the vision that was no vision — that was, in another space and time, reality. She might as well have tried to hold back the ocean. The hammered spike sheared down through flesh and tendon and bone — fire-hardened ash, it was, and he the sacrifice by oak and ash and thorn, as the ancient law demanded. She could smell the coppery-sharp scent of blood as she struck again and again, driving the spike into the wood of the living tree.

  She raised her hand again, and the face beneath the blood streaming down from the laced crown of holly and thorns was her father's.

  She heard his voice, telling her it was all right, that he was the sacrifice ordained, that this was his penance, but she could not bear it. Truth fought to stop herself as the second spike was hammered through his other hand, securing him to the tree.

  Then she took up the knife, but it was not her hand that held it. She was the tool of a power far more terrible — it was the sidhe, whose Gates these were, whose anger had bound Thome Blackburn to this eternal sacrifice and service.

  Whose grant of power to their human servants demanded a teind be paid each generation.

  "Father! Forgive me!" Truth cried, and in her hand was a knife of polished bone.

  She brought it down. . . .

  And the shock of its impact was the shock of her fall as Truth slammed into the ground, her foot tangled in a gorgon's-nest of branches. There was a blue-white shock of lightning overhead, and in its illumination she saw the road that led down to the general store only a few yards away.

  Truth struggled to her knees, wiping her hands over and over again on her pants, but there was no blood on them, only water and mud.

  What had she done.''

  Truth shook her head. Her sodden hair clung to her cheeks and neck. She'd done nothing—whatever had happened, it was a dream, a vision. She had to get back. She had to talk to Dylan. If only he'd listen.

  Wycherly rolled over in the California King and checked his watch with a sigh, listening to the distant roll of thunder. All around him, Sinah's house thought its cool electric thoughts, performing all the tasks that insulated them from the outside world in a cocoon of cool dry silence . . . like a tomb.

  Beside him Sinah slumbered heavily. He'd gotten her to take one of his sleeping pills, promising her sleep without dreams. Now she lay there, helpless and drugged, at the side of a man she'd known less than a week.

  He could do anything he wanted to her. They'd probably never even find the body until the bones were picked clean. Who knew where she was, anyway?

  The direction of his thoughts drove Wycherly from the bed, aching and nauseous. The beast was back, or something like it; a craving that Wycherly would gladly rip out his own heart to assuage. Without even bothering to dress, he blundered down the stairs, toward the one thing that had never failed him.

  Less careful to conceal his traces this time, Wycherly poured a glass full with good Scotch and drank it off as if it were water. The taste made him shudder.

  But five ounces of eighty-proof Glenlivet had no more effect on him than if it were water. There was no warm glow of haven in his stomach, and he realized with despair that not even alcohol would sate the beast this time. It wanted something else, and Wycherly didn't know what it was.

  But it wanted it very much.

  Wycherly threw the bottle across the room. It exploded on the bricks of the hearth with a satisfying impact, spraying glass and liquor over the walls and floor, but that didn't solve anything.

  It wasn't what he needed.

  Still naked, he padded into the kitchen, searching. The book was upstairs in his shoulder bag, beneath his clothes, but Sinah was sleeping

  deeply enough that he was willing to leave her alone with it for a few minutes. He turned on the lights in the kitchen, knowing he would not wake her. Now, what was here that he could use. . . .

  It seemed as if the knives were whispering to him in thin steel voices. It was only when he'd opened one of the drawers and was contemplating the neatly racked rows of carving knives that he realized what he was really thinking beneath the surface of his thoughts.

  He slammed the drawer with a crash. No. That was not who he was.

  Wasn't it? Wouldn't this at least be a quicker death—a kinder death than the one he'd given to Camilla? The quick flash of the knife, her spilled blood the alchemical potion that would change his earthly substance from dross into to gold. Sinah would be dead, but that was the fate of everyone he'd ever loved. Who'd ever loved him.

  Wycherly turned away from the drawer, gagging into the sink until he'd brought up the Scotch he'd just drank. It was mixed with blood; the dark brown bile had a foul smell. He ran water in the sink to wash it away, rinsing and spitting until the taste of his own blood was gone. When he turned off the water, he leaned back against her refrigerator, shivering with chill. He'd dodged the beast this time, but he hadn't outrun it. It was still in control.

  And he was not.

  But now he knew the way to gain control—one act, simple and easy to perform, that would give him what he wanted: power and peace.

  The knives no longer tempted him. It was too early for the knives. What he needed was some clothesline, something long and strong, something he could use to tie Sinah to the altar, the black stone carved with the symbols from Les Cultes des Goules. <■

  There he would open her body and bathe in her blood. That was it. That was all. A simple act, easy to perform. The hardest part would be getting her to go up there with him, and even that wouldn't be so difficult to accomplish. And he could put the clothesline in his shoulder bag, and the knife. He could even use the clasp-knife he carried; it would do the trick. Human bodies were so soft, so vulnerable . . .

  Sinah isn't the only one who's losing her mind, Wycherly thought with cold despair.

  He wrenched himself free of his own thoughts, panting as if he'd been running. Sinah Dellon was a sweet girl. He didn't know if he loved her yet, but she'd been kind to him. And now he was standing in her kitchen

  thinking about the best way to kill her—no, worse than that, to stake her out and butcher her like an animal, and for what?

  Because he had bad dreams.

  That was all they were, Wycherly told himself. Bad dreams. Not demons. The grimoire was only pretentious snuff-porn, and his visions were only an exciting new version of the d.t.'s.

  But he'd really be painting himself into a corner if he murdered someone. His father would bury him in an institution somewhere un
til he rotted—life without parole. There'd be no reprieve for Musgrave s failure son this time.

  How could he stop himself?

  And how could he be sure he hadn't already done it?

  Wycherly ran back up stairs, desperate to hear the sound of Sinah's breathing. When he reached the bed he crawled in beside her and took her in his arms, and though she stirred and muttered at the touch of his icy flesh against hers, she did not wake.

  He held her against him until his arms ached, as though by clinging to her he could keep himself from doing anything else. And when he slid over the border of consciousness, Wycherly Musgrave didn't notice.

  The Little Heller Creek was one of the many streams that fed the river Astolat. Unlike its cousin the Big Heller it was not very deep, but it was deep enough.

  Wycherly crashed down the brush-covered slope that hid the creek from his cabin and took an awkward step into the stream. Only a few inches below the surface the water ran chill, forty degrees colder than the air above. He took one step out, then another.

  She was waiting for him here — Camilla — Melusine — they were the same woman, the river serpent who dragged men down to drown. . . .

  The water was above his thighs now, its cold something that took his breath away. Another step or two and he would reach the steep drop-off that would carry him under, into the deeps where the woman-serpent waited.

  He struggled against it, standing there in the river, knowing that he was only delaying the inevitable, putting off the moment in which the white serpent would surge up out of the water to seize him. He managed to take one step back, then two, and then he stood in the shallows of another river, and watched the car headlights come inexorably on.

  Even from this distance, it was obvious that the car was in trouble. It slewed from side to side until at last the curve of its arc became too extreme for the road.

  and It hurtled off the road and into the river. Its momentum carried it quickly through the shallow water from which escape would have been possible. For a moment the car floated, and then it sank.

  From the shore Wycherly watched as the driver fought his way free from the half-submerged car. There was a moment when he could have turned back to rescue his trapped companion before the river submerged the car further, and he didn't.He floundered toward the shore, intent upon his own safety, as the car slid further beneath the water and Camilla Redford drowned.

  It began to rain, though dimly Wycherly remembered that the long-ago night had been clear He could not withdraw his attention from the scene before him enough to question the discrepancy; through the veils of rain he could see across the water to where the car's headlights were a distant, dimming beacon beneath the water. Its driver lay insensible, unconscious upon the muddy gravel of the shore. It would be a long time before another car passed.

  Thunder rumbled like far-off anger, and Wycherly, waking from one dream into another, stood chest-deep in a freezing river that had never been that deep before, knowing the river's mistress was waiting for him. Rain sheeted down from the sky, making the air nearly as wet as the river, and chains of lightning danced dangerously across the heavens.

  He was going to die.

  He was going to drown.

  She was going to drown. The woman lying in drugged sleep as the storm raged outside dreamed, not Sinah Dellon's dreams, but Athanais de Lyon's. Here was the pond, the ducking stool, the judges—godly and grave, arrayed in Puritan black—to examine her. They tied her to the stool. ...

  The shock of the water was icy, slicing through the fabric of the thin shift she wore as the water closed over her. Water was supposed to reject the witch, as she had rejected the water of her baptism, but this water closed around Athanais, fllling her nose, her mouth, her eyes. . . .

  And then they raised her; she stared, wild-eyed and gasping, into the eyes of her inquisitors, and heard their litany: CONFESS, WITCH, CONFESS. . . .

  She shook her head, defiant, and they cast her down once more into that dark and silent world.

  And they left her there.

  Her lungs begged for air, a roaring grew in her ears, and Athanais came to re-

  alize that there would he no further chance for repentance, no chance to escape. They did not mean to hear her confession. They meant to kill her.

  She was Athanais de Lyon.

  She was Sinah Dellon.

  And she was more, a multitude stretching back across the centuries in service to a blind need that must be slaked. This was the power that Athanais had sought. This was the power she had bound her own bloodline to, so that her avarice and obsession would haunt each one of her descendants. It was darkness and blood-thirst, and it demanded service of its custodians; a child, a lover, some bloodtie — some hearttie — to feed it.

  It was Sinah's turn to feed it, now. She was bound to the burden her ancestress had taken up; the burden whose uncompromising savagery so closely matched Athanais' own nature. There was no escape for her, now that she had returned. The price must be paid.

  But Sinah was not the one who would pay it.

  Her first perception was that she was wet. The terror of Athanais' nightmare thrust her into consciousness, but she realized that there was no water: only rain dripping onto the skylight above. A summer storm, with its attendant thunder and lightning.

  Nothing more.

  Beside her Wycherly struggled, cocooned in bedsheets; his groans were what had first wakened her. His terror was so strong that even without touching him she could feel it—a blind rejection of the stuff of his dream landscape. She put her hands on him and shook him—hard.

  His amber eyes opened instantly, but she did not feel that he saw her. The sheets and his body beneath them were drenched in an icy sweat, and even in the faint light coming up from the living room below she could see that his lips were pale and bluish.

  "Wych? Wycherly? It's me—Sinah."

  ". . . serpent. . ."

  The word hissed from between his half-parted lips, as cold and condemning as the faces of the judges in Athanais' nightmare. Sinah recoiled as if he'd hit her.

  Wycherly struggled out of the bed, dragging the sheets from his body.

  She was tainted and he knew it. The ridiculous overdramatization paralyzed Sinah for a moment. When she looked around, she could already hear the clink of glassware downstairs. She ran to the railing and looked down.

  Wycherly was standing beside her liquor cabinet. He had a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other, and he was drinking as quickly and methodically as if it would save his life.

  ELEVEN

  GRAVE FAULTS

  There's no repentance in the grave. — ISAAC WATTS

  THE RAIN HAD DECREASED TO A GENTLE PATTER AS

  Truth, muddy, cold, and exhausted, dragging her bag of working tools— she'd lost the canteen somewhere along the way—finally reached the place where the camper was parked. Every light was on, and she could see people moving around inside.

  This is not going to be fun. But if Truth Jourdemayne had one defining characteristic, it was stubbornness. Grimly she slogged the rest of the way to the Winnebago and knocked on the door.

  It was Dylan who yanked it open, staring down at her as if he'd never seen her before.

  "Get in here," he said at last through gritted teeth.

  Meekly Truth climbed into the RV, blinking slightly at the light. Rowan and Ninian both stared at her, faces blank with surprise.

  "It's one o'clock in the morning," Dylan said. His voice shook slightly. "We've been looking for you for the last six hours."

  Truth winced inwardly. She'd known this wasn't going to be easy, but she'd never seen Dylan this upset in all the years she'd known him.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "It was stupid of me to go off without telling anybody where I was, but—"

  "Oh, I knew where you probably were," Dylan said in a deadly flat voice. He turned to the two grad students. "Emergency over, guys. Sorry to put you through all this. Ms. Jourdemayne's fine, so w
hy don't the two of you pack it in?"

  "Um . . . yeah. Sure." Rowan glanced at Ninian, who ducked his head and mumbled something incomprehensible. Truth stepped back awkwardly as the other two made their way out the door and across the puddled gravel to their tents.

  "You're soaked. You'd better get those wet clothes off before you get sick," Dylan said evenly.

  "Dylan, I have to talk to you," Truth said, not moving from where she stood. Water dripped steadily from her pants and shoes to form a dirty puddle on the plastic mats that covered the rug.

  "I'll make you some coffee," Dylan said.

  "Dylan, I was up at the sanatorium—"

  "Do you think I don't know that?" Dylan burst out, rounding on her. "You were up there chasing your obsession with Quentin Blackburn like an irresponsible child—what was I supposed to do when you didn't come back?"

  " 'Chasing my obsession'? There's an uncontrolled Gate up there, and its keeper is nowhere to be found—if you want manifestations, that one makes your average haunted house look as dangerous as a wet firecracker. You'll have to help me, Dylan; we've got to find out which family in the Fork is tied to the Gate, and—"

  "No." Dylan's voice was very quiet. "Get into some dry things, will you, Truth? I'll drive you to the nearest airport tomorrow, but I don't want to take this thing out on these roads tonight." He reached into the Winnebago's tiny shower stall and handed her a towel.

  Truth took it and wiped her face. Her hands were shaking. For a moment she wanted to go against every ounce of Irene's teaching, and use the power she could summon to lash out against Dylan, even to kill.

  No. The moment of fury passed, leaving her exhausted. She began to unbutton her shirt as Dylan made tea.

  "I don't want to go to the airport, Dylan," she said, peeling off the wet shirt and rubbing herself briskly with the towel. He held out her robe and she took it.

  "I think you should," Dylan said. The anger he was trying to control made his voice flat and grating. "It's going to be hard enough to get anything out of these mountain people over the course of a summer without members of our group acting delusional into the bargain. I've told you before: Occult manifestations are tricky things that love to delude."