Gravelight

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Dylan got to his feet as if he could no longer contain himself. He stood, half turned away from her, one hand pressed against the back of his neck as if unconsciously he were trying to make himself submit to something.

  "Look. All kidding aside, I know you . . . believe in magick. But in our little corner of the world you can easily get a distorted view of how accepted it is. You've studied Thome's life—in fact, you wrote the book. Are you ready to expose yourself to that much . . . ridicule?" he finished in a strained voice.

  This was hard. She'd expected it to be, but its difficulty had already exceeded her expectations. It would have been simpler if Truth had simply told Dylan that she didn't love him, didn't care, wanted nothing more to do with him.

  That wasn't true. But unfortunately Truth wanted him on terms of complete honesty, complete openness—and she didn't think that was possible.

  "If I have to become a laughingstock I will—for what's right. It isn't that I believe in magick, Dylan; magick believes in me. And ... I suppose I haven't told you everything about what I learned over the last few years. I suppose if I'm going to be . . . open about my beliefs, we need to discuss that most of all."

  Now it would come—the open break between them.

  "All right," Dylan said, as warily as any man would under the circumstances.

  Truth took a deep breath and willed down the rising tide of her stormy emotions. She had only one chance at getting this right, but the words must be said.

  "You know that Thorne claimed he'd been fathered by a Bright Lord of the sidhe —a nonhuman force. Well, it's the truth. He was. I have as much proof of that as I'll ever need. And I'm his daughter. I'm . . . not quite human, Dylan."

  Her throat was raw with the effort it had taken to force out the words, bald and unpersuasive though they were. Dylan did not laugh—but would any man laugh when the woman he loved confessed to being delusional? If he did not trust and believe in her, her confession could seem like nothing else to him.

  Dylan ran a hand over his forehead. He was sweating.

  "I know that Blackburn . . ."he began. His voice died. "You'll have to give me time. Truth. I'm sorry. This is a lot to take in."

  And there's more. There's my life's work — and it isn't sitting in a sterile cubicle at the Institute juggling numbers!

  "Yes. I know. I'm sorry." Trite, meaningless words—but what else could she say? I'm sorry, Dylan, love. I'm sorry.

  "Why didn't you bring this up before?" The desperation in his voice made her heart ache.

  Because I thought I could ignore it, pretend it didn't matter. We weren't planning on children, after all. Because I thought I could pretend to be a normal human being.

  "I'm sorry, Dylan," Truth said again.

  They sat there in silence for a long time, not looking at each other, until Truth finally got up and walked off in the direction of the general store. While she was inside buying supplies to make up for a missed breakfast, she heard the camper's engine start up and saw it move slowly up the street.

  She'd never felt more desolate in her life, but Truth told herself stubbornly that it wasn't yet time to despair. If Dylan could accept what she'd told him this morning, they would have a basis for discussion of all the rest.

  If he could not. Truth would leave as soon as the Gate was sealed, and do her best not to see Dylan Palmer ever again.

  * * *

  "This is a wicked place," Michael Archangel said simply, gazing down at the Black Altar.

  To earthly eyes, Michael Archangel was a tall man of indeterminate age, with the black hair and eyes and olive skin that bespoke a Mediterranean heritage. He wore a dark suit that was peculiarly out of place here in the rambling, overgrown ruins of the burnt sanatorium, and looked like any mundane businessman.

  But Truth knew he was more than that—much more. She kept her second sight well barricaded whenever she looked toward him, but the presence of what he was beat against her shields like constant sunlight. Someday, inevitably, there would be war between them, as Michael followed the Right-Hand Path, the path of Light—and Truth did not.

  If there had not been that unspoken thing between them. Truth could have liked Michael. He was the one whom Light Winwood, Truth's sister, had chosen for her life partner. And though he could never be her ally. Truth trusted Michael to be true to his own nature. Michael Archangel was the closest thing to a White Magician that Truth knew.

  It was early on the morning of August 14—and the sub-basement temple at Wildwood Sanatorium was cold and threatening. Today there was not even the sight of blue sky and sunlight in the world above to warm them: The day was misty and overcast, unusually cool for August, and the stone walls seemed to radiate cold. Truth, Michael, Dylan, and Sinah stood once more before the altar stone that symbolized Quentin Blackburn's power.

  Truth's problems with Dylan were worse than ever—they had both carefully avoided each other last night at Sinah's. Later there would be time for Truth to talk to Dylan, to make a clean end to things as she knew she must. But now Truth must set her private griefs aside in the face of the responsibility she bore.

  Beside Truth, Sinah twisted nervously.

  Truth had not wanted Sinah to be here for this, but she hadn't really been able to think of any good argument to keep Sinah away. Sinah was terrified of Quentin Blackburn and the grey place she had been trapped in on the Astral Plane, even more than she was afraid of the bloodline and her duties as Gatekeeper. When Truth had told Sinah that Michael would be coming to put an end to all that remained in this world of Quentin Blackburn, Sinah had demanded to be present, and Truth still needed her

  cooperation—or the cooperation of whatever ancestral memories dwelt behind Sinah Dellon's grey eyes—to seal the Wildwood Gate. So Sinah had come with them when Michael had picked Truth up at Sinah's house this morning.

  When Michael had arrived at Sinah's, Dylan had been with him. Truth could not imagine how they'd connected, or what they'd found to talk about. Or what Dylan had told Rowan and Ninian—left behind in town—for that matter.

  "Have you heard anything from Wycherly?" Truth asked, to distract Sinah from what Michael was doing. "He's probably going to need to make a statement to the sheriff's department. He was probably the last person to see Luned alive, if she kept house for him."

  By now the consensus in the Fork was that Luned Starking was dead. Soon the rumors would begin that Sinah had caused the death. Truth hoped she'd have the sense to be far from here by then—once the Gate was sealed.

  Sinah shook her head. "He didn't kill her," she said, her voice shaking with the effort it took to force the words out.

  Michael stepped forward and brushed his fingers lightly across the top of the Black Altar, his mobile features twisting in distaste at what he felt there. After a few moments he straightened from his examination of the altar and turned to the three who were waiting.

  "There is sufficient evil here that I may act. Are any of you believers?" he asked in his deep voice. "I know that she is not," he added, indicating Truth.

  Sinah shook her head uncertainly, while Dylan's answer, to Truth's surprise, was a strong "Yes."

  "Very well." Michael's eyes met Truth's briefly, and she experienced a searing shock of recognition, of a sense that she knew his true name—

  Then it was gone.

  "I will ask you, Truth, and Ms. Dellon merely to keep still minds, and to place your trust in the power of the Light. The Darkness finds its power in your weakness; if you have faith, you will come to no harm."

  Truth could not quite believe that—it was a fundamental dispute about the use of Man's capacity to know and do that was at the root of Truth and Michael's conflict—but this was not the time to argue. Let Sinah trust in Michael, if she could; Truth would trust her own strength to protect her, and do nothing to hinder what Michael intended to do.

  I

  I

  y

  GRAVELIGHT 3OI

  Michael extended his hand to Dylan,
who stepped forward. Then Michael turned to the case he had brought with him and began to remove its contents, setting them upon a small folding table which he had also carried here.

  Most of what she saw was familiar to Truth—the apparatus of High Magick was nearly universal—but some of them were unique to Michael's path: the monstrance containing the consecrated wafer which Michael held to be the actual body of his god; the vial of viaticum; a long, narrow strip of violet silk, embroidered with the symbols of his faith. When he had everything he would need set out, he draped the stola about his neck, kissing the ends of it before and after he did so.

  Michael lit the candle and lifted it to ignite the censer of incense that stood beside it. Then, as the thick, white smoke curled upward—its fragrance nearly lost in the open air—he took one last item from his bag— a book—and began to read.

  '"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful—'"

  It was not the Catholic Church's Ritual of Exorcism—Truth had read that once—though the words sounded vaguely biblical. Exorcism or not, she felt their power like a rising wind—and felt, too, the power of that which rose to contend with them.

  "'His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.'"

  Now it was Dylan who held the book and read, his face grave and his voice quietly steady. Sinah stepped closer to Truth, pressing against her, and the younger woman's fingers were icy in Truth's own.

  Holding the monstrance in both hands, Michael raised it high over his head. The gold and crystal disk caught the rays of the morning sun and flashed like a mirror.

  Then he brought the monstrance down upon the altar.

  There was a lightless flash; a wordless soundless shout of rage, as though someone—some thing —had been burned. Truth saw a bright flash of red as fresh blood welled up around the wafer in its crystal case, and the stone surface of the altar directly beneath it began to smoke, giving off a horrible stench of burning and rot.

  '"And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water—'" Now Michael and Dylan spoke together—Dylan reading, a little raggedly, Michael rolling forth the sonorous syllables without need of the book.

  Next Michael took up the censer and swung it over the altar; the sweet smoke of burning frankincense veiled the repulsive scent of the burning stone, making it possible to breathe once more.

  But this was only the beginning. Truth struggled to draw a breath, and could not make her lungs serve her. Her heart lugged heavily in her chest; she felt a sense of pressure, an uncomfortable weight on her sinuses, her lungs, her eyes, as though she had been placed into a pressure chamber and was being slowly and painfully oppressed by the weight of a thousand atmospheres. Dylan and Sinah felt it, too—Dylan was sweating and pale, and Sinah looked as though she might faint at any moment.

  Michael laid the fingertips of his right hand on the altar beside the smoking monstrance. There was a sudden release of the pressure.

  '"—the tree that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and . . .'"

  For the first time Truth heard Michael falter. He reached out his left hand to Dylan; Dylan took it, quickly, and Truth heard Dylan gasp.

  '". . . his leaf also shall not wither . . .'"

  The light in the sub-basement dwindled, as if a shadow had come between the sun and the earth. But the darkening continued. It was sunset—twilight—night. The light was gone.

  Truth took Sinah in her arms and held her tightly.

  A great wave—a sorrow, a death, a mortality for which Truth had no name broke over her like a crushing wave. This was nothing she knew how to fight, this mindless, endless hunger to destroy, to ruin, and to leave no new thing behind itself.

  For a moment she felt the flames rise around her and seemed to feel Quentin Blackburn's last mortal thoughts—rage and arrogance and cheated fury.

  "Athanais!" his voice shouted.

  For one instant Truth saw Quentin Blackburn clearly. He had Thome's eyes, Thome's reckless charm—but his face was carved deep with lines of anger and dissatisfaction that had never been any part of Thorne Blackburn's heritage. He wore unfamiliar ornate robes, and a horned crown in eerie echo of the thing upon the altar in the Grey Place was bound about his brow.

  And as Truth watched, he was dissolving away, being sucked down into a vortex of flame that purled as if it were water, into a void that was not even darkness, but absence of all color and image.

  ''No!" As the astral temple that Quentin Blackburn had constructed began to dissolve under Michael's onslaught—carrying away all that remained of Quentin's personality, and, perhaps, his soul—Sinah screamed and twisted in Truth's arms, and suddenly Truth felt the power of the Gate itself, a cold pure heartless fire, as Sinah reached out to it to save her lover.

  "Be still, woman!" Michael roared. Beads of blood stood out along his forehead like a row of thorns. He pointed his finger at Sinah with a gesture that had the impact of a whiplash, and she slumped unconscious in Truth's arms.

  Truth lowered Sinah gently to the floor. Sinah wasn't hurt, but she had certainly been . . . silenced.

  With Sinah unconscious the siren lure of the Gate faded, but the distraction had cost Michael dearly. The tide of darkness began to rise up again, as painful in its way to Truth as Michael's light had been. Truth knew already that any power she might be able to summon and wield could have no effect here—both the Right- and Left-Hand Paths were closed to her by her own vow. She had survived her own encounter with the power of The Church of the Antique Rite because of that very fact— but Michael was a Servant of the Light, his own power set in direct opposition to that which the Antique Rite represented. And Michael's strength was failing.

  "1 shall not be afraid for the terror by night.'"

  Dylan's voice, calm and certain, sounded through the suffocating essence of this blighted place like the tolling of a bell.

  His voice went on, reciting the beautiful words of the litany; the defiance of a small weak thing, a thing that could not prevail against the vast forces arrayed against it, a thing that could easily be hurt, shattered, destroyed—but could never be made to submit against its true will.

  Dylan's words resounded to their end, and now Michael's voice rose above Dylan's once more, calling upon the power that was his to command with renewed strength.

  "'His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.'"

  The darkness lifted as if Truth had suddenly been given sight. As she crouched over Sinah's unconscious form, she saw Michael reach for the small bottle of oil on the table and begin to anoint the altar with it, as carefully as if the inanimate stone were the body of a dying loved one. In the center of the smooth black stone, the monstrance still smoked.

  "The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driv-eth away,'" Michael said firmly. '"Lift up your heads, O ye gates and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors—'"

  He capped the vial of oil once more and set it aside, and picked up the large iron bell that awaited him.

  Or was it a sword? Truth blinked and looked away. Her eyes insisted that it was both—and neither. She closed them, shutting out the lying images, and the bell—it must be a bell—began to ring in vigorous double peals.

  The sound of the ringing drowned out Michael's next words—though Truth, looking toward him again, could see that his lips were still moving—and each peal struck through her with a separate shock, as if something of her own substance were being cast out with the very sound. But distressing as it was for her, the effect on the temple was far worse.

  It was as if the image before her eyes now was a reflection in a pool, a reflection that shimmered into nothingness with each stroke of the bell. Each time it reformed itself again, but each time the image seemed somehow lighter— weaker —than before.

  The thirteenth double stroke sounded, and Michael set t
he bell aside. As the fading echoes cleared, Truth could see that everything was just as it had been before—but somehow it was more ethereal, cleaner, new. Whatever had been here was gone, and the physical reality that she saw had been reborn.

  Sinah stirred in her arms, and Truth rocked back on her heels to give Sinah air. The sun had broken through the clouds now, and the light was almost too bright, though it was nothing more than ordinary sunlight. Truth squinted as she looked toward Dylan. He was leaning back against the side of the altar, and she could see dark rings of sweat staining the fabric of his shirt. He looked like a man who had been flogged.

  The altar stone seemed somehow to be less black—although that could be a trick of the light—and the band of symbols that had been carved upon its side was gone as if it had been rubbed away. Truth straightened wearily out of her crouch, and as she did she saw that the monstrance that Michael had placed upon the altar's surface was also gone. All that remained behind was a shallow depression in the stone— but Truth could not reasonably say that it was something that hadn't been here before.

  It was over.

  Then Michael sketched the Sign of the Cross in the air, and she realized he was not finished. He meant to go on—to seal this place against any possibility of Quentin's return—but if he did, he would seal it against Truth and Sinah as well.

  "Michael— noT Truth said. She straightened up and staggered toward him on unsteady legs.

  He finished the Sign and turned to look at her. It hung invisibly behind him, burning into Truth's senses like a rebuke.

  "Would you have me cast out this evil and not set up wards against its return?" Michael said. He looked tired—bone weary, as though this excruciating task were one he had done too many times before, and already knew that he had to do over and over again.

  "I won't have you locking me out," Truth said bluntly, not caring what either Dylan or Sinah made of her words. "I need you to leave this place open."