“Grey—Stop—Grey—” Winter panted. She wanted to scream—she wanted to die—she would do anything to keep that creature from touching her again, anything—
Grey stopped and took her in his arms, holding her body tightly against him. Winter imagined she could feel the fluttering beat of his heart. She would have wept, but terror had burned away all her tears.
“We’re toast,” Grey said, with a ghost of his old mocking lightness.
“Grey!” Winter protested, as if his disrespect could gain them greater punishment.
“No.” She felt him shake his head, denying her false hope. “It’s too strong. I broke free this time; I can probably even do it again. But it’ll get us in the end.”
“No,” Winter moaned. And there was no place to run—here or in the real world it would come for her.
Was this what Cassie had felt before she died?
Was it?
Deep within Winter, faint fires of anger and guilt trembled. She coaxed them to life. Anything was better than the terror: anger, guilt, pride—anything she could use to shield herself she would gladly use.
“You told me we could kill it,” Winter said, in a voice she hardly recognized. “You lied.” Cold. Cold as the hate-serpent; cold as ice; a shield that had been forged only for this ultimate extremity. Useless—dangerous—in the real world, here it was her only hope.
Grey looked behind them. On the horizon, the storm was gathering once more.
“Not kill,” Grey corrected her, his voice steady. “Unmake it—understand it, unbind it from the task it was set. Name it, command it, set it free. How could I—I even think it would listen if we could just hold it long enough—shield ourselves from it somehow—but we can’t. Lord of the Wheel—” and now Winter heard real agony in his voice “—I would give up all I am, all that I might hope to be, all my advancement on the Path, if I only could stop what I have set in motion here!”
“We need the others.”
Where had this sudden certainty come from, the sense that she was somehow something more than herself?
“Cassie’s dead,” Grey said, but there was a note of uncertainty in his voice now.
“I can get her.” Whatever the certainty’s source, she had to believe in her own rightness. Help me, help me—help us! Winter prayed. A scrap of memory came back to her. Lords of the Wheel—Lords of the New Aeon—your children call upon you …
“If you can get them, and bring them here, do it now,” Grey’s voice was flat. “Because here it comes again.”
It was as if sheer desperation had transformed her at last from a creature of careful logic to one of unthinking instinct. The power within Winter beckoned—she seized it, and felt as if she’d plunged her hands into the white-hot heart of the sun.
Cassilda, Ramsey, Janelle …
Cassilda stood at the gates of Death, lingering in the borderland, holding on valiantly as she waited for the summons she knew would come. Winter reached for her and took her hand, and it was cold, so cold …
In the courts of Sleep, Ramsey Miller and Janelle Baker lingered.
She found them.
A dream, Winter—something we can all share! Grey’s swift demand. Hurry!
And remade the world in her own image.
THE STADIUM was packed, a million roaring faceless bodies in the darkness, projecting their passion and energy onto the stage. Winter stood alone upon the empty platform, handmaid of forces greater than herself, and summoned Nuclear Circle into being.
A dream we can all share. To mold them, to bind them, to make them one once more.
The music called, and Winter let it in.
Grey came first, laying down the melody in a dance of electrified strings, smoothing the way for the others, living and dead, to join them—
Ramsey, a little behind, but with a rhythm strong and sure, able to follow where any of them led—
Cassilda, her work in the world cut short, pushed them forward on the insistent beat of the drums, urging them onward—
And, last of all, Janelle danced in and out, the sound of her fiddle mocking the two guitars. Winter drew a deep breath and flung herself into the web of sound, the bright silver skirl of her flute finishing all, sealing the circle and shaping the power. Grey led them on, but it was Winter who blessed and blazed the trail.
Music, Winter. Sound and rhythm, the first awareness; the place it starts—
She looked without sight, seeing them all—and saw, too, that none of them was whole. Each of them had failed, somewhere in the world, once they had left the golden time.
Janelle’s failure had been of nerve, Ramsey’s of heart, and Cassie’s of will, but her own had been the worst, her cowardice a failure of faith, of trust not only in the future but in some essential constant of good.
The music wavered.
But that didn’t matter, Winter told herself fiercely. Together they supplied one anothers’ lack, strengthening each other against the world, against the past.
The Elemental reached them, and Winter felt it: need and despair, sorrow and rage—but now, against that, she set the best of them: Janelle’s bravery and Ramsey’s love, Grey’s yearning, and Cassilda confident and steady beneath it all. Living and dead together, linked in a covenant that transcended birth, that kept their music strong and sure against it. Here, in this time outside of time, was the golden time when they had all been gods, and nothing was beyond their power.
She concentrated on the Elemental—
And the metaphor shifted again, and now Winter was dancing barefoot and short-skirted on a high hill. The melody they wove was older, richer, deeper: drums and pipes, and she whirled in Grey’s arms as the music led in and out, the hounds and the hare, but this time it was the hounds who led the hare on, weaving a web of sound and magick to hold it in.
“Caught!” she heard Grey cry exultantly, but to catch it wasn’t enough; Grey had to unweave it, spinning this child of his intention safely back into the starstuff from which the universe was made.
There was something not right in that, something she had overlooked, but there was no time for thought or doubt, and now Winter led the circle again, as the definition of the world slid from Grey’s mind to hers and shifted one last time.
And she was reaching out into the electronic architecture, linking the file-servers, pulling up application after application, the definition of the world for a child of the Computer Age—
As the opening bell rang the floor of the Exchange came to its feet in one many-throated roar; here was Chicago, one hour behind New York; it was already afternoon in London and the gold-fix was hours old; Japan was in bed and it was already tomorrow in the Far East and the data poured in across a dozen computer screens and there was only one thing faster, one thing surer, one thing that could integrate that flood of data and build a world from it; a world where time was money, and money was the phantom dance of the EFTs across a thousand world markets …
And this realm of intention and command came alive for her, an extension of her will, her mind. Armored in her applications, her programs, her subroutines, Winter reached out, to deal with:
—demon—
—virus—
—bad art—
She felt Grey reach through her …
“That which I commanded is fulfilled, and the term of your years is run. By fire and water, the word and the will, by living and unliving earth I remind you of your making and unmake you now—”
… laying gentle merciless hands on the thing that did not belong in this perfect pattern that was the blueprint of all creation …
And the Hunt closed in—
And the music swirled to a crescendo—
And the system loaded and began to run—
And all the metaphor was gone.
She felt Cassie slip away first, with a gentle laugh and a last caress, down the Spiral Path to the beginning of Creation.
Born again to the Goddess. Good-bye, Cassie.
Then Rams
ey and Janelle, tumbling back down into sleep, perhaps to take the courage for change with them into the waking world.
Sleep well, my loves. Dream true.
Gone, all of them, and she and Grey stood alone, hand in hand, in the desolation where only one other thing remained.
She was thirteen, the age she would have been if she’d lived. In her face, Grey’s features and Winter’s melded.
“Mommy—” The child-wraith wavered; hungry, needing … . Winter started forward.
“Don’t go to her,” Grey said harshly. His grip on Winter’s hand stopped her. “She isn’t alive. Step outside the circle and you’ll wander forever. You won’t be able to find your way back to your body any more than I could to mine once the silver cord was snapped.”
Surprised, Winter looked down. Just in front of where she was standing was a line of pale quartz river stones, forming a line that curved around to become the circle Grey spoke of.
“I don’t care! She’s—”
My daughter.
Winter pulled, but now it was Grey who would not release her. He gripped her hand so tightly it hurt; tightly enough that she stared at him in puzzled anger.
“Mommy,” the wraith keened again, and the sound came near to breaking Winter’s heart.
“I unbound it,” Grey said hoarsely. “All that Nuclear Circle once created is gone. But she remains.” His face twisted with revulsion—and fear. “I created what I could not control, but I’m no black magician—I would not bind a human soul into anything I made. She was my—She was our—I did not bind her here!”
He tugged against her grip, but this time Winter held fast. After what had gone before, there should be nothing left that could kindle her bruised emotions, but there was one thing left.
“No,” Winter said. “I did.” Hating, needing, never letting go—Hate dragged her back. The power of hate.
Grey said all five of them together had created the Elemental in its original form. If that was true, then there’d been something left of Winter in it even after all those years, enough to let Grey’s magickal child break free of Grey’s fragile control and go searching for—
Their daughter. “This is my fault. I’m why she’s here. Grey, let me go. I have to go to her.”
“No.” Grey’s voice was tired. “We have to call her in.” His eyes met hers. “Can you do it?”
“Of course I—” Winter began, and stopped. Could she really? Could she accept that she’d brushed this life aside out of her own selfish fear and confusion? Could she accept that its presence here now was a testimony, not to any noble emotion, but to the strength of her self-obsessed hate? Could she bear to see herself that clearly? Was she even willing to try?
And what was the price of failure?
“Yes,” Winter said in a strangled voice.
Still clasping her hand—gently now—Grey stooped and lifted one of the stones free of the circle. “Call her.”
What name, what name to give to the daughter who had never been? Wordlessly, Winter held out her hand. The child—a girl on the edge of womanhood, really, and everything about her an illusion—drifted forward, through the gap in the circle, and then Winter pulled free of Grey to hold her tightly in her arms.
Cold, so cold … I made a mistake. It isn’t always, not for every woman. If I’d really thought it through I might have done it anyway. But I should at least have thought hard before I did it!
Grey’s arms circled them both, and for a moment Winter could feel his thoughts as well: grief, and self-contempt; an angry guilt that he had not tried harder to soothe her fears all those years ago, to try to be the man she thought she wanted.
But you can’t live just for someone else, Grey, Winter thought sadly. You have to live for yourself, too. There has to be a balance.
The cold seemed to sink into her very bones as the child-spirit slipped free, unbound at last.
Soon, Mommy. Someday …
A line from the half-forgotten Blackburn Work came back to her and Winter spoke aloud: “Here is the Third Gate, the Gate of Making and Unmaking, where Life becomes Death, and Death, Life.”
And Winter’s arms were empty.
“Now it’s my turn.”
Winter looked at Grey. He stepped away from her, dressed now as she remembered him best, in beads and buckskin and acid-washed jeans. Behind him a road she had not seen before stretched arrow-straight into the distance; a long straight track, paved, not with yellow brick, but with shining silver.
“Thanks for coming,” Grey said, gesturing as if he knew the words were inadequate. “Thanks for setting me free—for setting us both free. I hope—I hope you can be happy.” He turned to go, toward the waiting road.
Once he reaches it, it will be too late.
“No—wait!” Winter said, grabbing for him. The fringe of his jacket slithered through her fingers, and she clutched only air.
“Are you just going to give up?” she cried.
Grey looked back at her, faintly puzzled. “Give up? I’m dead, Winter.”
“No you aren’t—not yet. You said there isn’t any time here. You aren’t dead yet.” There was nothing she could reach him with except her words. “Come back with me—come back to me. We can—There has to be some way we can try again,” she pleaded.
“I can’t do it.” There was fear in Grey’s voice. “I can’t make it back. It’s too far—you don’t understand. The cord is broken. I can’t find my way. You’ve got to let me go.”
“No I don’t!” Winter said, willing him to look at her, to see. “You said you love me—prove it! Or else it was all for nothing—there’s no point in trying because the mistakes we make last forever. Prove that they don’t—that no matter what we’ve done wrong we can take it back, start again, so that it doesn’t have to be forever—” Her voice broke.
Grey took a step toward her, away from the beckoning road. There was a sound in the air, a faint and distant wind.
“All right,” he said, so low she could hardly hear him. “I’ll try.”
“Try!” Winter lashed out at him. “‘Try’ isn’t good enough! I didn’t ‘try’ just now—I did it! Now it’s your turn.”
Grey hesitated, and Winter lunged forward and yanked him away from the shining path. His body was cool and unreal in her grasp. He fell against her, gasping a little and laughing at the same time.
“All right,” he said. “I owe it. Lords of the Wheel,” Grey intoned, and Winter knew he did not speak to her, “I take back the chains of matter willingly, to atone for my pride, according to your good pleasure.” His face changed; he looked older, grimmer, as if he faced an ordeal now that she could not comprehend. “Help me, Winter. I can’t find the way by myself. Take me with you.”
The distant sound had grown louder, and now it was the rhythm of the surf on the rocks below. As she stared up into Grey’s face the astral light faded and it began to rain.
There was cold, and wind; the scent of the salt sea and the living earth. Grey’s face contorted with pain and he sank to his knees, tearing one hand from her grip and pressing it to his ribs. As Winter watched in fear his clothing shimmered and flowed again, turning to black motorcycle leathers and torn, blood-soaked jeans. She knelt and flung her arms around him, trying to shield him.
The headlights. Oh, God, the cold. Won’t somebody come? The echoes of Grey’s fear and horror filled her mind. But that was more than a year ago—this was now. In a place where time had no meaning, Hunter Greyson was making the hardest journey of all—into life.
“Don’t leave me,” Grey gasped. “Stay with me.” Winter held him against her, pressing her cheek to his. His skin was cold as rain, and each breath seemed to cost him more effort.
“Never,” she said, as her tears began to mingle with the rain and the salt spray from the rocks below. “I’ll never leave you, Grey.”
EPILOGUE
Home is the Hunter
For winter’s rains and ruins are over,
And all the s
eason of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins.
—ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
DECEMBER IN San Francisco was a season of blustery winds and soaking rain—and a pervasive dampness that struck through even heavy winter coats with a numbing persistence. Christmas lights and holiday garlands looked oddly out of place in a city where the temperature hovered in the high forties and there wasn’t even the possibility of snow.
Winter maneuvered the heavy silver Mercedes expertly over the familiar route, grateful for the weight that lent it stability in the rain and wind. Frodo and Emily had teased her when she’d bought the big luxury car, but Winter had pointed out reasonably that she was going to need the space for the therapy equipment and the twice-weekly trips to PT that were a feature of all the foreseeable future.
Fortunately she’d found someone good close to home, so this was the last time for a while that she was going to have to make the pilgrimage across the bridge from Berkeley to the San Francisco Orthopedic Hospital—or, as its patients called it, Resurrection City.
“I’m so excited. I really don’t know how I can ever thank you,” Janelle said from the passenger seat.
“Jannie, you’ve been saying that ever since you got here, and that was six weeks ago!” Winter said indulgently. “What are friends for, if not for this?” The heavy slap-slap of the windshield wipers formed a backbeat to her words.
“But you’ve done so much …” Janelle said.
“I didn’t get you that job with—What is the name of that place up in Seattle?”
“Wizards of the Coast,” Janelle said, blushing proudly.
Janelle Baker had walked out on Denny Raymond four months before and into the Bergen County Women’s Services shelter. She’d gotten in touch with Winter almost immediately, and the two women had kept in close contact, each rebuilding her life as she did so.
“And Ramsey’s flying out for Christmas,” Janelle added. “Just think—we’ll all be together.”
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