Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (15 page)

 
          
She
didn't see Toller anywhere. That wasn't all that unusual, but Claire was
grateful for it
—
she wasn't sure she could face him down as easily as she
had his guests.

 
          
No
one noticed when she ascended the staircase to the second floor. She'd been up
here before, but the fact that this time she was on a clandestine mission of sorts
made her jumpy.

 
          
Someone
was coming out of the bathroom just as she got to the top of the stairs, and
Claire ducked past them into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Safe!

 
          
Her
heart hammered as she gazed into the mirror. The face that looked back at her
was white and scared, and she took several deep breaths. Everything would work
out all right. It had to.

 
          
She
splashed a little water on her face, hoping that no one else would come
upstairs wanting to use the bathroom. Her damp clothes clung to her clammily,
reminding her of where she'd been earlier tonight and why she'd come here. On a
hunch she opened the medicine cabinet; there was the usual collection of
bottles, but there seemed to be an awful lot of prescriptions. There was also a
packet of cigarettes
—
Luckies
—
but when she took down the red-and-white packet only the
first two cigarettes looked normal. The rest of the pack was filled with
yellowish, hand-rolled cigarettes, their ends twisted shut. Claire sighed and
put them back where she'd found them, losing all interest in investigating
further. The more she found out about Toller Hasloch, the more she wanted to be
somewhere else.

 
          
She
groped for the tube of lipstick in her purse and slashed it across her lips.
The pale pink gloss gave her a bit of color, making her seem more alive. There.
Nothing to be afraid of.

 
          
Just
a return to that dark ambiguous place inside her, the one filled with
indefensible certainties. Where she knew things she could not know, where she
was asked to do things beyond all reason. . . .

 
          
Claire
London took another breath and stepped out of the bathroom, shifting her purse
to the other shoulder.

 
          
The
hallway was deserted, the doors closed. Closets
—
bedrooms
—
a library. The room filled
with books smelled of incense, and the titles of the books behind the glass
cases made her faintly uneasy, but she did not think that this was the place
she sought. The professor had told her she'd know it when she found it, but had
refused to tell her more than that. Claire sighed in frustration and continued
searching, and a few minutes later
—
other than having disturbed
a few necking couples
—
was no closer to finding what she was looking for than she
had been before.

 
          
And
where's Toller? He wasn't downstairs; he isn't here. . . .

           
She gazed dubiously at the steep
narrow staircase that led into the attic. Searching the attic would take time,
and be noticeable as well. Claire hesitated, trying to decide whether to risk
it. But she had the feeling
—
faint, easy to ignore
—
that the attic did not
contain what she was looking for.

 
          
Unless
she'd missed something, the place she was looking for had to be down, not up.

 
          
It
took her almost an hour to find it, by which time, Claire felt, Professor
MacLaren, waiting in the car, must surely have given up on her. She was looking
for a basement
—
it was the only place left for Toller to hide what she was
looking for
—
and most California houses weren't built with them anymore,
a consequence both of a high Bay Area water table and the frequent earthquakes
that plagued the region.

 
          
There
was no door to a basement in the kitchen; she hung around the area for several
minutes, wondering what she could have overlooked. There was a big sheet cake
on the kitchen table. Its surface was decorated with symbols that looked
vaguely familiar to Claire; barred circles, odd cross-shapes, crude sharp-edged
designs that almost (but not quite) looked like letters.

 
          
Two
doors led out of the kitchen. The one by the stove let out into a pantry and
the backyard. The other opened onto an uncomfortably narrow corridor that led
into the study.

 
          
It
was the only place she hadn't searched. But if she went barging in there and it
was full of people, she was going to have to talk faster than she ever had in
her life.

 
          
She
didn't have time to hesitate; people were coming in and out of the kitchen all
the time and someone was sure to ask her what she was doing. Claire slipped
through the door and closed it behind her. There was no sound ahead, and she
breathed a deep sigh of relief. The hallway was only a few feet long
—
more an architectural quirk
of remodeling than an intentional space
—
and she quickly reached the
other door.

 
          
Abandoned
cups and bottles showed that this room too was in use. A fog of sweetish smoke
hung in the air, its scent acrid and unfamiliar. Claire's glance darted around
frantically, looking for a door on the east wall that could be the cellar door
she sought.

 
          
There
it was! A bookcase was pulled halfway across it, and Claire nearly wasted time
moving it before she realized that the door opened outward, and there was no
need. Fortunately, it was not locked. Claire eased it open and slipped through.
Dusty wooden stairs led downward, and the staircase smelled powerfully of
dampness. There was the chill bluish glow of fluorescent light coming from the
basement. She skipped down the stairs, her purse bumping heavily against her
side, nearly tripping and falling headfirst in her excitement.

 
          
She
reached the bottom in a wave of apprehension that nearly made her ill. Directly
ahead of her was a wall of shelves containing anonymous glass jars and boxes,
and stacked on the uneven cement floor were wooden cases of beer and soda. Rain
spangled the tiny window set high in the wall, level with the lawn above. The
droplets glowed pale yellow in the light from the nearby streetlamp, and the
window was clotted with cobwebs. There was nothing here.

 
          
Then
she looked down, and saw a wide arc worn into the cement floor. It started at
the center of the shelving and extended halfway across the floor. Claire walked
over to the shelves, every instinct screaming that there was danger here,
something vile
—
a monster out of her childhood, of the adult fears that had
stalked her earliest girlhood.

 
          
When
she touched the edge of the shelf, she could feel a handhold carved into its
frame, and up close, she could see that the jars and boxes on this section of
shelving were glued down. It slid open as she pulled it toward her, the rubber
casters on the bottom providing the explanation of the marks she'd seen.

 
          
Claire
pushed forward. A heavy velvet curtain was hung from the ceiling eighteen
inches beyond the false front of the shelving. For a moment Claire struggled
with pulling the shelves closed behind her while finding a way through the curtain,
but she finally managed both.

 
          
The
space on the other side of the curtain was out of a different world.

 
          
The
three walls of the room were paneled in dark wood and the floor was covered
with thick wool carpeting in a rich deep maroon. Directly opposite the
curtained opening, there was a long heavy table completely draped in shimmering
white cloth. But it was the object above the altar table that claimed all of
Claire's attention, the last thing she would have expected to find under these
circumstances: a wooden cross, about four feet high.

 
          
The
cross itself was not inverted
—
somewhere in the back of Claire's mind was the thought that
this would be too facile, too easy. It was the figure on the cross that was
reversed.

 
          
The
body was carved of ivory, or possibly just painted to look as if it was. It
hung from a loop of cord above the crosspiece that was also looped about its
left ankle, and whoever had fashioned this blasphemous piece of art had
carefully depicted the way that the cords dug deep into the ankle. Only one leg
was caught up in that fashion; the other was bent at the knee, throwing the
twisted body into stark, tense relief. The body was carved all over with the
same spiky symbols Claire had seen on the cake upstairs, and here again the artist
had taken care to give the marks the look of cuts made into living flesh. But
the greatest mutilation was to the figure's face. One eye had been completely
torn away, and the left side of the face was awash with blood.

 
          
Claire
felt as nauseated
—
as emotionally violated
—
as though she had unexpectedly
come across a scene of actual torture. The whole room vibrated with a hideous
secret delight that so stunned her that for a moment Claire, paralyzed with
disgust and horror, forgot what she must do.

 
          
She
fumbled at her purse, dropping it so that the contents spilled out across the
rug. The walkie-talkie had been almost too big to fit inside; seeing it now
reminded Claire of what she was here to do. She picked up the remote
transmitter and switched it on.

 
          
"Hello?
Hello?" There was no sound at all. She tried to remember what the
professor had told her, then pulled up the antenna. "Hello?"

           
An encouraging hash of static
rewarded her this time, and she pressed the Transmit button, hoping he could
hear her. "Professor, I'm down in the basement. The door to it is in a
room just off the kitchen. It's just what you said, and it's horrible
—
"

 
          
"Horrible?"
an amused voice interrupted from behind her. "After all my hard work at
decorating it
—
and on top of a full course load, too."

 
          
Claire,
already keyed up, squeaked and dropped the walkie-talkie. It hit the rug with a
dull thud, and the hiss of static stopped.

 
          
"If
you wanted to come to my private party, Claire, why didn't you just say
so?" Toller continued. "I would have been happy to issue you a
personal invitation."

 
          
There
was laughter at that remark. Toller was not alone. There were others with him
—
too many to easily count,
perhaps a dozen
—
all wearing black robes with red tabards over them. Each
tabard had a white circle over the chest, with one of the spiky designs in
black. Toller's was the barred circle.

 
          
Unconsciously,
Claire retreated from them, until her back was pressed against the altar table.
It was a solid, immobile weight against her back.

 
          
"What
—
what
—
" she stammered, the
combination of the horrible
feel
of the place and the shock of Toller's
presence putting her fatally off balance.

 
          
"Poor
Claire
—
suckered
in by the Opposition already and nobody's told you the rules. I will: the Light
has had its day, and the sun always sets. It is our time now
—
the time of the glorious,
fertile Dark, and the unchanging stars!"

 
          
She
heard a few mutters behind him, and somebody said, "Knock it off,
Toller." Some of the people in the robes were her age and younger, and possibly
not very serious about this, but Toller was serious enough for all of them.
What the professor had told her she now heartily believed: there were some
things so dangerous that they could not be approached even in play. Any
dealings with them would always be real.