Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (90 page)

 
          
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 half-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 was
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.

 
          
"For
my part
—
and,
I know, for Dylan's
—
we'd prefer that you simply forgot all about this and went
back to your own life," Colin said, though he doubted his words would have
any force.

 
          
"No,"
Ninian said reluctantly. "Not if Rowan asked for my help. Space-Nazis from
Hell . . . with all due respect, Professor MacLaren." The young man
sounded frazzled, as anyone might, having been suddenly presented with such a
ludicrous and horrible idea. "It's just . . . There must be something I
can do to help besides defrost her freezer."

 
          
"There
has to be something we can
both
do," Dylan said urgently. "You
said you're familiar with the modern group, Colin
—
how do we find her?"

 
          
"I've
run into them before," Colin said, staring down at the pendant in his
hand. "But I don't want to see any amateurs
—
any more amateurs
—
put at risk. If I can find
out who to approach
—
if Rowan is still alive
—
I think I may be able to
arrange for her freedom."

 
          
"You?"
Dylan said, and Colin could see all his objections as though they were written
on his face:
You're a frail old man, Colin, and World War II was a long time
ago. She's my student
—
this is my responsibility
—

 
          
"It
has to be me," Colin said firmly. "You'll have to agree to that now,
Dylan, or I won't help you any further. I've been involved with these people
for over fifty years and I can assure you: they have the inclination and the resources
to kill for very little reason or none at all with no expectation of discovery.
I won't be responsible for feeding any more helpless innocents to that
evil."

 
          
"I'm
hardly a helpless innocent
—
" Dylan began, but Ninian stopped him, putting a
restraining hand on Dylan's arm.

 
          
"Let
him, Dylan. This is a kind of... negotiation, isn't it, Dr. MacLaren? You're
saying that they know you. And they don't know Dylan. Right?" Ninian said.

 
          
"Something
like that," Colin said, grateful for the support, even if it came from
such an unexpected source. "Dylan, if you start trying to find Rowan
—
If they've got her, and you
spook them, they might kill her on the spot."

 
          
"You
said she might already be dead," Dylan said tightly.

 
          
"I
don't really think so. She would have talked before she died, and they would
have come after you," Colin said matter-of-factly. He spoke without
realizing how the words sounded, but Dylan's face went white. "See if you
can find your notes," Colin told him gently. "Ninian and I will
finish developing these pages. Maybe they'll tell us something."

 
          
When
Dylan was out of earshot, Ninian turned to Colin.

 
          
"Do
you really think she's still alive?" he asked.

 
          
"I
think that if she isn't, she died very recently," Colin said.
"Because I can't imagine them leaving these things"
—
he indicated the key and the
necklace
—
"in our hands."

 
          
Near
midnight local time
—
but only nine p.m. by Colin's internal clock, still set to
West Coast time
—
he sat in the spare bedroom of the house Dylan and Truth
shared, going over the pages of the unbound dissertation. One side of the pages
was covered with neat laser-printing, the other in straggly brown handwriting.
Colin read both carefully.