Gravelight (31 page)

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Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley

BOOK: Gravelight
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Neither woman had heard the door open. “Ja—
Wycherly!
What happened to you?” Sinah cried.
Wycherly Musgrave stood in the open doorway, red-eyed and glaring.
Wycherly?
The teasingly elusive memory rose to the surface of Truth's mind when Sinah spoke: Wycherly
Musgrave
, brother to Winter Musgrave.
A year and a half ago Wycherly's sister had come to Truth for help, and last December Truth had attended Winter's wedding, though none of Winter's own family had. Though Winter had never spoken much about them, Truth had drawn a picture of New York old money and formidable rectitude. It was hard to think of any of the Musgrave family being tangled up in sorcery, even though psychic power tended to run in families. Wycherly, however, bore such a strong resemblance to his older sister that Truth thought she would have guessed the truth eventually.
Here in the cool elegance Sinah had created, Wycherly's bloody and tattered appearance was even more disconcerting than it had been at the old Dellon cabin.
“One of you has it,” he continued. “Which of you is it?”
He must mean
Les Cultes. Truth twitched in guilt and felt Sinah's eyes flick to her.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” Sinah said smoothly, getting to her feet. “But you certainly do seem to have a knack for getting yourself into scrapes, darling!
Are you sure you've got any fingers left under that towel? Come over here and let me—”
Wycherly waved her back with his damaged hand; Sinah stopped as if he'd actually struck her.
“I suppose she's been telling you all kinds of lies about me,” he said, gesturing at Truth. “Or has she just come here to make converts?”
“I've always known who you were, Wych,” Sinah said, not pretending to misunderstand. “It doesn't matter to me one way or the other.” She laughed, a little jaggedly. “If you only knew! But come in; forget about the book. You don't know what this means to me—Truth can help us—”
“Yes,” Wycherly drawled with deadly sarcasm. “She helped my sister just fine—right into a nervous breakdown, although I'm sure that's not the way
she
tells it.”
He lunged forward as Sinah retreated, and seized Truth's purse from the couch beside her. Truth barely had time to cry out in protest before he'd upended it and spilled its contents on the rug. He reached for the newspaper-wrapped bundle and missed—Truth swiped it from beneath his fingertips.
“I'll keep that, thank you very much!” Truth said briskly. “It's stolen from the Taghkanic Library anyway, and it's nothing for someone like you to be playing with.”
“
Playing?
” Wycherly seemed honestly stunned. “Do you think I've been
playing
, you jumped-up yuppie bimbo? Give me the Goddamned book!”
And “damned” is just the word for it
, Truth agreed silently. She took a step backward. Wycherly kicked savagely at the litter on the floor, but made no further move toward the book.
“Wycherly, please—” Sinah tried moving toward him again. “Your poor hand—”
“And you,” Wycherly said, turning toward Sinah. His pale eyes seemed to burn with a wolfish intensity. “I should have known that you were too good to be true. How long have you known who I was—did you think you could get yourself knocked up and force my mother to let me marry
you? I've got news for you, sister; the Musgraves are a little more progressive than that—”
“Wycherly!” Sinah's face was a study in shock—and in bewilderment—though since she was a telepath, Truth thought, surely Sinah had known from the moment she first read his mind that Wycherly was from a wealthy family, with the peculiar paranoia that engendered. “I didn't want your baby for that … .” she began.
As if she only heard her own words as she spoke them, Sinah stopped, an expression of confused horror on her face.
“Fine.” Wycherly stood in the middle of the living room, cheeks flushed and breathing hard. Truth wondered if he'd heard or really understood anything Sinah'd said. “If you've got one, keep it. It doesn't matter now. Luned's gone, don't you see? After what I've done—”
“No!” Sinah burst out. “You never hurt anyone, Wych—I know it.” She reached him and clung to his arm as if she could drag him back to the light of reason by physical strength alone.
“And what makes you think you know me so well?” Wycherly asked, with a baleful glare at Truth. “Or have you been checking up on the sainted Musgrave dynasty?”
“I can read minds, Wycherly,” Sinah burst out with desperate honesty. “I can—”
He pushed her away from him, though not as hard as another man might have. “You must think I'll believe anything, don't you? You've been in Tinseltown too long, lady—I'm a drunkard, not stupid. But I see that you have company, my dear—” he added with deadly, exaggerated courtesy, “—so I'll take myself off. Don't bother to show me out—I can find my own way.”
He turned away and left. His bandaged hand left a dark smear where he brushed it against the door frame. He did not shut the door behind him.
“No—wait,” Sinah would have run after him, but Truth caught her back.
“You can't reason with him now, Sinah. Give him some
time to cool down,” Truth suggested. “He'll be more reasonable later.”
Just as Dylan had been? Who was Truth to counsel Sinah when she couldn't even manage her own relationships?
But with ruthless analysis, Truth had to conclude that Wycherly wasn't a problem anymore—not the way Sinah was, at least. Without the book, Wycherly probably wouldn't be tempted to dabble further—and since he was male and not of the bloodline, it was unlikely that he could sense the Wildwood Gate, and impossible that he could manipulate it.
“Oh, why did you take his book away from him?” Sinah wailed, snatching the wrapped parcel from Truth's hands.
“Take a look and see. It's pretty raw stuff, though, I warn you—”
Sinah unwrapped Truth's hasty parcel. The newspaper stuck where the blood had dried on the cover; Sinah handled it with wary distaste.
“But—this is …” Sinah said. She flipped through it without interest, and wrapped it up again. “A few years ago I was dating another actor; he was into all this stuff, and tried to get me interested, but I wasn't, very. This was fitted into one of the books I borrowed by mistake; I wanted to return it to him but by then he'd moved, and I never quite knew what to do with it. But how did Wycherly get it? He's welcome to it, at any rate.”
“It's still Taghkanic property,” Truth said firmly, reaching for the grimoire. “And I'm going to see to it that it gets back there. If Wycherly wants to be a Black Magician, there are many safer books for him to play with.”
“Oh,” Sinah said automatically, “surely you don't believe in all that occult nonsense?” She put her hand up to her hair, smoothing it back in an unconscious attempt to banish the recent turmoil.
“
Occult nonsense” she calls it—and yet she's willing to believe that she's possessed by her ancestors and has to make human sacrifices to a sidhe Gate … .
Truth thought resignedly.
“I believe that the human mind is a very powerful tool, able to gather, focus, and direct forces that humanity, as yet, doesn't understand very well,” Truth said firmly. “I believe that for years investigation of those powers was mired in superstition and religious bigotry, with the result that the so-called Occult Sciences have almost no point of communication with conventional science. But that's changing—even hospitals are experimenting with something called Therapeutic Touch, and what is that but the traditional ability to heal by the laying on of hands that religion has always claimed for itself?
“So I think it can be foolish to dismiss out of hand all magic as simple mumbo jumbo, and harmful, even dangerous, to dabble in it as if it could have no effect,” Truth finished, a little sheepish at her own speech-making.
“My.” Sinah held the book out to Truth.
Truth took it and stuffed it into her bag, kneeling on the floor to pick up the rest of her purse's contents.
“Sorry to preach, but you pushed one of my hot-buttons,” she said. “This is my field, after all.”
“You're a … what was it?” Sinah shook her head, as though trying to hear a very faint sound.
“I'm a statistical parapsychologist, which is a very boring, dry, and office-bound profession. If you want glamour and excitement, talk to Dylan—he's the one who hunts ghosts.”
“That would be your partner?” Sinah said, trying to pull the rags of normalcy about herself. Her hands and her voice both shook, and her face was still white with shock at Wycherly's outburst.
“We're here together, yes. I told you Morton's Fork was a focus for paranormal activities—it's because of the Gate; your Wellspring.”
“And if I close it, you say all my troubles will be over?” Sinah said edgily. She smoothed the front of her skirt compulsively, as though she couldn't stop.
“The ones involving drownings, unexplained disappearances, and human sacrifice,” Truth answered bluntly.
“Sinah, what you said earlier, about needing a child … . was it to give to the Wellspring? Are you pregnant?” Truth asked gently.
“Yes—no—I don't know! Oh, it doesn't matter now!” Sinah burst out. She began to cry in high wailing sobs, as though ridden by a shattering grief that would kill her.
Truth stayed with Sinah as long as she could, hoping to soothe her shattered emotions. Sinah had to be calm if her attempt to close the Wildwood Gate were to work. And in any event, the attempt would not be one they'd be making today. It was already late afternoon, and Truth did not want to be up at the Gate in the dark, with Sinah in an already weakened condition. It had been hard enough for Truth to close her own Gate, and that had been with Thorne Blackburn's help. She only hoped she could be as much help to Sinah when the time came.
“I'll be fine, really,” Sinah said unconvincingly almost two hours later. The cubes in her tall glass of iced tea tinkled faintly with the constant nervous trembling of her hands.
“Are you sure?” Truth said dubiously.
“Of course. Look, this is my own house—I paid for the bed, I might as well lie in it. I'll see you first thing tomorrow, okay?”
“If you're sure …” There was no way Truth could call Sinah a liar without losing all the ground she'd gained here this afternoon.
“So it's settled,” Sinah said, in a bright tone that did not quite mask the weariness underneath. “You'll be back here first thing tomorrow morning, and we'll storm the castle of the Wicked Witch of the West together.”
And with that, all that was left for Truth to do was reluctantly to say her goodbyes and start back down the mountain.
Truth knew that she ought to stop to talk to Wycherly and see if there was anything she could do to help to repair the
breach between him and Sinah, but when she passed the cabin again in the twilight, it was deserted and empty, and she really needed to get back to Dylan before he decided she'd broken her parole.
The flare of resentment that accompanied this practicality was something she'd learned to live with. She'd have her revenge, she promised herself, but not just yet. And Wycherly would have to wait, too.
Truth wondered what quirk of fortune had brought him to this forsaken place, and why he seemed to be so angry with the world. But whatever Wycherly's riddles were, she couldn't solve them tonight—and once the Gate was sealed, there would be time enough to look to all the rest.
“Where's Truth?” she heard an undistinguishable voice ask as she reached the door of the camper. The lights were on inside the camper; through the shaded windows, Truth could see the other three moving around inside.
“The Truth is out there!” Rowan sang back merrily, and Truth felt an instant burst of irritation—though what cause had she ever given Rowan Moorcock to think well of her?
I really hate to break this up … but not very much
. Truth pushed open the door of the Winnebago and climbed in.
As night had fallen the weather had turned cold, wet, and overcast, and as she opened the door, the savory smell of pizza made Truth's mouth water. It looked as though Dylan had used her car to patronize one of Pharaoh's local fast-food establishments—Truth had rented it when she'd begun her research two weeks ago, since she could hardly use the camper to drive around in. She'd left the keys with Dylan this morning, knowing she would not need it today.
“Sorry I'm late,” Truth said brightly. “But not too late?”
“No,” Dylan said, and, spitefully, Truth didn't see welcome in his face—only relief that she hadn't humiliated him further. At that moment he was only an obstacle to her plans, and she hated him for it with a perfect passion of mind.

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