Gravelight (38 page)

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Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley

BOOK: Gravelight
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“—but unfortunately any researcher who asks to set up his cameras in Canterbury Cathedral during the Mass is going to be thrown out on his ear,” Dylan finished dolefully. “It's unfortunate that religion is the one area in modern life that's still ‘hands off' to science.”
Dylan was so occupied by the demanding work of searching the walls for marks and inscriptions that he did not realize what was happening to Rowan until she tossed her sketchbook aside and stood up.
“Got a … headache,” she mumbled, fumbling in her pocket.
“Ro!”
Dylan was startled by the urgency in Ninian's voice—not the younger man's style at all—until he glanced down at Rowan's cast-off sketchbook. The tangled pages were not covered with sketches, but with symbols—elaborate symbols that Dylan recognized, but Rowan shouldn't know.
Ninian dropped the battery lamp and grabbed her hand. Her fingers flew open, and a small glittering object hit the stone floor with a click.
Rowan's eyes flew open wide. “What the
hell
are you doing?” she cried in a normal voice. “I was reaching for a pill!”
She pulled out the bright plastic box of Excedrin and brandished it at Ninian like an excuse. But the thing that had been in her hand hadn't been the small box of painkillers.
Ninian picked up the penknife and handed it back to her. “Sorry I startled you,” he said, his tone saying clearly that he felt he'd overreacted.
“Moron,” Rowan muttered. “And you broke the battery lamp, too, I bet, dropping it like that.”
“It's all right,” Dylan said absently, “I'm finished with the walls, more or less.” He picked up her sketchbook and flipped through it, holding it so she could not see the pages. “Rowan, what were you doing just now?”
“Copying the engravings along the bottom of the altar,” she answered promptly. “You know, sometimes they just don't show up on film, and … Jesus,” she said, as Dylan turned the open sketchbook toward her. “I didn't do
those.”
“Yes, you did,” Dylan said. “You'd better go back up to the car and wait for us there. Nin and I can finish up.”
“But I'm okay now, really,” Rowan said. “It was just—”
“Go back to the car
now.”
His frustration—and his desire to say much the same thing to Truth, who wasn't even here—made him speak more harshly than he might have otherwise. Rowan shrugged weakly and began to make her way back up the steps.
“Everything all right down there?” Truth asked.
The basement was almost fifty feet below the surface; Truth was a tiny figure as she stood perilously close to the edge and looked down. She was still wearing the same clothes she'd been in last night at the restaurant, and Dylan wondered if she'd walked all the way up here in loafers.
“Dylan?” Truth asked. “Rowan?”
“Just your average sort of psychic attack,” Rowan called back gamely as she started up the steps. Truth waited until Rowan reached her, and helped the young psychic up the last few steps before starting down herself.
“Anything I can do?” she called from the landing. She neither apologized for her presence nor volunteered an explanation.
“Yes,” Dylan finally said. “Come and take notes—we're going to measure temperature variation now.”
The morning sun—the basements were still in shadow, but in a few hours that would change—and the warm outdoor air
made any really conclusive evidence of cold spots or fluctuation impossible to obtain, but Dylan wanted a baseline series, and the complex ambient thermometer was at least a little more portable than some of their other equipment.
The smaller of the two seismographs sat on the altar stone, its needle lying flat against the stop. The larger one would give them more information, but it would be a matter of great difficulty to get it down into the temple area, and some of the motion sensors and infrared cameras probably couldn't be brought up to the sanatorium at all.
Despite their recent conflicts, Truth and Dylan worked closely together now, with Truth taking written notes to supplement Dylan's dictaphone report, since all forms of recording equipment were likely to spontaneously malfunction at the site of a psychic locus.
Dylan watched her closely at first—he knew she was sensitive to the sanatorium's emanations, and he wasn't really sure she'd told him everything about her experiences here. But as far as he knew, all of Truth's interactions with the locus had been deliberate, and she'd be on her guard now.
And what about Rowan? Had he been over-hasty in sending her back to the car? She might simply have pulled the penknife out of her pocket to make it easier to find the aspirin. But when he thought of her sketchbook Dylan shuddered inwardly. No, Rowan had definitely been under some sort of influence from whatever inhabited this place. They'd better all be on their guard—even him.
Ninian had been using a tape measure and a level, determining the exact dimensions of the room and searching out any concealed gradients. Now he leaned back against the Black Altar, rubbing his eyes.
“Nin?” Dylan said.
“I'm … okay,” Ninian said. “It's just … I feel so cold.”
Dylan glanced at Truth, and a moment of perfect sympathy and agreement passed between them. “Time to go,” Truth said, smiling faintly. She began bundling Dylan's
equipment—including the ruined lamp—back into the knapsacks.
“Come on, Ninian,” Dylan said, clapping the younger man on the back. “Time to go. Can you manage one of the packs?”
“Sure,” Ninian said. “I just … this place gives me the creeps.”
Dylan glanced at Truth.
“Not me,” she said. “Nothing that should constitute a danger, anyway. But I'm not psychic, I'll remind you, and Ninian is. Besides, I'm shielded. Here's your hat, what's your hurry, as the saying goes,” she added, passing the packed knapsack to Ninian.
Shrugging it onto one shoulder, Ninian started up the steps. Dylan turned back to Truth.
“You don't feel anything … special about this place?” he asked, part of him morbidly curious to see what she said.
Truth had been about to reach for the portable seismograph; she turned back to him, and Dylan could sense her weighing how frank to be with him. How could they have drifted this far apart? Once he would have said he was her closest confidant in the world.
“No,” Truth finally said. “The Gate is here, of course; I can feel that. But I'm not all that likely to notice anything else, unless I'm on the Astral and the source is, too; that's the difference between a magician and a psychic. I'd offer to look around for you, but after the way this place took down both your psychics, I'd say you don't need any more evidence that there's something here.” She turned back to the seismograph.
As neat an evasion as I've heard lately
, Dylan thought unhappily, carefully fitting the plumber's level into his rucksack and swinging it onto his back. Truth backed up to the backpack balanced on the altar and stooped to bring her arms level with the shoulder straps, shrugging them into position and then standing to take the weight.
“Let's go, then, and … thanks for stopping by. I guess
you may be right about giving this place a good solid banishing,” Dylan said reluctantly.
Truth smiled slightly; it encouraged him to continue.
“Oh, and by the way, do you happen to know where that fissure over there goes?” Dylan asked casually. “It's too bad there's no way of telling whether it was a part of the ritual space that was used when The Church of the Antique Rite was down here.”
Now Truth stared at him as if he'd lost his mind.
“The Gate itself is down there. Sinah's Wellspring. If you go down there, you'll die. Would you like to test
that
theory, Dylan?”
The climb back to the surface passed in silence. Truth was surprised to see that it was still morning. She glanced at her watch. It was almost nine A.M. on a bright, beautiful August morning, but when she'd been down there in that sub-basement, it could have been any hour, or none. The sooner they shut the place down—Gate and blasphemous Church both—Truth told herself, the better.
Dylan climbed up past her and headed for the drive, his face closed. They reached the car without incident; Rowan and Ninian were both standing beside it, their expressions saying plainly that they could not understand why they'd been sent away from where the action was.
But they went, which is more than I've ever done,
Truth acknowledged ruefully.
Aloud she said: “Could you drop me back at Sinah's place, Dylan? I really need to get back there.”
Maybe she'll still be asleep.
“Okay,” Dylan said, “but don't you think you might be carrying this protection thing a little too far? I mean—”
The guilt she felt at leaving Sinah as she slept made Truth speak more sharply than she'd intended.
“You can still say that, after
this?
I promised to protect her, Dylan.”
She watched his expression relapse into stubborn unhappiness—so much for their fragile truce!—and when Dylan
turned away toward the car, Truth couldn't think of anything to say. It was true that there was probably little real danger to Sinah just now—but she'd given her word. Why was Dylan deliberately provoking her?
Unless he felt as trapped as she did.
A short time later the car pulled up in front of Sinah's house.
“See you folks later?” Truth said hopefully.
“Maybe,” Dylan said. “It depends.”
But he didn't tell her what it depended on, and she stood on the steps forlornly watching the car drive away. When it was out of sight, she went inside.
She closed the door and stood very still, listening. All quiet. She went upstairs. Sinah was just beginning to stir, and Truth pounced on her own written note and crumpled it.
“Good morning,” Sinah said sleepily, then: “You're already dressed.”
“I never got undressed,” Truth said. “How did you sleep?”
“I don't remember,” Sinah said, but her eyes didn't meet Truth's. “Well, what shall we do today?” She stretched.
Oh, I don't know … go back up to the Gate so you can push me in?
Truth warned herself that she must never forget that Sinah could be as much of a danger to her as anything else in Morton's Fork. At any moment she might decide, with the simple necessity that had ruled the Dellon women for generations, that Truth was a threat … or a suitable sacrifice.
And just try explaining
that
to Dylan! Truth sighed. She was going to have to try to do a lot of explaining to Dylan … and soon.
Explain why I can't marry him. Explain why love isn't enough. Explain that I have … things to do with my life that he doesn't want to even be a part of. Explain that I don't want him to meet me halfway—I want his complete surrender.
“It's up to you,” Truth said. “Michael should be here
tomorrow to sweep Quentin Blackburn out of our lives, and then you and I can take on the Gate again.”
“Tomorrow's the fourteenth,” Sinah said, and shivered. “It's my birthday.”
“Then we ought to celebrate it,” Truth said firmly. “Tell you what: why don't you get dressed, and we can go down to the general store and pick up my car. Maybe Dylan will give us breakfast.”
Maybe Hell will freeze solid
.
“Are you sure?” Sinah said hesitantly. “I don't want to—”
“Dylan's a nice guy.”
To everyone but me.
“I'm sure he'd love to see you. You can't spend the rest of your life barricaded in here—luxurious as it is.”
“All right.” Sinah tried a smile, and then swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “And I can extend a rather belated invitation for all of you to make full use of the facilities here. I lived in a camper like that once—the water pressure is
not
what I would call four-star!”
She couldn't go on working at the Institute. Truth dawdled over a morning cup of coffee in Sinah's dining room, listening to the sound of her hostess in the shower. The discovery was a bitter one, and Truth resented it. For one thing, how would she earn her living if she quit her job?
It was true that Thorne Blackburn had left a sizeable estate—and it had increased through the years, with the royalties from his books—but his fortune was mired in litigation. And it might never benefit her anyway—Truth's parents had not been married, and it might be devilishly hard to prove what everyone knew—that she was Thorne Blackburn's daughter.
But her future course was clear, and after this morning with Dylan, Truth knew she could no longer put off making her decision explicit. Since the day she had discovered her heritage, Truth had been pulled in this direction, and she didn't see how she could combine a life of freelance occult do-gooding with her work at the Institute. Being a do-gooder took too much time, for one thing, and the hours were terribly irregular.

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