Gravelight (41 page)

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Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley

BOOK: Gravelight
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Michael lit the candle and lifted it to ignite the censer of
incense that stood beside it. Then, as the thick, white smoke curled upward—its fragrance nearly lost in the open air—he took one last item from his bag—a book—and began to read.
“‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful—'”
It was not the Catholic Church's Ritual of Exorcism—Truth had read that once—though the words sounded vaguely biblical. Exorcism or not, she felt their power like a rising wind—and felt, too, the power of that which rose to contend with them.
“‘His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.'”
Now it was Dylan who held the book and read, his face grave and his voice quietly steady. Sinah stepped closer to Truth, pressing against her, and the younger woman's fingers were icy in Truth's own.
Holding the monstrance in both hands, Michael raised it high over his head. The gold and crystal disk caught the rays of the morning sun and flashed like a mirror.
Then he brought the monstrance down upon the altar.
There was a lightless flash; a wordless soundless shout of rage, as though someone—some
thing
—had been burned. Truth saw a bright flash of red as fresh blood welled up around the wafer in its crystal case, and the stone surface of the altar directly beneath it began to smoke, giving off a horrible stench of burning and rot.
“‘And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water—'” Now Michael and Dylan spoke together—Dylan reading, a little raggedly, Michael rolling forth the sonorous syllables without need of the book.
Next Michael took up the censer and swung it over the altar; the sweet smoke of burning frankincense veiled the repulsive scent of the burning stone, making it possible to breathe once more.
But this was only the beginning. Truth struggled to draw a breath, and could not make her lungs serve her. Her heart
lugged heavily in her chest; she felt a sense of pressure, an uncomfortable weight on her sinuses, her lungs, her eyes, as though she had been placed into a pressure chamber and was being slowly and painfully oppressed by the weight of a thousand atmospheres. Dylan and Sinah felt it, too—Dylan was sweating and pale, and Sinah looked as though she might faint at any moment.
Michael laid the fingertips of his right hand on the altar beside the smoking monstrance. There was a sudden release of the pressure.
“‘—the tree that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and …'”
For the first time Truth heard Michael falter. He reached out his left hand to Dylan; Dylan took it, quickly, and Truth heard Dylan gasp.
“‘ … his leaf also shall not wither …'”
The light in the sub-basement dwindled, as if a shadow had come between the sun and the earth. But the darkening continued. It was sunset—twilight—night. The light was gone.
Truth took Sinah in her arms and held her tightly.
A great wave—a sorrow, a death, a mortality for which Truth had no name broke over her like a crushing wave. This was nothing she knew how to fight, this mindless, endless hunger to destroy, to ruin, and to leave no new thing behind itself.
For a moment she felt the flames rise around her and seemed to feel Quentin Blackburn's last mortal thoughts—rage and arrogance and cheated fury.
“Athanais!”
his voice shouted.
For one instant Truth saw Quentin Blackburn clearly. He had Thorne's eyes, Thorne's reckless charm-but his face was carved deep with lines of anger and dissatisfaction that had never been any part of Thorne Blackburn's heritage. He wore unfamiliar ornate robes, and a horned crown in eerie echo of the
thing
upon the altar in the Grey Place was bound about his brow.
And as Truth watched, he was dissolving away, being
sucked down into a vortex of flame that purled as if it were water, into a void that was not even darkness, but absence of all color and image.
“No!”
As the astral temple that Quentin Blackburn had constructed began to dissolve under Michael's onslaught—carrying away all that remained of Quentin's personality, and perhaps, his soul—Sinah screamed and twisted in Truth's arms, and suddenly Truth felt the power of the Gate itself, a cold pure heartless fire, as Sinah reached out to it to save her lover.
“Be still, woman!”
Michael roared. Beads of blood stood out along his forehead like a row of thorns. He pointed his finger at Sinah with a gesture that had the impact of a whiplash, and she slumped unconscious in Truth's arms.
Truth lowered Sinah gently to the floor. Sinah wasn't hurt, but she had certainly been … silenced.
With Sinah unconscious the siren lure of the Gate faded, but the distraction had cost Michael dearly. The tide of darkness began to rise up again, as painful in its way to Truth as Michael's light had been. Truth knew already that any power she might be able to summon and wield could have no effect here—both the Right- and Left-Hand Paths were closed to her by her own vow. She had survived her own encounter with the power of The Church of the Antique Rite because of that very fact—but Michael was a Servant of the Light, his own power set in direct opposition to that which the Antique Rite represented. And Michael's strength was failing.
“‘I shall not be afraid for the terror by night.'”
Dylan's voice, calm and certain, sounded through the suffocating essence of this blighted place like the tolling of a bell.
His voice went on, reciting the beautiful words of the litany; the defiance of a small weak thing, a thing that could not prevail against the vast forces arrayed against it, a thing that could easily be hurt, shattered, destroyed—but could never be made to submit against its true will.
Dylan's words resounded to their end, and now Michael's
voice rose above Dylan's once more, calling upon the power that was his to command with renewed strength.
“‘His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.'”
The darkness lifted as if Truth had suddenly been given sight. As she crouched over Sinah's unconscious form, she saw Michael reach for the small bottle of oil on the table and begin to anoint the altar with it, as carefully as if the inanimate stone were the body of a dying loved one. In the center of the smooth black stone, the monstrance still smoked.
“‘The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away,'” Michael said firmly. “‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors—'”
He capped the vial of oil once more and set it aside, and picked up the large iron bell that awaited him.
Or was it a sword? Truth blinked and looked away. Her eyes insisted that it was both—and neither. She closed them, shutting out the lying images, and the bell—it must be a bell—began to ring in vigorous double peals.
The sound of the ringing drowned out Michael's next words—though Truth, looking toward him again, could see that his lips were still moving—and each peal struck through her with a separate shock, as if something of her own substance were being cast out with the very sound. But distressing as it was for her, the effect on the temple was far worse.
It was as if the image before her eyes now was a reflection in a pool, a reflection that shimmered into nothingness with each stroke of the bell. Each time it reformed itself again, but each time the image seemed somehow lighter—
weaker
—than before.
The thirteenth double stroke sounded, and Michael set the bell aside. As the fading echoes cleared, Truth could see that everything was just as it had been before—but somehow it was more ethereal, cleaner, new. Whatever had
been here was gone, and the physical reality that she saw had been reborn.
Sinah stirred in her arms, and Truth rocked back on her heels to give Sinah air. The sun had broken through the clouds now, and the light was almost too bright, though it was nothing more than ordinary sunlight. Truth squinted as she looked toward Dylan. He was leaning back against the side of the altar, and she could see dark rings of sweat staining the fabric of his shirt. He looked like a man who had been flogged.
The altar stone seemed somehow to be less black—although that could be a trick of the light—and the band of symbols that had been carved upon its side was gone as if it had been rubbed away. Truth straightened wearily out of her crouch, and as she did she saw that the monstrance that Michael had placed upon the altar's surface was also gone. All that remained behind was a shallow depression in the stone—but Truth could not reasonably say that it was something that hadn't been here before.
It was over.
Then Michael sketched the Sign of the Cross in the air, and she realized he was not finished. He meant to go on—to seal this place against any possibility of Quentin's return—but if he did, he would seal it against Truth and Sinah as well.
“Michael—
no!
” Truth said. She straightened up and staggered toward him on unsteady legs.
He finished the Sign and turned to look at her. It hung invisibly behind him, burning into Truth's senses like a rebuke.
“Would you have me cast out this evil and not set up wards against its return?” Michael said. He looked tired—bone weary, as though this excruciating task were one he had done too many times before, and already knew that he had to do over and over again.
“I won't have you locking me out,” Truth said bluntly, not caring what either Dylan or Sinah made of her words. “I need you to leave this place open.”
Michael gazed down at her, stern pity in his dark eyes. Behind him, Dylan stirred uneasily.
“If I were to do that, it would in time call worshippers to it once more. There is one already … though for him there is still time. I cannot allow such a thing to be—you who will not believe in the truth, believe at least that I believe it. To omit to protect is as great an evil as to do harm. How many innocents will you sacrifice to your pride?” Michael asked austerely.
“None, if I can do what I mean to do here,” Truth said.
“But can you? If you fail, who will pay? Once I could have saved you from your heritage, Truth—beware of where your pride will lead you.”
“It's already led me there,” Truth said. “And while I know you don't approve, it was my choice. Just leave it, Michael. There's a lot less to worry about with the Antique Rite gone.”
“Yet your Gate remains. What of the lives and souls it will yet claim?” Michael persisted.
“That's my responsibility,” Truth said briefly.
“And the souls of those who will die here are mine,” Michael returned, and raised his hands again.
“Black spirits and white, red spirits and grey … come horse, come hound, come stag and wolf—”
Truth gathered her own power.
“I said no.” Her voice was hard.
“Truth, look—” Dylan said, and Truth silenced him with a gesture much like the one that Michael had used upon Sinah, though Truth's had no force of compulsion behind it. She did not take her eyes from the man before her.
“Don't fight me, Michael. I value you for making my sister happy, and you've done something here today that I couldn't have done. But I mean to have this my way. I swear to you it will be all right.”
The moment she said the words, Truth knew that somehow they had been a mistake—that somehow she had been tricked into doing something that Michael desired.
“Very well—upon your own head and by your hand are
all deaths of this place from this moment. They are yours to expiate—and the right to choose penance is mine,” Michael pronounced.
Truth's Way was that of the Balance, but she had been trapped by the very taint in her blood that he had reminded her of. Michael had exacted her oath to atone for those as-yet-unlost lives, to exalt Life above Death and unbalance the Wheel which held there was a time for everything to happen.
Yet if she did not let him do it—with her own vow serving as the power to bind her—she would have to fight Michael Archangel here and now.
How dare he speak to me like that—child—chattel—his kind were servants crawling in the mud when I
—
when we
—Truth felt the echo of
sidhe
rage like a pale whipcrack across her mind.
“Very well. I agree.” Truth's eyes flashed dangerously, daring Michael to rejoice in his victory.
“And should harm come to any here through your inaction, I will know—and avenge.” His eyes burned into hers for a long painful moment, and then Michael turned away to pack his tools.
With an effort, Truth banished the mocking whisper of fury from her mind. She'd won the day—gotten what she wanted. This was no time and place to yearn over what might have been.

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