Sorcerer's Vendetta (The Secret of Zanalon) (3 page)

Rollin ... Hmm ... Well, my dear colleague and co-author, I hope I will have some good news to pass on in my next letter, such as the acceptance of our book proposal and a generous enough advance to get me across the ocean to meet you.

As it turned out, she did. Her next letter she took the time to hand write as neatly as possible.

February 15
th
, 2010

Dear Rollin,

Thank you so much for your support and encouragement! I was completely satisfied with your additions and sent the revised proposal out promptly as it was. I was especially grateful and impressed by your understanding and expansion of the competitive market information. To be honest, I despise marketing and anything to do with it, so I was overjoyed to find you had fleshed that portion of the proposal out for me so well.

Apparently so was the editor at Sunrise House. I have great news! Our book proposal was picked up by this generous publisher and I will be free to travel this summer. My new agent will be sending your half of the advance shortly.

I am sure I can tolerate your techno-intolerance as long as you continue to be funny, brilliant, and can pull off a decent fake laugh when I attempt humor. Maybe your humor will even rub off?

Summer seems like a long time to wait, now. In the meantime, perhaps you could tell me more about yourself? Your family? Friends and hobbies? You have my curiosity piqued – there is very little out there on the internet about you and all it said on the back cover of the book you sent me was just the basic listing of your former works and a fuzzy indication that you live somewhere.

I look forward to your next letter.

Sincerely yours,

Rachel

February 19
th
, 2010

Dear Rachel,

I was very pleased to get your last letter – hand written, even. Your script is revealing. Nice hand.

I am seriously impressed. You have taken a few steps into my lair.  Fear not, you are welcome and I don't bite. Often.

As for my family, I have a wonderful relationship with my mother and father, who live in the twisting crazy madness of London proper where I dare not tread. I am an only child and I prefer to stay in the cool shade of the deep woods where I live alone in a comfortable, Earth-friendly bermed cottage. No heating or air conditioning, no rattle and hum. There is a stream that runs through my property a little ways from my humble abode and I run a mill through that for my power supply, but I find I often go with candles and keep myself on a natural schedule anyway.

My parents are happy to visit me, with notice, but I have to be roped, bound and dragged to make a trip to London. You gather that I don't care for cities, much?

And friends ... I believe I'll save that for the next letter, if you don't mind. I have some papers to grade, as I'm sure you understand. And you, Rachel? Tell me about yourself.

Yours truly,

Rollin

P.S. Actually, there
are
a couple of pictures of me out on the internet – my assistant brought them to my attention in full color printouts accompanied by a Cheshire grin. More about that in my “friends” missive.

P.P.S. Ah, please don't get the wrong idea.  No naughty bits, I assure you. I know that isn't all that goes on on the internet, but all I really know is that it IS a beast I'd rather not get into a cage with. Especially not with anything exposed.

Rollin was a bit of a cartoonist as well, it appeared.  He had drawn a quick sketch of a skinny, naked man, desperately trying to cover himself with his hands, his knees knocking and a horrendous grimace on his face.  In the cage with him was something that looked like a lion with a computer monitor for a face, swiping at him with a huge paw.

February 23
rd
, 2010

Dear Rollin,

Love the sketch! Yes, when you put it so vividly, I can't agree more on the safe handling of the internet. I enjoy it myself, but I can see what you mean.

You are so blessed to have a good relationship with your parents. I'm still working on that one, especially with my father. I don't see my mother much and neither does my father -- they are separated. I hope you appreciate that to have your parents together is a real treasure.

I have a brother, older than I am, who left home when he turned fifteen. I don't hear from him much. The last I heard, he is in a serious relationship but not married yet so no nephews or nieces.

I'm not married either, though I nearly let myself get talked into something that would have been a disaster, I realize now. I am happy to have my career here and I seriously doubt I could have managed it if I had married. He had absolutely no interest in art history. What was I thinking? Can you imagine?

We seem to be on the same page when it comes to living in harmony with the Earth. I love your description of your place. I have a wonderful little passive solar/solar electric house in New Mexico where I go to write and renew, up in the high mountain desert, in the summertime and on my breaks. I live on campus with a roommate while school is in. I enjoy my social life here but it is wonderful to have my alone time too, for writing.

My work heretofore has been popular in this area but that may change with this new direction. I am open to new possibilities and very excited about coming to England to start this project and to meet you!

Your turn... Friends? Do I find those shots of you through them – a little candid capture of you on Facebook, perhaps?

Yours,

Rachel

February 27
th
, 2010

Dear Rachel,

You are going to have to stop stroking my British comedic ego, my friend, I'll be destroyed when my head explodes. No, really, don't stop. If I have to go that's one way I'd choose. You know how we Brits love to blow things up. Damn the Chinese for beating us to gunpowder. Of course when they made it, it was initially for fireworks instead of to blow each other to bits, which would have been the first thing we would have thought of. Especially when eying the lands of those beastly people who don't have flags.

Yes, my friends caught me on camera. Somewhat. My assistant will be absolutely gleeful to have someone to guide to the demise of my dignity. Just backtrack that e-mail address where she attached the proposal file and I will be here doing the “facepalm” thing, as my students like to text.

I have some interesting news for you that could possibly be a great boon for our project. I will do a little advance work on it – I wouldn't want to get your hopes up if it turns out to be a fake. One of the grand matrons of art here claims to have discovered a statue on her property from around the 6
th
century.

I've already told her that I will not be available to investigate this find until spring break, so we have a little more time to work on other aspects of the book in the meantime. I'll let you know more about this as soon as I know more.

Yours truly,

Rollin

Rachel, curious, did follow up on the e-mail trail. His assistant was quite friendly, very pleased to lead her to the Facebook pages of his friends who had tagged him in their photos.

She was pleased and disappointed at the same time when this little scavenger hunt only led to a couple of Facebook pages of his students and fellow professors, with a couple of shots of crowds from a rugby match. The shots had Rollin sitting on the outside edge of the bleachers from the back in one and from the side on the other, his head turned away. He appeared to be in good shape, fairly young, with long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, but she could not see his face. The last one was directly of him, sitting on a blanket in a different park.  Dressed in jeans and a casual light shirt, he had blocked the camera with his hand. He was not holding his hand over his face but up to try to block the shot completely, only partially succeeding. His body was visible but one finger in the foreshortened perspective went right across his face. His hair was loose in this shot, falling nearly mid-chest. There was a cup in his other hand. Apparently he did not like the idea of pictures of himself in casual mode, drinking no less, going out on the internet. Fairly wise – those things had a tendency to come back and bite one in the posterior, especially for professionals. Professors in ponytails were no big deal but with a little imagination from a nasty rival, he could be torpedoed if not careful.

She could imagine him chuckling at her chagrin, her curiosity still unsatisfied. Rachel smiled wryly, looking at the pictures. Somehow the partially revealing nature of the shots had her even more intrigued.

And then she found herself back in her campus apartment, looking at her own body in a full length mirror, chewing her lip. She had been getting slack with the self care and she had about twenty-five pounds to lose. One thing she could tell from his pictures was that he was in good condition.

I still have time to get back in shape...
It would be June before she would be leaving for England, and it was only the beginning of March. And that's when she knew she had begun to look at him a little differently than as just a friendly colleague.

Chapter 3 – RELEASED

Rollin trudged alongside the auburn-haired beauty as if he were walking along the streets of London instead of delving deeper into old woods shrouded in late-afternoon mist. For him, that meant he was becoming increasingly nervous and unsure, but he was doing his best not to let it show. There was an overwhelming sense of deja vu' coming over and over him in waves. When he dropped his gaze that only increased his focus on the feelings that were stirring in his belly – this strange, tugging tension – so he looked back at the Lady Morgan and tried to maintain his demeanor of calm.

She glanced at him, smiled, and touched his arm. "You
are
excited, aren't you?" she purred. "You won't be disappointed."

He gave her a double-take.
Was she flirting?
Just as quickly, he dismissed the thought, replacing it again with his more immediate concern. Apparently he wasn't succeeding in hiding anything from her.

Still, Rollin couldn't contain a sense of excitement and discovery, in spite of his suspicions about the "find" the Lady Morgan had contacted him to evaluate. He had to be careful though. Often, he was told he looked younger than the years he claimed, which was not a bonus in his profession. He had come a long way in spite of that toward gaining the respect of his art historian peers and he didn't relish the thought of endangering the reputation he had fought so hard to establish without cause. Lady Morgan was a long-standing matron of the arts, not a woman to be taken lightly either, however eccentric. He glanced at her beside him, flowing along in an outfit more suited to a dancer or a gypsy than a woman of her standing in the arts community. Questions arose in his mind and he bit his lip, considering his stance with a healthy skepticism. Still, if this statue were truly from the 6th century and in the flawless condition that it appeared to be from the photographs she had sent, it would be like no other in the history of his profession. And yet it was that flawless condition that threw so much doubt on its validity.

When the path weaved through brush that no longer allowed them to walk side by side, Lady Morgan moved ahead. The undergrowth was only rough for a few seconds, then the way opened into a clearing. Rollin found that his breath was coming harder.

He caught the odd glance she gave him as he moved beside her, but then his attention was caught by the object of their journey. Or rather, its mysterious housing.

Twisted and tremendous, the ancient oak confronted him with a life that dwarfed his very existence. It appeared to be one entity but it had begun its days, centuries before, as several trees, strangely twisted together protectively against the advance of time. Dead center, his eyes were drawn – to nothingness. A gaping hole beckoned, mocking and malicious, cutting up the trunk to a point at eye level.

Cold sweat broke out on his brow and his stomach lurched. Sudden terror gripped him. Beside him, the Lady Morgan swept a hand toward it in invitation. "There," she whispered, with the same grandeur of "I am pleased to present ..."

"Inside?" His voice nearly cracked, betraying him. In the back of his mind, he knew he should have been celebrating; she had neglected to mention this odd cover, yet it could account for the excellent condition of the statue. The odds against its being genuine had just gone down.

He pictured it in his mind, from the photos. They were not the best quality or taken from the angles that would have been most useful to him, and they were practically useless to Rachel. The Lady had mentioned a pedestal with writing, but had neglected to include any photographs that showed that detail. He found himself theorizing –
could it be the work of some heretofore unknown Tuscan artist? It had the movement and flow, but then again it was too realistic for that style, almost of the ancient Grecian works –
and f
or a moment, his professional curiosity held the beasts of the primal nocturne at bay.