The Adept Book 2 The Lodge Of The Lynx (41 page)

“So
you’d say there’s nothing unusual about him?”

“Nothing at all. In fact, he’s so ordinary—on paper, anyway—that, in itself, is almost an oddity. He’s by all accounts a bit of a loner—not married, no close family ties. Not particularly popular with his subordinates, but no enemies to speak of. The worst anyone seems to be able to say of him is that he’s a bit surly and keeps very much to himself.”

“What about his service record?”

“There again, not much to tell. He does the job, and that’s the sum of it. He’s never been reprimanded, even for a minor infraction. However, he’s never received any commendations, either.”

McLeod paused and scowled. “Come to think of it, that’s a bit strange for someone of his rank and seniority. Offhand, I can’t think of any other inspector I know who doesn’t have at least one distinguished service citation to his credit. I wonder how our friend Napier could have reached this point in his career without doing anything outstanding, one way or the other.”

“Hmmm, yes. It’s almost as if he’s deliberately avoided drawing attention to himself, all the while he’s been working to improve his professional standing,” Adam said. “What do your instincts tell you?”

“My instincts tell me that there’s more to the man than shows up in the files,” McLeod said frankly. “Unless you need me here, I’m thinking I’ll head out and do some more nosing around. We know the Lynx has got someone on the police force. I’m going to gamble that it’s Napier.”

* * *

After McLeod had departed, Adam took advantage of the lull in activity to snatch a much-needed cat nap. He roused himself two hours later and was just sitting down to a cup of tea in the library when Peregrine arrived back at Strathmourne with the maps Adam had requested.

“Would you believe I had to visit two motorway service plazas and four different bookshops before I could put together a complete set?” the artist exclaimed, brandishing the fruits of his labors. “I could
not
get the Orkneys, so we’ll have to hope nothing nasty is happening there. Where do you want them?”

“Just toss them on the settee for now,” Adam said with a smile. “Have you had anything to eat?”

“Nothing since lunch. Why?”

“Good, then you aren’t
going
to have anything for another hour or two, because I’ve got a spot of work for you to do, and it’s something best attempted on an empty stomach when you’re first learning how. Fancy trying your hand at some pendulum dousing?”

“Me?”

The procedure was not unknown to Peregrine, for he had seen Adam use a form of pendulum dowsing at Dunvegan Castle, also in conjunction with maps, to determine the approximate location of the stolen Fairy Flag. His eyes widened slightly at the prospect of attempting something like that himself.

“I’m certainly willing to have a go,” he said, “but I hope you’re intending to talk me through.”

“I’m intending to do precisely that,” Adam said. “We need to make some preparations first, though—principal of which is to free up more floor space than we’ve got here. Humphrey’s gone to fetch that medallion from the house safe. As soon as he joins us, we’ll see about transferring operations to the drawing room.”

The drawing room seemed chilly after the cozy, familiar warmth of the library. Still moving stiffly, Adam steered himself to a Victorian chaise lounge set along one wall and directed Humphrey and Peregrine to clear floor space in the center of the room. As they began unfolding the maps and laying them out in their proper order and orientation, Adam thumbed open the silk-lined box Humphrey had brought him and gingerly took out’ the slagged remains of the Lynx pendant.

It lay quiescent in his palm, still bound by the restraints Philippa had placed upon it the day before to reinforce McLeod’s initial binding, but he could sense, nevertheless, a lingering residue of the malignancy that had gone into its fashioning. With any luck at all—and if Adam had accurately assessed Peregrine’s potential in this regard—the medallion should enable them to trace the fine psychic thread still binding the medallion to its makers.

Setting it temporarily aside, Adam delved into the box again for a pool of fine blue silk thread and called Peregrine over to break off a length as long as his own arm. Then, while Peregrine returned to his task with the maps, Adam used mostly his left hand to awkwardly wind one end of the thread securely around the Lynx medallion to create a free-swinging pendulum. He briefly tried wrapping the free end of the thread around his right index finger and testing the pendulum’s swing, but the strain on his shoulder was too much, and certainly would not stand up to what he had in mind. No, Peregrine was about to win his own wings in
this
exercise.

He looked up to find Peregrine waiting expectantly before the chaise lounge, Humphrey attentive by the door. The carpet of maps was now complete, showing the whole of Scotland laid out in two dimensions, all its geological features and contours marked out in variegated patterns of greens and golds. Adam smiled to see that his two assistants had taken the initiative of joining the maps up with masking tape at the overlapping corners. Laying the pendulum back in its box, he dismissed Humphrey with a word of thanks and turned back to Peregrine.

“Pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable for a moment,” he directed. “This is where things get technical.”

“It was bound to happen sooner or later,” Peregrine said, grinning as he went to fetch a balloon-backed chair from the opposite corner. Plumping it on the carpet opposite Adam’s chaise lounge, he sat down and said wryly, “All right, let’s hear the worst.”

“Relax. You’re ready for this,” Adam said with a smile. “Now, a very quick lesson on pendulum theory. To put it as simply as possible, pendulum dousing works according to a principle best described as the law of correspondences. This law postulates that the world of symbols and the world of material objects exist in reciprocal relation to one another. In other words, what exists physically may be perceived symbolically by anyone with knowledge sufficient to the purpose.

“Take that map of Scotland you and Humphrey have just so painstakingly constructed,” he said, gesturing with his left hand. “In one sense, it’s only so much printed paper, but in another sense the map is a direct symbolic extension of the country it’s meant to represent. What occupies space in the material world holds an equivalent place in the world of symbols—and for that reason, it’s possible to locate the one in terms of the other. Are you following?”

Peregrine nodded. “My brain is buzzing a little, but yes, I think so.”

“Very good. In that case; we’ll move on to the next point—the pendulum itself. Anything, potentially, can be used as a pendulum, so long as it carries some charge of residual energy associated either with the person doing the dousing or with the object he’s trying to find. In this case, we’re going to be using what’s left of that Lynx medallion you found at Dunfermline.”

He gestured toward the medallion, with its length of silk trailing out of the satinwood box.

“Now, the theory behind the particular connection we’re seeking: In order to perform the function for which it was designed—to act as a form of lightning rod—this medallion would have to have been magically bonded with the person who actually summons the lightning, probably via a power-object. I’m guessing the latter to be the torc you envisioned at Calton Hill. Where the torc is, there also is the person who is wielding it. By having you walk the map, using the pendulum to detect correspondences, I’m hopeful that we can discover the lightning wielder’s location.”

Peregrine glanced at the maps, pursing his lips, then back at the medallion.

“Okay. Any particular way I should pick it up?”

“You’ll get the most sensitive contact if you hold the end of the thread between thumb and forefinger, just tightly enough not to drop it.”

Cautious after the shock it had given him before, Peregrine gently grasped the end of the thread and lifted the medallion clear of the box. As he looked at it, seeing it rotate slightly, he could start to sense an odd tingling, almost as if the medallion had a life of its own.

“I suggest you take off your shoes as well,” Adam said. “That will help you make a physical connection with the surface of the map and what it represents. Then clear your mind and try to make yourself as passive as possible. We want the pendulum to be drawn toward ‘home’.”

Peregrine nodded and kicked off his brown leather loafers. The tingling pull from the pendulum became stronger. Standing up, he took three slow, deep breaths, grounding and centering himself as Adam had taught him to do. Letting himself be guided by the pendulum’s now-insistent pull, he walked over to the southern edge of the maps.

As Adam watched from his vantage point on the chaise lounge, Peregrine set off slowly across the expanse of crackling paper. Treading delicately on his stocking feet, he kept to the center of the pictured land mass, edging slowly north and west.

“I can certainly feel a pull,” he reported, without looking round. “It doesn’t seem much interested in Edinburgh. It’s tending more in the direction of Falkirk . . . Yes, the pull seems to be getting stronger. A little more west . . . a little more north . . . toward Stirling, maybe . . . “

The pendulum’s movement seemed to be stabilizing as Peregrine moved closer to Stirling. He half-held his breath, waiting to see what would happen. But just as he thought it might be coming to rest, he felt a sudden, sharp tug and the pendulum began to vacillate, swinging erratically back and forth with no discernible consistency.

“Damn, I think I’ve lost it!” Peregrine muttered.

“Not to worry,” Adam said quietly. “And don’t try to force the issue. It’s important to remain passive. Just stand still and wait. Close your eyes, if that will help. When the connection settles in again, don’t try to anticipate or interpret—just go with what you feel.”

Nodding his agreement, Peregrine closed his eyes and concentrated on bringing his breathing back under control. His excitement subsided, leaving him quiet and receptive once more. Gradually he nudged his attention back toward the pendulum. After a minute or two, he felt the tug at his fingertips again, even stronger than before.

This time the inclination seemed to be due north, with a slight westerly bias. Fixing his gaze on the banjo clock on the wall at the further end of the room, Peregrine put all speculation out of his mind concerning the pendulum’s ultimate heading and allowed himself to be tugged along in its wake. After several minutes, the pull subsided, leaving the pendulum spinning round on its thread.

“But, there’s nothing here!” Peregrine declared, as he crouched down to see what lay below. “There’s nothing on this part of the map but mountains.”

“All right,” Adam said. “Come back to the edge of the map and try again.”

Under Adam’s direction, Peregrine repeated the process several times more, starting from different quarters of the compass. Each time, he experienced a slight but unmistakable diversion toward Stirling before the pendulum gravitated toward the same unsettled region of the Cairngorm Mountains.

“Very curious,” Adam said, after the fifth assay. “If I’m reading this correctly, we seem to have located two separate concentrations of power. I’m particularly curious about that area in the Cairngorms. If the snow weren’t so heavy over the Highlands just now, we might get Noel to see about arranging an aerial reconnaissance flight. As it is, I doubt there’d be much to see from the air . . . “

As his voice trailed off thoughtfully, Peregrine cocked his head in question.

“What have you got in mind?”

“Perhaps a land excursion into the Scottish interior,” Adam said, with a sidelong glance. “A four-wheel-drive vehicle ought to be able to handle the roads—though we’d have to see about renting a replacement vehicle for the Range Rover, and I’m afraid I’m in no fit condition to drive myself with my arm strapped up like this. But if you think you can handle it, we might make a go the next time there’s a break in the weather and plan to spend a day or two up in that area.”

“Sure, I’m game,” Peregrine said. “In the meantime, though, why not try Stirling? It’s a lot closer than the Cairngorms, and you don’t need four-wheel drive to get there.”

“I’m already giving that some thought,” Adam replied. “For now, though, it’s getting late, and I confess I’m feeling the need of a nap. Let’s call it an afternoon, and I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

Chapter Thirty

AFTER PERIGRINE
had gone, Adam remained in the drawing room for some time, musing thoughtfully over the array of maps and the puzzle posed by the behavior of the pendulum, and eventually dozed off. At length a light knock on the door roused him from his reverie.

“There you are,” Philippa said, poking her head around the door frame. “Are you planning to camp out in here all evening? If you are, I think I ought to point out that you are not exactly in any fit state to spend a night on the tiles.”

“You may very well have a point there,” Adam acknowledged with a wan smile. As he sat up, he was all at once conscious of his various aches, and he grimaced as an ill-considered movement made his shoulder give a sharp twinge.

Philippa cast a knowing eye over the map-strewn floor and quirked an ironic eyebrow at her son. “Judging by the looks of this place, you’ve been rather busy,” she observed dryly.

“Oh, Peregrine did most of the work,” Adam said. “I’ll tell you all about it over dinner—or is Mrs. Talbot joining us?”

“No, she’s ensconced in her room with a TV and supper on a tray. I think she’s afraid of intruding on our hospitality—which, in this case, she would be. Shall we eat up in the Rose Room?”

They dined frugally on baked chicken and a green salad, with Adam eschewing wine in the interests of what he was planning for later on. Philippa was keen to hear about Peregrine’s performance in the pendulum exercise, and nodded approvingly as Adam finished his account.

“The boy is really coming along, isn’t he?” she remarked. “The decision is yours, of course, but it seems to me that he’s ready—more than ready—to be presented as a candidate for initiation.”

“I agree.”

“The solstice is only a matter of days away,” Philippa went on. “That would be an appropriate time.”

“It would—and I’m thinking in those terms. Before then, however, I’d like a whole lot better idea what is going on. So far,
they
are calling the shots. We don’t even know for certain yet who
they
are—except, of course, that it’s the Lodge of the Lynx. We’ve got to break that cycle, regain the upper hand.”

“I agree,” Philippa said. “But keep in mind that you aren’t operating at peak efficiency just now. Don’t underestimate the toll this episode has taken on your strength.”

Adam snorted and shifted his arm in its sling.

“I’m aware of my limitations, and I’m not too proud to ask for help if I need it. On the other hand, if our enemies think they’ve rendered me
hors de combat,
they’re sadly mistaken. I’ve been giving some further thought to Peregrine’s suggestion that we concentrate at least some of our attention on Stirling. And I’ve come up with an idea.”

Briefly he explained his intention to Philippa.

“Sounds promising,” she acknowledged. “It’s certainly worth a try. Would you like some of that help you say you’re not too proud to ask for?”

Smiling, he shook his head. “Not for this one—but thanks for the offer. I’m still working out the details. Once we’ve had coffee, I’ll take myself back down to the library and see what transpires.”

“All right,” said Philippa, “but remember you’re supposed to be convalescent, so don’t sit up
too
late.”

After dinner, Adam shed his tie and exchanged shoes and blazer for slippers and dressing gown, then went down to the library. The box containing the Lynx medallion was already on his desk. From his desk drawer he drew a pad of foolscap and the manila envelope containing the transcripts from the Stirling interviews. He had already read though them several times without finding anything obviously worthy of note. This time, however, he had another plan in mind.

Settling himself more or less comfortably at his desk, Adam eased his right arm from its supporting sling and set to work, bracing his elbow on the arm of his chair and jotting down only the names and addresses of those who had been interviewed, disregarding the text. That completed, he returned the transcripts to their holding envelope and tossed it on the floor beside him, to leave his workspace clear.

Next, from the top drawer of the desk itself, he took out a stack of blank index cards, a calligraphy pen, and a bottle of India ink. The latter he opened, setting the cap aside and then laying his right hand flat on the desk before him, shifting his attention to and through the sapphire on his hand. For a long moment thereafter he sat very still, composing himself while he allowed his intentions to crystallize in the back of his mind. As his sense of purpose deepened, he turned his attention inward, concentrating on his breathing. When all was stilled and centered, he drew a slow, deep breath, then reached out and took up the pen.

It felt weightless in his hand. He paused to imagine its tip as a pinpoint of fluorescent light, illuminating the presence of unseen elements in a matrix of inert matter. Moving a blank card in front of him, he dipped the pen in the ink bottle and carefully traced out the name and address that appeared at the top of his list, all the while holding in balance the thought of a travelling beam of radiance piercing the darkness like a shaft from a miner’s torch.

Author of Lights,
he implored silently,
make visible that which is invisible. Make manifest those things which lie hidden.

Slowly, carefully, he copied each of the names onto a separate card. He had twenty-nine when he was finished. He studied them while he waited for the ink to dry on the last few, letting the resonance of each name and place reverberate in his mind. When he was satisfied that they would not smear, he gathered the cards into a pack and shuffled them several times. Then he spread them face down on the desk in front of him, in five rows of six across, with one space blank at the lower right corner.

Next he took an Exacto knife from his desk catch-all and used it to pare a small sliver of silver from the Lynx medallion and attach it to a new length of thread. He closed his eyes for a moment, formulating an image of the pendulum as a compass needle attuned to the energy source he was trying to find. Then, holding the pendulum suspended over the assemblage of cards—with his left hand, for the right shoulder would not sustain the strain—he concentrated on sending the silver home to the person who had enlivened it.

Beginning at the top left-hand corner of the configuration, he set the pendulum in motion. To keep his sweep methodical, he deliberately traced horizontally between the rows of cards, looking for a deflection. On his first serpentine, going between the third and fourth rows, he experienced a subtle twitch toward a card in the fourth row down, third from the left. He got the deflection again as he came between the fourth and fifth rows.

Nodding softly to himself, he pulled a pencil from the center desk drawer and lifted the card enough to slide the pencil underneath it and make a mark on the hidden face. Laying the pencil aside, he scrambled the cards without looking at the one he had marked and set them out again, repeating the exercise and marking a card two rows down and two from the right. When he had repeated the exercise a third time and marked the card singled out by the pendulum, he laid the pendulum aside and picked up the card, weighing it briefly in his hand before turning it over. Three erratic pencil marks marred the front of the card, surrounding the name,
Francis Raeburn,
and beneath it the address:
Nether Leckie, By Stirling.

Adam sat motionless for several minutes, his mouth set hard as he considered the import of this revelation. Simply zeroing in on the name proved nothing, but it was certainly a strong indication that this Raeburn was involved in some way. Three “hits” on the blind pendulum dousing went far beyond the possibility of coincidence.

And if Raeburn
was
the man directing the lightning—and responsible for the deaths of Randall Stewart, Ian MacPherson, and the Masons of Dunfermline—it was Adam’s sworn duty to hunt him down and disarm him of his powers, and expose him to civil justice as well, if that could be done. But only the edges of the picture were starting to emerge, and Adam was well-aware of the pitfalls inherent in acting too soon on too little evidence.

Thoughtful, he picked up the phone and punched out McLeod’s home number.

“Noel, sorry to disturb your Sunday again,” he said, when McLeod himself answered, “but I’ve come up with a lead I think bears pursuing. I’ve been going over those interview notes from Stirling, in connection with that item you and Peregrine retrieved at Dunfermline. I think we need to make some very careful, discreet inquiries about a man called Francis Raeburn.”

* * *

While Adam Sinclair was carrying out his experiments with maps and pendulum, Dr. Preston Wemyss was on his way to an interview to which he was not looking forward in the least. Huddled miserably in one of the back seats of Francis Raeburn’s helicopter, he spent the entire hour and more of the flight northward rehearsing his defenses, while the snow-covered forests of Balmoral rolled away beneath them and the white peaks of the Cairngorms rose ahead. His head was still aching dully from the backlash of power he had caught more than twenty-four hours before, in his unsuccessful attempt to finish what Barclay had begun, and dread of what lay ahead made him almost sick to his stomach.

Neither Raeburn nor Barclay had spoken to him since they took off. Wemyss knew he was in disgrace. By the time they at last caught sight of the castellated manor house that was their destination, what little confidence he had started out with had mostly eroded to queasy despair, As Barclay brought them in low for a landing in the back courtyard—Wemyss was not even to be afforded the courtesy of entering the castle through the front door—Wemyss was all too aware that his explanations were more likely to sound like excuses.

The thought of facing up to the Head-Master’s displeasure caused Wemyss to curse anew the combination of ill luck and random happenstance that had allowed Adam Sinclair to survive the attempt on his life. In retrospect, he was bitterly aware that Raeburn had done him no service in leaving it up to him to engineer the medical contingencies, should Sinclair survive the car crash. He glanced sullenly at the back of Raeburn’s head, seeing now how he had been skillfully manipulated into a position where
he
would be obliged to take the blame in the event of failure. But that realization was unlikely to save him, if the Head-Master should choose to mete out punishment.

His heart was in his throat as he followed Raeburn and Barclay from the helicopter. The castle seemed even colder than usual, coming through the back service entrance. His stomach was churning with sick tension as he put off his shoes and pulled on the requisite white robe. As he set off to meet the Head-Master, nervously fingering the carnelian ring on his right hand, he wondered how much longer he would be allowed to wear it.

The barefoot climb up the spiral stair did nothing to diminish the chill of dread permeating his very bones. At the library landing, Raeburn left him to continue on alone. Eleven members of the Circle of Twelve were already in their places as Wemyss entered the tower room, uniformly anonymous in their white woolen robes, their faces overshadowed by their hoods so that expressions could not be seen. The whole situation looked and felt like a tribunal—which, Wemyss reflected sickly, was exactly what it was. He squared his shoulders, determined not to reveal himself as craven as he felt.

A moment later, there was a stir outside the door and the Head-Master himself entered the room, leaning heavily on the arm of his senior acolyte. The Head-Master’s wizened face had never looked more skull-like than it did now, in the flickering glow of the gas-lamps. Withered lips compressed in a tight grimace of displeasure, he made his way unhurriedly to his place at the far edge of the circle and sank down amid the scarlet cushions placed to accommodate him. A deathly silence prevailed while he settled himself, broken only by the faint, stentorous wheeze of Wemyss’ nervous breathing. The Head-Master allowed the silence to draw itself out a few heartbeats longer, then fixed his coal-black eyes with implacable steadiness on the thin, grey-haired man standing wretchedly at attention before him.

“Dr. Wemyss.” The Head-Master’s voice stirred through the room like an icy draught. “This is an occasion I relish as little as you do. Your failure to carry out your assigned task forces me to mete out discipline appropriate to that failure. Are you aware what it may have cost us?”

Wemyss said nothing, sickly aware that there was nothing he could say.

“A week ago,” the Master continued, “you were enlisted to assist in the task of removing a particular obstacle from our path—the man we now know to be the leader of a Hunting Lodge. It was a commission which reflected not only the vital necessity of the moment, but also our high estimation of your merits as a servant of the Lynx—and yet you failed us. I think,
Doctor,
that you owe us an explanation.”

The words were delivered with spitting venom. Wemyss quailed in spite of himself.

“I—I took every precaution, Head-Master, I swear I did,” he said falteringly. “The blood sample was sufficient. I arranged to switch the capsules in his prescription envelope for ones I had prepared for the purpose. In his already weakened condition, and with that much Valium in him—”