Ghostlight (44 page)

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Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley

BOOK: Ghostlight
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“I've always said so.” Thorne's voice was amused. “And now—I'm sorry, sweetheart, but I haven't been
quite truthful with you tonight. I hope someday you'll forgive me, but now … I can't stay. That part was a lie. I have to go now.”
She knew. The part of her that had stood upon the hill before the Gate of the Silver Wheel understood, but the charade must be played out to the end.
“Go
where
?” Truth demanded. “
Why
do you have to go? Daddy, I've just found you again—”
“And I will always love you, Truth. But the night your mother died I came here to get her back—with the power of my blood I forced the Gate, and for that overweening folly I was awarded a fitting penance. Good-bye, baby.”
“No!”
Truth flung herself to her feet and ran toward him, but she was too late.
The lightning flashed. And in the gap between the pillars where Thorne Blackburn had stood he stood no longer—only a great gray oak with the symbol of the Circle of Truth carved deep into its bark.
And
Venus Afflicted
was gone at last from the human world.
TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE
Thou that stupendous truth believ'd,
And now the matchless deed's achiev'd,
Determined, dared, and done.
—CHRISTOPHER SMART
 
 
 
IT TOOK TRUTH ALMOST AN HOUR TO MAKE HER WAY down from the hillside, and when she finally reached Shadow's Gate everything was in chaos. The smell of burning hung heavily in the air, and there seemed to be police and ambulances and fire engines everywhere, and even a few gawkers from Shadowkill, drawn by the sirens and the noise. She arrived just in time to see Hereward loaded into an ambulance, a white-coated attendant standing along beside him, holding the bottle of saline solution over his head.
What had happened? Surely Pilgrim had not won if there were all these people here—but what had happened? She ran through the tangle of parked vehicles looking for Light, for Irene, for anyone else from the Circle.
“Wait a minute, miss; you can't go in there.” A fireman grabbed her at the front door of the house, his heavy coat smelling of smoke. The doors were open; Truth could
see thick, white hoses snaking into the building's interior, and pools of water standing on the wooden floors. The electric lights were still on, lending the scene an odd, surreal aspect.
“My sister's in there!” Truth said, trying to pull away.
“There's nobody still in there,” the fireman said. “Hey! John! Looking for her sister!” he shouted to someone standing a few feet away.
A man wearing the wide-brimmed hat of the State Police came over to where Truth stood. The walkie-talkie on his belt emitted random blurts of garbled speech. “Go with him, miss, he'll help you find her,” the fireman told her.
“Your name?” The policeman said. He put a hand under her arm and began to walk her back toward his car. “You live in there?”
“Truth Jourdemayne. I've been staying here for the past few days working on some research. My sister was in there! Do you know—”
“Everyone got out, ma'am,” the policeman said reassuringly. “If you'll just—”
“Truth!” Light barreled into Truth, nearly knocking her down again.
“Oh, God, you're all right—but you'll get wet!” Truth added almost instantly.
The young medium was still wearing her red robe, but over that was wrapped what looked like one of the banners from the Temple. Her long, silver hair was damp and tangled, and there were soot marks on her pale skin.
“I don't care!” Light said fiercely. She hugged Truth tighter, squeezing the water out of Truth's sodden clothes and into her own garish satins. Truth hugged her back, feeling a painful sense of relief. Light was safe.
The policeman, seeing he was not needed now, moved away, but Truth knew it was only temporary. There would be questions that had to be answered—and what would she say when the time came?
But now there was only one other thing that was important. “Pilgrim—where's Pilgrim?” Truth demanded.
“He's there,” Michael said, stepping away from one of the trucks to stand beside Light. There was a blanket draped around his shoulders; he looked tired, but worlds away from the bleeding apparition with the flaming sword that Truth had seen earlier tonight.
Had that been real at all? She looked where Michael gestured, and saw Pilgrim.
He was stumbling across the grass, being led toward one of the waiting police cars by two of the EMTs. They were holding his arms; his hands were cuffed behind his back, and he was babbling:
“—kings in the darkness the citadels of the earth and ocean towering castles in the candles and the rain singing in the dark and rocks over stones in the ocean—” His words rambled on; there was no intelligence behind them, and seeing-without-seeing Truth could look and recognize the chains that bound him, stronger than any she or Thorne could have forged, binding Pilgrim tightly and ensuring that never again would his madness harm anyone but himself.
Michael had done this—or what Michael served—when Julian had lost the power of the Gate, and Truth could not find it in her to be sorry. She looked into Michael's eyes, and saw at last what he had been trying to save her from: the knowledge of what she was and the responsibility that came with walking the path her feet had now been set upon.
Truth felt a desolate sense of loss; now that she finally understood the truth she could have hoped to count Michael her friend. But no. She and Michael had chosen different paths a very long time ago.
The Christian Church held that Man was not strong enough to endure the experience of the Higher Knowledge, and so its teachings held that all such knowledge must be withheld. Julian Pilgrim had sworn that all
knowledge belonged to Man, no matter that he was not ready for it.
“You're soaking wet,” Michael said chidingly. “You'll freeze.” He took the blanket from around his shoulders and wrapped her in it. It was warm from his body, and Truth smiled at him sadly. Tonight she and Michael had been on the same side against a greater evil, but the next time they met it might be as enemies.
Michael held out his arm, and Light went back to his side.
“I will care for Light, and see that her gifts bring her no further pain. I can … There is still time for you to choose, Truth. Will you come with us?”
“No, Michael,” Truth said gently. “I've made my choice.”
There was a middle ground between Michael's way and Pilgrim's—a path neither black nor white, but gray as mist: Thorne's path, and now hers. A path that Pilgrim had rejected, and that Light was not strong enough to follow.
Truth blinked back tears of loss, knowing already that time would lead her path and Light's farther apart, until in the end no common ground would remain to them. But Michael could give her the protection that Truth could not. And Light loved him. If what Truth and Thorne—and Michael—had done here tonight was for anything, it was for the freedom to make such choices. She turned away. “I'd better go see if I can find the others,” she said.
“Go with God, then, Truth,” Michael said quietly and she knew that the words were not empty—that they were a prayer she could not answer. Truth turned away.
Unlike the last time the house had burned, the devastation of Shadow's Gate this time was not total, though the Temple at the core of the house was destroyed—if not by fire, then by the water the arriving firemen had poured into it to save the house.
The fire trucks were pulling away and going back to the town, so the danger must be over. Truth wondered selfishly if any of the house could still be inhabited—she desperately wanted a hot shower. The cold was settling into her bones, and her fingers were already numb.
She found Donner and Irene together. He had his arm around her; Irene was sitting on a camp stool someone had brought her. Both of them were wrapped in blankets. Tears furrowed Irene's cheeks, and she looked terribly old.
“‘Who is my brother or sister in the Art, that is my brother or sister in all things,'” Donner said with a crooked smile, seeing Truth. “How are you?” he added cautiously.
Like Light, Donner was still wearing his ritual robe and was marked by soot; he looked as if he had aged ten years in the past few hours and his brown eyes were wary.
“I'm okay,” Truth said, equally guardedly. “Aunt Irene, are you all right?” She knelt before the older woman, clutching the blanket around herself.
“It was wrong—all wrong,” Irene said, weeping quietly. “He destroyed it all—everything! He made it ugly—”
“No,” Truth said strongly. “Pilgrim didn't destroy anything we can't fix. We'll fix it together. I need you, Aunt Irene. I need you to teach me. Will you?” She had not known what she was about to say, but she did not doubt its truth. The art of magick was innate power bound to discipline and training—training that Truth still lacked.
Slowly Irene Avalon's gaze turned from her own inward grief and focused upon Truth's upturned face. With trembling fingers she reached out and caressed Truth's cheek.
“Yes,” she said, her voice growing stronger. “Yes, I will.”
Truth stood up and looked at Donner. “Where are the others?”
He shrugged. “They took Hereward off in an ambulance, and Julian …” his voice trailed off. “Michael and Light are around here somewhere, and I saw Gareth and Fiona—”
Who, Truth was sure, were already well away from here. Of all of them who had stood in the Circle tonight, only Pilgrim and perhaps Fiona had known fully what they were doing. She only hoped Gareth wouldn't suffer too much at Fiona's hands—but whatever happened to Gareth, in some sense he had chosen it.
“Donner, what happened in there tonight?” Truth asked him. It was not to confirm her own perceptions—she knew what she had seen—but to test the perceptions of others, now that she must live in two worlds.
Donner's gaze flicked away from her and back, but he could not meet her eyes. “I don't know,” he said, and then, incredibly, “We were all pretty drunk.”
“
Drunk?
” Truth said, stunned.
“Of course,” Irene said firmly, though not as if she believed it. “That's how the fire started. The candles were knocked over by some of the boys' horseplay. If we hadn't all been so occupied with the fire, I'm sure we would have heard Julian shoot Hereward.”
“Yes,” said Donner, with relief, rejecting the reality in favor of the soothing lie. “That was it.”
Truth shook her head. She wondered what the others had really seen, and how much any of them had truly been responsible for their own actions once the ritual had begun.
“I'll be back,” she told Donner and Irene. “I'm going to go see if I can find anyone who can tell us if it's safe to go back inside.”
She cast around until she found the Fire Marshal standing by his car.
“I'm Truth Jourdemayne,” she said, introducing herself, “and I'd really like a hot shower. Is there any chance of going back inside the house yet?”
“Well, offhand I'd say it would be okay,” the Fire Marshal said, pushing his cap back on his head. “It looks pretty bad in there but I wouldn't say there's any real structural damage. Just stay out of the room where the fire was until the insurance people've gone over it.”
“Not a problem,” Truth said. “And—thank you for coming.”
“That's our job, Ms. Jourdemayne,” he said, smiling. “It's been a heckuva night, hasn't it?”
Brother, you don't know the half of it
, Truth told him silently.
As she was turning back to tell the others that they could all go inside, she heard a horn beeping. She turned in the direction of the sound and saw a brown Datsun swerving up the drive, headlights flaring as the driver cut the wheel from side to side.
Dylan.
Truth ran toward the car, which was already sliding to a stop. Dylan issued from behind the wheel almost without opening the door, worry radiating from his entire body.
“Dylan—it's okay—none of the equipment's damaged, and—” Truth began.
“To hell with the boxes!” Dylan said, grabbing her and all but shaking her. “What about you?”
What
about
her?
Truth wondered that herself. She had made a long journey to reach this place, a longer journey than miles and hours could tell. And in making it, she'd found not only her father, but herself.
“Are you all right?” Dylan demanded. “I came back to Shadowkill—I wanted to be here, if—And then I saw the fire—”
She pulled away just enough to link her arm through Dylan's.
“Oh, I'm all right. Come on inside; we'll find you a place to sleep for what's left of the night, but I don't think you'll have any luck finding any ghosts now, somehow.
And do you know, speaking of ghosts, I think I have an entirely new slant on that biography of Daddy I'm going to write,” Truth said, leading Dylan back toward the others.
Not as the world wanted him to be, but as he was—a man who had found in the end that perfection is sometimes the wrong choice.
And she would call it
Venus Afflicted.

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