Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 02 (46 page)

 
          
It
took nearly an hour for Winter to summarize the events of the last month—of her
visits to Janelle, who had trapped herself in an abusive marriage out of fear
of success, and Ramsey, whose life was another sort of failure. As Winter
spoke, the
Elemental's
attacks and the daily lives of
her college friends seemed to meld into one vast tapestry, events supernatural
and natural blending together into one long tragedy.

 
          
"After
I found that Cassie was dead I just lost my head—her friend Rhiannon said she
left a letter for me, but I didn't even stop to see if she was telling the
truth. I came back East, visited my family, and then went to my
apartment." Winter laughed shakily. "It looked like a bomb had gone
off in there, and while I was looking around, that
thing
came back and paid me another visit, just like at
Nuclear
Lake
."

 
          
"You
don't seem too upset, all things considered," Truth said, darting a glance
at Winter's bandaged hands.

 
          
"You
can't be terrified all the time," Winter said, a faint note of gallows
humor in her voice. "And ... it wasn't the first time it had come back. I
made it leave. But, Truth, I don't think I can do that again—and if I could, it
would only mean I was giving it a chance to attack someone else."

 
          
Truth
sighed. What Winter said was true. "I think you are the only one who has
any chance of stopping it," Truth said slowly.

 
          
"But
you don't think it's a very good chance." Winter stood, more to release
tension than from a real desire to end the interview. "That's okay. Nobody
lives forever. Ugh. I'm stiff from all that driving. Want to go for a
walk?"

 
          
"I
think this is where I was happiest," Winter said. At Winter's urging, she
and Truth had walked across the campus, past the buildings, to where the tended
manicured lawns of
Taghkanic
College
gave way to the orderly ranks of gnarled
old apple trees that marched down nearly to the river's edge. "Not any
particular place. Just at college."

 
          
The
water lapped at the shore of broken shale with a sharp choppy motion. It was
May; the trees were in full leaf now, their branches spotted with hard green
spheres that would become apples in the months ahead. The river was wide here,
and on the far side the bank rose sharply, its canopy of trees a green vista
matching the one on this side, except for a clearing or two that signaled the
rolling lawns of a Hudson Valley stately home.

 
          
"Many
people say that about their college years." Truth had gone to Harvard,
spending six years as a hard-science workaholic. She did not remember her
college years as being particularly happy. The best years of her life were now.

 
          
"It's
just that everything after that went wrong somehow. You make choices in college
that you aren't ready to make, that nobody tells you how to make. Every choice
is built on those, and slowly everything just sort of goes out of control. . .
." Winter fell silent, inspecting some interior landscape.

 
          
Truth
waited patiently to hear the real reason for Winter's return. Everything else,
frightening as it was, could have been handled with a phone call.

 
          
Finally
it came.

 
          
"Tell
me what you think I ought to do about the Elemental. I have the feeling I'm
only going to get one chance."

 
          
Winter's
abrupt change of subject did not confuse Truth; it was only an attempt to deal
with a subject that, by its very nature, was nearly impossible to deal with.
Sacrifice.
Self-sacrifice.

 
          
"You
told me you'd gone looking for the other members of your Circle," Truth
said. "You mentioned the others. Did you find Grey?"

 
          
Winter
stooped and came up with a small handful of rocks, heedless of the bandages on
her hands. Focusing intently on the task, she began to fling them out into the
water one by one.

 
          
"I
never saw him again after I went home from college that spring." Winter's
voice was strained. "I don't think I treated him very well after that. I
think he thinks so, too. Or else he's already dead."

 
          
No!
her mind screamed silently, and a
sick heaviness of grief throbbed in her chest. Never to see him again—never to
talk, to touch, to kiss . . .

 
          
"Do
you think—?" Truth began.

 
          
"No!"
Winter's denial was hot and quick. "He ... I don't know," she
faltered miserably at last. She closed her hands tightly over the last of the
stones, and after a moment Truth saw red begin to seep through the layers of
gauze.

 
          
"Winter!"
The exclamation seemed to rouse the other woman; she dropped the stone with a
hiss of pain and held out her hands. Rusty flowers of blood bloomed through the
tape.

 
          
"That
was stupid," she said with only a faint quaver in her voice. Truth saw her
bite her lip, but her hands remained steady. "As I was saying,"
Winter continued in a tightly controlled voice, "I don't know where Hunter
Greyson
is or what he's been doing. I hope Cassie's
friend Rhiannon can tell me; that's where I'm going next. After that, I imagine
I have to let this occult
thing
of
yours catch up with me." Her voice went flat on the last sentence. "You've
said you could offer me some advice."

 
          
"Yes."
Truth did not add to the statement with false words of reassurance. She had
too little information—even the warning she had received that this battle was
not hers to fight did not mean that Winter would survive it. "But first,
let's go get that hand seen to—it looks as if you've reopened a very deep
cut."

 
          
"Probably."
Winter's voice was uninterested. "But the deepest cuts don't bleed, Truth.
They don't bleed at all."

 
          
A
quick stop at the campus infirmary got Winter's hands
rebandaged
and gained her a stern admonition from the campus nurse. Afterward, Truth
steered them toward the faculty dining hall.

 
          
"You
look like you could use some lunch, and I want to tell you what I've learned
while you were gone."

 
          
Like
most of the college buildings, the interior of the dining hall was done in the
Gothic style of the great European universities, imparting something of an
ecclesiastical tone to the long high-ceilinged room. The area reserved for the
faculty's use was on the second floor of
Taghkanic's
cafeteria building, and doubled as the faculty lounge. Orders were sent down
and meals sent up from the kitchen below by means of the dumbwaiter system
that had been new when the college was built.

 
          
With
the familiarity of long practice, Truth took Winter's order, and added a bottle
of wine—a privilege granted only to senior faculty and those
nonfaculty
, like Truth, who used the dining room. Once the
order had gone down she conducted her guest to a table.

 
          
"You'll
feel better once you've had something to eat," Truth said.

 
          
"I
can't stay," Winter burst out "—very long," she amended under
Truth's level gaze. "Every minute I delay, something could happen.
..."

 
          
"I'll
drive you to the airport myself—tomorrow," Truth said firmly. "For
now—do you remember Dr. Atheling from
Fall River
?"

 
          
Winter
frowned. "He was one of the other doctors, not mine. He was . . . very
kind." She shook her head. "It's all jumbled; I'm not sure how much
of what I remember really happened. I was on so many different drugs; you know,
you never realize how far from normal you've gotten until you try to go
back." Winter sighed and looked at Truth, willing her to go on.

 
          
"I
went to
Fall
River
and spoke with him." As she knew Winter had, Truth left some things
unsaid. Winter could not yet have Truth's own hard-won acceptance of the
realities of the Unseen World, and to confront her with things she would have
to dispute would be needless cruelty. "He asked how you were; apparently
he knew even while you were there that an Elemental had been constructed to
stalk you."

 
          
"But
he doesn't know who sent it, or how to stop it, any more than you do,"
Winter said with brutal insight. Just then, a chime from the dumbwaiter
announced the arrival of the food, and conversation ceased while the plates
were brought to the table and the wine was poured.

 
          
Winter
drank thirstily, as if it were water—or as if she were trying to get drunk.
"So now what?" she said, with a faint aggressive note in her voice.

 
          
"Now
you confront it anyway, with Hunter
Greyson's
help or
without," Truth said. "It's the only thing I can think of that might
work. You have some sort of connection with it; you're the one it's trying to
reach. Magicians don't exactly list in the telephone book, you know—and while
I'm not a very good one, I have the feeling that Dr. Atheling is, and he said
he
couldn't control it."

 
          
But had he?
Truth wondered. Or had he
said he
wouldn't?

 
          
"You
said you've controlled it before; that's a start," she finished.

 
          
Winter
looked down at her newly
rebandaged
hand with a
rueful expression. "In a roomful of broken glass I had a lot of
incentive. But all I could do was push it away—and that was the hardest thing
I've ever done." She drank again, emptying the glass, and held it out for
a refill. "It isn't gone for good. And it's going to come back."

 
          
In her situation, I'd drink, too.
Truth
refilled the glass without comment. Alcohol was well known for its depressive
effects on the psychic centers; Winter's perceptions of the Unseen World must
be spilling over into every facet of her daily life by now, and this was a
last-ditch attempt to curb them.

 
          
"I
just don't see that you have a lot of choice," Truth told her after a
moment's silence. "You've said yourself that running away doesn't seem to
work; it only finds other targets for a while and then comes back to you. You
may have more of a chance against the creature than you realize, though:
Elementals are surprisingly vulnerable under certain conditions. What you're
going to have to do is choose your ground carefully."

 
          
"No
moveable objects," Winter interjected mockingly.

 
          
"No
moveable objects," Truth agreed. "And I'd stay away from power lines
or other electrical sources, if I were you. But the Elemental should come fairly
readily if you try to bring it—it wants something from you, remember."

 
          
"What
if all it wants is to kill me?" Winter asked.

 
          
Truth
met her gaze unflinchingly. There was a long moment's silence.

 
          
"Then
killing you should make it leave," she said at last.

 
          
"Fair
enough," Winter said, and drank again.

 
          
"When
you call it, I don't know how fast it will come, but when it does you can
expect the same sort of disturbance that followed you before. You'll probably
feel cold and weak—it's linked to you; it draws its energy from you, at least
in part."

 
          
"What
does that
mean,
exactly?" Winter
asked. She shifted irritably in her seat as the
Taconic Parkway
scenery scrolled by. The day was cloudy and
overcast, sullen and uninviting despite the thick spring foliage landscaping
one of the most scenic roadways in the
United States
.