Ghostlight (40 page)

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Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley

BOOK: Ghostlight
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The others followed in a ragged mass. She stood aside to let them pass her, and finally there was no one there.
“Julian?” Truth said hesitantly.
Julian came out through the curtains at the back of the
Temple. Like Fiona he was not robed; he wore a black silk dressing gown and it was abundantly clear that he had nothing on underneath. Unlike the others, Julian showed no sign of fatigue; his cheeks were flushed and his eyes glittered with febrile vitality. A chokingly strong perfume radiated from his painted and glistening skin, and his hair was oiled until it fell in sharp black spikes. Sexuality radiated from him like a command, and Truth felt her body flush in automatic animal response to that. Yesterday she would have simply surrendered to this need that Julian woke in her—but she had come a long way in twenty-four hours, and other needs were stronger.
“I have to talk to you. Now,” Truth said.
“Of course,” Julian answered. A smile he could not quite repress tugged at the corner of his mouth—as if he knew something she did not. “I'll be with you in just a moment.”
He turned away, leaving Truth standing in the open doorway feeling jittery and unsatisfied. The altar with its covering of furs was still in place in the center of the Temple. She saw Julian lift one of the furs and pull out a small bundle wrapped in embroidered violet silk.
“Here we are,” Julian said. “Why don't we go up to my sitting room?”
“Julian …” Truth said, but he was already padding away, and she had no choice but to follow him.
 
“Now. Here we are, all comfy. My, I must say you're up early this morning.” Julian sat on the gray velvet sofa in his private parlor, a towel draped around his neck. He'd used it to wipe away the last of the ritual paint and oils, but even without them he looked like some glittering half-wild creature of sorcery. The silk-wrapped bundle lay on the table before him.
Now that she was here, the clear cold light of day made her imaginings and might-be dreams ridiculous.
Her head still ached, and she wanted nothing more than to go back to bed.
“Maybe a glass of wine? It may be early for you, but it's late for me, darling, so we'll call this a nightcap of sorts.” Julian got up and went over to the liquor cabinet, selected two tiny, slender-stemmed glasses, and poured them full of a deep ruby liquid that held the light as if it were crystal itself.
“Port wine—it feeds the blood, or so they used to believe, and it's still one of life's pleasures, whatever they suppose now.” He brought both glasses back and set them down on the table beside the bundle. “Sit down,” Julian urged, taking his own suggestion. Truth shook her head mutely.
“Well? I don't want to rush you, my darling girl, but tonight's our big night and my current plans are for a shower and bed. Of course, if you're planning to join me …” He smiled.
Say it
, Truth told herself.
Just say it.
“You are Thorne Blackburn's son Pilgrim,” Truth said. Each word was a separate struggle that left her feeling sick.
Animation did not fade from Julian's face—it vanished as if someone had flipped a switch, and when it went it took all humanity with it. The turquoise eyes blazed at her mutely, and Julian's face was a still, inhuman mask.
After a long moment vitality returned, but it was as if that skin held some new inhabitant—as if Truth's naming had been not only that, but a summoning as well. Julian was gone as if he had never been.
“Quite true,” Pilgrim said. His smile widened. “How did you guess?”
Even at the last she had hoped it wasn't true; that Thorne was an illusion—or lying. But now that she looked for it she could see the blurred echo of Thorne's features in Julian's—in
Pilgrims's
—face.
Her brother—who even now was flaunting himself
before her as if their shared blood didn't matter. And to her shame, the desire she had felt for him before was still there.
“Thorne told me,” Truth said dully. Pilgrim tilted his head back and regarded her through his lashes, unsurprised.
“Ah. He's here, then. I thought he would be. What a happy family reunion this is—the quick and the dead gathered here together this side of Judgment Day, whereafter we will all go forward through the Gate of Life arm in arm—singing, no doubt, though Thorne will sing a different tune after tomorrow evening.”
“Pilgrim,” Truth said, trying to understand.
“Yes. Pilgrim. Your long-lost brother. Aren't you happy to see me? You should be. I was happy to see you.” Pilgrim stretched, catlike. “I knew exactly where you were all along, of course. I'd been keeping tabs on you for years, but somehow I didn't feel that you'd be content to work toward the New Aeon with my happy band. Imagine my unalloyed delight when you turned up on my very doorstep making tenuous attempts to embrace your true heritage. And it
is
your true heritage, sister mine—the blood of the
sidhe
, the Bright Lords, flows in our veins, just as it did in Thorne's, and we are the natural rulers of Mankind.
“Thorne was too cowardly to take up his legacy; or—let's be charitable—perhaps the time was not so ripe for a leader. But these aren't the 'sixties, Truth, and the world is ready for … new heroes.” Pilgrim smiled up at her sunnily and sipped his wine.
Truth was suddenly much too sober, and she had no desire to stay even a moment longer here at Shadow's Gate. She would try to persuade Light and Irene to go with her, but if she couldn't she would go alone—Dylan was right, you couldn't live other people's lives for them, and if the others would not go with her she would find some other way to rescue Light.
But she could not stay.
“Why didn't you tell me?” Truth asked. “I would have—”
“Lectured me, sister dear, with your tedious rationality—and morality. Would you have been as
nice
to me as you were, if you'd known who I was? I don't think so—but you're so pretty, so very pretty … .” Pilgrim murmured, his meaning unmistakable.
“You're my brother,” Truth protested, fighting back the chill nausea of shock. All desire for him was gone now, drowned in fear of the man she faced. How could she have thought she ever knew Julian?—there
was
no Julian; Thorne had been right; there was only this smiling, feral-eyed demon.
“Incest, sister dear, is not a crime among the
sidhe
—in fact, it's encouraged, and in the ancient temples of Egypt and Atlantis they followed the custom of the Bright Lords. But I see that the very thought disgusts you. How could I expect you to be ready to live in the New Aeon?—you wouldn't even give me the book, and I asked you
very
nicely.”
“You knew?” Somehow it wasn't a surprise, as if part of her had known the hidden truths of Shadow's Gate from the very first.
“When you are willing to use more than your five brute senses it's
amazing
how much information you can acquire. I even waited—very patiently,
I
thought—for you to give it to me. It's not too late, you know,” Pilgrim told her helpfully.
He was
enjoying
himself, Truth realized with the faint beginnings of anger. He should be guilty, humiliated, and instead he was lounging there at his ease,
laughing
at her.
“Where is
Venus Afflicted
?” Truth asked hoarsely.
“Right here.” Pilgrim flipped back a fold of the silk to reveal the familiar binding. “Of course I copied the whole thing days ago—I told you there was a copier here the
first day we met; did you think I'd forgotten about it, even if you did? I even put it back once I'd copied it; it only took me a few hours, and you were so sure it was safe under the laundry. But then it looked as if you were planning on getting rid of it—and we couldn't have that, now, could we? It doesn't belong to you. You were too timid to use it—but I'm not. The power of the Gate can be used for far more than our mutual father ever dreamed—I'll ride at the head of the Wild Hunt and the human race will once again acknowledge itself the slave race of the
sidhe
!”
“That isn't what Thorne was trying to accomplish!” Truth burst out.
“Sticking up for our father at last?” Pilgrim purred. “Blood will out, won't it? It's a pity you seem to have inherited all his timidity—and only I, his vision!”
“All right. You've inherited his vision. You've even got his book. And you can do his silly little ritual from here until the cows come home and see where it gets you!” Truth snapped crossly. She'd been made a fool of and she didn't like it, and all she wanted was to end this unpleasant, frightening interview and leave. She'd even apologize to Dylan.
“Such self-deception is a disgrace to our blood,” Pilgrim said chidingly. “You know it will work—you've felt it. You, my love, are the key for this particular lock; your power, not mine, rends the Veil.”
Truth stared at him. “You're nuts,” she said simply.
Pilgrim sighed. “I suppose this is my cue to rant, but it's been a long night and I'm tired. But what you forget, my crack-brained obsessive little rationalist, is that
magick is a science.
Thorne said it, I said it—dear gods, I suppose even pretty Michael said it—and you ignored all of us. Still, I might as well say it one more time.”
Pilgrim paused, and stretched luxuriously, and regarded her with an expression of infuriating innocence. Each moment he seemed younger, boyish in a way that Julian had not.
But Pilgrim and Julian were the same man—weren't they?
“The scientific method: that actions have consequences, procedures have results, and the same procedure will always have the same result. In layman's terms, the Gate cannot be opened except under precise conditions. One: The complete ritual with all its nithling details, now in my possession. Two: You can only open a Gate where there
is
one to begin with—and, as according to your fascinating notes you know full well, there's one here. Old Elkanah Scheidow propped it open just a crack, and now we'll rip it off its hinges. Three: The Gate responds to its Gatekeeper.”
“That's Ellis,” Truth said. Ellis was the Gatekeeper for the Circle of Truth—he'd said so the first night she'd been here.
“No, my dear. That's you.” Pilgrim smiled, and despite herself Truth felt a sick chill of acknowledgment. No matter how crazy Pilgrim was, he was also right. The power here was hers: There was a bond between Truth and the magick that walked Shadow's Gate—she'd felt it herself, the first moment she'd seen the house. But she'd been too blind, too stupid, too
stubborn
to understand what her senses were telling her—until now.
When it was too late.
“Oh, you would have found it out eventually—in fact, if you'd bothered to read a few things while you were searching my room you'd have found it out last night. Did you actually think I needed your pitiful help to trace Thorne's history when I could call on the best detectives that money could buy? I found out everything there was to know about our mutual parent long ago—more than you could even begin to imagine. For example, the Blackburns and the Jourdemaynes were cousins, did you know? And both families were cousins to the Scheidows—I admit that's several generations back, but it's there if you look.
“I did. Thorne did. Thorne came to Shadow's Gate because he already knew there was a Gate here. He sought out your mother to mingle his
sidhe
power with her human heritage—Thorne wasn't Edward Blackburn's child at all, though he was conceived and born in wedlock. Thorne's mother was
wicce
, as his grandfather had been Magus—his mother danced to keep Hitler's armies from England and Thorne was conceived in the ritual, by that which had been called forth in the ritual. Thorne's father was a Bright Lord—but his mother was human—and of the line that could command the power here.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” Truth said.
“It's a relief to tell someone. Drink your wine,” Pilgrim said. “As I was saying, Thorne was of the right lineage but the wrong sex—the Gates only answer to women; they have since the beginning of the world; it was old Elkanah's Taghkanic bride who brought the Gate as her dowry. So Thorne found Katherine and brought her to Shadow's Gate—their child would have been the logical Gatekeeper, but Thorne was impatient. He tried to open the Gate in his own generation, only to find that the power that poured through the Gate in the absence of its Gatekeeper—remember, Katherine was dead and you were a child—was more than he could handle. I won't have that problem.” Pilgrim finished his wine and stood up.
His story, Truth realized, had the flawlessly self-consistent and totally comprehensive explanation of classical paranoid delusion—but which of the two of them was Pilgrim trying to delude?
“You won't?” Truth said, trying to be polite. Pilgrim paced restlessly around the room.

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