“That’s right, you betrayed your father.”
Ayradyss pulled herself to a sitting position. She had come to the lovely stage of her pregnancy—the glow was upon her, coloring her skin, her eyes, causing her hair to fall longer and fuller than it had even in Virtu. The awkwardness had gone as well—she had centered herself around her growing baby and moved with a peculiar grace that made it seem impossible that she would ever become ponderous.
“I did, and not merely by omission.” The caoineag’s expression was impassive, the expression on her thin, fine-boned face imperious. “My mother had died some years before and clearly he meant to take another wife. My kin from my mother’s clan did not care for this, nor did I. They spoke to me, hinted at their plans, and although I did not raise hand against my father, I looked the other way when I knew the}’ were coming for him.”
“Did you know that they meant to kill him?”
“I suspected.”
“And that was enough?”
“Enough?”
“Enough to make you the wailing woman.”
“It must be, for I am here.”
“As I will be.”
“Do you regret your choice?”
“No.”
In the weeks that followed his interview with Paracelsus, Donnerjack worked with a cold concentration. So intense was his absorption that he almost refused a call from Reese Jordan.
“Oh, Reese. Sorry, sorry. I’ve been distracted.”
“They’ve gotten me back into working order,” the other announced. “I’m ready to help you.”
“Glad to hear that. I’m going to risk sending you all my notes on everything I’ve been doing recently.”
“Oh, excellent. When I’ve reviewed them we’ll confer?”
“I trust. If anything prevents it, do what you would with them.”
“What could prevent it?”
“I will include excerpts from my journal, also. I think they’ll give you a pretty good idea. Glad you’re up and about.”
Donnerjack broke the connection and returned to work.
As the moon waned and grew fat again, Ayradyss visited the tunnels and caverns repeatedly. She invited John to join her on some of these expeditions. They brought a picnic and she showed him the demicaverns, the hidden beach, the claymores stuck in the floor. (He agreed with her that they should remain there; together they made up stories about how the swords had come to that place, laughing as they added detail after fantastic detail).
She did not bring him near the place that led to the eldritch realms. Testing her courage, she had gone there once after the moon was clearly thinning and found nothing remarkable there but a tunnel that terminated in an unremarkable bit of rough rock. Voit’s probes found no openings, nor did his densitometer readings show any significant spaces behind.
For days at a time, she put the mystery from her. Very cautiously, she had spoken to John—hinting at her loneliness. He took more time from his work and they made occasional trips. Not wishing to undergo more ID checks than absolutely necessary, they picked isolated places: Loch Ness, Dove Cottage, the British Museum. Had they wished, they probably could have ventured safely into once-popular tourist areas, for the development of Virtu had dealt a heavy blow to the conventional tourist industry. But, as on their honeymoon, they chose places where questions would not be asked and gloried in each other as much as in the sights.
Outside the parlor window, once again the moon was nearly full.
“How many days?” Ayradyss asked the caoineag.
“Until the moon portal is open again? Two perhaps. Do you wish to venture that way again?”
“I do.”
“Very well. I have spoken with some of the others. There is a charm against the guardian I learned from the Lady of the Gallery. It comes from after my time, but it may be efficacious. The crusader and the blindfolded prisoner insist on coming with us.”
“I don’t mind. I’m rather touched.”
“They like you, Ayradyss. We all do.”
“And John?”
“He is a different matter. We do not dislike him—far from—but he is mortal. You are other.”
“Because of Deep Fields?”
“Yes, but more. Your heritage in Verite—Mermaid Beneath the Seven Dancing Moons, Angel of the Forsaken Hope—you belong to legend, just as each of us do. It makes us kin.”
“John belongs to legend—in Virtu, that is.”
“This may be so, but he is unaware of his legend, knows himself to be John D’Arcy Donnerjack, a man of great achievement, yes, but just a man. You know the fluidity of being myth.”
“Strange. I never really thought of it. There are many such as myself in Virtu.”
“But not in Verite.”
“No. That is true. These eldritch realms that the tunnels open into— what are they?”
“Myth, I suppose, but very real, very solid myth, just as the guardian you glimpsed is impossible yet all the more possible for being impossible. It is the way of that place.”
“When the moon is full, we will endeavor to go there again. You will teach me the charm?”
“Let us go to the Lady of the Gallery. She said she would teach you personally.”
“Very well. ‘Let us go then, you and I…’”
“‘While the evening is spread out against the sky ’” Like a patient, etherised upon a table Laughing, together, they went.
Armed with the Lady of the Gallery’s charm, artificial light, and the encouragement of the ghosts, Ayradyss descended into the caverns on the first day of the full moon. Although the moon would technically not be full until the following night, the caoineag told her that it was worth the attempt, for “appearances matter as much as anything in these matters.”
Voit trailed her, its light revealing the dripping stone, but the ghosts had expressed their doubts as to whether the robot would be able to enter the eldritch realms.
After wending their way through the now familiar maze of tunnels, the group came to the appropriate corridor. At first glance, it was blocked as always by solid stone, but when the caoineag moved to inspect the wall she turned to Ayradyss with a pleased smile.
“Turn off your light, Ayradyss, and have Voit do the same, then tell me what you see.”
Ayradyss obeyed, and as her fingers turned her headlamp’s switch, Volt’s light turned off. The blue-white glimmer of the three ghosts illuminated a round space, darker than the surrounding stone, with a sense of depth.
“There is a portal, just like last time, but it’s different. It seems more open this time.”
“Our luck is better,” the caoineag answered. “The guardian creature is not there. Quickly, step through.”
“I’ll go before the lass,” the crusader said, gathering his chain in his hand, “and give a wee bit of light.”
Ayradyss glanced back at Voit. “Do you see anything, Voit?”
“Nothing, mistress.”
“Then you must stay and guard against our return.”
“As you wish.”
She ducked her head then and stepped through the round space, moving quickly lest she should lose her nerve. The two remaining ghosts came through after her.
The place where they found themselves might have been a section of their own island, for in the distance they could see rock-pebbled beaches and a crashing body of water that could easily have been the North Minch. Here, though, there was no village, no castle. A stand of granite monoliths dominated the prospect, and while they had left a misty late morning behind, here the sun was sinking in the west. Faintly, in the distance, they heard the sound of a river running and behind that the plaintive wail of bagpipes.