For a moment his mind buckled under this visual onslaught. So many doors and no map. The previous two times that he had walked through the memory palace he had been looking through Robert Whittington's eyes. Every time he opened a door, he had been guided by Whittington's knowledge of the order of places and the order of things. But this time he had not interfaced with the boy's psi-space. This time he was on his own, walking through a mind that was hostile and cold. He had no idea where he was or how to continue. He did not know which doors to open and which to leave alone. He had no idea how to find the portal.
It didn't matter. He closed his eyes tight, shutting out the hallucinatory image of infinite doors. It didn't matter. Morrighan was sure to guide him to the portal herself. That was where she wanted him to be because that was where he would be at her mercy. He could choose any door at random and wander through this labyrinthine palace at will. She would find him.
He waited, his hand on the railing, expecting at any moment to sense her signature-that heavy scent of musk and frangipani-but there was nothing. The only signature inside his mind was Frankie's-faint, ghostly-like a shadow shimmering across a pane of glass. And again he wondered: would it hold?
He opened his eyes. The crow was sitting about three feet away from him, perched on the railing. The tiny eye stared at him pitilessly. Maybe he should follow the crow. Maybe the crow was to be his guide. But even as he made to move toward it, the bird lifted its wings and sailed soundlessly over the edge of the railing, plunging down, ever down, until the crescent of its black wings got lost in the shadows far, far below.
No guide then. Gabriel straightened. Well, a journey started with a single step. He turned the handle on the door nearest to him.
So many doors. You could go mad simply from the idea of so many doors. And as he walked from room to room, that eerie frozen wail was becoming ever more pronounced. The deep melancholia, the ice-cold anguish was overwhelming.
It seemed to have affected the physical environment as well, turning it into a weird broken-down building site. He found himself walking up staircases that hung suspended in space, leading nowhere. Winding corridors ended in blank enigmatic walls. Many of the doors opened not into rooms, but onto nothingness, so that he would step through, and find himself teetering vertiginously on the edge of empty space. And when he did enter a completed room, the proportions appeared distorted. The walls buckling, the ceilings pulled askew. The windows drooping deliriously in their frames.
And he was troubled by an indefinable sense of something missing. He couldn't figure out what it was. But then it hit him. The rooms were completely empty. There were no objects, no figures behind the doors. Where were the talismanic memory images that should have populated these rooms?
In his first two rides, every room he entered had been occupied-butterflies, blind monks, bloodied doves, giant marbles, lashless eyes-millions of potent images, meticulously conceived. But the rooms through which he was wandering now were bare except for fallen masonry. In some rooms the brick walls were raw and unplastered, as though builders had left the premises prematurely. Why?
But even as he wondered, the answer came to him. These rooms had the appearance of being unfinished because that was exactly what they were. This was a work in progress. Minnaloushe had been building this space, but she never had the chance to finish it. And Morrighan was unable to continue without her sister's help. The anguish Morrighan was feeling was not just for her sibling's death. It was also for the worlds that would remain undiscovered now that Minnaloushe was no longer there to help her sister conceive fresh horizons.
The wail was increasing in intensity. An unceasing sob. It chilled him to the bone. He was approaching a door with thick strap hinges and a highly chased lock affixed to the timber. He placed his hand on the doorknob and the door swung open.
This room was not empty.
It was a big room, a very big room. The floor underfoot was covered by rotting leaf litter. The walls were plastered, and he was able to see the shadowy outlines of faded frescoes. Vines curled riotously across the beams in the roof space, and climbing roses drooped from flexible stems. There were several trestle tables overladen with seed trays, pots and garden tools. In the air hovered the sweet stench of decay. Several narrow windows, obscured by foliage, lined the walls. A gaseous green light filtered through the dirty panes.
Something sweeped past his elbow. A black shadow. The crow had returned. It descended on something in the far corner of the room and perched itself on top of two humplike objects covered by what looked like sacking. From where Gabriel stood, he couldn't see what they were. The light wasn't strong enough.
Hesitantly he walked forward. Something told him that he did not want to go any closer, would not want to see what was underneath the sacking. He took another step forward. A sense of foreboding hammered at his brain. No, no.
He put out his hand to remove the hemplike cloth and the crow screeched. It flapped its wings in agitation. No, no.
The wail was now deafening. His fingers gripped the cloth and it started to slide off the objects, caught for a moment. With a determined gesture he ripped the entire length of it clean off.
Minnaloushe's body was covered with flowers. Big, white, star-shaped flowers, the likes of which he had never seen before. They were growing from inside of her body; the thick stems were sprouting from deep within her flesh, pushing vigorously up through the skin. The flowers gleamed with health and vitality, every petal perfectly formed. Her eyes starry white chambers, her mouth hemorrhaging snowy blooms. Her hair shot through with tender shoots of green.
Next to her was Robert. Red flowers for him, not white. Red as the fiery petals on the humpback tree shading the swimming pool at Monk House. And suddenly Gabriel knew where Morrighan had buried the boy.
He staggered back.
Gabriel…
His name uttered like a sigh. Like the wind blowing through leaves. The sound made his palms go clammy. It came from behind him.
The sigh solidified into a whisper. Ga-bri-el. A soft, drawn-out whisper-three syllables.
"Ga-bri-el…"
And the air was heavy with the scent of musk and frangipani.
She was dressed exactly the same as when he had encountered her in his first ride. A long dress made of velvet, black but not black, the luscious fabric shot through with emerald thread so that when she moved, the folds of her dress gleamed with light. The sleeves were tight fitting as was the bodice, the dark color accentuating the pallor of her skin. The neckline was delicately pleated and very low cut, and he could fully see the tattoo of the Monas on the soft swell of her breast. From her neck dangled the pendant with the letter M.
But her true black hair was uncovered, the hood of the cloak turned down. She was not wearing the mask. And why should she? They knew each other now. Oh, yes, they knew each other. No need for subterfuge. No need for hide-and-seek any longer.
Ga-bri-el… She lifted her hand. Beckoned.
He looked away from her and down at the blooming bodies at his feet. Robert bleeding fiery petals. Minnaloushe's skin looking like alabaster: transparent but shot through with shadows. Underneath the fine pallor lay patches of decay, but still the flowers blossomed with heedless vigor. A bizarre marriage of fecundity and death. A grotesque image conjured up by Morrighan's mind to keep her sister alive in her memory.
He stretched out his hand tentatively, mesmerized by the sheen of the white petals.
Don't do that.
He looked back at Morrighan. Her blue eyes glowed. Her crimson mouth was fire.
Leave her. Come with me.