The Call of Distant Shores (17 page)

"What is happening?" Jonathan asked, not really expecting an answer.
 
"What kind of weather could cause waves like that on a lake?"

"Not the lake, lad," Angus growled, "nor the Loch.
 
Remember what I said.
 
It doesn't matter what, or where, we watch in the world you entered from – it only matters that we
do
watch.
 
You
canna
always hear the waves.
 
Sometimes it is the wind.
 
Sometimes it is tremors so strong the very foundation of the tower shivers and it doesn't end until it's wee-stepped up the bones of your back.
 
Sometimes there is only the darkness, and the light."

Jonathan stared out along the light.
 
There was a pinpoint of something – a flickering shadow – moving along the perimeter of the light.
 
He couldn't make out if it were the flap of wings, or a swirl of smoke.
 
His heart skipped, and for a long moment he couldn't breathe.
 
The waves below crashed again, sending foamy spray dancing into the bright beam.
 
Jonathan lost the motion, then darted his gaze to the right as it reappeared, closer and more distinct.
 
It was a darkness moving against a backdrop of lesser darkness. It spiraled, around and around the light.
 
He could see it pressing tighter, repelled, whirling closer.
 
Whatever it was flung itself at the light again, and again, each time failing to bring more than a momentary haze to the light as it spun, visible and invisible at the same time.

Jonathan placed one hand on the glass portal, focusing and leaning in to the glass.
 
Closer.
 
It was spiraling closer, and Jonathan could sense something moving around his feet – brushing his legs.
 
Agitated sound shivered up from the floor to tremble through the air.
 
Every hair on his body stood on end, and it was a struggle to stand against the insistent tug and chatter.
 
Jonathan concentrated.
 
He shuddered at the sensation of those – things – swirling around his legs and gripping his clothing with too-tiny hands.
 
He needed to look down, to see – to scream.
 
He did not.
 
From far away, he heard Angus' voice, calling out to him, then fading, in and out, whirling with the spiral shadow.
 
It was so close – so close he could nearly make out details of ... "Angus," he whispered, "Angus, what ... I ..."

"For God's sake, lad," Angus voice broke through the growing shiver of sound, reaching Jonathan's numbed mind, but too slowly – too late.
 
The old man's body cut a dark swath across the light's beam, breaking up the perfection and sending a wild shadow dancing into the night.
 
As the perfection of that brilliance was marred, the world warped.
 
Jonathan tried to turn away from the window, toward Angus, and the light, but he was too slow.
 
The walls and the window strobed and pulsed between darkness and light, and Jonathan's legs no longer supported his weight, not as they should.

Jonathan heard echoes of Angus' voice, far away and fading.
 
He felt himself falling into the fracture Angus had caused in the perfection of the light.
 
His body stretched, moving oddly, bending and bending and bending in ways he could not – would not.
 
He cried out, but it was not his voice, nor any human cry that joined the frantic,
chitinous
whirr.
 
Through it all, his gaze was fixated on a dark point shimmering along the edge of the light, and at that weakening of the brilliance of the light, the thing sped closer, flashing as only total black can do, brilliant as lightning and empty as eternity.

Then the shadow melted, washing back, revealing what lay beyond that portal.
 
Jonathan curled away.
 
His body swayed, rearing up and back, just as Angus' heavy form hit him, propelling him beyond the space between the light and the portal.
 
The spiral shadow slammed into the glass, and the tower shuddered.
 
The huge stone structure lurched, threatening to cant to one side and topple, sending the light and those in the tower tumbling to a pile of ruin on the shore below.
 
There was a shiver, sinuous and powerful.
 
The tower whirled on
it's
base, curling outward along that beam of light, as if reaching for – something.
 
Groping.
 
Failing.

Jonathan didn't feel the shift.
 
His eyes were wide open, glazed and dull.
 
He crashed to the stone wall, Angus piling into him and the shifting of the tower adding to the momentum.
 
His shoulder – what should have been his shoulder – gave way with a sickening crunch and he crumpled to the floor.
 
The others writhed and twisted around him, and though the whirring, chirping voices made no more sense to him than they had before, he sensed their terror and joined it with his own.
 
With a roar, Angus rolled away, fighting to regain his feet and turned wild-eyed to face the portal.

It held.
 
The tower shivered, then righted itself, and with a quick flicker, the flame leaped back to full height, burning brightly and shooting its single beam out into the darkness once again.
 
Angus knelt, one leg to the side, balanced carefully and ready to spring toward the beacon.
 
His breath was ragged, and his hair, white and wild, circled his head like a shifting halo.
 
Slowly, as the tower and the light stabilized, he rose.

Jonathan lay huddled against the wall, dazed.
 
The room shivered, and something snapped.
 
With that snap, the pain drove through his arm and chest unmercifully.
 
He cried out, clutching his one good arm to his chest tightly, instinctively, then screaming again as he pressed too tightly on ruined bone.
 
His eyes glazed, as though he stared through the stone into some other place.

Ignoring Jonathan, Angus took a quick circuit of the beacon, cranking the wick up half a notch and staring out into the darkness.
 
Then, turning slowly, he moved to the wall and carefully lifted the younger man into his arms.

Jonathan wasn't light, but Angus' shoulders bunched, and he handled the burden easily.
 
Another stone.
 
Another solitary trek.
 
Without a backward glance, he headed for the stairs and kicked the wooden door open, disappearing down into the shadows ... footsteps tapping too closely together as he worked his way down the ancient stairs.

Jonathan stood on the rocky shore, the stagnant water no more than a foot from the toes of his boots.
 
His arm was tied back in a sling, holding his separated shoulder in place firmly, but not firmly enough to aggravate his cracked ribs. Wind teased gently through his hair, brushing a single strand up and back over his cheek.
 
His eyes were fixed on a point somewhere beyond the far shore.
 
His back was too stiff, and his lips were set in a grim line.

Angus stood at the door of the tower, watching.
 
He didn't speak.
 
The sun was setting slowly over the horizon, and the water was taking on the sheen of a deep, black mirror.
 
There were no bird calls, nor did an insect cry into the growing darkness.
 
No sign of life existed within the stone circle that held the tower – except the two men.
 
Two generations.
 
Watching the water.
 
Jonathan stared into those waves, studying his own reflection as the sun died on the horizon.
 
He traced the too-long lines of his face, wondering if it weren't a bit longer now, and though there was no one near – nothing within yards of him – he could hear the whirring echo of terrified voices.
 
Not human voices, but familiar.

Jonathan turned, stepping carefully across the slime-coated stone.
 
He made his way to the tower slowly.
 
Before he entered, he glanced up the wall of the tower.
 
The cracks in the stones shifted momentarily, rippling round and round the tower, sliding like endless serpents feeding on themselves.

The windows were too low to the stairs.
 
He'd not noticed it before, but suddenly his mind put the pieces of the puzzle into place.
 
The windows were too close to the stairs that were too-close together and too shallow for humans to climb.
 
He felt what it would be to gaze out through those windows, rippling up the stairs.
 
He felt the draw of the light.
 
The tower rippled, then grew still.
 
Still as stone.

"No moon tonight," Angus observed quietly.

Jonathan nodded.
 
"Might have to crank her up another notch, just to be sure."

The door closed behind them, and the sun set slowly behind the line of trees beyond the lake.
 
The lake grew silent, and then, slicing through the fog lifting from the water's surface and the thick, cloying gloaming, the light sliced out.
 
Watching.

Lady Claudia stood by the bedside and watched her husband sleep.
 
She held a wine glass; another like it stood on the table beside his bed.
 
After a quick glance around to be certain the two of them were alone, she leaned close and let her scented curls brush his face as she placed her own glass on the night stand, and traded it for his.
 
She felt his breath, hot on the skin of her throat, and she hesitated.
 
His eyelids fluttered.
 
He drew in a quick gasp, jerked his head very slightly to one side, and then grew still.
 
His chest rose and fell regularly.

She kissed the tips of her gloved fingers and brushed them over his eyelids, then turned and left the room quickly, the goblet cradled to her breast.
 
The room was dark.
 
Only a single candle flickered in a glass chimney on the dresser, and it was mostly burned away.
 
When Lady Claudia's shadow had passed from sight, and the candle flame had ceased its momentary dance in salute of her passing, the room settled to a deep shadowed gold.
 
Tapestries hung heavy on the walls and beaded curtains filled the doorway.
 
The bed was canopied, its drapes thick and lush.
 
All sound was deadened, and only Patrick's steady breathing, stirred the motionless air.

Claudia stopped and stood very still in the center of the next chamber.
 
Her heart hammered in her chest.
 
A soft voice whispered to her from the shadows.

"If you press any harder on that glass, Lady, you will certainly crush it." The voice floated from the shadows.
 
Claudia did not turn.

She stood in a sitting room centered by an ornate fireplace.
 
To either side of this were curtained alcoves.
 
There was a fainting couch along one wall, and several comfortable upholstered chairs gathered in a semi-circle before the hearth.
 
There was no fire.
 
It was summer, and there would not be need of heat for several months, but Claudia felt a sudden chill.

Lucas stepped from the shadowed alcove to the right of the fireplace and bowed low.
 
She acknowledged this with a slight inclination of her chin.
 
She did not turn to face him, and though she eased the pressure she was applying to the glass between her palms, her legs shook and threatened not to support her.
 
When she did not speak, he stepped forward boldly and took the goblet from her hands.

"The dosage was as we discussed?" he asked.

She nodded curtly and held her silence.

Lucas stood very close, regarding her in silence, and she trembled anew.
 
She wanted to order him away, but could not, and he knew it.
 
Not now.
 
He studied her as he might have a fine painting.
 
To distract him, she spoke at last.

"He sleeps peacefully," she said.

"He dreams," Lucas added, turning away.
 
"Soon the dreams will no longer be his own.
 
He will be quite mad, you know?
 
It may pass, but…"

There was a crystal decanter on a low table in one corner, and he crossed to it.
 
Unstopping the decanter, he tipped a bit of the amber liquid into the goblet and swirled it slowly, coating the inside of the glass and watching as the blood-red droplets of wine that remained within trickled into the brandy leaving slender trails like veins on the goblet's side.

Lucas took the glass chimney from one of the room's several candles and set it aside quickly.
 
She knew it must have burned his fingers, but he showed no sign of pain.
 
Deliberately, he held the goblet over the flame until the brandy caught fire in a liquid wash of blue flame.
 
She watched, mesmerized, as he swirled the burning liquid and turned toward her.
 
His face was lit with the odd glow of that flame, and his eyes glittered cat-like, just for an instant, before he turned and dashed the goblet into the fireplace.
 
The glass shattered into glittering, burning shards and the logs, stacked in place and awaiting the first fire of winter, flared up once in the splash of brandy, then died away leaving nothing but white,
wisping
smoke.