Beyond the Highland Myst(208)
"'Course I did! You dinna get all the brains. But Balder, what if she can't figure it out? Or worse, can't accept it?"
"That woman has a head on her shoulders, brother. She's fairly burstin' with questions, but she keeps her tongue. Not because she's meek, but out of love for your boy. She's dyin' to know what happened here fifteen years ago, and she's waitin' patiently for Gavrael to tell her. So we'll be givin' her the answers another way to be certain she's prepared when he finally speaks." Balder paused and regarded his brother sternly. "You dinna used to be such a coward, Ronin. Stop waitin' for him to come to you. Go to him as you wish you had years ago. Do it, Ronin."
* * * * *
Jillian made a beeline for the central hall, or as much of a beeline as she was capable of given that wandering around inside Castle Maldebann was akin to roaming an uncharted city. She navigated confusing corridors, proceeding in the direction she hoped led back toward the mountain, determined to find the central hall. It was obvious Balder and Ronin wished her to see it. Would it give her answers about Grimm?
After thirty minutes of frustrated searching, she looped through a series of twisting hallways and around a corner that opened into a second Greathall, even larger than the one she'd breakfasted in. She stepped forward hesitantly; the hall was definitely old—perhaps as ancient as the standing stones erected by the mystical Druids.
Someone had conveniently lit torches—the interfering brothers, she concluded gratefully—for there was not one window in this part of the structure, and how could there be? This Greathall was actually inside the belly of the mountain. She shivered, rattled by the idea. She crossed the huge room slowly, drawn by the mysterious double doors set into the wall at the other end. They towered above her, wrapped in bands of steel, and above the arched opening bold letters had been chiseled.
"Deo non fortuna," she whispered, driven by the same impulse to speak in hushed tones that she'd suffered in Caithness's chapel.
She pressed against the massive doors and held her breath as they swung inward, revealing the central hall Balder had spoken of. Wide-eyed, she moved forward with the dreamy gait of a sleepwalker, riveted by what lay before her. The flowing lines of the hall commanded the eyes upward, and she pivoted slowly, arching her head back and marveling at the ceiling. Pictures and murals covered the vast expanse, some of them so vibrant and realistic that her hands begged to touch them. A chill coursed through her as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing. Was she gazing up at centuries of the history of the McIllioch? She dragged her gaze downward, only to discover new wonders. The walls of the hall held portraits. Hundreds of them!
Jillian glided along the wall. It took only a few moments for her to realize she was walking down a historical genealogy, a time line done in portraits. The first pictures were chiseled in stone, some directly into the wall, with names carved be neath them—odd names she couldn't begin to pronounce. As she worked her way down the wall, the methods of depiction became more modern, as did the clothing. It was apparent that much care had been given to repainting and restoring the portraits to maintain their accuracy over the centuries.
As she progressed down the time line toward the present, the portraits became more graphically detailed, which deepened her growing sense of confusion. Colors were brighter, more painstakingly applied. Her eyes darting between portraits, she moved forward and back again, comparing portraits of children to their subsequent adult portraits.
She must be mistaken.
Incredulous, Jillian closed her eyes a minute, then opened them slowly and stepped back a few paces to study an entire section. It couldn't be. Grabbing a torch, she moved nearer, peering intently at a cluster of boys at their mothers' skirts. They were beautiful boys, dark-haired, brown-eyed boys who would certainly grow into dangerously handsome men.
She moved to the next portraits and there they were again: dark-haired, blue-eyed, dangerously handsome men.
Eyes didn't change color.
Jillian retraced her steps and studied the woman in the last portrait. She was a stunning auburn-haired woman with five brown-eyed boys at her skirts. Jillian then moved to her right; it was either the same woman or her identical twin. Five men clustered around her in various poses, all looking directly at the artist, leaving no doubt as to the color of their eyes. Ice blue. The names beneath the portraits were the same. She moved farther down the hall, bewildered.
Until she found the sixteenth century.
Unfortunately, the portraits raised more questions than they answered, and she sank to her knees in the hall for a long time, thinking.
Hours passed before she managed to sort through it all to her satisfaction. When she had, no question remained in her mind—she was an intelligent woman, able to exercise her powers of deductive reasoning with the best of them. And those powers told her that, though it defied her every rational thought, there was simply no other explanation. She was sitting on her knees, clad in a disheveled plaid, clutching a nearly burned-out torch in a hall filled with Berserkers.