Beyond the Highland Myst(378)
Her jaw dropped.
Still as the cold stones that encircled her, she stared.
Could it be that she had not lost him after all?
With a painful surge of adrenaline that made her heart beat much too fast, she bolted from the circle of stones and burst into a terraced courtyard. Pathways forked in various directions, one leading straight to the front steps of the castle itself.
She spun in a slow circle, heedless of her icy toes. Dimly, her mind registered the fact that the hail had fallen only within the circle of stones. The ground beyond it was warm and dry.
He'd told her that in his century, the stones of Ban Drochaid had been enclosed within the perimeter walls of his estate, but the Ban Drochaid she'd entered an hour ago had resided in the midst of a wasteland of crumbled stone and grass.
Yet now she was completely encircled by high walls, within a veritable fortress.
She glanced at the night sky. It was dense black with no distant glow on the horizon in any direction, which was impossible, because Alborath lay in the valley beyond, and only last night, while sitting on the hood of the rental car, she'd rued that the lights of the village spoiled her view of the stars.
Turning back to the castle that hadn't been there five minutes ago, she fingered the folds of his plaid. Suddenly, the words he'd shouted—words she'd ignored because they hadn't made any sense at the time—now made perfect sense.
I went back too far. I thought I could come with you, but I cannot.
Save my clan.
Oh, God; Drustan, she thought, you didn't go back in time. You sent me back to save you!
* * *
"When I consider the small span of my life
absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the
small part of space which I can touch or see
engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces
that I know not and that know me not, I am
frightened and astonished to see myself here
instead of there… now instead of then."
—blaise pascal
"For those of us who believe in physics, this
separation between past, present, and
future is only an illusion, however
tenacious,"
—albert einstein
* * *
july 18
1518
Chapter 11
The nightmare was beyond anything Drustan
MacKeltar's slumbering mind had ever managed to conjure, replete with a taste so vile, he knew it for what it was: the taste of death.
Shadowy images taunted him at the periphery of his vision, and he felt a monstrous leech suckle onto him, and they grappled, then suddenly there were two discrete yet similar beings inside his body.
I am possessed of a demon, the sleeping Drustan thought, struggling to spew the atrocity forth. I will not permit this. Enraged, he resisted the new presence violently, lashing out to destroy it without even trying to identify it. It was foreign and as strong as he was, and that was all he needed to know.
He focused his mind, isolating the intruder, cocooning it with his will, and with immense effort thrust it from his body.
Then suddenly there were two of him in his nightmare, but the other him looked older, and anguished. Mortally weary.
Get thee hence, devil, Drustan shouted.
Listen to me, you fool.
Drustan clamped his hands over his ears. I will hear none of your lies, demon. Somewhere in the distance—in the nightmare place that defied his mind's ability to either comprehend or fabricate—Drustan scented a woman. She was indistinct, but he could feel her, even smell the fragrant heat of her skin. A rush of longing consumed him, nearly shattering his resolve to hold the other him at bay.
Sensing the weakness, the replica leaped forward, but Drustan flexed his will and knocked him aside.
They glared at each other, and Drustan wondered at the play of emotions on the replica's face. Fear. Sorrow so deep it might cleave a man asunder. And as he watched, a sudden understanding flickered in the false Drustan's eyes, even as the replica seemed to be losing solidity.
You would fight me to the death, the counterfeit's lips moved soundlessly. I see. I see now why only one lives. 'Tis not Nature, which is innately indifferent, but our own fear that causes us to destroy each other. I beg you, accept me. Let us both be.
I will never accept you, Drustan roared.
The replica faded, then grew more solid, then faded around the edges again. You are in terrible danger—
Speak no more! I will believe naught you say! Drustan lashed out at the shadow-him viciously.
The shadow-him glanced over his shoulder and shouted to someone Drustan couldn't see: The moment you see him you must tell him the first rhyme I taught you, remember it? The verse in the car, and show him the backpack and all will be well.
Be gone, demon! Drustan roared, shoving at him with his will.
The other him speared Drustan with his gaze. Love her, the counterfeit whispered, and then he vanished.