Earth's Requiem(75)

Gazing at pink edges on the eastern horizon, Aislinn longed to forget the last three years, just for a moment. The sunrise was normal, damn it. Why couldn’t everything else be? She tried talking with Rune, but the wolf was uncharacteristically silent. When she finally understood that he wanted to be left alone, she worked her way back through the wards and into the house, using the back door, since it wasn’t booby trapped like the front and she didn’t have to spend half an hour re-sheathing blades.

To kill time, she read Islandia and made a pan of something like biscuits with real flour. She didn’t realize how sick she’d gotten of pine nut flour until she concentrated heat in the oven with magic to bake them. They smelled incredible and melted in her mouth when she broke off a corner to taste, not able to wait for them to cool. She found unopened jars of homemade preserves and spread a strawberry-esque one lavishly on a hot biscuit. It tasted amazing.

Aislinn moved her feast into the study and read some more. When she looked out a window, she was shocked to find that it was growing dark. Fionn had been gone two days. Was he coming back? What if he’d run into some sort of trouble? She bit her lower lip, not liking that thought at all.

She considered the gateway beneath her. She knew how to activate it. Or she thought she did. That information had been in the journals, mostly because it was a trial-and-error process and Marta had memorialized her attempts.

By the next morning, Aislinn had made up her mind. She hadn’t slept well again and felt incredibly out of sorts. It was stupid for her to spin her wheels waiting for Fionn. She could go into Taltos, look around, and come back, probably before he returned, the way things seemed to be going. At least then she’d have something to contribute to their combined knowledge.

If there was anything to combine with.



She had a bad feeling about Fionn’s protracted absence. Aislinn pressed her tongue against her teeth. She really didn’t know Fionn very well, but assumed his caring for her was genuine. Surely he wouldn’t stay away unless he was stuck somewhere. Or dead.

That clinched it. I’m going. No point in waiting to be rescued. I gave up on that when I left Daddy lying dead in the Bolivian mountains. Or maybe it was when Mother marched into the vortex. She thought about the wolf. He’d scarcely said a word to her in the last twenty-four hours. Should she take him? I’ll let him decide.

“Rune.”



The wolf trotted into the bedroom. When he looked at her, his eyes were sad.



“I am going into Taltos. Would you like to come?”



He sprang onto the bed in a single leap and licked her face effusively. “I thought you’d never ask. Waiting has been eating into my guts like the frothy sickness.”



Surprised, she hugged him and then maneuvered around so she could get dressed. The clothing she’d found at the McCloud Fishing Lodge was coming in handy. She donned black multi-pocketed pants, a black knitted top, and tossed the black Gore-Tex jacket over everything. It had been cold the last time she was in Taltos. She shoved her feet into her battered boots and went rifling through Marta’s drawers until she found a black watch cap she could tuck her bright hair under. She hesitated over a pair of black wool gloves from the same drawer and then slid her hands into them. They were too big, but at least they’d cover her skin. If she’d had greasepaint, she would have blacked her face. As it was, she pulled the turtleneck top up to cover her chin and called it even.





Chapter Eighteen


Getting Rune down the ladder by herself wasn’t easy. He outweighed her. She tried to talk him into going down backward like she did, but he insisted on tackling the rungs nose first. It was a good twenty-foot drop to the packed earthen floor of the basement. After several false starts, she told him to back up into the kitchen, where she joined him and used magic to jump them down.

She ran her hands over the place in the wall that had drawn Fionn, but it didn’t feel quite right. Moving back a pace, she shut her eyes, opened her Mage senses, and sent them outward. When she felt something connect, she walked toward the feeling, letting her magic guide her.

Fionn had been partially right. The glowing portal she unearthed was close to where he’d laid his hands. Maybe the gateway shows itself differently to different sorts of magic wielders. Before she lost her nerve, Aislinn began the incantation that would open a path into Taltos. Her heart beat so hard against her ribs, she feared it would come right out of her chest. Her mouth was dry, and she licked nervously at her lips. For a few moments, nothing happened, and then the rock wall moved inward, making a groaning sound as stones grated against one another.