"Ysabel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kay Guy Gavriel)

CHAPTER XVIII

In the van, wearing Kate’s brother’s shirt and his own McGill hoodie over jeans, Ned did his best to focus. He had his small runner’s pack with him, would change into sweatpants and a T-shirt as soon as they hit the road east.

He’d screened himself before going out the door, so had Aunt Kim. Checking within, neither of them had sensed the presence of either of the two men—which wasn’t anywhere close to conclusive, he knew.

He’d taken three Advil and brought half a dozen more, and his sunglasses. Thinking now about how he’d felt the last time they went past the mountain dragged his thoughts pretty conclusively away from the scent of Kate Wenger on the white shirt. He felt scared.

Kate—in his blue-and-white rugby shirt and the slandered windbreaker and retro Expos baseball cap—was with Uncle Dave and Steve in the red car. Greg was driving the van. Ned’s father was up front, and Aunt Kim was beside him in back—because his aunt would be with Kate, not Ned.

Kate had worked this out, too. Detail person. Geek. Long legs. He had her written-out directions in his backpack. Front flap pocket. He’d put the rowan leaves in there, too.

Ned’s mother had stayed in the villa. He wasn’t sure why, but the hug she’d given him at the door was fierce. Fierce enough to make him more afraid.

Greg hit the remote control and led the other car through the gates. They went down the roadway towards the street. They would split after the first turn there: the red car west and north to Entremont, the van to Sainte-Victoire.

“You have your phone?” his father said, from the front seat. He’d asked that already, in the house.

Ned nodded. “Got it, Dad, yeah.”

“It’s charged?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“You’ll call if anything comes up?”

“I will.”

This wasn’t the time, Ned thought, to be hung up on sounding like an almost-adult.

“Ned,” said his aunt, “listen to me. If one of them gets to you, either one, and he orders you to stop…honey, you have to stop. They won’t be at their best if they decide she’s up there. Don’t assume you’re safe.”

He looked at her. “I won’t,” he said.

Won’t be at their best. One way to put it.

His father, looking back at the two of them, swore softly.

Then, a moment later, for a different reason, Greg swore, much more loudly, and hammered the brakes.

Ned looked back quickly, but Uncle Dave wasn’t tailgating. He skidded the red car to a halt behind them.

Ned leaned forward and looked out the front windshield.

“Oh, God,” he said.

His aunt was already flipping open her cellphone, speed-dialing, and then, with more urgency than he’d heard from her yet, she snapped, “Dave, do not get out! Stay in your car!”

He looked at her. His father turned around.

“No!” Aunt Kim said. “Dave, this is not for you. Stay there!”

But by then, Ned had unlocked his own door, slid it back, and stepped into the road himself.

He was really, really angry.

For an instant, he wondered why it had been so important that his uncle stay in the car. He wanted to ask, but didn’t have time. It occurred to him that there were a lot of questions you might have and never learn the answers to. He wasn’t even sure why he was in the road himself, with so much fury. He heard his father shout his name from behind. A long way behind, it seemed. He walked in front of the van.

“Hey, you!” he yelled.

The boar, blocking the road, didn’t move.

It didn’t even look at him. It was gazing past Ned, past the van, off into the woods beside the road, as if oblivious to his presence.

It really was massive. The size of a small bear, practically, with short, matted bristly hair, more grey than white. The tusks were curved and heavy. There was mud on them, and on the body, caked and plastered to the hair. The boar was dead centre in the road, and there was no way around it.

“Get out of here!” Ned shouted. “Damn it, you’re the one who showed me where to go. What are you doing?”

The animal didn’t move. It didn’t even seem to have heard him. It was as if Ned didn’t exist for it. As if…

Ned was about to shout again, but he didn’t. Instead he took a deep breath. Then he released his screening.

When he did that, the boar turned its head. It looked straight at him, the small, bright eyes fixed on his. Ned swallowed.

“I’m here,” he said, not really knowing what he was saying. “I listened. Figured it out. I’m going up. Let me go.”

For a long moment it was very still on that country lane. No sound from the cars behind Ned, no movement from the creature in front.

No movement. They were stuck here, blocked. And Ysabel might be up on the mountain, and time mattered. They needed to move. Feeling a hard white surge of anger, Ned brought his two hands up, palms together, extended. He levelled them at the dirt road beside the animal. He shivered. A flash of light exploded from him and struck sparks from the ground, spraying dust and gravel forward.

The boar looked at him another moment, then it turned, unhurried, undisturbed, and trotted through the ditch and the underbrush and into the trees.

“Sweet Lord,” Ned heard Greg say, behind him. “What is going on?”

Ned hustled back into the van. He pushed his door shut. “Drive!” he said. “Fast, Greg. I have a feeling it just let them know where I am. Maybe more than that.”

He checked within for the presence of the two men; found nothing. He put his screening back on.

“Why would it do that?” his father said. “Jesus, Ned. And how did you…?”

“I don’t know.” Questions, no answers. “But I have to beat them there. Let’s go.”

“Does it serve them?” Edward Marriner asked. There were deep, parallel lines creasing his forehead.

“Not that creature,” Aunt Kim said.

“Then what…?”

“Don’t know,” she replied. “Go, Greg.”

Greg shifted into gear, hit the gas. He ran the stop sign at the bottom, taking the corner hard to the left. At the main crossroad he turned left again. Looking back, Ned saw Uncle Dave signal and turn the other way, going just as fast.

Ned pushed off his track shoes and undid his belt, wriggling out of his jeans. Aunt Kim handed him the sweats and he worked his way into them. He put his shoes on again and laced them. Took a swig of water from his bottle. He should stretch, he knew, but it wasn’t going to happen. He took off the McGill sweatshirt and Kate’s white shirt. He pulled on his Grateful Dead T-shirt. Maybe not the very best logo for today, he thought. He stuffed the hoodie into his pack. Vera had said it would be cold on the mountaintop.

Where he was headed, with the sun going down.

GREG SPOTTED the brown sign. He slowed at a slight curve, and then they saw cars in a lot beside the highway.

“Do it fast,” Ned said tersely. “Just slow down, I’m going to jump out, you keep going.”

He was having trouble talking.

He was pretty sure he was about to be sick again. Wanted to get out of the van before that happened—and his father or his aunt stopped him from going.

Advil, rowan leaves, a supernatural screening, his aunt’s bracelet. Not a lot of good, any of them, or all of them together. The world was tinged towards red again here by Mont Sainte-Victoire, where two hundred thousand people had been slaughtered once upon a known time.

He took a breath, and told himself it was not as bad as before. That there probably was some benefit from the combination of things he was using. Enough to let him function. He hoped. He put his sunglasses on.

“Ned, you okay?” Aunt Kim asked.

“Yeah,” he lied.

His father looked back at him. Edward Marriner’s face was drawn and fearful. Ned’s heart hurt to see it. “I’m fine,” he lied again. “I can do this. I have my phone.”

Cellphones, solution to the problems of the world.

“Go!” Greg said, angling the van onto the shoulder, just behind a parked Citro#235;n. He pushed the door-lock button.

Ned shoved his door back and jumped out with his pack. Shoved the door shut and scooted among the parked cars, keeping low.

He had no idea why he was doing this, as if someone might actually be spying on him here. It felt ridiculous, but on the other hand, after that encounter with the boar, he realized—more than ever—that he hadn’t a clue how to deal with any of this.

He took a fast look at the big signboard showing the various mountain trails, noted the symbol that marked the way to the cross at the summit, and then he started running.

One thing he could do. A thing he was good at. He was on the cross-country team, he was keeping a training log here, he could go fast for a long time.

Assuming he didn’t throw up from the pain behind his eyes.

It’s manageable, he told himself. Run through it. She’s up there. And there’s no one else who can do this.

Not that this meant that he could do it.

The trail began at a smooth slant upwards, gravelled, wide. People were coming down, some dressed for a picnic with packs and baskets, others wearing serious hiking gear, carrying sticks. He saw some kids; they looked pretty tired.

He glanced up, a long way, to the summit with its cross. The chapel would be just below that, and left. He couldn’t see it yet. He settled in, as best he could, to his pace. It was hard, because he hadn’t warmed up at all and because he felt dreadful. The smell was the worst; it was everywhere, more than the pain or the sickly red hue the world had taken on. David Letterman should do this one, he thought: Top ten reasons not to climb Mont Sainte-Victoire…

Through everything there was fear, a sense of urgency that kept pushing him to go faster. He checked his watch. It was supposed to be a two-hour walk-and-climb. He was going to cut that in half, or better, or break himself trying.

Unlucky thought. Pain lanced like a knitting needle behind his right eye. Ned cried out, couldn’t help it. He staggered, almost fell. He twisted to the right off the wide path, out of sight, and was violently sick in the bushes behind a boulder.

And then again. It felt as if his stomach were trying to force itself inside out. He was on his knees, leaning against the roughness of the big rock. He forced himself to breathe slowly. His forehead was clammy; he’d broken out in a sweat. He was shivering.

Another slow breath. And with it, through pain and nausea, Ned felt anger again, hard as a weapon. It was weird, a little frightening, how much rage he was feeling. He shook his head in grim denial, though there was no one to see, no one to be denying.

“Uh-uh,” he said aloud, to the mountain and the sky. “No way. Not going to happen.” He wasn’t leaving this time, he wasn’t going to call and have Greg drive him back to take a shower and lie down and have everyone in the villa tell him at least he’d tried, he’d done all he could.

It wasn’t all he could. He wouldn’t let it be. You could do more. When it mattered enough, you did more. There were stories of mothers lifting cars off kids trapped under them.

“Not going to happen,” he said again.

He wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of one hand. She was up there. He knew it as surely as he’d known anything. And there was only him here, Ned Marriner. Not his aunt—whatever she’d done once, she couldn’t do it now. Neither could his uncle. His mom could treat refugees in the Sudan but she couldn’t get up this mountain in time or do anything at the top if she did. Ned was the one linked to all this, seeing the blood, smelling the memory of bloodshed.

You didn’t ask for the roles you were given in life; not always, anyhow.

He realized that he was clenching his jaw. He made himself relax. You couldn’t run that way, and he had running to do.

He swung his pack off, fished his iPod out and put the buds in his ears. He dialed up Coldplay. Maybe rock would do what bracelets and rowan leaves couldn’t.

He shouldered the pack and stepped onto the path again. He must have looked pretty alarming because two people—a husband and wife, it looked like—stopped suddenly on their way down and stared at him with concern.

Ned straightened, managed a wan smile. Popped off his buds.

“You are all right? You should not be going up now!” the woman said in French, with a German accent.

“It’s fine,” Ned said, wiping at his mouth. “Bit of a bug. I’ve had worse. I do this run all the time. Training.” He was surprised at how good he’d become at lying.

“It will be dark,” the man said, shaking his head. “And the climb is harder above.”

“I know it,” said Ned. “Thanks, though.” He put the earbuds back in, turned up the volume.

He ran. Around a curve he reached back for his water bottle in the side pocket of the pack and rinsed his mouth, then splashed some on his face without slowing down. He spat into the bushes. His head was still pounding.

Not going to volunteer for an Advil commercial, he thought.

Amused himself with that. Just a little. He was in too much pain for more. He wondered about the screening he was doing—when the draining effect Phelan and his aunt had warned about would kick in. He had no idea.

He ran, twisting through and past weekend climbers making their tired way down the mountain at day’s end. Above him, way above, he could see the big cross at the summit. He was going there, then left, down a ridge, up another, down to the right.

Or so Veracook had said.

One woman looked at her watch as he approached and gave him an admonishing sideways shake of her finger, that gesture the French loved. His mother, he thought, should take that one up.

He knew it was late in the day. He knew it was going to be windy and get dark…this wasn’t being done for the joy of it. Maybe he should have printed leaflets to hand out to all the finger-waggers.

He ran. After almost thirty minutes on the steady upward slant he realized two things. One was that he was feeling better. He didn’t have that overwhelming sense of the world rotting all around him. He’d hoped that getting above the level of the battlefield would help, and it seemed to be doing that. He felt like offering a prayer.

His head hurt, the world was red-tinted, even behind sunglasses, but he didn’t feel any more as if he was going to empty his guts with pain in response to putrefaction.

The other thing, less encouraging by a lot, was that there was someone behind him—and it was Cadell.

The Celt was just suddenly there when Ned did one of his quick inward checks for an aura. Nothing, nothing, nothing…then there he was: golden inside Ned’s mind, as in life.

And coming up the mountain.

They won’t be at their best, his aunt had said. Meaning something a lot worse than that.

She had ordered Ned to stop if they came up to him, either of them, and told him to leave. He’d known she was right about that and he knew it now. They might mean him no harm, but that was only if he didn’t get in their way. They were alive in the world to do one thing only: find her. Two hundred thousand people and more had died in a single battle between these two. What was a Canadian kid against that?

His heart was pounding, for all the reasons that had to do with running as fast as he could up a mountain, fighting pain and nausea, and pursued by someone who had so many lifetimes of white and burning need to get to the chasm first.

It had been the boar that had called them, he was certain of it.

That’s how Cadell was here. He had no idea why the animal had done it. You sure got a lot of questions in the world, without exactly getting the same number of answers. In fact, there was a huge gap between the two numbers. It made him angry again. He needed that, to fuel him, drive him on, push back fear.

He looked up again. There was a wooden sign ahead, symbols on it. The sloped path gave out here to terraced, switchbacked ridges. Vera had told him this. It got harder, angling back and forth because it was steeper now. He saw people still coming down, left and right, left and right, along the switchbacks. It was going to be slower, narrower, hard to run through them. He took the first cut to the right, got out his water bottle again to drink.

His phone rang.

He fished in his pocket, saw who it was on the read-out.

“Dad,” he said quickly, “I’m okay, I’m running. Can’t talk.”

He flipped the phone shut. He was supposed to tell them Cadell was behind him now? Was it a tough guess what they’d say?

It was pretty simple, really. Way Ned saw it, if the big man didn’t catch him, he couldn’t stop him or do anything to him, right? So you didn’t let him catch you. It didn’t always have to be complicated.

He thought of letting his screening go, but he didn’t know what might hit him—flatten him—if he did. How much the screen was protecting him from the mountain. He couldn’t afford to lose any time now.

And there was the other man, too. Ned didn’t for a second imagine Phelan wasn’t up here somewhere. Probably screened, like Ned. Cadell was announcing himself, trying to frighten Ned, maybe warn him off. Phelan was just…coming.

Could scare you more, that thought.

It was still bright up here, the sun setting to his right, the wind picking up but blocked a little because he wasn’t completely above the trees yet. He looked back over his shoulder. There was a lake or reservoir of some kind below, glinting in the light, and another one farther beyond. He was high enough to see a long way. The view was beautiful, and he wasn’t even halfway up.

There had been a fire on these slopes, Ned saw, maybe more than one. The mountain was more bare than it looked in those paintings C#233;zanne had done. Time changed things, even mountains. Even a hundred years could make changes—or however long it was since C#233;zanne painted this peak. Was that a long time or a blink of time?

He thought he knew what the two men and Ysabel would say. But he also remembered his mother and aunt on the path from the tower last night, and it occurred to him that they might think of twenty-five years as heartbreakingly long.

He didn’t have answers. He amped up his music a little more and he ran, zigzagging up the mountain as the day waned towards an ending.

AFTER TWENTY MINUTES of laboured, driving work, back and forth along the terraced slope, twisting his way through the last of the day’s descending climbers, he smashed, hard, into the inner screening wall he’d been warned about.

Too soon! he thought, but even as the thought came his legs gave out and Ned felt himself falling. He didn’t slide, this was still more a steep hike than a climb, but he lay in the middle of the narrow switchback, exhausted, drained, and it felt for a long moment like he wasn’t going to be able to get up.

And that wouldn’t do. With an effort he pulled his earbuds out and rolled to one elbow. His small running pack felt massive, a burden on his back. He worked to shrug himself out of it. There was a taste of dust in his mouth. Better than blood, he thought.

Then, with apprehension coiling tightly within him, he released the screen, because there was nothing else he could do.

He cried out. Couldn’t help it.

The immediate pain in his head was brutal: a vise, not knitting needles or a hammer. He’d been right, not that it did him any good now—the screening had been keeping at bay the full impact of where he was.

Eyes tightly closed, gasping for thin, shallow breaths, aware that there were tears on his face, Ned realized he was going to have to phone down after all. He wasn’t even sure he could stay conscious till someone got here to him.

He opened his eyes, forced himself to look up from where he lay. And facing east, he saw the chapel below the summit’s great cross. It wasn’t even far; he’d gotten pretty damned close. They’d have to give him credit for that, wouldn’t they?

There was nobody else up here. No one had heard his cry. Every sane person had passed him already, going down the long slope towards drinks and a shower, sunset and dinner, out of the wind that was blowing here.

Ned felt something else then: a pulse like a probe in his head. He made himself, moving very slowly, sit up. Everything took so much appalling effort, hurt so much. He looked within himself. Cadell’s aura was still there. And the pulse, the signal, was coming from him.

Of course, Ned thought. You’re clueless, Marriner. A loon.

He’d been thinking of Cadell as chasing him, but he’d been screened. The Celt hadn’t been able to see Ned any more than Ned had spotted him down there. Cadell was just powering his way towards the summit, not knowing if Ned was ahead or behind, or anywhere at all.

Now, though, he realized it, and he was making sure Ned knew he was coming.

I should be afraid, Ned thought. He actually felt too weak for fear, as if all he wanted to do, all he could do, was sit here among dust and stones and scrubby little bushes and let the sun go down on these slopes, and on him.

Well, he could make a phone call first. Someone would come. His aunt was in the call-back. His dad was on auto-dial, and so was Greg. Well, not really, in fact. Melanie had done that very funny nine-or ten-digit auto-dial for Greg on Ned’s phone. Then Ned had rigged their phones with ringtones in the middle of the night.

He could almost smile, remembering when he’d called her the next morning at the cathedral. “You will be made to suffer!” Melanie had said, but she’d been laughing.

If they were understanding anything about this properly, she was somehow up above him right now, not that far.

He thought about her laughing that morning, and something in him altered with the memory. Anger, Ned thought, could drive you hard. It could ruin you or make you, like any other really strong feeling, he guessed.

Right now, it pulled him to his feet.

He realized, straightening carefully, that he could handle this pain too. It had been the contrast, the shock of it when the screen went down, that had flattened him. But he was really high now, far above the plain where the battle had been, and he could hold it together for a bit longer. The weakness in his legs was something else, one more thing. Like he really, really needed more. He could almost hear his friend Larry saying that, the guys laughing.

Cadell was coming, and he was aware now that Ned was ahead of him.

With an effort that cost him, Ned shouldered his pack again. Since when were these things so heavy? His legs felt rubbery, the way they could near the end of a cross-country race. But he’d done those races for three years now, he knew this feeling. It was new, and it wasn’t. You could build on what you had experienced, and he’d smashed into walls running before.

That’s what it was all about, the track coach had always told them. You find where your wall is, and you train to push it back, but when you hit it…you go through. If you can do that, you’re a runner. Ned could hear that voice, too, in his mind.

Ned went through. He was almost comically slow. Walking, not running. In places here—he was right below the chapel now—there were loose rocks on the path that could send you tumbling.

He looked back. And this time he saw someone coming, already on the switchback section, steady and strong and fast.

Ned felt like crying, which was really not going to help. He looked ahead. There were two zigzags left, or he could climb. He wasn’t sure he had the strength for that, but he was pretty certain he didn’t have the time not to. He clenched his jaw—an expression one or two people would have recognized—and left the path. He bent to the slanting rock face, using his hands now.

It wasn’t alpine climbing or anything like that. Any normal time, any normal condition, he could have propelled himself up this slope easily. He could have raced guys up here.

Now, two or three times he was sure he was going to fall. His hands were sweaty, and there was sweat in his eyes. He took off the sunglasses, they were sliding down his nose. The light wasn’t as strong now, the sun low, striking the mountain, washing it in late-day colours. He still saw too much red, but not as badly as before, this high up.

Really high, in fact. He pushed himself, feet and hands, digging and pulling, gasping with the effort it cost him. His T-shirt was plastered to his body. His head hurt; it was pulsing. His legs felt as if he were wearing weights. Was this, he thought, what getting old was like? When your body wouldn’t do things you knew it had been able to do? Another essay topic?

Idiot thought. “You’re a loon!” he said aloud, and made himself laugh: the sound sudden and startling in that lonely, windy place. He took strength from it. Anger wasn’t the only thing you could use.

And, falling apart or not, he was up. He pushed with his right foot at a rock. It slipped away, tumbling down the slope, but his hands were on the top now and he scrambled to the last plateau.

He was directly in front of the chapel. He bent over, catching his breath, trying to control his trembling. He was so weak. There was a courtyard, he saw through an arched opening: a well, a low stone wall on the far side overlooking the southern slopes. The sea would be beyond, some distance off, but not all that far.

He glanced back again. Cadell was clearly visible, golden-haired, cutting straight up across all the switchbacks, hand over hand through scrub and bush, disdaining the path. He wouldn’t need paths, Ned thought. He wanted to hate this man—and the other one—and knew he was never going to be able to do that.

He could beat them, though.

It was easier here, on the level ground just below the last steep ridge to the summit and cross. He didn’t have to go up there. If Veracook was right—and it occurred to him that if she wasn’t he had done all this to no purpose at all—he had to head east, not up.

He looked ahead and saw, as she’d said he would, the mountain falling away to the south in a swooping sheet of stone just beyond the cross. The view was spectacular in the light of the westering sun, fast clouds overhead in the wind.

But that wasn’t his route. The garagai was farther along, she’d said. Up one more slope, the one right in front of him, and then down and right along the next rock face.

He looked back one more time. Cadell was moving ridiculously fast. He saw the man lift his head and shout something. He couldn’t hear; the wind was too strong. It could blow you off the mountain, Ned thought, if you were, like, a little kid, or careless.

He dropped his pack against the stone wall of the chapel and pushed himself into a run. A shambling, dragging motion, an embarrassment, a joke, and he couldn’t even keep it going. The slope of this ridge was upwards again, and he was too drained, too spent. The wind from the north, on his left, kept pushing him towards the long slide south. He did slip once, banging his knee. He thought he heard a shout behind him. He didn’t look back.

Fighting for breath, fighting his body, he scrambled up the last ridge. He had to go right here, south and down. He looked that way. Steep, he’d need to be careful. He saw nothing, but Vera had said you couldn’t, that the cave was hidden until you were right on it. The green land far below was the battlefield, he knew. The plain below the mountain. All those dead, all those years ago. The man behind him had been there.

And the woman ahead, if she really was here.

Ned started down. Too fast, he slipped and skidded almost immediately. He steadied himself, but was still moving too quickly. He stumbled again, leaning way backwards so as not to tumble and roll on the face of the mountain. He banged an elbow and swore as he scrabbled on the seat of his pants, dislodging pebbles. He grabbed for a rock, felt his palm tear and scrape, but he stopped himself.

He saw the cave, right beside him.

The gemstone of his aunt’s bracelet was bright on his wrist. He didn’t know what that was about, when it had started. He didn’t have time to think about it. He shifted along the rock face and saw that there was a last descent—a short one—into the cave. There was light coming through it from another side, south. Vera had said there were two openings.

And that the chasm was below it, through the other entrance.

He was here.

Ned went in, turning his face to the rocks, going hand and foot again. He slid the last bit, touched bottom, turned and looked around. He was still trembling, his legs mostly. His mouth was dry. He’d left the water bottle with his pack.

He was in a darkened space, not too large, sheltered from the wind, level underfoot. A rock roof disappeared into shadow above. He didn’t know what he’d expected to see, but he didn’t see anything.

He turned to look south and his jaw dropped at the wonder of it, the quiet beauty spread out through that wider opening, as if it were a window onto glory. The fields below, a glinting line of river, the land rising a very little, and falling, and then rising again across the river towards mountains in the distance, shining in the late, clear light, and then the far blue of the sea.

He walked over and looked down. Another drop, a trickier one, because the shelf below was steep, more a slope than a plateau, really. He’d been warned it was dangerous. I’m not going to fall off a mountain, he’d told his father.

He could fall off down there, easily. But on that slanting shelf, to his right, Ned saw a cluster of dark green bushes against the sheer rock face. They framed an emptiness, a black, a hole in the world. The chasm was here. He had arrived. For what it was worth.

He was very much afraid. He took a breath. Lifted his dirty hands and spat on them the way athletes did. There was blood on one of them, from grabbing at stone as he slid. He wiped it on his sweats.

“Here goes nuthin’,” he said. Little kids said things like that. He was trying to be funny, for himself.

“You do not have to go down,” he heard, behind him. “I am here.”