Under A Velvet Cloak (19 page)

“We knew you were going to try,” Vorely said. “But when you did not return, we feared that Death found you before you found Death, as it were.”

Kerena settled in for the day, talking with them both while she had avid sex with Vorely. She acquainted them with her excursion and failure. “So now I need to find another way,” she concluded.

“But thirty years,” Vanja said. “Your son is a grown man.”

Somehow Kerena hadn’t realized that. “Yet still my son.”

Next day she traveled to England, doing it in minutes. She checked, and confirmed that Gordon had died several years before. “But you would not have had much luck with him,” the man said, smirking. He took her for her apparent age of eighteen.

“Of course not. I’m his daughter.” That left the man silent.

The kingdom had suffered a calamitous defeat, and the knights were scattered or dead. Sir Gawain was dead. So, it turned out, was his son. That stunned her. Even had she gained the intercession of an Incarnation, she was too late to save him.

Kerena’s Seeing located his widow, a comely woman of twenty five. Kerena introduced herself as a woman who had once known him passingly: her mother had wet-nursed him. “How did he die?”

“Oh, he was a bold and wonderful man,” the widow said. “All the ladies loved him, and I most of all. But he was cursed by bad luck. He was killed last year by a rogue horse. Fortunately I have somewhat to remember him by.”

“He left you a token?”

“Not exactly.” The woman went to a covered crib and lifted out a healthy baby boy. “Meet Gaw Three.”

Kerena was amazed. Her Seeing should have picked up on this, but she hadn’t thought to check. Gaw had sired a son! “Oh, he looks just like his father!”

“Yes he does,” the woman agreed fondly. “But there’s something awry.”

Kerena used her Seeing now. The taint was there! It had been passed along from father to son.

She said nothing of this to the widow, and soon departed. Her emotions were whirling. She had lost Gaw Two, but now there was Gaw Three, just like him even in the curse. What was she to make of this?

She couldn’t decide, but the pain continued. She had lost many of the things that had been dear to her, and had nothing to show for it. What remained for her in life?

Her pain slowly converted to seething anger. The Incarnations of Immortality could have helped her save Gaw, but had dismissed her plea contemptuously. None of them had considered it fairly; all had rejected it out of hand. They had simply let it happen.

They had been derelict, and it had cost her. Even her effort to plead with them had sacrificed any further contact she might have had with her son. The Incarnations had by that avenue deprived her of her motherhood.

They deserved to pay for their arrogant neglect. “I swear to have vengeance on each of the Incarnations of Immortality,” she said with true feeling.

It might have been laughable, for what could a lone vampire do to make any impression on the mighty Incarnations, let alone punish them? But what shook Jolie was that the timelines never wavered. This was no empty threat.

Kerena returned to the warren. She had made her oath; now she needed to figure out how to implement it. She needed advice, and Morely was the one she most trusted.

“You need a base,” he told her. “Something equivalent to an Incarnation, but apart from the existing ones.”

“What could that be? The greater and lesser Incarnations make up the full complement, as I understand it.”

“Maybe there is an alternative,” Vanja said.

Kerena was ready to grasp at any straw. “What one?”

“Vorely said the first separation was into Day and Night. All known Incarnations are aspects of Day. What of Night?”

Kerena considered that. “There may be one more Incarnation I can appeal to!”

“There may be,” Morely agreed. “But I have never heard of that one. I assumed that Night remains inchoate.”

Kerena focused her Seeing. The Incarnations of Day were there, scattered about the world, but there was no similar swirl of power for the night. “It seems so,” she agreed, disappointed.

“You have great power,” Vanja said. “Maybe you could draw on Night to smite the fragments of Day.”

Kerena liked the way Vanja’s mind worked. “Let me study Night for a while.”

She did. She remained at the warren, sharing Vorely with Vanja, and on occasion making love with Vanja directly, while she tried to discover a key to the power that might reside in night. But it was elusive, if it existed at all. She walked out in the night, extending her awareness, but it was unable to fix on anything specific.

Vanja helped again. “Where does your power come from, when you bend light around you or wade through rock?”

“I don’t know. It just seems to be there.”

“It must have a source.”

“What are you thinking of?”

“Could your power come from Night? As the Incarnations draw from Day, could you be drawing from Night?”

“It seems possible. If Night is inchoate, that power may be there to be drawn on.”

“So if you could discover the specific source of your power, you might then know how to address Night.”

“And there may be as much power in Night as in Day,” Kerena said. “If I could only harness it. Then I would be in a position to counter the Incarnations.”

“Then you might,” Vanja agreed.

“You are being very helpful.”

“Vengeance is a thing I understand. You helped me obtain mine against Vichard.”

“What happened to him? He is no longer here.”

“He left the warren, and was killed elsewhere. I am not sorry.”

“So your vengeance is complete.”

“I suppose. I would be an old woman in my sixties now, had he let me be.”

“Instead of a lovely creature.”

“I would have children and grandchildren.”

Kerena sighed. “There can be imperfect satisfaction in that.” Yet she understood Vanja’s disquiet. She had been denied the conventional life, and what she lacked had the appeal of lost fancy. People generally did favor what they lacked more than what they had.

She focused on the source of her powers. When she guided light around herself so as to tolerate full day, or to become invisible, what did she draw on?

She found it impossible to focus on that; she was too busy achieving the effects themselves. If she focused on the process, she lost it. She needed a less direct way.

“The library,” Vanja said.

“The what?”

“The vampire library of the occult. It has existed as long as vampires have, all the ancient information preserved. There should be answers there.”

Kerena found herself getting to like the vampire girl for more than her body, just as she had once gotten to like Molly in the brothel. “The library,” she agreed.

The library consisted of many ancient scrolls, maintained by a dedicated vampire named Keeper. He was enormously gratified to have the facilities used. “So few care, any more,” he said. “All this arcane knowledge going to waste. We have scrolls rescued from Alexandria before the Arab conquest, cuneiform tablets from Sumerian times-”

“Alexandria hasn’t been sacked yet,” Vanja reminded him gently. “Not for another century, at least.”

“Pardon, I do lose track. But they are worthy documents.”

“You have scrolls from the future?” Kerena asked, surprised.

“No, they exist today, or they wouldn’t be physical. But they are destined to be lost, so we rescued them. Such things have to be done before the fact.”

“Just as curses have to be nulled before they take effect,” Kerena said, seeing a parallel.

“Exactly. Now how can I help you?”

“I’m sure you will be able to guide me in apt directions,” Kerena said, stepping close and kissing him. Vanja had warned her that his assistance was much more useful when he was well motivated, and that he had expressed admiration for Verena’s form and manner. So she was prepared to keep him motivated by being his appreciative mistress while in the library. It was not only easy for her, she enjoyed it, so no fakery was necessary.

Jolie found this interesting too. She had known Kerena possessed special skills and had a special destiny; that was of course why she was here to keep it on track. But she hadn’t known the intricate details of it. A library that wasn’t necessarily restricted to the present, kept by vampires: who would have thought it?

There turned out to be an enormous amount of relevant material. The vampires had been much concerned, historically, about the forces of night, because vampires were creatures of the night. Their powers stemmed from darkness, just as their liabilities stemmed from light. But Kerena needed more. She had powers of her own, such as Seeing and making useful transformations of the velvet cloak. From where did these stem?

But now she encountered an obscure balking. Somehow the scrolls did not ever quite address these powers, other than to acknowledge their existence. Some references referred to others for further information, but those others were not in the library. “This is more spotty than I realized,” Keeper said apologetically. “Prior interest has been in vampire powers, and we have excellent definition on those. But phasing through stone-somehow it seems those scrolls did not come into our possession.”

Vanja was annoyed. “There seems to be a barrier between you and the knowledge you seek,” she said. “Can this be coincidence?”

Kerena started to laugh, but quickly stifled it, because her Seeing suggested that this was indeed the case. Something was preventing her from gleaning her answers here. Yet how could the long-term library have been limited to balk her-before her arrival on the scene? That was what had seemed funny, for a moment.

“There is a force opposing the fathoming of this mystery, by anyone,” she said. “We are not meant to know.”

“A hostile force?” Keeper asked. “Who governs such force?”

“I don’t think anyone does,” Kerena said. “It’s just there, an intangible wall. But I mean to surmount it, one way or another.”

“Was there similar opposition to the formation of the Incarnations of Day?” Vanja asked.

“I wonder.” They dived into it. The library was not strong on the powers of Day, but did suggest that for every power of Day, there was an equivalent power of Night. So by studying Day, they might glean useful information on Night. That was an indirect approach, but very well might get around the wall.

But of course they couldn’t go and ask the Incarnations of Day exactly how their powers had come to be harnessed, assuming they knew. It had to be done separately.

Still, there were indications. Each Incarnation was different, but there were some similarities. It seemed that each had become Incarnated when a human being demonstrated that he or she was more capable of performing the task than the original mindless force was. That human had stepped into the swirl of energy and thereafter personified it. This was true for the major and the minor Incarnations.

But no one had stepped into the force of Night. It remained mindless. Except that it resisted exploration.

“Did the first human Incarnations have to overcome opposition to take their positions?” Kerena asked, returning to Vanja’s question.

“It seems likely,” Keeper replied.

“Is it really?” Vanja asked, now taking another tack. “There’s one big distinction between Day and Night: Day is visible, Night is invisible.”

Kerena pondered that. Things could be seen by day, but not by night, unless some light was brought in, an aspect of day. “You think it is Night’s nature to keep secrets?”

“What else? And the secret you want to fathom is how to save your son’s son from the taint.”

So it seemed. “But I think the answer is not in this library. I need another source of information.”

Vanja shrugged. “Maybe you could ask a ghost. They have access anywhere.”

“A ghost,” Kerena said thoughtfully.

“I was joking.”

“Nevertheless, it may be a good idea. Do you know of any local ghosts?”

“Well, there’s Lilah. She hangs around. I think she finds the undead more compatible than the fully living. But she’s not a nice person.”

“I don’t want a friend, I want information. I will see if I can contact her.”

“This may not be wise,” Keeper said. “Ghosts can be dangerous.”

“How so, since they can’t do anything physical?”

“Most of them crave life, and would take over the bodies of the living if they could. That’s why the living don’t trust them.”

“Fortunately I am no longer truly living,” Kerena said. “I am undead.”

“Still, it’s a risk. There’s no certainty a ghost couldn’t govern an undead person, given the chance.”

“I need information. I am willing to take a risk to obtain it. If the ghost wants to borrow my body for a while, I will do it-if she gives me what I want.”

Jolie shared Keeper’s misgiving. She was a ghost herself, and did not want to share Kerena’s body with another, though it was possible. Suppose the ghost started influencing the woman the way Jolie did? It might become impossible to keep the timelines aligned. Yet if interaction with a ghost was part of the proper history, it would have to be done. So she would stay out of it, unless a divergence occurred.

What do you think?
Kerena asked internally.

So much for staying out of it!
If I participate in any way other than aligning the timelines, I will be causing a divergence myself. I am a ghost, and have an opinion, but I think must not answer you or assist you in this respect.

To her half surprise, Kerena accepted that. “How do I summon Lilah?” she asked Vanja.

“You can’t. She’s independent. But I will tell her of your interest the next time I encounter her.”

The next day when Kerena was out foraging for food, and for a taste of the blood of a distant sheep, she became aware of a presence. It was shadowy, though of course there were no firm shadows in the night, and significantly masculine. “Hello, lover,” she said, recognizing the aura despite the passage of two or thirty two years, depending on whether it was her time or the world’s time.

He came to her, and a softly lighted bower formed around them as he embraced her. “So you have external magic too,” she murmured as she kissed him.