“You wouldn’t have liked to see him, sir,” she had said with a sniff of disapproval. “He wasn’t one of your station. He was bent so you couldn’t know his height, and dirty so you couldn’t know his age. He was very insistent that he wanted to see you. Said he had something for you. But I put him in his place, I can assure you. I have no use for such peddlers.”
“Did he give his name?” Lord Robert had asked.
“Aye, I think he did. Let’s see… Daniel Seaton, it was.”
The terrible words spoken, the laird’s anger had drained out of him and he had gone to bed, where he could lay in the old familiarity of his room and let the musty magic of his house calm and console him. He forgot even about going to see Virginia. All he knew was that the longed-for past had come to call, and he had not been home.
In hindsight, it often seemed to him that the only time in his life worth living had been the days of the council. For three short months Angslie had been home to seven self-styled scholars, Daniel Seaton among them, in pursuit of a glorious dream. In the forty years since the abandonment of that dream, those memories had taunted him with what would never be again. Fate was a cruel thing, Lord Robert felt, that it could send Dan Seaton to his very door while he was away enduring the company of men and women who didn’t have soul enough to feel the lure of the mysteries that had drawn the council.
Lord Robert abruptly left his bed and began pacing the halls of Angslie. Up stairs and down corridors he stalked, passing long rows of windows that looked out on a brown, mountainous highland wilderness, until at last he had reached the double doors of a long-closed room. It was a room that made the servants whisper when they passed it; a forbidden domain with many a wild story shut behind its doors.
Impulsively, Lord Robert reached out and touched the brass door handle. It turned easily under his hand, and the doors swung open.
The room had not been dusted in forty years. Lord Robert strode to the end of the room and dashed the curtains open. Sunlight poured in as it would pour into an opened tomb, illuminating the clouds of dust that danced in the stale air. He turned from the tall, wide window with its view of the hills to face the room where his dreams had once taken flight over the mountains and far into the past; where the obsession of his life had been birthed.
The sunlight glinted off the gold and red bindings of the books that lined one wall and attempted to sparkle on the brass candlesticks that sat covered with dust and grey wax, arrested in its dripping. The candles sat in the center of the room on a long wooden table that had once served as a meeting place for the Council for Exploration Into Worlds Unseen.
He laid his hand on the table and brought it back covered with the greyness of the years. Had it been so long? The rug on the floor had once been brilliantly red and yellow and green, with its swirling patterns and uniquely woven designs. Now its colours were muted by time and silence. It lay drab and not at all like its memory.
Lord Robert walked slowly to the head of the table, where a wooden chair sat waiting for him as it had so long ago. He drew it out and sat down, his eyes struggling to see through the haze of the years to the ghosts of the past.
He felt as though they were there still there, just beyond the dust. He could hear them talking and laughing, debating and discussing. To his right, his memory could see the small, friendly face of Daniel Seaton, crinkled up in a laugh. Next to Dan sat Eva Brown, plump and pretty, clutching a book of sketches to her bosom as though it was a baby or a precious toy. She was laughing, too, probably at something Daniel had said.
Next to Eva sat John Davies, his craggy, serious young face a great contrast to Daniel. John was quiet, not much of a man for speaking. When he did speak, he usually bore listening to. His grey eyes would pierce through all distractions and make a man sit up and listen. On these days, Lord Robert remembered, John’s eyes rarely strayed from the face of the young woman across from him.
Mary Grant was Crynthian, like John. She was beautiful, the laird remembered in a startled way. He had forgotten how beautiful. Dark brown hair fell on small shoulders; wide blue eyes danced with the song that she was always singing. When Mary sang, the very stars above stopped to listen. She sang songs of the ancient days, songs full of glory and valour and prophecy—songs she seemed to hear floating to her from another world.
Lucas Barrington always sat beside Mary. He was handsome and tall, a gentleman of sorts, a young continental with a great deal of wealth and rakish manners. Across the table from Lord Robert sat the other real scholar of the group, talking to Lucas in a strong Eastern accent. Jarin Huss was a thin young man with a neatly trimmed beard and a way of speaking with authority to anyone who would listen.
And then there was Evelyn.
Her seat, when she was allowed into the council meetings, was at Lord Robert’s left hand. She, too, was beautiful. Her hair was black like the night, her eyes almost as dark. She moved like a panther, smooth and strong. Mystery hung about her like a mist; a fog that called to the laird to come further into its dangerous embrace. Even now, the memory of her was enough to make his heart ache.
They were all young in those days. In his memory, the laird heard their voices and saw each expression.
In a split second, the memory changed. He saw Mary stand to her feet, saw the chair knocked back behind her as she rose with passion glaring in her eyes. He saw the finger pointed at the woman next to him and heard the hissing hatred in Evelyn’s reply. He saw the hardness in the eyes of those who had been his friends. He heard himself responding, shouting, accusing. He saw his arms around the dark, mysterious woman at his side. He saw Jarin shaking his head; he saw the anger in John’s grey eyes. He heard Daniel crying. He saw Eva stop crying and grow hard, so hard he thought a hammer would never break her open again.
That day was the end of it all. In less than three days, the council was no more. They had gone away, to Midland, to Cryneth, to Sloczka. Only Lord Robert was left, with Evelyn to stay by his side forever and help him find all the answers he had wanted.
Only, she had gone, too. Less than a year later. And she had not said good-bye.
On that day, Lord Robert had walked into the council room and closed the curtains. He had shut the door and never come back.
Until now.
On the table in front of him was a book bound with red leather. A journal. His fingers brushed away the dust, streaking the dull red cover with brightness. Slowly, he opened it.
It opened to a page that had been dusty even before the end of the council, all those years ago. It was yellow and cracked with age, and on it was written short lines in a sort of rhythm. Poetry.
The words were unreadable, written in a language other than that of the Empire. Lord Robert sighed as he remembered the first time he had opened the book and looked at the handwriting of some unknown ancient, an author who might have lived before the rule of the Morel dynasty choked out life and freedom in the world.
Jarin Huss had been able to read this language. Huss, Lord Robert reflected, had known many dangerous things. His knowledge of the ancient languages would have been enough to have him arrested. It was a risk that Jarin, as a scholar with an insatiable appetite to know, was more than willing to take. The laird remembered the Eastern student’s description of the underground university, the clandestine teachings of the professors at the University of Pravik. They had taught ancient languages and legends, and history that did not fit the frame the Empire wished to give it.
The lines of poetry taunted from their resting place on the page. The handwriting swirled and danced across the paper in age-old ink, calling to the laird to understand.
Words tugged at the edge of his memory, and he struggled to recall them as he looked over the poems again and again. The words had been spoken in the Eastern accent of Jarin Huss, as he read the poetry aloud for the first and only time.
“When they see beyond the sky,
When they know beyond the mind,
When they hear the song
of the Burning Light;
Take these Gifts of My Outstretched Hand,
Weave them together,
I shall come.”
Lord Robert was surprised at the clarity with which the words came back to him. He picked up the red-bound book and turned it over in his hands. There were more poems, more words written inside. If only he could read them.
“When they see beyond the sky…”
He crossed the room to the window and stood between its cobwebbed curtains, hands tucked behind him. His eyes wandered over the hills, along a small path that rounded the side of the mountain and disappeared. The eyes of his memory continued to follow the path, up the steep hillside, to the rocky outcrop where Virginia would be seated even now. He was seized with a sudden desire to visit her, perhaps to recite to her the words of the poem. She had been born on the land of the Sinclair family, had spent most of her life on the side of the mountain, but it had only been three months since the laird had really become aware of her existence. In an accidental way he had heard rumours of the blind girl who could see another side of reality. If her visions were fact and not madness, then the things she saw proved the validity of Lord Robert’s lifelong belief in another world alongside his own. She had given him back his old beliefs and reawakened his old longings. He went to see her often, and drank in her words as though they were life-giving water, though she gave it to him only in painfully sparing drops. One day he hoped to break through into the world of Virginia’s visions, but for now her words were all he had.
The path called to him. He picked up the red journal and left the room, shutting the doors tightly behind him.
* * *
Virginia Ramsey’s hair was a very dark brown. Most of it was on the verge of turning black, but enough of it was near to turning red to make her overall appearance very striking. Her eyes, which could not see, were green.
She spent most of her time sitting cross-legged on top of an outcrop on the side of the mountain, where she could smell the passing of the seasons and hear the birds fly by. The birds thought her a friend, and they would light on her shoulder and whisper to her. Her right hand usually rested on the head of her shaggy old deerhound, who was as deaf as she was blind.
On the side of the mountain, Virginia Ramsey heard all that she ever wished to hear. She heard wind, grass, and the songs of creation. And sometimes, on the side of the mountain, Virginia could see.
The things she saw were true things, though no one else, it seemed, could see them. She saw beautiful golden creatures and horrible, black shadow-things. She saw people, but not as others saw them. She could see into their souls, into the truth of what they were. She could see the childlike heart of her grandfather, the conniving soul of the village innkeeper, and the burning potential of the innkeeper’s son, little Roland MacTavish, that made him look to her like a lion cub: a kitten now, but with all the strength and power of the beast king just waiting to push its way out.
She saw other things, too. Sometimes she saw people in faraway places, and sometimes she saw things that had happened hundreds of years before.
One frequent vision had grown stronger and more urgent with the years: that of a great hunting hound, its muzzle dripping with blood and its eyes with hatred. It was tracking her down. This vision she saw most often at night, and then she would wake up coldly terrified, sure that the universe itself was hunting her.
The people in the village were afraid of her.
They didn’t know exactly what it was that Virginia Ramsey could do, but they had the feeling that she knew far more about them than they would like anyone to know. Everyone in the town was polite to her, while most of them would have done anything to keep her sightless green eyes away from them.
The deerhound under her fingertips growled low, sending a rumbling shiver through his lean body.
“Hush,” Virginia said. “It’s only the laird, I think.”
She bowed her head as he approached, tired at the thought of talking to him. He asked such insistent questions, firing them like arrows one after another. What she saw lay deep inside of her soul; to reveal it to another was like tearing open a wound. She did not fault the laird, for he obviously did not understand. He thought that she could explain her sight as easily as he could describe a sunny day. She might have grown angry with him, except that in him was a strength and a spirit she did not possess. He was her protector. Her grandfather knew it, the town knew it, and she hoped that the hunting hound of her visions knew it. Someday she would need him. So she spoke with him when he came.
Besides, underneath all of his selfish questioning, she sensed a deep need in him. He had wounds of his own, and something in her wished to heal them. At the same time something in him drove her back. His wounds were festering, infected with a blackness that both frightened and drew her.
His voice broke through her thoughts. She heard and felt him sitting near to her, as the deerhound growled low and deep but did not move. And then she felt it: a strange sensation, one she had not known in the laird’s presence before. She felt drawn to him… no, not to him, but to something with him. Her skin prickled with its nearness.
“I read a poem today,” Lord Robert said. “I wondered if you might like to hear it.”
The prickling, tingling sensation had grown so strong that she could not quite understand what he had said. Her voice, answering him quickly, was urgent.
“You have something with you?”
There was a pause, as Lord Robert was taken aback by Virginia’s intensity.
“Yes,” he answered.
She took her hand from the plaid wrapped around her and stretched it out toward him. “May I have it?” she asked.
He made no audible reply, but in a moment she felt the rough, cool leather of an old book in her hand. She took it gently, drawing it close to her and letting it fall open. She ran her fingers over the open page, trying to feel the paths of ink on the rough old paper. Warmth emanated from the handwriting and then began to flow from the page into her hand, traveling up her arms like a shock. She gasped deeply as colours began to flash before her eyes, patterns and pictures whirling before her. The sounds and smells of the Highland hills sank into oblivion before the dizzying force of the vision. In a moment the colours had settled themselves into forms, and scenes began to move through her mind.
She saw a warrior of ancient days, his hair the colour of flax. He rode a spotted horse that moved with the slow, painful steps of exhaustion. Its coat and hooves were flecked with blood. Around and above him was the deep green of a forest; below him, roots tangled in black earth. Others rode all around him, similarly weary, and dressed in the blood-spattered, dirt-ravaged clothing of desperate men. On a white horse at the head of the party rode one whose features Virginia could not describe. Every time she thought she could, his face seemed to change. The only constants were the sense of power that rested on him and an accompanying sense of grief.
The scene dissolved in light. The light formed itself into a pulsing circle. The leader of the men stood before it. Virginia watched as he stepped back, into the circle, and the light enveloped him completely. She watched as the warriors followed him beyond the forest, through the circle. The scene shifted, and she saw the flaxen-haired man sitting alone beside the dying embers of a campfire, holding a red book in his hands. He was writing words that burned their way into the pages.
Suddenly everything changed. She no longer saw the forests. Instead, she saw three black-cloaked figures with eyes like deep pits. The foremost of them held a scroll, newly signed and rolled. One opened his mouth to speak, and from his mouth flowed pestilence.
The scene changed once more, now flashing images at her in rapid succession. She saw faces, and she felt that she was no longer seeing the ancient past, but the present. Through her mind’s eye she saw a woman sitting at a harp in a small cottage, singing a beautiful song that wove its way through the visions of others. She saw a boyish face with a thick head of curly black hair, his
mouth laughing with delight. She saw a beautiful young woman with long, white-gold hair, tending roses and vines in a quiet garden. She saw two tall figures in black cloaks, stretching out their hands toward a circle of fire. She saw a girl on a mountainside, wrapped in red plaid, and with a shock she realized she had just seen herself.
Once more all the scenes and colours blurred together and then spun out to make a new scene. This time she saw the flaming walls of a city. She saw a tall, hooded man on a horse, lifting up a sword with a mighty shout. Around him the very sky throbbed with golden light: underlying power, passion, mystery. She saw a very old man, with a long beard that reached nearly to his waist, lift his hands up toward heaven while swords clashed all around him. She saw an auburn-haired girl on a castle wall in the city, running along the stones, seemingly oblivious to the danger beneath her.
One last time everything changed, and she saw the raging waves of the sea. Standing in turbulent stillness over the waves was an army, its golden radiance casting a glow on the clouds and black water all around. The sea wind tore through the hair of horses and warriors, armour and steel clashed as thunder and lightning split the sky. Just before blackness overtook the vision, Virginia thought she saw the shape of a man stepping back through a circle of light, speaking words that were just beyond her hearing…
And then she took a deep breath of the heathery mountain air, and she felt Lord Robert’s hands gripping her shoulders, and heard the whine of the deerhound.
The laird’s voice came through the fading shock. “Are you all right?”
She managed a nod, and his voice dropped to a hesitant whisper. “What happened?”
She moved against his grasp, and he released her. She brought her hands up and covered her face. The deerhound’s lean body rubbed against her.
“I have seen,” she said, and found that she could not go on.