"Well, your timing is impeccable as usual, the lot of you!" said Christopher. "Come in, come in, don't stand on ceremony. Julian's given Mrs. Fyvie the night off, so I'm playing butler; she's out in the grotto with tea waiting. Peregrine, I distinctly remember marrying you to a smashing young woman, not a week ago. This is not what you're meant to be doing on your honeymoon!"
He took the medical bag from Peregrine and hustled them inside, shaking hands all around. Like the rest of them, a sapphire shone on his right hand. Still nattering of social small-talk, he closed the door behind them and led the way through the vestibule and green-damasked hall to the spacious and airy sun parlor at the back of the house, where Julian Brodie spent much of her time when not at work in her jewellery studio.
The drapes were drawn across the bowed French window that made the room so bright during daylight hours, and the room was lit tonight primarily by candles, though a high-intensity lamp was goose-necked over a rolling table in the center of the room, at present occupied by a straw-encased teapot and a tray of delicate famille vert porcelain cups. Lady Julian was pouring, herself like a porcelain doll, enveloped in a graceful sky-blue sari that softened the lines of her wheelchair. The clean aroma of jasmine wafted upward with the spice-smells of sandalwood and cinnamon, soothing and reassuring.
"Come in, my dears, and we'll start with a cup of tea," she said, beckoning them with a smile and a nod of her silver head. "Adam, you've had me absolutely on tenterhooks all day, wondering how you got on with Tseten."
She had already warded the room, though not against them. After taking his bag from Christopher, Adam sketched a Sign with his ring hand before crossing the threshold, feeling the protection coil around him before it let him pass. After saluting Julian with a kiss on the cheek, he settled obediently beside her as she chivvied the rest of them into seats around the table like a mother hen, making certain everyone had tea.
He was struck, as always, by the sheer opulence of the room, a delicious hotchpotch of every kind of Orientalia, that delighted the eye but never quite overwhelmed. Against walls hung with figured yellow silk, fans and silk embroideries vied with scrolls done with brush and ink and exquisite Oriental watercolors. Tabletops and shelves displayed a variety of rare and curious objects from every Oriental culture from the Indian Ocean to the China Sea - jade and cloisonne, porcelain and lacquerwork, ivory and bronzes, most of it garnered during the course of her late husband's business sojourns in the Far East. Underfoot was the gleam of parquetry lavished with the jewel-tones of Oriental rugs.
Adam was recalled from his appreciation of Julian's bower by her voice bidding Christopher remove the teapot and tray to one side, leaving the table clear for their use. McLeod spread out the general map of Donegal and the rest of Northern Ireland. Peregrine had set his sketchbox on his knees and was laying out his photos and sketches, finally producing the Nazi flag, which he handed to McLeod before standing the sketchbox on the floor beside him. Briefly opening his medical bag, Adam retrieved his skean dubh and slipped it into a coat pocket before setting the bag on the floor, for Tseten had spoken of the coming confrontation being one of "dagger to dagger."
"So that's where we now stand," he said, when he had briefed Julian and Christopher on the background of the present situation, the events of Holy Island, and an assessment of the mission now facing the Hunting Lodge. What tea had not been drunk was long gone cold. "If the Black Termas are recovered by Green Gloves and his henchmen, and their teachings put into force, the resultant endarkenment will constitute a major encroachment against the Light. Tseten felt that prompt action was essential, though he stressed the folly of charging into the situation before we're properly prepared."
"One can't argue with that logic," Christopher said, putting down the sketch of Green Gloves with a faint shiver. "What did you have in mind to do here tonight?"
"That's a more difficult question to answer," Adam admitted, pulling Tseten's rosary out of his coat pocket. "I have this from Lama Tseten, in token of his teachings and blessings. I think it's meant to be a key of some sort - whether mnemonic or visual or tactile, I couldn't begin to tell you. He also gave me to understand that my skean dubh will play a part in the proceedings - 'dagger to dagger' was the way he put it."
Julian had picked up Tseten's rosary to thoughtfully finger the black beads, and now laid it back on the table beside the skean dubh.
"Black Termas," she said with an eloquent shudder. "What an appalling thought."
"I'll say," Peregrine murmured. "Just out of curiosity, what is a Black Terma supposed to look like?"
"Much like a true Terma" Julian replied, "and I can show you one of those."
Turning her chair around, Julian wheeled herself over to an intricately carved teakwood cupboard in one corner of the room, opening one door before maneuvering closer to peer inside. While she rummaged, Adam picked up Tseten's mala and wrapped it around his left wrist, as he had seen Tseten wear it. When Julian returned, she had across her lap a long, narrow wooden box, perhaps four inches wide by twenty long, and a slightly smaller object of less regular shape, wrapped in swathings of maroon silk. She held a steadying hand on both as her chair whirred back into place between Adam and Peregrine.
"This is just my Phurba" she said, as she set the maroon bundle on the table. "We'll get back to that later. This is the treasure I want to share with you first."
As she laid the wooden box open on the tea table before them and lifted the lid, an elusive whiff of Malaysian spices wafted upward. Leaning in, Peregrine saw that what lay inside was an oblong-shaped bundle, lovingly wrapped in an age-darkened envelope of antique yellow silk.
The perfume of spices grew stronger as Julian unfolded the wrappings to reveal what Peregrine took at first sight to be a large, folded Oriental fan, except that it was not tapered at one end. Closer inspection revealed that what would have been the end sticks were, in fact, the stiffened brocade cover boards of a long, very narrow book, perhaps two inches wide and eighteen inches long. Its parchment pages were not actually bound together, but merely sandwiched between the brocaded cover boards. The boards themselves were held in place with a silken cord tied in an intricate knot.
"This transcribed Terma is said to have been written personally by the ascetic Nyima," Julian said, carefully loosing the knot and turning back the uppermost cover, "written by his own hand. His name means 'radiant sun.' The text itself is a treatise on spiritual discernment - the capacity to perceive the true road to enlightenment in the midst of many illusory possibilities. It was given to me by a very old friend, long since passed on, with the injunction to keep it safe until such time as I could hand it into the keeping of one who would make himself known to me as its destined custodian."
She fingered the ancient parchment with gentle reverence. ' 'That was almost forty years ago. I am still waiting for that custodian to appear. In the meantime, however, please feel free to acquaint yourselves with Nyima in the semblance of his handwriting. He was an artist as well as a sage."