“What if he uses an agent?”
“A physical one and well treat him the same as any other such. Something else, and I believe I’ll try static first. Then maybe a laser.”
“What if somebody really gets hurt?”
“It’s a big, cold, deep ocean out there.”
“I remember the music. I remember the Throne of Bones. And part of the walk back. When will you have the defenses in place?”
“The initial set is already there. But it needs considerable tuning. A few weeks more, say.”
“We have that and more before the baby is due. If the boy doesn’t come early.”
“Are you feeling well?”
“Very. And so is our son, if the amount of somersaulting he is doing is any indication.”
“You haven’t been exhausting yourself exploring, have you?”
“No, dear. I am careful.”
“Good. Shall we turn back now?”
“Let’s.”
The next month, there was no expedition at all. Ayradyss had come down with a flu of some sort that kept her in bed, her anxious husband and a med-unit watching over her. She recovered easily enough, but not in time to investigate the moon portal.
When next she and her ghostly escort descended into the cavern, she walked like a pregnant woman, leaning back from her increasing belly. Although she said nothing, she knew that if they failed in their quest this time, she would not attempt it again until after her son was born.
“The ward is gone,” the crusader ghost reported. He had insisted on taking point. Ayradyss had the impression the caoineag had shamed him into accompanying them and that his flight from Wolfer Martin D’Ambry still rankled.
“And the guardian?” Heather asked.
“I dinna ken.”
“Then we go forward,” Ayradyss said, “and deal with it if we see it.”
“Aye.”
The crusader gathered his chain, stepped through the portal and vanished. Heather went next, then Ayradyss, and finally, the cleric. This one reached to remove his blindfold as soon as they were through.
“Why can you do that here and not when you are in the castle?” Ayradyss asked.
“I am more afraid here,” the cleric answered simply. “Especially here. Oddly, in these lands the calendar is not the calendar of the fields that we know—for the full moon and the equinox always fall together…”
“At home the equinox is drawing near.”
“And here on the full moon during the equinox, the standing stones go to the river to drink.”
“We must take care,” the caoineag said. “I see no sign that the rocks are moving. Perhaps they must wait for moonrise.”
Or perhaps they are waiting to trap us, Ayradyss thought, but she did not voice her thoughts aloud.
For the land did not seem welcoming. The gorse buds were one of the few signs of the coming spring; mostly, the terrain was damp and grey. The sky was low and heavy, so dark with impending rain that they could not tell whether the hour was late or early. Except for helping each other to find the best path across the loose rocks, they did not speak as they made their way to the beach.
“No pipes playing this time,” the cleric said, glancing nervously at the sky where a murder of ravens gliding on the air currents kept pace with them.
“Aye, an’ yon corbies seem a wee bit too fond of us for my comfort.”
“Aye.”
The cottage yard was deserted even of the chickens, pigeons, and cat. The window boxes were empty and the green shutters drawn closed. Leaves and bits of bracken had blown into the tidy yard and the oyster shell path was scored by deep marks from something heavy—perhaps furniture—being dragged across it.
“They’ve moved,” Ayradyss said unnecessarily.
“Soon after we were last here, I would guess,” Heather added. “Did Wolfer Martin D’Ambry fear having John D’Arcy Donnerjack in his backyard, or was there some other reason?”
“I don’t suppose we will ever know,” Ayradyss answered. “I want to look around, see if they might have left a message. Then we’ll go back home. My feet hurt.”
There was no message. Through a window shutter that had blown open they could see the furniture covered with sheets, the rugs rolled up against dust and damp. With the cleric’s help, the crusader pulled the shutter closed again and cobbled a new latch from a boot lace.
“How odd,” Ayradyss said, watching their effort. “Ambry and Lydia treated the place as if it were real—not a virt site.”
“‘Tis real,” the wailing woman said stubbornly.
“You know what I mean,” Ayradyss said. Somewhat clumsily, she seated herself on a bench alongside the mulched-over herb garden. “Perhaps they plan on returning someday. I’ll leave them a note to say that we came to call.”
Her note was a simple thing:
Ambry and Lydia,
We came to call and found that you had moved. I hope that you are well, wherever you have gone. Good luck with the new baby.
She folded it into thirds and tucked it into the heavy wooden storm door. A raven quorked approval—or perhaps merely a comment on the weather, which was growing increasingly blustery.
“Shall we go home now?”
“Aye. I dinna care for how it’s coming on to blow.”
“Or that it might be coming on to evening,” the cleric added.
Their way back up the beach seemed shorter, as traveling back across a familiar route always seems shorter than going over it the first time. The crusader even ventured to whistle as the familiar outcropping beneath which the moon portal manifested came into sight.
“Just a wee bit up the hill,” he encouraged Ayradyss, “an” we’ll be back to the castle.”
She leaned on Heather’s arm as they climbed, trying not to breathe too heavily and cursing herself for overexerting. Within her, the baby amused himself by turning somersaults—a sensation that normally delighted her, but now caused havoc with her ability to concentrate on picking her way up the path.
“Mary Mother of God!” came a shrill voice, rising at the end. “They move!”
Without looking, Ayradyss would never have believed that the thin, terrified voice could come from the throat of the urbane, arrogant cleric. He had fallen to his knees, head bent, hands clasped in prayer, his shaking fingers plucking at the beads around his waist.
“Dinna be a fool, man!” the crusader cried, trying to pull the much larger man to his feet. “They go to the river, not to the sea. If we take care, we can pass around them.”
“I can’t… ‘tis my doom again.”
“Fool! Twill be Lady Ayradyss’s doom if we dinna take care. How can the dead be further doomed?”
At the caoineag’s urging Ayradyss had walked past the two men.
“The crusader is right, Ayra,” Heather said softly. “The three of us have little to lose and there is a route around the sliding stones. What I fear is the shadow near the portal. It seems too dark and too solid—with no sunlight or moonlight but only these clouds…”
“There should be no shadow.” Ayradyss nodded, pressed her hands to her belly in an effort to quiet her son. “We will try the Lady of the Gallery’s charm when we are closer. With how the wind rises, I fear the words will be snatched from its hearing.”