“Yes, I know that.”
“So then you won’t mind if I ask you to remove your veil and show me what you look like. I don’t mean to be rude, ma’am, not when you seem to be helping me, but I think you can see my point.”
The caoineag fluttered her hands indecisively.
“And what will you do if I refuse? I do not believe that you can catch me if I try to evade you.”
“Maybe not, but I could just turn around and head back through the moon portal. Maybe the Lord of Deep Fields has given up his siege, but he may still be at it.”
“Ah.” Again the hands fluttered. “How do you know that my appearance will mean anything to you?”
“I don’t, but I don’t think you would have worn a veil if your appearance was not significant in some way.”
“And if I told you that the veil was part of the traditional costume of my type of ghost?”
“Then I’d wonder why you didn’t say so in the first place.”
“I see. You are a clever boy. Analytical. You remind me of your father.”
“You knew my father?”
“Quite well.” Slender hands rose and pushed the veil away from her face, slid it off her ebon hair. “You see, I was his wife.”
Jay stood, dumbfounded, staring. There before him was the face he had studied so often in the projections Dack had given him, the pouting lips, the elegant cheekbones, the dark, somehow sad, eyes.
“Mother?” he said, and his voice broke.
“Yes, John.” She opened her arms to him. “I’m your mother. I’m Ayradyss.”
She wept then, and nearly grown man that he was, he wept as well. After a time, she released him enough to look into his lace.
“Tell, me, John, what did you mean when you said that your bracelet thought that there was something familiar about me?”
Jay touched the bracelet. “My father programmed an aion with much of his memory and personality and then installed it in a bracelet that he put on my wrist when I was just a baby. It has always been with me.”
Ayradyss reached out and touched the bracelet, a tentative motion, almost a caress.
“How very strange,” she said. “We both found ways to watch over you, even after we were gone.”
“Bracelet, aren’t you going to say anything to her?” Jay asked.
The bracelet spoke in the voice of John D’Arcy Donnerjack, Senior. “I don’t know what to say. I can identify this woman, but I feel nothing more than a wash of generalized emotions. I suspect that my creator could not bear to preserve his torment or his passion—both of which must have existed for him to do what he did in an effort to regain and preserve her.”
“Oh, John.” Ayradyss sighed. “You always did have trouble expressing what you felt.”
Jay fidgeted. “Hey, folks. Now that I have both of you here—in some form, at least—I have some questions I hope you’ll answer. And bracelet, none of this, ‘not permitted to answer at this time’ stuff.”
“Very well, John,” Ayradyss said.
“Please call me Jay, ma’am. Too many Johns could get confusing.”
“Very well, Jay. Could you call me Ayradyss if Mother is difficult at this late a date?”
He grinned. “Sure, Mom.”
She blushed with pleasure. Jay seated himself on the boulder Dubhe had lately abandoned; the monkey climbed onto his knee.
“First of all,” Jay said, “was there a deal made with the Lord of Deep Fields concerning me?”
“Yes,” the bracelet replied. “I made my way to Deep Fields to regain Ayradyss. I brought music to soften his heart and promised him a construction of my design as payment for her return. The Lord of Deep Fields required our firstborn as part of the price. Since I believed this an impossible condition to fulfill, I agreed.”
“Why did you think it impossible? Hadn’t he already done something impossible by agreeing to return her in Verite rather than Virtu?”
“I had yet to see that she would be returned to me in Verite. I was also—as difficult as this may be for you to believe—in a state of emotional turmoil. I wanted Ayra back and no price seemed too great. I had invoked legend and fairy tale in my coming for her. I thought he was merely continuing the theme.”
“So you loved her.”
“As I have loved no one or nothing in all my life.” The bracelet paused. “Although I cannot feel those emotions as my maker did, his memories are recorded and those words are true.”
Jay nodded. Ayradyss was weeping, wiping away the tears with the corner of her veil. Looking at her, Jay realized that in appearance she was not much older than he was. He wondered what her real age might be. Collecting himself, he continued his interrogation.
“When you both realized that I was going to be born, you set out to foil the Lord of Deep Fields, to keep me from him.”
“That’s right,” Ayradyss said. “My first knowledge of you came from the howling of the former caoineag. The crusader ghost told me that she wailed for me—and for you and John.”
The bracelet added, “We did not wish to lose you. After your birth and Ayradyss’s death I journeyed to Deep Fields and there battled the Lord of Deep Fields. I could not win Ayra back, nor could I convince him to relinquish his claim to you, but I did gain his promise to give you some years among the living.”
“Did you then believe that he wished me dead?” Jay asked, proud of how steady he kept his voice.
Ayradyss glanced at the bracelet, spread her hands.
“Actually, Jay,” she said, “we didn’t know what he wanted you for. It was enough that he would take our son from us.”
The bracelet added, “It seems unlikely that he wanted your death, in the sense of complete termination of existence. One of the conditions of Ayradyss’s freedom was that I design a palace for him. In the plans for that palace, the Lord of the Lost included a nursery.”
“So he meant to raise me there. Dubhe, can you add anything to this?”
The monkey cracked his knuckles. “Yes, I can, in fact. Death sent me and some of the others to watch over you when your father set you to play on the Great Stage. I had the impression that, in addition to being kept informed about your development, he did not wish any harm to come to you.”
“So, indirectly, he was my protector.”
Ayradyss, not liking at all what she saw of the direction of Jay’s thoughts, interrupted.
“‘Protector’ may be too kind a word, son. Shepherds protect sheep and eat mutton all the same. The Lord of Entropy may not have meant you any kindness.”
“True, but apparently no one ever asked him what he intended for me.”
Dubhe added, “I always had the impression that Phecda knew more than she was saying. Mizar’s brain was scrambled and Alioth—well, Alioth was something else.”
“Alioth, the black butterfly?” Ayradyss said, her tones those of suppressed astonishment.
“Yes, ma’am,” Dubhe replied.
“Alioth played with me from times when I was so small that I could hardly say his name,” Jay said. “Did you know him?”
“I have heard the name,” Ayradyss answered.
“Jay, what are you contemplating?” the bracelet asked. “I have analyzed the trend of your questions and I am not at all reassured by the implications.”
Jay stood, set Dubhe on the boulder, looked down at the bracelet, then over at his mother. Both Dubhe and the crusader ghost sat very, very still, feeling the tingle of a coming storm in the air.
“I think I will go and ask Death what it was he wanted me for,” Jay said.
“No!” Ayradyss cried.
“I forbid it,” the bracelet ordered.
Dubhe merely squeaked.