Chapter Two

"SCHOLARS!" Jasper Taliere said with a derisive snort. "What know they? Their reliance on the tools of so-called science has made them deaf and blind to the promptings of their own intuition. They treat the past as if it were naught but a quarry, to be mined without discrimination or respect. Is it any wonder that the greater truths forever elude them?"

The old man's deep voice carried across the library with theatrical resonance, reminding Raeburn of the actor Richard Burton at the height of his form.

"Not everyone can boast your particular sense of historical perspective, Taoiseach," Raeburn said mildly, "especially with regard to the ancient mysteries of our native isle."

Raeburn had used the Gaelic title meaning "Head," an apt honorific. Accepting it as his due, Taliere turned restlessly from the window bay, where he had been gazing out at a flight of snow geese silhouetted against the wintry sky.

Despite his age, Taliere was a hale figure of a man, broad across the shoulders and gnarled as a mature oak tree, with shaggy, beetling white brows and lush moustaches lending eccentric character to a lean, sharp-nosed face. A receding hairline had endowed him with a natural tonsure approximating those shown in lithographs of ancient Druids, hairless across the top of his head from ear to ear, with the rest of his hair swept back in a silvery mane. Though clad unalarmingly in baggy tweeds and a nondescript pullover, out at the elbows, the overall effect was that of an ageing and unpredictable lion - an aspect that grew more pronounced as he studied his host through yellow-green eyes.

"You need not exert yourself to flatter me, Francis," he growled. "I have already agreed to do what you desire."

"On terms of your own dictating," Raeburn pointed out drily. "Mind you, I'm not complaining," he continued when the older man showed signs of bridling. "Knowledge never comes without a price. But don't pretend that you're lending me your assistance purely out of the goodness of your heart. You stand to profit as much from this experiment as I do."

"I doubt that," Taliere said bluntly. "You have your father's propensity for seeing that the scales are weighted in your favor. But I did not come here to quibble. Where is this dagger you wish to show me?"

"One of my initiates is fetching it from the safe," Raeburn said. "He should be here momentarily."

As if on cue, there was a knock at the door. At Raeburn's acknowledgement, Barclay came in with a small wooden casket under one arm. He accorded Taliere an unabashedly curious glance as he crossed to set the casket on the desk before his superior.

"Here you are, Mr. Raeburn. Do you want me to wait, so I can put it back in the safe, or shall I just leave it here?"

"I'll call you when I'm ready for it to go back," Raeburn said. "For now, why don't you and Mr. Richter make certain the wards are secure?"

With a nod, Barclay retired from the room. As the door closed behind him, Taliere pulled a scowl and ensconced himself into one of the chairs opposite Raeburn.

"That man of yours is far too inquisitive for one of his degree and station," he observed disapprovingly. "What prompted you to take an American into your service?"

He pronounced the word "American" as if it were an epithet. Raeburn shrugged.

"He's an excellent pilot."

"But you described him as an initiate."

"The two functions are not mutually exclusive."

Taliere's response was a disgruntled snort.

"I dislike Colonials," he informed Raeburn. "They have too much regard for their own self-worth. That kind of arrogance fosters an unbecomingly cavalier attitude toward authority. I would not recommend you trust this Barclay too far."

"I know just how far he's to be trusted," Raeburn said blandly. "He is equally clear on what to expect from me, should he ever consider violating his articles of service. On that understanding, we contrive to get along quite well. Mr. Barclay may be a rough diamond, but he has incidental facets to his character that are sufficiently brilliant to outweigh many a shortcoming in his deportment. As you will discover, if matters progress as we both would wish."

With these words he indicated the casket in front of him. "Here is the dagger. Will you or will you not examine it?"

"That is not the question," Taliere said grimly. "The question is, Are you fit to share any revelations I may encounter?" Raeburn professed shock and reproach. "How can you doubt it? Am I not my father's son?"

"In many respects," Taliere allowed. "But not all." He subjected Raeburn to a penetrating glare. "Do you know what sets Britain apart from her sister-nations on the Continent? It is more - much more - than any intervening body of water. No, of all the estates of Europe, Britain alone still preserves intact the living spirit of her ancient past, the spirit which has always safeguarded her identity. That spirit was given to her by the old gods in the days before the coming of the White Christ. It has endured patiently over the centuries, sustained by those few of us who still remember the gift and revere the Givers. But if we should ever fail in our charge, that spirit would wither and die, and the land would be empty again - a body without a soul."

He leaned back in his chair and studied Raeburn down his long nose. "Your father had a proper reverence for the old gods," he went on. "Had he not, I would never have given him the benefit of my assistance. Before we proceed with this venture, I must know what your position is. What exactly do you want from the old gods, and what are you prepared to give them in return?"

"What I want," Raeburn said simply, "is power. As to what I intend to offer…"

He let the sentence hang a moment before going on. "I will be frank with you. As matters stand at the moment, I am caught between two enemies. One of them is a foreign sorcerer, a scion of the self-proclaimed master race which tried to overrun this island - and, indeed, the world - fifty years ago. The other is native-born, but a traitor to his birthright - an Adept who has forsaken the ancient paths for the sake of the White Christ.

Each, in his own way, would like to see the old gods driven out of this corner of the world in order to make room for the patron that he serves. In providing me with the means to defend myself, the old gods would be giving me the means to protect their own interests as well."

"You have yet to mention where your own service lies pledged," Taliere said.

"All my former alliances were terminated when the Head-Master's citadel was destroyed by those who claim to champion the New Light," Raeburn said. "As of now, any principle of power which aids me will find me appropriately grateful."

"I hope, for your sake, that there is no guile in your words," Taliere muttered. ' The old gods are not to be mocked. If you are lying, they will not countenance your profiting from their indulgence. And I warn you now, they have ways of taking revenge against those who abuse their trust."

"The old gods have already seen my willingness to serve," Raeburn replied, a trifle sharply. "Two years ago, when the lord Taranis permitted me to wear his tore and bear his lightnings, I showed my gratitude by giving him many holocausts. I would be prepared to do the same again, in return for a similar loan of power. What I require is a focus for communicating the terms of the bargain."

"If all of this is true," Taliere said, "then I hope that this dagger is all you claim it to be."

"By all means, see for yourself," Raeburn replied, opening a hand toward the casket before him.

Making no secret of his reservations, Taliere rose and approached the casket from his side of the desk. As soon as his fingers touched it, however, his face underwent a marked change of expression. Leaving the casket unopened, he stroked questing fingers over the lid, his touch as perceptive and knowledgeable as that of a blind man reading an inscription in Braille.

"There is, indeed, considerable power represented here," he said softly, glancing at Raeburn in wonder. "The resonance it generates is sensible even at one remove. Whether the blade itself will consent to speak with me regarding its affinities is another matter. But we shall know soon enough."

Gingerly, he opened the box. The dagger lay visible within, pillowed on layers of silk. Taliere drew breath sharply, then let it out again in a gusty sigh.

"If I am to commune with this object, it must be in the spirit of its own time," he said, not taking his eyes from the dagger. "I can return there by passing through the sacred grove, but may I rely upon you to stand ready as an anchor-line to the present?"

Raeburn smiled thinly. "Have no fears on that account, Tao-iseach. With so much at stake, I would be foolish to let you lose yourself among the shadows of the past."

Taliere signified his acceptance with a nod. After further silent contemplation of the dagger, he struck a formal posture of invocation, feet braced apart and gnarled hands upraised above his head. When he opened his mouth to speak, it was in a long-dead tongue that Raeburn only belatedly recognized from rare encounters with its graven form.

At once adamant and oddly liquid, the words spilled from the old man's lips like angry waters rushing down a cataract, an ancient formula to set the stage. At the conclusion of his utterance, he abruptly dropped his arms and brought his hands together in an intricate sign of warding. Only then did he venture to pluck the dagger from its nest of silk, clasping both hands around its hilt and carrying it to his breast, its point toward the ceiling.

"I am ready to set out," he announced, as he closed his eyes in an attitude of stiff composure.

"And I am ready to guide and guard you," Raeburn said.

He rose smoothly and came around to stand next to Taliere, lifting his left hand to rest lightly on the older man's right shoulder. At once Taliere's rate of respiration quickened.

After a moment, the old man drew a deep breath, held it a moment, then released it in an explosive gust of expelled air. With his next deep intake of breath, his face went momentarily blank. Then he began to mutter to himself, stringing words together in a singsong, semi-metrical chant.

The chant trailed off and he began to sway, but Raeburn's hand on his shoulder steadied him.

"Tell me where you are now," Raeburn murmured, after a long pause.

Taliere's face took on a look of fierce exultancy.

"Home," he murmured. "Among the trees, before the Burning Time."

His voice lifted again in bardic song.

With these words he broke off, his hands tightening around the dagger's hilt while he cocked his head, as if listening for some approaching sound.

"Yes… Yes…" he murmured.

Raeburn stared more intently at the old man, his eyes pale and bright.

"Tell me what the iron is saying," he instructed softly.

A look of consternation passed over Taliere's lined face.

"The speech it employs is not that of the wood," he breathed. "The sense is there, but not the words…." He struggled a moment longer, as if trying to fix an elusive impression.

"The Thunderer speaks, but only in riddles," he muttered at last. "One must be found with the skill to interpret. The storm-wind waits to carry him aloft. Let him harness the tempest and make his ascent - "

A sudden seizure gripped Taliere, choking off anything more he might have said. As the dagger fell from his palsied fingers, a violent shudder sent him caroming against a lyre-backed chair, which overturned despite Raeburn's attempted intervention. As the old man collapsed twitching to the carpet, a white foam frothing at his mouth, Raeburn was only partially able to break his fall.

"Barclay, get in here!" Raeburn shouted.

Barclay answered the summons on the run, bursting through the library door to find his employer kneeling over the thrashing Taliere, forcing the spine of a paperback book between his teeth.

"Give me a hand here, damn it, before he does himself damage!" Raeburn barked.

Between them they managed to restrain the old Druid until the fit showed signs of subsiding. As the final paroxysms trailed off, Raeburn cautiously eased the tooth-marked paperback from Taliere's jaws and looked around him. The dagger was lying under the overturned chair. Drawing a deep breath, he retrieved the dagger, set the chair right-side up, and laid the artifact back in its casket. As he turned back to Barclay and the supine Taliere, he saw that his aide had one hand clasped to the Druid's scrawny wrist.

"His pulse is hammering like a freight train,'' Barclay said. "Is he going to be all right?"

"He'll need someplace dark and quiet to rest for a while," Raeburn replied, "but I doubt there's any harm done. The ancients sometimes called this the 'divine madness.' In this case, it's a sign that he probably made a genuine contact."

"Do you think Dr. Mallory should have a look at him?" Barclay asked.

"Aye. When Mallory arrives, send him up to check him over. Meanwhile, get Jorge to help you carry him up to one of the spare bedrooms. He can rest there until he feels sufficiently recovered to rejoin us."

Taliere was already showing signs of regaining consciousness by the time Jorge arrived. Once the old Druid had been safely installed in his room, Barclay returned to the library to report on his condition. Raeburn was seated behind his desk again, turning the dagger thoughtfully in long fingers.

"He's looking a bit better, but he still seems disoriented," Barclay told his employer. "When I left him, he was muttering to himself in some strange language of his own. If he doesn't manage to pull himself together, there won't be much point in going through with this afternoon's meeting. Do you think maybe you'd better put it off until tomorrow?"

Raeburn shook his head. "Don't underestimate Master Tal-iere's powers of recovery. I'm quite confident he will be back in full possession of his faculties by the time the rest of the party arrives."

"Guess you've been acquainted with him long enough to know, Mr. Raeburn," Barclay said with a philosophic shrug. "He sure doesn't waste much time trying to make himself easy to live with, though. Does he really have the authority he claims to have, or is it all just attitude?"

Raeburn permitted himself a tight smile and replaced the dagger in its casket.

"Taliere is a Druid of the old school," he told his aide. "He sees himself as one of the last bastions of Britain's ancient mysteries, charged with the responsibility of keeping those mysteries alive. If he seems a trifle fanatical, that's because he is. His inner life is rooted in the soil of Anglesey."

"Anglesey?"

"The holy island of Druid Britain," Raeburn explained. "Only a narrow strait separates it from Wales. It was the nerve center of the Druid religion, in much the same way that the Vatican represents the heart of Catholic Christendom. Following the Roman occupation, Anglesey became a pocket-of native resistance, and in A.D. 64, Agricola gave orders that the community there should be destroyed.

"Taliere's past memories stretch back to the days when the Roman legionnaires invaded the island, slaughtered its priestly inhabitants, and put the sacred groves to the torch. It would be safe to say that a part of him has never left that time and place."

"How does that make him useful to us?" Barclay asked.

"As a vehicle of knowledge," Raeburn replied. "The Druids, like the followers of Taranis, recognized and venerated the cardinal powers of the elements. Although separated geographically, both cults were active in Britain at roughly the same time. Both shared an affinity for the gifts of prophecy. That the two traditions were closely akin to one another is reflected in such artifacts as the famous Gundestrup cauldron, which pictures a figure of Taranis side by side with that of Cernunnos, the horned god of the wood. If anybody can determine what we need to do to recover our link with Taranis," he concluded, "Jasper Taliere is the one."

Shortly before three o'clock, Raeburn assembled his chosen lieutenants for the appointed briefing. Of the three people summoned to the previous meeting, Angela Fitzgerald was absent, having already been given a separate assignment to fulfill. Her place for this occasion had been taken by a well-built young man with smoldering eyes and extravagant pretensions toward fashion, whose dark-haired good looks were somewhat marred by early signs of self-indulgence. With the addition of Taliere, who now seemed fully recovered after his seizure, those present constituted a company of five.

Directing the others to chairs set around the library table, Raeburn took his place at the table's head and prefaced his opening remarks with a round of brief introductions for Tali-ere's benefit.

"You and Mr. Barclay have already met. Now let me present Klaus Richter, my chief advisor on matters of security, and Dr. Derek Mallory, one of our most promising associates."

Mallory preened slightly at the compliment, already aware of his brief to examine Taliere after the meeting was concluded. Ambitious, and apparently without moral scruples, he had begun his career with the Lodge of the Lynx while still an intern, augmenting his burgeoning medical expertise with impressive psychic ability as his competence in both disciplines progressed. Now a qualified anaesthetist, he had recently secured a residency at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, which listed Dr. Adam Sinclair among its senior psychiatric consultants. Mallory's promotion to Raeburn's inner circle, replacing another physician who had failed in his duties, not only restored that facet of functioning to the Lodge of the Lynx, but Mallory's particular situation gave him an ideal opportunity to keep an eye on Sinclair's movements and interests.

Richter was the first person called upon to report. An attentive silence reigned as he delivered an updated account of what his surveillance agents had observed in the course of the two days since Adam Sinclair's departure from Scotland.

"My operatives in the States have been able to confirm that Sinclair is in Houston, attending a medical symposium. Of the nine telephone calls that have gone out from his hotel room, five have been directed to a number in San Francisco, which is listed to a Dr. X. Lockhart. A computer search of Dr. Lock-hart's personal records identifies her as the physician who attended Sinclair two years ago, and with whom he has since formed a romantic liaison. All the evidence so far accumulated suggests that he intends to remain in the United States for the duration of the Christmas holidays. This leaves us free to concentrate our attentions on his known associates."

From the black leather briefcase he had brought with him Richter produced a selection of black-and-white photos. The first set of pictures to be circulated showed a head-and-shoulders shot of a grizzle-haired man whose craggy features were offset by a bristling military moustache and a pair of metal-rimmed aviator spectacles.

"This man, as most of you will know, is Detective Chief Inspector Noel Gordon McLeod, of the Lothian and Borders Police," Richter noted coolly. "Though it is never officially acknowledged in police circles, he is the officer always detailed to deal with cases involving any esoteric or occult element. He is particularly adroit at misdirecting the attentions of the press - for which we can be as grateful as our opposite numbers."

As Taliere slowly nodded, Richter continued.

"Besides being a Master Mason, McLeod is also known to be a member of the Hunting Lodge. There is strong evidence to suggest that he ranks as Sinclair's second-in-command. So far, all his recent movements have been routine and accountable, but my operatives will be alert for any changes. His near dependents - if I may refer you to the other photos you have before you - include his wife, Jane Ellen, and one daughter, Kate Elizabeth, who is in her fourth year of studies at the University of Aberdeen. We are keeping all three of these subjects under surveillance, and will continue to do so until further notice."

The next photograph to be circulated was that of a much younger man, also bespectacled, but fair-haired and clean- shaven, with features that might have been chiselled by Delia Robbia.

"This man is Peregrine Andrew Lovat, a portrait artist whose reputation has soared since he was first taken under Sinclair's patronage about two years ago. The full spectrum of his talents has yet to be determined, but it would seem that his artistic abilities are augmented by some form of extrasensory perception that allows him to see and record resonances of the past. He has been significantly involved in a number of police investigations in which Sinclair and McLeod have likewise been factors. There can be little doubt that he is a Huntsman, and since the visionary nature of his talents makes him a particular danger to us, we shall be watching him very closely, indeed.

"His wife's involvement is, at present, unknown," Richter went on, tossing out a fifth set of photos. "They were only married last spring, but Sinclair seems to have introduced them, or at least encouraged the match. Her name is Julia."

"Very nice," Mallory murmured, allowing himself a broad grin as he scanned up and down a publicity photo of Julia posed beside one of her harps. "Any time your people get tired of watching her, I'd be delighted to lend a hand."

"Sadly for you. Doctor, your talents are likely to be required elsewhere," Raeburn said, on a crisp note that wiped the smile from the younger man's face. "Mr. Richter, I think we've spent enough time acquainting Master Taliere with the principal opposition players. With Sinclair temporarily out of the picture, I don't think we need worry overmuch about the others.

"The reason I've called you all here," he went on, "is to hear from Taliere himself regarding our coming operations. Earlier today, he took time to examine the dagger I obtained from the Head-Master. After reflection, he has some recommendations to make regarding its future empowerment. Tao-iseach!

The old Druid set his fingertips together in a narrow triangle, regarding them with eyes the color of peridots.

"Each of the Lords Elemental has his own realm and his own tongue," he began, with ponderous dignity. "As a servant of the Wood, I have little grasp of the language of fire. Nevertheless, at the behest of your chief, I sought audience with the lord Taranis and was granted it after a fashion. No words passed between us, but I have been given to understand that the Great One is willing to look with favor on the prospect of renewing your former alliance."

This announcement drew murmurs of approval from his listeners.

"What must we do to secure this alliance?" Richter asked.

"Lord Taranis will dictate his terms directly to those desiring to take part in the bargain," Taliere declared. "In so doing, he will set his seal upon them, so that thereafter they may understand and obey his commands. To receive his instructions, the ancient methods of divination must be employed, as prescribed by the Druids in ancient times. The eve of the Winter Solstice shall be the appointed time, some four days hence. Listen closely, for this is what must be done."