Death of an Adept

Chapter Five

DESPITE Taliere's grave misgivings, Raeburn remained adamant in his determination to carry on. When it became clear that he would not be moved, the old Druid grudgingly agreed to continue. His assistants appeared less than pleased, but dutifully bent to the task of stripping the bull's hide from its still-warm carcass - a heavy, messy task that left both men mired with gore.

While they were busy plying their knives, Taliere took the basin of blood that Mallory had collected and began tracing bloody symbols on the inner faces of the stones that circumscribed the circle, chanting a sibilant singsong under his breath as he did so. From there he returned to the base of the central monolith and proceeded to mark out the perimeter of a smaller circle between it and the sunken depression of the tomb-cairn, with bloody 5 runes radiating outward from the center, like the broken spokes of a wheel.

While Raeburn observed these preliminaries, his three remaining henchmen were making their own preparations. Moving into the lee of one of the larger stones, Barclay cast off his robe to reveal himself stripped to the buff beneath, shivering as he hastily rewrapped himself in the warmth of a goose-down sleeping bag which Richter shook out and draped around his shoulders. At Mallory's direction, he hunkered down and then sat at the base of the stone, suffering the physician to apply a blood pressure cuff and stethoscope while Richter rolled up the discarded robe and laid it atop the now empty duffel bags. After a moment, Raeburn drifted back to glance questioningly at Mallory.

"He's ready for you," Mallory said, pulling off the blood pressure cuff and returning it to his bag, though he left his stethoscope clamped around his neck as he rose and backed off.

Huddled motionless under the sleeping bag, Barclay sat with forehead bowed on folded arms atop his knees. He lifted his head as he sensed Raeburn taking Mallory's place beside him, but his eyes had already taken on a glazed, faraway look, and his breathing was shallow and slow.

"No last-minute reservations, I hope?" Raeburn asked.

Barclay bestirred himself enough to shake his head dreamily. "No, sir."

"I knew you would not disappoint me," Raeburn murmured. "This will be your greatest challenge, but also your finest commission. So long as your nerve holds, I foresee no difficulties."

Three days of rigid fasting had sharpened the planes of Barclay's already lean face and drained him of some of his usual vitality, but the flash of wry grin he offered his employer reaffirmed his customary good humor.

"Just promise me I'll get that big, juicy steak I've been dreaming about, Mr. Raeburn. And a huge baked potato with lots of sour cream and butter. And plenty of cold beer to wash 'em down."

"I expect that can be arranged," Raeburn replied softly, smiling as he laid a hand lightly on one of Barclay's. "Settle yourself now. You've important work to do."

Barclay put his forehead back on his knees and closed his eyes in passive anticipation, slipping effortlessly into trance at a few further words from Raeburn. Mallory stood by watching, his expression one of cynical attention, and moved a few steps apart with Raeburn when the latter rose.

"A man of rather ordinary appetites," he observed. "Are you sure he's the right man for this job?"

"Have no doubts in that regard," Raeburn returned frostily. "Whatever his social shortcomings, Mr. Barclay's talents as a medium are second to none."

"But to play host to one of the Patrons - ''

"Will constitute a laudable triumph," Raeburn said. "Help Richter bring him over to Master Taliere. I believe he's ready for him."

The old Druid was standing impassively beside the bloody bull's hide, now spread hair-side down beside the rune-marked circle he had earlier inscribed. Half a dozen narrow, bloody strips of bull's hide dangled from his bloody fingers as he bade Mallory and Richter guide the now somnambulant Barclay to a recumbent position in the center of the hide. The discarded sleeping bag Raeburn wadded under his head for a pillow.

Without speaking, Taliere crouched to bind rawhide ligatures tightly around Barclay's ankles, wrists, and upper arms - restriction of blood-flow to subtly shift Barclay's body chemistry and enhance his altered state. Then he passed a longer strip beneath Barclay's torso to hold in place the dagger, still bloodied from its kill, which he positioned on Barclay's chest with the point against his throat.

Finally, at Taliere's nod, his assistants moved in to wrap the gory sides of the bull hide close around Barclay's naked form, one stretching the bloody edges to meet while the other began sewing him tightly into the hide with laces of bloody sinew, starting at his neck and working toward his feet. Barclay seemed to take no note of any physical discomfort, even though his rigid body rocked with the force of each stitch through the tough bull hide.

After a moment, Raeburn knelt at Barclay's head and bent to whisper in the pilot's ear, fingertips tracing a symbol on his forehead and then continuing to stroke the weathered brow.

"Hear me, Barclay, and know this for your mission. The dagger at your breast is the key which will unlock the door to the elemental planes. Once past the threshold, you are to seek out the lord Taranis with this message: Your votaries languish for want of your empowerments, O Mighty One. Return to us and renew our strength. Defend us by your lightnings from our enemies, and we will honor you with offerings of blood and sacrifice. Repeat what I have just said."

Barclay repeated the message three times before Raeburn was satisfied. Each recitation added to the tension building within the circle, but by the third recitation, Taliere's now thoroughly be-gored assistants had finished their grisly work. When Taliere had pronounced himself satisfied, he directed the pair to shift the cocooned Barclay onto the sleeping bag which Richter and Mallory now spread atop the blood-runes beside the central monolith. When they had zipped him into it, Raeburn crouched at his head and administered a further prompting that sent Barclay plunging even deeper into trance.

Meanwhile, Taliere had instructed his associates to withdraw to the other side of the circle, where the central monolith blocked much of their view. Richter shifted closer to watch them. When the two had settled, side by side with backs against one of the stones, the old Druid donned his feathered mantle again and crouched opposite Raeburn to anoint Barclay's forehead with bull's blood, muttering a charm under his breath. But when he removed the leathern bottle from his belt, Raeburn thrust a restraining hand against his wrist.

"I told you to save your potions," he said to Taliere. "We have more reliable means for liberating the psyche."

The old Druid stiffened. "Tradition requires that the emissary be given a draught of mistletoe to speed his spirit on its inward journey."

"I've no doubt that such herbals once had their uses," Raeburn replied. "But it's been my experience that modern psy-chotropic equivalents act more predictably, and with fewer unexpected side effects. Dr. Mallory?"

Moving forward from beside Richter, Mallory blandly displayed a capped hypodermic syringe. With an explosive exclamation, Taliere sprang to his feet and planted himself indignantly between Mallory and their subject.

"This is entirely unacceptable!" he protested over his shoulder to Raeburn. "Let me remind you once again that the lord Taranis is one of the higher powers of nature. How can you possibly hope to win his favor when you continue to demonstrate this kind of contempt for the natural world?"

His face was flushed with barely controlled anger, his fists clenched at his sides. Behind him, watching from the sidelines, Klaus Richter drew himself up, muscles tensing as he prepared to step in. Raeburn, however, signalled with a glance for the German to hold his position.

"Your objection is not without merit, Taoiseach," he acknowledged formally. "Very well. For the sake of tradition, I will agree to a small dose of this mistletoe brew of yours - in addition to my own methods. But make it no more than a sip. I shouldn't want to risk another chemical interfering with the effects of Dr. Mallory's drug."

Grudgingly Taliere accepted the compromise. Returning to Barclay's side, he bent to tip a small measure of mistletoe liquor into the pilot's mouth, then corked the leathern bottle and rose again to lift his arms above his head in a gesture of invitation.

"Mighty Lord Taranis!" he called out in a loud voice. "Here is one who offers himself as a consecrated vessel. Descend, we implore you, upon this, your servant, and speak to us through his mouth."

Mallory, meanwhile, had dropped to one knee at Raeburn's signal and was scrubbing an alcohol swab over an area just below Barclay's left ear. Pulling the cap from the hypo with his teeth, he held the barrel briefly to the light of the nearest lamp, then injected its contents directly into the jugular. He had finished almost before Taliere realized what was happening, capping the hypo and dropping it into his open bag as he moved back beside Richter.

The drug worked quickly, given thus. A shuddering sigh escaped Barclay's slack lips. An instant later, his eyes flew wide, their dilated gaze shifting sightlessly across the starry firmament overhead. He took a hoarse, choking breath. Then all at once he began to tremble.

"Seize him, Taranis!" Taliere whispered, sinking to his knees to watch avidly.

The tremors increased in violence and intensity. Mallory glanced anxiously at Raeburn, but the latter's gaze was glued to Barclay's face. Within a matter of seconds, the pilot's whole body was twitching and jerking uncontrollably, as if caught in a surge of electrical current, his visage contorted in an expression of mingled anguish and ecstasy. Only the confinement of the hide wrappings prevented him from rolling out of the circle painted on the ground.

"Take him, Taranis!" Taliere whispered fiercely, fists clenched at his chest.

Barclay's eyes bulged in their sockets as an even stronger convulsion seized him. His jaw gaped, tongue protruding from his mouth like that of a hanged man, and strangled noises began to issue from his throat.

"He's in trouble!" Mallory muttered, starting forward with his medical bag.

"Be still, you fool!''

Taliere's vehement command stopped Mallory in his tracks no less than Raeburn's urgent gesture to forbear. Before the young doctor could even consider disobeying, a torrent of garbled speech began pouring from Barclay's writhing lips.

"Can you make out what he's saying?" Raeburn whispered to Taliere.

The old Druid shook his head. Suddenly Barclay gave a rending shriek, then began to rant in a harsh, rolling voice that patently was not his own.

"Cowards! Traitors!" he howled. "How dare you presume to venture here, thinking with mere words and token oblations to win the ear of the lord Taranis? A curse upon you, false son of Thunder, and a curse upon all who aid you! The Prince of Storms is not to be cozened by oath-breakers such as you! So long as I retain a tongue to speak, you will never gain a hearing in his presence!"

The tirade degenerated into incoherent ravings, but not before Raeburn began to discern an eerie note of familiarity in the harsh timbre of the voice. Stiffening, he placed it: the embittered accents of the man he himself had once hailed as the Head-Master.

Even as the unwelcome implications of that discovery began to dawn on him, the voice renewed its rantings through the foam-flecked lips of its medium.

"Vilest of ingrates! Betrayers of Taranis! May his lightnings scourge the flesh from your bones! May the fury of his storms consume your very souls! May your spirits be raked across the plains of desolation on the talons of the wind! May you never more know rest or resolution!"

With these words, the voice broke off with another anguished howl. A violent convulsion racked Barclay's bound form from head to foot. For a moment it seemed as if he must surely either burst his bonds or break his limbs. Then all at once the paroxysm ceased and he went limp.

The silence that suddenly descended was almost physical. Raeburn was the first to recover. Scrambling closer on hands and knees, he set one hand on Barclay's forehead and thrust the other hard against the side of his neck, searching for a pulse as Mallory also dashed to their patient's side and thumped to his knees, himself checking Barclay's pulse and then frantically rummaging in his medical bag for another preloaded syringe. Barclay was still breathing, but his face was ashen and his heartbeat erratic.

"Let's get him out of this!" Raeburn barked, tearing at the sleeping bag's zipper and at the same time summoning Richter, who was already on his way.

"It can't have been the drug," Mallory protested, as he found what he was looking for and injected Barclay in the neck again.

Richter produced a Swiss Army knife and began cutting Barclay free of his bull bindings, and once the ancient dagger had been freed, Raeburn used it to assist Richter. Meanwhile, Mallory jammed his stethoscope into his ears and thrust its bell into the growing opening over Barclay's chest, relaxing a little at what he heard; and Taliere at last bestirred himself to take up the sickle at his belt and use its sharpened blade to cut the ligatures binding Barclay's arms and ankles. By the time they had the pilot completely freed, both Mallory and his patient had begun to breathe more easily.

"I thought for a minute we were going to lose him," Mallory murmured, as he and Richter lifted Barclay's limp and blood-smeared body free of the remnants of the bull hide and laid it on the white robe Raeburn had stripped off and spread beside it. "If we don't get him warm pretty quick, we may yet lose him."

As they wrapped Barclay in the robe and Mallory stood long enough to strip off his own, adding it to the first, Richter ran to fetch the robe Barclay had discarded earlier. This, too, was bundled around the hapless pilot. As Mallory wound his blood pressure cuff around Barclay's slack arm and pumped it up, Richter lifted a corner of the bloody sleeping bag.

"Do you want this, too?" he asked.

"No, it'll be clammy from all the blood," Raeburn replied. He snapped his fingers at Taliere's two assistants, who had scrambled apprehensively to their feet during the crisis. "You men, give him your robes. Derek, how's he doing?"

Nodding, the physician released the pressure on the cuff and bent briefly to peer under one of his patient's eyelids, then slipped his stethoscope from his ears and breathed out a cautious sigh.

"He's still shocky, but I think we're past the worst of it. We need to get him back to the RV. I want to put him on oxygen."

"Right," Raeburn said, getting to his feet. "You men, help carry him," he said to Taliere's assistants. "Richter, open the circle and go with them, and recall your men. Taliere and I will finish up here and join you shortly."

Richter nodded acknowledgement, his pale eyes unreadable in the lantern-glare as he retrieved the birch wand and cut a doorway between the two nearest stones. Before stepping outside, he laid the wand on the grass beside the closest lantern, pointing at the opening.

Taliere's assistants meanwhile had folded the discarded sleeping bag with the bloodiest surface inside and zipped it shut, forming a narrow, makeshift stretcher onto which they shifted the unconscious Barclay before lifting it by both ends. As they carried him carefully after Richter, Mallory closed his medical bag and followed along at his patient's side.

Taliere watched in stony silence as the party receded against the darker mass of Cnoc an Tursa, turning only when Raeburn brushed past him, the dagger in one hand and Taliere's staff in the other, to lay the staff beside the open gateway that Richter had left. The old Druid said nothing as he watched the younger man replace the dagger in its casket, which he then slipped into one of the duffel bags lying there.

"When you proposed sending this servant of yours to seek audience with the lord Taranis," Taliere said softly, as Raeburn bent to pick up the nearest lantern, "why did you neglect to mention that another - an adversary, moreover - would be there ahead of us to dispute the way?"

Raeburn had been anticipating a question along those lines, and decided that truth would serve as an answer for now.

"Why? Because before now, I knew nothing about it myself," he replied, lifting the lantern to blow it out. "I assure you, I was as much surprised as you were to encounter such violent opposition."

Taliere glared at him sourly, following as Raeburn picked up a second lantern, extinguished it, and pressed the handles of both into the old man's hands.

"I find that hard to believe," Taliere retorted, "given that our contact's animosity seemed to be directed principally toward you. Have you any idea who he might be, that he sees reason to heap curses upon your head?''

Raeburn picked up the third lantern and favored the Druid with a calculating glance.

"What would you say if I told you that it was none other than the Head-Master?"

Just before he extinguished the lantern, he was gratified to see that this announcement had reduced Taliere momentarily to stunned silence.

"When the Hunting Lodge overran his stronghold in the Cairngorms," Raeburn went on, moving to pick up the fourth lantern, "I urged him to flee, but he refused. The citadel was levelled soon after, and I assumed that he perished in its fall.

"I see now that he must have been caught up, body and spirit, into the realm of eternal storm. The translation," he finished, with a puff of breath to blow out the last light, "does not appear to have improved his sanity."

Digesting this information as Raeburn pressed the last two lanterns into his hands, Taliere turned his gaze distractedly in the direction of the bull's carcass, now discernible only as a glistening mound under the starlight.

"I warned you that the auguries in this matter were unfavorable," he whispered. "You ought to have listened to me. As it is, we have squandered valuable time and resources to no good purpose."

Behind him, Raeburn bent to pick up the birch wand from where Richter had left it pointing to the circle's gateway.

"On the contrary," he said, "we have gained a revelation which will be of considerable value to us the next time."

Taliere stiffened, hardly noticing as Raeburn lifted the wand and turned a full circle counterclockwise, murmuring the words to dispel the illusion that had cloaked their work.

"Next time?" the old Druid repeated blankly. "There will not be a next time."

"Of course there will be a next time," Raeburn replied softly, taking Taliere's arm. "Surely you don't think I would let this one temporary setback stand in my way. If we cannot contact the lord Taranis by one method, we shall simply have to find another."

As he led Taliere from the circle, the two guards who had been stationed at the upper car park were waiting to take the lanterns Taliere still held, hurriedly packing them away in the remaining duffel bag. Each man shouldered one of the bags as they fell in behind Raeburn and Taliere, one of them pausing to retrieve the old Druid's staff while the other spoke briefly into his microphone. Speechless, Taliere allowed himself to be escorted nearly back to the waiting vehicles before he found words to express his displeasure.

"Francis, this cannot continue," he whispered, as they approached the RV. "You may do as you like - you always have - but if you intend to persist in this rash course of action, then you will have to do it without my help. I have already been persuaded to compromise my principles, by assisting you thus far. I cannot allow my integrity to be further eroded by continuing this association."

Shaking his head, Raeburn glanced casually back at the men following them, then ahead to where a faint glow spilled from the open side door of the RV, between it and the Land Rover. The darker silhouette of the Mini Cooper was just visible beyond the Rover, positioned to lead out. The driver of the Mini was half-sitting against the RV's near front bumper, but he came to his feet and moved a little closer as Raeburn and Taliere approached. Of Taliere's two assistants there was no sign.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Taoiseach," Raeburn said softly, as they passed between the horse-box and the rear of the RV. "I suppose you speak for your associates as well."

"I do," Taliere said stiffly.

"A pity."

Even as Raeburn's hand tightened on Taliere's elbow, a soft call from inside the RV summoned the Mini's driver to the open door to reach in and take the booted feet of a slack, burly form. Taliere gasped as the rest of the form emerged, the head and shoulders of one of Taliere's assistants supported by Rich-ter, but heavy hands on his own shoulders from behind warned the Druid not to cry out.

"Dear God, what have they done to him?'' he said, his voice breaking in a muffled sob as he watched Richter and his man drag their dead or unconscious charge toward the front of the Land Rover. He turned his gaze to the face of the man who suddenly had become his captor. Raeburn's smile was as cold as a shark's.

"My dear Taliere," Raeburn purred, "I should have thought it would be obvious. Your associates were always expendable, but tonight's little setback has sealed their fate."

"But - "

"Think about it: After what happened tonight, did you really think I could risk having my involvement discovered through some accident of indiscretion? As you cannot have failed to notice, I already have more than my share of powerful enemies looking for me; I don't need the civil authorities as well. Sometimes, for the greater strategy of the game, a few pawns must be sacrificed."

"Are they dead?" Taliere asked numbly.

"No, but they will have to die," Raeburn replied, not unkindly, as Richter returned to direct the removal of Taliere's second associate from the RV. "If it's any consolation, Dr. Mallory tells me the preparation will have been relatively painless. It always amazes me what can be done with a couple of bottles of cheap whisky, a funnel, and a few feet of rubber tubing in the hands of someone medically trained - and with a whiff or two of chloroform to ease the inevitable resistance. I believe Mr. Richter has an accident in mind: alas, too much drink before driving an altogether too treacherous road."

While Raeburn spoke, Taliere's second assistant was carried away, and the men accompanying Raeburn and the Druid had stowed the duffel bags and Taliere's staff in the RV. As Richter returned to fetch two fresh liquor bottles, lifting them to the old mas in ironic salute before heading back toward the Land Rover, Raeburn gently removed Taliere's headdress and feathered mantle and handed them off to one of Richter's men to stow. Taliere did not resist as Raeburn took him by the elbow and guided him to the door of the RV, but he shook off the other's grip and mounted the step himself.

Inside, Mallory was adjusting an oxygen mask on the still unconscious Barclay, who was stretched out on the couch across the back of the cabin and wrapped in a bright silver thermal blanket. The physician turned as Raeburn and Taliere entered, picking up a loaded hypodermic syringe while Raeburn pushed his captive into one of the padded swivel chairs toward the front. Outside, the engines of the Mini Cooper and then the Land Rover rumbled to life, the two vehicles pulling out just before Richter and one of his men entered the RV and closed the door.

"Time to settle in for a long ride, Taoiseach," Raeburn said softly, as Richter's man went forward and Richter himself came to hold the old man for Mallory's ministrations. "Dr.

Mallory is going to give you something to relax you."

Taliere turned his face away as the deed was done, not resisting, his eyes dull with incomprehension. When Mallory had returned to his other patient, turning out the interior lights in favor of a small pocket flashlight, and Richter had retreated to the front passenger seat, Raeburn slid into the chair beside Taliere, carefully buckling the old man's seat belt.

"Why do you not just kill me and be done with it?" the Druid asked, as the RV's engine turned over with a muffled purr. "Why should I be spared, when my associates must die? They trusted me, Francis, and you have betrayed that trust."

"Why do I spare you?'' Raeburn said, himself buckling up. "Why, I entertain the fond notion that you may still prove useful to me. At very least, you have provided me with an abundance of red herrings to confound those who would try to interfere with my plans. Why do you think I didn't bother cleaning up the physical evidence at the circle? Investigating it will give the police something to occupy their time, but they haven't the resources to learn much from it. And if, by chance, tonight's work should come to the attention of some higher investigative authority, the signature of power is yours, not mine."

As the RV pulled quietly onto the road and began its slow progress back toward Stornoway, Taliere turned his face away and closed his eyes, not bothering to fight as Mallory's sedative dragged him gently into oblivion.