The Call of Distant Shores Page 17

The questions caught him completely off guard. They were the sort of questions he'd been asking himself for a thousand-plus miles. Setting his cup down, he felt a kind of release inside – some subtle pressure removing itself from his mind. He found himself suddenly telling this strange woman things he'd told no other as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

  "That is what I want to find out," he said. "I want the things he stood for to have meaning. Nobody else in the entire academic community wants to believe that he was close to the answers he sought. They are all afraid, and jealous. If I don't do him justice in this thesis – if I fail to prove his value and genius, then I have learned nothing, and they have won."

  She drew a deep breath and her smile seemed to leak into the depths of her eyes. "Somehow I knew you would be the one, Alex. I wonder if you're aware that you were not the only applicant for this work? That others have tried to gain access to his papers before you?"

  Alex started slightly. He'd been under the impression that he was utterly alone in his interest. "Who?" he blurted, realizing his outburst might sound rude, flavored as it was with a sudden, inexplicable outrage.

  "Other students, one of his old colleagues – even the university tried to obtain custody. They offered to buy his notes."

  "But why? They never believed in him. All they ever did was question his work, even his sanity. Why would they want his notes?"

  "Don't you see? They wanted to finish him off. He died trying to prove his theories with virtually no support. If they could get control of his papers, they could pass them off as whatever they wanted, seal them away in some vault in their library, and that would be the end to it. That was why I waited. I am very glad that you have come here, Alex. Very glad.

  "But do not forget," she added, "that the dissertation is not the end in itself. The knowledge – the seeing – are what he would have had you seek. Robert had very little concern for the likes of his 'peers.' But his students, his true students...."

  She leaned toward him, and her eyes grew larger, filling his vision. For just an instant he felt a tinge of vertigo, and he wondered – almost hopefully – if she meant to kiss him. She stopped just short, and said softly, "Robert would have been proud to know that you came."

  She drew back, and the spell of the moment parted like the gossamer thread of a spider's web. For those few seconds, it was as though the professor had never died. His spirit seemed to inhabit every corner, every shadow and flicker of light, surrounding them with that aura of mystery and promise of power just beyond the ordinary senses that made every thought, every motion sensual and vibrant, alive with purpose and meaning. Alex knew that she must feel it too – that it was a shared emotion.

  Sitting back slowly, he reached for his tea, which had begun to cool. Without a word, she warmed it with a splash from the teapot at her side. She refilled her own cup, never once dropping her eyes from his. Was she challenging him? His heart thundered, for she was such an amazing, exotic, unbelievably attractive woman. He found himself suddenly – perhaps wrongly, though he couldn't help it – looking forward to more than the study to come.

  Finally, rising, she said, "You must be exhausted, so I'll let you go to bed. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a night owl, so I may not rise as early as you. You'll find food and coffee in the kitchen. Make yourself at home. You may want a bath – the tub in your bathroom is actually a converted spa. The water cycles through once a day from an automatic pump and drain system. The temperature control is on the wall. Another of Robert's eccentricities. He did like his creature comforts. I must admit, I've found that tub...interesting...at times."

  So that explained the full tub. Alex almost laughed. Still, he thought, it would be easy to slip into that water first thing in the morning, when the light of the new day's sun was cleansing the shadows from the world. He wondered what she'd meant by "interesting," but at the mention of bed, his body almost melted with the sudden awareness of his fatigue.

  "Until tomorrow, then," he said, also rising. "It has been a pleasure to meet you, Madeline. Thank you for the opportunity to proceed with my work."

  She nodded, then turned and left the room. He watched her go, and again, very unscholarly thoughts rushed through his mind, synchronized with the subtle swaying of her hips. He drained the last of his tea and returned to the stairs.

  Upon reaching his room, he undressed quickly and slipped between the sheets of the huge old bed, letting his head fall softly onto the pile of down-filled pillows. He was unused to such luxury. With green-fringed shadows all around and the scent of newly laundered sheets filling his senses, he drifted off to exhausted sleep. And he dreamed.

  The world was heavy with the moisture of vast forests and roaring rivers. Exotic flowers perfumed the air, along with the hint of lush green foliage and the faint musk of unseen animals. Insects buzzed and flitted about him, some larger than any he'd ever seen, and in wonder he moved forward, parting branches and hanging vines with a brush of his arm.

  Alex was on a path, though it appeared seldom used, walking toward the sound of moving water. As he swiveled his eyes to the right and left, he saw the impossibly huge trunks of trees, the leaves of which he did not recognize, and splashes of colored flowers in hues so subtle he couldn't even put a name to them. There were butterflies and large, bee-like insects humming among the blossoms. Like harmonic accompaniment to the sounds of water and insects, birds flushed from perches so far above him that they were out of sight in the vast greenery, rustling and calling out to one another in warning at his approach.

  The path ended in a clearing that revealed the bank of a river so wide he could just make out the tree line on the far side. The water was a green, algae-ridden color. Further out, he could see bubbles and foam moving rapidly downstream, but nearest the shore a small, nearly stagnant pool was trapped by a cut in the bank. The odor of rotting vegetation and the hum of insects was overpowering.

  Turning again to the path, which now paralleled the river, he followed the line of trees whose branches overhung the water, draped with curtains of moss and clinging vines, until he reached a larger clearing.

  In the center was a stone table – an altar? On the altar he could make out a prone form, and he moved closer as if mesmerized by the sight. As he approached, he could see long tresses of auburn hair dangling from the end of the altar. It was a woman – Madeline, he realized with shock – and she was dressed in a gown of pure white linen. Her arms were folded upon her breast and her eyes were closed. He approached her, reaching out a tentative hand to touch her shoulder, but a mist rose suddenly, masking her from his sight. When he should have touched her skin, all he felt was rough stone, and he could not penetrate the hazy shroud that had appeared.

  His senses slipped away from him then, with an odd twist, like vertigo, or a dream of falling from a great height, and darkness suddenly claimed him.

  "Madeline!" he cried out, sitting up straight in the bed, sweat pouring from his brow. He couldn't immediately place his surroundings, and the shadow tendrils cast by the small forest of spider plants along the walls moved disorientingly about, as though a breeze blew swiftly through the room. It took a long time and several deep breaths to get his thoughts under control, and to realize it had been a dream.

  "Damn," he muttered to himself. The sound of his voice rang comfortingly in the darkness, and the shadows receded into themselves. He almost laughed, but a slight chill remained in his heart. That hadn't been a run-of-the-mill nightmare. So vivid! He would almost swear the smell of decaying algae lingered in the air–and he could still feel the muggy dampness of that primal atmosphere.

  Rising, he went to his briefcase and removed his journal. His eyes were already beginning to droop with weariness again, but before he returned and dropped off to a – thankfully – dreamless slumber, he recorded everything he could remember about the dream, adding a couple of comments about his strong attraction to Madeline Devonshire. The rest of the night passed without incident.

  Th
e next morning, he rose early, making his way to the kitchen and putting on a pot of strong, black coffee. He found eggs and bacon, and made some toast, allowing his mind to ease slowly into full wakefulness. When he'd finished eating and cleaned his dishes, he poured the rest of the coffee into an insulated pitcher he found in a cupboard and headed back up the stairs.

  He'd hoped that Madeline would, despite her warning, be up and around to give him an initial tour of the study, but she was nowhere to be seen. He grabbed the coffee pitcher and his cup and headed back to the stairs. With any luck, though, the professor's notes would prove to be organized in his typical fashion, and it would be a simple matter to sort through them.

  Approaching the study door, he found it to be much like the others on the upper floor, with a single notable exception: a brass plate was screwed into the wood at eye level, which read, "Enter with an open mind, depart with understanding."

  He smiled as he slowly opened the door. He had seen those words, years before, the first time he'd entered Devonshire's classroom. He hadn't known at the time what a depth of truth was to be found in them. He had come to understand more in his two semesters in that classroom than he had in a lifetime of adolescent dreams and study.

  The study proved to be an imposing sight, which was essentially what he'd expected, but he was undaunted. The desk itself was huge, covered with impeccably-stacked papers and writing materials. There were shelves, glass cases, tapestries hanging from the walls, all depicting various ancient lifestyles and religious beliefs – a wonderful hodge-podge of things that had made up the professor s life. He had expected no less, and that was in itself encouraging.

  He moved around the desk, sat down in the comfortable leather chair, and focused his attention on the lower drawer, the large one designed to accommodate files. Pulling it open, he smiled broadly, for there they were! The notebooks, literally hundreds of them, each labeled with that meticulous, mechanical script that he'd always admired. It would take countless hours to labor through these, but the rewards!

  Breathing a great sigh of satisfaction, he closed the drawer reluctantly, and let his gaze wander over the surface of the desk, only to discover one more surprise. Pushing aside a stack of unanswered correspondence, he found a series of small rectangular lines engraved in the wood, arranged in the shape of a Celtic cross, with three more outlined boxes in each of the four corners. It took a moment for his mind to register, but it finally clicked. Tarot cards. The shapes were there for the arrangement of Tarot cards.

  The windows....

  He rose and went to study the cases along the walls. Here, he found more tribal artifacts some of the oldest civilizations ever discovered, pieces museums would kill for. The professor had always venerated the most ancient minds, deferring to what he termed, "the Lost Wisdom of Instinct."

  Finally, after he'd browsed the books and the trinkets, the papers and notes left by an untimely departure from this world, he came to the window. It wasn't really a window, actually; it was merely the frame of a window, with the requisite curtains and blinds, but with no opening in the wall, no view of the outdoors or another room. It was symbolic – the center of everything that had brought him to this place, of everything the professor had believed in. It was the window in the solid wall, the veil that cloaked human understanding.

  The barrier to be overcome.

  There are other worlds, other levels, if we can only find the means to see them...if only we are ready.

  More echoed wisdom from the past. He stood for a long time in front of the closed portal, staring at the grain of the wood that backed the frame, watching the way the light brought out the highlights in the paneled surface. He never heard a sound, and the hand that landed softly on his shoulder nearly stopped his heart.

  "What do you see, Alex?" Madeline asked, her lips so close to his ear that he could feel her breath tickling the hairs on his neck. "What do you hear?"

  "I don't know," he admitted, forcing himself not to lean back against her, keeping himself rigid and erect and not thinking about the implications of that particular state. In the back of his mind, despite her own subtle overtones of reciprocation, he couldn't rid himself of a certain guilt. She was, after all, the widow of the one man in the world that had truly made a difference in his life.

  "The question, actually," he continued, "is what did he see? What did he hear? I've waited a decade to find out, and I always thought he'd be here to guide me when the time was right."

  "Everything he learned is here," she said, gliding silently to the desk and running her hand smoothly over the wood, "in one form or another. Everything that was a part of him is here. I am here, for the first time since he died."

  Turning from the blank window and its enigmatic challenge, Alex went to stand beside her. She was staring fixedly at the outlined Tarot boxes, lost in some world of thought all her own. After a time, she said, "Do you believe in the cards, Alex? Really believe?"

  The question caught him completely off guard. He thought back to the first day Professor Devonshire had brought his cards to the classroom. Alex's attitude had been one of detached amusement, certain that it was all some sort of experiment, or a joke. There had been many moments since then for reflection on his own ignorance.

  The cards – each student had been required to buy his own set, or, if he had the talent, to design and paint his own – had become an integral part of his life. Some of the students had never gotten it, had left with as little belief as when they'd entered the classroom, and, therefore, with as little understanding. Alex had painted his own cards carefully, checking and rechecking his notes to be certain that he had omitted no symbol, no pertinent reference. It had taken nearly two months to complete them, coating them at the last with clear lacquer to make them stiff and slick.

  "Yes," he answered finally.

  She raised her eyes to his, and moved toward one of the shelves that lined the wall to his left, passing so closely that the silky softness of her dress teased across his shoulders. She reached up to the top shelf and pulled down a small wooden box that he recognized instantly. The professor's cards. The first such cards Alex had ever seen and by far the most intriguing.

  Turning back to the desk, she gestured to him to seat himself again in the leather chair. She perched on the edge of the desk, her leg so close to his arm that he felt himself tremble. What the hell was wrong with him? At a decisive moment such as this, all he could think of was what the widow of the one man he'd ever truly respected would look like without her dress!

  Then she had the box open, and his eyes drifted thankfully down to the cards. They were bright, painted in the most vivid colors he could imagine. They seemed brand new, though he knew they were at least twenty years old. The back of each card, appropriately, he thought, bore the image of a window that framed only blackness. Tenderly, Madeline set the cards on the desk.

  "He was the last person to touch them," she said softly, not letting her eyes drift from the cards. "He used to shuffle them each night, then read them the following morning before he began his day's work. He shuffled them his last day here – I watched him. They were never read."

  The implications of what she was saying hit him like a sledge. Controversy had surrounded the professor's death, a long string of unanswered questions. Here, in front of him, he knew he could find those answers. Suddenly, he knew with complete certainty that he was not here merely to write a paper for a stuffy academic degree.

  "Why didn't you read them?" he whispered. "Surely you know the cards. Why did you wait?"

  "I know more than the cards," she answered enigmatically. "I had a dream, a dream that another would come. It was as if Robert were speaking to me as I slept. I was afraid if I touched the cards, if I disregarded my dream, that whatever message they contained would be warped, or lost. I didn't dare."

  Alex could feel a tension growing in the air, linking her to him, and both of them to the cards, and sweat began to roll down the sides of his face. His mouth was
dry and his hands trembled. So, this was it. This was the moment of discovery. There would be no weeks or months of study, no delving through notebook after notebook of meticulously recorded experiments and facts. It would come down to the moment, and the belief. The instinct.

  Taking a deep breath, he reached for the cards, and closed his eyes. Normally this was the point where he would begin the slow shuffle that would place them in the proper order for reading. In this case, he merely held them, clearing his mind of all thought. It was not easy. He could feel Madeline's hungry gaze, taste her perfume in the air, sense the beating of her heart.

  Several moments passed before the familiar, warm peace began to settle over him, and he felt the beginning of the trance state calming his nerves. He didn't begin until he was absolutely certain he was ready. There would be no second chance.

  The professor had taught him the pattern long ago. It was not the system used by most followers of the Tarot, nor were the cards exactly those one could buy in a store. Subtle changes had been made over the years; steps had been taken to obscure the strongest secrets locked in the ancient symbols and designs. A few questionable luminaries, such as Aleister Crowley and Eliphas Levi had hinted at these changes, even giving a second, and also erroneous, set of cards and numbers to further confuse things. The secrets were there, locked away in the collective unconscious of mankind. It took many years of study, however, to sort them out and make a usable system.

  Alex turned over the first card, representing the person for whom the reading was done, in the center spot on the cross, face up. The Magus. Of course, he thought, flipping over the next card, crossing the first with it. The Queen of Cups. A water card. Probably Madeline, he thought, but he brushed the intruding images aside and continued. It was necessary to keep his mind clear, to not influence the reading in any way.

  He flipped the next card and placed it directly above the first. The Knight of Wands. Fire. He was a Leo himself; could he be an influencing factor? At the bottom of the cross, he placed the foundation, the Ace of Pentacles. Primal energy. Earth. To the left, the Nine of Cups – Debauch – excess in pleasure, in indulgence; to the right, the Four of Swords. Four, a number of completeness – an air card.