Ghostlight by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Author:Marion Zimmer Bradley [Bradley, Marion Zimmer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary, Fiction, Fantasy, Unknown, Gothic, Occult & Supernatural, Usernet, C429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 0765321882
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 1995-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

and then yours?” Caradoc said, pitching his voice intentionally lower than Ellis or Gareth’s. Julian smiled. “A prudent suggestion, Caradoc, and worthy of your position in the Temple—only Halloween is in two weeks and Beltaine is six months after that. I don’t want to wait another year to inaugurate the New Aeon, do you? We’ll try my way now—and if that fails, we’ll give Thorne’s method a try in six months.” “You won’t live to try Thorne’s way!” Irene burst out. “Julian, Thorne knew that the powers of the falling tide were not to be lightly broached. He said it wasn’t for humankind to tamper with chthonic energies, only the tellurian ones—the powers manifest in the living world. The chthonic powers are prehuman—inhuman—involvement with them is too dan- gerous; the Lodge isn’t full strength—you don’t even have anyone to work the higher Grades! You said—” “Look.” Julian leaned forward, palms on the table. “Unless we’re going to go in for human sacrifice—and may I remind you all that even that didn’t work in nineteen sixty-nine?—we need to find some other way of pouring more power into the Opening of the Gate than we will be able to raise and focus next Spring. We don’t need a lock pick for this Gate— we need a crowbar. Now. I’ve recently found out some things that I’ll share with you at the proper time and place, but I’ll tell you now that I think that the forces we can evoke at Hallows will give us that crowbar. If we start preparations tomorrow we’ve got just time for the run-up to the Opening of the Gate—if you’re all with me.” Silence stretched—but Julian, Truth realized, was too canny to break it. She had the frustrating sense of standing at a fulcrum point, where events could be changed as she willed, and lacking the knowledge to do it. “What do we do about not having the ritual?” Donner asked. “We work with what we have,” Julian answered promptly, “and im- provise the rest. And in opening the Gate, we complete Thorne’s life’s work and usher in a new golden age of gods and men.” He had them; Truth felt the weight of acceptance shift as if she stood on the tilting deck of a ship. They would do Julian’s bidding at Samhain, even though they felt it was wrong. He’d dazzled them, just as Thorne Blackburn had dazzled his circle a quarter of a century ago, innocent of what the end was to be. And despite all of Julian’s promises, Truth was filled with growing dread that it would end the same way this time.

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M A R IO N Z IM M E R BRADLEY

Truth didn’t remember afterward what dessert had been or if she’d eaten it. She’d drunk more wine than she’d meant to, but couldn’t feel any effect. Every time her mind veered away from remembering the hauntings plaguing Shadow’s Gate—and her—the chill fact of Aunt Caroline’s death would challenge her bruised psyche once more.

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