Нора Робертс - Key of Knowledge

Zoepaused as Dana lowered the roller, turned with a speculative look on her face. “Isnt that following along with what Rowena said to you about the key?” she continued. “Couldnt it be part of the whole thing?”

Dana said nothing for a moment, then dredged her roller in paint. “Well, thats another hell of a note. Its got some logic to it,Zoe , but I dont see how it helps. Somehow I

dont think Im going to find the key to the Box of Souls tangled in the sheets the next time Jordan and I make love, but its an interesting angle, which should also be fun to explore.“

“Maybe its more something, or some place, that meant something to you, or both of you, before. And now. And later.”Zoe threw up her hands. “Im not making sense.”

“Yeah, you are,” Dana corrected as a line formed between her brows. “I cant think of anything right offhand, but Im going to think harder. Maybe talk to Jordan about it. No way to deny hes an integral part of this, so he might as well be useful.”

“Im just going to say one thing.” Malory squared her shoulders. “Loves not a burden, not to anyone. And if he feels otherwise, hes not worthy of you.”

After a moments surprise, Dana set down her roller. She walked over, bent down and kissed Malorys cheek. “Youre a sweetheart.”

“I love you. I love both of you. And anyone who doesnt love you back is a moron.”

“Jeez, for that you get a hug, too.” Dana gave Malory a squeeze. “Whatever the hell happens, Im glad Ive got the two of you.”

“This is so nice.”Zoe stepped over to swing an arm around each of them. “Im really glad Dana had sex so we could have this moment.”

On a bray of laughter, Dana gave them both a little nudge. “Ill see what I can do tonight, and maybe we can have a real weep fest after settlement tomorrow.”

JORDAN slept with his arm flung over Danas waist, his leg hooked over hers, as if he would hold her in place. Though she hadnt been the one to leave, this time around he was far from sure she would let him stay.

In her bed, or in her life.

But he held on to her as he wandered in dreams. Through the moonstruck night in the high summer heat where everything smelled ripe and green and secret.

The woods were locked in shadows, with the flicker of lightning bugs quick brinks of gold against the black. In dreams he knew, somehow knew, he was a man instead of the boy hed been when hed walked through the wild grass at the verge of those woods. His heart pounding with… fear? Anticipation? Knowledge? As hed stared up at the great black house that rose regally toward the swimming moon.

His friends werent close by, as they had been on that hot summer night of his memory. Flynn and Brad werent there, with their contraband beer and cigarettes, the camping gear, or the youthful courage and carelessness three teenage boys made together.

He was alone, the warriors of the Peak guarding the gate behind him and the house empty of life and silent as a tomb.

No, not empty, he thought. It was a mistake to think of houses, old houses, as being empty. They were filled with memories, with the faded echoes of voices. Drops of tears, drops of blood, the ring of laughter, the edge of tempers that had ebbed and flowed between the walls, into the walls, over the years.

Wasnt it, after all, a kind of life?

And there were houses, he knew it, that breathed. They carried in their wood and stone, their brick and mortar a kind of ego that was nearly, very nearly, human.

But there was something, something he needed to remember about this house, about this place. This night. Something he knew but couldnt quite bring clear in his mind. It drifted in and out, like a half-remembered song, teasing and nagging at him.

It was important, even vital, that he turned whatever was in his mind, like a camera lens, until the image came into sharp focus.

In the dream he closed his eyes, breathed slow and deep as he tried to empty his mind so what needed to come would come.

When he opened them, he saw her. She walked along the parapet under the white ball of moon. Alone as he was alone. Dreaming, perhaps, as he was dreaming.

Her cloak billowed up, though there was no wind to lift it. It seemed to him the air held its breath, and all the sounds of the night—the rustles and peeps and hoots—fell like a crash into terrible silence.

In his chest his heart began to pound. On the parapet, the woman began to turn. In a moment, he thought, in just a moment; they would see each other.

Finally…

The sun was a violent flash that shocked his brain, blinded him. He staggered a bit from the displacement of being shot from inky night to brilliant day.

Birds sang with a kind of desperate joy in music that sounded of flutes and harps and pipes. And he heard the rushing sound that water makes when it falls from a great height, then thunders into itself.

He struggled to orient himself. There were woods here, but not any he recognized. Leaves were verdant, shimmering green or soft and glowing blue, and limbs were heavy with fruit the color of rubies and topaz. The air had a ripe,plummy scent, as if it too could be plucked and tasted.

He walked through the trees, on ground springy and richly brown, past a waterfall of wild blue where golden fish danced in the rippling pool at its base.

Curious, he dipped his hand into it. He felt the wet, the fresh coolness. And as he let it pour from his cupped hand, he saw that the water falling from his palm wasnt clear, but that same deep blue.

It was, he thought, almost more than the senses could bear. The sheer beauty was too intense, too vivid for the mind to translate. And once seen, once experienced, how did anyone survive without it, in the pale, dim reality?

Fascination had him reaching toward the water again when he caught sight of the deer drinking on the opposite side of the pool.

The buck was enormous, its coat sleek and golden, its rack a shining silver. When it lifted its great head, it stared at Jordan with eyes as green and deep as the forest around them.

Around its neck it wore a jeweled collar with the stones catching the streams of sunlight and tossing them back in colored prisms.

He thought it spoke, though there was no movement, and no sound other than the words that formed in his head.

Will you stand for them?

“Who?” Go, and see.

The deer turned, and walked, silver hooves silent on the ground, into the woods.

This is no dream, Jordan thought. He straightened, started to circle the pond and follow the deer.

But no, it hadnt said come and see, but go . Trusting instinct, Jordan took the opposite path.

He stepped out of the trees to a sea of flowers so saturated with color they shocked the senses. Scarlet, sapphire, amethyst, amber glinted in that streaming sun as if every petal were an individual facet cut perfectly from each gem. And in the center of that sea, like the most precious of blooms, were the Daughters of Glass, trapped in their crystal coffins.

“No, Im not dreaming.” He spoke aloud, to prove that he could, to hear the sound of his voice. To center himself before he walked across the sea of flowers to stare down at the faces he already knew.

They seemed to be sleeping. Their beauty was undiminished, but it was cold. He saw that, the cold beauty, that could never change but was forever trapped in one instant of time.

He felt pity and outrage, and as he stared into the face so like Danas, a tearing grief he hadnt experienced since his mothers death.

“This is hell,” he said aloud. “To be trapped between life and death, to be unable to take either.”

“Yes. You have it precisely.” Kane stood on the other side of the glass coffin. Elegant in black robes with a jeweled crown atop his dark mane of hair, he smiled at Jordan. “You have a keenness of mind sadly lacking in much of your kind. Hell, as you call it, is merely the absence of all without an end.”

“Hell should be earned.”

“Ah. Philosophy.” His voice held a touch of amusement, and a canny calculation. “Occasionally, you will agree, hell is merely inherited. Their sire and his mortal bitch damned them.” He swept a hand toward the coffins. “I was merely an instrument, so to speak, who…” He lifted the hand, twisted his wrist. “Turned the key.”

“For glory?”

“For that. For power. For all of this.” He spread his arms wide, as if to encompass his world: “All of this, which can never, will never, be theirs. Soft hearts and mortal frailties have no place in the realm of gods.”

“Yet gods love, hate, covet, scheme, war, laugh, weep. Mortal frailties?”

Kane cocked his head. “You interest me. You would debate, knowing who and what I am? Knowing I brought you here, behind the Curtain of Power, where you are no more than an ant to be flicked off a crumb? I could kill you with a thought.”

“Could you?” Deliberately, Jordan walked around the crystal coffin. He wouldnt have even the reflection of Dana between them. “Why havent you? Maybe its because you prefer bullying and abusing women. Its a different matter, isnt it, when you face a man?”

The blow knocked him back ten feet. He tasted blood in his mouth, and spat it out onto the crushed flowers before he got to his feet. There was more than power on Kanes face, he noted. There was fury. And where there was anger, there was weakness.

“Smoke and mirrors. But you havent got the guts to fight like a man. With fists. One round, you son of a bitch. One round, my way.”

“Your way? You have no terms here. And you will know pain.”