Ghostlight by Marion Zimmer Bradley Read Free Book Online

over his forehead.
    In contrast to Truth’s efficient tidiness, Dylan’s office, like its occupant, possessed a rumpled and friendly informality. Dylan’s workspace was a riot of souvenirs and evidence, letters and papers and books. A number of reproduction gargoyles mounted on the walls lent a certain piquancy to the whole. There was a Ghostbusters movie poster on the back of the door, and another one over the desk.
    â€œAnd here I thought you’d be pleased. You’re the one always telling me that Blackburn’s a seminal figure in twentieth-century occultism, heir to the crown of Aleister Crowley. And yet there are no books on him, his life and work. Well, now there will be,” Truth said with satisfaction.
    â€œAnd you’re going to write it,” Dylan said.
    Now that her decision had been irrevocably announced, Truth felt happier and more confident than she could ever remember feeling. Finally she was in a position to take control of the nasty puzzle that was Thorne Blackburn.
    â€œYes, I’m going to write it. At least that way it will be
of some use—and not filled with pseudo-factual accounts of trips to Venus and suchlike,” Truth responded. She was secretly glad to have this news to break as an excuse to talk with Dylan again; it meant that they could both pretend the incident on Monday had never happened.
    â€œTir na Og,” Dylan said unexpectedly. “The Isle of the Blessed. Thorne claimed to go there.”
    Claimed to go there and to Venus, Truth could have told him. Since her visit to Aunt Caroline, she’d occupied spare moments glancing through Venus Afflicted. The name, which made the book sound so much like a warning pamphlet against venereal disease, was actually a term, Truth had found, used by astrologers when the planet Venus was being unduly influenced in an astrological chart by other planets. The person with Venus afflicted in his chart would be unlucky in his relationships with others.
    Truth did not approve of astrology any more than she did of so-called real magic, but she did have to admit that astrology was slightly more harmless. She wondered why Blackburn had chosen this for his title, when it was obviously others who were unlucky in their relationship with Thorne, and not the reverse. She looked back at Dylan.
    Dylan had the look of a man groping for something to say. Suddenly Truth wondered if he had meant to write a biography of Thorne Blackburn. This was academia, after all—publish or perish. But even if her supposition were true, she didn’t waste any sympathy on Dylan’s aborted project. She was much better qualified, and had access to sources Dylan didn’t.
    Maybe I should call it Blood Will Tell, she thought irreverently.
    Had Venus Afflicted ever been published? She hadn’t told Dylan she had a copy; it was to be the climax of her book—the thing that would ensure its publication and
make it a valuable piece of scholarly research as well—and she meant to keep its inclusion a secret until the last possible moment.
    â€œWell, frankly I don’t care whether he said he went to Tir na Og or Cleveland,” Truth said. “All I want is the provable facts. I’ve got a lot of accrued vacation coming, and I’m taking it. Three months ought to be enough time to sort out reality from fiction.”
    â€œThe truth is rarely pure and never simple, so says Oscar Wilde,” Dylan commented. “And what are you going to do with your truth when you find it?”
    â€œI’m going to write it down. I don’t see why people should glamourize Thorne Blackburn when they’d be appalled if they really knew the things he did.”
    Dylan gave her a steady look.
    â€œAre you sure it will make a difference? Look at either of the Kennedys, at King, at Elvis. The more dirt people dish out about them, the stronger their hold becomes on the public imagination. How can you think your book will