Death of an Adept

"Time to make our entrance," she observed aside to Adam. And pushed the door open wide.

Tall enough to see over her head, Adam found his gaze drawn immediately to the bed that dominated the room. The gaunt figure under the sheets was lying very still, eyes shut, jaw set in an attitude of grim endurance. An image came to Adam's mind of a cadaverous tomb effigy left behind as a memento mori by a medieval bishop of Aries. It seemed hard to credit that the ravaged frame of Alan Lockhart could still harbor a living spirit.

"Hello, Daddy, I'm back," Ximena said as she headed toward him. "I've brought someone to meet you."

Lockhart roused himself with visible effort, his face a sunken mask from which all color had long ago fled. Only his eyes were still alive, burning with a preternatural intensity fuelled by the spirit within.

"Bene fa, nina." He greeted her with the merest flicker of a smile. "How is your Flying Scotsman?"

His voice was roughened by suffering. Advancing to the bedside, Ximena reached down and lifted her father's wasted hand to her lips.

"Why don't I let him tell you himself? Adam, come and be introduced. This is my father, Alan Lockhart."

Joining her beside the bed, Adam found himself subjected to searching scrutiny. Returning that regard, he received a vivid impression of the man Alan Lockhart had been in his prime - tall, vital, and vigorous, as stalwart and individualistic as the buildings he had designed during his working lifetime. To see so much that had once been fine and strong now reduced so spitefully to ruin gave Adam a pang of grief he had experienced all too often in his career as a physician. It was like seeing a noble cathedral wantonly levelled by the ravages of war.

A war of insurrection. To be a victim of cancer run rampant was to have one's own body rebel against itself in pitiless self-destruction. Adam still intended to read Alan Lockhart's case notes when he got a chance, but those notes, he knew, could go only so far in detailing the course of devastation. The human effect was much, much worse.

Their mutual scrutiny lasted but a few heartbeats. Blinking, Lockhart extended a hand that was nothing but bones and tightly stretched skin. Adam took it with careful firmness, wincing inwardly at the insubstantial fragility of the long fingers.

"Forgive me if I don't get up," said the man in the bed, in a labored display of humor. "I'm very much the prisoner of my condition these days. Jenny Carstairs has been helping me plan my escape. But I've one or two pieces of unfinished business yet to attend to, before I can make good on those arrangements."

His words were painfully measured, but the force of the soul behind them reached out to Adam in an almost palpable appeal. Nor did the man seem inclined to release Adam's hand.

"Sometimes it's good to let someone else take on some of the burdens of responsibility," Adam said. "Under the circumstances, perhaps you ought to consider appointing a deputy."

"Maybe so," Lockhart conceded, his eyes never leaving Adam's. "The difficulty lies in finding the right man for the job."

His transparent lids drooped, and for a moment he seemed to fold in upon himself. Adam waited steadfastly, Lockhart's hand still in his, until the other man drew a sighing breath and re-opened his eyes.

"You've come a long way to visit my daughter. I'd like to know more about you - in your words, not hers. Pull up a chair and tell me about your house."

Though the request seemed a trifle odd on the surface, Adam sensed that it was not the non sequitur it appeared to be.

"What would you like to know?" he asked, releasing Lock-hart's hand and moving a chair closer to the head of the bed to sit.

Lockhart's chest rose and fell. "Anything and everything," he said with a faint smile.

"Don't be silly, Daddy," Ximena murmured, interposing uneasily. "The rules to your game won't apply here. Strath-mourne has been the Sinclairs' family residence for several generations. Knowing about the house won't tell you very much about Adam himself."

"Let me be the judge of that," Lockhart told her, with a flash of his former strength. Directing his gaze toward Adam, he said, "Humor me."

As Adam scooted his chair closer, prepared to oblige, he felt Ximena's hand on his shoulder.

"As an architect. Daddy has always maintained that you can tell a great deal about a person's character from the kind of house he lives in," she warned.

"I see nothing amiss in that," Adam said, with a reassuring smile. "On the contrary, I expect an architect would find Strathmourne of great interest."