Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (23 page)

 
          
As
quickly as he had caught the audience's attention,
Blackburn
released it, leaving his
viewers euphoric in the quick titillation of a brush with the Unseen. He took
the candle from one of his acolytes, and then the stage blacked out once more,
leaving
Blackburn
's face lit from below by
the golden flame of the candle.

 
          
"The
New Aeon is coming,"
Blackburn
intoned. And blew out the candle.

 
          
The
darkness was almost immediately replaced by worklights on the stage, and the
audience settled down, pleasurably keyed-up, for the headline act. Colin caught
Claire's eye, and she nodded toward the edge of the stage.
Blackburn
would be coming off there.
The two of them got to their feet and began moving toward the aisle.

           
Well, now he'd seen the man, Colin
told himself. But oddly enough, the more information he gained, the less he
knew what to think.

 
          
Claire
led Colin through the door that led to the backstage. The crowded area was
filled with people and equipment, but
Blackburn
was instantly recognizable
—
by the hat, if nothing more.
He was surrounded by a coterie of what Colin assumed to be self-styled acolytes
and well-wishers, and he was relieved to see that Jonathan wasn't among them.

 
          
Blackburn
looked up and saw Colin, and in the younger man's narrowed eyes and sudden
suspicious expression
—
the suspicion with which everyone under thirty seemed to
regard everyone over thirty these days
—
Colin saw a reflection of
how out of place he must look here among the tie-dye and denim.

 
          
Fortunately
Deborah Winwood had been one of the acolytes in the hooded robes who had
carried the props on stage. When she saw Claire, she squealed and flung her
arms around the taller woman.
Blackburn
's expression changed to one of puzzled disinterest, and he
turned away to speak to another of his followers.

 
          
"Claire!
I hoped you'd come," Debbie said. "You look so ... straight,"
she added, as if only just now seeing Claire for the first time.

 
          
"I
am
straight," Claire said, smiling. "Square, too. Debbie, this
is Colin MacLaren; I've told you about him."

 
          
Deborah
Winwood was one of those breathtakingly lovely women who had given rise to the
cliche of the "California Girl." Her long blond hair was parted in
the middle and hung in two shining straight wings down the sides of her face,
and she stared at Colin, hazel doe-eyes wide, until he wondered what Claire
could possibly have told the girl to put that expression on her face.

 
          
"Pleased
to meet you," Debbie said lamely, in a soft voice.

 
          
She'd
been about to say more, but the band on stage
—
a local favorite which had
been greeting its audience rowdily for the past several minutes
—
suddenly began to play.
Though they were insulated from the band by a thick wall
—
and were now behind the
amplifiers, at any rate
—
Debbie shrugged apologetically, as if conversation had now
become impossible instead of merely difficult. She beckoned to them to follow,
and Claire and Colin stumbled after her through the half-light of the
cluttered backstage area in
Blackburn
's direction.

 
          
"Thorne,
look!" Debbie said, when she was within range. "Claire came
—
the one I asked you to get
the tickets for?
—
and she brought her friend, um, Colin?"

 
          
She'd
raised her voice to be heard over the band, and for a moment Colin didn't think
Blackburn
had heard, but then he
turned away from the man he'd been talking to. He had already shed the top hat
and tailcoat, and was dressed now in the nearly universal youth culture costume
of jeans (if jeweled) and T-shirt.

 
          
"I'm
Colin MacLaren," Colin said, holding out his hand.

           
At the same time, Debbie said:
"Thorne, this is Claire
—
"

 
          
For
a moment
Blackburn
looked surprised; Colin had
been right about his age
—
the man was in his early twenties, if that
—
which meant he'd accrued an
impressive store of magickal credentials for someone his age. But he obviously
decided to be amiable, even if only for Debbie's sake.

 
          
Blackburn
laughed and took Colin's
hand. "City or Feds?" he asked cheerfully.

 
          
It
took Colin a moment to untangle this, not quite sure for a moment if he'd heard
Blackburn
correctly over the din.
"No. I'm not a policeman."
Not of this world, at any rate.
"I'm
on faculty at
Berkeley
. I believe you know one of
my students
—
Jonathan Ashwell."

 
          
Blackburn
still looked puzzled,
though he obviously placed the name. "You're here because of Johnnie?
What's he said, then?"

 
          
There
was something not quite native about
Blackburn
's English; a certain working-class undertone that would
have marked him as British even if Colin hadn't already known that about him.

 
          
"He
said you were the hope of the New Age," Colin said baldly.

 
          
Another
man might have tried to soft-pedal such an unequivocal statement.
Blackburn
merely grinned wider.

 
          
"I
have come to lead you into a new era, where the great separation of the
beginning of Time shall be healed; wherein heart and hand, mind and body shall
all be as one," he intoned fulsomely, bowing in a theatrical fashion.

 
          
"I'd
be interested to hear how you plan to do it," Colin said tartly.
"Jonathan said
—
"

 
          
"Johnnie's
a credulous fool, looking for a Messiah,"
Blackburn
answered amiably.
"I'll give him better than that. I'll give him a mind of his own before
I'm through."

 
          
The
band stopped playing.

 
          
"Thorne
is almost three hundred years old," Colin overheard Debbie explaining to
Claire in the sudden lull. "He used to be, like, this great French
magician, Count Cagliostro, or something."

 
          
Colin
glanced back at
Blackburn
, who had heard the
exchange.

 
          
"Is
this what you tell them?" Colin said, unable to keep the reproach out of
his voice.

 
          
"I
tell them a lot of things,"
Blackburn
said ambiguously. "If you want to hear more, why
don't you come back to our place with us? There's a party."

 
          
He
turned away, motioning to Colin and the others to follow, and went out through
the door
—
propped open with a cinderblock
—
that led into the alley.
Behind them, the music began again.

 
          
The
warm summer air felt almost chilly after the sweltering stuffiness of the
auditorium. The song
—
muted to a bearable level by the walls of the old movie
palace
—
became
a fitting backdrop to the tawdry glamour of the alleyway. The alley walls were
papered with posters for acts and events, and a Volkswagen minibus was parked
halfway up the alley, lights on and engine running. "Just follow us,"
Blackburn
said over his shoulder as
he trotted back to the minibus.

           
"Thorne says you can come back
with us! I'll show you where to go." Debbie had pulled off the cheap
satin robe she'd worn on stages and stood looking at them hopefully.

 
          
Colin
shrugged infinitesimally, catching Claire's eye. He'd come to see the so-called
Magister Ludens, and the chance to observe him on his home turf was not to be
missed.

 
          
On
the way to the car, Debbie kept up a steady stream of chatter. Debbie Winwood
seemed to be convinced that Claire, at least, had come to join the Master's
crusade, and was telling her everything Debbie felt that Claire needed to know.
By the time Colin had gotten back to the auditorium, he'd already learned that
Thorne Blackburn was either the Comte de Cagliostro or his reincarnation, that
he had been sired by an angelic being summoned into a magick circle by the
wizard Merlin, and that he had possession of the Philosopher's Stone which
granted physical immortality.

 
          
Fortunately,
Colin had been able to park the Ford nearby, but he was still a little
surprised to find the others still waiting for him out in front of the auditorium.
There was no mistaking their vehicle
—
the side panels were painted
with what appeared to be the logo of
Blackburn
's underground newspaper, suitably embellished with
flowers, stars, and rainbows.

 
          
As
soon as Colin pulled up behind it, the bus took off, and he was forced to
follow at a breakneck pace through the streets of the Filmore District. Whoever
was driving the bus was doing so with either consummate skill or reckless
disregard
—
Colin wasn't sure which, even as he exerted all his skill
to keep up with them.

 
          
As
he drove, Debbie continued to chatter amiably, at one moment explaining how
happy all of them were living together in a communal apartment, and at the
next, providing Colin with driving directions a heartbeat too late to do him
any useful good. If he hadn't known the van's approximate destination, he would
have lost sight of it a dozen times, yet despite that, he did not believe that
the others were deliberately trying to lose him. They were much too trusting
for that. Trusting. An odd assessment to make of a group to which, scant hours
before, he had imputed only the lowest of motives.

 
          
And
there did remain the fact that Thorne Blackburn had been banished from Colin's
own Order, not something that could happen to a wholly innocent man. Yet now,
having met
Blackburn
and the others, he was not
certain that
Blackburn
was wholly guilty either.

 
          
It
would have been easier to dismiss the claims
—
and
Blackburn
himself
—
if Colin had not already
seen the man and one of his peculiar rituals. An intelligence and power
radiated from the young Magus that didn't match the image of the psychic frauds
and bunco artists that both he and Claire were familiar with.

 
          
The
bus finally stopped
—
as precipitously as it had started
—
double-parked on a slanting
side street that overlooked the Panhandle section of
Golden Gate
Park
. In city blocks it was not
that far from Greenhaven, but it might as well have been in another world. The
street was lined with a row of seedy Victorians long since converted to
apartments, their first floors hosting a variety of marginal businesses all now
closed for the night. Despite the lateness of the hour, there were people
still on the street, all wearing the bright fantastic clothes of the hippie
movement.