Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (24 page)

 
          
All
four doors of the minibus opened and its occupants began to exit; apparently
they planned to leave the bus parked where it was. Colin looked up and down the
street. There was no other parking in sight, and street parking in
San Francisco
at any time was notoriously
difficult.

 
          
"I'm
afraid I'm going to risk the ticket," Colin said to his passengers as he
pulled in behind the bus. "It's almost
midnight
; if anybody wants to move
their car tonight, I'm sure they'll honk." And he didn't want to miss this
opportunity to satisfy his curiosity
—
if that was really the right
word
—
about
Blackburn
and his coterie. Shutting
off the engine, he followed the two women into the building the others had
entered.

 
          
Colin
could hear the music even before the door was flung open; despite the fact that
there had been nearly a dozen people in the minibus, there were more already in
the apartment, along with the ever-present haze of drug smoke.

 
          
The
noise level went up sharply as
Blackburn
entered the apartment; everyone was talking at once, and
in the background, the acid-laced music of the Doors played on. Unnoticed by
anyone, Colin and Claire followed Debbie into the room.

 
          
The
apartment was one of those rambling spaces so beloved of
San Francisco
residents, its interior
proportions left oddly unbalanced by the conversion from private home to
apartments. A bay window overlooked the street and the green space beyond. The
apartment was furnished in a thrift-shop jumble of mismatched pieces: a sagging
couch, sheets tacked up over most of the windows in lieu of curtains, posters
covering the cracked unpainted walls. If
Blackburn
was going after Jonathan
Ashwell for his money, it was obviously the first time he'd tried something
like that; the offices and living space of the
Voice of Truth
looked as
if its inhabitants were surviving on handouts.

 
          
There
was a tang of incense in the air as well as the riper smell of marijuana, and
books were piled everywhere, along with piles of what Colin guessed must be unsold
copies of the newspaper.

 
          
"I'm
going to have to be fumigated before I go home," Claire muttered. "I
can just imagine what Peter will think if I show up smelling like this."

 
          
As
they entered the main room, a small child came running down the hall through
the crowd of people, shouting
Blackburn
's name.
Blackburn
scooped it up into his arms and hugged the child fiercely,
then shifted the child to one arm and accepted a beer from a dark-haired woman
who had not been at the performance.
Blackburn
's preaching seemed to attract more women than men, but
that was hardly uncommon in any cult with a charismatic male leader.

 
          
"This
is my son Pilgrim,"
Blackburn
said, turning to Colin with the child in his arms.

           
Colin had assumed the child was
female until
Blackburn
had spoken. Pilgrim looked
to be about four or five; his eyes were the same startling vivid color as his
father's, but almost green rather than a true blue. His black hair was long and
flowing, and he wore a tie-dyed T-shirt, several bead necklaces, and a pair of
jeans that had been lovingly embroidered with a pattern of vines and flowers.
There was a blue star drawn on his forehead and daisies painted on each cheek.

 
          
"Oh,"
said Colin politely. "I didn't realize you were married, Mr. Blackburn."

 
          
"I'm
not,"
Blackburn
said calmly. "Why
should I enslave women under an archaic religious or legal code? Until we
reinvent marriage to suit the demands of the New Aeon, I refuse to practice
it."

 
          
He
gazed challengingly at Colin, obviously expecting a disapproving response.

 
          
"I
suppose that's between you and the young lady," Colin said evenly.
"Or ladies, as the case may be," he added.

 
          
"
'An it harm none, do as ye will'
—
so said the sage of Thelema. But come on, crash with us for
a while."
Blackburn
made a gesture that seemed
to take in the entire apartment. "Ask anybody anything. You don't look
like the sort of people who usually come to hear the truth, but I'll be happy
to tell it to you."

 
          
"A
truth, anyway," a tall man in the corner drawled. He was dressed like
a cartoon cowboy, down to the wide suede chaps that covered his jeans.

 
          
Blackburn
turned toward him, smiling
sunnily. "They're
all
true,
Tex
; every single one. All
things are true, even false things." He walked off, deeper into the
apartment, with Pilgrim staring back over his shoulder.    ,

 
          
"An
interesting philosophy," Claire said, settling cautiously into a chair
whose stuffing was leaking out of the top.

 
          
"Everything
Thorne does is interesting," the man
Blackburn
had addressed as
Tex
answered. He was older than
most of the other people Colin had seen here tonight. He had a deep
Texas
drawl and looked to be somewhere
in his thirties. "That's because he's a conduit of the Aeonic Current that
will reunite the world of Gods and Men. If we aren't all bombed out of
existence first. Can I get you something to drink, ma'am? We've got ice tea
—
t'isn't anything funny in
it, you know, Thorne don't hold with that, nohow."

 
          
Claire
glanced over his shoulder, to where the young dark-haired woman who had given
Blackburn
the beer was rolling joints
from a sandwich bag full of grass on the coffee table in front of her. Claire's
raised eyebrow was eloquent.

 
          
Tex
glanced in the direction of
her gaze and grinned. "Oh, well, ma'am, I'd guess they know what they're
smoking, wouldn't you? That's different."

 
          
"I
suppose you're right," Claire said reluctantly, though not as if she believed
it.

 
          
"We
were at the auditorium this evening. Can you tell us anything about what Mr.
Blackburn was trying to accomplish tonight on stage? It was fascinating,"
Colin said.

           
"That was some
tay atra sack
ray"
Tex said, his drawl mangling the French to the point that it took
Colin a moment to figure out just what he'd said.
Theatre sacre.
Sacred
theater.

 
          
"The
first duty of the magician is to enact sacred theater,"
Blackburn
said, coming back into the
room. He'd showered and changed, and now was wearing a garishly patterned
dashiki over faded bell-bottoms. His damp hair was held back with a strip of
buckskin and his feet were bare. He draped an arm companionably around
Tex
's shoulders. "All the
world's a stage, an' all that."

 
          
"But
what purpose does it serve?" Claire asked, looking up at
Blackburn
. "Is it serious or
not? The audience thinks it's all for fun."

 
          
'"He
who has eyes to see, let him hear,'"
Blackburn
misquoted cryptically.

 
          
Though
he didn't seem eager to promote his philosophy,
Blackburn
sat down on the floor at
Claire's feet and began to talk about the work he was doing in
San Francisco
. It all sounded like arrant
moonshine to Colin, all the more so for containing a number of unlikely
assertions: such as that
Blackburn
was over two centuries old, of nonhuman parentage, and
come as a savior to bring about a golden age for mankind. Claire listened to
all of this with commendable gravity.

 
          
As
for Jonathan and his intention of donating all his money to the
Voice of
Truth,
Blackburn
continued to point out,
when challenged, that anyone who wished was free to follow him or not as they
chose, and that all of them held their property in common.

 
          
"The
trouble with pure Communism is that it's inefficient for a large-scale economy.
We have to dismantle the nation-states and recreate society on the tribal level
before we can truly say we have buried the evils of Capitalism,"
Blackburn
said sagely.

 
          
Looking
around, Colin had to admit that he didn't see any particular evidence of
wealth, though he supposed it was just barely possible that
Blackburn
had a large bank account
stashed somewhere. Neither, beyond the doting attention of his women, was
Blackburn
being treated with the exaggerated
deference that marked the leader of one of those insidious mind-control cults
that were springing up all over the place like mushrooms after rain.

 
          
In
fact,
Blackburn
was a very slippery fellow
altogether. Beneath all the glib patter there was a hint of something real
—
though what it might be remained
as baffling to Colin now as it had been before he'd met Blackburn. And though
the man was unfailingly polite, Colin could not escape the feeling that
somehow
Blackburn
was laughing at him, like
the Trickster-god Coyote laughing at the moon.

 
          
"But
I've taken up enough of your time," Colin said finally. He could see that
Claire had been bravely stifling yawns for the last half-hour or so, and in any
event Colin didn't think he'd learn anything more this evening. It was late,
and by now most of the others had drifted off to bed, though two young
dark-haired women
—
alike enough to be twins
—
remained, sitting unselfconsciously
beside
Blackburn
on the floor.

 
          
"Come
again
—
we're
always here, except when we've left. And don't worry about Johnnie, Colin
—
I promise I'll make an
unbeliever out of him before I'm done,"
Blackburn
said cheerily.

 
          
And
with that ambiguous promise, Colin would have to content himself, he supposed.

 
          
Blackburn
got to his feet, and
—
flanked by the girls, whose
names Colin hadn't learned
—
showed the two visitors down the steps to the door that
opened on the street.

 
          
"Do
come and see us again, Claire,"
Blackburn
said at the door. "And do bring your husband next
time."

 
          
"Is
that supposed to impress me?" Claire responded with some asperity.
"Would you like to guess his name and weight as well?"

 
          
Blackburn
smiled. "You're
wearing a ring; it wasn't a tough guess. His name's Peter, by the way, but
maybe you'd better not bring him. Cops don't approve of our little family for
some reason."