Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (30 page)

 
          
"Thank
you. Although you could say that it was as much
Berkeley
's decision as it was
mine."

 
          
His
resignation from the university had been a relief all around. They didn't want
a parapsychologist on their staff, and Colin was more and more impatient with
the time he was forced to devote to the disciplines that a hundred other men
could teach as well. Once he'd made the decision to leave, he'd toyed with the
idea of simply returning to
New York
, but he'd managed to put
down roots in the six years he'd lived here, and had made friends he would
miss. And it was
California
that was the center of the
Occult Renaissance, from the
Church
of
Satan
that Lady Ellen had spoken
of...

 
          
To
Thorne Blackburn.

 
          
"Well,
you may find we're a more liberal master than the university. No one here cares
what a man's politics are, and as for an interest in the paranormal, that's
why we're here," Davenant said.

 
          
Colin
had received the full tour of the facility on his previous visit. It was an
impressive facility, including interview rooms and two laboratories which could
be used for everything from remote viewing experiments to astral travel. He'd
be able to devote more time to his parapsychological interests, and the Rhodes
Group considered cooperation with the Bay Area police departments as good PR,
so they would have no objections to his continuing to make himself available to
law enforcement agencies.

 
          
"I
suppose that all there is left to do is make certain that you still want the
job," Davenant said.

 
          
"Yes,
I think so. It should be an interesting association," Colin said. Working
with the Rhodes Group was only an interim solution, of course, to keep him in
the game while he took his bearings.

 
          
But
it would be an intriguing one.

 
          
The
rest of the formalities managed to consume a couple of hours, and then Davenant
had insisted on taking Colin out to lunch at the Galley in the Alley down on
Maiden Lane. Despite its overly quaint conceit
—
the front of the restaurant
was built in the shape of a galleon's prow, complete with buxom mermaid
figurehead
—
the food was good, and Davenant exerted himself to be amusing.

 
          
Afterward,
Colin took advantage of the combination of leisure and a beautiful day to walk
around the City. Between Dame Ellen's revelations and the letter of censure
from UC Berkeley, he'd withdrawn into a routine of work and research, the
better not to have to confront these concerns.

 
          
Colin
realized that he hadn't seen much of any of his friends since his visit, to
London
last October. Katherine was
due to have the baby
—
he only hoped Claire had persuaded her to go to a hospital,
instead of having the baby at home in the middle of a magickal ritual, as the
young couple seemed to intend. Finding out was reason enough for a visit.

 
          
And
from such innocent, nearly unconscious decisions, the future is woven.

 
          
Colin
took the cable car for the first leg of his journey
—
it was jammed as always,
and he rode standing on the outside, handing his fare in to the conductor over
the heads of his fellow passengers. The motorman rang the bell in the rhythmic
double-clangs that were a worldwide aural symbol of the City by the Bay as the
cable car proceeded at its magisterial eight miles per hour through the
colorful residential district of the most cosmopolitan city on earth.

 
          
San Francisco
is a city made to be
savored at a walking pace, and walking had always been one of Colin's great
recreations. The closer he got to the Hashbury, the more crowded the streets
were. Spare change was a constant request, and Colin gave what he could. The
runaway population was reaching alarming numbers; the tally increased with each
passing month, and many of the children fell into the hands of shadowy Fagins
who turned their bright futures into a dark one of prostitution and hard drugs.

 
          
What
was it they were seeking? Why did they come in their hundreds? Were their lives
so empty and unhappy that they would come hundreds of miles in pursuit of a
dream?

 
          
You
might as well ask when people had become desperate to keep what they had,
rather than confident that more would always be there,
Colin thought
bleakly. It was easier now to understand the frenzy that drove this postwar
generation in its twin quests for political power and transcendence. The
unconscious mind always knows what the conscious does not even suspect, and on
some level, these children realized they were the last defenders of the Golden
Age, and that if they did not win here, the loss was for all time.

 
          
Thorne
would, of course, say such a notion was Old Aeon thinking, that the Golden Age
of Gods and Men could be summoned at any time, no matter what had gone before.

 
          
And
for the first time, Colin began to wish that Thorne was right and his own Lodge
was wrong.

SAN FRANCISCO
, APRIL  1967

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck
at: I am not what I am.

—
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
Othello

 
 
          
Thorne
Blackburn's star had risen dramatically in the last several months; his public
rituals now drew sizeable crowds. He'd attracted the attention of the national
press, anxious to harvest new fodder from the Age of Aquarius, and stories
about him
—
distorted almost to gibberish
—
had appeared in both
Time
and
Newsweek.
High Magick was being merchandized as if it were rock
music, turned into a quaint sideshow that the rest of the world could pass by.
And Thorne, with his outrageous claims
—
no,
demands
for belief
—
was in the forefront of that
movement, shaping it, catering to it, for reasons Colin could not understand.

 
          
The
Voice of Truth
occupied the whole of the Victorian now, and it was no
longer white. The house had been repainted in bright acid colors, exuberant as
a comic book. Its ground floor apartment had been turned into what the hippies
called a "head shop"
—
it sold the
Voice of Truth
as well as underground
comics (or "comix" as they were now labeled), black lights, and
less-identifiable paraphernalia. There was an office of sorts for the newspaper
in the shop's back room that also contained the press off which it was run, and
the smell of printer's ink mingled with the scent of incense and pot in the air
of the shop.

 
          
People
gazed at Colin curiously as he entered, but no one stopped or questioned him
as he made his way through the crowded aisle.

 
          
Possibly
he didn't look as much like a policeman as he had the first time he'd seen
Thorne. Or perhaps Thorne's messianic roadshow attracted all kinds. Thorne, in
his way, was a refutation of the fear that the twentieth century had lost its
battle with the Shadow. Even if the New Aeon he preached seemed to be nothing
other than Chaos come again, it was a hopeful chaos.

 
          
"Colin!"
Katherine Jourdemayne greeted Colin warmly. A tiny baby was looped into a sling
made of Indian-print fabric that Katherine wore, bandolier-style, across her
bosom. "Did you come to see Truth? Isn't she the most perfect baby?
Pilgrim adores her."

 
          
The
boy
—
he
must be seven by now
—
regarded Colin gravely, his hands covered with the chalk he
was using to draw on the wall. Colin had never found out who Pilgrim's mother
was
—
Katherine
had never claimed him as hers
—
and thought it would probably be futile to ask. Thorne
seemed to treat all of his liaisons and their products with equal fondness, and
certainly Colin had never seen anything approaching jealousy among the ones he
knew about.

 
          
Colin
admired the baby for a few minutes, taking care to give equal attention to
Pilgrim. (Why wasn't the boy in school? He was afraid to ask.) The formalities
over, Colin asked after Thorne.

 
          
"Oh,
he'll be back soon," Katherine said. "Things are really starting to
happen for us now. But c'mon upstairs
—
I'll make us a cup of tea
while we wait. C'mon, Pil, let's go see Auntie Irene."

 
          
The
apartment was occupied as always. Thorne's star might be on the rise, but the
apartment was as shabby as it had ever been. Colin had discovered that Thorne
held a more or less permanent house party for anyone who cared to come, and
Colin had never been able to keep track of those who came and went. Its current
occupants were scattered about the living room, and Pilgrim ran to the woman
sitting on the floor
—
she had bright red hair and wore a spangled scarf tied over
it in a gypsy fashion.

 
          
"There's
a little love," the woman said. "Come to Irene." Her accent was
English, and she gave her name the three-syllable pronunciation common in
Europe
. She scooped the little boy
into her lap and handed him a deck of Tarot cards.

 
          
Colin
followed Katherine into the kitchen. As Katherine puttered among the tea things
—
the baby seeming to be
perfectly content in her strange cradle
—
she explained to Colin that
Thorne's latest plan was to use magick to end the Vietnam War.

 
          
"
—
in
Washington
; we're planning to go to
the Pentagon and beam love-thoughts at them until they become incapable of
bombing anyone. Thorne wants to get all the magicians in the Bay Area working
together on this; he says that only when the enlightened take social as well as
spiritual responsibility can the Great Work proceed without interruption. But
Anstey's been really trying to bring him down
—
"

 
          
"Anstey?"
Colin asked in bewilderment.
"Simon
Anstey?"

 
          
"He
wants us to stop what we're doing," Katherine said, stirring her tea slowly.
"He's been saying that all Thorne wants is money. That's so
stupid,
Colin!
Anstey's got more money than Thorne does
—
"

           
"Money, and position, and a
positively sheeplike devotion to his own consequence," Thorne Blackburn
said, walking into the kitchen. He set the camera he was carrying down on the
table, grabbed Katherine's teacup and drained it at a gulp, and then leaned
over to kiss her and nuzzle Truth, still holding an armful of papers.

 
          
"Hi,
Colin. If you've got any influence with Anstey or the city council, it'd be
really groovy if you used it." He flopped down into a kitchen chair and
dropped the papers onto the table, then plucked the baby out of her makeshift
cradle.

 
          
"What's
the problem?" Colin asked.

 
          
"City
council's denied us a permit to assemble . . .
again.
And Anstey did an
op-ed piece in the
Chronicle
—
which isn't as bad as what
he's saying in person." Thorne sighed, and for the first time since Colin
had known him, looked truly tired.

 
          
"He's
just jealous," Katherine Jourdemayne said loyally.

 
          
"He's
saying that I'm running a mind-control cult; of course, Anstey's so square he
thinks rock ought to be banned. . . ." Thorne said. He glanced at Colin
provocatively; Thorne knew that Colin and Simon were acquainted; Colin made no
secret of it.

 
          
"Haven't
you said that everyone should be free to express themselves?" Colin asked.
He could not imagine what had set Thorne and Simon on a collision course. The
two men lived
—
almost literally
—
in different worlds.

 
          
"Yeah,
but
—
Jesus,
not when they disagree with me," Thorne said reasonably. "Anstey's
into the occult up to his forty-dollar haircut
—
and
he's
got the
nerve to call
me
a cult-running phony? Just because he's Alison
Margrave's anointed successor and has spent half his life chasing ghosts around
the haunted houses of
Europe
gives him
no
basis for judging me or my work."

 
          
The
baby, awakened by Thorne's vehemence, began to fuss. Thorne joggled her in his
arms, trying to quiet her. "But you'll show them all, won't you,
sweetheart? You won't just hear about the New Aeon
—
you'll live there, won't
you?"

 
          
"Oh,
give her here, Thorne, I think she's hungry," Katherine said, sounding
like every young mother since the beginning of time. Thorne relinquished the
baby, and Katherine pulled down the neckline of her peasant blouse to give the
child access to her breast.

 
          
Thorne
got up and walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out two beers, popping
both bottlecaps and setting one in front of Colin.

 
          
"I'm
glad you came," he said. "There's something I want to ask you about.
EdSull
—
"

 
          
The
sound of shouting from down in the street interrupted him, and Thorne ran to
the living room window to look out. Colin followed, more curious than worried
—
until he recognized the
voice.

 
          
"
Blackburn
!" Simon Anstey shouted.
"Come out here, you libelous fraud
—
I'll sue, damn you!"

 
          
The
rest of what Simon had to say was lost in the jeering of the street people
gathering around. Colin looked out the window. He could see Simon's Mercedes
standing in the street, and Simon himself standing on the sidewalk. Simon was
dressed in a turtleneck and a dark suit. The contrast between him and Thorne's
tatterdemalion acolytes couldn't be more marked.

 
          
"Hey,
Anstey!" Thorne's voice was gleeful as he leaned out the open window.
"Want a drink?" He tilted the beer bottle out into space, pouring
carefully. There was a roar of rage from below.

 
          
"Thorne,
for God's sake!" Colin said, managing to grab the bottle away from him
before it was quite empty. He dragged Thorne away from the window. "This
isn't going to solve anything!"

 
          
"If
he's mad now, wait until he sees the
Voice of Truth.
We're doing a cover
story on him," Thome said, laughing happily. "Simon Anstey: New Age
Ninny or Old Aeon Fraud?"

 
          
In
the street below, there was the sound of a car door slamming and the roar of
the Mercedes' high-powered engine as Simon gunned it and drove away.

 
          
"This
is not worthy of you," Colin said to Thorne.

 
          
Thorne
regarded him brightly.

 
          
"Exactly
whose idea of a messiah am I supposed to be, Colin? His? Yours? Or mine?"

 
          
"
—
and I'm afraid it's only
going to get worse, my dear," Alison Margrave said sadly.

 
          
The
two friends were sitting out on Greenhaven's terrace, enjoying the fine (though
still cool) May weather and the sense of being suspended high above the city,
like a pair of hawks hovering among the clouds. It was Saturday, and Colin had
finally accepted Alison's standing invitation to visit, repairing a lapse of
months.

 
          
Alison
had warmly applauded Colin's decision to leave Berkeley and join the Rhodes
Group, and Colin supposed he ought to be thinking about finding a place on
this side of the Bay, but he was by nature a packrat and hated the thought of
moving. But after the small talk and pleasantries, the discussion had turned,
as it inevitably did, to magick and its practitioners.