Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (54 page)

 
          
"Well,
if he thinks I'm going to go along with those crack-brained ideas of his about
using magick to heal himself, he's in for a rude awakening," Claire said
firmly. "It's foolish, and it's wrong."

 
          
"You're
right, my dear," Alison said, sounding more like her old self, "but
you have no idea how stubborn Simon can be."

 
          
"I've
known a few stubborn men in my life," Claire said, with a faint smile.
"And however bad Simon is, he can't be half as stubborn as Colin."

GLASTONBURY
,
NEW YORK
, FEBRUARY  1973

He sought,

For his lost heart was tender, things to love, But found
them not, alas! nor was there aught The world contains, the which he could
approve.

 
—
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

 
          
THIS
MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN A GOOD IDEA,
COLIN ADMITTED TO HIMSELF AS HE drove
north along the
Taconic Parkway
. But staying in San
Francisco and browbeating a helpless invalid
—
and Simon Anstey was still
very close to being that, no matter how sharp his tongue
—
was not a useful course of
action either, and Colin had barely been able to have a civil conversation with
Simon any time in the last two weeks.

 
          
John
Cannon's last book,
Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today,
had been
edited and returned to Jamie Melford
—
along with a basic reading
list, so that he and Barbara could begin to understand the strange world they'd
been ' thrust into.

 
          
Colin
had been more than a little disturbed at the material contained in the
manuscript. Now, rituals and techniques that had been closely guarded I secrets
for centuries
—
and had been at least hard to find in Thorne Blackburn's
heyday
—
were,
through popularizers such as John Cannon, available to anyone with a dollar
bill. And the easier they were to find, the more frivolously they would be
used, with disaster the inevitable result.

 
          
The
Path was not a thing to be entered onto lightly out of a rainy day's boredom;
nor were its paths to power suitable to every individual's state of mind, even
in a democracy where
—
in theory
—
all persons were created equal. Far too many people were
driven into the magickal underworld not by any inborn craving for the answers
there, but because conventional science had failed to provide them any answers
when their lives were interrupted by the Unseen. The only thing that could
truly help these people was to open the closed minds of the physical sciences,
and that could only be done by offering them proof on their own terms.

 
          
And
that was the heart of the reason why Colin was making his journey north to the
Taghkanic College Campus, and the Margaret Beresford Bidney Memorial Psychic
Science Research Laboratory.

 
          
The
college's nearest neighbors were the town of
Glastonbury
and a small artist's
colony; Colin visited them both involuntarily before he finally found the
campus. A recent snowfall
—
winter was harder here, north of NYC
—
made the roads treacherous,
and some of the smaller roads hadn't been plowed at all. After ending up in the
center of
Glastonbury
for the second time, Colin
got back onto the main road and this time found the turnoff for
Leyden Road
. This time he crossed over
the railroad tracks
—
the point at which he'd turned back last time
—
and made it all the way to
the college. He felt an unreasonable sense of triumph as he passed between the
fieldstone posts and beneath the wrought-iron gateway that said "
Taghkanic
College
."

 
          
Even
in the depths of winter, the college had a stark Victorian prettiness. Brick
walkways, swept clean of snow, crossed the lawns between the black, winter-bare
trees; when the trees were in bloom the campus must be dazzling. It was as if
Colin had stepped two centuries back in time; the college stood like something
preserved in Arctic ice, an echo of another age. He drove slowly past the red
brick buildings and the clumps of anonymous students moving between them,
looking for his destination. Dr. Newland had told him that the laboratory was
impossible to miss . . .

 
          
.
. . and he'd been perfectly right, Colin decided a few moments later, standing
beside his parked van and staring up at the snow-dusted structure with
something like awe.

 
          
The
effect was very much as if someone had plunked down a Greek temple among a
group of log cabins. The building's shallow porch was supported by seven Doric
columns, and above them, in bronze letters weeping verdigris into the porous
white marble were the words: MARGARET BERESFORD Bidney memorial psychic science
research institute. The relief above the name depicted classical themes:
Helios, Pandora, Prometheus; all examples of mankind reaching for the power of
the gods.

 
          
It
was a pity, Colin reflected, that all those tales ended in tragedy, but the
Greeks weren't much on happy endings to begin with. Colin climbed the shallow
steps and stepped onto the porch. The stone above the bronze entry-way was
carved with the quotation from Joel 2:28: "Your old men shall dream
dreams; your young men shall see visions." Colin pulled open the door and
walked in.

 
          
He
found himself inside a small rotunda, as if this were truly the temple its form
mimicked. The marble beneath his feet was inlaid in an elaborate knot, and the
domed glass roof filled the room with light. The elaborate bronze clockface set
into the wall opposite the door told him that he was only a few minutes late
for his appointment.

           
The receptionist was obviously one
of the students who attended the college; she had a pile of textbooks beside
her elbow, but she looked up alertly when Colin entered. Oversized aviator
glasses with wire frames gave her the look of a helpful dragonfly.

 
          
"Hi;
I'm Leonie. Nesbit?" she added, as if she weren't quite sure. "Can I
help you?"

 
          
"I'm
Colin MacLaren. I have a
two o'clock
appointment with Dr.
New-land, but I'm afraid I'm a little late
—
"

 
          
"Oh,
Dr. MacLaren! Yes, Dr. Newland is expecting you. Go right through that archway
and all the way down the hall
—
it's the door at the end." She pointed over her
shoulder.

 
          
Colin
went in the direction she indicated, past a row of white doors with names
beside them that led into office cubicles. At the end of the hallway there was
a cross corridor, and just before it an open area, with file cabinets, a couple
of vacant secretarial desks, and a coffeepot and refrigerator.

 
          
The
place seemed oddly deserted; even the coffeepot was empty. Straight ahead was
the door that Leonie had mentioned; set into it in severe bronze letters were
the words:
Dr. Reynard Newland, Director.
Colin knocked, then opened the
door.

 
          
Dr.
Newland was sitting behind a massive rosewood desk in an office that was almost
a stereotypical recreation of the study of an
Oxford
don. The windows on the
left side of the office looked out on a screen of snow-covered pines through
which could be seen some of the other campus buildings. Built-in bookshelves
set into oak-paneled walls were filled with a variety of exquisite and
well-loved books, and there was a tall glass cabinet filled with curios along
the other wall. There was a coffee table and a set of club chairs in the far
corner for more relaxed seating, and the jewel-tones of an antique Persian
carpet glowed upon the floor.

 
          
Dr.
Newland was in his mid-seventies, Colin guessed, and the ill-health that was
the reason for his retirement had given his skin a waxy pallor. But he was
cheerful enough as he rose from his seat behind the desk and motioned Colin to
a chair.

 
          
"Sit
down, Dr. MacLaren. You look rather frazzled
—
not too much trouble finding
the college, I hope?"

 
          
"Not
after I'd exhausted every other possibility," Colin agreed, smiling.
"I'm sorry I'm late."

 
          
"Oh,
not at all. I was just catching up on my professional reading; the i place
practically runs itself." Dr. Newland gestured toward a familiar pile of
professional journals lying on the corner of his desk. "But I'm
overlooking the niceties. Would you care for a cup of coffee? Tea?"

 
          
"Tea,
but I wouldn't want to put you to any trouble," Colin demurred. Dr. i
Newland had already buzzed for Leonie, and there was a short pause while he
gave her directions and sent her off again.

 
          
As
Michael Davenant had predicted, Dr. Newland had been eager to interview
someone of Colin's caliber regarding the upcoming vacancy. Unfortunately, as
Davenant had further suggested, Dr. Newland was rather inclined to take the
college's view of matters.

 
          
"It's
sad, really
—
the whole Bidney endowment sitting here, all tied up by the
institute, while the college goes begging for funds. The trustees won't accept
federal money; no, the college still operates on the terms of its 1714 charter,
and it is funded entirely by private contributions. But these days ..."

 
          
Colin
knew that liberal arts colleges all across the country were closing, unable to
keep tuition costs low enough to attract students.

 
          
"But
surely, turning over Miss Bidney's bequest to the college isn't the answer?"
Colin said tactfully. "I'd think that the presence of the institute could
be a major asset to Taghkanic. Very few places offer a degree program in Parapsychology
these days, you know."

 
          
"Very
true," Dr. Newland said doubtfully. "But it all seems rather pointless,
somehow. What are they to do with their degrees once we've awarded them?
Psychic phenomena simply cannot be quantified; it merely devolves into smoke and
mirrors. The scientific method is anathema to the manifestation of the Unseen
World."

 
          
"I
don't believe that's completely true," Colin said slowly, unwilling to offend
his host. "Certainly psychic phenomena haven't necessarily consistently
demonstrated a cause-and-effect relationship under laboratory conditions in the
past, but it's possible that this is simply through our own ignorance of the
number of variables involved. And human subjects introduce human error
—
what if you were attempting
to prove the existence of perfect pitch, and 99.999 percent of your test group
were tone-deaf? You'd need a much larger statistical pool to even begin to
isolate the thing you wished to study."

 
          
As
Colin paused, there was a knock at the door, and Leonie entered, carrying an
enormous silver tray. Staggering a little under the weight, she set it
carefully down on the table in the corner, smiled cheerfully at the two men,
and flitted out again.

 
          
There
was another pause in the conversation as Colin and Dr. Newland moved to the
less formal seating in the corner.

 
          
"Good
heavens," Colin said mildly, gazing down at the tray. It held macaroons
and sliced cake in addition to the tea things. "I wasn't expecting
this."