Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (60 page)

 
          
Running
her own bookstore agreed with her; Colin had to admit he hadn't seen Claire
this happy since Peter had died. He only wished he could say as much for
himself.

 
          
In
this second half of his life, a cloud seemed to have settled over him, as if he
were somehow in exile through accident or unwise choice. Since Simon's accident
—
and Hasloch's murder
—
Colin felt as though he'd
lost touch with something fine and meaningful, but dared not go in search of it
lest he do some unimaginable unwitting harm. Slowly his life had come to be
ruled by that fear, a dark spectator whose presence colored his every action.

 
          
First,
do no harm.
The injunction that formed the basis of the Hippocratic Oath
was a good one for any meddler, Colin thought to himself encouragingly, and
nothing to be ashamed of.

 
          
And
now he'd better get inside, before his guests decided he'd gotten lost on the
way to the house.

 
          
"For
he's a jolly good fellow
—
which nobody can deny!" The raucous, friendly chorus
—
led by Grey and his
girlfriend on their guitars
—
rang from the walls of the old farmhouse. A substantial
fire blazed on the hearth, and marshmal-lows and chestnuts were laid by for
later toasting.

 
          
All
Colin's friends were there
—
even John Dexter, whose unexpected and baffling illness had
forced his retirement from the Bidney staff the year before.

 
          
"And
a happy Groundhog Day to you, Colin, and the hope of many more," Dexter
said, coming over to stand at Colin's side.

 
          
His
skin was sallow and almost reptilian, hanging from his gaunt frame in folds and
covered with the livid bruising that was the result not of blows but of tiny
spontaneous hemorrhages throughout his body. His doctors frankly measured
Dexter's future in months, and constant tremors in his hands had rendered him
incapable of performing his beloved sleight-of-hand illusions, but he was
unfeignedly merry as he joined the revelry.

 
          
"And
to you as well," Colin said automatically.

 
          
"Don't
be naive and sentimental," Dexter said. "Or I'll worry more than I do
now about leaving the institute in your hands. I'll be lucky if I see July
Fourth, let alone next Groundhog Day."

 
          
"I
wish there was something I could do," Colin said.

 
          
"Just
keep the faith healers off me," Dexter said. "I'll go out as I came
in, and I'm too old to start believing in hoodoo. Leave the mumbo to Jumbo has
always been my motto."

 
          
"And
you a magician," Colin joked gently. It hurt him to see his friend this
way, but in the face of Dexter's steadfast refusal to consider what was now beginning
to be called Alternative Medicine, his friends had no choice but to respect his
wishes.

 
          
"How's
my successor doing?" Dexter asked.

 
          
"Quite
well," Colin assured him. Maskelyne Devant
—
the professional name of a
man whose birth name was Houdin, and whose parents had obliviously christened
him Henry Harrison
—
had been Dex's handpicked successor, and the two men were
as different as night and day.

 
          
Devant's
performing tastes ran to smoke and mirrors
—
the gaudy, Vegas-style
illusions of much of modern magic
—
and he carried his "man
of mystery" persona with him offstage as well as on, something that
irritated Colin more on some days than others. But Devant was just as
hard-nosed and unforgiving as Dexter had been, and had already exposed a
number of
soi-disant
"psychics" whose trickery had fooled
Colin's researchers.

 
          
Without
revealing the secrets of the Brotherhood, Devant also did several seminars each
year at Taghkanic on the more basic forms of bait-and-switch, which was the
central principle of most psychic fraud, as well as of stage il-lusionism.

 
          
"He's
a good man," Dexter said. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to
get a slice of that cake before Claire gives it all away." Leaning heavily
on his cane, Dexter moved slowly toward the table set up at the far end of the
room.

 
          
"Happy
Birthday, Colin."
Eden
said, handing him a slender, gold-wrapped box.

 
          
"Good
heavens. A gold watch already?" Colin joked.

 
          
"Not
quite. And it's from me, not the college
—
I have no intention of
opening the 'official gift from the administration' can of worms again."

           
"Very wise." They both
abominated in-group politics, but
Eden
had less opportunity to
steer clear of it than he did. Colin tore off the paper to reveal a silver
Cross pen. It was engraved along the barrel.
Success and Fortune:
2/2/81
.

 
          
"I'll
treasure it," Colin said.
Eden
smiled.

 
          
"And
now I do have to dash," she said. "Bobby would appreciate it if I put
in an appearance at home occasionally, and I have yards of paperwork backed
up." She held out her hand and Colin shook it formally. "Happy
Birthday, Colin."

 
          
"Thank
you." He watched as
Eden
made her way through the crowd toward the kitchen door
—
it was a more direct route
to the orchard.

 
          
"For
God's sake, man, don't just stand here
—
enjoy yourself!" Morgan
Ives, flamboyant as ever and more than a few sheets to the wind
—
-Colin smelled the sharpness
of bourbon on her breath
—
leaned against him confidentially, taking his arm.
"Come have a drink."

 
          
Colin
allowed himself to be drawn toward the table. There was a small pile of
presents
—
something he'd unsuccessfully tried to discourage
—
Claire's huge cut-glass
punch bowl with its nonalcoholic contents (a wedding gift, Colin recalled, and
something whose employment had baffled her for years), a copper wash-boiler filled
with ice and champagne bottles, and a huge chocolate sheet-cake with white
icing and a representation of the institute on it in pale blue.

 
          
He'd
already blown out the single candle, and the cake was being disemboweled for
the guests. The gathering was fairly evenly split between teachers, members of
the institute, and students. Dylan and Cassie were here, along with Grey and
half a dozen other kids, including Grey's latest girlfriend, Winter.

 
          
"Here
you are, Colin," Claire said, handing him a large slice of cake on a paper
plate. I brought you a present
—
you don't have to worry; it's cookies," she said,
nodding toward the large box wrapped in gold paper that sat beside the cake.

 
          
"You
spoil me," Colin said, accepting the plate and picking up his fork. He
looked with mock-apprehension toward the rest of the parcels. "Any idea
what else there is?"

 
          
"Well,
Jamie sent books, but he always does. It's a big box
—
I put them in the kitchen.
And there are a lot of cards, but
—
" Claire lowered her
voice con-spiratorially "
—
I think one of your students knitted you a muffler."

 
          
Colin
rolled his eyes in silence. "Well, at least it isn't a
Fair Isle
sweater." He took a
bite of cake.

 
          
"Hey,
Ramsey
—
you
coming out to the
Lake
later?"

 
          
A
lull in the conversation around him brought Janelle's words to Colin clearly,
and if he had not been looking in the direction of Grey and his friends, he
would have missed what came next.

 
          
"How's
the spring play coming?" Winter asked, too quickly and too loudly for the
words to be anything but a hasty change of subject. The others around Grey
spoke up quickly, covering the moment, but Colin had seen the look of guilty
complicity among the five of them, as clearly as if they'd shouted it aloud.

 
          
He
glanced away, not wanting to let them know he'd heard, and said something
offhand to Claire. When he looked back a few seconds later, he caught Grey
watching him expressionlessly.

 
          
To
follow the Path required the kindness of the surgeon, the clarity of the
general, and the willingness to stand aside while innocents endured the suffering
they had chosen for themselves before their entry into this life.

 
          
Faced
with the need to intervene once more, Colin was not certain he still had the
strength. The shameful guilt of his one irresistible impulse to act against the
Law was still with him. He prayed that never again would he face such a moment
of hubris and false mercy as that had been
—
it was the sort of failure
that could destroy not only lives but souls.

 
          
But
he had taken on that burden willingly, though the guilt remained
—
and it seemed, as the years
passed, that the pain had itself become a kind of temptation, a lure to
renounce all responsibility, to reject the possibility of doing good out of
fear of doing harm. It was a temptation to which he dared not surrender.

 
          
"Claire,
do you ever hear anything about
Nuclear
Lake
?"

 
          
Janelle
had mentioned "The Lake," and for residents of
Amsterdam
County
, there was only one:
Nuclear Lake.

 
          
On
maps, its name was Haelvemaen
—
Half Moon
—
Lake
, and it was on a small
parcel of private land tucked into a corner of
Huyghe
State Park
. Some sort of private
research group had used the area, and since its departure, Nuclear Lake had
collected the usual assortment of unlikely local folktales about itself. The property
had been unoccupied for about ten years, give or take a few; sporadically the
college attempted to buy the acreage for its own use, but so far without
success.

 
          
"Not
much," Claire said slowly. As she mused, she reached out and rubbed
Monsignor under the chin. The dignified black-and-white torn immediately
flopped over on his back, purring, while Poltergeist, a white queen, remained
more aloof.

 
          
The
shop smelled pleasantly of cinnamon and sandalwood, and radiated a sense of
serene peace. Inquire Within had been such a good idea that Colin couldn't
imagine how he'd ever gotten along without it. Claire's bookstore provided a
perfect nonconfrontational meeting place for those curious about the Unseen. It
provided answers for those with questions, a way for them to meet one another,
and a place to go before their troubles became too grave. And Claire was in her
element, providing tea and no-nonsense advice to anyone who needed it.

 
          
At
least twice a month, Claire made it her business to cook dinner for him in her
little apartment above Inquire Within, apparently on the theory that without
her he might starve. While that was not entirely true, it was true that without
Claire's home-cooking he'd get pretty tired of TV dinners and diner food. Colin
was no cook and had never claimed to be.