Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (66 page)

 
          
Grey
had left Taghkanic a few weeks later, at the end of the school year. When he
had not returned for the summer lecture series, Colin had been concerned, but
not yet worried, marking it down to Grey's need for solitude and healing.

 
          
But
Grey had neither called nor written over the summer, and he had not returned to
campus in the fall. He had vanished. Even his school records were gone.
Somehow, Colin had failed him.

 
          
Failure
was something an Initiate of the Light must learn to accept with grace
—
though true failures were
rare. What the world saw as failure, the Initiate saw as a postponement,
sometimes to a future lifetime, it was true, but what was to be, would be. Even
so, Colin wished he had been able to give Grey what he had needed, for the sake
of the dear friend Grey had been to him before this life, and for the
sacrifices that friend had made.

 
          
But
he had not. He had not acted in the case of Hunter Greyson, and so had lost
him, for good or ill. Now the problem of Simon Anstey was before him
—
Simon whom he had known
almost from childhood
—
and Colin prayed he would know what to do, and when to do
it.

 
          
Filled
with his own solemn thoughts, Colin wandered through the house. There were
recordings of Alison's keyboard work playing over the sound system, and the
rooms were filled with people who had come to say good-bye. Every strata of
San Francisco
society was present, from
formidable professional women in severely tailored suits, to late-blooming
flower children in tie-dye and denim. Mercifully, Simon had not made an
appearance here, though it was almost as if he were present, so much was he
upon the minds of those who gathered here.

 
          
Colin's
attention was caught by one long-haired young man with eyes of a startling
forest green, who looked much too young to have ever known Alison. Colin was
wondering how they could have met, when he focused on the woman standing next
to the boy.

 
          
"Cassie!"
Colin crossed the room to greet her.

 
          
"Professor
MacLaren!" she said, unfeignedly pleased. "Frodo, this is Colin
MacLaren
—
he was one of my teachers back East. Professor, this is
Frodo Frederick."

 
          
A
small gold pendant flashed at her throat; Colin recognized, with resignation,
the North Gate sigil that many Blackburnites wore. Grey's apostasy had not
ended Cassie's involvement in the Work after all. Colin said nothing.

 
          
Frodo
was wearing the more common silver pentacle of the Pagan and Witch. "It's
a pleasure to meet you, sir, but I'm sorry that it has to be on such a somber
occasion." He held out his hand.

 
          
Colin
shook it. The boy had beautiful manners, he thought
—
and chided himself mentally
for thinking anything of the sort. That sort of thinking was the mark of a
crotchety old age, and Colin was far from ready to embrace such a thing.

 
          
"So
am I. Had you known Alison long?"

 
          
"All
my life." The boy grinned. "Well, since I was twelve, anyway. She
caught me climbing the wall into her garden, and I thought for sure she was
going to make a big fuss, but she didn't. She just gave me some cookies, and
told me that any time I wanted to see her garden, all I had to do was come
around to the front door and ask. And when I was leaving, she asked if I liked
to read, and suggested that if I did, there were a couple of authors I might
like.

 
          
"Madeline
L'Engle was one of them, I remember. And when I got older, she had some other
authors for me. I'm going to miss her," Frodo said sadly.

 
          
"We're
all going to miss her," Colin agreed. In some ways, Alison had been the
still point around which the entire Bay Area New Age Community had revolved.
The West Coast was traditionally a breeding ground for kooks and nut-cultists
of every description: who would it be who set the tone for the Lightworkers
now?

 
          
"So,
how are you enjoying the real world?" Colin asked Cassie, trying to
lighten the subject.

 
          
She
grimaced. "You know the old saying: for this I spent four years in college?
But I'm glad to run into you here, Professor. I was going to write to you and
ask
—
do
you hear anything from Grey? I wrote him at the
Glastonbury
address, but all my letters
came back marked 'Moved, No Forwarding.'"

 
          
"I'm
sorry," Colin said, and saw her face crumple in a disappointment that she
tried hard to conceal.

 
          
When
Grey had not returned to Taghkanic in the fall, Colin had sought him in the
Overworld within the limits of the Law he served. He had found | that Grey was
alive and physically whole, but no more than that. He had not raised the matter
with Claire, for fear that she would not understand ... or would understand too
well. Like it or not, Colin had been shut out of Hunter Greyson's life for good
or ill.

 
          
"I'd
been wondering if he kept up with any of his old friends," he said, trying
not to hope.

 
          
"No."
Cassie's response was quick and comprehensive. If she was still studying the
Blackburn Work, Colin imagined she'd looked for Grey even harder than he had.
Her eyes glistened, brimming with tears. "Oh, well."

 
          
Frodo
put an arm around her shoulders; a gesture that seemed to hold more of comfort
than possessiveness.

 
          
"You
knew Simon Anstey, didn't you?" Frodo asked Colin, changing the subject.

 
          
"For
many years," Colin answered, a little warily.

 
          
"Do
you think he'd listen to you?" Frodo asked. His manner seemed com- 1 posed
of equal parts determination and embarrassment.

 
          
"Frodo,
don't," Cassie pleaded.

 
          
"Somebody
has to," Frodo said stubbornly. "Anstey, he's . . . he's doing some
really bad things."

 
          
It
was the very banality of Frodo's words that convinced Colin that the boy was
serious. People who were inventing horrors took care to make their words as
vivid, dramatic, and compelling as possible. Those who had looked
upon   < the actual face of Evil were usually reduced to insipid
generalities.

 
          
"Tell
me," Colin said quietly.

 
          
"He's
. . . they say he's . . . sacrificing animals. Taking their life force and
adding it to his own, so that the nerve grafts the doctors are doing on his fingers
now will take, and he'll get the use of that hand back," Frodo said in a
rush.

 
          
"Have
you seen him do this?" Colin asked. The most serious crime an Adept could
commit against the Light was to
take
—
to take the life and soul of
another to feed his own power. Colin could not afford to take Frodo's
words   I lightly.

 
          
Frodo
passed a hand over his face, as if trying to blot out his own words. |
"No. And nobody I know has, either. But you hear things;
San Francisco
is really a small town,
especially when it comes to anyone who's into what Ali- J son was into. And
Simon's quick enough to tell the rest of us that we're cow-
 
ards and idiots, and he's the only one who
understands the full true secrets of I magick." Frodo didn't sound bitter
—
only tired and a little
afraid.

 
          
"Yes,
that sounds like Simon . . . unfortunately," Colin agreed.

           
There were certain practices that
the Light strictly forbade
—
it was the basis of Colin's long-ago break with Thorne,
his quarrel with Grey. To manipulate the material world for personal gain
through the use of the Art was one; to use the Art to sway the minds of the
Unawakened for one's own end was another. These were the things that the
Blackburn Work had in common with the Left-Hand Path, but apparently Simon
Anstey had gone even further into the Kingdom of the Shadow, into those
practices which could not be justified by even the most tolerant apologist.

 
          
"The
blood is the life" wasn't simply a phrase from a classic horror novel; to
an Adept it was the simple
—
literal
—
truth. This was the secret meaning behind the blood
sacrifice, and why it had been held in such abhorrence by all civilized
cultures. The power a Black Adept gained in this way could be used to heal the
body, to hold back the ravages of age, even to raise the dead
—
but each use, each
sacrifice, separated the Black Adept more irreversibly from communion with the
Light.

 
          
Colin
knew that Simon had dabbled in blood sacrifice as a child
—
if he had returned, in
desperation, to those old habits to gain the power he felt he needed . . .

 
          
Suddenly
Colin
felt
—
rather than heard
—
the sound of a deep chime
that seemed to resonate within his chest. It was the vibration of the great
Bell
which hung in the
Temple
of his Order, though its
physical manifestation had ended centuries in the past. That
Bell
rang only in moments of
greatest need, or to signal the blackest peril. Colin had not heard it for many
years.

 
          
Was
it tolling for Simon? The peril to his soul was great, and it was possible
that now at last it was time for Colin to intervene. He had held off from
meddling in Grey's life until it was too late
—
perhaps this was a sign that
he must not make the same mistake twice.

 
          
He
glanced around the room, seeing members of a dozen different Magickal Lodges
mingling freely with Witches and Pagans and Blackburnites. It had taken
Alison's death to overcome the barriers that kept them apart . . . and it came
to Colin suddenly, borne upon the impetus of the Astral Bell, that they must
not be allowed to fall back into the paths of divisiveness. Opposition to the
Shadow was not a simple matter of tilting at windmills in darkness: it was the
creation of a Positive Energy to supplant the Negative. They must look for
their common ground, not focus upon their differences.

 
          
Perhaps
if Colin had concentrated on what the Blackburn Work shared with the Light . .
. but no. That was the path of equivocation that Simon had followed down into
the darkness of the Left-Hand Path, and now he had reached its deepest shadows.

 
          
The
way to save Simon was not to follow him.

 
          
Abruptly
Colin realized what that
Bell
had signaled. His work at the Bid-ney Institute was done,
and another chapter of his life was about to begin
—
here.

 
          
For
one man, working with a whole heart, is a more effective reproach to evil than
the half-hearted actions of a million men. So mote it be.

SAN FRANCISCO
,
MONDAY,
JANUARY 9,  1984

But, for the unquiet heart and brain A use in measured
language lies; The sad mechanic exercise, hike dull narcotics, numbing pain.

—
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

 
          
CLAIRE 
MOFFAT  SAT  BEHIND  THE  BOOKSTORE 
COUNTER,   READING  HER textbook, a good cup of fresh-brewed tea
steaming at her elbow. Monsignor watched her gravely, amber eyes glowing.
Poltergeist was asleep on a shelf somehere in the back of the store.

 
          
Claire
loved the early morning, before the Haight was really awake. It seemed at that
time of day that the city belonged to her alone, and despite the raw January
chill
—
and
the open door leading to the street
—
the inside of the Ancient
Mysteries Bookshop was cozy and inviting.

 
          
Relocating
cross-country once more hadn't been as difficult as she'd thought it might be
—
and Colin had asked so
little of her in this life compared to what he had done for her that she had
been glad to repay him in this small way. She'd succeeded in finding a good
manager for Inquire Within without much difficulty, and in a college town she'd
had no trouble renting the apartment above the store.

 
          
As
for Colin . . .

 
          
It
seemed impossible that he should have been able to wind up his affairs as
quickly as he had. He'd not only had the responsibility of finding someone who
could take over his classes at Taghkanic, but someone to helm the Bidney
Institute as well. Claire was glad to see it accomplished so smoothly; Colin
had been good for the institute, but he was not at heart an administrator, and
Claire had to admit that Miles Godwin was a perfect successor. And Miles was a
young man
—
barely thirty. Now that Colin had recrafted the institute
in his own image, Miles
—
brisk, efficient, unflappable Miles
—
could run it right into the
next century.

 
          
Now
Colin was
—
officially
—
on sabbatical from Taghkanic. In fact, he was lecturing at
San Francisco
State
this winter, dividing his
time between that and the bookstore.

 
          
The
Ancient Mysteries Bookstore had been founded in 1979, but it had been failing
for the usual reasons that plagued small business when Claire had found it for
Colin on a preliminary trip West last summer. Colin had invested some money
—
becoming part-owner
—
and taken over the management
a few months ago. His plan was to make the store something of a community
center, and so far the idea had worked admirably. Now more than ever before,
there was a free exchange of ideas and goals among the Light-workers of the Bay
Area.

 
          
To
Claire's mild surprise, Colin had even accepted Cassie Chandler's presence
without demur, though Cassie was working with a group called Circle of Fire, a
Blackburn Workgroup operating in the
East
Bay
.
How Thorne would laugh
if he knew! He hated dogma, and they've taken his work and made it into a set
of regulations that have to be followed precisely. If there was anything that
could bring him back from the dead, it would be that. . . .

 
          
It
was ironic that where Thorne Blackburn had once tried and failed, Colin had
succeeded with the Ancient Mysteries Bookshop. Colin had asked her to manage
the place, and had hired several of the local members of the occult community
as additional staff, as he did not wish to tie himself down to being in the
store on a regular schedule. Claire worked in the store on Mondays and Fridays,
as her schedule of classes permitted.

 
          
She'd
worried that returning to the places she'd known with Peter would bring her
pain, but to her surprise
—
and regret
—
the pain was not as overpowering as she'd feared. Peter
was with the angels now, and Claire could go on with her life without an
overwhelming burden of grief. But she'd been concerned about facing a familiar
landscape with too much time on her hands, and so she'd arranged to work toward
a degree in psychology at
San Francisco
State
. Most of the credits that
had earned Claire her RN could still be transferred, even at this late date.
She'd started last fall and was already well embarked on earning a master's
degree in psychology.

 
          
Claire
was a little surprised at how much pleasure the coursework gave her. The world
had changed a great deal in the quarter of a century since she'd entered
nursing school. Most women expected to have careers now, even after marriage,
and nobody thought of them as emotionally-stunted man-haters. The change had
been so gradual that only in looking back could it be seen at all.

 
          
/
suppose all change is like that. Gradual. Who would have thought, in those
days that Colin and I were visiting Thorne on this very block, that we'd be
back here and running an occult bookstore that has more in common with the old
Voice
of Truth
than not?

 
          
She
shook her head fondly. Life, in the words of the philosopher, was not only
stranger than they imaged, it was also stranger than they
could
imagine.

           
At that moment, Claire felt the
familiar summons to mindfulness. A slender, dark-haired woman had paused at
the display of lurid secondhand paperbacks that were racked outside the front
of the store. She hesitated over them for a moment, her whole aspect that of
someone who is searching for something unknown, then made her selection and
walked into the store, holding the book out before her as if it were
radioactive.

 
          
She
was obviously a professional woman, slightly out of place in this bo-hemian
neighborhood. Her short dark hair was cut in a practical bob, and her pale grey
suit, with the small "good" gold brooch on the lapel, was pure
"Dress for Success." Someone less likely to pick up one of the
tattered two-bit paperbacks sitting out in front of the bookstore was hard to
imagine, though the woman had the faintly wild-eyed look of one whose life had
recently been disturbed by a brush with the Unseen. For some reason the sight
of her struck a chord of recognition in Claire's mind, though it was too faint
to follow up.

 
          
Claire
glimpsed the title as she set it down:
Those Incredible Poltergeists.
One
of Jock Cannon's books, God rest his soul.

 
          
"That's
not at all a bad book," Claire said gently.

 
          
"I
don't know much about it," the stranger said gruffly. "Is this book
—
er
—
reliable?"

 
          
Bingo,
Claire thought to herself. Her visitor looked to be in her late twenties,
old enough
—
just possibly
—
to be the mother of a child
poltergeist, but somehow Claire did not get the sense that this was that sort
of problem.

 
          
"I'm
out of the Margrave and Anstey monograph just now, but this
—
" Claire picked up a
copy of Dion Fortune's
Psychic Self Defense
and tendered it toward the
stranger "
—
is very commonsensical."

 
          
The
woman recoiled faintly at the sight of the cover, which even Claire had to
admit was nearly as sensational as that of the tattered paperback. She set the
book back down on the counter. Obviously, her customer wasn't yet quite
desperate enough to grasp at any straw, as yet.

 
          
"I
have Nandor Fodor's
On the Trail of the Poltergeist,
too
—
if you want to wade through
a lot of psychoanalytical twaddle," she offered, and saw the woman's face
relax at a name she recognized.

 
          
"I'll
take that one," she said. Relief lightened her voice to a husky contralto.

 
          
Claire's
subjective hunch had been right: this woman was either a psychologist or
psychiatrist. She went into the back room to find a copy
—
Colin had sold the last one
the day before, and they only managed to keep the out-of-print volume in stock
by buying up used copies.

 
          
When
Claire came back the woman was looking through one of the books on
reincarnation, an expression of distaste on her face, much as if she'd caught
one of the church elders dancing naked in the street. When Claire handed her
the Fodor, the woman all-but-flung payment at Claire for the two books and
rushed out without another word.

 
          
Claire
picked up the book she'd been leafing through.
Twenty Cases Suggestive of
Reincarnation,
the title read, by another credentialed psychologist. Claire
looked after the woman, a troubled frown on her face. She knew that they would
meet again. She only hoped that it wouldn't be too late for either of them.

 
          
"Hey,
Claire
—
have
you heard? Greenhaven's been sold . . . again!"

 
          
April
was a month filled with sunshowers and blustery winds; not even the canopy over
the street was enough to save the sale table books from damage. Frodo was
sorting through them, trying to decide which ones were too damaged to sell.

 
          
So
that's who that woman was.
She had no proof, but in her heart Claire had no
doubt that the young woman who'd come to the store to get information on poltergeists
was the same one who had come to take over Greenhaven. And this one, Claire
hoped, would stay.

 
          
Greenhaven
had been sold three times since Alison's death a year ago March, but the house
had seemed unable to find its match. Tenants never seemed to stay more than
"a few months
—
or, in the case of Kathleen Carmody's sister, Betty,
weeks
—
before the house was back on
the market.

 
          
/
wonder if Alison is restless?

 
          
Alison
Margrave had died without naming a successor. After Simon's accident, and his gradual
turning away from the Path, Alison had repudiated him formally, severing the
magickal link of master and
chela
that bound them. It had been too late
for her to find someone else to carry on after her; she had died unhappy,
unfulfilled.

 
          
"Hey,
Claire?" Frodo said.

 
          
"Hm?
I was just wondering if this one would last. Do you know who it is?"
Have
you found your successor, Alison? Is she the one?

 
          
"Um
. . . my dad heard from the realtor, but he didn't get a lot of details. A
doctor, I think. I heard she'd be moving in there in May."