Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (74 page)

 
          
Frodo
was now seeing Emily regularly; apparently Simon had stopped interfering
there. He had passed on to Colin the news that Simon had borrowed the garage
just after his return from
Chicago
—
and locked it.

 
          
It's
a luxury to have so much time to prepare,
Colin thought in an idle moment.
Though the affair was as serious as any Colin had ever been engaged on, this
time the battle would not be a last-minute scramble. This time Colin had a good
idea of both the date and the place. Alison's Sanctuary. September 21.

 
          
From
his explorations in the Overlight, Colin knew that Simon had not yet taken the
last step on his path to damnation. Animal sacrifice was one thing; the
extinction of a human life
—
no matter how mean
—
a far graver matter. If
Colin had sensed that Simon had taken such a step, Colin would have called upon
his Order at once to deal with him; necromancy, like plague, spread its
contagion swiftly if it were not excised.

 
          
But
Simon had not yet committed the ultimate obscenity, and Colin meant to prevent
him if he could. He would have one chance: at the moment of the turning Tide
itself, Simon's higher self would be free of the Shadow he had called into it
and would be able to hear Colin. Colin could use that moment to call him back
to the Light if it lay within mortal power, but the timing must be exquisite,
exact. And there would be no second chance, for either of them.

 
          
And
so, as the year faded toward the equinox, Colin made his preparations just as
Simon made his, and called into himself all the authority of the Light.

 
          
And
tried not to dread, with all his unaccustomed heart, the use that the Light
would choose to make of him.

 
          
The
day of the autumnal equinox dawned clear and warm, and Colin rose with the sun
to greet it. He had fasted since sunset the previous night and had eaten only
lightly during the previous fortnight, taking no form of animal protein. He
spent the morning in meditation, trying to empty himself of all desire and to
make himself a pure tool of the Light.

 
          
Though
he did not have Claire's gift of Sight, it was as if he could sense Simon's
working like a baleful thunderhead just beyond the horizon. He had consulted an
ephemeris: Simon would time the climax of his ritual for
5:14
this afternoon, the moment
when the Sun moved into the Zodiacal house of Libra, the Balance. He had only
to hold himself in readiness for the summons to battle.

 
          
It
was afternoon when the call he had been awaiting came; unsurprised, Colin rose
from the lotus seat before his altar and picked up the phone.

 
          
"MacLaren
here."

 
          
"Colin!"
It was Leslie Barnes. "Something terrible has happened
—
" Her voice was
distorted almost beyond recognition by hysteria.

 
          
"I
think you'd better come over, Leslie," Colin said, willing her to be calm.
He gave her directions, hoping she was still collected enough to take them in
—
from the sound of things,
she was finally unable to ignore the truth about what Simon had become, and it
was tearing her apart.

 
          
While
he waited for her to arrive, Colin brewed tea. There was still time before the
ritual, and Leslie Barnes was his strongest ally in this fight. Simon loved
both her and her sister, so, by the implacable Laws of the Left-Hand Path, he
drew his greatest power from harming them. Conversely, Simon was vulnerable to
their power, but Leslie was the only one of the sisters with the will and the
discipline to strike back at him in love.

 
          
But
it must be her will, her decision. If she could not do what was needed, Colin
must face Simon alone.

 
          
A
few minutes later, Leslie arrived at the house. Terror had aged her twenty years
in a matter of hours and made her pale coral lipstick into a garish slash
across a face gone clown white with terror.

 
          
She
was nearly babbling as she spilled out the ugly fears she had lived with for
weeks: that inside the passionate artist she loved was a grotesque and ruthless
slayer who would use and kill with neither thought nor remorse. She told Colin
that Simon had kidnapped the developmentally-impaired young daughter of one of
her patients and meant to kill the child.

 
          
Leslie
no longer had any difficulty believing that Simon meant to sacrifice little
Chrissy Hamilton; Colin led her gently to the deeper truth of the atrocity
—
that the sacrifice Simon
meant to make would not be that child, though he did plan to use her in his
ritual, but instead would be something dear to him: Leslie's sister Emily.

 
          
Art
for art, skill for skill, life for life
—
destroying Emily, a skilled
musician, would return Simon's own skill to him, but at an unspeakable price
to both his soul and hers. To be used to feed a Black Adept's power crippled
those souls preyed upon beyond their power to restore themselves. Each life a
Black Adept touched was frozen as it was at the moment of death: blighted,
stillborn.

 
          
"What
can we do?" Leslie asked at last in a tear-ravaged voice. "How can we
stop him?" She looked up at Colin, hope and resolution shining from her
dark eyes.

 
          
"Come
with me," Colin said.

 
          
They
arrived at Greenhaven at a little before five. Colin was careful to park on the
street; everything inside the house's boundary-line would be affected by
Simon's workings. The laws of magick were as logical and unreasonable as those
of a computer program, and arbitrary lines drawn on a map stored in a building
twenty miles away were as compelling to the forces Simon worked with as a
concrete wall would be to a physical force. Humans, who could pass those
intangible boundaries with ease, did so at their peril.

 
          
As
soon as Colin set foot on the house's grounds he knew he had been right to be
so careful. The dark energies operating here were like a slow rising tide. Not
the psychic cesspit that Claire had described, but a chill inexorable summoning,
easily perceptible to another magician
—
even one without the Gift.

 
          
Colin
gasped for breath, and each forward step was a struggle. His heart was a sharp
hot pain in his chest, but he thrust aside all thought of his own safety. /
will
put on the armor of Light
—

 
          
But
the Darkness that Simon had set as his
tyler
was too strong
—
a thing of venom and poison
that assaulted the senses with its foulness. Colin felt himself begin to fail,
as his heart stuttered under the impact of its hate. The real world of the herb
garden that surrounded him and Leslie was shrouded from his sight
—
caught up in the maelstrom
as he was, Colin stumbled forward on instinct alone.

 
          
"Begone,
begone, BE YE GONE!"
Leslie's voice, vibrant and demanding, seemed to
echo inside his head
—
she gestured, and drops of Light rained from her
fingertips, striking the Darkness and banishing it back to the realm from which
it had been evoked. Once more Colin could sense the green life that surrounded
them.

           
The austere and majestic pride of a
parent filled him at Leslie's action. Though she was young upon the Path, she
would grow strong and straight and true to the armies of Light.

 
          
If
she lived past today.

 
          
They
had reached the door of the Sanctuary. Leslie touched the knob and drew back
without turning it, believing, as Colin well knew, that the door was still
locked, as it had been all month. But Colin knew that for Simon's ritual to
proceed, certain conditions must be met, and they did not include the security
of a locked door. When Colin put his hand on the knob, it turned freely, and
the door opened.

 
          
He
sketched a Sign in the air to breach the Wards, and it was answered with a
crackle of Astral Flame. Behind him, he heard Leslie whimper.

 
          
Inside
the studio the air was thick with incense, and Simon stood within that diagram
which is the six-pointed star drawn with but a single line.

 
          
Chrissy
Hamilton lay upon the double-cube altar, still wearing her mundane clothes,
but Simon and Emily were both garbed in ritual dress
—
Simon, naked beneath the
Black Adept's red cloak, and Emily, as his Sacred Harlot, seated upon a stool
in a white gown that left her breasts bare. They did not react to the breaching
of their
Temple
, but Emily was in trance
and Colin did not think that Simon's mind was in this world at all.

 
          
Simon
reached for the knife that lay upon the altar.

 
          
"In
the name of Almighty God and the Light into Whose Presence I first brought you,
Simon, Pilgrim, Magister, servant of God
—
I say
no!"
Colin
shouted with all of his strength. In his state of heightened awareness, Colin
could feel the forces of heaven grinding unstoppably forward like great millstones.

 
          
At
last Simon reacted to their presence. His face contorted with a fury from which
everything human had long been banished, and he clutched the Red Knife as if it
were a weapon.

 
          
Lords
of Light, if it is Your will to take me in this way, let it be so. What I give
up today, I surrender freely; let it be used for the Light
—

 
          
Again,
Colin made the Sign. Its very presence in this room was enough to cause Simon
exquisite physical pain, debased as his nature was now: it paralyzed him,
allowing Colin to cross the space between them and step into the circle chalked
upon the floor.

 
          
The
seconds in which he had to work were trickling away. With one great gesture he
kicked over the altar, and the sound of his boot against the wood resounded
like a strike upon a great drumhead. The burning incense jumped from the dish
and smoldered in a sticky spill upon the cement floor, and Colin crushed the
lamp beneath his foot, extinguishing its flame.

 
          
Simon
leaped up, the knife flashing in his hand as he rushed forward. Colin did not
move, calling out to Simon's True Self in that terrible moment with all the
force he possessed.

 
          
Simon
Anstey, remember who you are!

 
          
He
felt the Power descend upon him: once more, in this bright instant, Colin
MacLaren became the Sword of the Order. Simon struck with the knife, but it
fell away from Colin's chest without penetrating. Colin made the Sign for the
third time
—
and felt a great silence spread around him as the Still
Point of the Equinox was reached.

 
          
And
now there were two Simon Ansteys here in the room: the gibbering, I
blood-soaked creature of rage and pain and appetite, and the merely human I man
who had been tempted beyond his strength
—
but who had not killed.

 
          
"I
was mad. Surely I was mad," Simon said in a numb, dazed voice. "What
have I done
—
what will I do?" He looked toward Colin with agonized
eyes, I and in the secret chambers of his heart Colin wept for the boy he had
once I known.

 
          
"Simon!
Oh, my love
—
" Leslie cried, reaching for him.

 
          
But
Colin held her back. Simon had not chosen. Those who walked in the Shadow might
be honestly pained by their own actions
—
but still choose to I commit
them.