Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (31 page)

 
          
"Compared
to the troubles we see on the streets these days, I don't suppose a battle
between two magicians is anything much, and Lord knows being seen by the
mundane world and treated by the press as nothing but a pack of kooks is not a
new experience for any of us
—
except maybe Simon
—
but it's the people he and
Blackburn draw in after them that I'm worried about.
Blackburn
's playing pretty rough, and
I'm afraid Simon will be tempted to strike back in the same way that
Blackburn
is attacking him."

 
          
The
quarrel between the two men had begun with
Blackburn
's antiwar rituals. When
Simon had attacked them for being both dangerous and frivolous, Thorne had
counterattacked by pointing out that Simon, by reason of his deferment, was in
no danger of being drafted, something that was more dangerous to more people
than any magick Thorne could ever perform.

 
          
"Surely
Thorne isn't working magick against Simon?" Colin asked.

 
          
But
he knew, with a sinking feeling deep inside him, that it would be perfectly in
character for Thorne to do such a thing. /
wish to know in order to serve. .
. .
That was the credo that Thorne had rejected.

 
          
"Well,
he's said he is, of course. And
something
certainly rattled the doors
and windows around here a few nights ago. If it was
Blackburn
's doing, I'd say he's got a
pretty impressive string of firecrackers at his disposal," Alison said.
"Fortunately my wards held."

 
          
This
was more evidence
—
not that Colin had needed it
—
that Thorne had rejected the
rules which bound the Adepts of the Right-Hand Path, the Adepts for whom
magickal power was only a by-product of the Path of Self-Knowledge. If not
Black, Thorne's approach was certainly Grey.

 
          
"Of
course Simon is absolutely livid," Alison went on. "I've told him
that the best course is simply to ignore it. I dare say I've taught him enough
about shielding himself and his home and possessions that Simon shouldn't have
a thing to worry about, any more than I do. But Simon doesn't always take my
advice," she finished, sighing.

 
          
"And
Thorne has never taken anyone's advice at all," Colin said ruefully.
"He certainly won't listen to anything I have to say. Maybe Claire can
make him see reason; he's always been fond of her."

 
          
But
Claire had no more success than Colin had in changing Thorne Blackburn's mind.
Colin had the sense that Thorne was simply baiting Simon, mocking him because
—
at least to Thorne
—
Simon Anstey represented
both the mundane and the magickal Establishment. Thorne was doing his best to
make Simon an object of public ridicule as a form of sympathetic magic, and
Simon was determined to run Thorne out of the Bay Area. Neither Thorne nor
Simon would break off the feud. It had become increasingly personal and bitter,
at least on Simon's side, and it was polarizing the Bay Area occult community.

 
          
Those
who were members of more traditional Magickal Orders
—
the Ordo Templi Orientis,
the Golden Dawn, the Builders of the Adytum, the Rosicrucian Fellowship in
America
—
had
taken this opportunity to flock to Simon Anstey's banner. Thorne had made too
many enemies among traditional occultists with his breezy, publicity-seeking
style and grandiose claims for the Old Guard to be able to resist the
temptation to strike back at him now.

 
          
Thorne's
supporters were mostly drawn from among his own growing band of followers, and
from the membership of the increasing number of new Wiccan and Neo-Pagan groups
that were springing up everywhere like mushrooms after rain. These new groups
had few ties to traditional occultism, condemning it as monotheistic and
patriarchal. Their credo
—
"an ye harm none, do what thou wilt"
—
captured perfectly the
spirit of the Age of Aquarius, and like Thorne, they, too, wished to remove
magick from the
Temples
and set it loose in the
streets.

 
          
The
dispute even made the pages of the
Examiner
with an article that cast
Simon in the role of a noted parapsychologist exposing a depraved charlatan.
Certainly Thorne didn't make as favorable an impression as Simon did on members
of the Establishment
—
in fact, he sounded very much like a crank by the time the
reporter was through with him. But Thorne had other avenues of attack than the
Establishment press, and he used them all.

 
          
At
any other time, Colin would have considered this a tempest in a teapot. Now, he
regarded it as a symptom of a graver divisiveness: the factions of the Light
embroiled in petty quarrels at a time when their cooperation was most needed.

 
          
Which
side are you on?
Thorne had asked him once. Now Colin wondered the same
thing about the young magician. Which did Thorne serve: the Light or the Dark?
Did even he know?

 
          
June
1967. Colin had found an apartment in
North
Beach
and had moved across the
Bay a few weeks before. He was now working with the Rhodes Group full-time.
Most of it was fairly routine
—
if the investigation of hauntings and possession could ever
be said to be routine
—
and the majority of the cases presented to him so far had
boasted distinctly mundane solutions. Those which had not had been easily
explicable through misunderstood but truly mundane causes had been the rare but
hardly supernatural manifestations of common (for lack of a better word)
psychic powers
—
telepathy, precognition, telekinesis, clairvoyance
—
though many came with occult
trappings attached.

 
          
Most
people who discovered themselves to be in the tiny psychic minority of mankind
turned to the occult for the explanation of their seemingly irrational
abilities. They had little choice, since Religion and Science had both failed
them
—
Religion
by consigning their gifts to the realm of devil-worship and Science by denying
that they existed at all.

 
          
It
was no wonder that the majority of psychics were neurotic, as they attempted
to reconcile the evidence of their senses with the teachings of their culture. Though
Colin disagreed with Thorne's platform of revealing all the Great Secrets,
surely there was some middle ground of psychic education, so that normal,
conservative people didn't have to choose between the Devil and madness when
confronted with the Unknown?

 
          
The
flyer stuffed into the door of Colin's apartment
—
and most of the rest of the
ones on the block
—
announced a Love Magick Be-In Against the War in
Golden Gate
Park
, to be held Saturday, June
17. Thorne had apparently finally received his long-sought permit to assemble,
despite all of Simon's efforts to the contrary. Colin didn't expect Simon to
attend, but Thorne would almost certainly use the occasion to crow about his
victory. Watching Thorne and Simon quarrel irritated him almost beyond reason,
so Colin had no plans to go, and he'd thought Claire would stay away as well.
Then just last night, Claire had phoned him from
Berkeley
, saying she was coming to
the Be-In after all.

 
          
"It's
just a feeling, Colin
—
and probably indigestion at that. But I feel as if I might
be able to do some good if I'm there. I'm planning to bring Peter along for
moral support."

           
Claire was not often wrong in her
hunches, and Colin had grown to trust them unquestioningly.

 
          
"Then
I'll meet you there. How bad can it be, after all?" he said.

 
          
The
sky glowed a deep faience blue, with a few tiny white clouds radiant with the
sunlight that passed through them. The temperature was in the high seventies,
and the air was clear.

 
          
The
Be-In had attracted the usual collection of street people: mimes, face
painters, belly dancers, jugglers, wandering musicians, bubble-pipe blowers.
Copies of the
Voice of Truth
were being hawked, and someone was selling
helium balloons. Several of the balloons had already escaped, tangling in the
trees or riding the ocean winds high above the city. An outdoor stage
—
empty of people but already
set up with a drum set and amplifiers
—
made a loose focal point for
the crowd that had gathered.

 
          
They
wore granny dresses and bell-bottoms, dashikis, crocheted halter tops, denim
skirts, bright vests, and fringed leathers. They wore peace symbols and granny
glasses in candy store tints; love beads and slogan buttons in all the colors
of the rainbow. Their hair was almost universally long, men and women alike,
hanging straight and shining down their backs, sometimes pulled back into a
long tail. They were barefoot and sandaled, carrying backpacks and shoulder
bags and their children. They'd come for the music, or the politics, or just
for Thorne, this peaceable tribe that would soon
—
for one brief, shining
moment
—
be
known as the Woodstock Nation
—
a nation which, like the kingdom of Camelot, would dissolve
in the very moment of its realization, leaving its exiled children to yearn for
it forever after.

 
          
But
today their losses were all in the future.

 
          
"Claire!"
Colin said with relief, glad to recognize at least one familiar face.
"Where's Peter? I thought he'd be coming with you."

 
          
"He
was called in to work a case at the last minute," Claire said. "He
said he'd be along when he could, but I'm not counting on it, mind." She
smiled.

 
          
Her
ensemble made no concession to the thrift-shop look of counterculture fashion,
and she stood out from the crowd almost as much as Colin did. Claire was
wearing a short-sleeved pantsuit in chocolate brown with inserts of hot pink
and bright yellow. Her purse and boots were white patent leather, and her white
button earrings matched the wide white frames of the sunglasses she wore
against the summer sunshine.

 
          
"I'm
glad I found you," Claire said. "This place is really a zoo, isn't
it? Not much chance of a private word."

 
          
"I
stopped by the house earlier, but
Tex
told me that the others had
already come over here. I'd hoped to
get
a chance to talk to Thorne
alone before all this started," Colin said.

 
          
"You
think he's going to make another attack on Simon," Claire guessed.

 
          
"It
doesn't take psychic powers to predict that," Colin said, grimacing.
"And, yes, I'd hoped I could talk Thorne into being reasonable. He'll
never get mainstream acceptance for his ideas if he keeps attacking the
Establishment at every turn."

 
          
"And
even if he doesn't want acceptance," Claire said, "I don't think Alison
can talk Simon out of a lawsuit against those pieces in the
Voice of Truth
much
longer. And with Thorne's arrest record, it's hard to see him winning the
case."

 
          
Colin
sighed. "That young man is too stubborn for his own good."

 
          
"Which
one?" Claire asked with a wicked smile.

 
          
Thorne's
extended family was easy enough to spot; while Colin and Claire had been
talking, they'd driven the Mystery Schoolbus up as close as possible to the
stage and were unloading more equipment from it.