Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (67 page)

 
          
"Well,
she'll get our best weather, then," Claire said peaceably.
Maybe she'll
stay.

 
          
As
they talked the bookstore filled with its usual Monday visitors. Far from
discouraging what other retailers called "museum shoppers"
—
people who treated stores
like museums, with contents that could be viewed but not purchased
—
Colin and Claire welcomed
them for the sake of strengthening the flourishing occult community here in San
Francisco.

 
          
And
just in time,
Claire mused,
if Simon's back in town and Greenhaven has a
new tenant.

 
          
As
if to illustrate the truth of her words, the day seemed to darken as a figure
appeared in the doorway. Claire looked up, and felt the shock of recognition
as a hammerblow to the heart.

 
          
Speak
of the devil and hear the sound of his wings. . . .

 
          
Claire
had not seen Simon since the day of Alison's funeral, and then not closely. The
scars were white and sunken now, though he still wore the eye-patch. His hair
had gone prematurely grey, making him look much older than his forty-one years,
and there were harsh lines bracketing his mouth.

 
          
He
hesitated in the doorway, as if he were uncertain whether he should go in or
not, but then he realized Claire had seen him. Almost reflexively his shoulders
straightened, and he strode into the bookstore like an actor taking the stage.

 
          
"Claire.
I'd heard you and Colin had come back," Simon said in his deep resonant
voice.

 
          
"That's
right," Claire said, forcing herself to be calm. "I see you're back
as well."

 
          
She
wished she didn't feel so very much like a mouse that had attracted the
attention of a large hungry cat. The thought brought with it the memory of the
persistent rumors that had gathered around Simon in the years since his
accident
—
dark, unpleasant rumors of torture and blood magick, almost
impossible for Claire to reconcile with the memory of the daredevil boy she'd
once known.

 
          
"Poor
Claire," Simon said mockingly. "Did you tiptoe home thinking that I'd
gone for good?
San Francisco
is my home, too
—
and I'll not be driven
out."

 
          
"Nobody's
trying to drive you out, Simon," Claire said reasonably. "And as for
my motives in coming back, I honestly didn't give you a thought."

 
          
Simon
laughed. "I can hardly believe that, when you took such pains to preach
your gospel of praiseworthy submission to me while I lay helpless. I should
have realized that you wouldn't give up so easily."

 
          
"Which
way do you want it, Simon?" Claire snapped, feeling her temper fray.
"Did I come back hoping you were gone, or was I supposed to be hoping to
find you here? You can't have it both ways."

 
          
Everyone
in the bookstore was watching them. Claire gritted her teeth.

 
          
"Can't
I?" Simon purred. "But I've told you that nothing is impossible to
the trained will. I warn you, Claire, if you think to take up where you left
off in '73, you will find me a worthier opponent this time. I will not hold
with your continued meddling interference in my destiny
—
nor Colin's. I assume | that
now that he's back he intends to tilt once more at the windmills of virtue?
Does he still hold his narrow-minded, racist views on the colors of
magick?"

 
          
"Did
you come here to deliver a warning or just to posture?" Claire demanded,
getting to her feet. "If Colin MacLaren were to interfere in
my
life,
I J would get down on my knees and thank God for my good fortune! Like any bully
you can't stand being wrong
—
black, green, or purple, that wickedness you're dabbling in
is
Evil."

 
          
Her
plain speaking didn't seem to faze Simon. In fact, he looked rather pleased at
the reaction he'd gotten out of her.

 
          
"I
had such high hopes for you once, my dear. But I see you've given in entirely
to that sanctimonious old fraud. I believe the expression is 'blinded by the
Light.' There is no difference between Black and White Magick
—
only the Will of the trained
Adept acting upon the Material World. All else is antique superstition. I would
have thought that you, at least, would have put it behind you, though perhaps I
should not expect as much from a tired old man."

 
          
Claire
gasped, literally stricken speechless by the effrontery of Simon's statement.
He had changed in the ten years since his injury
—
even with seeing him at the
memorial service, she had not realized how much until this moment. The constant
pain he was in had forged a darkness, a hardness in his spirit that frightened
her more than she would allow herself to know.

 
          
She
realized she dared not let this go on; she was shaking with rage, and at any
moment, she might say something that she regretted. "Simon," Claire
said evenly, "you are a damned fool, with the emphasis on
damned."
She got to her feet and walked back to the storeroom on trembling legs.

 
          
"
—
if I'd stayed another moment
I'd have picked up my Psychology text and brained him with it," Claire
said ruefully. "And a pretty bit of gossip
that
would have
made."

 
          
The
two friends were met over tea in the living room of Colin's cramped and
cluttered apartment, one of four in a remodeled Victorian a few blocks from the
bookstore. It bore, Claire thought, a certain family resemblance to every place
Colin had ever lived: a jackdaw's nest of books and papers, strewn about in no
appreciable pattern. Despite the fact that he had been here since the end of
October, half-unpacked cartons of books and papers were still scattered about
every room.

 
          
"I'm
afraid that no matter where Simon is, there's going to be gossip," Colin
said. "But you handled that as well as anyone could have."

 
          
"Well,
I just wish he'd go away!" Claire snapped. "Don't you?" The
paperweight that Alison had given Colin stood on a windowsill, its silver
sword gleaming in the sun. Claire's eyes were drawn toward it. If she'd had it
yesterday, she'd probably have flung it at Simon. Her fingers itched in
anticipation of its weight. She'd
like
to throw something at Simon. . .
.

 
          
"No,"
said Colin unexpectedly. "I hope he stays."

 
          
"But
Colin," Claire protested, startled. "You can't think he'll listen to
you! You didn't hear him yesterday
—
he hates you."

 
          
"I
think he's afraid of me," Colin corrected gently. "But no matter how
deranged Simon has become
—
and I think that anyone who chooses to embrace the Shadow
is certainly mad in a sense
—
he knows that I would never hurt him. So there's something
else he's afraid of."

 
          
"Afraid
that you can help him?" Claire suggested eagerly. She'd heard of the
condition in her classes: since the human mind hated change and uncertainty
above all other things, people would often reject help
—
and hope
—
choosing to suffer rather
than to accept the possibility of change.

 
          
"Can
you help him, Colin?"

 
          
"I
hope so," Colin said, seeing his hope reflected on Claire's face.
"But I must resign myself to the fact that in this situation, I am only an
instrument of the Light, intervening at its good pleasure." And he did not
know yet whether he would be permitted to interfere with Simon's self-chosen destruction
at all.

 
          
Was
this Simon's test
—
or his?

 
          
But
Simon, grave though his problems were, was not their only concern that spring.

           
Truth was the common currency of the
New Age; truth and honesty were the only tools Lightworkers had to build a
common language with the mundane world outside their own fraternity. In the
materialistic eighties, the search for spiritual truths came with a hefty price
tag attached. With money to be had, the frauds and exploiters gathered like
sharks, and Colin battled those threats with fierce defensiveness. Any force
which devalued truth, which made the followers of New Age doctrines seem that
they were attempting to cheat their mundane brethren, was something that
attacked the principles of solidarity that Colin worked toward.

 
          
That
was one of the reasons Colin had agreed to allow a local Spiritualist group to
meet at the store once a month. Personally he found their doctrine puerile and
essentially unconvincing, as well as far outside what was, in the last quarter
of the twentieth century, the mainstream of occult thought. But it was no use
to complain that people drank the dirty water if there was no possibility of
their getting clean. Better a
Spiritualist
Church
, which allowed people free
access to what purported to be the spirits of their departed friends and
relatives, than a storefront "psychic" who would charge them hundreds
of dollars for a collection of vaudeville mentalist tricks.

 
          
He
had given the Spiritualists fair warning that he would unmask any frauds he
found among the mediums who exercised their gift at the bookstore.
But
Heaven defend me from the "well-meaning" self-professed
"psychic," whose sincere self-delusions cause so much grief to those
who believe in them and follow their advice in medical and financial matters.
Sometimes I wonder which is worse: honest unbelieving greed, or
self-aggrandizing self-delusion. . . .

 
          
Colin
finished arranging the chairs around the table and debated whether he should set
up the fan. It was warm for the beginning of May, and once the curtain cutting
the back room off from the shop was drawn, the room would have no ventilation.
It would probably get pretty warm back here.

 
          
Let
it. The seances
—
there were usually two or three mediums each time
—
would probably not run more
than a couple of hours. It was a weeknight, after all, and things didn't
usually get started until after seven.

 
          
"Colin?"
He heard the jingle of the front door and Claire's voice. A moment later she
poked her head through the half-drawn curtain.

 
          
"That
looks nice." She had a brown bag in one arm and a white bakery box
dangling from the other hand. "We were out of coffee, so I stopped at the
corner market up the block and got some, and then I decided to stop at the bakery.
I know Kathleen usually brings something, but the cookies looked so good.
..."

 
          
"Let
me help," Colin said, coming forward to take the unwieldy box from her.

 
          
"You
stay out of those until afterward," Claire scolded fondly. "Come on.
You can help me set up the coffee urn."

 
          
To
avoid distraction for the mediums, the table that would hold the coffee urn and
the desserts for afterward had been set up in the stockroom. Unlike Claire's
store back in Glastonbury, the Ancient Mysteries Bookshop sold only new and
used occult books, so there were no herbs and oils back here to worry about
—
just a bunch of half-open
cartons and untidy piles of secondhand books from book searches and used
bookstores, organized (more or less) on a number of rickety bookshelves.

 
          
Claire
carried her bag of groceries into the back; when this had been a private home,
this section had been the kitchen, and there was a sink here. The percolator
—
a large one, with a
thirty-cup capacity
—
stood beside the sink, waiting. Claire tucked the quart of
milk into the tiny dorm-sized refrigerator under the counter, and then rummaged
around until she found the can opener and attacked the tin of coffee.