Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (71 page)

 
          
The
whole history of Claire's generation was a refutation of that
—
if further refutation was
needed
—
and
Claire felt increasingly frustrated at her inability to persuade Leslie Barnes
of something that was as obvious to her as summer sunlight and the city that
surrounded them. Simon had become a black magician, and if Simon was dating
Leslie, then he would draw her into his works sooner or later. . . .

 
          
"I'm
sorry, Claire," Leslie said at last. "I know you mean to be helpful
—
"

 
          
The
most damning phrase in the English language,
Claire thought wryly.

 
          
"But
I simply can't believe any of this that you're telling me. Reincarnation
—
blood sacrifice
—
Black Magick
—
I have enough trouble
believing in the ghosts of cats. . . ."

 
          
Too
much, too fast
—
but oh, Leslie, can't you see that there is no time to
waste?
Claire
realized that all she could do now was salvage what she could of her relationship
with Leslie Barnes, but with her nerves still jumping from immersion in that
psychic cesspit, she couldn't tell how effective her counsel was. She said soothing,
placating things, and urged Leslie to speak further of the problems that
plagued the house with Colin. There was no one Claire trusted more, and she was
certain that Colin could get Leslie to give a fair hearing to his warnings.

 
          
If
only it was not already too late.

           
"You don't look happy,"
was Colin's mild comment, when Claire walked back into the bookstore. It was
almost eight; he'd stayed open to wait for her, but the store was empty of
customers at this hour of a Friday night.

 
          
"I
made a hash of things
—
I'm just lucky Leslie didn't throw me out on my ear! Oh,
the house is clean enough
—
somebody scraped out the ward to Simon's old room, but I'm
willing to bet that no evil's entered there, so I left it open. But the
Sanctuary ..."

 
          
Claire
sat down on the stepladder, realizing she was still shaking at the thought.
"Colin, it's horrible! No wonder Betty left and those other people died
—
I don't think any sane
person could bear to remain in that room. Despair
—
and pain
—
and terror
—
" Suddenly, inexplicably,
Claire found herself weeping.

 
          
"There,
now, my girl," Colin said, coming from behind the desk and putting an arm
around her. He handed her a handkerchief. "We'll set it right, don't you
worry."

 
          
He
waited until she regained a little self-possession. "Do you think it poses
any active harm to the Barneses?" Colin asked.

 
          
"N-no,"
Claire said slowly, dabbing at her eyes with Colin's handkerchief. It smelled
of tobacco and the incense Colin used when he meditated, scents Claire realized
she had long associated with him. She thought hard, reluctantly casting her
mind back to the terrible moment when she'd crossed the threshold of Alison's
debased Sanctuary and confronted what could only have come from an Adept. An
Adept of the Light who had fallen into the ways of the Shadow
—
an Adept whose dark power
sprang from the perversion and destruction of that which his soul still held
as good.

 
          
Simon.

 
          
"I
don't think it will do them any harm, so long as neither of them spends too
much time in the Sanctuary
—
and they think that it
smells
bad," Claire
added, unable to keep a faint note of indignation out of her voice.

 
          
Colin
chuckled. "Our ancestors didn't refer to the stench of evil and the odor
of sanctity out of mere empty convention. For most people, stimulus from the
Unseen is perceived as coming from one of the ordinary five senses
—
and I'm afraid that what we
sometimes call morality has been rather arbitrarily assigned to the sense of
smell."

 
          
"Laugh
if you will," Claire grumbled, slowly regaining her mental equilibrium.
"You didn't have to wade through that stuff!"

 
          
"No,"
Colin agreed, suddenly solemn. "Not yet."

 
          
"It
was
Simon," Claire insisted. "And on my way up to the house I
was wondering
—
you'll think it very unreconstructed of me, Colin, but I
was wondering what a man like Simon could possibly see in a woman like Leslie.
She's so far from being his usual type. And I'm wondering
—
you know that Frodo
mentioned she'd had the locks changed
—
what if Simon's professed interest
in Leslie is in order to continue to have access to the Sanctuary? I'm not much
on predicting the future, but I'm willing to bet that at least part of the
horror I sensed there hasn't happened yet. There was a child
—
"

           
"Emily?" Colin asked
quickly.

 
          
"No.
Younger. But there was something strange about her, as if. . . oh, I don't
know. As if she were only pretending to be a child. I know it's ridiculous.
..."

 
          
"Psychic
flashes often are, when we don't quite understand them," Colin reminded
her. "But there's time to puzzle this one out, I think. And now, it's late
and you look all in; let's lock up the place and go home."

 
          
"And
maybe a good night's sleep will give me some idea of what to do about Simon
—
besides strangle him,"
Claire said. "Leslie's besotted with him past all reason. I can tell that
already, even if she
can'tl" Just as Alison had been, in her way.
Unable to see the darkness in her protege, until it was too late. . . .

 
          
"The
best thing you can do is continue to be a good friend to her," Colin said
solemnly, "and we'll trust the Light to show us the way to best intervene
in Simon's life before he can do more harm."

 
          
Closing
up the store for the night was quickly done, and a few minutes later they stood
outside the shop, savoring the moment when the Grey Lady of Cities
—
San Francisco
—
lets go of the last spark of
twilight and drapes herself in the cloak of night.

 
          
"I
almost forgot," Colin said, patting the breast pocket of the suit he invariably
wore. "I meant to ask if you'd come to the symphony with me next
Friday." He extricated two tickets from his pocket and flourished them
like a banner. "I picked them up yesterday morning from the box office. It
should be interesting," Colin added with a twinkle in his eye.
"Simon's conducting."

SAN FRANCISCO
, FRIDAY, JUNE 
I,  1984

And all man's Baby Ions strive but to impart The grandeurs
of his Babylonian heart.

—
FRANCIS THOMPSON

 
          
THE
OPENING NIGHT OF THE SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY'S SUMMER PROgram was jammed with
concertgoers in furs and diamonds and long glittering gowns
—
regardless of how badly
suited to the season. Every music lover in SF and the
Peninsula
, it seemed, had turned out
to see Simon Anstey take the podium for his first public appearance in twelve
years.

 
          
Colin
could find no fault with the performance; Simon was every bit as brilliant a
conductor as he had been a performer, and here the maimed hand formed no
obstacle to his interpretation of the music. The audience was on Simon's side
from the first downbeat, and by the intermission were as ecstatic as any rock
fans.

 
          
"Well,
he certainly
seems
well enough," Claire said as they were rising to
their feet at the interval.

 
          
"How
disapproving you sound!" Colin joked, trying to kid her out of her pensive
mood. Ever since she'd visited Leslie's house and sensed the evil in the
Sanctuary, Claire had been brooding over Simon. Was it a sense of lost opportunities
that depressed her so
—
he and Alison had always rather hoped an attachment would
form there
—
or did she feel threatened by Simon's temptation and fall?
Heaven knew that there were pitfalls for all who opened their awareness to the
Path; perhaps Claire feared her own temptation, whatever form it might take.

           
"Come on, why don't we take a
turn around the outside? It'd be a shame not to get a good look at some of
those outfits," he said encouragingly.

 
          
Whatever
the cause of Claire's dark mood, Colin saw in her the frailty he himself had
fallen prey to
—
the overwhelming need to cast aside the detachment that
ruled those upon the Path and take matters into one's own hands.

 
          
"Oh,
look!" he heard a familiar voice say. "There's Colin and
Claire!"

 
          
It
was Emily and her older sister, Leslie. Colin sensed that Leslie would have
preferred not to approach them, but Emily seemed oblivious to any emotional
undercurrents and simply wished to introduce her sister to some of her new
friends.

 
          
As
the four of them made polite conversation, Colin learned that Simon was
teaching Emily
—
a good sign, since it might mean that Simon had abandoned
his dream of a comeback. But when he said as much, Emily was quick to defend
her tutor's performing skills, and Colin realized that Simon had not abandoned
his dangerous ambition after all.

 
          
The
discussion might have escalated into an undignified squabble about Simon
—
though at his age, Colin had
no intention of letting a teenaged girl pick a fight with him
—
but then, unexpectedly,
Simon himself appeared.

 
          
Though
it was unprecedented for the conductor to roam the halls during a performance,
Simon had obviously been squiring Emily and Leslie about. He looked surprised
—
and, for an instant,
glad
—
to see Colin and Claire, but
almost instantly his manner hardened, and he tried to draw Colin into saying
something that would turn Leslie and Emily against him.

 
          
"Colin.
I'd forgotten you were a music lover. Or did you come to find out the extent of
my disability?"

 
          
Colin
returned a noncommittal answer, but Simon refused to let the matter drop. He
persisted until Claire, as Colin had feared she would, took his remarks to
heart.

 
          
"Why
do you think I wish you anything but the best?" she protested, genuinely
hurt. "It was for your own sake that I warned you against certain methods
—
"

 
          
"Wait
till you are where I am before you judge my methods, Claire!" Simon
snarled. A few minutes later he found an excuse to take the Barneses away with
him.

 
          
Claire
looked at Colin with troubled eyes, and he patted her arm in wordless
reassurance.
Though I'm not sure I have any to give. He's obviously got
designs on both the Barnes women
—
but for what, I wonder?
Emily obviously isn't interested in anything beyond her music, and Leslie seems
scared stiff of the Uncanny.
"Come on. Let's go get a drink before the bell
rings," Colin said.

 
          
The
Bay Area pagans celebrated the Summer Solstice with a picnic up on
Mount
Tamalpais
toward the end of June, and
apparently Frodo managed to quarrel disastrously with his lady fair sometime
that day.

 
          
He
was nearly useless in the bookshop the following Monday, putting books on the
wrong shelves, forgetting what he'd been sent to the storeroom for as soon as
he'd gone. His usual sunny cheerfulness was replaced with the stricken quiet of
one who has suffered a mortal wound. Cassie Chandler stopped by the store that
evening and bore him off with her in an act of merciful charity.

 
          
But
though Colin had suggested that Frodo take a few days off, he was back at the
store the next morning.

 
          
"It
helps to have something to do," he told Colin. "But when I see Emmie
playing Trilby to that son-of-a-bitch's Svengali, I could just
—
" Frodo sighed.

 
          
"Is
it really that bad, Frodo?" Colin asked.

 
          
"Bad
enough," Frodo answered. '"Yes, Simon,' 'No, Simon,'
'Oh-yes-I'll-do-just-as-you-say, Simon,'
—
it makes me sick to see how
he's exploiting her, stifling her growth as an artist. That man has an ego the
size of the Trans-Am Pyramid
and
the box it came in."

 
          
Colin
smiled faintly. "The box it came in" was the local name for the
BankAmerica
Building
, an ugly black glass
skyscraper more suited to
New York
or
Houston
than to Baghdad-by-the-Bay.

 
          
Frodo
shrugged in wordless disgust. "But nobody can get through to her. Anstey's
got her brainwashed, making her think she's got to practice all the time and
avoid contamination from us
hoi-polloi."

 
          
"She'll
get over it," Colin said soothingly.

 
          
"How?
He's quick enough to despise what that accident did to him
—
and quick enough to play off
it when it will get him what he wants. He's practically living at Greenhaven
now," Frodo said.

 
          
"I
don't think you're being entirely fair to Simon," Colin said. Frodo
snorted eloquently and went to unpack books in the back of the store. The cats,
disturbed by his arrival, wandered out to the front in search of quieter
company.

 
          
The
midsummer air was like milk, and the white Mediterranean light bleached the
buildings along the street into a mosaic of pale walls and dense shadows.

 
          
It
was nearly
noon
when Leslie Barnes came through the front door of the
shop. She moved warily, obviously on the lookout for Claire, but whether she
hoped or dreaded to find her, Colin didn't think Leslie herself knew. At last
she seemed to come to a decision and approached the desk where Colin sat.

 
          
But
whatever force had brought her back to the bookshop, it seemed that she could
not bring herself to speak of it, and they chatted for several minutes about
Poltergeist and Monsignor. The big black cat was brazenly affectionate, as
usual, and when Leslie finally brought herself to broach the subject of her
visit, for a moment Colin thought that she was still addressing the big
neutered torn.

 
          
"We
seem to have this cat," she said. "Or maybe we don't. Emily keeps saying
it's hurt
—
in the garage
—
but there's never any blood
anywhere ... I saw that, too. Once. Everyone talks about Alison's white cats
—
but there's something
nobody's telling me." She closed her mouth tightly, as if to keep herself
from saying anything more.

           
She's coming to you for help.
Don't fail her,
Colin told himself.

 
          
"I
don't like to say anything, because I didn't see it myself," he began carefully,
"but one of the reasons that Alison disinherited Simon was
—
forgive me, Leslie, for
telling you something you won't want to hear
—
was because he had taken one
of her cats and ritually murdered it. Claire told you that Simon was dabbling
in Black Magick, didn't she?"

 
          
"Yes,
but
—
"
Leslie looked faintly greenish. "I didn't know she meant . . . that. Why
would he do such a thing?"

 
          
"I
can't tell you," Colin said honestly. "It was not an act of wanton
cruelty
—
though I'm not sure that makes it any better
—
but the willful destruction
of another living being to a deliberate magickal end."

 
          
It
seemed to Colin that Simon had already set his Seal upon her aura. He saw the
moment when Leslie's mind slid away from the horror of it, cloaking what Simon
had done in that facile and deadly rationalization of the twentieth century:
justifying what had been done as the pursuit of pure knowledge for its own
sake.

 
          
"I
can't think of a better reason for investigating parapsychological events than
pure curiosity," Leslie said stubbornly, making the novice's common
conflation of psychism and magick.

 
          
Simon
was obviously meddling in Leslie's life with the techniques of the Left-Hand
Path. If matters had progressed as far as Colin feared, it would be too
dangerous to allow Leslie to continue in her Unawakened state. Breathing a
prayer of apology for what he was about to do, Colin spoke.

 
          
"There
is only one acceptable motive for any investigation, scientific or otherwise,
and this is the only motive acceptable On the Path: /
desire to know in
order to serve."

 
          
Leslie
blinked, as though she were being called to awaken from a deep sleep. She was
not consciously aware of the inner knowledge that she possessed, but now that
Colin had called her Higher Self to mindfulness, her instincts should take
over and lead her quickly to the Path once again. And to her destiny.