Tintagel (15 page)

A shard of a Shostakovich piece came over the outdoor speakers that led back to the jazz group upstairs. It was a tune, worked into the jazz set, that had haunted him most of his adult life. It returned as they sat around with their coffee and brandy, talking leisurely. Each person around the table, perhaps taken in by Lanier's presence, began to speak openly of his or her own personal exposure to the Syndrome, and those they knew whom it had affected.

Normally he didn't allow his mind to fill with music, to wander where the music cared to go. It helped him order and regulate his emotional life. There was no room for emotional discontinuities, and he had to be discreet. But the music.…

Autumn fields. Maple leaves falling in the wind. The light waxing pale toward dusk with the red veins of dying vines streaking up chimneys.

The memory was on him before he could do anything about it.

In one sudden explosion, the chair
KUROSAWA
crumpled over. Gazing deep into Ellie Estevan's unquenchable eyes, Francis Lanier vanished to the music he hadn't evoked in years.

The party was suddenly over.

Chapter Eight

Concerto Grosso, for Strings With Piano Obbligato

Ernest Bloch

"There is something about your mind that keeps you from distinguishing polarities."

Lanier faced the older man.

"I'm thirty-three years old. I've heard all of this before, Two Moons, mostly from you."

The Indian spat into the dust on the porch of his house in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, as the first moon of the evening rose in the east. The older man was Navajo, but it was hard to tell from his brand-new Roughout boots with the cocky heels, the well-tailored leather vest he wore, and the light brown cowboy hat perched above a shock of jet-black hair. He even wore glasses that were framed in the latest of contemporary styles. This was no ordinary Indian.

"Listen, Ben," Lanier pleaded, "this is getting out of hand."

His friend smiled up from his whittling stick. A small dog wiggled out from the back of the adobe house that occupied a sizable plot of land in the center of town.

Benjamin Two Moons considered Lanier. "Everyone is responsible, in some discriminate way, for making his own world. You know that."

Lanier stood in the early evening. The walk into town had been long and exhausting. It had given him a great deal of time to think things through.

It didn't bother him that the town surrounding them seemed totally deserted.
This
was an altogether different Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Two Moons had kept it that way.

He continued, "And it's your responsibility to adjust and cope, to accept. A rock in the middle of a creek lets the water go around it or over it. The rock, if it's a good rock, will remained unchanged."

He grinned a row of perfect teeth. Better teeth than Lanier's own. "I know you can do it," he said to Lanier, smiling both wisely and foolishly as if a joke were lurking about somewhere like a banana peel waiting for a foot to come along.

Two Moons stood up and stretched. Lanier heard the Indian's sternum pop. When it did, a spiral of white light burst from his chest.

"Ah," he said, relieved. "That hit the spot." He dusted himself off.

Lanier put his hands into his pockets, feeling clumsy and embarrassed. "Tell me," he asked Two Moons, "did you know something like this was going to happen?"

"Of course. It had to balance itself out. Something had to move you. Nothing remains the same for too long if it isn't supposed to be that way."

Lanier stared at Two Moons in the dark. "And what about you?"

"Well," he laughed, "that's another story entirely."

"Then you see Ellie Estevan as the balancing factor in this particular instance? The evil that opposes the good?"

The Indian stood on one leg and polished a boot on the calf of his other leg. He put his hand on Lanier's shoulder to steady himself.

"That's a bit presumptuous, don't you think?"

"I didn't ask for this. I'm only trying to make sense of it."

"Well, son, whatever stance you take, she is obviously the antithetical force, good
or
evil. It's up to you to decide which."

He righted himself, hitching up his freshly pressed corduroy slacks. "Besides that, Fran," he began earnestly, "you didn't think that this would be a piece of cake, did you?"

Lanier looked partially disgusted. "Hell, no. But I didn't ask for my talent. And neither did you."

"Ah," Two Moons interjected, "but I'm not the one complaining either,"

Lanier paced impatiently around in the darkness shrouded about the porch. The first moon had risen quite significantly, moving only slightly to the naked eye.

"Listen, you're an Indian. You've got a
lot
to complain about—or have you forgotten?"

All around them, Albuquerque was completely blacked out. No streetlights were on, no stoplights changed their colors. The buildings themselves resembled the monoliths of a graveyard. They were cenotaphs, for it looked like there were no people here to be mourned.

"Why the emotion all of a sudden?" Two Moons became serious for the first time since Lanier had appeared.

"I don't know." Lanier stirred a toe in the dirt. "It's embarrassing, that's all. This wasn't supposed to happen."

He touched the micro-receiver in his earlobe. It was silent. Then he said, "I'm just getting confused. Maybe I'm having a lapse of conscience."

"Or a nervous breakdown."

"Maybe. I don't know. I thought those things happened to other people, not me. The neurotics."

"It might be more than you suspect." Two Moons pondered Lanier's dour expression. Lanier turned away. Two Moons walked over beside him. "It could be
much
more than you suspect. Life, if anything, is full of surprises."

Farther to the northeast, the second moon reared itself over the mountains like a soiled doubloon. The whole sky took on so much light that it looked almost like dawn. Lanier could see his benefactor clearly in the glow of the two moons to the east of them.

The Indian stepped out onto the sidewalk that led into town. A town that was empty of light and life.

He turned around, facing Lanier, who stood mute and somewhat confused. Two Moons' glasses sparkled in the moonlight.

"But if you're really careful this time," he began encouragingly, "things will turn out much better than you expected. But don't forget"—he waved a nagging finger—"everything must balance out in the universe. Everything. That's Fudd-Smith's Law."

"Who the hell is that?"

Two Moons whistled for the pooch, who came over wagging its tail excitedly.

"Not 'who,' but 'what,' " he said.

"You're not making any sense, Ben."

"Fudd-Smith's Law says that you can't have your cake and eat it too. Which is to say, that everything balances itself out."

"Fudd," Lanier pointed out. "That just sounds stupid."

"Not really." Two Moons scratched the eager dog's ears. "Think about it. 'Fudd' has all sorts of ridiculous connotations, whereas 'Smith' does not. The two belong together because the apparent disharmony calls attention to itself."

Two Moons rose, putting his fists on his hipbones. "Fudd-Smith's Law is merely the moral equivalent of Newton's Third Law of Motion. For every good in the universe, there is an opposite and equal evil."

Lanier frowned. "This is serious. Where'd you pick that up?"

Two Moons laughed. "Look around you! The damn thing is everywhere."

Lanier wasn't satisfied, even if there was a kind of sense to his words.

"Even here?"

"Even here," Two Moons concluded. "Well, the moons are up and I have things to do." He smiled at Lanier. "You can find your way back?"

Lanier smiled, and laughed. "Of course. Don't worry about me."

Two Moons waved and clicked off down the sidewalk. The small dog trailed faithfully behind him.

Well
, Lanier thought,
at least I got to see the old guy, even if it wasn't under the most controlled circumstances
.

He regrouped his feelings as though they had been a flock of sparrows scattered before a big wind. Somewhat calmer now, he sat in the rattan chair Two Moons had just recently vacated. He surveyed the world that the Indian had created.

The dust in the air was diffusing the light of the two moons in the east. Two moons. There were no people in this city, red or white. Except that here and there seven women were hiding. They were dreamlings. They allowed Ben Two Moons an interesting pastime in this special world of his. Lanier privately suspected that the women Two Moons chased after in this deserted New Mexico town were other Navajo who had the same talent as he.
Stalkers
. If so, the women could come and go as they pleased. But some remained, calling down the dark canyons in their shrill, banshee voices as they would disappear around the corners.

Lanier smiled at the irony. Even here, he thought, Fudd-Smith's Law works. Even here in one Indian's perversion of paradise.

"Well," he addressed no one in particular, "I've got things to do myself."

Closing his eyes, he reconsidered the penetrating stare of Ellie Estevan. He found it difficult to fight off the memory of her face, those eyes and freckles. The vibrations running through him still persisted.

The sounds of the cicadas in the front lawn soon began to fade from his conscious mind. He began his mantra. The wind in the ocotillo that lined the driveway to the adobe house had ceased to blow. Lanier pushed away all sounds of this world, and all sounds from within his own mind.

And he found himself standing in five inches of snow in full daylight in Burton Shaughnessy's side yard where he had vanished just a short time ago. Just how much time had elapsed Lanier didn't really know for certain, though he was surprised that at least a day had gone by. Usually he stayed under for as long as the music lasted—or resonated in the consciousness—but this was different. He had hoped to return to the party after he recovered himself from the Shostakovich.

But there was no party. There wasn't even a mansion.

A snowstorm, the first one of the season, had layered the place with a brownish-white mantle. Burnt timbers, crumpled foundation stones, and broken chunks of cement lay about the grounds. An explosion had virtually leveled the house of Burton Shaughnessy. Snow covered the ruins like a funeral pall.

Beside Lanier were the remains of the picnic area and the chairs they had sat in. Behind them was the sundial, still erect and somewhat unscathed. Lanier didn't see any bodies lying around, and the tire tracks off to one side indicated that the authorities had been and gone.

How long was I under
? Sitting on the bronze rim of the sturdy sundial was a small wafer-playback. Lanier plodded through the snow and retrieved the device.

"Hi ya," came Shaughnessy's basso in an oddly cheerful tone. "We had a few interruptions after you left us so rudely." He laughed, and a couple of women could be heard giggling in the background. "Needless to say, we were warned and cleared out. Ellie has informed me that you would return sooner or later and I am informing you that we've moved the party back to my Nacimiento estate in California. We'll be there for a week at least, since I don't have anything else that's pressing. Please come back. Ellie says that you're not supposed to vanish like that, and I'd like to hear all about it. I hope that you're not sick or anything. And I hope that you find this."

The wafer ended and music suddenly broke in. Shaughnessy had used a regular recorded wafer, and the music was Ernest Bloch's wonderful century-old
Concerto Grosso No. 1
. Shaughnessy must have used the first wafer he could find. That he had the
Concerto Grosso
in the first place was simply amazing. Shaughnessy was not so easy to peg as it seemed.

Lanier let it play. The sun was a little too bright for him as its rays reflected off the snow on Shaughnessy's lawn. But the music added to the scene.

Nacimiento
? That was above Los Angeles along the coast, safe in the mountains east of San Simeon. Lanier cranked his shoulder around. The pain was still discernible. He wasn't ready yet for real work.

Anything for an excuse.

Chapter Nine

Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 For Voice and Orchestra of Cellos

Heitor Villa-Lobos

Charlie Gilbert wrenched back violently on the controls and the ScatterCat he and Lanier flew lifted and spun like a frenzied moth before a wall of sudden flak over east Los Angeles.

"Damn!" Charlie swore into the pin-mike at his check. Lanier could see Charlie's mane of bright red hair through the separated cockpit to his left. Between them, the mid-rotor spun furiously. Charlie commanded the left-hand module of the breakaway VTOL which the government had leased to them earlier that day.

"Where'd Draco get all that equipment?" Charlie wondered, peering below at the camouflaged anti-aircraft guns that lurked between the houses of suburban L.A.

Lanier gripped his own controls in case they had to separate. The flak came from stolen army weaponry. Draco's urban guerrillas were holding much of the city, and fired at anything that flew over chicano territory, particularly the National Guard. Their VTOL was a civilian ScatterCat, but the guerrillas were trigger-happy.

"Draco's rumored to be quartered in Downey. There's a very large arsenal near there, and they would've had no problem breaking in," Lanier said.

Over the radio, they could hear music.

"Frank?" Charlie asked, listening momentarily to the drowsy, melancholic piece.

"What?" Lanier looked over at him. Charlie pointed a gloved finger at the radio.

"You recognize that?"

The flak sprouted above and around them like black roses. Charlie dipped the ScatterCat to treetop level to avoid it. Most of the artillery wasn't equipped for low-profile fighting. And the VTOL was just fast enough to evade the snipers on the rooftops.

Lanier increased the volume slightly. The music was being broadcast on at least three open commercial stations, stations seized by Draco.