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.
The Mystery Schoolbus had started life as an ordinary yellow school bus, before it had somehow wound up in Thorne's hands. He'd gutted the bus, converting it to a combination of a motor home and a rolling church, and it had become a Bay Area landmark in the months since its acquisition. The outside of the bus was now covered in a mural-cum-collage that was in a constant state of flux. Today the sunlight glinted brightly off of a shower of glitter stars painted across the dark-blue backdrop of the front right fender. Colin could see Pilgrim running around among the adults, waving a bubble wand. He was covered in multihued body paint and not much else, and had feathers braided into his long black hair.
Colin and Claire headed in that direction. Katherine was standing off to one side, balancing her daughter on her hip.
"How's Truth?" Claire asked, stopping to admire the baby.
Truth Jourdemayne was three months old now, the lace cap and terrycloth romper she wore oddly conventional when contrasted with her mother's tie-dyed overalls and T-shirt.
"She's growing so fast," Katherine said. "The last time Caro was here she couldn't believe how big she'd gotten. I'm so lucky to have her."
Caroline was Katherine's twin sister. She'd been at the Voice of Truth the first night Colin and Claire had gone there, but she was not a member of Thorne's group. She had a degree in library science and worked at a library back East.
"Do you know where Thorne is, Katherine?" Colin asked. Maybe Thorne, in the midst of his own success, would agree at least to stop baiting Simon and let the quarrel die of its own accord.
"He's got to be somewhere around here," Katherine said, frowning thoughtfully. "He's been working on a new ritual ever since the tide turned at the equinox. He calls it Opening the Way. He was going to try part of it out today."
Just like Thorne, to test in public what most magicians would try out in strict privacy.
"He might be back behind the bus," Katherine suggested.
"We'll try there," Claire said.
Thorne was, in fact, behind the bus. He was standing on a battered foot-locker, photographing the festival with another in a series of the battered cameras that accompanied him everywhere he went. He was wearing faded jeans and worn sandals, and several strands of love beads gleamed against his bare chest. Jonathan Ashwell—similarly dressed—was standing beside him.
Both men grinned when they saw them.
"Claire! And Colin—how's the ghost business these days?"
"As ever," Colin said.
"Gotta go," Jonathan said, ducking his head. He was still self-conscious around Colin on the rare occasions when they met, as if he suspected Colin might still be angry about his departure from Berkeley. "Nice seeing you, Professor. Claire."
"And what about you?" Claire said, when Jonathan had gone. "Ed Sullivan? I watched it the night Debbie said to, but I didn't see you."
"You should have been in the studio audience, baby." Thorne grinned at her. "I'm doing the Dating Game next week: 'Bachelor Number One: when immanetizing the eschaton, do you prefer to use (a) Love under Will (b) Vatican City or (c) a nuclear warhead?'"
Claire snorted. "They'll probably throw out the tape from that, too."
"I wouldn't be surprised," Thorne said. "It's so much fun to jerk the pigs' chains, I wonder why anyone ever does anything else?" He stepped down off the trunk. "C'mon over here. I want to get a picture of you two. A commemorative."
He led Colin and Claire a few yards away from the bus, so that he could position them against a stand of trees.
"The end of the month I'm taking off on a gig that nobody can censor," Thorne went on, as he adjusted the focus. "Anstey may have queered my pitch here, but I still think that solidarity is going to save u
s. Nothing is stronger than magick! And nothing can stand in the face of magick!"
As he spoke, Thorne clicked and wound the camera, snapping several pictures.
"There," he said with satisfaction. "You have now entered immortality."
"What kind of solidarity are you planning?" Colin asked warily. He hoped he didn't sound as dubious as he felt.
"I'm going to become a god," Thorne said happily. "And get everyone to worship me. There's no reason the Great Work of Transformation needs to be limited to the subtle body—that's just Old Aeon crap. The Universal Mystery Tour will bring the Great Work to the attention of more people than ever before. I will transform that fame into money and power and use them to reshape the world."
"Thorne—" Colin began, but Thorne's mercurial attention had been summoned elsewhere. "Hey! There's Irene! Gotta go!" He slung the camera around his neck and took off at a run.
Colin sighed sharply.
"Why does he always have to do his best to sound like a raving lunatic?" Claire asked plaintively. "I talked to Johnny Ashwell last week—the Universal Mystery Tour is just a couple of rock bands going on tour, and they've asked Thorne to come along. There isn't anything in that about . . . gods."
"Nobody ever got television coverage by being reasonable, moderate, and serious," Colin said. "And Thorne seems to be in the entertainment business, for better or for worse. I'd give a great deal to know what Ed Sullivan made of him."
"Well, we know what he made of the Ed Sullivan Show," Claire said succinctly. "Hash."
"I'm going to go look for him," Colin decided, almost against his better judgment. He still wanted to talk to Thorne; if—as he'd implied—he was giving up on his plan to unite the Magickal Lodges and Bay Area New Age groups in political activism, perhaps Colin could persuade Thorne to settle with Simon as well. And if Thorne would drop his "sacred clown" persona for a few moments, perhaps Colin could even explain to him why unity among the forces of the Light now was so important.
But Thorne seemed to possess an amazing ability not to be found, no matter how hard Colin looked for him. Meanwhile, the stage where the presentations—including Thome's—would take place was being decorated with bunting, papier-mache masks, and posters, including some that said "Speed Kills!" with a skull above crossed hypodermics. Brightly colored banners— pink, yellow, purple, acid green—with hand-painted designs billowed gently in the cool breeze at all four corners of the stage. The whole spectacle had the bright unreality of an illustration from a book of fairy tales.
But the world in which it existed was grimly real.
Where was Thorne? He couldn't simply have vanished. For one thing, he needed to get into costume—Colin would not grant him the dignity of calling what Thorne wore ritual robes—but Colin feared that if he waited until Thorne returned to the bus there would not be enough time to talk to him, and Thorne was much too excited after a ritual for there to be any possibility of a conversation then.
While Colin had been searching, one of the bands performing at Thorne's "Be-In"—the name painted on the drumset was "Narzain Kui"—took the stage. Colin had been heading for the bus, but when Narzain Kui began to play, the crowd closed in around the stage, drawn like iron filings to a powerful magnet. Their mass trapped Colin where he was, and he ground his teeth in frustration.
The raw noise of their first number hit him like a wall of water, but after a moment or so Colin discovered that he could actually make out the words.
They made a promise they don't understand Now they've gone to a strange foreign land Pick up your gun and follow the band And find yourself killing for killers—
The song was apparently well-known to the audience; they responded to it as if it were an anthem, and Colin felt a tingling on his skin as the energy level around him soared. The lead guitarist responded with a break that howled like feedback before the band headed into the second verse.
Killing for killers—it isn't your fight Come rage against the dying of the light—
Colin had the sense of an inexorable, powerful beast, only half-aware, but simmering with righteous rage. "Wading through blood—do you know what is right—" It was as if the children around him believed that music could substitute for political activism—and God help the country if they ever realized differently.
When you find yourself killing for killers—
At the end of the second verse the band headed into an extended bridge, and Thorne climbed up on the stage, moving carefully because of his costume. Colin was momentarily nonplussed, jarred from the music's violent spell.
Thorne was wearing the robes of an Adept; the robes he had been entitled to as a member of the Inner Order. If that had been all, matters would have been bad enough, but he'd made some additions to his costume. Over his shoulders he wore a sort of fur capelet—Colin thought it might be wolf fur— and on his head he wore an antler crown with the sun-disk set in the middle. He'd doused himself liberally with glitter, and it shook loose from the costume in a constant gentle sprinkling. Now that his expressed desire to work together with the other Magickal Orders in the Bay Area had been defeated by his own flamboyance, Colin had hoped that Thorne would modify his behavior.
No such luck.
The bridge ended. The lead guitarist gestured toward a second microphone, grinning, and now Thorne was singing, too.
Dying light makes it darker every day—
If Thorne had wanted to alienate any of the occultists who'd remained sympathetic to his cause, he was off to a great start.
Get down on your knees remember how to pray—
"Good heavens," Claire said, rising up on tiptoe to shout in Colin's ear. "What's he got up as?"
Just follow orders that old-fashioned way—
Colin didn't wonder how she'd found him; Claire had that knack. "Something he has no right to be, ever again," Colin answered, raising his voice as well to be heard over the band.
And find yourself killing for killers—
Narzain Kui hammered into the end of the song; by now most of the audience was singing—or chanting—along with them.
Killing for killers—It doesn't stop there Killing for killers—The war's everywhere Killing for killers—-Just do what is right Or find yourself killing for killers—
The audience was cheering by the time the song was over; Thorne hugged the lead guitarist and the cheers got louder. The band remained on stage as Thorne waited for things to quiet down a little. When they did, he lifted his microphone from its stand and whipped the cord back and forth.
"Hey-y-y-y, Epopts and Illuminati," Thorne crooned. "Who wants to change the world?"
"We do!" the audience screamed back. The drummer hit a lick and there was a feedback squeal.
Thorne took the energy from the music and built on it, goading the crowd into a frenzy that Colin was afraid would turn them into a mindless mob. Was that what he had in mind—was that the wellspring his rituals came from?
In the cheering all around him, Colin now heard the howling of the Beast.
"Look, Colin—isn't that Simon Anstey?" Claire said suddenly, a worried tone in her voice.
Colin tore his gaze away from the stage and saw Simon. He felt a faint pang of relief—whatever Simon was here for, it would abort the monstrous birth that Thorne was engineering.
Simon was dressed in a dark business suit, and looked even more out of place here than Colin or Claire. He was pushing his way determinedly through the crowd toward Thorne, and there were two U.S. marshals with him.
Thorne had seen him, too. He lowered his arms reluctantly and tried to take control of the situation.
"Well, look who's here. It's Simon Anstey, well-known concert pianist and arbiter of truth. Come down here to give all us hippies music lessons, Simon?"
The keyed-up crowd laughed, parting reluctantly for Simon as he moved toward the stage. Colin and Claire were shoved backward by those making room for him; both of them could feel the incipient violence in the bodies around them.
"I've got a permit," Thorne drawled in his most irritating voice. He mugged for the crowd, and they laughed.
Simon sneered. "Well, I've got a restraining order. You're a public nuisance, Blackburn, and I'm shutting you down."
Simon stood in front of the stage, waving the document. He threw it at Thorne's feet. Thorne looked stunned, as if he had not expected this.
"What do you want, Anstey?" he finally asked.
"I've come to expose you for what you are, Blackburn—a fraud! A clown! An insult to the very teachings you claim to impart!" Simon shouted.
"Well, then—by all means do it!" Thorne said into the microphone in front of him. His amplified voice boomed out from the speakers at the sides of the stage. He stepped back, tossing the microphone down to Simon.
Simon had the sense—or showmanship equal to Thorne's—not to use it; that would have brought the whole affair down to the level of two stand-up comics trying to upstage one another. He tossed the microphone back onto the stage; it hit with a thump and an electronic howl. One of the members of the band jumped to yank the microphone jack out of the amplifier.
"Give up and go home, Blackburn—nobody wants you here," Simon said. "Personally, I'm sick and tired of you parading your ego and your ridiculous claims to power! Aren't there enough frauds in the world preying on the helpless? The sad part is that anyone believes you and your con game," Simon said.
Thorne turned away from Simon to face out over the audience.
"If you want a con game, Anstey, for my money it's this Path that you— and Colin MacLaren—" Thorne added, looking directly toward where Colin stood in the crowd "—and all the rest of you black-robed white light monks keep trying to push on anyone looking for answers. Your Path is a con game, Simon Magus, a delusion put up by generations of old men in white nightgowns to keep their adherents from trying to make a difference in the real world! And it ends here!" Thorne shouted, flinging his arms out in a theatrical gesture.
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