Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04

by Heartlight (v2. 1)

  Claire grinned back. "Shame on you, Colin, teasing a helpless woman this way. For a moment, I almost thought you were going to go with a hands-off policy! I'm going to go pour myself another cup of tea—and I suppose you haven't had anything in the way of breakfast?"

  Meekly, Colin admitted that he had not.

  "Well, the diner's just up the block. Why don't we go there for breakfast? And then we can come back here and see what the day brings."

  Frodo called around nine A.M. to let Colin know that an emergency had arisen and he wouldn't be able to come into the store that day. Fortunately he and Emily had made up their estrangement earlier this week; it wasn't hard to guess the nature of Frodo's "emergency."

  The heat was brutal and very few people seemed to be in a book-buying mood. Even the bookstore's regulars stayed away, influenced by the strange oppressiveness that seemed to hang over the city. Claire was on edge, searching for the pretext that would let her go to Leslie.

  Finally, a few minutes before five, Frodo called again—he was taking Emily home with him for supper and was worried about Leslie being all alone in the house so soon after the assault. Would Claire go up and see if she was | okay, he asked?

  "Of course," Claire said, so calmly that Colin smiled to hear it. "I'll just get . my purse and leave Colin to lock up. It won't take me twenty minutes."

  The shadows were already blue and slanting when Claire reached Green-haven. The walk—Claire didn't keep a car in the City, and Greenhaven was just up the hill—had given her plenty of time to regret her decision to simply come without calling ahead. She was not at all sure of her welcome, after the way she and Leslie had parted. But when Leslie opened the door, she only seemed a little surprised, and invited Claire into the kitchen.

  The atmosphere in the house was different. Claire noticed it at once. It had been cleared since the last time she was in it—Simon would have taught Leslie how to do it, but its new atmosphere was not the one of calm peace that Claire had always associated with Alison's house. Though superficially quiet, the house was edgy, charged, and if Simon had helped Leslie to clear the house, he had certainly not set up barriers against himself. Leslie must be encouraged to reseal the house herself, or last night's violence would only return, worse each time, feeding on itself as it escalated out of control.

  Leslie, too, had changed greatly in the month since Claire had last seen her. Claire could sense the power that enfolded her now, but it was curiously passive—as if it slumbered unnoticed within her, awaiting its summons.

  But if it did slumber, it seemed to be the only thing that did. Leslie herself looked as if she had not slept well in weeks, or were ill with some wasting disease. There was more wrong here than one world-class fright and a sleepless night.

  Alison, how could you let this happen to her?

  But Claire said nothing, and soon the two women were drinking tall glasses of iced herbal tea in Leslie's spacious kitchen. The house was blessedly cool—situated at the top of the hill, its wide windows caught every breeze; it had been built in an era when architects could not rely on technology to remedy their failings. As they lingered over the cold drinks, Claire made a few tentative expressions of conventional sympathy for Leslie's calamity, and as she had hoped, that was enough to bring Leslie's real concern to the surface.

  "Sometimes I feel this house isn't mine at all. It's still Alison's—and she's trying to run my life!"

  Despite their previous conversations, Leslie obviously expected Claire to pooh-pooh the notion, but Claire gave it serious thought. Alison had possessed the perfectionism and temper of the professional musician, and she'd probably been rough enough on the house's last several tenants—if indeed it had been she influencing them, and not that horror in the Sanctuary. But in her wildest dreams Claire could not imagine Alison being as cruel and vindictive as the power that was tormenting Leslie.

  "That would have been the last thing Alison would want," Claire said. "I expect that you and Simon banished the house together at the Solstice, but Simon . . . might not have known that the Sanct— That the garage needed anything more than the ordinary routine clearing." She spoke gently, trying to lead Leslie to the understanding that Alison had chosen her to continue Alison's unfinished work—without, if possible, saying anything against Simon.

  "Now you're making me feel guilty for not being able to protect my house against—against violence!" Leslie burst out in angry fear.

  It took all of Claire's tact to soothe her down again, without allowing Leslie simply to go back to pretending that nothing out of the ordinary was wrong. At last Claire suggested that they go have a look at the music room— a room full of toothpicks that had once been a harpsichord would be a great cure for a woman in denial.

  And the reminder did seem to have the effect that Claire hoped for. Leslie stood quietly in the middle of the room, her face pensive.

  Claire came and stood beside her, bracing herself for what must surely come. Cautiously, she opened herself to the atmosphere in the room, probing, searching. . . .

  Pain. Terror. And RAGE—a cheated fury that was as far beyond human as a blowtorch is beyond a candle. . .

  Claire opened her eyes with a gasp. It was only the echo of the force that had been here, not the force itself—the psychic equivalent of footprints in a muddy flowerbed. The imprint would fade with time, though a Sensitive would always be able to detect it if the room were not cleared.

  But it was not Simon, as Claire had expected. The force that had ravened here was inhuman—not as a cat is, but as a stone is; something of a different order of creation entirely.

  It was not Simon.

  In her relief and worry, Claire tried to explain what she'd sensed here, but only succeeded in confusing Leslie once more.

  "Are you talking about black magic?" Leslie asked. "Satan? The devil?"

  "I don't believe in Satan," Claire said. At least, not as Milton's fallen angel; Christ's demonic twin. Colin says that he has faced demons—but I haven't, and that's nothing to be bothering this poor woman with just now. "But the force in this room was so completely inhuman that I haven't any handy way to describe it. If it was generated by a human mind, it would have had to come directly from the id; the part that is buried far below rational thought and operates purely upon instinct. And that is a more terrifying thought than any classical Satan out of a medieval grimoire!"

  She felt Leslie's panic recede as Claire told her what she needed to hear. She thought that Leslie could be brought to do what must be done here so long as it could be made to seem reasonable, a part of the mechanistic world of explicit cause and effect. Though Simon must be harrying her somehow along the Path—for Leslie was far more accepting of the paranormal than she had been even three months before—she was still fighting against full acceptance of the new world that Simon and her own Gifts were unveiling to her.

  There were few things more terrifying to the average person than the discovery of their profound vulnerability to the forces of magick: Black, White, or Grey. Magick was a force that solid walls could not stop, that simple willpower could not thwart. It could suborn the gatekeepers of the human ego and gain unrestricted access to the unconscious mind. It was not thwarted by time or distance, and paid no heed to the logical sequence of cause and effect.

  Without an understanding of the fundamental laws which governed the world of the Unseen, most people's first encounter with magick seemed as if they had suddenly entered an evil funhouse where effect preceded cause and time ran not even backward but inside-out; where absolutes no longer existed and reason was forced to submit to a logic that had no basis in common sense. No wonder their instant impulsive response was usually denial and terror— it was as if reality itself were challenged, and with it, all their life's experience.

  But just as Claire began to relax, she felt a power gather itself here in this room, pushing at the barriers between the World of Form and the Unseen World, seeking the weakest point at which to break through.
r />   Claire.

  No—not now, Claire pleaded, but the force took no heed. It rushed in with the frustrated haste of something that has long been trying to make itself heard and dares not miss any opportunity.

  "Claire! Oh, Claire—my darling girl..."

  "Alison?" Claire whispered aloud. How could Alison still be trapped here, when she had known that her duty was to go toward the Light?

  "How could he do this? My house was always a temple of healing—"

  "She is not happy," Claire said aloud, for Leslie's benefit. Alison, how can I help you? Tell me what keeps you here.

  "I stayed because I had no inheritor. . . until now. Now she is ready to take up my fight. I will help her all that I can, but when the Tide turns it will be time for me to go. There is one charge that I lay upon you and not her: tell Simon that I forgive him everything—what he took from me I would have given him gladly. Tell him, Claire! You must!"

  "Very well. I will tell him. When I can." There was a disorienting, almost nauseating, sense of dislocation as the charged atmosphere trickled away. Alison was gone, and with her, the taint of inhuman violence vanished as well.

  Claire turned to Leslie. "Nothing further to be done in here," she said brusquely. "Let's look at the rest of the house."

  It was after eleven when Claire left. She'd given the house as good a going-over as Colin could have asked—and she thought she'd managed to rebuild her relationship with Leslie, as well.

  She and Leslie had blessed the major trouble spot, the garage—once Alison's Sanctuary—together. Leslie had taken to the tools of the Path easily, though she had shied away from performing the operation herself. Despite that, Claire had felt Leslie's fledgling power as a bright beacon in the Overlight.

  But for the first time that Claire could remember, the use of her Gift had exhausted her, left her feeling drained—as if, deprived of some natural well-spring upon which it could feed, it had turned upon Claire's substance and devoured that, instead. She hadn't gone half a block when she began to wish that she'd brought her car instead of walking up from the bookshop; she could not remember the last time she'd felt so tired.

  She stumbled, catching herself against a nearby lamppost and realized that she'd been staggering across the sidewalk like a drunk in her exhaustion.

  No more of that, Claire told herself sternly. /'// just rest a minute here. She could go back to the house and call a cab, of course, but it would take one at least half an hour to arrive and Claire was reluctant to disturb Leslie further. She leaned against the lamppost, belatedly realizing, as she saw the flare of headlights that meant a car was coming up the hill, that she was in the cliched pose of the streetwalker. She felt a combination of horror and hilarity as the car slowed, then stopped.

  "Claire? Are you all right?"

  "Colin!" Relief banished all previous thoughts.

  "I came to see if you were still up here. I thought you might like a lift home."

  In the illumination of the Volvo's dome light, Claire could see how worried he was.

  "I was just leaving," Claire explained, "but am I ever glad to see you. I don't think I could have walked another step."

  Colin reached over and opened the passenger door; Claire sank gratefully into the leather upholstery, closing her eyes. Colin drove on, and the inside of the car seemed to whirl giddily around her.

  "I ought to tell you what happened tonight," she said, almost mumbling.

  "Tell me tomorrow—unless it won't keep?"

  "There's some time," Claire said, already half asleep. "Until the Tide turns."

  The Tide that Alison had spoken of to Claire was the Tide of the Year. Magicians believed that the four great turning points of the year were the solstices and the equinoxes, the still points at which the Great Cycle shifted emphasis and direction.

  The vernal equinox was a rising tide, rushing upward into the summer solstice, but the autumnal equinox was a falling tide, slipping down into the winter darkness. Any well-trained magician planning an operation involving the Left-Hand Path would be likely to choose that date for his working. When Alison had spoken of leaving with the turning Tide, it was the autumnal equinox that she meant; the date upon which the Sun moved into Libra. September 21 was a little over six weeks away, and Colin and Claire both hoped to be ready for anything that day might bring.

  Frodo was now seeing Emily regularly; apparently Simon had stopped interfering there. He had passed on to Colin the news that Simon had borrowed the garage just after his return from Chicago—and locked it.

  It's a luxury to have so much time to prepare, Colin thought in an idle moment. Though the affair was as serious as any Colin had ever been engaged on, this time the battle would not be a last-minute scramble. This time Colin had a good idea of both the date and the place. Alison's Sanctuary. September 21.

  From his explorations in the Overlight, Colin knew that Simon had not yet taken the last step on his path to damnation. Animal sacrifice was one thing; the extinction of a human life—no matter how mean—a far graver matter. If Colin had sensed that Simon had taken such a step, Colin would have called upon his Order at once to deal with him; necromancy, like plague, spread its contagion swiftly if it were not excised.

  But Simon had not yet committed the ultimate obscenity, and Colin meant to prevent him if he could. He would have one chance: at the moment of the turning Tide itself, Simon's higher self would be free of the Shadow he had called into it and would be able to hear Colin. Colin could use that moment to call him back to the Light if it lay within mortal power, but the timing must be exquisite, exact. And there would be no second chance, for either of them.

  And so, as the year faded toward the equinox, Colin made his preparations just as Simon made his, and called into himself all the authority of the Light.

  And tried not to dread, with all his unaccustomed heart, the use that the Light would choose to make of him.

  The day of the autumnal equinox dawned clear and warm, and Colin rose with the sun to greet it. He had fasted since sunset the previous night and had eaten only lightly during the previous fortnight, taking no form of animal protein. He spent the morning in meditation, trying to empty himself of all desire and to make himself a pure tool of the Light.

  Though he did not have Claire's gift of Sight, it was as if he could sense Simon's working like a baleful thunderhead just beyond the horizon. He had consulted an ephemeris: Simon would time the climax of his ritual for 5:14 this afternoon, the moment when the Sun moved into the Zodiacal house of Libra, the Balance. He had only to hold himself in readiness for the summons to battle.

  It was afternoon when the call he had been awaiting came; unsurprised, Colin rose from the lotus seat before his altar and picked up the phone.

  "MacLaren here."

  "Colin!" It was Leslie Barnes. "Something terrible has happened—" Her voice was distorted almost beyond recognition by hysteria.

  "I think you'd better come over, Leslie," Colin said, willing her to be calm. He gave her directions, hoping she was still collected enough to take them in—from the sound of things, she was finally unable to ignore the truth about what Simon had become, and it was tearing her apart.

  While he waited for her to arrive, Colin brewed tea. There was still time before the ritual, and Leslie Barnes was his strongest ally in this fight. Simon loved both her and her sister, so, by the implacable Laws of the Left-Hand Path, he drew his greatest power from harming them. Conversely, Simon was vulnerable to their power, but Leslie was the only one of the sisters with the will and the discipline to strike back at him in love.

  But it must be her will, her decision. If she could not do what was needed, Colin must face Simon alone.

  A few minutes later, Leslie arrived at the house. Terror had aged her twenty years in a matter of hours and made her pale coral lipstick into a garish slash across a face gone clown white with terror.

  She was nearly babbling as she spilled out the ugly fears she had lived with for weeks:
that inside the passionate artist she loved was a grotesque and ruthless slayer who would use and kill with neither thought nor remorse. She told Colin that Simon had kidnapped the developmentally-impaired young daughter of one of her patients and meant to kill the child.

  Leslie no longer had any difficulty believing that Simon meant to sacrifice little Chrissy Hamilton; Colin led her gently to the deeper truth of the atrocity—that the sacrifice Simon meant to make would not be that child, though he did plan to use her in his ritual, but instead would be something dear to him: Leslie's sister Emily.

  Art for art, skill for skill, life for life—destroying Emily, a skilled musician, would return Simon's own skill to him, but at an unspeakable price to both his soul and hers. To be used to feed a Black Adept's power crippled those souls preyed upon beyond their power to restore themselves. Each life a Black Adept touched was frozen as it was at the moment of death: blighted, stillborn.

  "What can we do?" Leslie asked at last in a tear-ravaged voice. "How can we stop him?" She looked up at Colin, hope and resolution shining from her dark eyes.

  "Come with me," Colin said.

  They arrived at Greenhaven at a little before five. Colin was careful to park on the street; everything inside the house's boundary-line would be affected by Simon's workings. The laws of magick were as logical and unreasonable as those of a computer program, and arbitrary lines drawn on a map stored in a building twenty miles away were as compelling to the forces Simon worked with as a concrete wall would be to a physical force. Humans, who could pass those intangible boundaries with ease, did so at their peril.

  As soon as Colin set foot on the house's grounds he knew he had been right to be so careful. The dark energies operating here were like a slow rising tide. Not the psychic cesspit that Claire had described, but a chill inexorable summoning, easily perceptible to another magician—even one without the Gift.

  Colin gasped for breath, and each forward step was a struggle. His heart was a sharp hot pain in his chest, but he thrust aside all thought of his own safety. / will put on the armor of Light—