Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04

by Heartlight (v2. 1)

  "Because it gets you off the guilt-ridden White Light hook?" Hasloch snapped. "Does it, Colin? Does it really?"

  He got to his feet and began to pace, but Colin's answer seemed to restore his good spirits. "You tried to kill me—I suppose your Masters gave you hell for that. Did they throw you out? Or did you remain upon sufferance, atoning through good works? Tell me all about it, Colin. Tell me about all the 'good' you've done in the world—is it any match for what I have done?

  "Remember our first conversation, all those years ago? I told you then what I intended to do, and I've done it: my patrons ripped America's heart out with the Kennedy assassination, destroyed its soul with Vietnam, and shattered its mind with Nixon's betrayal of trust."

  Hasloch must be both secure and confident to speak so freely in front of Buckland ... or else have an unimaginably strong hold over the younger man. At the moment, it didn't matter which.

  "And we haven't been idle since: read the newspapers, Cold Warrior—this is the eve of our triumph! Your American Eagle is dead and the White Eagle of Thule will triumph in my lifetime. What can you possibly set against that?" Hasloch demanded.

  "Walls," Colin MacLaren answered. Hasloch's rhetoric was only the expression of his own bleakest fears, and he'd had decades to come to terms with them, and find what comfort he could. "The Berlin Wall is down—and as for Vietnam, you should visit more of your hometown landmarks. The Memorial is supreme proof that hearts can heal and minds can mend—and souls can be redeemed. Even yours, Toller."

  Hasloch stopped his pacing and laughed harshly. "Not by a tired old man who refuses to face the darkness in his own soul!" He returned to his desk and lowered himself into his chair, regaining his composure with a visible effort. "But I've been indulging myself at your expense. You had some business with my aide, and I haven't allowed you to conduct it. Please, feel free." He gestured toward Caradoc.

  This conversation was not going as it would have if Hasloch had really known the business that brought him here. Was it possible that Hasloch did not connect him with Rowan Moorcock? There was no reason he should. Even if she had been questioned, they were as unlikely to have questioned her about him as she would be to volunteer the information that she knew him. Hasloch knew him in another connection entirely.

  Colin said nothing, playing for time.

  Hasloch raised his brows inquiringly at Buckland. Colin saw the young man frown, thinking hard.

  "I suppose it's about Julian—ah, Pilgrim, I suppose I should say. But I'm not sure why Jourdemayne didn't come herself," Buckland said. "I was looking forward to seeing her again, actually."

  Pilgrim? What business did the Thule Group have with Truth's half-brother? He'd been institutionalized since shortly before Truth had come to see Colin for the first time, and Colin was pretty sure he still was. From what little she'd told him, it was for the best. The child Colin had known had grown into a monster—the faint shadow of malice that had marred Thome's essentially sunny nature reaching full unchecked flower in his son. What business could the Cincinnatus Group have with Pilgrim?

  "I'm sure you can think of a number of reasons she wouldn't want to see you," Colin said, getting to his feet. He blessed the assumption that he was here on Truth's business, as it concealed so neatly his own purposes. All that remained was for him to get out of here before they realized they'd been hooked by a red herring.

  "She can hardly have thought it would be more impressive," Hasloch said mockingly. "Sending you, I mean. Not that you're not impressive in your way, of course," he added. "A triumph of superannuation, if nothing else."

  Both he and Buckland seemed to know what Hasloch was talking about, but that wouldn't last long. "Spare me the trite insults," Colin said. "I'd worry more about my own plans than Truth's if I were you, Toller—at least based on past performance. I suppose you don't need me to spell out the message? And now, I'll bid both of you fascinating gentlemen adieu. Don't trouble yourselves to escort me. I can find my own way out."

  Colin was a little surprised to reach the street unmolested, and a few blocks' walk brought him to the attention of a cruising cab. He took it downtown and picked another cab at random from a queue before heading for his final destination. Even his exhaustion could not tempt him to forgo such elementary precautions, though he doubted that Hasloch would bother to have him followed. Both of them knew there was a second act to come—and if Hasloch were very clever, he would realize what it was. Rowan was a student at Taghkanic, after all.

  And Hasloch was clever.

  The Airport Holiday Inn was a soulless cracker box, set along a roadway named for a famous American traitor. Its accommodations were duplicated in a thousand locations in half a dozen countries, as anonymous as a phone booth. Colin threw his coat over a chair and sat down on the bed, kicking off his shoes. He slipped the pendant between the mattress and the box spring; the concealment would delay a cursory search, though not a professional one.

  What came now? If Toller were interested in Pilgrim, Colin owed Truth a warning—but Colin had gained Dylan's promise to stay out of things through the simple threat of involving Truth, who, though in England, was only a phone call away. He knew that wouldn't hold Dylan back for long, but if Colin called Truth now, Colin knew Dylan would consider himself absolved of his promise immediately. And with Toller Hasloch involved, that was far too dangerous.

  Colin frowned, pondering. Pilgrim had been transferred to Fall River last year, after Truth had met Nathaniel. He picked up the telephone and dialed.

  "Atheling."

  "Nathaniel, it's Colin." He thought of telling Nathaniel that Hasloch was alive, then realized that Nathaniel must already know—that he would have kept track of matters involving Hasloch when Colin had not. Nathaniel had certainly known Hasloch was alive down all the long years when the belief in his own guilt had tormented Colin.

  But such was my penance, and in the turning of the Wheel all things are understood. So mote it be.

  Colin bowed his head, schooling his rebellious spirit to acceptance. It was a moment before he could go on.

  "I have some information for you, Nathaniel. You'll remember Toller Hasloch?"

  There was a moment of electric silence before Nathaniel answered. "Yes, Colin," he said gently.

  "When I spoke to him today—" Colin found himself pausing, and forced himself to go on. "When I spoke to him, he made the assumption that I was acting on Truth Palmer's behalf. He mentioned Pilgrim—in the vaguest possible way, of course. I don't want to sound a false alarm, but—"

  "Better a thousand false alarms than no true warning," Nathaniel said somberly. "Pilgrim is here, safe in my care. He has no visitors and would not know them if he did. What is Hasloch's interest?"

  "Unfortunately, he didn't tell me. I'll have to ask him the next time I see him," Colin said. There was a silence.

  "Is there anything else I need to know?" Nathaniel asked.

  Colin debated. But if he did not want to involve Truth, someone must know. "Claire's cousin, Rowan Moorcock, disappeared while investigating the Thulists, and the trail leads right to Toller Hasloch and something called the Cincinnatus Group."

  "Ah." There was no inflection in Nathaniel's voice. "Good hunting, then, Colin. And take care."

  "As much as I can, old friend," Colin answered. "Walk in the Light, Nathaniel."

  "And you, Colin. Always."

  * * *

  When Colin hung up the phone, his duty discharged, he felt a great wave of weariness sweep over him, taking his strength as the riptide takes the unwary swimmer. He'd lived a quarter of a century wishing his murder of Hasloch undone, and when, in one searing moment, he found that it had been, Colin's guilt had been transformed as well. Hasloch was evil, a creature forged out of the dark heart of creation for only one task, just as Colin had been forged as a sword and shield to defy him. Colin could no more avoid his destiny than Hasloch could. They had been fated to be enemies before either of them had been born.

  What
might the world have been like if Hasloch had not been born into it? If the men and women trusted by a nation had been trustworthy in truth, and had destroyed what they had been sent to destroy? Instead, blinded by petty fears, dazzled by the hope of money, of power, the defenders of the West had betrayed the Light for a thousand base and unworthy reasons, many of them without even knowing the true nature of the war they fought.

  Colin lay down on top of the bedspread, a part of him expecting to be able to feel the necklace even through the mattress, like the princess in the fairy tale. A part of his mind expected the phone to ring, though even Nathaniel did not know where he was.

  But it didn't, and he slept.

  The Adept stood on a green hillside covered with tiny blue flowers whose scent was like homecoming and the morning. He had always come back here, in the interregnums between a thousand lives, seeking his absolution, the sign that he had been forgiven at last. In the distance, he could see the golden towers of the great Temple in which he had died, given the Cup of Nepenthe to expiate his crime. Life after life he had been bound to the Wheel—arrogance was always his besetting sin: pride, curiosity, and a belief that Power was above the Law.

  Power. What his soul craved. Power, always power, and mastery over the world that held him. . . .

  Colin awoke with a start, wisps of the dream still echoing through his consciousness. He had been taught that the gates of Time opened to the Adept in the shadows of Death, so that in one brief moment the pattern that stretched back through more lives than this could be glimpsed in its entirety. For the first time in his existence, Colin looked toward that moment with dread—what would he see, when he looked back across the gulf of Time that stretched back before his birth?

  He sat up, running his hand through his hair. It was dusk: the service-strip signs made a garish multicolored jumble in the road below his window. The memory that was almost a fantasy dispelled like smoke, leaving behind it only a terrible sense of responsibility.

  Sleeping in the middle of the day. They say that's a sign of age. But the nap had not refreshed him. Colin sat on the edge of the hotel bed and gazed out the window at the airport sprawl, his mind as intractable as a rebellious beast of burden. He shook his head, half-dazed with lingering exhaustion. He didn't have time for this. He had to make some kind of a plan to deal with Hasloch.

  He knew now that Rowan was a prisoner of what lurked behind the facade of the Cincinnatus Group. It was only a matter of time until Hasloch discovered that Colin had come to Washington looking for her. Hasloch would never believe in a deal that traded Rowan's liberty for silence, and, more, he would not accept it. There was too much history between Hasloch and Colin, too much anger.

  A lifetime's bitter dealing in the art of the possible made Colin consider the other thing he might trade: Claire for Rowan. Claire would consent to it, Colin was certain, and somewhere in the mechanics of the switch it should be possible to win both women's freedom.

  But if he could plan a double cross, Hasloch could plan one too. Reluctantly, Colin rejected the idea. There was too little chance that it would succeed. He did not even know if Rowan was still alive to barter for.

  Wearily, Colin rubbed at his eyes. The wisps of his dream lingered, tormenting him with a faint bewildering guilt and a sense of corruption, liabilities he could not afford. He could not proceed in the task before him without a pure heart and very clean hands.

  But what was his task? To save Rowan Moorcock, or to destroy Toller Hasloch? Colin rubbed at his temples. So little to choose between the two goals in one sense—and in another, the whole gulf of damnation lay between them.

  Where was the utility in saving one life while the Shadow took thousands?

  Where was the triumph in letting the Shadow seize a thousand single lives while saying no single life was worth saving?

  Who savetb one life, it is as if he has saved the whole world. Out of the stillness of Colin's heart the answer came, and with that answer, the perfection of his life's work. The nagging sense of unkept promises faded, leaving clarity in its wake. This was the path that had been set out for him, a thousand lives ago.

  At last Colin picked up the phone and dialed a number he had held unused in memory for more than forty years.

  Xavier's was a trendy District "drinkeateria" located near Capitol Hill. As such, it was well supplied with pseudo-Victorian stained glass, blond oak veneer, and even a few ferns. It was the sort of place to which the tragically hip repaired to meet and mate, as anonymous and impersonal as a paper cup.

  The message had been left at the desk of Colin's hotel sometime during the night: spuriously intimate and relentlessly cheerful, suggesting that old friends meet for a drink at Xavier's that evening. Almost out of simple curiosity, Colin had come, though the message was from no one he'd ever heard of, and certainly not from an old friend. But that really didn't matter. He had not called that number to play things safe, but to redeem an old promise.

  The evening was rainy. The faceted windowpanes of the bar were sequined with raindrops, and cars passing through the streets made hissing sounds like downhill skiers. The man who sat down opposite him at the table near the window was a stranger.

  The stranger's dark blue trenchcoat was dark with rain over the shoulders, and rain had managed to get past the shield of his umbrella to star the surface of his long, sleeked-back red hair with droplets. He was a young man, less than half Colin's age, and wore a grey three-piece suit as if it were an unfamiliar uniform. He did not take off his gloves.

  "Professor MacLaren—it's been quite a while since I had the privilege of sitting in on one of your lectures," the young man said with careful cheer.

  Though Colin did not remember every pupil he'd ever had—no teacher could—in that moment he was certain that this young man had never been one of them. Perhaps it was the amusement with which he watched Colin through fox-bright pale eyes, as if this were all some sort of elaborate prank.

  But in that case, who was the victim?

  "I know you were sure I'd never amount to much—oh, don't try to deny it—but I have made something of a success of myself. You see, here's my card."

  It appeared between his gloved fingers as if through a magician's trick. He held it out and Colin took it.

  "Hereward Farrar. Consulting." No address or telephone number, I notice.

  The waitress approached. Farrar ordered a Kaliber; Colin was still nursing his double Scotch.

  It was nearing seven o'clock, and workaholic Washington was starting to trickle in for a drink before a working dinner or a late-evening meeting. The noise level rose proportionately.

  "And what do you consult on these days, Mr. Farrar?" Colin asked.

  "This and that," Farrar said, smiling. "And you're wondering who sent me, and what I'm up to, and no matter what I say you'll still wonder if you can trust me."

  The waitress returned with a bottle and a glass and left again. Farrar seemed to concentrate on pouring his drink to the exclusion of all else.

  "Now that we've gotten all that out of the way," Colin commented dryly, "it seems we've reached an impasse." Perhaps it was the effect of age, but he realized that he no longer had the taste for this sort of cloak-and-dagger feint and double-feint, necessary though it might sometimes be.

  "Maybe." Farrar did not sound particularly convinced of it. "I must say, we were awfully surprised when you walked into Hasloch's office yesterday morning—and when you called last night."

  "So was I," Colin said blandly.

  The voice at the other end of the line rattled back the number he had just dialed with a robot's perfection. And waited.

  Forty years. An eternity in Washington politics. Colin had not been certain the number would still be good at all. But this was the response he'd been trained to expect, a long time ago in a world now dead. How long had this number been kept active, a listening-post on the frontier of a war that had never ended?

  "This is Stormcrow. I have a message for Kestrel. Tell
him the dragon awakes." "Thank you for calling, Stormcrow," the voice responded. Then the line went dead.

  So this was the sort of person who worked for Department 23 these days—assuming he had come in response to Colin's call at all. Department 23 had been an outlaw operation set up by the OSS as a counter-Ahnenerfle to fight Black Magick with White. It had bound together occultists from a dozen different traditions in the Free World's hour of greatest need, but now the days when the West had been desperate enough to try such things were long past, and other forces were ascendant in today's intelligence community. Farrar's presence might simply be another kind of trap. He'd given Colin none of the half a dozen safewords and countersigns that Colin remembered from the war; possibly he did not know them.

  "Question one: Why help me at all?" Colin asked.

  Farrar seemed to think about that for a moment, carefully choosing his words before he spoke.

  "I'm here because you called me. Some jobs just need a lot of doing, don't they?"

  Colin was still unconvinced, but part of him was wondering if Farrar's bona fides were really important, in the long run. If Farrar were acting under Toller Hasloch's orders, then anything he did to Colin would generate information for whomever must next follow Colin into the serpent's nest. If Colin disappeared, Nathaniel would know what he had been hunting when he vanished. Dylan would certainly investigate—and more to the point in this particular instance, so would his wife. Truth was ferocious where her family was concerned, and Hasloch had threatened Pilgrim.

  In short, Colin's disappearance would cause a lot of fuss, both mundane and occult, and Hasloch would be subjected to the sort of fifteen-minute notoriety that could destroy years of careful planning ... or even drive him underground once more. If Farrar were his agent.

  Still, Farrar might really be working for the modern incarnation of Department 23. He was precisely the sort of person whom Colin's old allies might have sent—someone low enough in the hierarchy of things to be immune to the Thule Group's infiltration of high office.