Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 02 (43 page)

           
'"The Institute,'" Dr.
Mahar
said suspiciously. He looked down at the card on his
desk blotter—the same one she had handed to the receptionist at the front
desk, Truth realized.

 
          
As
the woman at the front desk had, Dr.
Mahar
, studied
her card carefully. '"Psychic Science Research Institute,'" he read
slowly.

 
          
Nailed,
Truth thought with resignation.

 
          
As
the meaning of his own words penetrated, Dr.
Mahar
raised his eyes and glared steadily at her, his face darkening with
unreasonable anger. "Well! I don't know what your game is, young woman,
but I must say you show a certain amount of barefaced nerve coming here—"
He got to his feet.

 
          
Truth
stood also, determined to outface him—for the honor of her calling, if nothing
else.

 
          
"Were
there any unexplained fires while Ms. Musgrave was here? More false
alarms—shorts in the electrical system—than normal? Did staff and other
residents complain of missing small objects—many of which later turned up in
places inaccessible to both them and her? You had trouble keeping the
french
doors in her room closed, I understand. The locks
didn't seem to help. You finally nailed the doors shut. Did that work? Or did
something pull out the nails every night and open them anyway?"

 
          
"That
is
enough!"
Dr.
Mahar
blustered, his face an alarming scarlet.

 
          
"No,
it is not." Truth's icy tone matched his. "The Margaret Beresford
Bidney
Memorial Psychic Science Research Institute is a
reputable organization with international standing, affiliated with a
nationally ranked college. The staff of the Institute is composed neither of
frauds nor quacks—as you seem to be implying. It is your decision not to
cooperate with my investigation if you choose,
but I will not submit to being treated like a simple-minded con artist.
"

 
          
There
was a momentary silence as Dr.
Mahar
all but gaped at
her in shock. Truth wondered if he'd ever been spoken to that way by any woman
in his entire life—or by any person since he'd received his sacred MD. But
despite her expectations, Dr.
Mahar
was honest enough
to try to listen, and Truth watched with surprised pity as the man opposite her
struggled against a lifetime of assumption, of tacit promise never to question
the bounds of reality as marked for him by equally unquestioning peers, of
willful blindness.

           
And fell, powerlessly, back into
that blindness which was far more comfortable than knowledge.

 
          
"I
have nothing more to say to you," he said heavily. "I'll ask you to
leave now. As a professional courtesy I will not have you escorted from the
grounds."

 
          
Truth
turned and walked out—before
she
broke
something, and by far more mundane means than that of a poltergeist.

 
          
Well, that was a waste of time,
Truth
thought to herself, stepping out into the hot spring sunlight once more. If she
turned back to the building she had just left, undoubtedly she would be able to
see white-garbed Cerberuses peering out the windows, waiting to see if Security
needed to be called to deal with her after all. Truth felt cross and guilty.
Why in God's name had she come here?

 
          
"Ms.
Jourdemayne
? Truth
Jourdemayne
?"
A voice came from behind her.

 
          
Truth
turned and peered in the direction of the voice, blinking against the glare of
the sun. All she could make out was the silhouette of a tall figure. /
guess they called Security after all.

 
          
"You
don't have to
get
nasty, I was just
leaving," she said peevishly.

 
          
"No.
You don't understand. Winter Musgrave—is she all right?"

 
          
The
speaker stepped forward, blocking the glare of the sun with his body. Truth saw
a spare man, closer to fifty than forty, with a tracery of silver in his dark
hair and an almost stereotypical mustache and goatee edging his ascetic face.
His eyes were a startling pale brown, nearly amber, and he was wearing a white
lab coat and dark trousers. The only thing out of the ordinary about his
appearance at all was the scarab pendant in bright
hlue
faience
that hung from a silver chain about his neck and rested
against his sober institutional necktie.

 
          
The gossip mill in this place makes the one
at
Taghkanic
look slow.
"She's . . . all
right," Truth said.
At least she was
the last time I saw her, but maybe not for long, if that creature catches up with
her.
"Who are you?"

 
          
"My
name is Dr. Atheling; I'm a consultant here at
Fall River
. Winter Musgrave wasn't my patient, but—may
I have a few moments of your time?"

 
          
Truth
looked past him to the house. "I don't know," she said dryly.

           
"I've just seen Dr.
Mahar
, and I think I'm supposed to be getting the bum's
rush."

 
          
"Ah."
Dr. Atheling smiled. "But I have some small sway with Dr.
Mahar
, owing to my occasional fortunate intervention in
some cases of exceptional difficulty. Allow me to take personal responsibility
for your continued presence on the grounds."

 
          
"Sure.
And maybe
you
can answer some of
my
questions." Truth found herself
smiling in return. She no longer wondered what purpose had drawn her to
Fall River
; she knew.

 
          
"I
first met Winter Musgrave a few weeks after she first came here. She was a
patient of Dr.
Luty's
; he's a colleague of Dr.
Mahar's
, a very well respected name in his field,"
Dr. Atheling said.

 
          
"And
that is . . . ?" Truth asked.

 
          
Truth
and her new companion were walking along one of the many footpaths that led
through the
Fall
River
grounds. Everything around her looked too perfect to be real: Even the weather
cooperated in the illusion, bright and warm with only enough cloud in the sky
to add the final decorative touch. Though Truth's own sister had been much
more harshly treated in a much less luxurious environment, Truth could not
banish from her mind the thought of how this artificial perfection would have
grated on Winter's shattered nerves, and found sympathetic anger in Winter's
defense rising in her.

 
          
There must be a better way
—
a way to help those who are not sick, but
different. . . .

 
          
"Dr.
Luty's
specialty is psychopharmacology, as related to
post-traumatic-stress-related disorders," Dr. Atheling said. "He's
designed a number of quite successful drug therapies. His patients have . . .
minimal dysfunction."

 
          
Post-traumatic stress. The aftermath of
kidnapping, rape, or other violence.
"But that wasn't Winter's
problem," Truth said. "How could he be treating her?"

 
          
"I
believe the family arranged it," Dr. Atheling said blandly. He slanted a
glance sideways at Truth and his amber eyes glowed in the sunlight. "And
certainly Dr.
Luty's
treatment can have a ... calming
effect on certain forms of stress."

           
What
you mean is, Dr.
Luty
drugged her nearly insensible!
Truth
mused furiously.

 
          
"Now,
let me ask you a question," Dr. Atheling continued. "Why did Winter
seek out the
Bidney
Institute after she left
Fall River
?"

 
          
Truth
hesitated, wondering how much she should tell this man who seemed to fit in so
oddly with everything else she'd seen of
Fall River
. "Poltergeists," she finally
said. She might as well tell him the truth, after all; she could hardly damage
her reputation—or Winter's—further, at least in the eyes of
Fall River
.

 
          
"A
classic presentation, wouldn't you say?" Dr. Atheling said.

 
          
Truth
looked at him sharply. Her eye was drawn once more to the bright azure spark of
the scarab Dr. Atheling wore about his neck. Almost instinctively she shifted
her sight to see him, not as this world saw him, but as he appeared in the
Otherworld.

 
          
Blinding white light; a rigorous discipline
refined down through centuries; of life after life dedicated to the Great Work
. . .

 
          
Truth
recoiled, involuntarily flinging up a hand to shield herself. Dr. Atheling was
an Adept; a follower of the Right Hand Path, but unlike any such Adept she had
met before. At the same moment, she saw him quickly sketch a symbol in the air;
meant for defense against the Darkness and the Great Unmaking, it barely
touched her.

 
          
"So,"
Dr. Atheling said. "It's true. There are . . . others."

 
          
He
studied her intently, as if trying to solve a riddle that Truth knew to be
unsolvable. Not Black, not White, but . . . Gray. "What is
your
interest in this matter?" he
added pointedly. His manner was no more hostile than it had been a moment
before, but there was a stern watchfulness present now, as of a warrior
awaiting the summons to battle once more.

 
          
"Winter
Musgrave came to the
Bidney
Institute for help,"
Truth said honestly, dismissing her personal curiosity for the moment. "If
you've heard of us, you'll know that we receive many requests for help each
year from people who are certain they are haunted ... or possessed."

 
          
Dr.
Atheling gazed at her intently for another frozen moment, then seemed to come
to a decision. He relaxed, and smiled at her again with genuine warmth.

 
          
"And
which did you find Winter to be?" he asked.

 
          
"Neither,"
Truth said, accepting the tacit apology for what it was. "As you say, what
our initial interview revealed was
almost
a classic presentation of adult-onset poltergeist phenomena."

 
          
"Something
that Dr.
Luty
, alas, could not bring himself to
accept," Dr. Atheling admitted. "He felt that drug therapy and the
talking cure would answer—but alas, they did not."

 
          
"The talking cure"
—that
quaintly old-fashioned phrase coined by the father of psychiatry to describe
the science he had invented. But it had long since fallen into disuse, and no
one now living could have studied with Sigmund Freud in the
Vienna
of the 1880s.

 
          
Could
they?

 
          
"Was
Winter comfortable here?" Truth asked, shifting her ground and probing for
more information.

 
          
"For
a while—at least, as much so as was possible to one so harshly medicated; I am
afraid my colleagues consider me a bit of a naturopath, but I do not hold with
the use of drugs save in
extremis.
But
you have not come all this way to hear my views upon the proper treatment of
the afflicted, but to hear about Winter." He seemed to gather his
thoughts, and when he spoke again his voice had taken on a certain formal
timbre, as if he were providing Truth a carefully edited report of events.