Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (4 page)

           
And despite his lack of a coat and
hat, he was dressed more formally
—
in dark trousers, vest, tie,
white shirt, and belted tweed jacket
—
than the few passers-by on
the streets at midmorning. He wondered if he stood out, revealed as a
transplanted Easterner by nothing more than his failure to wear a topcoat.

 
          
Colin
smiled ruefully at the direction of his own thoughts. For so many years it had
been almost second nature to efface himself; to go unnoticed, to deflect any
but the most casual attention. He had begun to think that the habit had become
a permanent part of his psyche, a characteristic that would remain a part of
him through all the lives to come, long after the reason for it had been
forgotten. But that was all it was now: habit, and not vital necessity.

 
          
Nathaniel
had been right, as always. Time, the great healer, had healed him as well.
There'd been a time, not so long past, that it would have been impossible for
him to take this sort of innocent joy in any passing scene. A time when he had
walked in the shadows cast by the Black Order, doing all that he could to bring
Light to that Darkness
—
and always in danger of falling to that Darkness himself.

 
          
But
thoughts of initiation and ancient magickal orders seemed oddly out of place
here on the
Berkeley
campus. If anything seemed
to belong to the world of rationality and sanity it was this place.
Berkeley
seemed filled with the
American spirit
—
a kind of "can-do" wholesomeness that simply
could not comprehend the shadowy half-world in which Colin's battles had been
fought. And perhaps, in time, the memories would fade for him as well.

 
          
The
following Monday was another brilliant cloudless day, and the morning sunlight
found Colin in his new office, unpacking the cartons of books he'd carried up
the steps from the trunk of his battered black Ford sedan
—
a recent purchase encouraged
by his move to an area of the country where a car was a far more important part
of life than it was in New York City.

 
          
The
small office that was now his contained one battered metal desk and matching
file cabinet, an ancient oak desk chair on squeaky rollers and a matching one
that stood on four uneven legs, several metal bookshelves that edged the room,
and one balky window with a dusty Venetian blind. The walls were painted a
glossy greenish beige that managed to clash with the worn brown linoleum tiles
on the floor.

 
          
Colin
had been assured that this furniture was only temporary
—
that better furniture was
on order, and that in fact it was rumored that the entire department would be
moving to better quarters soon, but Colin placed little credence in these
hopeful reports. In his experience, there was little in this world or the next
so permanent as a temporary situation.

 
          
But
his current quarters weren't that bad, in Colin's opinion. Once his books were
on the shelves, and he'd hung the bulletin board and a few pictures, the place
would look as inviting as such places ever did. It was a place where he could
do his work, and the students who came to him for help and guidance would be
more interested in their own problems than in how his office was decorated.

 
          
Colin
had spent the last several days filling out the endless reams of forms that
academia seemed to require in order to sanction every action, meeting his new
colleagues in the Psych Department, and orienting himself to the vast
Berkeley
campus. Registration was
going on elsewhere on the campus, and classes would begin next Monday. Colin's
fellow instructors had assured him that the worst of the confusion would be
over by the end of September, when the late arrivals and the Drop/Adds had
settled their schedules.

 
          
Colin's
own schedule looked as if it would be equally busy, at least for the first two
semesters. Parapsychology I and II and the Introduction to Psychology course
(all the new hires were forced to teach it, or so Colin had been told) were
already full. Add to that the usual load of extracurricular activities for
which he'd be expected to stand as faculty advisor, and he wouldn't have any
more time to brood. He'd be lucky if he had time to think.

 
          
"Hello
—
hello
—
hello! Anyone home?" a
breezy voice called from the doorway.

 
          
Colin
turned.

 
          
"Alison!"
he cried delightedly.

 
          
Alison
Margrave was a regal theatrical woman in her early sixties, a professional
psychologist
—
and parapsychologist
—
and musician who was one of
Colin's oldest friends. She was dressed in her usual flamboyant, gypsyish fashion,
wearing a long red wool cape over her blouse and skirt. When she threw the cape
over a chair, he could see that Alison was wearing one of her trademark
shawls, a colorful weave of muted earth tones secured with a large silver
brooch set with an enormous intaglio-cut amethyst. The stone matched the purple
of the amethysts in the silver combs that held back her sweeping mane of white
hair.

 
          
"Well,
at least you're glad to see me!" she growled good-naturedly. "Almost
a year, Colin, and not a blessed word from you
—
"

 
          
He'd
meant to call her once he was settled in the Bay Area, but had kept letting
mundane tasks get in his way.

 
          
"How
did you find me?" Colin asked sheepishly. "I know I wrote you I'd be
coming. . . ."

 
          
"And
that was back in January, and by now I thought you'd probably gotten lost
somewhere around
Kansas
and never gotten here at
all," Alison teased. "Fortunately, I have my spies on campus. So I
thought I'd see the late Colin MacLaren for myself
—
and bring you a sort of
housewarming present." She advanced into the office and placed a small
wrapped package on Colin's desk.

 
          
"I
was going to call you this week," Colin protested, sitting down behind the
desk and waving Alison to the other chair.

 
          
When
she was seated
—
her eyes sparkling with youthful mischief despite her age
—
Colin began searching his
pockets for his familiar companion, a battered old briar pipe. Once he'd
located it and taped the dottle into the battered metal wastebasket, he began
rummaging for tobacco and matches.

           
"I was over here on business in
any event," Alison said kindly, letting him off the hook. "So you
needn't look so self-conscious, Colin. But I
did
want a chance to catch
up on things. How have you been? It's been years since I've seen you in the
flesh, you know."

 
          
Quick
as a snapshot, a fierce vivid memory intruded itself on Colin's mind: the air
was thick with incense, and he stood with four others before the high altar of
a church whose roof had been thrown open to the sky by American bombers. His
white robe was stiff with the embroidered signs of his Lodge and Grade, he wore
the crown and breastplate of Adepthood, and in his hand he bore the silver
stave entwined with emerald and scarlet serpents. All these things were mere
display: the exoteric representation of his inward nature: Priest and Adept of
the Path.

 
          
There,
beneath the canopy of starry heaven, he and those others from every Order and
Lodge that claimed the Light as its goal
—
most of whose mundane names
he did not even know
—
worked as surgeons to cleanse the land of the dark taint
that still lingered over its landscape like a poisonous fog.

 
          
The
sharp memory faded, and he was back in his office at
Berkeley
with Alison. If she knew
where his mind had gone in those brief seconds, she gave no sign, but Colin
knew that the memories were there for her, too. That night had contained a
moment of supreme self-sacrifice, an apotheosis that a man
—
or woman
—
might spend the rest of his
life attempting to recapture.

 
          
There
were times when Colin wondered if perhaps that one moment of battle as a
warrior of the Light had not done him as much harm as his over-soul had
suffered in generations of war against the Dark. The way and the goal of the
Path was peace
—
but the fatal flaw of all their mortal kind was the delight
they took in war.

 
          
"Colin?"
Alison's voice jarred him rudely back to the here and now.

 
          
"I
was just thinking about
Berlin
," he said.

 
          
Alison's
face softened at the memory. "It was a long time ago, you know," she
said gently.

 
          
No
it wasn't!
his heart cried silently. He could remember the date exactly:
October 31, 1945
. Fifteen years ago next month.

 
          
"You're
right," he said aloud. "Sometimes it seems hard to believe this is
the same world as that was," he added.

 
          
"It
isn't," Alison said with a smile. "And thank the Light for that. We
may not have slain the serpent, my dear, but we've certainly broken its back.
It will be a long time before that particular ugliness rears its head
again," she said positively.

 
          
"Let
it be so," Colin said automatically. He shook himself loose from the
ghosts of the past with an effort and smiled at Alison. Though she was not a
member of his own Order, Alison was one of Colin's fellow Lightworkers, and
knew as well as anyone did the peculiar ghosts that haunted him. "But tell
me about yourself, Alison. What have you been doing?"

 
          
"Well,"
Alison began, as Colin tamped tobacco into his pipe, "you know I've got
that old place
—
Greenhaven
—
over in
San Francisco
. I don't think you've ever
seen it
—
an
old Victorian; you'll love it
—
it's just off
Haight Street
by a few blocks and I can
pick lemons right off the tree. I've even got an herb garden now
—
you'll remember that was
always my ambition. A few years back I remodeled the old garage into a
workspace; it's useful to have a quiet place to meditate, now and again. Let me
see: what else? I've been teaching; both musically and otherwise
—
there are a few people out
there who are ready for something a bit stronger than parapsychology, so to
speak. And of course I consult
—
but these days, people are more likely to complain of
little green men than noisy spirits."

 
          
"Times
change," Colin agreed, touching flame to tobacco and sucking his pipe
alight. "Ten years ago, I couldn't imagine that I'd ever be back on a college
campus, let alone teaching."

 
          
"Wait
until you have your first classroom full of students," Alison teased him,
laughing. "You'll understand why you came back to it, my boy! I wouldn't
give up teaching for all the kingdoms of the earth
—
but it's hard to believe
that either of us was ever as young as those students are!"

 
          
"I
wonder if we ever were?" Colin mused somberly. Sometimes the great gulf
between what he had become and the innocents he was surrounded by seemed almost
too much to bridge.

 
          
Alison
eyed him narrowly, cool appraisal in her warm grey eyes. "We were all
young once, Colin," she said gently, "just as we all age and die. And
it is our responsibility to see that our knowledge of the Great Work does not
die with us."