by Frank Lauria
“I’m worried, Owen,” Redson said, waving his book.
“Argyle hasn’t come back,” Levi rumbled.
Orient nodded. “Argyle’s with Susej,” he murmured.
“What the hell do you mean?” Redson roared.
He looked at Redson and turned both palms face up. “That’s all I know.”
“How do you know?” Redson’s face was red with anger.
“I went to the Kirk show today and Susej told me.” Orient sat down. “You’ll see it on tape tonight.”
“You’re not making sense,” Redson said. He followed Orient to the couch.
Orient took it slowly. “Argyle is with Susej. Whether he went voluntarily or not I don’t know. That’s all I know.”
“Do you think Argyle would go to D’Te voluntarily?” Redson demanded. “He was hypnotized,” lie said, glaring at Levi.
Levi came over to the couch. “What happened? Where did you go today?”
Orient went over his attempt to block Susej’s cure.
“I wanted to see if Susej could be faced down. I thought that I could hold him during daylight. I think I could have, too, except that Susej is holding Argyle.”
“Is he possessed then?” Redson demanded.
“You know,”—Orient thought it over—“I think we can assume that Argyle is being held against his will.”
“How’s that, Owen?” Levi asked.
“Of course he’s being held against his will.” Redson slapped his leg in exasperation.
“If Argyle had decided to throw in with Susej I would have had trouble. A telepath is vulnerable against attack by a telepath. The fact that he was neutral means that he hasn’t been persuaded.”
“Of course,” Levi said. He scratched his beard. “But what happens to Argyle now?”
“We go get him, of course,” Redson boomed, moving to the phone. “Now we call the police.”
“No.” The edge in Orient’s voice stopped Redson in the middle of the room.
“No,” he said more gently, “we can do nothing to help Argyle. Susej has him and that’s it.”
“What do you mean?” Redson said, returning to the couch. “Don’t you care what happens to Argyle?”
“What happens to Argyle happens to me,” Orient said quietly, “and you and Claude.”
“There must be something, Owen,” Levi said.
Orient looked at his wrinkled hands. “Susej has Argyle. If we move against him Argyle dies. If Susej succeeds in possessing Argyle we all die.”
No one spoke.
“Today,” the newscaster on TV said warmly, “Martin Weldon, noted syndicated columnist, was cured of a cancerous tumor by Susej, the amazing healer who recently has been appearing on the Joe Kirk show. Stay tuned for the Joe Kirk Show at 11:30 tonight for the taped sequence of that cure.”
Orient stood and pulled his shoulders up against the weary gravity that was draining his energy.
Hap came ambling in. “Sordi said that Argyle’s gone,” he said, his voice ragged.
“That’s right,” Orient said. “He’s in trouble, and we’re in trouble.”
“We can’t seem to stop him, can we?”
Orient stared at Hap. “Not yet.”
“Do you think he’ll kill Argyle?”
“I hope not.”
Hap sighed and shook his head.
“What do you think, sport, do you want to keep trying?” Orient asked.
Hap nodded. “I can cut it,” he said.
“Perhaps we’d better get to work.” Orient moved to the door.
They all followed him to the study.
“This morning,” Orient began, when they were all comfortable, “I made an astrological calculation on the star map. Something Hap said gave me the idea.”
“Something I said?” Hap looked at Redson.
“Yes,” he continued, going to the desk, “you wanted to know why Susej hadn’t made any attempt before. I checked the star maps and I found out why.” He looked around. “There are cycles of the moon and planets. Certain conjunctions are favorable to the practice of magic. We’re approaching the phase of Uranus in the twelfth house. Most effective conjunction.”
“Uranus is a strong period, huh?” Hap screwed up his forehead.
“That’s it. The last time it occurred was 1941. After this week it won’t happen again until 2027.”
“When, precisely, does Uranus pass into the phase?” Levi asked.
“Eight days from today.” Orient sat on the edge of the desk.
“Eight days and then what?” Hap ventured through the building silence. “Eight days and it’s king’s bishop and mate.” Levi looked at Redson. “He’s right at the door.”
Redson shivered.
Mouth open, Sordi made the sign of the cross.
“Lesson one.” Orient pointed at Sordi. “The bishop will tell you that the Church disapproves of superstition as much as I do. Everytime you make the sign you must be very careful to do it properly and for a reason.”
Sordi looked at the bishop, then at his right hand.
“You’ll begin basic instruction right now. From now on you must follow all of these exercises very carefully. Understand?”
Sordi nodded.
Orient turned to Hap. “You’ll take over his coaching. Teach Sordi the basic meditation position. No more. Teach him the form and the first prayer of protection. No more than those words.”
For a moment Hap was confused. Then he remembered the way they taught baseball at spring training. The basics. Always the basics, over and over.
“Okay, my man,” Hap said. He led Sordi to a corner of the room. “Sit right down there on the floor. And take off those fancy shoes.”
“But my trousers!” Sordi protested, looking toward Orient for help.
Hap pushed down on his shoulders. “Sit, rookie. You’re here to work.”
Levi and Redson joined Orient at the desk as Sordi began the painful stretching of the first Yoga position.
“You know, Owen,” Levi confided, “I bet that if I hypnotized Sordi we could cram the technique into him in two hours.”
Orient shook his head. “No good. The technique depends on clearing the obstacles to efficient thought We could teach Sordi the end result of the technique but his mind would still be jammed. Instead of clearing his thought it would eventually throw his logic off balance. Very dangerous to all of us, especially Sordi.”
“I fully agree,” Redson put in angrily. “This is no time for parlor tricks.”
Orient turned to the bishop. “But you’re going to learn to be hypnotized. I want you to work with Claude.”
“Hypno… but why?” Redson exclaimed.
“Because,” Orient said patiently, “I’m going to need your trance.”
“What’s this, Owen?” Levi came closer.
“A man like Susej has one vulnerability, his ego. His conception is in horizontal terms. Basically artificial. That’s the destructive force of negative magic—it’s an attempt to impose the abstract will on the natural flow of existence. Arbitrary, chaotic values. So his basic power is an ego gratified beyond human possibility. Growing as it feeds. Any challenge to that kind of ego must be met. I intend to challenge Susej. And he will accept.”
“You mean the spell of destruction,” Levi said. “Dangerous gambit, Owen.”
“But that’s insane, Owen,” Redson protested. “You admit that Susej has you cornered.”
“Exactly. That’s why we have to try it.”
“But what about Argyle?” Redson persisted.
“My plan is to be used only as a last effort. But we have to prepare. There are only seven possible forms Susej can use to destroy us. I’m familiar with the forms, and if we choose the time of the challenge then surprise is out.” Orient stood up, “Think, bishop,” he said, “think what we’ll be up against if Susej succeeds in possessing Argyle and the telepathic technique. With telepathic momentum his power would be a hundred times as great. He could perform ritu
als on a gigantically intense level. He could reach directly into people’s minds.”
“And think what happens when Susej gives the technique to his followers,” Levi pointed out quietly.
“What do you mean? I don’t get the connection,” Orient said.
“You said yourself that if only the end result of the telepathic technique is used, it throws the mind off balance.”
“Yes,” he said, “that’s right.” Orient heard his own voice from a great distance as he contemplated a planet of madmen.
They remained at work for the next two hours, breaking to catch the Kirk Show. Levi had made fair progress with Redson, and Sordi attacked his basic studies with gusto after his initial hesitation. Already he had grasped the principle of form. Hap was elated with his charge’s progress. Sordi had not expected less from himself.
“Sordi,” Orient said as they left the study, “from now on you must consider yourself not as my secretary but as my student. The duties you performed professionally you must now consider part of your training. Keep your new path always in front of you.”
Sordi stopped at the door. “Does that mean I don’t get paid any more?” he inquired.
It took some effort but Orient managed a straight face. “Not at all. A practical student is already proceeding at a good pace.”
“Okay.” Sordi nodded gravely. “I’m a student.”
There were only occasional glimpses of Orient until the time of Weldon’s cure. It seemed to Orient as he watched Kirk run down the steps to the podium that he could still feel the vibrations building. As the camera took close-ups of Weldon and Susej during the actual cure he shuddered with a sudden chill that started in his grin and spread up to his chest.
“It’s taking a while,” Levi commented.
“You’re holding him.” Hap clenched his fist.
The camera moved from Susej to Weldon, then back to Susej. The priest’s face was taut. The brusque geniality was gone.
“You were foolish to go it alone, Owen,” Redson said, staring at the tube.
“Quite a while,” Levi muttered.
Then the camera caught the change. Close on the growth receding, almost imperceptibly at first, then a steady deflation until Weldon’s mouth returned to regular shape and his jaw line was normal.
The ovation pierced the room. It sounded much louder than Orient remembered. Then he saw a glimpse of himself behind the podium, eyes still closed.
“There you are,” Hap pointed.
Orient winced as he saw himself, gaunt and clown-like, his ragged hair and gangling limbs making him seem younger than his thirty-one years. He looked too young, too thin and too scared.
Orient watched himself open his eyes and blink as Kirk embraced Weldon.
“You held him for a good long time, Owen,” Levi said.
“Shh.” Redson strained to hear Weldon’s words.
“He’s a very famous man,” Levi remarked as Weldon announced his intention to bring Susej to Washington.
Suddenly there was a close-up of Orient. He seemed confused, peering around as if he had wandered into the wrong building.
Orient shook his head as the camera ruthlessly replayed his graceless scramble for the exit and Kirk’s parting blitz.
There was an embarrassed silence.
“You must have held him for two or three minutes,” Levi said finally.
“That’s right,” Sordi agreed loyally, “but why didn’t you let me know you were going? I could have laid out your blazer.”
Orient grew increasingly restless as the program continued, and he wandered into the study. He had no enthusiasm for any further study of Susej’s methods. He could almost feel the priest’s emanations through the tube. Diffuse, perhaps, but sufficient to make him uncomfortable. He knew about Susej. He’d been there too many times, and he’d been forced to retreat like a yelping puppy each time.
Distractedly he studied the bookshelves. He saw the familiar gray and yellow jacket of The I Ching and took the volume down. The Book of Changes.
As he took the book to the desk, he searched through his pockets for three pennies. He had two. Luck was still running like lemonade, he mused ironically. Then he saw a few coins in an empty inkwell. Two nickels, two pennies. He took one and looked at the date. 1919. Okay.
The age of the coin meant that it had passed through many hands, gathering countless impressions of energy before chance brought it to him for his purpose.
Orient knew that the very nature of the I Ching was grounded in chance. One consults the advice of the I Ching according to random tosses of three coins. The heads of the coins have a number value of two and the tails a number value of three. The three coins are tossed and the result is added to form a total.
The only totals possible are six, seven, eight or nine. Odd totals form straight lines and even totals form broken lines. The lines are placed one above the other to form a pattern, called a hexagram. According to the chance pattern formed by six throws, one is directed to advice—wisdom from the mathematicians, mystics and philosophers of ancient China who constructed the book.
To some the I Ching is merely a fortune-telling device of surprising accuracy. Orient approached The Book of Changes as a form of prayer, where the seeker makes the associations.
He tossed the three coins. Three heads. His total was nine, a straight line. He drew a short straight line on a piece of paper. Next to it he wrote the number nine.
His next five throws were eights. Broken lines. Five broken lines on top of a straight line.
He looked up his hexagram in the chart in the back of the book. The chart showed him that his hexagram was called FU and was located in section 24 of Book I; the Text
He turned the pages until he found his hexagram.
24.[*For Orient’s entire Ching, see Appendix] Fu/Return (The Turning Point)
The ruler of the hexagram is the nine at the beginning. This is the line referred to by the Commentary on the Decision in the statement, “the firm returns.”
The Sequence
Things cannot be destroyed once and for all. When what is above is completely split apart, it returns below. Hence there follows the hexagram of RETURN.
Orient read through his hexagram quickly until he came to the Judgment.
THE JUDGMENT
RETURN. Success.
Going out and coming in without error.
Friends come without blame.
To and fro goes the way.
On the seventh day comes return.
It furthers one to have somewhere to go.
Orient read the hexagram through. He read it again, meditating over the words and their relationship to his problem.
The optimistic stress of the hexagram relieved his anxiety, but it solved nothing. He knew it wasn’t supposed to. All the I Ching could provide were the associations. It was up to him to make use of them. The seventh day. He wondered if he should take the Ching literally. He also wondered if his own leanings toward superstition should be attended to.
As he stood reflecting on the meaning of the advice, Sordi poked his head into the room.
“Hap says there’s something you should see,” he said shyly.
Orient put the book down and went back to the recreation room with Sordi. ‘This is big, Owen,” Levi said, waving his arm for Orient to come forward. “… Crippled since she was two years old, Miss Mulnew has been confined to a wheelchair for fourteen years,” the newscaster disclosed amiably.
Orient felt tired. He found it hard to ask the question. The answer was as inevitable as change. “Is that Kane Mulnew he’s talking about?”
“Right.” Levi’s voice matched the significance of the newscaster’s remarks.
“… Weldon personally flew to Washington this evening, taking with him his physician, Dr. Benton Fine. He conferred with Vice-president Mulnew for fifteen minutes and then the Vice-President saw advance tapes of tonight’s Kirk Show.” The newscaster went on, “The Vice-President conferred with the
President and then issued this statement. ‘The legitimate, documented evidence of this man’s ability to heal certain afflictions has been brought to my attention. After intense deliberation I have consented to allow Susej to attempt to cure my daughter Kane. As a father I must try any reasonable means to better my daughter’s health. Men whose reputation I value have assured me that this decision is well advised. I pray to God that they are right.’ This announcement was followed by a statement by Martin Weldon that Kane Mulnew would be flown to New York next week, where Susej will publicly affect her cure Saturday night. More details will follow.”
Orient went over to the TV and shut it off. “All right then,” he murmured, as the decision dissolved into the pinpoint of light on the tube, “seven days it is. Next Saturday.” He looked around at the men in the room. “Agreed?”
No one knew what to say.
XVIII
On the third day Argyle went into a new awareness.
After sixty hours of resisting sleep and incessant repetition of the prayer his mind slipped into the cool pool created by the fusion of breath and will. The words of protection flowing into his chemistry, the grime of three sleepless days emphasizing the fading, changing inevitability of being. The birth change, the death change, the changes before and after, the billion tiny changes in between. The awesome insignificance and infinite significance of existence. The distances. He looked at the bracelet on his wrist and slowly shook his head.
He was into it now and he felt his body shift inside, as the relentless pressure coming from across the room eased up. He let the liquid of his new energy close in around him and swam free, away from the insinuating, probing, enticements of Shango. And yet even as he held his breath he knew that he had lost something to the doll across the room. This new water was just a puddle in a desert. A big, thirsty desert.
He stood up and walked around the room. Every now and then he lifted his arm against the chain to test his strength. All of his movements were extensions of the prayer.
He took a chance and spoke out loud.
“Alas,”—he held up his left hand and addressed the bracelet, mildly surprised at the sudden croak of his voice— “poor Yorick.” He turned to the empty cot. “I knew him, Horatio,” he confided.
