Heartlight

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  There is always something.

  A calm certainty washed over her with gentle suddenness. It was the only thing she could feel beside the pressure. Oh, dear God, help me, Claire prayed awkwardly.

  There was no discernible answer, but the crushing sense of fear lifted enough for an irreverent thought sparked by the music she’d heard earlier to surface. Talk about a movement full of tools and cranks … I wonder if Toller knows that he looks terrific in a dress?

  The flare of speechless displeasure that greeted that thought made her groan. She could not see, and if it was simply because her eyes were closed then she could not find the strength to open them.

  No, no, no … Claire chanted inside her mind, unable to form a coherent prayer and knowing, too, that the intent was enough. She was cold and half-naked and in desperate danger, but the knowledge that she was not alone was like an invisible shield. God saw, if no one else did. And even though Toller might kill her—

  Just because you’re stronger doesn’t mean you’re right, Hasloch.

  She clung to that thought, as the roaring increased in her ears, and her hands and feet seemed chill and very far away.

  Then, salvation.

  “Toller Christian Hasloch, I charge you in the name of the Most High and Holy Name to abandon your errors of Darkness!”

  Professor MacLaren’s voice boomed out with the reassuring anger of the cop on the beat The crushing pressure stopped, and Claire felt relief wash over her with a healing, numbing caress. He had come!

  Once Claire had left, Colin waited in the car with the terrible patience that he’d learned on a hundred other cold and rainy nights thousands of miles away. At least tonight he didn’t have to worry about whether his forged papers would pass a police check, and wonder whether he’d be greeting the dawn in a Gestapo cell. All he had to worry about was Claire.

  She should be inside Hasloch’s house by now, and when she found what they were looking for, all she had to do was call him on the other half of the radio set he’d given her. With a Sensitive acting for the Light already inside the bounds, none of Hasloch’s magickal wards should be able to stand against an outside assault, and Colin would be able to tie whatever hoodoo the boy was using into a blue-ribbon knot.

  He was fairly sure no one would prevent him from entering the house—he was a teacher at the college most of them attended; if worse came to worst, he’d just pull rank.

  But where was Claire? He began to worry as the minutes stretched to an hour, then two. Why didn’t she call?

  It didn’t occur to Colin that Claire might not fulfill her side of the bargain. Wary and tormented though she might be, Claire London had a natural will nearly as strong as that of a trained magician. When Claire said she’d do something, Colin knew she would not take back her given word lightly.

  But there were so many pitfalls in her way—dangers that she might not yet take seriously enough to guard herself from them. The child barely believed in her own psychic sensitivity—to ask her to take so much more on trust so quickly …

  Needs must, when the devil drives, Colin quoted ironically to himself. He could not work tonight’s Operation without the aid of a Sensitive to get him past the outer shields, and he could not put aside that work simply because it endangered innocents. Many more would be endangered if it were allowed to continue.

  The black phoenix of Nazism loose in the world once more … and this time, a world with nuclear capability. What would the worshipers of the Eternal Night do with the power of a newborn sun in their hands?

  The magnitude of the threat promised absolution for any extreme action, but Colin knew that this too was a trap to maim the spirit. The end never justified the means. The means shaped the end, and so the Light was forever barred from using the tools of the Dark to wage its war. Those who fought for the Light must always know the danger, must always freely consent to risk themselves in a battle that could never be anything but unequal.

  But how can any neophyte know the true nature of the peril before they face it? How do I keep my own hands clean when I’ve chosen to sacrifice innocent men and women to the goals I have chosen?

  There was only one hard unforgiving answer to that: Colin’s hands were not clean, and never would be. For so long as he fought for the Light, he must do penance for his fight. Yet those who fought were needed as urgently as those whose karma it was to stand aside.

  The crackle of static on the transmitter/receiver was a welcome interruption from his own stark thoughts. Claire’s voice erupted from it, sexless and distorted.

  “Professor, I’m down in the basement. The door to it is in a room just off the kitchen. It’s just what you said, and it’s horrible—”

  Abruptly the little device went dead, but Colin did not waste time trying to raise Claire again. He was out of the car and running toward the house through the rain, one hand clutched over the small revolver in his trenchcoat pocket. A terrible fear possessed him, that he was risking more than he knew, that to lose this fight—to lose Claire—would cost him all that he was. Even as he realized the cost, he accepted it. He would not fail.

  Once he was inside the house it cost him precious minutes to find the door to the basement, but, like Claire, he had no trouble in unriddling the secret of the false shelving that concealed the secret underground room. He could smell the incense, chokingly thick.

  When he pulled back the false shelving, the curtain swirled around him, and Colin could feel the faint cheated snarl of the wards he had defeated ringing discordantly in his ears. His revolver was in his hand before he took his bearings, blinking in the candlelit dimness, and the shock he felt at what he saw was so great that for an instant he nearly fired at the nearest of the black-robed, rune-blazoned worshipers.

  It was as if he’d stepped into a past he never wanted to visit again.

  There was the Rune-Christ hanging from the World Tree, his body covered with the symbols of ancient magic; a malign conflation of Odin and Lucifer. There were the fylfot banners, the hakenkreutz candlesticks and the sunwheel censers: the familiar trappings of the Black Temple before him were like a blow to the heart, symbols of the worship of a Lucifer who had never bowed to the will of Heaven, of a Grail that had never known the touch of the Christ.

  Colin brandished his gun and roared out the first words that came into his mind and heart, rewarded by the sight of the robed and hooded figures that clustered around the altar scattering like the frightened sheep that most of them were. Claire lay on the altar, bound and half-naked, and she gazed at him with an expression in which relief and fierce triumph were mingled.

  But though the others ran, Toller Hasloch stood firm. He faced Colin across Claire’s body, his drawn face white and fanatical, colorless eyes glittering in the candlelight.

  Carefully Colin slid the hammer back down and transferred the gun to his left hand.

  Hasloch did not move as Colin walked over to the altar. A few quick cuts with a pocketknife freed Claire from her bonds, and Colin draped his trenchcoat around her shoulders. She slid off the altar, glaring blue murder at Hasloch, who seemed as immovable as the carven Rune-Christ.

  Claire stepped away from the altar, never taking her eyes off Hasloch as she came to stand behind Colin.

  The boy took a deep breath, assuming his cocky facade with an effort.

  “Okay, Professor. The game is yours. You’re more ingenious than I gave you credit for. No one will, of course, believe you—or Crazy Claire—if either of you chooses to talk.”

  Colin smiled bleakly. “Your youthful inexperience is showing, sonny boy. I’m not going to talk to anyone. I’m just going to pull your plug. I suggest you stay right where you are unless you actually want me to have to explain shooting you to somebody. Believe me, I take you seriously enough for that.”

  He raised his right hand in an ancient Sign, never letting the gun waver. Hasloch stared at the air where it had been drawn, the forced smile fading from his face.

  The difference betw
een Toller Hasloch and the average occult dabbler was that Hasloch’s rituals worked. Toller Hasloch had Power, and most of the reason for that was the allies and servants his young Temple could claim on the Astral. Destroy it, and Hasloch’s power was gone. Consecrate the place where the Astral Order Castle had stood, and Hasloch could not rebuild it without help that he was not likely to receive on the heels of his failure.

  Hasloch’s face went white as he realized what Colin was doing. One hand went to the ornate dagger at his waist, the other to the medallion that hung about his neck.

  And the battle was joined.

  For Colin MacLaren, without Astral Sight to guide him, the battle occurred in a double realm: that of the trained disciplined imagination, which forced the Will against the coiled Dragon of the ancient Darkness in the form of a shining White Eagle, and that of the mundane world, in which Colin held the revolver trained steadily on Toller Hasloch as the wail of police sirens—summoned by whom?—grew louder from the distance.

  After each clash the Black Dragon tried to diminish itself; to transform into something small and ordinary and harmless, something that would be left alone. Each time the White Eagle refused to claim a victory that would allow even the weakest offspring of the Dragon to survive. And at last the shadows were all banished, and the White Light of the Eternal and Immutable Word roared through all the corners of the Desolation where the Black Tower had been.

  When all hope of victory was gone, Hasloch fell back against his altar, tears of frightened rage coursing down his face. The skirl of a siren winding down in front of the house could be heard, very faintly, through the walls.

  “I’ll see you in jail for this!” he cried, his voice cracking. “You’ll be dismissed from the university—you’ll never teach again—”

  “Your mother wears army boots,” Claire snapped, her voice hoarse with anger. “It’s two against one—and do you think people are going to take a gander at this movie set of yours and take anything you say seriously?”

  “I believe the police are here,” Colin said quietly. “Your friends in the robes must have panicked.”

  Even through the draperies and the false wall, the sound of shouts from the floor above could be heard.

  “Hasloch, your friends are probably going to talk. It’s up to Claire whether she chooses to press charges in relation to this evening’s silliness, but if you’ll take my advice, you’ll get rid of your nasty little toys before the City of Berkeley comes up with a search warrant. The war may be over, son, but nobody likes a Nazi.”

  Hasloch simply glared, his face so white and furious that for a moment Colin actually thought he might suffer a seizure and fall dead right there. But he only dragged off his tabard and flung it down, then unbelted his dagger and pulled the robe off over his head. Beneath the robe he was wearing street clothes. The medallion gleamed against his red sweater for an instant before he scooped it beneath his shirt with shaking hands.

  He averted his eyes from Colin and Claire with an effort that was almost physical and staggered away without a word, disappearing into the wings of the temple. Apparently there was a second entrance and exit to the cellar.

  “What, no parting words?” Claire said with ragged cheer.

  “No threats of revenge?”

  Her knees buckled and Colin put an arm around her shoulders, only then remembering that he still held the pistol. He shoved it quickly into his pocket. He had a permit for it, come to that, and there was still a number in Washington that he could call for backup, something that would probably annoy the chief of police no end. But it was much better if no one asked any questions, even if Colin did have answers ready.

  “He’ll probably phone me with them later tonight,” Colin said. “Claire, you were wonderful—I wish I’d never subjected you to this—”

  “Don’t say that,” the girl interrupted quickly, pulling the borrowed trenchcoat more tightly around herself. “My generation is the one that’s always talking about saving the world, right? Well, for once I’ve managed to actually do something that made a difference, and that felt good. Sure, I was scared—heck, I was terrified. But it needed doing. And I’ll do it again—if you’ll let me.”

  She held out her hand.

  “The Most High grant that something like this never needs doing again,” Colin said. “But if it does, I’ll call upon your promise, Claire—I swear it.”

  He clasped her hand and shook it, a solemn promise.

  “And now I suppose we should go upstairs and talk to the police. Someone must have called them when the rest of Hasloch’s coven bolted—I wonder what they think is going on here? I imagine they’re having visions of decadent drug orgies; I wonder if the sworn word of a professor in the Psychology Department will carry any weight with them. Shall we go and see?”

  Claire snickered, a muffled half-involuntary noise. “Oh, yeah. Certainly, Professor. And while we’re explaining things, maybe somebody has a pair of shoes I can borrow to go with the trenchcoat.”

  The explanations required—to the Berkeley police, to the chancellor of the University, and to the head of Colin’s department—were long and tedious, and Colin MacLaren celebrated Christmas with the addition of an official letter of censure to his personnel file.

  It was a long time before he connected the evening and its aftermath with the information he gleaned from the newspapers four days later: President Kennedy had increased the number of military advisors that he was sending to a far-off place called Viet-Nam.

  But twenty-four months and thirteen days after that November night, Colin did think about Toller Hasloch again.

  INTERLUDE #2

  BERKELEY, 1961

  AND SO IT BEGAN, AS EASILY AS THAT. WHAT COLIN OFFERED ME was something I had been looking for all my life; it was nothing less than a lodestone to steer myself by.

  It wasn’t in any sense that Colin became my guru—how archaic that word seems now, though when I first met him it was years away from gaining general currency—since to both of our regrets, I never found it in my heart to follow the teachings to which I knew he had dedicated his life. It was more as if, if the world could contain a man like Colin MacLaren, it was a very different sort of world than the one in which I had previously believed—a world in which it was possible to build for the future, in which cause and effect were not the product of sadistic whimsy.

  I believe that if I had not met Colin, I would never have met Peter, because the woman I was before Colin entered my life would simply never have believed that she deserved him. For so long I’d been living from day to day, simply surviving without suffering some new disaster, that having my affairs so easily set in order gave me a freedom that those born happy—and lucky—can hardly imagine. But suddenly the world was new, and I joined the rest of my generation in the unreasonable hope that progress was forever, and that peace was something we could achieve. How simple that faith was to embrace—and how strongly it would be tested in the years to come, both in our lives and in the history of our era.

  FOUR

  BERKELEY, 1962

  Ah, for a heart less native to high Heaven,

  A hooded eye, for jesses and restraint,

  Or for a will accipitrine to pursue!

  —FRANCIS THOMPSON

  IN THE SPRING OF 1962 AN AMERICAN ORBITED THE EARTH FOR THE first time. That autumn there were riots in Mississippi and federal troops in the streets. In summer a film goddess died, her short tragic life and self-destructive end serving almost as a template for all those who would come afterward, those focal points of their generation’s dreams who would be consumed by love as the phoenix by the fire and lead the swift radiant lives of moths dancing with the flames.

  That was the autumn that an entire nation looked into the fire: the October that the world stood on the verge of the nuclear hellfire that would write the last chapter in human history in a brief, bright, eclipse of the sun. There were Russian missiles ninety miles off the Florida coast. The Russians promised war.r />
  And when it did not happen, the West breathed a shaken sigh of relief … and America looked to her young, invincible president to strike the last blow in the Cold War, as well as the first.

  That was the year that Claire London married Peter Moffat.

  “Colin, this is Peter.” Claire presented her young man with shy pride, blushing as she did so. Peter had been a topic of conversation between Colin and Claire for several weeks now, and after a certain amount of insistence on Colin’s part, Claire had agreed to bring Peter to meet him. An afternoon mixer given by a mutual friend provided the perfect opportunity for the two men to meet.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Professor,” Peter said, holding out his hand.

  “I hope I can get you to call me ‘Colin,’” Colin said, taking Peter Moffat’s hand. Peter’s grip was firm and direct, and Colin found himself liking the young man very much.

  Peter Moffat was a young man in his middle twenties, a few years older than Claire. He had light brown hair and hazel eyes, and radiated a steadiness of purpose that must be one of the reasons Claire was so attracted to him—at least if his Outer Self was any indication of the inner.

  Having brought them together, Claire vanished in the direction of the bar. The party was mostly the younger faculty, the usual mavericks from the Drama and English Departments, wives, and older students.

  “I hope I’m not telling tales out of school if I say that Claire thinks a lot of you,” Colin observed, looking around the room.

  “She thinks a lot of you,” Peter corrected firmly. “You, and Dr. Margrave—you could have knocked me over with a feather when she told me she’d met Simon Anstey! I’ve got all of his albums. I used to play the piano—nothing like that, of course—”