This choice: Go with him to this "conjunction" • Go Back...Chapter #34A Conjunction by: Seuzz   "I want to go with you, Mr. Brennan," you say. "Joe wasn't lying when he said that I--" You take a deep breath. "I'm a Stellae. Well, that I could be."
"Yes, you could be," the head of the order says.
"Even if I weren't, I want to help put all this right."
"You've already done all that you can, son." Charles say. "Just by coming here and bringing us the Libra."
"I want to do more than that, sir. I want to help bring them back. I want to fix what I've done."
"You haven't the skill." He gestures at you. "Looking like that, knowing what you know in that form, you know what we're up against."
"Yes sir."
"Joe and Frank are no longer initiates, though they are still novices. And even in Joe's form you haven't the skill or the training to help."
"I want to get the skill and training, sir."
"If the stars are with us, we will have them back long before you would be ready to help."
"I want it anyway, sir. When I first realized what I had, what I'd acquired after Professor Blackwell's death--" You stumble over the harsh word, but in Charles Brennan's presence it is easier to use the true words than any euphemism. "I felt so happy. I felt like I'd found what I was made for. But I wasn't right, not totally. This, the Stellae, is what I was made for. Isn't that what it means, to be entangled with the planets?"
"It does. And it speaks very well of you that you feel that way." He holds out his hands, and you take them. There is no blessing and no initiation in his grasp, only a warm and paternal squeeze. "That is something else to discuss later. For now, I'll just make those other phone calls. Be ready to leave in the morning, Will."
* * * * *
The "conjunction" takes place in a very nice hotel in downtown Kansas City, in a suite reserved for Charles himself; the other attendees have rooms on the same floor. You can't help feeling nervous as you look around at them. There are seven in all, including yourself, all of them to one degree or another very scary and very dangerous, even though only a few of them look it. They all know why they are meeting together, and though mostly they keep their eyes off you, you know you are foremost in their thoughts.
"Shouldn't we have a few more out here, Chuck," asks John Reilly. He's the most pleasant looking of the bunch, a man in late middle age whose coppery hair has turned sandy on its way to white, and whose grave demeanor can't fully veil the merry twinkle in his eye.
"We've enough, and then some," Charles replies. He's taken the easy chair at the head of the circle, and though he's a very small and rather shabby man with his wispy pate and close-cut, white beard, he dominates the room. "We are all represented. Arbol, Viritrilbia, Perelandra, Malacandra--"
He lists off the names of the ten planets, and as he does so your eyes flick to their representatives, here gathered: John Reilly, the group's researcher and archivist; Kali Valentine, its academic trainer; Rick Bredon, the wolf-like investigator, who had first put the Stellae onto the trail of the Libra when it had resurfaced in New York a few months ago; Father Ed, the spiritual counselor; Nash Carnes, the maker of many clever magical gadgets.
Charles Brennan himself, the head of the order.
"And, not least," he concludes. "Sulva, who has not been represented in one of our councils for almost a century." He indicates you.
You swallow at the introduction. You can't avoid their eyes now. Reilly's eyes are friendly; Nash's dance over you appraisingly; Rick's are hooded; Father Ed's bore into you as he frowns deeply.
Only Kali avoids your face, and she shifts in her chair. Joe was her pupil. He was one of her favorites. It has to be very hard on her to see you--who turned him and Frank into loathsome parodies of themselves--sitting at this table like an honored and established member. Especially since you are looking like Joe at the moment.
"This is Will Prescott," Charles continues softly. "Though he's not looking like himself. Indeed, nothing of what he looks like remains. Nash, I want you to give him a full examination when we're done here. Here are the relevant specs." He hands Nash the Libra; the latter takes it gingerly. "I've given you the gist of our present crisis, but I now ask Will to give the story again, in his own words."
"And what's his testimony worth," Father Ed snorts. His frown seems fixed on his face.
"It's the testimony of a boy brave enough and honest enough to come find us and bring us the Libra," Charles says. "That is enough, even though he has also brought us an independent source of testimony." From his travel case he takes out the mask of Aubrey Blackwell. "This is all that remains of the warlock who tempted and corrupted Will."
You wince at the word "corrupted," though you know it is apt.
A silence enfolds the room, and into that silence you pour out your story again.
* * * * *
You have to tell it, in a fragmentary way, a few more times, under questioning and cross-examination. The matter of the anima bands is touched on and explored. You are deeply grateful to Charles and to John Reilly, for they discuss and describe the insidious nature of those devices, and how one as unwary as yourself could not predict what would happen when they are put on such as Joe and Frank. "And how do we know some of us aren't wearing these things now?" Father Ed asks, his eyes glittering.
"Edison'll look over the spell, see how they're used, and test us for them," says Rick.
"And if he's already been--"
"Leave the paranoia to the experts, padre," Rick sighs. "If any of those things were in play, they'd be all over all of us by now. If you're not wearing one, you can bet none of the rest of us are." He shakes his head impatiently.
But you're not quite satisfied. "What did you find in Saratoga Falls, Rick," you ask.
You flinch from the quick look he gives you: It's like he's looking through you. "Nothing. House empty. Boys gone from school. Banks account cleaned out. Phones not being answered. Truck had been pushed into the river. They were trying to hide it, didn't know we had a tracking unit on it."
"Then how'd they get away?" Reilly asks.
"My guess is they didn't," Rick says. "According to Harry Potter here, the cadet had the Libra for a whole night all to himself. Is that enough time to make up a supply of gizmos?"
"Sure," you say, and kick yourself for not thinking of it yourself. "It doesn't take any time at all to make the basic items. A little longer to get them finished up after using the Libra to craft them--"
"How many?"
"If he went all night? Non-stop?" With Joe's memories you think of Frank, and the grim and relentlessly disciplined way he can work. "Dozens, maybe."
"Then they're still in Saratoga Falls," Rick says. "Hiding under new faces. Or, that's where they went first. If I were them, I'd split as soon as I had a new face. Hide out someplace else." He pauses. "Crouch in the underbrush and start stalking us."
A chill settles over the room. "I wouldn't underestimate Frank and Joe," Charles says quietly. "Especially if they think we have been forewarned. We're going to have to find some way of spotting people who are wearing masks." Nash settles back with a thoughtful look.
* * * * *
But that looks like it will be long-term business. After a lengthy discussion of the logistics of finding Joe and Frank, Charles dismisses the group but keeps you and Nash behind. He orders you to take off Joe's mask, and indicates your bare, transformed form to Carnes. "I'm afraid I have to push you, Nash," he says. "Look over Will and the book. Figure out what happened to him, and why, and how to change him back. He'll be most grateful, and I will too."
"How long I got?" Nash says, looking slightly alarmed.
"Tonight. If you can't do it, just report on what you can learn." Then he leaves you.
You and Nash look at each other. Instinctively, you like him; Joe's memories tell you that you share one of the planets--Kenandandra--with him, so you feel a kinship. You also like the professional twinkle in his eyes, which the tiny round glasses can't fully hide. And he smiles at you, holding your eye even as he unpacks a large satchel.
The examination that follows is odd. He dons a complicated pair of spectacles that have multiple lenses and looks you over, all around, up one side and down the other. He rubs a small silvery stick, like a large thermometer over you, and peers at it. He takes your stony hands and peers into the palms.
After fifteen minutes of this he drops you with a grunt and sits with the Libra. "Make y'self at home," he says in his strong Northeastern accent. "I'll be awhile wit' dis t'ing."
"I'm supposed to have Kenandandra as one of my planets," you croak. "So if there's anything you see--"
"I kin see the Sulva in ya," he says. "Hanged if I kin see the Kenandandra."
"What?"
"Yeah," he drawls. "I don't hold wit' dem chats Kali and Joe play wit. Wouldn' dismiss 'em, but yer camplicated in latsa diffren' ways, kiddo." He taps the book. "But you studied dis ting? Good. It'll go quicker dat way." You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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