Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 by Heartlight (v2.1) Page A

coat."
                It was after two by the time they
neared Greenhaven. He'd phoned Alison before he'd left, but no one had
answered the phone. There might be a dozen reasons for that, and Claire's
trouble could not wait. If Alison was not there when they arrived, Colin could
get inside Greenhaven anyway. Without that sanctuary, he feared Claire would
die.
                 Blessedly,
Jonathan had trusted him without question, and followed Colin's directions
without hesitation even when they led him away from both the on-campus medical
services and Kaiser Hospital. What he must have been thinking as Colin directed
him across the Bay and into the foggy hills of San Francisco , Colin hesitated to guess,
though he was in the boy's debt for his wholehearted compliance.
                 Though
he renewed the Seal again and again, all during the journey, Claire kept
breaking free of its benign influence. She raved and struggled, weeping and
crying out against things Colin could not see. At times it took all of Colin's
strength to restrain her, and he was grateful that he'd had the foresight to
have Jonathan put her in the backseat — and to ride back there with
her himself. If she'd been in front and able to grab the wheel, they'd probably
already have gone off the road more than once.
                 And
as it was, Jonathan was completely terrified. Colin had tried to take his mind
off Claire by questioning him in the lulls between her seizures. He learned
that Claire London was nineteen, a nursing student attending school on a
scholarship, and had been born and raised in Burlingame, which made her that
rarest of all creatures, a native Californian. Jonathan didn't know her well,
though he'd dated her a few times the previous year. He hadn't come to the
party with her, though he'd met her there.
                 "It
was just one of Toller's bashes, you know, Professor. A Halloween party; a
couple of people done up as gypsies telling fortunes, Ouija boards — that kind of thing."
His voice was bewildered. "Nothing happened to anyone else — not like that."
                 "Did
Claire try the Ouija board?" Colin asked. The so-called game was said to
be harmless, but in the wrong hands — innocent or otherwise — it provided an undefended
route into the unconscious mind as harmful, and potentially lethal, as an amateur's
attempt to repair his television set with an icepick and a hammer.
                 "No,"
Jonathan said. "She hates that sort of thing. Says it's self-delusion.
Parlor tricks. When she saw there was one there, she almost knocked it off the
table."
                 "Hmn,"
Colin said. An interesting reaction from such a strong Sensitive.
                 Claire's
head lay against his shoulder, her pale hair darkened to honey brown with
sweat. Her skirt and sweater were soaked through; her body exuded the thick
chemical scent of the sickroom and her pulse had a thready rapidity that Colin
did not like to feel. He'd thought he had enough time to risk taking the girl
to the safety that Alison could provide, but now he began to think he'd been
overconfident.
                 It
was a flaw his teachers had warned him about — with easy mastery of the
Path came a brash impetuosity that could lead the Seeker into contests beyond
anyone's strength. Failure tempered the spirit and taught conscientiousness
and care, his Masters had told him, but Colin had never allowed himself to
fail. Knowing even before he had been born into this life how high the stakes
in his youthful battles would be, he had taken the risk in this incarnation of
retaining the power and control that were normally the fruits of a long life of
striving. As a result, the young Colin MacLaren had been sanguine in the face
of hopeless odds . . . and was perhaps too optimistic now.
                 "Can't
you hurry?" he asked, fresh tension in his voice.