Simon Hawke - Sorcerer 3 - The Ambivalent Magician

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THE AMBIVALENT MAGICIAN
Copyright © 1996 by Simon Hawke
ebook ver. 1.0
FOR THE SONORA WRITERS WORKSHOP,
with warm thanks to my students, Janis Gemetta, Carrie Cooper, Roser Hyland, Davis
Palmer, Misha Bumett, Phil Fleishman, Barbara McCulloush, Shiori Pluard, Dan Tuttle, Ron
Wilcox and Toby Herschler, with all the best wishes in their own writing endeavors. Also,
special thanks to Dave Foster, Margie and James Kosky, Bruce and Peggy Wiley, Bob
Powers, Sandy West, all my friends in the ECS and the SCA, and Otis Bronson and my
colleagues in the writing department at Pima Community College in Tuscon, Arizona.
Thanks for the friendship and support.
One
"At last! I've done it! After months of ceaseless scrying, spellcasting and divination, endless, patient
searching through the vast, uncharted reaches of the ethereal planes, I've finally found him!"
"Found who, Master?" the wizard's hairy little troll familiar asked, pausing in his dusting of the ancient
vellum tomes and scrolls that crammed the bookcases and were piled high on almost every available flat
surface in the sorcerer's sanctorum.
"The voice in the ether!" Warrick Morgannan replied triumphantly. "That arrogant, omniscient spirit who
calls himself ... the Narrator!"
"Oh-oh," said Teddy, picking his nose and glancing up at the ceiling apprehensively.
Oh-oh, indeed. This is rather inconvenient. Your faithful narrator wasn't ready to start working on this
book, yet. I have too many other things to do. My desk is piled high with papers from my students; I've
got to complete some revisions on another novel I've been working on; I'm finishing up work on a
graduate degree; my checkbook is hopelessly unbalanced, and the last thing I needed right now was this.
"Never mind the excuses," Warrick said, his long white hair framing his chiseled features as he bent over
the scrying crystal. Dark red eddies swirled like smoke within the pellucid ball as he concentrated on the
crystal, focusing his energies in an effort to achieve resolution of an image. "You've been hiding from me
long enough! Now I've tracked you down through the ethereal planes and the time for reckoning has
come!"
Reckoning, schmeckoning. I haven't been hiding, I've been busy. Look, I've got enough trouble with
readers pestering me about when the next book in this series is coming out without having one of my
characters start interfering with my writing process. Now get out of my computer and slither back to the
depths of my subconscious where you belong. I've got work to do.
"No, you shall not get rid of me that easily," said Warrick, staring intently at the swirling eddies in the
crystal. "You have meddled in my affairs for the last time. Your powers are considerable, and I must
concede a grudging admiration for your skills in this sorcerous art you call 'narration,' but I, Warrick the
White, of the House of Morgannan, Grand Director of the Sorcerers and Adepts Guild and Royal
Wizard to the Kingdom of Pitt, will not be trifled with by some upstart demigod from the ethereal
planes!"
Oh, please. For one thing, I'm no demigod, I'm just a struggling writer trying to make a living. And you're
a fictional character, for God's sake. You don't even exist except in my imagination.
"Do not attempt to work your wiles on me, Narrator. I think, therefore I exist."
It's "I think, therefore I am. Cogito, ergo sum." Rene" Descartes. If you're going to quote, get it right. I
will not have my readers thinking I'm a sloppy writer. You've already gotten this book off to a really
bizarre start, and my editors still haven't recovered from the last time you pulled something like this. They
just don't understand how a writer can lose control over his own characters. I had to take some time off
from this series and write a serious book just to prove to them I haven't gone totally around the bend.
They're still not sure about me, and it's all your fault. This isn't helping any. You're making my life very
difficult, you know.
"Not nearly as difficult as it is going to be," said Warrick, concentrating fiercely on the crystal in an effort
to bring forth an image of the Narrator, so he would finally know what the mysterious "voice in the ether"
looked like.
However, at precisely that moment, Teddy, his little troll familiar, had a slight mishap. Only Warrick was
capable of hearing the strange, disembodied entity he called "the Narrator," so as he watched his master
speaking to the crystal ball, Teddy could only hear one side of the conversation. As a result, he wasn't
paying very close attention to his work, and the little troll backed into a chair and knocked over a
precariously balanced pile of ancient scrolls and vellum tomes. They went crashing to the floor of the
sanctorum, making a tremendous racket and upsetting Warrick's concentration.
"Very clever," Warrick said, "but you have only succeeded in delaying the inevitable. I have not attained
the highest rank in the Sorcerers and Adepts Guild for nothing. My concentration is not so easily
broken." He returned his attention to the crystal ball, willing an image of the narrator to appear.
Unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen, because no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn't
change the fact that this particular crystal ball wasn't equipped for optically correct visual reception. The
most it could do was allow him to hear voices from the ethereal planes and see vague, indistinct forms
and pretty swirling colors.
"That's ridiculous!" said Warrick. "Of what use is a scrying crystal if one cannot see images within it?"
Not much use at all, apparently. Too bad.
"This is absurd! I have been using this scrying crystal for years and it has never yet failed to serve me
properly."
I guess it must be broken, then.
"Nonsense. The scrying crystal is functioning perfectly," Warrick insisted. "And as Warrick redoubled his
prodigious powers of concentration, despite all the efforts of the Narrator, the swirling eddies in the
crystal started to resolve into an image -"
No, they didn't. And cut that out.
"Despite all his narrative wiles, the voice in the ether could not control the image that started to resolve
within the crystal as Warrick concentrated fiercely, and in answer to his will, the swirling mists within the
scrying crystal cleared, revealing -"
There was a tremendous crash as Teddy the troll tripped over some ancient vellum tomes that had fallen
to the floor and knocked into the table, dislodging the scrying crystal from its ornate pedestal and causing
it to roll across the table and plummet to the floor, where it shattered into a thousand pieces.
"Ooops," said Teddy.
"You miserable, misbegotten warthog! Now see what you've done!" Warrick shouted angrily, his chair
crashing to the floor as he jumped to his feet and fixed a baleful glare on the frightened little troll.
"Forgive me, Master! I... I didn't mean it! It was an accident!"
"I think not," said Warrick, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. "'Twas the Narrator, working his wiles upon
you to interfere with me. I begin to see the method in his craft. He strikes at me through you."
"But, Master, I would never betray you!"
"No, not willingly," Warrick replied, "but your will is too weak to resist the powers of the Narrator. So
long as you remain with me, he can use you as a weapon with which to thwart my plans. That leaves me
with no choice. I must be rid of you."
"Master..." the little troll said fearfully. "Master, please! I have always served you faithfully!"
"And in reward for your years of faithful service, I shall not take your life," said Warrick. "But henceforth,
Teddy, you are banished from my presence. Go. Leave me. You are free."
"But, Master ..." wailed the little troll miserably, "where shall I go? What shall I do?"
"I don't know, go hide under a bridge or something. Isn't that what trolls usually do?"
"Under a bridge?" said Teddy. "But, Master, 'tis cold and damp underneath bridges! I shall catch a chill!
And however shall I live?"
"Eat billy goats," said Warrick. "Consume the occasional small child. There are plenty of them running
about unsupervised, painting graffiti on the bridges. You would only be doing the kingdom a service if
you ate them. I'm sure no one would complain. Now get along, Teddy, I have work to do."
"Master, please ... don't send me away!" wailed Teddy. "I don't even like children!"
"You have a very simple choice, Teddy," Warrick said. "You may either take your freedom and go make
something of yourself, or become the subject of my next experiment."
"No, Master, anything but that!" cried Teddy, with an alarmed glance at the strange and frightening
apparatus that sat in the center of Warrick's sanctorum.
"Then go. I grant you your freedom. The Narrator shall trouble you no longer. And as soon as I fetch my
spare scrying crystal, we shall see who must prevail in this battle of wills."
Warrick turned to get his spare scrying crystal from the carved wooden armoire where he kept his
magical supplies, but as he opened it and withdrew his spare crystal ball, a punishing blow struck him
from behind. He grunted and collapsed to the floor, unconscious. The crystal fell and shattered into a
hundred thousand pieces.
"Oh, no!" said Teddy, staring with dismay at the broomstick with which he had just brained his former
master. "What have I done?" Dropping the broom, he bolted out of the sanctorum, fleeing in panic.
Okay, that takes care of Warrick for a while. Now, where were we? Give me a minute to collect my
wits. This book's already off to a rather rocky start. I didn't really plan it this way. Honest. But those of
you who haven't read the first two novels in this series are probably wondering what the hell is going on.
If you want to start at the beginning, pick up The Reluctant Sorcerer and The Inadequate Adept
(Warner Books), but if you haven't read those novels yet and want to know what this craziness is all
about, I'll try to bring you up to speed. The rest of you hang in there for a while. One way or another,
we'll get this sorted out.
It all started when Marvin Brewster, a brilliant but absent-minded young American scientist working at
the London headquarters of the multinational conglomerate known as EnGulfCo International, invented
time travel. This could not have come at a worse time for his English fiancee, Pamela Fairburn, a beautiful
cybernetics engineer who had already been stood up at the altar on several occasions because Brewster
was so intent upon his secret project that he kept forgetting about such mundane things as wedding dates.
The wedding guests had even started a betting pool, wagering on how many times Pamela would have to
put on her fabulous, white lace designer gown before she actually got married in it. Pamela's father had
stopped speaking to her, because the whole thing was costing him a fortune, and her friends were all
convinced she'd lost her mind. But Pamela knew Brewster was a genius, and she understood that he
wasn't simply toying with her affections. She didn't know what he was working on, but it had to be
something terribly important for him to be so excessively preoccupied, something that was liable to be a
significant scientific breakthrough that would bring him international acclaim . . . and scads and scads of
money. But when he failed to show up for the third scheduled wedding, and no one had heard from him
for days, she became concerned and called the EnGulfCo CEO, who happened to be a golfing partner of
her father's.
Together with Dr. Walter Davies, executive vice-president for research and development for EnGulfCo
International, she broke into Brewster's private laboratory high atop the corporate headquarters building
in downtown London, only to discover that her fiance had disappeared without a trace. Security monitors
showed him entering his restricted private laboratory in the penthouse, but they never showed him
leaving. He should have been there. But he wasn't.
Pamela was not the only one who was upset at this development. The EnGulfCo CEO was very much
concerned, as well. Brewster's research had netted over a dozen very lucrative patents for the
conglomerate, and the CEO had recently authorized vast expenditures on his behalf for some surplus
military hardware and an unspecified amount of something called Buckminsterfullerine, also known as
"Buckeyballs," an incredibly rare and expensive substance that Brewster absolutely had to have for his
latest secret project. The only trouble was, nobody had the slightest idea what it was, and Brewster had
apparently disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving behind evidence of what appeared to have been
a sonic boom inside his laboratory.
Pamela was the only one capable of deciphering his notes and figuring out his filing system, so the CEO
authorized her to have complete access to the laboratory in an attempt to find out what Brewster had
been working on. And if it had been anyone but Brewster, the CEO would never have believed it when
Pamela told him it was time travel, and that he had apparently succeeded in constructing a working
prototype of a time machine. The CEO immediately authorized all necessary expenditures for Pamela to
duplicate Brewster's apparatus, and at the same time, while reassuring her that he trusted her completely
and was only concerned for Brewster's welfare, he put detectives on her tail, had her phone tapped, and
set plans in motion to corner the world market on Buckminsterfullerine.
Meanwhile, Brewster had problems of his own. The first prototype of his machine had failed to return
from a test run, due to a faulty relay in a tinier switch. It's always the little things that screw up the whole
works, as anyone who's ever had a British sports car would understand completely. Using up the last of
his raw materials, Brewster had constructed a second time machine, programmed with the same
coordinates, so that he could go back in time and bring the first one back.
Unfortunately, he not only went back in time, but he crossed a dimensional boundary as well, and
crash-landed in a parallel universe where magic really worked. When the time machine's fuel tanks
exploded, Brewster was left stranded. His only hope of getting back was to find the first time machine
that had failed to return. It should have been at those very same coordinates, but it was nowhere to be
found. Unknown to Brewster, three brigands had discovered it sitting in the middle of a road and they
had sold it to a nearby adept, who had used a magic spell to activate it. But as we all know from reading
owner's manuals, when you don't follow the instructions, things often go awry. The machine remained
exactly where it was, but the poor adept wound up being teleported to Los Angeles, where his magic
didn't work and he wound up becoming part of LA's homeless population. His apprentice, realizing this
was a dangerous piece of enchanted apparatus, loaded it up into a cart and brought it to Warrick
Morgannan, better known as Warrick the White, the Grand Director of the Sorcerers and Adepts Guild
and the most powerful wizard in all the twenty-seven kingdoms. And that was when your faithful
narrator's plot started to unravel.
Now, whenever I teach character development in my writing classes, I always tell my students that it's
not enough to say that your protagonist is boldly handsome or that your villain is ugly and malevolent.
You need to pay attention to specific detail. So then what do I do? I describe Warrick as "the most
powerful wizard in the twenty-seven kingdoms." Nice going, Hawke. Powerful as compared to what?
How about some perspective here? I could have said something about what the extent of his powers
were, and what limitations they had, but noooooo... I had to get lazy and throw in a description that had
no real specifics. Serves me right, I guess. Now I'm stuck with a villainous wizard who's powerful enough
to detect the presence of the Narrator and keeps trying to take over the story. And it's too late to put a
limitation on his powers, because he's taken on a life of his own and no matter what I write, he keeps
finding spells to counteract everything I do. I really hate it when that happens.
And now he's banished Teddy, his ugly little troll familiar, and the chief weapon in my arsenal against him
has neatly been shuffled off the stage. I suppose I could write him back in, but Warrick would only drive
him off again, or maybe even kill him, and then Earth First! and the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society
would be on my back for eliminating a member of an endangered species. Environmentalists would
boycott my books, and all the people who hang those little long-haired rubber trolls off the rearview
mirrors of their cars would be writing me angry letters. Who needs the aggravation? I'll just have to think
of something else.
Anyway, you're probably wondering what became of Brewster. (Heavy sigh.) How am I supposed to
summarize what happened in two novels in a couple of short and cogent paragraphs? If I go on too long,
my editors will say it's an "expository lump" and then I'll have to cut it. If I don't cover it well enough,
people will write me letters and complain that the first chapter was confusing and they found the rest of
the novel hard to follow. I just don't know how guys like Anthony and Asprin do it. They write these
series that go on forever and this sort of thing just doesn't seem to bother them.
Sometimes I think maybe I should have listened to my father and become a doctor. Then perhaps I could
get the big money, like Robin Cook and Michael Crichton. Or I could've become a lawyer, and then
maybe I'd have bestsellers like John Grisham. Or I could have become an actor, like what's-her-name
who played Princess Leia in Star Wars and wrote Postcards From the Edge. If I'd been smart, I would
have stayed in radio, and then I could have had monster blockbusters like Rush Limbaugh and Howard
Stern. But no, I had to be a writer. It seems nobody wants books by writers nowadays. Next thing you
know, your garbageman will have a bestseller and I'll still be eating ramen noodles. Oh, what the hell,
here goes:
Brewster's crash landing was spotted by a leprechaun named Mick O'Fallon, who pulled our hero out of
the flaming wreckage and took him under his wing, because he assumed Brewster was a powerful wizard
who could teach him the secret of the philosopher's stone, which in this particular universe had nothing to
do with turning lead into gold, but with the manufacture of a much rarer substance known as nickallirium.
He set Brewster up in an abandoned keep that had been converted to a mill, complete with a water
wheel, and Brewster lost no time in modernizing the crumbling ruin with a complete restoration, including
plumbing and electricity. He was assisted in his efforts by the notorious Black Brigands from the nearby
town of Brigand's Roost. (Actually, it really wasn't much of a town, more like a couple of shacks and a
tavern on the road leading through the Redwood Forest to the Gulfstream Waters.) Black Shannon, the
sultry, raven-haired queen of the brigands, cooperated with Brewster in his efforts in return for the
promise of significant profits downstream, but as time passed and those profits kept failing to materialize,
she started getting antsy.
Meanwhile, Warrick Morgannan was busy trying to find the builder of the time machine, having
discovered what it was by eavesdropping on some narrative exposition. To this end, he had employed
the infamous Sean MacGregor, alias Mac the Knife, the foremost assassin in the Footpads and Assassins
Guild. Together with his hulking, bird-brained apprentices, the brawny brothers Hugh, Dugh, and Lugh,
Mac set out to find the builder of the time machine while Warrick emptied out the royal dungeons for
"volunteers" in his experiments, putting them into the time machine and using spells to tap into its temporal
field, thereby teleporting them into our own universe. This resulted in a number of unusual incidents that
provided colorful fodder for the tabloids and alerted a somewhat seedy journalist named Colin
Hightower, who was the first to notice a pattern to these strange events. He smelled a story and started
to investigate.
Meanwhile, back in the Kingdom of Pitt, in the capital city of Pittsburgh, Warrick had run out of
prisoners to use in his experiments, so he had his minions start kidnapping people off the streets. This
resulted in a long stream of irate petitions to King Billy, who told Warrick he couldn't simply grab people
off the streets and make them disappear, but allowed as how it would be okay to do it with convicted
criminals. Unfortunately, Warrick had run out of convicted criminals, so he convinced Sheriff Waylon, the
king's ambitious and corrupt brother, to institute a whole slew of new restrictive edicts that would keep
the royal dungeons filled. So now, instead of Warrick's minions snatching people off the streets, the
Sheriff and his deputies were doing it, and citizens of Pittsburgh kept disappearing without a trace.
Needless to say, this displeased the populace. People started packing up and moving like rats fleeing a
sinking ship and a revolution was brewing.
Brewster, unaware of all these goings on, had become totally caught up in his efforts to bring progress to
the muddy little town of Brigand's Roost. He had showed Mick and the brigands how to forge weapons
more efficiently, produce Swiss Army knives, and construct a still to improve their yield of the potent and
literally explosive peregrine wine. He had taught them how to construct better housing, and a small
settlement had sprung up around the keep. And he taught them how to make aluminum, which turned out
to be the same thing as nickallirium, the most precious metal in the twenty-seven kingdoms and the basis
for the world's economy. All the coins were minted from it, and the secret of its manufacture was
guarded jealously by the alchemists of the Sorcerers and Adepts Guild. And although he didn't know it,
Dr. Marvin Brewster had just taken the first steps in bringing about a massive recession in the
twenty-seven kingdoms.
Okay, how are we doing? Four paragraphs? Shoot, I didn't think I could do it in two. And there are still
a few things I haven't covered, such as Harlan the Peddler's arrival in Brigand's Roost and Mac the
Knife's romance with the notorious Black Shannon. Oh, well, we'll just try to cover those bases as we go
along. I'll pull it all together one way or another, I promise. Remember, always trust your narrator.
I really would have done a much better job of this if Warrick hadn't gotten us off on the wrong foot. I
hope all you people who wrote me letters demanding the next book in this series are happy now. My
editors are going to think that living out in the middle of the Arizona desert surrounded by nothing but
coyotes and tarantulas and rattlesnakes has driven me right over the edge. I've probably lost all credibility
with my students, another novel project has been put on hold until I finish this one, and now I've got one
hell of a migraine headache.
But this is it, I swear to God. This is absolutely the last and final novel in this cockamamie series! One
way or another, no matter what happens, it all gets wrapped up in this one. And don't write me any
letters asking for more sequels. I'm supposed to be a serious writer, for God's sake, and this thing has
gotten completely out of hand. Enough's enough. I just won't stand for it, I tell you!
Okay. I feel a little better now. The pain in my temples is receding. I'll be all right. I'll have it all back
under control by Chapter Two. Bear with me. Remember, always trust your narrator. Now, where were
we?
Oh, right, we were still trying to get this story started properly. Damn that Warrick, anyway. I haven't
had this much trouble since I wrote those Battlestar Galactica novels back in the early eighties. Don't
ask. I don't want to talk about it. Just forget I mentioned it, okay? It wasn't me, it was that other guy,
what's-his-name. I just got confused there for a moment.
Look, let's just get on with it, okay? Go ahead and turn the page. It'll be all right. I think...
Two
"Now remember, luv, no tricks, now. If you try anything funny, I'll scream."
"All right, all right," said Colin Hightower, glancing uneasily at the pretty, blond, and very naked young
woman huddled low in the back seat of his rental car. "Just keep quiet and stay out of sight, for God's
sake." He sighed heavily. As a reporter, he'd been on the wrong side of the law more than a few times,
but he'd never been an accessory in a mental patient's escape from an institution before. And given his
less than stellar reputation, he rather doubted the authorities would believe that he had gone along with it
under duress.
He opened the driver's side door and walked the dozen or so feet to the front door of his motel room,
unlocked it, glanced around, then said, "Okay, the coast is clear."
The blonde jumped out of the car and quickly ran inside the room. He hurriedly followed her in, then
closed the door and locked it, mopping his sweaty brow with his handkerchief.
"Oooh," said the naked girl. "What a comfy bed!"
Under other circumstances, Colin would have taken that straight line and run with it like a Heisman
trophy winner, but he was far too nervous to think about his slumbering libido. "Megan," he said, in his
Liverpudlian accent, "I don't know if you realize this or not, but we're in an awful lot of trouble. By now,
they've probably discovered your escape, and if they haven't, they'll certainly know within a matter of
hours. I was the last one there to see you. I bribed the orderly to let me in, and he knows who I am. To
save his own skin, he'll doubtless claim I forced him to do it at gunpoint or something, and I'm sorry to
say most people in my business wouldn't put it past me. Either way, they'll put two and two together and
they'll soon have an A.P.B. out on us both."
"What's an A.P.B.?" asked Megan as she bounced fetchingly on the mattress.
Colin had to look away for a moment. There was entirely too much bouncing going on for him to think
straight, and he needed to be very clearheaded right now if he was ever going to get out of this mess. "An
All Points Bulletin," he said. "That means the police will be looking for us everywhere."
"You mean like the sheriff and his deputies?" asked Megan, with a grimace of distaste.
"And the State Police and Highway Patrol, as well," said Colin. "We've got to get out of town and fast.
But the first thing we have to do is get you some clothes. Get up a minute, will you?"
"Why don't you come down here, with me?" asked Megan, stretching out coquettishly and patting the
bed beside her with a sly smile.
"Later," Colin said. "But for now, please get up so I can get a good look at you."
"Oh, very well," Megan pouted. She got up and posed for him. "See? You like?"
"Yes, very much," said Colin in a preoccupied tone as he looked her over carefully. "Turn around for
me."
She did a slow, seductive pirouette.
"Let's see," said Colin, scratching his chin thoughtfully as he estimated sizes with a practiced eye. "Bra,
32-B; panties, size 5; panty hose, small; dress 4/5; shoes, size 6; and coat, small. I think that ought to do
it. And maybe a scarf or something and some sunglasses. The mall should be open until nine tonight, so
with any luck, I'll be able to pick everything up in about an hour."
"You're not leaving?" Megan said suspiciously.
"I'll have to," Colin said. "But don't worry, I'll be right back. And I'll bring some brand-new clothes for
you."
"New clothes?" said Megan, brightening.
"That's right. Now just stay here, okay? And for God's sake, don't do anything. Just stay here. Take a
shower and wash your hair or something. I'll bring back some food for us, as well. Then we'll figure out
what the hell we're going to do next."
"How do I know I can trust you? What's to keep you from just leaving me here?"
"My own sense of self-preservation, dear," Hightower replied wryly. "I shudder to think what you'd tell
the police if they found you here like that. And you need me, so it looks as if we're stuck with each other,
for better or for worse. And I'm afraid it's going to be for bloody worse if we don't make tracks out of
here real soon, so just sit tight, all right? I'll be back soon."
"Don't take too long," she said.
"Don't worry, I won't. You just behave yourself. Remember, if we get caught, they'll bloody well lock
you right back up again. And this time, they'll probably strap you to the bed."
"You could strap me to this one," Megan said coyly.
"I'm tempted to, but not for the reason you think," said Colin, with a grimace. "Now stay put. Watch the,
uh, magic box. I'll be back as quickly as I can."
He went out and got back inside his car. As he pulled away, his mind was going a mile a minute. He'd
been in tough spots before, and he'd always somehow managed to wriggle out of them, but this one was
going to be a real test of wit.
I should've stayed in England, he thought, as he drove toward the mall he remembered passing on his
way from the airport. Unfortunately, he had worn out his welcome in London. Even the tabloids, with
their notoriously low journalistic standards, had banned him from their pressrooms. Fortunately, however,
America's journalistic standards had plummeted even lower, so he had emigrated to the States and
secured a job with a major New York City newspaper, thanks to his impressive resume and the fact that
all his former editors were eager to have him permanently on the other side of the Atlantic. Before long,
his American employers found out why, and he was now persona non grata with just about every
respectable and even quasi-respectable newspaper in the country. It was a considerable achievement
that in a profession known for sleaze and sensationalism, Colin Hightower had firmly established himself
as the sleaziest, most sensationalistic reporter in the business.
Even his colleagues hated him. Barbara Walters had kneed him in the groin. Pete Hamil had threatened to
break his legs. Jimmy Breslin had brained him with a beer bottle and Mike Royko said he knew a guy
who knew a guy who could drop him in Lake Michigan if he ever came near him again. Mike Wallace
had called him a disgrace to the profession and Bob Woodward had said he was the worst example of
irresponsible excess he had encountered since he'd done that book about Belushi. Even Rolling Stone
had fired him, and Hunter Thompson had actually taken a shot at him with a .44 Magnum. The tabloid
news shows on TV were out. Colin simply wasn't very telegenic, with his wide, working-class, ruddy
Liverpudlian face, unruly shock of white hair, and red-veined W .C. Fields nose, courtesy of a long and
intimate acquaintance with Jack Daniel's. And then there was his taste in clothes, which made him look
like a cross between a used-car salesman and an Arkansas real estate broker. The only place left open
to him was a well known tabloid based in Florida that ran stories about aliens masquerading as
congressmen and WWII airplanes discovered in craters on the moon. And right now, they weren't too
thrilled with him, either.
This time, however, Colin was on the track of a real story. He could smell it. The only trouble was, he
didn't know exactly what it was. All over the world, in widely scattered locations, people were popping
up dressed in medieval clothing, apparently all suffering from a similar psychosis. They had no idea where
they were; they seemed confused and frightened by modern technology; and they all claimed to come
from Pittsburgh. Their stories were all exactly the same. They had been arrested and brought to a white
tower, where a sorcerer named Warrick had forced them into some sort of strange device that had
magically transported them to this world. And this same Warrick had placed a spell on them, or so they
claimed, that compelled them to somehow find their way back to him in the Alabaster Tower and tell him
where they'd been and what they'd seen.
It sounded crazy, which was why many of them had wound up in hospitals and mental institutions, but
Hightower was starting to wonder. None of these people had any identification on them when they were
picked up and not a single solitary individual had a paper trail. It was as though they had suddenly
appeared from out of nowhere. Their stories were all remarkably consistent, and none of them displayed
any physical signs of having lived in the modern world. No dental work; no surgical scars or inoculation
marks; no modern haircuts and not much evidence of personal hygiene. They seemed genuinely ignorant
of such things as radio and television, modern plumbing, zippers and buttons, watches, automobiles, and
so on, as if they really had come from a medieval time. If they were all suffering from the same delusion,
it was a remarkably sophisticated and consistent one.
"Jesus, what if it's really true?" Hightower mumbled to himself as he drove. The strange device they all
described might be some sort of time machine. And the spell of compulsion they claimed this Warrick
had placed on them sounded a great deal like hypnosis. Was it possible that the government had
discovered time travel and was conducting tests of some sort? He frowned. No, that made no sense.
Even if something like that were possible, they'd surely conduct their tests under strict laboratory
conditions, and in utter secrecy. What possible reason would they have for going back into the past,
kidnapping people from some medieval time, and transporting them into the present? And then why
transport them to so many varied locales and then simply leave them on their own? No matter how he
looked at it, there seemed to be no logical explanation. And yet there had to be an answer.
Megan was his only solid lead. She claimed to be a prostitute from Pittsburgh who had been arrested
because she wouldn't give a freebie to a sheriff's deputy. She had been brought to the Alabaster Tower,
which was near the royal palace, and a wizard named Warrick the White had placed her in his magical
device and transported her to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Only she denied that it was Pittsburgh, and said it
was nothing like the Pittsburgh that she came from, which was in the Kingdom of Pitt, in a land of
twenty-seven kingdoms.
He had bribed an orderly at the sanitarium to get an interview with her and a copy of her file, but as he
was leaving, she had pushed past him out the door and escaped down the elevator, which they had left
keyed open so that Colin could get in and out real fast in case his highly unauthorized visit was
discovered.
The orderly's immediate concern had been to get him out of there, and then think up some story to
account for the patient's escape. He'd been certain she'd never make it past security in the lobby.
However, she hadn't gone down to the lobby, but to the underground parking garage, where she had
leaped into Colin's rental car. Under questioning, the orderly would probably break down and tell the
truth. Colin didn't dare leave Megan behind. She had jumped into his car, stark naked, and threatened to
scream rape if he didn't help her get away. Now he was stuck with her. They'd never believe he didn't
plan to break her out. The only way he could see to clear himself was to get to the bottom of this story.
And Megan was his only chance to do that.
Some chance, he thought. A bloody crazy nymphomaniac who thought the television was a magic box
and the rental car was some kind of magic chariot. "You've really done it this tune, Hightower, old sod,"
he said to himself. "They'll lock you up and throw away the bloody key."
He had to cover himself somehow, account for what he had been doing. As he pulled into the mall, it
came to him. He'd file the story. He'd hoped to get to the bottom of it all before going into print, because
he didn't want anyone else beating him to the punch, but now he had no choice. And it occurred to him
that if he played it right, he could even get the mainstream media to go along. He'd become the story.
Reporter investigating bizarre chain of occurrences kidnapped by mental patient. Yes, that was the way
to do it. Lay it all out about how these incidents taking place all over the world were somehow
摘要：

THEAMBIVALENTMAGICIAN Copyright©1996bySimonHawkeebookver.1.0 FORTHESONORAWRITERSWORKSHOP,withwarmthankstomystudents,JanisGemetta,CarrieCooper,RoserHyland,DavisPalmer,MishaBumett,PhilFleishman,BarbaraMcCulloush,ShioriPluard,DanTuttle,RonWilcoxandTobyHerschler,withallthebestwishesintheirownwritingende...

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