Dominion by Fred Saberhagen (spiritual books to read TXT) 📗

   Joe was too much the professional to be put off for very long from the professional attitude. “You mean one of these cults? Devil-worshippers and so on?” And immediately there crossed his mind the thought of the man from New Orleans, that Charley Snider and many others were presently trying to ambush. “I don’t know how frequently people in your, uh, community engage in that kind of thing.”

   “Not as frequently,” said Talisman, “as people in your community might suppose. Of course, Joe, there are many ways of worshipping the Devil. Just as many, I suppose, as there are of praying to his great Adversary.”

   The first taste of steak had been delicious, but already Joe had forgotten it. “Let’s stick to the facts, if we’re going to help each other. Give me all the details you can. Leaving the magic aside, you’re looking for two men, and one old knife.”

   “Two men in particular, yes. One object. A weapon. It might be bigger than a knife. But we must be careful what we leave aside. Ah, Joseph, what is magic?

TWO

    The applause swept up enthusiastically, quite loud for the few dozen people in the audience. As plainly as if he could see her, Simon Hill knew what the woman in the tenth pew back, the most recent volunteer, looked like now: half pleased, half nervous, entirely mystified. It was all in the sound of her voice as she had to agree that it was indeed a diamond wedding ring that she had been holding in her fingers. Like most subjects she was glad that the trick had worked successfully, and at the same time she felt a core of resentment, perhaps unconscious, at not being able to figure out how it had been done. If Simon had explained the banal truth to her, about the elaborate voice-code established between magician and assistant, she would have felt quite disappointed.

   It was the end of the performance. They’d done enough, though not quite everything planned, and he had to end it on a burst of applause like that, even though there was some chance of a certain kind of trouble whenever a mentalist failed to finish on an illusion-breaking note of farce. Signaling Margie by his gesture that they were cutting it off right here, Simon turned back to face the audience, meanwhile pulling off his white, thick blindfold, blending the two actions expertly into a sweeping bow. Margie, tripping lightly back from her place at the side of the last volunteer, took Simon’s outstretched left hand and joined him just in time for the second bow. The organ, in its loft far in the rear, sounded a long chord of finale.

   Simon Hill was standing in the chancel of the great chapel of St. Thomas More University, on the lakefront on the north side of Chicago. A few spotlights, mounted under an immensity of gray pseudo-Gothic vaulting almost a hundred feet above his head, picked accurately down at him and Margie where they stood, rather like Our Lady’s juggler in the old fable, before the flat, plain, modern altar table. Some of the more liberal faculty members had been arguing for some time that if it was all right to perform The Play of Daniel here in the chapel, then why not also some other entertainment of the medieval tradition? Simon had heard the president quoted as objecting that if a conjuror were to be allowed this year, then next year someone would be milking a goat in the nave as well, in authentic medieval style; but eventually the liberals had prevailed, and here was Simon the Great working and getting paid. All the performances here were after all supposed to have something to do with the Summer Medieval Festival, and, short of goats, what more fitting than a jongleur of some kind in the cathedral? A mind-reader in the chapel came close, anyway.

   Still hand-in-hand with Margie, Simon was taking the fourth or fifth bow, to gradually diminishing applause, when a pale, masculine face toward the rear of the occupied section of pews caught at his eye and then tried to catch at his memory. The face and the short figure that went with it were undoubtedly familiar. But they were so out of context here that it was hard to assign them a name or a relationship.

   The applause, following the one law that inexorably governed it, died out, and with that the bowing had to cease also. Five or six people, mostly from the front pews, hesitantly moved forward to offer what promised to be more personal praise and congratulations. The pale-faced man in the rear edged forward too, but tentatively, as if he were modestly willing to wait until the others should be done, and only at this point did recognition of that face come. It brought something of an inward chill. Almost fifteen years,

Simon counted up mentally, since he had seen that face. It hadn’t changed noticeably in fifteen years.

   From the corner of his eye he noticed Margie’s face turn toward him, and he realized that his grip must have just tightened on her hand. Simon squeezed her fingers once more, this time lightly and reassuringly, and then he let her fingers drop. Together he and Margie nodded and smiled and murmured thanks to the people who had come forward to speak to them individually. Just as the last member of the group was moving up with timid determination to confront Simon, Father Gibson, the evening’s MC, approached also. With his microphone on its long cord looped round his sport-shirted neck, he was obviously eager to get in a few remarks before introducing the evening’s main event.

   The last member of the group who had come up from the audience was a middle-aged woman, well dressed. Simon at once recognized not her but the look in her eye, and his heart