Death of an Adept

Chapter Eleven

IN a hospital room in San Francisco, Adam leaned down to plug in the lights on a tiny Christmas tree set on a bedside locker, then took a seat beside the man propped up in the bed.

"I've had a chance to review your case notes, Alan," he said casually. "I also managed a few minutes with Andy Saloa, after I read them. I wanted to talk to him about your pain management."

Alan Lockhart's wasted face tightened in a grimace. "It's my pain. My waking hours are short enough as it is. I don't want to spend what's left of my life in a narcotic stupor - especially not now."

Scarcely twenty hours had passed since a laughing yet tearful Ximena had told him of accepting Adam's proposal of marriage, with a small, intimate ceremony to be held in her father's hospital room on Christmas Eve. Lockhart's response had been one of heartfelt relief, his tears no less joyful than his daughter's; and the other members of the Lockhart family had welcomed the announcement with delight. Ximena's younger brother, Vance, an astronomer, was already scheduled to arrive at midnight, flying in from his research post in the Hawaiian Islands. Philippa would be joining the party later that afternoon, having contrived to secure a flight from Boston in spite of the holiday rush.

The attendant flurry of activity, added to the usual pre-Christmas bustle, had taken Ximena off with her mother this morning to order flowers and a wedding cake, leaving Adam to keep Lockhart company in their absence. That absence now offered Adam the opportunity he had been seeking since his conversation with Dr. Saloa.

"I can certainly appreciate your desire to be clear-headed," he told Lockhart. "I wonder if you're aware, however, that narcotics are not the only option for pain management."

The older man stirred restlessly, his discomfort all too apparent in the lines of strain about his face.

"What else is there, for a man in my condition?" he asked bleakly.

"Dr. Saloa was wondering much the same thing," Adam said. "I suggested that hypnosis might be the alternative both of you have been looking for."

"Hypnosis?" Lockhart said.

"Yes. In fact, it was one of the first options that occurred to me. I use it regularly in my psychiatric practice, but there are medical applications as well as psychological ones. It can be especially useful in the control of pain, particularly when teamed with drug analgesia. When I mentioned the possibility to Dr. Saloa, he was quite open to the idea. If you'd like to give it a try, I'd be more than happy to direct the experiment."

"Hypnosis, you say?"

As Lockhart considered, a light knock at the door heralded the arrival of a dark-haired nurse with a medication tray.

"Sorry to disturb you, Dr. Sinclair, but I have Mr. Lock-hart's medication."

"Not now!" Lockhart blurted, turning to Adam in appeal. "Adam - I think I'd like to try that experiment."

"Very well." Adam glanced at the nurse and smiled. "I think we can take it that Mr. Lockhart consents to Dr. Saloa's alternative orders," he said. "Alan, I'd like to have you let Mrs. Hanna give you half your usual medication, just to take the edge off your discomfort and help you relax."

Lockhart's jaw tightened, pain and a little uncertainty in the gaze he darted toward Nurse Hanna. After a labored swallow, his gaze flicked back to Adam.

"Could you give it to me?" he whispered.

"I could, of course," Adam said with a faint smile, "but you wouldn't want to get Mrs. Hanna into trouble, would you?"

"No, but - "

As Lockhart turned plaintive eyes on the nurse, she moved closer to extend the medication tray to Adam.

"If you don't mind me observing while you administer the medication, Dr. Sinclair - and sign his chart, of course - I'm sure there won't be any problem. Dr. Saloa did authorize the lower dose."

"Alan, will that be all right?" Adam asked.

Closing his eyes gratefully, Lockhart nodded, stirring to watch somewhat apprehensively as Adam injected half the contents of the syringe into a port in his IV line and then busied himself with signing the necessary paperwork. By the time Adam closed the door behind Nurse Hanna, with instructions that they were not to be disturbed, Lockhart was looking somewhat less tight around the lips, though he was still obviously uncomfortable.

"What now?" he asked, as Adam returned to sit in the chair at his bedside. "Watch the watch?"

"Something like that," Adam said with a smile.

From the side pocket of his waistcoat, he produced the antique silver pocket watch that had been left him by his father.

"I was being facetious," Lockhart murmured. "I didn't think you'd really pull out a pocket watch."

Adam's smile deepened as he detached the matching silver chain and fob from his buttonhole. "Actually, just about anything can be used as a focus. But as you've noted yourself, I'm a traditionalist by nature - and you obviously were expecting a pocket watch. Are you reasonably comfortable?"

"I s'pose so."

"Good. Try to relax, then, while I tell you a little about hypnosis," Adam continued easily, letting the watch begin to twirl at the end of its chain. "I don't know how much you've heard or read, but I can assure you it has nothing to do with what old radio shows like The Shadow used to refer to as 'the power to cloud men's minds.' You yourself may choose to cloud certain perceptions - and this can be a blessing, just as release from pain is a blessing.

"But contrary to what the old B movies might have you believe, no individual, however deeply entranced, can ever be compelled to act against his or her will. The role of the hypnotist is simply that of guide and companion, and the trance state experienced by the subject can best be described as a directed daydream - and daydreams can be very, very real, as we all know. The suggestions themselves come from without, but any and all powers of suggestion come from within, from the depths of the subject's own psyche."

Lockhart was already predisposed to accept Adam's direction; and this disquisition, delivered in tones of quiet reassurance, only served to enhance the desired response. As Adam slowly lifted his hand holding the gently twirling watch, Lock-hart's eyes tracked with it.

"Relax and breathe deeply, then," Adam instructed softly. "You're already far more relaxed than you were… and you can become even more relaxed. Every time you exhale, feel yourself breathing out a little more of the pain, ridding yourself of a little more anxiety, becoming more and more relaxed, more and more comfortable, more and more at ease….

"You're doing just fine," he continued, as Lockhart's eyelids began to flutter. "As you become more relaxed, you may find that your eyelids are growing heavy, but try to keep your gaze on the watch. See how it catches the light, like ripples on the surface of a pool - shifting, changing… If watching becomes too much effort, you can let your eyelids close, because you'll still hear every word I say - and hear only my words, as you float in a calm, warm, sun-dappled pool - very quiet, very peaceful, floating in the comfort. You can experience the water like a cradle, gently rocking you to sleep, gently washing away the pain…."

Under the lulling influence of Adam's voice, Lockhart's eyes soon closed and he settled more heavily into trance. As his breathing eased, the taut facial muscles lost their habit of tension, and a slight flush touched the parchment-like cheeks. Adam continued to take him down, putting away his watch and taking his Adept ring from a coat pocket, watching as the telltale flicker of eye-movement beneath Lockhart's closed lids continued to indicate an ever-deepening trance-state. Satisfied that his patient had achieved a reasonably pain-free state, Adam turned now to the more far-reaching question that he hoped to address.

"Rest easy for a while now, Alan," he murmured, slipping his Adept ring onto the third finger of his right hand. "Rest in the Light, and when I touch your wrist, go twice as deep as you are now, letting nothing disturb you until I call you by name and touch your forehead."

His touch to the emaciated wrist elicited a faint sigh and a further settling of his patient. Now satisfied that Lockhart was adequately prepared for the work that lay before them, Adam turned his thoughts to the next part of his own work.

The question of Lockhart's pain had several dimensions. Most immediate was the pain itself - now suppressed, but this was only a temporary respite. Adam thought he could help Lockhart hold the pain at bay for a few more days or even weeks - certainly long enough to keep his promise and see his daughter wed - but beyond that point, simple human compassion questioned what purpose was served by Lockhart's continued suffering, in a condition beyond all hope of recovery or respite or quality of life.

But perhaps Lockhart had some other purpose beyond his promise to his daughter. Or perhaps some higher purpose was being served. Or perhaps there was no further purpose, and Lockhart simply needed permission to let go, having fought the good fight. It was not Adam's place to give that permission; but he perhaps had access to counsel in how best to guide Lockhart, who must himself choose how and when to endure or to abandon.

Clasping his hands before him, elbows resting on the rail of Lockhart's bed and his left hand cupped over the sapphire of his Adept ring, Adam drew a deep breath and closed his eyes and ears to the room around him, turning inward as he retired in spirit to the deep-seated threshold of the Inner Planes. Mentally assuming the sapphire-blue vestments of his higher calling, he stretched forth a spirit-hand to open the way between the sensory world and the transcendental realms that lay beyond, at the same time breathing forth the Word that proclaimed his right to access. The veil parted before him, and he stepped through it onto the outermost rim of a far-flung galaxy of stars.

The galaxy took the form of a luminous spiral, turning inward on an axis of fire. Suns and comets whirled past him in a scintillating dance, bound for the center of the galactic cluster. With his ring now blazing like a blue dwarf star, he let the cosmic wind of their passage pick him up and sweep him along a shimmering corridor of light, toward the distant center point which was the origin of all bright Mystery.

The music of the Inner Spheres sang in his ears. Constellations streamed past him, reduced to hurtling streaks of white radiance. His momentum catapulted him forward through nebular clouds of lambent light. Then the clouds parted, and he found himself approaching the Center itself.

His speed slackened. Before him, like a volcanic island emerging from the waves, rose a towering atoll of incandescent flame. Brighter than any refiner's fire, the mountain drew him like a magnet. As he entered the blazing envelope of its corona, he became aware of a great temple crowning its summit, its myriad spires coruscating like solar flares.

His soul-flight carried him to the foot of the temple mound, where his bare feet grounded on the bottommost step of a wide-sweeping stairway. Mounting the stairs, he arrived at the base of a pair of mighty doors, where he touched his ring to his brow with a graceful obeisance and signed the right-hand door with the Sign by which he was known to those in authority over him.

Bands of hieroglyphic inscriptions came to life at his touch, twined like a fiery caduceus around the doorposts and across the lintel. The language was that of the angelic realm, simultaneously the root of all human speech and yet in itself too subtle for the human tongue to utter save by a dispensation of grace. Having long ago been granted that dispensation as a mark of his appointed office, Adam spoke the Word aloud as it was here and now revealed to him anew. With the speaking of that Word, the great doors parted and slowly swung open.

What lay beyond was an airy plateau, ringed round about with translucent textures of golden light. The light was leafed and gathered like the convoluted petals of a great golden flower. A gentle breeze blew across the plateau, bringing Adam the Orient perfume of frankincense. He breathed it in deeply, aware that he had been granted leave to enter into the audience chamber of Gabriel, the angelic minister of all Divine mysteries of healing.

He advanced across the threshold and felt the fragrance of incense enfold him like a welcoming benison. The great archangel was nowhere coherently visible, but everywhere imma-nently present. At the center of the plateau stood twelve slender columns of alabaster arrayed in a circle around a raised altar of the same flawless purity. As Adam approached, the pillar nearest him came to life in a coruscating shimmer of rainbow fire, and he heard himself addressed in tones of familiar greeting by one whose presence he had come to recognize as the Master.

Welcome, Master of the Hunt. We have been awaiting your arrival.

Crossing his arms in front of his chest, Adam bowed low in deference to his superiors. "Is my reason for coming likewise foreknown to you?" he asked.

You have the appearance of one bearing a heavy weight of care on his shoulders, came the lightly ironic response. Why else have you brought that burden with you into our presence, if you do not seek the means to be rid of it?

Adam understood that he was being invited to explain himself more clearly.

"The matter in question exceeds the scope of my judgement," he began. "It concerns a patient only recently come into my care - one Alan Lockhart. He is suffering acutely from a cancer of the bone which has all but devoured him. Despite the torment of his condition, he clings to life in what has seemed a defiance of all necessity.

"I now believe the necessity to be one of his own choosing," Adam went on, "but since it comes of love, it is not my place to gainsay it. Still, his suffering brings heartache to his family as well.

"If this burden of pain has been ordained to serve some higher purpose, then I will do what I can to help him and them bear it for as long as his spirit remains fettered to his body. But if his suffering serves no further purpose, then Alan Lock-hart needs to be given assurance of that fact. For I am convinced that only then will he consent to allow himself to pass into the Mercy."

Having delivered this appeal, Adam fell silent, watching with wonder as the Master's radiant form took on a gentler glow.

Your compassion has guided you aright in this matter, the melodic voice affirmed softly. Alan Lockhart has already suffered far more than was ever to be required of him, and we are aware of his reasons. If you will bring him before us, we will render the assurance he craves in a form which he will not mistake for anything but a vehicle of truth.