Operation Chaos

IX

The sky was full of broomsticks and the police were going nuts trying to handle the traffic. The Homecoming game always attracts an overflow crowd, also an overflow of high spirits. These I did not share. I edged my battered prewar Chevvy past a huge two-hundred-dragonpower Lincoln with sky-blue handle, polyethylene straw, and blatting radio. It sneered at me, but I got to the vacant rack first. Dismounting, I pocketed the runekey and mooched glumly through the mob.

The Weather Bureau kachinas are obliging about game nights. There was a cool crisp tang to the air, and dry leaves scrittled across the sidewalks. A harvest moon was rising like a big yellow pumpkin over darkened campus buildings. I thought of Midwestern fields and damp earthy smells and streaming mists, out beyond the city, and the wolf part of me wanted to be off and away after jackrabbits. But with proper training a were can control his reflexes and polarized light doesn’t have to cause more than a primitive tingle along his nerves.

For me, the impulse was soon lost in bleaker: thoughts. Ginny, my darling! She should have been walking beside me, face lifted to the wind and long hair crackling in the thin frost; but my only companion was an illegal hip flask. Why the hell was I attending the game anyhow?

Passing Teth Caph Sameth frat house, I found myself on the campus proper. Trismegistus was founded after the advent of modern science, and its layout reflects that fact. The largest edifice houses the Language Department, because exotic tongues are necessary for the more powerful spells—which is why so many African and Asian students come here to learn American slang; but there are two English halls, one for the arts college and one for Engineering Poetics. Nearby is the Therioanthropology Building, which always has interesting displays of foreign technique: this month it was Eskimo, in honor of the visiting angekok Dr. Ayingalak. A ways off is Zoology, carefully isolated inside its pentagonal fence, for some of those longlegged beasties are not pleasant neighbors. The medical school has a shiny new research center, courtesy of the Rockefeller Foundation, from which has already come such stunning advances as the Polaroid filter lenses that make it possible for those afflicted with the Evil Eye to lead normal lives.

The law school is unaffected. Their work has always been of the other world.

Crossing the Mall, I went by the grimy little Physical Sciences Building just in time for Dr. Griswold to hail me. He came puttering down the steps, a small wizened fellow with goatee and merry blue eyes. Somewhere behind their twinkle lay, a look of hurt bafflement; he was a child who could never quite understand why no one else was really interested in his toys.

“Ah, Mr. Matuchek,” he said. “Are you attending the game?”

I nodded, not especially sociable, but he tagged along and I had to be polite. That wasn’t to polish any apples, I was in his chemistry and physics classes, but they were snaps. I simply hadn’t the heart to rebuff a nice, lonely old geezer.

“Me too,” he went on. “I understand the cheerleaders have planned something spectacular between halves.”

“Yeah?”

He cocked his head and gave me a birdlike glance. “If you’re having any difficulty, Mr. Matuchek . . . if I can help you . . . that’s what I’m here for, you know.”

“Everything’s fine,” I lied. “Thanks anyway, sir.”

“It can’t be easy for a mature man to start in with a lot of giggling freshmen,” he said. “I remember how you helped me in that . . . ah . . . unfortunate incident last month. Believe me, Mr. Matuchek, I am grateful.”

“Oh, hell, that was nothing. I came here to get an education.” And to be with Virginia Graylock. But that’s impossible now. I saw no reason to load my troubles on him. He had an ample supply already.

Griswold sighed, perhaps feeling my withdrawal. “I often feel so useless,” he said.

“Not in the least, sir,” I answered with careful heartiness. “How on Midgard would-oh, say alchemy, be practical without a thorough grounding in nuclear physics? You’d either get a radioactive isotope that’ could kill you, or blow up half a county.”

“Of course, of course. You understand. You know something of the world-more than I, in all truth. But the students . . . well, I suppose it’s only natural. They want to speak a few words, make a few passes, and gets what they desire, just like that, without bothering to learn the Sanskrit grammar or the periodic table. They haven’t realized that you never get something for nothing.”

“They will. They’ll grow up.”

“Even the administration . . . this University simply doesn’t appreciate the need for physical science. Novat California, they’re getting a billion-volt Philosopher’s Stone, but here—” Griswold shrugged. “Excuse me. I despise self-pity.”

We came to the stadium, and I handed over my ticket but declined the night-seeing spectacles, having kept the witch-sight given me in basic training. My seat was on the thirty-yard line, between a fresh-faced coed and an Old Grad already hollering himself raw. An animated tray went by, and I bought a hot dog and rented a crystal ball. But that wasn’t to follow the details of play. I muttered over the globe and peered into it and saw Ginny.

She was seated on the fifty, opposite side, the black cat Svartalf on her lap, her hair a shout of red against the human drabness around. That witchcraft peculiarly hers was something more old and strong than the Art in which she was so adept. Even across the field and through the cheap glass gazer, she made my heart stumble.

Tonight she was with Dr. Alan Abercrombie, assistant professor of comparative mantics, sleek, blond, handsome, the lion of the tiffins. He’d been paying her a lot of attention while I smoldered alone.

Quite alone. I think Svartalf considers my morals no better than his. I had every intention of fidelity, but when you’ve parked your broomstick in a moonlit lane and a cute bit of fluff is snuggled against you . . . those round yellow eyes glowing from a nearby tree are remarkably style-cramping. I soon gave up and spent my evenings studying or drinking beer.

Heigh-ho. I drew my coat tighter about me and shivered in the wind. That air smelled wrong somehow . . . probably only my bad mood, I thought, but I’d sniffed trouble in the future before now.

The Old Grad blasted my ears off as the teams trotted out into the moonlight, Trismegistus’ Gryphons and the Albertus Magnus Wyverns. The very old grads say they can’t get used to so many four-eyed runts wearing letters. Apparently a football team was composed of dinosaurs back before the goetic age. But of course the Art is essentially intellectual and has given its own tone to sports.

This game had its interesting points. The Wyverns levitate off and their tiny quarterback turned out to be a werepelican. Dushanovitch, in condor shape, nailed him on our twenty. Andrevski is the best line werebuck in the Big Ten, and held them for two downs. In the third, Pilsudski got the ball and became a kangaroo. His footwork was beautiful as he dodged a tackle—the guy had a Tarnkappe, but you could see the footprints advanced—and passed to Mstislav. The Wyverns swooped low, expecting Mstislav to turn it into a raven for a field goal, but with lightning a-crackle as he fended off their counterspells, he made it into a pig … greased. (These were minor transformations, naturally, a quick gesture at an object already sensitized, not the great and terrible Words I was to hear before dawn.)

A bit later, unnecessary roughness cost us fifteen yards: Domingo accidentally stepped on a scorecard which had blown to the field and drove his cleats through several of the Wyverns’ names. But no real harm was done, and they got the same penalty when Thorsson was carried away by the excitement tossed a thunderbolt. At the end of the first half, score was Trismegistus 13, Albertus Magnus 6, the crowd was nearly ripping the benches loose.

I pulled my hat back off my ears, gave the Old Grad a dirty look, and stared into the crystal. Ginny was more of a fan than I, she was jumping and hollering, hardly seeming to notice that Abercrombie had draped an arm around her. Or perhaps she didn’t mind-? I took a long, resentful drag at my flask.

The cheering squad paraded out onto the field.

Their instruments wove through an elaborate aerial maneuver, drumming and tootling, while they made the traditional march to the Campus Queen. I’m told it’s also traditional that she ride forth on a unicorn to meet them, but for some reason that was omitted this year.

The hair rose stiff on my neck and I felt the blind instinctive tug of Skinturning. Barely in time I hauled myself back toward human and sat in a cold sweat. The air was suddenly rotten with danger. Couldn’t anyone else smell it?

I focused my crystal on the cheering squad, looking for the source, only dimly aware of the yell—

“Hey, what’s wrong, mister?” The coed shrank from me, and I realized I was snarling.

“Oh . . . nothing . . . I hope.” With an effort I composed my face and kept it from sprouting a snout.

The fattish blond kid down among the rooters didn’t look harmful, but a sense of lightning-shot blackness swirled about his future. I’d dealt with him before, and—

Though I didn’t snitch on him at the time, he was the one who had almost destroyed Griswold’s chemistry class. Premed freshman, rich boy, not a bad guy at heart but with an unfortunate combination of natural aptitude for the Art and total irresponsibility. Medical students are notorious for merry pranks such as waltzing an animated skeleton through the girls’ dorm, and he wanted to start early.

Griswold had been demonstrating the action of a catalyst, and MacIlwraith had muttered a pun-spell to make a cat boil out of the test tube. However, he slipped quantitatively and got a saber-toothed tiger. Because of the pun, it listed to starboard, but it was nonetheless a vicious, panic-raising thing. I ducked into a closet, used my pocket moonflash, and transformed. As a wolf I chased Pussy out the window and into a tree till somebody could call the Exorcism Department.

Having seen MacIlwraith do it, I took him aside an warned him that if he disrupted the class again I’d chew him out in the most literal sense. Fun is fun, but not at the expense of students who really want to learn and a pleasant elderly anachronism who’s trying to teach them.

“TEAM!”

The cheerleader waved his hands and a spurt of many-colored fire jumped out of nothingness. Taller than a man it lifted, a leaping glory of red, blue, yellow, haloed with a wheel of sparks. Slitting my eyes, I could just discern the lizardlike form, white- , hot and supple, within the aura.

The coed squealed. “Thrice-blessed Hermes,” choked the Old Grad. “What is that? A demon?”

“No, a fire elemental,” I muttered. “Salamander. Hell of a dangerous thing to fool around with.”

My gaze ran about the field as the burning shape began to do its tricks, bouncing, tumbling, spelling out words in long flame-bands. Yes, they had a fireman close by in full canonicals, making the passes that kept the creature harmless. The situation ought to be okay. I lit a cigaret, shakily. It is not well to raise Loki’s pets, and the stink of menace to come was acrid in my nostrils.

A good show, but—The crystal revealed Abercrombie clapping. Ginny, though, sat with a worried frown between the long green eyes. She didn’t like this any better than I. Switch the ball back to MacIlwraith, fun loving MacIlwraith.

I was perhaps the single member of the audience who saw what happened. The boy gestured at his baton. It sprouted wings. The fat fireman, swaying back and forth with his gestures, was a natural target for a good healthy goose.

“Yeowp!”

He rocketed heavenward. The salamander wavered. All at once it sprang on high, thinning out till it towered over the walls. We glimpsed a spinning, dazzling blur, and the thing was gone.

My cigaret burst luridly into flame. I tossed it from me. Hardly thinking, I jettisoned my hip flask. It exploded from a touch of incandescence and the alcohol burned blue. The crowd howled, hurling away their smokes, slapping at pockets where matches had kindled, getting rid of bottles. The Campus Queen shrieked as her thin dress caught fire. She got it off in time to prevent serious injury and went wailing across the field. Under different circumstances, I would have been interested.

The salamander stopped its lunatic shuttling and materialized between goalposts that began to smoke: an intolerable blaze, which scorched the grass and roared. The fireman dashed toward it, shouting the spell of extinguishment. From the salamander’s mouth licked a tongue of fire, I heard a distinct Bronx cheer, then it was gone again.

The announcer, who should have been calming the spectators, screeched as it flickered before his booth. That touched off the panic! In one heartbeat, five thousand people were clawing and trampling, choking each other in the gates, blind with the maniac need to escape.

I vaulted across benches and an occasional head, down to the field. There was death on those jammed tiers. “Ginny! Ginny, come here where it’s safe!”

She couldn’t have heard me above the din, but came of herself, dragging a terrified Abercrombie by one wrist. We faced each other in a ring of ruin. She drew the telescoping wand from her purse.

The Gryphons came boiling out of their locker room. Boiling is the right word: the salamander had materialized down there and playfully wrapped itself around the shower pipes.

Sirens hooted under the moon and police broomsticks shot above us, trying to curb the stampede. The elemental flashed for a moment across one besom. The rider dove it till he could jump off, and the burning stick crashed on the grass.

“God!” exclaimed Abercrombie. “The salamander’s loose!”

“Tell me more,” I snorted. “Ginny, you’re a witch. Can you do anything about this?”

“I can extinguish the brute if it’ll hold still long enough for me to recite the spell,” she said. Disordered ruddy hair had tumbled past her pale, high-boned face to the fur-clad shoulders. “That’s our one chance—the binding charm is broken, and it knows that!”

I whirled, remembering friend MacIlwraith and collared him. “Were you possessed?” I shouted.

“I didn’t do anything,” he gasped. His teeth rattle as I shook him.

“Don’t hand me that guff. I saw!”

He collapsed on the ground. “It was only for fu he whimpered. “I didn’t know—”

Well, I thought grimly, that was doubtless true.

There’s the trouble with the Art: with every blindingly powerful force man uses, fire or dynamite or atomic energy or goetics. Any meathead can learn how to begin something; these days, they start them in the third grade with spelling bees. But it’s not always as easy to halt the something.

Student pranks were a standing problem at Trismegistus, as at all colleges. They were usually harmless, like sneaking into the dorms after curfew with Tarnkappen, or chanting female lingerie out through the windows. Sometimes they could be rather amusing, like the time the statue of a revered and dignified former president was animated and marched down town singing bawdy songs. Often they fell quite flat, as when the boys turned Dean Hornsby into stone and it wasn’t noticed for three days.

This one had gotten out of hand. The salamander could ignite this entire city.

I turned to the fireman, who was jittering about trying to flag down a police broom. In the dim shifty light, none of the riders saw him. “What’d you figure to do?” I asked.

“I gotta report back for duty,” he said harshly. “And we’ll need a water elemental, I guess.”

“I have experience with the Hydros,” offered tinny. “I’ll come along.”

“Me too,” I said at once.

Abercrombie glowered. “What can you do?”

“I’m were,” I snapped. “In wolf shape I can’t easily be harmed by fire. That might turn out useful.”

“Wonderful, Steve!” Ginny smiled at me, the old smile which had so often gone between us. Impulsively, I grabbed her to me and kissed her.

She didn’t waste energy on a slap. I collected an uppercut that tumbled me on my stern. “Not allowed,” she clipped. That double-damned geas! I could see misery caged within her eyes, but her mind was compelled to obey Malzius’ rules.

“That’s . . . ah . . . no place for a woman . . . a lady as charming as you,” murmured Abercrombie. “Let me take you home, my dear.”

“I’ve work to do,” she said impatiently. “What the devil is wrong with those cops? We’ve got to get a lift out of here.”

“Then I shall come too,” said Abercrombie. “I am not unacquainted with blessings and curses, though—ha!—I fear that ever-filled purses are a trifle beyond my scope. In any event, the Treasury Department frowns on them.”

Even in that moment, with riot thundering and hell let loose on earth, I was pleased to note that Ginny paid no attention to his famous wit. She scowled abstractedly and looked around. The Campus Queen was huddled near the benches, wearing somebody’s overcoat. Ginny turned and waved her wand. The Campus Queen shucked the coat and ran toward us. Thirty seconds later, three police broomsticks had landed. The fireman commandeered them and our party was whirled-over the stadium and into the street.

During that short hop, I saw three houses ablaze. The salamander was getting around!