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.