21. Sam The Camera #2
Hornsby spoke from the shadows. “The enchantment that converts these bones into relics brings them alive with the animating force of the living being who possessed them. That’s Murcia’s soul you just felt, or at least a faint echo of it.
” He spoke with relish, as if he took some sort of pride in the shocking effect of the bones.
I shook my head, still reeling from the strength of those sensations. “He wasn’t a happy man.”
Juno chuckled quietly.
“He was a tormented man,” Hornsby said, and his voice had an edge to it. “Great enchanters are never truly appreciated in their time. They are besieged by the envy of their enemies, the ingratitude of the masses, and the betrayal of their associates. It’s not an easy path.”
I had nothing to offer on these musings, and I was still attempting to clear my mind of Murcia’s influence. “I didn’t know that relics carried such sentiments.”
Hornsby pulled away from the wall, and he moved toward the entrance. My visit was coming to an end.
“Come back anytime, Byron,” Juno said cheerfully, accompanying me down the stairs.
“Thank you, although I have no wish to feel the bones again anytime soon.”
Juno laughed again and ushered me out through the door.
I realized as I walked away from the Camera that Juno had known my name, and yet I could not remember having given it.
The strangeness of the encounter should have served as a warning, but I was too self-involved to see it. It shames me to recall the confidence I felt, the sense I had of being touched by good fortune, and of it being due in no small part to my own abilities.
On one unseasonably warm afternoon in December, I passed by the Camera and saw Juno on the steps.
Hornsby wasn’t there, and once again Juno pulled me into conversation with his light, easy manner.
As we were talking, I suddenly saw Hornsby approaching the Camera in the company of another man—Professor Selwyn Mead—and I considered it fortunate that he wasn’t accompanied by his spirit thew.
I was always careful to guard my thoughts around any thew on campus so that they wouldn’t perceive my deceit.
Mead and Hornsby ignored us as they neared the Camera.
They went inside directly as if they had some planned purpose there.
Perhaps they were practicing some kind of enchantment that required use of the bones.
Juno had also fallen silent as the two men reached the Camera, and after a moment he said to me, “Shall we go inside?”
“Oh, I think not,” I said. “Clearly the professors have some business to attend to, and I wouldn’t wish to interrupt.”
Juno smiled. “Professor Mead has come to talk with you, Byron.”
I stared at him. Now this really was odd. Mead had come to talk with me? What about? And if so, why had he ignored me as he arrived? I had never met Mead.
Juno seemed to understand my confusion. “It was me and Hornsby who told him about you, Byron. We recommended you to him.”
Now I felt even more baffled but, it must be said, also flattered. I followed Juno into the Camera and upstairs to the second floor.
Mead and Hornsby were waiting for us. As we entered, Juno went to stand quietly by the wall, and Mead stepped toward the luminous box of bones.
“Thank you for joining us, Mr. May,” Mead said.
He smiled, and I was unprepared for the slyness, the covetous delight of it.
Mead looked as if a purse full of gold coins had been dropped into his lap.
“I’m very glad to meet you. Juno and Hornsby have told me all about you. ”
I wasn’t sure how to reply; they didn’t know me at all. “I see. I’m glad to meet you also, Professor Mead.”
Mead nodded, still looking very pleased. “Hornsby and I belong to a secret society you may have heard of. The Cisneros Society.”
I nodded. “I have…heard of it.”
Mead continued, “The Society has been in existence since 1666, and since that time it has counted as its members all the enchanters of most renown in our area.
While the Society is secret, you would easily recognize the names of many individual enchanters.
The work of the Society is to support and cultivate the efforts of its members.
This can take many forms, and the objectives are not always achieved through enchantment.
Our members also have needs or ambitions in the mundane world, and we help them pursue those ambitions.
“There is also the work of procuring a thew, that most difficult and desired accomplishment of an enchanter, if he does not have a legacy thew. Every full member of the Society must have a thew, and we are able to assist with that process. Younger, less experienced members—Cygnets, as we call them—become full members when they finally acquire one. Most Cygnets are recruited from Commonwealth.” He paused here, seeming to wait for my response.
At this point, I felt a burst of excitement.
My initial confusion about how Juno, a mere guard, could be privy to the work of a prestigious society of enchanters faded away to be replaced by a growing expectation that perhaps I was being invited to join this Society.
I could hardly believe it! “Thank you, Professor Mead, for your trust in telling me about this secret society.”
Mead smiled. “The Society has many, many tasks it must undertake to serve its members, and I’m grateful to Hornsby and Juno for realizing that you would be ideal for one of them. You will undertake this task, and, in exchange, you will be permitted to continue your studies at Commonwealth.”
I felt a sudden chill. In the seconds of silence that followed, I heard Mead’s words repeated in my mind.
Several things that should have been apparent to me sooner now came into view.
Full members of the Cisneros Society all had thews, and Hornsby was a member; he must have a thew.
Mead had arrived to speak with me at the Camera, but Hornsby had already gone to get him when I arrived; he had known, somehow, that I was coming.
Mead was not offering an invitation; he was revealing a coercion.
His last statement made this indisputable. “What do you mean?” I said faintly.
Mead gestured to Juno. “Juno has told us what you really are, Mr. May.”
I followed his gesture and saw Juno, complete with guard’s uniform and blond mustache, disappear. In his place stood a woman, pale and thin, her dark hair undulating in the air around her, her white feet floating a few inches above the floor. She gave me a serene, innocent smile.
“You don’t belong at Commonwealth,” Mead said in a conversational tone, “but if you’d like to continue here, the Society will allow you to do so.
I’ve heard from Professor Sanders that you’re the best student he’s had in a decade.
It would be a shame to abandon your studies.
” He smiled, showing worn, yellow teeth. “The choice is yours.”
Choice? What choice? Remaining at Commonwealth was my only objective.
To become an enchanter was my sole purpose.
I would have done anything to achieve it; Mead didn’t know that.
He didn’t know how much I had already sacrificed, becoming a person I was not, a person I detested, just to learn a practice that would, I knew, make the entire horrid deception worthwhile.
If I could be Byron for more than a decade, I could do a few unpleasant tasks for the Cisneros Society.
“What is the work you require?”
“I can’t divulge that here, but it is necessary, important work. The Society can’t function without it.”
This served to confirm my impression. Mead, a university professor, was accustomed to having things done for him.
No doubt the other enchanters were just like him.
A society of men such as him would require a good deal of labor belowstairs, for I couldn’t imagine them making their own fires and setting their own tables.
Most likely they wanted assistance with some task that the regular members considered too menial.
“And I can continue my studies without being exposed?” I asked.
Mead nodded. “Indeed. Since it seems that is what you most wish.” He paused and considered my silence. “Isn’t it?” He smiled.
It was. And Mead’s reminder cemented my determination.
I felt a wave of loathing for Mead and his kind, but my loathing for myself was even greater.
How na?ve I’d been, to imagine that Mead would distinguish me for any accolade.
Of course he wouldn’t. Well, it didn’t matter.
I was no stranger to unpleasant tasks. I would do it, and I would purchase the continuation of my studies.
I thought I’d gained the upper hand. I thought I’d scored a bargain.
Professor Mead told me to arrive at the southmost gates of the university that very evening.
It was Hornsby who met me, alone. To my surprise, he was much more unbuttoned now that I was playing my role as unwilling servant of the Cisneros Society.
Almost as soon as we were settled in the coach—I didn’t know our destination—he began boasting about how many men he and Juno had managed to “catch” in a similar fashion.
He didn’t seem to think it possible that I would be aggrieved or offended by this; he spoke of it as a sort of game, which he had won and I had lost—this time.
As he prattled on, I realized that this was something Hornsby excelled at: finding and ensnaring students like myself who could be taken advantage of due to their circumstances.
He told me with glee about a young man of “middling” background whose fiancée had committed suicide, and he’d been desperate to conceal the fact.
Another man had been born out of wedlock, but his position in society depended on this remaining secret.
And a few, like me, were men of other nations who had somehow managed to earn entrance at Commonwealth but only, it was understood, by concealing who they really were.