Chapter VI
VI
We who have no gods know alone the secrets of man.
As an initiate of the Acheron Order, I pledge fealty to the ancient tradition. I give my life to the maintenance of Balance, to the keeping of the worlds apart.
I will guard the Order’s secrets. I will adhere to her rules. I will not expose myself or my compatriots to the human world. I will respect her Elders, and I will obey their commands.
I understand the penalty for disregarding these strictures is death, and should I break my oaths I will embrace my demise as the necessity that it will be.
—From the Acheron Order’s Rites of Initiation (as recorded by E. Benjamin Thomas, 1867)
“It is precisely this ability to understand that separates the worthy from the undeserving.”
It was afternoon the next day, and Vic’s first encounter with the occult was off to a tedious start.
The class of recruits had gathered in a lecture hall about twenty feet underground. Four rows of rounded tables rippled out from a lectern at the center, occupied by an angular, angry-looking man of about seventy whose eyes kept drifting to Vic as he spoke.
He had introduced himself in a droning voice as Elder Thompson before proceeding headlong into a lecture on the history of the Acheron Order, which had—Vic checked her watch—been ongoing for seventy-five minutes.
Vic had been late. She’d slipped into the back of the room five minutes after the lecture began, cursing herself for not waking up earlier and cursing her brother for leaving without her.
Max had left a note with directions on the kitchen table, which she’d barely seen on her way out of the apartment and which had proved woefully inadequate.
The labyrinthine passageways of the castle had done their best to slow her down, and by the time Vic fell into her seat in the gothic lecture hall she was sweating, irritable, and out of breath.
She sat in the back, uncomfortable after her decade-long absence from formal education.
Though none of Vic’s experiences in the public school system had prepared her for a classroom like this.
The ceiling sloped down, as the rest of the room did, toward the Elder, who stood behind a wooden pulpit that must have weighed a thousand pounds.
The exposed stone walls had no windows, only sconces that flickered with candlelight and looming oil portraits of important-looking men.
Behind the Elder hung four empty blackboards.
Henry had taken a seat in the front row, and Vic watched his blond head bobble as he nodded along to Elder Thompson’s lecture while taking vigorous notes. He had a stack of books beside him, and Vic wondered where he’d found them.
The room was half full with several dozen other recruits, all of whom threw looks back at Vic every few minutes. Their expressions ranged from curious to outright hostile, and Vic had no idea how they knew she was different from them. But they knew.
Vic hardly noticed the attention, distracted as she was by something much stranger.
Posted like guards along the back wall were three hooded figures standing ramrod straight, obscured by lengths of black cloth that wrapped around their heads and draped down their bodies, belted in place with gleaming metal bands around their waists and necks.
The hoods ended lengthwise below their noses, preventing them from looking anywhere but the ground.
In gloved hands they held silver trays piled with leather-bound books.
The trays must have been heavy, but the figures stood perfectly still.
“It is the belief of the Acheron Order that witches are the descendants of those who first developed the ability to hear and use the Universal Language, that energy that radiates through all matter, living and dead….”
Vic barely heard the Elder over her curiosity about the robed figures. What were they doing here? Why were their faces covered? And why was no one else looking at them?
“Calling it a language is something of a misnomer. Though it is spoken aloud, heard, and repeated, it possesses no vocabulary, no syntax. There is no way to teach the Universal Language to someone who was not born, as we were, with the ability to understand it….”
The door closest to Vic opened, and a figure slipped through. Vic kept her eyes on the Elder and wished she’d brought something to take notes with. The thought hadn’t even occurred to her.
“Thus, it is more akin to an additional sense. Like the ability to see and hear, the Universal Language is innate in all our kind, as natural to us as breathing. Spells and ritual and all that you learn here will merely enable you to manipulate this energy, this language of the natural world, and to do so with control and ease….”
Someone slid into the space beside Vic, though there were ample empty seats throughout the room and plenty in the back row.
“Psst,” the woman whispered, and Vic turned. She noticed her eyes first. Deep brown, the color of clay soil, they reminded Vic of childhood afternoons spent playing in the heat. “Are you Vic?”
Vic nodded, wondering how she knew her name. “And you are?” Vic whispered.
“Late as hell,” the woman replied. She flattened the wrinkled front of her red sweater, though the wool crumpled again as soon as she released it. “Has he given instructions for the practical portion yet?”
Practical portion? Vic wondered. She had assumed the classes would be like this, lectures, not that they would actually be expected to practice.
Vic shook her head, and the woman slumped with relief.
The Elder’s tone grew serious. “As you proceed with your training, all of you should keep in mind the danger of overestimating yourself. You are born with these abilities, yes, but you were not born with the tools to master them.” His gaze landed on Vic and the woman beside her.
“Each of you has a limit. Learn it, and you have a chance.”
Vic swallowed.
“Now,” the Elder began. He straightened his papers. “Almost all of you,” he said, with a lingering look back at Vic and her strange seatmate, “are recruits in Level One of your training. As such, you’re still focusing on the transport and structure of inanimate objects.”
The woman beside Vic groaned.
“Your task today involves the invocation of the Universal Language with the goal of dissolution. Materials will be provided in the training room. Please pick up a spell book from the trays at the back on your way out.”
He meant the trays the people were holding, Vic thought as the room filled with the shuffling sounds of the recruits packing their things. Vic followed the woman beside her when she stood, and they walked with the rest of the class toward the exit.
She stood on tiptoe to find Henry, who remained stuck behind the throng, but she could only make out a mop of blond curls near the back. Mumbling under his breath, a passing student knocked his shoulder against Vic’s, and she stumbled.
“Hey!” Vic exclaimed. She caught herself and spun toward him.
“You’re in the way,” the man grumbled.
More surprised than angry, Vic stared at his retreating back. The woman beside Vic was watching her closely, and she nodded toward the door when she caught Vic’s eye.
Vic followed her into the hallway, frowning at the strange looks she received from the other students.
“You didn’t tell me your name,” Vic pointed out as they proceeded down the windowless hall.
Symbols scoured the length of the walls like claw marks.
Some were elaborate, set in circles as wide as an arm’s length, while others were small and rudimentary, as if someone had hacked at the stone with a knife.
“Sarah,” the woman said, throwing a smile over her shoulder. “We’re going in here.”
They’d stopped at a door labeled with a bronze 1.
Inside was clearly a practice room, with a high, beamed ceiling and scuff, char, and chip marks covering the stone floor.
The space was open and empty, save a dozen or so small tables littered throughout, each occupied by a wicker basket full of… rocks?
The students, as if accustomed to the routine, split into groups of two and sat around the tables.
Henry paired up with a tall, dark-haired boy and sat near the front with an apologetic look at Vic.
She suppressed the sting of Henry leaving her to her own devices and reminded herself that she was glad he had always been good at making new friends.
Sarah gestured for Vic to follow as she took a seat in the back.
“Okay,” Sarah said to herself as she opened a spell book in front of her, “let’s see if I remember how to do this.”
Vic opened her own book and stared, dumbfounded, at the writing within it.
“This is not English,” she said. As a matter of fact, it didn’t look like language at all. It was a mess of hatch marks and symbols unconfined by lines or paragraph structure.
“The Universal Language,” Sarah said as Vic looked at her book upside down, “and that won’t help.”
“The Elder made it sound more like a concept than a real language,” Vic said, dropping the book back on the table.
“It’s a bit of both,” Sarah said. “Written out, it’s like an expression of something otherwise ill defined. Like an instinct. It’s hard to write—pretty much only the Elders and the Mages can actually write a spell book.”
Around her, recruits began to make strange noises. Staring at their spell books with brows furrowed, they read aloud in a language Vic had never heard before.
“How do they all know it?” Vic asked. She squinted toward Henry to see if he was speaking in the strange tongue, too, but another recruit blocked her view.
“It’s actually the first test,” Sarah said. “They give you a few pages of a simple book, and you’re not allowed to come to lessons until you decipher it.”
“Huh,” Vic said. “I’m glad I skipped that day.” Otherwise, she thought, she’d be sitting in the apartment all afternoon, staring at scribbles.