by Eric Griffin
He did not know how long he had lain pinned and helpless beneath the ruins. He might have been unconscious for a few hours or for several evenings. Nor could he be entirely sure that he had not slipped into the deeper torpor as his shattered body struggled to mend itself. If this were the case, the lost time might be measured, not in nights, but in months or even years.
Too long, he thought. Too late.
Nickolai had awaken to a ravenous hunger, but he dared not pause even to hunt. He picked his way back over the U.S. border on foot, avoiding even incidental contact with the least threatening of humans. To draw any attention at this point might have proved his undoing—hastening his detection and destruction.
Once over the border, he had grown bolder. He allowed himself the risk of preying upon the occasional passing motorist for sustenance and transport. He began to put a slim but critical buffer of blood and distance between himself and the pursuing nightmare.
Ironic, he thought. It was only in the wake of these savage predations that he began to rise above the demands of his purely animal instincts. It was as if only by satisfying these primal, bestial needs, the more rational civilized thought processes could begin to emerge.
Irony. It was a human concept. It was the first time since the catastrophe that his thoughts had risen above the level of flight, of feeding. Nickolai felt as if he were coming home. As if he might somehow survive all this.
Slowly, so as to not provoke the beast, he began to rein in his reckless flight. For the first time, he took note of his surroundings. He was somewhere in the deserts of the southwestern U.S.
As reason gradually returned, Nickolai was horrified to find himself among the familiar touchstones of his unlife. With mounting dismay, he recognized that his footsteps had been drawn to the well-known gathering places, the chantries, the dead drops, the places of power that made up the legacy of his people. It was almost enough to drive him back into the clutches of the beast. Blindly, he fled. Nothing was so dangerous to him now as the familiar. Whatever had destroyed his brethren would surely seek out any survivors. One of the first places it would look would be here, assuming that any stragglers would return home.
After several nights of further flight, always looking over his shoulder for signs of pursuit, Nickolai had felt safe enough to come to ground for the first time. The Cincinnati hotel room was a far cry from the comforts of home, but that might have been the exact reason it appealed to him.
But even here, half a continent away from the source of his flight, it was not far enough. He wondered if it would ever be enough. Shaking his head, he banished such thoughts from his mind. He had to focus on the pragmatic.
The first thing he had to do was to determine exactly who he needed to avoid. Certainly, an encounter with any of the members of House Tremere would be a death sentence. The slaves of the pyramid bore no love for the thaumaturges of House Goratrix.
Nickolai considered. There might still be others, however, that he could reach. Others who were of the blood but not of the pyramid. Refugees, rebels, by-blows, outcasts.
Again, he found his thoughts returning to the legacy of his people. If he could find an apprentice, a successor, then the knowledge of his house might not pass entirely from the earth.
With excruciating care, he began gathering his tools.
Sunday, 18 July 1999, 10:45 PM
Chantry of the Five Boroughs
New York City, New York
Foley’s preparations were exacting. He carefully marshaled the eclectic array of instruments on the worktable before him. But his mind would not focus on what his hands were doing.
His thoughts still dwelt on last night’s humiliation in the Grande Foyer. Sturbridge’s words echoed in his mind. Silence? Service? Sacrifice?
“Reprisal” would be a more apt description. There was nothing quite so infuriating as when your immediate superior failed to back you up—and in such a public venue. His eyes burned at the memory.
It was no matter. He would reestablish discipline swiftly and certainly. The very thought of that novice—a mere novice—presuming to pronounce sentence upon him!
He would see that she learned her place. One way or another.
Three new novices, he thought ruefully. To guide a single neophyte through all seven circles of the novitiate would take him a century at the very least. If the student did not already have a strong background in practical magic, it would be closer to two centuries. And God forbid that he should be saddled with a pupil with a background in the occult—it would take him three centuries just to undo the damage.
Centuries lost, wasted. If Foley took any consolation in his current predicament, it was that he could not recall the last initiate here at the Chantry of the Five Boroughs that had survived long enough to pass through all seven circles of the novitiate and earn the coveted rank of journeyman.
The chief benefit of that lofty position, as Foley saw it, was that a journeyman was immediately assigned to another chantry. The official explanation for this policy was that it afforded every student the benefit of many different teachers along the difficult path to mastery. The unofficial one, Foley suspected, was that it prevented the regent from developing too strong and devoted a local following.
Then a thought occurred to him, a sly and pleasing thought. It was an aspect of his current predicament that he had not previously considered. He cursed himself for a fool for not seeing it sooner.
With three novices placed entirely in his care, he had been given a precious opportunity—the raw materials for forging a faction, a power block. Certainly he already had allies and agents throughout the chantry, but the mentor/novice relationship was a far more formidable bond. It was the closest thing to the mystical tie between a sire and his childe that was permitted within the close confines of the chantry.
Already plans were beginning to decant, to distill, to sublimate. He would begin at once. The first thing tomorrow evening he would petition Sturbridge for the first of his three new pupils. She would not refuse him.
His thoughts immediately returned to Jacqueline. Yes, he thought, she would do nicely. It did not matter that the presumptuous whelp had already been apprenticed to another master for a few decades. Rank, after all, must have its privilege.
He would make certain that his new pupil was well rewarded for the difficult choice she had made.
Foley hummed contentedly to himself as he returned to his preparations.
This evening five candles burned upon the work-table. Another of Foley’s double-wicked creations was rammed down onto the iron spike protruding from the table’s northwest comer. Each of the four cardinal points boasted a squat votive candle: gold in the east, red in the south, blue in the west, green in the north. At the very center, the fleur-de-lis box lay open, revealing the enigmatic cloudy-red marble.
A black grease pencil lay ready at Foley’s right hand. His left hand, carefully wrapped in a pristine white linen bandage, managed to grasp the delicate silver tweezers. Foley was not about to be caught unawares this time. He had played through the memory of the previous night’s miscarried ritual a dozen times in excruciating detail.
He had been unprepared. The experiment had run dangerously amok. He was still not entirely certain what had severed the escalating mystical feedback between candle flame and gemstone, banishing the baleful yellow eye he had unwittingly summoned up.
It was possible that the blazing orb had simply run out of fuel. The candle had been consumed right down to the table’s surface when he’d come to his senses. The iron spike jutted defiantly from the puddle of yellow-streaked purple wax.
It was also possible that he had blacked out, the link with the eye severed when he lost his grip on the stone. A frantic search had discovered his lost prize beneath the table where it had rolled off the edge and come to a halt against one of the carved lion-footed legs.
Foley was not taking any chances tonight. He had warded the cardinal points with the four elementals. Taking greas
e pencil in hand, he began the invocation of the four archangelic protectors. As if of its own volition, his hand scrawled out each of the sacred names in turn, rendering them in thin, spidery Arabic letters. In the east, the legend beneath the golden candle revealed Rapha-el, the healer. The south bore the name Micha-el, the guardian. The west proclaimed Gabri-el, the herald. And the north read simply, Uri-el, the gatherer.
The epitaph beneath the latter candle specifically did not mention anything about “the angel of death.” Foley was just superstitious enough to know that it was a grave misfortune to set the word “death” to paper, much less to use it in a ritual inscription.
His wardings completed, Foley carefully extracted the gem, taking pains to ensure that it did not make contact with his flesh. He began to inch it closer to the candle flame.
Twenty inches. Nineteen. Eighteen. Steady now. Seventeen. No change. Sixteen…
The candle flame sputtered uncertainly and then erupted upwards. Foley staggered backwards a half step. As if sensing weakness, the flame surged forward, cracking like a whip. Foley threw up his left hand to shield his eyes and the gout of flame changed direction midstrike, following the gem.
Realizing the true danger a moment before the two made contact, Foley hurriedly thrust the gem back within the protection of the diagram etched out in candlelight and grease pencil on the worktable.
The viscous yellow flame pulled up just short of the invisible barrier, the air cracking at the sudden reversal. The spout of flame momentarily swayed like a serpent before recoiling to its proper place atop the purple candle.
It curled in upon itself, twisting, churning—resolving into a single burning yellow eye.
They regarded each other across the line of the intervening protective diagram. The eye seethed in frustration. The candle was very nearly expended already by the intensity of the gout of flame. Foley knew he did not have much time.
His right hand found the grease pencil and jerkily—like the hand of a clumsy marionette—began to scratch out sharp Arabic letters.
Suddenly, all five candles went dark.
Foley tensed, awaiting the parting blow.
Nothing. Silence. Darkness.
He forced himself to inhale deeply, exhale. A ritual cleansing. It was many years since he had gained any practical benefit from the habit of respiration. The simple act had been transformed into one of his ceremonial tools.
He summoned up a light by means of the most humble magic he knew. The Zippo chirped, sparked, flared.
In a moment, he would cross to the light switch, gather his tools, methodically erase all signs of the evening’s experiment. But not yet.
With growing anticipation, he held the lighter over the wicked iron spike in the northwest corner of the table.
There at its base, partially obscured beneath a rapidly coagulating pool of wax, was a single word: Hazima-el.
The deceiver.
Monday, 19 July 1999, 1:00 AM
Chantry of the Five Boroughs
New York City, New York
The three matched knocks were softer this time, more subdued, and precisely on time.
“Enter,” Foley barked. Jacqueline entered the room with the solemnity of the condemned. She stood in silence before the secundus, her eyes wary, her stance defensive. Foley did not glance up from the official-looking file before him. He allowed the uncomfortable silence to stretch. Occasionally, he attacked the text with a swift marginal note.
Jacqueline found her eyes straining to pick out his notations. She silently cursed herself and assumed a pose of calculated disinterest. Foley was baiting her.
“The Regentia said you wished to speak to me.” Sturbridge had said quite a bit more, but Jacqueline saw no reason to make this interview any easier for Foley.
Foley looked, up and stared at her blankly as if trying to place her face. “I do not recall addressing you, novitia.”
“No, Secundus. Regent Secundus,” she recovered.
Foley returned to his file. Jacqueline fidgeted uncomfortably. She found herself staring at an uninspired landscape, a tum-of-the-century farmyard scene, hanging behind the secundus’s desk. It was the colors that most annoyed her, she discovered after a few moments’ reflection. They were all a shade too iridescent for the subject. And the texture was wrong somehow.
Realization dawned upon her and her skin crawled. It was not a painting at all; it was a collage. The picture was painstakingly assembled from hundreds of individually plucked butterfly wings.
“Is something the matter, novitia?” Foley set aside his pen and folded his hands before him on the desk.
Jacqueline wrestled her gaze free of the macabre artwork. “No. Regent Secundus.”
“I have been reviewing your progress.”
“That is very kind of you. I am certain my meager accomplishments merit no such attention.”
“Quite so. It is not your accomplishments, but rather your place within our order which is in question here. I will be brief. I have discussed your case with Regent Sturbridge and she is in full agreement with my assessment. You show great promise, Jacqueline, but without formal discipline and structured training, this potential will lead only to frustration, failure and self-destruction. It is a well-traveled path and one which I would not see you stumble down.”
Her tone was strained and formal. “I thank you for your efforts on my behalf.”
“Accordingly,” he pressed on, ignoring her interruption, “I have offered to take personal responsibility for guiding you safely through the complexities of the Fourth Circle of the Novitiate. Your new course of studies will begin immediately.”
“That is quite generous of you, Regent Secundus. But I am sure it is unnecessary to burden one of your status with so humble and unrewarding a chore. Master Ynnis is quite capable of…”
“You will no longer be reporting through Master Ynnis. Make no mistake, however. Your new apprenticeship will in no way excuse you from your existing lessons or responsibilities. You will continue to take rudimentary instruction in the Ars Sanguine with the rest of your peers. Here we will pursue…other masteries. Do we understand one another?”
“I believe so, Regent Secundus.”
“Excellent. It is my intention that we should begin at once. You may commence by reciting back to me our conversation thus far.”
Jacqueline considered for a moment. “You said you had reviewed my progress and discussed my case with the regent. You said that, without discipline and order, my natural talents would be wasted. Effective immediately, you will be assuming responsibility for my studies toward the Fourth Circle. I will report to you instead of Master Ynnis. I will continue with my normal lessons and responsibilities in the novice hall. Is there anything else?”
Foley’s patience was obviously straining. “I will start you off. I said, ‘Enter.’”
“You mean you want the entire conversation verbatim? I don’t remember it word for word. You said something like, ‘Sit down, I have been reviewing your progress.’”
Foley sighed exaggeratedly and began rubbing his temples. “No. Please do not go on. You will only further demonstrate your shortcomings. You do not know. From now on, you have to know. You have to remember. Am I making myself clear? I see we shall have to begin with the mnemonic arts.”
Jacqueline’s voice was flat, formal. “I must know. I must remember. Are you making yourself clear. You see we will have to begin with the mnemonic arts.
Better. You are still wrong, but at least you seem to understand what is expected of you. Tell me, where do you think our power arises from?”
“The power is in the blood.” Jacqueline automatically shot back the response from the First Circle catechism.
“Ah, I see you can recall something at least of your training. You may yet be redeemable. Tell me, this power, are you certain that it does not arise from the will?”
“The blood looks out on the world through the will.”
“And not from the mind?”
“The mind is the conduit of the blood.”
“Then you are telling me that the blood flows through the mind?”
“The blood floweth not. Nor doth it fall. It broodeth at the heart of the Father.”
“Your blood does not flow? If I cut you, do you not bleed?”
“It is not I who bleeds, but the Father only.”
“How is that so?”
“My mind is an opened vein. Through me the Father spills life into the world.”
“What form, then, must the mind strive toward? Shall it become a straight and narrow channel? A gutter? A trough?”
“The mind is a pyramid of seven steps. Seven, the number of the Founders. Seven, the number of the Council. Seven, the number of the orders of mystery. Seven, the number of the circles within each order. Seven, the number of the arts that rose from the ashes of those that were lost. Seven the number of the days of the world’s making. Seven, the number of completeness.”
“Precisely so. The mind is a pyramid of seven steps, Jacqueline, a strictly ordered hierarchy. Just as the Tremere clan is ordered in a pyramid of seven steps. Without that discipline, the center cannot hold. You must order your thoughts, your fears, your desires. This will bring structure to the pyramid of your mind and strength to the pyramid of your clan. Do you understand these things?”
“Yes, Regent Secundus.”
“When next we meet, you will recall for me the content of this conversation. The exact content. You will further read and commit to memory a little treatise I have for you here. It is Aquinas’s de Memoria. No, I don’t imagine you would be familiar with the work. It never enjoyed what one might term a common circulation. Can we turn to more practical matters at this point? Excellent.”
The secundus closed the file and set it aside.