I followed her out the door like a lost pup. The violet sky was dense with stars and not a single one that I could recognize, not that I was much of an astronomer.
“We're not in Kansas anymore, are we?” I said, pointing out at the strange constellations.
She giggled again. It was a sweet sound. If she could laugh about the strangeness of this place, then maybe one day I could, too. “Damn straight,” she replied, punching my arm. “This is an artificial world between dimensions where the Void Things can't find us.”
“Sanctuary,” I said, echoing the word I had heard used to describe this place before. “So magic is real?”
“Yes. And also, kind of,” she said, twirling her index fingers around each other.
“Explain, please?”
“Umm, so, there is magic. And we do study it here. That's the magic of the stars and the multiverse. Rituals that tie the cosmos together and link us to the Great Old Ones and the Elder Gods.”
“Sounds pretty standard,” I said nonchalantly, stifling a laugh at the absurdity of the words I was hearing.
“The more day-to-day stuff that we use appears to be magic in the, you know, Harry Potter sense of the word, but it's actually closely connected to advanced alien technology that's millions of years old.”
“So, it's not magic? It's technology?”
“Basically, it's magic. For all intents and purposes, it’s magic,” she said, watching me with a cheeky grin. She clearly relished my confusion. I looked at her with a face that said, “Huh?” and she promptly pressed on.
“So, have you ever heard it said that technology that is sufficiently advanced is basically indistinguishable from magic?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I nodded. I had heard something like that before—A concept popularized by Arthur C. Clarke.
“It's that. Exactly that,” She took a breath, and I could tell she was about to do the unenviable work of trying to condense something very complicated into a dumbed down concept for me. “Millions of years ago, an extremely advanced alien race hardcoded their technology into the fabric of the multiverse and seeded its secrets into many worlds. To this day, people like us are born with access to their technology. It's written into our DNA and aligned with our souls,” she explained. “By learning their secrets, we can harness the magic of their science to empower ourselves.”
I nodded and ground my teeth as I processed the information. I gestated my words carefully before speaking, but ultimately all I could manage was, “Okay, I think I get it.”
Carmilla smiled and breathed a relieved sigh. “Oh, thank hell, because that's about the best I can do.”
“So, what's next?” We had been walking around the perimeter of the school, but she hadn't pointed anything out. I was a bit confused. The campus wasn't huge, maybe the size of eight football fields lined up in two rows of four. There was a ton of open space for the population of the school, and some peculiarities like a circle of standing stones, a miniature forest, what looked like a small stadium with a play area about the size of a basketball court, and a beautiful pond sat between the stadium and the forest. Most of the buildings were ornate Victorian structures made of wood with stone foundations. Stony walking paths led from one building or section of the campus to another. One building, however, literally towered over the others. “What's that?”
“Umm, okay, let me try to explain everything super quick. There's a bunch of buildings, as you can see. Most of them are just the places where you'll have various classes. It'll be easy to find because they have names on them. But that tall building is the student and teacher dormitory. Everyone lives, eats, and sleeps there.”
“Is that where we're headed?” I asked.
“We've still got shit to do, actually,” she said. She had a habit of nervously watching my reaction to everything she said. Each time she flashed a look of relief when I didn't react with irritation. Must be some assholes on this campus for her to react like that all the time.
“Oh, okay.” I wasn't even tired, so ‘shit to do’ was fine by me. Not long ago I had expected to be on my way to an overnight shift moving boxes and stocking shelves, so a pleasant walk around a lovely little campus was fine by me. But my leg was throbbing.
Carmilla seemed to notice my increasingly pronounced limp and reliance on my cane. “But why don't we wrap this up soon so we can take a rest. Things are about to get real,” she said excitedly.
“Real how?” I wondered aloud.
“You'll see.” She gestured toward the standing stones, and we promptly made our way over to them. “These stones serve many purposes, but one of their most useful powers is in identifying a person's aptitude and potential for the primary schools of magic.”
“I thought I was going to go to this school?” I asked, scratching my head.
“No, not like that. Schools, like, areas of focus. Similar to schools of thought, but they’re types of magic.”
“I see.”
Carmilla cleared her throat and tried to sound very proper and scholarly. “Each of the eight stones is tuned to the energies of a specific type of magic,” she began. “And-”
“This magic isn't really magic, though, right? It's the alien stuff you said before.”
“Right.”
“Got it. Continue.”
“Eh hem, okay. So, each stone is tuned to a particular frequency of magic,” she performed exaggerated air quotes over the word ‘magic’ and gave me a wink. It almost made me laugh because she struggled to keep one eye open as she closed the other. It looked like she just bit a lemon as one corner of her lip turned upward, flashing a tooth that I noticed was uncharacteristically sharp. “But again, and I must stress, while at some point it may have been scientific in origin, to us it's just magic.”
I nodded. I could feel myself sweating, all of a sudden aware of how close she was standing to me, and her hand brushed mine as she took a step back, perhaps noticing my tension.
Carmilla continued. “Anyway, when you touch a stone, it will glow with a certain intensity if you happen to be holding a focus.”
“What's a focus?”
“Like, a wand, a staff, or a magic rock or gem.”
I pulled the red gem out of my pocket that Devon had given me. “Is this a focus?”
“Yesss!” she said, clapping her hands. “So you'll hold that bad boy and walk around slowly, touching each stone. Each stone will glow, some more than others. The one that glows brightest will be your primary school of focus.”
“The subject I study the most? Like my major?” I asked.
“Your Affinity. Precisely,” Carmilla nodded. “Now, do the, uh, thing I said.” She gestured to the stones.
I gripped the ruby in my hand and walked up to the first stone. There was some kind of wording carved into it, but the markings were beyond me. My hand rested upon the standing stone and a faint pink light emanated from it. Barely anything. I sighed.
“Not going to be very good with enchantment magic, I'm afraid,” Carmilla said, tutting as she shook her head. “But that's my area of expertise, so I'll have your back there.”
I nodded and touched the second stone. A cyan light emanated from it, a bit stronger, maybe, but still underwhelming. Still hardly lit at all. I started to see where this was headed and felt my muscles tensing.
“That's illusion magic. It's okay. It'll probably be brighter on the next one.”
Slowly I worked my hand around the entire circle of standing stones. Each one let off only the dimmest of lights. In some cases, as it was with divination, the light wasn’t visible at all. I felt more and more nervous and awkward with each touch.
Enchantment, Illusion, Divination, Elementalism, Conjuration, Summoning, Transmutation. All the stones barely responded to my touch, and now there was only one left.
I felt her gaze on me, and my face seared red with humiliation. What a waste of time it was for me to be here, embarrassing myself in front of her. Apparently, I had almost no potential as a magic-us
er. My stay here would likely be short. I found myself disappointed. I hadn’t even realized until now how much I’d gotten my hopes up, but the prospect of having magic taken away from me just as I was realizing it existed--it was torture.
But Carmilla's facial expression went from awkward and nervous to excited as I approached the last stone. She put a hand above her eye, ready to shield it.
“I think I know what's about to happen,” she said.
“What?” I asked, almost whimpering.
“Just touch the last stone, dummy,” she chuckled.
I did as she commanded. My hand found the smooth surface of the final standing stone, and the moment the tip of my finger so much as grazed it, a blinding white light exploded outward, forcing me to cover my eyes in surprise. When I dared to open them again, it was almost as if night had turned to day, so bright the area around me was.
“Necromancy,” she said. “You're a necromancer.” She looked proud and a little bit intimidated.
I took my hand off of the stone, and the night returned. It took my eyes a moment to adjust.
“Was that normal?” I asked. It didn’t seem normal.
“Never seen it that bright. But then, I had heard from the Headmistress you were going to be really powerful, so when the rest of the stones were so, uh, dim, I knew that last one was going to be huge.”
“So I'm a necromancer? That's death magic, right?” I asked.
“Yeah, it's super rare to have that as your most powerful school of magic, too. It's also very rare to be so weak in the others,” she said. Seeing my face twitch at the comment, she added, “But don't worry, you more than make up for it. I've never seen anything like that little light show!”
I looked at my hand and the ruby I still clutched as though it would tell me some critical secret about myself. “Now what?” I asked.
“Well, in the morning, you'll meet the Headmistress. And after that, I'll help you summon your familiar.”
“My familiar?”
“Yeah, it's like a magical pet that follows you for your whole life and becomes stronger with you,” she said.
“I'm familiar with the concept,” I said.
“Pun intended?”
“No, actually.”
Carmilla laughed a high, endearingly sweet laugh that made me smile. She seemed so bubbly for a sorceress wielding alien magic.
“In any case,” she continued, “Now I'd better get you to your dormitory, and we can both get some rest. Tomorrow your orientation will continue.”
“Roger that,” I said, and I followed her to the tall white building we had discussed earlier. The exterior was framed with baroque double doors, and balconies extended from a dozen rooms on each floor, each balcony having a unique gargoyle perched on the rail, looking outward at the rest of the campus. The doors swung open automatically upon our approach, and we walked inside.
Wordlessly, a woman sitting at the front desk passed a key to Carmilla, who passed it on to me. “Room 704. 4th room on the 7th floor,” Carmilla said, grinning at me.
We walked over to an elevator and out of the lobby, which was comfortably furnished with antique sofas with wooden feet and glass-faced coffee tables. The elevator was larger than the elevator of my old apartment building, and also more old-fashioned, closing with an iron gate rather than solid metal doors. The thought of my old apartment made me think of the life I'd left behind. The feeling that came suddenly wasn’t sadness, though, but concern.
“What about my friend, Chelsea? She was with me when Devon took me.”
“She'll be fine. She'll forget everything, thanks to Devon's magic, and go on with her life as though nothing happened.”
“And I have class there in the morning. How can I balance my life here and back home?” I asked.
Carmilla's lip quivered at the answer she knew she'd have to give. “Oh, honey, you're not going back. That life is dead to you.”
Of course, I already knew that on some level, having heard Devon say something similar, but it was brutal to have it spelled out for me again in even less uncertain terms. I looked up at the ceiling of the elevator as I fought back tears. The overwhelming complexity of the situation was too much for anyone. I remembered reading an article about the different chemical structures of tears in Anatomy class. Tears of pain. Tears of strong emotions. Tears of change. They all looked different under a microscope. I figured these were the latter kind of tears. Too much was changing too fast, even if it was exciting. It was so much to take in.
Carmilla, bless her heart, pretended not to notice.
The musty wooden elevator dinged its farewell as the gates pulled open. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and followed Carmilla to my new room.
“Oh, do I have a roommate?” I asked.
“Yep, I'm your roommate,” she said with a mischievous grin and a wink. There was that trademark shitty wink again.
I felt my eyes jerk open in alarm. Carmilla laughed at my reaction. “I'm kidding, no, you don't have a roommate, but if you get lonely or need some help, I'm happy to swing by. I'm responsible for your adjustment, so just let me know.”
I nodded. The words were innocent enough, but I did sense a degree of mutual attraction between us. I might be reading into it, but she seemed to find a lot of excuses to brush up against me or grab my arm—it happened at least three times since entering the dormitory alone. I would shelve those thoughts for later, though. For the moment, I only nodded, her face only a breath away.
She reached out a hand, and I took it. We shook hands, and I bid her farewell.
“Get some rest and I'll come pick you up for breakfast in a few hours, okay?” she said. “After that, we'll meet with the Headmistress.” Carmilla walked off with a smile and a wave, and I couldn't help myself but watch her sexy, slinky figure disappear into the elevator.
I put my key to the door and unlocked it. It swung open on its own, but before I could even get a sense of the room, I beheld a tall robed figure staring out the window on the balcony door, opposite me.
“I'm afraid I couldn't wait, Mr. Elloway. I hope you'll forgive my eagerness.”
Chapter 5
Spells and Breakfast
The door slammed shut behind me, and the figure ahead turned to face me. The woman bore a fierce countenance, a wicked face made all the more distinguished and impressive by marks of her age. Her hair was silver, and her skin wrinkled, but she carried herself with great strength and energy.
The gaze she cast toward me was one of savage curiosity. She sized me up and seemed to grunt in dissatisfaction when she noticed my cane.
“Mr. Elloway, please take a seat.”
A chair appeared directly behind me and shoved itself into the back of my legs. My knees buckled, and I fell backward into it with a surprised grunt. The woman remained standing.
“Who—”
“You will answer when asked. Understood?” she commanded brusquely.
I nodded. My skin crawled with goosebumps as I sat submissively before the strange and imposing woman.
“I am Headmistress Eliza Waite, the head of this institution. Firstly, I offer you my sincere welcome.”
I wasn't sure if I was supposed to respond, but when she paused, I decided the safest thing to do was to say, “Thank you, Headmistress.”
“Very well. It came to my attention, as it no doubt came to the entire school's attention with your flashbang display at the Standing Stones earlier, that you are to be a necromancer, Liam. Do I need to explain to you how rare this is?” she asked, her eyes piercing through me.
Carmilla already made that much clear to me. I shook my head, but had trouble meeting her gaze. She answered anyway. “So rare is it that we do not have many classes taught in necromancy, and the only teacher on campus suited for such a student as you would be me,” she explained. Her eyes continued to size me up, relentlessly measuring and judging.
“So you will teach most of my classes?”
“I will tutor you myself. You will n
ot have much need to take part in many other classes. I can tell just from the smell of you that you lack the gifts of any other Affinity, but I won't let a power such as yours in such a rare school of magic go to waste.”
I almost quaked at the thought of this severe and harsh woman, the Headmistress of Esoterica herself, no less, being in charge of all my coursework.
“May I know how other courses work here?” I asked.
She narrowed her eyes at me but answered plainly. “At the start of each month, professors announce the topics and times of their lectures in advance. Students can choose to attend or not attend any number of lectures. There is no grade. Many students choose to spend most of their time in the library or out on assignments rather than in lectures.”
“How does graduation work?” I asked. It was an interesting system that she had just laid out, but I didn’t quite get it. Optional classes? Was this some kind of hippy school?
“There is no graduation. After a year you can request to be tested. If you can repel an assault of Void Graspers or other Void Things in your homeworld, you will be allowed to come and go freely. Your first course with me, however, will begin next week. You have the weekend to prepare. Here,” she said, and with a flick of her wrist, the bookshelves above my bed filled with dozens of tomes of magic, primarily concerned with necromancy, no doubt. “My first test of you will be to see what you are capable of teaching yourself from these books.”
“Yes, Headmistress,” I said sheepishly. I bowed my head in deference instinctively.
She looked once again at my cane. “Let us treat this weakness of yours, shall we?” I had no time to respond, though I resented her words. My wooden cane flew into her hands, and the ruby from my pocket shot toward her as well, stopping inches from her chest where it floated in the air. “Yes, what can we do about this deformity?” she mused.
The cane twisted and quivered in the air in front of her, morphing and changing into a new, more regal shape. The ruby collided with the handle and it writhed and clicked against it until it was integrated into the hilt of the cane.
“Now, this is an appropriate focus for a young necromancer,” Headmistress Waite said with a smirk. “This will serve you well.” She tossed it back at me. I fumbled to catch it but just managed to avoid letting it hit the ground. As I held it in my hands, the aching in my leg seemed to dull considerably.
Esoterica 1: Liam's Awakening: A Lovecraftian Fantasy Harem Adventure (Esoterica Chronicles) Page 3