The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Piercing the Veil

Previously: "The Essence of Will Prescott" 

"I have classes and studying to do," Melody says when you call her. "I can't drop everything--"

"You can if I tell you to," you retort. "I'm trying to be nice here. Don't make me crack the whip." She grumbles, but agrees to come out early in the afternoon.

With that settled, you turn back to the pile of books that Blackwell left for you. It's not well organized--he only had a few hours to start drawing up the "course work"--but you get a start.

To your dismay, you find that it's going to be a bit like unraveling a Persian rug. Everything is connected to everything else in the occult, and essentia is no exception. The first book is a short primer, hardly more than ten pages long, that looks self-published--the pages are all typewritten--and you glance at the title page on a hunch. There's no author listed, but the literary style makes you think it was written by Blackwell himself.

It announces that there are four "metaphysical constituents" to human beings: substantia, essentia, anima, and imago. Three of these you are slightly familiar with. Substantia you know from working with golems; imago is the stuff that makes masks work; and essentia is what you want to learn about. Anima is a mystery.

Imago, the blustery author declares, is the only element that can be directly apprehended by the senses, and this apprehension itself "only occurs in a special way." Imago is appearance: the physical forms that we see and touch and smell. This is imago "as phenomenon", whereas imago "as noumenon, the thing in itself" is unknowable. There is a reference to Kant in a footnote, but you don't follow up on it.

The other three, the book says, exist only as "noumena, conditions of metaphysical possibility": "knowable by the philosopher through intellect, but in theory able to be manipulated by the practitioner of occult arts."

You wince, settle grimly into the chair, and press on.

Substantia is the "condition of physical existence, true and undifferentiated substance"; it is not "atoms and molecules, nor matter nor energy, which are only an appearance in space-time as any other form"; rather it is "that which explains the existence of anything and distinguishes being from non-being in the phenomenal world."

Phenomenal, you think bitterly to yourself. Brilliant. Bloody impossible to understand.

Essentia is "the condition of speciation, the difference of kind." "Undifferentiated substantia (to be redundant, for substantia includes the predicate 'undifferentiated' as part of its analysis) is differentiated by reference to essentia," says the book. "This kind vs. that kind is reference to 'this essentia' and 'that essentia'."

You roll your eyes and scan ahead.

Anima is "differentiation at the individual level." It is "this one and that one." "The role that spatial and temporal coordinates play in distinguishing individuals in the phenomenal world, anima plays in the field of the metaphysical constituents."

You close the book with a snort and pass on to the next.

It's in Latin. So are all the others. You sigh deeply, and wonder if the fake Blackwell was sniggering at you behind its back all the time it was putting this packet together for you.

Melody knows Latin, you're sure, but she'll be even more lost than you at figuring out this stuff. Fortunately, you know a way of getting your head and her head together, so you take the Libra up into the work room, where (you're not surprised to see) Blackwell has lots of makings for lots of things. You spend the rest of the morning laying in supplies for possible use: six blank masks, eight blank mind bands (one of which you finish up all the way through the rune work), a tub of mask sealant, and a tub of golem sealant using your own hair. You will have to be very careful with the latter, for you can only make five golems safely, and with the masks you already have four in play.

* * * * *

"What have you got?" you ask Melody without looking up from the desk, where you're carefully reading and making notes from one of the books Blackwell left.

"This is the best I can make of it," she says, and sets a piece of paper down along with the Libra. You glance carefully between the original and her translation, noting with approval that she's written out several different possible translations.

It's easy for you to check her work, just as it's easy for you now to read De Essentia, for as soon as she arrived you'd taken her mask off long enough to slap a mind band onto her; with her head inside yours, you are as good at languages as she is. Still, it made sense to keep her working separately on the Libra problem while you concentrated on other things.

It's mostly a set of ingredients, duplicates of the ingredients for a mind band. The only addition is a gnomic instruction: "My use is my solution," she has as one translation. "Use me to solve me" is another. But who is "me"?

You drum your fingers and carefully examine the ragged bottom of the torn page. There are no signs of ink marks, no sign of any additional writing. You rub your chin with your knuckles. It's a riddle, a little voice says inside you. The book is taunting you with a riddle.

You blink: Of course! "Me" is the book. You are supposed to use the book to solve the riddle.

But then you sag. Of course you're supposed to use the book; what else would you use? Use the book? No, use the item whose ingredients its given you. Use them on the book?

Seized by a sudden insight, you rush the book upstairs and make another mind band, finishing it as quickly as you can in a way consistent with care. With trembling fingers you lay it across the torn page. Your breath quickens as it vanishes inside the Libra. The wait is exquisite torture, but after a few minutes it reappears, and you lay it against the spine. It vanishes again. You turn back to the torn page, just in time to see its bottom half materialize.

What a clever son of a bitch the author was. The book has its own imago, which is undisturbed by any damage done to it; catch the imago and set it on the book, and you can return it to its original state. You turn the page, but only long enough to confirm that you can now get deeper into the book. Sure enough, there is the next spell, as readable as the previous ones. The new page cannot be turned, but that isn't a surprise.

"Well, don't you look smug," Melody says as you saunter down the stairs. "Got it figured out, huh?"

"We got it figured out, Melody," you say. "I could kiss you, but at the moment that would be like kissing myself." You stop short, and stifle a small laugh. "Speaking of which--"

She turns red.

"So that's how come you didn't want to come over," you continue. "Well, I don't want to get in the way of your date." She blushes even more furiously. "He is cute, isn't he?"

"And what's he see in me, right?" she snarls in embarrassment.

"Oh, don't be like that," you tell her, and take her by the elbow. "If he likes you, be happy about it. Don't worry about where it leads." You pause as you feel a twinge. "You know, there was a girl that liked me for a little while. She stopped liking me after awhile, but I'm glad we had a little time together."

Melody still looks pinched in the face, and mutters something, but you let her go. She's supposed to meet him at the coffee shop, to talk in a couple of languages about things that would be over your head if you weren't swimming inside hers at the moment. She's having fun with the talk, and is strenuously trying to avoid noticing that Joe--for that's his name--is a blonde Adonis who really does seem to like her company.

* * * * *

"Hey boss, you got it figured out yet?" Will Prescott calls breathlessly from the foyer, slamming the door behind him.

"No, that'll be your job," you call back. You glance up to find him looking at you from the library with a disappointed expression. "I'm dividing the jobs. I got Melody and Blackwell working on some other projects. You'll be working the hex thing. I'm jumping in to help where I can. And right now--" You rifle the pages of the thick book.

"Aw, shit," he says, and slumps into a chair. "I was hoping you'd have it licked by this afternoon. You're good enough, aren't you?"

"If I am, you can have it licked by midnight."

"It's getting worse at school," he whines. "A couple of people actually hissed at me in the halls."

"Then get off your ass and get started on your research," you retort. He flinches. "What?"

"You sounded just like dad when you said that."

You snort, then turn it into a chuckle. "I'd rather sound like a Prescott than a Shabbleman."

"Is that what you're working on?"

"No, that'll be long range. I'm--"

"Holy fuck, since when can you read Latin?" He's peering at the book you have out.

"Since I swiped a copy of Melody Weiss's brain." You tap your forehead. "It's been a productive day."

"Mind sharing what you got?" He waves his hand in front of his face.

"I can't share her head with you, but I'll let you see what I've done." He smiles as you reach for his face.

Next: "More Tricks of the Trade" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"