This choice: Flashback: Four months ago • Go Back...Chapter #6A Grave Invitation by: Seuzz   "It's a terrible risk, son," Charles says gravely. "The Libra Personae is nothing but false aspects and double meanings."
"It's the only way of getting behind the veil, sir," you say. "And it's practically an engraved invitation."
Charles Brennan--the chief of your order, the Stellae Errantes--turns to Nash Carnes. "Do you concur?"
"It's the sprog's choice," Nash says. You've long grown used to his atrocious Northeastern accent, and hardly notice it anymore.
"I'm not talking about his choice. I mean his interpretation of it."
Nash peels off his glasses and polishes them thoughtfully. "Like you say, Charles, it's a book of double meanings. Triple meanings or more. But if it ain't an invitation, I don't know what is."
"It's what you'll find if you accept it that worries me," Charles says.
He's talking about the Libra Personae, the book that you'd discovered in Arnholm's Used Bookstore in Saratoga Falls a little more than a year and a half ago. It's a dangerous thing, very likely an evil one, for it was compiled by a rogue member of the Stellae, possibly as a trap--certainly as a lure and temptation--for his one-time colleagues. But whatever its author's intention, your discovery of it has led you here, to the Stellae and to your true calling as a member of that very ancient order.
"I would also feel better," Charles continues, "if you weren't quite so--" He hesitates over the proper word. "Quite so cocksure of yourself, Will."
You blush a little at the rebuke. Cocksure is a word that Nash (and Kali Valentine, your first instructor) have often chided you with. It's always been more playful than serious when coming from them, a reminder not to let your ego run ahead of your successes. "You are very good, child," Kali used to scold you, after you'd demonstrated yet again your prodigious skill at reading and constructing the sigils that form the basics of elementary "magic." "But don't strut so, like a cock who is sure of having the hen."
"But I don't feel sure of myself, sir," you protest. "In fact, I'm pretty frightened. But I'm the only one who can do it. If there is more to the Libra than just the spells it contains--"
"I'm sure there is," Charles says. "That is why I am so wary. And welcomes little fishes in with gently smiling jaws," he murmurs in a seeming afterthought.
"Excuse me, sir?"
"It's a crocodile, Will," Charles says. "The Libra is a crocodile, and it's inviting you into its maw."
"Which is why Nash and I have come up with a kind of tether, to pull me out in case--"
"You're testing yourself against the greatest genius our order ever produced," Charles says. "And you're young, barely a novitiate, and though I've the highest respect for Nash--"
"Thank you, Charles," Nash says. "And I don't mean to brag, because we all of us stand on the shoulders of giants, but our science has advanced by a couple of hundred years since von Gerssdorf wrote the Libra. Me and Will have studied the spells, and there's some mistakes in them, some kludges and missed opportunities we'd know how to correct for--"
"Don't be as cocksure as the lad," Charles says. "Our science doesn't advance at the same pace as physical science. Our science doesn't dwarf that of von Gerssdorf. It doesn't dwarf that of the ancients, even."
Nash turns a little pink.
"Sir," you say when the silence has turned awkward. "I understand the dangers, but I'm willing to take the risk. Because--" You struggle to avoid sounding desperate or greedy. "Sir, Nash and I have stopped well short of the end of the book, because there are spells in it that cannot be executed without damning ourselves." You mean the word "damn" in a very literal sense. "And I want to get deeper into it--"
"Why?" Charles demands sharply.
"Because I'm dying, sir." You point to your face, the one that merges the features of your two closest friends in the Stellae into something unique. "Under this mask, I'm only minutes from dying. My imago is shattered beyond anything a doctor could repair. The Libra is the greatest practical dissertation on imago ever created. Only inside it, beyond where Nash and I can get, have I any hope of finding a spell, or the elements of a spell, that can fix it."
"You've a nice face now, son," Charles says.
"And I could have nicer faces if I wanted," you reply. "But I don't. I want my own face back. Because it's mine. Because I don't think I'll ever get used to this lie--" You point again at your face. "Because I don't like turning it on my friends. On you, sir."
Charles sighs deeply again, and tries arguing with you further, but all the fight has gone out of him. Reluctantly, he consents to the experiment.
* * * * *
"Moon's up, Will," Nash says.
"And full, so we've got all night," you reply. "I don't want to rush this."
"Wasn't trying to rush you," he retorts. "If I thought I could, I'd still argue you out of it."
You are in the backyard of Charles's house--he'd insisted that the experiment be carried out close to home--and the Moon has just crept over the horizon. You glance at it: it's the terrestrial moon, of course, but in it you can recognize the face of Sulva, one of your ousiarchs. The fact that you can see his astronomical avatar almost every day or night makes you feel closer to him than you do to your other ousiarch, the distant Kenandandra.
You look back down at the Libra, which is open to the first page. The moon script--which you and Nash have warily circled and studied for a year now, since you'd accidentally discovered it on a night much like this one--blazes brightly. As you'd told Charles, it is an invitation (written in a dead tongue in living runes) to "enter" the Libra and "make its secrets your own." But it is an invitation that only an adept of Sulva can accept. And you are the only adept of Sulva that the Stellae have.
"You got the other end tied down?" you ask Nash.
He raises a finger and continues murmuring over the mirror. Runes are carved in its surface; a silver chain is resting on it, and the chain's reflection shimmers almost as brightly as the real bracelet. When he's completed the chant, Nash lifts the chain, but the reflection remains where it was floating just under the glass. He hands you the bracelet, and you snap it on. You can feel the tug of the bond that connects it to its twin. As you'd promised Charles, it is your anchor to the real world.
"In your own time, Will," Nash says. "Unless you want Father Ed coming out to give you a blessing."
You almost want to say "Yes." But you know Father Ed would never stand for what you're about to do. So you only laugh nervously. "See you on the other side, Nash. Tell you all about it when I get back."
Nash's eyes glint moistly--or maybe it's the moonlight on his spectacles--and he claps you on the arm.
You put your hands on the moon script. They vanish into the book, and a moment later the rest of your body follows.
* * * * *
You are standing in blankness: not an empty room, but a white nothingness. So this is what it's like being inside an unmarked page, you think to yourself.
But maybe it's not unmarked. There's a blur in the distance, which, as you approach, resolves into the figure of a man. He is wearing a white surplice, and is sitting in a rough chair, bending over a tripod. He looks up as you approach. His cheeks have deep folds, and there is a deep crease between his eyebrows. He is bald but for a few strands of white hair atop his scalp.
You recognize him, for Charles has shown you his portrait. Hieronymus von Gerssdorff, the author of the Libra Personae. You wonder that you don't feel astonishment.
You pause as he stands and walks toward you, limping slightly until he is eyeball to eyeball with you. But you feel no fear, for you have walked into this meeting of your own volition.
Von Gerssdorff shows no fear either. "What is your name, son?" he softly asks.
"William Martin Prescott," you reply before you even realize it.
His eyes were cloudy, but now they sharpen, and you realize that in giving him your name you've let him see you clearly now. "Ah," he says. "You are most welcome here."
Don't be so cocksure, you try telling yourself, but you can't help smiling impudently back.
He seems not to notice, and glances you up down. "What is this?" he asks, and your hands rise of their own accord. The bracelet glitters on your wrist. Von Gerssdorff laughs softly, with no meanness. "Yes, you have been worth the wait."
You jerk a little, for those words are like a quick, hard dagger, and they make the first chink in your armor of self-confidence. And that self-confidence shatters completely when he raises a finger, and the bracelet melts off your wrist.
Von Gerssdorff limps away, fading as he goes. His parting words float dimly back. "Those that sent you will know how to bring you back."
Then out of the blankness the sigils appear, whirling all about you. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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