Neophyte / Adept (20 page)

Fanishwar Harcort and the others joined in. “He does have a
point...”

“The werewolves have
two
Initiates,” said Mariska Coven. “It is only natural that the Rome Initiates
would want to go with them––they are like naïve children, who don’t
know any better.”

“And what about the English Initiate, Fanishwar?
Or
,” said Veruschka, looking
meaningfully at Mariska, “those who come from where
you
do? The question is where does
Halsey
wish to go.

The more I was getting to know her, the more I liked
Veruschka Ravenseal. The two twins had still not spoken. They watched the
goings-on, dispassionately, giving nothing away. I thought no more about them.

First, was to refute Mariska’s claims––and
Fanishwar’s––neither of whose House I had any interest in joining
whatsoever; I think they could tell.

“I have not Chosen––
any
House. But it
is
true,” I said, looking around at them all. “The werewolves
are
my friends.”

“And the vampires?”

This was asked by Pier Alexander.

“I have nothing against them,” I said. He took no more
notice of me.

“Very well,” said Veruschka. “Gaven forgoes the Rookmaaker
Wiccaning, and
I
am satisfied. Are
you, Mistresses?”

They nodded, albeit reluctantly.

“Which leaves only Mr. Pendderwenn. You can penetrate her
mind, Julius, if you
can
, but I would
think you would want to make the best impression possible. Isn’t that the
point, to get together so we can present our respective Houses in their best
lights? You are only a number two. A second-degree Wiccan. Merely Adept. You
are not powerful enough to rip the secrets from her mind.” The twitters broke
out again; this time with particular significance. “You do not know how to
sift
brains yet,” said Veruschka,
dragging his embarrassment out further. Pendderwenn swallowed hard. There were
a lot of people there.

“Only because you have not taught me how,” he said.
“Besides, I seek only that which is good for
my
House. As any of us would do.”

“Then take it from me... she
is
...” Veruschka Ravenseal pointed her finger at Pendderwenn. “But
I will let you plead your case. Only make it fast.” She sat back down.

Pendderwenn stood.

“Halsey.... Your mother and father
were
in my House...” he said.

“ONLY BECAUSE THEY HAD NO CHOICE!”

“Selwyn, please!” Veruschka Ravenseal was back on her feet.

I looked at him, the Cold Mind. He had pounded the table
with his fist. His mane of black hair covered his face. I could no longer see
his blue eyes.

I faced Pendderwenn quickly, anxious to be gone; he stood
trembling, with the whisperers in the background making it worse.

“We are a small House; we have not the numbers, Halsey, to
be of much esteem,” he said. “We have zero satellites. None.”

Which appealed to me. I did not want to be enslaved or
enslave
anyone else; no part of me was
interested in that.

“As Mistress Ravenseal says,” went on Pendderwenn, “I am
only
Adept. I can Craft, but not the
best. I feel certain, Halsey, that you would find a place with us, that you
would
raise us up
to the House we
were. We have not been twelve since your mother and father died. Just consider
that. I have had my say. I will say no more.”

He sat back down.

Mistress Ravenseal stood up. She looked at me. “You may go,
Halsey,” she said. “Send Lia in next. Her I am
most
interested in.”

I looked back at Cold Mind. Everything from his bearing to
his look said
watch your step
. I
fully intended to.

* * *

When I got back to my dormitory I studied my Wiccan Mark,
but it had still not appeared. I didn’t know what I had expected? Maybe I
was
Malleable. Maybe I was also fickle.
Capable of being swayed by the slightest argument. That’s what it had come down
to, after all. A choice. Everything was suddenly really hard. Only one path
existed, and I had to choose carefully.

Asher was pretty much persona non grata the next day, as he
had been scheduled to speak with me after the Wiccaning but had had to go,
according to the Wiccans, to deal with a problem which had come up with his own
people. I didn’t know who they were. Only, that it would be a while before I
saw Asher again. Apparently they lived pretty far away.

* * *

“Aether. The fifth of five elements;
the fifth of All
. Aether is what makes you break out in Wiccan
Marks. It is what curls up your arms in bands of bright blue. The Mark
is
the aether.” Lux’s eyes flashed like
brilliant gems. It was almost December. Nearly a month had passed, in which the
other Initiates and I had been studying hard. I had not spoken to Ballard for
almost two weeks; not since the Wiccaning. He kept himself elsewhere these
days, doing what, exactly, I had no idea. Lia and I were by this time complete
emotional compatriots, and although her band had formed, mine had not; the rest
of the Wiccan Initiates who were being pelted daily to come join this or that
coven, passed the time arguing with one another over the merits of each House.
Each Initiate had kept her Wiccan Mark to herself, but Lia and I were so close
that I knew, for instance, what her Virtue was. It was a secret I shared with
no one else, not even my diary.

Lux said that we were very close to completing the first
phase of our magical education and that he was very pleased with our progress.
I had stopped trying to catch his eye. In fact, there was a dropping off in the
number of hands that were raised. “You have all started to become secretive,
which means that you have become aware of what your magic can do,” he said.
Soon, apparently, we would become so afraid of one another, that we would be
addressing each other as Mistress So-and-So and not staring too long, lest the
other attack, which explained why some Wiccan Houses were so far away. They were
off the beaten path so they wouldn’t get beaten up, he said. Some were so far
away that you had to go hundreds of miles just to go to a bookstore, if you
joined their House.

The aether lecture continued: “There is positive aether. And
there is negative––the negative aether.”

“How long has it been since there was a war?” asked
Vittoria.

All this talk of aether. Lux wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Pardon me?” he said.

“The Last War, when did it end? What is it like when two
wizards
fight
? I want to know about
dueling
,” said Vittoria Ravenseal. The
pretense may as well have been dropped. No Neophyte, that I knew of, had
uttered one word of what had happened at their Wiccaning. Invitations were sent
out tactically, targeting each Wiccan. I had received some myself. Fourteen, in
fact. Harcort had recruited me. They had a number of openings. I wrote back
thanking them for their interest. But said that I would need some time to come
to my own conclusion. Somehow I didn’t think any House would want a Neophyte whose
Mark hadn’t shown.

“Oh, and have
you
ever fought a duel? Someone at the party said that you had. They said you
killed someone, if you can believe it, and that was why you didn’t Craft
anymore. Because you felt guilty.”

For a future Housemate, Vittoria was very aggressive with
Lux Ravenseal. Despite myself, I leaned forward to listen.

“Vittoria, you need to be very careful with what other
people say. Otherwise, you’ll have to believe what they say about you,” he
said.

Oh, that got her!

“That’s supposed to be a secret. How
dare
you bring that up?” she demanded.

“I might say the same to you,” said Lux. It was obvious that
he had read her mind; perhaps she had gained access to his. “But as it will do
us some good.... Negative aether can be
bent
.
I do not say that it is
bad
aether,
merely that it is the opposite of positive. It is in some ways much more
powerful; and never does it prove that more than when you meddle with it. I
meddled with the dark aether,” said Lux. “Let us hope you will not. As for
dueling––non-wizards prized it for settling old scores. This world,
our world
, is nothing if not
full
of old scores. You may hear more
about them if you meddle overlong in the affairs of us all. Something to
consider before indoctrination. Nobody comes into the Magical world without
accepting all which that entails. Now, off you go! I want to see those Wiccan
Marks shining, or
un
-shining, as the
case may be, before long.”

“I don’t think your boyfriend likes me very much, Halsey,”
said Vittoria Ravenseal, once we were out of earshot of the Star Room. I was
walking along with Lia and some of the other Initiates. They had cooled to
Vittoria when it looked like she had been Chosen and they had not. When it
looked like she would be the one––and only––Ravenseal
recruit.

“Maybe he thinks you’ll stink the place up,” I said,
referring to the House, in
House
Ravenseal. There must be one, mustn’t there? A
place
where they all lived?

Vittoria blanched.

“I’m
in
,” she
said. “But you’re not. And I know why. Everyone knows you don’t belong.” She
flung her hair. “You’re just not Ravenseal material,
biiiitch
.” She laughed at me and walked away.

I thought about calling after her, but if we dueled, I
wouldn’t be able to do anything except pull her hair. My Mark had to show! It
had to!

* * *

Camille, that night, came to see me; it had been too long,
she said. She was with Dallace. The two of them had been sightseeing in Rome.
“It’s nice to see where Lennox lives,” she said. Were those tears in her eyes?
Dallace laid his hand on her shoulder. “Now now,” he said. “It’s time that we
leave, my wife and I,” he said to me. “You do not belong with us, in Venice,
and we have no right to take you back, Halsey. You belong here now.” Quite to
my shame it had been a while since I had even thought of their son; or of the
four of us together. I was wrapped up in all of
this
; of being a Wiccan.

“You are discovering who you
are
,” said Dallace, as if he could read it in me, and forgave me.
“Undergoing your own special
agones
.”

My mind flashed on Vittoria and a quick-flame of anger
roughly subsided.

“I want to thank you both for bringing me here,” I said,
“and for watching out for me.” They smiled at me; they smiled at Lia too.
Dallace and Camille were great friends of Lia’s now, and of I Gatti, whom, they
said, allowed them to wander. “We have many new antiques to show you, if you
ever come to visit us again,” they said to me. I thought of the quatrefoil and
their family tale. They too had some pull for me. “I have not been under the
muzzle of a werewolf,” said Dallace, “for so long that I quite like them now.”

“Just don’t tell
them
that, dear,” said Camille. “But I sense Halsey has something she wishes to
speak with me about. Isn’t that right, Halsey?” She looked into my eyes,
reading them as easily as if she were a Wiccan witch herself.

“Actually, there is something I would like to talk to you
about,” I said. She and I went off a little ways so we could speak alone
together. Dallace and Lia, meanwhile, looked like they were on their way to
becoming fast friends. They laughed and chatted while Camille and I got down to
it.

“It’s about magic and witchcraft,” I said. “I want to
know––”

But Camille could see it. I remembered what Lennox had said
about Camille having magic senses.

“You want to know if we are
sisters
in those arts you seem to value so highly,” she said.

“It’s just that I can see your hair...” It was candybright
of a color I had only seen Mistresses wear... “And, then, when Maria broke into
my mind––” I said. “I don’t trust her. When I look at her I feel a
draw, not for her, but for what she can
do
.”

“It’s true, she does have certain powers. We all do,” said
Camille. “As do you. As will Lennoxlove, when he comes back. I feel him in the
very throes of the Agonies...”

“How’s he doing?”

Camille sniffed. “Recall Asher,” she said. “Write to him.
Never mind. I will. You have to know.”

She left me there, staring after her, as she rejoined
Dallace.

“Oh, and Halsey!” she said.

I looked at her.

Camille made the Wiccan W with her hand, raising it up to
me, as if she were wishing me farewell. As I looked I saw the finest of fine
pen strokes of her Wiccan Mark. She had swirls. Corkscrewing swirls. But they
had not been used in years. I nodded to her to show that I understood and she
was gone, with Dallace behind her.

Chapter 19
– The Aether

Life under the Styles Master was growing more demanding by
the day. Magic was not just cast by thinking. It was crafted. Hence, the name.
The only problem was, we were so busy being indoctrinated into the magical
world––learning about ardanes and the ethics of wielding our power
(“What are you going to do, if somebody disagrees with you? Craft them into
submission––?”) that we weren’t really learning how to direct our
magic, intentionally. On the very first day somebody had
popped––gone from one place to the other as if
instantaneously––but we had still not learned how they had done it.

It was as if it was all just one big crafting accident, and
things were happening by chance.

“You may all have experienced random magic,” said Lux.
“Which is why I have not taught you anything specific. It does us no good if
you do not learn self-control.”

Tell me about it.
We had still not learned how to levitate a grain of sand; much less really
conjure. We had no Craft-sense whatsoever.

“Your Wiccan books may be full of handwritten spells but
you
couldn’t perform them,” said Lux.

It was like a pipe exploded; we ran everywhere, sloshing all
over the place, spraying in each other’s faces, the other Initiates and
I––with our anger.

“Why is that?” we suddenly all demanded. It was like we had
all been trying to do Magic, to bend it like spoons or something, but hadn’t
been successful. We hadn’t managed to conjure. Suddenly, as I looked around, I
felt
happy
.

Lia and I sighed with relief. None of the other Initiates
could craft either. “And I have my Mark!” said one.

“YEAH,” they all agreed.

The rest of them looked at each other. This was the part I
wasn’t so happy about. It looked as though I was the only one who was still
without her Wiccan bloom. I would have to wear manica langas for an entirely
different reason. Why was everything so backasswards with me?

Lux held his scar again, waiting for us to quiet down.

“Are you through? Because this yakking does us no good,” he
said. “You wanted to know about wizards dueling? What about teenagers behind
the wheel?”

“I have my license and I haven’t killed anyone yet,” said
Pilar.

More shouts of
yeah
and What the heck?

Tomorrow’s crafters
today
, I thought.

I could see where this was going.

“You wouldn’t give a kid a firearm to play with, would you?
Maybe you would. But we Wiccans do not. It is a slow indoctrination,” said Lux.

“What about this One, whatever they call her, the Wiccan
supergirl? She’s only a kid and
she
has Power!”

The other Initiates seemed to think they had scored a point.

Lux coughed and acknowledged they had.

“She
is
different,” he said.

“Oh, come on.”

“The Wiccan Prime Mover is said to possess unheard-of
powers. She is a myth,” said Lux. “We look for her but she does not exist. Do
not believe in her.”

He had to wait until we all quieted down.

“Just because
she’s
hocus-pocus, isn’t to say you are,” said Lux. “Think about it. Each of you has
been tested. Each of you has been wiccaned. Some seriously powerful wizards and
witches have read your minds.”

“I thought Asher would never stop pawing my brains out...”
said Astra.

“You see? So you’re all still here, aren’t you, you’re all
being
taught? You
are the dangerous
playthings, the firearms, and the engines with the horsepower. You are Wiccan,
and you
will
craft, but you have to
be patient.”

He started going into ethics again. We groaned, but
eventually everyone paid attention. Lux was a first-class speaker; any
opportunity to hear him should not have been missed. I was only sorry when he
cut short our lesson because he wasn’t feeling so well.

The rings on his fingers had dug into his hand from
clenching his fist too tightly. He took them off.

“Oh, and I will say this,” he said, gazing out at all of us.
“Just because duels existed with swords––which wizards and witches
also
used to fight with––”
He had to stop to breathe “––wands and swords just being extensions
of the aether––does not mean that all of the
formalities
should be adhered to. You are in a fight for your
lives, when you duel.
Act
like it.
Cheat
, if you have to. Living isn’t a
test. It’s a survival strategy.”

He left us there, smiling at his own wit.

* * *

The rest of the day passed as it usually
did––with meals and gossip––and it also passed as it
usually did not. I had begun trying to craft in my free time, something Lia
thought was a very good idea. We practiced shooting pale smoke at each other.
But nothing would happen except for coughing fits. “It’ll happen. I know that
now,” said Lia. She winked at me.

“I guess,” I said. I wasn’t so sure. Lux’s pep talk was like
a band-aid. I needed a new one now.

“Where there’s smoke there’s fire,” said Lia, encouragingly.

At dinner Ballard was with the rest of the werewolves. I saw
him drinking from his moon flask, pretending like the rest of the Meadpalace
didn’t exist. He, Paolo and Locke were sitting together. Ballard shook his head
forcefully, like he didn’t want to hear anymore. Locke got up and left him,
after which Paolo paid attention to his steak, and Ballard stared at a spot on
the wall.

Most of the vampires, by this time, had stopped coming to
the Meadpalace. You saw them, time to time, in the hallways, but they rarely if
ever engaged people in conversation, keeping mostly to themselves. The Wiccans
were also distant. It was a good thing that each particular race had somewhere
they could go, because the more I saw, the more it looked like we were getting
tired of each other.

I wondered if every Wiccan, werewolf and vampire was a
social misfit, and then, when I thought about it, yeah, we kind of all were. At
least we had
that
in common!

I left Lia and went to go back to my dormitory. But before I
could get there I was hailed by someone I had not seen in a while.

It was Asher, and he was motioning to me like I should
follow him. He looked guilty about something, almost as if he had done
something wrong, or was about to, like he had carnivorous butterflies gnawing
at him or something.

I said, “Hey, what’s up, Asher?”

“Come with me,” he said. Wouldn’t you know it, he led us
straight to the space in the wall, I had seen him coming from once before. And
there were the stuccoes with the sculptures of the warriors on them. Asher felt
around, trying to find the finger hold which would allow him to open the secret
passageway.

“This is a cryptoporticus,” he said. “It leads to the
columbarium.”

Crypto-what?
Columbarium-who?

“Hurry! We’ll be safe there!” he said.

I followed after Asher. Ballard’s and Gaven’s vouching for
him wasn’t the only reason why I felt safe; I had come to trust Asher. He took
a torch from a bracket on the wall and whispered secret words to it. A flame
lit. The entrances closed and we were standing in a small tunnel which went on
for as far as the eye could see.

I saw various niches in the walls, Asher said were called
loculi
. They had urns tucked into them.

“There
are the
ashes of the warriors that were killed when a great war was fought here, Halsey
Rookmaaker,” he said, pointing them out. He wasn’t going to start that Halsey
Rookmaaker nonsense again, was he?

“It was their sacrifice that repaired originally
relationships between shapeshifters and Immortals. Follow me.”

He guided me as fast as he could through tunnel after
tunnel––what looked like trenches. You could still see where the
ghosts of soldiers had fought and died.

“Where are we going, Asher?” I said.

“There’s no time. Hurry!”

I hurried after him as fast as I could. When we finally got
there, he entered into a circular room, which was like the Pantheon, except
buried deep underground. An oculus in the ceiling fed into daylight. The
Columbarium––the vaulted tomb.

Five funerary urns the size of living people stood in the
corner, as well as other tombs. “The Five Fallen,” he said. “Five immortal
vampires who died defending Rome. They rest now with the Dog Kings, in the
royal columbarium.” He saw me looking up. “Above us is the fighting pit,” said
Asher.

“So this must’ve been what Gaven was talking about,” I said.
“The tomb of his forebears. The Columbarium. But there are vampires?”

I asked Asher about this. He said, “We––that is,
shapeshifters and other Supernaturals––have not always hated each
other...
Much
. Don’t get me wrong.
We’re not the best of friends. But this Gatheringplace was selected to honor
the past––in an attempt to try and prevent it from reoccurring.”

In the center of the room was a large and ornate
sarcophagus––the kind Egyptians used to bury their mummies in. It
looked like a man and woman had been sculpted on the cover of it.

“Rhea Silva,” he said. “She was said to possess all eight of
the Wiccan Virtues. She found her
true
mate
. They rest now, in peace, at an
eternal
banquet.”

The man and woman looked peaceful, powerful, old.

“Asher. I think I may be
her
,”
I said. “This super witch they have all been waiting for. I have disturbing
nightmares. And my mind––it can go places. When I asked Gaven about
my visions, and the thing which is chasing me, he said it may have been ‘the
Calling’, what werewolves
feel
before
they change.”

“I see,” said Asher. “You think you may be one of them, a
Witch Shifter. It’s true. Such beings have existed. Before the
change
, as you call it, young warriors
are possessed
of
their Animals...
in their dreams
. It is only natural.”

“You mean, it will try and become one with me, that I may be
a werewolf?” I said.

Was that what the monster was that was chasing me? My
Animal?
Before
I became a Shifter?

“Who were your parents?” asked Asher. “Forgive me.” He could
see that he had made a fur paw. “So you, like me, Halsey Rookmaaker, are
outcast, too.... You know, this animal may be your Other, or it may not be, but
I perceive incredible things for you––” He wanted to say my name
again. “If you
are
this One, then
this would be your Mecca. Rhea Silva was a true Level Nine Wiccan. She was not
any of the Virtues. She was
all
of
them.
Beyond Fledged.
She was also a
Witch Shifter and she could See.”