SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Ten
“Who’s there?” Nick asked. But even as he spoke he observed the strange bending rays of light directly ahead. When it was radiating a tolerable forty watts, Nick stood and approached. It seemed to be shaping itself around the silhouette of a man.
“Don’t be afraid,” the silhouette suggested. “I am here to help.”
When his eyes had adjusted, Nick shuffled a smidgen closer. There was a man in the wall; no, not in the wall, in the mirror hanging on the wall. He was wearing strange black shades, and was clean shaven, though Nick thought he’d be wise to grow a beard to at least partially conceal those ugly burn scars crawling around his sunglasses. Bald, the man came across as stern, and yet his sunglasses suggested a playful air—or blindness.
“Do I know you?” Nick asked.
“Where is your candle?” the man in the mirror asked in return. “How’d you find your way down here without a light?”
Just like an adult to ignore his questions. “Some stupid fairies or something knocked me down and took it. Then they flew away with it. What’s your name?” Nick decided if the man refused to answer this question, he would smash the mirror. He’d heard of communication through enchanted mirrors, of course, but it was considered high magic, beyond the capabilities of even most warlocks. Impressive, but not very useful if the grown up in the mirror wasn’t going to answer his questions. This form of mystical communication had gone out of fashion when the Mirrorman had started showing up in practitioners’ personal mirrors . . . Nick slapped his forehead. “You’re the sorcerer they call the Mirrorman.”
“I can’t imagine how you riddled that one out,” the man snorted. “They weren’t fairies, by the way. Sprites took your candle. Mischievous little devils, aren’t they?”
A heavy silence passed between the two wizards. When the man in the mirror spoke again, light seemed to emanate from his mouth and from around his shades. “I know how frustrated you’ve been. How angry you are.”
“How can you know that?”
“You told me when we met,” the man said. “You don’t remember because I placed an enchantment on you. A hypnosis spell copied out of Gardner’s Book of Shadows. You don’t remember any of this? Meeting me in the Dreaming, conversing in my sanctum?”
Had the temperature just dropped a few degrees, or was he about to freak out?
The man in the mirror was silent.
Nick found his voice: “Why did you put an enchantment on me?”
The man waved his question aside. “We’ll get to that—when you’re ready. For now know this: I brought you here, implanting a memory of mine in your mind that would be conjured when you entered the sanctum sanctorum.”
“The boy with the blade, alone in the sanctum.”
The Mirrorman nodded. “You mentioned you wanted to know about your past, specifically how you were made a wizard. This mirror, the Black Mirror, can help you. And I can teach you how to use it. But you must first bring it to me.”
This was beginning to feel like a ruse, a clever one, but a ruse by any other name and all that. Nick removed his athame and prepared to use its knurled black handle to smash the mirror and banish its stupid manipulative occupant. He was a foot away when the mirror man held up one of his hands.
“Don’t!”
“Ah,” Nick stopped and sheathed his knife. “Now we’re getting somewhere. This mirror is special to you. Tell me why.”
A long sigh escaped from between the man’s pursed lips. “It was crafted and imbued by John Dee for Queen Elizabeth the First. When he discovered what she wanted him to use it for, he stole it back and fled with it.”
“Yeah, and?” Nick said.
“It is the most powerful mystical relic in the world,” the Mirrorman continued in an exasperated manner. He wiped his shimmery forehead. Light no longer dazzled from his mouth. Perhaps he’d lost interest in the parlor trick. “The Black Mirror, in the right hands, can show you the future—or the past.”
Nick almost forgot to breathe. “My past?”
The Mirrorman nodded. “Yours. Mine. Your parents.”
For a few seconds all the sounds and smells of the Grimoirium vanished. This was it, a way to learn the truth. But before he could make an arrangement with the mysterious Mirrorman, the sound of footsteps echoed from the tunnel outside the room.
Nick darted forward to within inches of the mirror. He whispered, “Someone‘s coming. Quick, how do I take the mirror to you?”
“It cannot be removed by force,” the man in the mirror exhaled, and the light around him wavered. “Take Lemegeton, third alcove up on the left. I was searching the Grimorium’s editions for the right spell to remove it when Grimwood . . . when I had to leave. I never got to Lemegeton. I’m convinced somewhere in that grimoire is the enchantment used to tether the Mirror to the Institute. Find it. Learn how to reverse the enchantment. And Nick, as soon as you leave my sight, you’re going to start forgetting what happened here.”
“The enchantment,” Nick realized with a groan.
“Precisely,” the Mirrorman said. “You’ll discover the book of magic in your possession and not know how you got it. But I imagine your inquisitive nature will lead you to studying it, and I will make sure you recall its connection to the Black Mirror.” He muttered a few incoherent words and waved his hand, extinguishing the lights.
Momentarily plunged into darkness, Nick heard someone splashing through the puddles out in the tunnel; a moment later candlelight dimly lit the alcove. By this light Nick snatched up the tattered copy of Lemegeton, tucked the volume down the back of his pants and left.
With the door closed, he opened his mouth and unleashed a bloodcurdling scream. Then he ran down the corridor, splashing through puddles in a rush. Rounding the first corner, he ran smack into Richard. Both boys crashed to the floor, soaking their clothes in tepid water.
“Holy crap,” Richard said, retrieving his candle. “Nick, what are you—”
“No time,” Nick scrambled to his feet and resumed running. “We have to get out of here!”
Richard didn’t need to be told twice; he saw the look of pure terror on his friends’ face. Racing after him, he said, “What are we running from?”
“A huge three-headed dog,” Nick called over his shoulder. Fleeing from the secret room had reminded him of a similar scene he’d read in the Sorcerer’s Stone. He hoped Richard wouldn’t make the connection. This school had enough kooky mythics, would a three-headed dog really be that difficult to believe in?
Back in the sanctum sanctorum, the boys stopped. While Richard bent over, panting, Nick yanked on the passage door, closing it. He then replaced the few books he’d removed.
A minute or two later, when they had their breath back, Nick looked Richard up and down. “What were you doing in those tunnels anyway?”
Richard straightened out his bathrobe. “I was following you, all right?”
“What?”
They started heading out of the library. Richard said, “Duchaine wanted me to keep an eye on you. I thought maybe you might be trying to catch some ’Z’s somewhere. Forgive me for interrupting your late night mischief.”
Nick caught up to him at the big doors. “You’re not going to tell Duchaine, are you?”
Richard stared at him, that annoying grin still plastered on his face. “Well, I guess seeing as you didn’t fall asleep, I don’t have to tell him anything.”
Nick patted him on the back, flinched at the pressure against his palm-cut. “Thanks,” he said, and ran off into the winding Shaman hallways alone. A few minutes later he found Severus licking his paws in a corridor bypassing the Shaman dorm. He sped past the gargoyle, Severus trotting after him. Soon they were back up on the first level, heading towards Dorm Necromancy.
In the atrium Nick paused to consider his options. It might be wise to jot down some notes on his encounter with . . . he knew he’d spoken with a man, possibly a sorcerer, but could not for the life of him remember the circumstances of the discussion. Nick rubbed his temples. There was something he was supposed to do. Some secret action he was supposed to take.
His memory refused to oblige.
Richard appeared beside him. “You coming?”
“Hmm? Yeah.”
When he went to lie down on his bed, Nick received a nice bolt of pressure against his back. He sat up, dug out an old tattered book from his pants, titled Lemegeton. Under the dim light of the Edison bulb overhead, he cracked the spine. There was no copyright page, no chapter index, and no Author’s Introduction.
As he thumbed through the dry cracking pages, Nick was bombarded with dense magical formulae, exotic rituals, and lists of demons, most of which were written in Latin. He felt like there was something specific he should be looking for, but could not zero in on it. Even the memory of how he’d come into possession of this work was a mystery.
It didn’t help matters that he was fighting fatigue, dead on his feet.
On thumbing through the dry tome he stumbled on a footnote section about TETHERING SPELLS. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew that this was somehow important. Richard was watching him. Nick dog-eared the page, closed the book, and dug out his Necromancy primer The Witches Book of the Dead.
Yeah, he thought wryly, this looks way less suspicious.
Night dragged slowly into morning. By sunrise Nick considered himself an expert in the necromantic arts. Following a jolting cold shower to wake himself up, Nick dressed and grabbed his textbook. It was Wednesday, so everyone would be spending two two-hour long sessions of study in their respective Dorm.
Nick followed Bruno through the door at the opposite end of the dorm. Engraved in the arched header on both sides were warding sigils, and Nick instantly sensed the ward as he passed through the doorway. A gentle buzzing in the center of his brain. Were he a demon or some other malevolent spirit, he would not have been able to enter.
The Necromancy lab was a sprawling space more closely resembling a morgue than a classroom. The stink of antiseptic—and possibly formaldehyde—permeated everything, from the instruments, to the aprons, to the air itself.
“All right everyone,” Mr. Ussane said, waving in the sixty or so students of every class age. “Gather around the slab. Charlie, throw that gum out, now.”
Beside Bruno, Nick gently nudged aside a taller boy who looked to be a third year novice, or maybe a first year apprentice, so he could see the slab on which the corpse lay, still full of necromantic potential.
“For the sake of our first timers,” Mr. Ussane began, “we will quickly cover the basics of summoning departed spirits before we delve into the actual séance, where one of you will summon a deceased loved one from the Other Side.”
The dorm head spent the next fifteen minutes outlining the workings of summoning and conjuration, and how a corpse could be used in certain rites. Then he detailed the ritual of the séance, and what would be expected of the student who acted as the medium through which the departed would speak. By the time ten o’clock rolled around, stomachs were gurgling and students were silent, too nervous to indulge in the teenager’s favorite habit of speaking while an adult droned on.
Nick knew—as a little field mouse knows before the hawk swoops down—that Mr. Ussane was going to pick him.
“Dude,” he whispered to Bruno. “He’s going to pick me, I know it. Let me hide behind you.”
Bruno leered at Nick. He raised his hand and said, “Mr. Ussane, Nick wants to volunteer.”
“Excellent,” Mr. Ussane said, with a little too much gusto, Nick thought.
As he made his way towards the round table, Nick caught sight of a huge wooden chair carved to death with sigils, and bejeweled with runes. Mr. Ussane lit seven cerulean candles and a single black one hanging on adjustable chandeliers. Nick dropped into the horribly uncomfortable chair. While he tried to ignore the wooden bumpers nestled beneath his armpits, two of the eldest journeyman wizards snapped padded shackles into place over his wrists and ankles. Though his father had warned him about Woody the Necro Chair, how it had been designed to allow its user to completely relax without falling out, Nick had not expected it to be so . . . Sing-Sing-ish.
The dorm head set a small mortar before Nick on the table, dropped a few ounces of a ferrous blue powder into it, and took the seat opposite Nick as everyone looked on.
“Donny,” Mr. Ussane called over his shoulder. “The metronomes.” A few seconds later two metronomes started clinking back and forth in a rhythmic dance, tuning the ether. “Now, Mister Hammond,” Mr. Ussane spoke in a quiet monotone. “Close your eyes. I want you to focus on someone you lost. Someone who played an essential part in the establishment of your . . . herm, personality would be best, but anyone will do so long as the connection forged between you and the deceased is potent. Are you visualizing this person?”
Nick nodded, though he had no idea who the person was who’d suddenly appeared in his minds’ eye was. Maybe some grandparent he couldn’t remember meeting.
“Good,” Mr. Ussane said. “Now, take a deep breath and count down from ten.”
Here we go again, Nick mused. Just like back at Duchaine’s cabin.
Time seemed to slow down. Nick’s muscles relaxed so completely that his body was now entirely supported by the chair. The dorm head dug out a pinch of essence of bone from a drawer in the table. The essence would create a conduit for the deceased to appear in its spirit form, while the trace of explosive mixed into it acted as the catalyst for the conjuration.
With a flick of his wrist, Mr. Ussane tossed the essence into the mortar.
Blue flames burst from the bowl, instantly forging a connection between Nick’s visions, the four-dimensional space of the room, and the Other Side. As Nick inhaled, and as the metronomes ordered his thoughts, a grim-looking man appeared in the smoke.
A few of the oldest students gasped and recoiled. Mr. Ussane cursed. With a slash of his hand he spilled the mortar and its contents onto the floor, and then promptly dispelled the spirit with a funny gesture, waving his hands through the smoke.
Nick shot bolt upright.
“What happened?” he asked.
Sixty-odd pairs of eyes bore down on him. Mr. Ussane’s face suggested he either felt a profound hatred for Nick, or that he really, really needed to use the toilet.
“Um,” Nick said, “can someone un-strap me from this thing, please?”
The two journeyman wizards undid his shackles, keeping wary eyes on Nick the whole time. When he was free, Nick decided it would be best to confront this now, get it over with. He marched up to Mr. Ussane and asked, “What was the problem?”
Crickets and pin-drops.
The dorm head reached out, grabbed Nick by the shoulders and started guiding him away, towards what Nick assumed to be his personal office. About halfway across the floor, he shook loose of Mr. Ussane’s crablike grasp.
“Thanks, I can walk fine on my own.”
Instead of taking him into his office, Mr. Ussane stopped just outside the door. In a low growl he said, “How do you know that man?”
Were there any good lies to replace the truth of his ignorance? Nick couldn’t think of any, so he went with “I don’t know.”
“You’re lying,” Mr. Ussane hissed. “I’m reporting this to the Dean.” He then called Charlie over and ordered the apprentice wizard to inform Dean Delacort on the ‘nefarious associations of Nick Hammond’ and to hurry up with it.
As Charlie toddled off, Mr. Ussane gave Nick one final evil eye and then returned to the others. Confused, wondering how he managed to turn every class into a kerfuffle, and for lack of better options, Nick trotted back to join his classmates in learning how to animate a corpse. At least for this exercise Mr. Ussane wholeheartedly ignored Nick.