Authors: George Barlow
“Boy, I hear training was interesting,” Meyer said, sat across from him.
Ruth and Gabriel let out a chuckle, and even a smile tugged at the corner of Tristan’s mouth. At least they found his pain funny.
“Don't think I've ever been so sore,” Henry said.
He felt as if he had run a marathon, every inch of his body throbbed with a dull ache. Before that morning he had never even broken a bone, but now he had broken and mended more bones than he could name. The healing process was surprisingly painful, the heat so intense that each time he was sure he would be left with a burn in exchange for having his bones reset.
“You’ll get there eventually,” Ruth said.
“I’m sure he will,” Meyer said.
“I do hope so Henry,” Tristan said, absently stirring his stew. “Or your time as an Inquisitor will be a short one.”
The afternoon session began after lunch, the boy still looking exhausted after his morning ordeal. Why did they worry about the physical stuff? If he mastered his powers, he would never need to get close enough to his enemies to need to fight with his hands. Meyer took a seat at the table and gestured for Henry to sit across from him.
“Are you ready to begin?” Meyer said.
“Look, I'm sorry about being rubbish this morning. I'm trying,” Henry said.
“I know,” Meyer said with a comforting smile. “I feel you may do better with theory. So, as you know, magus is an energy that permeates the entire universe. Inside our cells we direct and transform it into one of the five basic powers which interact with the world around us. Whenever Magick, or magus as it is more broadly known, was discovered, our great ancestors worked out how to utilise it. This was done by completing certain manipulations of energy controlled via thought patterns, but to learn how to do that would take a lifetime.”
“So they came up with a way of linking the manipulation with keywords. They would pass it on via the genetic memory thing and new generations would quickly be able to use magic,” Henry said.
“Indeed, that is how it works my boy. As you can imagine, it takes the form of many different tongues, all ancient languages contain magus in their roots. I use Latin and so will you as that is your family language, but others use High German, Coptic, Aramaic, Ancient Greek, Ancient Nordic, Gaelic, the list goes on. It is very specific to your ancestral tree, that is why families created spell books, or Grimoires as they are known, that are passed down through the generations containing key words to trigger magus for that family.”
“I suppose that makes sense. Does take away some of the, well,
magic
, but that just means if I utter the keywords then-”
“It is a little more difficult than that. Let us complete a small exercise together, it will prepare you for the application of your magus tomorrow.”
Meyer stood from the table and walked over to a large glass globe in front of a stained glass window that went from the floor to the ceiling. He placed his hand on the globe, which glowed with a small purple ball of energy at its centre from his touch. It danced and twisted, its shape constantly contorting.
“So we are seeing a visual representation of magus here, do you know what power this colour flame would represent?”
“Mentalism.”
“Exactly. Magus is something that flows through everything, but each person has a residing aura, or store of magus if you prefer, that they can manipulate and control at will. I am going to try and show you how to summon your own magus. Copy what I do, focussing on every internal sensation, ignore everything external apart from my voice.”
Meyer shrugged his shoulders and loosened up, it had been a while since he had given a student demonstration.
“Take a deep breath from your abdomen. Don't let your shoulders rise or your chest puff out, it should come from your diaphragm,” Meyer said.
The boy copied him, slowly breathing in and out.
“Good. Now, focus on the centre of your chest. Can you feel a slight twinge, a sensation where your heart is?” Meyer said.
“Very faintly,” Henry said.
“Focus on it, the sensation will intensify. Tristan will teach you a different technique to engage your magus, but this is the traditional method. How are you doing?”
“I can feel it more now, although my chest feels really tight, is that normal?”
“You are not used to it, there is no need for concern. Now put all your thought into that sensation, feel it's every deviation, change of intensity.”
The boy closed his eyes and Meyer took the opportunity to gently enter his mind. He had warned him to look out for the pushing sensation in his thoughts, but between focussing on his magus and Meyer being very slight in the mental realm, he wouldn't notice what he was doing. He found the source of Henry's power and watched as his mental projection tried to command it. In Henry's consciousness, it took the image of a great fire pit, the flames splitting and moving, trying to escape the confines. Henry was controlling it, keeping it inside the pit while forcing it to grow.
“Brilliant, now move this power from your chest to your hand, feel the energy leaving your hand and visualise it in the centre of the globe.”
The boy did so and, at the centre of the globe, a small flicker of blue energy came to life, wobbling slightly from the centre.
“You have done it,” Meyer said, surprisingly thrilled by the boy's achievement.
Henry smiled in victory and his concentration lapsed, the spark of energy instantly extinguishing.
“Multitasking, unfortunately, is not just a woman's skill. You need to maintain focus while observing the world around you. Good start though Henry, good start.”
The boy was far too easily distracted when he didn't need to be and not at all when he did. If he didn't get a grip on that, he may never master the skills needed. Meyer repeated the exercise and then, not wanting to push the boy too much, went on to less practical matters.
They spent the rest of the afternoon on a whistle-stop tour of the history of magus, the Inquisition and the basic fundamentals of what makes up alternate abilities. Henry appeared to be taking it in, but Meyer appreciated the scale of what he was trying to comprehend. They talked through the types of powers, charms and hybrids, and it was here the boy began to get a little confused. Meyer supposed that, not being brought up with the varying types of alternates, being given lists of facts and shown pictures of them was a lot to accept, let alone memorise.
“Tomorrow, we are to go and meet with the council and you will be introduced to some of the Doyens of the Inquisition. The one piece of advice I will give you Henry, is don’t answer back and
don’t break
.”
“Don’t break?”
“Some of the doyens are very vocal, you must stand your ground and don’t get angry.”
Maybe he could have said that a little more reassuringly, but the boy needed to learn fast. Surely he knew the consequences of failing to do so? All too many Inquisitors didn’t make it past the first few months and Henry had a big disadvantage, he was ignorant to their world.
“I’ll swat up, don’t worry,” Henry said.
“Right then, you can ask
one
last question boy, then I shall leave you to study.”
“Only one? Hmm… okay then, how do alternates spot each other? I mean, if they don’t have the sight thing I do?”
“We have something called the
glimmer
. If an alternate focuses their magus, their iris will momentarily change colour, visible only to those with magus of their own. The colour represents their ability, the power of an Ink is that you can trigger this in any alternate you make eye contact with,” Meyer said.
“That makes sense, but what about-”
“Another time boy, you have some studying to do.”
Meyer pushed several other books across to Henry. The boy was intelligent, he would take it all in, although he knew it was a tall order. His father had been one of the smartest men Meyer had met, but look where that got him.
“I am going to leave you for a while. Make sure you are on top of this because the council will test you on it. Might be worth you worrying about that a little bit, because if you do something wrong, certain masters will come down on you like a ton of bricks.”
The boy's lips pulled down momentarily, a flash of fear across his face. Fear was always a good incentive to study so, closing the door to the library behind him, Meyer left Henry to it.
It was then that an idea popped into Meyer’s mind. What triggered it, he didn’t know, but it was almost certainly a
bad
idea. Meyer was standing in the building where, if Wade hadn’t destroyed it, Mark’s note would surely be.
Meyer walked to the end of the corridor and down the stairs to the first floor, arriving at the lab at the end of the corridor. Knocking twice, the opened and Meyer was greeted by a familiar smile.
“Good afternoon Rosalyn, I wonder if you could do me a favour?”
By the time he reached the landing of the top floor, Meyer was exhausted, having to take a seat on a bench by the staircase to catch his breath. Walking along the corridor on the other side of the courtyard, Meyer could make out Wade heading away from his office just as Rosalyn said he would. Sure, it was a bit daring, but these were dangerous times and if Wade was somehow behind Mark’s murder, Meyer would not be far down his list of next targets. He walked along the corridor on the opposite side of the building, making sure to stay out of Wade's view. Crossing the catwalk, Meyer made his way up the narrow flight of steps leading to Wade’s office.
Meyer looked at his watch. According to Rosalyn, he would have ten minutes before Wade returned. It should be enough time, it had to be. She had taken care of the cameras, so there wasn't that to worry about, now all Meyer had to do was actually break into Wade's office. Meyer tried the door and, by their first stroke of luck in this whole affair, it was unlocked. Meyer checked behind him and, as the coast was clear, he slipped inside.
“Wade is heading down to meet with Alice now, you haven't got long,” Rosalyn said from the earpiece she had given Meyer.
“Righto, I've just got in,” Meyer said in a stage whisper. This type of sneaking about was not something he was at all accustomed to.
The office was lit from a single stain-glass window behind Wade’s desk, shining a mosaic of still colour across the floor. To the right was a single bed, a white sheet tucked into the thin mattress. Wade truly never left this place anymore, but why? Meyer crossed the floor, a creak sounding with each step, which he took as an indicator of the age of the building and not his weight. Wade’s jacket was hanging on a coat rack, but feeling through the pockets there was no sign of the note.
Meyer sat behind Wade’s desk, the chair making an unforgiving groan, and looked across the table. If he had kept the note, where would he hide it? He checked through each of the drawers, flicking through the papers each contained and found nothing, just reports on Inquisitor patrols. He tried the bottom drawer, but it refused to budge.
“Rosy, is there a camera in Wade's office?”
“No, why?”
Damn it, where would Wade keep the key? Meyer looked around the desk, but there was no sign of one.
“It doesn't matter.”
It is moments like these, when being able to pick locks would be a useful skill but, as Meyer looked at the desk, an all together different method of entry entered his mind. He pulled the two top drawers off their tracks and rested them on the table. Lifting a very conspicuous amethyst statue of a dragon that sat on Wade’s desk, Meyer gripped it tightly in his sweating palms and positioned inside the set of drawers. With a loud crack and splintering of wood, Meyer drove the statue through the base of each drawer shelf, until at last, he was in the bottom drawer.
“Are you breaking his desk apart?” Rosalyn said.
“No, one of the drawers was locked,” Meyer said.
“Why didn't you take a multi-tool with you? Do you not have one?”
“Do you think I would have broken in if I did?”
Inside the drawer were more papers, but no sign of the note. Was the message Mark had left so damaging that Wade had to have it destroyed? Meyer had been stupid to think Wade would have kept it, if he had been in Wade’s situation, he certainly wouldn’t have.
Meyer spread the documents on the desk and after a few moments, realised exactly what he had in front of him. It was the results of an investigation into the Deliverance movement, but more importantly, their leader. The document outlined the history of Adrianna, evidence for her return and her association with Deliverance. The way the document read, the existence of Adrianna, or of any of the five, was regarded as fact and not myth as Wade had made out. If this really was Adrianna, then was the
real
Grendal behind the killings?
At the bottom of the papers was a hand written note from Helena, it read:
Dear Wade,
Our eighth prototype, with the updates your people suggested. Having tried it on a select group of test subjects, so far the results look promising and the effects are almost instant. I await your thoughts and whether we are nearing a stage to go into mass production, at which time I expect you will provide instructions on how to produce the base substance as agreed.
Yours sincerely,
Helena
Meyer looked back into the drawer and saw a small white leather box. He opened the lid, finding a glass cylinder with a white liquid inside that slowly oozed down the side of the glass as Meyer tilted it. At one end of the vial was a series of rings, which from seeing other Inquisition weapons, Meyer knew to be the injection device. Was this the weaponised power Helena had been developing? He had expected it to look more like a gun, or a bomb. This was far from any type of weapon Meyer knew of.
“Meyer, someone’s coming to the office, you need to get out of there now,” Rosalyn said.
Footsteps resonated down the corridor outside, getting louder with each step. Meyer stood from the desk, pocketed the vial, and looked at the mess he had made. How was he going to get out of this one? He took the papers, stuffing them into the drawer, and returned the other drawers to the desk, having to give the bottom one a hard shove so that it sat flush with the others. At a glance, the desk looked undisturbed, so long as you didn’t try any of the drawers.
“They are about to hit the stairs, you'll have to hide,” Rosalyn said.
“Hide?”
Meyer desperately scanned the room, but there was nowhere to go. He wasn’t slim enough to hide behind the curtains that lined the walls and under the bed really wasn’t an option. He ran over to the curtained walls and frantically searched for a doorway, a cupboard, anything. Meyer ran his hand along the wall until... bingo. He found a door, about half the width of a normal one. Inside was a deep cupboard with shelves stacked high with files. Meyer pushed himself in, but it was no good, he was just too large.
The sound of footsteps outside came to a stop as the handle of the door turned. Damn him, he should have skipped breakfast. Meyer pushed his weight against the doorframe and, with a pop, he bounded into the cupboard, grabbing the handle of the door as he shot inside, the door to the office opening as he did so.
Meyer held his breath, trying to remain perfectly still as to not make any noise. Steps crossed the office and then stopped, presumably at Wade’s desk. A few seconds passed, although to Meyer it felt like an eternity, before the steps moved back across the room. With a slam of the door, the office was empty once again.
Meyer fumbled around the cupboard for a light and found a pull cord above his head. A solitary bulb flickered on and the cupboard was lit in all its dust filled glory.
“That was too close,” Meyer said.
“You should get out of there now,” Rosalyn said.
“One minute, I think I may have found something.”
Lining the walls of the cupboard were hundreds of manila files, arranged alphabetically. Meyer pulled one out at random and opened it. Inside were details of an Inquisitor lead operation, assassinating a politician, from about twenty years ago. It showed who had ordered the hit, which was the head of the Department of Alternate Studies at the time, but looking more closely, Meyer realised the file was actually the record of the Inquisitor who committed the murder. It wasn't the official archive, that was in the sub-basement and held by the master archivist, this was a personal set of notes. What had he stumbled upon here? Meyer closed the file and looked at the Inquisitor’s name on the front, which was scribbled in a spidery hand Meyer knew to be Wade's. Underneath it was the word, ‘Possible.’ Meyer looked around and pulled out another file. It detailed a different Inquisitor, but this one seemed fairly normal, as normal a career as was possible in their line of work. At the back of the file was a section named 'leverage'. Mother in care home, from a poor family, drinking problem as a teenager. All the information Wade could use to cajole this man into doing whatever he wanted. Meyer looked at the front, but there was nothing listed under the name. He checked two others, the second of which had the same word on the front cover, ‘Possible.’
Meyer’s working theory had been that ‘Possible’ meant involved with some illegal act, like the ordered assassination, but after checking a few more files, he discovered he was wrong. The next file he found with the word ‘Possible’ written upon it was of another Inquisitor who had died, killed in action some four months previous. Meyer remembered the incident, believed to be the result of Deliverance. He started pulling out more files and found, to his dismay, that every single one that had the word ‘Possible’ on the cover of the file, the Inquisitor in question was dead. Then he thought of it. He searched for the files, but they was missing, no Inquisitors listed under Ravenscroft. His son's file or his wife's weren’t there - why was that?
Their
files weren’t there, but perhaps... Meyer searched the files under ‘F.’ Farrer, Farnsworth, Faye, Fender… Fellows. He pulled out the file and looked at the front of it, 'Henry Fellows'.
There it was, a yellow band of letters, ‘Possible.’