The Initiate

by Louise Cooper

  "Philosophy," Tarod said at last. "Yes... you're right. Perhaps I should have studied it more thoroughly after all. Or history."

  Themila frowned. "Tarod, you're speaking in riddles. Either this is some game you're playing with me, or -- "

  "Oh, no." He interrupted her. "It's no game. And I'm not drunk, either, if that's what you're thinking."

  As though to prove the point he refilled his cup, and she said, "Then the third possibility is that something's troubling you."

  Tarod looked out across the hall, where the multiple colors of cloaks and skirts moved as the guests mixed. "Yes, Themila. Something is troubling me."

  "Can you tell me about it?"

  "No. Or at least..." Tarod seemed to debate silently with himself, one thin, restless hand tapping the side of his cup. Then, abruptly, he said, "Themila, are you a dream-interpreter?''

  "You know full well I'm not. But if it's a dream that troubles you, I would have thought that for a seventh-rank sorcerer -- ''

  He cut in with a contemptuous snort. "That -- "

  "Speaking as one who has never progressed beyond third rank, I'm a little less dismissive about the accolade," Themila said with some acerbity.

  "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to give offense. But I think perhaps that's at the root of the whole problem."

  "Your rank?" She was nonplussed.

  "In a sense..." Suddenly he looked directly at her, and she was taken aback by the light in his green eyes. For an instant, he looked dangerous. "Themila -- how closely do you believe in following the doctrines of the Circle?"

  Themila tried to interpret the motive behind the question, and failed. Cautiously she said; "That's not an easy question, Tarod. If you mean, do I accept all I am told without comment, then my answer is no. But the wisdom inherent in our teachings has an impeccable source."

  "Aeoris himself... yes." Tarod made the small gesture that by tradition always accompanied the utterance of the god's name. It was a habit ingrained into all Initiates, but she had the discomforting impression that, for him, it was no more than a casual reflex. "But can we be sure that we interpret that wisdom rightly? Sometimes I feel that the rituals, the rigmarole, the mass participations, are blinding us. The power of the Circle isn't in dispute. But it's a grossly limited power."

  Themila began to see what he was leading up to, and her heart sank. She had been awaiting this development -- dreading it -- ever since the boy Tarod had first begun his studies under the Circle's tutelage. From the start it had been obvious that his innate talent for sorcery would soon leave his tutors far behind, and as he developed the Initiates' chief concern was with schooling him to control the powers that he could all too easily command. In this they had succeeded, although an independent, rebellious streak in Tarod had sometimes been a stumbling-block. But Themila, who knew him better than anyone save Keridil, believed that eventually Tarod would want more than the Circle could provide. He held seventh rank simply because no higher status existed, and he was at an impasse, for unless he chose to involve himself in the more exoteric duties of an Initiate -- which, knowing Tarod, Themila realized he would not do -- then the Circle had little more to offer him.

  Choosing her words carefully she said, "You're thinking, then, about the potential power of the individual mind, without the protection of established ceremony?"

  "Protection?" Tarod asked. "Or restriction?"

  Despite the fact that she had been expecting something like this, Themila was shocked. "What you're suggesting goes entirely against all our teaching!" she protested. "It's nothing short of heresy!"

  "According to our sages, yes. What the gods would have to say about it might be another matter."

  This was going too far. Realizing that such a train of thought must be stopped before it got out of hand, Themila reached to take hold of Tarod's fingers as he was about to refill their wine-cups. He paused.

  "Tarod, I think we would be wiser not to pursue this, not now. Earlier, you asked me if I could interpret dreams. If it's a seer you need, perhaps you should speak to Kael Amion."

  Tarod looked surprised. "The Lady Kael? Is she here today? I didn't realize -- "

  "She is here, although she felt unable to take her place with the dignitaries. These days her stamina isn't what it was."

  Kael Amion might provide the answer he so desperately needed, Tarod thought. He was too close to the dream, and needed the balance of an outside view.

  Themila nodded across the hall. "If you want an omen," she said, "Kael is approaching us at this very moment."

  Tarod looked up quickly and saw the frail, white-robed figure of the old seer moving slowly but surely towards the bench where they sat. He was, however, disappointed to realize that she was not alone. Walking deferentially beside her, one hand steadying her arm, was Keridil. And beyond Keridil and doggedly tagging him came a plump, pretty girl with shocking red hair, dressed in clothes that exhibited wealth rather than good taste.

  "Inista Jair, from Chaun Province," Themila commented in an undertone to Tarod. "Her father is the man who has been monopolizing our High Initiate since the banquet ended, and I think he has a match in mind."

  "With Keridil?" Tarod raised his dark eyebrows, amused. "I hardly see it as a likely pairing!"

  "Nor I. But the son of the High Initiate is a valuable prize."

  Tarod snorted with laughter, which he quickly disguised in a cough, rising as the trio joined them.

  Tarod bowed over Kael Amion's hand, and the old Sister scanned his face shrewdly. She had seen little, lately, of the one-time waif she had succoured, and was surprised and not altogether pleased by the changes in him. Inista Jair was less tactful; she simply goggled as the black-haired sorcerer was introduced, overawed by the stare of the peculiar green eyes, and took a seat as far from his as she could. They all talked inconsequentially for a while, but Tarod was restless. He couldn't approach Kael with the others present, yet the need to speak to someone who might help him was weighing urgently on his mind, and finally he couldn't tolerate the prevarication any longer. He stood.

  "Lady -- Themila -- forgive me, but I must leave you." He looked at Themila for a long moment, hoping she understood the silent appeal in his eyes. Before anyone could speak, he had bowed in turn to them all and was moving quickly away towards the double doors at the far end of the hall.

  Inista Jair turned to Keridil. "He is your friend?" she queried, her confidence returning now that the source of discomfiture had gone. "I find that hard to believe! You are as unlike as -- as -- " Analogy failed her.

  Keridil wished privately that his duty didn't extend to entertaining pretty but empty-headed eligible girls such as Inista. But since his election to junior membership of the Council his father had insisted that he should take more responsibility onto his shoulders. It was all part of the grooming for his eventual rise to High Initiate, but at times Keridil found the burden onerous. In a wryly good-natured way he envied Tarod's comparative freedom to do as he pleased. But at this moment -- if the look on his friend's face had been any indication -- he didn't envy Tarod his thoughts.

  The girl was still staring at him, and he smiled with exquisite politeness. "I wouldn't be so sure, Inista," he said. "In many ways, Tarod and I are more similar than you might think."

  The outer door of his rooms slammed echoingly behind Tarod as he strode through to his bedchamber. Another crash -- the inner door this time -- and he hurled his cloak aside before savagely pulling the velvet curtain across the window and throwing himself at full length on the bed.

  He couldn't have stayed in the hall a moment longer. The pressure had been building up in his mind all day, without release, and finally his self-control had snapped. That in itself was a bad sign, for where self-discipline lapsed, will power was sure to follow. And if he didn't resolve the conundrum of the dream that had been haunting him for the past eleven nights, Tarod was beginning to wonder if he might not also lose his sanity....

  Every night it began in the same w
ay. He opened his eyes to the darkness and silence of his room and for a moment thought himself awake, until a tell-tale edge of unreality told his mind that he was asleep, and dreaming. And there was a sound in the room -- a muffled, half-heard humming that impinged on his consciousness and, unexpectedly, worried him. In the dream he slid from his bed and padded across to the window. A new sensation was rising within him; some forgotten feeling that dragged at the deepest levels of his mind and called, incessantly called.

  Come... Come back... Remember...

  It was as insidious as the rustle of grass in the wind that heralded a Warp. There were no words.

  Come... Come...

  No, he told his dreaming mind, there were no words!

  Come back...

  Tarod was a sorcerer with a will and control matched by no man in the Circle; but now, as the dream grew more nightmarish, he was frightened. And despite his efforts he couldn't wake himself, but instead pulled back the curtain and looked down into the courtyard, which was bathed in the chilly light of the smaller of the two Moons. Its thin crescent threw sharp contrasts of silver and shadow across the empty square, yet Tarod couldn't see clearly; a faint haze seemed to cloud his vision. And then, by the colonnaded walkway, something moved.

  It was no more than a shadow, and it glided between the sculptured pillars of the colonnades. Human or something beyond, he couldn't tell, but he felt drawn to it as a moth to a candle-flame. Involuntarily, the fingers of his right hand touched his silver ring, and suddenly the voice was back in his mind, whispering a sibilant, insidious lure.

  Remember... Come back , . .

  Back to what? Tarod's mind asked in silent desperation.

  Back... Back...

  And shockingly, he was awake in the darkness of his room, and the voice had gone....

  Tarod closed his eyes, shutting out the memory of the dream. After the third recurrence he had called on the resources of his considerable will to banish it, but, to his alarm, the efforts had failed. And throughout his waking hours the dream was haunting him, for it rang disturbing bells in the depths of his mind, raising questions that might be better left unasked.

  Why was it that he seemed to possess an innate talent for sorcery that was unheard-of in the Circle's history? He himself had known it since he began his studies here; now it was acknowledged -- albeit reluctantly -- by even the highest Adepts. His command of Circle ritual was unsurpassed, yet unlike his peers he had no true need of ritual; he could, if he chose, kill with nothing more than a single thought. Twice in his life he had killed in such a way -- and that, as perhaps he had always known, set him apart. Lately he had begun to grow more and more impatient with the Circle's accepted doctrines and practices -- as tonight he had tried to explain to Themila -- and he was conscious of a growing sense of disappointment that harked back to his earliest days here. His belief that the Initiates were all-powerful had soon crumbled as they proved instead to be very fallible human beings. And now that he was privy to the powers which the rest of the world held in awe, he found those powers lacking.

  Yet however hard he strove to look into the deep recesses of his consciousness and his motivations, he was no nearer to answering the all-important question, why. It was as if something was calling to him, something which had always been a part of him yet which he couldn't comprehend, and the recurring dream was bringing it into focus.

  Suddenly goaded by a wave of frustration, Tarod rose from his bed and paced across the room to where a pile of books, musty and yellowed, lay on a small table. In his efforts to find the elusive answers he needed he had spent a good deal of time in the Castle's extensive library, in a separate wing. Here were all the records of known history, some written so many centuries ago that the script was faded and all but illegible. The Castle was the world's sole repository for such knowledge, the Circle its sole guardians -- and to a scholar from beyond the Castle's boundaries, the privilege of being granted access to these volumes for study was beyond price. Until recently Tarod had barely ever troubled to make use of the library himself, but now, fascinated in spite of his preoccupations, he had found accounts of the earliest days of the Circle's existence, when the world was newly emerged from the dark age of the Old Ones after Aeoris himself had vanquished the tyranny of Chaos and restored the Lords of Order to rule in its stead. So little was known about the ancients and their skills; many of the strange properties of this very Castle were still hidden territory to the Circle which had inhabited it now for so many generations, and Tarod would have given much to unravel some of those old mysteries.

  But old mysteries provided no answers to the thoughts that troubled him now. And the one thing no book had been able to tell him was the nature of the force that was calling to him out of the depths of the night.

  Tarod stared down at the books, and came to a decision. Tonight, he was sure, the dream would seek him out again... and he would be ready for it. Tonight he wouldn't sleep, but instead would keep watch on the astral plane. He needed little preparation beyond a quiet mind, and with an hour or more to go before the Castle's inhabitants began to retire for the night there was time enough.

  He bolted the outer door to his rooms, then lit a brazier that stood near his bed. When the charcoal was glowing like a small, feral eye in the curtained gloom he sprinkled a few grains of a faintly narcotic incense on to its red heart, and lay down without bothering to undress. Whatever unknown denizen came to haunt him tonight, he would be ready.

  The brief Summer darkness had finally fallen, and the first of the two Moons had risen to cast a sickly glow through the window when Tarod sensed that he wasn't alone in his room. For almost three hours he had lain motionless watching the faint glare of the brazier, but suddenly, although there was no sound and no movement, he felt an uninvited presence. His pulse quickened; like most Adepts he took basic precautions to ensure that no stray influences from other planes could invade his territory, and yet this -- whatever it was -- had breached the defenses with disturbing ease.

  And then the murmuring began.

  Come back... Back...

  It seemed to emanate from some dark corridor of his own mind, and he sent a silent message in reply.

  Back? Back to what?

  Remember... Back...

  Tarod concentrated his will, and shifted his consciousness onto the astral. His surroundings appeared as before, but now all the contours of the room glimmered with a faint, unstable aura. That alarmed him, for it suggested a similar instability in his own control. Each of the seven known astral planes -- of which only five, according to Circle doctrine, were accessible to any mortal -- had its own distinctive characteristics; this fluctuation told Tarod that he was not established on any one, but hovering in an unnerving limbo.

  Trying to rally his concentration he looked down at his own body on the bed. The disturbing call was throbbing in his consciousness now, as if by throwing off the shackles of the physical plane he had made himself more vulnerable to the source of the message. Tarod had never been averse to playing with fire and had always come through unscathed -- but on all such previous occasions he had been in sole control. Now the position had twisted a little; other powers were pulling him and it seemed his will wasn't strong enough to counteract them. Nor -- yet -- could he even begin to speculate as to what they might want of him...

  For a time -- it might have been minutes or hours, he had no way of knowing -- Tarod kept watch. Then, at last, a knocking sounded at the door.

  His instant reaction was that the knocking had emanated from the physical plane; that someone had unwittingly come to disturb him. Angry, he tried to return to his physical body -- but something held him back. It dragged him away from his goal, pulled his mind into a black vortex that closed round him. The room disintegrated into chaos then just as swiftly righted itself again. But now its aura had stabilized, pulsing with light and power.

  He was on a far higher plane; perhaps the fourth or even the fifth. But he hadn't willed it to happen...


  Without warning the knocking at the door sounded again, and at once Tarod knew that his first assumption had been wrong. The outer door to his rooms was bolted, and yet the visitor -- whoever or whatever it was -- was at the inner door, immediately before him.

  Aware that the atmosphere was too silent, too cold, Tarod moved to the side of the room, as far from the door as was possible, before allowing his mind to form a single, stern word.

  Open...

  Almost before the command took shape the door smashed back on its hinges, and framed in the gaping doorway Tarod saw his own double!

  He recoiled in shock. The face was unmistakable, and the hair -- but this motionless image was swathed in a black shroud. And even now he couldn't trust his first impressions, for the figure was altering.

  The so-familiar face remained, but the hair became gold and the eyes were constantly changing color... and he could no longer see the apparition's body, for it was suddenly wreathed in light that shifted through the range of the spectrum like an approaching Warp.

  Who are you? Tarod tried to keep an edge of fear from coloring the silent question. For answer the vision smiled, and it was a smile of exquisite pride and disdain. Tarod felt himself drawn helplessly towards the being, and as their minds approached an overwhelming sensation of power struck him and swamped him. Here was the knowledge he had been craving --

  And he shuddered violently as an invisible barrier sprang up between himself and the brilliant vision. Stubbornly, desperately he attacked it, but his efforts were useless; and the moment came when he realized the being had gone, leaving the room lifeless and empty.

  The intangible forces no longer held him. Conscious of a sense of failure, Tarod returned to his body and opened his eyes. He was shivering convulsively, and so cold that his limbs were numb. Unsteadily he rose and stumbled to the hearth, where a fire had been laid but not lit. But his hands shook and the tinder refused to catch properly; after five minutes he gave up the attempt and returned to his bed, leaving the fire sullenly smoldering.