“Spirit Casting,” Mead said, looking at his papers again as if to confirm the veracity of the statement, “is the practice of casting power through a spirit thew. It is the foundation of advanced enchantment, which is, needless to say, impossible to practice without a spirit thew.” Mead paused and peered at his audience. “Though some of you may inherit legacy thews from your fathers, none of you in this room has secured a spirit thew at this point in your studies. Indeed, most of you never will. Traveling into the spirit realm, finding an appropriate spirit, binding that spiritto you, and returning to our world with that spirit is more than most of you will ever achieve. It requires its own set of knowledge and skills quite apart from basic enchantment or advanced enchantment, and it ends in failure nine times out of ten. Inability to enter the spirit realm, failure to find a suitable spirit, or death in the spirit world all occur with great regularity. You all know this, I expect, and yet it bears repeating.
“Why, then, teach a course on Spirit Casting to those who do not and perhaps never will secure a spirit thew? Simply put, because as students of enchantment, you will operate in a world in whichothersdo have spirit thews, and, as such, you should learn to recognize and, if possible, contend with the manner of enchantment cast by them. You should learn what spirit thews are capable of—and not capable of. In other words, you should learn what you are dealing with.”
Mead’s pronouncement was met with respectful silence. If he had meant to put the students in their place, he had accomplished it. To a man, they looked both awed and daunted by the possibilities laid before them. Mead nodded, satisfied that he had been understood. Then he held one stiff arm up toward his spirit thew. “This,” he said, “is Cassandra.” Her eyes remained on the windows, her figure unmoving. “Nearly forty years ago, I traveled into the spirit realm and found her there. When she was a flesh-and-blood woman, Cassandra lived in England in the early eighteenth century. Under another name, of course. Every spirit is granted a new name when she returns to the world as a thew. Over the decades, Cassandra has assisted me most ably in innumerable enchantments, many of which have been of service to our Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Most notably, the Grand Séance that brought George Washington to the Salem Lyceum. I will not congratulate myself by naming further instances, but I urge you to consult the annals inthe library so that you can suitably appreciate our achievements.”
I wondered how the professor’s words sounded to Cassandra. She continued to look out through the window, expressionless and still, doing exactly nothing while nevertheless attracting every eye in the room.
“There was a time,” Mead began, in a ponderous tone that signaled the start of his main subject, “when the only form of enchantment was the flimsy magic practiced by conjurors.” He paused. Notebooks were opened and writing implements were taken up. There were several seconds of eager rustling as the students prepared themselves for the first lesson. “Two-bit magicians who cheated people in order to make their name and fortune. Then, in the thirteenth century on the Iberian Peninsula, during the great cultural flourishing known asconvivencia, enchantment was recognized and born.Encanto, the origin of all real power. It is no coincidence that in its original tongue,‘encanto’does not only mean ‘enchantment.’ The word also describes a thing that is delightful and beautiful. The meanings meet where one experiences wonder, for wonder is felt both for beauty and for enchantment.
“Indeed, the notion that one can beenchantedby beauty is as old—older—thanencantoitself. There is a kernel of truth in the coincidence of language: no pursuit is more noble, more admired, and more challenging. And yet, it almost was not so. The great discovery of that era—the method of working with spirits and harnessing their power—might have been lost to corruption during Spain’s reconquest, asconvivenciafaltered under incessant warfare and then dwindled in the arid soil of a land ruled by the inquisition.
“Had it not been for a French crusader who seized a Moorish captive, had the captive not been one of the foremost enchantersof Al-Andalus, had the Frenchman not managed to extract the captive’s learning before he expired, all would have been lost. The Frenchman, whom you know as Fontaine, saved enchantment from the clutches of Moorish Iberia. Gradually, as it traveled to England and elsewhere, it was improved and strengthened, until it lost the febrile weakness of its Spanish origins, becoming what it is today.
“Over the course of this tutorial,” Mead continued, “Cassandra and I will demonstrate the various forms of spirit castings. And we will begin today, the better to make use of our time.” Mead looked down at his pages once more. “Today’s subject is singular and joint casting. The meaning of this is simple. Some castings, in a first category, are done by the enchanter alone. These are known as ‘basic’ enchantments, and can be effected upon inanimate objects by any enchanter who has learned the techniques and who possesses a relic—an object of significance left behind by the dead. And some castings, a second category, are done by the spirit thew alone. Castings in a third category are done by the enchanter and the spirit thew together. Those in the second and third categories are known as ‘advanced’ enchantments, and they work upon living beings as well as upon inanimate objects.
“I need not spend any time on basic casting in this course, since those will be the subject of almost every other tutorial you take. I will focus on the second and third categories—advanced enchantments. Let us see an example of the second kind now.
“Cassandra,” Mead said, addressing her directly for the first time.
The spirit thew turned her gaze away from the windows and fixed it on a spot somewhere above the heads of the students. “Yes,” she replied, in a clear and firm voice.
“Demonstrate for us, please, a figure of your choice.”
Cassandra began turning away slowly from the room, as if she had finally lost all interest in its occupants, until her back was to the students. And then she continued turning, slowly, as her aspect altered gradually from head to toe. When she had completed the slow twirl, Laurence Fishbane, founder of Commonwealth University, stood in her place: complete with Puritan garb, massive jowls, beady eyes, and querulous expression. Every student knew his face from the portrait that hung in Pebbles. A smattering of astonished laughter and gasps of surprise filled the room.
Mead indulged in a quiet chuckle. “Very apropos, Cassandra. And very convincing,” he said to the students, “as you can see. A talented and experienced thew, such as Cassandra, can effect a transformation so persuasive that it even deceives other thews. This is quite different from wearing tokens, mind you. She isn’t actuallyalteringher appearance; she is effecting an alteration in howwe perceive.” He paused. “You may return to yourself.”
Cassandra dropped her disguise instantly, and she stood once again as herself, poised and aloof and somehow all the more beautiful for the contrast with the jowly Fishbane.
“Now,” Mead continued, “will you please favor us with some observations about the students in this classroom?” Cassandra’s gaze shifted downward toward the seated young men, as if turning the great beam of a lighthouse onto a patch of ocean. There was a moment of suspended silence. Every man in the room seemed to be holding his breath.
She lifted her arm slowly and held her hand out, palm open, facing downward; she might have been taking the pulse of some invisible being who lay before her.
Her voice was slow, ponderous. “There is one person in this room who spent the whole of last night at his father’s sickbed.”Her hand shifted slightly in a balletic gesture, and her eyes flickered. “There is another who dove, last spring, into the cold waters of the Charles to save a drowning man.” She paused. The room was utterly silent. “Another has a stain upon his heart; he wishes the death of his brother.”
Cassandra’s gaze shifted again, and she seemed to look toward the back of the room. “And yet another does not belong here.” Her lovely bare arm and delicate finger pointed at Clem Quinn. “That one, at the very back,” she said, her voice cool, imperious, and certain, “is not a man at all. She is a woman.”
Sam: The Armor Removed
In the United States I had positive verification of portals in Providence, Woodstock, New Orleans, Charleston, Springfield, and Newark. They would offer no details as to the locations, saying that their Society had grave penalties for such disclosures. They are entirely without the conception of the public good that I found in Istanbul, for example, or Havana.
—Omar Sarmiento,A World Atlas of Portals in 1870
Friday, September 7, 1888
I experienced a burst of satisfaction, followed by a flush of sympathy. I’d suspected for some days now that Clem and I were two of a kind, both of us impostors and dissemblers! Not because I’d managed to catch Quinn without her tokens, and not because of the vicious message that hardly seemed inspired by the presence of an underaged interloper, but because of Vera. Even a very daring kitchen maid would have thought twice about undressing a male student in her place of work. Instead, she felt easy with Quinn. I’d perceived a conspiratorial solidarity between them and guessed at the cause.
Quinn sat motionless. For a moment, I wondered if Cassandra or Mead or the two of them had cast an enchantment upon her, immobilizing her on the spot. But no, I realized, as a slow breath made its way out of her lungs; she was entirely in command of herself.
Every eye was upon her. I found it amusing that a potential fratricide stirred less interest among the students than a woman in man’s dress, but clearly no one else cared to think about such ironies. She rose slowly to her feet and stood looking gravely acrossthe room. She didn’t speak. In quick succession, she removed the spectacles from her coat pocket and pulled the fox pin from her lapel, placing them on her desk.
As she withdrew her hand from the tokens, Quinn’s mustache and beard vanished. There was a collective gasp.
The tokens had been expertly made, exaggerating her person without entirely transforming it. Her shoulders shrank; her face rounded and softened; her eyes and eyebrows shifted, becoming respectively larger and thinner than they’d been a moment before. But these were not the greatest changes. The greatest change was in Quinn’s expression. Gone was the wide-eyed innocent who bounded to class and blinked at insults. I didn’t recognize the face that gazed out onto the classroom. It was calm and composed, without a trace of laughter. I couldn’t tell if Quinn was angry, or disappointed, or embarrassed, or none of these. She held the silence with complete composure, simply waiting to see what the room would do.
The students around her were not so dispassionate. While moments earlier they’d responded to Cassandra’s transformation with awe, their reactions now were decisively contrary. I saw ample disgust, hostility, indignation, and disdain. Professor Selwyn Mead seemed less astonished than his students, but no less offended. “I am appalled,” he began coldly, “to realize that all of Commonwealth has already been subjected to this outrageous deceit for an entire week. You, young lady, are an intruder.”
Quinn spoke slowly, in a level voice, slightly higher in pitch than before. Had the token altered her voice as well as her appearance? I’d never heard of a token that could do such a thing. “Massachusetts Commonwealth University is a public institution. It is open and free to all.”
