The Three Lights - chapter 2

 Continuing the whimsy to a second chapter of this serialised (and shamelessly derivative) YA fantasy, I might go a third chapter, not sure whether to continue it beyond that. It gives me something more creative to do of an evening than just watch drivel on TV.

CHAPTER 2

 

The bell started to toll as they exited the lift, Catriona still wondering what the Veil was and if she would look foolish by asking. By the third and final stroke Morwenna had shepherded them across to a stairway that wound down into the cellars beneath the Tower. Catriona’s momentary panic about her luggage was assuaged with the promise that the Porter would ferry everything off to the Halls of Residence. The others seemed quite blasé about not having seen the Halls and were confident that everything would be in place for them. Catriona’s past experience of educational administration had not left her as trusting, but she kept her fingers crossed and was swept along on the flight down to the Great Hall. The staircase went down quite some way, Morwenna urging them to haste in order to get a good spot before everyone else flooded down. Eventually they came out into an enormous circular room with a high vaulted ceiling. Five stone layers formed an amphitheatre and the three new students were directed to the central arena at the lowest level whilst Morwenna found a position sat on one of the broad steps. A ring of nightlights around the edge of the central arena gave the only relief to the gloom.

Catriona huddled close to the two lads as the pounding of numerous feet echoed from three different entrances. Her heart raced and she hoped that she did not look as flushed as she was feeling. Dylan was wide-eyed and taking everything in, whilst Kai struck an unconvincingly nonchalant pose but his eyes were fiercely alert. Catriona could practically hear his heart thudding. The entranceways were equidistant around the circle and, in front of each door was a large rectangular stone projection that split the theatre into thirds. Three figures each carry a candle emerged, one from each door, and took up position as sentinels. Each wore similar garments to Morwenna but with their hoods pulled up. One wore the same faded yellow as Kai’s sister while the other two were in pale red and blue respectively. Seconds later other teenagers emerged and were directed by the sentinels to take places near to Catriona and the lads. She recognised some of the faces as people she had seen loitering around the green, now relieved of their luggage and all looking as bewildered as Catriona felt.

For five minutes they stood around babbling excitedly before a bell rang once more and further figures emerged dressed in the hooded robes and each carrying a long white candle. One sector of seats was entirely taken up by people in yellow, the other two sectors by those in red and those in blue. Catriona had been silent throughout the time it took for them all to take seats on the stone tiers. She suddenly realised that her fellow Freshers had also been deathly quiet. The bell once more tolled and further, noticeably older, figures emerged dressed in a variety of strange ways. They gathered on each of the three jutting rectangular blocks.

“They’re the lecturers,” Dylan whispered in her ear so quietly she almost missed it.

A tall, slim man with a gaunt face and gentle blue eyes held up a gnarled staff before bringing it down on the floor three times. Every eye was upon him. An aroma of something Catriona thought might be frankincense drifted around the great hall. He flicked back his hood, revealing a large head, with sharply angular cheekbones, coiffed silvery hair in a widow’s peak and an aquiline nose.

“Saplings, welcome to Gorsedd! I am Professor Grisbane Hildern, Principal of this University.” his voice was elegant, modulated, calm, incisive, and terribly English. His eyes seemed to pierce straight through her before moving on to take in the rest of the student body. “Temeslos!”

Suddenly every single candle in the great hall extinguished and they were plunged into a darkness more complete than any Catriona had experienced. There were squeals and gasps till a low drumming began from a dozen directions and continued till the hairs stood on the back of her neck.

“Flenstus!” instantly every candle rekindled and flooded the chamber with soft light, the old professor chuckled a little. “Forgive me for a cheap trick, but our aim is to draw you all from darkness into light. The Registrar tells me that there are 180 new students here today. I recognise many faces among you, those of the old blood families. The Registrar also tells me that 20 of you are from the dreaming bloodlines, newly awoken to their power. For your benefit I shall explain things which will be familiar to many others here.

“Many of you will be eager to join one of the Houses – of the Land, Sea, or Sky. However, in your first year here you will belong to no particular House but sample classes run by all three as well as studying the core subjects. This is to give a taste of what each of us know and can do, be that the Bards or the Ovates,” he indicated the lecturers standing on the other two promontories who bowed in turn, “or we Druids.”

Catriona’s eyes widened in surprise. She had been fascinated by the druids all her life and had even tried a ritual or two beneath the oak at the end of her garden. Yet everyone knew that the real druids had been destroyed by the arrival of the Roman Empire. Surely this must be some sort of ironic pose?

“In your first year you will learn many essential subjects such as the true history of the Island of the Mighty, the enchantments of poetry, and the lore of trees. You will each also be able to choose one module offered from a selection in each House. The Heads of each House will explain your choices in due course – Dr Gwydion Gelert of Ty’r Awyr, Lady Lamorna Hatton-Jones of Ty’r Môr, and Professor Rufus Mactire from Ty’r Tir.”

A figure on each of the promontories stepped to the fore and raised a hand as their name was mentioned. Gelert was a short, stocky man dressed in the same yellow robe as the students, with a shock of iron-grey hair and a bushy beard. He nodded tersely and gestured across to his colleague on the neighbouring platform. Lady Hatton-Jones was short, elderly and rather large with wobbling jowls and an explosion of white hair. She pulled her tweedy cloak around her, evidently feeling the cold and waved at the students in a manner that put Catriona in mind of her late grandmother. Mactire was much younger than the other two, tall and powerfully built with spiky ginger hair, clean shaven with brawny arms covered in tattoos. He was sporting Highland dress as if ready to attend a ceilidh. He surveyed the gather with a strange movement of his head that seemed almost feral, like some wild predatory beast eyeing up a herd of deer.

“In your second year, you will be invited to join one of the Houses and specialise as either a Bard, Ovate, or Druid. We will meet in this Hall at the end of this academic year for our final ceremony to seal your progress.” The Principal smiled briefly, his deep blue eyes alighting briefly on Catriona. “Shortly our Porter will escort you to the Halls of Residence so you can unpack and settle in. Before you all disappear off, I just wish to remind our established students that the memorial garden for Dr Carabas and the Dioscuri Twins will be reopened at the end of the month after the repairs have been completed. Given what happened over the summer, security has been put in place to keep the memorial safe from further damage. Last year’s guest lecturer, Miss Gui Po has returned to Taiwan and sends her best wishes. This year our guest academic is Mr Theophrastus Eresos from the Asklepion in Athens. He will be teaching several healing classes and teaching us about the Greek Gods.”

A tall, lithe man of about 30 with olive skin, flowing black hair and deep brown eyes stepped forward and bowed with a flourish. Catriona heard Dylan gasp and turned to see a dazed look pass over his flushed face.

“Now children, we will be gathering in the Refectory at 5pm for our first inaugural meal of the academic year. Mrs Annapurna has promised us a particularly magnificent feast. Until then, unpack your possessions, make friends, have fun. The year ahead will be a challenging one and I must warn you that the Fomorians are beginning to stir again. We must be vigilant not only for ourselves but for the wider world.”

 

Catriona sat on her bed and stared incredulously at the book which Dylan had opened before her. The repellent picture seemed an insult to the beautiful surroundings of the Halls of Residence. Albion Hall took up a large Georgian building on Sickle Crescent and housed the first years, or Saplings as the college slang termed them. Each of the three Houses had their own Halls for the second- and third-year students. Whilst the outer shell of Albion was Georgian, the interior flowed with curving walls and swirling knotwork patterns around every door and window frame. A potted birch tree stood in one corner of the room, echoed by the birch-leaf carvings set into the doors of the heavy wardrobe and the ornate dressing table. The furniture looked so old it might be antique. The room smelt of beeswax and lavender. She wondered if the boys’ rooms on the top floor were as lovely as hers. It was certainly a massive improvement on her bedroom back in Glasgow.

The picture of the drooling, fanged monster with too many jutting, jointed limbs and multiple insane eyes looked more suited to a fever dream in an asylum than casting a stain on this serene environment. Catriona half-expected the drawing to try and claw its way off the page. She closed the book, unconsciously running fingers across the leather binding.

“I don’t get the joke!” she protested. Dylan looked blankly at her for some moments before pointing out that there was no joke.

“The Fomorian that killed my brother looked very much like this. They inbreed so they get weirder looking with each generation. My grandmother saw one with tentacles once”

“The Fomorians aren’t real though. In Irish myth they’re a… a metaphor for the harsh forces of nature. Storms at sea, blizzards, things like that. You can’t seriously be telling me that people here actually think they’re real?”

“Of course they’re real,” the voice of Kai interrupted them from the doorway as he appeared dressed in the white hooded robe which the Porter had told them they would find laid out in their rooms as he handed each of them keys as they filtered into Albion Hall. Her own robe lay across the brass-framed bed, she thought she might shower before putting it on. The journey down from Scotland had been exhausting and she felt rather grubby.

The Porter, Mr Hunter, had had the bearing of a solder rather than a college servant. Lean and trim in his dark double-breasted suit, he was ruggedly handsome and carried himself in a way that bespoke no room for nonsense. Dylan had whispered that the man’s job was, partially, to stop troublemakers getting on to campus. He looked like he could give James Bond a run for his money. His older sister was head of the housekeeping service, an efficient looking woman with clipped county tones and grey-blonde hair that kept straying out of its tight bun. Catriona had been reminded of her grandmother’s friend Elspeth who churned out vast quantities of jam for the WI and organised their fetes with military precision.

“But… that’s just, well, mental! How could creatures like that exist and nobody know about them?”

“We know about them.”

“I’ve already explained that we are all here to learn the crafts of the Holy Ones – to become Bards and Ovates and Druids. I know you were a bit poleaxed by that, but you accepted it?” Dylan waited for Catriona to nod a mute assent for continuing. “And I explained that we would be studying classes in magic and mythology and so on. You kind of accepted that. Part of magic is coming to terms with all the other beings we share this world with – not just horses and pigeons and whatnot, but other races. You said you’d read most of the myths, so you must have heard about the clurichauns, pookas, and merrows.”

“Of course, but they’re just stories. I mean, it would be amazing if they were real but… this is all some weird joke, you’re just pulling my leg!”

“I guess your idea of magic is mostly well-meaning tree huggers smothered in patchouli oil and chanting off key? That’s all well and good as some kind of therapy for the middle classes, but it’s not actual magic. The real thing is vastly more potent. We’ll be learning the Tongue, well one of them – there are several sacred languages in the world which can reshape reality. The Tongue is what the original druids spoke two thousand years back. They learnt it from the Gods. We grew up with this, so it’s kind of second nature for us. I can see that you still think we’re winding you up. Maybe a demonstration would help?”

Dylan looked at Kai for some minutes before making a strange hand gesture and murmuring a word that Catriona could not quite catch. Kai tugged on the belt that cinched his robe and, in one fluid movement discarded it to reveal that he was only wearing briefs underneath. Before Catriona could say a word he began to shake himself in a manner that reminded her of her old spaniel shaking off the contents of the local river. The thought had not finished formulating in her mind before her jaw dropped and she had to clap a hand over her mouth to stop from screaming. The shaking sped up so much that Kai seemed to blur and flow into a different shape. In the space of a minute the tall, muscular youth and mutated into a large red-furred malamute with the same hypnotically blue eyes.