57. The Society of Night (III) (Patreon)

Shadows

Before I proceed any further, perhaps I should explain a bit about the Perdita Free Collegium's 'Societies'. While our school has an official core curriculum and numerous electives, both of which can be quite 'hands-on', you will never become a Greycloak, let alone a Shadow, by classes alone. Instead, Sneaks and Greycloaks must join however many of the thirteen school-sanctioned Societies they wish to join. These cover the full gamut of topics, from the Paper Knights, who practice the coding and decoding of secret messages, the learning and invention of languages, and methods of covert communication, to the Granite Phalanx, who practice armed and unarmed combat, as well as small unit tactics. In order to be considered for advancement to Greycloak, you need to demonstrate mastery in at least on Society's area of study. To be considered for advancement to Shadow, you need to demonstrate mastery in at least three. While the significant majority of Shadows have three and only three glyphs of Society mastery, they are often at least proficient in several more.

All of the societies are technically invitation-only, though they'll let pretty much anybody in if you ask nicely. It's a lot easier to get yourself kicked out, though, by demonstrating zero interest or aptitude, or by annoying one of the Society's higher-ups. The Society of Night is the first society that every Sneak joins because everybody is invited during their first month and you're pretty much not able to refuse. While not everybody earns their glyph from the Society of Night, it is, by a significant margin, the most common glyph in the Collegium.

I knew all of this only vaguely that night, as I was inducted into the Society of Night, still sore and a bit on-edge from my Basic Survival class that afternoon. My escort placed a dark hood over my head and loosely bound my wrists, like I was a prisoner but one they weren't especially worried about escaping. Then they led me out into the floor's common area, where I could distinctly hear Mailyn whispering her speculations about what was transpiring.

"Hey, guys!" I chirped.

"Hey, Vix," Mailyn and Aldo replied.

"Please be quiet. This is a very solemn event," one of our seniors said. "What happens tonight is secret to our august society, and you must never reveal our ways to outsiders…"

"Isn't, like, everybody in Night?" Aldo mumbled - he already knew more about the Society than I did, apparently.

Aria shushed him and, from the sound of it, smacked him upside the head.

"Ah! Sorry! Secrets - got it," Aldo said.

"Secret's safe," Mailyn said. I nodded in agreement, which was apparently enough.

They led us out of the residence hall and into the cool of the night. I could tell where we were going just by the sounds of the city - out to the avenue and westward. Even at the late hour, the occasional horse trotted by with business for the Shadow Hall, which never slept. From there, we passed the little tract of garden separating the westward edge of campus from the outlying administrative buildings of the Shadow Canton, and from there we passed into a small, ancient graveyard, the air smelling of damp soil, the old iron of the gate creaking as somebody pulled it open. We crunched through the uneven grass of the graveyard, ancient steles and mausoleums temporarily blocking the sounds of the city beyond as we passed. There was a sound of stone grinding against stone and we descended thirteen steps into what the echoes suggested was a sizable stone enclosure beneath the graveyard. I was escorted to a particular spot on the floor and urged to sit down. My wrist bindings were removed and the surface of a marble pew cooled my backside as I sat.

"Do you have the script memorized?" Aria whispered to somebody.

"Yeah. Lemme just get into place," a boy's deep voice replied. He cleared his throat. "You sit now in the Temple of Night, candidates, seated before the very spirits of the night, subject to their whims. The Night can offer you much, but first you must accept its call. Candidates, you will now be asked to take our sacred oath. Upon my command, say the following…"

"First," a girl's voice cut in. "This oath should not be construed as a pact with a god or higher power and does not invalidate any religious oaths or firmly-held convictions along those lines…"

"Right," the deep voice said. "Now… upon my command, say the following: I am a child of Night, a child of darkness. I will keep its secrets. I will respect its boon. Then remove your hood and meet your brothers and sisters in the night. Now."

"I am a child of Night, a child of darkness. I will keep its secrets. I will respect its boon," I said - as did the others nearby. When I removed my hood, I saw that I was in a dimly-lit limestone chamber, presumably beneath the old seminary graves, with Mailyn, Aldo, and perhaps twenty other students nearby. At the front of the room was a small altar inscribed with the symbol of the dual new moons, three dark-cloaked figures arrayed around it. Of the three Greycloaks, I only recognized Aria, who presently stepped forward.

"Now that you're sworn to our society, you will be marked as a child of night. Present your hand to receive the marking." With a flourish, she usheathed a ceremonial blade, causing me to gasp. Were they going to cut us?

"It's a temporary tattoo," the other girl Greycloak explained. "The stamp is on the pommel."

"You're ruining the mystery," the boy grumbled. Aria nodded in agreement.

"Come and be marked!" With that, Aria dipped the pommel of the dagger into a shallow bowl of alchemical ink and stamped it on the back of each of our hands - the dual circles of the new moons bisected by the Blade of Night, a ceremonial dagger not too different from the one Aria wielded. She neatly pressed the pommel to the back of my hand, producing a dark green 'tattoo' about the size of a kronetta. If I recall, the mark lasted for about a month before fading.

"Welcome!" the boy Greycloak boomed once we were all marked. Everybody cheered and then we accepted the seemingly-earnest congratulations of our peers over our decision to join the completely-mandatory Society of Night. "Now that you're one of us, you can follow us on your first midnight gambit. Keep up if you can."

As one, the Society of Night (minus us, its newest members) turned and jogged out of the tunnel, heading out at an easy pace. It wouldn't be difficult at all to match them. Except it was dark, and they had all the glowglobes, and we were barefoot and in our nightclothes. So it was a littledifficult.

"We're gonna be left in the dark!" Aldo admonished, and he took off with Mailyn and me close behind. For the first time, I noticed two other neophytes with us, both from our old scamp bunk, one of whom was our erstwhile rival, Nima. She shot me a cool look as we jogged along but said nothing.

Soon, we reached the steps and emerged from the tunnel, emerging from a small mausoleum that, fittingly enough, prominently featured the Siblings of the New Moon, the Pale Brother and the Pink Sister in their dark shrouds, figures from ancient Turan myth. From there, we jogged across the hardscrabble of weeds and gravel, my feet sparking with pain whenever I trod upon an especially sharp stone but my calluses protecting me from real injury. Soon, we were out on the street, the glowglobes of our seniors winking out one by one as we took to the shadows. It was the new moons, or very close to it, and the only light aside from the stars and nebulae came from the streetlamps - not a thing was open in this stretch of Shadow Canton.

We cut through an alleyway and across a little drainage canal surrounded by knee-deep meadow greenery, splashing through the cool, ankle-deep flow of the canal and scampering up the variegated stone of its wall, my small fingers finding easy purchase on the stone. From there, we ascended a ladder to the second floor of an administrative building and took to the roofs.

Beyond the Shadow Hall itself, the administrative apparatus of Floria occupies a small district between the Collegium and the Hall. These are mostly squat older buildings with gently-sloped roofs and fitted with the pink or orange ceramic shingles so common in Floria - in other words, perfect for scampering about at night, unless it's raining, at which point they become a nightmare. Tonight was cool and clear, though, and my feet had already lost any residual moisture from the drainage canal. My feet tapped along the tiles as I went, gradually bringing my jog up to a run as the wind whipped through my hair. I began to overtake Aldo…

He looked back to see me catching up and, with a goofy little laugh, he leapt forward and accelerated, rattling the shingles underfoot. I'd long considered myself faster and more agile than him, but recent observations were forcing me to reassess. We came to the edge of a roof and, not to be easily outdone, I leapt across the meter-wide gulf between buildings without a missed step. I suspect that one of the reasons the Society of Night uses this area for the initiates' first gambit is because the buildings are pressed close together with little alleyways and drainage runnels between them, the awnings never over two meters apart.

The biggest challenge was traversing between the roof of one building and a balcony on the next, and that one I did give a proper stop to assess the situation. During that time, Nima caught up with me and, throwing caution to the wind, leapt across, grabbed the wrought railing, and started up the nearest pillar toward the roof of the taller building. Not to be outdone, I leapt right onto the next pillar over and started up. None of us were strangers to traveling the city in unorthodox ways - we just hadn't done so at night and while trying to keep up with our older, more experienced peers.

Finally, we descended back to a two-story building, then down to a flat-topped shed, and down to ground level right around the northwestern corner of the Collegium campus. To either side was the scaffolding of new buildings under construction - whether from the Collegium or from one of the privileged businesses allowed to operate in the canton, I'm not sure. They were putting the buildings up Wext-style, old stones fitted around a frame of concrete to give the impression of a stately castle without sacrificing sturdiness or speed of construction. But our final target was beyond that, an ancient remnant of the Avatarine priory that predated both the Collegium and the reign of Nurass, the Tyrant of Floria.

We padded across the weathered courtyard under cool starlight. I felt something brush by my thigh, and I reached out to find Mailyn's hand, cool from our trek through the night. There were glowglobes in the night ahead of us, beneath the crumbling roof of an ancient chapel. We passed through a column of pillars, the only remains of whatever structure once bisected the courtyard. I ascended the several steps up to the chapel, ancient reliefs from the Book of the Avatar cast in sharp chiaroscuro in the glowglobe light.

All of it is gone now, consumed by new construction. Whatever parts of the old priory weren't claimed by collectors were probably pulverized to make more concrete for Floria's relentless expansion.

"Welcome, sisters and brothers," a Greycloak spoke from behind the altar. Several members of the Society were already there, waiting for us. The Society has over a hundred members at any given time, and perhaps a quarter of them are involved in initiation nights. The rest were spread in crews throughout the city doing what the Society does best: stealing things and remaining unseen. "You have trekked long and overcome much," she continued. "You truly are children of the night and, as such, you should have raiment befitting your stature. Step forward, my siblings, and receive your final gift of the night - though there shall surely be many more to come, for the Night is generous to its children."

Atop the altar were five small bundles - a set of 'darks' for each of us, the covert mission garb that Sneaks and Greycloaks are expected to wear for night missions. As I donned my set, I noted that they weren't black, as I'd expected. Instead, they were a combination of umber browns, charcoal grays, and subtle purples, all designed to provide cover at night (in fact, at night, pitch-black clothing sticks out a lot more than something that's merely reasonably dark). The shoes had rough but flexible bottoms and the sort of ankle and lower leg wrapping they use in Arkavy. Finally, I pulled the dark mask over my face, finding it didn't obscure my vision at all once I got the sash positioned correctly. I felt very official.

"Very good, my siblings - now you look like true children of the night," the head Greycloak said. "Now, I have one task for you tonight - you're to make your way back to the residence hall courtyard and congregate beneath the great willow tree. The last pair to get there are on laundry detail for the next week. Now go!"