Page 64 of Foresyth Conservatory
“Dahlia,” he let out in a sigh, after a long while. “So good to see you back and in good health.” A saccharine smile broke out on his lips, but his gaze remained piercing, revealing his true meaning. I interpreted it as,try to betray me again and you’ll find yourself in even worse health.How could I have overlooked him for so long? He was the lion-serpent welcoming me into his den.
“Very good to be back. I hope you’ll excuse my absence granted the circumstances of my immobility,” I said looking down at my ankle.
“Ah, you don’t have to ask for my excuse. At Foresyth, we teach everyone to be the drivers of their own erudition. Missing time away from that only hurts you alone,” he said slowly. “But no matter, you are here now.” The Meister tapped his cane and we all rose. I winced, placing weight awkwardly on my ankle. Nina saw this and offered me her hand, but I shook it off.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Sub rosa,” we all spoke by the Meister’s five taps of his cane.
“Today’s session, as you all know, is reserved for the newest Initiate. We all have a part to play in educating our Circle members. Thus, I will present the canonical story of our Shattered Mother, and you will fill in the rest in our typical Socratic method,” the Meister said. Something about the cadence of his voice made me feel like he had said the line many, many times before.
He pulled out a hardcover book from underneath his coat, one with gold gilded edges and coated in a black resin. The tome was so dark, it seemed as if the Meister was holding night itself.
“This, Dahlia, you may not recognize, but is a tome I am sure you are very familiar with—TheBook of Skorn,” the Meister said. His eyes twinkled an emerald sheen, reminding me of the first night he had appeared in front of my bookshop.
He turned the book to show me the titular page. The Book was etched in cursive lettering, with a distinctive name underneath it.Aleric Khorvyn.He had been a member of the Founding Five, if I recalled correctly.
“The unabridged version,” I said, almost entranced by a tome so rare. If my bookshop had ever held it, it would have no doubt been the most valuable item there.
“Exactly. It has never been published in this form, but I was lucky enough to acquire it from a friend.” The Meister looked at the tome lost in a riviere. I wondered what the story behind his acquisition entailed. It took him a moment to collect himself, but when he did, he handed me the Book. “Here,” he said, sharing the valuable possession. “It is as much yours as it is ours now,” he said.
My hands grabbed the Book, impressed but not surprised by its hefty weight. A warmth spread from the base of my palm and up to my fingers, creating an outline of fog on the black mirrored cover. I wanted to deny the pulsing of my fingertips, the way my body both recoiledfromand achedforthe Book, and the way my breath caught in my throat. I wanted to deny all of those sensations. But I couldn’t.
The Book felt like pure power.
Logic over emotion. Fact over fiction.
I could almost hear my father’s words rattling in my mind. He wouldn’t have settled for half-truths or rationalizations. He died settling that score, I knew, but only because it was more important than life itself. Truthwaslife.
There must be a heating mechanism imbued in the Book to make the holder perceive the warming sensation, like a joule heater. I had found a few filaments in Nina’s lab that could do the trick. I turned the Book over in my hands, discreetly searching, but for naught. It was solid.
“Well? What do you think?” A knowing smile spread on the Meister’s lips.
I nodded, swallowing hard, and opened the Book. I gasped when I felt the silky smoothness of its beige pages. It was like a paper I had never touched before. It feltwarm. I traced my fingertips along its title, feeling every ache and pulse of my fingertip. I’ve read this Book from cover-to-cover multiple times, but I had never felt its power this strongly. There was a sacredness to it I couldn’t deny.
“Khorvyn had many friends, but also many enemies. He wanted to hide his most potent findings from them, so that they wouldn’t be used against him. But what he unearthed those many years ago might be the most significant finding in the 19th century. And now it’s ours to study, to harness.” He paused before waving a hand. “If I may guide you to page three-forty-two.”
Curiosity led my fingers to brush the edges of the pages, prodding them to reveal their secrets. I opened to the page the Meister had instructed. I looked down, scanning the words, reading them faster than I could ever speak them. I had never seen this section of the Book, but I recognized the ones that came before. It was an Appendix, entitledOrigins of the Powers of Tarot.I had never seen anything like it.
“If you may, read the words of our prophet Khorvyn and the Shattered Mother,” the Meister pressed.
My chest was tight with anticipation, but I forced my eyes back to the beginning of the text. I read aloud:
“In my dream I was visited by the lowest emanation, an ?on between the realm of the living and the divine, called Sophia. She spoke softly and I saw the story as she recalled it in her mind’s eye. ‘I am Sophia,’ the emanation said. There was a low and reverberating quality to her voice, weighteddown by a trace of guilt. ‘And this is how the material realm came to be.
“‘My father—the Monad—was a strict ruler of the cosmos. He viewed our responsibility as ?ons to populate the cosmos with material objects—planets, stars, comets, all inanimate but divine creations. My brothers, Valentinus and Charis, were skillful Artisans and competed with each other to see which ?on could create the most perfect galaxy. My youngest brother, Horos, meticulously created the Milky Way, but the others teased him for it only had nine planets and one meager Sun. But I loved the galaxy that Horos had created, with one planet in particular that caught my eye. Its blues were the deepest I had ever seen, and it filled me with both an eternal sadness and an overwhelming sense of hope.
“‘The cosmos were a very lonely place. They were vast and deep, and my brothers and I spent many eons traveling and creating worlds. But I wanted to create one just for myself, a very different kind of world: one with sentient beings like me whom I could talk to, whom I could love and nourish. Though I knew my father would disapprove, I was mad with loneliness, and in a moment of despair, I created a Being like myself.
“‘I created the demiurge: a sentient worker who would help me build the material world. But because of my lowly form, and no protection from my father or brothers, the demiurge overpowered me. He betrayed me, trapped me in the process, and became an evil creator of his own volition.
“‘The demiurge created the physical universe and humanity. He also spawned the Archons to preside over the material realm, and to stop humans from ascending back to the divine realm. I tried to stop the demiurge, but hewas more powerful than me, and I remained trapped in the metaphysical plane.
“‘That is when I sacrificed myself. I shattered my soul into seventy-eight pieces and cast them onto the blue planet so that the pieces would enter all of the sentient beings. These are the Universal Truths, known as the Tarot. I gave humans the ability to read and access the Tarot in the hope that learning the Truths would give them a chance to escape the material plane.’
“Thus concludes the dream from which I learned from where the powers of Tarot came to be. I learned through Sophia’s guidance that the cards are pieces of Sophia’s Universal Truths, and allow us to tap into the cosmic fabric that binds us all and seals us from ascending from the material realm. If one can harness the power of the cards, tap into the Universal Truths, then one may access the power of the mother ?on, Sophia, limitless as it is on Earth.”
I stared blankly at the page for several moments before blinking, looking back up to the Circle. The gravity of the text hit me like a boulder. I tried to form words, but they all died on my lips.
