Apprentice (15 page)

“Oh! You’re calling about the ad!” she’d sounded rather surprised and excited.

She proceeded to give him the address, making sure he got it right and then telling him how excited she was that the group would have some new blood. Bernard wasn’t sure if he could imagine this woman as some Satanist or murderer, but the new blood reference gave him chills; it brought the wrong sort of imagery to mind.

He’d spent the hours between the call and the meeting debating with himself whether he should go or not. In the pros column he had such entries as: it will piss off the parents, meet interesting people, find out about apocalypse and/or messiah. In the cons column he had: get killed by crazy people, meet stupid people, hear boring stuff about a supposed apocalypse and related bogus messiah. In the end, pissing off his parents won the toss up and Bernard headed out to the meeting, but not without some trepidation.

When he arrived at the address, his fears about being killed by the cultists were put to rest along with any hopes he had that the evening was going to be filled with any real revelations or any content that would be upsetting to his parents: the meeting place was a community hall in the basement of a church. No Satanists met in the basements of churches. No one possessing interesting occult secrets would be caught dead meeting in a church. He sighed and resigned himself to an evening of social awkwardness and boredom.

The basement had multiple meeting rooms, and he found his way by following signs indicating “Second Dawn, Room 6”. The signs had arrows drawn on them showing the correct direction to the room. These were very helpful signs, but also one more indication that he was in for a boring evening: Satanists didn’t draw helpful direction arrows; the cool Satanists didn’t anyway.

The door to the meeting room was closed, but through the window he could get a glimpse of what was going on inside. He peered in and saw that the room was arranged with a podium at the far end and chairs set up in rows facing it, as though there would be a speech from the front. No one was sitting in the chairs or standing at the podium. The few people in the room were milling about and chatting near a side board where drinks and snacks were laid out. There were only seven people in the room, so the amount of chairs facing the podium seemed to be overly optimistic; all seven could sit in the front row.

Bernard was disappointed to see that the seven people in the room were substantially older than he was, with the youngest looking to be around thirty and the majority being in their forties and early fifties. All of this might have discouraged Bernard if not for two other details he saw through the window.

One, each of the attendees was wearing robes; honest to goodness robes. Each of the robes was slightly different, with different trim colours or details, bringing an amount of occult significance to the vestments. Bernard saw these and could not help but think that at least these old crackpots wore cool threads.

Two, the book he saw one of the people carrying. It was no ordinary book. It was a thick leather-bound monster of a book that looked very old. The book was not printed, he could see thanks to some loose pages hanging half-out, but hand-written.

These two things convinced him they might be worth an hour or two of his time after all. Bernard took the plunge and went to his first meeting of the Society of the Second Dawn of Mankind.

The Second Dawners, as he later found out they called themselves, all turned around and looked at Bernard when he opened the door. They stood there seemingly stunned that anyone new had come to the meeting, some with their mouths still open in mid-word. Bernard was about to turn around and leave again, just to get away from the embarrassing situation, when the older man holding the interesting book spoke up.

“Well, that’s a fine welcome for our new lad isn’t it?” his voice was dripping with sarcasm. “Come in, come in. Don’t mind these lollygaggers lad, they won’t bite ye.” The old man had a vaguely British accent that seemed to lean dangerously toward a Scottish brogue. At this, the rest of the Second Dawners closed their mouths and became animated again, some looking ashamed of their previous display and making apologies.

The group came forward to greet him and Bernard was soon surrounded by strangers in robes with their hands extended for handshakes. Old Book Guy, as Bernard thought of him at that time, was not one of those who came forward and, as the mass greeting was beginning, he interrupted it with a harrumphing from deep in his throat. He had moved to the podium as the others were moving into mob-and-greet formation, and was now making to get everyone’s attention. “If I can bother you all to take your seats, we’ll begin. That is, if ye don’t mind my interrupting your lynching of the new boy.”

Bernard thanked him in his thoughts; he had been about to bolt again, faced as he was with a wall of robed people surrounding him. He knew they were just trying to be friendly and welcoming, but this experience had helped him to discover that no one reacts well to being surrounded by strangers. This went doubly so when the strangers were wearing robes with hoods pulled up.

Everyone was taking seats in the rows of chairs facing the podium, so Bernard took a seat as well, but unlike everyone else, he sat in the last row. He thought this would be best in case he changed his mind again and wanted to leave. The cultists in the first row were watching him as he took his seat. They looked disappointed that he chose to sit all the way at the back and away from them, but he could tell from the looks on their faces that they weren’t surprised. Soon everyone was settled and facing the podium.

The meeting began.

“Welcome brethren,” said Old Book Guy. “I hereby call this meeting of the Society of the Second Dawn of Mankind to order. Is there any old business to take up before we move to new business?” At this he looked significantly at a Second Dawner who had a notebook in her lap and a calligraphy pen in her hand. She looked up from her scribbling as she realized she was being called upon to look into the previous meeting’s minutes. She paged backward through the notebook and eventually spoke up in a high, girlish voice; a much higher voice than Bernard had expected from her middle-aged plump frame.

“Um, William Former still hasn’t paid his membership fees for this year,” she looked at the cultist Bernard presumed to be the aforementioned William Former when she said this, giving him a peevish look.

The addressed cultist shrugged, “I said last meeting, Bernice, that since I hosted the Christmas party last year and I provided snacks and drinks, that I considered that to cover my membership fees. If we’d rented a hall, it would have cost us at least two hundred bucks and the snacks and drinks were another fifty. That more than covers the two hundred I would owe for dues as a second circle member.”

He seemed annoyed to have to point this out again, as though this had been explained many times in the past. Just as Bernice was about to retort angrily back at William, Old Book Guy cleared his throat. It worked wonders and got everyone to shut up instantly and to pay attention to him. Everyone looked to Old Book Guy, but he looked at Bernice.

“Berny, we agreed last meeting that we’d accept Billy Former’s claims as payment of his dues. Ye need to let this go.” Billy seemed to be smugly satisfied by this until Old Book Guy turned toward him. “But Billy-boy, and this goes for the lot of ye,” he took in the entire group with his gaze, “The New Sun help me if any of you try this sort of bullshit again. If ye offer to host the bloody Christmas party at your house, do not then claim your costs. Are we clear?” The group was nodding agreement.

This Old Book Guy has some serious presence
, thought Bernard.

Old Book Guy then looked at Bernice again and said, “Now Bernice, is there any actual outstanding old business?”

Bernice looked at her notes again, “We still haven’t booked a meeting hall for the spring observance. William Former Senior was supposed to be looking into that,” she looked at the oldest member of the group, who was sitting beside the other, less senior, William Former. The old man, who had evidently not been paying attention, was poked by William Former — junior Bernard presumed — and made muttering noises. Junior told senior that they needed to know if he’d booked a hall for the spring observance. Senior made more muttering noises unintelligible to Bernard and, he saw, to anyone else in the hall — or so he thought.

Old Book Guy seemed to follow and said, “Well, do ye think ye can get around to it this week William?” He sounded exasperated and Bernard thought his accent was slipping more and more toward a Scottish Brogue.

More sounds that were definitely not speech, as far as Bernard could parse, came out of Senior. Bernard strained to hear it better and this is what he thought was said: “Murfle merkle flairn bortie. Lurg lurg blashna.” Bernard didn’t think this sounded like any language he’d ever heard. No one else other than Old Book Guy seemed to know what Senior was saying and none of them seemed to think this strange. They were looking to Old Book Guy as though expecting him to translate.

“No William, I’ll not bloody rent Billy’s place like we did for Christmas!”

Senior shrugged and made a sound that Bernard heard as, “Grund bargle flark nig.” Old Book Guy took this in and seemed to be counting to ten in his head before saying anything. When he did speak he addressed Bernice.

“Bernice child, can ye please make a note in the minutes that William Former Senior has failed to locate appropriate premises for our spring observance and that a new volunteer will be selected to look into this?” He then looked at the Second Dawners expectantly. William Former, the younger, junior one, made to raise his hand to volunteer but his hand froze halfway up, and he let it drop when Old Book Guy gave him a withering look. The gathered cultists then spent the next few moments working hard at not meeting Old Book Guy’s gaze and shifting in their seats uncomfortably.

“Janet should do it,” Bernice volunteered brightly. The person Bernard assumed to be Janet looked startled to have been nominated. She was a shockingly thin woman in her late thirties. “You never volunteer for any of the work, Janet,” Bernice continued, nodding knowingly at her own notebook as if to indicate that she’d know best since she took the minutes at these meetings. Janet was looking daggers at Bernice and there might have been a need for Old Book Guy to use his extraordinary throat clearing to break up the upcoming argument if Bernard had not spoken up at that moment.

The thought had come to him that the thing that would annoy his parents even more than knowing that he had joined some fringe cult, was to have that cult hold a ceremony at their home.

“You can have the spring observance at my house,” he piped up. This surprised the assembled cultists, but Old Book Guy seemed rather pleased.

“Note this in the minutes then, Bernice, and thankee lad. I’ll be getting the details from ye after the meeting.” Bernice scribbled in her notebook for a moment and Old Book Guy waited for her to finish before continuing.

“On to new business then,” he said sounding incredibly relieved to have shed the old business at last. “I’d say the first order of new business should be to get this lad introduced, don’t ya think?” Puzzlingly, Old Book Guy seemed to be suffering from more accent slippage. Now he was starting to sound like someone more from New England than any of the British Isles.

Everyone was looking at Bernard again. He thought maybe there was something he was supposed to be saying now like, “Aye Verily!” or some such acknowledgement or ritual phrase, but he didn’t know anything. Surely they knew he was new and wouldn’t know any of the proper forms.

Thankfully, Old Book Guy seemed to have things well in hand, “Rise young man, and come before Us.” Old Book Guy spoke with such formality that Bernard was convinced this was ritual. He rose as commanded and walked awkwardly around the intervening chairs to stand before the podium. Old Book Guy was looking down at him from his place behind it, and the rest of the cultists were now behind Bernard.

“Supplicant, you come before us wishing to learn the mysteries of the old and ancient Society of the Second Dawn of Mankind. You come before us parched and dying in the desert of ignorance, seeking succour from the ways of the unenlightened. Before we slake any of your thirst for knowledge, the Society must protect itself. Only those of the Society may drink from the well of knowledge which is the book of the New Sun. Do you, in truth, seek membership to the first circle of the Society?”

Bernard was distracted by the overabundance of water-for-knowledge metaphors, but he grasped that the cultists were asking him to join their club. He hesitated for a period too long for everyone’s comfort, including his own.

“Look buddy we’re not askin’ ya to sign your soul away here, just think of this as a sort of non-disclosure agreement. There’s no dues for the first circle and no real obligations. All ya got to do is keep your mouth shut about our secrets, got it?” Old Book Guy was stage whispering this to Bernard, but since everyone was within ten feet of him, this was audible to the entire assembly. Bernard decided the whispering must instead be meant to differentiate these remarks from the ritual words of the official ceremony. Also, Bernard couldn’t help but notice that Old Book Guy’s accent was going more and more toward a New York accent of some variety as he spoke.

Bernard thought it would be okay to join. The idea of dues
had
worried him, given the earlier business with William Former Junior.

“Er, Yes, I do want to join the first level,” He said awkwardly, trying to sound formal. Old Book Guy seemed pleased by the answer and by his effort to maintain the appropriate gravitas.