Subject: Second Circles ch. 2: Old Friends
Author: Delta Juliette
Posted on: 2018-04-13 21:28:00 UTC

The bookstore was practically a warren- it had expanded one room at a time through what once had been a trio of apartments, shelves growing like creeping vines along walls and down hallways. It smelled like books, the unique scent of old paper saturating the air.

Julia wandered. It was raining- the walls were thin enough that she could hear it beating down, even from a room away from the outdoors. She was in the fiction section- somewhere in the ‘C’s, between the old comfort of Bujold and the futurist wonder of Doctorow, when her fingers found something familiar.

The Wizards’ Oath. An old hardback, missing its dust jacket to show the simple binding beneath. Julia pulled it off the shelf and flipped it open.

She had read it before, she decided, as she paged through the first chapter, still wandering the bookstore. It was familiar- children swearing an oath to protect life from entropy, cloaked in christian-compatible imagery of a Dark One who had turned from the path of life. Magic was language- the Speech- although she could have sworn that in her memories, in the printing she’d held years ago, the curly blocks of the Speech had been a cursive script, familiar words in fancy clothes. These were something else- deep, dense, the curling glyphs had a rhythm to them but meaning danced out of reach.

The story turned into an adventure, as Julia’s favorite fiction was want to do- she only barely noticed the chair, tucked away in a convenient corner, or that she was sitting in it. She wasn’t just skimming any more, she was reading, page after page. How had she not loved this book? How had she only barely remembered it?

And then, on a page halfway into the story, a creature of the darkness killed one of the characters.

Julia was no stranger to character death- sacrifice and redemption were regular occurrences in fiction. But this one was different. It wasn’t a noble sacrifice, a hero laying down their life for their companions. It wasn’t a byronic fall, a person redeeming their unredeemable flaw by dying for it. It was just… death. Sudden, shocking, unfair. The darkness had reached for a person and she hadn’t been able to stop it and now she was gone.

Julia distinctly remembered closing the book there, returning it to the shelf, leaving the library.

Not this time. Julia turned the page, kept reading.

The story continued, chapters passed, evil was defeated- not perfectly, not without sacrifice, not permanently. But it did end, three hundred pages after it had begun, and… a curious distance from the closing cover of the book.

“Appendices?” Julia asked nobody in particular, and turned to the next page.

Appendix A: The Oath

There was a page’s worth of warnings. While the narrative was fiction, the Oath, the Art, the Speech- and most importantly the Enemy were all terrifyingly real, or so the book said. To swear the Oath was to reshape your life, or even lose it. This was the real world, not fiction, and the real world killed people.

And then there it was, a block of text set aside from the rest, starting with In Life’s name and for Life’s sake.

It seemed- well, not silly. They were serious words, but she’d plucked the book from a shelf full of books full of serious words. But at the same time…

Bookstores were usually quiet, this one was no exception. But right now, even though the rain was still beating on the windows and steam was hissing in the radiators and the floor overhead was creaking as someone moved, the little corner Julia was in was unusually quiet. Like the universe was waiting. Like the universe was listening.

Julia read through the Oath again, more carefully, not quite mouthing the words as she went. They were good words- she could agree with them, even if they were nothing other than a promise to herself.

She took a breath and read the Oath to the listening room. For an instant, it felt like she was on a stage, reading to a room full of… everything. For an instant, it felt like the everything exhaled, letting out a breath it had held for fifteen years.

And then there was someone else, leaning on the shelf, looking down at her with a bit of a smile.

“I’m afraid we’re closing,” the shopkeeper said, “and I must kick you out into the rain. Come on, I’ll get you at the front counter.”

Julia followed, book tucked under her arm. She didn’t expect to read it again terribly soon? But something was telling her that she couldn’t just swear an oath and then walk away.

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