The Magic Trick (The Card Game #2)

Ch 12 - Seven Disciplines

CHAPTER XII

SEVEN DISCIPLINES

Even in the grimmest of places, adopting a routine can ease the mind, and so Viktor and his friends did just that. They woke early, ate breakfast in the dining hall, and tried to meet other servants and collect what little information they could about Staryi Castle. Then they gathered in the meeting room with the others, waiting for Sergeant Bogatir to stumble in and lead them to a lesson.

Each day they were introduced to a new subject, or discipline, as the Instructors insisted they call it. After Rose's concoctions, Viktor expected the worst, but their second lesson wasn't so outlandish. They walked into a stone room with polished wooden desks. Piles of scrolls and luxurious quills were scattered about, and near the great blackboard at the front of the room was a familiar teacher in plum robes.

"Excellent to see you all again." Pluma smirked behind his wire-rimmed spectacles. "I see many of you are surprised to see me. Yes, unlike others who have taught at the schoolhouse, I am a true Instructor of Staryi Castle. The good Master sent me to eliminate those unfit for study, and I have."

Viktor's thought drifted back to Romulus and Charlotta, whom he so desperately missed. The Crossbones Clan must have felt the same way about Andrei and Rover. Even a short time spent inside the castle walls made the outside world feel so far away.

"As you may have guessed, I am expert in the written and spoken word," Instructor Pluma said proudly. "And if you are here, then you have mastered the fundamentals of the Russian language, but thankfully we will now abandon that crude tongue for a more refined one—Latina.

"Some call Latin a dead language, but that isn't so. Latin is the king of all language. It gave birth to the Romance languages. It lends roots to the Western tongues. The ancients spoke it. The old minds studied it. The medieval scholars treasured it. Even in this age, academics use it to give matter true names. Much of it lies buried in the folds of time, but under my hand you will begin to mine this fortune. Strive to become the one expert in this vein of golden script, for the Trials will not bode well for the majority who are lost in its intricacies."

Another threat. Viktor hoped it was an empty one as he struggled through the long lecture that followed. If he knew Russian better than his peers, it was only because his mother had taught him as a young child, reading him stories in between his bouts of sickness. Sadly, those stories were long gone, as was his comforting Cyrillic alphabet. The foreign symbols in their place reminded Viktor just how far he had strayed into the darkness.

**

The week's third lesson took place in the western side of the castle, the wing where many of the Leopard's strange experiments were housed. That alone was enough to put Viktor on edge, but then came the fact that a grumbling Sergeant Bogatir knocked on a door he recognized—just as he recognized the man who quickly stepped out into the hallway.

Do I know all the Instructors in this place? Viktor wondered, glancing sidelong at Aleksandr, his old serf friend who shared his surprise. This is the man who saw potential in Aleksandr and pulled him from the mines. He's—

"Pyotr Messor is my name," growled the man in dusty gray robes with dusty gray hair. His face was ashen and his limbs stout. "Call me Mister Messor if you like, or Professor Messor or Instructor—I care not. I care more about what you call the stones and deposits under your boots. I'll take them now, Bogatir. Off you go."

Viktor cast his eyes down as Bogatir ambled away. Messor. He had heard that name before. Last year, he stole gunpowder from the mines and got locked in the explosives storehouse. He was almost captured by Captain Ulfrik and another man—this man!