Oracle (Book I)

Headmaster Merlin

The new students formed two lines and marched into the Grand Hall. Immediately, a roaring and applauding started.

An entire cheering section of familiar faces from the Dragon's Roost stood on both sides of the line marching in. Caprice's face broke into a grin as she spotted Bossa jumping up and down, pumping her fist and cheering at the top of her lungs, while Nezzle and Grace Sula crowed loudly. Standing next to them, Ripley and a few others howled their approval to the vaulted ceiling.

They were led to the high table's dais amidst the fanfare and confetti. The two lines parted to form one long line in front of the high table. It was then that Caprice saw the Headmaster for the first time.

The hood of his pristine white, silver-embroidered robes was so deep that no hint of his face was visible. The Headmaster raised his voluminous sleeves and gloved hands, quieting everyone. He boomed cheerfully, "Welcome to another year at Oracle! Welcome to the new faces joining us from around the world. First-years, please kneel and as your name is called receive your honorary vestments."

Caprice knelt with the others, relieved that her gown allowed her to with minimum struggle. The teachers swarmed down the line, placing the saffron robes onto the shoulders of the kneeling students. The Headmaster announced "Caprice Bilberry" and a shock went through her. As one of the teachers placed the robes onto Caprice's shoulders, a round of clapping and hooting went off on her left that had her smiling. "Thierry Bilberry" was next and she grinned at her brother who was kneeling beside her. Frowning as an unfamiliar teacher placed the honorary robes onto Thierry's shoulders, she noticed that instead of the school crest the back of the robes were embroidered with the symbol of a staring, lidless eye.

After each name was called, the Headmaster spoke again.

"Grasp the past, forge the future."

With these words, the light from the crystal sconces lowered and the looming dark that followed shrank the glow from the crystal sconces and chandeliers, darkening the hall. The magic moved through Caprice and she felt it in her bones: A hard, heavy spell falling on the entire Grand Hall like an iron blanket. All sound ceased and time slowed. In the instant just before, Caprice's gaze slid to her friends, smile fading in aching degrees. Bossa's hands were clapped together and inching apart, so slowly Caprice wasn't sure they were moving at all. Nezzle was looking right at Caprice, eyelids lowered mid-blink.

Though her eyes continued to return forward at a creeping swivel, she saw motion out the corners. In the darkness, Headmaster Merlin's white robes melted into a crawling cloak of living white shadows. He was the only thing brighter than the moonlight outside the windows and the mountain, whose heart was unusually tinged with a gilded shine.

The whispering pressed into Caprice's ears. It clawed into the eerie silence cast over the hall full of practically frozen students and guests. One by one, the students' eyes burned white, white as the Headmaster's robes.

"Silence, all of you!" Headmaster Merlin snapped. An ominous specter, he swept down the line of first-years, passing some over while pausing and pointing at others with a gloved hand. "You will be useful. You. And you...you, as well." He came to Caprice as her eyes made their tortuously slow turn from her friends in the crowd to him. "You will definitely be useful." He'd barely taken a step past her when he stopped at Thierry. "You will do." On down the line he went until he reached the end, nodding his hooded head. "Almost there...this crop ought to do it."

"The spell is waning," Earithean said.

That horrible cold, white light. Suddenly, Caprice felt it trickling out of her own eyes. A scream dragged up her aching throat.

"I'm aware," the Headmaster said. "I leave the rest to you and others." He went back to his throne chair behind the great table and raised his arms.

The whispering stopped immediately. The lights rose, fully illuminating the hall once more. A brief dizziness assailed her and she wondered where her smile at the sound of her friends' cheering from a moment ago had gone. She wondered where her sense of unease had come from. She turned her gaze forward and listened to the end of the Headmaster's speech.