“It’s a little unsettling, yes? But it’s appropriate, because unlike me you’ll be spending the rest of your lives out here. Most years, the point of coming down here is to scare you with ghost stories about the outside world. In your case I don’t think that will be necessary. You’ve witnessed firsthand the destructive power that some magical entities possess.
“It’s unlikely you’ll ever see anything as bad as what happened on the day of the Beast. But remember that what happened that day can happen again. Those of you who were in the auditorium that day, especially, will carry the mark of it forever. You will never forget the Beast, and you can be sure it won’t forget you either.
“Forgive me if I lecture you, but it’s the last chance I’m going to get.”
Quentin was sitting opposite Fogg in the circle—they had all taken seats on the smooth stone floor—and his mild, clean-shaven face floated in the darkness like an apparition. Both bottles of whiskey reached Quentin simultaneously, and he gamely took a sip from each, one in each hand, and passed them on.
“Sometimes I wonder if man was really meant to discover magic,” Fogg said expansively. “It doesn’t really make sense. It’s a little too perfect, don’t you think? If there’s a single lesson that life teaches us, it’s that wishing doesn’t make it so. Words and thoughts don’t change anything. Language and reality are kept strictly apart—reality is tough, unyielding stuff, and it doesn’t care what you think or feel or say about it. Or it shouldn’t. You deal with it, and you get on with your life.
“Little children don’t know that. Magical thinking, that’s what Freud called it. Once we learn otherwise we cease to be children. The separation of word and thing is the essential fact on which our adult lives are founded.
“But somewhere in the heat of magic that boundary between word and thing ruptures. It cracks, and the one flows back into the other, and the two melt together and fuse. Language gets tangled up with the world it describes.
“I sometimes feel as though we’ve stumbled on a flaw in the system, don’t you? A short circuit? A category error? A strange loop? Is it possible that magic is knowledge that would be better off forsworn? Tell me this: can a man who can cast a spell ever really grow up?”
He paused. No one answered. What the hell would they say? It was a little late to be scolding them now that they’d already completed their magical education.
“I have a little theory that I’d like to air here, if I may. What is it that you think makes you magicians?” More silence. Fogg was well into rhetorical-question territory now anyway. He spoke more softly. “Is it because you are intelligent? Is it because you are brave and good? Is it because you’re special?
“Maybe. Who knows. But I’ll tell you something: I think you’re magicians because you’re unhappy. A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength.
“Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by other means, or until it kills them. But you, my friends, you found another way: a way to use the pain. To burwood-paneled b pretendgn it as fuel, for light and warmth. You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you.”
Quentin’s attention wandered to the tiny glimmery points of light here and there on the curved ceiling above them, pricking out the shapes of constellations he didn’t recognize, as if they were on another planet, seeing the stars from an alien angle. Someone cleared his throat.
Fogg went on.
“But just in case that’s not enough, each one of you will leave this room tonight with an insurance policy: a pentagram tattooed on your back. Five-pointed star, nicely decorative, plus it acts as a holding cell for a demon, a small but rather vicious little fellow. Cacodemon, technically.
“They’re tough little scrappers, skin like iron. In fact, I think they may be made of iron. I’ll give you each a password that sets him free. Speak the password and he’ll pop out and fight for you till he’s dead or till whoever’s giving you trouble is.”
Fogg clapped his hands on his knees and looked at them as if he’d just told them they’d all be receiving a year’s supply of attractive and useful Brakebills stationery. Georgia put up her hand tentatively.
“Is … is this optional? I mean, is anybody else besides me disturbed by the idea of having an angry demon, you know, trapped inside their skin?”
“If that bothers you, Georgia,” Fogg said curtly, “then you should have gone to beauty school. Don’t worry, he’ll be grateful as hell, so to speak, when you set him free. He’s only good for one fight, though, so pick your moment.
“That’s the other reason we’re down here, by the way. Can’t conjure a cacodemon inside the Cordon.
“Why we need the bourbon, too, because this is going to hurt like a bitch. Now, who’s first? Or shall we go alphabetically?”
The next morning at ten there was a more conventional graduation ceremony in the largest and grandest of the lecture halls. It would be difficult to imagine a more miserable and visibly hung-over group of graduating seniors. It was one of the rare occasions when parents were allowed on campus, so no displays of magic, or mentions of same, were allowed. Almost as bad as the hangover was the pain from the tattoo. Quentin’s back felt like it was crawling with hungry biting insects that had stumbled on something especially delicious. He was exquisitely conscious of his mother and father sitting a dozen rows behind him.
Quentin’s memories of the night before were confused. The Dean had summoned the demons himself, scribbling concentric rings of sigils on the old stone floor with thick chunks of white chalk you know the
k. He worked quickly and surely, with both hands at once. For the tattooing the guys took off their shirts and jackets and lined up naked to the waist, as did the girls, with varying degrees of modesty. Some of them clutched their crumpled clothes over their chests. A few exhibitionists stripped down proudly.
In the half darkness Quentin couldn’t see what Fogg was using to draw on thess="bodytext"