The Shadowhunter's Codex (33 page)

BATTLE

There are many seasons of a Shadowhunter’s life, and many turns that life may take, but the core occupation of the Shadowhunter is, so to speak, the hunting of shadows. We are warriors, holy soldiers in a ceaseless battle, and while our adult lives include the same joys and sorrows as any mundane’s, the defining characteristic of our lives is that of fighting, of seeking demons invading our world and sending them, broken, back to theirs. It is the greatest honor for a Nephilim to die in combat with demons. Thus we say: Do not shirk from battle. Have faith, seek courage. A Shadowhunter who does not fight is not a complete Shadowhunter. (Unless that Shadowhunter is a Silent Brother or Iron Sister, of course.)

It is true, however, that many Shadowhunters put aside their weapons as they grow older, and seek a quieter life of study or research. But we do not do this until we have lived a full warrior’s life and are ready to put it aside with a feeling of completion.

Did You Know?

It is considered bad luck to say “good-bye” or “good luck” to a Shadowhunter who is going off to battle. One must behave with confidence, as though victory is assured and return is certain, not a matter of chance.
I actually did know that!

Even I knew that. Come on, Codex. Everyone knows
that
.

Why do I keep letting you write in this thing?

THOSE WHO LEAVE

Rarely, a Shadowhunter will choose to leave the Clave and enter the mundane world. There may be many reasons for this, but the Nephilim do not often look kindly on those who choose this path, whatever their reason. We are too few as it is, and we are meant to regard our status as Nephilim as a gift from Heaven and a divine calling, not as an accident of birth or a career path to be chosen or declined.

As such the Law is clear on the responsibilities of those who leave the Clave:

• They must sever all contact with Shadowhunters, even those of their own family who remain in the Clave. They must never so much as speak to Nephilim or be spoken to by them.

• In renouncing the Clave they also renounce the Clave’s obligation to offer them assistance in case of danger. They are not even afforded the protections given by Law to mundanes.

• Their children, even future children, remain Shadowhunters by blood and may be claimed by the Clave. Shadowhunter blood breeds true, and the children of Shadowhunters will be Shadowhunters, even if their parents have left, even if their Marks have been stripped.

• Every six years a representative of the Clave is sent to ask those children of ex-Shadowhunters if the children would like to leave their family and be raised among Shadowhunters in an Institute, as if they were orphans. Only when the child has turned eighteen does this practice end. (Those who reject the Nephilim into adulthood are not treated with the stigma of ex-Shadowhunters but have the same rights of protection as any mundane. The Clave has no wish to punish children for the crimes of their parents.)

• A Shadowhunter who has been turned into a Downworlder can no longer be Nephilim but should not be punished in the manner of those who chose to leave. In these cases the person gives up the protection owed him by the Clave for being a Shadowhunter but becomes newly entitled to the protection granted to Downworlders.

DEATH

Most Shadowhunters die as Shadowhunters. And most die in battle with demons. Major buzzkill, Codex.

We Nephilim burn our dead, discarding the fragile physical body that has trapped us and restricted us for our short human lives. Our remains are then interred. Those who die in Idris are traditionally entombed in its necropolis, outside Alicante’s walls. Those who die outside Idris are entombed in the Silent City. The Silent Brothers have responsibility over the dead in both locations. Most Shadowhunter families are old families and as a result have not merely grave plots but large family tombs and mausoleums, often one in each of the two necropolises.

Before being set on the funeral pyre, the Shadowhunter’s body is presented so that words of mourning can be spoken and those left behind can pay their last respects. Those in mourning traditionally wear white, and Mark themselves in red. The eyes of the dead Shadowhunter are bound with white silk, and he is laid to rest with his arms crossed over his chest, a seraph blade clutched in the right hand and resting over his heart. Funeral rites vary depending on the part of the world the Shadowhunter is from but traditionally conclude with a sentence from
The Odes of Horace: Pulvis et umbra sumus. “We are dust and shadows.”

Hoo boy, I can’t read this right now. No no no. Too much.

Yeah, for me too. We’ve had a little too much dust and shadows lately.

SILENT BROTHERS AND IRON SISTERS

THE SILENT BROTHERS

Our Unnerving Allies

And Jonathan took his stele, the first stele, and slowly he drew a
V
, then another, then another, in a continuous line,
VVVVV
, from David’s upper lip to his bottom lip and back again. The stele was warm in his hand and left a fine indentation of crosshatch that remained even after the stele’s point was withdrawn.

Jonathan drew back, finished, and cocked his head at David, not sure if the Mark had taken.

David began to open his mouth to speak, and as he did, the lines on his mouth burned gold, and his lips caught just slightly open, held together by black threads, thin but strong. Jonathan stepped back and lifted the stele without thought, unsure. But the corners of David’s mouth turned up slightly in what he was now able to produce in lieu of a smile.

“Sir?” Jonathan said, his voice wavering.

It is good, Shadowhunter,
David said abruptly in Jonathan’s mind. His voice was strong and calm and echoed in Jonathan’s head much more loudly than Jonathan would have expected.
Now,
David went on, lifting two fingers to his own face like a gesture of blessing.
Now the eyes.

—From
Jonathan and David in Idris
, by Arnold Featherstone, 1970

The Silent Brothers are indeed our brothers—brothers to all Nephilim. Do not be frightened of them. Their appearance may be disconcerting, or even sickening, to you on first glance, but they are Nephilim, like you, and you fight on the same side, toward the same goals. (Most Shadowhunters get over their fear of Silent Brothers the first time they are injured in battle and the Brothers nurse them back to health.) It is worth noting that many Silent Brothers enjoy unsettling their fellow Nephilim, and deliberately play up their spookier features. This is a kind of hazing and should be taken as the good fun it is intended to be.

No sudden moves, though.

It is easy for new Nephilim to look upon the Silent Brothers as somehow more holy or angelic or powerful than the rest of us, but this is not in fact the case. The Silent Brothers rarely fight and lack any of the many combat runes that you will likely receive to enhance your physical and mental abilities. Instead they have taken Marks upon themselves that grant them access to the more esoteric corners of the Gray Book. They are our doctors, our scholars, our archivists. To them is given jurisdiction over the Nephilim dead. This of course includes those who rest in the Silent City, but the cemetery of Idris, too, is the Silent Brothers’ domain.

The Marks that the Silent Brothers use in their work are not so much forbidden to other Nephilim as hidden from our sight. In essence, parts of the Gray Book are locked and invisible to us, and the Marks the Brothers are inscribed with are the key. The Silent Brothers therefore have access to strange magic that you will not see performed by other Nephilim. In exchange for their special abilities, they have given up some of their humanity, moving farther from the Earth and closer to Heaven than the rest of us. They are still human, but their extraordinary nature makes them often disconcerting to us: They leave no footprints, do not cast shadows, do not move their mouths to speak, and do not sleep. Their bodies are tugged upward by Heaven, just as vampires’ bodies are tugged downward by Hell.

Befitting their seraphic alliance, the Silent Brothers are sometimes called the Grigori. The term refers to the Watchers, one of the higher orders of angels (the Watchers are the angels who are present in the trial of Nebuchadnezzar in the Hebrew Bible, for example), and is applied to the Silent Brothers not to claim their status as more heavenly than other Nephilim, but rather as a reference to their role among the Shadowhunters: watchers rather than fighters. The term has gone out of fashion and is considered archaic but can be found in many older Nephilim writings.

The official habit of the Silent Brothers is a parchment-colored, hooded robe, belted at the waist. Novice Silent Brothers will usually have plain robes, while those who have advanced to full Brotherhood will have decorative Marks circling the cuffs and hems of their robes, in bloodred ink. High-ranking Brothers are sometimes known to carry scepters; these scepters are usually pure silver and are also decorated with Marks, with the head carved in a figurative symbolic shape, such as an angel with outstretched wings, a chalice, or the hilt of a sword. Silent Brothers cast no shadows on the rare occasions they are found in the sun; this is widely believed to be an affectation, like the robe, rather than having some actual purpose.

The Silent Brothers must, by Law, have both their eyes and mouths shut with Marks. There are several different Marks that accomplish this, and the different processes vary, from magically stitching the eyes and mouth shut; to merely keeping the eyes and mouth permanently closed with the Mark of Fettering; to cleanly removing the eyes and/or mouth entirely, leaving blank spaces of flesh where they once were. The latter is, obviously, the most permanent and irreversible of these and is considered the most devout means of Marking oneself as a Silent Brother.