Splatterism: The Disquieting Recollections of a Minotaur Assailant: An Upbuilding Edifying Discourse

by Christian Winter

  “Ah Scammander,” the little scholar said with a winsome smile behind his glasses. “Have you come back with…ah, what was it…hmm, let’s see.” He pulled out a large dusty tome, and gracefully opened it. Dust drifted away from the great leather bound book whose pages were colored like autumnal leaves.

  I arched an eyebrow as I peered over at Scammander, who shook his head.

  “Quite a list here, even for an aspiring archmage,” he said without looking up. He ran his finger gingerly down each page, sifting through the titles. “Sign and Simulacra,” he nodded. “Of Grammatologie, Spurs, Dissemination, Writing and Difference,…” his voice trailed off as he continued down the page and over to the next. “Oh my,” he said in soft surprise, “Beyond Good and Evil, The Gay Science, Will to Power, Endymion, Fall of Hyperion, the Complete Works of…one, two, three, four, five…” his eyebrow arched “…of quite a few of the canonicals. Very interesting, very impressive.” Again his voice faded as he traveled to the end of the page, and over to the next. “On The Way to Language, Spectacular Society…” he paused and looked up at us. “I’m not familiar with that one, I wonder what it is about.” Rather than look to one of us for an answer, he returned his gaze to the book and continued his stroll down the page. “Lectures on Aesthetics, On the Aesthetic Education of Man, Redwall,” he chuckled. “A good one, for certain. What else, what else…ah, Stages on Life’s Way, Divine Comedy, The Prince, Margins of Philosophie, Prefaces,” he laughed lightly again and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “What a hilarious idea! A book of prefaces! Note well, it could have been done better—but its preface to its prefaces! How lyrical! How philosophical!” He looked up at us, face full of grin, as if expecting a comment. But neither of us had anything to say. “Well then,” he shut the book emphatically. “Scammander you have a book you owe me, that you checked out recently and have not returned.”

  He motioned us to follow and we trailed him through a few rows of bookshelves as we crossed the library to one of his desks.

  “Simon are you sure about this, you just looked through them—”

  “The most recent one was on the first page, I was just looking to see what else you had read.”

  “That one enormous book was the list of everything he had read?” I said, stupefied.

  The elf nodded as he reached below the desk and pulled out another massive volume. “Oh yes, his is the second largest of all the readers who have visited this library,” the old scribe said and adjusted his glasses. “This book will tell me which tome Scammander currently owes our library.”

  Simon flipped through a few pages, then skipped to the last page and held his chin while reading. “A truly curious selection. Have you actually finished An Algebra of a Sunset by Ennius?”

  “Yes, yes I believe so,” Scammander said. “It didn’t quite add up,” he added, leering at me.

  I rolled my eyes. “I have to ask, or let me guess, who has the largest volume.” I looked at Scammander as I made my guess. “The bull wizard.”

  The scholar closed his eyes and laughed a little. “No, I’m afraid not. He didn’t read.”

  “Not at this library anyway,” Scammander said dryly.

  “I have read the most books in this library. Almost every one of them,” the archivist said proudly.

  “Well, who’s third then?”

  “It’s quite puzzling,” he frowned and studied the large chronicle of Scammander’s reading. “I have never been able to make sense of it. A cloven-footed knight, who has a weakness for paronomasia and sexual humor; he is a notorious smuggler, a bastard, and close friend of some ridiculous verser, Stunt Brightblade; his name is Robyn Goodfellow.” He waved his hand. “But he has not been to this library in some time, he was banished because we suspected him of stealing.”

  “Oh?” said Scammander, chin in palm. “And what did this Robyn Goodfellow steal?”

  “The complete Folios of Hammett Stringslayer.” He sighed and pushed back his hair. “We could never prove it of course. But he had an inordinate fondness for Hammet’s works, and the books that Hammett used to read.”

  Stunt, Hammett, Robyn Goodfellow, Scammander. I wondered how many false names the two had between them, and how many library records belonged to them.

  “Yes, one day—I was very new then, and the world was very different then. One day, I was checking the volumes, making sure they were in order, when I noticed a little scrap of rolled parchment in the huge gap where the work should have been. I picked it up and unrolled it. With dread I read! These chilling words were all it said: ‘Not for all time, but for me.’ With dread I read!” He sat down in his chair, shook his head, and with both arms pushed himself away from the table. “We had intense debates after that incident. We began scribing copies after that. I never used a wizard’s pen! I insisted on writing—on copying the ones I loved.”

  He rose up and beckoned us to follow. “It’s time for me to check,” he said as he shuffled along the floor. We began walking down the narrow, arched hall, and I could hear a dull scratching noise, like hundreds of pens writing in unison. We stopped in front of an arched stone doorway where the scribbling noise was the loudest.

  Simon looked up at Scammander, like he had been talking to him the entire time we had been walking. “Ah yes, I remember what is so peculiar about your list Scammander. You have never once checked out a novel.”

  “That alone should make me eminent among all the races of the world,” he sneered.

  Simon touched the wooden door which swung gently inward, revealing a spacious grey-stoned room full of hundreds of wooden desks, aligned in perfect rows, each with two open books on them. White feathered quills skipped hopped and zipped across the blank copy, while the pages in the original turned. Occasionally a blast of light blue stars would rush up from the original as the book turned the page, accompanied by a swirl of light blue twinkles that rushed up around the quills.

  “To my knowledge, we still have the highest number of complete collections,” Simon said, gazing upon the dancing quills.

  “Is there anything special about a collection of books?” I asked.

  “That they tend to get lost,” the archivist muttered.

  “Is there anything special about the collection of books in this library?” I asked.

  “The jewels of this library are without a doubt in the Antechamber of Mana, where we keep all the spellbooks from old sorcerers. I think we have even more books of spells than the Academy at this point,” Simon said with a smirk.

  I looked over to Scammander. “I think we would really like to see some of those ancient grimoirs.” And I was sure Scammander could steal at least a few while the old librarian prattled on.

  “I don’t need to see any more books of spells for as long as I live,” the wizard retorted.

  “Scammander has seen most of them before,” Simon said. “He was instrumental in their acquisition.”

  “When was the last time you went outside?” I said.

  “Oh I promised not to leave until our entire archive had been copied.” He turned and looked at the dancing quills. “It will be a testament to our civilization. Not only did we discover a new land, we have widened access to all the world’s knowledge.” He pulled a little wand from his pocket and flicked his wrist at the nearest desk. The quill stopped and he motioned us to follow him over. “These copies are so perfect there is no difference between it and the original,” he said holding the book up to me. “Isn’t it wonderful? You will be able to bring other minotaurs to this sylvan chamber of learning. They will be able to read and write and participate in the great government of the world, and even attend the Academy.”

  I closed the book and handed it back to him. “Perhaps even Scammander himself will write me a letter of recommendation.”

  “I don’t think that would help your cause,” Scammander snickered.

  “That’s ridiculous Scammander,” Simon said. “Your family’s history is so intimately intertwined with th
e Academy that almost anyone you recommend would be given a bursary at the very least. Go on, tell your companion.”

  “When the earliest progenitors of my family enrolled in the Academy, there were only two colleges to choose from. The more ancient and prestigious of the two was Eventide College, and the newest was Corwyn College,” he said before pausing. “Though now of course Corwyn is the second oldest college in all of the Academy and quite eminent,” he said pausing again. “Even so, could I do it all over again I would have liked to attend Eventide,” he said with yet another agonizing pause. “Anyways, as I was saying, my progenitors, never content to follow everyone else but always content when everyone else followed them, elected to complete their studies at Corwyn College.” Scammander paused to grin. “However, I had more than two colleges to choose from.”

  “What’s this?”

  “Well, for starters I applied to Primrose College, which is entirely female.”

  Simon huffed and shook his head.

  “Yes, the admissions committee had a very similar reaction,” Scammander chuckled. “But in the end I arrived at The Blessed Scholars of Corwyn College, May They Never Want For Books and took up my place on staircase XIII in Basil Honeydew’s chambers on the 77th floor of the North Star spire.”

  Simon buried his chin in his palm and began to reflect. “There has been a member of your family in that room for as long as the spires have challenged the vault of this world. Because of that chamber’s size and the particular location of its window, it is the first room in all of the Academe that can see the North Star when evening arrives and bathes the entire study in glisterning beams from the burning signs.”

  “It gets the most starlight throughout the evening,” Scammander consented and turned to me. “It promotes nocturnal study.”

  “Which I always found to be amusing, given its motto,” Simon quipped.

  “Arduus ad solem,” Scammander nodded. “Yes, well I suppose that’s at least one reason why I felt I should have attended Eventide College. I composed my dissertation to two musics: starlight and silence.”

  Simon pursed his lips and looked at Scammander. “Ah yes, what was the thesis you were putting together? There was something about it—what was it called again?”

  Scammander answered proudly. “On Arousing Restlessness Oriented Toward Inward Deepening with Continual Reference to a Pseudonymous Dialectical Lyricist.”

  Simon frowned. “Yes. I remember now. And to think, you had such promise, everyone held you in such high esteem, you were a prodigy!—there were great hopes! And then you announced that dissertation!” He shook his head and looked at Scammander the way everyone always did—with complete bafflement and contempt. “Ridiculous! Squandered abilities! What was it Scammander? Too many poets at midnight?”

  “Too many philosophers, not enough scholars,” Scammander said blithely.

  “Bah! Careers were destroyed! I have no doubt! And yours most importantly!” he said, then turned to me. “I was a young scholiast at the time, though already famous for the first edition of my Drake Grammar, which my advisor praised as being quite erudite, and which even today is still used to introduce the language. Yes, I was a young scholar who could say ‘I have walked in the footsteps of the gods,’ having defended my thesis.” His eyes faded a little as he leaned on the doorway and watched the feathery quills glide across the open books. “Scammander, that bacchanalian baccalaureate was the first in his class to master the Trivium, to deliver at High Table, and stride across the lawns and gardens with armfuls of scholarship and yet with steps so gossamer that he left no trace on the grass! Yes, even then he was pale from his lucubrations, pallid even for one interested in philosophy, so pale that he earned the name ‘Scammandergeist’ from his bawdy bachelor roommates!”

  Scammander seemed unmoved.

  “It is the essence of genius to defer and detest the very leaves that comprise its crown,” Simon said. “You were a prodigy Scammander, a prodigy who always risked throwing it all away. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see you dead or completely burned out from all the risks you have taken with your magic, despite inordinate opportunities to study with the greatest teachers and students of magic.”

  Scammander turned his head to look at the elder scholar. “A prodigy?”

  Scammander appeared insulted, which I thought was odd. “Wait,” I said before he could go any further, “what is a prodigy?”

  “A prodigy, dear Evander, is nothing more than an intellect working in perfect alignment with the demands of its society, questioning only what questions its society needs answers for, and only asking questions that its society allows to be asked. A prodigy follows the rules the very best of all its fellow members, and for that reason the system praises them and hopes that more will be like them. A prodigy is he-who-follows-in-a-neat-and-orderly-fashion, and ‘follow the rules! Do not follow yourself!’ is their maxim.”

  Simon seemed called to a defense. “This is your famous distinction between the prodigy and the genius.”

  “What, then, is genius?” I asked.

  “Anger and melancholy,” he whispered, like a crepuscular wind slipping through cemetery grass. Then he stiffened a little. “A young ambitious general could ask, ‘how does one become illustrious?’ and the reply could be made, ‘by killing the most illustrious.’ But today such a question is asked in vain. Greatness is no longer possible.”

  “Well Scammander, you accomplished many legendary tasks while you were at the Academy, but did you ever catch the commentarius perpetuus?

  “The what?” I asked.

  “There is a commentarius perpetuus, as it is commonly known in the Academy, a running commentary, an enchanted page with thin legs that darts through the stony halls of the Academy, and the lucky student who catches it will have all the answers to all the tests.”

  “It moves with startling celerity,” said Scammander, gazing at the dancing quills. “And it kicks the tea from a student’s hands, and kicks the port from the scholar’s hands on nights at formal hall,” he grinned, recollecting.

  Simon explicated the short history of the cheat sheet. “In the early days of the Academy no one would admit that they had caught it, and the High Scholars sought for many years with eager wands to dispel the enchantment. They never succeeded. So today the student who is fortuitous enough to capture the running page is simply excused from exams.”

  “I had planned on capturing it and creating a twin, with all the wrong answers, but they rusticated me before I could do it.”

  “This is the very puckishness that jeopardized your entire family’s place in the Academy.”

  Scammander smiled into his hand.

  “How many tutors have you offended? Bertram, the ancient cleric, fond of his garden and books on the keeping of bees. He was the first dragon to lecture in the Academy, the first dragon to speak to the elves, his name was hallowed and sacred to those steeped in the arts of healing magic, and he was the tutor of magic to children of all the old families—to your family almost exclusively—and a dear friend to your mother. And what did you learn from him?”

  “He taught me one spell,” Scammander mused.

  “Then he threw you out!” Simon scolded and swatted the younger wizard on the arm. “His magic is ancient, pure, and wild—quite possibly the only path back to the potency of the exuberant mana that used to be known to the tremendous wizards of antiquity.”

  “He is rutty and bent by the millenniums, a chewed morsel hanging from time’s maw. The magician you speak of—if he ever lived—is gone, replaced by a mushy, irresolute, reader of books,” Scammander retorted.

  Simon adjusted his glasses and shook his head. “I know you strained the tolerance of the learned wizard that lives here, our master Sulphasalazine. Changing into strange shapes, disappearing for years,” he narrowed his eyes, “reading books you weren’t supposed to.”

  Simon looked at me like this was the first time he realized that I was also in the room. “Are
we allowing visitors again?” he said looking at Scammander, then back at me. “Our library is such a wonderful place to visit; it’s eternally spring here, in our enchanted forest. Very pleasant outside. If you would like, I can show you out to the gardens. They are a most wonderful place to read in, complete with a small hedge maze, like the one back home.”

  “Evander doesn’t like sunlight,” Scammander said. “It’s one of the particular things I like about him.”

  “Have you seen Hythloth this morning? He is usually just about finished training his knights about this time and ready for his lecture on philosophy. We are going to discuss Virtue today; Scammander, it might suit you well to attend.” Simon finished speaking, but remained fixated upon Scammander like he had forgotten something. “Oh yes, now I remember why I was so excited to see you!”

  Scammander tilted his head.

  “You have an overdue book! One that is very important to me and this library: An Algebra of a Sunset, by Ennius,” he chuckled. “I was surprised you actually finished it. Most who check it out return it shortly thereafter, not content to waste their time with its riddles.”

  “Yes Simon, I believe you previously advised me of this.”

  “Nonsense Scammander, and I won’t fall for your word games and sleights of the mind.”

  Scammander blinked, then decided to go along with the conversation.

  “I would admonish you to return it in a timely fashion, since…unfortunate things have been known to happen to those who do not return tomes we highly prize in this library.”

  Like withholding all of your magical knowledge until you returned it. I looked at Scammander. Was he insane enough to persist with his bluffing?

  Scammander scoffed. “I’m quite aware of the penalties, none of which would apply to me since I helped create them.”

  Simon nodded. “Even you had a hand in the awful magic hexes, and even you would not be able to stem their effects.”