I didn’t need to ask after its fate, or care to hear about the murder and give the madman another chance to gloat.
Johannes nodded his head and took his seat, which floated up to the ceiling where he perched upside down, brooding.
Scammander’s eyes followed the warlock’s ascent, and lingered on his position.
“Sorry,” the warlock said as his chair quietly drifted back to the floor, turning right-side up in the process. “Old habit.”
As the door shut behind us, I could hear Absinthe screaming furiously. We both looked at Scammander as he sat down.
“It’s locked,” he said plainly with his aristocratic, triumphant stare.
Johannes shook his head.
“Doesn’t like the taste of defeat,” I said. Scammander looked over his shoulder at me and grinned.
When the door finally clicked shut a green skull appeared, undulating near Johannes’s head. The warlock motioned for me to take a seat. “Now, you must only sit in one of the chairs. The rest of the room is trapped; I mean every inch of it. Do not walk around. Definitely do not step on the rug in the middle,” he said as he leaned back and crossed his legs.
“Kind of dark in here isn’t it?” I said. The whole room was trapped and I could barely see.
“Ezekiel, please tend to the fire; our death-fond minotaur wants more light.”
The green skull floated over to the fireplace and began to spin in midair; below it a dark cloud appeared, and then out of a swirl of shadows and purple light a body in a dusty worm-chewed suit materialized under him. The green skull tilted down, inspecting the body, and then the arms raised and its hands tugged on the suit jacket approvingly.
“In! in in in in!” The skull shrieked, and the corpse bent its knees and jumped onto the smoldering logs. The fire flared for a moment, but then the light receded, and the room was only slightly brighter than it had been when we entered. Then the green skull zipped across the room and began whipping by my head and shrieking “In! in in in!”
I feinted swatting it with my hand and then skewered it right where its eye would have been. Instead of spilling ocular goo the empty eye socket got caught on my horn. Ezekiel became enraged as he rattled around and began snapping his jaws, trying to bite my horn. Before I could fling the surly skull off, Johannes bounced out of his chair and plucked his familiar off the tip of my horn. As the deranged warlock sank back into his looming chair, he tossed Ezekiel up over his head. The green skull spun in place for a moment, then slowly sank down next to his shoulder.
“Sorry Evander,” Johannes said pushing up his sleeves and folding his arms. “He hates the living, and has picked up some bad habits from being around me for so long.” One arm was covered in a tattoo sleeve while along the bottom of the other were the words “deceive, deceive, deceive,” written across the foreheads of a row of grey skulls, upturned and in various positions, sitting in plush green leaves. The other arm was covered in the picture of a city being destroyed. The scene was one of complete havoc, painted on his skin with vivid colors that should have lost their light years ago.
A slow conflagration spread from the city’s harbor, burning ships and darkening the sky. Chunks of the city’s prestigious walls were breaking away and falling into the sea, spilling screaming citizens and soldiers into the turmoil below. Dead priests were slumped over alters. A soldier was throwing a wailing woman off a wall by her hair. Other soldiers were slaying citizens and setting fire to the city. Standing above it all was a beheaded, white, sinewy statue with every muscle strained in heroic exercise. Bleeding bodies encircled its feet.
I made a note to myself to always know where Johannes was in a room, and always be in a position to shoot at him or swing a blade at him.
I looked up from the dreadful tattoos to Ezekiel. The skull chomped his teeth twice and was engulfed in a bright yellow flame, then idly floated over to the table where the poltergeist was copying.
“Does Absinthe even know what might happen if he actually manages to play a few notes on that thing?” Johannes tucked his chin as he slid down in the chair a little, crossing his legs.
“Of course not,” Scammander said looking at the floor.
I was pretty sure I could guess. “Desolation? Destruction? Mayhem? Misery? Boredom?”
“Universal and Everlasting Happiness.”
“That really is boring,” I said. “What are those glowing strings made of?”
“The halcyon essences of slain unicorns.”
“I bet that one you gave him doesn’t have the essence of a unicorn in it,” I said.
Johannes shot an inquisitive, eager glance over at Scammander, who tilted his head to the side, like he was considering whether or not he was actually going to include us in whatever game he was playing against Absinthe L’Autre.
“Well, no, it’s not. Even if it was, it still wouldn’t matter because he doesn’t have the proper lute or pick—they haven’t been created yet—much less the proclivity to play an instrument like that, once it is created.”
“So what’s in it then?” asked Johannes.
“The essence of a nightmare.”
A really bad one, I thought. Ezekiel began cackling in the corner. The copying poltergeist didn’t seem to know anyone else was even in the room.
“And what will happen if he plays that with the other strings?” Johannes said as he leaned forward in his seat, staring hungrily at Scammander.
“Who knows? Desolation? Destruction? Mayhem? Misery?” Scammander chuckled. “And it’s not an essence, just a purple hair from his mane.”
The room fell silent again except for the soft burning fire, which eventually went out, leaving us all in the icy darkness.
“Why shouldn’t I kill them both?” said Johannes, his low voice creeping out into the quiet.
Scammander didn’t say a word, so neither did I.
“How many ways could this world be destroyed?” He said again in a low, dark whisper. “I’ve solved so many of this world’s riddles I have become bored. Maybe I should become a professor, that would be amusing. I could even marry an undergraduate and write a book.” He paused. “She will graduate soon, then we can be together. Then we can be happy.” His voice receded back into the quiescent blackness of the study. Once more no one spoke for a very long time, which was always very pleasing to me.
“My new spell. My new spell will make me famous. No wizard has made a spell this potent, or elegant, or shimmering. My new spell is like a woman, my new spell is like infinity, it is starry and primordial and evanescent—”
A flash went off illuminating the entire room, before fading into the fireplace, which was rekindled. I snuck a quick glance at Scammander, who was lost in thought, like he was thousands of miles away.
Wizards.
I looked at the warlock and started asking myself the kind of questions that Johannes apparently asked all the time, starting with why shouldn’t I kill them both?
I began to think about destroying the world when Johannes interrupted me.
“What were you doing talking to that bookshelf back there Evander?” Johannes cackled briefly then combed the matted black hair from his eyes.
Scammander tilted his head.
“Do either of you know a race-proud, egomaniacal wizard by the name of Wynthrope?”
Johannes began howling with laughter and twisting in his seat. Scammander looked at him, clearly bothered, before turning to look at me and speaking. “Did you say Wynthrope?”
“Yea, Wynthrope.”
“Did you see that giant troll made of stone? The scream frozen on his face?” Johannes said, still heaving after recovering from his paroxysm of laughter.
I nodded, recalling the line of statues.
“Yea, Wynthrope did that. His name was Gothok,” he said slowly straightening in his high-backed leather seat. “He was supposed to be immune to magic.”
Scammander closed his eyes before rattling off a biography. “Legendary troll warrior who knew enoug
h magic to ascend quickly through the dueling ranks to become the ruler of all trolldom. A synthesis of might and mana, inherently dauntless—”
“And no brains whatsoever,” interrupted Johannes. “No one would openly challenge a wizard like Wynthrope to a duel.”
“Nevertheless, it lasted for days.”
“And Wynthrope triumphed. That’s how he became the first pupil of Jacob Geist.” Johannes leaned back, soaking in the shadows. In fact darkness and shadow seemed to cling to him fondly, to caress him. He looked at Scammander as he spoke: “Though I suppose his death was less exciting.”
“He’s dead?”
“Wynthrope’s been dead for hundreds of years,” said Scammander. “We were weaving a spell together, he was leading, I was following and assisting—”
“Sabotaging,” Johannes interjected. “Come on Scammander, everyone knows.”
“It was a new and risky spell. We both knew the dangers and what was at stake. He perished, it was not something I wanted,” Scammander replied, then looked at me once more. “So anyways, someone was playing tricks on you. Not uncommon for the crypt.”
“Scammander throws spells like a gambler throws dice!” Johannes suddenly exclaimed. “That’s why his casting arm is all twisted!” he said, pointing to Scammander’s right arm. “Look! Look at it! Look at it!” he shouted as he pointed, rising out of his seat. “He had to throw the spell, and to throw the spell he had to throw it crookedly! Some blast of runefire caught his arm before he could pull it away!” Johannes Dubitandum grinned wickedly as he sank back down in his seat. “Go on Scammander, show him. Hold out both of your hands.” Johannes snickered a little.
Scammander held out both of his hands so that his knuckles were facing the ceiling. He slowly began turning both of them. The left hand finished its calm rotation with the palm facing the ceiling, but the right hand could only turn half way, so that its palm was facing the left.
“He never gives an honest handshake!” the mad arcanist began to giggle and drool. “If…If…” he sputtered and wheezed in his chair, stomping and kicking his feet as he howled with laughter. “If they only knew about your hands, like I do, no one would even feign trust in you!” He was laughing so hard again that he had slid all the way down in the chair, so that his head was on the seat cushion, and his back was hanging out in the air, arching with each burst of laughter.
I didn’t really want to take my eyes off the insane warlock, but I looked over at Scammander anyways, with my usual surprise.
“You act like this is your first time hearing any of this.”
“Scammander is my brother, and I know the least about him,” I said, looking back at Johannes who was wiggling up into the leather chair.
“A Minotaur Kinship,” Johannes whispered as he leaned forward and steepled his fingers under his nose. He looked at Scammander, as if considering something, then looked at me.
“Scammander and I were the spellweavers for our sect, Heroes Without Monuments. Wynthrope was our leader, and the only one alive who actually cast spells with the minotaur wizard, Jacob Geist. After Wynthrope was assassinated, Scammander passed over to me as my pupil, since of the two of us, I was the elder, and already feared among wizards, both academic and schooless.”
“Where did you first learn magic?” I asked.
“From myself,” he said flashingly. “The most important maxim you will ever discover is an old imperative written on temple stones, ‘know thyself.’”
“Another one lost from the Academy,” smiled Scammander.
“I was awarded a scholarship to study there, but turned it away,” Johannes said glancing out the window. “What sort of idiot goes to learn in the Academy?” he sneered.
“All of them?” I asked glibly.
“You will learn magic,” he said looking back at me with an earnest tone.
“Why would I want to do that?” I said. “Magic is responsible for the worst thing that’s ever happened to me—saving my life.”
Johannes Dubitatum continued undeterred.
“The oldest axiom of magic is that it had better come naturally, or not at all. There are artifacts and talismans, spellbooks and scrolls, spell circles, runes, arcane sayings, and of course potions and pills to assist with the actual casting and to amplify the intensity of spells.” His voice lowered as fear crept across his face. He slowly raised a finger to his lips. Not a moment later, there was some thudding against the door as someone stopped and rearranged the books on the other side. After the person moved on, Johannes continued.
“We wizards collect these things, as I said, to amplify our power. Wynthrope was always rumored to have had a vast storehouse of artifacts on some secret plane, locked away in some tower in the middle of the sky.”
I snuck a quick look at Scammander, who looked oblivious as usual. I suppose the philosopher is right when he says to conceal cleverness is cleverness indeed.
The warlock shifted in his seat a little, then spoke as if he was reading from an academic text book. “One needs to consider the relationship between our planet and others. For some spells, you need to be as out of alignment with all the other stars as possible, while for others it is important to be aligned with other planets. A wizard can cast a spell in an instant that takes days, months, or even years to take effect. Others he will need to cast a little bit every day, and will only last for an instant.
“Then again there are some spells that a sorcerer can only see while casting, that is, he can only see while lost in the exuberant overflow of magic.
“There is also an inscrutable problem,” Johannes Dubitandum said with a quick glance over to Scammander. “The problem of burn out.”
I wonder if he knew.
Scammander nodded. “Every time a wizard casts a spell, he loses a little bit of his magician abilities.”
“The magic inside us is not infinite,” Johannes Dubitandum mused darkly. “One may live forever, but one cannot be a sorcerer forever.”
Scammander’s voice followed in a cool and solemn tone. “A wizard is like a furious star, the bright beams that he flings out of his orby circumference and onto our cities and countrysides are his magical works, that illuminate the world for hundreds and thousands of years. And though he begins in incandescent splendor, for each band of light he throws off he grows dimmer. Every spell, no matter how small, takes a little away, never to be replenished.”
Scammander must have been afraid he was going to remember too much about magic, for he raised his hand. “Alright, I think that’s enough for now. We’re already on enough hit lists it seems.”
Johannes nodded. “No more than the usual amount of people trying to kill you I presume.”
“Know of any particularly enticing ones?”
A wicked smirk flashed across the warlock’s countenance. “Well most bounties want you dead, but there was one bounty for dead or alive,” he said. “Your mother’s bounty, on the other hand, does say dead or alive, but there is an additional and larger reward for dead.” He bit his lip and gazed off into the fireplace. “There is, of course, the rumor.”
Scammander arched his eyebrow, but Johannes waved his hand dismissively. “Some band made of the sons and daughters of the Old Families, fresh out of the academy and brought together to kill you.”
Scammander leaned forward eagerly. “I would give all the magic knowledge I have away for the chance to kill the first born sons and daughters of this world’s most ancient homes. The possibility that they might all be conveniently travelling together seems too good to be true.”
Once more I tried to examine the room. On the right was a deteriorating wall covered in insane scribbles. I squinted and followed the wild text all the way up the wall and across the ceiling, which was also completely covered with frantic passages. The largest and most legible was written above the fireplace in white letters illuminated by a dim indigo glow: “So today I have expressly rid my mind of all worries and arranged for myself a clear stretch of free time. I am her
e quite alone, and at last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions.”
“Do you like my wall of quotes, Evander?” Johannes must have noticed me squinting desperately at his wall and ceiling. “They are all passages from my favorite philosophers and poets. My favorite is the one I wrote the largest, there above the fireplace.” He said pointing to the passage that was easiest to read. Then he twisted around in his chair, searching for another. “I also like that one,” he said and pointed up to the ceiling and reading it aloud. “I will suppose then, that everything I see is spurious. I will believe that my memory tells me lies, and that none of the things that it reports ever happened. I have no senses. Body, shape, extension, movement and place are chimeras. So what remains true? Perhaps just the one fact that nothing is certain.”
The passage sounded familiar. Then I remembered why. “Part of that quote is also written on the wall,” I said pointing to the part about body, shape and nothing being certain. It began on one wall, so that part of the phrase crashed into the corner and ricocheted out across part of the other wall.
“My study had wood paneling on the wall,” Scammander said, turning in his seat as he browsed the delirious writings.
“So did this one but I tore it off.”
“Why don’t we visit your study next,” I said to Scammander.
“It’s been reassigned I’m sure. They took it from me when Wynthrope went missing.”
A piece of paper swept off the desk where the taciturn, scribbling poltergeist was sitting and landed near my feet. I leaned down and picked up the page and read it aloud: “I shot her and then myself, as we both agreed. On this most wondrous morning we decided to set sail across the sea of infinity, and thought it apt to embark on our journey from this poetic beach. We are like immortals, set to be young again, thrilled at finally losing sight of the mainland. We have never been happier.
Splatterism: The Disquieting Recollections of a Minotaur Assailant: An Upbuilding Edifying Discourse Page 11
