Unfortunately I was.
And I looked exactly like him.
I had three swords across my neck, and three more crossing those. But I had one long blade right in my face, with no blade crossing it. I have never seen a blade held more confidently, and the point rested at the edge of my nose as he spoke after a long silence: “Vulpine, malice, equivocal, perfidy, reprobate, quisling, mercurial, inclement, dangerous, gelid, abstract, starry, baleful, unsavory, ruinous, merciless, tenebrous, profligate, oleaginous, venal, abstruse, cloven footed, esoteric, venturesome, dissimulating, uncanny, conceit, potent, lawless, ironic, deleterious, perspicacious, insouciant, ludic, enigma, paradox, opalescent, philosophy, maleficent, tremendous indeed, behold—Scammander.”
I swept my eyes across the room, daring anyone to throw spells with the greatest wizard of all time on New Year’s Eve.
“Why have you returned?”
“I ask myself that every day while staring into the cold black barrel of a gilded dwarven musket.” As the snickers and laughter rose around the room, the blade lowered a little.
“Since it’s the end of the star cycle, we can grant you amnesty for tonight, and because of lineage, perhaps for a week after. Though one can only hope the gods kill you where you stand before you have a chance to reply to me.” I thought it was a joke, but there was no one laughing.
“Do you know how many times my mother will be able to kill me in a week?” More laughter. I think some cheered to her success. “Your charitable sentences have a death sentence in them.” More smiles and chuckles followed. I spoke again: “I only ask to enjoy the night, and with tomorrow’s sunrise, I will again depart and you all may again party to partake in the pursuit to take me apart. Being partial to my own part, I think yours is a pity party, so won’t be party to it. But I still have my part to play, which may depart from the play you are making, and this is the art of my play.”
“Still dangerous,” the elf in front of me whispered, slipping his blade into a jeweled scabbard. He elegantly lifted a slender glass of the fizzing holiday drink, then turned and smoothly strode off into the royal crowd. I needed to find the real Scammander, but in all likelihood, he was already gone.
“You’re back!” a tender voice behind me said.
“To my old tricks,” I said without turning around. I took a deep breath, then slowly turned in place, giving myself time to think.
There before me was a petit elf with a serene face, elvenly-eternal in beauty, long ebony hair, and green eyes, the same color leaves in a sacred vale acquire during the summer. She was either the goddess of beauty in disguise, or the one mortal who makes the goddess of beauty envious and nervous that her godhood might be usurped.
“Always so reticent and abstract,” she said with flashing eyes. I wasn’t sure if I was being enchanted, but her voice fell across my ears like mellifluous starlight.
“It is said that a beautiful girl is a phantasm, and that one can scarcely know whether she belongs to actuality or is a vision.”
“Do you doubt everything so much that now even you do not believe in me?”
“I am no dinner-party doubter,” I said with a smirk. “I know of a spell where if the sorcerer calls the apparition by name three times, he thereby becomes its master, and the only way for the apparition to avoid thralldom is to name itself first,” I said, then paused, as if I was about to say her name.
“—Meredith,” she said. Ah, what the philosopher says is true: in scholarship just as in love, what is stolen is most pleasant.
“Only, I know of no spell to be freed from the enchantment of Love,” I said in a faint whisper, stepping closer to her.
“Just say your name once,” she said drawing back. I’ve had knives run through me that were less painful than her retort.
I lowered my head as I spoke, and gently slid my hands underneath hers. “Forgive a philosopher his doubt, but I thought I would never see you again, and now, as though I were in some romantic’s novel, I see a dream come true.”
“You saw me twice at the Smiling Faun, and you never said anything to me. You even looked me right in the eyes,” she said with icy accusation.
“Well, perhaps in this night’s possibility, its gracious gift, the infinity of night, you will allow me to correct an error.”
“Don’t you know Scammander, it’s the dawn that brings new possibilities.”
This must be the older sister I am dealing with, I thought.
“No, the morning is full of loss, all the lost infinity of night, which is why it is called morning, for it has even lost its letter!”
A sliver of a smile curved her lips, and as there was no cutting retort, I continued.
“Even now my soul is rich and plentiful, and longs to speak in praise of night, my favorite subject. Ah, yes, I am eloquent with evening and happy as two hares, which the philosopher says are happiest in the moonlight, so happy that they dance! Ah, yes, even now my soul is rich and plentiful, and my breath is lyrical with longing like the song of that solitary bird that eagerly awaits the sunset, the great downfall—O, is it rich enough to praise you, O night? Mother of infinity, closest to Chaos, pregnant with possibility! O that the sun would never rise! O that dreamers would never wake! Pleasure disappoints, possibility does not, and what is not possible at night? O, the wine of possibility makes me eternally young, eternally ardent!
“And is not my soul dancing, is not my soul frolicsome and light enough to not sink into the abyss, which surely I must be dancing over, for there is an ocean between us Meredith! This ecstatic discourse keeps me skipping across the abyss to you, O Meredith, this ecstatic discourse that I pour in the wine-bowl and as a supplicant offer it to you! O but I fear I will sink, for if I stop skipping, just like the stone, I will sink, and when I look at you, my heart skips a beat!
“Closer, closer, so my heart may tell you what night is, for surely words cannot! O, I will braid you a garland fragrant as youth and love, and throw open the silver doors of infinity which can be seen only in moonlight and humid exhales!
“Closer, closer, for while Night’s discourse is ecstatic, it is still a whisper, and while perhaps all who are young and in love are its priests and priestesses, Night’s temple is most secret, so secret that even many poets do not know the way.
“O, even now my soul is filled with the prolixity of vesper, and dew and starlight flow through me. O, let the shepherd play his pipes in the afternoon, let the student recite a speech to the philosopher in the afternoon as the grasshoppers sing, for the night is consecrate to learned poets who guide oxen and study by the river—there are two rivers sacred to me, flooding Time and the river which flows by the bridge. The night is a rich tapered palace of purple oracles and fairy lyrics, the night is when the lover lifts his quill, the night is when the star shines the brightest, the night is when her soft words glide blissfully into my heart, the night is when the fountain splashes with immortality and verses for lovers. The night is when candlelight brushes her skin and swells her eyes—oh is there any woman in the world who is not more beautiful than at night? The night is when I light my lamp, the night is when I find myself alone, awash in astral colors of unfathomable dimensions contemplating the nature of things and first causes, the night is when I close my eyes and see more than during the day—the sun blinds, but night reveals! O what is seen in the uneuclidean shape of blue shadows? The night is when I think of you Meredith, and all that never will be; the night is when I think of you Meredith, and all that will ever be.”
By the end of my panegyric to evening Meredith had wrapped her hands around my waste and buried her head in my chest.
Indeed, who knows where a young girl spends the night—in the land of illusions, I believe.
I half expected her to change into Scammander, and if she didn’t, to try and kill me because I looked like Scammander. Instead, she decided to talk for a little while.
“Scammander I always wondered why you didn’t become a philosopher; you were always readi
ng and studying their ancient tomes, and I thought I was going to be the first to learn about your sweet new philosophy, the philosophy that you would call your own,” she said looking up to me and stepping back a little.
I answered in the diamond tones of my favorite philosopher, who was very leopardy and dexterous, even though he was a hunchback fond of ruin: “All the races, which have believed in so much nonsense, will never believe that they know nothing, that they are nothing, and that there is nothing to hope for. No philosopher teaching any of these three things would have any success or would have a following, especially among the common people.”
“Well I think it’s wholly impossible to educate the great unwashed,” she said as she took a small sip from the sparkling, golden punch. “Most philosophers are agreed on this point—it is only the weaker among the nobles that still insist on helping the—” she sneered and waved her hand. “I’d rather not ruin my holiday punch with a ruinous rumination.”
“But Time has taught you thus,” I grinned.
“I wish we could find a doom word like all the scholars talk of, one that would wipe the world of the idiots.”
“It’s called ‘philosophy,’” I said. She grinned.
“Oh Scammander, I have missed your humor.” She put her hand on her chest, closed her eyes, and smiled. “Philosophy, philosophy, oh if only I could say it continually and cure the world of its ills.” She opened her eyes again, and I know the room was brighter for it.
“Do you think we could have been happy Meredith?”
“We could have chased it together.”
I nodded. “Perhaps that is the best one can hope for.” It was a long time before either of us spoke again.
At the back of the great dining room I saw two swords hung over the mantle of a huge fireplace. I immediately recognized one that I had held recently and one that was recently held against me.
“Is that really Momentum and Lentitude?” I asked, first rubbing my left arm and then leaning over slightly to quickly massage my left thigh.
She grinned. “Are you going to weigh in on the historical controversy now?”
I tilted my head and smirked. “How come Momentum isn’t glowing with its pearl fire?”
“Surely you don’t believe that old myth,” she said taking a sip of her drink. “Yes, surely it once glowed with wild white flames, described by one commentator as ‘streaming like the tails of a thousand comets’ and was once encased in a ponderous evening thunderhead.” She looked up at me with mercurial eyes, accompanied by sarcastic silence. “Are you really going to recount the myth of the minotaur sorcerers who made our blade and how we stole it?”
“And where is the scabbard?” I inquired.
“Stop playing your jokes on me Scammander,” she shot back, even though I was being wholly earnest.
I raised my hands and stepped back. “I didn’t know I was in the presence of an expert,” I said lightly as I moved up close to her once more.
“I wrote two papers on the history of those two blades my first two years at the Academy,” she said turning to face the hanging swords.
“I would have liked to have read them.”
“While my first was certainly carefully argued, it was my second that impressed all the scholars,” she said smiling up to me. I could barely refrain from insulting any academic’s misplaced sense of importance, and she knew it. “My second paper,” she smiled and began laughing. “Oh come on Scammander,” she giggled again. “My second paper was awarded a prize that year for the best paper in History.” She barely recovered in time to deliver her sentence then began laughing once more.
I loved to watch her smile.
“Well now, that is some accomplishment,” I said joining in her laughter. “I should think you should have received more than an academic congratulation for the Best Paper in History,” I laughed. “What was the title?”
She chuckled again. “Well it certainly wasn’t as beautiful as the title of your thesis. I called it, ‘History/Veracity: Early Mythopoetics and the True Tale of Two Swords.’ One account—deemed spurious by most scholars—suggests that the real swords were stolen and that the two blades hanging above that fire are precise copies. The other account is that those two are the real swords.”
“Interesting,” I said looking at the swords.
“So in my first paper I earnestly attempted to solve the controversy, and met with mixed marking. In my second paper I simply navigated the ambiguities of each hypothesis and never arrived at a conclusion. It met with unfettered celebration.”
“Of course it did,” I said shaking my head.
“How would you decide if they were real or simply images?” she said.
“Cut someone with them.”
“But why would we want to test reality when we can do some reading?” she said, imitating an old professor.
“Reading,” I scoffed, taking a sip of the punch.
“Do you still read like you used to?”
“Of course not, and I would never advise anyone to read. It will give one things no one in the world wants: Knowledge, Truth, clear understanding of right and wrong, wit, and worst of all, the ability to ask good questions.”
“It will at least show one what the Truth is, and that is a very horrible thing,” she assented with complimentary sarcasm. “What is it you used to say about happiness…”
“That one could only have it after looking into your eyes.” She rolled them and shook her head. “That one could only be happy after listening to your voice.” Silent and glaring. “Judge no man happy until he is dead.”
She grinned this time but waved her hand. “No, no, that’s not it.”
“No man is happy until he is dead.” I rephrased it, she rejected it. I thought for a moment.
“We will never be happy until man is dead.”
“That’s it!” she grinned slyly. “But the others were good too.”
“More enduring than bronze,” I said. Judge no minotaur happy until man is dead.
“There are new songs which loudly rhyme that you destroyed most of the ogre city, and stole the remaining garments of Brock Highkeep.”
I closed my eyes and laughed lightly. “Stunt.”
“Oh no, these songs are far too epic for a wretched, slurring, tavern-troubadour like Stunt Brightblade.”
“Yea, you’re right, definitely not him.”
She took another sip from the sparkling drink and glanced over her shoulder. “According to the whispering, Hammet Stringlsayer sings of your deeds.”
I was about to reply when I noticed a beautiful and elegant elfin maiden in an enchanting green dress, glaring at me.
“Who is that maiden, casting ireful looks at me on such an eve as this?” I said motioning with my slender glass.
“That is Hellenore, the oldest living elf. She fell asleep on a mossy bank and was impregnated by sunbeams, and later gave birth to twins,” she said smiling in the warm recollection of the tale and taking a sip of her holiday punch. “It was prophesied that her twins would grow to rule the world.”
“What happened to them?”
“Hythloth left on that doomed expedition, and it is rumored that your mother stole the twin sister and gave her away to the fays at birth.” She tilted her head and smiled at me. “What games are you up to tonight? You act like you don’t know a thing.”
“I’m playing forgetful in honor of the New Year, since if I can’t remember anything, everything becomes new and exciting.”
“You and your jests,” she said shaking her head.
“My gests indeed,” I said taking a deep swig of the glass and swirling the golden liquid around. “Returning to your original question, I decided to sing of my own gests, and be done with poets. Especially one who seems so fond of the human condition.”
“You could have killed them all earlier when they were standing outside. I think most have left by now.”
“I’m not sure one could kill humanity, for how would you kill so
mething that is not alive? Even if I could crush that infamous race, I could never boast about it, for nothing would have happened. Though thousands perish in wave after wave of the most devastating magic, it could not be said that any died. One could only say that something which was poorly assembled stopped working.
“Humanity is the first thoughtless race in our world, and what all other races on this planet hold in such high esteem, namely philosophy and poetry, humanity is quite happy not to possess at all. Read all the tomes praised by scholars and you will not find one book written by a human, for they neither read nor write. Read all the philosophers and poets who the philosophers and poets themselves praise, and you will not find one poem or one thought composed by human hand, for they neither read nor write. It is known that humanity suffocates any child it suspects capable of poetry and art, or, if it is feeling exceptionally merciless, sets it on track to become a professor in the Academy.”
“Scammander…that thought sounds…evil,” she said faintly.
“There is only one true evil in the world Meredith, and that is the public.”
She grinned, but I could tell she was still uneasy.
“There are two things worse than death Meredith, and that is life and the public.”
I think she was about to leave me when one of the scoundrels we had been masquerading as sauntered through the crowd and hailed me.
“Scammander! it really is you!” he said bowing low with false obsequiousness. Then he rose up and spread his arms wide as he approached, wrapping me in a gregarious hug.
“You puckish balladeer!” I said, clapping him on the back and then holding him in front of me. “This one’s mine,” I said, grabbing Meredith’s hand and pulling her close. She grinned as she sunk into my shoulder.
“Twas ever so,” he replied.
“All this time, I expect a falstaffian rhyme from you.”
“Well my old staircase companion, I’ve been working on a play—”
Splatterism: The Disquieting Recollections of a Minotaur Assailant: An Upbuilding Edifying Discourse Page 14
