“I knew it,” he said. “I was so close the first time.”
“Which one is to the—”
“I have no clue,” he said. “Pick one.”
“There, in the middle,” I replied. I ran to it and stepped through. I had no idea if Scammander followed or not.
LE MOT JUSTE
“You must recognize that there are two ways of fighting: by means of law, and by means of force. The first belongs properly to man, the second to animals; but since the first is often insufficient, it is necessary to resort to the second.”
Machiavelli
I was dropping through the sky in total silence, tumbling in the empty blue abyss towards more empty, silent, blue sky. It felt so peaceful to be finally falling out of existence, falling to a death that I wouldn’t be awake enough to even feel.
There was so much—sky.
I let my eyelids slowly slide over my eyes, and for the first time in my life, I smiled. Still listlessly falling through the sky, I opened my eyes for one last glimpse of the calm cerulean abyss. I noticed a ship casually sailing below me and one moment I was in its path, then in another it looked like I would miss it. And then, planks. I heard myself scream, and I heard everything inside of me break. I was whimpering and writhing on the deck as the regeneration spell pulled and bent everything back together.
A boot dug into my stomach and rolled me on my back, followed by a thin sword stuck at the middle of my neck; every exhale brushed my throat against the point, so it was like getting continually stung in the neck by a wasp. The man holding the blade to my throat looked like renegade nobility. He was a mix of elf and human, his hair was jet black, thick, and close cut; he had smooth dark eyes and a thin moustache that looked like two rapier blades under his nose. He wore the splendid colors of the nobility, but his attitude said that he was even above them. He was wearing a tight fitting pastel pink shirt and the sleeves were rolled up in neat cuffs at his elbows, so it was possible to see a tattoo on the underside of his right forearm in large elaborate cursive which read, “adiaphora.” He also had narrowly tailored bright peppermint-green pants which ended in golden boots. Next to him was a woman slightly beyond her prime, and yet still very beautiful, proudly wearing little clothing. I winked at her.
She was smiling back at me, and the buccaneer was laughing when two more boots landed on my stomach. Luckily, I broke the fall for Scammander, whose spindly knees and elbows dug into my back and head after I doubled up and rolled over again.
“Saved you from a trip to the King of the Wraiths—again,” I groaned as I pushed him off of me. “All these times I’ve almost died—and I’ve never seen the legendary Lich King.” At least the fall had dried out my robe.
“That’s because he knows you offered me a kinship, and thus are not to be trusted.”
I chuckled. “You would betray him? How?”
“Bring him back to life,” he said. “You?”
“Recite modern poetry to him.”
Scammander laughed as we both got up. “If only he realized it, he could conquer the world if he recruited the worthless, wretched poets, since everyone would kill themselves rather than listen to the piercing dismelody of their verses.”
“Where does the Lich King reside?” I asked.
“Don’t you know? Under your bed,” he laughed again. “Also, I’ve heard that if you don’t listen to your mother, he will get you.”
The swashbuckler had sheathed his sword and was staring intently at Scammander. “Oh Scammander, have you come to conclude one of our sweet discourses? Do you admit that virtue can be taught? Do you admit that you know what you do not know? Can you say that which is not, is? Will you admit that Hammett Stringslayer’s ‘dark mistress’ was his ink? Have you come to learn some more antilogic to battle your snake-peers, since they humiliated you so often in your early duelos?”
“If I could only remember who you are,” Scammander said faintly and squinted his eyes, peering at the brightly adorned figure in front of him.
“I’m more interested in who she is,” I said.
“Her name is September,” the pirate said.
“He truly dates them,” mused Scammander.
“Youth’s a thing which shall not last,” quipped the minstrel. “I am the capering balladeer, Stunt Brightblade, composer of popular tavern ditties, and this is my mothership, the Criseyde, a name I discovered while looking at an old but still sharp-looking pair of shoes. On it, you will find ditzs, dandies—”
“And a bastard,” said September. As September strode off, my eyes followed her for a moment until she joined another group of women who all looked old enough to be Stunt’s mother, and yet were also still very attractive. I glanced around the ship and realized that the entire crew consisted of aging, scantily clad, voluptuous women. Clearly this bastard had mother issues.
I looked over at Stunt who was looking up into the sky, head tilted back as far as possible, slowly turning in a circle.
“What’s he looking for,” I asked Scammander.
“His murderous mother,” Stunt said. “It’s strange enough when a bull in a death robe falls out of the sky and onto my ship, but then it becomes even more odd when Scammander appears after him.”
“Good luck lies in odd numbers,” I said, quoting Hammett Stringslayer. “Therefore, you should welcome his mother.”
“You are familiar with Hammett Stringslayer?” Stunt said with surprise. “I am quite fond of his poetry.”
“Few realize how important singing is to warriors,” I said.
“Well, you are an odd pair, so maybe there is some fortune in it. But I see you as two star-crossed brothers who end not in feast, but futility.”
“What’s that awful stench?” I said. I knew it wasn’t my melting skin this time.
“Humanity,” Scammander said, peering over the edge of the boat.
“Ah, humanity,” I sighed. So I had picked the right one.
“What are you doing up here over the human city?” Scammander said as he turned back around to face Stunt.
“I have latrines to empty.”
I bellowed with laughter, while Stunt continued: “I’ve been doing it for years, mostly because some critics slandered my early verses which I used to leave etched into bar counters. At first I used to dump on the taverns, but then I missed a couple times, hitting homes, government buildings, and banks and now I just dump on whichever part of that rancid colony of twerps I feel like.”
“So how did you come by a flying pirate ship?” I asked recovering from his jokes and admiring the ship. The deck seemed to be made of gold the way the early morning sunlight shone upon the wood, and the billowing sails appeared to be made of clouds the cloth was so purely white.
“I won the ship in a game of cards,” he replied. “A young wizard offered to cast a levitation spell on it, provided I would let him live aboard for a year and teach him all I knew about poetry.”
“Guess that rules out Scammander,” I said.
Stunt looked up in the sky again and then over his shoulder, like he was surprised he hadn’t been assaulted yet. “I agreed, and once at sea the young rake told me to jump off the boat, and that he would cast a levitation spell while on it, just as he had promised. I congratulated him, admitting he had tricked me, and offered to teach him what he really wanted to know. He assented and enchanted my ship. I whistled once, and he looked quite confused; I then told him that I would teach him whenever I felt like it, and that he was free to stay aboard for a year, but not a moment longer. Every now and then I would whistle and hum when I thought he wasn’t paying attention and while we were debating and rhyming. A year passed, but the young wizard left long before that year arrived.”
Stunt paused and cleared his throat. “So Scammander, have you found your oblivion word yet?” Stunt asked a question, but it seemed more like an insult.
“Oblivion word?” Scammander asked like he had never heard of such a ridiculous thing before. “Why would I ever have nee
d of something like that when I’ve got Evander.” He paused, then grinned. “So, Stunt, I have found my oblivion word.”
“Journeys end in lovers meeting,” joked Stunt. “Do you lie all the time Scammander, or only part of the time?”
“All the time.” Scammander said it factually.
“Yet here you are telling a truth, that you lie all of the time, so it seems like you only lie part of the time.”
“Paradoxes are only problems for those who believe in truth and consistency, two things I have never believed in, you stunning cu—”
“What is an oblivion word?” I interrupted.
“A word which I too am oblivious in regards to its meaning,” Scammander said as he glared at Stunt, who had not stopped grinning.
“I love you Scammander, because you are the most deceitful sorcerer I have ever encountered, and I can rest assured that when I go to sleep, someone else is carrying on nefarious deeds, and not allowing this awful world a moment of peace. I would feel sorry for good people, but I know there are none left. But I also must admit, you great paradoxer, whenever you are on my ship, I don’t know if I should go to sleep or eat the food in front of me; everything and everyone becomes suspicious to me, everything questionable and uncertain; and so in these visits, I know how awful it must be to be a philosopher, and I hate you for making me think more than I need to. One day, I hope to make a popular tavern ditty about you, but I don’t know if I have enough—or even if I could summon all of the great bards, I doubt they would have enough—words, rhymes, and tropes to describe your dissimulation, natural instinct for treachery, and true love of iniquity.”
“Flattery will never work on me, Stunt” Scammander said.
“I think he said you would make a good swashbuckler,” I joked. “But wait, what is an oblivion word?”
“Oh Scammander, won’t you tell?” Stunt started to warm his voice with song.
“I’ll tell anything to dam your verses. Clearly, it is a word of confusion, a rhetorical tactic used by bored bards to reduce their opponents (often those who are unfamiliar with debate or those who are mere tyros) to a level of bafflement which subsequently allows the bard to declare himself the victor of the struggle. However, it was initially discovered by contemptible jugglers and mountebanks, who employed it in debates against the equally loathsome troubadours that used to accompany them on their thieving excursions into the larger cities of the world.”
“Bards used to steal?” I had always assumed they were harmless.
“All poets are thieves,” Scammander sneered.
Stunt snickered, slapped the rail of his ship, and shook his head, peering off into the vast, monotonous sky.
“You mistook me, I said tell, not tale,” Stunt said with a small roll of the wrist. “Well, an oblivion word is part of something called Old Knowledge, and Old Knowledge isn’t even its true name; it is called Old Knowledge because no one knows how to pronounce what is now commonly called Old Knowledge. A few of the Magi, a very secretive few, were rumored to know Old Knowledge, and one bard, Hammett Stringslayer, was inducted into its mysteries so that it would not be forgotten. Everyone knows where one oblivion word is, or most of one anyways, but no one knows how to pronounce it.” He was still looking off into the sky. “I imagine you saw most of the one I am talking about, Evander, when you visited the giants who fed on your maimed and dying ancestors.” He looked back at me over his shoulder and grinned, then turned back to the blue field before him. “The runes etched on the wall were carved there by a magical dancing sword that Hammett used to sing to. You see, when he sang or played his instruments he could control the movement of the blade. Those runes form most of an oblivion word, which, if uttered, will supposedly destroy everything. It is suspected that only ogres have lungs big enough to say the word, but are too stupid to say it, and there are entire schools of elves at the Academy dedicated to discerning how to pronounce it. Pixies, who speak faster than all creatures, have suffocated when trying to say it. But this is only one of perhaps ten or one hundred words. Cthulu put himself into a dream state to try and find an oblivion word.”
Scammander looked at the deck and began to tap his temple with a finger. “What type of music did Hamett Stringslayer have to play to get that sword to obey him? I seem to have forgotten.”
The bard laughed. “It wasn’t so much the music as the type of instrument, my forgetful friend. Normally Hamett used the golden strings plucked from the hair of the muses, but the sword never obeyed those halcyon notes, the same notes which subdued dragons, healed wounds, and made people fall in love. The dancing blade, called Gilt, only obeyed sounds plucked from the strings made of the souls of humans—which it had killed.”
After finishing, he walked by Scammander, kneeled, and picked something up. It was “Dorian’s” flute. He put it to his lips, and Scammander and I both jammed our fingers in our ears. The bard paused. Stunt’s eyes narrowed and looked at me, then at Scammander.
“Oh look, it’s out of tune.” He began to tinker with the flute, and I slowly lowered my fingers from my ears. Scammander didn’t, though.
“The music of this flute is as pleasant as a summer wind blowing through a bank of violets,” his eyes glazed a little. “There is no sickness it cannot cure.”
“What about life,” I said. I don’t even know if he heard me. Watching Stunt hold the flute was like watching two lovers reunite.
“The gods envy it,” he closed his eyes and brought the flute to his lips.
“And yet, here we are, where the gods are supposed to be—and there are none,” shouted Scammander; and with that, he hopped over the rail of the ship and out into the sky.
I ran to the edge, ready to jump after him, but Stunt grabbed my shoulder.
“Your flute!”
“It’s all yours Stunt,” I said. “I know of a music far sweeter than any notes it can play.”
Stunt seemed genuinely puzzled. “A bull with a riddle! Was your mother a sphinx, and your father a philosopher? Tell me of your mellifluous music!”
I turned all the way around to face him. “Silence is necessary to listen to the music of life.”
He laughed and slapped his knee as I climbed up the rail and onto the edge of the ship, looking out into the sky once again. Behind me, I heard him shout again.
“Alright you vatic cow, tell me what no philosopher can—what is Justice?”
“That’s easy,” I whispered, still looking out into the sky. “It’s just hits.” Then I dove over the side of the ship.
THE DAY THAT NEVER COMES
“Let him return, a stranger, to his own century; not, however, to gladden it by his appearance, but rather, terrible like Agamemnon’s son, to cleanse and purify it.”
Schiller
We had a lot of time to talk on the free-fall down. Scammander had remembered a spell due to the fright inspired by his earlier fall, so this one was far less harrowing. Soon he would destroy the human city—he thought he had seen something on the ship that helped him discover a new, shorter oblivion word, and that there had been no need to let humanity live a moment longer, let alone listen to a ridiculous minstrel. I just wanted the Tribunal for myself—for Brock.
*
You can tell how vicious a society is by how tall its banks are. In humanity’s city, every bank touched the sky. I was halfway up the stained and cracked marble stairs that led to the human Courts of Justice, which now rested on the outskirts and provided me with a great view of the city. The Courts weren’t separate from the city due to some illustrious, philosophical detachment, but because humanity simply had no use for them anymore. Relics? No, those are sacred. More like trash that had been left to decay. Left in an alley, left to rot.
“Revenge should have no bounds,” I whispered, quoting my favorite lyric from Hammett Stringslayer. I turned and sprinted up the marble stairs, kicked the doors in, and charged in through the dust.
“Oh yeah! He’s guilty!” I screamed and pointed at the small black
robed man sitting on the bench; with my other hand I threw the hatchet spinning through the air; it sunk in the wood behind him, spitting splinters out of the wall and sending him sprawling out of his seat. I bounded up to the bench and grabbed the hatchet, but it was stuck in the wall. I jumped down from the desk and landed on an empty black robe. I swept it aside and could see the faint outlines of an escape door. Outside.
He had only made it half way down the marble steps when I grabbed the top of his head and bent him backwards, until his scalp was touching his feet, his eyes forced to look into mine. I shoved Brock’s shirt in his mouth, thrust his head forward, and with the strands that were wrapped around my fists, pulled back. His neck snapped and his feet began to shake as I slowly lifted him up above my head. He was gurgling and shivering and shaking his head as I kept pulling Brock’s shirt and lifting him, grinding my teeth with fury.
The sun flickered in and out of my eyes as he shook and gagged above me, held aloft between my fists on the thin black fabric wrapped over his mouth and across his neck. He coughed and convulsed as thick spit slid back off his ears and fell on my chest in hot clumps. I kept pulling on each end of the shirt, and then it ripped. His knees crashed into the edge of the stairs, slamming his face forward into the edge below. Grey cerebral snot sloshed out along with a spray of red pulp which stuck to the marble as the grey slime slowly spread out and slid down the stairs in long quite strands. I looked at the splatter as the torn strands of Brock’s black shirt, still wrapped around my fists, waved gently in the wind. We have no gods, so we must avenge ourselves. There was no softness left in my life.
ONLY THE BEGINNING
“Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips, bidding adieu.”
Keats
Who knows how long I stood there in silence? How long does one remain silent in honor of someone like Brock Highkeep? Humanity would be silent now—forever.
Splatterism: The Tragic Recollections of a Minotaur Assailant: An Upbuilding Edifying Discourse Page 6
