Melanthrix the Mage

by Robert Reginald

  “In good time, my old friend, in very good time,” Arik said. “‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ as the philosopher Barlévin says. I pray that you and all of the community have all been well.”

  “Other than the troubles with the heathen-folk up north, we prosper very well, yes, we do,” came the response.

  “I’m so glad to hear it,” the priest said. “Now, tell me how your plantings went last year. Weren’t you cross­breeding several strains of gourds to increase their yield?”

  “Well, well, of course, of course, but you know how dry it was back then, Father Arik,” the monk said. “I mean, I guess I told you that, didn’t I?, but still, it was just, just terrible. Much, much too little rain to grow much with, that is, much of anything, really and truly. Oh, but, but, come to think of it, I did manage to seed one small crop by scratching out a ditch down from the Yaroslávets, not far from where it flows into the lake. Ho, ho, ho, I can tell you, father, I got some verrry interesting results with my progressive postminimal program for prop­agating les géants jolis verts.”

  “The what?” the priest asked. “You mean, the big ones?”

  “Yes, yes, yes! You see, Father Arik, they suddenly got, well, they suddenly grew remarkably huge in just a couple of generations; and after that, well, after I’d cleaned them out a bit—they made good eatings—I was able to cook up the husks during the winter doldrums, so to speak, and dry them out completely, oh, very completely, and then I fashioned a few of the larger ones into musical instruments.”

  “You did what?” asked the traveler, eying his friend most curiously.

  “Yes, yes, well!” Brother Phil smiled, clearly pleased with his inventiveness. “You know that we don’t have all that much to do during the long winter months, the days being so short and all, and the visitations, well, they’re just so utterly lacking, and so we have to do our very, very best to keep ourselves entertained, in addition to our constantly puissant purification and prayerfulness, of course....”

  “Of course,” his friend said, shaking his head in wonderment.

  “...‘Idleness being the devil’s woodbin,’ as Brother Mendevíll is very fond of saying. So, we pluck the harps and blow the gourds, and make some music without dischords.”

  “Really?” the priest said.

  “Really and truly, Father Arik. And, and, mirabile dictu, why, it’s like a miracle, it’s God’s own hand at work, if I ever saw it, for I must tell you that several of our group of idle songsters and I are actually getting together later on this evening to practice our newest composition, a truly truly inspiring ode or hymn or paean to Saint Bogolén the Brewmeister, and I wanted to be the first of our com­pany to invite you to join our soirée petite while you’re still a resident here. Of course, many, many, many toasts will be offered in his memory, in addition to our celebratory music-making.”

  “Of course, Brother Phil. But alas, my dear old friend,” Arik said, “oh, alas, that I have to see Abbot Jován urgently on business, and then just as quickly depart. If it weren’t for that, well, you know that I’d join in.”

  “Oh, I do, I do, I do!” Brother Phil said, eyes perfectly downcast. “Oh my, oh my, oh my gourds and swords. Well, well, well, then, I guess we’ll just have to get along without you, as hard as that may be. Oh my prayers and hairs! Let’s get you taken care of, then, eh, father?”

  He led his companion into the main compound, where Arik was meticulously groomed and broomed in preparation for his presentation to the head of the Monastery of the Transubstantiation of the Psychai Siôpêlai Agiou Sbiatoslabou, which is to say, the Silent Souls of Saint Svyatosláv. The order had been founded nearly two hundred years earlier by a starving Saint Ézzard à Hagyma, who, having stumbled upon a sacred onion patch growing where none should have been found, just by the shore of the Työmny Lake, had acclaimed it a miracle of God Almighty that he should have been thus rescued from per­ishing at a time when all had seemed lost. Now, a dozen establishments of the order were scattered across northern Kórynthia, mostly in Zándrich, Trapézhia, Kúrskaya Kósa, Pustáya Boltoviyá, and Isaúria, with more planned for con­struction over the next two or three centuries—God willing!

  Three hours after his arrival, Father Arik was fetched by Brother Milorád to the abbot’s cozily appointed chamber overlooking the pebbly vistas of the great lake.

  The Archimandrite Jován Csigály had been chosen abbot by the community some sixteen years earlier. A man of six-and-fifty years, he was thin and small, with neatly combed gray hair and a closely-cropped beard. Around his neck hung a pectoral cross studded with gems, and two gold-framed icons of Saint Gamaliêl and Iêsys the Christos. On the middle finger of his left hand he wore a curious ring of gold, cunningly wrought from five separate bands into a single intertwining unity, so that one could not tell how or why the pieces had been put together, or how they might be taken apart. His white woolen robe was fringed in red and emblazoned over the heart with the crimson Greek letter “psi” framed over a small black “sigma” nestled in its hol­low. He sat in an old, weathered rocking chair before a large open fireplace, his feet and lower legs shrouded with rugs, a cup of spiced wine steaming on the small table by his side. He started to rise when Arik was announced.

  “Sit down, old friend, please sit still,” said the traveler. “I know how these cool spring evenings can pain your knees.”

  He deposited his large frame on a stool to the ab­bot’s left, warming his hands before the flames.

  “Might you have another cup of whatever that is?”

  “Brother Mílo,” the abbot called, “refreshments for our guest, please.”

  A few moments later the monk appeared at the doorway with a steaming drink and a plate of cakes dripping with honey. Arik murmured his thanks.

  The two men sat sipping their cups for some time, listening to the popping of the logs and watching in silence the eternal dance of the flames. Finally the visiting hi­eromonk broke the peace.

  “It’s good to be home again, Father Abbot,” he said. “I find in this place a tranquillity, a shuttered peace, that utterly eludes me at the Royal Palace or at the Cathe­dral of Saint Konstantín, or even in the Megalê Scholê.”

  “Which is why you return each and every spring, like one of our migrating lake fowl,” the older man said.

  “And every year,” Arik said, “my beard grows lighter and my brow darker.”

  “Your visits,” Jován said, “remind me of the happy days before the war when you studied here. Such a little troublemaker you were then! But very, very bright, almost too bright for your own good, I think. So tell me, Father Arik, what’s troubling you these days?”

  “Responsibilities,” the traveler said, “cares and fears and rumors of war. Nothing you haven’t heard, I imagine.”

  Arik sipped again from his cup before continuing: “You know that our young King Kipriyán, having recently come into his manhood, is determined to finish what his father began.”

  “So I’m led to believe,” the abbot said. “I hear that he’s begun assembling an army at Myláßgorod.”

  “Indeed,” the priest said. “He and King Ezzö are determined to oust the House of Walküre, whatever the cost. But it’s the king’s new minister, one Doctor Melan­thrix, who’s actually been pushing him to take action.”

  “I’ve heard naught of this,” Jován stated.

  “It’s a closely kept secret at court, although the word’s gradually oozing out. But this Melanthrix charac­ter.... Despite my best efforts, abbot, I’ve been unable to determine who he is or where he’s from. He just appeared from nowhere a few months ago, and drew the king into his hands like a spider enwebbing a fly.

  “It happened like this. The king has been frustrated all winter in his attempts to organize a campaign against Pommerelia. He accused several of his generals of incom­petence and abruptly replaced them, to no effect. Just a month ago, Kipriyán presided over a banquet celebrating the arrival of spring. This dinner wa
s attended, of course, by all the notables in the land.”

  “Including yourself?”

  “Including myself,” Arik said. “He had rather too much to drink, a common fraility in his family, and started raging about his inability to promulgate the war, and how he would either proceed forthwith, or suffer heads to roll.

  “Afterwards, during an impromptu audience, he had this, this creature dragged in, flapping and frumping in his multi-colored robes. It seems that Melanthrix had recently been caught practicing the astrological arts, and the church wanted him burned as an example.”

  The abbot snorted. “But this is very strange, Father. Of course, such laws do exist, but when has the church ever cared about their enforcement? Why, I can’t recall the last time charges were actually brought against someone. Usu­ally, they just run the offenders out of town.”

  “Well, Metropolitan Païsios encountered the man, they had words, and one thing led to another. He officially accused Melanthrix of paganism, and the good doctor then appealed to the throne, which was his right under the law, but which also took the matter out of the ecclesiastical courts.”

  “Very canny of him,” the abbot said. “It almost seems to me that his actions were intended specifically to gain him a royal audience.”

  “Several of us have since thought so,” the traveler said. “When presented to the king, the astrologer called out in a loud voice, ‘All hail Kipriyán the Conqueror,’ and prostrated himself before the throne.

  “‘What do you mean?’ came the royal response.

  “‘Those who have eyes can see what there is to see,’ Melanthrix said. ‘May this unworthy servant rise?’

  “When Kipriyán nodded his consent, the mage drew a crimson square in the air with his right forefinger.

  “‘To those who understand le plan astrologique, my lord king,’ Melanthrix said, ‘the future hangs before us like the tapestry upon the wall.’

  “The floating square suddenly began displaying im­ages.

  “‘At the center of the weave,’ the sorceror contin­ued, ‘is the mighty Kyprianos, king of kings, savior of his race, the greatest warrior of the Tighrishi line, veritably another Joshua laying low his enemies with the jawbone of an ass.’

  “Now the image displayed the mounted form of Kipriyán himself, bloody sword on high, surrounded by the bodies of his enemies.

  “‘It is you, o mighty king, you who shall rescue Kórynthia from the heathen beasts, you whom men shall call Conqueror, you whom the Autokratôr at Julianople shall honor as his equal. Forgive us this great imperti­nence, great king, but you see before you only your humble servant, the lowly Doctor Melanthrix, who wishes only to serve you faithfully for the remainder of his days.’

  “Then he pulled a pin from somewhere in his robes, and stuck it into the picture. The image vanished with a loud pop, leaving no trace.”

  “Incredible!” Jován said.

  “Indeed,” the priest said. “But this is the strangest part, my old friend. Neither I nor any other mage present could fathom how the thing was done, nor could we penetrate his mind, and those psai defenses were unlike anything we have ever encountered. I know of one assault that was made upon him a few days later; Melanthrix laughed at his attacker, and laughed again when that indi­vidual was executed by order of the king.”

  “Who was it?” the abbot asked.

  “Lord Khaldán.”

  “Too bad,” the older man said, “a good man, if a bit rough around the edges.”

  Arik drained his tea, then tossed another log on the fire. He sighed.

  “Now the king will do nothing without consulting this charlatan, and neither his generals nor his ministers have been able to break his hold on Kipriyán’s mind. And that, Father Abbot, is why I’m so dull these days.”

  “And I thought it was just your natural bloodymind­edness,” Jován said, grinning at his former pupil. “You say no one knows anything of his past?”

  “Nothing,” Arik said. “He was seen first in Myláßgorod a few days before his arrest. Some have spec­ulated that he came up river from Susafön, but I can’t con­firm a sighting earlier than Myláß. He sports these strange, multi-hued robes, which may be a deliberate affectation to keep us from identifying his nationality. His accent seems stilted and formal, but indeterminate in origin; those schol­ars who specialize in such things have been unable to place it. He has an exceedingly odd physique: eyes the palest of blues, face and hair both stark white, beard nonexistent and brows very thin, limbs quite elongated, almost painfully so. He walks with a gait that reminds me of an old sailor I once met who had just returned from a long sea voyage. His age is unknown. He consumes no meat. He avoids the public baths. He eschews the company of other men, save for the king. He laughs strangely and at inappropriate times. He will not take the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ at Holy Mass. He cannot be probed. He cannot be forced. The ‘sauce’ does not affect him. And it is clear that nothing short of death will dislodge him from the affections of the king.”

  The abbot stroked his short beard, nodding to him­self as he pondered the situation.

  “Then, my dear friend, your course is very clear. You must bide your time until he makes a mistake, which he surely will in due course. He is, after all, just a man. Shadow this individual and determine what you can of his origins and intentions. Protect the king always, and keep the kingdom from his influence.”

  “I’ll try, Father Abbot,” came the reply.

  Then Arik cocked his head sideways, trying to hear a strange squealing and booming sound hovering just at the edge of his consciousness, somewhere in the distance.

  “What’s that awful noise?” he asked.

  Jován sighed and moved his legs closer to the fire.

  “Well, Father Arik,” the abbot said, “that’s my own personal cross to bear. ‘Philêmôn and the Holy Flames,’ they call themselves. It started last winter, and it has just never stopped, despite rather blatant hints from everyone who’s not actually involved with the so-called music-mak­ers. They say that they honor the Creator Himself with their sacred sounds, but it ‘sounds’ perfectly wretched to me, I must admit. Alas and alack, more and more of the brethren are joining in, saying that it’s ‘fun’; and so I can­not forbid the activity without causing, well, major diffi­culties.”

  The entire room was now resonating to a slow “boom, boom, boom” at the lower end of the scale, not quite loud enough to hear clearly, but just enough to pene­trate the bone and irritate the soul.

  Arik shook his head, as if to rid himself of the pesky drumming.

  “I’m very sorry, Father Abbot,” he said, “but that incessant noise would drive me wholly insane if I had to listen to it all the time.”

  “Oh, I just offer it up to the Christ,” Jován said, “and I pray to God Almighty for a quick deliver­ance. Thus far, however, He has chosen in His ultimate wisdom neither to acknowledge me nor to listen Himself to the glorious gourdsmen.

  “Howsomever, to return to our situation here, we’ve experienced similar unrest in the far northeast, as you may have heard. Last year a man of the heathens called Dyggvi Bolkersson began agitating in Nörrland for a pogrom against the Christians. A few less sensitive mem­bers of our flock there had flogged a servant for refusing baptism. Dyggvi has attracted a following from those of the old elite who fear the prospect of change, and has been successful in getting the Nörrlander Thingë to expel the members of the true faith who are resident beyond our northeastern borders. Last month those who declined his invitation were abruptly slaughtered, God rest their mar­tyred souls.”

  Both men crossed themselves from right to left, and kissed their hands.

  “The remnants of those poor folk are still finding their way south by whatever way they can,” the abbot con­tinued. “Now I am told that ‘Count’ Dyggvi, as calls him­self, is assembling an armed force in the woods north of Sevyerovínsk and Öldenburg. Most of the garrisons there were pulled to Myláßgorod earlier this year
by Count Ygor, and the walls of both towns are in bad repair. There’s been no threat from the heathens in several genera­tions. Of course, I’ve put our community here on alert, and I’m having the country scoured for foodstuffs; but we could not long survive a siege, I think, particularly with the refugees starting to come in from all sides.”

  “Terrible news,” Arik said, “terrible! Have you re­ported this?”

  “Of course,” the abbot said, “but the authori­ties just think I’m a foolish old man. Perhaps I am, but I truly believe that the north could explode into chaos; and if war does come, I don’t think that it will end either quickly or well. For that reason, my good friend, as much as I enjoy your company, I must ask that you depart on the morrow. You can add nothing of significance to our de­fenses here, if the worse should happen. I would feel much more secure knowing that you were providing the appropri­ate counsel to the Royal Council.”

  “This is much more serious than anything I’ve heard in Paltyrrha,” the priest said. “I can certainly help. I’ll start with Melitón Count Zúmov at the ministry, and then try Metropolitan Akakios at the chancellery of the patriar­chate. However, before I go, I’ve still got my business to complete here, and the sooner we can get to it, the better.”

  He shook his large bare head and laughed, patting his mentor on the back.

  “Now that we’ve managed to depress ourselves, old friend,” he said, “whom do you have for me this year?”

  “So now we don our practic hat, eh?” Jován said, with a wry grin of his own. “No more idle chat­ter for the ancient, decrepit abbot. Well, I do have a few prospects in mind, three of them, in fact: the acolytes Radó, Bayánik, and Yevstáfy, good lads all. If you’ll ex­tend your psai-ring, I’ll give you the details concerning their backgrounds and suitability.”