Melanthrix the Mage

by Robert Reginald

  Finally, Prince Arkády bestirred himself.

  “We thank you, sir, for your kind accomodation. Yesterday, the king my father was almost killed in the Great Hall of the Tighrishi. You were present. What are your impressions of the attack?”

  The astrologer smiled or frowned, they were not sure which.

  “Yes, my King-to-Be, Doctor Melanthrix was there, entranced by the entertainments which surrounded us.”

  He swept his long narrow hand in a semi-circle in front of him.

  “There was a flash of light from above, and then King Kipriyán was lying on the table. A miracle it was that he survived, a gift from the Great Creator for which we must give our thanks. The king lives, and we are grateful that he lives. That is all that matters to us.”

  Timotheos Metropolitan of Örtenburg, a burly, bearded man of five-and-sixty years, sat in the patriarch’s chair as his deputy.

  “You speak to us of God and miracles, Doctor Melanthrix,” the churchman said, “but I didn’t see you at the thanksgiving mass held this morning in the cathedral, even though I would have expected you, of all people, to celebrate the feast of Saint Vasíly the Hierarch. Everyone else in this room was present. You also weren’t available for questioning by the guards last night. Everyone else in this room was willing to be searched. At the banquet you attacked both church and state with your scurrilous rhymes. Everyone else in this room heard them.”

  “Indeed,” several of the councilors agreed.

  “Just what is your question, Sieur Timofeí?” the as­trologer asked.

  The metropolitan drew his robes close around him, and put his right hand on the icons of Saint Svyatosláv and Saint Trankvillín which hung around his neck.

  “Quite simply, sir, where did you go last night after the banquet?” he asked.

  “Out,” Melanthrix said, “out of that dark place past the ever-watchful guards. The atmosphere outside was more accomodating, for this warm weather will scarcely last us another day, as you well know. We should all find highly beneficial the inhalation of such air more frequently, and the exercise of one’s limbs more regularly.”

  Timotheos snorted.

  “We’re not interested in your philosophies, doctor, unless they match those of the one true faith. Why do I never see you at our services?”

  The astrologer swayed slightly, jingling his bells.

  “Art thou so impoverished that thou canst admit no other ideas than thine own? Does Doctor Melanthrix ask thee to bend thy will to his? No, and not yet, and never. But thou wouldst have him bow and scrape before thee, when he owes allegiance to a higher authority. Let him worry about his immortal soul. Let him ponder his loyalty to his king, which has never been in question, even from such as thee. Let him pass.”

  “Pah,” Timotheos said, “and what about your so-called prophecies? Last night you dared to attack the House of Tighris and the one true church. How can this council ignore your threats?”

  Melanthrix started gurgling, but it was a moment before the rest of the councilors realized he was laughing.

  “You will pardon me, Sire,” he said, trying to catch his breath, “for this breach of etiquette.

  “Gentle sieurs, if a man reaches into the air and pulls forth a raven, so”—and a black bird appeared sud­denly in his open hand—“this may be true magic or it may be a simple trick. But if he does not tell you how he did the trick, is it not still a form of magic?”

  The bird flew up, circled around and ’round, and then darted through the open doorway as Feognóst quickly cracked it open.

  “The future,” the astrologer said, “is like a river full of water, constantly moving and flowing and changing, even as one watches. One may catch a glimpse of an instant in time, and have some sense of whether the river is flooding or slack, of whether the water is pure or clouded, of whether great trunks are being swept rapidly downstream or whether the flow is tranquil enough to row upriver for a bit. He who peers into the future does so at great peril, for he may step too close to the bank and be swept away himself.

  “Now, as to whether these small prognostications are true or not,” Melanthrix said, “let history judge, as it has always judged them before.”

  The mage cupped his hands and breathed into them, molding something hidden between, spitting on it and kneading it like a loaf of bread. He then released an irides­cent bubble swirling with color that floated away above the council table.

  “Look, then, sieurs, and see your own destinies, if you have the courage to do so.”

  As the oily, roiling sphere passed each person in turn, he could see the images flowing on the surface, pieces of the events in his life that might or might not come true. When the object approached the king sitting at the far end of the table, Kipriyán suddenly turned white and shrank back from the globus with a shriek, his hands raised to ward off whatever it was he saw there.

  “Enough of that,” said the Archpriest Athanasios, the council scribe, abruptly puncturing the bubble with his quill.

  With an audible “pop,” the sphere disappeared.

  But when the council members turned their attention back towards the door, Doctor Melanthrix was gone, leav­ing no sign that he had ever been present. Lord Feognóst questioned the two men standing guard outside in the hall, but they reported no one leaving the room. Prince Arkády proposed that a warrant of arrest for the soothsayer be is­sued at once by the High Council, but King Kipriyán imme­diately objected.

  “I have to know,” he kept saying, “I have to know.”

  Finally the prince adjourned the proceedings on be­half of his father.

  “Arkásha,” they heard the monarch mumble as he was being led out of chambers, “Arkásha, I’m so tired, I’m so very tired, boy.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “A SPARROW ALONE

  UPON THE HOUSE TOP”

  That same afternoon the Archpriest Athanasios went to the Hanging Garden of Queen Landizábel to read his breviary, as was often his wont. The garden sprawled across the roof of the residential part of the Royal Palace, rising in slow, gentle tiers from its lowest point in the west to the place where the wing attached itself to the multi-sto­ried central core.

  The roof had been covered with soil, irrigated, and then planted some four centuries earlier by King Tarás i to assuage the homesickness of his eighth wife, who had been accustomed to a climate in which the vegetation remained verdant all year ’round. Plants had been brought from her native Tuscania and many other lands, and the small patch kept warm and fertile with a localized weather spell that was renewed weekly.

  Athanasios found a tranquility here that he had known in just one other place in his life. There was some­thing to be said for warm breezes, the smell of freshly-cut flowers, and the presence of growing things. He thought back upon the garden of his youth, that refuge that had given him so much pleasure, and he sighed. All of those whom he had known there were gone now, save only for two, including he who had been like a father to him.

  Of all the places within the Hanging Garden, that which pleased him most was the small maze situate at its center. It was not truly a maze, if one understood the thing, for it followed the shape of the Tighris tughra, winding ’round and ’round itself until reaching its own conclusion at the middle of the muddle. There, surrounded by hedges, was a small grotto, called by some “Land’s End,” after the queen who had designed it, complete with stone benches protected from the sunlight by the overhang­ing shrubbery, and a statue of the monarch herself reading from a book of her own poems. She was not an especially pretty woman, but the sculptor had captured in her face a sensitivity, a gentleness, that moved one even at several centuries’ distance.

  Here the words of God made sense, here the world was an ordered place where every man knew who and what and where he was, here one could think and reason with the dæmons of the world.

  Of all the scripture, he loved the Psalms the best.

  “He that dwelleth in the secret place of t
he most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.... Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day.”

  And again: “I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.”

  There were always things like that, little pithy say­ings, that a man of wisdom, of deliberation, could apply to his own life, or use to help others.

  “I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” he read aloud.

  But who made me? he thought, other than God, of course, he added, quickly crossing himself out of respect. And why am I so consumed by this quest? I must find some measure of peace.

  He returned to his book. His reveries were inter­rupted by a trod of a foot along the pathway to the interior.

  “Arik Rufímovich!” he said with affection.

  “Afanásy Ivánovich. Pax tecum,” the older man said, embracing his friend and kissing him on both cheeks. “I thought I might find you here.”

  “I was just thinking about the old days,” the arch­priest said, “of the challenges we faced together, of the joys and sorrows, of the abbey and the Scholê. They’ve been good years, for the most part.”

  “And for me as well,” Arik said. “I think you’ve been more of a son to me than any child I might have sired during the great war.”

  The archpriest looked up quickly.

  “A child?” he said. “Is there any possibility that one actually exists?”

  The older man smiled.

  “Well, friend Afanásy, before I became a priest, be­fore I had professed any vows, I was a very ordinary per­son with ordinary desires, I’m afraid.”

  The cleric sat down heavily on the bench near Athanasios.

  Afanásy put down his book.

  “I’m always interested in hearing about the old times from someone who was actually there,” he said. “Please, tell me again about your adventures then.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “WHAT BECAME OF MY MOTHER?”

  Arik Rufímovich gazed into the eyes of the Queen’s statue and reflected upon the past.

  “My father, Rufím Katúnovich,” he said, “belonged to the landed gentry. He had a small estate and or­chard in lower Nördmark, all of which my elder brother Armén eventually inherited, although that’s another story. So it was either the church for me, or the soldier’s life.

  “In the twenty-first year of King Makáry i I took the hundred gold staters that my father gave me as my due, and bought myself a commission in the King’s Own Guards. Thus I became Lieutenant Arik Rufímovich.”

  The older man smiled.

  “Now I suppose that you would think me a very foolish boy indeed in those far-off days, but I had ambi­tions then. I saw my commission as a pathway to fame, riches, status, lands, even a title. All I had to do was to please my superiors and learn how to kill most efficiently, and I found within myself the ability to do both. So I rose very quickly in the ranks when war actually broke out. I managed to attach myself to Hereditary Prince Néstor’s personal squad, Les Gardes Élites, as it was known in soci­ety, and I thought I had found the perfect spot.

  “You see, we got the best of everything,” Arik said, “the finest mounts, the newest weapons, the shiniest armor, and, of course, the prettiest women, who followed us around like puppies looking for a new home. Soon I came to regard this special treatment as no more than ap­propriate to one of my exalted status.

  “In those days I was callow and ever willing to seek pleasure in the most superficial ways, and I cut a very handsome profile back then, with a full head of curly hair and my smart military uniform.”

  His face clouded.

  “Then the war began in earnest. Prince Ezzö the Elder and Kazimir his heir were determined to take back Pommerelia, and together with Prince Néstor, they per­suaded King Makáry to support them. That was a black day in the history of Kórynthia, let me tell you.

  “Oh, things went well enough at first. King Michael of Pommerelia was killed outright, and we thought in our arrogance that we’d won it all. I think we would have, too, if God hadn’t laughed at our complacency. As we gamboled madly south towards Balíxira, suddenly the winter storms came rushing in, a month too early, and near froze us all to death.”

  He paused to wipe a tear away on his sleeve.

  “Many a good man perished on that plain, and not from fighting any battle, either. The following spring King Makáry resupplied the Forellës with arms and mercenaries, and so we tried again. Then came Dürkheim, where King Barnim, Michael’s successor, fooled us all, and killed Makáry and Néstor and Kazimir too.

  “Somehow we managed to retreat to Borgösha, where we were determined to revenge our friends’ deaths. The following summer our enterprise failed when Count Vandorf, Ezzö’s new commanding general, perished at the Battle of Audergrimm, and most of his army with him. Afterwards, Ezzö took his own life rather than be captured. Borgösha promptly capitulated, and we survivors were taken hostage. A few months later I was paroled to my family’s estate, where I found my father dead and my brother less than hospitable. I was sick to death of all the killing, so I resigned my commission and joined the Silent Souls.”

  “Did you ever meet my father?” the younger man asked.

  Arik smiled fondly and shook his head.

  “We’ve been over that ground before, Afanásy. Even if I hadn’t given my most solemn oath to keep silent, a geas was placed on my soul that keeps me ever from re­sponding. All that I can say, all that I’m allowed to say, is that your father died fighting bravely in the war, before you were born, and that your mother, as much as she loved you, was prevented by circumstance from keeping you her­self, and so placed you lovingly with the church.”

  “What became of my mother?”

  “Well, that one I can answer,” Arik said. “I hon­estly don’t know. I have not seen her or heard tell of her in a very long time.”

  “Then she could still be alive. Why were you cho­sen to bring me to Saint Svyatosláv’s?” Afanásy asked.

  A shadow appeared on Arik’s face.

  “Why pursue this now? These people have all passed into the dustbin of history, friend Afanásy.”

  “It’s hard to explain, Father,” the younger man said. “You have a family. Knowing what you know about your­self, you can choose to embrace or reject your past. My parents are unknown to me. I don’t know why they left me without an identity, or what they were like, or how or why I came to be. Without a name—my real name—without a beginning point to my life, I drift like a boat without oars upon a sea of uncertainty. What’s old history to you is my entire life to me.”

  “You must place your trust in Almighty God,” Arik said. “He should be the central axis of your life. He must be the identity that you give yourself. You already have a name. It was lent to you by God’s agent here on earth.”

  The older man rested his hand on the archpriest’s shoulder, and then said: “Athy, there are questions that should not be asked, and answers that should not be heard. Trust me when I tell you that this is one of them.”

  “I do trust you, Father,” Afanásy said, “and I pray for His guidance constantly. But I have a hollowness within that demands a response, Arik. Try as I might, I can’t let this issue go. I’m truly sorry.”

  The metropolitan sighed and rose from his seat.

  “Then you must do what you must, my son,” Arik said.

  He traced the sign of the cross over his pupil.

  “May God grant you the wisdom to go with what­ever knowledge you find. Now, my limbs grow stiff, Athy, and I must walk a bit before sup­pertime. I’ll see you, I trust, at evening prayers.”

  And he left Afanásy wondering, not for the first time, if Arik Rufímovich had been his biological father as well as his spiritual one.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “YOU SAID THE KING WAS SICK?”

  The Archpriest Athanasios had returned again to his breviary when he heard a child’s voice nearby. It sounded as if she were talki
ng to someone. He looked up and abruptly shut his book with a small clap of thunder.

  “La-ti-dah, la-ti-day,” he heard, “let’s all go run away.”

  She suddenly came skipping around the corner of the maze, and when he saw who it was, he immediately jumped to his feet.

  “Princess Grigorÿna,” he said, bowing to the seven-year-old firstborn child of Prince Arkády.

  “Oh!” she said. “Oh, my! I didn’t know anyone was here.”

  Her head darted back and forth ’round the grotto.

  “I’m not supposed to be here, you know. Papá says I shouldn’t play in the maze, ’cuz I get lost easy, but I didn’t get lost today, did I?”

  Then she noticed the archpriest was still standing.

  “Oh, you can sit, now, sir, if you please. You haven’t introduced yourself very properly, you know.”

  “I’m the hieromonk Archpriest Athanasios Hokhanêmsos apo Sbiatoslabou,” he said. “I teach at the Megalê Scholê and I also work as grammateus for your grandfather, the king.”

  “Papá says Grandpapá is sick,” she said, plopping down on the bench opposite, next to the image of the queen, “and I can’t play with him today, ’cuz he needs his rest, and I’m not to disturb him, neither, so I have to go outside to play.”

  She cuddled a rag doll to her chest.

  “This is my friend, Milady Louisa. She says that Grandpapá is very mad about something, and that makes everyone else mad, too. Mamá always says we have a ‘wery trézhik fämlyi,’ but I don’t know what that means, and Ouisa doesn’t, either. Do you, Athy...Athynaysus?”

  The archpriest smiled broadly.

  “I think so, Princess Grigorÿna, but I don’t think it’s anything that you need to worry about. You can call me Athy, if you’d like, since you’re a princess.”

  “And you can call me Rÿna, at least when we’re alone.”

  She abruptly jumped up.

  “Of course, in company you must still call me ‘Princess....’”

  “Of course,” Athanasios said.

  “...’Cuz that’s the proper thing to do, and I have to learn how to do everything ‘proper,’ that’s what Mamá says, even when I don’t want to. Someday I’ll marry and have children, and then I’ll have to go away, just like she did from her Mamá and Papá. Sooomedaaay....”