Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy and Other Stories

by Vox Day

  The first elves to enter the room could not have seen more than a tall shadow cast by the bright backdrop of the blazing fire. They would not be able to see a body already safely enshrouded by the raging flames. None of them were mages, he observed with the faintest hint of a contemptuous smile. Even in victory they feared him. The elven warriors stood before him uncertainly, each holding two swords drawn as if they were waiting for him to strike them down. But he merely stood there, in silence, until Silthalael, the High King’s Magister of War, finally entered the chamber.

  “It is over, Ar Mauragh,” the elf told the tall man. “The other towers are taken. Your fellows have all been slain. You are alone.”

  “It is over,” the witchking concurred.

  “Will you consent to come with me to the Collegium Occludum? Your life remains forfeit—that cannot be changed. But before you die, my colleagues have many questions they would like to ask of you.”

  “I will come with you,” Mauragh answered.

  As he walked with Silthalael away from the tower, stepping carefully around the bodies of elves and the corpses of men, his servants, who had fallen in the last battle outside, he stopped abruptly and turned back toward his burning home.

  The fire had already eaten its way through the wooden shutters that covered the window of his bedchamber, so with a single word, he caused blue and green flames to begin leaping and dancing from inside the stones themselves.

  Cries of alarm filled the air as the victorious remnants of the elven army began to run away from the tower. There was a thunderous roar, and the earth began to shake. In a matter of moments, the mighty tower collapsed in a cataclysm of fire and stone as rapidly as water plunging down the side of a mountain.

  No grave, my love. No tomb. None shall disturb your ashes.

  “I had hoped you would view us as more than mere enemies,” Silthalael said, his face ashen, “that you would see us as worthy inheritors of your knowledge. There must have been over a thousand books and scrolls in that library!”

  “Not all secrets may be shared,” Mauragh told the elf.

  Six months later, having answered all of the questions he was willing to answer, his usefulness was deemed at an end. The great witchking died in front of the assembled magisters of the Collegium Occludum. Ar Mauragh died screaming, shrieking in agony, his white flesh tormented by earth, water, and fire, his soul ripped into a thousand pieces, his haughty pride humbled, perhaps even humiliated.

  Even so, he embraced death like a long-awaited lover, for he knew that when the sorcerous elven flames finally turned his bones to char and ash, they would ensure that his most cherished secret was safely sealed.

  • • •

  In the eyes of the villagers of Pretigny, Speer Gnasor was a boy not terribly unlike any other. He was taller than the other boys his age, but someone has to be the tallest in every village, and no one ever appeared to think it odd that at nearly thirteen years of age, the top of his father’s head barely cleared his shoulder. Speer was quick-witted but not remarkably so, although he was both envied and mocked by the other boys for his ability to read.

  He participated in their games, albeit in a desultory manner. He was not unpopular, and if he had exerted himself even a little, he might well have made himself a leader of one of the little packs that divided the children of the town on lines roughly conforming with their fathers’ occupations.

  Per Gnasor, his father, raised bees and made candles, and his mother raised the small flock of geese and chickens that provided him with his daily egg, and on feast days, the fowl for their little family. His two passions were fishing and books, and it was said that he had read every one of the twenty-eight books in the village at least twice.

  The Gnasors themselves were said to possess seven books. By Pretigny standards, this amounted to a family library of almost mythic proportions. He dutifully attended the small church of the Immaculate twice each week, and if he ate the wafer and drank the wine given to him by the priest with little thought for what it represented, in this he was no different than any other boy in the village.

  He was not an unhappy lad, and he was entirely content with his life as he found it. He did not, like some of his youthful acquaintances, chafe at the smallness of their familiar surroundings or dream of one day seeking his fortune in what, from the perspective of Pretigny, was considered to be the great city of Niederholen. Even the rumors of the riches of distant Stalchwil on the banks of the Ghlêne more than a ten-day journey away held little fascination for him. He learned to tend his father’s bees, to twist wicks and shape wax, and slowly, but surely, he even began to take notice of the butcher’s daughter. She was a tall, slender girl with a wide mouth and pale blue eyes who was nearly of a height and an age with him.

  Left to his own devices, allowed to pursue his homely dreams, it was likely that Speer Gnasor would have married the butcher’s daughter, learned the butcher’s trade, and eventually become a fine, upstanding pillar of the local church and community.

  But on his thirteenth birthday, everything he knew about himself and the world around him was forever transformed by a letter from his father.

  After a dinner that featured rare treats such as Valoyan sausages and the sweet cheese called Niederholt, Per Gnasor sent him into the forest armed with nothing more than his warmest coat and a small shovel and told him to unearth his birthday present one hundred paces north of his favorite tree.

  Both excited and confused, he lost little time in finding the peculiar oak with a thick lower branch that twisted over its leftmost neighbor, and paced off the distance. He had to dig a hole that was deeper than his knees before he struck something hard. With a little more work he saw it was a small wooden chest. His heart beating faster, he extricated it from the ground and opened it.

  The first thing he saw was a letter written in an unfamiliar hand. Despite the shadows cast by the looming trees, there was just enough light breaking through the leaves to permit him to read it.

  To my son and my heir,

  You are not what you think you are. You are more, so much more. Kings and princes would tremble and scour the earth in search of you were they to hear even a rumor of your existence. It was to save you from their wrath that your mother sacrificed herself. It was to protect you from their vengeance that you were hidden away even from yourself. The man and woman you believe to be your parents are my true and loyal servants, and they have raised you at my command, even as they release you now to your destiny as they have been instructed.

  You will be told many lies about your true kind, we whom the vulgar and the frightened wrongly named witchkings. But this is nothing more than fear. It is the shameless perversion of history by the vicious little minds of its victors.

  As you will learn, we Wahrkönigen were simply dedicated to the truth and only the truth, regardless of its consequences and heedless of its costs. And what was this fearful truth, this dark god that struck such terror into the hearts of Men and Elves, Orcs, and Dwarves? Only this: There is no Good and there is no Evil. There is only what Is. Nothing more. Have the courage to grasp this fearful truth, and you shall be a worthy successor to the long line of kings before you.

  I have prepared the means that you will require to learn both the Lesser and the Greater Arts. Master them well. An arduous task lies before you, but I know you will succeed, for you are my son and you will surpass me. And in the place that has been prepared for you, you will also find the answers to your inevitable questions, including your true lineage.

  You are a phoenix raised by sparrows, my son. Now it is time for you to fly. When you have grown into your strength and become worthy of your heritage, you will set the world on fire.

  These are the three charges that I lay upon you, my son. Instruct the Elves. Break them of their ancient pride and shatter the remnants of their kingdoms. Humble the Northmen. They must pay a tithe of blood for their treachery. Harry them throughout their islands and drive them into the sea. Preserve the Bloo
d. You must not be the last of your line. Father many children, on many women, but instruct only the most worthy in the Wahrkunst. The Blood will tell.

  You are young and you are alone in a harsh and unforgiving world, but never doubt that you were loved as few sons have ever been loved. For your mother and your father so loved you that they died for you, not once, but twice. We allowed ourselves to perish and we erased ourselves from the minds of mortals, so that you might live.

  Your enemies, and they are many, will not find you until you are ready to be found. Be brave, my son, be strong, and never permit yourself fear. For you are a true Wahrkönig, and in your veins flows the pure blood of the greatest and most powerful sorcerers the world has ever known. Embrace your greatness, my son, embrace the Blood, embrace the challenges I have set before you, and one day, you will teach the world that you are harsher and more unforgiving than it could ever dare to be.

  Avenge me, my son. Avenge your loving mother. Avenge your noble race,

  Mauragh, son of Thauragh

  King of Thauron, Nordandir, and the Wolf Isles

  At the bottom, there was a note in a more familiar hand. It was from his father, or rather, the man he had always believed to be his father, Per Gnasor.

  Dearest Speer,

  It has been the greatest privilege of our lives to have been of service to you and your parents. Please forgive us for keeping you in ignorance, but it was the only way to preserve you and the noblest bloodline this world has ever known. Even now, your life is forfeit should anyone learn who you are and what you are, which is why this must be a note of farewell. I only hope that my wife and I have been able to provide you with some sense of the great love that your mother and father bore for you. You bear a mighty destiny, and we are grateful beyond all measure to have been given the opportunity to be a small part of it.

  In this chest, you will find a key, a ring, and directions to your inheritance. There is also a blade and sufficient gold to pay for your passage. Do not return to the cottage or permit yourself to be seen by anyone from the village, as they will believe you to have perished in the fire with us, your loyal and loving mother and father.

  Your true name is Dauragh, son of Mauragh.

  Fare you well, son of my heart, if not my body.

  Speer stared at the paper in disbelief. Then he slipped it into his pocket, closed the chest, and dropped it back into the hole. He threw the shovel on top of it and began running through the trees as fast as he could run toward the village and the little cottage in which he had lived for thirteen years.

  Before he reached the treeline that ended at the wheat field on the perimeter of the village, a reddish glow that was much too close to be the setting sun told him that he was already too late. He could hear shouts and cries as the people of Pretigny tried to set up a bucket line. Judging by the height of the flames, though, the entirety of the cottage’s roof was already engulfed.

  He followed the edge of the forest around the wheat field to where he could see the entire cottage. His heart sank and tears filled his eyes when he confirmed that it wasn’t only the roof that was burning ferociously. The villagers weren’t even trying to douse the flames any longer, now they were soaking the neighboring houses instead to reduce the chance that the fire would spread. He saw the butcher’s daughter standing with her fist in her mouth. From the way that her mother went to embrace her, he could tell that she was crying.

  My mother is dead, he told himself. It didn’t make sense, not when he’d been sitting at the table with them less than a bell ago. My father is dead. Only he is not my father.

  I am dead. He looked at his hands, then back at the pretty, brown-haired girl. But I am still here, so who is dead? Surely someone will notice something is amiss if there are only two bodies!

  Then he recalled an outrage that took place in Pretigny about six months ago. A grave was violated in the cemetery behind the church, the grave of an older boy from the village who died of a locked jaw when Speer was six. There had been much talk at the time of sorcerers and black wizards, of witches and necromancers, but nothing had ever come of it. The body was never found. Speer suddenly had a terrible feeling that, in the morning, his neighbors would find the burned remains of the three bodies they were expecting to be inside the cottage.

  They planned this, he thought. Before I was ever born, they planned this. The desire to run out to his neighbors and tell them that he was well, that he had survived the blaze, was almost overwhelming. But then he looked at Liesl, the butcher’s daughter. She was crying, her face was red and streaked with tears. She would not shed tears for a witchking. No one would. If they knew, if they even suspected that his blood was of that great and terrible breed, the mere mention of whom was enough to cause even the stoutest man’s heart to quail, they would cast him bodily into the flames.

  I am a witchking! How could that be? It didn’t seem possible. The witchkings were creatures of terror, of legend, they were powerful, and evil, and cruel. How could he be a witchking when he was only a boy? He pulled the note out of his coat. I am the son of…Mauragh. Thauragh was my grandfather.

  My name is Dauragh.

  Could it be true? He knew his father, or rather, the man he had believed until today to be his father, and he knew Per Gnasor was a good man. Had been a good man. More than that, he had been a good father. And yet, he died—he killed himself—rather than risk betraying the secret of Speer’s birth. Speer also knew, he was certain beyond any doubt, that his mother had loved him as much as any mother in the village loved her children. More than most, perhaps, as he was an only child instead of one in a pack of five or six. And she too had chosen death rather than risk betraying him. Who he was, what he was, was so important to her that she had given her life for it.

  A phoenix raised by sparrows…could it be true?

  Tears flowed down his cheeks as he thought of the love and kindness his mother and father, his adoptive mother and father, had always shown him. A sob threatened to rip itself from his throat, but he clenched his teeth and mastered it. It must be true. They would not have died for nothing. He reached a decision: No matter what, he would be worthy of them, he vowed silently to himself. He would not permit their terrible sacrifice to have been made in vain.

  As the sun continued its descent, he turned his back on the village of Pretigny, on his burning home, and walked wearily toward the hole in the forest. There he retrieved the chest and opened it again. He marveled at the number of gold coins, which struck him as an absolute fortune, and reviewed the directions while there was enough light left in the day to read them by.

  The Wolf Isles? He had heard tales of the fierce barbarians who waged bitter and pointless wars among themselves across the sea, but he’d never thought he would actually ever lay eyes upon them. Now he was to make his home among them? But first, he reminded himself, he had a long and perilous march of many days before him. And a voyage across the White Sea!

  He smiled bitterly. All the world was against him, a boy barely thirteen who was still secretly afraid of the dark. A boy who had only just learned his name.

  Speer—Dauragh, son of Mauragh—wiped his eyes with his sleeve and began to walk toward the sea.

  • • •

  At Gonne, he found a fisherman with a boat for hire. The boat carried him across the White Sea and to the little port town of Thjovrer, on the eastern side of the largest island.

  Although Speer had heard many stories about the dread Witchkings and their awful power, he did not even begin to imagine the extent to which they were feared, even by the northern reavers. That changed when, still following the directions that Per Gnasor had left for him, he sought a guide to lead him from Thjovrer to something that was marked on the map with an X and labeled Mordlis.

  The name struck him as a grim one, but it was no worse than the name of many a Dalarn town, which appeared to be as likely to be named after a bloody battle that took place nearby, or in one case, a notorious murder, as for their scenic att
ributes. But when he followed his instructions and displayed his true father’s ring to a pair of burly blond reavers who had been eyeing him as if he were fresh meat, they fell to their bellies and inexplicably began groveling before him. Their reaction frightened him a little, but he accepted their offer of a horse as well as companionship on the road to Mordlis. As they traveled, it soon became clear that they expected to be well-rewarded for assisting him.

  Mordlis stood on the shores of the White Sea a long day’s ride north of Thjovrer. By the time the peak of its dark tower appeared on the horizon, the last village they’d passed along the old dirt road that led to it was more than a bell’s ride away. The road was little traveled too, that much was clear from the long grass that grew over most of the roadway and was turning brown with the dying autumn.

  The three of them were intercepted by a squad of six huge, black-clad guards in the shadow of the small, but foreboding castle. Their only greeting was a metal-gauntleted hand raised in silent warning. The armored men stared at him, their hands on their weapons, and waited. For what? The two Dalarn attempted to explain, but the guards ignored them. Speer stared at six silent men, knowing that to speak wrongly might mean his death, until he reached into his pouch and withdrew his father’s ring.

  No sooner had he held it up and shown it to the guardsmen than four of them drew their swords and slew both of his companions before they could defend themselves. Speer was too shocked and horrified to be scared. He stared at the silent men and their dripping blades, but they made no move to attack him. Nor did they deign to speak.

  Who am I, he wondered, that death follows me everywhere I go? What sort of monster am I? And if I am not one already, what sort of monster will I become?

  Whatever sort of monster vengeance requires you to be. He heard the voice in his mind as if it were the shade of his true father. He knew so little of the man, but Mauragh’s icy determination and unblinkingly ruthless nature was already more than apparent to him. And yet, neither his father’s dark powers nor his iron will had been enough to save him or Speer’s true mother.