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

by Vox Day

  “It’s not a good idea,” Cajarc admitted. “It merely happens to be the only one I’ve got. If you have any suggestions, I’m willing to listen.”

  “It makes sense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your plan, I mean. It makes sense. If I’m not entirely human, if my blood is magically potent, then it is because I am, in some way I don’t understand at all, part demon. And since my human antecedents are gone, we had better direct our questions toward my demonic ones.”

  Speer grinned ruefully. “Unless, of course, you wish my next course of study to be necromancy!”

  “Let the dead stay dead,” Cajarc said dismissively. “They’re unreliable bastards anyway. Demons don’t hesitate to lie, but at least you have a reasonable hope of anticipating their self-interest. Whatever they do or say, it will always be with the object of getting inside a body somehow.”

  Speer nodded. It didn’t surprise him that the Écarlatean had at least a modicum of familiarity with the darkest art. The sack Cajarc had been given still appeared to be moving. “Is there something alive in there?”

  “Indeed. Consider this your first lesson in diablerie. You know what a demon is?”

  “Immortal spirits without souls.”

  “Yes. But do you know what that means?”

  Speer reflected and realized he had never actually thought through the concept.

  “No,” he admitted.

  “Their spirits are immortal because they are the sons of angelic fathers. They died long ago, thousands of years ago. But they remember the flesh and they crave it above all else.” The sorcerer lifted the bag. “Thus, we offer them flesh and bind them to it, lest they possess us instead.”

  “And that works?”

  The sorcerer laughed. “Watch and see, Ar Dauragh. And fear not, this is the true art of the Witchking. The one I am calling is a powerful spirit, but he would never harm you. One might even say he is the only family you have left to you.”

  Speer watched as Cajarc began speaking in the ancient Etruccan tongue, something he had been learning but had not yet mastered. He was impressed: The incantation was a long one, and yet the sorcerer—or rather, the diableriste—needed no text. He recited the long and difficult summoning without stumble or hesitation.

  There was a flash from inside the iron chamber, and a deep, ominous grumble came through the small opening in the door. A foul stench of refuse and decay reached Speer, and an oppressive shadow seemed to fall upon the two men who stood together staring into the chamber at the swirling, smoky darkness within.

  “I am here.” Speer heard a rumbling, inhuman voice from the heart of the shadow. “Is the moment come at last? Does the child live?”

  “He lives and stands here beside me. Will you keep your vow to Ar Mauragh and teach him? His son has need of instruction only you can provide.”

  A rhythmic gutteral thunder was the initial response, and it took Speer a moment to realize that the demon was laughing.

  “No vow to a dead man binds me, sorcerer. Only this iron, salt, and blood. Release me and we shall discuss the matter.”

  Instead of replying, Cajarc reached into the sack and withdrew one of the castle's cats, a small white one with orange markings. He put his arm through the window, and with an upward flick of his wrist, lobbed the squalling animal into the center of the giant pentagram. His view partially blocked by Cajarc’s arm, Speer didn’t see exactly what happened, but he had the impression that something arrested the cat's movement through the air, as it seemed to almost float down to the floorstones, its back arched in feline alarm.

  The swirling shadow flared, almost blindingly purple-bright in its darkness. Then it was gone, leaving only an unnaturally still cat crouched on all fours and staring hungrily at Cajarc and Speer as they stared back at it through the window in the door.

  Cajarc nodded to Speer, and the two of them removed the three metal slats again so the diableriste could open the door. Somehow, the sight of the little white cat crouching in the middle of the great iron pentagram frightened Speer more than anything he had ever seen before. And yet, there was nothing visibly strange about it, other than the way it steadily stared at him as if taking his measure.

  “Welcome, Scaum-Durna,” Cajarc said. “I am so pleased you have accepted my humble offering. This is Ar Dauragh, the only son of Ar Mauragh.”

  “I have come, little brother.” The cat spoke. To Speer’s horror, the voice that came out of the little creature's mouth was the monstrous one that had spoken from the shadow.

  “And now that we are together at last, we shall finish what your fathers began.”

  • • •

  The seagull soared over Speer’s head in a clouded grey sky. A storm was sweeping in from the sea, but it was still two or three bells out and the rain had not yet begun to fall. The other birds kept their distance from it. They were able to sense there was much more to the gull than what could be seen by Man’s eyes.

  “Have you considered the matter?” he heard the demon’s voice in his mind.

  “Is there no other way?”

  “I understand your reluctance. But it has been five years. Cajarc stands in your way.”

  “Perhaps if I try to convince him again?”

  He heard the demon’s rumbling laughter both in his mind and from the sky above him. Scaum-Durna had taught him a great deal since the first summoning, and in truth, the spirit did seem to regard him as his brother.

  Diablerie, as it happened, was entirely misnamed, for demons were not devils, but merely the unwanted children of devils. The dark power of the Witchkings had its source in their understanding the significance of this difference, as they made use of the demon’s longing for their long-dead flesh to fuse the soulless with the souled. Speer himself was the product of several such unholy infusions, he had learned. So strong was the demonic spirit in him, the child of the two most powerful Witchking bloodlines, that he could no longer breed conventionally with unsullied mortals.

  It was still possible with demonic assistance, of course, but there was little point in doing so if new infusions would be necessary with every child Speer would father, and perhaps even every grandchild. Instead of the expected decades, it would take centuries to wreak his father’s revenge upon those who had defeated him, and even with his life extended by sorcery, Speer could not reasonably expect to survive that long.

  And so Speer had come up with another plan. Observing that animals mature much faster than men, he proposed combining man, demon, and animal into one fast-breeding, intelligent, and warlike race, a race that would be willing and able to wage war on Man and Elf alike, without mercy and without remorse.

  But to his surprise, Cajarc rejected his plan out of hand, telling him it was an abomination and the very opposite of the Witchkings’ dream of elevating Man to godhood. The sorcerer argued that to degrade men and make them into some sort of bestial weapon would be a betrayal of Speer's father, not the execution of his most sacred charge. He counseled patience.

  But Speer was not patient. He was eager to leave Mordlis, desperate to make use of his newly acquired skills, hungry to make war and shed blood. And always he had Scaum-Durna whispering in his ear.

  “We can do it tonight. Summon me in the usual manner, but not in the chamber. In a simple circle from which you can release me.”

  “What good will that do? Even if I release you, Cajarc will simply banish you as soon as he finds out, and then you won’t even be able to continue teaching me.”

  “Not if you give him to me.” High overhead, the gull furled its wings and plunged down toward the sea. It came up again with a small fish in its beak. “Give me his body. No one will know he is gone, but he will no longer stand in your way. Or in the way of our goals. He is not the only one who knew your father, and you can be certain that your father never hesitated when faced with such disloyalty.”

  “Cajarc isn’t disloyal!”

  “Isn’t he? Your sole purpose in life, yo
ur sole dream, has been to avenge your race. The Écarlatean has served you well, but he is no Witchking. He has limits that do not touch you. He is bound by strictures and moralities your father scorned. You must do what is necessary, no matter the cost. Your false parents died at their own hands, and your father slew your mother—”

  “My father did what?”

  “She died willingly before she could be captured after giving birth to you. She paid the price. If Cajarc was truly loyal, he would do the same. And if he is not willing, then you know he is not loyal and merits no restraint on your part.”

  “Are you sure you don’t simply want his body?”

  “The body of a sorcerer is not undesirable, I admit it. But Cajarc has only to stand aside and I would make no claim on him. Instead, he puts you off and whines about abominations and degradations and bygone moralities. So give him to me.”

  Speer looked out to sea as he considered the demon’s words. The storm clouds were visible now in the distance, almost black as they loomed low over the white-capped waters.

  “I will give him one last chance, tonight,” he told Scaum-Durna. “If he will not serve me as I wish, you may do as you see fit with him.”

  The winds were howling outside. The vehement force of them could be heard despite the thick stone walls of the castle. Rain lashed the parapets. It would be a miserable night outside for the guardsmen on duty. But it was warm and dry in the library, where the dark, smoky shadow of Scaum-Durna twisted and writhed within the magical bounds of the chalk circle that Speer had drawn before summoning the demon with one of the spells the demon itself had taught him.

  “What are you doing?” Cajarc shouted, red-faced with fury as he strode in through the door.

  Speer looked up from his codex, a history of one of the early dynasties of the Thauronian kings, who appeared to have been an exceptionally bloodthirsty lot, even by Wagran standards.

  “I had some ideas I wanted to discuss with Scaum-Durna. I didn’t want that damn bird flapping about here crapping on everything.”

  “This is too dangerous! Do you not realize you are dealing with an ancient and very powerful spirit here? You do not summon a fell spirit of that sort of age and power outside of the spell chamber downstairs! Ever! Do you not understand the risks you are taking?”

  “I would not harm the little brother,” the demon addressed the sorcerer. “If you recall correctly, you said as much yourself.”

  “Stay out of this, Scaum-Durna!” Cajarc snapped. “I mean you no disrespect, but this does not concern you, it concerns Ar Dauragh’s judgment—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the lack of it!”

  The demon subsided and continued to coil about itself in the confines of the magical circle, all the while staring malevolently at the sorcerer.

  Cajarc turned back to face Speer.

  “Well?” he demanded. “Banish it now! We’ll dredge it up again in the chamber downstairs tomorrow.”

  Speer leaned back and closed his codex with a loud snap that caused a small cloud of dust to rise up from the well-weathered leather.

  “Of course, just as soon as I can locate a suitable bell. But I’m glad you’re here, Cajarc. I wanted to ask if you are still staunchly opposed to my plan to raise up an army from the wolves of the islands.”

  The sorcerer’s face no longer resembled an overripe raspberry, but he was clearly still irritated, judging by the dismissive tone of his voice.

  “Yes, Ar Dauragh, it was a dreadful idea yesterday, it remains a dreadful idea today, and it will be a dreadful idea tomorrow. There are lines even a Witchking dare not cross. Why do you think your father and his fellows did not resort to such abominations even when they found themselves at the mercy of the elves?”

  Speer nodded. “It is hard to argue with that. My apologies, Cajarc. I am well aware of all that you have done for me, and I treasure your counsel. As you so delicately did not say, my youth, at times, may render my judgment suspect.”

  What remained of his anger faded from the little Écarlatean’s eyes, and he reached out to touch Speer’s hand in an avuncular manner. “I fear you will find intelligence is seldom an adequate substitute for experience, my lord. And the wise man learns from the failure of others rather than his own. Now, if you will be so kind as to see our honored guest departs the premises, I have a rather urgent matter awaiting me in my chambers.”

  Speer laughed, knowing that a plump young widow from Raegedal had arrived with the town’s annual contribution to the castle’s upkeep in the afternoon. “Then far be it from me to disturb you. Good night, Cajarc.”

  “Good night, my lord,” Cajarc said, bowing slightly before turning and walking hastily out of the library.

  Speer snorted, amused, and returned to his codex. He read about the extraordinarily inventive way that one of the princes of Thauron, deprived of his inheritance by his younger brother, went about seeking his vengeance, which culminated in a feast that rather made his stomach turn.

  A baleful rumbling from the inchoate form of the demon on the other side of the library interrupted his reading.

  “Be patient. If nothing else, the man deserves one last simple pleasure.”

  “You don’t think I can offer him a more intriguing experience than a sow from the village?” The dark smoke abruptly coagulated in a vaguely obscene female shape.

  “Oh, very well.” Speer flicked his fingers and moved a small amount of salt to one side.

  The circle now broken, Scaum-Durna flowed out from it like a serpentine shadow.

  “Don’t kill the woman,” Speer said. “She may be of use.”

  “As you say, little brother.”

  He returned to the codex. It occurred to him that it could be said he was committing a betrayal every bit as terrible as those about which he now read. Then again, had Cajarc himself not taught him of the importance of learning from the mistakes of others? His father and the other Witchkings had refrained from abomination, that much was true. It did not escape Speer’s attention that they had also been defeated.

  After abandoning the savage Thauronians, Speer turned to a grimoire and attempted for the second time to make sense of a spell called The Ephandril of Glyceranus, neither the purpose nor the preparations for which appeared to be coherent in any meaningful way. He was still puzzling over the meaning of the term “pylocatabasis” when he heard someone entering the library.

  It was a blonde woman, large of hips and bust, with eyes that were far too aware and malevolent for her stolid, peasant face. She stood there in the doorway naked, with blood dripping from the corners of her mouth onto her fat, blue-veined breasts. Both her hands and arms were covered with blood up to the elbows. She looked very pleased with herself.

  “For fanden!” Speer swore. “Are you out of your infernal mind?”

  “You said I couldn’t kill the woman,” Scaum-Durna said with a crimson-stained smile. “You never said I couldn’t kill him.”

  • • •

  The preparations for the great working took longer than Speer anticipated. Finding and trapping a wolf bitch took the tongueless men nearly two weeks. The wolves of the isles named after them had learned to be wary of men and their deadly bows. No one asked, either by word or by sign, what had happened to Cajarc, and if they trod warily around the strange peasant woman who stalked, naked, dirty, and more often than not, bloodstained, through Mordlis as if she owned it, Speer could hardly blame them.

  But they tolerated her readily enough, most likely because the demon went about satiating its craving for pleasures of the flesh with such abandon that Speer began to wonder if he would have to send out for younger reinforcements. Most of the guardsmen were in their forties and fifties, and only by virtue of their numbers were they able to collectively bear the burden imposed upon them by Scaum-Durna.

  Speer himself was far too busy with the complex minutiae required for his working to spare even a moment for his physical needs, let alone pleasures. He caught his reflection in a well-poli
shed brass lantern one afternoon and winced: He was unshaven, hollow-eyed, and gaunt from weeks of missed and half-eaten meals.

  But at last he was ready, and in time for the Blood Moon, when Arbhadis alone could be seen in the night sky. He had the unholy relics: the skull of a burned witch, the dried umbilical cords of three babies ripped untimely from their mothers’ wombs, a feather from the wing of a fallen angel, a demon’s fang, the knucklebone of a thief, and the severed tongue of a fraud. He had written out all seven sheets of the spell in the blood of a male virgin on the skin of a coward who had died in battle, and in a language that was old when the demonic spirits were still walking the Earth in their own flesh. And the wolf bitch was being held in a cell in the dungeon.

  “Are you ready for this?” he asked Scaum-Durna as they stood outside the growling wolf’s cell. “Are you frightened at all?”

  The demon looked at him in puzzlement he could see through the woman's eyes. “Why would I be frightened?”

  “How many generations do you expect to retain your consciousness with your spirit divided into so many souls?”

  His question provoked a disturbing howl of laughter. “You think I’m going to serve as the demonic element, little brother?”

  “I’m certainly not. I can’t. The remnants are too weak in me to fuel an entire new line.”

  “I know.” Scaum-Durna took him by the hand and let him into the great summoning chamber, in which very nearly all of their materials for the working were waiting for them. “How fortunate that we have a pentagram strong enough to hold the spirit we’re going to use.”

  Speer’s eyes narrowed. He had always known Scaum-Durna had its own purposes in mind, but what they might be beyond the gift of the womanly flesh it already possessed was beyond his ability to even guess.

  “Your forefathers were good enough to aid me in removing one threat to me,” the demon told him. “Did you think I was speaking metaphorically when I first called you little brother? Adar-malik, who was once an angel, begot three sons on Ilae of the Shining Hair when he ruled over the great city of Gulan Cazhdal. The last, and least, was called Karak. The middle son was Durna. And his eldest son, and heir, was Vorbis.”