The Last Witchking

by Vox Day

To his surprise, the elf bowed back to him.

  “I come in peace. And I thank you for your welcome, priest of the Undead God. Have you a hostel in which a traveler weary may rest for the night? I have come a considerable distance, and I have coins I believe will be acceptable to your bishop.”

  A little startled, the brother couldn’t keep himself from raising his eyebrows at being addressed in such an unusual manner, but he smiled politely and stepped back to invite the elf inside the monastery’s stone walls.

  “I am no priest, friend elf, merely a humble monk. This is the chapter house of the Ordo Sancti Dioscuri, and you need no coins here. I am Brother Sperarus. You have come all the way from Merithaim?”

  He did not ask the traveler’s name. It was the foremost rule of the order to give succor to all who asked it.

  The chapel bell began ringing out Vespers before the elf could answer. Sperarus closed the gates behind the elf. The thick wooden doors slammed shut with a boom loud enough to be heard over the bronze clangor of the nearby bells. Then he leaned his staff against the wall and picked up the thick wooden post and wrestled it into the metal supports attached to the backs of both doors, barring them against the night.

  The elf had thrown back his hood and was rubbing at one of his pointed ears as the last echoes of the final bell faded away.

  “Are you summoned to dine?”

  “Prayer,” Sperarus replied. “But first I will take you to a chamber where you can wash and refresh yourself. I assume you have not eaten?”

  “I have not.”

  “The evening prayers do not take long. The abbot will come see that you are provided with something to eat. I fear you will find our fare to be on the simple side.”

  “I should be grateful all the same, Brother Sperarus.”

  They walked past gardens covered against the coming winter and fruit trees mostly denuded of their leaves, toward a low building made of stone with small windows covered by unpainted wooden shutters. It was barely more than an animal barn, but the smell of smoke from the fire inside promised warmth as well as welcome.

  “This is the guesthouse. You may choose whatever empty room pleases you. We have no other guests today. Three of the older brothers have chambers there, as it is warmer than our cells in the main dormitory.”

  He went to open the door, but the traveler stopped him. “Don’t you wish to know my name and my business?”

  Sperarus smiled. “I do. But then, curiosity is one of my besetting sins. As you come in peace, you are welcome here, sir elf, by any name. Should the abbot see fit to inquire as to your business, I am sure he will do so when he comes to you.”

  The elf nodded. Then he smiled back. His teeth were perfect and white and just a bit more pointed than a man’s.

  “Thank you, Brother Sperarus. I would appreciate it if you would tell your abbot that Bessarias of Elebrion is here and is most grateful for the hospitality he has been shown this day.”

  The brother felt his eyes widen. He did not recognize the name, but he had certainly heard of Elebrion. And while it was highly unusual for a forest elf to pass this way, he had never heard of a high elf from the royal elven city ever doing so.

  Father Waleran was the second Abbot of Saint Dioscurus. He was proud to be one of the fourteen founding brethren and to have presided over the fourfold growth of the order since its formal establishment by Sanctiff Temperantius III. He was an Amorran of lordly appearance with black hair greying at the temples. Many of his brothers assumed him to have been born into one of the patrician Houses. In truth, his father was merely a plebeian, although a wealthy one of the equestrian class.

  Vespers having concluded, Waleran walked towards the guesthouse with an amount of what he was forced to admit was very nearly an unseemly amount of curiosity. What could possibly bring a high elf to Mulvico? Unaccompanied, on foot, and unarmed, no less!

  He knocked on the door to announce himself, then opened it and entered. The foyer gave way to the common room, which was warmed by three logs being devoured by flames on a stone hearth. The common room was separated from a small kitchen on the other end by a series of small chambers on either side of the hall that ran from the entry to the kitchen.

  The guesthouse was long and low-ceilinged, the better to retain heat inside the thick stone walls throughout the cold winter months to come. It was a version in miniature of the dormitory that the brothers shared on the other side of the walled compound, and if its sparse interior could hardly be described as luxurious, it was warm, and the rough-hewn beds with their chicken-feather mattresses were more comfortable than the canvas cots on which the monks slept.

  A door opened from one of the chambers on the right, and a towering figure peered out from it. It was quite obviously the elf, Bessarias, of whom Sperarus had spoken.

  “Welcome, Bessarias of Elebrion, to the Order of Saint Dioscurus. I fear we cannot offer you much in the way of accommodations, but such as we have, we are happy to provide.”

  Waleran was not especially short, being of average stature, but the elf was a full head taller. His head very nearly touched the ceiling as he walked down the hall towards the common room. He was truly a beautiful creature, the abbot thought, although the shape of his eyes, his ears, and the inhumanly sharp features betrayed his alien nature. He wore his fair hair long, like a woman’s, but despite that and his slender frame, there was nothing feminine about him. Indeed, he projected a powerful air of strength and confidence that was surprising given his modest attire and humble demeanor.

  “Am I correct in assuming you are the abbot?” the elf said.

  “I am,” Waleran said.

  “I thank you, my lord, for your gracious hospitality. I had not thought to find such welcome in the world of Men.”

  “All are welcome who come to this place in peace, friend Bessarias. But you must not assume all men to be as we are. Saint Dioscurus was a man of peace, and we strive to follow his example. Others, I am afraid, are less inclined to do so.”

  The elf smiled. “In this, at least, Man and Elf are all too alike. If you don’t mind, Abbot, I should like to know, is this what men call a monastery?”

  The abbot blinked, nonplussed. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it surely wasn’t that. “Why, yes, it is. Will you take a seat in front of the fire? I am certain your legs could use the rest if you have walked all the way from Elebrion.”

  They both sat down in front of the crackling fire. Waleran pushed his chair back and edged it around so they could face each other. “Brother Sperarus tells me you have not eaten.”

  “That is true,” Bessarias admitted. “But if your brethren have already dined, I should be grateful for a bit of bread and fruit.”

  “I think we can do better than that. Brother Jeremias will be here soon with cheese, wine, and a small fowl he is roasting for you.”

  “How very kind! You have my thanks.” The elf cocked his head, then laughed shortly. “You have not asked me why I am here.”

  Waleran steepled his hands. “No, I have not.”

  “Nor, I think, do you know who I am.”

  “I fear I know little more of your kind than you know of mine. My knowledge of the elves is not so much limited as nonexistent. To be frank, I am unclear on the difference between your people of the forest and those of the White City on the mountain. Brother Sperarus tells me you are of the latter variety.”

  “Fascinating. And why does it interest you so little?”

  “The difference?”

  “No, my purpose. I was hitherto under the impression men were a restless and inquisitive lot.”

  Now it was the abbot’s turn to laugh. “I did not say I was uninterested, friend Bessarias. I merely did not wish to intrude in matters that are no rightful concern of mine. I will readily confess to a deep, and one might even say, burning curiosity to know what could possibly bring an elf from Elebrion to our gates. I find it very hard to imagine you were seeking out our humble brotherhood!”

&
nbsp; “I am not,” the elf admitted. “But I am seeking out something very like it. Do you know of the Tertullian order?”

  “Of course.” The abbot sat back and stroked his chin, seeking to hide his astonishment at the elf’s question. The Ordo Sancti Tertullii was a minor order that was considerably older, though not much larger than the Dioscurines. They were an evangelical brotherhood, considered by some traditionalists to be quasi-heretical, as they were insistent that higher intellectual power was sufficient evidence to indicate that a being possessed a soul naturally united to it. But Waleran had never heard that the Tertullians went so far as sending out missionaries to the elves, or for that matter, any of the various races of Selenoth. “Why do you seek them?”

  “I met a man. A monk not unlike yourself. He was brave. He came to the college uninvited. And he had power, power of a sort neither I nor my colleagues had ever seen before. His name was Herwaldus. I want to find the source of his power. I want to find his god.”

  Waleran blinked, wondering if he had heard the other correctly. A soulless elf seeking God? “And you are seeking this Herwaldus?”

  “Oh, no,” the elf said, shaking his head. “He is dead. I killed him ten years ago.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Waleran had no idea what to say. He didn’t even know if he could rightly condemn the elf. One did not condemn the bear or the wolf that slew a man, and prior to the last bell, if asked, he would have denied the possibility that a creature such as Bessarias might possess a soul. Even now, the blithe ease with which the elf admitted to killing this Herwaldus struck him as a troubling sign that, for all its gracious and easy manners, what sat before him now might not only be inhuman but soulless and entirely without conscience.

  Fear gripped him. He took a deep breath, reminded himself that regardless of what might happen now, his eternal fate was secure, and settled on what he hoped would be an innocuous response. “May I ask you why you would do such a thing?”

  “Of course.” He was greatly relieved to see the elf showed no signs of being offended. “By the power of his god, he defeated our Magister Daimonae, thus inspiring a certain amount of fear amongst the magisters. They are unaccustomed to fearing anyone or anything, so they naturally decided to kill him. The problem was that they were torturing him to death, and I did not wish him to suffer.”

  “I see.” Waleran relaxed a little. Not much, perhaps, but he felt able to breathe more freely. A mercy killing was without doubt an immoral act, and one for which penance was required, but it also indicated a modicum of empathy, if not genuine conscience. “Naturally. If you don’t mind my asking, who are these magisters you say are your colleagues?”

  “The magisters of the Collegium Occludum. Until recently I was one of them. The most accomplished of them, as it happens.” The elf met his eyes, and for all their strange green-golden color and the catlike-shape of the pupils, the elven eyes were guileless. “At the risk of sounding immodest, my lord abbot, it is said of me that I am the greatest master of magic the elves have ever known. And now that the Witchkings are no more, it is entirely possible that I am the most powerful sorcerer in all Selenoth.”

  The abbot couldn’t quite manage to stifle his urge to sit back in his chair, away from the elf. Fear rose in him again and he tasted the bitterness of bile at the back of his throat. “I suppose that would explain how you were able to traverse the Waste on your own. Several of the brothers were convinced that either you were lying or young Sperarus can’t tell his north from his south.”

  “There was the occasional incident,” the elf admitted, followed by a high-pitched chuckle. Then his pale face grew serious and he leaned forward in his chair. “Abbot, can you help me find these Tertullians?”

  His sincerity, insofar as Waleran could tell, was heartfelt. His request was outlandish, and yet was it not written that those who seek shall find?

  There was a knock on the door and Waleran came to a decision. “That will be Brother Jeremias with your dinner, friend Bessarias. As to the Tertullians, I think we can do better than that. If you truly seek Him, we of St. Dioscurus can help you find Herwaldus’s God. You see, He is our God as well.”

  To Waleran’s surprise, to say nothing of the rest of the brotherhood, their elven visitor elected to pass the winter in their company.

  The winter was a cruel one. The snow fell relentlessly for what felt like months, and on the days when the grey, swollen clouds did not threaten to birth more, the sun shone without warmth in a bright blue sky. Waleran was forced to send the younger, stronger brothers into Mulvico twice. The first time they helped the townspeople rebuild four roofs collapsed under the weight of the snow. The second, they brought back on sledges the frozen remains of ten cows killed by the merciless cold in the night.

  It was a welcome surprise to the monks, who would dine well, at least to the extent that the Rule would permit, but Waleran knew that the loss to the townspeople’s herds was a grievous blow indeed. With the sudden surfeit of available beef, the price of the meat had fallen to one-eighth of what it would normally have been expected to command. He wished there was more he could do for the town, but beyond paying the owners twice what they had asked, there was little to be done except pray.

  Bessarias spent most of his days in their meager library poring over theological scrolls, conversing with the copyists, and occasionally joining the younger brothers as they split and stacked wood in front of the catholicon that stood between the dormitory and the guesthouse. He even contributed an illumination to the one hundred fifteenth Psalm, a beautiful silver-and-purple letter N that featured an orc, a goblin, a troll, and an elf all but hidden in the design. And, most importantly, he resolutely abided by his word to abjure his sorceries for as long as he remained with the brotherhood.

  After some consultation with the elder brothers and a sleepless night spent in fasting and prayer, Waleran had extracted a promise from the elf not to use even the merest modicum of his magic for any reason, on pain of being asked to leave the monastery. The abbot had thought Bessarias might resist, but to his surprise the elf readily agreed to the condition.

  Old Brother Hejorus, the archivist and chief copyist, was initially dubious about their unusual guest, but as Bessarias worked painstakingly on the illumination and it began to take shape, he rapidly became the elf’s chief champion.

  “I think Hejorus will be loath to let you depart come spring,” Waleran commented one night as the two of them sat in front of the fire in the common room of the guesthouse. They had not become friends, precisely, but most evenings found the two of them seated in the same chairs, sharing a decanter of the mediocre pink wine produced in the region and sparring over increasingly arcane matters of Immaculean theology. “He says you have the steadiest hand and the finest eye for detail he has ever seen.”

  “There is much to be said for leaving something of oneself behind,” Bessarias mused. “An illumination, an essay, or even a copy of a treasured text. We elves have forgotten that to a certain extent. Perhaps we live too long.”

  “If the wages of sin are death,” Waleran said drily, “could it be that your people live so long because they live in a less sinful manner than men?”

  “Given what I understand of your definition of sin, that seems extraordinarily unlikely,” Bessarias said with a laugh. “Which reminds me of the question I wished to pose to you tonight.”

  “Which is what?”

  “I find that I rather enjoy the illuminating process. And I have always found that the ideal way to retain information is to not only read it but write it down.”

  “That is said to be a useful technique,” Waleran agreed. Was the elf truly suggesting what it sounded like he was implying? He scarcely dared to hope.

  Bessarias put his hand to his mouth and coughed twice. “What I should very much like to do, Lord Abbot, if you are amenable to the idea, is to contribute a newly illuminated manuscript to your library. However, it will take me a considerable time to copy and complete it,
and I do not wish to impose upon your hospitality any longer than you and your brothers can endure.”

  The abbot smiled. “Friend Bessarias, you are welcome to stay here as long as you see fit. And Brother Hejoras will not be the only one who will be delighted to hear you have decided to prolong your stay with us. Dare we hope you might be willing to join us in communion one evening?”

  “Not as yet, Abbot. Not as yet. I am intrigued, that much I will admit, but I am far from convinced.”

  “Then by all means, you must stay longer. I insist upon it. May I ask what manuscript you have in mind?”

  “The Sacred Script, naturally.”

  Waleran blinked. “There are forty-two books in the canon, plus another three in the approved apocrypha. Which one have you selected?”

  “Forty-five, as it happens.”

  “All of them?” Waleran was astonished. Between the copying and the illuminating, that would take years! He paused a moment to reflect. On the other hand, what was the passage of time to an immortal elf? But immortal or not, it was an arduous task Bessarias had set himself.

  “Yes, all of them. I imagine I should know the text rather well by the time I complete it.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Bessarias!” Waleran was deeply moved, and he could feel unseemly tears threatening his eyes. “That is, I am pleased to hear we shall enjoy the benefit of your company longer than we had anticipated. Most pleased, indeed! However, you should understand I would in no way expect you to make any commitment to finishing—”

  “How can I not?” The elf laughed, visibly delighted by Waleran’s emotion. “If you are correct, there can be no better way to spend my days immersed in the words of the world’s Creator. And if you are not, then the world will be richer by one more object of beauty and knowledge, however questionable the latter might be. In either case, how can my time possibly be regarded as anything but well-spent?”

  “But you know it will require—”

  “Years. I’m rather dexterous, however.” Bessarias flexed his long fingers theatrically. “I wager I’ll finish it within a decade. There is, however, one condition.”