Splatterism: The Disquieting Recollections of a Minotaur Assailant: An Upbuilding Edifying Discourse

by Christian Winter

  You will find my hand in hers.

  With beating heart and streaming eyes,

  H. V. K.”

  When I had finished reading I looked up, ever so slowly, at Scammander, and then at Johannes. They were both looking at each other. I felt something else fall across my foot, and looked down to find another page.

  “I have attended my final symphony tonight. I shall not think on it, but depart at once. Let it be said that I left on a good note—F. ‘D’ N., The Mostmisunderstood.”

  Ezekiel and Johannes glowered at the pallid apparition, who quickly turned his head to the grey candle and tried to singe it with his fingers, which just passed through the wick.

  Johannes rose out of his chair, then walked across the ceiling to the poltergeist’s desk and snatched the book from the spirit. Pages spilled out over the desk, but the plagiarizing ghost managed to save them all before they could spill across the floor. Johannes crossed the ceiling again, catching pages as they slipped out of the book and stuffed them back in before they could hit the floor and ignite all the traps.

  “It seems, Scammander, we have not been successful,” he said, returning to his seat and leafing through the book.

  I leaned over the side of my chair and grabbed a crumpled page which had fallen out as Johannes was reading. I read this one to myself. “She was not there. All is lost. How many more will kill themselves in the name of love? Is Love not a terrible thing? To whom will fall the task of questioning Love? O terrible task!

  A Lonely Melancholic,

  K. P. G.”

  I looked up again. “Is this from the overdue book?”

  Johannes laughed at something in the book, then read it aloud, following the lines with his finger. “I was told that he was important because he had a great sum of money. I asked how much knowledge he had, and how much love he had, and the people around me laughed wryly and said I would understand better once I grew older. Growing older seems to mean growing more ignorant, and, as a young philosopher, I will stop this at once.

  Christen Madsen

  P. S. I hear much talk of tolerance, and this seems to mean, among adults, the increasing acceptance of evil. I will not go further, but will leave.”

  Scammander let loose a long sigh. “I would have liked to have met that last one.”

  “What failed?” I asked again.

  “There is no doom word in this book, only sadness,” Johannes responded. “And a very clever spell.”

  Johannes stretched across the rug and placed the book in Scammander’s hand. In a better world a page would have fallen out, setting off all of Johannes Dubitandum’s terrible traps and killed us all. Or at least me. “I have some other things for you as well. You are going to need all you can get to fulfill your part of our bargain.”

  Scammander was doing his best to conceal his utter bafflement as he examined the book, whose cover was made of burgundy leather, the color of a thick rustic wine. The title read Various Laments, Cries, Complaints, and Distressful Wailings, Composed During Culminating Moments of Prodigious Grief, Turmoil, and Dread, by E. B. Allsouls. “What does E. B. stand for?”

  “Every Body,” Johannes snickered. “Read the introduction, I’ve sketched out quite a life for our author.”

  Scammander looked at the other wizard while drumming his fingers on the cover. He seemed reluctant to open the book. “I’d need to know if this book is finished yet before I embark on any fulfillment of our bargain, and from the rate at which your ghost was copying, it looks like he is far from complete.”

  “That book will never be complete! That’s the genius of it! It copies all the letters of suicides into an endless archive!” Johannes began to laugh at the idea. “Anyway, that wasn’t the deal. I threw you in to the Gloomstone Vaults and summoned a ghost to copy as much of the book as possible while you were away in hopes of finding a doomy syllable. You agreed to help assassinate Eidos upon your return—a second time.

  “The other book has been done for a while now,” he said. One of the tomes on the large bookcase behind Johannes slipped out and floated softly through the blue shadows down into Scammander’s lap.

  “The Tales of Prince Galetto, Book XI.” Scammander said. “See! I knew I stole something from that gelid scriptorium,” he said looking over to me and grinning.

  Too bad it wasn’t something you could kill someone with, like magic, I thought.

  Scammander began flipping through the old book. “So did we get anything for completing this collection?”

  “They are still reviewing it.”

  “Johannes,” Scammander said slowly. “This is a forgery,” he said closing the elegant tome and looking up at the warlock. “I need to return the original.”

  The maniac began to snicker, then sat up in his seat and began clapping. “Can you imagine,” he began to laugh again between claps. “Can you imagine what that old frigorific magician would have done to you if you returned a forgery to his sacred library?” As scenes of torture began to dance through Johannes’s mind, he began giggling. He stifled a few and regained his composure whereupon he sat upright and very properly in his old leather chair. He looked quite serious for a moment then he howled with laughter again.

  I looked over at the silver poltergeist, who didn’t seem to hear a thing, and Ezekiel, who had been watching the argent copyist, slowly turned to look at his master.

  Whatever the Tales of Prince Galetto were about, that wasn’t the book we needed.

  Scammander held the book out for Johannes to take, but the other wizard waved his hand dismissively. “Sell it,” he said. “The only two magicians clever enough to detect that this is an apocryphal tome are you and I. I’ll have the original back to you in no time.”

  “This one is not a forgery, though I expect you to have a forged copy when next we meet,” Scammander said producing a thick book with a cobalt leather cover from his robe.

  Johannes grabbed it eagerly. “At last,” he hissed. “The Collected Tales of Alfred von Shudder.”

  “Now we can combine the knowledge in that text with An Algebra of a Sunset,” Scammander said. “If you give me the second text, I’ll start making the copy of it.”

  “I don’t have An Algebra of a Sunset,” Johannes said as he turned a page.

  “You don’t?” Scammander winced.

  “No, but I do have some other items for you.” The mad wizard reached into his coat and handed Scammander a small pouch and some scrolls, which Scammander snatched from the sorcerer’s hand.

  “Did you read them?”

  “Of course. But I don’t know why you are wasting your time with elementary magic,” he said, “unless they’re not for you,” he said looking at me. “Here is a draft of the new spell, see if you can make any improvements upon it,” he said handing Scammander a small book. “It will be our society’s 1,003rd written spell.”

  The brown leather cover had a horned skull in the center and under the skull was the full name of the sect, “Heroes without monuments, without hearths, and without heirs.”

  I thought about asking him about some of the other spells, but Johannes was already engrossed in his book once more. But that didn’t stop Scammander.

  “Johannes,” Scammander urged. “Is there any… information you would like to share?”

  The other wizard looked up from his new book. “Why should I help you find Eidos? I only have suspicions of where he might be.”

  “I can always take the book back,” Scammander chided.

  “Fine,” the warlock grimaced, holding the book closer to him and shrinking away from Scammander. So much for brotherhood. “I suspect he is in the cloudy city that old first philosophers wrote about and that no one can ever get to, though I’m not sure how he got there.”

  That explained the pegasus snatching.

  “By the lowest river,” Scammander hissed.

  Johannes paused and looked up at the ceiling. “Better try again, I think he’s still alive.” He unfolded the book and beg
an reading again. “Evander do you know any curses?”

  “Life.”

  Johannes chuckled and nodded his head as he continued reading.

  “You should probably devote some more time to settling on an epitaph, now that you have met Johannes,” Scammander said rummaging through the small bag the warlock had given him.

  “What’s yours going to say Evander?” the other wizard said with an all-too-knowing arched eyebrow.

  “A thousand curses on the head of Scammander.”

  “Why a thousand?”

  “It’s Scammander. He’ll avoid the first couple hundred.”

  The insult elicited another short chuckle from the dark wizard.

  Scammander pulled out a pair of bright purple leather gloves, which he immediately slipped on. As he stretched his hands in the leather, Johannes spoke. “I believe I have found a new library,” he said.

  Scammander’s head snapped up. “Where.”

  It wasn’t even a question of if we were going, it was when.

  “Onerica, Onerica,” he said it the first time emphatically and the second time more faintly and fatally.

  “Why do you say it twice?”

  “For what might have been,” Scammander said very softly, then looked at Johannes. Johannes gave a slight nod as he gazed back at him.

  “The city with two names. Few alive even know it exists,” Scammander said.

  “The first time is for what it is, the second time for what it could have been, so you repeat it in a finer tone,” Johannes said. “It is a city that fell asleep.”

  “You mean it was taken while everyone was sleeping? And everyone was slaughtered?”

  “No,” Johannes said slyly from the shadows—which seemed to stick to him. It was as though the darkness loved him, and never wanted to stop caressing him. “Everyone is quite alive, but they are all asleep. Of the few wizards that have dared to learn about Onerica, Onerica no one understands how or why anyone is still alive.”

  “Well most of them have no idea where the city is,” Scammander said. “It’s only known about through rare manuscripts buried deep in the library of the Academy. No one’s actually been there.”

  “I believe there is a lost library there, full of learning previously lost to civilization. We must hasten there once you bring me a piece of Eidos,” he said. “Can you imagine all the books? All the knowledge? It will be the most impressive addition to this library’s collections in ages; perhaps only exceeded in eminence by the initial founding of the library itself.” The warlock fell silent for a moment. “It will be enough to merit my picture on the wall.”

  “Why has no one ever been to Onerica, Onerica?” I asked.

  “Because it lies near your home and mine, Evander.” Johannes said. “In the lands not touched by the sun.”

  As we got up Scammander stepped forward and extended his hand.

  “I’m not shaking your hands with those gloves on you traitorous snake!” Johannes cackled. “Go on,” he said pointing to Scammander’s gloves. “Pinch them together in front of me, while I can see you. Thumb to index finger twice. Both hands.”

  Scammander complied, and then Johannes shook his hand and embraced his old wizarding fellow. “Sometimes I think I taught you too much Scammander, too many of my tricks,” he said holding the young elf out in front of him. “I mean really, trying to shrink me right after I’ve given those lethal leathers back to you?” he said grinning and shaking his head.

  “Now, my old apprentice, kidnap Eidos, grab him from the lofty aerial palace and return him to me, so that I may destroy him and use his pieces for a great spell I have devised. Do this for me Scammander, and I promise to share the finished version of this new learning with you, for it is the most potent yet!”

  As we left the room, I heard Johannes start talking to himself, and looked back into the study as the bookshelf full of doomy tomes was shutting behind me.

  “Sanity is a choice. Madness has its costs, as well as reason does, and like reason, it has benefits. Untold and immense benefits.” He paused and shrank back in his seat and his eyes swelled with fear as his head slowly followed some unseen spectacle across the floor. “Madness has its costs,” he whispered.

  Then the bookshelf shut.

  Scammander turned and took a step forward and nearly stepped on Stertinsius.

  “Oh, pardon me Lord Scammander,” the little faun said. Then he looked at me. “I’m afraid I have no need for this volume, although it is most prolix and quite compendious regarding its subject.”

  Two skeletons brought the tome forward and dropped it at my feet. “There is an old lamp that was stolen from here long ago. Should you decide to retrieve it for us, I think that would go a long way towards procuring membership to our esoteric crypt.”

  Scammander snorted dismissively. “That old fairytale? Surely there are more worthy endeavors than chasing after magic lamps.”

  “But it will show us the way,” one of the skeletons hissed.

  “To where?” I asked.

  “Wrong direction,” chuckled Scammander. “Not the way to, the way from.”

  “The way back from death, the way to life,” the other skeleton said finally.

  “Please do consider drinking the wine of our mysteries Evander, it would be wonderful to have a minotaur around.” He gave a polite grin, then turned and walked away, trailed by the two skeletons.

  I looked at Scammander. “Here’s a perfect use for your new gloves,” I said pointing at the hulking codex. He wiggled his fingers then tapped the index and thumb together on his right hand and seized the book. It dwindled to a small, compact square which Scammander tucked away in his robes, near his upper chest. He took a step forward, but the small book tumbled out of his robe and fell between his ankles.

  “I do that instinctively,” he said patting his chest before he knelt down and retrieved the text. He ran his other hand through his robes again, searching for a pocket around his upper chest. His rummaging hands ran all the way down and finally stopped near his groin. “Odd place for it,” Scammander chuckled.

  “Matches the number of things down there I suppose,” I said dryly.

  Illi qui satis fortunati sunt, ut ante triginta moriantur

  “One has to take a somewhat bold and dangerous line with this existence: especially as, whatever happens, we are bound to lose it.”

  Nietzsche

  “Three bowls do I mix for the temperate: one to health, which they empty first, the second to love and pleasure, the third to sleep. When this bowl is drunk up, wise guests go home. The fourth bowl is ours no longer, but belongs to violence; the fifth to uproar, the sixth to drunken revel, the seventh to black eyes, the eighth is the policeman's, the ninth belong to biliousness, and the tenth to madness and hurling the furniture.”

  Ebulus

  As we were walking out of the mausoleum and through the graveyard, Scammander suddenly stopped and turned to face me.

  “Scammander now!”

  I didn’t have to see him to recognize the voice, I knew it was Johannes Dubitandum.

  I knew this day would come. It was the day when Scammander would betray me. I realized he had only needed me to lift his ban, and now that he could easily return to this library he didn’t need me.

  At least I was finally about to die. His eyes were filled with multifarious shades of sinisterness as he lifted his staff up and pointed it with one hand in my face.

  “I have kept you alive long enough Evander,” he said in a sibilating whisper, the way a cloud drifts across a moonlit lake.

  I nodded.

  I figured it was only proper that my life would be ended by the last creature in the world that I trusted.

  With careful footsteps the warlock set ebony candles with grave markings on headstones, creating the shape most sacred to philosophers. With great care he placed a wreath of withered petals from a flower I had never seen before at the base of each taper. With great care he spoke old words that I had never heard b
efore and have never heard again. When he had finished the ritual, each candle was topped with a small, shimmering white star.

  Scammander pushed me over to Johannes, who was standing next to a tombstone with no writing on it. Johannes stared into my eyes as his breathing quickened, then unwrapped the old noose from his neck. I thought I saw a piece of a kithar string fall out of the greasy coils that dangled from his hand. Next he and Scammander thrust out their arms and placed their palms over my throbbing heart. Amidst the deep purple bruise that wrapped around Johannes’s neck, I saw the letters of a poemy philippic against the dawn.

  “Read it aloud, consecrate yourself to our shadowy sect, our school of night,” the two wizards said darkly.

  “Why, Sun, do you raise your head?

  Why, Sun, do you raise your head to sting my eyes?

  Why, Sun, do you raise your head, shining forth your lustful rays to get the earth with increase?

  Let him still be set in Somnus’ thickets:

  Bound about the brows, with pitchy vapors and with ebon boughs.

  Leave the world to Night and dreams, and let nothing be and all decease.”

  When I finished reading the philippic I took a deep breath.

  Next Johannes spoke as he circled around me.

  “Surely spirit, you are lost, for here is a graveyard, and here is a plot, and yet nowhere is there a tombstone for you!”

  “He has no plot, he has no way,” chanted Scammander.

  “Surely spirit, you are lost, for here is a graveyard, and here is a plot, and yet nowhere is there a tombstone for you!”

  “He has no plot, he has no way,” chanted Scammander.

  “Does he want to belong?”

  “We are not a society.”

  “Does he want friends?”

  “We are not a fellowship.”

  “Does he want brothers?”

  “We are not a brotherhood.”

  “Then he must be dead, and want to be buried and find peace.”

  “No, he must want riot and doom, and he must learn who we are, we who have no name and no history.”