Before I could curse him, the study was doused in darkness as huge luminous triangles raced out of the floor and flashed past my face. The glowing triangles came faster and faster and I felt like I was plummeting through a bottomless black hole. As the speeding triangles of light blended together I descended into the secret chambers of my mind, where love and dreams and memories lie together on rich carpets.
Per mare tristitiam fugiens per saxa per ignes
“It is best by far not to be born, and not to come up against these rocks of life, but, if you are born, it is next best to escape as it were from the fire of fortune as quickly as possible.”
Cicero
We were running through a forest away from the destroyed mansion, but at some point it became hard to breathe.
I sank down to one knee and closed my eyes. “Scammander I—can’t breathe.”
“What, did you fall in love or something?” he snickered, coming up next to me and resting his hand on my shoulder.
I opened my eyes and lurched forward amidst waves of nausea. I felt as though I was lying out on 70,000 fathoms of water, about to sink with dizziness.
Suddenly, Scammander whipped my shroud off with such force that he stumbled and fell down a few paces in front of me. The dizziness lessened enough for me to raise my head.
“I can’t breathe,” he gasped, sitting up slowly and looking at me with an expression rarely seen on his face—surprise.
I looked at my arms, which were white. I looked at my torso, which was white. I looked at my legs, which were white. I looked at Scammander, who was whiter than usual.
“Think I’m turning into an elf?” I said grimly.
“More like a ghost,” he said looking down at the shroud. He flung it over to me, then crawled forward and looked worriedly into my eyes. “How can you see at all?”
“What, are my pupils gone?” I remembered in ghost stories all the spirits had haunting white eyes and no pupils.
“No they are bloodshot.”
I looked down at the shroud and leaves and pine needles.
“Probably from all that wine you made me drink,” I said slipping the dark robe back over my head. “Or all the talking,” I complained.
“No time to talk now,” Scammander said standing back up. “They will be following us.” He pointed to the long trail of our glowing footprints, which seemed to shine brighter in the heavy shade of the silent pine forest.
I got back up and was immediately beset by dizziness again and short of breath, but decided not to tell Scammander.
“Do you remember visiting my personal library last night?”
“No,” I replied, only mildly concerned that he couldn’t remember what we had done only a few hours before. He was probably lying, I just wasn’t sure about why. Scammander lied a lot, I just hoped one would eventually get me killed. After I slaughtered more humans, of course.
“What! We were right there!” he exclaimed. “I’m almost certain I stashed that book in my personal library. We must go back.”
“I’m not sure there is much left to go back to,” I said turning around as we began walking back through the forest towards the old elfin hall. “Or that I like our chances against a gang armed with the most sacred weapons this world has ever forged.”
Suddenly he stopped. “Wait.”
Scammander was stone-still. “I think I moved it.”
I sighed as he brushed past me, going back in the direction we had originally started towards. What had turned out to be a really long night was going to turn into an even longer day.
I looked up into the pines as we began walking through the woods once more. The ancient forest had an enchanting silence to it, and sitting on its slick boughs were young thoughts with their eyes tucked below their unfolded wings. Woven in its green shade and grey mist was a somnolent orison which murmured of grassy paths and wood lawns interspersed with overarching elms and cold caverns and banks of violets where sweet dreams brood.
As I glided behind Scammander across the golden pine needles darkened with dew, I looked back over my shoulder and became cloud-like and reflective. Old questions of philosophy scudded across my mind the way soft, unfettered clouds rush over the beaches of this circumfluous world.
I almost felt—comfortable.
I frowned and shook my head. I grabbed my thoughts by the throat and focused on the murder and rampage and ravaging I would wreak upon this world until it was evanescent ash tossed about an uncontinented globe above the crashing waves until even the waves themselves were engulfed in time’s interminable flood. When more thoughts came rushing into my mind, I stopped them the only way I knew how.
“So what happened with you and Meredith?” I asked, coming up next to Scammander. “Didn’t get your bedsworth?”
Scammander seemed overcome. He didn’t stop walking, but he became so pallid that I thought he had passed on, leaving a ghost behind.
“Her name is writ with strokes of lightning across my heart,” he said like a solemn vesper breeze.
“What was it? Was it the way she said I love you?”
“It was the way she didn’t,” he whispered. “She never did,” he said, even quieter than before.
He sighed and his eyes glossed over, and I saw that Love’s barb was still in Scammander’s heart, even if the great wizard had managed to break off the shaft. Yes, Scammander was the eternal lesson, repeated once more, that one who conquers the world is the most vulnerable creature alive, for he in turn will be conquered by a young girl.
“If you could have said anything to her, what would it be?”
“Take my hand. Refuse an ordinary life.”
I stumbled a little I was so struck by the phrase.
“Oh well, what does it matter,” he said trying to rally himself. I could tell this wasn’t the first time he had had this conversation with himself. “One should avoid positive relationships with women,” he said softly. “Corinna, Beatrice, Laura, Lesbia, Regine, Metilde, Alessandra, Meredith—it’s like we’re not allowed to love,” he sighed. “Though we are best suited for it.”
I saw a looming mound in the shadowy ravine and slowed as I threw up my hand and glanced back over my shoulder. Scammander slinked behind an old tree stump and peered over it, watching me. I turned my head and cautiously approached. A couple paces before the mound was a large wooden cup with wet leaves stuck to it, and as I got closer my suspicions were confirmed: lying in front of me was an intoxicated centaur recovering from one of their legendary drinking revels.
This was probably the party we should have been at.
I straightened and slowly walked back to the cup and brushed the leaves off it. “What pipes and timbrels, what wild ecstasy, can you tell me of, sweeter than rhyme?” I said, slowly turning it over in my hand.
I ran up the bank and found Scammander staring at the trees. “What are you stopping for? You’ve never seen some drunk centaurs?” I said looking around. “The only thing I’m surprised of is that there’s no ravaged maiden—” Then I realized what I was looking at. I looked down at the wooden cup I was holding, and then at the clearing. This wasn’t a drinking party, it was a ritual suicide.
The centaurs were laying in a perfect circle, with the exception of the one found down at the bottom of the bank, and each hulking body was near a tree with sacred engravings on it, smeared with wine and ash. I walked over to Scammander who was standing at the center of the circle with his head down. I put my hand on his shoulder and looked down: in the middle of the circle was a large pool of wine, and in it, a silent sky full of stars, but some were brighter than others, and made the shape of a centaur.
Scammander kept looking down into the puddle’s image, and then back up into the sky. “Anything left in the cup? You might be able to slip down into the sunless meadow and talk with the Pale King.”
I looked into the cup again before tossing it away into the leaves. “Probably only enough to make my tongue go numb,” I said as I looked around earnestly for
a full cup. No such luck. I put my hands on my hips and sighed.
“At 10,000 years they commit suicide, but their calendar is different from the one used by the rest of the world.”
“Why?”
The wind swept through the pines before Scammander replied. “Because it is supposed to be wrong.”
I could see the intricate calculations and complex math racing through Scammander’s mind so fast that I became sick and dizzy again.
“Some drunks misinterpreted some star cycles and are now extinct. Sounds like just another day in this wretched universe,” I said steadying myself against a tree. “So what are we still standing around for?” I was more worried about naked Ned Bedlam avenging himself on me or getting captured and tortured by the band of heroes.
“Because according to their calendar, it’s the end of the world,” he whispered. “Those stars are going to start falling from the sky.”
I looked at the puddle again. No careening zodiacs were going to rob me from my task of massacring the entire human race. The stars were bright and pulsing, but none seemed to be moving closer. “They don’t look like they are zooming towards us,” I said very much relieved.
Scammander knelt down and squinted. “So it seems. There is only one city high enough in the sky to know for sure,” he said jumping up and running.
“I wonder how we are going to get there” I shouted. “One Pegasus is a trophy in a madman’s study and the other was obliterated!”
“You might already know. And if you don’t, the greatest wizard of all time will figure something out,” he called back over his shoulder.
I knew Scammander was good at running, especially fleeing from his enemies, but I never considered that he was great at running itself. Having enemies all over the world meant that he was constantly fleeing and was thus in excellent physical condition. Finally, he slowed and removed the shotgun from his robes before sitting down next to an ancient yew tree as the gentle breeze brushed his serene, flaxen locks about his face.
I was glad to sit down again, because I was still very dizzy and nearly out of breath. It was then I realized that the forest wind was saying his name. I looked over to Scammander, expecting to see him holding a scroll and playing a prank, but his eyes were closed, and as far as I could tell he was dead except he was whispering something.
It might be the doom word that would either kill him before he could finish saying it or everyone else in the entire world.
I watched.
If Scammander died, I would never make it to the human city. But if he could just finish this word all the humans would die anyways. It looked like he was growing short of breath.
If I woke him up, I would have saved the world, which was the last thing I wanted to do. His lips were starting to turn blue and his speech was fading.
An owl swooped down from the shaded pines, hooting and beating his wings in front of Scammander’s face before landing atop the wizard’s head. He began to hop around and hoot, pulling and tossing Scammander’s platinum blonde hair. Scammander’s body remained perfectly still as his arm stretched slowly out to his shotgun, propped up next to him. His fingers crept across the handle and curled around the trigger as the irascible owl continued to thrash about his hair. Scammander’s eyes shot open as he fired the gun across his head and gasped. The owl screeched as it flew behind the tree and soared up into dark branches.
“By the lowest river,” Scammander groaned and gasped. “We must be near the Academy.”
“Forsooth,” hooted the owl from the shade.
Scammander immediately fired into the forest after the direction of the voice and took another enormous breath.
“Forsooth, your aim is bad Scammander,” the owl hooted once more, “you will never truly hit your mark, which was why your dissertation was so poorly marked.”
“Forsooth,” Scamander hissed.
While Scammander was aiming up into the dark branches I scanned the forest around us for any sign of an ambush. This had to be the initial phase of an attack by the heroes.
As Forsooth hopped along the branches Scammander fired another volley into the trees. “Dingy bird,” he scoffed as he reloaded the gun. “I knew there was something I forgot to do when they expelled me.” Scammander aimed into the trees then lowered his rifle and called over to me. “Evander! Start shooting into the trees behind him and flush him over towards me.”
I took aim then looked over to the wizard. “Why are we trying to kill him again?”
Scammander’s shoulder jerked back as he blasted De Brevitate Vitae into the trees. “Because I’m pretty sure he informed on me,” he said furiously, firing once more.
“So you turned him into an owl?” I chuckled.
“No I tried to kill him,” he said as he cocked the shotgun angrily. “The spell went wrong. I wasn’t strong enough so I had to rely on others and gather everyone around a circle of sorcery. We gathered around his bed late one night before exams and cast the spell, but instead of killing him we turned him into an owl.”
I lowered my crossbows. “He’s a harmless owl,” I said. “What’s he going to do now?”
“Tell everyone where we are,” he glowered at me. “There’s only one thing he loves more than telling the truth: telling on other people who are lying.”
“Which would make him your worst enemy,” I said aiming into the trees and firing a few volleys of arrows into the shadows.
Scammander lifted his rifle once more aiming into the trees, then began cursing. “We’ve lost him!” he howled as he threw the gun into the dirt. He collected himself then looked over to me. “You know that spell that I cast on you, so you could see all the way into the city?”
I nodded. The one we thought we had destroyed. And now the one I wished to destroy.
“I stole that off his desk,” he snickered. “He used to use it to see if students were cheating, and he could read your answers and lips from afar.” He sighed and leaned down, picking up De Brevitate Vitae. He looked at me. “Forsoothe was an invigilator who happened to live on my staircase, and who took his duties outside the examination room. He was never going to be a great wizard or even a great academic wizard, but he would have been a great administrator. So I am quite happy to have ruined that for him.”
Suddenly Forsooth swept down from the trees and into Scammander’s hair. Scammander dropped the gun and he began swatting at the owl who leapt off his head and sailed up into some nearby branches.
I fired again, but knew I was never going to hit Foorsooth.
“I’ll be watching you,” the owl said as it flew off into the dark pines.
When I was sure that the owl was gone, or at least out of sight, I turned to my sleepless companion. “How long have you been awake?”
Scammander didn’t answer at first. “Thousands of years,” he said finally as a light breeze swept his bright blonde hair across his eyes.
“And what sort of things happen to you after you’ve been awake for that long?”
“You begin to chase your dreams,” he said ethereally.
We finally emerged from the forest, atop a gently sloping hill. Below us in a vale was a shimmering city the likes of which I had never seen before. I dropped down next to a tree and shut my eyes. “Why don’t you tell me about this metropolis.” I figured I would sleep while he bored me with some lore about a secret elven city.
“It is made of enchanted alabaster stone and was initially going to be placed in the sky, but after much hooting and cuckooing by the comics, it was decided that it would, in fact, have a place on this earth. Its founding philosopher wryly dubbed it Eutopos, the city of dreaming spires, and that is its name to the students and professors, but publicly it is known as the Academy. The alabaster was chosen to mock the beardy comics and faithfully represent the color of the clouds, which the early philosophers loved. In fact, engraved on the arch in flashing periwinkle stone is the most enchanting philosophic phrase which is also the schools motto: ‘Philosophy begins in
wonder.’ And what is more wonderful than the clouds, and what is more cloudlike than wonder? And the undergraduate on the lawn, lying on his back, next to his love and his books, isn’t that wonderful? Doesn’t he stare up to the clouds—in wonder? And the clouds are philosophic in yet another more mysterious way: for not only are they wonderful but they wander! Three cheers to you, peripatetic clouds! For it was you the philosopher imitated in his lyrical wandering, in his wonder-wandering; it was you that his perambulating panegyric was writ across glades and meadows, cities, and breezy colonnades with oozy fountains splashing their limpid song!”
“Alright Scammander,” I said, cracking an eye open. “I know that such lyrical thoughts would make the poets uneasy and become immortal if ever written down.”
“Philosophers have always been the greatest writers,” he said, leaning against a tree and gazing out at the sparkling towers of the Academy.
Just then a tremendous rainbow sprang out of the ground and arched through the sky to a luminous white cloud hovering directly over the sparkling ivory Academy and its dreaming spires. And once again I was racing up a tender rainbow following Scammander’s perilous sandals, taunting the terse threads of fate and daring the wind we ran so high.
Aufhebunghaven: White Mythology II
“It follows that every metaphor which implies the sun (as tenor or vehicle) does not bring clear and certain knowledge.”
Derrida
When we neared the top of the glowing multicolored ribbon I saw what looked like a thousand argent lances of varying heights growing out of a cloud. As Scammander stepped off the rainbow and sped across the cloud, I put a sandal on the cool, curling steam expecting to plummet back down through the sky. The rolling mist swelled and curled over my foot as it sank into the white, ethereal soil before gently bouncing back up. I stood in wonder on the buoyant archipelago of thought, gazing up at a giant stone wall resting on a pile of shifting vapor.
Splatterism: The Disquieting Recollections of a Minotaur Assailant: An Upbuilding Edifying Discourse Page 18