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

by Christian Winter

  “Only once before has a dragon flown here, and that was when this city was considerably closer to the ground,” the metaphysician noted before elaborating. “Long before I became aware of such matters a very enterprising and unusually tall elven scholar flew to our floating, fleecy shores on the back of one of the oldest wyrms rumored to be alive.

  “The philosophers were amazed that a dragon had learned how to speak, and that this young elf was able to reconstruct its grammar. A symposium began at once with a sprightly conversation ranging across many important academic subjects.” The archivist sighed and sat down his pile of books. “All recounted how deep and hypnotic the wyrm’s voice was. They said it had the enviable gravity of eternity, that it rolled with a temporal fluidity and that the stars were its river pebbles.” Scammander opened his mouth to speak, but the librarian cut him off. “Yes, disinterested scientists spoke in poetry and hallowed tones about this creature’s speech—and knowledge too.” He took a large breath, like he was uncertain if he should continue his tale or not. “Well, as it turned out, the dragon had hypnotized the entire banquet and the elf was busy stealing books to start his own personal library. And the book titles engraved on the wall of this very observatory serve as a reminder of the priceless volumes that were taken that evening.”

  I realized why Scammander really wanted the philosopher to stop talking, and made a point to glare at the wizard. “So what happened to the dragon?”

  “We shrunk his wings and exiled him to a meadow where he could never leave.”

  “And the elf?”

  “I’m not certain as to his whereabouts these days,” he said tapping his lip with a long finger.

  I had a pretty good idea of where the elf was.

  “But I believe he was caught in the spell’s aura and partially shrank as a result,” he said. “There are many things written down in this city; you will notice that this is only retold as an oral legend. I’m not sure how much of it is true, but something grave enough happened for them to engrave those nine lost books into a wall.”

  “Well since we are all enraptured by this elevating discourse, it seems proper to next inquire about the subject of flight and migration,” Scammander said. “I was hoping you might have a copy of Proculus’s On the Migration of Pegasii Towards Certain Constellations At Dusk and Dawn.”

  “If you are interested in migration, you will also want to consult Linius’s extensive notes, contained in four volumes. Once you complete that reading, you will need to explore the Twelve Theses on the Impossibility of Direction, by Axanamander, and once those have been fully explored you will no doubt be faced with the current issue centering around Laurentius’s use of the words ‘flight’ and ‘navigation,’ and Paracelsus’s use of the word ‘travel,’ ‘scudding,’ and ‘flight’; for, if we compare Paracelsus’s use of the word ‘flight’ with Laurentius’s use, they do not seem to be consistent with what the pegasii do, which is soar. That a pegasus soars and does not fly was established earlier by another learned scholar, Empiricus. Unfortunately, neither Paracelsus nor Laurentius adequately addresses this observation in their work.”

  I rubbed my eyes and blinked as the scholar continued.

  “Interestingly, it might be noted that an even earlier ancient philosopher had suggested, perhaps after reading too much poetry, that the pegasus is actually a thought and that every time a philosopher loses his thought, or any time thought escapes him, it becomes a pegasus.”

  Philosophers always had a lot to talk about, but never really answered anything anyone ever asked them. “So you will check on our books?”

  He nodded. The librarian lingered for a moment, and slowly looked around the room before taking a step closer towards us.

  “A very long time ago I knew of a rumor regarding an esoteric, buried library where all sorts of unsavory rooks used to gather: fugitive murderers, dark elvish sorcerers learned in black magic, dastardly apothecaries who knew more about belladonna, darkmoss, hellebore, henbane, hemlock, darnels, agarics, and fungus sweat than healing balms, refreshing unguents, and the shape of amaranth leaves; rogues who knew streets better past midnight and who would softly step past the same stone on a moonless night that would trip them during the day. In short, exactly the type of villains who would stab most people and steal their purse, but who seem to have such a disproportionate reverence for you that they call you—friend.”

  “Or even lord,” Scammander said flatly.

  “Yes, so this is familiar to you?”

  “All familiars are familiar to me,” he replied.

  “I was intrigued by a book kept in this crypt, known only as ‘The Unhappy Consciousness.’ I was hoping there might be a way for you to migrate that particular volume from that sunken realm to our more enlightened and refined climes.”

  “Expanding into themes fit for poetry? Isn’t poetry forbidden to be studied up here?” Scammander said a little bit louder than he should have.

  The philosopher winced and crept closer. “It is for my…personal collection,” the philosopher whispered. “It is still not safe to discuss such matters…even with the changes you helped bring into the real.”

  Scammander shrugged then glanced down at the books and frowned. “No Algebra of a Sunset?”

  It was a long shot, but since Scammander obviously had no idea where it was, or his personal library for that matter, it made sense to ask.

  “It seems An Algebra of a Sunset has gone missing or someone else is still studying with it. I know it was used by our newest Dialecticles, but there is no reason for me to bother him at the moment. You might check with him to see if he still has it, and congratulate him on his most recent sublation.”

  Scammander stared at the philosopher for a moment. “Where is Immanuel?”

  “When you were here last you really weren’t joking about your memory deteriorating,” he said. “Immanuel is in the Chapter of Absolute Knowledge, which you will find in the very center of our city.”

  Scammander nodded. “Of course.”

  The other scholar shook his head. “My Scammander, instead of books on the pegasus and flight, you might wish to begin research on nostalgia and recollection,” he said. “While you still can.”

  Scammander huffed. “Do you have a notepad and pen with which I can record my findings?”

  The metaphysician nodded. “You were given them a very long time ago, when you first came to our city. However, I can certainly get another set for you,” the erudite scholar said with a cunning smirk.

  “While I was unable to find An Algebra of a Sunset, I did bring back an old volume you left here some time ago.” Scammander looked down at the table, following the librarian’s eyes. I followed their gaze to a book titled The World as Will and Representation.

  “I’d rather read some lurid bath poems than waste any more time studying abstruse philosophy,” Scammander said pushing the text back over to the metaphysician.

  The librarian hesitated, casually looked around, then lunged at Scammander. “Scammander you jackdaw!” he hissed. “I’ve conspired with many of your raffish ilk over the centuries, but none of them have continually threated to get me banished from this city the way you manage to.” The impassioned librarian had clearly been spending some time reading novels. He swelled up and pressed himself closer into the elf’s face. “Take the book. Take it very far away from here, just like you promised. All has been done.”

  Scammander narrowed his eyes. “You forget yourself and you forget who you are talking to. And while I’ve forgotten many things, I haven’t forgotten the old magic and its devastating power.” Scammander scooped the book off the table and pointed it at the philosopher. “It is clear that all has not been done, otherwise you would be openly reading novels and poetry up here just as we three had planned. Instead you are still shelving books.” He stopped for moment to let the last line bury itself in the philosopher, who had drawn back away from the wizard. “I thought you wanted to be the new Dialecticles.”


  “When I…when I…,” his eyes fell to the book Scammander was holding. “Well, I was so overcome with grief and distress that I couldn’t…I couldn’t think as clearly as I used to.” He shivered and crept back even further. “There was so much screaming…so much blood.”

  “There always is,” I said realizing the quiet librarian had murdered someone for the first time.

  “I never knew anyone could scream that loud,” he said looking up at me. “I still hear it. When I’m shelving books, I can still hear the screaming.”

  “And now you know why it is good to forget,” Scammander said with malicious lips. Even I thought that was cruel thing to say to the neophyte assassin suffering under sorrow’s load.

  “Well, you can rest in the comfort of knowing that you are not the only one losing things,” the sage said, resuming his calm demeanor. “I did some additional research, and it has revealed some other inconsistencies in our database. So, if you can manage from here, I will need to further investigate.”

  As the librarian turned to go, I grabbed his shoulder. “What is your name?”

  “Well, I don’t suppose anyone has ever asked me that before a sublation,” the librarian said. “Abelard, Minister of Archivical Sciences.”

  I nodded.

  “One last thing Scammander. Eidos is looking for you. I advised him that you would meet him in Immanuel’s new chambers.” And yet, he lingered. “If you could bring some books that…might help me the next time you visit…well, I would be very grateful.”

  Scammander simply glowered at the withering philosopher, who seemed to shrink even more before turning and calmly walking away.

  “What does a sublation have to do with a name?”

  “Self-awareness. They think you can’t really know yourself until you are sublated.”

  We emerged from the great observatory and I trotted down the cool marble steps, but Scammander paused at the top.

  “When was I here last,” he said faintly. “I thought it was such a very long time ago.” He took a deep breath. “I thought…” he stopped short and shook his head. “I thought it was only my memory of magic that I was losing.”

  And then it was my turn to sigh. “Should we go back inside and steal some books on memory and recollection?”

  He turned around and gazed up at the observatory. “I would like to steal some books on the imagination,” he said. “On its comings and goings, its cultivation, and the notable absence of it amongst almost every living creature I have ever come across.” He pulled out the old dragon stomach and began sifting through it. “I’d also really just like to blow this building up.” He produced a fistfull of scrolls, unrolled one and read it aloud in some strange language. When nothing happened, he tossed it to the ground. He unrolled another, read it, and tossed it over his shoulder. “One of these should destroy something somewhere.”

  “What’s in the book?” I asked tired of watching the futility.

  “The same thing that’s in any book, dangerous ideas.”

  “What is really in the book?”

  “Well, if what Abelard said has come to pass, a murder weapon.”

  That got my hopes up. “Are we here to stage a coup and destroy this floating utopia?”

  He shook his head. “Far less grand. I’m simply supposed to bury it. In Immanuel’s chest.”

  “That didn’t sound like what Abelard had in mind,” I said, recalling the philosopher’s angry demands to take the book very far away.

  “Yes, he wants it smuggled away because he used it to kill the previous philosopher-king. But I want An Algebra of a Sunset, and I will probably have to kill Immanuel to get it.” He pulled a scroll from the bag, unfurled it, cursed that he couldn’t read it, and dropped it to the ground.

  I looked around the bright kingdom of science and wisdom. “I wonder where a peaceful, philosophical society started to learn about killing, treachery, and the will-to-power?”

  I looked over at Scammander, who was standing in a pile of ancient spells, browned and brittle with age. “I gave them an idea on accident, and a weapon on purpose.”

  “Coming from you, I’m not sure which is more dangerous.”

  “One of the first books I ever stole was called Either/Or. I left it up here on accident, and that archivist, Abelard, read it and lent it to a friend, Immanuel. When I returned, both of them were always a little more eager to know about the…darker lines of philosophical inquisition.”

  I had thousands of questions, and I wasn’t sure if it was due to being in the metaphysician’s metropolis, or from having visited so many libraries. It was probably from being too close to Scammander for so long.

  I decided to start with a simple one.

  “How do you know which way to go to get to the Chapter of Absolute Knowledge?”

  “When in doubt, turn right.”

  “Why right?”

  “Because philosophy always is.” He scratched his head for a moment. “A question of method,” he mumbled. “How to proceed…”

  “Why don’t we just follow the signs?”

  Scammander looked up at the post and shrugged. “The sign no longer points to the signified.”

  I looked at all the perplexed metaphysicians, leaning out of windows and speculating, or floating by, lost in thought. Scammander had a point. Following the signs only seemed to lead them all to confusion.

  “Come on,” I said, interrupting my own thoughts. “Let’s just start walking.”

  Scammander’s arm snapped in front of my chest. “We will proceed chiefly by detours.”

  We came to the first sign, which read A priori avenue. We went right, and came to the end of A priori avenue; I looked up at another sign, which read Simplex sigilum veri.

  “So now what?”

  “Ruse and stratagem,” he said. “The internalized exteriority.”

  We began wondering across every section of the city. There were at least six that we stumbled through, all with numerous subsections. When I thought we were totally lost, Scammander bumped into a wall at the farthest edge of the speculative city.

  “Ah ha! Here we are!”

  “Where are we?” I said looking around.

  “There! The margins!” he exclaimed.

  When I looked around, all I could see were two giant towers, separated by a thin space, like two massive columns. We walked around each tower, but there was no door. This certainly didn’t look like the Chapter of Absolute Knowledge.

  While I was still wondering about how exactly we were going to get inside, Scammander leaned into the gap and said, “Il n’y a pas de hors-texte.”

  A magical glass staircase appeared between the two towers.

  We began to proceed otherwise.

  I followed after Scammander as we raced up the edge between the two towers. After a while, the staircase came less to an end, than to another opening of space.

  “Alright Evander, let us begin again.” This time he spoke a shorter phrase into the gap: “La differance.”

  Once more, a delicate glass staircase unveiled itself. Though we were running up, I couldn’t actually tell where we were anymore, or if we had actually gone anywhere. It felt like we had simply been trying to begin, and while moving, it felt like we were actually running horizontally instead of vertically. We were racing along the stairs for so long I had no idea where we actually were, and then suddenly we were inside the tower. A lone arched window let in sunlight in an otherwise non-descript marble chamber. We strolled across the room and into a narrow spiral staircase.

  We ascended the stairs until we came upon a small pack of sages gathered by the locked door. I followed as Scammander gently weaved his way through the gathering. A few were talking by the door, but fell silent when we approached. Scammander leaned in to the door and whispered “thesis,” into the keyhole. There was a small click as it slowly opened. The soft murmur resumed as we all strolled through the door and into the small cloister.

  Without taking even a moment’s respi
te, Scammander rushed to the edge of the room, threw open the door and dashed up another long, winding, shadowy staircase.

  At the top of the staircase Scammander leaned into the door, but I grabbed his shoulder before he could speak. “Do you really have to lean in every time and say it directly into the keyhole?”

  “Of course,” said one of the cloudy erudites. “They are key words.”

  Scammander turned back to the keyhole and said “antithesis,” softly into the golden lock.

  The door drifted open into another vestibule. We rushed into the staircase revealing the largest pack of sages yet crammed in the hall. Many were trying to jostle their way towards the window, and those at the window seemed quite reluctant to yield the viewing spot.

  “This is where most of them get stuck,” he said.

  A cloudy clark touched me on the shoulder. As I turned around I noticed he had his book opened to a blank page. “Excuse me, yes, I was wondering how you might open the door.” There was some more bustling as other sages flipped to a blank page. All of them stared eagerly at me, pens ready.

  “Kick it,” I said.

  The man looked at me for a moment, turning it over and over in his mind before he nodded and jotted it down in his notebook. Other scholars flipped to a clean page and took note of my suggestion. Some bent over so their companion could write on their backs while other scholars pressed their notebooks up to the wall and began writing.

  I saw another shake his head. “The thought! Can you actually believe he would use his body like that?”

  “Well, I’ll have to think about it,” replied the other.

  “The real problem would be accumulating enough scholarly citations to support his thesis before attempting to perform it in actuality,” a third metaphysician said.

  Once more, Scammander leaned in close to the door and said “synthesis.”

  Suddenly all of the scholars seemed greatly relieved. It seemed as though each was suddenly present to himself. I heard a chorus of “of course!” followed by the furious scribbling of pens and sighs as epiphanies liberated the minds of the speculative philosophers from their fetters and lifted them up to a higher state of being.