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

by Christian Winter

  “What’s that?” the human asked.

  “Magic,” the dwarf sneered as he snorted it up through his nose. He wiped his nose and sniffled a couple times before looking at the other guard. “Characters that you love dying,” he grumbled, “that’d be like me caring if you died out here.” He shook his head and stood up. “Look…what’s your name again?”

  “Harry,” he said. “Harry Spittlesworth.”

  Murther nodded his head and sighed, then began to speak. “You look pretty excited there my friend, and there should only be two things that a grown man gets that excited about: naked women and naked steel.” He screwed the knob back onto the handle of the short sword and pointed at the book. “They get you all hyped up on this garbage and all it gets you is glasses and a wimpy vocabulary. I don’t know any poetry, I don’t know any philosophy, but I can tell you a thing about thieves, having worked in a seedy tavern and on the night watch. And those books are written by thieves and hyped by other thieves, and they steal your time, and since you’re not Scammander, you can’t get it back. And sure you’ve read fifteen volumes of Noun of Nouns, each at a couple thousand pages…” he paused and clutched his chest as the power of speech flew away from him, but then rallied and began speaking again. “…At least the philosophers teach you how to ruin other people in debates, at least poets teach you how to sing to a maiden, but as for those books, I’d arrest them, I’d put them down; yes, I’d arrest them, I’d put them down,” he finished speaking then suddenly spat on the book and drove the short sword through its center. “I’ve worn black leather for a while now. I know what goes on at night. I’ve had to chase a thief, I’ve had to run down an alley at night, but the one thing I learned is that the best crooks don’t steal from you, they tell you why you should give them your money in the daylight, right to your face. There’s always a twist in their plots, and they always talk forever. Ask them! They are so bold they admit it! Ask them, and what do they always say? That they are working.” He crashed back in his seat and began wheezing from the effort.

  The human guard looked at him for a moment, then began to speak but was interrupted once more by the dwarf, who leapt out of his seat and began declaiming again, this time on a familiar subject. “Wait! Scammander has seen dawns that failed to rise, and tucked Time’s hours surreptitiously in his pocket, along with a few locks of the old lord’s beard! He’s sat on the edge of eternity and trailed his finger in Time’s shimmering stream while kicking his feet into Tomorrow and That Which Is Yet To Come! Why, he’s even tucked night in a day early! He’s been amongst strange courtesans at a revel held in the soft meadow of infinity and the land of the taciturn sun and delivered a panegyric on marriage so lyrical that it made the faery fields glow—and still they glow with his song! Oh yes, the May Queen still hopes that he will marry her daughter! During the winter, the moon stays out an hour longer to look at him, and if you are in an open field, you can hear her sigh! A cup of wine is sweeter with his touch, and dice obey him when thrown, and not their master Fate! His words strike hearts like fragrant lightning and are as sweet and pleasing as altar smoke and wildflowers! He grew tired of solving Life’s riddles, so one day he simply stopped and asked Life a few questions! A forest fell in love with him and with humid yearnings whispers his name every vesper! All the magic of the world flows into his fingertips, intoxicated, in sweet iridescent streams of glyphs and eldritch runes! Years prolong themselves, and each refuses to pass for fear of missing what he will do next; yes, whenever Scammander is near, Time goes by slowly! For Time loves to gaze upon Scammander! And who’s to stop Time for taking a little bit longer? A little bit of Time to—himself? The sky has been emblazoned with saucy poems written with comets by goddesses strange to this realm asking for his love, and instruments refuse to play because they are jealous of the sound of his lambent voice! He is undefeated at the dueling crypts of Plentitudinous Sorrow, where he pulled the spirit from the body of a wizard, and cheated Death out of his rightful share! Oh, if you listen closely to the most furtive palpitations of the world’s heart it says, ‘I love Scammander!’ Scammander has the weight of a thousand atmospheres! Stoop! What else can one do?”

  I noticed that the dwarf’s eyes had turned a supernatural blue at the beginning of his eulogy and I looked over at Scammander who finished speaking, just as the dwarf did.

  The wizard stepped forward and spread his arms wide. “Stoop! Stoop! Why aren’t you stooping for your hero Scammander!?”

  Both looked surprised that he was real, but were unsure of which was more unbelievable: that Scammander was standing in front of them, or that the dwarf was capable of such a beautiful speech. Upon seeing Scammander the human screamed in terror and crawled under the desk. The dwarf succumbed to the awe of seeing Scammander in the flesh, clutched his chest, and then collapsed to the ground and perished.

  Breaking into a jail housing the world’s most dangerous criminals was easier than entering a library, which I suppose is how it should be. The truly dangerous villains are locked away in libraries, crammed together in blocks, bound between two hard walls, and no one can ever take more than a few out at the same time. Otherwise you might start to think differently. Then you might act differently. You might start to be like—Scammander.

  Scammander walked over to the desk the human was cowering under. He ran his hand through his hair and puffed out his cheeks, staring at a series of buttons. “Which one did they press last time?” he mused to himself, then shrugged and hit all three.

  The giant canon began to slowly move, turning so that its gaping black barrel was aiming at me.

  “A thousand curses on the head of Scammander,” I whispered as I sucked in my breath and clenched my teeth. A light blue gel zipped out of the canon and splattered across my chest. I let loose a long sigh of disappointment. And relief. I still had a lot of the world to destroy.

  The gate to the jail opened behind Scammander, who turned away and laughed. “They must have loaded it wrong. Come on Evander,” he said over his shoulder.

  Just as he finished speaking and disappeared into the bottom of the obsidian volcano, a blue halo formed around the cannon. I didn’t wait for the blast this time.

  “Greatest wizard of all time,” I screamed as a deep blast went off behind me.

  My fingers flashed up in front of my face as I drove my feet into the ground and raced across the soilless onyx field.

  I could feel the missile closing behind me.

  I leapt and tucked my knees into my chest forming into a tight ball as the giant orb of blue magma splashed into the black glass, blasting me forward amidst a shower of thin obsidian shards. I soared through the air like a nervous comet. As I sailed back to the ground I dropped my legs and unleashed a feral scream as my frenetic heart slammed to the athletic rhythms of survival.

  I heard another deep blast and began counting the seconds to impact. My fingers whizzed past my eyes as I sliced the air with the blades of my hands and churned my legs. Coffin’s grim robe pressed into me and streamed behind me like a torn banner in a cavalry charge. Once more I leapt mid-stride as the incandescent blue meteor crashed behind me, throwing me across the cropless field.

  I curled around and sprinted towards the huge black cannon, dragged the trembling Harry Spittlesworth from under the desk, and then flung myself upon the cannon. It turned, pointing straight to the sky and fired. I watched as the missile of blue light raced towards the sky and disappeared from sight.

  Harry whimpered and thrashed and slapped at me but I would not let him go. I looked at him for a second before looking back up into the sky. The humid sapphire stone hissed down through the azure vault, glowing bluer and brighter as it fell.

  I looked at the conclusionist. “Don’t you want to see how it ends?” I said turning my gaze up towards the plummeting missile.

  The philosopher says that at all points of higher pain we lose consciousness. I can confirm this as true.

  A thousand colors swirled before my eyes as
I rolled through death’s sprawling abyss. I surfed across the radiant plane—free—and light—and lifeless—before suddenly coming near the dark edge of infinity. I sailed out across the ebony edge onto a pale plane which began to curve and turned into a giant face.

  I blinked.

  I was only looking into Scammander’s eyes. The bright and turbulent colors shrank to thin vivid beams that pierced the dark as he pulled his head away.

  “Only your eyes,” I whimpered.

  “Have a favorite color yet?” he chided me as he helped me to my feet. “We’re inside Villainstay, at the top of the volcano. I’d tell you to jump to your death because I know you’re already thinking about it, but I’m not sure what other charms and enchantments my old tutor has cast on you.”

  We were ensconced in a thick darkness: it was primordially black, dark as the first midnight when there were no burning stars in the universe. I looked over the ledge and could see the fabled cool cobalt mist stirring along the bottom. It cast a weird, soft blue glow on the obsidian walls, partly illuminating the upper half of the jail where all the prisoners were sitting on ledges.

  “Is there any talisman or magic spell that strips all the magic wards off of someone?”

  Any other common liar would have been caught off guard, but Scammander simply tilted his head slightly more than usual.

  “Maybe I’ll ask Johannes.”

  “You should have asked Bertram,” he grinned.

  I cursed, and thought of my curses outside of the prison. “You’re still alive,” I grumbled.

  “Guess you’ll have to wish for two thousand next time,” he flashed his usual smirk.

  “What was that back there about wizard duels?”

  “They were duels to the death,” he said. “We dueled in a place known as the Amphitheater of Plentitudinous Sorrow, hoods up in the ring and hoods up in the seats, so no one really knew who fought and no one really knew who died.” He swallowed. “That way, if we were ever caught, no one would be able to reveal the identity of those participating; the use of magic in such a destructive manner is something forbidden by Academic mages.” He paused again. “But you learn who is who by the way they fight.” He cleared his throat. “Almost all of them were from the Academy, wizards who graduated first in their class and were decorated with honors. Now their graves get decorated with some flowers from time to time by weeping relatives.”

  “And what about that wizard they were talking about? The one you humiliated?”

  “I called him ‘Hunctor,’ which means the delayer. He would just teleport around the arena while the other sorcerer threw his spells until he became fatigued, then Hunctor would strike.” He paused in blissful reflection. “Of course after I pulled his essence from his body, we all just called him Fade.” He snickered. “Though it was also quite apt, because when you teleport around like that you fade from place to place.”

  I looked up out of the giant oval rim of the volcano, but couldn’t see the sky. “How come there’s no light coming in, even though we are at the top near this huge opening?” I said, still peering up.

  “Light…” he said, slowly tilting his head back, “enters and leaves…very slowly,” he concluded with silent marvel.

  I lowered my head and looked out to the other side of the volcano. There were five ledges carved out from the side, each stuffed with prisoners. Some were scuffling and wrestling with each other, some talking, some sitting, and most moaning. Some had weapons, and some did not. Some had armor, and some did not. There were no cages or iron bars, so at any time one prisoner could throw another off and down to the ledge below or off the ledges entirely. Some opted to simply jump off whatever ledge they were on; while this happened mostly to the starved and stressed inhabitants of the middle and bottom piers, we witnessed a few jumpers on the first and second ledges.

  Throat-ripping screams erupted as the first tier suddenly tipped and slanted downwards, throwing prisoners to the ledge below and sending some prisoners on the second ledge spilling off into the blue steam. Some grabbed onto the first ledge as it began to move back upwards, but were pulled off by others hanging onto their legs, while some managed to kick or slash or bash their fellow prisoners off and rise back to the tier they were previously on. Next the second ledge dipped, and the screaming and fighting began anew; then the third ledge tipped and then the fourth and finally the fifth, sending the bulk of its inhabitants cascading down into the eerie blue mist. It was a slow, methodical torture.

  Scammander looked at me. “Genius, isn’t it?”

  I knew of a better one. “The greatest jail of all would be a land where the inhabitants are told that they were born free, that they were even fortunate enough to be born in the land of the free, and to continually tell them that they are free,” I retorted.

  “I’ll have to remember that,” he snickered. “Some say that the prisoners at the top are the most happy since they are furthest away from the noxious blue vapors. Others say that the bottom is the happiest place to be, since there one is closest to death.”

  “And which gradation of happiness did you cling to?”

  “I’m not really sure,” he said. “I don’t remember exactly, I think I just made my way down to the bottom and jumped off. Might not have though.”

  It became noticeably quiet and I felt thousands of eyes staring at me that belonged to villains who had done hundreds of thousands of terrible things.

  “Scammander! He’s back!”

  “Impossible.”

  “He really is the greatest wizard of all time!”

  “I can’t believe my eyes!”

  “You won’t if you know what’s good for you when Scammander is near.”

  “Don’t look at his eyes! Don’t look into his eyes!”

  Scammander chuckled softly in the darkness. “And what did I say I would do once I returned?” he shouted to the prisoners.

  “Free us!” they all cheered. A universal hubbub wild of stunning sounds and voices all confused followed.

  “He’s come to free us!” they cheered and cheered and rattled their weapons and beat their shields. They were shouting and jumping so much I expected the stone tiers to crumble from beneath their feet. I waited for Scammander to press the button that would send them all plummeting to their deaths in the strange mist below. Instead he touched the luminescent lavender button and a slender black bridge slid out from the wall, connecting the piece we were standing on to the first tier. Tiny obsidian steps emerged from tier to tier as the prisoners roared and rushed up them.

  The grizzliest mass of criminals, knaves, vagabonds, blackguards, pariahs, murderers, assassins, exiles, brawlers, and thieves rushed past us in a stream of sweat and darkness with one lusty imperative: riot, revolution, and murder.

  One stopped in front of us and seeing that he had stopped a few others gathered around us.

  “Did you bring the weapons?”

  “I’m afraid it was difficult enough to just get out and come back,” Scammander said. “You’ll have to find some on your own, Belisarius.”

  The giant man grinned. “The living always seem to give me everything they own, right after I kill them.” Some of the other prisoners chuckled at the thought of all the murder and misery they were about to unleash.

  Scammander put his hand on the man’s hulking shoulder. “And Belisarius, are you…”

  “Yes, Scammander, I’m the last one from our ledge.” Scammander closed his eyes briefly and nodded.

  “Only the cruelest,” the convict said.

  “Only the cruelest,” Scammander repeated in a finer tone. He looked at Belisarius for a moment, like he was unsure if he should ask him a question or push him off the ledge. “Did you ever see Hooder pass through here?”

  Belisarius chuckled. “I think you’re the only one alive who’s ever seen him.”

  Another grizzly criminal leaned around Belisarius. “No one’s ever found Hooder, only corpses.”

  Scammander nodded once more.
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  “And whatever spell you cast all that time ago must have worked. None of us ever got hungry—”

  “Or seem to have aged,” I observed.

  “That’s the result of being locked up in here,” Belisarius said. “It slows everything down. That’s why they throw us in here—stretches out the agony.”

  I looked over at Scammander. “You know a spell to cure mass hunger?”

  “Of course he does,” Belisarius said. “He’s the greatest wizard of all time.”

  “He must be to have escaped here and come back to liberate us,” said the other villain. “But how are we supposed to get away from this endless plane of pitchy glass?”

  “You have only to do what the rest of the world does,” Scammander said with peremptory coolness. “Follow in my footsteps.”

  I laughed as the others grinned and chuckled.

  “I’ve painted them in glowing light against the black crystal, so even the worst navigator can scud across that shoreless unstirring waste as long as he looks down and is not fooled into looking up.”

  “Scammander,” he said, grabbing the elf wizard and then stepping back with tears in his eyes. “I never doubted you.”

  “You should have,” was all Scammander said in reply.

  Without further hesitation, they swept past us along with all the other murderers and villains, leaving just me and Scammander in ominous darkness. I followed the wizard across the narrow bridge and all the way down to the last tier of cold black rock.

  Scammander peered over the edge, then shrank back and let loose a long exhale.

  “Just don’t inhale the steam,” he said. “It’s some sort of hallucinonarcotic—supposedly the dreams and memories of the dead god.”

  “Why wouldn’t I want a whiff of immortality?” I said as I stepped backward off the final tier. I watched Scammander shrink before he decided to leap; as the thick cobalt smoke enveloped me, I took a huge breath.