Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy and Other Stories
Page 53
Bessarias looked up at the preternaturally calm face of the god suspended gracefully from the tree, his arms upraised as if he were an entertainer acknowledging the crowd. He glanced at his fallen friend, then back again at the carved simulacrum of a man dying.
“He lived for you. What in your sanctified, sanctimonious name did you ever do for him? If you are the savior of Mankind, why did you not save him?”
His magic, so long repressed, rose within him, lifted by the tide of his seething anger. He wanted to hurl all the fires of Hell at that simpering bastard who stared down at Waleran's body with such outrageous indifference. He wanted to turn this temple to a useless, ineffectual god into a lake of glowing crystal glass. He wanted to summon an army of evil spirits to him and bathe in the green stinking blood of goblins. He could do any of those things. He could do all of them.
But Bessarias did nothing, even as his power swelled and flickered in the air around him.
If there was such a thing as a soul, if the incorruptible not only had a beginning, but could begin with something so insignificant as a single human life, then somewhere, somehow, Waleran would know of it and the knowledge would grieve him. Bessarias was still within the walls of Saint Dioscurus and his vow still bound him. So instead, the sorcerer slowly lowered himself to one knee and did something he had never done before. He did not lower his head. He stared directly into the painted face of the pathetic wooden god as he addressed it in a voice full of scorn and fury.
“I don’t know you. I don’t believe in you. I have no use for you, you sad wooden fraud. But my friend served you with all the loyalty you could ask of any Man. So, if you exist, if you have any power at all, I ask this one thing of you, one thing only, and then we are done. Let it be as he believed. Give him that promised life beyond the grave. Welcome him into your Heaven. Walk with him in your golden streets and give him the answers he could not find here.”
The dead god didn’t answer. It stared impassively at him until at last Bessarias could no longer hold its blank, lifeless gaze. He turned his face to the side, raised a hand to his eyes, and wept.
• • •
There were few more honest pleasures in life than seeing the awe in a young scholar’s face upon his first visit to the Libellian Archives, thought Aurelius as he turned around to witness the reaction of his young companion. Maintained by the order known colloquially as the Black-Finger Monks, it was the central archives of Holy Mother Church, charged by the Sanctified Father himself to be the primary repository of all Man’s knowledge.
The great room that inspired such awe was the Cella Mundus, which stood at the heart of the large building and was very nearly the size of the nave in one of the great cathedrals. A massive fresco was painted on the ceiling, a vast blue sky populated with hundreds, perhaps thousands of angels. It depicted the ascent of the Immaculate Triumphant from Earth to Heaven.
But the columns that rose up from the green-veined white marble floor were not decorated with frescoes or colorful tilework, as one normally found in a cathedral. They were giant bookshelves, each encircled by a spiral staircase that allowed the seeker to climb towards Heaven in the pursuit of knowledge. It was a crude and obvious metaphor, perhaps, but judging by the stunned, wide-eyed reaction of Marcus Valerius to the sight of more codices than existed anywhere else in all human Selenoth, it would almost surely be lost on the young man.
At only sixteen, the Valerian was too young to take vows, but given the lad’s love for learning, Aurelius would not be surprised in the slightest if he was drawn to the Ordo Sancti Libelli. It would not be permitted to him, of course. As a scion of a House Martial, the boy would be made an archbishop as soon as he declared his vocation. But until then, his father and uncle were content to let him indulge in his theological studies to his heart’s content.
“Is it true the Sacra Chryseae is here, Father? Can we see it?”
The monk chuckled. Everyone who visited the archives wanted to see the famous Script, which was bound in solid gold and inscribed in letters of pure silver, commissioned by the Senate at the end of the Unholy War in order to give thanks for the defeat of the Black Sanctiff, Gnaeus Avidius Libanius.
He pointed to a mass of nearly one hundred men, half of them wearing cowls in the black, brown, blue, or in one case, purple, that signified their orders, all gathered round an elaborately carved stand on an elevated platform. There were several bishops, and even one archbishop, who were waiting, with varying degrees of patience, for their turn to view the sacred object.
“It’s right there. But I suggest we save that for another time. I can show you something I find even more remarkable, even more beautiful, and we won’t have to miss our dinner to see it.”
The young Valerian tore his eyes away from the crowd of ecclesiasticals with some reluctance, but he grinned as he nodded his acquiescence. He chattered happily away as Aurelius took him by the hand and led him toward the northeast corner of the room. They walked past various Scripts on stands, most of which were large, leather-bound volumes that had one or two priests poring over them, marveling at the careful artistry that had gone into glorifying the eternal word of the Almighty God Himself. Aurelius stopped before a vacant stand, upon which lay open a short, but exceedingly fat codex. It was open to Liber I Paralipomenon.
“Behold the Sacra Incognita.” Aurelius gestured grandly towards the little Script. “It appeared mysteriously in the Ninth Century, although some claim it is older than that. No one knows the identity of the monk who inscribed it, and you will note the singular term, monk, as it is remarkable for having been penned by a single hand.”
“A single hand?” Marcus exclaimed. “But that must have taken the copyist nearly his entire life!”
“A life well spent, in that case. Come, what is even more unusual is the small illuminations that head each and every chapter. Look at the figure that is etched in the gold leaf. Do you see it?”
“It is a face!”
“Exactly. It is believed that they may represent the illuminator’s fellow monks whose names begin with the letter upon which they are etched. There are thirty-six of them in all, and no two faces are alike. One of them is very likely the copyist himself.”
“Do we know which of the thirty-six it might be? Did the illuminator leave any clues?”
“Sadly, no.” Aurelius raised a hand to forestall any expressions of disappointment. “However, there is one theory which I suspect you will find very interesting and to which I myself am tempted to subscribe. You see, the Sacra Incognita was discovered in the same cloister in which a certain theological treatise is known to have been written.”
He was pleased to see recognition dawning on Marcus’s face. The boy had always been quick, and Aurelius always enjoyed seeing how rapidly he put the clues together to reach, if not the correct conclusion, at least a credible one.
“Oxonus was a Tertullian… You think Oxonus might have illuminated this codex?”
“Very good, but not exactly.” Aurelius held up a finger. “There are seven major personas in the Summa, if we exclude Oxonus himself. And recall that we don’t truly know who Oxonus was. It is merely the scholarly convention to call him after Oxonia, the town nearest the chapter house. We know the identity of the Philosopher—”
“Aristoteles.”
“The Theologian.”
“Augustinus.”
“The Poet and the Master.”
“Vergilius Maro and Petrus Lombardus.”
“The Doctor and the Expert.”
“Aelius Galenus and Domitius Annius Ulpianus.”
Aurelius looked expectantly at the boy, whose eyes went vacant for a moment as he searched his memory. Then they came to life again, and the priest knew his student had the answer.
“The Wayfarer!” he exclaimed triumphantly, disturbing a pair of nearby monks, one of whom loudly sniffed his disapproval. “We don’t know who the Wayfarer was!”
“No, we do not.” He ran his hand along the faded bin
dings of the Sacra Incognita as sensuously as a man ever caressed a woman. “We do not know his name. We do not know when he lived or when he died. We know absolutely nothing about him except the statements that Oxonus attributes to him in the Summa. But does it not strike you as a little strange that two such exceptional, even timeless, works should spring from the same cloister at virtually the same time? It may be nothing more than a coincidence, to be sure, one of those cosmic jests that only the Creator can truly appreciate, but I imagine that in the Summa, the keen and agile mind of the illuminator is preserved, while somewhere in the Sacra Incognita, the true face of the Angelic Doctor is revealed.”
Marcus Valerius nodded appreciatively, his eyes alight with the fire of intellectual ambition. He looked up at the great pillars and the thousands of codices they contained, then reached out and ran a finger lightly over the gold leaf and the grey-black ink, faded with age. His brow was furrowed and his face was grave beyond his years as he tapped the gilded letter.
“This is immortality, Father. The body dies, the soul ascends, but the mind lives on forever through these words. Thank you for bringing me here. I shall never forget it, not if I live one hundred years.”
“You are most welcome, Marcus Valerius.” Aurelius smiled affectionately and ruffled the boy's hair. “It gratifies me to see you recognize the import in these dusty relics. Now, let us see if we can find a copy of the Summa. I shall be very interested to see if you can come up with a more convincing response to the third objection of question six, article five than the Philosopher managed.”
The two men departed on their manuscript hunt, leaving the codex unattended. Unbeknownst to them both, the face of Abbot Waleran, gone to his eternal reward some three hundred years ago, stared up at the triumphant Son of God from inside the golden boundaries of the lovingly detailed letter that headed the twelfth chapter of Liber I Paralipomenon.
Closing Time
Books by Vox Day
NON-FICTION
SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police
The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens
The Return of the Great Depression
Riding the Red Horse ed. with LTC Tom Kratman
FANTASY
A Magic Broken
A Throne of Bones, Arts of Dark and Light Book One
A Sea of Skulls, Arts of Dark and Light Book Two (2016)
The Wardog's Coin
The Last Witchking
Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy
The Altar of Hate
The War in Heaven
The World in Shadow
The Wrath of Angels
SCIENCE FICTION
QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day
QUANTUM MORTIS Gravity Kills by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day
QUANTUM MORTIS A Mind Programmed by Jeff Sutton, Jean Sutton, and Vox Day
Rebel Moon by Bruce Bethke, and Vox Day
FANTASY
One Bright Star to Guide Them by John C. Wright
The Book of Feasts & Seasons by John C. Wright
A Throne of Bones by Vox Day
A Sea of Skulls by Vox Day
A Magic Broken by Vox Day
The Wardog's Coin by Vox Day
The Last Witchking by Vox Day
Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy by Vox Day
The Altar of Hate by Vox Day
The War in Heaven by Theodore Beale
The World in Shadow by Theodore Beale
The Wrath of Angels by Theodore Beale
MILITARY SCIENCE FICTION
Riding the Red Horse Vol. 1 ed. Tom Kratman and Vox Day
There Will Be War Vol. I ed. Jerry Pournelle
There Will Be War Vol. II ed. Jerry Pournelle
There Will Be War Vol. III ed. Jerry Pournelle
There Will Be War Vol. IV ed. Jerry Pournelle
There Will Be War Vol. X ed. Jerry Pournelle
SCIENCE FICTION
Awake in the Night by John C. Wright
Awake in the Night Land by John C. Wright
City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis by John C. Wright
Somewhither by John C. Wright
Big Boys Don't Cry by Tom Kratman
The Stars Came Back by Rolf Nelson
Back From the Dead by Rolf Nelson
Hyperspace Demons by Jonathan Moeller
On a Starry Night by Tedd Roberts
Do Buddhas Dream of Enlightened Sheep by Josh M. Young
QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day
QUANTUM MORTIS Gravity Kills by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day
QUANTUM MORTIS A Mind Programmed by Jeff Sutton, Jean Sutton, and Vox Day
Victoria: A Novel of Fourth Generation War by Thomas Hobbes
NON-FICTION
Astronomy and Astrophysics by Dr. Sarah Salviander
A History of Strategy: From Sun Tzu to William S. Lind by Martin van Creveld
Equality: The Impossible Quest by Martin van Creveld
On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009 by William S. Lind
Four Generations of Modern War by William S. Lind
Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth by John C. Wright
SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police by Vox Day
CASTALIA CLASSICS
The Programmed Man by Jean and Jeff Sutton
Apollo at Go by Jeff Sutton
First on the Moon by Jeff Sutton
AUDIOBOOKS
A Magic Broken, narrated by Nick Afka Thomas
Four Generations of Modern War, narrated by William S. Lind
TRANSLATIONS
Särjetty taika
QUANTUM MORTIS Un Hombre Disperso
QUANTUM MORTIS Gravedad Mata
Una Estrella Brillante para Guiarlos
QUANTUM MORTIS Um Homem Desintegrado
QUANTUM MORTIS Gravidade Mortal
Uma Magia Perdida
Mantra yang Rusak
La Moneta dal Mercenario
I Ragazzoni non Piangono
QUANTUM MORTIS Тежина Смрти
QUANTUM MORTIS Der programmierte Verstand
Grosse Jungs weinen nicht
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