Ward of the Philosopher

by D. P. Prior

  Brent Carvin stepped from the tree line brandishing a slingshot. The Doltens followed, like the sheep they were, and behind them came Rob Marlin and his brother Mik.

  “Ah, shog, mate,” Brent said. “Was that your dog?”

  Deacon knelt by Nub, stroked him gently behind the ear. A red-stained rock lay in the grass a few feet away. Nub shivered, and his breaths came in gurgling rattles.

  “Is,” Deacon muttered, wiping away a tear.

  “What’s that?” Brent said, stepping toward him.

  The girls giggled, and the Marlin boys sniggered.

  “Is my dog,” Deacon said, glaring. He didn’t care that Brent was older and bigger.

  “Not for much longer, mate,” Brent said, smirking at the Marlins. “Not the way it’s breathing. Still, you have to admit, it is one ugly son of shog.”

  “Yeah,” Lucy Dolten said. “You can’t blame Brent. We thought it was gonna bite.”

  Her sister stuck out her pointy chin. “It was gonna attack us, weren’t it Brent? Weren’t it Mik, Rob?”

  “That’s right,” Rob said. “Macy’s right. You shouldn’t be letting that thing run wild out here.”

  Deacon pressed his nose to the dog’s. Normally, Nub would have licked his face, but he just didn’t have the strength. He whimpered and shook, and then his sad brown eyes rolled up into his head.

  Someone scoffed; Deacon didn’t see who. He made a fist around a clump of grass.

  “Aw, don’t cry,” Lucy said. “It ain’t like it was Brent’s fault.”

  Brent loomed over Deacon. “Yeah, it weren’t my fault, so shut up with the baby tears, right?”

  Deacon flashed him a look, dried his eyes with his sleeve, and stood. Don’t back down from a bully, Jarl always said. Gralia didn’t agree; she said to walk away, pray for them. That’s what Deacon always did, ever since he could remember, but he didn’t see much good coming from it. Nub deserved better than that.

  “He was a bulldog,” he said. “Maybe the last.” Certainly one of the last, if Jarl was right. The Ancients had bred them that way, for some odd reason, but people these days needed real dogs: dogs that could hunt and fight.

  “Shogging pig-dog, if you ask me,” Mik said, and Rob snorted out a laugh.

  “So, what’s your point, Momma’s boy?” Brent said. “Don’t matter what kind of dog it was; it’s a dead dog now. Maybe you and your loony mom should light a candle and say some prayers to make everything better.”

  Deacon’s fist came up, but his arm was rigid with tension, and it just stayed there, a threat no one was going to take seriously.

  “Go on,” Brent said, sticking his chin out. “Put it right there, holy boy, or are you gonna piss your pants like last time?”

  He hadn’t. That wasn’t true. He’d run, that’s for sure, but only so he didn’t have to fight. Better a coward than a sinner, Gralia always said.

  —So why does your father fight?

  He clamped down on the thought as soon as it arose. It was the Demiurgos messing with his mind, trying to make him doubt, but he would give no ground to the Lord of the Abyss.

  “Shut up,” Deacon muttered under his breath.

  “What’s that?” Brent said.

  —Why’s he fight, if it’s a sin?

  “Shut up,” Deacon said more firmly. He meant it for the niggling voice of the Father of Lies, but Brent didn’t see it that way.

  White exploded in Deacon’s head as Brent’s fist smashed into his nose. A second punch split his lip, and he tasted blood.

  With a roar that seemed to come from afar, he grabbed Brent by the throat and drove him back. The other kids scattered out of the way as Brent’s arms flailed about wildly. Fire surged through Deacon’s veins. He slammed Brent against a tree trunk and pressed tighter with his thumbs. The slingshot fell among the roots, and Brent’s eyes bulged as he grunted and choked. Deacon saw himself bashing the boy’s head against the trunk till his skull cracked and his brains splattered the bark. Saw himself punching and punching till Brent’s ribs snapped like dry twigs; saw himself snatching up a jagged rock and pounding it into Brent’s face, over and over and over…

  But instead, he let go.

  Brent was on him in a flash, thumping, kicking, snarling. After the first few blows, Deacon didn’t feel much; he was dimly aware of each jolting impact; he knew he was on the ground with Brent on top, swinging and pounding. But the tears burning his eyes weren’t from the beating: they were for the Lord Nous—for the sin of rage that had so offended Him.

  PRAYERS FOR NUB

  Deacon cradled Nub in his arms as he pushed through the garden gate and let it squeak shut behind him. His cuts were stinging, his arms numb from the bruises that were already turning yellow. But at least the tears had stopped, and maybe he’d done enough for Nous to forgive him.

  He could see two shapes through the kitchen window, and his heart skipped a beat. It was Jarl, back for his birthday, after all.

  He took a lunging step and then faltered under the weight of the dead dog. He couldn’t face his father like this, covered in bruises, without a single one on Brent; and Gralia would cry and hug him and make it all a whole lot worse. And what about Nub? What would they say about Nub?

  Gralia peeked out the window and then opened the door. She covered her mouth and stared with wide eyes. There was a flash of white behind her, a hand on her shoulder. Only, it wasn’t Jarl: it was an old man, bald and bearded, and he was wearing a white robe that hung over one shoulder. His blue eyes sparkled, keen as stars on a cloudless night. The barest hint of a frown tugged at the corner of his mouth.

  “Sweet Nous!” Gralia brushed the old man’s hand off and ran to Deacon. Together, they lowered Nub to the ground, kneeling over him like the two sages over the Nous child in the crib on the mantelpiece.

  Gralia pressed her forehead to Deacon’s, wiped at the fresh tears spilling from his eyes with her thumb.

  “Oh, my boy, what happened? Who did this? And Nub—”

  “Dead, Mother. Nub’s dead.” Deacon’s body was racked with sobs, and soon Gralia was crying with him.

  The old man loomed over them, and he rested a hand atop Deacon’s head.

  “But you won’t say who did it, eh, lad? Seems you are right about him, Gralia: the makings of a luminary. Nous must be delighted. I bet Jarl’s none too happy, though.”

  Gralia looked up, her sobs dying in her throat. She drew a sleeve across her damp eyes. “Then you don’t know him as well as you think,” she said. “My husband’s a fighter, true, but he’s not against me on this.”

  “And neither am I, my dear,” the old man said. “Quite the opposite. You have laid the foundations, but we must not neglect the strengths of the father, if young Shader here is to be the man he should be.”

  “It’s Deacon, not Shader,” Deacon said, rolling his head away from the old man’s hand. “Father’s Shader.”

  The old man gave a long studied look at Nub’s lifeless body and chewed his lip. When he spoke, it was almost to himself, as if he didn’t really care if anyone was listening.

  “Under my tutelage, you are Shader, as would your father be, were he my student. It’s how we did it in the old days, and it’s how we’ll do it now.”

  Deacon hefted Nub into his arms again and stood, finding Gralia’s eyes. He shook his head, wanting so much to say, “It’s my birthday, Mother. Do we have to do this now?”

  “Maybe he’s still too young,” Gralia said, ruffling Deacon’s hair.

  “Seven is what we agreed,” the old man said. “You, me, and Jarl. It’s the perfect age. The age of reason.”

  “But, Aristodeus—”

  The old man stepped in close and put a finger to her lips. “Seven,” he said with an air of finality.

  Deacon pressed himself into his mother’s hip, hugging Nub tight to his chest.

  Gralia sucked in a breath through the gap in her teeth and gave a resigned nod.

  “But,” Aristodeus said, “do bu
ry the dog first.” He took a pipe from the folds of his robe and let it hang from his mouth while he patted around for something else. “Don’t suppose you have a light, my dear?”

  Gralia narrowed her eyes and shook her head. She fetched a shovel from the shed and then led Deacon back down the garden and through the gate.

  Clouds had rolled in from the coast, bringing the threat of rain, and so they hurriedly set about finding a good spot that would be Nub’s last, and Gralia dug while Deacon rocked his dog as if it were a sleeping baby, and ran through all the prayers he’d learned by heart.

  THE PHILOSOPHER’S EYES

  Aristodeus was seated by the hearth when Deacon and Gralia came inside. He was using a smoking twig from the kindling to relight his pipe, sucking on the stem and puffing in quick succession. He had a package in his lap, something long and thin and wrapped in oilcloth, and there was a sword in its scabbard hanging from the back of his chair.

  Gralia excused herself, saying she needed to go upstairs to wash her hands and change her clothes after the digging. Deacon made as if to follow her, but the old man coughed in the back of his throat, and Gralia nodded that it was all right.

  “Remarkable restraint,” Aristodeus said.

  Deacon stood dumbly for a moment.

  “Sit.” Aristodeus indicated the chair on the other side of the hearth. “I meant you taking a beating. Self-regulation’s what it’s all about, eh?”

  Deacon sat on his hands on the chair. He wasn’t sure what to say yet, if anything. He didn’t know what the rules were.

  “You’re tall for your age,” Aristodeus said, “and there’s fight in your eyes, but you’ve got it under lock and key. I’m sure if you’d wanted to,”—he leaned over to fling the twig into the fire—“you could have given as good as you got. Probably even better.” He settled back in his chair and blew out a smoke ring.

  Deacon felt his cheeks burn, and he caught himself on the verge of a smile. He pressed his lips tightly together and tried to look like he’d never given it a thought. Aristodeus was watching him, as if he already knew the truth.

  “Last time I saw you, you were just a babe,” Aristodeus said. “And here you are almost up to you mother’s shoulders. Another blink of the eye, and you’ll be a man, bigger, stronger than your father, unless I’m very much mistaken.”

  Deacon didn’t know how he felt about that. Jarl was a warrior, through and through. He was the epitome strength, and there weren’t too many who’d stand up to him in a quarrel.

  “You have a good mother,” Aristodeus said. There was something smug in his tone, but he quickly moved on. “Pure and holy.”

  “I am blessed,” Deacon said. It was the truth. Nous had been kind to him.

  “Indeed.” Aristodeus popped the pipe from his mouth and used it for emphasis. “Couldn’t have picked better myself.” He grinned, but there was something unsettling about it, some hidden joke he wasn’t sharing. “A man is the sum of his parents, and a great man is the sum of all he learns and experiences without them. Most people are like iron.” He reached over his shoulder and tapped the pommel of the sword hanging from his chair. “The years weaken them, morally and physically. Rust sets in—flaws and decay. You, young Shader, must be like steel. First, the impurities must be removed from the iron—excess carbon, silicon, phosphorous. In your case, that shouldn’t be such an arduous task. Your mother’s done most of the work for you.”

  Deacon scrunched his face up, trying to concentrate. He didn’t understand most the big words. For all he knew, Aristodeus could have been talking about magic, rather than steel making. The thought got his guard up.

  “Then you need to add the alloying elements,” Aristodeus said. Catching Deacon’s blank look, he explained: “Manganese, chromium, nickel, and vanadium. Oh, I don’t expect you to understand yet; but I will do in time, and I’ll expect a whole lot more, too. You must be tempered, young Shader. Trained body and soul, so that you are hard as steel and pure as a dove. And your mind,” he added with a jab of his pipe to Deacon’s forehead, “must be a sword against the world.”

  A thrill ran along Deacon’s spine. He thought he was starting to get the point at last. “Against the Demiurgos? Strong against his wiles?”

  Aristodeus’s eyelids drooped shut, and he leaned back with a long sigh. “Yes, against the deceptions of the Abyss.”

  “Why?” Deacon said. “Why do I need training? I thought only the grace of Nous could save us from the evil one.”

  Aristodeus opened his eyes and focused them on the crackling hearth fire. A string of smoke coiled up from his pipe and glowed briefly in the light of the hanging lantern before it vanished. When he finally answered, his pipe had died.

  “It is necessary.”

  The creaking of the stairs broke the spell of the moment. Gralia walked to the back of Deacon’s chair and put her hands on his shoulders.

  Aristodeus smiled at her and then abruptly stood, holding up the oilcloth-wrapped package. “Know what this is?”

  Deacon shrugged.

  “Your birthday present!” Aristodeus flung it at him.

  Deacon caught the package in both hands, shocked at its weight.

  “Happy birthday, Shader,” Aristodeus said, watching intently and raising his eyebrows.

  Deacon struggled with the string binding the oilcloth and looked round at his mother. She took a knife from the drawer and cut it away.

  Deacon unwrapped the cloth and gasped.

  “A sword…” He looked from Gralia to Aristodeus, not knowing how he should feel.

  Aristodeus winked. “Brought it back from the Eternal City, just for you.”

  “Aeterna?” Gralia said. “You’ve been to Latia? Did you see the Ipsissimus?” There was awe in her voice.

  “Briefly,” Aristodeus said, as if it were nothing to meet the supreme ruler of the Templum. “But the main reason for my trip was to speak with the Grand Master of the Elect.”

  Gralia reeled away from the chair as if she’d been slapped. Deacon was up in a flash, letting the sword clank to the tiles as he clung to her skirt.

  Aristodeus raised his palms, and for a moment, he looked genuinely sorry. “They will accept him as a knight, Gralia, but not until he’s turned thirteen, and not unless he’s proficient with a blade and fluent in Ancient Urddynoorian.”

  Gralia’s breaths came in great heaves. She shut her eyes, lips working silently over a prayer. After a moment, she planted a kiss on Deacon’s head and sighed. “Six years, then.”

  Aristodeus nodded. “Six more years. He’ll be well on his way to manhood by then, Gralia, and I’m sure the last thing you and Jarl will want is a teenager on your hands.”

  Gralia blinked back tears, and she shuddered as she drew in another breath. Deacon knew what she was doing: offering it all up to Nous in reparation for her sins and those of all Urddynoor.

  Aristodeus stooped to pick up the sword and hand it back to Deacon. “Come on,” he said, grabbing his own sword from the back of the chair and drawing it from its scabbard. “No time like the present. Let’s get started.”

  With a hesitant look at Gralia, Deacon followed him outside.

  It was still spitting, but there was a growing patch of blue sky coming from the north as the clouds blew out to sea. The sun shone through the passing haze, and a half-rainbow hung above the trees of the forest.

  Gralia followed and lingered in the doorway.

  “I’m to join the Elect?” Deacon asked. Was that Nous’s will for him—to fight demons?

  “Few are chosen,” Aristodeus said, and then, with a smirk, he added, “and even fewer are squeezed in by men of wisdom and influence.” He gave a mock bow.

  Deacon tested the balance of his sword, imagining he was a knight going to do battle with the unnatural monsters of the Lich Lord in Verusia.

  Aristodeus put a hand on his wrist, forced the sword down. “It’s not just demons they fight, you know. It’s men you have to watch out for: changing allegiances, b
roken oaths. I may not share your faith, lad, but the Templum brings order out of chaos, and sometimes order comes at the tip of a sword.”

  “But, Mother,”—Deacon turned to implore her with his eyes—“you can’t serve Nous and the sword. That’s what you told me.”

  Gralia touched the Monas pendant around her neck, enclosed it in her fist. Deacon had always seen the Nousian symbol as a stick man with horns on his head, but whenever he said as much, his mother just smiled and said it was all right for a child to think such things, but as a man, he would come to see all that the Monas truly represented.

  You can’t serve Nous and the sword…

  Jarl said the same; said he knew what kind of man he was and accepted he couldn’t be anything else. He was respectful when Deacon and Gralia prayed, and he drank beer with the monks at Brinwood Priory, but he was clear about one thing: to be a Nousian, he’d have to give up fighting. Anyone who told you otherwise, he said, already had one foot in the Abyss.

  “The Elect have been Nous’s warriors for centuries,” Aristodeus said. “Since the Templum rose from the ashes of the Reckoning.”

  “But—”

  Aristodeus clanked his blade against Deacon’s. “A little thing called malicide.” He chuckled, as if he’d make a joke. “Perhaps we’ll make it the subject of your first philosophy lesson.”

  Deacon frowned at him dumbly.

  “Yes,” Aristodeus said, raising his sword. “Uses and Abuses of Theology, I think we’ll call it. But that’s for another time. I’m sure I come across as somewhat long in the tooth, a pontificating ivory-tower philosopher, but the things I aim to teach you are by no means limited to the mind. Heads up!”

  He lunged, but Deacon dropped his sword and scampered out of the way.

  “Wait. I can’t. I mean, I thought the Elect battled against monsters, like they do in the stories. They can’t kill people. Mother, tell him. They can’t.”