Ward of the Philosopher

by D. P. Prior

  Gralia shook her head.

  Aristodeus rammed his sword into the ground and put his hands on his hips. “Erlstein does. I take it you’ve heard of him?”

  Deacon had. Erlstein was one of the greatest heroes of the Elect. He was the one who’d knocked out the Demiurgos’s tooth and turned it into an arrowhead that never missed the mark. He’d also faced down a horde of dragon-riding devils with nothing more than a bone club.

  Aristodeus seemed to read Deacon’s thoughts and laughed. “Remind me to lecture on legends and their embellishment. For now, you’ll just have to trust me: Erlstein is a great luminary, in his own way, but he’s indomitable and as ungiving as… well, as steel. Now, pick up your sword, and let’s gauge your reflexes.”

  As Deacon bent to retrieve his sword, Aristodeus whipped his own from the earth and came at him, batting him on the shin. Deacon stumbled and fell, but Aristodeus was on him in an instant, blade raised high for the killing blow.

  Gralia screamed, and Aristodeus whirled on her.

  “No, Gralia, you will not interfere! Now, make yourself useful, and go cook us up a meal. I’m sure we’ll both be famished by the time this is over.”

  The sight of his mother’s terrified face, then of her obediently doing as she was commanded, filled Deacon with rage. He kicked out at the old man’s knee. As Aristodeus staggered back, cursing, Deacon rolled across the grass, coming up with his sword. He swung it in a wild arc, but Aristodeus blocked it with casual disdain. Deacon hacked and stabbed and sliced and bludgeoned, but each attack was turned aside, as if the old man were out for a leisurely stroll.

  “Good,” Aristodeus kept saying. “Good. Now all we need to do is channel the ire we’ve awoken. Who knows, if you’re everything I hope you are, a few years of this, and you’ll stand a chance.”

  Deacon stopped, doubling over and panting heavily. “A chance of what?”

  “You’ll know soon enough.”

  The old man’s eyes flared, and for a moment, Deacon thought they reflected the light of the sun, but already another bank of cloud had rolled overhead, and the day was swallowed up by a far too early dusk. When he looked again, flames swirled around Aristodeus’s pupils, and Deacon was drawn into their depths. Shadows flickered in the blaze, and a terrible keening filled his head.

  And then he was running through burning streets. Torrents of lava flowed in great walls to either side of him, and geysers of fire spouted high into a sky of acrid smoke. His skin bubbled and blistered, and his lungs were filled with scorching fumes. Behind him, there was such screeching, as if all the souls of the damned were coming to tear him to pieces. He pushed himself faster and faster, screaming at the leering horrors shambling from every twist and turn of the fiery maze.

  Must keep running, he told himself. Keep running!

  “Shader?”

  It was Aristodeus’s voice, muffled behind the roar of the flames.

  “Deacon!”

  A sharp slap rocked his head to the side. He stumbled and fell. The instant he hit soft grass, his melting flesh grew chill, and he started to shake.

  “Gralia!” Aristodeus called. There was a tremor in his voice. “Gralia, now!”

  Feet padded toward Deacon. He heard his mother gasp, felt her hands pulling him into an embrace. She cradled him against her breast, and next thing he knew, he was plummeting, spinning in a never-ending spiral. A wailing scream gushed up from his stomach, but it crashed against his clenched teeth and went echoing around his skull. He tensed every muscle against the impact that was bound to come.

  Any second now.

  Any second.

  But instead, a blanket of darkness smothered him, and his unvoiced scream ebbed away to nothing.

  FIRST STEPS

  Deacon was aware he was in bed; he could tell by the softness of the mattress, the familiar smells, the reassuring creaks of the floorboards as someone—most likely his mother—moved about on the landing outside his room. He drifted between sleeping and waking. A curtain of gray hung behind his eyelids. From time to time, it parted to reveal a rippling watery surface. His chill blue eyes reflected down at him, narrowed with concern. But then a face would form around them, and it was not his own; it was Aristodeus’s.

  He woke fully to Gralia mopping his brow with a cold, wet cloth. She smiled with her lips but nothing else. Inch by inch, she washed him where he lay, toweling each area dry before moving on to the next. When she’d finished, she wound his prayer cord around his wrist. Its closeness comforted him, and he slipped back into sleep.

  Later, she held his head up and spoon-fed him broth. It was salty and lightly spiced. There were chunks of beef, which he couldn’t chew and let fall from his lips.

  Jarl looked in on him once or twice, but he never came closer than the doorway. To Deacon, he was a brooding presence, a reminder of a life that was all-too swiftly slipping away. The thought saddened him. His father might not have made it back for his birthday, but at least he still cared.

  “He’s just had a turn, Gralia,” he heard Aristodeus say at some point. “There’s no fever, and his heartbeat is steady. Leave us alone for a while. He’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

  The door clicked shut, and Aristodeus settled himself on the edge of the bed. He propped Deacon upright with pillows and made him look at the nightstand, where a checkerboard stood with two rows of figurines lined up facing each other: Ancient-world warriors with round shields and spears, mounted knights, field-chaplains, archers. At the center of one formation stood the unmistakable figure of the Ipsissimus dressed all in white. Opposite the supreme ruler of the Templum was a coal-black giant with painted violet eyes: the Demiurgos, Lord of the Abyss.

  “Strategos,” Aristodeus said. “I was surprised to learn your father hadn’t taught you to play, but never mind; your incapacity affords you plenty of time to grow proficient at the game.”

  “Game?” Deacon said. His voice came out thin and reedy.

  “More than a game,” Aristodeus said. “Consider it a foundation, one to be applied to the battlefield and to the machinations one will be confronted with in a den of vipers like Aeterna.”

  Deacon stiffened. That was no way to talk about the Holy City.

  Aristodeus smiled down at him. “Don’t concern yourself about it now, but rest assured, not all the rigor and piety of Nousia can change human nature even a jot. Pray, by all means, and remain pure, but never leave guile by the wayside. It goes without saying, even the holiest of causes are best backed up with the sword.”

  Deacon tried reaching for a piece on the Strategos board. His fingers trembled, and his heart pitter-pattered in his chest. It was an effort even to draw breath, as if his lungs had not yet grown accustomed to alien air.

  “I’ll move for you,” Aristodeus said. “Just tell me where. But first, I should explain how each piece is used and what its strengths and weaknesses are.” He whipped out his pipe. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Aristodeus filled the bowl with tobacco and proceeded to light it with swirling motions of a flame that sprang up from a silver cylinder.

  “Is that magic?” Deacon asked, fearful of the answer. Instinctively, he fiddled with the prayer cord about his wrist.

  “No such thing,” Aristodeus said. “Magic always yields to science, once the subject in question is properly dissected and scrutinized.”

  “Science?”

  “In Ancient Urddynoorian, scientia, from scire, which means ‘to know’. You may think of it as the wisdom of the Ancients, if it helps. Even the sorcery and beasts that destroyed the old world during the Reckoning have a scientific explanation, if only you look hard enough.”

  “And you have looked?” Deacon asked.

  “Not systematically, but there is a man who almost certainly has. Have you heard of Sektis Gandaw? They used to call him the Technocrat. He’s someone you should study in depth, my boy, because he’s going to play a major part in your future, and in everyone else’s.”
>
  For the next few days, Deacon learned the mechanics of Strategos. At first, the concentration hurt his head, but after a while, he began to enjoy the game. Occasionally, he would grow excited at the prospect of winning, only to discover Aristodeus had set a trap for him. Each time, he felt the bite of anger, but the philosopher taught him to remain calm in the face of defeat, to learn from it, and use it to his advantage at a later date.

  Deacon grew strong enough to move the pieces himself, and that seemed to aid his concentration. But no matter how competent his play became, how well-thought out his strategies, he could never finish Aristodeus off. After losing for the hundredth time, any consolation he might have drawn from failure gave way to disinterest and a desire to get up and leave the confines of his bedroom.

  Aristodeus agreed it was time to move on. Gralia’s face betrayed nothing but passive acceptance, but her eyes glittered with pent-up disapproval that she would no doubt keep locked away till she made the trip to Brinwood Priory for confession.

  When they resumed work with the sword Aristodeus had brought Deacon as a gift, Jarl explained he wouldn’t be around much for the next few weeks. There were rustlers on the prowl, and he still had the Coastal Watch to organize. He’d be home at nights, but he expected Deacon to be asleep by then. The look Jarl shot Aristodeus said that he had better be.

  The philosopher was relentless with the forms his pupil had to adopt, and drilled him for hour upon hour, day after day, with posture and footwork before Deacon even got to swing the sword. By the time he did, his feet were blistered from the constant back and forth, pivoting and shuffling. His hands faired no better, as they went through the sequence of blocks hundreds, if not thousands, of times, and only then did the lessons proceed to thrusts, slashes, feints, and counters.

  In between sessions, they would sit and talk, while Gralia brought them food and drink. Mostly, it was history: the times before the Reckoning, the early Theocracy, but eventually they touched upon what Aristodeus called “the building blocks of reason”. Deacon didn’t grasp it initially. They did a lot of taking apart ideas and stripping them down to their basic elements, until they arrived at the root of whatever problem they were working on. Aristodeus was intolerant of any degree of sloppiness in Deacon’s reasoning, and would punish lazy thinking by making him run circuits of the yard.

  When Deacon’s head was abuzz with concepts he couldn’t even begin to grasp, they would switch to wrestling and boxing. It didn’t matter how tired he became, or how many times Gralia complained that he was just a boy, Aristodeus pushed him to his limits and beyond: mind, body, and spirit, the philosopher said, but in reality, it was Gralia who tended to the latter, leading Deacon in morning and evening prayers, and taking him with her to the priory on the frequent occasions Aristodeus disappeared on other business.

  A month into the training, Deacon and Gralia arrived home from Brinwood to find Aristodeus waiting with a pony outside the barn.

  “If you are to be an Elect knight, young Shader, you are going to have to learn to ride.”

  Gralia said nothing and went indoors.

  Deacon could hardly wait to begin.

  “Before you do, though,” Aristodeus said, “I must teach you how to groom a horse, how to saddle it, and most important of all, how to muck it out.”

  He handed Deacon a spade and gestured him inside the barn, while he chuckled and pulled out his pipe.

  The following morning, after Aristodeus talked Deacon through caring for the pony, and after a grueling hour of swordplay, the philosopher seated himself on a hay bale and made Deacon sit cross-legged before him on the ground.

  “Answer me this, young Shader: What’s it all for?”

  “Magister?” It was what Aristodeus insisted Deacon call him: the Ancient Urddynoorian word for “master.”

  “My time, this training. Anything worth doing must have a goal, otherwise, where does it all lead? What is the point?”

  “To give glory to Nous,” Deacon answered.

  “That’s your mother speaking, boy. I was asking you.”

  “Being a knight?”

  “In part.” Aristodeus rummaged about in the folds of his robe, frowned, and went on. “But there are knights and then there are knights. The Elect are the best of the best, but you, young Shader, must aim higher than that. Tell me, in the stories your father reads you, have you heard mention of the Sword of the Archon?”

  Deacon shook his head, not just because he’d never heard of the sword, but because Jarl’s stories had stopped the moment his training with the philosopher had begun.

  “Of course you haven’t,” Aristodeus muttered. “Knowing Jarl, he probably tore those pages out. Your father is as Nousian as a turnip—something he and I share in common. Has your mother never mentioned it? No, don’t answer that. ‘Sword’ is probably a banned word in her lexicon.”

  “I know of the Archon,” Deacon said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, from the Holy Liber. He’s a servant of the Lord Nous, an angel or something.”

  Aristodeus wrinkled his nose at that. “I wouldn’t describe him as an angel, but you are right: he is mentioned in the Liber, which is because the Archon has been around for a very long time. As has his sister, Eingana, and his brother…” He watched Deacon carefully now, before concluding, “the Demiurgos.”

  Deacon touched two fingers to his forehead and murmured, “Nous protect us.”

  “Indeed,” Aristodeus said.

  “And the Archon has a sword?” Deacon asked. “A magical sword?” He immediately regretted his choice of words, and thought about changing it to “a scientific sword,” but Aristodeus got there first:

  “What did I say about magic, young Shader?”

  “No such thing.”

  “Exactly. The Archon’s sword, however, is undeniably unnatural, at least in terms of this cosmos.”

  Deacon looked at him blankly, and Aristodeus waved off his unspoken question.

  “Don’t worry about that for now. Education is a slow process. I must build layer upon layer until you have any semblance of wisdom. It will come, but we must both be patient. As your mother keeps reminding me, you are only a child of seven, and so let me pitch my lesson about the Sword of the Archon at a more suitable level: a story, with monsters and damsels and heroes, and a sword that, in the context of the tale, you could be forgiven for thinking was magical. Listen intently, young Shader, for this is the goal of all our work. One day, if you are to fulfill your destiny, you must come to wield the Archon’s sword.”

  “Is it real?” Deacon asked.

  Aristodeus nodded. “And it may only be claimed by the the greatest warrior—and the most pious—among the finest fighting men on Urddynoor: the Elect. It is in the possession of the Keeper of the Sword of the Archon, who stands beside the throne of the Ipsissimus in Aeterna.”

  Deacon gasped, and felt his mind throwing up all manner of fantasies in which he was that Keeper, defending the Templum against all the evils of the Abyss. He opened his mouth to ask why Aristodeus wanted him to be the one to wield the sword, but the philosopher talked right over him.

  “In the beginning was the Void,” Aristodeus said, quoting the Liber. “On one side of that impassible divide blossomed Araboth, the Supernal Realm of Ain, the All-Father of Nous, and on the other, all that stupendous glory was dimly reflected; you could say its diseased roots stretched and coiled into the mire of chaos, forming the foundations of this, our world.”

  Deacon tried to suppress a yawn, but Aristodeus noticed.

  “I take it you already know this?”

  “That’s in the Liber.”

  “And your point is?” Aristodeus narrowed his eyes to slivers of sapphire.

  Deacon looked away. He didn’t want to chance them turning to flames again; didn’t want to end up running through the Abyss, and then spending days more recovering in bed.

  Aristodeus seemed to read his mind.

  “Don’t worry, young Shader; y
ou’re quite safe. Whatever happened last time was an anomaly. Think of it as an adjustment. I’m sure you have acclimated to my being here by now.”

  Deacon risked a glance at the philosopher, but swiftly lowered his eyes. His flesh crawled in the old man’s presence, and every instinct recoiled from an unfathomable feeling of wrongness.

  “Would you like me to continue?” Aristodeus asked. “Maybe I’ll skip to the parts that aren’t in the Liber.”

  Deacon expected his mother to storm out of the house and condemn them both as heretics. He caught sight of her at the kitchen window, but she was paying them no attention. She looked to be preparing lunch.

  “There was a war in Araboth,” Aristodeus said. “You see, Ain was surrounded by mighty beings of his own making, and the most powerful were the Aeonic Triad: the Demiurgos, the Archon, and their sister Eingana. Don’t ask me why, but the Demiurgos grew obsessed with his sister, and his sole purpose in life was to violate her.”

  Deacon frowned that he didn’t understand.

  “Suffice it to say, the Demiurgos wanted to harm his sister. The Archon refused to permit it. He forged a sword of incomparable power and infused it with his own essence. The Sword of the Archon is, in a manner of speaking, his imprint or his double. It is not, however, his slave. The sword is, if you will permit me saying so, its own person.

  “Together, sword and maker assailed the Demiurgos while he was in mid-clinch with Eingana. The three siblings plunged into the Void, and Ain preserved them so that they emerged the other side unscathed.

  “Nothing, understand, can enter the Void and continue in existence, but these three did. You might question why Ain permitted this, and believe me, theologians have quibbled about this very point for centuries. Either he couldn’t bear losing his greatest creations, they say, or he had some far-reaching and unknowable purpose in afflicting our cosmos with their presence. If the latter, it casts all manner of aspersions on the loving Ain of the Liber, but that need not concern you.