Veneficus: Stones of the Chosen (12 page)

“What is this ‘aura’ you and the birds referred to?”

“Anyone who understands the enchantments and therefore the manipulation of phenomena is in possession of an underlying power pulse with a unique signature. This signature will extend, in a lesser form, to anyone or thing who is representing the veneficus. For example, all my conspicuous apparitions carry my signature aura and can be linked back to me through that aura.”

“Do I have one?” asked the boy.

“Oh yes.” The long magus chuckled. “And a very healthy one at that. It will grow as you accumulate knowledge and experience of the enchantments.”

“Could you see hers?”

“Yes, and a fine strong aura it was. However, there were two odd things about her that trouble me. The first is her name. As you know, the teacher names the tyro at the outset. I, for example, named you Twilight when you arrived here with your father. These names reflect, in some way, the character, ligamen species, or substance of the tyro. On that basis the wolf-woman would have received the name Elelendise from Mael at the beginning of her training. Strangely, ‘Elelendise’ is Old Saxon for ‘misfit’ or ‘outsider.’”

“And the second thing?” Twilight asked.

“She is what the ancients referred to as
sinistre,
a Latin term meaning left-handed. In venefical lore, people who favor their left hand are flawed. Both of us are right-handed, as were all of our ninety-eight predecessors. Mael could easily have chosen to train her to favor the right hand, but he didn’t.”

They paused to consider these two points.

“It’s beginning to look as if Mael were sending out some sort of message through her name and left-handedness,” said Twilight. “An indication to those who would understand that she was flawed. If that were the case why didn’t he just refuse to train her in the beginning?”

“Because,” said Merlin reflectively, “he probably had no choice.”

“She called you an old man,” blurted the boy.

“She was right, I am an old man, ninety-three years an old man. Too old to outrun a fierce white wolf at any rate.”

“That wolf didn’t frighten me one little bit,” said Twilight defiantly. “Was it real?”

“Ahhh, the slashing Lupa. Yes, it was real. I had a quick look at its mental processes -
frons est animi janua,
the forehead is the door to the mind - while she was posturing. If ever the fearsome creature has to use its crude brain to achieve anything, it will fail badly. Its entire psyche is based upon protecting Elelendise with snarling displays of ferocity and killing anything that is a threat to her. Above that it has no other existence, no other reason to live. The way it holds station by her side reminds me of an ancient Greek story about the Dog Star Sirius, in the constellation of Canis Major. Sirius always appears to be close to the side of Orion, named after the great hunter, but the constellations are constantly shifting, and there are ofttimes when the clouds obscure one from the other. What, I wonder, would the ferocious Lupa do if it could not see the person to whom its wretched life is so malevolently dedicated?”

“Panic, maybe,” Twilight ventured. “Lose its head completely.”

Merlin chuckled. “An interesting vision and one I will give some thought to. Come, it is time for us to prepare to repel an invasion,” the long magus said, his eyes glowing a deep emerald green. “The Saxons and their tame sorceress are coming.”

As far as it was known there were one thousand venefici spread around the earth at various, usually non-competing places. Each selected and trained his own replacement to succeed him at the one hundred year termination of his life. Occasionally a veneficus died before their full term, but this was unusual. The premature death of a holder of the enchantments was very rare and could only be brought about by another holder.

When the Romans left Britain early in the fifth century, there were two resident venefici; one in the north and one in Wessex. Due to the proximity of Stonehenge, the site of the annual Autumn Equinox, the holder of the Wessex enchantments was the most senior veneficus.

It was a good system and had worked reasonably well for the ten thousand years of its existence. It did, however, have a basic flaw that sooner or later would reveal itself.

When Zeus charged Tiresias, the Seer of Thebes, with the maintenance of this domain, he installed a god who had more than the usual Presidium tendency for boredom.

“There are,” said Merlin quietly, “defining events in all our lives that are so dramatic, and impact so utterly upon our consciousness, that we are forced to do something about it. Such an event was when King Arthur discovered eight of his own soldiers were spies for Mordred, his cousin and mortal enemy. Against my advice and enraged by their treachery he personally tortured them by putting a lighted flare torch to their faces. I can still hear their screams and smell the sickly pungency of their seething flesh now. That was the moment I turned away from him and from war.”

“How did he react to you turning away?”

“Badly at first. Said he didn’t need me, could manage without me. Then, after a couple of days, he began to entreat me to stay. Got the other knights to work on me.”

“You were tempted?”

“Not at all. I had counseled Arthur through twelve victorious battles, stood on many a green hilltop and watched the valleys run with the blood of his enemies as his men swept all before them. Never again. Burning the faces of those men was the defining event for me. I left the legendary court of Camelot within days and never returned.”

“And he carried on fighting without you?”

“Shortly afterward Arthur was badly wounded in a battle with Mordred and taken to the Isle of Avalon where he eventually succumbed to his wounds. Many times I had counseled against fighting Mordred, and he had always heeded my words. If I had stayed I’m sure he would not have waged that war, would have lived on to fill one of the great places in the history of Britain. In burning the faces of those eight soldiers, Arthur signed his own death warrant and lost all hope of a blessed immortality.”

“Will he be remembered for the twelve victories?” asked the boy.

“For a while, but the thousands of soldiers slaughtered in those campaigns will pale into the maw of historical inconsequence when compared to the eight soldiers whose faces he burned. The significance of that act will live on simply because of its heinous bestiality and the fact that it was carried out by Arthur himself.”

“And you will ensure that it is not forgotten?”

“
We
will ensure that it’s never forgotten,” Merlin stated with finality.

“Did the famous sword of Excalibur exist or was it a myth?” asked Twilight.

Merlin chuckled. He knew the story of the Lady of the Lake and the mighty sword that only Arthur could draw from the rock was the staple telling piece around the hearths and campfires of the realm. Embellished and shone to a patriotic sheen equaling that of Excalibur itself, the legend had grown into a shining emblem of Celtic lore.

“Excalibur and all its attachments were real,” said the long magus obliquely. “In so much as they truly existed in the form they are known for.”

“You mean that you created them,” suggested Twilight in a half question, half answer.

“I did so.” Merlin smiled.

“Why?”

“Arthur had everything on his side. He was young, handsome, charismatic, the complete warrior king with the sure touch. People will follow someone like that through all sorts of travails, but they won’t necessarily die for them. Blind allegiance requires something extra. In order to accomplish the tasks he’d set himself, Arthur required that blind, unthinking allegiance from the people he ruled and, more especially, from his fighters. For that the pedestal must be high, godlike, inhabited by an ethereal being who is more than man, more than king. So I evolved the myth and setting, among others, that we know today as the legendary sword of freedom called Excalibur, and that whosoever could draw it from the stone was somehow blessed with supernatural powers. Naturally, I made it so that only Arthur could withdraw it. Then the people had a truly abstract, mythical warrior god, someone who they would follow into the furnaces of Hades and for whom dying was considered a great privilege.”

Twilight remembered how the stories of Arthur and Excalibur had excited him when sitting around the communal summer fires at the settlement. Even in his world of self-imposed isolation the story had a resonance. He, too, would have an Excalibur that no one else could use. His only to command, to own. A mighty protector against all evils. Like many other settlement children he had fashioned a crude sword from off-cuts of wood and stuck it in soft mud, only to find that it had set hard the following day and could only be removed by breaking the now hard mud. Another shining dream destroyed. Now he discovered that the whole thing was a myth spread by the clever astounder who had become his mentor. To be that close to the actual formation of such events was, in itself, completely mesmerizing.

After the roof collapsed on the dwelling house, Will had become afraid to concentrate overly on an object in case it moved or, as in the case of his father’s hazel stick - the one he used to beat Will with - which suddenly fell to the ground in small, neat pieces!

As usual he’d been daydreaming in the long summer grass when his father had come looking for him to inquire why he had not been working the other end of the meadow with his mother and brothers, turning the freshly scythed hay. As the stinging hazel stick had descended across his legs for the fourth time, he had fixed his mind on its arc and imagined the mighty Excalibur in his hand. In a blur too quick for the eye to follow, the descending stick dropped to the ground from his father’s hand in a pile of small twigs. As his father stood gaping at the neat pile of twigs that had been his beating stick, Will had disappeared into the dense undergrowth surrounding the meadow.

His own, private Excalibur hadn’t been a myth. It had worked beautifully when called upon to defend him.

He snapped out of the train of thought back to the present and asked another question.

“If Arthur had not burned those men’s faces, would he have still gone to the mists?”

“Oh yes, many times over. He was responsible for far too many unnecessary deaths as part of his drive to dominate to ever stay out of the raging grasp of the mists.”

“And he did all of it on your advice?”

“He wouldn’t raise so much as a hand pike against another without it,” said Merlin.

“He got the agony of the raging mists for his part. What did you get?”

Twilight looked pugnacious, and his lips were compressed in a thin line. Merlin glowered down at him.

“The chance to redeem myself, my little accuser … here, with you, now.”

After a long silence they continued their stroll across the meadow bordering the mighty Savernake. Merlin rested his long fingers lightly on the boy’s shoulder.

“In their quest for knowledge and answers to the great mysteries of life, many of the great past civilizations turned to the heavens. They found answers in the continuum of great star and planet auroras that bedecked the celestial welkin. Found many pointers to their own predicaments. They named everything they could see in the night sky. Exotic, omnipresent names that spoke of divinity and glory: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. They broke the year into twelve planetary constellations called a zodiac, and named each one after an earthly species. These have become known as our birth signs, and we are supposed to be similar in mannerisms to the species we are born under. The birthday of all venefici is All Hallows Day - the last day of the month of October - which comes under the sign of Scorpio, named after a creature called the scorpion. The scorpion is an arachnid found in the hot sands of lands far away from here and is a deadly killer with a venomous barbed tail. It is not for nothing that we are so compared. There are also mannerisms associated with each birth sign, and one of ours is a virulent ability to bear a grudge. Once we are crossed we never forgive or forget.”

“Meaning you will never forgive or forget what King Arthur did to those men’s faces?”

“Never.” Merlin’s answer was unequivocal. “To continue. For some civilizations, the individual power of the heavens was omnipotent and was the focal point of their worship. The sun, in particular, held, and still holds, many in its thrall as the great day star Helios, the eye of heaven. The flora and fauna of this earth rely upon the power of the sun for life. Many times the power of Helios has been called upon to defeat an enemy. In the coming quest to defeat the invading Penda and his fighting soldiers of the north, we, too, are going to use the great power of the eye of heaven in much the same way as Archimedes did when he helped King Hieron II of Syracuse resist the Roman siege of Syracuse. “

“Was Archimedes another Greek?”

“Yes, an inventor and mathematician who lived about a thousand years ago,” replied Merlin. “A man of great intelligence and cunning. Now, before you wear me out completely with questions, call your two piedpoly guardians here and I will show you how, with their love of bright objects, we are going to do as Archimedes did and strike at Penda’s armies with the venom of a scorpion.”

Twilight directed several calls toward the forest, but no pica came to him. He turned to Merlin. “Something is wrong,” he said quietly.

Bushy eyebrows knitted in concern, the long magus nodded and called for a falcon. Phi appeared instantly over the tree line, swooped down into the meadow, and alighted on the ground beside them.

“You must go to the compound immediately.” Phi’s screech was subdued. “The pica await you there.”

“Hold my hand,” snapped the wizard. “Tightly!”

The great eyes glowed a deep emerald, and suddenly they stood outside the compound gates. Massed ranks of pica perched all around the compound as before, but this time there was a difference. Silently they honored the sudden presence of their liege-lord with the raised claw salute. In normal circumstances the pica is a lively, inquisitive bird always bobbing and looking, moving and turning, bright brown eyes everywhere.

Today they were all very still.

Then Twilight and Merlin saw why.

Sitting low in the grass with her beak on the ground in front of the small bush in which they had so patiently showed Twilight how to build a nest was Leela. She was completely still, her bright, intelligent eyes half closed. Alongside her the bush that had held the lovingly constructed nest lay around the ground in hundreds of smashed twigs and leaves. Only the thin, bark-stripped central stem of the bush remained in place. Swinging gently on the forest breezes from the top of the stripped stem was a distinct pair of pica wings with bloody red stumps where they had joined the body.

With pale blue feathers streaking through the center.

Bell alighted alongside Twilight.

“Leela mourns the death of Horn. She will be here for a while. We will watch over her. I am sorry there were no pica by your side, but our presence was required here with Leela for a few moments. We always grieve together. It strengthens the resolve.”

“The white wolf?” Twilight asked tearfully.

“Yes, with the woman. The falcons saw it from the air. Horn was in the nest. It was over very quickly.”

“I polished two small, bright pieces of quartz as presents for Leela and Horn this morning and put them in the nest,” said the boy with tears streaming down his cheeks. “He must have been looking at them when the beast attacked.”

Phi alighted alongside Merlin and delivered another quiet message directly to the long magus. The wizard turned to Twilight.

“I’m afraid that Horn wasn’t the only victim. Phi has just informed me that Bovey and his companion serpent are lying in a forest glade. The old heretic did not heed my warning and tried his trick on Elelendise. The white wolf tore them both to pieces in an instant. I would guess that she came back today whilst we were out in the meadows to ensure that we were following her instructions. Well, now she knows.”

The boy looked at Merlin. “Will you see that Horn gets a small stone in my section at Avebury?”

“Of course,” said the wizard.

“In his honor I will call my great sarsen after him. It shall be known as Blue Horn.”

Twilight knelt down beside Leela. Consumed by her grief she remained still, her beak touching the ground, and her eyes, all shine removed, were fixed on the two pale blue-streaked wings waving gently on the breezes. Her wings, half folded as if she had used up all her strength landing there, draped forlornly on the twig-littered ground. Suddenly becoming aware of his presence she began to struggle to her feet to offer the liege-lord salutation. Gently placing his hand on her back, the boy eased her down, then softly stroked her glossy head.

His eyes were dry now, the tears replaced by determination.

“Rest a while, Leela, and think on the sixty-three wonderful fledglings you raised with Horn. We will never forget him or the great sacrifice he made here. The fight will go on in his name.”

“Can you use your power to bring him back?” she asked huskily.

Twilight looked quickly at Merlin to be greeted by a barely perceptible negative nod of the head. “That is not possible, Leela, but I can guarantee that his soul will find the eternal peace of the blessed martyrs, and his bones will rest alongside my own great stone, which I will have named after him in the venefical rings of Avebury.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Twilight stood and turned to the unmoving assembly of very somber pica gathered around all the available perches of the compound.

“My pica,” he said evenly. “Now is not the time for speeches, but the death of Horn will be avenged, and the pale blue feather shall be the sign of that vengeance. The long magus has a plan to tell you about, in the style, I believe, of Archimedes the Greek inventor.”