Veneficus: Stones of the Chosen (20 page)

Drawn in by the smile and gentle hand the boy nodded.

“I have just rebuked him for it, your holiness. He gets a little carried away sometimes.”

Aidan burst out laughing again.

“I see you have a most wise apprentice here, long magus. Now, I am aware that most venefici - for reasons and knowledge beyond that of us mere mortals - are not followers of our faith. It follows, therefore, that you haven’t come all this way to pray at the altar of Lindisfarne, so your quest must be of an altogether different nature. Please, come into my rooms so that we may discuss it in private.”

Still chuckling he led them back through the large door and three floors up a rough stone spiral staircase into a small room at the top that was completely full of rough vellum skin sheets of varying sizes covered in a beautiful flowing Latin script.

As they climbed the stairs the boy spoke directly to Merlin’s mind:

Vive, vale, Sit tibi terra levis?

They are polite greetings of the sort used by strangers to show peace and goodwill,
replied the long magus.
Vive, vale means long life, and his reply, sit tibi terra levis, is translated as may the earth lie lightly upon you.

Such cadence and descriptive poetry,
flashed the boy.

Keep practicing. You will be fluent in that language and all its wonderful nuance and power within the year.

“Excuse the mess,” said Aidan, carefully placing a stack of the sheets on the floor to reveal two oak stools. “I am attempting to write a magnum opus called
Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum.
The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Just when I think it’s getting near the end, another great event springs up requiring commentary and inclusion.”

“Like King Penda’s invasion of Wessex currently taking place under the guise of spreading the Christian faith?” said Merlin quietly.

“Ahhh … I see. Yes, events like that.”

“Then you will never finish it.”

The little monk smiled again. “Most probably not, but others will keep it going until mankind finally learns to live in harmony with each other.”

“Then it will absolutely
never
be finished.” Merlin grinned. “The
magnum
will become a perpetual
opus
for all time.”

The small monk leaned forward and addressed the boy directly. “You see, young tyro. A most wise and experienced but apostate veneficus and a scholar monk who has had his faith reinforced through many years of debate, scripture, argument, and reason - and here we are just moments after meeting completely at odds with each other’s point of view. Is it no wonder the world we live in is such an uncertain and tumultuous place?”

“It is an uncertain and tumultuous place because of people like Penda and his counselor, the wolf-woman, Elelendise. She and her slavering wolves are responsible for the slaughter of everyone in my settlement, including the death of my father. And for the wanton slaughter of forty pairs of my pica, to whom I am liege-lord.”

Twilight had started delivering his statement pugnaciously but ended with tears in his eyes.

The small monk nodded sadly and patted him on the shoulder.

“I know of her and feared as much. She trained not far from here with the veneficus Mael. She left many months ago with Penda and his army.”

He looked closely at Merlin. “Such matters, long magus, are well known to you, are they not?
Gaudium certaminis -
the delight of battle. Your reputation in these parts is one of warlike council to the long departed King Arthur.”

Merlin sighed heavily. “It is a burden from which there is no escape, but in my own defense I never advised the slaughter of innocents, human or otherwise.”

“I see,” said Aidan. “And retribution can only be yours through the correct teaching of this young astounder. A task, no doubt, made doubly difficult by such a past.”

“You are most perspective,” replied the long magus. “But my venefical duties leave no options. Past deeds notwithstanding, I must equip this boy to the very utmost of my ability. As you have already observed, he is a most intelligent and wise apprentice.”

“You have come to these parts in search of Mael and knowledge to help you fight Elelendise?”

“We know that Mael is dead and lying under his destiny stone, the final resting place of all venefici at the end of their one-hundred-year life. We come in search of anything that will help us in the battle against the wolf-woman before she completely destroys our Wessex homeland, its Celtic way of life, and everyone in it.”

The little monk looked at them both in turn before speaking. “In that case, long magus, young tyro, I have some news for you that may come as something of a welcome surprise. Mael is
not
dead. At least he wasn’t two days ago, for I had an audience with him. Blind, yes, weak and nearing the end of his hundred-year term, also yes, but still very much alive and mentally alert.”

Merlin threw both of his long, bony hands into the air.

“Ingens salutis,”
he exclaimed loudly. “A most mighty salvation. The old fox fooled her by taking a year from his life right from the outset. We must go to him … immediately!”

The tall forest of autumn trees swept down the Northumbrian hillside to the lake’s edge in a patchwork of orange, brown, and yellow, with occasional splashes of dark evergreen. On and above the lake’s surface, water birds swooped and aquaplaned, sundry ducks dived and squabbled, and fish leapt from the depths in unconstrained delirium. In a small clearing near the water’s edge a semicircle of sleek brown otters licked at their own thickening winter coats without taking their bright brown eyes off the completely bald, silver-bearded old man sitting on a log in their midst.

With one hand holding a gnarled old stick polished through years of use, and the other resting on his knee, the near naked Mael gazed through sightless eyes directly at the spot off to his right to which Merlin and the boy had just transformed.

“I do believe,” he said after a few moments’ reflection, in a voice quivering with age but devoid of surprise, “I have visitors. Judging by the unfamiliar auras there are two of you, both of the same persuasion as myself. If one of you is that scallywag Merlin, you are well overdue but still, despite your history of violence, most welcome. Speak.”

“Before you indeed stands that scallywag Merlin, otherwise known hereabouts, I believe, as the ‘wrong magus.’ Also my tyro named Twilight, a boy of thirteen winters.”

Mael nodded to himself. “Your reference to the wrong magus - a nickname I have applied to you since news of your barbaric deeds alongside that odious slayer of men called Arthur - tells me you have met the fair but dubious Elelendise.”

“Sit tibi terra levis magna veneficus,”
the boy blurted out suddenly, anxious not to be left out.

“Salutem dicit, tyro Twilight! Literatus Latinus?”
Mael’s reply was gentle, understanding.

Merlin replied for the boy. “He’s not exactly learned in the great tongue. More, as with all other matters relating to the enchantments, just beginning to grasp the enormity of the task before him, especially as we only have seven short years left to prepare.”

Mael nodded, then held out his hand to the boy. “Come here, young man,” he said quietly. Twilight looked at the long magus, received a nod of affirmation, then walked through the ring of otters who, despite the sudden intrusion of the boy and Merlin, had not taken their eyes from Mael’s face. Leaning the gnarled stick against his bare leg Mael reached out with both hands and ran them gently down the side of the boy’s head and shoulders and then back again. He paused before speaking.

“As I move ever closer to my destiny stone, my faculties diminish. My sight left me forty days ago, and other functions are beginning to cause some discomfiture. Merlin will understand the signs, having watched his own mentor go through the same diminishing process during the last few days of the hundred-year lifespan. However, I still have twenty days to go, and much can be accomplished in that time if the will exists. The strength, intelligence, and youthfulness of your aura give me that will. As you no doubt are aware, there is a great deal resting upon your young shoulders.”

“I know,” said the boy simply. “Why did you say the long magus was ‘overdue’?”

Mael sighed and turned his sightless eyes toward Merlin.

“Because he was the only one who could help with my Elelendise problem, I needed to talk to him, explain the whys and wherefores of a very complicated situation. I could not visit you in Wessex because she was always by my side. I started right at the beginning of our relationship by codifying as much as I could about her in order to alert you without arousing her suspicion. I did this through her name and left-handedness in the hope that he would understand and visit me, eh, long magus.”

Merlin nodded and came closer. “And by convincing her that your one-hundred-year term was one year earlier. That, if I may say so, was a stroke of genius.”

Mael smiled. “It was interesting to see how quickly she left my side and ran off to join Penda when she thought the end was approaching. She didn’t even wait to place me under my destiny stone.”

“When the time comes I will ensure that task is accomplished correctly,” said Merlin. “You are liege-lord of the otter?”

Mael nodded. “They have been my devoted companions for seventy-five years. Otters are all blessed with a unique ability to sense any form of impurity in humans or other animals. Only those of irreproachable states of grace and impeccable intentions toward me are acceptable to these around me. You will be pleased to know that both of you have passed their test and are deemed worthy of inclusion within the semicircle. Otherwise there would have been an almighty fuss as they called all the others here to defend me. There are over two hundred of them hereabouts. In my younger days the otter and I would spend all day frolicking in the water. These around me now are the great, great grandchildren of my first animals. They know of my impending demise and have formed a semicircle around me that will not be broken until I go to the great stone. Your kind offer to place me there is a great relief. It was worrying me that such a task would be beyond any local humans. As you know, the stone is very heavy and requires the enchantments to move it.”

The long magus glanced at the simple shelter of interlaced boughs placed against the tree line.

“I see you live a very simple life.”

“I follow the ways of the Cynic - own no possessions or clothes and live as a beggar. I am entirely sustained by the Pantheon of the enchantments.”

Merlin smiled. “A student and follower of Diogenes eh, the leader of the Cynics who practiced and preached the laws of anti-possessions. Lived, if I recall, in a barrel.”

“You are learned in the ways of the ancient Greeks, long magus?” Mael asked.

“I am a devotee of all things Greek and eagerly consume all I can about their ways,” replied Merlin. “Some of their stratagems are proving useful in our current struggle.”

Mael nodded and gestured toward the dirty loincloth around his middle. “I have only recently begun wearing this. The monks from Lindisfarne have taken to visiting regularly since my demise nears. My nakedness causes them some embarrassment.”

“We met his holiness Aidan. He directed us to you,” said Twilight.

“A good man,” replied Mael. “Consumed with
furor scribendi annales -
a passion for writing chronicles. Now tell me, young man, what animals are in ligamen to you?”

“The pica.”

Mael nodded. “An excellent and intelligent species with an eye for a bright bauble and a cocky, indomitable spirit. They will serve you well and loyally as, no doubt, do the falcons named after the long magus. There are many of both species in the hillside behind us, and we would be surrounded by them if they knew you were here, eh.”

“When did the wolves become in ligamen to Elelendise?” asked the boy.

“Come and sit down and I’ll start from the very beginning,” said Mael, gripping his stick with both hands. “Some of it you will have already guessed, long magus, some is rhetorical, some absurd, and some has reasoning so dense as to be almost impenetrable. I think I have a good grasp of it all but would value your opinion. And I must say that it will be a relief to share it with kindred spirits, even if one of them is a reformed old warmonger …”

“And scallywag,” said Twilight.

“Twenty years ago I found my own tyro veneficus to train and eventually take over for me. His name was Simeon. He was seventeen winters old and came from a family of Romany wanderers whom he had left when he was twelve. For five years he had lived by his wits and nature without realizing that his gifts - the very knowledge that had sustained him - were special. He arrived here en route to Lindisfarne where it was his intention to train as a monk. Recognizing his aura, I asked him the key question …”

“Upon what day was he born,” interrupted Twilight.

“He wasn’t sure but thought it was All Hallows Day, the thirty-first day of October,” continued Mael with a nod in the direction of the boy. “For the next three and a half years we worked together on the processes that you and the long magus have embarked upon - building and refining his knowledge and use of the enchantments. He was a most promising and engaging companion …” Mael’s quivering voice stopped, and he wiped away a tear.