Veneficus: Stones of the Chosen (3 page)

“I have lived for ninety-three years,” said Merlin, making himself comfortable on a fallen beech trunk outside the woven willow gates of his stoutly stockaded compound. It was the following day, and they had just waved the boy’s father off on his return journey, mounted upon a sturdy young horse. The wizard had carefully instructed Sam Timms on the route he should take around the perimeter of the great Savernake in order to avoid any problems like those encountered on the journey there. This time he was on his own.

“You will hear many otherworld legends and whispered asides on how to extend life, various paradises where eternal life is available, magical rivers where bathing can extend life, and the sight of rare and exquisitely beautiful objects, such as the Holy Grail, which will grant the beholder extended life. All of it is rubbish, Twilight. Eternal or extended life is unobtainable. Each will occupy his place in this world for his allotted time. The human life span is far too precious to be infinite, even for a veneficus. Infinity would devalue the individual contribution. When I get to a hundred my life and powers will leave me. Sorcery cannot survive alongside frailty - it’s too serious a business for that. Even now I can feel some of my gifts waning. The ability to work magus wonders against the material laws that govern our universe requires a person who is strong in both mind and body. It is an exhausting business with no room for error - the consequences of getting it wrong can be horrific, and I will cover that subject with you very soon. That is why I have fretted over your coming for the past year or so. Now you are here, and I have just seven years left in which to impart a lifetime of experiences. I took mine from the Elder Pendragon, and you, my dark-eyed little skirmisher, are the one who has been chosen to carry the mantle of the next Wessex veneficus and holder of the enchantments.”

The boy’s mouth fell open in wonder. “The Elder Pen-dragon was your teacher?” Hardly daring to believe his ears, the boy took refuge in a question.

“I sat at his feet for the last twenty years of his life, and he taught me everything. In turn he learned from Idris the Former, and Idris from the Pale Sybil, and so on back in time. Each one of them lasted exactly one hundred years.”

“I have heard stories of the Elder Pendragon and Idris the Former around the settlement fire. The Pale Sybil is a new one. It was a woman?” The boy’s dark eyes showed wonder.

“A very special one, but a woman for all that.” The old wizard’s emerald eyes flashed, and the beautiful face and long, dark tresses of a goddess-like figure replaced his craggy countenance for a brief moment. “There is no difference in the powers of sorcery between men and women - veneficus or venefica, a sorcerer or sorceress. Anyone can be chosen, and there may be several around at any one time, although some may not recognize their gift. The secret is to maintain the line of instruction of the enchantments. Once that is broken, the line of succession breaks with it, and the continuum of the enchantments will be lost forever, for they are too complicated to be guessed or simply arrived at. They must be carefully, reverently passed down over a period of years. The line from the Pale Sybil, through Idris the Former, the Elder Pendragon, then me is nearly four hundred years long. And there were many others before that - ninety-eight, in fact. It is a line of succession that has endured for all of known time. There has always been, must always be, at least one veneficus or venefica in existence, and it is the duty of the incumbent to ensure the succession. You are the next in that line, and the time available for me to pass on the great mysteries is getting shorter every day. The rest of us all had around twenty years to learn, but you only have seven, which is why I was getting anxious about your arrival and have been imploring and calling upon all the ancient gods to speed you here. As far as I can tell I am the only old one left, although it is probable that there are others out there somewhere. You, however, are certainly not alone in being chosen as a veneficus. There are a number of other tyros abroad because, like the eggs of fledglings, not everyone will hatch. Someone else out there may be going through the exact same learning process as the one we are now embarking upon. Indeed, I had a sense of someone coming near a year ago, but the aura turned away and I lost it. Then, shortly afterwards, the resonance of your own coming took over.”

“You have been expecting me for a year?” said Twilight in surprise. “But my father only decided to bring me here two days ago.”

“Ahhh.” Merlin sighed in what the boy was beginning to recognize as his favorite expression. “You are referring to a physical decision governed by physical rules. I am talking about a metaphysical one, a rhetorical and a far more malleable existence. There will be many new words with different and perhaps strange meanings, new phenomena, and unusual events. Matters will be turned on their heads. Reactions will be gauged in opposites or imponderables. Things will mostly not be as they seem. Now that you are with me, at last many of the things that have been bothering you will be explained, begin to make sense. Tyro veneficus
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novice sorcerers - are chosen before birth, before, some say, the womb. Their presence is preordained. These things you will learn.”

“And now I am here … metaphysically,” said Twilight, looking into the distance reflectively. “You use words I have never heard before, yet somehow I know what they mean.”

Far into the secret recesses of his mind’s eye, the subliminal images of assorted figures, clarion events, and myriad brightness tangled with incantations and sharp cries as the recurring images played themselves once again across the soaring thermals of his emotions. His loneliness and silence in the settlement, the pointing fingers and slurs of the other children, the indifference of his own brothers and sisters, the rejection of the settlement elders, his father’s beatings because he would not behave like the rest of them, his mother’s protection and understanding. At last he understood, could give full vent to the poignant scenes that had taken hold of his mind over the last few years, the continuously rolling action of an inner eye that had forced him into introspection, silence, and loneliness and made him a pariah in his own family and village. Now there was a meaning and a reason for it all, one that he was now beginning to understand. He had been chosen. He was a novice magician, a genuine tyro veneficus. It was a wonderful feeling. He really was different, but in the most wonderful way, and his teacher was to be none other than the legendary Merlin himself.

Merlin watched and understood as the dawning took place in the young boy’s dark eyes.

“It is a great honor and a relief to know that I am not mad,” Twilight said finally.

“Yes it is, but an honor that must be strictly upheld.” The old wizard waggled a long, bony finger at him. “The temptations for personal benefit are legion in this business and must be steadfastly resisted. As far as madness is concerned, we all went through that stage at first until the reason for our differences was explained. It is perfectly natural to think that you are mad when everyone else is acting and thinking completely at odds to the actions and thoughts you have. It’s only when we begin to exercise some of these embryonic talents by manipulating folk, usually very clumsily at first, that we begin to destabilize their order and get into trouble. That’s why we are doomed to live on the margins of settlements, villages, and towns, outcasts forced to live the life of a hermit. When our gifts are in their infancy and lack the discipline of teaching and control, they can be frighteningly counterproductive and sow rogue fears in the simple minds of folk. As a consequence we are often perceived as ‘odd,’ and they have no alternative other than to banish us from their midst as they would any other common madman. That is what happened to you. Your father could see no alternative. Your presence had to be sacrificed for the stability of the rest of his family and, no doubt, the entire community of your settlement. The irony is that having banished us, they then plead for us to return from time to time so that our ‘oddities’ will manifestly save them from whatever dark demons threaten them next. This also happened to you on your journey here. It wasn’t until you were both threatened by the dark wraiths of the Savernake that your father realized the strength of your gifts.”

“I am at least free now to learn, understand, and pursue my gifts. Tell me, from where does all of my knowledge come? I have never been taught to read or write nor had any guidance whatsoever. I just seem to know a great many things.”

Merlin smiled. “These are some of the givens of the veneficus. There are the simple truths, such as all the chosen are born on All Hallows Day - you may recall me asking your father your birth date. Then there are the truths based around knowledge, with which we venefici are all blessed. These are necessary implants in order to absorb the difficulty of the enchantments. Without a good base of learned information you would not be able to appreciate how all the intricacies of the powers at our command fit together. Lack of knowledge cannot be allowed to divide us, or to prevent the swift absorption of the enchantments. You also have many other gifts that you have yet to discover, including total recall of everything that is or has been said to you. This means that every answer I give or event you see remains permanently with you and is never forgotten. When my period of teaching comes to an end you will be imbued with crinkum crankum of the most spell-binding kind, jabberwocky of the finest subtlety coupled with the imagination of Plato, the wisdom of Critias, the poetry of Solon, the virtues of Charmides, and the courage of Odysseus - a great fount of bizarrerie and knowledge that will enable you to face anything this turning world hurls at you.”

“These people with the strangely hypnotic names, I do not know them. They are Gauls, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, or Celts perhaps?”

“They are ancient Greeks, one of the first great civilizations of mankind, who sought to enlarge the boundaries of the human mind through the attainment of a mental state in which the ideas of space, time, matter, and motion were proved to be contradictory and imaginary - that nothing was, or was not known, or could be spoken. The manipulation of those boundaries allows for the acceptance of the gifts bestowed upon us as venefici. It is the basis of our phenomena - what vassals call our magic, the don’t-knows our sorcery, and the naysayers our witchcraft.”

Twilight was silent for some time as he absorbed this information.

“Why are we here? What purpose do venefici serve by being on this earth?”

“The answer the Elder Pendragon gave me to that question was that I would form my own opinions over time.”

“And have you?”

“Yes.”

“You are reluctant to tell me?”

“Not reluctant, but it is a big question, possibly the biggest of all for us and one with no strict definitions - other than as the placatory advisors to the cowering mists for one day of each year. I will address that with you tomorrow. Apart from that we are free to use our gifts at will. Let me begin to answer with what we are not. We are not the automatic guardian angels to the great and the good, kings, queens, or any other leaders. You have no ties or duties to anyone or anything other than your own inclinations. The decisions you make, the gods you call upon, the alliances, religions, or causes you support, be they on the side of good or evil, fiendish or radical, imperial or heroic, are all entirely up to you. There will always be a battle between virtue and wisdom on the one side, and evil and folly on the other. It is the way of humankind. You can even choose to forsake the enchantments and live a normal life if you wish, but once you begin to understand the great powers you have, that is very difficult. That is what the Elder Pendragon meant, and I would answer you in the same way. We all have a different view on matters and must act as our conscience dictates. For instance, he told me that the Pale Sybil, a venefica of great understanding and compassion, considered her position and purpose should reflect that of a goddess, someone of the very highest status whose gifts were that of a divine being placed on this earth. Indeed, some of our abilities are powerful enough to encourage that belief. She considered her rightful tomb to be on Mount Olympus - haven of the Greek deity - alongside that of the immortal goddess Thetis, who was honored for her glistening feet. This was considered the highest and most omnipotent presidium from which the immortals could look down upon the passing centuries with a sort of condescending eye. However, for all her grandeur, the Pale Sybil carried out her duties as venefica with considerable success and created a great deal of harmony during the early, turbulent occupation of our lands by Caesar’s Roman legions. In time you will learn more of her and other outstanding feats. You will also learn a great deal about the ancient Greeks, for I am an avid student of their ways.”

“Where did the Pale Sybil live?”

“As befitted her self-status, in a rather grand castle on the Western edge of our region of Wessex,” the long magus said almost apologetically.

“But I thought you said we were outcasts? A castle doesn’t sound like the sort of home for an outcast.”

Merlin sighed. “I agree, but the Pale Sybil didn’t see it that way and exercised her own right of choice. As I’ve said, she considered her rightful place to be among the Olympian immortals, and being a vainglorious woman with great powers was able to indulge in her own earthly deification. The only consolation is that apart from an old female hell hag of a retainer called Santa, she lived alone in the castle until Idris the Former came to sit at her feet.”

“And Idris and your teacher, the Elder Pendragon, what status did they give themselves?”