The Schoolman.

[Jentos 9422]

THE SCHOOLMAN

      Saint-Loup. 

 

      It sat far. Far. 

 

      In the East of Arcas, in the East of Aeldin there dreamt Saint-Loup. 

      In silence, lit under a treacherous moon, and corpses in the sky it slept. 

 

      And there was held the Manse; a building built from the very scripture of the damned. In those halls were raised those who dared. But what kind of man would dare tempt the very God with sin? 

      There slept Saint-Loup, and the House of Fir. 

      It stood there in the east, a throbbing wound in the eyes of Kastafir’ei. 

 

       A mark amongst the world, reflecting the very echoes of the sun, as it’s red, wretched fingers were glimpsed in the morning dawn, crimson and veiled under a thin veil of clouds. The sun came, and for once stood             silent. The sun did not scream, did not howl, limbs did not extend from its horrid, unseemly façade, it’s long, twisted fingers did not point. And the dead did not speak.

      They did not damn. 

 

     Kastafir’ei; The Schoolman. 

 

     The Schoolman was found, seated at his desk among the silent amenities of the keep he haunted. His frame still, eyes hooded. And within, the flesh desired. It was a disgusting thing that swelled within him, a divine   reprimand, a holy communion. It was sacrifice, the flagellation. 

 

    Clear as day the devil in the well had tempted his hand. Whispering black things as the moon rose. He could not bear to look at it in it’s pale embrace… It was a beautiful thing, and it seemed almost, as if for a              moment, that the clouds that rolled past were in fact behind it. 

 

   His frame shook, spasmed. He nearly fell to his feet. 

  A hush thrummed within the walls, a scream of void amongst utter nothingness. A silence so deep only the dead could conjure. 

 The place was riddled with the dead. Why, the very keep was aptly named; The Shelf of Skulls.

Some were noticeably newer, their paleness was noticeable in the morning light. But some dared little conceal their age, cocky in their gait, in their crumbling texture and flaking remnants. There they stood, a stark reminder of the fate of all things… Une danse macabre. 

 

    He looked at his very lying flesh, and the Schoolman hated. 

   And yet, the Schoolman saw. 

 He had seen with his very eyes not miracle, not sorcery, why, God do spare me the poor fool had seen scripture. And what a wretched thing that had been! Why, he had evaded the wine, the spells, cants and even the  bowels… The very well of the Manse, a living, murdering library which it had become… With it’s whispering, ever-chanting Ministers and Black Cardinals. Tell me, since when has the cardinal turned into a raven?     Since when, did a holy man become more… Oh, ever so more than holy… 

  As a matter of fact, holy has a rather delectable taste to it, the very word rings as it is spared from the lips’ embrace. A sweet taste, sweeter still to hear.

And the Schoolman, who could ever doubt his holiness? 

 

    Who could ever… Oh, the poor, poor fool. 

 

Why, even his name was wrong… 

[Callistus 988]

Once fell darkness upon a man’s dim, lowly eyes, and in there shadows quaintly peered through a window, past snows and thick winds, gandering, gravely mourning the old keep out thither; so barren, unvisited. A sorry tale, he thought, and so there held his heart and to God pray’d.

 

“Vita agitas, maldictus . .” spat the thing in hatred.