A Missive for Mankind

A letter between feuding colleagues, with the essence of magic at stake

This is the second story within a loosely-connected series, “The Delver.” 

Each story is stand-alone. You can read below without getting lost. 

However, if you want to start at a beginning (of sorts), then you can read “Ash and Death on a Dangerous Road.” You can also see the other parts, once I publish them, in my table of contents. 

I hope you enjoy, and Words go with you.

Greetings to my erstwhile and future friend, Léothrûn: may Words of Great Power guide you to wisdom, and lead you to the path of life and prosperity.

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News of your proclamation at Vindamrion has spread far across the world, and made its way to my unbelieving ears. Though the magnitude of your words may be lost on many of our brethren among the Schola, I see more clearly to your ends—perhaps even more clearly than you. 

It is clear to me that our little disagreement can no longer continue unacknowledged. For months now you and I have traded ideas through intermediaries; we have contented ourselves with nuanced allusions, veiled references towards one another as we correspond with our mutual friends, and other indirect missives. No longer. 

I must abandon measured discretion and embrace candor, for how else can I hope to pull you back from the brink? 

But I fear you will continue to run away from the truth about what happened that night, and what you saw. 

Leóthrûn, my friend, my student.

You used to call me Father.

Why did you abandon me so quickly? I can explain everything. 

You used to heed my word and attend to my Voice. If you ever trusted me as your guide, trust me now. I cherished you as I would a son, and despite our differences you remain dear to me; I would that you return to join in my work, which would greatly benefit from your Gifts. 

I hope, earnestly and with all my mind, that with this final entreaty to you, my son, I can reclaim something of the fellowship we once enjoyed between us. It is nearly too late to turn back, but not yet! We can, if you choose, once again work towards the flourishing of humanity, and set our lives and Voices towards the task of rescuing the people from the evils which befall them. I am only afraid that you will not be able to put aside what happened between us. 

You came upon knowledge for which you were not ready. It is my fault, my son. I was over-eager for you to contribute with your brilliance. I should have waited, and better prepared you to face the burdens of the work which is set before us. It is difficult to face at first, I know, and your reaction was understandable; many before you have hesitated and wrestled with this work, but with proper tutilage they have all overcome that struggle. Alas, you were not ready, and I regret that. 

But if only you had not run away! You were like a petulant child! I am sorry, but it is true. You allowed me no time to explain; you only abused and insulted. I know my own ire grew too, but only because I was trying to elucidate, to help you, Léothrûn.

With your recent words I foresee worse damage than a spat between master and pupil: I see darkness and, if you do not steer away from this path, sacrilege. 

And so: I make this final attempt to sway you, this final attempt to explain my work, and the value of my Wordcrafting. 

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When you saw me at that unfortunate hour, you first asked me: why?

You never gave me chance to respond. Now, to answer, I must remind you of our past. 

During your eight years as my student, how many hundreds did we Heal with our Words? How many illnesses cleansed, how many bones mended, how many ears made to hear or eyes opened to the light for the first time?

Healing by Word of Power, that is the first thing I taught you. Indeed, it is the first thing I teach any of my students—it is the principle ministry of my School: to master the human body, to curb the advance of all the things which plague it. 

But did you not notice? The greater our reputation for healing the more the injured appeared at our gate. Every fever we cured would be followed by another ten. Day and night we work and Heal and yet there is always more. We are like sailors, standing in the bottom of a sinking boat, watching the water rise with every heartbeat, and yet we try to save our by vessel scooping water in our hands or drinking it into our bellies. The ship is sinking faster than we can bail it. 

No matter how many Healing spells we Craft, no matter how many Codexes we write and copy and Read, death is still winning. 

We must mend the ship or we will die. 

That is my life’s work. 

Why else would we have the Words of Power, which you call sacred, if not to save ourselves and mankind itself? Why Heal? Why Mend? Why toil over ancient tomes and practice the art of the Voice if not to go beyond these temporary shadows and conquer that which has conquered every natural man? We have Power which is greater than nature, Words from eternity, Words that are greater than death. 

This is your pious belief, is it not? That the Words are holy? 

And yet in your recent speeches you spurn the very idea of following the Wisdom of the Words to bring eternity into this world and to save ourselves from death? That looks to me like a failure of faith. 

Every year—in the country around you, in Vindamrion. It is as predictable there as it is predictable here along the Felsian—mankind toils in the summer heat so that winter’s cold will not kill him. Yet we spend generations Crafting Words and spells which can bring heat and fire to his hearth. Why do we not instead turn our attention against the winter itself? Could we not stop it and bring warmth the whole year? I believe we can. 

For the Words have deeper roots than the passing spring grasses. Deeper roots than the mountains which fade imperceptibly in the rain. And we can access those roots, you and I. We can draw out the Power and use it. 

What is the reward for warming the cold laborer’s hearth? Momentary relief. Passing calm. A fleeting peace. In time it will grow cold. In time the chill of death will clutch at him, at his children, at his children’s children. Time will ruin his body and then his home and nothing will remain of him. He will be nothing, not even a memory. 

And yet you, and upstart scholars like you, you stand by with the mightiest Power ever given to man and you do not even pay mind to our greatest enemy. Death. You accept it, plead with it, wait for it, make it normal. Out of fear and moral preening you pretend as if the nothingness that awaits us is anything other than evil. 

We must resist it, Léothrûn. By any means. It is the last great battle. Indeed, it is the only battle. 

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That is why I do what I do. That is why we must study the body in all its facets. We must study death, so that we can understand it, so that we can solve it. 

You know the writings of Tayleng the Healer. You know how his knowledge is the basis for so much of our Healing arts. Why have there been no Healers like him in the centuries since? I tell you there have been men of equal or even greater talent, but we have lacked the courage to do true study. Instead, we have sat on our heels accepting that we could never improve upon his work. Why be so complacent? We have a duty to help mankind! 

Léo, You yourself could be greater even than Tayleng, but you lack conviction. 

What you saw in that room, before you stormed away like a frightened child, was true study. Had you stopped to listen for even a moment, I could have explained what we learned and we have gained! Yes, the man was in pain; but all his pain is over now, and we need living subjects. Corpses are hardly useful. We must all make sacrifices for humanity. 

(And so you know: by removing that man’s liver we were able to more properly discern the imbalances of necholia within the intestines and its reliance on inflammation of the stomach, a relationship we could not see with a liver mixing up the humors. Walthêof thought it was due to the man’s age, but we have tried it on other subjects several decades older and others much younger, and we’ve seen the same results. I anticipate that within a few more months we’ll have enough information to begin Crafting a more permanent solution to the necholia problem!). 

Don’t you see? We are making progress! 

We are closer to undoing death itself! 

That is why I do not count the cost of my work. It won’t matter how many limbs are severed by saw or scalpel once we create limbs which cannot break. It won’t matter how many wounds we have “inflicted,” as you called it, once the body can heal all wounds on its own. It won’t matter the effects of hunger upon the criminals in our prisons once our Words can rid them of the need for food (and I have nearly solved this!—did you know that the Færsuppa can be modified to eliminate hunger for up to three weeks? That’s as far as our data allow. A breakthrough! We can even go farther and make the body resistant to food. We just need to make it possible for the body to survive without food; even when nearing death the treated body will refuse to eat; the mind is always difficult, but on hunger we’ve managed to win that half of the battle. Which reminds me: do you still have a copy of Rubricai Osbeornic? I was hoping to reread something there from years ago. My notes are incomplete). 

As I was saying, it does not matter how many die upon the altar of our quest. We must not stop to mourn the loss of such a fleeting, fragile thing as one man, or a hundred men, or a thousand. That is why I press on with firm conviction, no matter what you and your followers say. What room can there be in my calculations for one man when all my thought is turned to fixing mankind? I care not for one ember of life; I am stoking the bonfire of life itself. 

But you, Léo: you would rather extinguish it all. You would rather we die. Instead of resisting your own death and the death of all, you would resist me, the man who would save you from it. You fear the new life which I will bring, a fear born of ignorance and envy. You would condemn the same common masses that you so foolishly lionize, thinking that because their death is delayed it is somehow prevented. Folly! Foolishness! 

Once our work is done, once we have created the Words which can give immortal life and after we give an unflinching vibrancy to what is now passing, then we can mourn those we have lost—ah! But even I think too small! Once we have beaten death for ourselves, can we not bring them back? Why weep, when we can create? Why mourn when we can recreate? You see, Léothrûn, we will have time then to study properly and see the secrets of the deepest realities which the Words reveal to us. Why be bound by death? Why be bound by mere bodies? Why be bound by time? 

Come back to me, Léothrûn. Come back, my son. You are approaching the edge of darkness and perhaps you yourself do not see the dangers. I have heard of your speeches in Vindamrion. That way lies only death. Not only do you resist the bitter medicine which will save your life, you will veer into hypocrisy. 

In your vain pulpitry you do more than champion death: you claimed that the deep Word-knowledge should be hidden from me and my School, at all cost. Do you not see the idiocy? At all costs, even to destruction? That is sacrilege. That is unholy. You would murder the Words of Life? For the sake of preserving Death? 

Come back to reason, Léo. Come back to me. I will make it right. Together, we can make all things right. Not just for ourselves, but for everyone.

If you do not recant, I fear there will be bloodshed. 

—

In earnest conciliation, your beloved friend,
Maldurian

—

One thing remains: I have been keeping in my study your discarded notes, which you left behind in your room the night you abandoned me. They are neophytic, but perhaps you still want them. I’ll hold them safe until you return. —M

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For more of Maldurian, read the stories below.

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