A Short History of Laurence Part-2

[yahiel7.livejournal.com]

Ahmed arrived at the cloister early the next morning. France was beautiful even in winter and only a thin cast of snow covered the ground. Several of the monks were in the yard performing their morning meditations. Ahmed recognized Father Marcus among the devotees and walked quietly to approach him. The priest saw him approach and finished a prayer before standing to meet him.

“Good to see you, come to convert from your Saracen ways or just to hassle us poor innocent monks a little more?” He smiled as he spoke, as of yet unaware of the gravity of Ahmed’s mission.

“No, my old friend, I come on a mission of grave importance. I hate to sound cliché but I have a task for you. It is not one you will like and not one you can reveal, even to the Awakened priests.”

“This sounds ominous. What is it you would ask?”

“I have brought with me a child, I need you to see to his protection.” Ahmed noticed the Father’s head beginning to rise in immediate assent. “Wait, old man; there are things you should know. He is not like other children. He is cursed. From what the Hermetics can surmise his father was a demon of some sort called in vile ritual; he is not quite human and there is a pall over him that will revolt you and turn you away.

"Even if you manage to get past his devilish appearance, you as a mortal will not be able to see past the curse. You will have to fight against it every day if you are to protect him from the outside world. What’s more, we do not know if he is dangerous or born evil. It is possible that he possesses a human soul, or at least enough humanity to make his own choices on right and wrong, but there may be much about who and what he is he will not understand.

"From what I can tell he was born Awakened. He will have very little control over that power until he comes of age - most awakened babies kill themselves or those around them early on. Your constant vigilance will be required."

Ahmed went on to tell him of the gypsies and the curse. When he was finished the priest asked to see the child. It was all he could do to keep from hurling it away from him, but he looked into himself and turned the thought away.

“We accept the charge.” was all he said.

Ahmed looked at him for a moment more and sighed, handing over the child. He left and the monks prepared bone and milk to nurse the little creature, each taking turns so the curse didn’t overpower them. They named the child Laurence after a French saint who turned away from evil to become a humble servant of the Lord and gave his life defending the nuns of St. Abigail’s in the 13th century.

It would be months before they were able to accept him without a shudder, and though they would never love him, they at least came to think of him as a responsibility and not a burden. This was unfortunate, because despite their best efforts and with no ill intention on the part of the child it was only ten years till he killed them all....

***

The young boy sat in the field singing softly to himself. He loved this field, always had. It had a gentle feel to it, with its wide expanses of green bordered by tall sheltering pines. The hills seemed to lilt, making a place for him in the center of the tides of grass and lavender. He knew it wasn’t real - if he let it be real it was all dead and rotten and broken - but in his inner eye it was beautiful and he liked that way better. He was young boy, not more than ten but older than eight, as he made sure to remind his elders on a regular basis. He had dusky hair the color of midnight and skin tanned bronze and smooth from growing up in the fields and outdoors. He wasn’t tall for his age but he was lithe and strong like the ash trees he liked to climb. He was a good boy but sometimes he defied his elders; they tried to make him stay inside and to read the stories they gave him and look at the strange pictures they drew. He didn’t like any of that. He just wanted to be out here running through the fields and playing in the trees and singing his soft songs to the wind.

The elders hated it when he sang; they tried to make him stop or they would yell, sometimes one of them would fall down and scream and then one would hit him and tell him he was evil. That was when it was the worst. That was when he had to go to the dark place with the old man who would talk to him about how he shouldn’t let the evil things inside of him get out, how he shouldn’t sing to them for it was wrong. The boy didn’t understand any of that, he just knew that sometimes he needed to sing, the voices told him to sing and they were much nicer than the elders.

Oh, he knew they meant well, he heard them talking about the voices; sometimes they said mean things about them. “The child thing must be silenced Father Marcus, don’t you understand he cannot control them, he doesn’t understand.” But the other man would always say the same thing. “It is not for us to judge the will of God, Brother Benedict; the voice of the fallen is on this one but the child is innocent and we took an oath to protect him.”

He said other things sometimes as well, like how the betrayer has taken a hold of the boy or how the whips are useless on the innocent flesh and many other things the boy didn’t understand. All the boy knew was that singing for the elders was wrong and that they would hurt him for it, but for some reason he always wanted to sing for the elders - his shoulder would start to itch were the mark was and he would just need to sing.

Maybe if they would just listen, he thought, maybe they would like the new one he thought up. But it never changed. They would scream and rake their nails through their hair and then one would come close enough and strike him with the holly whips they had and he would stop. The songs were very pretty today; they made him think of sunshine and the trees and the tasty bitter fruits on the bushes near the south wall.

He couldn’t tell the Elders about the berries though; he wasn’t supposed to go near the wall. The time he told them he found a wall they beat him and locked him in the room with the old man for six days and didn’t give him anything but water. He hated that room, the old man always talked - he never listened, he didn't even know when the boy was singing; he just talked and talked.

But today none of that could bother him, today the sky was clear and he was singing. Maybe this song the Elders would like, it was all about the sun and the sky and how beautiful it was on a day like this. The boy looked over and saw a bird lying at his feet, it wasn’t moving and its beak was open. Poor thing, he thought it looked like it was trying to sing and then it died. It was sad but at the same time he hoped that when God took him to heaven he could be singing.

He got up and headed back towards the abbey. The abbey was a solid stone building, low to the ground. It had many rooms where you could hide or for the Elders to pray in but mostly it was gray and empty. The walls on the outside had scary demons carved into them; the Elders say it was to ward off servants of the fallen one. The abbey was cold today - it was always cold in fall. Somehow it could be warm outside but cold in here; he always thought that was strange.

The Elders were making their rounds when he came in. Some of them nodded to him and some of them turned away. They were on their way to Mass; he decided to go as well. Maybe if he sang his song in there they would know that he only wanted to please them and be nice for God and they wouldn’t hurt him. The Mass was a very boring time when the Elders would say things with weird words like the ones they made him read all the time.

He came in through the back door where they couldn’t see him, they would be mad if they knew he was going to sing, but that’s just because they hadn’t heard the song yet. When they stopped talking he started to sing. He closed his eyes and let it go, he couldn’t tell what they were saying but no one stopped him so he just sang. His shoulder started to itch and burn and he rubbed it and sang and sang.

He sang about how much he loved God and how nice the Elders were. He sang about the trees he loved and the fields he liked to run through. He sang about the birds and the little animals that ran through the forest. He sang for a long time, a whole song as loud as he could. Everyone got quiet after a little while - they must have finally liked one of his songs. That made him so happy he just kept singing about all the things that brought him joy and all his favorite things. He sang and sang until his throat was dry and then when stopped he ran into the chapel to see if the Elders would tell him it was alright and that they finally understood that he was a good boy who just loved to sing.

All the Elders were there looking at the ceiling. Their mouths were open as if they were trying to sing along but none of them were moving. The boy smiled; they looked just like the little bird, he was happy for them though. They all got to go to God at the same time; he must love them very much to make sure that they wouldn’t miss each other. But now he missed them, but he shouldn’t be selfish, the Elders told him never to be selfish. He would just have to find new friends.

***

Ahmed had arrived too late, only by a few hours by the look of it. The brothers were all dead in the chapel, Father Marcus lay on the floor as if clawing his way to the confessional. From the look of it Laurence had begun one of his songs and they couldn’t stop him. Brother Nathan was the first to have discovered his songs, now he was deaf and slightly mad. He was probably alive still somewhere in the building.

Ahmed felt the charge still in the air, a latent but powerful effect of forces acting through the boy’s naturally inhuman voice. Tracking the patterns of prime, he found the boy crying deep black tears in a corner. At first he was furious, but he pushed it aside; the child couldn’t help it, no Awakened child could. The forces of a confused and underdeveloped avatar acting upon the innate magics within a child who couldn’t possibly understand what’s going on.

To make it worse Laurence was apparently autistic, unable to fully understand and realize what it was he was seeing and hearing in the world around him. Ahmed guessed it was due to the death-sight of the curse. The world didn’t look or sound right to his human mind or soul and he couldn’t figure out why. He would probably grow out of it in time, learn to master the distortions and adapt to the real world, but for now as only a nine year old boy, he was not ready.

He should not have waited so long, they discovered months ago that the child’s soul was mostly human and that he had a great capacity for good. In fact, in an almost ironic twist of fate, the child appeared to have very little concept of or capacity for evil. The first time they told him where meat came from he cried for a week and nearly destroyed three buildings in a fury trying to save the pigs. It took a month for them to calm him down.

Nevertheless he was extremely dangerous and should have been moved to a chantry as soon as they knew it was safe. But Ahmed had been busy and hadn’t yet decided which tradition to ask to sponsor him. It was a major undertaking, training and teaching a child like this. In the end he had decided to take him to Master Pologrutio in Morocco. The Order of Hermes were responsible for investigation of Frikalos and so should take in the child that came of that madman’s work under their watch. In addition he possessed hermetic seals bound into his skin that seemed to have something to do with his nature and magical talents.

The child looked up at him with his glassy black eyes, Ahmed, even knowing him for as long as he had, had to suppress a shudder as he saw his reflection come back to him rotted and hard edged. Even an Awakened being who was immune to the curse had to take pains not to look Laurence in the eyes; what one saw there was enough to make any man doubt in God and any faith he had in the world.

He turned his eyes away from the twisted reflection and took in the rest of him. He had grown even in the few months Ahmed had been away. His skin was tanned, though still had a cast of grey to it in an eerie way. His horns looked sharper and his claws hooked. His gaunt muscles were overly defined against his skin. He looked, in short, warped. His shape was fine - in fact it was almost perfect, but the perfection was wrong somehow and the features too sharp and clean, too beautiful to be attractive, the coloring incorrect for mortal eyes.

He was cursed. But Ahmed felt care and pity for him, and gathered him up into his arms and held him while he cried those odd black tears. It was hard to do, his weight was wrong, not proportioned like a person, it felt like he was holding a life-like doll, but he held him anyway. The boy was sobbing, saying he didn’t know what happened; that he had gone to sing, the mark had wanted him to sing and he had sung and then they were all dead. He looked up at Ahmed as if asking for forgiveness.

Ahmed tried to explain that it was going to be alright but Laurence read more than Ahmed’s words spoke - he always did, and knew it was his fault. In the end the Ahl-i-Batin master told him he would take him to a place where they would make sure it never happened again, where they would teach him how not to sing. Laurence grew silent after that, his understanding of what was going on lost on the winds of his warped senses and his imagination taking over once again. Ahmed carried him out in a daze, lifted into the air and began the long flight to Casablanca.

***

The Desert Moon Chantry was located about thirty miles beyond the outskirts of Casablanca in northern Morocco - a beautiful and ancient structure dating back to the Moorish occupation, where it was the palace of a very rich and influential prince in exile. When the Prince returned to his home, the Palace became the site of a House Tytalus training ground and eventually a great chantry. Master Pologrutio was the most recent in a long and prestigious line of House Tytalus war-masters who led the chantry. Ahmed knew him from his hell-raising youth as a House Tytalus battle mage. They had worked together against the Nazis for years before Pologrutio was assigned to the Desert Moon chantry, and while it had been many years since they had fought together, they still considered each other close allies and good friends.

Ahmed arrived late in the evening when most of the Chantry had retired to their own studies. Ahmed entered into the Master’s private sanctum by means of a password they had devised years earlier so that his comings and goings could go unnoticed.

Ahmed had taken care to shroud Laurence in a cloak, hood and mask so that his features and countenance were not immediately apparent. He had also sent word ahead to Pologrutio with a detailed account of the boy’s early life and origins. Still, he knew the master would have to see for himself before he agreed to take him. Master Pologrutio was a master of the spirit sphere and had a history of diverse and cordial relations with the various courts - if anyone would know how to handle a half-spirit child it would be him.

Master Pologrutio’s chamber was not lavish but it was large and comfortable, filled on every wall with artifacts and baubles from a hundred different lands. Strange devices Laurence had only heard about in books, like a television and personal computing device sat side by side with alembics. A telephone sat on the desk beside another computer-like device but this one was so small that it could be carried around in the hand.

Laurence was completely rapt and began chatting with the spirit of the little thing, who called itself Mr Blackberry and had a lot to say about many things. Ahmed was behind him talking to a tall man Laurence could only assume was Master Pologrutio when his side started to itch. He turned to see the Masters looking intently at him and his side started to burn. He started scratching at it, saying “Stop, it burns me, make stop 'cause e’nt liking of it!”

Somehow he realized he was making very little sense - he often did that when he couldn’t think straight or in terms people could understand. Suddenly the itching stopped.

“Let me see your side boy, where it itches.” The Master of the chantry had a commanding voice. Laurence pulled aside his cloak and lifted his shirt. The seal on his lower right rib was just starting to cool down but it was still red and hot. “Hmm, you were right, that’s the seal of Och. It is the governing seal of Solar interests such as divination - it is probably tied in with his magical senses so it itched when we were scanning him.” He turned back to Ahmed “And you say there are seven seals in total and they are part of his flesh, not inscribed or somehow branded?”

“That’s right. I was there at the day of his birth; a band of illiterate gypsies and a half trained Romanian doctor brought him into this world and those seals were there, albeit tiny, as soon as the birthing blood was wiped away. Phaleg, Arartron, Bethor, Hagith, Ophiel, Phul and you’ve seen Och at work. It was Hagith that killed the Monks of San Michelle’s. It urged him to song and then blended the music with deadly Forces magic, tore them apart from the ears in.”

Laurence shut down again after being reminded of the dead monks. He knew that Ahmed and the master were still talking but he stopped understanding anything they said. After a while Ahmed led him out of the room and down the hall to a small chamber set up like a private quarters. He started talking - Laurence didn’t hear the first few words but then tried his hardest to hear the rest.

“...room, so you must obey and learn from the masters. This is your new home; they will take care of you here, but it might take them some time to get used to you so be patient with them. You have a good soul Laurence, I know you do, you just need to learn to control the other side of yourself. Remember it does what you want - you just have to learn to make it listen. No more singing for a while, no matter how much the seal on your shoulder wants you too. No matter what, just don’t do it.”

After that it all blurred out again; he remembered a kind look in Ahmed's eyes and a hug and then he was gone. When it blurred out the room was a hollow shell, cold with a chill wind. The walls were falling in, the water was stagnant and the bed a loose pile of straw filled with maggots and decay. He closed his eyes, and imagined it as it would be in his dreams, warm and comfortable. That way when he opened his eyes again it wasn’t so bad; he could still see it, but like the fields at home it was better this way.

Thus began Laurence’s days at the Desert Moon Chantry. Eventually he would come to be trained as a mage, to harness the power of his ancestry and his magic. Eventually the autism would pass and he would come to understand that his death-sight was a curse and not truly the way reality was. Eventually he would become a brilliant scholar of the hermetic arts and it was then that he would try and leave, but it was also then they would not let him.

***

Laurence held on to the image as long as he could, the strain was painful in his inner eye. Seven masters encircled him, each doing their best to suppress his cursed sight for long enough for him to see reality.

“What is this Laurence, what is it I am holding?” Master Pologrutio was holding something in his hand, something like a... Laurence pushed harder.

“It is a flower and it is red and pretty. It’s a fresh rose!” Laurence said triumphantly.

The Master smiled “Well, technically it is a carnation, Laurence, but that was very good, it has been picked which means its death was assured but you pushed past its fate and saw the reality. That is a great step for you.”

He stood up and walked around the room removing the wards and seals from the other masters present. The power needed to suppress Laurence’s curse was incredible, even for short periods of time, and the masters learned early on to use protection as the backlash could be lethal, even in a protected chantry. Whatever had laid this curse upon him did not like being messed with.

After the other masters had left, Laurence went and sat next to Master Pologrutio who was finishing up the removal of the various wards and suppressions that had lines the room.

“Master, I wanted to speak with you about assignments.” He spoke the words in trepidation already knowing what the answer would be but hoping today’s exertion would have changed his mind.

The old Master sighed “Laurence, we have been over this. You are not ready to leave the chantry house.” He turned back to his work but Laurence would not be dissuaded.

“With all due respect Master Pologrutio, I am eighteen, and I have been in training for longer than most of the other adepts here at the chantry who, I might add, have already been given leave to go on assignment. I realize that my circumstances pose certain difficulties in the mortal world, but I believe I am ready to overcome those. I can already maintain a cloak of illusion to keep my true features hidden and I can hide almost anywhere. I have conquered my previous difficulties with mortal communication. I am ready - I can even distinguish between the ages and natures of things without the suppression. I am ready.”

“No, Laurence, you are not. I do not care how good you think you are, all it takes is one careless moment in a city or a crowded building and you risk alerting the sleepers to something they are not ready for. Your face alone can set off a panic in a crowd of humans, let alone if you are seen using any of your ‘special gifts’.

"Do you remember what happened the two times you left here, without my permission I might add. The jazz club had to be worked on for weeks and the people tracked down and mind wiped. Don’t even get me started with the incident at the airport. No. It is far too dangerous. Your life is here young one, you will just have to learn to accept that. You are Hermes - you are Tytalus. We know our place and have the discipline to obey our elders. We raised you better then to act on your emotions like this.”

“What am I asking if not to be those things you say I am? Where can I find a challenge worthy of a Tytalus if not outside these walls, where can I test my powers only in this sheltered environment? I'm like a trapped animal. I know what's out there but I can only see my bars. I will never be anything more than that unless you let me go.

"Yes there are risks but aren’t all mages at risk when we leave here? The Technocracy is everywhere, nephandic cults are growing. You could use me! I am stronger then a human, harder, faster, I don’t even need magic for most of what I do - I can fight without paradox. What other mage can take a primium round to the face and shrug it off, what other mage can drop from a forty storey building and not care, without using magic, without paradox? What other mage can do these things? Master I am right, I am ready and I am needed."

“Really, young one? You are that strong? Let me ask you this. What other mage gets sick and insane on holy ground? Remember that’s why you went mad growing up with the monks. What other mage is pierced by holy weapons, or burned by simple holy water? What other mage terrifies an entire room of humans just by having their hood pulled back? Very few young one, very few.

"You are not normal, you are not human, and while your soul may be pure you cannot ignore your curse. No, you are not ready. One day perhaps. You have plenty of time. You don’t age like a human Laurence, you’re going to be on this earth for a very long time, you had better learn a little patience.” The tone of the Master indicated this was all there was to say on the subject of assignments, as he left the room. Laurence stayed behind for a while staring at the wall and thinking of disobedience.

***

It was a few months later that those thoughts came back to his mind. Another lesson, another lecture on patience, another upsetting finality. Laurence danced a flame across his knuckles, playing with the light and color transforming into sound and back to heat. He was good at this, he had control. It had been years since there had even been the hint of an incident. He could control his seals, he knew what he was doing. The master just didn’t understand, he wanted to protect Laurence but he had no right. Laurence was Tytalus.

Why raise him to an order of paladins then never let him meet a challenge? It was unfair and cruel. Hadn’t he had enough cruelty in his life, hadn’t he paid for his father’s crimes enough? He should be out there cutting down the Technocracy and slaying nephandic lords, not sitting in a chantry like a retired master playing with energy control on a boring Sunday afternoon.

Thus he decided to leave. It was not an easy decision to make - there was a lot he didn’t know about the outside world and it was very bad for a Tytalus to disobey a direct order. In fact under most circumstances he wouldn’t even consider it; he would walk into death on the command of Master Pologrutio without question and disobedience went against every instinct he had. The thing was, this wasn’t about walking into death, this was about walking into life and that was another matter all together. He had no life at the chantry; he had a room and studies but no life. He had no friends, not that anyone would ever be his friend, but he hadn’t ever got to go looking for anyone who might. Worst of all, he had no challenge and that was something a Tytalus just could not accept. So that night in early October, he packed a small bag, wrapped his cloak and mask about him and snuck out of the chantry grounds. Where he would go, he didn’t know but like Jack Kerouac and the ‘Road’ he would follow his feet and see where it took him.

***
Master Pologrutio watched out the window of his sanctum as Laurence quietly slipped past the guards, cloaked in invisibility. He worried about him, but it had to be done, he was ready. Laurence never would have left on his own, he had to be pushed to it, pushed to being part of the world. Laurence’s curse had a cure but he could never find it within the bounds of his chantry. A hundred thousand lives saved, it was a tall order, even for a Tytalis, but one perhaps Laurence could meet. In any case it would do no good to worry; he was older, controlled and as prepared as the chantry could make him. If he failed now, then it was merely meant to be. The ancient warlord turned back to his work with a sigh. “We shall just have to see.”