Henry Neff: The Maelstrom

She chose one of the Manse’s less trafficked staircases, leading them up the marble steps while the sprawling mansion hummed and echoed with the din of a new school day. Footsteps drummed and doors opened and slammed shut, accompanied by shouts and laughter from the dormitory wings. A disheveled Second Year came racing down the staircase, carrying far too many books and chomping maniacally upon a slice of ham. Upon glimpsing the Director, the boy gave a prepubescent yelp and spun awkwardly to avoid hitting her. Books and breakfast went flying as the boy crashed into Miss Boon, flinging his arms about her waist to break his fall. Both parties were mortified. Stammering incoherent apologies, the student stooped to gather up his things and braced for the inevitable tirade. He was saved by the stampede that soon followed.

More students came dashing down the narrow staircase, a blur of scrubbed faces, books, and wet hair that clung to cowls of gray, blue, and brown wool. Bidding the Director a startled good day, they swarmed past their unfortunate classmate and continued to chatter about the latest gossip, homework, and exams. Max watched them go, more than a little envious as they dashed off to study composition, divination, or whatever else occupied their busy schedules. His former classmates would be diving into their second hour of Advanced Conjuration, each resplendent in their silver magechains and a Fifth Year’s fine viridian robes.

By the time they’d reached the third floor, the flood of students had thinned to a handful of stragglers, woefully late and destined for mucking out the Sanctuary stables or patrolling the raw and windy coast. Winding their way through a maze of corridors, the three finally passed the Bacon Library and veered down a disused hallway to a suite of old classrooms. Those classrooms had been converted into an apartment that was now occupied by a living, breathing dead man.

Was Elias Bram dead? In truth, Max did not know. To label the man undead seemed wrong. Undead evoked ghouls and wights and revenants—creatures with rotting flesh and spectral eyes and a ravenous hatred of the living.

But while Elias Bram did not fit this description, he neither fit conventional definitions for the living. For one, Bram’s sacred apple had turned to gold, which was only supposed to occur upon one’s death. For another, it was common knowledge that Astaroth had devoured the man centuries ago. But what if the Demon had kept some vital spark of Bram intact? Astaroth had spoken of past victims “contributing to his essence,” but Max assumed he’d been speaking metaphorically. If Elias Bram’s living spirit had persevered all this time, Max was not certain how to classify him.

Regardless of whether Bram was living or dead, Max still regarded him with a mixture of superstitious awe and fear. The man’s legend loomed over everything at Rowan. Even the lowliest apprentice could recite basic facts about his life. He was revered as something of a saint and a demigod—a being whose name, likeness, and history were woven into the surroundings and daily life. For Rowan students, Elias Bram was Sir Isaac Newton, Hercules, and Merlin rolled into one.

For Mystics, however, Bram was Stradivari—a virtuoso of magic whose results could not be duplicated by later generations despite every effort to divine his methods. Even Bram’s most mundane ledgers and notes were treasured documents, meticulously preserved and jealously guarded by scholars who spent lifetimes scrutinizing them in the hope of some veiled cipher or insight. It was not just his magic that was a mystery, but also the man himself. How had a shipwrecked orphan come to claim Solas’s Gwydion Chair of Mystics by the age of twenty? It defied explanation.

If a book held the answers, many might have followed in Bram’s footsteps. But to Max’s knowledge, there had only been one. And that remarkable being was Max’s very own roommate and closest companion, the mysterious David Menlo. Like Elias Bram, David was a true sorcerer, a prodigy whose genius with magic often allowed him to bypass the ancient formulae and incantations that were a Mystic’s tools in trade. Once, Miss Boon had remarked—with a tinge of professional envy—that David’s talents were like a composer simply improvising an entire symphony. Ever since David’s power became apparent, the scholars sought to analyze him with the same fervor with which they studied Bram’s papers. As it happened, the connection between the two was closer than any had imagined: David Menlo was Elias Bram’s grandson.

David’s initial claim that Bram was his grandfather was met with skepticism. After all, David Menlo was only a teenager while Elias Bram had died during the seventeenth century. The only possible link between David and Bram was through the Archmage’s wife and daughter, who had fled Astaroth’s forces and sailed west with the refugees who would found Rowan.

The pair had arrived safely in America, but Elias Bram’s wife, Brigit, had died shortly thereafter. According to the histories, Elias had promised his wife that he would rejoin her in the new land. Day after day, Brigit Bram stood on Rowan’s rocky beach and gazed into the east, awaiting a husband who was not coming. Legend had it that one evening she took up her lantern and simply waded into the sea until the waves closed over her. Her body had never been found, but some insisted that her passing coincided with the appearance of a large rock off Rowan’s shore. Romantics claimed that its silhouette resembled a woman staring out to sea and named it Brigit’s Vigil.

Little was known of Bram’s daughter. Her name was Emer and the historians rarely mentioned her. From the few accounts, it seemed that Emer was a sickly, simpleminded child who had been shunned by the community even before she’d been orphaned. There was no indication that Emer had ever studied at Solas or Rowan, and all mention of her ceased after her mother’s passing. As there was no gravestone bearing her name or any documentation of her death, the scholars concluded that the unfortunate girl had been driven away or left to fend for herself in the wild.

Where Emer went or how she managed to survive, Max did not know. But by now it was clear that the Old Magic was in her. For one, she was now centuries old and yet looked no more than forty. For another, she had given birth to David, whose own ties to the Old Magic were plainly evident. Miss Boon theorized that Bram’s unfortunate daughter had inherited all of the Archmage’s power and none of his constitution. As most mortals were far too fragile a vessel for the Old Magic, the teacher surmised that its energies had overwhelmed Emer’s mind just as they had overtaxed David’s body. For Max, this seemed as logical an explanation as any.

When they finally reached the ironbound door, Miss Boon cleared her throat. “Are you certain anyone’s here?” she hissed. “He’s often away, you know.”

The sound of a child’s laughter answered the question. Drawing herself up, Ms. Richter knocked. A moment later the door was opened by a wizened domovoi with blue-tinted spectacles pulling an empty cart. He peered up at them, his lumpish face grinning amiably.

“Jacob!” exclaimed Ms. Richter, sounding surprised and somewhat relieved. “Here I was expecting Elias Bram and instead I find the estimable Jacob Quills. What brings you up from the Archives?”

The creature bowed and touched a bristly knuckle to his forehead. “I’ve been seeing to the Archmage’s books, Director,” he replied. “Our lord’s been catching up on what he’s missed, and three centuries makes for a crowded nightstand.” With a chuckle, the domovoi stood aside to let them enter before slipping out the door, pulling his wobbly cart.

Bram’s quarters comprised several old classrooms that had been modified into an apartment with a large common area, two small bedrooms, a snug study, and an old-fashioned privy. The walls were cream-colored plaster whose only adornment were the latest maps of Rowan’s territory and the Four Kingdoms. Turkish rugs had been strewn upon the floor, although they were barely visible beneath stacks of books, unrolled scrolls, and loose-leaf parchments. Bay windows faced south and west, but they offered little light on such a damp and gloomy morning. To compensate, several lanterns had been lit in the common room and a small fire flickered in the fieldstone hearth.