Summa Elvetica: Master of Cats
Jul. 14th, 2026 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
masterghandalfThis is a repost from Das_Sporking2; previous installments of this sporking may be found here.
Warning: This story contains some violence and a death.
MG’s Note: My apologies for the lateness of this post; I underestimated how long slogging through this story would take me. Thank you for understanding!
MG: Well, everyone, it’s time to continue our journey through Summa Elvetica! No, not the novel Summa Elvetica, which we have quite happily put behind us. But as you may recall, it was only the first part of the overall collection that is also called Summa Elvetica, featuring eight other short stories that Beale has written in his setting of Selenoth that collectively help lead in to the main Arts of Dark and Light series. The good news is that none of them is anywhere near as long as Summa proper😉. The bad news is that Beale is still Beale, with all that entails. But if we’ve gotten this far, I think we can do this! For these shorts, I won’t be using any guest sporkers, and I’ll mostly focus on summarizing with fewer direct quotes (though I’ll still work in a few of those when Beale says something particularly awful or has a particularly awkward turn of phrase) alongside my own snark and analysis, kind of a halfway point between my usual sporking style and my MG Reads posts on my journal, probably closest to my movie review style. Today, we start out with the first of our stories, and one which is pretty directly tied into Summa Elvetica – the backstory of Bessarias, he-who-will-become-Nomenlos, in “Master of Cats!” Insert obligatory joke about cats having no master here.
Master of Cats
We open with Bessarias as he’s studying a magical construct he’s working on, called a calengalad. He knows it’s flawed somehow but seems unable to figure out how to correct it; he nearly throws the calengalad out a window in frustration, but stops himself at the last time. He can’t destroy the calengalad with mere force, but if it impacted it would release a burst of energy that might harm anyone walking nearby… and attract attention he doesn’t want. Instead he banishes it back to the plane he summoned it from. He recalls how his dead master, Arilon, once told him that everything in the universe is made of particles too tiny for the naked eye to see, and yet contain all the secrets of the material world. Arilon described these as being like the dots of the Ponschule (and no, this term is not explained, nor does it appear anywhere else in the collection), and with enough dots, a truly skilled adept could arrange them to form… anything. Bessarias had asked just what adept Arilon had in mind, but Arilon, annoyed with the question, had shut him down. Now, centuries later, Bessarias thinks his question might have been the right one after all.
He reflects upon how, in the more than a millennium of its existence, the Collegium Obscurum has produced many incredible mages who had shaped the course of nations, but they all focused their energy on Who, What and Where. Arilon was the first to truly plumb the mysteries of Why and How. And yet his theory was flawed; seventy-six years ago, Bessarias managed to create an accurate model of the particle Arilon theorized, which he called the calengalad (and of which the construct he’d been tinkering with is a working model), only to discover that it in turn was made up of even smaller particles. And it can be broken, as Bessarias discovered when he accidentally created the Glass Desert. Which means that, yes, the elven wizards are essentially doing nuclear physics – and, beyond that, Bessarias apparently made a magical nuke, by accident. Which actually makes some sense thematically, because as we’ll see Beale will be depicting the elven wizards as a bit of a mix of Straw Scientists and Straw Occultists… in such a way I’m not sure he thinks there’s much difference between the two.
Anyway, Bessaria’s accidentally creating the desert is something that still horrifies him, though he learned a lot from it, and it was one of the only times in history that the High King of Elebrion felt the need to intervene in the Collegium (it occurs to me – Collegium Obscurum is Latin, but the elves don’t use Latin, the Amorrans do. Is it meant to be translation convention, or just laziness?) to forbid any further such experiments, and Bessarias’s name is now known, and feared, across Selenoth. Now he sits on the college’s ruling council and is only the fifth archmage in history to be ranked a master in three different magical disciplines. But he’s still frustrated because he can’t figure out what’s going wrong with his current experiment, not even after going through the archives, summoning demons and even communing with the dead.
Another elf named Kilios comes in, saying that Mastema told him that Bessarias was here. Mastema, it turns out, is the large, grey, talking cat who came in with Kilios, who is a blind seer. Mastema has told him that Bessarias has been holed up in his lab for three days and he asks if he needs to eat; Bessarias says he’s not hungry yet. It is always hard to return to the world of carnate concerns. Mastema, as it happens, sought Kilios out because of news of a potential battle, though he insists that the real reason is that he spotted a rat in Kilios’s quarters. Mastema is not actually a cat, but a demon who has been Bessarias’s familiar for two centuries, possessing new cat bodies as needed. They always look the same, and Bessarias doesn’t know how he manages it. Bessarias just thinks Mastema gets lonely when he’s preoccupied, though Mastema is offended at the suggestion.
Mastema insists he was hungry, not lonely, and anyway just yesterday the Savondese routed an invasion of the wolf-breed, aka our old friends the Ulfin. Kilios thinks the Ulfin were created by magic, but Bessarias doesn’t know who could do it; even the Collegium can’t create a whole new species, and he doubts the Savondese wizards could – they’re the most skilled human mages, but humans just don’t live long enough to truly master magic. Mastema thinks it was the Witchkings, but Bessarias thinks they were also human, so the same limitations apply. Kilios, at least, is glad to hear the Savondese won – they may be human, but they’re still preferable to the Ulfen. And speaking of humans, a new human ambassador has just arrived – an Amorran, which Bessarias has a hard time crediting for reasons that I think need to be shown in full:
Bessarias was intrigued. A human, an Amorran no less, hailing from the Court of Elebrion? Humans had a very different view of magic than his own people. They tended to view it mistrustfully at best, but those of the Empire were downright fanatics in their distaste for anything that smacked of the metaphysical. No, not anything, he corrected himself, for they were rigid monotheists who worshipped a slain god who was somehow not dead. Dead or not dead, though, this god had favored them, for their armies were strong and their rich empire now encompassed nearly a third of the land of Selenoth. It was an altogether curious thing.
…quite aside from the eye-wateringly pompous prose, am I the only one wondering how a religious order can be so averse to “anything that smacked of the metaphysical?” Methinks Beale’s wordplay got away from him… Anyway, Bessarias’s curiosity is piqued and he wants to meet this strange human for himself, and since we know who he becomes by the time of Summa Elvetica’s present, I think we can all imagine what the ultimate outcome of this is going to be. If nothing else, it’ll take his mind off his work, and living as long as he has he’s developed an appreciation for novelty. At this time, we learn that Amorr is a hundred years old – interestingly, “Master of Cats” only calls Amorr an empire, never a republic, which makes me wonder if that was a deliberate POV choice or just Beale being inconsistent and sloppy – and in all that time has never sent an emissary to the elves. Bessarias and Kilios banter a bit – and namedrop Occam’s razor, of all things, because that’s clearly an idea these ancient elven wizards would know by that name – and head off to see the human as the scene ends, Mastema declining to join them.
We cut to a guest building – that Bessarias has to navigate a magical maze to get into, for some reason, which I’m skimming over because Beale does – and Kilios leaves him there, as he feels a vision coming on and wants to meditate. He promises Bessarias he’ll let him know if it has anything to do with his research, though he doubts it does. They bid farewell and Bessarias goes inside the guesthouse, asking the guards to take him to the human. The human turns out to be a short old man in a tonsure, wearing an orange robe; he and Bessarias greet each other, and the monk names himself, In the name of my Lord Immanuel as Brother Herwaldus. Herwaldus offers refreshment, of which the High King has provided him plenty, and Bessarias accepts some wine; Herwaldus seems unimpressed by both the telekinesis Bessarias uses to levitate his wineglass and by the impressive spread the High King provided, so Bessarias concludes he really is an ascetic.
The talk turns to why Herwaldus is here; he says he’s here to share truth. Bessarias is amused, but interesting, thinking that the current High King is a hedonist with little interest in such things, so no wonder he foisted Herwaldus off on the Collegium instead. Honestly, Bessarias is surprised he didn’t just kill Herwaldus and have done. But, as a seeker of truth, Bessarias decides to hear Herwaldus out. Herwaldus describes himself as a monk of the order of Tertullian (Tertullian, it should be noted, was a real-life theologian but neither a monk nor a saint, nor do I believe there is a monastic order named for him in real life; once again, I’m compelled to wonder how a real-life historical figure found his way into Selenoth, and why he apparently founded a monastic order there) which means that he is charged with embracing the world in all its foulness, as opposed to other monks who live cloistered lives. Bessarias thinks that in the eyes of the church the elves count as a “foulness” and that he’s heard the Amorran king has declared them demons.
Herwaldus corrects him that Amorr has no king – the Sanctiff is head of the Church and first among equals (I still have so many questions about how Amorr’s government works with the Church crudely welded onto the Roman Senate like this…) and Herwaldus, at least, doesn’t agree with him about elves. He thinks the elves are no better or worse than humans, though like all the races of Selenoth are oppressed by the foe. Bessarias wryly says he’s heard of Lord Sathanas (wait a minute, Beale freely transposes real-world religious and historical figures to Selenoth, but Satan gets a new name? Though upon doing some research, “Sathanas” appears to be a real-life black metal band, so Bessarias may be in for a bit of a shock if he does meet them…) but never met him, though he knows a few of his subjects. Herwaldus is confused, so Bessarias clarifies that he is not a demon – he is a master of demons, and he could summon one and make it kill Herwaldus or carry him away to some deserted island right now if he felt like it. Herwaldus is unimpressed.
“I believe that you have the knowledge, yes. The power, certainly. Beneath your beauty and your courteous manner, I see great arrogance, the terrible pride that comes only from the possession of great power. I think that if Raphaelus were to paint an image of Lucifer before the fall, he could do no better than to use you as his model. But I also know that you will not harm me, because it is not permitted at this time. My mission is not yet finished.”
Herwaldus clarifies that it’s God who won’t permit him to come to harm; Bessarias studies him and doesn’t think he’s mad or foolish, and decides he rather likes Herwaldus’s pluck. He conjures an invitation that will inform anyone who sees it that Herwaldus is his guest and under his protection while he’s in Elebrion; it will be good for as long as Bessarias wishes. Herwaldus thanks him, and so Bessarias explains that he’s hundreds of years old, he was already an archamge before Amorr was founded and he’s seen more “foulness” than Herwaldus can imagine in that time… but he is wise enough to listen first and judge later. He’ll let Herwaldus make his pitch and leave in peace once he’s heard it. Herwaldus thanks him for his courteousness. Bessarias promises they’ll talk again soon and leaves, going back to musing about his experiment. Along the way he passes the guards gossiping. They know who he is and fear him for it.
Over the next several weeks, Bessarias comes to enjoy his philosophical discussions with Herwaldus. He’s impressed that Herwaldus has familiarized himself not only with human philosophers but with a number of elven thinkers of note and decides he may have to revise his opinion of human capacity. However, one evening in autumn he admits that he doesn’t understand why Herwaldus is so staunchly opposed to magic. There are some forms of magic he agrees are black and too dangerous to pursue, and others he can see the argument for, but not all. Can magic be evil if it can be put to good uses? Herwaldus is pleased that Bessarias is willing to consider morality, but they disagree as to their nature. To Bessarias, good and evil are merely aspects of his own character to contend with on his pursuit of mastery. And he does admit that he believes great wizards have a responsibility to use their powers wisely, for the benefit of their lessers. True virtue, to Bessarias, is that which is of service to the community, and the most virtuous individual is therefore the one who is the wisest and most accomplished and can therefore serve their community the best. Everyone has a duty based on their place – the master to command, the slave to obey, and the collegium’s tasks is to find those with the potential and will to mastery and nurture them for the greater good. Herwaldus, on the other hand, holds that what is in accordance with God’s will is good, and that which opposes it is evil. Outcomes are meaningless, only intent matters, though he acknowledges the principle of ‘by their fruits you shall know them’. Bessarias is annoyed, since Herwaldus admits that ultimately only God can know the truth and thinks they’ve abandoned rationality for mysticism. Herwaldus only smiles and says he thinks the Collegium is well and truly occluded after all.
Before moving on, I have to say I think Beale bit off more than he could chew with the philosophical argument. Bessarias is kind of all over the place, a weird mashup of Greek ideas of virtue and personal ethics, a utilitarian and community-focused form of ethics, and a Nietzschean idea of the will to power (Bessarias uses that exact phrase!) among other things that doesn’t really seem to hold together, while all Herwaldus has to offer in response are platitudes he barely even tries to explain. No wonder Bessarias is frustrated; I don’t think this conversation is really going anywhere. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the two of them are talking past each other. In any case, it’s not nearly as profound as I think we’re meant to think it is.
Bessarias, though, still finds Herwaldus’s certainty both infuriating and delightful – and he’s certain he’ll win him over in the end. As winter approaches he decides to bring matters to an end and invites Herwaldus, Kilios, Mastema and two other mages named Lacellas and Amitlya to join him. Bessarias grandly unveils a scrying crystal showing a beautiful natural scene and tells Herwaldus that he’s enjoyed their discussions very much, but it’s time to shift matters from the ideal to the real, where Bessarias thinks his philosophy has the advantage. The scene he shows is the land of Shimra… or, as it’s better known these days, the Glass Desert. Bessarias changes the image to show the devastation of the present day, leaving Herwaldus horrified. Now, Bessarias says, Herwaldus can understand the true scope of Bessarias’s power, and how he’s entirely beyond being described by terms like “good” or “evil.” Herwaldus is appalled but also pities Bessarias for carrying the guilt of such an atrocity for so long. He asks if he really considers that a virtuous act; Bessarias thinks it is, because if helped him gain immense knowledge, though he regrets the cost. Lathellas and Amitlya laugh and say that the main thing he learned was not to break the calengalad.
Herwaldus, though, stairs at Mastema in Amitlya’s lap, and finally says he has a demonstration of his own. He demands the demon name itself, and it does, before demanding Herwaldus leave it alone… but he invokes the name of Immanuel to banish it. And it works – Mastema’s spirit flees and the cat body collapses, dead, in Amitlya’s arms. Herwaldus is shocked by this and apologizes profusely. He only meant to banish the demon, not kill the cat. Bessarias laughs and explains the truth. The demon Mastema wasn’t possessing his pet cat – the demon was his pet. Herwaldus is both saddened and bemused by the revelation.
“If the Son of Man rebuked his own followers as a perverse and unbelieving race, what must he think of you elves? Making pets of demons? Faugh! But then, my Lord did not come to bring justice. He came that all might know mercy and grace. And since He was known for helping the blind to see, then perhaps there is a more apt exhibition of His power.”
He turns to Kilios and asks permission to heal his eyes. Bessarias is intrigued, since healing magic is considered especially difficult, but Herwaldus invokes the name of Immanuel and Kilios is instantly healed! The elves are amazed and quick to sing Herwaldus’s power, though he insists the power is God’s, not his. But he did something else, as well. Kilios admits that his second sight has also been removed when his eyes were healed, and the scene ends.
Now, before we move on, I have to say… huh? Now, of course any reader familiar with the New Testament can probably recognize that Herwaldus’s powers allow him to perform the same sort of miracles that are attributed to the Apostles (and to Jesus himself, though Herwaldus is clear here he’s only a channel for a higher power, not its source). The thing is, in Summa Elvetica proper, we see lots of Amorran priests, and none of them can do anything like this (or if they can, they don’t). At best we have the Michaelines, who have specific, innate anti-magical powers, but Herwaldus isn’t a Michaeline, and even though exorcisms might fall under the general purview of “anti-magic,” healing doesn’t (we also had that saint’s relic protecting Marcus, but are we meant to assume Herwaldus is literally a saint?). So, I am mostly just left very confused by all of this, and wondering if Herwaldus is some sort of savant… or if we’re meant to assume that performing miracles is something Amorran priests are supposed to be able to just do, which if so makes it weirder the Collegium hasn’t taken more notice of them. I think it also has some awkward thematic implications – so far, we’ve mostly framed Bessarias and Herwaldus’s debate as one about power vs. morality, but now Herwaldus has just decided to give up on that and awe everyone with his powers instead – but more on that at the end of the story.
We cut to three days later, as we learn that Herwaldus’s actions have led to rumors flying throughout the Collegium, and the elves don’t like the implications one bit.
The magic of the elves, after all, was the protective shield that preserved their three small kingdoms, caught as they were between the hammer of Savondir and the anvil of Æmor. And in keeping with the metaphor, there was always the unpredictable danger posed by the raging furnace of the savage orc tribes and their terrible ogre kings.
Yes, Amorr is sometimes spelled like that in this story. But only sometimes. I don’t know why. Bessarias is summoned before the council of the collegium and its grandmaster. He knows he’s been summoned because of his guest’s actions, and Alisiassa, the only female Magister and the most hot-tempered (nothing stereotypical there…) lays into him, telling him that the students are convinced the world is coming to an end. Bessarias admits that Herwaldus’s god is more powerful than he’d thought, but new gods aren’t a particular worry (uh… how often does the Collegium deal with new gods, exactly? I thought the elves didn’t even have gods or believe in them!); Gilthalon, one of the masters, corrects him that the last people who could remove a mage’s abilities were the Witchkings, and Amorr having that kind of power obviously disturbs him. Bessarias has to agree – in all of recorded history, the Witchkings of Vingaara were the only mages ever to match or exceed the Collegium, and their legacy still haunts the world, even after the last Witchking was boiled alive in his own blood in this very chamber centuries ago.
Bessarias doesn’t think Herwaldus is a Wtichking; he thinks he’s misguided, but still a good man who just wants to help people in his own way. Gilthalon isn’t convinced, and Mastema agrees with him. Bessarias doesn’t think Mastema, whose pride was wounded by the encounter more than anything, is a reliable source. Gilthalon points out that the Amorran religion considers elves to be the children of demons and, well… as far as I can tell, he’s not wrong that they think that. Lucky for the elves a blushing elf girl kissing a human centuries from now will save their civilization, I guess. Bessarias thinks that humans fear what they don’t understand, but the cure for that is knowledge – and Herwaldus, in healing Kilios, managed something none of the magisters ever did. Gilthalon snidely calls Bessarias “Master of Cats,” which has… nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the conversation, but I guess we needed the title drop. Alisassia thinks that Bessarias will get them all killed before admitting he’s wrong, and Gilthalon agrees, citing the origin of a certain desert… and again, he has a point. Finally, though, the grandmaster admits that they need to know more before they come to a judgment, and a test shall be arranged – Gilthalon himself versus Herwaldus, though he is forbidden to harm Herwaldus himself. But if Herwaldus’s power proves superior to Gilthalon’s… then the council will kill him. If they can.
Later, Bessarias storms out and blasts his way through the maze to the guest house; the guards flee, deciding facing penalties for deserting their posts will be safer than facing him. Herwaldus is alarmed, and Bessarias explains. Herwaldus has frightened the council like the Witchkings did, and Mastema has manipulated Gilthalon into helping him with his revenge. Herwaldus is shocked to be compared to the Witchkings but Bessarias waves him off. He’ll have to test his god’s power against Gilthalon, a true master of demon summoning. Luckily for Herwaldus, by the council’s rules he can’t be harmed directly. Herwaldus isn’t afraid. Gilthalon may be a master of demons, but so is God. Bessarias warns him that an obvious display of power is the wrong choice, since that will get him killed. Herwaldus doesn’t fear death, nor does he believe God would want him to shirk from it.
“He said, ‘follow Me,’ and He was not one to despise a criminal’s death. And is it not written, ‘Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for My name’s sake’?”
…something noticeably mentioning from any of this is explicit mention of Jesus’s (we all know who “Lord Immanuel” really is, let’s be honest) own martyrdom, which is… kind of important, in this context. Bessarias throws up his hands and wats to get Herwaldus out of here, but he refuses to go. Bessarias warns him that even if Gilthalon can’t harm him directly, that doesn’t mean he can’t do very unpleasant things to him within thar rule and summons some horrific (undescribed) illusions to show it. And if the council decides Herwaldus must die after all… that will be much worse. Herwaldus won’t go, and Kilios, in the room with them, won’t help Bessarias talk sense into him – he claims that only now, with his second sight lost after decades of visions, does he see clearly. Bessarias gives up, but wants to know why Herwaldus is so determined to go through with this.
“There is no mystery. When I was young, newly sworn to my vows, I read of a man who was convinced that every being of every race was, in fact, a child of God. Now, you must understand that this view is not held universally by all who worship our Lord. In fact, it is espoused by only a few, and in the Church’s considered opinion, the belief treads perilously near to heresy. Nevertheless, this man held firmly to this belief, as did his friend Tertullis, the founder of the order to which I belong.
“His name was Diaspelian, and it was his heart’s desire to go forth unto the nations, preaching to all who would listen the good news of the Lord Immanuel’s death and resurrection, urging repentance from sin and telling of the life beyond death that awaits us all. He traveled throughout the barbaric lands that were eventually to become the kingdom of Savondir, and many came to know the Lord Immanuel and were baptized as a result of his efforts. He founded as many as thirty churches, and still he knew his work was incomplete. Then, ten years after Diaspelian’s departure, his friend Tertullis received a letter.”
Herwaldus pulls out an old scroll-case and shows its contents to Bessarias. He reads an old letter about how Diaspelian encountered the orcs for the first time and went off to preach to them. They killed him and ate him. Bessarias doesn’t think the story’s ending is much of an inspiration, so Herwaldus describes how, about twenty-five years ago, a foreign monk came and joined his monastery – Brother Grimfang, an orc, descended from one of the three orcs Diaspelian baptized before he died. Grimfang wasn’t human, but he was a good and pious man, and if an orc could be redeemed, why not the elves? (Personally, I wonder why this didn’t set the whole “do nonhumans have souls?” bit to rest centuries ago, but then I guess we wouldn’t have a story and clearly the world just couldn’t do without Summa Elvetica?/s) Bessarias admits he doesn’t know if Herwaldus is wise or a madman, but he finally gives in and agrees to let him go through with it. Herwaldus thanks him and tells him not to worry about his fate. Bessarias won’t worry – he has a cat to hunt down and punish, and the scene ends.
The Great Hall was more crowded than Bessarias had ever seen it. Acolytes rubbed elbows with stooped, creaking adepts, all eager to witness what promised to be an epochal duel. Not since Moldar the Dire’s infamous challenge of Ulandir Brighthand had the whole assembly shown such interest in a challenge, although the crowd of spectators was much larger today.
Only four witless acolytes had shown up on that occasion to watch the celebrated necromancer extinguish his brilliant young rival; three, accidentally caught up in Moldar’s evil working, shared Ulandir’s untimely doom, while the fourth, his reason shattered by the terrible cries of his companions, wandered outside the following winter and froze to death.
Okay. We learn that Bessarias hasn’t found Mastema, who’s lying low and isn’t obviously in attendance, though he’s keeping his eyes peeled just in case. He reluctantly joins the other magisters as the grandmaster leads them in a working to protect the crowd; a shield shimmers into being as Gilthalon steps out into the arena and completes the spell. Apparently, it will now take the grandmaster and at least three of the other magisters to dismiss it, and if anything happens to them Gilthalon and Herwaldus will be trapped in the arena until it dissipates of its own accord, which will take six days. Yeesh! Gilthalon for his part faces Herwaldus and puts protective circles around them both to fulfil the “won’t let him be directly harmed” part of their agreement and then summons a small imp. Herwaldus asks his name, which is Bromphethshkagsruinmela (gesundheit!); even though Herwaldus can’t pronounce its name, it doesn’t stop him from banishing the imp.
Gitlhalon is impressed in spite of himself and summons a more powerful demon; he orders it to attack Herwaldus but it’s thwarted by Gilthalon’s own protections (?) and Herwaldus banishes it as well, without even needing its name. Gilthalon, angry now, casts a third summoning, this time evoking a demon lord so powerful even Bessarias and the other magisters are frightened of it. Gilthalon can barely keep control of this being, but he finally manages to order it to attack Herwaldus. In response to the demon’s taunting, Herwaldus willingly steps outside of his protective circle; he declares the demon has no power over him or the one he serves and asks its name – Vashyash. He then banishes Vashyash as easily as the other two demons and asks the magisters if that was a satisfactory demonstration… and casually reaches an arm right through the magical shield around the arena as he does so, to general horror.
Herwaldus starts praying in thanks for his victory, but while everyone is distracted watching him Mastema appears, flinging himself into the arena and biting and clawing at Herwaldus’s leg. While he’s distracted Gilthalon calls for the other magisters to bind him, which they do, hauling him into the air. Bessarias protests that he’s done nothing wrong, but Gilthalon tells him he’s too dangerous to live. Bessarias insists that he’s helpless, and the grandmaster thinks that’s a good thing – if there was any chance Herwaldus could escape, he’d have Gilthalon kill him right now. As it is, he wants to learn about the source of Herwaldus’s power before he kills him. He’s even willing to torture him for the information, though he’d rather it not come to that. Gilthalon, on the other hand, just wants to make Herwaldus pay for humiliating him. He thinks Vashyash probably would have been more merciful than what he has planned for him.
Gilthalon strikes Herwaldus with a magical whip, which leads the crowd to cheer and start hurling offensive spells of their own. Bessarias begs the grandmaster to stop this, since they’ll learn nothing from a corpse; Mastema knows some necromancers who can get around that, and Bessarias kicks him. Gilthalon gloats that Herwaldus came to tell them about his god, not realizing that the magisters are themselves gods. Bessarias, sickened, casts a spell of his own, mercy-killing Herwaldus by disintegrating him instantly rather than leaving him to Gilthalon’s mercies, and leaving nothing for a necromancer to work with. Gilthalon is furious, and the grandmaster annoyed. Bessarias turns and furiously storms from the hall, the other mages pulling away from him in fear, as he goes to find Kilios and the scene ends.
We cut to Kilios asking if Herwaldus is dead; Bessarias admits he killed him, so Herwaldus wouldn’t have to suffer. He doesn’t think they’ll dare punish him, certainly not over a human, and after today he really doesn’t care what his fellow magisters think of him.
“Kilios, for my entire life, I have been seeking power, knowledge, wisdom. But to what end? Today, I saw the wisest, most powerful elves in all of Selenoth acting exactly like a barbarous gang of orcs! They saw something that they did not understand, they were forced to confront something they feared, and so they reacted in exactly the same manner as an illiterate, devil-worshipping, mud-rooting swamp goblin! But what is the point of all this painstakingly gathered knowledge if in the end we reap naught but a harvest of death?
Well, Bessarias, you made your point in about the most racist way possible, didn’t you? But Bessarias goes on to say that he began his studies to seek knowledge, and now he realizes he’s learned nothing but thousands of way to kill. He doesn’t know what truth is, but he now thinks Herwaldus may have been closer to it than he was. He plans to seek out the Tertullian monks; he doesn’t know if their truth is really the one he seeks, but it’s a place to start, at least. Kilios says he’ll go with him, and describes the last vision he had before he was healed; Bessarias takes it to mean that he’ll give up his magic, which he says will never happen. Kilios reminds him that the future is unwritten, and he at least is glad to be freed of his visions. They agree to travel together, first to Amorr and then, who knows? Bessarias wants to leave tonight, and Kilios has already called for supplies to be made ready, having guessed that he would. Bessarias is pleased to have a friend; he remembers something Herwaldus once said about dying so others could live, and thinks he may finally be starting to understand that as the scene ends.
Later, Bessarias is finishing gathering up his things, including his model of the calengalad, though he thinks his studies into it will have to wait as he has other, more important studies now. He takes one last look around the room before departing and runs right into the grandmaster, who asks if it’s true he’s leaving. He admits he is and holds up a bag of rubies, asking if the grandmaster thinks it will be enough to pay for a month’s worth of lodgings along the road; the grandmaster warns him that if he flashes those rubies around he’ll get robbed and says he’ll provide him with Amorran coins before he goes. But he doesn’t understand why Bessarias is doing this. Was Herwaldus really that important to him? Bessarias says Herwaldus was only the catalyst that made him realize the truth he seeks isn’t here. The grandmaster doesn’t understand but wishes him luck and hopes he’ll return; Bessarias says that if he does, it won’t be as the same man he is now. The grandmaster chuckles and admits he barely recognizes Bessarias now; Bessarias bids him farewell and gives him the model calengalad, asking he pass it on to some talented student someday.
The grandmaster muses a bit about whether this means Bessarias is abandoning that line of research and thinks it’s maybe for the best but wishes him luck once again and bids him farewell. As Bessarias turns to leave, he spots Mastema watching him from under some stairs. He considers saying something to him, but can’t think of anything and just remembers something Herwaldus told him – what fellowship can light have with darkness? (Perhaps actually showing Herwaldus telling him this would have made this moment hit better? This is literally the only time this line appears in the whole collection, by the way!) And so, without a word of farewell, he departs the collegium, out of the shadows and into the blinding embrace of the light as the story ends.
Overall, if there’s one thing that really jumps out at me about this story is that I think there is a story here that might be worth telling… but Beale fails to tell it. Nomenlos was one of the more interesting characters in Summa Elvetica already and getting a chance to see who he was and how he converted has genuine potential, as does the narrative of a hubristic and amoral but disaffected archmage coming to question the path he’s taken in life and whether the pursuit of absolute knowledge and power he’s dedicated himself to is really worth it in the end. And I did appreciate that we don’t end the story with Bessarias having an overnight change of heart and converting to the Amorran church on the spot; he merely develops an interest in their philosophy and a desire to pursue where it leads, in memory of Herwaldus, which feels more natural and believable.
On the other hand, the execution of all of this is… pretty bad. The elves continue to suffer from feeling like they were built out of a bunch of different ideas Beale doesn’t agree with or approve of thrown haphazardly together. I’ve already mentioned that Bessarias’s philosophy feels inconsistent (though maybe it’s supposed to, and we’re supposed to take away that he’s already on some level starting to doubt and is trying to convince himself of his own rightness, but I don’t think that really comes through if so). And the Collegium in general are very obviously Beale’s caricature of modern scientists and other academics, with Bessarias even studying nuclear physics (but with magic!) just to hammer the point home (since he created a magic nuke, does that mean he’s meant to be elf!Oppenheimer? I don’t think they map onto each other that well otherwise, but who knows how Beale’s mind works…). And in that light, they really do look like an almost Chick Tract-level strawman of What Scientists Are Like – amoral hubristic, totally ignorant of things that really matter in life, not only atheistic but outright proclaiming themselves gods and mocking religion, and oh yes, literally consorting with demons. And, of course, existing to get shown up and proven wrong at the end.
I also think Herwaldus himself is part of the problem. He doesn’t really come across as a bad guy, IMO, but he’s barely a character and mostly just exists to speak things Beale clearly wants us to agree with – and, as I mentioned, most of that feels like fairly basic platitudes he doesn’t really explain in depth (and like the main novel, it feels less like it’s trying to convince the audience of anything and more like Beale is expecting the audience to already agree with him). And then it feels like Beale just puts his hand on the scale and cheats on Herwaldus’s behalf, in a way that undermines the story and its point. He literally gives Herwaldus magic powers granted to him byJesus “Lord Immanuel.” The problem is that this shifts the entire premise of the debate – it ultimately ceases to be about philosophy and ethics and becomes a strict matter of who has the better magic? Not right vs wrong, but power vs power (which I think says something about Beale’s mindset). Which Herwaldus wins because he has the better magic, proving nothing other than that he’s getting power from somewhere, but not really in a way that proves anything about his religion or philosophy right. It also weakens the final scene when the magisters turn on him – because, well, at this point they’re not persecuting an innocent man for his faith, they’re trying to neutralize a dangerous mage of unknown powers who they have every reason to believe is a legitimate threat to them. While their bloodlust is an overreaction, I find it kind of hard to blame them for considering Herwaldus dangerous, considering what they know about what he’s capable of and the country he comes from, in a way I don’t think Beale intended.
I also have to question the relevance of the title. Bessarias is called ‘Master of Cats’ once, in a context where it doesn’t matter and never comes up again. He’s not the master of ‘cats’ plural, he’s the master of one demon in a cat body (or a succession of them, but only one at a time). He’s a leader of the Collegium but not the leader and doesn’t really do any leading in this story, so there’s not really a place for a “herding cats” metaphor regarding the elves. And while it feels like his relationship with Mastema is meant to be a core of the story and is a thread that runs through it… it barely feels like it matters? Mastema pops up a few times to remind us he’s there and make trouble, but it feels like if you removed him the story would play out basically the same except in a couple of brief instances, and exactly what their dynamic is like and how they feel about each other gets essentially zero spotlight. And because Bessarias and Mastema’s relationship is so underdeveloped, when Bessarias rejects Mastema at the end, it feels like it’s supposed to symbolize him turning his back on his past… but it doesn’t have the punch it should. Also, Mastema himself as a character feels like a pale shadow of Mogget from Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom books… though that may be a coincidence; if Beale ever read the Old Kingdom books, I have no doubt he’d hate them, for multiple reasons.
So, in the end, we’re left with a potentially interesting story whose execution is slipshod, underdeveloped, and thematically incoherent in ways that undermine the parts of it that could have been better. And slogging through Beale’s turgid prose does not help matters. All of which is a pity, because I do think Bessarias could have been an interesting character in the hands of a better author, one with more of an eye for characterization and less of an ideological axe to grind; FWIW, we will be seeing him again later in the collection. Anyway, that’s all for today. Next time we get to the origins of the Michaelines in, appropriately enough, “Birth of an Order.” We’ll see you then!
Warning: This story contains some violence and a death.
MG’s Note: My apologies for the lateness of this post; I underestimated how long slogging through this story would take me. Thank you for understanding!
MG: Well, everyone, it’s time to continue our journey through Summa Elvetica! No, not the novel Summa Elvetica, which we have quite happily put behind us. But as you may recall, it was only the first part of the overall collection that is also called Summa Elvetica, featuring eight other short stories that Beale has written in his setting of Selenoth that collectively help lead in to the main Arts of Dark and Light series. The good news is that none of them is anywhere near as long as Summa proper😉. The bad news is that Beale is still Beale, with all that entails. But if we’ve gotten this far, I think we can do this! For these shorts, I won’t be using any guest sporkers, and I’ll mostly focus on summarizing with fewer direct quotes (though I’ll still work in a few of those when Beale says something particularly awful or has a particularly awkward turn of phrase) alongside my own snark and analysis, kind of a halfway point between my usual sporking style and my MG Reads posts on my journal, probably closest to my movie review style. Today, we start out with the first of our stories, and one which is pretty directly tied into Summa Elvetica – the backstory of Bessarias, he-who-will-become-Nomenlos, in “Master of Cats!” Insert obligatory joke about cats having no master here.
Master of Cats
We open with Bessarias as he’s studying a magical construct he’s working on, called a calengalad. He knows it’s flawed somehow but seems unable to figure out how to correct it; he nearly throws the calengalad out a window in frustration, but stops himself at the last time. He can’t destroy the calengalad with mere force, but if it impacted it would release a burst of energy that might harm anyone walking nearby… and attract attention he doesn’t want. Instead he banishes it back to the plane he summoned it from. He recalls how his dead master, Arilon, once told him that everything in the universe is made of particles too tiny for the naked eye to see, and yet contain all the secrets of the material world. Arilon described these as being like the dots of the Ponschule (and no, this term is not explained, nor does it appear anywhere else in the collection), and with enough dots, a truly skilled adept could arrange them to form… anything. Bessarias had asked just what adept Arilon had in mind, but Arilon, annoyed with the question, had shut him down. Now, centuries later, Bessarias thinks his question might have been the right one after all.
He reflects upon how, in the more than a millennium of its existence, the Collegium Obscurum has produced many incredible mages who had shaped the course of nations, but they all focused their energy on Who, What and Where. Arilon was the first to truly plumb the mysteries of Why and How. And yet his theory was flawed; seventy-six years ago, Bessarias managed to create an accurate model of the particle Arilon theorized, which he called the calengalad (and of which the construct he’d been tinkering with is a working model), only to discover that it in turn was made up of even smaller particles. And it can be broken, as Bessarias discovered when he accidentally created the Glass Desert. Which means that, yes, the elven wizards are essentially doing nuclear physics – and, beyond that, Bessarias apparently made a magical nuke, by accident. Which actually makes some sense thematically, because as we’ll see Beale will be depicting the elven wizards as a bit of a mix of Straw Scientists and Straw Occultists… in such a way I’m not sure he thinks there’s much difference between the two.
Anyway, Bessaria’s accidentally creating the desert is something that still horrifies him, though he learned a lot from it, and it was one of the only times in history that the High King of Elebrion felt the need to intervene in the Collegium (it occurs to me – Collegium Obscurum is Latin, but the elves don’t use Latin, the Amorrans do. Is it meant to be translation convention, or just laziness?) to forbid any further such experiments, and Bessarias’s name is now known, and feared, across Selenoth. Now he sits on the college’s ruling council and is only the fifth archmage in history to be ranked a master in three different magical disciplines. But he’s still frustrated because he can’t figure out what’s going wrong with his current experiment, not even after going through the archives, summoning demons and even communing with the dead.
Another elf named Kilios comes in, saying that Mastema told him that Bessarias was here. Mastema, it turns out, is the large, grey, talking cat who came in with Kilios, who is a blind seer. Mastema has told him that Bessarias has been holed up in his lab for three days and he asks if he needs to eat; Bessarias says he’s not hungry yet. It is always hard to return to the world of carnate concerns. Mastema, as it happens, sought Kilios out because of news of a potential battle, though he insists that the real reason is that he spotted a rat in Kilios’s quarters. Mastema is not actually a cat, but a demon who has been Bessarias’s familiar for two centuries, possessing new cat bodies as needed. They always look the same, and Bessarias doesn’t know how he manages it. Bessarias just thinks Mastema gets lonely when he’s preoccupied, though Mastema is offended at the suggestion.
Mastema insists he was hungry, not lonely, and anyway just yesterday the Savondese routed an invasion of the wolf-breed, aka our old friends the Ulfin. Kilios thinks the Ulfin were created by magic, but Bessarias doesn’t know who could do it; even the Collegium can’t create a whole new species, and he doubts the Savondese wizards could – they’re the most skilled human mages, but humans just don’t live long enough to truly master magic. Mastema thinks it was the Witchkings, but Bessarias thinks they were also human, so the same limitations apply. Kilios, at least, is glad to hear the Savondese won – they may be human, but they’re still preferable to the Ulfen. And speaking of humans, a new human ambassador has just arrived – an Amorran, which Bessarias has a hard time crediting for reasons that I think need to be shown in full:
Bessarias was intrigued. A human, an Amorran no less, hailing from the Court of Elebrion? Humans had a very different view of magic than his own people. They tended to view it mistrustfully at best, but those of the Empire were downright fanatics in their distaste for anything that smacked of the metaphysical. No, not anything, he corrected himself, for they were rigid monotheists who worshipped a slain god who was somehow not dead. Dead or not dead, though, this god had favored them, for their armies were strong and their rich empire now encompassed nearly a third of the land of Selenoth. It was an altogether curious thing.
…quite aside from the eye-wateringly pompous prose, am I the only one wondering how a religious order can be so averse to “anything that smacked of the metaphysical?” Methinks Beale’s wordplay got away from him… Anyway, Bessarias’s curiosity is piqued and he wants to meet this strange human for himself, and since we know who he becomes by the time of Summa Elvetica’s present, I think we can all imagine what the ultimate outcome of this is going to be. If nothing else, it’ll take his mind off his work, and living as long as he has he’s developed an appreciation for novelty. At this time, we learn that Amorr is a hundred years old – interestingly, “Master of Cats” only calls Amorr an empire, never a republic, which makes me wonder if that was a deliberate POV choice or just Beale being inconsistent and sloppy – and in all that time has never sent an emissary to the elves. Bessarias and Kilios banter a bit – and namedrop Occam’s razor, of all things, because that’s clearly an idea these ancient elven wizards would know by that name – and head off to see the human as the scene ends, Mastema declining to join them.
We cut to a guest building – that Bessarias has to navigate a magical maze to get into, for some reason, which I’m skimming over because Beale does – and Kilios leaves him there, as he feels a vision coming on and wants to meditate. He promises Bessarias he’ll let him know if it has anything to do with his research, though he doubts it does. They bid farewell and Bessarias goes inside the guesthouse, asking the guards to take him to the human. The human turns out to be a short old man in a tonsure, wearing an orange robe; he and Bessarias greet each other, and the monk names himself, In the name of my Lord Immanuel as Brother Herwaldus. Herwaldus offers refreshment, of which the High King has provided him plenty, and Bessarias accepts some wine; Herwaldus seems unimpressed by both the telekinesis Bessarias uses to levitate his wineglass and by the impressive spread the High King provided, so Bessarias concludes he really is an ascetic.
The talk turns to why Herwaldus is here; he says he’s here to share truth. Bessarias is amused, but interesting, thinking that the current High King is a hedonist with little interest in such things, so no wonder he foisted Herwaldus off on the Collegium instead. Honestly, Bessarias is surprised he didn’t just kill Herwaldus and have done. But, as a seeker of truth, Bessarias decides to hear Herwaldus out. Herwaldus describes himself as a monk of the order of Tertullian (Tertullian, it should be noted, was a real-life theologian but neither a monk nor a saint, nor do I believe there is a monastic order named for him in real life; once again, I’m compelled to wonder how a real-life historical figure found his way into Selenoth, and why he apparently founded a monastic order there) which means that he is charged with embracing the world in all its foulness, as opposed to other monks who live cloistered lives. Bessarias thinks that in the eyes of the church the elves count as a “foulness” and that he’s heard the Amorran king has declared them demons.
Herwaldus corrects him that Amorr has no king – the Sanctiff is head of the Church and first among equals (I still have so many questions about how Amorr’s government works with the Church crudely welded onto the Roman Senate like this…) and Herwaldus, at least, doesn’t agree with him about elves. He thinks the elves are no better or worse than humans, though like all the races of Selenoth are oppressed by the foe. Bessarias wryly says he’s heard of Lord Sathanas (wait a minute, Beale freely transposes real-world religious and historical figures to Selenoth, but Satan gets a new name? Though upon doing some research, “Sathanas” appears to be a real-life black metal band, so Bessarias may be in for a bit of a shock if he does meet them…) but never met him, though he knows a few of his subjects. Herwaldus is confused, so Bessarias clarifies that he is not a demon – he is a master of demons, and he could summon one and make it kill Herwaldus or carry him away to some deserted island right now if he felt like it. Herwaldus is unimpressed.
“I believe that you have the knowledge, yes. The power, certainly. Beneath your beauty and your courteous manner, I see great arrogance, the terrible pride that comes only from the possession of great power. I think that if Raphaelus were to paint an image of Lucifer before the fall, he could do no better than to use you as his model. But I also know that you will not harm me, because it is not permitted at this time. My mission is not yet finished.”
Herwaldus clarifies that it’s God who won’t permit him to come to harm; Bessarias studies him and doesn’t think he’s mad or foolish, and decides he rather likes Herwaldus’s pluck. He conjures an invitation that will inform anyone who sees it that Herwaldus is his guest and under his protection while he’s in Elebrion; it will be good for as long as Bessarias wishes. Herwaldus thanks him, and so Bessarias explains that he’s hundreds of years old, he was already an archamge before Amorr was founded and he’s seen more “foulness” than Herwaldus can imagine in that time… but he is wise enough to listen first and judge later. He’ll let Herwaldus make his pitch and leave in peace once he’s heard it. Herwaldus thanks him for his courteousness. Bessarias promises they’ll talk again soon and leaves, going back to musing about his experiment. Along the way he passes the guards gossiping. They know who he is and fear him for it.
Over the next several weeks, Bessarias comes to enjoy his philosophical discussions with Herwaldus. He’s impressed that Herwaldus has familiarized himself not only with human philosophers but with a number of elven thinkers of note and decides he may have to revise his opinion of human capacity. However, one evening in autumn he admits that he doesn’t understand why Herwaldus is so staunchly opposed to magic. There are some forms of magic he agrees are black and too dangerous to pursue, and others he can see the argument for, but not all. Can magic be evil if it can be put to good uses? Herwaldus is pleased that Bessarias is willing to consider morality, but they disagree as to their nature. To Bessarias, good and evil are merely aspects of his own character to contend with on his pursuit of mastery. And he does admit that he believes great wizards have a responsibility to use their powers wisely, for the benefit of their lessers. True virtue, to Bessarias, is that which is of service to the community, and the most virtuous individual is therefore the one who is the wisest and most accomplished and can therefore serve their community the best. Everyone has a duty based on their place – the master to command, the slave to obey, and the collegium’s tasks is to find those with the potential and will to mastery and nurture them for the greater good. Herwaldus, on the other hand, holds that what is in accordance with God’s will is good, and that which opposes it is evil. Outcomes are meaningless, only intent matters, though he acknowledges the principle of ‘by their fruits you shall know them’. Bessarias is annoyed, since Herwaldus admits that ultimately only God can know the truth and thinks they’ve abandoned rationality for mysticism. Herwaldus only smiles and says he thinks the Collegium is well and truly occluded after all.
Before moving on, I have to say I think Beale bit off more than he could chew with the philosophical argument. Bessarias is kind of all over the place, a weird mashup of Greek ideas of virtue and personal ethics, a utilitarian and community-focused form of ethics, and a Nietzschean idea of the will to power (Bessarias uses that exact phrase!) among other things that doesn’t really seem to hold together, while all Herwaldus has to offer in response are platitudes he barely even tries to explain. No wonder Bessarias is frustrated; I don’t think this conversation is really going anywhere. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the two of them are talking past each other. In any case, it’s not nearly as profound as I think we’re meant to think it is.
Bessarias, though, still finds Herwaldus’s certainty both infuriating and delightful – and he’s certain he’ll win him over in the end. As winter approaches he decides to bring matters to an end and invites Herwaldus, Kilios, Mastema and two other mages named Lacellas and Amitlya to join him. Bessarias grandly unveils a scrying crystal showing a beautiful natural scene and tells Herwaldus that he’s enjoyed their discussions very much, but it’s time to shift matters from the ideal to the real, where Bessarias thinks his philosophy has the advantage. The scene he shows is the land of Shimra… or, as it’s better known these days, the Glass Desert. Bessarias changes the image to show the devastation of the present day, leaving Herwaldus horrified. Now, Bessarias says, Herwaldus can understand the true scope of Bessarias’s power, and how he’s entirely beyond being described by terms like “good” or “evil.” Herwaldus is appalled but also pities Bessarias for carrying the guilt of such an atrocity for so long. He asks if he really considers that a virtuous act; Bessarias thinks it is, because if helped him gain immense knowledge, though he regrets the cost. Lathellas and Amitlya laugh and say that the main thing he learned was not to break the calengalad.
Herwaldus, though, stairs at Mastema in Amitlya’s lap, and finally says he has a demonstration of his own. He demands the demon name itself, and it does, before demanding Herwaldus leave it alone… but he invokes the name of Immanuel to banish it. And it works – Mastema’s spirit flees and the cat body collapses, dead, in Amitlya’s arms. Herwaldus is shocked by this and apologizes profusely. He only meant to banish the demon, not kill the cat. Bessarias laughs and explains the truth. The demon Mastema wasn’t possessing his pet cat – the demon was his pet. Herwaldus is both saddened and bemused by the revelation.
“If the Son of Man rebuked his own followers as a perverse and unbelieving race, what must he think of you elves? Making pets of demons? Faugh! But then, my Lord did not come to bring justice. He came that all might know mercy and grace. And since He was known for helping the blind to see, then perhaps there is a more apt exhibition of His power.”
He turns to Kilios and asks permission to heal his eyes. Bessarias is intrigued, since healing magic is considered especially difficult, but Herwaldus invokes the name of Immanuel and Kilios is instantly healed! The elves are amazed and quick to sing Herwaldus’s power, though he insists the power is God’s, not his. But he did something else, as well. Kilios admits that his second sight has also been removed when his eyes were healed, and the scene ends.
Now, before we move on, I have to say… huh? Now, of course any reader familiar with the New Testament can probably recognize that Herwaldus’s powers allow him to perform the same sort of miracles that are attributed to the Apostles (and to Jesus himself, though Herwaldus is clear here he’s only a channel for a higher power, not its source). The thing is, in Summa Elvetica proper, we see lots of Amorran priests, and none of them can do anything like this (or if they can, they don’t). At best we have the Michaelines, who have specific, innate anti-magical powers, but Herwaldus isn’t a Michaeline, and even though exorcisms might fall under the general purview of “anti-magic,” healing doesn’t (we also had that saint’s relic protecting Marcus, but are we meant to assume Herwaldus is literally a saint?). So, I am mostly just left very confused by all of this, and wondering if Herwaldus is some sort of savant… or if we’re meant to assume that performing miracles is something Amorran priests are supposed to be able to just do, which if so makes it weirder the Collegium hasn’t taken more notice of them. I think it also has some awkward thematic implications – so far, we’ve mostly framed Bessarias and Herwaldus’s debate as one about power vs. morality, but now Herwaldus has just decided to give up on that and awe everyone with his powers instead – but more on that at the end of the story.
We cut to three days later, as we learn that Herwaldus’s actions have led to rumors flying throughout the Collegium, and the elves don’t like the implications one bit.
The magic of the elves, after all, was the protective shield that preserved their three small kingdoms, caught as they were between the hammer of Savondir and the anvil of Æmor. And in keeping with the metaphor, there was always the unpredictable danger posed by the raging furnace of the savage orc tribes and their terrible ogre kings.
Yes, Amorr is sometimes spelled like that in this story. But only sometimes. I don’t know why. Bessarias is summoned before the council of the collegium and its grandmaster. He knows he’s been summoned because of his guest’s actions, and Alisiassa, the only female Magister and the most hot-tempered (nothing stereotypical there…) lays into him, telling him that the students are convinced the world is coming to an end. Bessarias admits that Herwaldus’s god is more powerful than he’d thought, but new gods aren’t a particular worry (uh… how often does the Collegium deal with new gods, exactly? I thought the elves didn’t even have gods or believe in them!); Gilthalon, one of the masters, corrects him that the last people who could remove a mage’s abilities were the Witchkings, and Amorr having that kind of power obviously disturbs him. Bessarias has to agree – in all of recorded history, the Witchkings of Vingaara were the only mages ever to match or exceed the Collegium, and their legacy still haunts the world, even after the last Witchking was boiled alive in his own blood in this very chamber centuries ago.
Bessarias doesn’t think Herwaldus is a Wtichking; he thinks he’s misguided, but still a good man who just wants to help people in his own way. Gilthalon isn’t convinced, and Mastema agrees with him. Bessarias doesn’t think Mastema, whose pride was wounded by the encounter more than anything, is a reliable source. Gilthalon points out that the Amorran religion considers elves to be the children of demons and, well… as far as I can tell, he’s not wrong that they think that. Lucky for the elves a blushing elf girl kissing a human centuries from now will save their civilization, I guess. Bessarias thinks that humans fear what they don’t understand, but the cure for that is knowledge – and Herwaldus, in healing Kilios, managed something none of the magisters ever did. Gilthalon snidely calls Bessarias “Master of Cats,” which has… nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the conversation, but I guess we needed the title drop. Alisassia thinks that Bessarias will get them all killed before admitting he’s wrong, and Gilthalon agrees, citing the origin of a certain desert… and again, he has a point. Finally, though, the grandmaster admits that they need to know more before they come to a judgment, and a test shall be arranged – Gilthalon himself versus Herwaldus, though he is forbidden to harm Herwaldus himself. But if Herwaldus’s power proves superior to Gilthalon’s… then the council will kill him. If they can.
Later, Bessarias storms out and blasts his way through the maze to the guest house; the guards flee, deciding facing penalties for deserting their posts will be safer than facing him. Herwaldus is alarmed, and Bessarias explains. Herwaldus has frightened the council like the Witchkings did, and Mastema has manipulated Gilthalon into helping him with his revenge. Herwaldus is shocked to be compared to the Witchkings but Bessarias waves him off. He’ll have to test his god’s power against Gilthalon, a true master of demon summoning. Luckily for Herwaldus, by the council’s rules he can’t be harmed directly. Herwaldus isn’t afraid. Gilthalon may be a master of demons, but so is God. Bessarias warns him that an obvious display of power is the wrong choice, since that will get him killed. Herwaldus doesn’t fear death, nor does he believe God would want him to shirk from it.
“He said, ‘follow Me,’ and He was not one to despise a criminal’s death. And is it not written, ‘Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for My name’s sake’?”
…something noticeably mentioning from any of this is explicit mention of Jesus’s (we all know who “Lord Immanuel” really is, let’s be honest) own martyrdom, which is… kind of important, in this context. Bessarias throws up his hands and wats to get Herwaldus out of here, but he refuses to go. Bessarias warns him that even if Gilthalon can’t harm him directly, that doesn’t mean he can’t do very unpleasant things to him within thar rule and summons some horrific (undescribed) illusions to show it. And if the council decides Herwaldus must die after all… that will be much worse. Herwaldus won’t go, and Kilios, in the room with them, won’t help Bessarias talk sense into him – he claims that only now, with his second sight lost after decades of visions, does he see clearly. Bessarias gives up, but wants to know why Herwaldus is so determined to go through with this.
“There is no mystery. When I was young, newly sworn to my vows, I read of a man who was convinced that every being of every race was, in fact, a child of God. Now, you must understand that this view is not held universally by all who worship our Lord. In fact, it is espoused by only a few, and in the Church’s considered opinion, the belief treads perilously near to heresy. Nevertheless, this man held firmly to this belief, as did his friend Tertullis, the founder of the order to which I belong.
“His name was Diaspelian, and it was his heart’s desire to go forth unto the nations, preaching to all who would listen the good news of the Lord Immanuel’s death and resurrection, urging repentance from sin and telling of the life beyond death that awaits us all. He traveled throughout the barbaric lands that were eventually to become the kingdom of Savondir, and many came to know the Lord Immanuel and were baptized as a result of his efforts. He founded as many as thirty churches, and still he knew his work was incomplete. Then, ten years after Diaspelian’s departure, his friend Tertullis received a letter.”
Herwaldus pulls out an old scroll-case and shows its contents to Bessarias. He reads an old letter about how Diaspelian encountered the orcs for the first time and went off to preach to them. They killed him and ate him. Bessarias doesn’t think the story’s ending is much of an inspiration, so Herwaldus describes how, about twenty-five years ago, a foreign monk came and joined his monastery – Brother Grimfang, an orc, descended from one of the three orcs Diaspelian baptized before he died. Grimfang wasn’t human, but he was a good and pious man, and if an orc could be redeemed, why not the elves? (Personally, I wonder why this didn’t set the whole “do nonhumans have souls?” bit to rest centuries ago, but then I guess we wouldn’t have a story and clearly the world just couldn’t do without Summa Elvetica?/s) Bessarias admits he doesn’t know if Herwaldus is wise or a madman, but he finally gives in and agrees to let him go through with it. Herwaldus thanks him and tells him not to worry about his fate. Bessarias won’t worry – he has a cat to hunt down and punish, and the scene ends.
The Great Hall was more crowded than Bessarias had ever seen it. Acolytes rubbed elbows with stooped, creaking adepts, all eager to witness what promised to be an epochal duel. Not since Moldar the Dire’s infamous challenge of Ulandir Brighthand had the whole assembly shown such interest in a challenge, although the crowd of spectators was much larger today.
Only four witless acolytes had shown up on that occasion to watch the celebrated necromancer extinguish his brilliant young rival; three, accidentally caught up in Moldar’s evil working, shared Ulandir’s untimely doom, while the fourth, his reason shattered by the terrible cries of his companions, wandered outside the following winter and froze to death.
Okay. We learn that Bessarias hasn’t found Mastema, who’s lying low and isn’t obviously in attendance, though he’s keeping his eyes peeled just in case. He reluctantly joins the other magisters as the grandmaster leads them in a working to protect the crowd; a shield shimmers into being as Gilthalon steps out into the arena and completes the spell. Apparently, it will now take the grandmaster and at least three of the other magisters to dismiss it, and if anything happens to them Gilthalon and Herwaldus will be trapped in the arena until it dissipates of its own accord, which will take six days. Yeesh! Gilthalon for his part faces Herwaldus and puts protective circles around them both to fulfil the “won’t let him be directly harmed” part of their agreement and then summons a small imp. Herwaldus asks his name, which is Bromphethshkagsruinmela (gesundheit!); even though Herwaldus can’t pronounce its name, it doesn’t stop him from banishing the imp.
Gitlhalon is impressed in spite of himself and summons a more powerful demon; he orders it to attack Herwaldus but it’s thwarted by Gilthalon’s own protections (?) and Herwaldus banishes it as well, without even needing its name. Gilthalon, angry now, casts a third summoning, this time evoking a demon lord so powerful even Bessarias and the other magisters are frightened of it. Gilthalon can barely keep control of this being, but he finally manages to order it to attack Herwaldus. In response to the demon’s taunting, Herwaldus willingly steps outside of his protective circle; he declares the demon has no power over him or the one he serves and asks its name – Vashyash. He then banishes Vashyash as easily as the other two demons and asks the magisters if that was a satisfactory demonstration… and casually reaches an arm right through the magical shield around the arena as he does so, to general horror.
Herwaldus starts praying in thanks for his victory, but while everyone is distracted watching him Mastema appears, flinging himself into the arena and biting and clawing at Herwaldus’s leg. While he’s distracted Gilthalon calls for the other magisters to bind him, which they do, hauling him into the air. Bessarias protests that he’s done nothing wrong, but Gilthalon tells him he’s too dangerous to live. Bessarias insists that he’s helpless, and the grandmaster thinks that’s a good thing – if there was any chance Herwaldus could escape, he’d have Gilthalon kill him right now. As it is, he wants to learn about the source of Herwaldus’s power before he kills him. He’s even willing to torture him for the information, though he’d rather it not come to that. Gilthalon, on the other hand, just wants to make Herwaldus pay for humiliating him. He thinks Vashyash probably would have been more merciful than what he has planned for him.
Gilthalon strikes Herwaldus with a magical whip, which leads the crowd to cheer and start hurling offensive spells of their own. Bessarias begs the grandmaster to stop this, since they’ll learn nothing from a corpse; Mastema knows some necromancers who can get around that, and Bessarias kicks him. Gilthalon gloats that Herwaldus came to tell them about his god, not realizing that the magisters are themselves gods. Bessarias, sickened, casts a spell of his own, mercy-killing Herwaldus by disintegrating him instantly rather than leaving him to Gilthalon’s mercies, and leaving nothing for a necromancer to work with. Gilthalon is furious, and the grandmaster annoyed. Bessarias turns and furiously storms from the hall, the other mages pulling away from him in fear, as he goes to find Kilios and the scene ends.
We cut to Kilios asking if Herwaldus is dead; Bessarias admits he killed him, so Herwaldus wouldn’t have to suffer. He doesn’t think they’ll dare punish him, certainly not over a human, and after today he really doesn’t care what his fellow magisters think of him.
“Kilios, for my entire life, I have been seeking power, knowledge, wisdom. But to what end? Today, I saw the wisest, most powerful elves in all of Selenoth acting exactly like a barbarous gang of orcs! They saw something that they did not understand, they were forced to confront something they feared, and so they reacted in exactly the same manner as an illiterate, devil-worshipping, mud-rooting swamp goblin! But what is the point of all this painstakingly gathered knowledge if in the end we reap naught but a harvest of death?
Well, Bessarias, you made your point in about the most racist way possible, didn’t you? But Bessarias goes on to say that he began his studies to seek knowledge, and now he realizes he’s learned nothing but thousands of way to kill. He doesn’t know what truth is, but he now thinks Herwaldus may have been closer to it than he was. He plans to seek out the Tertullian monks; he doesn’t know if their truth is really the one he seeks, but it’s a place to start, at least. Kilios says he’ll go with him, and describes the last vision he had before he was healed; Bessarias takes it to mean that he’ll give up his magic, which he says will never happen. Kilios reminds him that the future is unwritten, and he at least is glad to be freed of his visions. They agree to travel together, first to Amorr and then, who knows? Bessarias wants to leave tonight, and Kilios has already called for supplies to be made ready, having guessed that he would. Bessarias is pleased to have a friend; he remembers something Herwaldus once said about dying so others could live, and thinks he may finally be starting to understand that as the scene ends.
Later, Bessarias is finishing gathering up his things, including his model of the calengalad, though he thinks his studies into it will have to wait as he has other, more important studies now. He takes one last look around the room before departing and runs right into the grandmaster, who asks if it’s true he’s leaving. He admits he is and holds up a bag of rubies, asking if the grandmaster thinks it will be enough to pay for a month’s worth of lodgings along the road; the grandmaster warns him that if he flashes those rubies around he’ll get robbed and says he’ll provide him with Amorran coins before he goes. But he doesn’t understand why Bessarias is doing this. Was Herwaldus really that important to him? Bessarias says Herwaldus was only the catalyst that made him realize the truth he seeks isn’t here. The grandmaster doesn’t understand but wishes him luck and hopes he’ll return; Bessarias says that if he does, it won’t be as the same man he is now. The grandmaster chuckles and admits he barely recognizes Bessarias now; Bessarias bids him farewell and gives him the model calengalad, asking he pass it on to some talented student someday.
The grandmaster muses a bit about whether this means Bessarias is abandoning that line of research and thinks it’s maybe for the best but wishes him luck once again and bids him farewell. As Bessarias turns to leave, he spots Mastema watching him from under some stairs. He considers saying something to him, but can’t think of anything and just remembers something Herwaldus told him – what fellowship can light have with darkness? (Perhaps actually showing Herwaldus telling him this would have made this moment hit better? This is literally the only time this line appears in the whole collection, by the way!) And so, without a word of farewell, he departs the collegium, out of the shadows and into the blinding embrace of the light as the story ends.
Overall, if there’s one thing that really jumps out at me about this story is that I think there is a story here that might be worth telling… but Beale fails to tell it. Nomenlos was one of the more interesting characters in Summa Elvetica already and getting a chance to see who he was and how he converted has genuine potential, as does the narrative of a hubristic and amoral but disaffected archmage coming to question the path he’s taken in life and whether the pursuit of absolute knowledge and power he’s dedicated himself to is really worth it in the end. And I did appreciate that we don’t end the story with Bessarias having an overnight change of heart and converting to the Amorran church on the spot; he merely develops an interest in their philosophy and a desire to pursue where it leads, in memory of Herwaldus, which feels more natural and believable.
On the other hand, the execution of all of this is… pretty bad. The elves continue to suffer from feeling like they were built out of a bunch of different ideas Beale doesn’t agree with or approve of thrown haphazardly together. I’ve already mentioned that Bessarias’s philosophy feels inconsistent (though maybe it’s supposed to, and we’re supposed to take away that he’s already on some level starting to doubt and is trying to convince himself of his own rightness, but I don’t think that really comes through if so). And the Collegium in general are very obviously Beale’s caricature of modern scientists and other academics, with Bessarias even studying nuclear physics (but with magic!) just to hammer the point home (since he created a magic nuke, does that mean he’s meant to be elf!Oppenheimer? I don’t think they map onto each other that well otherwise, but who knows how Beale’s mind works…). And in that light, they really do look like an almost Chick Tract-level strawman of What Scientists Are Like – amoral hubristic, totally ignorant of things that really matter in life, not only atheistic but outright proclaiming themselves gods and mocking religion, and oh yes, literally consorting with demons. And, of course, existing to get shown up and proven wrong at the end.
I also think Herwaldus himself is part of the problem. He doesn’t really come across as a bad guy, IMO, but he’s barely a character and mostly just exists to speak things Beale clearly wants us to agree with – and, as I mentioned, most of that feels like fairly basic platitudes he doesn’t really explain in depth (and like the main novel, it feels less like it’s trying to convince the audience of anything and more like Beale is expecting the audience to already agree with him). And then it feels like Beale just puts his hand on the scale and cheats on Herwaldus’s behalf, in a way that undermines the story and its point. He literally gives Herwaldus magic powers granted to him by
I also have to question the relevance of the title. Bessarias is called ‘Master of Cats’ once, in a context where it doesn’t matter and never comes up again. He’s not the master of ‘cats’ plural, he’s the master of one demon in a cat body (or a succession of them, but only one at a time). He’s a leader of the Collegium but not the leader and doesn’t really do any leading in this story, so there’s not really a place for a “herding cats” metaphor regarding the elves. And while it feels like his relationship with Mastema is meant to be a core of the story and is a thread that runs through it… it barely feels like it matters? Mastema pops up a few times to remind us he’s there and make trouble, but it feels like if you removed him the story would play out basically the same except in a couple of brief instances, and exactly what their dynamic is like and how they feel about each other gets essentially zero spotlight. And because Bessarias and Mastema’s relationship is so underdeveloped, when Bessarias rejects Mastema at the end, it feels like it’s supposed to symbolize him turning his back on his past… but it doesn’t have the punch it should. Also, Mastema himself as a character feels like a pale shadow of Mogget from Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom books… though that may be a coincidence; if Beale ever read the Old Kingdom books, I have no doubt he’d hate them, for multiple reasons.
So, in the end, we’re left with a potentially interesting story whose execution is slipshod, underdeveloped, and thematically incoherent in ways that undermine the parts of it that could have been better. And slogging through Beale’s turgid prose does not help matters. All of which is a pity, because I do think Bessarias could have been an interesting character in the hands of a better author, one with more of an eye for characterization and less of an ideological axe to grind; FWIW, we will be seeing him again later in the collection. Anyway, that’s all for today. Next time we get to the origins of the Michaelines in, appropriately enough, “Birth of an Order.” We’ll see you then!
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Date: 2026-07-16 11:31 am (UTC)Once again Beale "World building" confuse me to no end. In a sense, it's worse than The Fellowship of the King because it was build upon something that was coherent from the start. Here, it's a 1.1 transposition of Catholicism droped on top of Ancient Rome and mixed with some fantasy tropes. I got the impression to see 5 differents storys pieces glued together, passed through three different rewrites, each one droped before finish and all that par someone who's too much of a Neo-nazis to not spiralling into his political rant mid-writing.
The confrontation between Herwaldus and Gilthalon feel like the confrontation between Moses and the Egyptian priest (At least the Prince of Egypt version) with the "My magic given by my god is stronger that your magic given by your puny gods/demons) mixed with some over the top Saint Martyrdom.
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Date: 2026-07-16 03:09 pm (UTC)I've noted in my final thoughts for Summa Elvetica proper and in the comments over on Das Sporking that I have to wonder if Beale didn't create a faux-D&D fantasy setting and a pseudo-Roman historical fantasy setting and then for some godsforsaken reason decided to crudely smush them together, resulting in... this. Though that doesn't explain the Roman Republic and the medieval Church somehow existing at the same time.
The confrontation between Herwaldus and Gilthalon feel like the confrontation between Moses and the Egyptian priest (At least the Prince of Egypt version) with the "My magic given by my god is stronger that your magic given by your puny gods/demons) mixed with some over the top Saint Martyrdom.
If that's the idea, Prince of Egypt did it better;).