The Fountain Pen

It’s late. It’s much later than I want it to be and I’ve written about as much as I can tonight. I spent my most productive hours of the day working on my Sunday School lesson, and I had some much needed family time. I’ve pushed myself today as Saturday has been scheduled with a social event, and as I recall I don’t get much writing done on Thanksgiving. This should be an interesting final stretch.

The good news is with these 1,700 words I have exceeded 32,000 on my manuscript. I hope you enjoy the next installment.

Joe gave Ignatius a curious glance. “From what?”

“Whom actually,” Ignatius replied.

“Ignatius came to us having broke off from Sikander. There were some initial reprisals. It seems Ignatius crossed Sikander and took some valuable research from him when he turned tail and ran.”

“You wound me madam. It wasn’t quite like that,” Ignatius said.

“Sikander wants you dead too?” Joe asked. “What did you do, exactly, to cross him?”

“Let us just say some of his vital research went missing around the same time that I decided I no longer wished to be his pupil.”

Joe gave Ignatius a wary look as a thought struck him, “Why did you join up with Sikander in the first place? Why should I trust you if you threw your lot in with him?”

Ignatius sighed then withered under Katarina’s glare. “I was a wayward youth when I first met Sikander. My father was killed in some war or other. My mother did her best to raise me and my three brothers, but there wasn’t much a widow and four children could do in life to eek out a living. I fell in with some disreputable men and began earning some real coin for a change.”

“You picked people’s pockets?” Joe asked.

“Nothing like that,” Ignatius denied. “I was one of those chubby cherub-faced children whom adults would fawn over. I would lure them into alleys and houses and all sorts of places where the rest of the gang would convince them to make a donation to what we called our orphan fund.”

Joe made a face of disgust. “You were the bait to lure people into traps.”

“I was, and I was good at it, being a natural-born thespian and all,” he puffed out his chest. “When my mother found out she disowned me. She said I was a disgrace to my father’s memory and a disgrace to our family’s honor. She would have nothing to do with one who preyed on others or helped those that did. I was soon quite homeless. It wasn’t long after that Sikander found me in the streets looking for people who would be willing to donate. To this day I don’t know why he did it, but he took me in and gave me a home.”

“Are you saying Sikander raised you?”

Ignatius nodded. “I was but a lad when I came to live with him, and it took me 70 years to realize the error of my ways. In my defense, he was good and kind to me. At the time he had a large cottage in the forest outside of the town, which he shared with a young apprentice — the poor fellow wasn’t long for this world.” Joe arched an eyebrow at this to which Ignatius hastily replied. “A wild boar got the best of him. Where was it? Oh yes, Sikander clothed me, fed me, and gave me my own room. Such luxuries were hard to give up. At first I thought he was a woodsman, or a huntsman, as we spent most of my first few months engaged in such duties. He taught me a great deal about survival, about plants and animals, how to build shelters, how to track an animal, those sorts of things. Back then I thought fortune had finally found me. Little did I know.

“I got suspicious when he started teaching me to read and write. Back then woodsmen and huntsmen didn’t know such things. After mastering these skills he began to encourage my latent theatrical skills, though I know now it was not for a career on the stage. He would have me practice being a lord, a squire, a page, a courier, a courtier, and even the gutter rat I once was. He would have me practice these roles over and over until I got each on just right, and then he had me perform these roles as characters on the world stage.”

“He groomed you into a con man?” Joe asked.

“Not quite. He was the con man if ever there was one. However, you are right in that he had me portray myself as someone I was not in order to grant him an audience or access to people he otherwise would not. My ability to slip in and out of society as different people was useful to him and his plans, little did I know.”

“I can see why you would want to leave that sort of life,” Joe commented. “He sounds like and odious man.”

“Quite the contrary!” contradicted Ignatius. “I loved that part of my life with Sikander. There is no greater gift to an actor than to play the part so well no one is the wiser. I excelled at my craft, my talent, and it fulfilled me in ways I’ve yet to duplicate. Nor I did not mind playing parts for Sikander. Truthfully I regularly consulted with Sikander regarding my roles and helped him plan and plot.

“And to be fair he was generous with those less fortunate. Most of our little schemes were aimed at those who were either already corrupt, or were corruptible. We saw it as our mission to help those who were helpless. We had within our power to bring … well not justice, but to restore something of a balance to the world around us, and so we did.”

“So why did you leave then?” Joe inquired, genuinely puzzled.

Ignatius took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I suppose you could say I had a change of heart. As I said, Sikander and I would plot out his schemes together. I was usually privy to the details and the motive behind it, but what I lacked was the big picture. After about 70 years of working with him I was finally grasping the larger goal he was working towards. At first it didn’t bother me. Call it ambition but I wanted to see if such a goal could be accomplished. I threw myself into the work for a few years, and gradually Sikander revealed more and more of his plan to me, and that’s when I knew it was time to leave.”

“So what was it he was trying to accomplish?”

Ignatius looked around cautiously then leaned in conspiratorially and in a voice barely above a whisper said, “His grand aim is to become God.”

“What?” Joe exclaimed in shock. “That’s … absurd. He can’t be serious.”

“Oh but he is, and his plan is quite blasphemous,” Ignatius assured him.

“How can anyone become God? He’d have to be all knowing and all powerful and,” Joe paused at a sudden loss for words in describing God finally uttering, “stuff.”

“Sikander agrees with you, and he’s had centuries. Already he has quite a bit of power. You’d have to concede that point wouldn’t you?”

Joe begrudgingly nodded, “If we are right in our assumption that Sikander is behind this.”

“He’s devoted his life to the pursuit of knowledge and mysteries. In my time with him he was able to rediscover, and refine, Helmut’s technique for prolonging life. I’m walking proof. That alone will instill awe and fear in a great many people. Furthermore, he was researching transmuting that longevity technique into a regeneration technique.”

“If he ever accomplishes that he’ll be virtually unstoppable,” a stunned Joe exclaimed. “Cut out his heart and he’d just grow a new one.”

“That was his aim, and so I absconded with that very research. What I could not take with me I destroyed.”

Joe whistled clearly impressed. “No wonder he wants you dead.”

“It is my hope that I set him back a great many decades, but he’s a driven man.”

Katarina leaned forward and fixed Ignatius with a curious look. “You never did explain why you initially went along with his plan to turn him into a god.”

“Ah. Yes. Well initially I didn’t realize that was his goal. All I knew is he was working to set himself up as a benefactor to all of humanity.”

“How was he going to do that,” asked Joe.

“First he needed to secure a certain amount of leverage with people of power. Some of this was through our usual dealings, and others were offering them favors. After he curried enough security with these men he would begin winning over the heart of the people. Eventually, with enough hard work, he could expand his influence over all the people of the planet with his benevolence.”

“What was it exactly that made you leave?” Katarina pressed.

Ignatius shrugged. “I’m not sure exactly. I suppose him wanting to name himself God didn’t sit right with me. If he wanted to be a benevolent king, as I thought he wanted, I would have stayed with him all the way. But to set oneself up as God … that just doesn’t sit right with me. God is infallible, and Sikander clearly has his faults.” Ignatius tapped his chin for a moment. “Think of it this way, it made me sick to my stomach to think that I might have to bow down and worship him as if he were Almighty Sikander.”

Katarina leaned back satisfied.

Understanding finally struck Joe. “Sikander must have been working toward this all along. That was at the heart of those debates about ethics with Helmut. And when Helmut foiled Sikander’s scheme, setting back his work a few decades at least, Helmut became a vital threat to his plans. As long as Helmut lives Sikander can expect to meet strong resistance. Gleaning what I can from the reverence you all give the man I can only assume that Sikander actually fears him. So if Sikander thinks I am Helmut …” Joe let it hang for a moment, “well it all makes perfect sense.”

Katarina and Ignatius nodded together. “Precisely my boy. And that is why I suggest you stay here in Salem.”

“Nothing doing. I’m not letting some power hungry looney ruin my life. Someone needs to stand up to him.”

Ignatius shook his head. “Son, you don’t know what you are dealing with.”

“No, I don’t. But I have the two of you to help me get out of this situation.”

“And then what? If he did this to you once he can do it to you again, and I don’t think you’d fare as well the second time,” Ignatius cautioned.

“I don’t know,” Joe admitted. “I’m just beginning to wrap my head around this. But first things first, I have to get out of Salem.” Ignatius began to protest, but Joe cut him off, “I at least need to have the ability to leave. I can’t stay trapped here and let him send assassin after assassin.”