Wizard's Goal

by Alan J. Garner

  "Count that as a blessing. Mal's not great company at the best of times."

  "Much like you. Are all wizards grouchy?"

  "It's a quirk of our profession. We're solitary creatures by habit and spending centuries on end alone makes one cranky.” Parndolc got up from the table, refilled his mug, and heaved a melancholic sigh. “It wasn't always this way. There were better ... happier times."

  Garrich went to bed early; the signs were clear that Parndolc wanted to drink heavily and unaccompanied. Making his way to the central staircase, he ascended those curving steps and quickly walked the passage to the archway, taking the flight of stairs leading to the eastern tower. Parndolc cleared out it out a week after Garrich had settled in, providing the youth with a cot and building him shelves and a set of drawers. The technical wizard was quite handy with a hammer and nails.

  Shutting the stout oak door behind him, Garrich slid his broadsword under the bed and flopped on to the goose feather mattress, luxuriating in the comfortable feel of the eiderdown quilt Parndolc had removed from storage. He proudly surveyed the two tomes and single scroll taking up space on his otherwise bare bookshelf. They were the makings of his personal library. Of the side-by-side books, one was Tylar's water-damaged hardcover military volume Garrich salvaged from the ashes of his upheaved life, while its companion was an atlas authored by a Dwarf cartographer. Maldoch insisted to Parndolc that their ward bone-up on his geography. The rolled up sheet of parchment, yellowed from age and tatty with singed edges, was of course the chanced upon copy of the Ode of the Shamanist.

  Taking the scroll down from the shelf, Garrich unrolled the tube and perused the faint black ink unstoppably fading to brown. The penmanship of the flowing script was astonishingly exquisite, considering the calligrapher was a drunkard who, unbeknown to all—including himself—had been dying from cirrhosis of the liver. Failing yet again to find any significance in the nonsensical verse, he reached under his pillow to pull out the one possession worth more to him than the entire output of the Min Alorth goldmines. The ratty piece of unidentifiable pelt used as swaddling when Garrich was but a babe stayed more of an enigma than this mystifying scroll of oracular vision, yet whenever he felt lost or low in spirit its touch unfailingly comforted him.

  "When am I going to get the answers to my parentage?” he despairingly asked the circular walls of the turret. The stone bricks replied with stony silence.

  Maldoch had not returned once nor even made contact with those at Earthen Rise during his two year long absence. Unconcerned by the lack of communication, Parndolc simply said, “No news is good news.” That was not good enough for Garrich. He was chaffing at the bit. He had to know about his roots and the upcoming challenges he might face as Terrath's appointed deliverer. And the only one who could address those questions was the absent spellcaster. Garrich drifted off to sleep curled up with his treasured scrap of fur, feeling typically unfulfilled.

  The next morning found him practicing his swordplay furiously on the rooftop of his tower, etched against the milky sunrise as he thrust and parried determinedly at an imaginary sparring partner in an effort to dispel his melancholy. It worked a treat. By the time Garrich descended the rope ladder dangling from the trapdoor in the wooden ceiling of his turret he was too knackered to think about feeling sorry for himself. He followed his intense workout with a soak in one of the bathhouse hot tub's to ease his kinks and afterwards dressed for the day in the leather vest and trousers Parndolc stitched together for the boy's sixteenth birthday. Among his other practical skills the wizard was a dab hand at tailoring. He had no option but to become handy with a needle and thread. Most bachelors get into the knack of mending their own clothes or else start walking around in rags.

  He breakfasted as usual with Parndolc two hours after daybreak, wolfing down a bowl of bland, steaming porridge. Like Garrich, the hermit was a mediocre cook who could burn a potful of water. Then again, most bachelors were.

  "Parny, you look tired."

  "I should,” said the red-eyed wizard, slouching in one of the two chairs in the kitchenette. “I was up all night revising the schematics of the orthopter. There's a fundamental design flaw."

  "The wing shape, like you said after your dunking yesterday."

  "It's more than that. I've worked out that the orthopter failed its maiden flight due to the simple fact that the wings didn't flap. Birds beat their wings to fly, even the soarers. It's the basic means of producing lift. The solution is obvious. I'm in the middle of redesigning the wings around a flapping mechanism."

  "I suppose it makes sense,” Garrich commented dubiously. His knowledge of birds could be summed up easily enough; roasted game birds made delicious eating.

  "There'll be a delay in constructing the next orthopter,” the wizard informed him, “while I trial differing hinge joints to find the one that'll work with the greatest efficiency."

  "What a shame,” murmured the youth. Carpentry was not really his thing.

  "Don't get too comfortable, boy. Today you'll be fishing the wreck of the first orthopter out of the lake."

  "Aw, Parndolc!"

  "No buts, Garrich. Timber doesn't grow on trees and materials are difficult to come by out here in the wop wops. My supply of goods in the basement is not inexhaustible. Recycling is the name of the game when it comes to serious inventing."

  Salvaging the tattered remains of the glider took most of the day and three trips in the skiff, so Garrich did not hook up with Parndolc again until suppertime. There was no hard and fast rule over turns at cooking, other than whoever was hungry and down in the kitchen first prepared whatever meal the time of day dictated. Garrich made sure he arrived on scene late enough for Parndolc to be chef for the seventh night running. They dined on galantine, a dish of boned and stuffed fish, cooked and coated with its own jelly, served cold. Fish was an understandable staple of their diet, considering they lived in the middle of a lake, though Garrich had yet to see any fishes swimming in the black waters of Fragmere and quite frankly never saw Parndolc fishing.

  Garrich learned early on not to pester the wizards with his queries about the day-to-day functions of the castle. Lighting and heating was sourced in the basement depths in what Parndolc referred to as the power room, the technical wizard going into tediously great detail on “hydroelectric thermal core generators based on the water wheel principle". That boring lesson taught Garrich to keep his inquisitiveness to himself. While Parndolc's inventions were generally fascinating, he did not fancy being subjected to a two-hour lecture every time he put a simple question to the old man.

  Afterwards they snacked on sweet doucettes and rounded off the meal with a jug of homebrewed ale. Garrich cleared away the dishes before oiling his sword. Parndolc started reviewing notes from a volume in the stack of the many journals he scrupulously kept on his work.

  "Are you as old as Maldoch?” the youth abruptly asked.

  "Get away!” barked the wizard, busy trying to read his own abominable handwriting. “I'm about five hundred years younger."

  Garrich stopped working. “Then what age does that make you?"

  "Older than the forests but younger than the mountains."

  "That's still awfully old. How come wizards live so long?"

  Parndolc gave a shrug. “We're too busy to die like normal folk."

  "That's no answer,” grumbled Garrich, sick of being continuously fobbed off when it came to discussing important issues.

  "We can't always get to know what we want,” the old codger told him. The grumpy look on the youth's face effected in Parndolc a change of heart and he conceded, “It can't hurt to let you in on a few things, I suppose. Maldoch won't approve, but—"

  "What's he got to with it?"

  "Plenty, Garrich. He wants you kept clear-headed for what lies ahead."

  "I wish someone will tell me exactly what that is!” complained the Goblin.

  "That's a bit difficult when we're not entirely certain ourselves what'll happen. Hav
e patience, boy. ‘Time reveals all', as the saying goes. Now, what do you desire to know about us wizards?"

  Garrich seized the opportunity. “Everything."

  Parndolc exhaled loudly. “That's a pretty tall order. I'll need to wet my whistle first.” He went for the ale jug.

  "Not this time, Parny,” Garrich said bluntly, putting his foot down by covering the top of the oldster's tankard with his hand. “I want you sober for this."

  The wizard looked injured. “It won't be nearly as interesting, boy."

  "I'll take the chance."

  Parndolc scowled. “Okay, tell me what Shudonn taught you about the beginning of the world."

  "Next to nothing,” revealed Garrich.

  "That figures. Soldiers don't make the best teachers."

  Garrich begged to differ but kept quiet. He was not about to interrupt the wizard's overdue history lesson.

  "Righto. We'll start with the Anarchic Years. What were they?"

  The Goblin thought hard. “That period when the forerunners of the Fellow Races were at perpetual war with each other while dividing Terrath into the five nations we know today."

  Parndolc reviewed his answer and condemned it as, “Militaristic and inaccurate. There are six nations. You forgot the Gnomes. Everyone does. That's beside the point. Here's the real deal.

  "Remember me telling you about the Ancients and their civilization of fantastic machines and sky-scraping cities? Those tribes of yellow, red, and brown skinned peoples existed long before the Fellow Races and were—"

  "You're making that up!” accused Garrich. “I've never heard of anyone having brown skin."

  "Wait until you catch sight of a Troll then. It's fanciful but true. The Ancients were as varied in looks as a pack of mongrel dogs and just as frictional. But that wasn't their undoing. Their downfall came about in the guise of a disease. For all their greatness, the Ancients succumbed to a basic plague that came to be called the Coughing Death. This deadly, incurable sickness took young and old, weak and strong alike, decimating the tribes until only an eighth of the population remained alive with even that remnant dwindling fast.

  "Desperate remedies call for desperate measures, so the survivors fled to the wilds seeking out-of-the-way places of refuge, for the pestilence not only felled their peoples but brought about the total collapse of the diverse societies of the Ancients. Governments toppled and kingdoms crumbled. Food and medicines became scarce. Lawlessness abounded with mobs of the diseased roaming at will slaughtering the healthy out of envy and the sickly from contempt as the civilized world degenerated into the time of bloody chaos we termed the Anarchic Years."

  "We?"

  "The enchanters. But I'm jumping ahead of myself. Bands of the Ancients retreated to the last bastion of wilderness: the cold wastelands of the north. Untold perished, but those hardy enough to survive the epidemic and freezing clime remained hidden and isolated in their geographic sanctuaries while civilization fractured and vanished. That was when the changes began."

  Garrich narrowed his eyes. “What changes?"

  "The Ancients changed in appearance as individual groups physically adapted to their frozen surrounds. Environment is a powerful influence on the body and over the course of thousands of generations the prehistoric ancestors of the Fellow Races evolved and multiplied in the icy hinterland. The Dwarfs were by far the more common of the trio of newborn races and acclimatized better to living in a cold climate. Their stocky, hairy bodies retain heat most efficiently and pound for pound they are the strongest and hardiest of all Terrathians. Judging by how fast they procreate, they do thrive in stone and snow country."

  "And the other two were?"

  "A good question, boy. I'm glad to see you paying attention. The other major race back in those days was the Trolls.'

  "Whoa, back up, Parny. I know bugger all about Trolls, but aren't they desert dwellers?'

  "Certainly. However, we've all gotta start somewhere and the Trolls started off as furry giants up in the chill northland alongside the Gnomes.'

  Garrich was flummoxed. What he knew of Gnomes was substantially less than his knowledge of Trolls and that could fit on a pinhead with ample room to spare.

  Parndolc resumed his story. ‘Eventually the pressures of exploding populations and shrinking tundra led the newcomers to think about migrating south back into the now disease-free lands. Of course by that stage the countryside was altered a great deal too. Time and weather drastically transformed landmarks, rivers ran along new courses, hills eroded away to nothing, and forests sprung up where there once stood brick jungles. The land was habitable again and enticingly empty.

  "The first immigrants we think were the Trolls, who came out of the Barren Wilds west of the Bay of Ice and followed the Eastalps south to settle at the foot of Humbril Crest. We suspect this because legends persist in that region concerning Snow Trolls and those myths must stem from the ancestral Sandwalkers themselves. For whatever reason they didn't stay long and struck due east, ultimately crossing the Shieldrock Range to claim the Great Desertland as their own.” Parndolc's brows furrowed. ‘Though why any race would choose to set up house in a giant sandpit is beyond me.

  "Next came the Dwarfs and Gnomes together, but not until much, much later during which time desert life molded the Trolls into the hairless, ebony skinned people they are today. Archaeological evidence strongly suggests that the small folk came through Nistrell Passage in a single wave of migration and then split. Knowing the long running enmity between the Highlanders and Underlanders, I'm betting they warred before going their separate ways. The Dwarven folk finished up in present day Carallord and the Gnomes spent a decade as vagabonds before going to ground in the caves of Darkin Horr."

  "You've not mentioned the Goblins or Elves,” noted Garrich.

  "So I haven't.” The wizard eyed the jug of untouched ale hopefully. “I really am parched, boy. What say you to pouring me a wee drop?"

  "Not until you've finished your tale,” maintained the stalwart youth.

  "You're a hard man, Garrich."

  "That's the problem. I'm not a man. Now what about the Goblins?"

  "They're something of a puzzle,” disclosed Parndolc. “We know for certain the Elves came by ship out of the Unknown Ocean and landed on Terrathian shores up on the Frigid Coast and down in Galinorf Bay. They must have developed on some other continent and decided to travel."

  "There are other lands across the sea?” Garrich pondered incredulously. In no way was his geographical lore improving and the added burden of having to learn about overseas nations became an undesirable prospect. The atlas of Terrath was hard enough work for now.

  "Supposedly,” answered the wizard. “No maps exist for landmasses across the water, so the existence of foreign lands is mostly conjecture. And the Elves have naturally forgotten from where they originated. Perhaps it's high time an expedition was mounted to explore the oceans. I am fairly sure that Terrath is not the only continent on the globe."

  "Everyone knows the world is flat,” scoffed Garrich.

  "Boy, you have an awful lot to learn still."

  "Then hadn't you better get on with it?"

  "I never signed on to be your personal tutor."

  "But we both got lumbered with each other."

  "It does beat talking to myself,” granted Parndolc. “Where did I get up to?"

  "Goblins,” Garrich reminded him.

  "As I said a moment ago, Goblins are a bit of a mystery. They came to Omelchor's attention sometime in the latter half of the First Epoch, but I doubt even he has sourced their roots."

  "Back to this Omelchor fellow,” Garrich noted with interest. He cropped up with monotonous regularity.

  "Which leads me nicely on to the subject of the wizards and witches,” said Parndolc.

  The Goblin groaned. Witches? This account of Terrathian history sure was getting convoluted.

  "The spellcasters are an order that predates even the Fellow Races,” Parndolc began, �
��and existed in two divisions: the three-strong Brotherhood of Wizardry and the partnering Sisterhood of Witchery. Maldoch, Omelchor, and myself make up the faction of wizards, whilst Norelda and Bolicia comprised the witches. We formed ourselves to be the guardian-protectors of the emerging peoples of Terrath."

  "Why aren't the witches here with you?"

  "They're dead, boy,” Parndolc grimly related, anguish in his reply. “Omelchor killed them both."

  That was not strictly true. Sure, Omelchor slew one of the witches, the love of Parndolc's life, but her sister did run away with the murderous sorcerer after a lengthy seduction. In Parndolc's eyes she too was dead to him.

  "I called Omelchor brother once,” the technical wizard admitted ruefully, “and he was happily one of us until the day he turned.” Garrich's blank face showed incomprehension. Parndolc remedied that. “There are two elemental, conflicting forces in our lives—Good and Evil. In our world they manifest themselves in the forms of the rival deities Jeshuvallhod the Maker and Lusfardcul the Undoer. From the beginning we mages pledged ourselves to uphold the guiding principles of Light. Somewhere along the way Omelchor became subverted by the Dark. He betrayed not only his comrades, but his beliefs."

  Garrich was developing a headache. He could swear his brain was bulging from the stream of revelations coming his way thick and fast, and on top of all that religion was clouding the waters. But he muddled his way through the startling disclosures. “Parny, you say that magicians came before the Fellow Races."

  "We existed long before the Dwarfs got short and hairy."

  "That would make you nearly as old as the Ancients."

  "It should. We're the products of them."

  Feeling light-headed, Garrich reached for his own empty tankard. “I need a drink,” he croaked.

  The wizard obliged him by pouring out a cupful of steadying ale. “Have some yourself, you say?” Parndolc slipped in. “Don't mind if I do,” and slurped directly from the jug, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his habit afterwards.

  "This can't be,” mumbled Garrich, his headache worsening.

  Seeing that the youth had gone beyond his tolerance for surprises, the wizard emptied the contents of the jug into Garrich's mug and cunningly said, “We're wasting good drinking time with all this gloomy talk, boy. I'll fetch us a fresh cask from the cellar and we can resume this conversation when and if we're sober again."