ESHMIEL, who, with a delight almost childish in its purity, uses a bizarre semblance half-white and half-black.

BARBANIKOS, who is short and squat with a great puff of white hair.

HAZE OF WHEARY WATER, a hot-eyed wisp with green skin and orange willow-leaves for hair.

PANDERLEOU, a collector of rare and wonderful artifacts from all the accessible dimensions.

BYZANT THE NECROPE.

DULCE-LOLO, whose semblance is that of a portly epicure.

TCHAMAST, morose of mood, an avowed ascetic, whose distrust of the female race runs so deep that he will allow only male insects into the precincts of his manse.

TEUTCH, who seldom speaks with his mouth but uses an unusual sleight to flick words from his finger-tips. As an Elder of the Hub, he has been allowed the control of his private infinity.

ZAHOULIK-KHUNTZE, whose iron fingernails and toenails are engraved with curious signs.

NAHOUREZZIN, a savant of Old Romarth.

ZANZEL MELANCTHONES.

HACHE-MONCOUR, whose vanities and airs surpass even those of Rhialto.

Magic is a practical science, or, more properly, a craft, since emphasis is placed primarily upon utility, rather than basic understanding. This is only a general statement, since in a field of such profound scope, every practitioner will have his individual style, and during the glorious times of Grand Motholam, many of the magician-philosophers tried to grasp the principles which governed the field.

In the end, these investigators, who included the greatest names in sorcery, learned only enough to realize that full and comprehensive knowledge was impossible. In the first place, a desired effect might be achieved through any number of modes, any of which represented a life-time of study, each deriving its force from a different coercive environment.

The great magicians of Grand Motholam were sufficiently supple that they perceived the limits of human understanding, and spent most of their efforts dealing with practical problems, searching for abstract principles only when all else failed. For this reason, magic retains its distinctly human flavor, even though the activating agents are never human. A casual glance into one of the basic catalogues emphasizes this human orientation; the nomenclature has a quaint and archaic flavor. Looking into (for instance) Chapter Four of Killiclaw’s Primer of Practical Magic, ‘Interpersonal Effectuations’, one notices, indited in bright purple ink, such terminology as:

Xarfaggio’s Physical Malepsy

Arnhoult’s Sequestrious Digitalia

Lutar Brassnose’s Twelve-fold Bounty

The Spell of Forlorn Encystment

Tinkler’s Old-fashioned Froust

Clambard’s Rein of Long Nerves

The Green and Purple Postponement of Joy

Panguire’s Triumphs of Discomfort

Lugwiler’s Dismal Itch

Khulip’s Nasal Enhancement

Radl’s Pervasion of the Incorrect Chord

A spell in essence corresponds to a code, or set of instructions, inserted into the sensorium of an entity which is able and not unwilling to alter the environment in accordance with the message conveyed by the spell. These entities are not necessarily ‘intelligent’, nor even ‘sentient’, and their conduct, from the tyro’s point of view, is unpredictable, capricious and dangerous.

The most pliable and cooperative of these creatures range from the lowly and frail elementals, through the sandestins. More fractious entities are known by the Temuchin as ‘daihak’, which include ‘demons’ and ‘gods’. A magician’s power derives from the abilities of the entities he is able to control. Every magician of consequence employs one or more sandestins. A few arch-magicians of Grand Motholam dared to employ the force of the lesser daihaks. To recite or even to list the names of these magicians is to evoke wonder and awe. Their names tingle with power. Some of Grand Motholam’s most notable and dramatic were:

PHANDAAL THE GREAT

AMBERLIN I

AMBERLIN II

DIBARCAS MAIOR (who studied under Phandaal)

ARCH-MAGE MAEL LEL LAIO (he lived in a palace carved from a single moon-stone)

THE VAPURIALS

THE GREEN AND PURPLE COLLEGE

ZINQZIN THE ENCYCLOPAEDIST

KYROL OF PORPHYRHYNCOS

CALANCTUS THE CALM

LLORIO THE SORCERESS

The magicians of the 21st Aeon were, in comparison, a disparate and uncertain group, lacking both grandeur and consistency.

I

The Murthe

1

One cool morning toward the middle of the 21st Aeon, Rhialto sat at breakfast in the east cupola of his manse Falu. On this particular morning the old sun rose behind a curtain of frosty haze, to cast a wan and poignant light across Low Meadow.

For reasons Rhialto could not define, he lacked appetite for his breakfast and gave only desultory attention to a dish of watercress, stewed persimmon and sausage in favor of strong tea and a rusk. Then, despite a dozen tasks awaiting him in his work-room, he sat back in his chair, to gaze absently across the meadow toward Were Wood.

In this mood of abstraction, his perceptions remained strangely sensitive. An insect settled upon the leaf of a nearby aspen tree; Rhialto took careful note of the angle at which it crooked its legs and the myriad red glints in its bulging eyes. Interesting and significant, thought Rhialto.

After absorbing the insect’s full import, Rhialto extended his attention to the landscape at large. He contemplated the slope of the meadow as it dropped toward the Ts and the distribution of its herbs. He studied the crooked boles at the edge of the forest, the red rays slanting through the foliage, the indigo and dark green of the shadows. His vision was remarkable for its absolute clarity; his hearing was no less acute … He leaned forward, straining to hear — what? Sighs of inaudible music?

Nothing. Rhialto relaxed, smiling at his own odd fancies, and poured out a final cup of tea … He let it cool untasted. On impulse he rose to his feet and went into the parlour, where he donned a cloak, a hunter’s cap, and took up that baton known as ‘Malfezar’s Woe’. He then summoned Ladanque, his chamberlain and general factotum.