HURTIANCZ, short and burly, notorious for his truculent disposition.
HERARK THE HARBINGER, precise and somewhat severe.
SHRUE, a diabolist, whose witticisms mystify his associates, and sometimes disturb their sleep of nights.
GILGAD, a small man with large gray eyes in a round gray face, always attired in rose-red garments. His hands are clammy, cold and damp; his touch is avoided by all.
VERMOULIAN THE DREAM-WALKER, a person peculiarly tall and thin, with a stately stride.
MUNE THE MAGE, who speaks minimally and manages a household of four spouses.
ZILIFANT, robust of body with long brown hair and a flowing beard.
DARVILK THE MIAANTHER, who, for inscrutable purposes, affects a black domino.
PERDUSTIN, a slight blond person without intimates, who enjoys secrecy and mystery, and refuses to reveal his place of abode.
AO OF THE OPALS, saturnine, with a pointed black beard and a caustic manner.
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
