David Grace - The Accidental Magician

It is known that Edgar wore a large ring with a crudely cut red stone affixed in its center. Some have speculated that this gem, or powerstone, was the seat of his magic. This hypothesis, however, was never able to be tested. It is rumored that on one occasion Edgar was waylaid by renegades and when they attempted to remove the ring from his hand they were all struck dead by its power. To this story, as to most of the others told about him, Edgar gave a sly smile and a shy wink but no further response other than his oft-repeated dictum that the power he used was more the power of death than of life and that anyone who chanced to possess his secret would probably die of contact with it.

The answer to this riddle will likely never be known, as, a few moments after Edgar's death, the stone clouded, fragmented, and crumbled to powder, pouring from its socket like red sand. In spite of the passing of Edgar, the Hartfords remained safe from the Gogol menace due to the more recent advances in wizardry by Englehardt and Emriss, students of the great magician. Thus the Gogols were forced to retreat far to the west and to halt their attacks on the newly established Hartford villages.

Nothing, there was nothing here! Perhaps elsewhere, other wizards, someone might be able to tell him how to rid himself of the powerstone which must, judging from his tortured dreams, soon drive him mad. Grantin slammed the book closed, stood up, and walked to the far comer of the library. He opened the great window and leaned on the sill, watching Pyra ascend above the horizon.

There before him lay the Eris Forest, and beyond, low rolling hills. In the far distance was the hint of the Guardian Mountains which separated the realm of the Hartfords from that of the Gogols. Was a mere finger worth a flight into such rugged country? Grantin looked down at his hand. He bent back the index finger, hiding it, and examined the result. Certainly men had lived with worse deformities. Perhaps Greyhorn could be put off, delayed, or convinced to consult other wizards more knowledgeable than he.

A scrape sounded on the stone floor behind him. Grantin turned and spied his uncle approaching him stealthily. The wizard's left hand was extended, fingers open as if ready to grasp a moving object. In his right hand he clutched a long, gleaming knife.

"Uncle, please don't. There must be another way. Can't we talk this over?"

Greyhorn made no reply but continued to advance on his nephew. Before Greyhorn's appearance Grantin had all but resigned himself to the loss of his finger. Now, with the blade only a few feet away, his fear of its amputation became overwhelming. In desperation Grantin raised his right and left arms and swung each of them in counter-rotating circles in front of him. From his lips issued a broken stream of chants and incantations remembered from his occasional attempts at scholarship. The spell had unexpected results. Instead of freezing Greyhorn's body into immobility, a great sphere of ball lightning was emitted from one of Grantin's whirling arms. This flickering missile raced to the ceiling, bounced off the beams, and ricocheted from wall to wall, leaving a sizzling path in its wake. Finally the sphere contacted the iron grille of the library door and exploded in a myriad of crackling fragments. The menace now gone, Grantin reappeared from under the heavy table. He spied his uncle also clambering to his feet.

"You idiot! That ring contains a bloodstone! Its magic is that of a hundred wizards. One wrong word and you could kill us both. It's too dangerous for you to have. Don't you know it will drive you mad unless you get rid of it? Your days are numbered."

Greyhorn regained his feet. Grantin saw that he still clasped the butcher knife. Highlights of the morning sun twinkled brightly on the polished surface of its blade. Grantin became almost hypnotized by the flickering gleams. Involuntarily he retreated into the corner of the room up against the sill of the window.

"Stay back! Stay back, uncle! I don't care what you say, I don't want to lose my finger."

"You don't want to lose your finger!" Greyhorn yelled as he crept closer to his nephew. "What do I care what you want? That ring is mine, by God, and I'm going to take it if I have to cut off your whole arm!"

Grantin pushed himself up onto the window ledge and wondered if he could survive a jump. No-too high, too many rocks beneath him. Greyhorn was now only three or four feet away and still advancing. Without conscious plan Grantin shouted a keep-away spell which he had learned as a child, a simple incantation which slightly thickened the air around the person who pronounced it and hence tended to deflect an advancing individual to one side or the other. But Grantin had not reckoned with the forces of the powerstone. Instead of Greyhorn being kept from Grantin, it was Grantin who was removed from Greyhorn.

With a sensation of being grabbed by a giant fist, Grantin felt walls of force enclose his body, yank him through the window, and propel him out across the sky. Tumbling, his body flew through space, gaining height and speed with each passing yard. Greyhorn's castle became a gray wall, a house, a distant toy structure, a spot on the horizon, then was gone. Below Grantin the landscape blurred and ran into a smeared impression of greens and browns. Villages, rivers, lakes, cities, all slid by. In the distance, Grantin saw the rapidly approaching towers of the Guardian Mountains, gigantic structures which seemed to soar even above the great height at which he now flew. Tumbling out of control, in the spell's icy grip, Grantin flew onward straight at the heart of the rearing granite crags.

The snake-like path wound westward through a sea of mutated brambles. A league distant grew the Gogol fortress of Cicero. Pyra's russet edge had barely cleared the horizon, but already the Ajaj Grays had begun to trickle from their quarters in the tumbles and make their way to the trail head. Day after day, generation upon generation, so had the Ajaj come forth to render services to their Gogol overlords.

Ahead, behind, and to all sides grew the poison-tipped briars and sting-burred brambles cultivated by the Gogols as protection for this, the seat of their empire. Only through a few narrow trails could Cicero be reached, and these lanes were constantly watched by the jealous owners of the city's five gates.

Five walls had Cicero and five gates and five lords. Five trails led to the city, and into five departments were civil functions divided. The entrance at the Eastern point of the pentagon was the Gate of Dread, commanded, guarded, and watched over by Lord Hazar the Dread. Through this gate, down this trail, came the Ajaj laborers, servants, and empathers who staffed the city.

At the northeast point of the pentagon opened the Gate of Lust, commanded by Lord Bolam the Dominator. Over the path which terminated there came the slaves, both male and female, necessary to satisfy the more carnal pleasures of the lords and deacons and subdeacons. These being more or less a luxury item, Bolam's control of the gate made him the weakest and most lightly taken of the five lords.

Next, to the northwest, was the Gate of Mammon, guarded by Lord Zaco the Inquisitor. From the regions served by this road came the gemstones, gold, iron, minerals, powders, and potions sufficient to stock the city. For reasons not understood by the other lords, Zaco had entered into an alliance with Hazar-an arrangement much resented and feared by the other Gogol princes, for through Zaco's gate, from the lands he controlled, came the powerstones that were so crucial a part of Hazar's plans for empire.

To the southwest stood the Gate of Fear. Through this portal Lord Topor sent forth Ajaj nominally under indenture to Hazar to till the fields and tend the crops which provided Cicero with an abundance of food and drink. Because of his dependence upon Hazar's Grays, it was well known that Topor, in most events, could be counted on to do Hazar's bidding.