The rain was beating down over everything, stirring up the soil and turning all to mud. Mud, the great equalizer. The birth and death of civilization. The sleeping darkness. Mud—the servant of the mud magician, the plaything of the mud reaper, the blood of the earth.

Bob, standing on the dark hillside, cloaked in the mantle of living darkness, looked down on the plight of his friend. The black water churned and whirlpooled with the enemies of the mud magician. In their midst, wounded, bleeding, his companion howled piteously, calling for aid. No more, no more, the mud magician has spoken.

Bob reached out to the mud of the hillside. He went deep, deeper, into the heart of the earth, feeling his way down into the black, sleeping places, places beyond the light and knowledge of men. Let the surface mud follow. Let the mountains, let the sky, let the night follow. The mud magician swallowed up the whole side of the slope. His brow furrowed and his teeth clenched together at this defiance of natural order. The mud magician bore the resentment, the backlash of power, the terrible, head-splitting pain. The mud magician pulled.

There was a groan from deep in the earth. The hillside was calling out in protest. It was resisting. No, the mud magician would not be resisted. The mud magician collapsed to one knee. Blood spilled down from his eyes. The toll of mastery. George was down there. George was down there. Those words sounded over the agony, over the screaming, soul-wrenching pain. The mud magician pulled.

And the world turned. And only now was the mud magician’s foresight revealed. Why else set up camp at the bottom of a depression on a rainy night? The ways of the mud magician are beyond the ken of mortals. The ground shifted, the earth growled, it started to slide down, gravity took hold, the hillside was collapsing. Crack. The top levels of earth were torn away and started to rush down the slope.

"Behold the power of the mud magician," the words echoed up into the night, like the voice of god himself, just before a dark figure was gobbled under by the rumbling mudslide and dragged down the hill.

A whole third of the hilltop had been cut away and was plummeting towards the battleground. A great mud wave, a mud tsunami, the mud apocalypse. “Brace yourself George,” Bob managed to shout as he was tossed and turned by the angry mud. A lot of good it would do the dog. The mudflow shuddered down the slope and into their former campsite, drowning everyone and everything. A huge roar of sound and then silence.

The night was still but for the drumbeat of rain playing off the darkness. A full minute passed and then another. The silence stretched. Everything was sleeping. Everything was mud. The campsite had been leveled. The gentle hillside sliced into a gaping cliff face. Everywhere was mud.

And then, through the stillness, a haggard gasp; mud started to melt away, a hole was forming in the ground, something emerged: a dark figure. The figure of the mud magician. Shaped by his cloak of living darkness. He croaked out a word, but the rain drowned it out. He hobbled forward. He called again and the word whispered through the storm: “George.”

The mud magician looked weak. He looked weary. His steps were slow and uneven, stumbling. He looked like he’d fall down and sleep forever. “George,” the word sounded again through the storm, “George, George.” The mud magician stumbled, the mud magician fell, the mud magician lay face-down in the mud. He closed his eyes. His breathing started to steady. His shoulders slumped down. He was asleep. The sleep of mud was on him. And then, and then, all of a sudden, he was awake, pushing himself up, struggling, kneeling on the ravaged battlefield with one hand pushed into the ground: “I see you.”

The mud rippled and grumbled, something was moving, something was being dragged up, but the mud magician keeled over sideways and there were black circles under his eyes. The ground was still. “George,” but the call was like a death rattle, so feeble and trembling that even the wind couldn’t hear.

“I’m coming for you George.” The mud magician crawled forward in the mud, every inch wrestled away from his body’s agony, his dumb arm dragging limply on the ground. It was painful to watch, painful to see, the mighty mud magician, master of the great mud wave, lord of the mud plains; he was crawling along, stomach smearing across the mud, like some injured worm, like the scum of the earth. “George, hold on George, hold on.” Nobody could hear the words. He spoke them for himself, for his own heart and hope.

The mud magician reached the spot. There was nobody there. The mud magician started to dig at the ground with his one good hand. Small hand-sized scopes of mud. It would take him all night and all of tomorrow and all the day after. A child with a plastic shovel would have been faster. But the mud magician kept at it, moaning quietly to himself, “George, George. Don’t leave me George. Don’t leave me.”

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After ten minutes, after ten excruciating minutes, the mud magician crumbled just where he lay, without even the strength to roll over. “No, no, listen to me, dig, dig,” his good arm hung limply there, he couldn’t move it, he tried and he pulled and he battered himself against his own arm, but he couldn’t move it.

“George is right down there. He’s so close. Don’t betray me.” The arm was spent, the muscles wasted, too exhausted even to tremble. “George…” And the voice was broken and weak and helpless.

The mud magician lay there. The rain beat down on his back in rolling curtains. Water pooled in the torn up earth. The night deepened. Was it over? Was this the end? He was so close. George was so close.

“Help. Help. Somebody help.”

The great empty expanse of the world. The heavens look down. The heavens look down and see all and do nothing. It wasn’t fair; the mud magician, face pressed in the mud, gritted his teeth and thought those words to himself over and over. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. He’d done everything he could and more and it wasn’t enough? Why wasn’t it enough? He couldn’t reach his friend, his George, when he was right there. He made another, heartbreaking attempt to dig, but the arm was numb and lifeless and didn’t care for his suffering. He had nothing, he had nothing left.

Despair sat over the mud magician and he would not submit, he would not submit, though to keep hope was an endless, impossible torture. George was right there. He was watching. He could see his Bob. And Bob was helpless. The dark figure just managed to turn his head, like he wanted to look away from something. He stared into the hood of his cloak. What was there left to try? All roads lead to death.

He stared into the hood of his cloak and the cloak felt warm against his skin, even in that cold and desperate place with the night rain sheeting over him. “Save him please, save him,” the mud magician begged, “I know you can. You are my mantle. The mantle of the mud magician. Save him, please; he’s all I have.” The cloak stiffened. Had it heard his voice? Would it save George? Could it even? The mantle started to melt away in the falling rain and drain down into the earth.

The mud magician lay there. He couldn’t even move his head. He wanted to sleep, but he had to stay awake, he had to see George. He kept his eyes open and watched the rain drops landing in the mud. He listened to the throbbing music of the empty night. He tried to keep his head clear. His mind ached. Everything hurt. Everything burned. But it was good. It kept him present there. He tried to breathe, but the breaths turned into choking sobs. The mud magician lay there, weeping, unable to lift his hand and wipe away the tears that blurred down his face and landed in the mud. The silence and the rain and the desperate sobs of the mud magician.

The ground murmured. He was imagining it. Hope, hope in the face of the true death is only madness. The ground murmured again. Was he allowed to hope? Could he really? The heavens wouldn’t betray him? The mud started to fall away, like it was being sucked inside something and a dark shape fountained out, landing just in front of our crumbled hero.

“George,” he couldn’t see for all the smeared tears. “Drag me over, please, I have to know.” The mantle, his mantle, the good cloak, looped around Bob’s shoulders and dragged him forward. Inch by inch. George’s body. Fur matted with mud and dried blood. It was soaked through like he’d been buried in a stream. Bob’s head was on George’s chest.

“George, George, old boy, I’m here George, I’ve got you.” The dog didn’t respond. Was it too late? No, no, don’t let it be too late. Anything but that. The chest rose slightly. It was shallow, faint, but it was a breath.

Bob couldn’t move. He couldn’t. His whole body was frozen. He had to help. The system interface flashed on. He navigated through with sluggish, winding thoughts, getting confused and lost, and hating himself for every little mistake, every squandered second. There, health patches. Twenty patches pattered down around them.

“Put them on him.” The mantle wrapped around one of the patches. The grip was awkward, but it managed to stick one lamely to George’s back. The patch slid down and into the mud. “No, no,” Bob couldn’t bear it, “the packaging. You have to tear it open.” The mantle tried, Bob saw that, it twisted and pulled, but it couldn’t manage it. “The packaging.” The mantle couldn’t do it. Was George going to die like this?

“My mouth, quick, quick, faster,” Bob opened his mouth and the mantle slotted a patch inside, Bob bit down and the mantle managed to tear through the wrapping. “Do it.” The patch stuck to George’s back. The dog didn’t respond. “Again, again.” Twice, three times, it wasn’t working, but Bob couldn’t stop, he couldn’t accept it, he wouldn’t, he mustn’t. A low whine.

“George?” Bob felt George’s chest stir. “George, thank god, thank…”

The mud magician slipped away, falling into the deep, dark sleep of the mud. Tears continue to trickle out, pooling under the closed lids and then shimmering down those muddy cheeks. George’s eyes flickered open for a moment; he growled wearily from the back of his throat and then sank back down into sleep. The mantle, the good cloak, stretched over them both, hiding them from the rain, the night and any wandering monsters.

The mud magician and his companion lying on the mound of their defeated enemies. Sleeping the sleep of the triumphant, of the victors, of the tired and broken, of the weak and happy. And which is the glory, which is the true name? To bring wanton destruction upon one’s foes, a master of arcane forces, a fell voice on the wind, or to crawl like a worm in the dust, to dig with one’s hands in the mud, all to save one’s friend? How will the mud magician be remembered?