"I studied and mastered: Abjuration, Aerokinesis, Scottish Hoodoo, Bibliomancy, Rhapsodomancy, which a particular favourite of mine. You know I should call myself a Rhapsodomancer not a Necromancer, I do it so much more often. Ornithomancy, Birth Sign Magic, Pegomancy, Lucky Stars, Dactylomancy. New Orleans Voodoo, Chartomancy, Candle magic, Myomancy, Ancestral Magic, Salem Witchcraft, Crowley Wicca, Gardenia Wicca, Oenomancy. I do that with Absinthe."

Quaraun picked up a bottle of Fairy Wine.

"I seem to be all out. Need to get more of that."

Kelim looked around at the several emerald green bottles scattered around the room.

"Looks like you drink too much of that stuff, to me."

"I wasn't asking you. You know, one I never learned was Podomancy. BoomFuzzy did Podomancy. I never understood that one. I didn't understand a lot of things BoomFuzzy did. Phyllorhodomancy, is perhaps my favourite one. I do so love roses. Atmoskinesis, Clairvoyance, Temple of the Golden Dawn, Hydromancy, Circle Magic, Livanomancy. Doing that right now. Pessomancy, Colour magic, Demonomancy, Kabbalism, Conjuring, Daoism, I Ching, Feng Shui, Cryokinesis, Sympathetic magic, Gris-Gris, Poppets, Molybdomancy, Cursing, Blessing, Arachnomancy, Earth Magic, Lithomancy."

Quaraun paused.

"Perhaps I should call myself a Lithomancer?"

"What's that?"

"Divination by precious gemstones. I do that often. Daily. Far more often than Necromancy. Ah! Psephomancy, Lychnomancy, Water Magic, Green Magic, Runes, Geomancy, Kitchen Magic, Idolomancy, Macharomancy, Tuphramancy, Empathy, Psychometry, though I'm often too sensitive for that. Tasseography, Radiesthesia, Lampadomancy, Pyroscopy, Enchantment, Tyromancy, Antinopomancy, I don't do that one any more. No stomach for it. Astragalomancy, though I'm considering giving that up as well. Side effect of a sheep lover, I've come to see sheep in a different light of late. "

"You seem to do a lot of Mancying."

"Well of course. I am a natural born psion, and I'm trained as a Di'Jinn. Divination is my primary area of expertise."

"Divination?"

"Yes."

"You mean, like fortune telling?"

"Yes."

"What's that got to do with you doing all that Mancying?"

"Mancy means divination."

"It does?"

"Yes."

"Wait, so what does Necromancy mean?"

"It means I practice divination through the reading of dead corpses."

"Doesn't it mean you resurrect dead people and turn them into zombies and shit?"

"No. I do that as well, but that's not Necromancy. Necromancy is digging up corpses and reading future events based on how the body rotted."

"I had no idea."

"Most people don't. Now where was I?"

"You was listing off all the types of magic shit you know how to do, but..."

"Ah, yes! I was considering giving up divination by reading sheep entrails!"

"Sheep entrails? Why are we talking about sheep entrails?"

"Astragalomancy."

"Yeah? So?"

"Divination by dissecting a sheep and reading how their entrails land on the ground as they run around screaming until they die. Also reading the blood spatter patterns of the sheep, and than removing their bones, chopping them up, tossing them in the air, and reading the patterns they make when they land on the ground."

"That's a thing?"

"Yes."

"And you do it?"

"Well. . . yes."

"What's the other one you gave up?"

"Which one?"

"The one you said you had no stomach for?"

"Antinopomancy?"

"Uhm, maybe. I kind of wasn't paying attention."

"Antinopomancy and divination by dissecting a virgin women or female children, also virgins and reading how their entrails land on the ground as they run around screaming until they die."

"Dissecting. . . virgins?"

"Yes. Also reading the blood spatter patterns of the girls, and than removing their bones, chopping them up, tossing them in the air, and reading the patterns they make when they land on the ground. Same like you do for sheep on you use Humans instead."

"You practice fortune telling by dissecting Humans and reading their entrails?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"It's actually one of the more accurate methods of predicting the future."

"You murder girls to predict the future?"

"Not any more. I told you, I gave that one up."

"Why would you do that?"

"I faint at the sight of blood."

"No. Not why did you give it up. I mean, why did you ever do it to begin with?"

"It's very accurate."

"But. . ."

"What is the problem, Kelim?"

"You killed girls?"

"Yes."

"You don't see the problem?"

"No. Should I?"

"You killed Humans?"

"And?"

"Why do you not see the issue?"

"You suggest killing Humans should not be done?"

"Well, yeah!"

"Why?"

"Do you not value Human life?"

"Do you?"

"I..."

"Are Human Rights Activist?"

"Wait. . . what?"

"I don't like people like you, you know."

"What do you mean?"

"Humans are an invasive species. If you don't keep them under control, they'll destroy the planet the same way deer destroy the forest when the wolves die off."

"But, Humans are. . ."

"Humans are parasites. They need to be culled."

"I don't think I've ever met any one who thought killing Humans was okay, before."

"I'm an Elf, Kelim. I have no pity or sympathy for Humans."

"Yeah. I can see that. I thought Elves were. . ."

"Were what?"

"I don't know. Different. You ain't what I was expecting Elves to be like."

"Well, you are exactly what I expect Pixies to be like. Now where was I? Cephalomancy, Evocation, Fire Magic, Aura Reading, Runic Magic, Austromancy, Halomancy, Remote Viewing, Elemental Magic, Ceromancy, one of my personal favourites. Talismanic magic, Automatic Handwriting, Keys of Solomon, Telekinesis, Time Travel, Portal Magic, Theurgy, Crystallomancy, Candle magic, Herbal magic, Kitchen magic, Crystal magic, Metal magic, Musical magic, Sewing Magic, Weaving Magic, Embroidery Magic, Enchantment of Magic Items, Wormhole Magic, Silk Magic, Alchemy, Druidry, Ceraunoscopy, Shamanism, Granting Wishes, Colour magic. . ."

"You already said that one."

"You're interrupting me again."

"You're repeating stuff. You listed off a few of those things more than once. . ."

"Do you want my wand up your nose?" Quaraun pressed the end of his wand on Kelim's nose as he said this.

"No," Kelim squeaked.

"Good. Then shut up. You're the one invading MY privacy. If you don't want to listen to me pontificate, than you don't have to be here. You can turn your ass around and march right out that door. No one invited you here, Kelim. I have better things to do than waste my time with sex crazed ignoramuses like you."

"I'm not a sex crazed ignor. . . ignor. . . whatever you just called me."

"Ignoramus. It means you are too stupid to know the big words I use."

"I. . . uhm. . ."

"Now where was I? Oh yes! Colour magic. Planetary magic, Granulation, Glamouring, Glimmering, Blinking, Shape Shifting, Candy Magic, Baking Magic, Illusions, Heliokinesis, Alphitomancy, Hell Fire, Demonology, Herbal Magic, Tea Magic, Spirit Boards, Sea Witchery, Botanomancy, especially useful. Carromancy, Augury, Spell Casting, Causinomancy, Astrology, Summoning, Aleuromancy, Crystal Scrying, Sex Magic. . ."

"How do you do sex magic?"

"You have sex."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Tantric Magic, Enochian Angel Magic, Santeria, Chaos Theory, Aerona, Reiki, Geokinesis, Levitation, Moon Magic, that's my specialty, Mind Control, Gyromancy, Familiar Spirits, Precognition, Catoptromancy, though I do get sidetracked with that.. Tarot, Umbrakinesis, High magic, Low Magic, Folk Magic, Ritual Magic, Mentalism, Hydrokinesis, Capnomancy, though it irritates my eyes. Ceremonial Magic, Sigil Magic, another specialty of mine, Graphology, Cartomancy, Necromancy, which of course is what everyone knows me for, Alectryomancy, Pyromancy. .."

"Okay. I get it. You're the world's most powerful wizard. You do everything. Know everything."

"Everything? No. Not everything. But a lot more than the average mage, yes."

"Do other wizards. . ."

"No other wizard offers my services, Boy. And my prices can't be beat. Everything is free, just sign me over your soul. Isn't that why you came to ME, and not one of the other wizards?"

"Uhm. . . yeah. . . kind of. . . everyone says you're the best."

"I AM the best."

"You're arrogant too, I noticed."

"Hhhmmm. Did you even consider going to one of the local wizards?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Uhm. . . they're all friends of Finderu."

"Finderu."

"Yeah. This town is kind of the hot spot for wizards. Every street has one or two. But, I don't know. . ."

"They're all Guild members."

"Yeah."

"Keep their noses clean. Never touch any of that big bad, spooky, scary, boga-booga, evil, black arts, dark magic, that I do, eh?"

"Yeah."

"They heal warts and pimples and the common cold, but can't call down thunder storms, can they?"

"Can you?"

"I most certainly can."

Quaraun waved his wand again and the sky outside went instantly dark and storm clouds rolled in and thunder and lightning crashed around the building."

"How did you do that?"

Quaraun leaned over and whispered into the Pixie's ear: "It's magic. OoooooOOOoooooh. Spooky."

"You're being facetious, aren't you?"

"I am. And I'm surprised you know that word. You actually have some intelligence. My, my, my!" Quaraun clapped his hands in a mocking gesture. All the dried plants hanging from the rafters, jumped up and started clapping their leaves and branches.

"You aren't taking me seriously." Kelim stamped his foot for emphasis.

"Should I?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

"Why shouldn't you?"

"Oh I can think of a lot of reasons. Biggest of them being you are asking for a love potion. You are asking to rob a girl of her free will. Rob her of her right to say no to stalker creeps like yourself."

"I need her."

"Why?"

"Because!"

"Because is not an answer!"

"You can't make a love spell work, can you?"

"What? I am The Pink Necromancer, World's Most Feared and Most Powerful Wizard. I can do anything. I have the powers of a god."

"Than why are you interrogating me? Why don't you just make me a love spell and stop questioning my motives?"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"I'm suppose to not question the motives of a potential client, who lives in a city full of 'good' mages who practice legal magic, when you bypass all of them and make a beeline straight to the most evil wizard you can think of just because you think I'm evil and therefore you think I'll give you anything, no anything, even a rape spell? You ain't got your head screwed on right, Boy!"

"The mages around here are hacks! You said so yourself."

"I did. There's not a one of them who could match my powers or cast a storm or shoot fireballs out their dick or raise the dead or make your dear sweet Ophelia fall in love with you."

"Yeah. See? That's why I came to you. You're the ONLY mage who can do that stuff. Everyone knows that. You're the best. I want my spells coming from the best! Not those losers."

"A bunch of incompetent losers," Quaraun agreed. "And are nothing but wannabes in wizard's clothing."

"Yeah. . . it's like. . . like. . . like," Kelim began stuttering again. The realization that what is this really was the world's most evil sorcerer, capable of doing all the weird, messed up freaky overpowered shit he was rumoured to be able to do, and not a washed up hack like most of the so-called wizards in town, hit Kelim, and he began to wonder, should he really be here. Was it even safe for him to be talking to Quaraun the Insane face to face like this? "Like they are a clubhouse and. . . and . . . they only help wealthy people with aches and pains, and. . . I don't know. . . nothing any of them does ever seems like real magic."

"Poor Kelim. And that's why you came to me."

"Yeah, because, you. . . you. . . well. . . I think other wizards are scared of you."

"They are. EVERYONE is scared of me. Look at me, I wear pink, and after all, there is nothing scarier then a man in a pink dress. Did you know the world's largest anchor is just a few miles away and it's owned by the world's largest transphobic royal pain in the ass. In the future, he murders my great-great-grand children. And walks free because he has enough money to buy three district attorneys. That's why I'm back here in 1849, right now. Did you know that? I have another grandson. Etiole. He's in France right now, but in a few days, he'll be arriving here."

"Etiole? The Silver Salamander?"

"The same."

"He's your grandson?"

"He is."

"He's. . . he's. . ."

"An archangel, with power over Heaven and Hell. While I only have the powers of a god, Etiole, he IS a god."

"He's a demon."

"Well, that's a matter of perspective isn't it?"

"I thought you were an Elf?"

"Again. Perspective. Things are not always what they seem."

"Isn't Etiole, like, like, a merman, eel, salamander, creature. . . from the ocean. . . I've seen him, he's like a white frog with silver scales and piranha teeth and eagle claws, he's, he's. . . he's a monster."

"He's a Thullid. As am I."

"Thullid?"

"Thullid."

"I thought Thullids were like, squid, with tentacles and stuff."

"Some of us are. I'm a JellyFish. Take a closer look at my hair."

Quaraun took an apple from the table and tossed it up in the air towards the chest of drawers that had bitten him earlier. It leapt up and snapped the apple in it's jaws and sat there munching the apple.

"And some of us are just disguised as innocent looking bureaus." Quaraun picked up another apple and took a bite out of it. "Tick tock, tick tock. We are starting yet another of Etiole's clocks."

"That bureau just ate an apple."

"I know. Never trust a bureau. Bureaus are never what they seem."

Quaraun tossed his half eaten apple to the bureau-mimic. It caught that one as well. Than he picked up a shovel. A spade. With a broken, rusted blade. A distinctive nick in it's rusted metal. He stared at the broken blade.

"Blood of my blood, screams from the ground for vengeance. Justice. Do you know what this is Kelim?"

"A shovel?"

"Yes. It's the travelling shovel of death."

"What's that?"

"A bizarre murder weapon."

"A shovel is a murder weapon?"

"Yes. A very distinctive murder weapon."

"Why use a shovel?"

"A shovel coated with yak butter."

"Yak butter?"

"Yak butter. I suppose to make the blade cut through the flesh better. It is a strange killer who used this. Do you know why they use it? This point on the end, and the broken blade. It's not broken by accident. They ram this point into the direct centre of the throat. Unlike a knife or a machete, which takes no fewer than ten swings to remove a head, this weapon, swiftly kills and removed the head, with nothing more than one single jump from your foot on the edge."

"Like a guillotine?"

"Yes. It takes four people to use this as a weapon, they way they did. Two to hold down the child. . ."

"A child?"

"A four year old child. Two to hold her down, one to hold the shovel in place over the child's throat, and a forth to jump on the shovel's rolled edge."

"That's awful!"

"It is. And she was my great-great-granddaughter."

"I'm sorry."

"Could YOU kill a four year old child like that, Kelim?"

"No."

"Or ten children, in succession, one after the other, with THIS shovel?"

"Ten?"

"Ten. Ten siblings. Ten children were killed with THIS shovel, Kelim. Their heads, cut off in one swift jump. Yak butter coated on the blade between each time. Who does a thing like that Kelim? Who let's murders like THAT walk free? Ten children, the youngest was only 4 years old, The oldest was 16. That is what Ghirardelli and her thugs did. That is why I killed her."

"She beheaded children?"

"Yes. Ten children. With this shovel. Still think I was wrong to kill her?"

"I don't know."

"You know. I have a curse to be brewing. Why don't you talk to me while I getting to cooking."

Quaraun used the shovel to stir the contents of the cauldron.

"Who are you cursing?"

"Every bureau in York County." Quaraun sprinkled various herbs and curios into a giant cauldron.

"You're turning all the bureaus into mimic?"

"Something like that. All the bureaus are being eaten by mimics."

"Eaten by. . . why?"

"More heads for my collection."

"Heads?"

"They like heads, you know. Nail them to doors, with great frequency."

"Do they?"

"Eye for an eye. Tooth for tooth. Never suffer a bully to live. Do exactly unto me as you want me to do unto you. Kill my family, and I will kill your family in return." Quaraun pulled Ghirardelli's head from his bag. "And I will go back in time and kill your great grand mother too. Then use her blood to create a family curse for seven generations." Quaraun held Ghirardelli's head over the cauldron, then dropped it into the boiling liquid.

Kelim stared bug eyed and speechless at The Pink Necromancer.

Quaraun returned back to where Kelim stood.

"Well, now, that's two off my list. Ten more to go."

"You just. . . you. . . why. . . you. . . boiled her head!"

"Why? Oh. Well, I have to nail it to her grandson's door, you see."

"Why?"

"Once upon a time, there was a little bureau who decided to kill my family, boil their heads in oil and nail them to my door. I'm returning the favour. Gypsy law. Eye for an eye. Tooth for tooth. Do exactly unto me as you want me to do unto you. Nail the boiled head of my family to my door, and I will nail the boiled head of your family to your door in return. Let that be a lesson to you Kelim. Don't double cross me. I'll do to you, exactly what you do to me."

"You're. . . evil. . ."

"No, Kelim. The people who murdered my family are evil."

"But there's laws. Laws will put them in prison."

"No. The laws that allowed the murders to walk free are evil. The judge and lawyers accepted bribes and let murders walk free, endangering all children everywhere, are evil."

"So you kill them instead?"

"I am merely a justice mage. I execute the wealthy murders who the law, couldn't be bothered to send to prison, because it might look bad to the tourists."

"Tourists?"

"Money, Kelim, is the root of all evil. These killers walked free, because they had enough money to pay for a lack of a court conviction. Corrupted police. Corrected courts. Corrupted laws. All who protect corrupted businessmen. THEY are the evil ones. And must be eliminated before they hurt any one else."

"So, you're like, a bounty hunter?"

"No, Kelim. Bounty hunters work for money. I'm a vigilante. An executioner who executes criminals who bought their freedom by bribing police, lawyers, judges, and courts."

"Do you always boil their heads?"

"No. Her family boiled the heads of my family. That's the only reason I oiled her head. Eye for an eye. Tooth for tooth. Never suffer a bully to live. Do exactly unto me as you want me to do unto you. Kill my family, and I will kill your family in return in exactly the same way you killed mine."

"You have have no remorse for what you do, do you?"

"They had no remorse for my family, why should I show any remorse for theirs? But I do everything seven times seven to the seventh generation. You kill ten members of my family, I will kill in return seventy members of your family, every seven years, for the next seventy years. It's called a seven generation curse."

"Do you have any emotions at all?"

"None that I show outwardly."

Quaraun went back to the giant cauldron and used a pair of metal tongs to fish out Ghirardelli's now purple-yellow bloated head, and placed it on the table. Then used a ladle to pour the cauldron's liquid contents into the rows of glass bottles that had been sitting on the table beside it.

"What are you going to do with those?" Kelim asked.

"Feed them to the apple trees."

"Apple trees?"

"Yes. Three years ago, there was a big storm."

"The Great Gale of 1846. I remember it."

"Yes. It destroyed most of the apple orchards along the coast of Maine. I resurrected those trees earlier this week. Now they must be fed."

"Trees don't eat."

"Mine do. They are liches. And if they are to be a curse, they must drink the blood of the family they are to curse. Blood flows the same through all generations. The power of DNA. Don't ask what DNA is. It hasn't been discovered yet."

"Hasn't been. . ."

"I'm from the future, Kelim."

"Future?"

"Yes. Time travel is a thing I do."

"Is that possible?"

"It will be. And it allows me to go back into the pass and put generation curses on evil people, and their entire families."

"And that's what you are doing right now?"

"Yes."

"Was she evil?"

"Ghirardelli? Oh yes. She was very evil."

"What are you going to do with her head? It's all. . . it's. . ."

"Cooked?"

"Yeah."

"Well, supposedly I'm the local cannibal, ain't I?"

"I'm confused?"

"That's exactly as you should be, Kelim."

"Can I trust you?"

"I'm probably the only person in this town you can trust, Kelim."

"How's that?"

"I'm honest."

"Nobody is."

"Only one in the habit of telling lies would think that."

"So you are saying you don't lie?"

"I never lie."

"Why?"

"Lying is evil. When I catch someone in a lie, I cut their tongue out."

"You. . . cut. . . Are you ever not violent?"

"I had good teachers."

"Of how to be violent?"

"Yes. My father. My town. My neighbours. They beat me, tortured me, tried to drown me, clawed the flesh off my back with garden tools. Broke my bones. Broke my teeth. Look at my fingers."

Quaraun held out his hands with his fingers stretched, but all Kelim could see was the intricately tooled gold plated armour, embedded with faceted pink gems.

"What am I looking at?" Kelim asked, confused.

"When I was a young boy, still a child, they beat my fingers with bricks. Broke my knuckles. Shattered the bones. Damaged the nerves. My fingers are useless on their own."

"I can't see your fingers. Not with the gold gauntlets covering them."

"This armour is magic. Enchanted. BoomFuzzy made them for me. It allows me to use my hands. Bend my fingers again. My hands are useless without them. Dead. Immobile. As lifeless as corpses."

"You were abused, badly."

"Yes. And it made me very honest."

"How so?"

"I was terrified they would cut my tongue out if I ever told a lie. So I never did. And I still don't."

"Aren't those people dead now?"

Quaraun walked over to the piles of boxes and picked one up, opened in and stared at the blue glowing light emanating from it.

"No," Quaraun said as he re-covered the box. "They are not dead. But they will never hurt me or any one I love ever again."

"Are they in that box?"

"Yes. Shrunken down, and each one in their own glass bottle."

"Why do you do things like that?"

"To protect myself and my family. I've never been safe. Ever. Not once in my entire life. I grew up with endless abuse. I escaped that, and the abusers ran ahead of me in the world, seeking to discredit me, in case I ever told any one what they had done to me. They made me out to be insane, outright called me insane, and now the world, knowing them, before it ever met me, believes me insane without ever knowing me. And thus the abuse of my abusers carries on even without them."

"Your the world's most powerful wizard, how can you not have someplace where you are safe?"

"I am hunted, by people seeking to destroy me, based solely on false information and rumours spread by my abusers. They spent years building their lies about me, built it up into mythic proportions. They made me famous. Yet I never wanted fame. I just wanted a quiet life with my family. It's the one thing I've never been allowed to have."

"But you are the world's most powerful mage. You can do anything."

"Do you suggest I make the world a fully safe place?"

"Just use magic."

"Just use magic?"

"Yeah."

"How do you suggest I do that?"

"I don't know. You're the big powerful wizard."

"Should I kill every last Human in Maine? Because that is what it would take to put an end to the wildfire spreading of lies about me. And yes, I COULD, just snap my fingers and every person on the planet drop dead. I DO have that ability. I HAVE killed entire cities with nothing more. But why? It would only make people fear me more. And I am not violent person Kelim. I like my privacy. I don't like violent mobs attacking me, and I am well within my right slaughtering every last bigot who shows up to attack me. I prefer to live in peace. I want to live in peace. Why will they not let me live in peace? Why must they continually attack me and my family?"

"Everyone thinks you're evil.

"I know. That too is the work of Finderu and Murdoch."

"I don't trust Finderu."

"Do you trust me?"

"I don't know. You don't seem. . . I don't know. Finderu scares me and you. . . you. . . you're arrogant and sad, but I don't think you'd hurt someone without a reason. You have morals. I don't think Finderu has morals."

"Finderu has much to hide. I have nothing to hide. I'm open about who I am and what I do. Other people around here tell lies, spread rumour, feed on gossip, say things about others to cast misdirection away from the crimes they commit themselves. People around here, hide who they really are from each other. You can't turn your back on any of them, because every one of them has something to hide, something to lose, things they don't want their neighbours to know. My life is an open book. I hide nothing. My level of honesty bothers people, because they themselves are never honest. Yes, Kelim. You can trust me. From me, you always know what to expect. It's your neighbours who will stab you in the back the second they think they can get away with it."

"I kind of got the feeling that's the way the mages around here are."

"What do you mean?"

"They just always seem sneaking. Shifty. Like they are trying to hide tings all the time. I didn't get that feeling from you. I got the impression you don't give a hoot what people think of you, so you don't try to hide anything from anyone."

"That is a very good observation, Kelim."

"It's like, what they do, the other mages isn't real, like they are selling coloured water and not real potions, but what you do is real, and they are so scared of you, scared that they. . . they. . . it's like they feel threatened by you, like they are afraid if people see how real your magic is, people will know how fake their magic is and they. . ."

"They want to kill me to eliminate the competition?"

"Yeah. That too, but.. but. . . also. . ."

"They want to kill me so know one ever finds out what they do isn't real magic, so no one knows the charlatans they truly are, because if anyone compared what they do to what I do, they'd know the Guild members were a bunch of phonies."

"Yeah. That."

"And that my boy is exactly why the Guild wants me dead. They may say it's for all those other reasons, but really they are just a bunch of losers, incompetent, bumbling wizards who can't cast a proper spell, can't brew a decent potion, and they know it. They are jealous of my skill, and want me dead, for no other reason, than I am their biggest competition."

"How come you have more skill? Why can't they do what you do?"

"I am 750 years old, and I was born, what people called ‘A Chosen One'"

"A Chosen One?"

"Yes. At the time I was born, there was some idiotic prophecy about a child with the powers of a god, that was going to be born, and everyone thought it was me."

"Was it you?"

"Who knows. I don't know. Maybe? Maybe not. That's the point. The point is, my mother started teaching me magic arts when I was 3 years old, and she took me to visit these priests who supposedly were going to school me in magic."

Quaraun paused. The thought of his mother, seemed to pain him. He became visibly upset.

"Did they?"

"Teach me magic? No. It was a trap. An ambush. The priests turned out to be Thullids. ZooLock in fact."

"ZooLock! ZooLock the Great?"

"Yes."

"Protector of the innocent? Defeater of Oolong the Stupid?"

"Yes." Quaraun rolled his eyes. "That ZooLock."

"You've actually met him?"

"Yes."

"Wow!"

"A fan of his?"

"Isn't everyone?"

"No." Quaraun's voiced seethed with loathing at the thought of ZooLock.

"He's like, like. . . I don't know, he's like the most famous monk ever."

"Yes. I do believe he is. And he kept me prisoner for thousands of years."

"What? I thought you were 750 years old?"

"Quaraun is."

"Aren't you Quaraun?"

"Quaraun died centuries ago."

"I don't understand. I thought. . ."