“There are more ways to make money than hunting dragons, my friend.” Siegyrd’s voice was tinged with the smile on his lips as he held up a well-crafted darkwood violin. The campfire’s light danced in the polished wood. Siegyrd had been pacing back and forth playing a note here, a phrase there on the violin.
Aerendir sat on a nearby stump along the road carving an apple in slices and savouring each bite as a few spits of meat were hung across the fire on a small grate that Siegyrd had made of thin wire.
Mareth raised an eyebrow at the instrument before he spoke, “I’ve never played an instrument in my life.” He was sitting on his rolled-out bed, letting the fire warm his bare feet. The days were warm, but the nights were cooling a bit much for his liking.
“Perhaps no, but you can match resonance with spells, and together we could make quite the show.” Siegyrd’s smile widened as he spoke, and he raised the violin to his upper arm and fiddled a few quick notes to accent his words.
Aerendir continued his apple, though he shook his head slightly, his ashen grey-white hair unbraided and blowing in the slight evening breeze.
“What a preposterous waste of power.” Mareth almost spat the words.
“Waste?” Siegyrd said as he pulled the bow from the violin strings.
“Utter and complete waste. Frivolous. Foolish. Insane even.” Mareth leaned forward and stared into the fire.
Aerendir’s low “Hmmmm” was a rumble in the background.
Siegyrd look from Mareth to Aerendir and back before he spoke again. “What then is a better use of such power?”
“Defeating dragons, monsters. Ending suffering. Building bridges. Healing people. There are dozens of better ways than some performance.”
Siegyrd sighed as he walked over to a small case and tucked his violin away. He spoke as he did so, “What if all the dragons were gone? All the monsters? What if there were no suffering left? No disease, no cripples, no bridges to be built?”
“That will never happen. There’s always room to improve things, always suffering. Might as well ask when the sun and stars will cease, when the moon will fall from the sky, when air will become water and water, fire.” Mareth gestured toward the fire.
“Hmmm” Aerendir hummed again. He finished his apple and stood. He approached the fire and grabbed the wire grate and flicked his wrist to flip the meat the was there. There was a slight delay as the pieces stuck to the grate, but his force was perfect and they landed back on the other side with a delightful sizzle.
“But what if?” Siegyrd said, side-eyeing the food.
“What if black were white and clouds were made of the spirits of the dead? What if is practically useless. Such is the same as this waste of power.” Mareth said.
“Why’d you become a wizard?” Siegyrd asked, switching tack.
Mareth opened his mouth, ready to reply to what he thought Siegyrd was going to say. Instead he closed his mouth, then opened it and said, “What?”
“Why did you, Marwolaeth of the Adeleidwyr, pursue the wizard’s path? You could have been a maker, a fighter, a powerful cleric, an artisan or academic. You might have made a master in the schemes and politics of your people, maybe a mover and shaker in the next generations. So, why the wizard’s road?”
“I see where you are going. You want me to say I did it for power, and make me out to be some madman.” Mareth’s eyes narrowed as he stared intently at Siegyrd.
Aerendir chimed in in a facilitator fashion, “Suspicion is unbecoming, my friend. Listen to the question he asked, not what you would be offended if he asked.” He sat on his haunches watching the cooking meat closely as he spoke.
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Siegyrd looked at Aerendir and nodded, then back to Mareth.
Mareth glared at Aerendir then back at Siegyrd, clenched his jaw, and huffed and stood.
Siegyrd saw that they were losing the opportunity to discuss and shifted his tone, somewhat higher, non-threatening, full of sincere curiosity, “Masni, I am not trying to trap you. I want to know, what drew you to wizardry? To the arcane, to magic?”
Mareth breathed deep as he closed his eyes and remembered.
#
The High Citadel of the Adeleidwyr pierced like a spear into a clear brilliant night. Lanterns floated high in the sky like a constellation of nearer stars as the Festival of Worlds began. The streets of the city were filled with people of every kind. Tall elves from every universe he had heard of, light skinned, brown skinned, copper, black, mixtures of crystalline forms shaped like elves. Shorter stauncher figures, dwarves (though few would call a dwarf such in any lands now), some of the gnomish folk as well as living constructs of multi-faceted types. There were beast people of every variety as well, lion people, cat people, mixtures of animals not known to Mareth.
Some had eyes and faces that seemed humanoid, but others seemed monstrous, alien, even evil. Yet there was a sense of generalized joy, of immense fun and frolic in the streets. The scents of food, the play of varied lights, the sounds of multiple musicians plying their trade on street corners on instruments as varied as the people that passed through it all. It was only once in an age that a new world would come into being by the grace of Apeiron, and the festival of worlds gathered to witness the dawning birth of a new universe – to hear its first note of brilliant song and to join with it.
It would come soon, timed with the stroke of midevernight, the transition from one day to the next, one year to the next, decade, century, and age. It was a kind of eternal liminality. Here they all stood on the edge of something wholly new. The anticipation felt like a living thing sweeping and swirling through the masses of people and laughter filled the streets in symphonic resonance with the rest of the city.
Little Mareth wasn’t listening to the music though, nor was he paying attention to the skies. Little Mareth watched intently as a procession of men in deep scarlet robes hemmed and infused with golden arcane sigils walked down the center path from the entrance to the city on their way to the High Citadel itself. They were chanting in lows and highs, a chorale music as they moved, but it hummed with the arcane which whipped around them in waves of rippling power as they passed. It was tradition to hide one’s eyes, close them or face away. To let the songshapers pass as if unseen, but to focus one’s senses into the song. Only when the song reached its crescendo, in the moment of creation would people open their eyes.
“Son,” Mareth’s father held his hand loosely, “Remember the traditions. Why do we close our eyes?”
Mareth was upset and fussing, but he answered, “We remember the dark before light was born.”
“Why do we remember the dark?” His father stood taller than most men and gaunt as a specter against the night sky of close lanterns and distant stars.
“Uh… Its dark.” Mareth said.
His father gave him a side-eyed look, “Marwolaeth.”
Mareth pulled his hand away and looked back at the procession of magic men and watched as the power continued to grow as they marched toward the citadel.
“Marwolaeth!” His father’s stern tone sent a shiver down the young boy’s spine, and he stood stock straight but refused to look back at his father. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the men and their power, their strength, the awe of it. He wanted to see everything that would happen, to peak behind the veil they weren’t supposed to see. He wanted to know.
His father knelt next to him and put his own hand over the boys eyes which Mareth immediately tried to pull away, but his father wrapped him up and closed his eyes. The boy began to tantrum, “I want to see it, to know, to see it. It must be so pretty. Let me see!”
Mareth’s father held him closer and whispered in his ears, “When it is time, you may see. Until then, just listen.”
#
Mareths opened his eyes as he finished his story. “Once I only listened. As much as I struggled against my father at the time and tried desperately to see, the anticipation of the rising music in the darkness amplified everything. For minutes and almost up to an hour as the procession reached the citadel and the surrounding activities gave way to the central act, the excitement was a raging inferno in the air. When he did release me to watch the newborn world, I wept for sensation I could not comprehend.”
Siegyrd and Aerendir smiled broadly but let Mareth continue. Aerendir separated out some strips of meat for each of them on small pieces of cloth and handed one to Siegyrd who walked it to Mareth and handed it to him.
Mareth looked at Siegyrd, took the food, nodded thanks and said, “many years later I walked the procession, only in practice. The Festival of Worlds will not occur again for many centuries, but what I heard and saw that day made me want to be a wizard – to be the source of such a thing.”
Siegyrd, “That’s a beautiful story my friend. How do you like telling it to others?” Aerendir handed him another cloth full of cooked meats and he began chewing on it.
Mareth’s look went blank as he raised a piece of meat to his mouth, then paused, then spoke, “It feels good to share.”
“Then if you think it a waste of your power to use magic for performance, will you help me write a song to tell that tale instead? Or another. We really could use the money.”
Aerendir chuckled deeply and began to devour his food in hungry bites.
Mareth raised and eyebrow and then laughed himself, “Oh why not.” He took a big bite himself and sat back down and chewed it blissfully. “Mmmm.”
“Why not indeed!” Siegyrd said with glee. “We’ve only a couple days until we reach Ruthaivan. It’s a reasonable size town. Might make some coin with a tale or two plus a song and we can develop a plan for our next hunt.”
The three ate in silence for a time. They had rested well the night before, but energy was needed.
“Have we any clues?” Mareth asked after a long silence, when almost all the food was gone.
Aerendir responded, “Just one.”
Siegyrd stiffened, “Not yet, brother.”
There was a softness in Aerendir’s voice as he responded, and sadness, “It must be soon, little brother.”
“But,” there was a small choking sound, and a pleading, “not yet.”
Mareth chimed in, “What are you two talking about?”
The brothers glanced over and Mareth paused, then shrugged.
Aerendir sighed, “We’ll see if we can find another lead in Ruthaivan, but Siegyrd,” his voice was firm, “it must be soon.”
Siegyrd slumped, stood, then walked away from the firelight into the surrounding night.
Mareth looked at Siegyrd’s back then toward Aerendir, “What was that all about?”
Aerendir walked up to Mareth and set his hand on his shoulder, “In time. Nothing for you to fear for now.” Then he walked past Mareth and followed Siegyrd out into the darkness.