Five Years Earlier . . . .
Our scene is a dreary castle alone on a mountaintop. It is dominated by a rising white tower covered in ivy. This property is flanked by rain, lightning and thunder. The Ivory Tower, officially the University of Magic (not to be confused with Magic University), is the preeminent academic institution of higher learning for the magical arts, boasting not only the highest in tuition fees, but a rigorous curriculum requiring constant essay writing and massive compendium textbooks offering snippets of thoughts from the greatest wizards from Merlin to Gandalf.
Inside the impressive Great Hall, a judicial meeting of the deans has been assembled. Six great wizards each more grey and grizzled than the rest sit at a horizontal dining table looking down upon a seventh sitting in a chair before them. It could have had all the pomp and splendour of a Congressional hearing, except the room was dimly lit by torch light and smelled of the sickly sweet stench of old man’s balls.
“Do you deny it?” shrieks Dormund, a wan geriatric with sunken features and tufts of white hair bushing out his ears.
“I denounce all of it,” retorts the lone accused, his arms folded indignantly across his chest.
“Denounce, you say?” interjects Prospero, the Provost.
“Positively so,” answers the defendant.
“I say this is highly irregular!” Prospero grumbles.
“Highly irregular!” huff the other five wizards in outraged unison.
“For one of our faculty to behave so indecently… so disrespectfully… Why, it is an outrage against our entire venerable institution of higher magical learning and research.”
“An outrage!” chants the chorus.
The six wizards squint from under their cavernous cowls, clothed in black robes. Hatred and disgust is etched across each old weathered face, the look of an old man contemplating his next bowel movement.
“Have you no shame, Silas?”
Each wizard leans forward to knit their fingers on the table. Silas sighs, mutters a curse, and starts shuffling through his own voluminous robes. His clothes are in direct contrast to the others: brightly dyed in a rare mixture of salmon and orange, they are delicately tailored and decidedly more gay than the sombre black woollen robes of his peers. The time it takes him to find a small apothecary bottle allows the panel to exchange uncomfortable glances with one another.
Silas goes to sip from his bottle, only to discover that it is empty.
“Rufus!” he bellows.
Amid grumbles of “disgrace!” and “scandal!”, an impeccably attired gnome in a charcoal morning coat, blue cravat, starched white linen shirt, mulberry vest with a silver pocket watch on a chain tucked into its breast pocket, smart striped trousers, and black leather shoes shuffles into the Great Hall with determination and haste. This is Rufus; Silas’s butler.
“You called, sir?”
Dormund erupts from his chair, thundering his wrinkled knuckles upon the table. Spittle spews from his lips with each gasping breath as he rants,
“This is a breach of procedure! We are in the midst of an in camera meeting to determine your continued tenure at this university, and only faculty are permitted attendance. What is the meaning of calling in your butler at this critical hour?”
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“Thirst,” Silas dryly answers. Aside, he calmly instructs his gnomish manservant, “My usual, old boy. Only a whiff of vermouth. One olive.”
Rufus quickly mixes a classic martini with the skill of an expert bartender. A Boston shaker, ice, glassware, gin, vermouth, olives, and a strainer are plucked with ease from a small bag which could not possibly hold them without some arcane enchantment.
“Preposterous!”
“Highly irregular!”
“Degenerate!”
“The man can’t even hold is wand without a drink to steady his hand!”
“Cut off his grant funding!”
“Expel him!”
Silas ignores the wizards. He sniffs, and sips his cocktail. “Quite superb, Rufus.” A larger sip. “Yes, exquisite, as always.” The beverage is slammed in one final, large gulp before Silas casually tosses the glass over his shoulder. It strikes the floor, each bounce loudly echoed by the great vaulted roof and stone walls, before it shatters into thousands of pieces. Each of these shards continue to rattle and roll before evaporating in a puff of smoke.
“My butler, Rufus, here, happens to be, besides an excellent bartender, an alchemist and a tinkerer. I have appointed him as assistant professor of alchemy.”
“A chemist!” Dormund scoffs.
“An alchemist,” corrects Silas.
Prospero sneers. “Science is absolutely pedestrian. You say the man tinkers in mechanical engineering, as well? What backwards waste of resources, and a horrid affront to our prestige, Silas. What good is science when we have magic?”
“You should try his Manhattan. He can whip up a round of Strawberry Daiquiris in three minutes flat with this incredible device he made… What do you call it?”
“A blender, sir,” answers Rufus.
“Yes, a blender! Great piece of machinery. Do you have any idea how long it takes those damn goblins and dwarfs to make a decent Daiquiri? Why, it’s so tedious you just want to turn them all into newts for their incompetence.”
Prospero shakes his head in disbelief. “I cannot believe what I am hearing. And from you: the Chancellor of our school! This isn’t Magic University, Silas. We have standards!”
The others nod and thump their hands in unison. “Standards!”
“Standards,” Prospero continues, “Which you obviously are unwilling or incapable of following.”
“Sack him, I say,” blurts out Humphrey, an obese bald grammarian and necromancer who resembles a Supreme Court judge after eating an entire Lost Boy.
“Concur,” shout the others.
Dormund spits, “We can get a new Chancellor. Old alcoholic wizards are a dime a dozen.”
“He has not published in twelve years, and only written one piddly commentary article to a review of a review in The Arcanum Quarterly three years ago -- and it was a discussion about the breed of the rabbit, and the style and make of the hat to pull it from, not good old fashion decent sorcery,” Mortimer offers, the smallest and skinniest of this group with a beard like a billy goat. “When has he last raised an undead ghoul to terrorize the townsfolk? When has he last cursed a king to go mad, and lose his wealth and power?”
Prospero nods. “This institution depends on generous donations from our alumni, and our corporate donors. Being known to be able to summon a fire elemental which will burn down their castles is good for fundraising!”
“Fundraising!” the rest shout.
Rage had been building up inside Silas, and he was now becoming exhausted with this petulant group.
“You are a two-penny pimp and a hustler, Prospero. I know you paid a gargoyle to write your doctoral thesis, and the only way you managed to con your way into this college was because your father’s bribes. You have been riding his magical coat tails for the past one-hundred years of your fraudster life, you twit.”
Prospero looks aghast, and starts to offer a retort before he is cut off by Silas’ growing fury. Silas stands from his chair, pointing a shaking accusatory finger at each old dean in turn.
“Mortimer, you could not evoke a fireball to light a birthday cake! Humphrey, you do not know your way between an adjective and an adverb. Simon, no one gives a shit about your boring rants on Gnosticism and hermeneutics, you bastard. Dormund, have you ever thought about trimming your ears? I mean, it is disgusting! Seriously, out of all the old ugly men here, you are the worst.”
He pauses when looking at Chang. The two of them shared an awkward stare. “Damn it, Chang. I always liked you; but you know what, fuck you too!”
Chang’s eyebrows raise up in Confucian amazement.
For his part, Rufus looks on in horror as he slowly creeps backward from the confrontation. The butler tries to make his escape, wanting no part in this geriatric squabble.
The tribunal of mages leap from their seats. Outrage fills the hall like an inflamed ulcer seeping pus and blood. A fatal wound; no hope remained to stop the infection except radical, violent action to amputate the gangrenous spread.
* * *