by Awert, Wolf
“What is wrong with me?” he wondered aloud. “Where has my magic gone? I’m a mage without magic.”
To continue stumbling through the darkness would have been foolish and dangerous, so they stopped where they stood. Their camp was very basic: Nill simply laid down on his bags. The ram nudged a few rocks apart and settled in the hole he had made.
The night was almost over when the ram suddenly leapt up from his slumber, gave a startled bleat and ran off into the darkness. Nill was immediately wide awake. His light sleep saved him from the usual disorientation. The earth tremored under his feet, there was a distant low hum, like the gallop of a thousand mounted warriors, and there was a cool breeze in the air. Nill hastily shouldered his baggage and ran. He did not know what was coming his way, but it brought the familiar energies of Water and Earth with it. He tried to make his body light to quicken his pace, every step a leap, but his body did not obey. Nill ran, stumbled, straightened up and kept running. He did not feel the pain nor the blood that streamed from the graze he had just received. The hum grew louder and closer with the speed of a flying dragon. The air was wet and cold now, as if it was raining, but the sky was clear above him. The mountains would be his refuge, but he could not reach them; the ground was already rising but he felt a stitch in his side and could hardly breathe. The noise had reached him and now crashed all around. A wave of cold air raced past his back and dragged him off his feet. The energies were hectic and chaotic. Nill’s senses blacked out. I hope my ram made it out, he thought.
The first sunlight found Nill’s huddled figure lying between two rocks. His bags had pulled his arms towards his back; he wriggled free under much cursing. His head was pounding, his neck felt like a dry and fragile twig, and his feet were on fire. The sunlight pressed relentlessly into his eyes and the hum he heard was not magical in nature, but in his head. Nill rolled over, his back now to the mountains, and looked upon the chaos that engulfed the land only a few steps away from him.
The land was in motion. Mud and water flowed past him, carrying with them giant stone blocks like petrified riders on earthen horses. Now and then the water rose and lapped up over the mud, only to sink again. Nill stared, transfixed, at the roaring rush of stones. The smaller ones were ground to powder, the bigger ones cracked in half, the biggest ones pushed their way through and then got stuck, then slid a little further and got stuck again.
Nill did not know how much time passed. When he awoke from his torpor, the landslide had at last passed. A small stream of water still flowed through the gaps, but it soon sank into the earth and was dried out by the burning sun. The unusual humidity in the air lay like armor on Nill’s chest; every breath was a chore as the sun bathed him in heat. He felt dizzy. He poured some water from the larger waterskin over his head and fought hard to remain conscious. Worry and doubt kept him awake. What had happened to his ram?
He gave a call, unsure whether the ram would hear him and less convinced still that the ram would actually follow the call. If it had managed to survive, he was certain they would find each other again. And if not, if it had been buried beneath the landslide, it already had a mightier tomb than any human could have given it.
Nill carefully clambered over a rough barrier of stones that had come to rest on the side of the mud stream and found himself back on the riverbed. It was different than before; torn, washed away, covered in debris. The thorny bushes were nowhere to be seen except in the form of a twig or two poking out of the mud.
The mud was treacherous, as it was easy to sink into it, but the rocks offered more solid ground. Flies and midges performed a hectic dance over the many small puddles that remained.
On one of the more imposing blocks that jutted out of the mess a figure was silhouetted against the sun. Nill’s heart leapt. His ram! He dropped his bags and ran towards the animal. The ram tensed up, then leaped down. Its eyes were, as always, disapproving and bad-tempered. Nill attempted to fling his arms around the ram, but it dodged the embrace and gave Nill a nudge in the back as if to say: “Keep moving, we’re not there yet.”
“No!” Nill retorted. “We can’t go on now. There’s something more important, something that needs to be done. You stay right here, look at me, listen to me. I never understood whether you’re just an animal or a disguise for any demon who fancies wool. I don’t know what you are.
“I am going to end that right here, once and for all. I will give you a name. You will be called Ramsker. You’re half ram and half something I don’t know. But I swear to you, I will find out.”
Nill returned to pick up his baggage, then gave the ram a slight kick on his hindquarters.
“Come on, Ramsker, we’ll be on our way.”
Ramsker hissed grumpily.
They followed the riverbed towards Metal and marched for two days until they finally reached the end of the landslide. The mountain ridge to their left had retreated and was now merely a hint on the horizon. Before them was yet more rubble, pebbles and stones as far as the eye could see, and to their right fine yellow sand painted dunes into the distance. Ramsker rammed Nill in the back of his knees, but Nill did not need the hint; he had already seen the trees in the depression below. Where there were trees there was water, and water drew people. Nill descended from the flat hill and trudged up and down the dunes. Ramsker followed.
“Might we draw closer?” Nill shouted into the air – he could not see anyone.
“Come, come. Water is a valuable commodity, but shade costs nothing and I’m willing to share.”
Nill could finally make something out. In the middle of the hollow stood a rock that threw a dark shade. The voice had come from a small bundle of clothes cowering in the rock’s shadow.
Nill leapt down the sand bank, avoided crashing into the sweetnut trees and dropped his bags to the ground. Ramsker followed meekly.
“You have astonishing strength for someone fresh from the desert,” the man remarked.
“I am young,” Nill laughed, “and curious to meet you. I had almost given up hope of finding you.”
“If fate finds it appropriate, it would have happened anyway, but how did you know I even existed?”
“There is an old tale that is popular with Encid’s rock-cutters. It speaks of a holy man who keeps vigil over a spring in the desert,” Nill lied easily.
“I do indeed, but a holy man? Tss.” The hermit shook his head. “I can see no holiness in guarding a spring, just as I wouldn’t see it in a shepherd just because he does his job for the herd.”
“So why do you live in this lonesome place?” Nill asked.
“Fate left me behind here, or maybe I was under its guidance all along and it wanted me to stay. Who knows? Just like you and many others, I was just passing through with my head full of dreams of treasures and glory and all those other things I’ve forgotten. Adventures. Truth. Myself perhaps. I was close to death – no water, you see – and I saw the trees in the distance.
“There was an old hermit here, just like me today. He asked whether I would help him carry the water to the tree-roots. His legs pained him, he said, every step was torture. I was young and healthy, just like you, and so I did as he asked. I watered the trees, never too much and never too little.”
“And the hermit did nothing else?”
“Oh, he did. He would sit in the shade for hours on end, talking to himself. And he wrote. He would write in the sand with twigs or the hard end of a frond. He wrote everywhere, filled the place up with it. Sometimes he would get angry when the sun went before he was finished. The night winds always made sure he’d have more space to write the next day.”
“And what did he write?” Nill’s heart was beating in his throat. He had found it.
“Old symbols, ancient runes nobody else could read. He said he’d learned them from his master, and he from his master before them. I asked if he could explain them to me, and show me how to write; there was always a lot of time in which I had to wait for the bowl to fill. I was impatient in those
days…”
The old man smiled reminiscently.
“And he showed you? Explained them to you?”
“Yes, he did, and I remained his disciple and stayed with him until he passed away. He never asked me to do it. I could have left at any time. But I did not, and I am still here.”
“And now?” Nill asked. “Do you still write in the sand?”
“As a matter of fact I do. But why do you ask?”
Nill opened his mouth to ask about Perdis when a mighty hand gripped him and flung him with such force that the sun blacked out and the moon and stars stopped shining. Nill saw nothing except a thin mist that slowly dissolved before his very eyes. In the sand, half-buried, he saw bones. The spring still dripped, but everything outside of the few trees that were right next to it had wilted and died. Death had reached the oasis. As quickly as the vision had come it was gone again, and Nill was back in the sand, dust and heat.
“Not all the inner eye sees is good,” the holy man said. “You do not look like you just made a peaceful discovery.”
“No, it wasn’t pretty. You will not have a disciple. You are the last keeper of this place. You have fulfilled your task.”
The words were terrible and cruel, and Nill did not want to have to speak them, but nothing in the world could have stopped them from leaving his mouth in that moment.
“Nothing I didn’t know before,” the hermit said, untroubled. “I’ve expected it for a long time. I knew my fate the day the sorcerer came here.”
The hermit wiped his brow as if to wipe away unwelcome memories like sweat; his gaze went right through Nill as if he was not there at all.
“I thought he would be my follower,” he continued. “As I was to my master. But he left as he came.”
The hermit stood up, took the filled water-bowl and watered one of the trees.
“The next bowl is for us,” he said as he sat down beside Nill.
“You need not worry for your trees. Some will die, but the ones closest to the spring will live on and wait for a better time. But tell me of this sorcerer.”
“Here in the desert, you don’t fall ill. You have food and water and your clothes will easily outlive you. When you live in a place like this, you don’t need anyone else. You live in peace with the animals. There are no predatory beasts in the area and the wild riders know there’s nothing worth stealing here. And still… once, a venomtail got me. I was lying, paralyzed, on the threshold to the Other World. It was right here, exactly where we’re sitting now. I remember it like yesterday. I did not fear for my life, but it pained me not to know what would happen to my trees when I was gone. That was when the sorcerer came. He was like an envoy sent by destiny itself. He was a healer. He drew the poison from my body and I was cured, my fears banished. I knew I could continue serving my trees.
“Feeling my strength return was a momentous occasion. I wanted to thank the sorcerer, but I had no possessions to share. The only treasure I had was the one I inherited from my master. I could read and write, and so I offered to teach him these arts.”
“And what did he say? I bet he couldn’t wait to learn.” Nill hung on the holy man’s every word.
“He laughed at me. ‘I am a sorcerer,’ he said. ‘If anything, I should be the one to teach you.’ But it was the only thing I could give, and he ended up caving in to tradition. It would have been a bad omen for him to leave without my thanks. He said he would stay until he could read the symbols. He said, I remember the words exactly, ‘Good, I will learn your writing. When I have learned enough, consider your debt repaid.’ I had no idea what a bitter time it would be.
“He stayed longer than it takes a foal to leave its mother’s womb. He helped me carry out the water, he hunted for the two of us, he blessed the trees, but my debt never shrank.
“After the first foaling-length I asked whether he had learned anything, and he replied ‘So much, yet not nearly enough.’ And he stayed for as long again. In the end he had read everything I knew, he knew every sign and symbol and rune and drew them more fluently and accurately than I ever could. He took all I had to give. I don’t know if you understand.”
“No, I don’t really. You still have it all. You will only have lost it when you forget to write or read. You lost nothing but time, and that was a small price to pay.” Nill did his best to comfort the man; his agitation had woken Nill’s sympathy.
“I see you do not understand,” the hermit said and clasped Nill tightly by the arm. “I was not just the keeper of the spring, I was the keeper of the symbols as well, and I was looking for my replacement. Now there were two who could read them, and one of us was a sorcerer. I don’t know if he kept the secret; I never knew any more of him after he left. If I were to show you the symbols too, then there would be three, and over time more and more people would learn them and in the end the whole world could read. Then I can still do everything I do now, read and write, and yet I have nothing left. There is nothing left to keep. I would not need a replacement. If everyone can do something, then there is no reason for someone to have responsibility over it.”
“The sorcerer who came to you,” Nill said, “was a keeper of the magic that belongs to the symbols, and I am his successor. You were the keeper of the runes. He is grateful for what you did, but he begged one last service of you.”
“You know this sorcerer? How?” the hermit asked with surprise.
Nill hesitated before deciding on the truth.
“I am not sure. The band between us has torn apart. I must find him, or hope for your help. Did you know his name?” His voice had taken on a pleading tone without him noticing.
“He gave it to me, but I’ve forgotten it in the years since.”
“Was it…” Nill hesitated again, gathering all his strength and courage before spitting the name out, “Perdis? Tell me, was it Perdis?”
With a crack like sap in fire the name shot out of Nill’s mouth, but the holy man shook his head. “No, it certainly wasn’t that. Perdis, you say? Never heard that one. That can’t have been his name.”
“Why not? How can you be so sure?”
“Because Perdis isn’t a name, it’s a magical item. Perdis or Perdit. There are many names in the old stories. Lospit or Tokas. Remnants of other languages, other names.”
“What kind of item is it?”
“An empty case, a tube, a chalice without a bottom. You speak into it quietly and the tube makes your voice loud and powerful. Perdis is what you speak through.
“There is a Perdis in the legends of old. He is the voice of fate, he wanders around the world with no free will or consciousness, damned to proclaim the divine, or cosmic, or Other World’s will. In the end he is freed, and as an old man he has to start anew like a baby child, but the gods gave him the time to learn, and so he received a new name. He is the immortal. Not a pretty tale. Only fools want immortality.”
“Could you imagine someone naming a son after him?” Nill asked a little despondently. If Perdis wasn’t a name, could the writer of the script in the library have been his father anyway?
“No.” The hermit yanked Nill back into reality. “Only a shaman could be so crazy to bestow upon a child such a name, but shamans are commonly childless, and what warlocks and witches do is beyond my knowledge.”
“Could he have chosen the name for himself?” Nill pressed on.
“Unlikely, and if he did, he must have been a very desperate man to see himself as a mere shell of a person, with no free will of his own.”
Nill blanched. To him, Perdis was a hero, a man of the secret knowledge, his savior, perhaps his father. Now this? But he did not give up. “Could a mage call himself that?” he asked.
“Ha! Mages believe themselves to be equal to fate, don’t they? I can’t imagine a mage calling himself Perdis. They don’t change names. They carry their noble names with all the pride they can muster. No, no, my boy, no mage would call himself Perdis.”
Nill gave one last try.
“Lo
ok closely at me. The sorcerer, did he look like me?”
“No.” It was flat and final, but hope is not so easily dashed.
“Not even a little bit?”
“For a start, he did not have dark hair like so many others. I can’t remember if his was red or blond. I do remember, though, that he was tall.”
“A giant? Big and strong?”
“No, tall and thin, as if he never ate. His eyes were wild. Or were they lifeless? It’s all so long ago.” The hermit became lost in thought.
“The harder I try to remember, the less I can recall. But he had both eyes, I can see it clearly. One was gray and the other was blue or green or something thereabouts. It kept changing color. I was never quite sure what direction he was looking in.”
Nill’s heart sank. That did not sound like his father. There is a connection, he thought defiantly. If Perdis isn’t my father, he still knew my parents. I will find him. I have to find him.
Nill and the hermit had an uneasy night. Nill fell asleep quickly, for the march through the desert and his flight from the landslide had cost him much strength. His last thought was that he was in a magical place, here at the oasis. But his sleep gave him neither peace nor rest. Thoughts and dreams chased him and he flipped and tossed and turned.
The elements inside and around him were in constant conflict. Every time their fights became too intense, white light came and separated them, or darkness fell upon everything and muffled the chaos. And then the elements arose again, for they could never stop being without the world falling apart, and it all began anew.
Nill saw himself now chasing the elements. I need to approach this differently, he told himself and ordered the Fire to stop. It ignored him, as did the other elements. He made the darkness catch them. He threw the blackness out like a net and caught Earth and Water like fish. The other elements escaped. With a bolt of white light he hit Fire and it stopped in its tracks. He had no success with Metal and Wood. He shone the light through the dark net and gave his next bolt a black tip. Ore and wood trembled, stopped, and then raced away.