The object of his quest materialized the following morning when, while passing a particularly gloomy and trash-cluttered side street, Anama spied a seated, upright figure half-buried in a pile of reeking garbage. It occurred to him that the filth-encrusted creature somehow anticipated his arrival.
The cautious wizard moved to confront the grime-covered sleeper, then bent down to seat himself upon a square of broken concrete directly facing the dozing figure. Closing his eyes as well, Anama carefully extended his consciousness to penetrate the dark figure’s mind.
In respectful deference to the other man, Anama assured the drowsy mind that, despite this intrusion, no harm was intended. In turn and as a further token of good will, the trespasser permitted his host limited access to the well-spring of his own thoughts. Anama instantly recognized the unique and amazing potential of the young man. Without doubt, he had found the one he sought. The elderly mage commenced a review of his companion’s life that he might gain further insight into the man’s mentality.
His given name, Anama learned, was Shafar. The offspring of a middle-aged prostitute and one of her many faceless clients, Shafar had been in another urban pesthole to the North and raised by a brood of cold and jaded whores, that his mother might continue her profession without the hindrance of a child for which to provide care. The scope of his childhood memories understandably proved vague and incomplete for, at the tender age of five, Shafar was sold to an antiques merchant from Quilac, a nearby city in a lesser state of deterioration. This self-proclaimed dealer, known as Druda, was in fact little more than a common junkman.
Within a short time, Shafar’s duties became clearly defined; he was to clean, restore and salvage as much of the discarded remnants, i.e., junk, that Druda acquired and shipped from the remote corners of the world to a dreary, windowless warehouse in Quilac that was destined to be young Shafar’s home for nine years.
Under Druda’s tutelage, the boy became proficient at reconstituting for resale not only thousands of odds and ends but also the rare treasures he occasionally extracted from what appeared to be nothing more than great heaps of garbage. The concept of beauty, once incomprehensible to a youth familiar with only the disparate wreckage of two deteriorating metropoli, came to Shafar like an epiphany. The artistic masterpieces he all but magically withdrew from the masses of rubbish Druda collected instilled an obsessive appreciation for artistic excellence deep within the impressionable boy’s soul.
Shafar felt puzzled and saddened to realize there was no one with which he could share his miraculous revelation. He vowed to devote his life to the preservation of all that was beautiful in the world.
Although unaware of the cause of his servant’s transformation, Druda began to look upon the youth with burgeoning admiration, noting his uncanny ability to pluck items of value from what appeared to be little more than mounds of worthless debris. The boy appeared to relish the great efforts required for him to restore and renew the shattered and broken relics of bygone ages, but not as much as Druda relished the revenue he received from the sales of those same items. Using his wits, the heavyset, aging dealer began purchasing the estates of private art collectors. He also sought to acquire the booty looted from the wreckage of art and historical museums buried beneath the rubble of the world’s demolished cities. He showed his appreciation by allowing Shafar to keep a few of the small baubles he gleaned from piles of refuse.
During the following nine years, the unlikely pair developed a relationship akin to friendship, culminating in Druda’s promise to make Shafar his heir. Yet, as fate would have it, Druda collapsed while away on a buying trip in a distant land and died a few days thereafter and thus died before officially making good his promise. Druda’s greedy relatives immediately claimed all of the dead man’s possessions and sold them along with the warehouse before tossing Druda’s penniless teenage servant into the street.
Before being turned out, however, Shafar concealed within his clothing all that he could of the most valuable pieces of silver and gold jewelry Druda had given him. By selling these items bit by bit, the lad was able to feed himself. For the following two years, the self-reliant youth had survived by using his wits. Donning miserable rags and retreating to the most obscure hiding places in the shunned emptiness of precariously fragmented skyscrapers, he pretended to be a madman on those rare occasions when necessity forced him into contact with others. By such means, he successfully avoided mandatory recruitment into the ruler’s military force. His spirit was driven by the certainty that destiny would eventually provide the means for him to keep the world’s most precious treasures out of harm’s way.
Anama gasped; every aspect of the filth-ridden boy’s mentality either met or surpassed the strict qualifications required to become the seventh member of his wizardly group. He was literally a fifteen-year-old magical prodigy, just the miracle for which he had prayed. The boy’s obsessive dedication to salvaging the classic art of the past struck the old wizard as an unexpected but admirable and harmless additional quality.
The visitor slowly opened his eyes, only to find his gaze caught in the wake of his companion’s now-open, fathomless eyes.
Shafar smiled softly, the red of his smiling lips barely visible beneath the dark shadow that obscured the greater portion of his face. In salutation, he solemnly uttered, “I recognize and welcome you, honored master. You have traveled far and now that you have trod the pathways of my mind, I pray you will accept me as your humble student. I am as eager to learn as you are to teach.”
The ancient mage, pleased by Shafar’s greeting, responded with, “You will surely be enchanted by the green hills of our destination, though the land itself be far more extensive than even a lover of beauty such as yourself could ever hope to add to his collection. With your help, however, we may preserve that beauty for future generations.”
Anama and his newfound apprentice wasted little time in removing themselves from the corrupt degradation of Quilac; that very hour they began the long journey to the retreat of the Six.
Having first beheld the filth-ridden, malodorous waif who accompanied Anama upon his return, all were astonished to find that, once he had been scrubbed and provided decent clothing, Shafar was actually an incredibly handsome young man.
One by one, the Six gently, and as unobtrusively as possible, probed the prospective member’s mind. They unanimously agreed with Anama’s initial assessment of the boy; he was as bright and benevolent as he was beautiful.
As a prelude to what would prove an entire decade of arduous training, Shafar took part in an elaborate ceremony symbolizing his rebirth as a novice sorcerer. When instructed to choose a new name, an evocative name, Shafar renounced his former identity in favor of Evoquitus, a nominative he considered a clever takeoff on the instruction he had been given.
Although each member of the Six would eventually instruct Evoquitus in various magical and technical methodologies, the greater part of his education was administered by Anama himself. Before all else, however, the young student was required to learn to read and write in a number of languages lost for eons, including the classic tongues such as Arabic, Latin, English and Greek, that he might study the lore of ages past in its original form. In addition to becoming adept in the most obscure and cryptic magical manipulations, Evoquitus eventually became well versed in higher mathematics, geology, astronomy, cosmology, advanced physics and more. His favorite pastime, however, was the study of ancient history and the elaborate art of long forgotten cultures.
The youth absorbed knowledge so quickly and thoroughly that his overseers felt confident that, with his help, the chances of their fantastic plan’s success would be increased a thousand-fold.
The diligent Evoquitus was permitted free access to Anama’s vast library, which contained the greatest extant resources for the necessarily intensive study of numerous aspects of both wizardry and the sciences. Only a few isolated bookshelves were deemed inappropriate for the youth, the contents thereof dealing
specifically with necromancy, the black arts and the newfound means of traversing time. He would be taught the secret of time travel only after he had completed his apprenticeship, but the other subjects were considered far too improper and possibly even temptingly dangerous for casual exploration. For those reasons, certain volumes were declared off-limits to the boy.
In time, Anama inadvertently discovered that Evoquitus periodically defied his prohibition against consulting the forbidden tomes. He remained silent, however, convinced such infractions of the rules were due to the boy’s natural curiosity. He assured himself that his charge would come to recognize the repulsive nature of the darker side of sorcery. Aside from this single indiscretion, Anama was both delighted and astonished at his charge’s amazing ability to comprehend and retain seemingly endless amounts of the most complicated material.
As Evoquitus approached and attained manhood, Anama could not help but notice the increasing magnificence of the young man’s physical appearance. He admired the way the pale perfection of Evoquitus’ svelte form seemed to glow in direct contrast to the blue-black hair that heavily adorned his head before casually radiating down the center of his lean chest and flowing out onto his arms, legs and firm buttocks. His dark, penetrating eyes, far too commanding for one so young, were as discomfortingly mesmerizing as they were alluring. It had become Evoquitus’ habit to bathe daily in a nearby river, and whenever passersby caught sight of his naked figure emerging from the waters, they paused to speculate as to the identity of this nude Adonis.
Despite all this, Evoquitus’ self-esteem remained low, a fact that Anama found worrisome. Such extreme humility could eventually lead to a misguided need to prove himself worthy through the misuse of supernormal abilities. Only time would tell.
Anama reluctantly recognized the burgeoning of a most unexpected emotion within himself. Aside from the great pride he took in his apprentice, over time his attraction and fondness for the boy grew, eventually fermenting into full-blown love. This realization became the source of intense trepidation for Anama. As a teacher, it was his duty to maintain an aloof but supportive attitude toward the charge and nothing more. An inner struggle ensued, one that would later prove disastrous to both. The teacher determined it vital that he conceal his feelings at all cost, for he was more than aware that even in optimal circumstances an intensely attractive, bright and desirable youth such as Evoquitus had become could never return the affections of one as old and worn as he. He did his best to reject such feelings for his charge, not only as the appropriate thing to do but as a means of protecting himself from the pain of certain rejection.
The years passed quickly until the time arrived when the Six deemed Evoquitus’ principal education complete. Now all that remained was the final, definitive test; Evoquitus must prove himself capable of utilizing his new power wisely in the absence of supervision of any kind. Evoquitus was compelled to take leave of his mentors for two years, during which time all communication with the Six was strictly forbidden. At the end of the allotted time, it was agreed, Anama would seek out his student and personally assess his actions during the preceding two years. He would then return to his comrades with a report for his comrades’ further consideration and final determination. Should it prove that their student had comported himself in a responsible manner, Evoquitus would then be adjudged their equal and worthy of acceptance into the fold.
Thus the adult Evoquitus took leave of the rolling green hills and pastureland he had come to love so well, using his newfound freedom to search for a place familiar to him only from his dreams.
Evoquitus found Barootha to be a small, sleepy village nestled in a valley located between a giant stone outcropping and a dangerously unapproachable sea cove just a few miles inland from the northern-most shore of Zothique. Something about this seemingly unimportant, isolated community of farmers and herdsmen deeply appealed to Evoquitus’ soul.
As the verdant hills and vales of Barootha were cradled between the shadow of a great rough-stone massif and the sea, the people of Barootha had maintained total isolation and the resultant freedom from the threat posed by those who would otherwise subjugate them. The looming barrier of the threateningly high and flat-topped mesa acted as a barrier to prevent any inland invasion, and the devastating force of the stormy sea sheltered littoral Barootha from attacks launched by sea.
The nearly vertical cliffs of the awesome massif had changed but little since the cataclysmic moment it first burst forth from the molten depths of primal Earth. The great precipice had never been fully scaled or explored to any real extent as the Baroothians shunned the peak, sensing something intrinsically unnatural and intimidating about the titanic boulder.
Yet, it was to the north, to Barootha’s great outcropping of stone that Evoquitus was drawn. His dreams revealed a secret path by which he might safely attain the village and pass through it to reach the precise spot described so clearly in his dreams.
The urge to create a spectacle as he passed through the streets of Barootha proved irresistible to the newly empowered sorcerer. He thus freely exercised his magical abilities during his march to Barootha, utilizing freely the necromantic secrets he had unscrupulously attained from his master’s library. He gathered a gruesome entourage of grisly zombies and a terrifying bestiary of long-extinct monstrosities as he traversed a circuitous route on the way to his final destination.
The townspeople of Barootha hid when word of an approaching party of invaders reached them, although most could not resist the temptation to peek through drawn curtains as a dark-haired man traversed the town, vanward of a freakish assemblage of unsettlingly weird beings. The handsome invader sat proudly astride what appeared to be a grotesque curiosity culled from the denizens of some antediluvian hell in the form of a giant turtle-like creature bereft of flesh, the greater portion of its body concealed beneath an armored shell of exposed bone. Immediately behind the leader and his bleating transport trudged a rigor-stiffened troupe of gruesome zombies in attendance, their leathered skin and dry bones draped with the shreds of kingly robes. A host of bizarre and unruly beasts resurrected from extinction struggled to keep pace with the zombie herdsmen. The lumbering parade passed directly through and beyond the town without stopping.
The few stalwart Baroothians who dared follow the cryptically grotesque company of ghouls secreted themselves behind foliated roosts hastily fashioned from sapling boughs and shrubbery that they might spy upon the intruders as they approached the inclined foothill marking the base of the great massif. Abruptly, the leader turned and bid his tumultuous followers retreat. The animate corpses withdrew, ordering the rest of the ungainly assemblage to move back.
A commotion momentarily erupted when a throng of resentful saber-toothed tigers growled and spat threateningly as a skeletal flock of giant, plumeladen dinorni and epionrni, prehistoric ancestors of the ostrich and rhea, pressed too close. Disruption spread as a stubborn trio of massive, lumbering glyptodons was beaten into bellowing submission by a number of whip-bearing zombie masters. Both the tigers and the calcified anomalies were also subdued by the lash, the glyptodons limiting their diminished display of resentment to intermittently slamming their mace-like tails of mineralized bone into their disgruntled skeletal companions.
The concealed Baroothians watched as the regal stranger dismounted his remarkable steed and trod the shallow ravine separating him from the towering wall of solid rock. He raised both arms in mock embrace of the gargantuan mount before directing a series of incredibly shrill vocables toward the landscape before him. The screams of the Baroothian onlookers melded with the mewling chorus of the beastly herd as the sorcerer’s hideous keening increased in intensity. All of the queer creatures were greatly affected by the sounds and a few collapsed, the piercing tones rendering them incapable of further resurrection.
As the stupefied farm folk struggled to cover their ears, the ground beneath them quivered and shook. Some of the spies took flight, convinced some long-imprisoned
giant was furiously hammering his way toward freedom through the ground beneath their feet. A huge fissure suddenly appeared near the center of the massif, the rough fracture quickly widening in the wake of an enormous pressure accruing within the mountain.
The opening erupted in a spew of white-hot boulders and molten lava, spilling down the sheer cliff into the valley below. Miraculously, the burning barrage parted just before engulfing Evoquitus’ nefarious crew, separating into two infernal rivers which poured safely into the sea. The few Baroothians still keeping watch remained frozen in disbelief as the caller’s incomprehensible incantations continued, next fashioning the smaller of the lava flows into a spiraling stairway extending from the gaping fissure high on the cliff face all the way to the valley floor below. Thin rivulets of superheated bedrock twisted and entwined to create fabulously convoluted filigree and arabesques across much of the mountain’s surface.
At the further behest of the conjurer, dozens of seething-hot, demonic figures twisted free of glowing pools of bubbling lava, each figure more ghastly than its predecessor. These molten beings scaled the slippery heights until, having reached an unaltered area above the freshly created opening, they pummeled the vertical surface with hardening paws to slice a narrow perch for themselves in the form of a band that encircled the entire massif. They stationed themselves upon the precarious ledge they had created, fixing their cooling bodies in a variety of strikingly dramatic and intricate poses in blasphemous caricature of the Greek and Roman reliefs of antiquity.
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