Gregor The Cripple

Gregor peered over the tower’s crown of stone to see the canopy of pines below. Thunder rumbled distantly. “Does this ritual have a purpose?” He asked of his master, who was to his rear preparing the night’s magic.

A faint rustle preceded the response. “I did not educate you in the hopes that you would waste your intellect asking others for answers.” Remanded Kaius, “You tell me.”

The young wizard turned to face his master, Kaius, who was a tall, ancient man, endlessly imposing and dark and brooding, clad in voluminous gray robes that seemed to forget where their folds ended and shadows began. He moved unnaturally, as if he were a puppet tightly strung. Which he was, actually.

A fleshly body is prone to failure when left to its own devices, so he opted to live manually, maintaining his vessel with magic where the aged body would otherwise be insufficient to maintain itself.

Thus, Kaius the Elderly was able to achieve an unnaturally long natural lifespan, and thereby earn his wizardly epithet.

He was presently hobbling about a low table, his halting movement the result of magical intervention in his arthritic and failing joints, and the cause of much (warranted) aversion towards him.

Lanky Gregor inspected the incomplete ring of glowing runes at Kaius’s feet. There were complex arcane symbols criss-crossing and overlapping and interweaving, all to form an incomprehensible mess of a circle enclosing two yards of free space in the center.

Feeling a recalcitrant urge, the apprentice supplied a rebuttal. “Isn’t it easier to ask? Why waste effort on deduction?”

“If you find this is effortful, I suggest you leave my sight immediately and never return.”

Gregor hated Kaius. The old man had plucked him from the streets at an age too young to remember and molded him, bending and stretching the very fibers of his being into the perfect wizardly shape. He had been fed a steady diet of performance-enhancing alchemy and rigorous routine. At seven, a demon had etched something into his bones in exchange for the metal-marrow of a dragon and the souls of three children. Kaius only ever told him that it was enhancement, whatever that meant.

Gregor received an exhaustive education, with Kaius sparing no expense to induce in his apprentice aptitude in every field of magical import. Resource-heavy experiments and rituals had been instructively conducted, rare tomes of ancient knowledge were purchased, and preeminent scholars and sorcerers were invited – at great cost – to impart their expert insight. Of course, Gregor’s education was yet incomplete.

He was to be Kaius’ successor, and Kaius would have nothing but the best.

“We are summoning something from a tangent plane. Something hazardous.” Stated the apprentice quite confidently.

“Corr-,” started Kaius.

“And,” interrupted Gregor, having noticed something else, “We will be using a sacrifice.”

Kaius manually raised his brow to form an uncanny approximation of surprise. He had not yet drawn the ritual structure which was to facilitate their use of a sacrifice. “You truly are one of my greatest achievements.” Complimented Kaius quite sincerely – not because of any particular warm feelings toward his apprentice, but because positive reinforcement is a significant educational aid.

“One of?”

“I am very accomplished.”

Gregor snorted.

“You know it is true, boy.”

He did of course, Kaius was one of the most powerful wizards to ever exist. You could perhaps count his living (or similarly animate) peers on one hand.

“I am to someday be your better. Shouldn’t that make me the greatest of your achievements?”

“It is only natural for a master to expect as much from his apprentice, but you have yet to reach those lofty heights. You will, certainly. But not yet.”

A silence settled between them. Thunder rumbled again in the distance. Voluminous, pregnant clouds could be seen to the east, floating on sea-born winds.

“Your storm is coming,”

“Our storm, Gregor. It is our storm, coming for our ritual; we are to be equal partners in this.”

“A partnership?” He tilted his head and raised his brow sardonically. “This ritual is meant to be for my benefit, but you haven’t even told me what we’re doing. I don’t feel very much like an equal partner.”

“Do you have a reason to doubt me?”

Gregor did not respond. However trustworthy Kaius might be, Gregor hated him.

This was a hate born from years of knowledge that he was but a slave. A tool for the fulfillment of Kaius’s legacy. His every aspect was devoted to becoming the best wizard that it was possible to produce, and he had no choice in the matter. All particulars of his life had been carefully decided by Kaius, and Kaius had never decided wrongly. So he had no grounds to object.

However, above all, Gregor was a wizard, and wizards are addicted to the accumulation of power, so he naturally wasn’t opposed to becoming powerful, but the relationship between himself and his master was deeply unsatisfying.

Kaius knew of Gregor’s feelings, of course.

“This pageantry bores me. I’ve tonight’s reagents to prepare, use the day as you wish.”

But he did not care.

A pop marked Kaius’s departure, winking away to some other part of the tower. This was the first time in weeks or more that Gregor had been left to fill his own time. All periods aside from those spent eating and sleeping had been occupied by his regular education – the week’s topic was tyromancy – and by preparations for the night’s ritual, the object of which, to the effect of great conniption, Gregor had been snubbed in his every inquiry.

Not quite knowing what to do with himself, Gregor began his slow and mundane locomotion through the vaulted halls. A foolish mage might see Kaius’s magical exit and think themselves capable of the same. Such a fool would be swallowed by the pockets of chaotic space between the walls.

While externally the tower might look thin and not overly tall, the inside was a colossal mess of pocket dimensions and overlapping spaces. During a lifetime spanning untold centuries, many rooms, passageways, and even whole wings of the tower had been constructed and discarded or reorganized and repurposed, as well as being lost and re-discovered. It was an ancient labyrinth of unknown size.

Besides the first, there perhaps has never been a master of the tower with complete knowledge of the layout.

Many of the former residents have indeed disappeared into the space between the walls after indulging their hubris and magicking themselves to their destination. While certainly arrogant, Gregor was not some foolish mage. A wizard was he! And wizards, who different from the academician and cowardly mage-folk that never exit their towers, must be keenly aware of all their particular circumstances and limitations.

Wizards must possess towers as mages do, such as is proper and necessary for arcane study, but they must too leave them, for magic is meant to be practiced, not merely learned – such is the folly of the laurel-sitter.

And just as wizards are compelled to seek arcane power, so do they possess a particular compulsion – which lowly mages lack – to exercise this power, to display it before the mundane masses and bask in their awe, and to feel pride at being privy though their own arduous efforts to the dark and obscure secrets of the world.

These noble compulsions ultimately produce in wizards the innate ability to either manifest a great deal of trouble wherever they may be, or to otherwise become involved in trouble wherever it may be, both though arbitrary personal intention and through the gainful entreatment of others. An adventurous spirit, some might call it. Violent insanity, others might defame.

Consequently, wizards are prone to contracting two terrible career-ending afflictions: cowardice-induced magedom, and death. It is through avoiding these afflictions and reaching old age that wizards come to be feared and venerated. The most prime example of such veneration is Kaius the Elderly, epitheted so, because even amongst the doddering old sorcerers of the golden empire – who stay safe and unthreatened in their Queen-protected home, and who would call themselves mages – would he be truly ancient.

This is to say that, while Kaius may safely teleport within the tower, Gregor may yet only walk to his chambers.

If one were to look for a bright side, one could suppose that it is far more healthy to walk everywhere than to travel instantly. Gregor was not in the business of indulging such suppositions, for he was far too moody.

Down, through the propped-up ladder hatch he descended. Having no present designs for his newly cleared schedule, Gregor hoped to find some idle entertainment on the way to wherever he ended up going.

***

Gregor glowered gloomily as he stalked along a lavishly decorated corridor, which, if it behaved itself, would bring him downstairs to his chambers, despite the indisputable fact that it had neither incline nor stairs. Neck bent and eyes to the ground, he almost failed to notice a glaring oddity in his familiar surroundings.

Among the neatly ordered statues and paintings that lined the tastefully overstated marble walls, there was a mirror. The space in the wall that it occupied usually housed a door which led nowhere, so no great loss, but there was a now mirror. How abnormal.

Gregor blinked. He knew this mirror. He and his master had assumed it to be a failed experiment left behind by one of the previous tower masters. The thing seemed to be a piece of solid silver nearly an inch thick – no lead or mercury – scribed with intricate runes, then polished until they were almost imperceptible.

“Huh.”

They thought it incomplete, or possibly just ill-conceived, because it didn’t seem to do anything besides travel around the tower at random.

Since seeing the mirror was a true rarity given the size of the place, Gregor approached and began to examine the near-invisible runes, half-worried that the thing would disappear right before his eyes.

Then, after mere moments, vanity took hold and Gregor began examining his reflection behind the complex distortions.

His thin eyebrows were drawn together moodily over a hawkish nose which stood proud upon a stern set of high cheekbones. A little too proud, Gregor thought. But it’s fine, really. It rather compliments the whole package.

The longer he looked, the more his expression soured.

Gregor stared at himself, lip raised and nose scrunched in contempt. Though a handsome pair of eyes embedded in a handsome face met his gaze, it did woefully little to satisfy him. He did not enjoy what he saw.

It was not a problem of appearance – never let it be said that Gregor doubted his aesthetic virtues. It was a problem of image, of the way he carried himself, and of what he knew to his own character.

While he might appear to any other person to be a wizard-aprrentice, Gregor considered that to be a falsehood, a deception, a lie to the world. He was a pretender to his ideas of wizardlines.

Wizards, it must be known, had quite an extensive shared history, which they kept track of very thoroughly as a matter of tradition. For many, the accomplishments of the forbears were a source of considerable pride, and pride was a great currency in magical circles.

It was in these pride-tinged records that Gregor sought the majority of his youthful amusement – since Kaius provided him with little else of recreational value. It was great fun for the young apprentice to lose himself in these stories, particularly when under the instruction of his master, who was able to provide his own first or second hand accounts – given that he was personally party to many events of note in his near century-and-a-half of life.

Gregor’s study of magical history, which served equally as entertainment and education, had produced in him certain ideas about the way wizards should be.

Firstly, it was his intuitive understanding that a wizard ought to be perceptive, aloof, and eminently capable, and more than anything else, powerful. A wizard must be powerful. Secondly, that a wizard’s power might as well not exist if it is not exercised – in much the same manner as social imaginations like laws and rights. And lastly, that it is the obligation of the wizard to seek magical work out in the world, both so that he may apply and sharpen his magical talents in a meaningful way, and because it is in the disposition of a wizard to enjoy such labor.

The ideal wizard is the mysterious stranger silently observing from a shadowy booth in the back of the tavern, or the dark, foreboding figure brooding over tomes of ancient lore by candlelight in a hidden chamber, or more commonly the road-bound spellslinger who disintegrates the unclean in exchange for a large fee.

He was not the pet project of a dying meat-puppet of an old man. He was certainly not a passive observer to his own life, whose only conscious decision was to lazily accede to his own continued slavery. And above all, he could never abide existing as such.

Gregor’s eyes bored into those of his reflection. He found himself asking, ‘which of these do I see before me?’. The answer was infuriating.

As he stood with his chisel-sharp jaw clenched in silent anger, the mirror flashed away, producing a curiously susurrant sucking sound. Gregor sneered, not at anyone or anything in particular, but because he felt that a sneer was warranted.

He hated Kaius, but he couldn’t fault the man. After all, he was a true wizard. He embodied all the wizardly qualities. The current situation was just a result of Kaius leveraging his power and considerable capabilities to impose his will upon others, which was an admirable thing. And it wasn’t as if he was forcing Gregor to do anything against his will, merely that Kaius was having Gregor do things according to his will for the sake of his goals, which was deeply humiliating. Truthfully, their relationship was closer to master and slave than master and apprentice. It was as if he served Kaius, albeit willingly.

Employment was acceptable. That was an agreement between equals. But subservience? No true wizard could endure being subordinate to another.

“It might be time to leave.” Gregor muttered.

Knee-deep in his mire of self-loathing, Gregor had contemplated a departure from the tower many times. Truly, he would like to leave just as much as he hated Kaius, the idea of it possessed an almost romantic appeal to him. But it was always a fleeting whim, something to do eventually, or to contemplate later.

Thus far, Kaius had done nothing but deliver Gregor power and instruct him in its proper application. So why would he choose to leave? Why inconvenience himself so severely?

Here, he would grow in ability and knowledge and in his capacity as a wizard. His every whim would be tended to by the other slaves (servants) of his master. Outside, he would have noting, he would be nothing, and he would get nothing save for what his own efforts could produce. And certainly, his efforts could produce many wonderful things, but that would require laborious effort and much time.

He knew that he was very powerful, that he could leave this tower and his master’s tutelage and be free-standing, independent, his own person. He would not have to live according to the stifling whims of a decaying old man.

But what was the point? Was it really worth the trouble? He had never needed to make important decisions. All particulars of his life had been carefully decided by Kaius, and Kaius had never decided wrongly. So he had no grounds to object. It was sickening, but his situation was ideal.

In the tower, Gregor could chase the object of his obsession and become a true wizard. Thus, he stayed.

***

He lay languid on his chase couch, eyes boring holes in the beige ceiling above. It was a horrid color. Whoever invented beige should be strung up on a large bolder and murdered brutally, in his opinion.

Why was his ceiling beige? Gregor had no idea. Perhaps this circumstance was as much his fault as it was the fault of the color’s originator. Certainly, he had the power to make his ceiling blue, or white, or anything really. Nothing he chose could be worse than beige. He’d been meaning to do it for years.

But which color? Gregor was no decorator. The sparse accouterments of his generously large room included no more than a desk, upon which were many books and scrolls and sundry magical paraphernalia, a cot, spacious enough to accommodate his person and little else, some shelves laden with his accumulated worldly possessions, and the chase couch upon which he lazed.

All of these furnishings were objects of his own summoning, with the exception of the cot, which was enchanted and, according to Kaius, ‘his continued rest upon which was of vital importance to his future abilities and bearing as a wizard.’ The mechanism by which the cot affected these things had never been disclosed.

Not permitted to summon himself a better bed, Gregor instead preferred to often lay on his couch, not only because it was more comfortable, but also as an act of small rebellion. Hateful of his master as he was, he would never knowingly miss an opportunity to vent his reservoir of spite, one of the few positive emotions he still felt with intensity.

A knocking at the oaken door shook him from his fugue.

“Come in, Botman.”

“Sah,” called the young scamp, entering with a silver platter of foodstuffs, “I’ve your meal here, Sah.”

Gregor removed his wizard’s hat and, from the nebulous space within, drew out a wooden disc, the circumference of which neatly eclipsed the hat’s brim. Upturning the hat so that the point dangled near the floor, he released it, allowing it to levitate under its own power. He placed the disc atop it.

“Set that down,” he said, gesturing to the hat-table.

The young servant did so.

“Do you consider yourself an aesthete, Botman?”

“I dabble, Sah.” Replied the boy. It must be said that Botman was always immaculately groomed, although he did not yet have much to groom.

“Well then, what color should my ceiling be?”

“Your ceiling, Sah?”

“Indeed.” Gregor nodded sagely. “It’s hideous. Beige must be an arcane synthesis of every displeasing shade the human eye can perceive.”

“I think perhaps chartreuse would look nice.”

“Chartreuse?” He pointed, “Up there?”

The boy responded enthusiastically, “Yessah.”

“Chartreuse?” Gregor shook his head, a venomous sneer forming. “Get out, Botman.”

“Yessah.” The lad made hasty egress.

Chartreuse? Madness, he thought to himself. But Botman’s insanity was no surprise, given his experiences at the hands of Kaius.

Again, the young wizard found himself laying idle, occasionally snacking, but thinking now not of good colors, but of bad ones, for there were many that displeased him. He appeared the very aspect of sloth.

Gregor hated himself for it. He was powerful, he could raze a whole town to the last. Even now as an apprentice his equals were so few and far between that he doubted he’d ever meet one unintentionally. But what was his powerful self doing in his precious free moments? Nothing in particular.

It was unbecoming, thoroughly disappointing. Those with power had an obligation to act grandly at all times. But what could he do? What did he want? Goals are required in order for one to commit to a course of action. If there were something he wanted, Gregor would have a reason to do something other than nothing.

Vexingly, goals require desires to form, and the young wizard presently suffered form a great dearth of desire; thus ‘nothing’ was his current occupation.

There were many potential activities, but as long as that list was, the list of discouraging rationalizations was longer. As an example, the night’s ritual. He could work to figure out what it was. But to what end? That knowledge would be provided freely in a few hours regardless of his efforts.

Another. The week preceding, a slave (servant) charged with cleaning had suggested – after much prodding – that his chambers might benefit from the utility of a hat-stand. This was rejected out of hand, obviously, because he had a magical hat able to levitate under its own power. If he were to hang it from a hook whenever he slept, the hat would certainly feel that its abilities were unappreciated. They were sensitive like that. Such a thing would be tremendously rude.

He simply could not motivate himself one way or another. More than anything, Gregor yearned to want to do things. Unfortunately, this itself was not an activity. He could not gainfully pursue it, or at the least, he did not know how.

Thus, idle he remained.