The Magocrat's Tale

"He certainly doesn't look like a magocrat."

Percy sweated in the cool shadows behind the dux, the minister of finance and taxation and the senior warden of security as they stood with their faces pressed close to the grill of the cell that held Duk, the magocrat.

"He's probably the worse for wear after being killed by the mundane," Haile said nastily.

"What? The mundane didn't kill him. He's still breathing," Tejun said.

The weard in the cell slumped like a rag doll against a wall, his face gaunt and unshaven. Mud and algae stained the tatters of his bright auburn robe, and water stains dulled its color all the way to the man's shoulders. His eyes were closed, as though he was sleeping.

"Why didn't we just brand that mundane after that pile of lies he told us?" the accountant went on. "What a waste of time."

"We should hear all of their stories first," the warden said.

"Two more hours of lies?"

"You don't know that."

"What makes you think his two cohorts are going to be any more honest?" She edged away from the grill. "Maybe they'll at least have the sense not to say they killed their friends."

"‘Friends,' I think, is part of what we're looking for here," Tejun said. "Perhaps the magocrat was coerced by the mundane and the mapmaker."

"How stupid would a weard have to be to let a mundane and a mapmaker coerce him?"

"Quiet," Merflatug said. "It's time."

Tejun opened the door for his dux and graciously waved Haile through ahead of him.

Duk the magocrat sat up as the three entered his cell.

"Good dux," he said, hoarsely. "A draught of life-refreshing beverage would not be amiss, if you would be so kind."

Merflatug waved to Percy, who looked confused.

"Get him a mug of water," Haile translated.

"Why didn't he just say?" Percy ran off.

"Do you know why you are here?" the dux asked the magocrat.

"Protection, safety and research, if the dux would make me guess," Duk said.

"You were apprehended trying to sell pot!" Tejun interjected hotly.

The magocrat fixed his bloodshot eyes on the warden. "Most certainly," he said. "The sale of such objects could well have facilitated such necessary procedures as mastication and beverage-taking."

"Delusional?" Tejun whispered to Haile.

"Nobody talks like that," she said. Percy returned with the water, which Duk took gratefully.

"A youthful weard off to impart goodness upon to the world," Duk said to Percy.

"What?"

"Get out of here!" Tejun threw the guard out.

"So you admit it," Merflatug went on. "You, the mundane and the mapmaker willfully and consciously attempted to distribute drugs."

Duk hesitated. "Pot?" he ventured.

"Yes."

"For truth, so that by degree, mortification would not set in."

Merflatug stared at him, unsure what he just heard but unwilling to say so out loud.

"By mortification," Haile said, who was also unsure but was not the senior weard here, "you mean death?"

"Such connotations could be inferred from my previous statements."

"Tell us where you got the drugs," Tejun ordered.

"Be truthful," Haile warned. "You don't know what we can do to you."

"Ah, but my imagination can conjecture quite threatening physical responses from your implications," Duk said, "thus limiting the scope of what you are capable of doing, if indeed you attempt to keep the verity of your intimidation sustained."

The three weards looked at each other, working out what he had just said.

Merflatug finally said, "Just talk. And don't be so flowery."

"Of how to speak, I only comprehend one path," Duk said, and began.

********

Times exist where the only good one can do is bad, and the only bad one can do is good. Thus we acquired the wild rice.

"We" constitutes Plin, my mundane friend of shady background, whose hard-working spirit and never-say-pay attitude have garnered him much trust among the community of his peers, and eventually Carl, our original mapmaker, an idealistic, intuitive, intelligent young entrepreneur whose death was a subject upon which many nights my dreams fled in tears and pain, and myself, an soon-to-be benefactor of the Mar race.

At Flasten's college for aspiring weards such as myself, I focused on learning and theory of human nature, to better understand what motivates and drives our species. You may have discovered that I was captain of the debate team, which placed first in the Cohesive Cognitive Events in Pidel during my term. Nightfire's Academy won the second year, to which I blame their nefarious tendency to improve their presence. This most certainly is against the rules, and though I used a conclusive majority of my persuasive skills to convince the board of the Academy's wretchedness, they would not waver.

Upon my completion of that term and my paper entitled, "Gracious Gifts of Gaian Wints Non-Archaeological" — no mean feat to research I must admit, for I had trekked to several libraries and numerous ancient and decrepit sites to ascertain what knowledge archaeological there was to be gleaned, and thus separate rice from stalk — I ruminated, what can I do with myself that will such use what skills at dictation, oration, motivation, manipulation, intuition, deduction and magic that I had? Philanthropy seemed to be quite a good option, and so I found myself working with a homeless shelter in a clean part of this town.

My good nature and hard-working spirit helped me find homes and jobs for many of the helpless I worked with, many of whom were simply generous people who had stretched themselves far too far. Often I found them work at the docks and in the mundane security fields of our fair city, generating comfort and protection for those around by interfering with crime as it unfolded, and/or providing sustenance in mass quantities unto the sorely bowel-emptied. What money I retained from their efforts I immediately turned around and reinvested into jobs in the city, in such fields as precious metals and manufactured goods.

It was in a special case where I met Plin, my mundane friend whose efforts toward a guilt-free existence have never ceased. I found Plin collapsed and nearly insensible outside our shelter's portal early one morning as I began my daily traversal of the sites where those I had endeavored to assist now operated, like a generalized web of good will I had laid upon the city, a side-effect of which became that rumor's wind-whisperings often reached my ears early.

The dirty, smelly, eroding body of Plin I dragged inside and, over time, purged of what ailed him. In part, alcohol battled blood in his veins. In bigger part, the fumes of the hallucinogen marijuana filled his lungs. But mostly, a concoction of poisons that had no name at the time, but soon thereafter was referred to as ice, infused his muscles, bones and brain with clouds of indecision and manky thought. After several months of solitary confinement, short trips to the river and longer treks through his mind, I deemed Plin cured and capable of once again making his way in the world, within the growing skein of skilled laborers I had engineered, veritably infiltrating every level of society with folk whose reputations preceded them and redefined what operations they performed.

About this time, your predecessor, dux, who was Dux Bragan, began his stiff anti-crime campaign, firstly by removing the mundane security forces and replacing them with young would-be magocrats, half-crazed and power-mad, such as young Percy here. This blasphemous effort put more than half of my recovered homeless people back on the streets. These hundreds of successful cases, suddenly whipped back as though their lives had no meaning, returned to their godfather and caretaker for aid after this catastrophic event. Such blatant disregard for the welfare of the people of Flasten should not go unnoticed, and as the strengthened philanthropist that I had become, I felt an urge to save those graced by my trials of beneficence. I turned to Plin, whose background was in such arenas as could be useful in this instance.

I would like to say that he argued, that he fought against my will, but the truth of the matter is that in his soul he knew he owed me his life, his mind and his very existence as it stood right then. Without so much as a question, he performed the small surgical procedure I knew was necessary to correct the errors the ruling magocrats had made, and life, perhaps, reverted to normal.

I chose at this time to take Plin with me and make an effort to spread my good will unto the rest of Marrishland. What extremes of niceties, I thought, can I do here anymore? The new dux — that's you, Merflatug — was a good man, who I had faith will recreate the generous opus I had manufactured under the influence of the recently deceased ruler, Bragan. Having returned, I see that the homeless shelter continues to operate efficiently, and while you, good dux, still maintain the weard security forces, the helpless and homeless remain an integral part of the state of this community. We attached ourselves to the crew of a Domus rice barge, and made our farewells to the authorities of the duxy.

Plague struck the barge several days after we departed, well away from Flasten, and within hours of the sighting of a small boat carrying several of Bragan's weard security forces, sent, I believe, by you, Merflatug. I did not have the skills nor the materials necessary to save your guards, which I regret whole-heartedly. They were good men, whose dying cries were for their mothers and for the duxy, and it was with much pain in my soul and mind that I sealed each of their throats shut with fire and boiled their brains, to save them any more misery than they were already in.

Only Plin and I survived, with a few bags of rice, in the boat from Flasten. We torched the barge, to save the rest of Mar civilization from the dangerous plague aboard, and again, grief and rage annihilated my soul — all that wondrous, life-sustaining food stolen by the hebetudinous nature of the human race, of which I was so intimately familiar with and which ofttimes increased my distress. Neither Plin nor the debauchery that ensued in the next few towns could remove me from the hot, dry, miserable plain of anguish upon which I had placed myself, as though by sacrificing who and what I was I could save the Mar from themselves and the gods.

Plin is smart, for a mundane, and he repaid more of the debts he felt he owed me, to which I consistently replied his reimbursements were unnecessary, but in my state akin to his when I found him, we strayed from our path to Domus and could not find it again. Thus we were, sober and arguing, ensconced in semi-precious wild rice, when Carl's path fortuitously crossed our meandering track.

Carl was a brilliant soul, his mind clean and unfettered by civilization. He was the ideal Mar I had sought, what every Mar should aspire to be, and frequently during his brief stay with us I did expound to him of his many virtues. Frequently, during his skimpy existence as our companion, he would generate tremendously insightful and thoughtful variations on my schemes to save this country from its efforts of suicide. It was far too bad that, before we had our final discussions on this matter — before, as it were, he gifted me with what words graced the right side of the equal sign in our equation — that he discovered a simple, efficient, non-back-breaking way to sow wild rice.

This was how we acquired the pots, in a show of good will and spirit toward the Mar, which resulted in the death of such an innocent soul.

*******

Tejun glared at Percy.

"Power-mad, are you?"

"No sir!" Percy said, staring at the wall and praying for his safety.

Merflatug was eyeing Duk suspiciously. Something about the tale ... there were levels to it that were not as clear as in the mundane's tale.

"Ah," Duk went on, staring at Tejun's neck. "You are Tejun of Kelp-Wa house, yes? Wagga-wagga, in effis deo?"

Tejun turned around, blinking. "You know Kelp-Wa?"

Duk nodded shortly. "Two years your junior, I was. Your exploits are legendary. The trick with the inflated bladder and the dean was very inspiring."

"How did you recognize me?"

Duk patted the back of his own head. "Some scars just don't go away."

Tejun smiled, patting his head. He grinned like a school boy. "Some you just want to stay. Wagga wagga, in effis deo."

"Wagga," Duk said, smiling. He looked at Haile, who was calculating on her fingers. "I'm afraid you have the best of me, minister. Though you look like a woman I knew in Piljerka, an amber by the name of Midge, whose passions included sewing, black leather and charging people for her time."

"That sounds like my mother," Haile said briskly, then stopped. "You know my mother?"

"She could hardly be the same woman," Duk said. "The Midge whose time I spent often talked about her daughter, the rising Domus star of finance, whose essay, Principles in Taxation As A Percent Of The Cut, should have propelled her deep into capital politics."

"That was my mother! What did you do to her?" Haile growled.

"Nothing she did not want me to, I assure you," Duk said. "It is certainly a pleasure to meet you. You are far more attractive than Midge led me to believe." She blushed.

Merflatug raised his hand.

"Yes, dux?" Duk said.

The dux glowered. "The hand-raising is to request silence."

"For certain, yet I must then ask your apologies, for in my time as a rehabilitation chairperson, I instigated the rule wherein for someone to speak, they must ascend their digits grasp-like toward the ceiling and thus retain them in position until such tickings of the clock suggest I would acknowledge them."

"Yes, right, then," the dux said. "Things are different now. Look, you got the pot in a small town far away from here?"

"We received 12 pots in trade for our wild rice, which was all but one of the pots in the town. It was Carl, bless his restless soul, who suggested we leave them one, as a dead town no longer produces anything worth stealing."

"Stealing?"

Duk shrugged. "A man with words, was our Carl. Stealing is, of course, a metaphor for the transference of minerals to plants through water and mud and then our plucking it and ingesting it without giving anything back to the land. Please make an effort to infuse this unto your minds."

"Er. Yes. I think. There were no drugs?"

"Indeed, upon my rehabilitation of Plin, I am certain I mentioned several types of drugs he had incorporated for various reasons, chief among those, perhaps, to rid himself of the misery that the Mar are in."

"The charge against you is that you were caught trying to sell pot, which is a slang term for marijuana. Is this true?"

Duk looked shocked. He rose to his feet like a felled tree in reverse.

"These insults must desist!" he shouted. "What lies have you been told? I haven't done that for years! The statute of limitations is most certainly expired!"

Merflatug had risen with Duk, who towered over him like a flamingo over the ugly duckling.

"It's all right, it's all right," he said soothingly. "You rest here. We're going to, ah, leave, and Percy will bring some food in for you later."

After he was calmed down, the dux, the minister and the warden stood out in the hall and confirmed.

"A completely misunderstood man," Tejun said. "What a terrible life!"

"And to carry such a burden on his shoulders, to think that he has to save the Mar from what crime and drugs there are in the world," Haile added.

Merflatug shook his head. "While his story rings true, the way he speaks makes him difficult to entirely understand. I wonder."

"Well, let's hear the mapmaker's tale and then you can make a decision, dux," Tejun said. "Surely, the mapmaker will clearly speak the truth."

Copyright 2005-2006 Eric Zawadzki and Matthew Schick. All Rights Reserved.
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