Gundaree was Gundara's twin. The two of them had dwelt in the stone turtle for at least a millennium. A gift from Nerisa, the idol and the Favorites it contained had been created in Hadin-a world away from Esmir. Whoever owned the idol had the decidedly mixed blessing of the twin's magical assistance. They had a constant war going between them, making it quite disconcerting for whoever was their current master. The only consolation was that they couldn't appear at the same time before normal beings.
Gundara serviced humans, Gundaree demons. Only little Palimak-who was part human and part demon-could see them both at the same time.
Mischievous as they were, their magic was very powerful and Safar had ordered them to protect Palimak. The boy kept the idol with him at all times, giving him a permanent set of child minders and magical playmates.
At the moment Gundara was doing his best to appear the innocent above all innocents.
'I warned Palimak, master,' he said. 'I told him, 'Oh, no, you shouldn't use that smelly old stuff to make a breakfast spell, Little Master. Your father will be angry.''
'You never said that!' Palimak protested.
'Yes, I did!'
'You taught me the spell!'
'No, I-'
Safar clapped his hands twice. The first won him silence. The second commanded the collapse of the cheese beast. There was a
When he turned back Gundara had vanished-fleeing into the retreat of the little stone idol where he would, no doubt, continue his argument with Gundaree.
Palimak sighed. 'I'm awfully tired,' he said. 'Making breakfast is hard work.'
'I suppose it is,' Safar said.
'The hard part was making the Breakfast Thing talk,' Palimak said. 'I thought that'd be a really, really Big, Big Surprise!' He spread his hands wide to indicate just how amazing the effort was.
'It said, 'Cheese!'' Safar said. 'You can imagine how surprised I was. I've never had breakfast speak to me before.'
Palimak hung his head. 'I'm sorry it was so smelly, father,' he said. 'There's some good cheese in the kitchen, but Gundara said I couldn't get out of bed until you woke up.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'There sure are a lot of rules in this house,' he said.
Safar aped the sigh, making it long and dramatic. 'I guess there are,' he said. Then he shrugged-again mimicking Palimak. 'But what can we do? Rules are rules!'
'I suppose you're right, Father,' Palimak said with weary resignation. 'What can we do? But I'd sure like to know who makes up all those rules!' He yawned. 'Well, maybe I'll go back to sleep for a little while.'
Palimak made a magical motion and soft dreamy music floated out of the stone turtle. He hugged his pillow tight, yawning again. 'Wake me up when it's time for breakfast, father,' he said.
Then he closed his eyes and went to sleep. Lips trembling with his last words. The child went from wakefulness to sleep in less time than it took for a heart to beat. Safar smiled at the boy, watching how the sun streaming through the window lit up his milky skin. Palimak positively glowed and Safar could see, deep, deep, under the child's skin, the faint gleam of bluish green. Demon green. And his little hands, clasped together, had pointy little nails, so paper thin you could only tell they existed because of the darker blush of the pink skin beneath them. When Palimak became excited and forgot himself those pointy little nails could hook out like kitten claws and accidentally draw blood from an unwary adult.
Palimak possessed amazing magical powers for his age. Although he called Safar 'father,' the boy was a foundling, a child of the road, whom Nerisa-an orphan herself-had taken pity on and adopted. Safar had assumed responsibility for Palimak's care after Nerisa had died, raising him as if he were his own.
How a demon and a human-bitter ancestral enemies-had come together in love to make the child was surely a tale of complexity and tragedy. Unfortunately, Nerisa had died before she could tell Safar much about what she knew of Palimak's origins and as the boy had grown older it had become increasingly difficult to explain that his all-wise father should be ignorant about something so important.
Safar tucked a blanket around the boy and returned to his rooms, purpose renewed. He washed, dressed- leaving on his soft slippers-and ate a little yogurt and drank cold strong tea left over from the day before. A village woman would bring breakfast soon, so he had a little free time before Palimak would be thundering around.
He slipped behind his desk and retrieved the little book from beneath his notes. It was an old book, curled and dry and quite small-no bigger than a man's hand. It was a master wizard's book of dreams.
The musings of Lord Asper, who was perhaps the greatest wizard in all history. Asper had lived long ago and in his old age had started recording his thoughts and discoveries. The old demon's writing was so small that Safar found it more comfortable to use a glass to read. There was no order to the book, making it even more difficult for the reader. A theoretical phrase or two about the possibilities of mechanical flight might find itself on the same page as an elaborate magical formula whose only purpose was to keep moths away from a good wool cloak.
Maddening as it was, all that was known about the world was contained between its brittle covers. And all that wasn't cried for recognition's ink.
Safar opened the book at random. On one page was a large sketch of the world-showing the two halves of the globe in a split ball. The four major land masses were inked in, but as actual formations, rather than the usual stylized maps of Safar's time that showed the turtle gods carrying the lands across the sea. The names of the continents were inked below each drawing. Floating in the Middle Sea was Esmir, the land where Safar lived. To the north was Aroborus, to the south, Raptor. Last of all was Hadin, on the other side of the world-directly opposite Esmir.
Hadin, land of the fires, the place where Safar believed the great disaster that was slowly consuming the world had begun.
He had seen Hadin in a vision long ago-handsome people dancing on an enchanted island under a threatening volcano. The volcano erupting, hurling flame and death. The dancing people were gone in the first few moments, but the volcano continued to spew huge poisonous clouds charged with such magical power that it had seared Safar through the vision. Since that time nothing in the world had been the same.
And it was Safar's obsession and self-sworn duty to somehow unravel the mystery of Hadin and halt the disaster.
Asper had seen the same disaster, not as it was happening, but in a vision hundreds of years before the incident. The coming death of the world-no matter that it was far in the future-so disturbed the old demon that he had made an abrupt shift in all his thinking. It was as if a blindfold had been lifted from eyes, he wrote, and suddenly 'Truth was lies/and lies were truth…'
It was then that Asper began the greatest work of his life. Old age sapping his strength, bitter realizations stalking his dreams, he raced against Death's imminent arrival in an ultimately futile effort to solve the riddle that was the coming end of the world.
Near the end, during a moment of great despair, he had written:
This dark-horsed destiny I ride?
Hooves of steel, breath of fire-
Not first for the first time, Safar wondered what particular incident had caused Asper to write such a thing. After long study it was plain that Asper faced much opposition at the end of his life. He was speaking heresy after all. Uncaring gods asleep in their heavenly bower. A world doomed. And the greatest heresy of all-that humans and demons were not so different. He even speculated that the two species, who were historic enemies, were originally twins-the opposite sides of a single connubial coin.
Safar was both a wizard and a potter. The wizardly side of him tended to question everything. The potter's side demanded practical proof as well. He still had many questions about Asper's theories. But as far as practical proof went, he only had to look at Palimak, a child of the two species. What greater proof could one need to show that demons and humans had once supped the milk of a common mother?
