Rhialto the Marvellous

Foreword

1. The Murthe
2. Fader's Waft
3. Morreion

Rhilato the Marvellous

Foreword

These are tales of the 21st Aeon, when Earth is old and the sun is about to go out. In Ascolais and Almery, lands to the west of the Falling Wall, live a group of magicians who have formed an association the better to protect their interests. Their number fluctuates, but at this time they are:

• Ildefonse, the Preceptor.
  
• Rhialto the Marvellous.
  
• Hurtiancz, short and burly, notorious for his truculent disposition.
  
• Herark the Harbinger, precise and somewhat severe.
  
• Shrue, a diabolist, whose witticisms mystify his associates, and sometimes disturb their sleep of nights.
  
• Gilgad, a small man with large gray eyes in a round gray face, always attired in rose-red garments. His hands are clammy, cold and damp; his touch is avoided by all.
  
• Vermoulian the Dream-walker, a person peculiarly tall and thin, with a stately stride.
  
• Mune the Mage, who speaks minimally and manages a household of four spouses.
  
• Zilifant, robust of body with long brown hair and a flowing beard.
  
• Darvilk the Miaanther, who, for inscrutable purposes, affects a black domino.
  
• Perdustin, a slight blond person without intimates, who enjoys secrecy and mystery, and refuses to reveal his place of abode.
  
• Ao of the Opals, saturnine, with a pointed black beard and a caustic manner.
  
• Eshmiel, who, with a delight almost childish in its purity, uses a bizarre semblance half-white and half-black.
  
• Barbanikos, who is short and squat with a great puff of white hair.
  
• Haze of Wheary Water, a hot-eyed wisp with green skin and orange willow-leaves for hair.
  
• Panderleou, a collector of rare and wonderful artifacts from all the accessible dimensions.
  
• Byzant the Necrope.
  
• Dulce-Lolo, whose semblance is that of a portly epicure.
  
• Tchamast, morose of mood, an avowed ascetic, whose distrust of the female race runs so deep that he will allow only male insects into the precincts of his manse.
  
• Teutch, who seldom speaks with his mouth but uses an unusual sleight to flick words from his finger-tips. As an Elder of the Hub, he has been allowed the control of his private infinity.
  
• Zahoulik-Khuntze, whose iron fingernails and toenails are engraved with curious signs.
  
• Nahourezzin, a savant of Old Romarth.
  
• Zanzel Melancthones.
  
• Hache-Moncour, whose vanities and airs surpass even those of Rhialto.
  

Magic is a practical science, or, more properly, a craft, since emphasis is placed primarily upon utility, rather than basic understanding.

This is only a general statement, since in a field of such profound scope, every practitioner will have his individual, style, and during the glorious times of Grand Motholam, many of the magician-philosophers tried to grasp the principles which governed the field.

In the end, these investigators, who included the greatest names in sorcery, learned only enough to realize that full and comprehensive knowledge was impossible. In the first place, a desired effect might be achieved through any number of modes, any of which represented a life-time of study, each deriving its force from a different coercive environment.