Post by Nedward Underhill on Feb 14, 2010 19:09:37 GMT -6
A story about Ned, originally written on the "Curmudgeon's" Board: fmcurmudgeons.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=rpstories&action=display&thread=604
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A Cantankerous Retirement
The window was shuttered. The door locked. Though the criers had scarcely called mid-day, a few tapered candles lit Ned’s cluttered room.
He should be writing. A half-finished tome sat on the oaken desk gathering dust. Too often of late Ned had found himself sitting, as he was now, next to the window. The shutters were drawn, yes. But inside, the window opened a crack. Ned’s stiff chair sat next to the slivered opening. His pocked-marked hand inched aside the heavy curtain. He peeped through the shutters.
“Bellows and bother! Look at them! Carrying on… Pheh!”
Down on the cobbled street, a merchant called out in greeting to a young mother and her children. A couple of gangly youth dressed in the keep’s colours strolled leisurely by. Several local fellows lolled about the pub doors, laughing at some passing jest. Ned scowled at them. All of them. Every last one. Cheery, deluded, brainless, useless. He wanted nothing to do with it.
He craned his neck to get a better view. A cool spring breeze wafted into the nostrils of his bulbous nose where it stuck through the curtain.
“Spring!” he muttered, his nose wrinkling in disgust.
His chair was too hard. And too tall. And, generally, unacceptable. He should probably make the deficiencies abundantly clear to the proprietor. And he would. As soon as he was finished his book. Or maybe tomorrow.
He should be writing. He knew he should turn away from the street, pick up his quill, and get back to work. It wouldn’t write itself, after all. He wasn’t afraid of a little hard work. His whole life was the epitome of hard work. It was the essence of hard work. It was toil and tribulation, written on a grand scale. No one appreciated his efforts! No one understood, truly understood what it was like to live with the burden he bore. Bore without complaint, mind you. Nary a complaint. No. Not a one. Despite his osteoarthrembosis…and digititis. And that’s not easy for a mage.
Up above the city the sky was laced with cloud as if someone had taken a bolt of half-finished mageweave and pulled it apart. A brilliant blue lorded over the heavens. A griffon lifted off, its great white wings riding a lifting breeze, a young adventurer astride it gazing off at the horizon and the grand adventure he imagined.
Ned knew better. Maybe the trouble was that he had seen too much. He knew too much. Ignorance, delusion, a lack of foresight. These were the necessaries. These were the essentials that that the ardent fools carried with them…off to their inevitable, grisly, miserable deaths.
No point in telling them. No one wanted to listen. No one wanted to hear the bare truth. They shut gnomes up who said such things. They kicked them out of the common room. And when you struck back at them and turned them into the sheep they were, they set the magistrates and the guards on you. Oh yes they did! With their cheery, vapid smiles they set spies on you. They issued public notices! And, yes, issued vacuous restraining orders.
“Ridiculous! The truth *is* inconvenient! Damn inconvenient! Convenience is not the point!”
That was what he had said when he told them their war was useless. Of course, here in Stormwind it was easy to tell the people that all they needed to worry about was ‘contributing to the war effort,’ and ‘doing their part for the troops,’ and holding fundraisers, and charity balls, and whatnot. Cheery fantasies of ‘progress’ for an ignorant, brainless public that wanted nothing more than be believe the lies.
And that was the true reason why Ned’s memoir needed to be written. It was more than a memoir. It was a philosophical treatise! Two hundred pages in, and it was just a first draft -- and needed a third rewrite -- but there were flashes of brilliance in the work already. And when its ten thousand pages, spanning ten volumes, were finished and published, the fogged glass goggling the minds of the uninformed would be forever shattered. Well, maybe not the illiterate ignorant. But of the intelligencia -- not the so-called intelligencia, but the true minds -- would know. They would at last…see.
It had been two years since Ned turned his back on the war effort. Ever since the Wrath Gate…
“No!” He shook his head viciously.
Too much death. The nightmares were not so frequent any more, but there was no point to such thoughts and he would not have them. With a grunt, Ned eased himself off of the chair and down to the creaking floorboards. Not for the first time he considered moving his scotch cabinet over by the window for ease of access. But not only was the cabinet far too heavy to comfortably be moved, at the price of Blunt’s these days it was good to make it a bit difficult to get a drink.
Ned poured a liberal dollop and, waving his hand over the glass, chilled the scotch to give it just the perfect tone. A little variation on the classic spell that was a minor masterpiece in its own right. The glass untouched, and the liquid crinkling exactly twice. Ah! Perfect. Cramming his considerable nose over the chilled alcohol he sniffed deeply, chasing away the unwanted memories.
Time to get back to writing. Ned trundled over to the desk and took up his quill. He tapped it against his tongue and smacked his lips. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and stared at the page. He rifled the pages. He read the last chapter again. It did need a few notations, he could see that now, a bit more research to support the facts. He just had no inclination to go out, never mind all the way to the library. With a sigh, he turned away and ran his fingers over his balditude. What was going on outside? Maybe he would take another look…
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"Ah. Vangelis, is it? How are you? Forgive me if I stay in my seat; I'm not sure I can stand without wobbling."
Lady Jaina Proudmoore waved Vangelis into what had until recently been the captain's quarters aboard the Skybreaker. Pale and drawn, she sat at a desk strewn with maps and papers. Clearly she had ignored the captain's advice to get some rest after her confrontation with the Lich King.
Vangelis saluted, then grimaced, then bowed. After visibly attempting to compose himself for a moment he managed to reply, "No! Don't! Stand, I mean. Laidy Jaina. Sir. Ma'am! Oh dear... I think I need to start over."
Jaina laughed, her features softening. "My dear man! You cannot possibly be anxious about etiquette after the courage I saw on the mountainside!"
"It's different," Vangelis replied, a little sullenly. "Undead are simple: all they need are the pointy end of a sword. Nobles, not to mention sorceresses, are a bit more complicated. Begging your pardon."
"Indeed we are," Jaina replied, a rueful smile playing about her lips. "Though today it is I who should beg your pardon. I was a fool."
"You loved the man Arthas used to be. It is understandable."
"And should have been killed for it, but for you and your companions. Don't make excuses for me - it's worse than the lecture I deserve. But surely that's not why you came to see me."
"No, milady. I know you need time to recover, but I am also aware that the battle continues to rage beneath us. If you need my sword it is yours to command."
Jaina shook her head in wonder. "Barely have we escaped the Lich King's clutches and yet here you stand ready to leap back into the fray. If that blasted Council had half your dedication this war would have been over by now."
"Council?"
Jaina waved a hand irritably. "The Council of Mages back in Stormwind. If they added their might to ours we could shake Icecrown Citadel to its foundations, but do you think they would leave that damnable tower of theirs? Beaurocratic fools! All they do is send their students, most of whom don't survive their first week. To hear them talk you would think we were out here studying the Lich King, not desperately trying to survive against him!"
"I could carry a message to them," Vangelis offered. "Surely if they hear from you directly they could not continue to sit idly by!"
"Message?" Jaina's eyes flashed dangerously. "I have sent messages, reams of them, to no purpose. At best all I get back are long-winded variations on 'thank you for your letter.' What I need is for someone to disrupt their damnable council meeting and light a fire under their seats!"
Vangelis took an involuntary step back. "Good Lady, convincing a Council of Mages sounds to me like the definition of 'complicated'. I can be of no help to you there."
"More's the pity. The pointy end of your sword would probably do them some good." She sighed, and the sudden fire in her eyes flickered and was gone. "No, you would have to be a mage, and one of their own. They don't listen to outsiders." Jaina sagged, passing a hand over her eyes. "I'm sorry, Vangelis. I know it's a lost cause. I should not burden you with my frustrations."
But Vangelis was staring off into the distance. "A member of the Council of Mages..."
Jaina dropped her hand and looked sharply at him. "What? You know someone?"
"Well... yes, in fact," Vangelis said, then grimaced. "He is not the easiest person to convince. Nor can I say what influence he has over his fellow mages." He shrugged. "I'm sorry, Lady Jaina. It's not much help, I know."
"Still..." Jaina looked thoughtful. "That you actually know a member of the Council is too great a coincidence. I will write a letter that you can take to your friend. Who knows? At worst it will be just another wasted letter. What is the mage's name?"
"Nedward, milady."
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Something was happening. Down on the street a wide-eyed boy was leading a great black charger over to the hitching stand, his amazement alternating between the powerful beast in his keeping and the silver between his fingers. A small crowd was gathered outside the inn, gossiping avidly. All eyes stared towards its front entrance, following as the charger’s owner disappeared from view.
“No! No, no, no, no!” Ned shrieked.
Ned didn’t need to see the owner; he remembered too well that horse. In his panic to scramble down off of the chair, he spilled his drink, further darkening his already foul mood.
“Gah!”
Ned licked his fingers, trying to rescue the scotch from disaster. But even as he did so, his eyes raced over the room, frantically taking in the details. A crumb-covered bed. Rumpled clothes scattered about. A large basket by the door, overflowing with unopened mail. Books and parchments everywhere, littered with discarded quills and magnification glasses. The open bar.
“This wont do!”
Dashing across the room Ned carefully rearranged the scotch cabinet, hiding the 25-year-old extra aged Blunt’s at the back, and then placing an old cloth over it for good measure. He locked the cabinet and dragged the chair away from the window and attempted to place it casually in front of the bar. He checked all three locks on the door. Then he raced about the room grabbing odds and ends and stuffing them inside the covers on the bed until it looked like a small ogre was tucked away and slumbering. Finally, with a surprisingly sprightly leap for an old gnome who claimed to be in the last throes of osteoarthritis, Ned threw himself up on the chair at his desk, picked up his quill, and started frenetically scribbling.
“Chapter Two,” he muttered, flipping the page over and starting at the top. “The Conspiracy Against Recapture of Gnomeregon, also known as The Lazy Recalcitrant Preferement of Some Gnomes to Make Noise Rather Than Doing Anything About It…”
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"...from my cold, dead fingersh!"
Vangelis smiled. The old soldiers were putting a pretty, brown-haired young recruit through her paces with their old "try to get Bartleby's mug" routine. It felt like a lifetime had passed since Vangelis himself had been tasked with retrieving the mug from the "drunken" old soldier, a feat that had seemed rather heroic at the time.
Watching them now, Vangelis couldn't believe he had been so easily duped by their ruse. For one thing, Bartleby wasn't nearly as drunk as he was letting on. Sure, he was crashing into the furniture and making a lot of noise, but the mug in question floated serenely through the air without a drop being spilt. He even managed to squeeze in a sip or two between swings - apparently he wanted to consume as much of the liquid as possible before relinquishing the mug that held it. The supreme indifference of the regular patrons was another dead giveaway: normally conversation would be suspended as patrons watched the fight and placed bets, but even the table immediately next to the combatants had merely taken their drinks to the opposite end of the bar to continue their argument.
In fact, Vangelis himself seemed to be attracting far more attention than the fight in the corner. He had traveled directly to Stormwind after receiving Jaina's letter, and had not stopped to change clothes. Bristling head to toe with blades, spikes, and weapons, some of which had been claimed from the Lich King's own servants, Vangelis suddenly realized that he must look extraordinarily dangerous.
Indeed, Bartleby himself had stopped to stare at Vangelis' entrance. It proved his undoing: taking advantage of his distraction, his young opponent grabbed a mug of her own and landed a solid blow to his head.
"Mine!" the girl exulted as she claimed the mug from Bartleby's senseless fingers. Only then did she notice Vangelis standing in the entranceway. "Oh!..."
"Sorry! I didn't mean to interrupt." Vangelis waved vaguely. "...Carry on?" No one moved. The clanking of Vangelis' battle gear resounded in the silence as he crossed the floor to speak to the innkeeper. All eyes were upon him.
"Mr. Langston?"
"We don't want any trouble here." Reese Langston thrust his chin forward defiantly, but the hands holding the towel were shaking.
"I don't mean to cause trouble. Sorry. You probably don't remember me, but I have been here before. My name's Vangelis." Vangelis offered a handshake, but then realized he was still wearing his gauntlets. "Sorry." He pulled the gauntlet off and tried again.
"...Vangelis? THE Vangelis? Sir! It is an honour! A great honour!" Reese took Vangelis' hand and pumped it, rather too vigorously and too long. Upon hearing his name an excited murmur rippled through the common room, and though no eye turned away the air shifted from fear to awe. Vangelis wasn't sure that this was an improvement.
The young recruit was the first to speak. "Is it true that you singlehandedly faced the army of the jungle trolls and slew their god?"
"Well, it wasn't exactly like that..."
"What about the flying undead city?" Another called out. "Is it true that you called the spirits of all the fallen soldiers of Stormwind to help you sack it?"
"Um... what??"
"I heard how you tamed the queen of the dragons and ride her into battle! How did you do that? Did you ride her here?"
"Now, that's just..."
"Please! Please!" Reese was back in charge of his inn, waving his patrons to silence. "Can't you see that the great Lord Vangelis does not have time to answer all your foolish questions? I will see to his needs, and once he is fed and settled into his room I'm sure he will grace us with a few stories. Isn't that right, sir? I'm sure you will find everything to your liking."
"What?? No! I mean, I'm sure the room is nice, but I'm only here because I'm looking for someone. He used to stay here, and I'm wondering if you know where he might be."
"You don't mean to stay?" Reese's disappointment could not be more palpable; clearly he had been hoping to capitalize on Vangelis' patronage. "Surely you need a place, at least for tonight? It's on the house! For a hero of Stormwind, of course!"
"You're very kind. Thank you. But what I really need is to find a gnomish mage named Nedward Underhill. I was hoping you would remember him: he was apparently quite important in Gnomeregan before it fell, and became a member of the Council of Mages here in Stormwind. He used to live here. Do you know where he is?"
Reese did not answer at first; instead he looked pained. After a moment's silence, the bar's patrons turned to each other and started murmuring excitedly. Reese leaned forward and said quietly, "He's still here. But I don't like to advertise it. Well, I would, but since what happened the last time he came out... well, like I said, I don't advertise it. The more he just stays in his room the happier the rest of us are. The only one who still talks to him is Erika, who brings him his food. He won't even open the door for anyone else."
"Thank you," said Vangelis. "We go back a fair way; I'm sure he'll let me in. Is he still in the same room?"
"Same as always," Reese shrugged, and then looked suddenly worried. "I don't know what you want with him and don't really care, but promise me you won't destroy my inn? It's been in the family for generations."
"Don't worry. I'm just going to talk to him, is all."
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The Pig & Whistle was a sprawling, well-established tavern in a decent neighbourhood. It was the sort of establishment that imperfectly assumed airs of nobility, continuously aspiring to attract the lucrative coin of Stormwind’s lesser nobility. Upstairs, however, the veneer of grandeur flaked away to reveal a dimly lit and narrow corridor covered with a thin carpet and decorated with faded copies of Stormwind’s gentry, the sort of knock-off paintings generally hawked as “unique originals” by street vendors for a handful of coppers. A dozen white-washed doors abutted the hall, a few of their numbers askew.
Vangelis made his way down the hall, a sudden sense of guilt creeping over him. The honest truth was that he had been so busy with the campaign that he hadn’t really given much thought to the old gnome of late. Ned had up and quit the field so suddenly that it had been done before he had anything to say in the matter. He had just accepted it. Honestly, there hadn’t seemed like much to say, at the time. There certainly was no reasoning with the old curmudgeon once he had set his mind. All the same, Van realized now had not made any efforts to even correspond with Ned, even to inquire as to why he had left. Maybe he should have tried harder? With a heavy heart, Vangelis wondered if had he been tired of the gnome’s perpetual, ludicrous, complaining. Had he been secretly relieved to be done of him? Surely Ned had deserved better.
“Well, no time like the present to set things straight,” Vangelis told himself. He drew abreast of door number 3, straightened his shoulders, and knocked politely.
And waited. There was no response.
Frowning, Vangelis knocked again. Hadn’t Langston said that Nedward never left his room? Trust his luck that he would travel all this way and chance upon the one time the mage had gone out.
Still no answer. Suspicious, Vangelis placed his ear against the thin door and listened. From within, he vaguely made out a frenzied scratching sound, then a rustle of paper.
“Nedward?” Another knock, this time more insistent.
Muffled by the door, a snapped, “Busy! Not now!”
Curiously, the gnome’s surliness made everything easier. Vangelis smiled. He also suddenly realized that he genuinely had missed the old bastard.
“Ned, it’s Van,” he called. “Surely you have a moment to see an old friend.”
“Don’t insult my intelligence! I know perfectly well who it is. And, no, I can’t be distracted now. I can’t see anyone!”
“What’s so important that you can’t spare me a minute of your time?” Vangelis inquired genially.
Silence. The faint sound of scribbling had started again.
Vangelis knocked. “Ned?”
A muffled, “Gah! Now look what you’ve done! Smudged and ruined!”
“Sorry about that,” Vangelis offered. Thinking back, Vangelis remembered that Ned had declared that he was going to retire and write. “So… writing your book?” he asked.
“Not if I keep getting distracted!”
“Ah. Well. I wont be long, I promise.”
“Go away!”
Vangelis leaned casually against the wall. “Sorry, Ned,” he answered. “I’ve got orders. You know how it is.”
Pause.
“I’ve abided by the letter of the magistrate’s ridiculous order! I’ve got nothing more to say!”
Vangelis’ eyebrows rose in surprise and curiosity, but he decided it best not to pry. “I… don’t really know what you are talking about, Ned. But, do you really want to talk about such things through the door? I’m sure that half of the tavern is listening to us from the bottom of the stairs…”
Inside the room was a strangled cry. Then, with a clatter of machinery, several locks unbolted at once, and the door was yanked roughly open. There, red in the face as always, and glaring up at Vangelis was a furious Mr. Underhill. Vangelis smiled with genuine affection.
“Gah! Hopeless!” Throwing his hands in the air, Ned turned and stormed off into the tiny room. This better be important!”
“I assure you, I believe it is of utmost importance.” Pushing himself off from the wall, Vangelis slipped into the room.
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“How are you Ned? You look…ahh…well…” Vangelis petered out awkwardly.
In truth, Ned looked terrible. His clothes were dirty and threadbare, and hollows in his cheeks spoke of a substantial amount of lost weight. His beady eyes glared out of sunken pits and above purple bags that hung down on either side of his nose.
Ned either misunderstood or wasn’t listening. “Spare me your pleasantries.” He waved his hand dismissively. “You haven’t travelled three-thousand miles to have a cup of tea!”
“Actually, tea sounds good. You wouldn’t have any…?”
Ned stepped protectively in front of the scotch cabinet. He gestured about him. “Does this look like an inn?”
“Well, actually…”
Nedward tapped his foot and glowered his darkest frown up at the armour-clad warrior. When that failed to control the smiling corners of Vangelis’ lips, or remove the twinkle from his eyes, Ned fell back to finger wagging and berating.
“I’m not about to send down for tea! What is it about B-U-S-Y that you don’t understand?”
The enormous lump on the bed momentarily distracted Vangelis’ attention. Without thinking, he pointed at the strange sight and asked, “What…?”
Nedward snapped his fingers. “Never mind that! That’s nothing!” He tried to block the view of both the cabinet and the bed, and ended up running back and forth between the two. It was hopeless. For one thing, the lump on the bed was taller that Ned was.
“Gah! I need a drink!”
“Well, it’s settled then!’ Van returned, pursing his lips to keep from bursting out laughing.. Seeing Ned’s panic, he allowed himself a bit of mischief and innocently suggested, “Perhaps something from the cabinet? Then we wouldn’t have to send down.”
For a second, it appeared that Ned’s head was going to melt off his neck. A flush raced up from his neck and he stood shaking helplessly. Then, with a defeated moan, the old mage dropped his head.
“Fine! But don’t say I never gave you nothing!”
“Erm…anything,” Van corrected. “Never gave you anything.”
“Don’t you try to correct me! I always say exactly that which I mean!”
Van shrugged. “As you wish.”
A minute later, Ned was at last settled in one of the two chairs occupying the room, and freshly lubricated, appeared slightly more relaxed. His fingers cradled his drink.
Decked as he was in plate, Vangelis chose to stand by the window. On impulse, he pulled back the heavy blinds and opened the window to let fresh air into the dark and musty room. With a flash of intuition, he realized that Ned might need this task almost as much as Jaina did. He was rotting away in here.
“Don’t just stand there like a Kodo re-digesting its breakfast,” Ned grumped. “What is so important that you can’t leave a gnome in peace?” Before Van could answer, he added, “And if you think that an order will get me back into your fool war, don’t even start!”
Vangelis shook his head. “I wouldn’t think it.” He took a sip of his drink, trying to collect his thoughts. “It’s like this…” Where to start? There was so much to tell! “It’s about the Council. Actually, it *is* about the war, but…” He sighed. Why did people ever ask him to deliver messages for them?
Ned’s bushy eyebrows furrowed. “Eh?”
Wait a second! He didn’t need to explain anything! He just needed to deliver the message. Reaching into his pack, Vangelis brought out Jaina’s letter and handed it to Ned.
“This will explain everything.” Vangelis smiled, a weight lifting off him as Ned’s wrinkled fingers snatched away the missive.
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Nedward gave the seal a cursory examination. "This is from that Proudmoore girl? Well, why didn't you say so before? Come to old Nedward for more advice, has she? Alright, I suppose I can give her a few minutes of my time. But don't think I would have done this for just any old general or whatsit!" Nedward brandished the letter in the direction of Vangelis' nose to punctuate his last comment before snatching a bent letter-opener from his desk and sliding it under the seal.
Barely had Nedward started reading when he snorted in disgust and sat back. "Estimable Councillor Underhill... Councillor!" he exclaimed. "They only put me on that council so that boy king of theirs could make a show of honouring his 'heroes'. They wanted to parade me around, said it would 'encourage the people'. Fools! They had no idea. I told them I would do no such thing! That took them aback, I can tell you! They were used to dealing with the kind of metal-clad morons who think a pony ride around the city is some kind of grand reward. But I said I was retiring and in no mood for any of their 'morale' nonsense."
Ned paused for a pensive sip. "But that wasn't the end of it. If they couldn't give me a parade and their silly medals, they thought I would like it if they installed me as an honourary member of their Council of Mages. They had a banquet, and some high mucky-muck from their army made a speech about heroes and mages and some malarkey. Or at least that's what I'm told. I didn't go."
Vangelis stared at Nedward, dumbfounded. "Ned... you didn't go to your own inaugural banquet??"
"Well, why should I??" The gnome grumped. "It wasn't my idea. I wasn't about to make myself a hypocrite, taking honours for a war I knew to be both useless and hopeless. It's not like I've gone to any of their meetings, either. They keep sending me correspondence, but I've been too busy to read it. It's just going to be minutes of their meetings, anyway." Ned made an impatient gesture toward the bed, under which Vangelis spied a small pile of unopened letters, each bearing an impressive, slightly glowing seal.
"The war's not hopeless, Ned. We're winning."
"Not possible. Didn't they teach you arithmetic in farmer school? Every death on our side is a RECRUIT for their side! AND they can stitch them back together from spare parts! Best thing we can do is stay out and let them keep Northrend to themselves, not swell their army by throwing children at them!"
"Read the letter, Ned."
"What letter? Oh! Right." Nedward scowled and returned his attention to the letter before him, muttering as he read. "Hm. Right. Yes, I knew about their stupid Tournament. Thought Fordring had more sense in him than that. Oh? You don't say. Interesting. Yes, that would make sense..."
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Nedward muttered on in this fashion as he read through the letter which, as it turned out, was of considerable length. Jaina had apparently taken the time to sketch out the highlights of the campaign over the last two years, an account which seemed to have caught Nedward's interest despite his ostensibly critical mutterings. Occasionally Nedward would ask for details on particular points, as Vangelis and his companions seemed to figure prominently in Jaina's account.
Eventually, having established that Naxxramas had been contained but not destroyed, and that the Alliance and the Horde had mustered enough cooperation to take the battle to the gates of Icecrown Citadel, Nedward came to the thrust of Jaina's letter.
"Ah! Now she comes to it. About time. Good thing she can spell, or I'd have stopped reading by now. ... Hang on a second! Girl, you can't be serious!" Suddenly suspicious, the gnome glared up at Vangelis. "Did you put her up to this? Is this some kind of joke?"
"No. And no. Jaina needed an insider to plead her case to the Council. All I did was mention that I'd heard you were one of them."
"Though," Vangelis added glumly, "after what you've just told me I'm inclined to think that there isn't much point to her request. I'm sorry to have disturbed you. I should be going." He set down his glass and retrieved his gauntlets from where they sat on the windowsill.
"Don't interrupt." Nedward had not paid the slightest attention to Vangelis, but had turned back to the letter and was rereading the concluding section intently. "Listen to this: she says that the Council is sending their new graduates out to the field! Typical. It's THEIR damnable war, but do they fight it? No! They fill the ears of those who are too young and stupid to know any better with tales of glory and send them off to die. How like them!"
"How like them?" Vangelis shook his head as he slid his hands back into his gauntlets, preparing to leave. "Ned, you haven't even MET them!"
"Listen to me, boy. I know their TYPE. I don't need to go to their meetings to know all about them. When you've been around as long as I have, you learn certain things, yes you do. And I know all about these Council-types. Sitting in their cozy little tower with their little assistants to do their little research projects for them and get sent out into battle... all the while claiming their liquor expenses against the war budget!"
In the course of this speech Nedward had left his chair and was pacing the room, emphasizing his various points by turning and stabbing a finger angrily at Vangelis. The last point about expense claims seemed to gall him so badly that he paused mid-tirade for a proper harrumph. He then retrieved his glass from the desk and took another scowling sip.
"If they care about this blighted war so much," he concluded, "I say they should fight it their blighted selves! Serves them right. Teach them a lesson, it would! It would indeed, yes, sir."
"It seems you agree with the Lady Jaina then. Pity." Vangelis had paused at the door, helmet under one arm.
"Of course I do! The girl at least has a lick of sense. Unlike those Council dullards, with their plush teaching jobs and their dodgy expense accounts. Why it always has to be MY job to put sense into the heads of idiots, I'll never know. With my arterioscoriensis the way it is."
Vangelis shook his head as if to clear it. "Hold on... are you saying that you WILL speak to the Council? What... how..."
"Not too bright, are you?" Nedward fished around in the pile on the bed and produced a stained, wrinkled traveling cloak. "OBVIOUSLY someone has to tell them what's what." Topping up a small steel flask with the remnants of the bottle he had shared with Vangelis, he pocketed it in the cloak and added, "If they are going to force me onto their stupid Council I can at least make them regret it! Plus, a piece of my mind will do them some good! The hypocrites! Unbelievable!"
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“I’m sorry, Professor Nerdwad, but Archmage Malin is not in his office at the moment. Can I take a message?” The receptionist wasn’t even looking over the edge of the desk so that she might see him, or the formal invitation to the Recruitment Subcommittee Hearing that he was attempting to wave in front of her face. He had already puffed up and down the gratuitously long staircase five times trying to find its location. Not to mention wading though the heaps of unread mail to even just to find it. Although the accumulated notices, minutes, and agendas were a virtually incomprehensible maze to sort through, he was almost certain that the hearing was EXACTLY the sort of thing which Jaina bemoaned in her letter, and was, apparently, happening TODAY. Not that anyone seemed to have ever heard of it...
“It’s… Ned-WARD,” he enunciated through gritted teeth and quivering lips. “And, for that matter, it’s Councillor Ned-WARD. Councillor? You may have heard of this obscure term, perhaps? As in, “Council of Magi”? As in, the King’s most exalted poobahs for which, and for whom, this eminent (and infinitely inconvenient) edifice was erected? The sort of COUNCILLOR who an innocent observer might…quite possibly…consider to be your EMPLOYER?!”
The receptionist took on a decidedly less cheerful tone. “There’s no need to shout. I’m right here, you know.”
“Eminently in the flesh, but certainly not in mind.” Nedward stepped stiffly backward so that she might see his ireful glare. No luck. She was filing her nails, a gnomish communicator pressed between her ear and her uplifted shoulder.
Furious, Nedward spluttered out, “If you took your head out of that blasted contraption for a minute, and listened to what I’ve been telling you, you brainless nitwit, you’d know that I know that Malin is down in the commons sucking back mirthweed, plastered out of his gourd, and absolutely useless to anyone! As I just finished telling you…” He took a breath to contain himself, and then forged on, “Before I began wasting my time trying to talk to YOU, I had already spent a blessed half an hour wasting my breath with HIM!”
“I’m sorry, Master Nerdward, but I’ve never heard of you, and I’m not accustomed to be so talked to.”
“Well, you’d better get used to it girlie, because I’m just getting warmed up!”
At that, her face shrivelled as if she had sucked on a lemon. Surging to her feet, she primly announced, “Excuse me, but I have to go.” A moment later, she had dashed off into the Archmage’s office, slamming the door behind her. Through the door, Nedward heard the muffled sounds of her complaining about him. “Oh, you wont believe what just happened…”
It took all of Nedward’s restraint not to blast the door off of its hinges.
“Ned? Is that you?”
Nedward spun about at the sound. Behind him, standing in the door, was a wrinkled prune of a man, leaning on a cane and smiling down at him. His white-haired head bobbed vacuously on his shoulders.
“Rumple Bunderby?” Nedward exclaimed. “What are you doing here?” The man had never been better than a half-rate scholar even before dementia set in. Yet there he was, dressed in lecturer’s robes, as if he was about to teach a class.
“It is you! I thought I heard someone shouting. So very loud!” Bunderby winked cherubically. “We do love a good shout now and then, eh? Good for the lungs.”
“I don’t have time for this…” Ned muttered.
“Now, what is this…So. Now, what all…” Bunderby tottered forward. He stood for a moment, apparently having lost his train of thought. “Where was I?”
The receptionist stuck her head out from behind the office door. “Professor Bunderby, I believe you have a class on potion-making in room 54d?”
Bunderby brightened. “Oh yes!” He patted Nedward affectionately on the head. “Nice to see you again, Ned.” Then, as an aside, he commented on the receptionist. “Lovely girl…”
“Gah!”
Storming out of the office, Nedward gave up on anyone in the entire blasted “Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences” being one iota of assistance, and simply began to walk down the corridor, opening doors at random. Brandishing the invitation like a sword, he would slam open the door and demand in a loud voice if he had found the Recruitment Subcommittee Hearing. By this unorthodox process he managed locate ten classes of students without instructors (generally goofing off and getting into mischief), three junior mage instructors (sleeping at their desks), five apparently pointless committees (including the “Committee for the Consideration of the Environmental Impact of Conjured Water,” the “Advancement Taskforce for Articulation of Preventable Improvements to the Buildings and Grounds,” the “Racial Inclusion Committee for Dwarven Mages,” and somehow not surprisingly the “Subcommittee for the Consideration of Needless Subcommittees”...which was noticeably unclear as to whether it was decidedly for or against such things), as well as three meetings whose purpose no one present appeared to confidently know. No one appeared to have heard of the Recruitment Subcommittee Hearing, or to have any idea what he was talking about.
Two hours of such torture was all that Nedward could face before being fortified by a stiff drink. In a final desperate bid to make a dent in the stultifying culture pervading the tower, Ned allowed himself the small pleasure of throwing himself out of a tower window. No one even appeared to notice.
Of course, he didn’t fall to his death or anything so foolish. Indeed, the sole merit to the tower was that a small mage could featherwalk down from that particular window to the pub across the commons. Ned alighted on the steps, swept inside, and demanded three flasks of their best port. It was as terrible as he remembered.
It was in the pub that Ned finally got his lead. Georgio Bolero, artisan tailor, was sitting at a nearby table, boasting to a pretty young woman who was clearly not his wife. Ned knew him, having learned a few patterns from the fellow back in the day. Bolero had made his name with a few modestly useful patterns, and was infamous for hitting on his students. It looked like little had changed since Ned had known him. Bolero caught Ned’s ear by crowing about how he had been commissioned to sew an outfit for the “top mage” of the Circle for a personal audience with the King that very afternoon. When he heard the name “Krimp,” Nedward felt an old rage spread through his blood. He shifted in his seat and listened.
“I don’t mind telling you,” Bolero was carrying on, the doe-eyed girl hanging off his every word, “This mage, Krimp, he knows quality. He needed the best, which is why he came to me. Now…I probably shouldn’t share this, but…He told me that he was being sent by the Circle mages to lobby the King for more funding. And, of course, they would be discussing the Academy’s recruitment needs. ‘The King demands too much,’ he said! He was going to stand up to the King. Imagine!”
Something in Ned’s intuition told him this was the answer he was looking for. With a snap of his fingers, he appeared upon the table directly in front of the tailor. Then, as the pretty girl shrieked in fright, Ned took hold of the womanizing buffoon, and demanded, with fire curling around his head, that the man tell him everything he knew.
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Two minutes later, Nedward was racing across the city towards the palace, a steady steam of invectives pouring from his lips. He should have known the scoundrel was up to his old tricks.
Waldo Krimp was so vile, so detestable, that Nedward had been forced to invent a new word to describe him. He was his nemissary; the sort of toad who pretended to be your friend, while secretly angling to stick a knife in your back. When Ned had come crawling back to Stormwind, seeking only to leave the stench of blood and death behind him, Krimp had welcomed him into the Circle with open arms. He was undoubtedly brilliant, even by Ned’s standards. In the beginning of Ned’s retirement, they had spent long hours together, ensconced in Waldo’s smoking den, drinking fine scotch, and cataloguing the shortcomings of the other mages, or the Academy. Ned had enjoyed the rare pleasure of a like mind. The evenings would drag pleasantly on as they argued obscure points of philosophy or logic, all the while sending each other into paroxysms of giggles with their barbed witticisms.
But it was lie. Krimp’s towering intellect was absolutely bent in service to his own advancement. The day had come when Ned had realized that he was just a means to an end. His celebrity, his accomplishments, were nothing more than a launch pad for Krimp’s consolidation of power. To his face, Krimp would praise Ned’s dawning theory on extra-planar temporal overlap, while behind his back he would sew mockery and derision amongst the other academics. What was worse, Krimp sprinkled in enough probing questions and discussion topics to their late night repartee that he was able to steal some of Nedward’s best ideas. When Krimp published “his” seminar work on gnomish origins of the Blight, the scales had fallen from Ned’s eyes. Ned had been turning over the facts for years, had scoured every remnant of political and scientific writing on the subject. Broad swaths of his manuscript had somehow found their way into Krimp’s work, verbatim. That was the day Ned quit the Academy. He had never spoken to anyone of the betrayal.
Loath was too kind a word for Ned’s feelings towards Krimp. He despise-loathed him. He despoathed him! He hatested him! He was abhorgusted by the very thought of him. Whatever Krimp was up to, it couldn’t be good. And if it fell to Ned to set matters straight, well, frankly, it was long past time that he confronted his nemissary, and put him down for good and all.
Ned began to see the mail he had rifled through back in his apartment in a new light. The perpetual adjournments of the recruitment Subcommittee, the meaningless resolutions, the minutes documenting decreasing committee attendance, the eventual assumption of the chairmanship by Krimp. How had he not seen Krimp’s handiwork all along? Over the last two years, Krimp had manoeuvred himself toward this moment, so that he might alone meet with the King. No doubt to serve nothing but his own nefarious purpose.
By this point, so all-consuming was the rage within Ned that as he trotted up to the palace steps a ring of fire rippled around him. A palace guard challenge him, only to end up blackened and unconscious, thrown back fifteen feet and crumpled in a hedge. A cry of alarm went up, but Ned no longer cared. Like a heat-seeking fireball of righteous retribution he hurtled towards his goal.
Unfortunately, the palace is a big place. It wasn’t so easy to find Krimp, or the King. It was only by dint of Ned’s small stature, in combination with some particularly athletic dodges, darts, and escapes that Ned managed to avoid capture. Finally, after pelting pell-mell down what appeared to be the last possible corridor, chased by not less that two dozen royal guards, Ned catapulted into an atrium only run head first into the King himself. And, as the King was rather inexplicably bedecked in plate, Ned managed to not only humiliate himself, but also knock himself out cold.
When he awoke, Ned looked up at a ring of onlookers. Krimp was there, staring down at Ned in flummoxed astonishment, flanked by several of the tenured Circle magi. The royal guard, weapons bristling, were being called off by his Royal Highness, King Wrynn himself.
“You say this is one of your Council?” the King was asking Krimp.
Krimp’s black eyes darted frantically about, his mind clearly trying to assess the implications of Ned’s sudden arrival. He managed an inarticulate, “Um.”
“Most certainly,” Councillor Pheobe Asberger answered in his stead. She was a middle-aged mage whose matronly exterior masked a rapier research mind and exhaustive knowledge of Outland crystallization. She also knit. “Councillor Underhill is one of our more esteemed adjunct fellows. Though he has been on extended sabbatical…” Her voice trailed off in confusion.
Krimp recovered himself enough to capitalize on her confusion. “Indeed, you Majesty. Councillor Underhill is to all intents and purposes retired from the Academy some two years past. Pay no mind--”
“Nedward Underhill?” the King asked, squinting down at Ned. “The Nedward Underhill? The one the prince has…gone on about for the last year or so?”
Ned rubbed his head, trying to get the dual images of the King to settle into one body. “I regret nothing!” he harrumphed.
Krimp again tried to misdirect. “Your Majesty, on behalf of the Council, allow me to apologize for whatever Underhill has done. But the matter at hand--”
“Apologize?” The King reached down and helped Nedward to his feet. “Prince Anduin is a huge fan of our reclusive gnomish mage!” To Ned, he added, “To this day he maintains that his time spent with you, good sir, has decided him on the arcane arts. Not to mention that he considers your parade with him the funniest thing he’s ever seen. Not that I encourage him in that.”
For a moment Ned was speechless. He knew he should answer, but was tongue tied as pride and shame blundered into each other within him. “Your Grace, I had not intended either of those things!” he managed, at last.
King Wrynn chuckled. “Well, transforming all of the horses in the parade into pigs is precisely the sort of spectacular enchantment that might catch a bored prince’s fancy, no?”
Ned blushed. “Yes. Well. That.”
Wrynn waved a hand to dismiss Ned’s awkwardness. “It’s all for the good. Lord knows, we need him applying himself!” He turned back to Krimp, and the assembled mages. “And the Circle needs mages, does it not? Now, Grand Councillor Krimp, I assume that your committee is now all present, and we can continue with the matter at hand?”
Grand Councillor? Krimp had indeed been taking airs. When Ned had left, there was no such title.
Ned took in the other mages assembled behind Krimp. Here were the true powers at the Circle. Asberger, Ballister, Sha’inrae, Zink-Fitslepiff, Unrae, Wart. Each a tenured archmage, with a mastery of at least two schools of magic. Enough power to level the palace itself in the blink of an eye. No wonder Ned had not been able to find anyone back at the tower!
But as he took in his surroundings, Nedward began to realize that they all gravitated below Krimp. He was splendidly bedecked in a jewel-encrusted robe that lent him both a air of superiority and gravity. The others' attire made them a background to him, as if their clothes had been deliberately orchestrated to build up his authority. Further, their eyes continuously watched him, like subservient dogs before a cruel owner. It was obvious to Ned, though no one else seemed to see it.
Krimp scowled momentarily, and then adopted a self-effacing mien. “Of course, your Majesty,” he replied, his unctuous voice coated with false servility. “Truly, we had almost lost hope of Councillor Underhill’s attendance today.”
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A Cantankerous Retirement
The window was shuttered. The door locked. Though the criers had scarcely called mid-day, a few tapered candles lit Ned’s cluttered room.
He should be writing. A half-finished tome sat on the oaken desk gathering dust. Too often of late Ned had found himself sitting, as he was now, next to the window. The shutters were drawn, yes. But inside, the window opened a crack. Ned’s stiff chair sat next to the slivered opening. His pocked-marked hand inched aside the heavy curtain. He peeped through the shutters.
“Bellows and bother! Look at them! Carrying on… Pheh!”
Down on the cobbled street, a merchant called out in greeting to a young mother and her children. A couple of gangly youth dressed in the keep’s colours strolled leisurely by. Several local fellows lolled about the pub doors, laughing at some passing jest. Ned scowled at them. All of them. Every last one. Cheery, deluded, brainless, useless. He wanted nothing to do with it.
He craned his neck to get a better view. A cool spring breeze wafted into the nostrils of his bulbous nose where it stuck through the curtain.
“Spring!” he muttered, his nose wrinkling in disgust.
His chair was too hard. And too tall. And, generally, unacceptable. He should probably make the deficiencies abundantly clear to the proprietor. And he would. As soon as he was finished his book. Or maybe tomorrow.
He should be writing. He knew he should turn away from the street, pick up his quill, and get back to work. It wouldn’t write itself, after all. He wasn’t afraid of a little hard work. His whole life was the epitome of hard work. It was the essence of hard work. It was toil and tribulation, written on a grand scale. No one appreciated his efforts! No one understood, truly understood what it was like to live with the burden he bore. Bore without complaint, mind you. Nary a complaint. No. Not a one. Despite his osteoarthrembosis…and digititis. And that’s not easy for a mage.
Up above the city the sky was laced with cloud as if someone had taken a bolt of half-finished mageweave and pulled it apart. A brilliant blue lorded over the heavens. A griffon lifted off, its great white wings riding a lifting breeze, a young adventurer astride it gazing off at the horizon and the grand adventure he imagined.
Ned knew better. Maybe the trouble was that he had seen too much. He knew too much. Ignorance, delusion, a lack of foresight. These were the necessaries. These were the essentials that that the ardent fools carried with them…off to their inevitable, grisly, miserable deaths.
No point in telling them. No one wanted to listen. No one wanted to hear the bare truth. They shut gnomes up who said such things. They kicked them out of the common room. And when you struck back at them and turned them into the sheep they were, they set the magistrates and the guards on you. Oh yes they did! With their cheery, vapid smiles they set spies on you. They issued public notices! And, yes, issued vacuous restraining orders.
“Ridiculous! The truth *is* inconvenient! Damn inconvenient! Convenience is not the point!”
That was what he had said when he told them their war was useless. Of course, here in Stormwind it was easy to tell the people that all they needed to worry about was ‘contributing to the war effort,’ and ‘doing their part for the troops,’ and holding fundraisers, and charity balls, and whatnot. Cheery fantasies of ‘progress’ for an ignorant, brainless public that wanted nothing more than be believe the lies.
And that was the true reason why Ned’s memoir needed to be written. It was more than a memoir. It was a philosophical treatise! Two hundred pages in, and it was just a first draft -- and needed a third rewrite -- but there were flashes of brilliance in the work already. And when its ten thousand pages, spanning ten volumes, were finished and published, the fogged glass goggling the minds of the uninformed would be forever shattered. Well, maybe not the illiterate ignorant. But of the intelligencia -- not the so-called intelligencia, but the true minds -- would know. They would at last…see.
It had been two years since Ned turned his back on the war effort. Ever since the Wrath Gate…
“No!” He shook his head viciously.
Too much death. The nightmares were not so frequent any more, but there was no point to such thoughts and he would not have them. With a grunt, Ned eased himself off of the chair and down to the creaking floorboards. Not for the first time he considered moving his scotch cabinet over by the window for ease of access. But not only was the cabinet far too heavy to comfortably be moved, at the price of Blunt’s these days it was good to make it a bit difficult to get a drink.
Ned poured a liberal dollop and, waving his hand over the glass, chilled the scotch to give it just the perfect tone. A little variation on the classic spell that was a minor masterpiece in its own right. The glass untouched, and the liquid crinkling exactly twice. Ah! Perfect. Cramming his considerable nose over the chilled alcohol he sniffed deeply, chasing away the unwanted memories.
Time to get back to writing. Ned trundled over to the desk and took up his quill. He tapped it against his tongue and smacked his lips. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and stared at the page. He rifled the pages. He read the last chapter again. It did need a few notations, he could see that now, a bit more research to support the facts. He just had no inclination to go out, never mind all the way to the library. With a sigh, he turned away and ran his fingers over his balditude. What was going on outside? Maybe he would take another look…
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"Ah. Vangelis, is it? How are you? Forgive me if I stay in my seat; I'm not sure I can stand without wobbling."
Lady Jaina Proudmoore waved Vangelis into what had until recently been the captain's quarters aboard the Skybreaker. Pale and drawn, she sat at a desk strewn with maps and papers. Clearly she had ignored the captain's advice to get some rest after her confrontation with the Lich King.
Vangelis saluted, then grimaced, then bowed. After visibly attempting to compose himself for a moment he managed to reply, "No! Don't! Stand, I mean. Laidy Jaina. Sir. Ma'am! Oh dear... I think I need to start over."
Jaina laughed, her features softening. "My dear man! You cannot possibly be anxious about etiquette after the courage I saw on the mountainside!"
"It's different," Vangelis replied, a little sullenly. "Undead are simple: all they need are the pointy end of a sword. Nobles, not to mention sorceresses, are a bit more complicated. Begging your pardon."
"Indeed we are," Jaina replied, a rueful smile playing about her lips. "Though today it is I who should beg your pardon. I was a fool."
"You loved the man Arthas used to be. It is understandable."
"And should have been killed for it, but for you and your companions. Don't make excuses for me - it's worse than the lecture I deserve. But surely that's not why you came to see me."
"No, milady. I know you need time to recover, but I am also aware that the battle continues to rage beneath us. If you need my sword it is yours to command."
Jaina shook her head in wonder. "Barely have we escaped the Lich King's clutches and yet here you stand ready to leap back into the fray. If that blasted Council had half your dedication this war would have been over by now."
"Council?"
Jaina waved a hand irritably. "The Council of Mages back in Stormwind. If they added their might to ours we could shake Icecrown Citadel to its foundations, but do you think they would leave that damnable tower of theirs? Beaurocratic fools! All they do is send their students, most of whom don't survive their first week. To hear them talk you would think we were out here studying the Lich King, not desperately trying to survive against him!"
"I could carry a message to them," Vangelis offered. "Surely if they hear from you directly they could not continue to sit idly by!"
"Message?" Jaina's eyes flashed dangerously. "I have sent messages, reams of them, to no purpose. At best all I get back are long-winded variations on 'thank you for your letter.' What I need is for someone to disrupt their damnable council meeting and light a fire under their seats!"
Vangelis took an involuntary step back. "Good Lady, convincing a Council of Mages sounds to me like the definition of 'complicated'. I can be of no help to you there."
"More's the pity. The pointy end of your sword would probably do them some good." She sighed, and the sudden fire in her eyes flickered and was gone. "No, you would have to be a mage, and one of their own. They don't listen to outsiders." Jaina sagged, passing a hand over her eyes. "I'm sorry, Vangelis. I know it's a lost cause. I should not burden you with my frustrations."
But Vangelis was staring off into the distance. "A member of the Council of Mages..."
Jaina dropped her hand and looked sharply at him. "What? You know someone?"
"Well... yes, in fact," Vangelis said, then grimaced. "He is not the easiest person to convince. Nor can I say what influence he has over his fellow mages." He shrugged. "I'm sorry, Lady Jaina. It's not much help, I know."
"Still..." Jaina looked thoughtful. "That you actually know a member of the Council is too great a coincidence. I will write a letter that you can take to your friend. Who knows? At worst it will be just another wasted letter. What is the mage's name?"
"Nedward, milady."
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Something was happening. Down on the street a wide-eyed boy was leading a great black charger over to the hitching stand, his amazement alternating between the powerful beast in his keeping and the silver between his fingers. A small crowd was gathered outside the inn, gossiping avidly. All eyes stared towards its front entrance, following as the charger’s owner disappeared from view.
“No! No, no, no, no!” Ned shrieked.
Ned didn’t need to see the owner; he remembered too well that horse. In his panic to scramble down off of the chair, he spilled his drink, further darkening his already foul mood.
“Gah!”
Ned licked his fingers, trying to rescue the scotch from disaster. But even as he did so, his eyes raced over the room, frantically taking in the details. A crumb-covered bed. Rumpled clothes scattered about. A large basket by the door, overflowing with unopened mail. Books and parchments everywhere, littered with discarded quills and magnification glasses. The open bar.
“This wont do!”
Dashing across the room Ned carefully rearranged the scotch cabinet, hiding the 25-year-old extra aged Blunt’s at the back, and then placing an old cloth over it for good measure. He locked the cabinet and dragged the chair away from the window and attempted to place it casually in front of the bar. He checked all three locks on the door. Then he raced about the room grabbing odds and ends and stuffing them inside the covers on the bed until it looked like a small ogre was tucked away and slumbering. Finally, with a surprisingly sprightly leap for an old gnome who claimed to be in the last throes of osteoarthritis, Ned threw himself up on the chair at his desk, picked up his quill, and started frenetically scribbling.
“Chapter Two,” he muttered, flipping the page over and starting at the top. “The Conspiracy Against Recapture of Gnomeregon, also known as The Lazy Recalcitrant Preferement of Some Gnomes to Make Noise Rather Than Doing Anything About It…”
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"...from my cold, dead fingersh!"
Vangelis smiled. The old soldiers were putting a pretty, brown-haired young recruit through her paces with their old "try to get Bartleby's mug" routine. It felt like a lifetime had passed since Vangelis himself had been tasked with retrieving the mug from the "drunken" old soldier, a feat that had seemed rather heroic at the time.
Watching them now, Vangelis couldn't believe he had been so easily duped by their ruse. For one thing, Bartleby wasn't nearly as drunk as he was letting on. Sure, he was crashing into the furniture and making a lot of noise, but the mug in question floated serenely through the air without a drop being spilt. He even managed to squeeze in a sip or two between swings - apparently he wanted to consume as much of the liquid as possible before relinquishing the mug that held it. The supreme indifference of the regular patrons was another dead giveaway: normally conversation would be suspended as patrons watched the fight and placed bets, but even the table immediately next to the combatants had merely taken their drinks to the opposite end of the bar to continue their argument.
In fact, Vangelis himself seemed to be attracting far more attention than the fight in the corner. He had traveled directly to Stormwind after receiving Jaina's letter, and had not stopped to change clothes. Bristling head to toe with blades, spikes, and weapons, some of which had been claimed from the Lich King's own servants, Vangelis suddenly realized that he must look extraordinarily dangerous.
Indeed, Bartleby himself had stopped to stare at Vangelis' entrance. It proved his undoing: taking advantage of his distraction, his young opponent grabbed a mug of her own and landed a solid blow to his head.
"Mine!" the girl exulted as she claimed the mug from Bartleby's senseless fingers. Only then did she notice Vangelis standing in the entranceway. "Oh!..."
"Sorry! I didn't mean to interrupt." Vangelis waved vaguely. "...Carry on?" No one moved. The clanking of Vangelis' battle gear resounded in the silence as he crossed the floor to speak to the innkeeper. All eyes were upon him.
"Mr. Langston?"
"We don't want any trouble here." Reese Langston thrust his chin forward defiantly, but the hands holding the towel were shaking.
"I don't mean to cause trouble. Sorry. You probably don't remember me, but I have been here before. My name's Vangelis." Vangelis offered a handshake, but then realized he was still wearing his gauntlets. "Sorry." He pulled the gauntlet off and tried again.
"...Vangelis? THE Vangelis? Sir! It is an honour! A great honour!" Reese took Vangelis' hand and pumped it, rather too vigorously and too long. Upon hearing his name an excited murmur rippled through the common room, and though no eye turned away the air shifted from fear to awe. Vangelis wasn't sure that this was an improvement.
The young recruit was the first to speak. "Is it true that you singlehandedly faced the army of the jungle trolls and slew their god?"
"Well, it wasn't exactly like that..."
"What about the flying undead city?" Another called out. "Is it true that you called the spirits of all the fallen soldiers of Stormwind to help you sack it?"
"Um... what??"
"I heard how you tamed the queen of the dragons and ride her into battle! How did you do that? Did you ride her here?"
"Now, that's just..."
"Please! Please!" Reese was back in charge of his inn, waving his patrons to silence. "Can't you see that the great Lord Vangelis does not have time to answer all your foolish questions? I will see to his needs, and once he is fed and settled into his room I'm sure he will grace us with a few stories. Isn't that right, sir? I'm sure you will find everything to your liking."
"What?? No! I mean, I'm sure the room is nice, but I'm only here because I'm looking for someone. He used to stay here, and I'm wondering if you know where he might be."
"You don't mean to stay?" Reese's disappointment could not be more palpable; clearly he had been hoping to capitalize on Vangelis' patronage. "Surely you need a place, at least for tonight? It's on the house! For a hero of Stormwind, of course!"
"You're very kind. Thank you. But what I really need is to find a gnomish mage named Nedward Underhill. I was hoping you would remember him: he was apparently quite important in Gnomeregan before it fell, and became a member of the Council of Mages here in Stormwind. He used to live here. Do you know where he is?"
Reese did not answer at first; instead he looked pained. After a moment's silence, the bar's patrons turned to each other and started murmuring excitedly. Reese leaned forward and said quietly, "He's still here. But I don't like to advertise it. Well, I would, but since what happened the last time he came out... well, like I said, I don't advertise it. The more he just stays in his room the happier the rest of us are. The only one who still talks to him is Erika, who brings him his food. He won't even open the door for anyone else."
"Thank you," said Vangelis. "We go back a fair way; I'm sure he'll let me in. Is he still in the same room?"
"Same as always," Reese shrugged, and then looked suddenly worried. "I don't know what you want with him and don't really care, but promise me you won't destroy my inn? It's been in the family for generations."
"Don't worry. I'm just going to talk to him, is all."
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The Pig & Whistle was a sprawling, well-established tavern in a decent neighbourhood. It was the sort of establishment that imperfectly assumed airs of nobility, continuously aspiring to attract the lucrative coin of Stormwind’s lesser nobility. Upstairs, however, the veneer of grandeur flaked away to reveal a dimly lit and narrow corridor covered with a thin carpet and decorated with faded copies of Stormwind’s gentry, the sort of knock-off paintings generally hawked as “unique originals” by street vendors for a handful of coppers. A dozen white-washed doors abutted the hall, a few of their numbers askew.
Vangelis made his way down the hall, a sudden sense of guilt creeping over him. The honest truth was that he had been so busy with the campaign that he hadn’t really given much thought to the old gnome of late. Ned had up and quit the field so suddenly that it had been done before he had anything to say in the matter. He had just accepted it. Honestly, there hadn’t seemed like much to say, at the time. There certainly was no reasoning with the old curmudgeon once he had set his mind. All the same, Van realized now had not made any efforts to even correspond with Ned, even to inquire as to why he had left. Maybe he should have tried harder? With a heavy heart, Vangelis wondered if had he been tired of the gnome’s perpetual, ludicrous, complaining. Had he been secretly relieved to be done of him? Surely Ned had deserved better.
“Well, no time like the present to set things straight,” Vangelis told himself. He drew abreast of door number 3, straightened his shoulders, and knocked politely.
And waited. There was no response.
Frowning, Vangelis knocked again. Hadn’t Langston said that Nedward never left his room? Trust his luck that he would travel all this way and chance upon the one time the mage had gone out.
Still no answer. Suspicious, Vangelis placed his ear against the thin door and listened. From within, he vaguely made out a frenzied scratching sound, then a rustle of paper.
“Nedward?” Another knock, this time more insistent.
Muffled by the door, a snapped, “Busy! Not now!”
Curiously, the gnome’s surliness made everything easier. Vangelis smiled. He also suddenly realized that he genuinely had missed the old bastard.
“Ned, it’s Van,” he called. “Surely you have a moment to see an old friend.”
“Don’t insult my intelligence! I know perfectly well who it is. And, no, I can’t be distracted now. I can’t see anyone!”
“What’s so important that you can’t spare me a minute of your time?” Vangelis inquired genially.
Silence. The faint sound of scribbling had started again.
Vangelis knocked. “Ned?”
A muffled, “Gah! Now look what you’ve done! Smudged and ruined!”
“Sorry about that,” Vangelis offered. Thinking back, Vangelis remembered that Ned had declared that he was going to retire and write. “So… writing your book?” he asked.
“Not if I keep getting distracted!”
“Ah. Well. I wont be long, I promise.”
“Go away!”
Vangelis leaned casually against the wall. “Sorry, Ned,” he answered. “I’ve got orders. You know how it is.”
Pause.
“I’ve abided by the letter of the magistrate’s ridiculous order! I’ve got nothing more to say!”
Vangelis’ eyebrows rose in surprise and curiosity, but he decided it best not to pry. “I… don’t really know what you are talking about, Ned. But, do you really want to talk about such things through the door? I’m sure that half of the tavern is listening to us from the bottom of the stairs…”
Inside the room was a strangled cry. Then, with a clatter of machinery, several locks unbolted at once, and the door was yanked roughly open. There, red in the face as always, and glaring up at Vangelis was a furious Mr. Underhill. Vangelis smiled with genuine affection.
“Gah! Hopeless!” Throwing his hands in the air, Ned turned and stormed off into the tiny room. This better be important!”
“I assure you, I believe it is of utmost importance.” Pushing himself off from the wall, Vangelis slipped into the room.
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“How are you Ned? You look…ahh…well…” Vangelis petered out awkwardly.
In truth, Ned looked terrible. His clothes were dirty and threadbare, and hollows in his cheeks spoke of a substantial amount of lost weight. His beady eyes glared out of sunken pits and above purple bags that hung down on either side of his nose.
Ned either misunderstood or wasn’t listening. “Spare me your pleasantries.” He waved his hand dismissively. “You haven’t travelled three-thousand miles to have a cup of tea!”
“Actually, tea sounds good. You wouldn’t have any…?”
Ned stepped protectively in front of the scotch cabinet. He gestured about him. “Does this look like an inn?”
“Well, actually…”
Nedward tapped his foot and glowered his darkest frown up at the armour-clad warrior. When that failed to control the smiling corners of Vangelis’ lips, or remove the twinkle from his eyes, Ned fell back to finger wagging and berating.
“I’m not about to send down for tea! What is it about B-U-S-Y that you don’t understand?”
The enormous lump on the bed momentarily distracted Vangelis’ attention. Without thinking, he pointed at the strange sight and asked, “What…?”
Nedward snapped his fingers. “Never mind that! That’s nothing!” He tried to block the view of both the cabinet and the bed, and ended up running back and forth between the two. It was hopeless. For one thing, the lump on the bed was taller that Ned was.
“Gah! I need a drink!”
“Well, it’s settled then!’ Van returned, pursing his lips to keep from bursting out laughing.. Seeing Ned’s panic, he allowed himself a bit of mischief and innocently suggested, “Perhaps something from the cabinet? Then we wouldn’t have to send down.”
For a second, it appeared that Ned’s head was going to melt off his neck. A flush raced up from his neck and he stood shaking helplessly. Then, with a defeated moan, the old mage dropped his head.
“Fine! But don’t say I never gave you nothing!”
“Erm…anything,” Van corrected. “Never gave you anything.”
“Don’t you try to correct me! I always say exactly that which I mean!”
Van shrugged. “As you wish.”
A minute later, Ned was at last settled in one of the two chairs occupying the room, and freshly lubricated, appeared slightly more relaxed. His fingers cradled his drink.
Decked as he was in plate, Vangelis chose to stand by the window. On impulse, he pulled back the heavy blinds and opened the window to let fresh air into the dark and musty room. With a flash of intuition, he realized that Ned might need this task almost as much as Jaina did. He was rotting away in here.
“Don’t just stand there like a Kodo re-digesting its breakfast,” Ned grumped. “What is so important that you can’t leave a gnome in peace?” Before Van could answer, he added, “And if you think that an order will get me back into your fool war, don’t even start!”
Vangelis shook his head. “I wouldn’t think it.” He took a sip of his drink, trying to collect his thoughts. “It’s like this…” Where to start? There was so much to tell! “It’s about the Council. Actually, it *is* about the war, but…” He sighed. Why did people ever ask him to deliver messages for them?
Ned’s bushy eyebrows furrowed. “Eh?”
Wait a second! He didn’t need to explain anything! He just needed to deliver the message. Reaching into his pack, Vangelis brought out Jaina’s letter and handed it to Ned.
“This will explain everything.” Vangelis smiled, a weight lifting off him as Ned’s wrinkled fingers snatched away the missive.
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Nedward gave the seal a cursory examination. "This is from that Proudmoore girl? Well, why didn't you say so before? Come to old Nedward for more advice, has she? Alright, I suppose I can give her a few minutes of my time. But don't think I would have done this for just any old general or whatsit!" Nedward brandished the letter in the direction of Vangelis' nose to punctuate his last comment before snatching a bent letter-opener from his desk and sliding it under the seal.
Barely had Nedward started reading when he snorted in disgust and sat back. "Estimable Councillor Underhill... Councillor!" he exclaimed. "They only put me on that council so that boy king of theirs could make a show of honouring his 'heroes'. They wanted to parade me around, said it would 'encourage the people'. Fools! They had no idea. I told them I would do no such thing! That took them aback, I can tell you! They were used to dealing with the kind of metal-clad morons who think a pony ride around the city is some kind of grand reward. But I said I was retiring and in no mood for any of their 'morale' nonsense."
Ned paused for a pensive sip. "But that wasn't the end of it. If they couldn't give me a parade and their silly medals, they thought I would like it if they installed me as an honourary member of their Council of Mages. They had a banquet, and some high mucky-muck from their army made a speech about heroes and mages and some malarkey. Or at least that's what I'm told. I didn't go."
Vangelis stared at Nedward, dumbfounded. "Ned... you didn't go to your own inaugural banquet??"
"Well, why should I??" The gnome grumped. "It wasn't my idea. I wasn't about to make myself a hypocrite, taking honours for a war I knew to be both useless and hopeless. It's not like I've gone to any of their meetings, either. They keep sending me correspondence, but I've been too busy to read it. It's just going to be minutes of their meetings, anyway." Ned made an impatient gesture toward the bed, under which Vangelis spied a small pile of unopened letters, each bearing an impressive, slightly glowing seal.
"The war's not hopeless, Ned. We're winning."
"Not possible. Didn't they teach you arithmetic in farmer school? Every death on our side is a RECRUIT for their side! AND they can stitch them back together from spare parts! Best thing we can do is stay out and let them keep Northrend to themselves, not swell their army by throwing children at them!"
"Read the letter, Ned."
"What letter? Oh! Right." Nedward scowled and returned his attention to the letter before him, muttering as he read. "Hm. Right. Yes, I knew about their stupid Tournament. Thought Fordring had more sense in him than that. Oh? You don't say. Interesting. Yes, that would make sense..."
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Nedward muttered on in this fashion as he read through the letter which, as it turned out, was of considerable length. Jaina had apparently taken the time to sketch out the highlights of the campaign over the last two years, an account which seemed to have caught Nedward's interest despite his ostensibly critical mutterings. Occasionally Nedward would ask for details on particular points, as Vangelis and his companions seemed to figure prominently in Jaina's account.
Eventually, having established that Naxxramas had been contained but not destroyed, and that the Alliance and the Horde had mustered enough cooperation to take the battle to the gates of Icecrown Citadel, Nedward came to the thrust of Jaina's letter.
"Ah! Now she comes to it. About time. Good thing she can spell, or I'd have stopped reading by now. ... Hang on a second! Girl, you can't be serious!" Suddenly suspicious, the gnome glared up at Vangelis. "Did you put her up to this? Is this some kind of joke?"
"No. And no. Jaina needed an insider to plead her case to the Council. All I did was mention that I'd heard you were one of them."
"Though," Vangelis added glumly, "after what you've just told me I'm inclined to think that there isn't much point to her request. I'm sorry to have disturbed you. I should be going." He set down his glass and retrieved his gauntlets from where they sat on the windowsill.
"Don't interrupt." Nedward had not paid the slightest attention to Vangelis, but had turned back to the letter and was rereading the concluding section intently. "Listen to this: she says that the Council is sending their new graduates out to the field! Typical. It's THEIR damnable war, but do they fight it? No! They fill the ears of those who are too young and stupid to know any better with tales of glory and send them off to die. How like them!"
"How like them?" Vangelis shook his head as he slid his hands back into his gauntlets, preparing to leave. "Ned, you haven't even MET them!"
"Listen to me, boy. I know their TYPE. I don't need to go to their meetings to know all about them. When you've been around as long as I have, you learn certain things, yes you do. And I know all about these Council-types. Sitting in their cozy little tower with their little assistants to do their little research projects for them and get sent out into battle... all the while claiming their liquor expenses against the war budget!"
In the course of this speech Nedward had left his chair and was pacing the room, emphasizing his various points by turning and stabbing a finger angrily at Vangelis. The last point about expense claims seemed to gall him so badly that he paused mid-tirade for a proper harrumph. He then retrieved his glass from the desk and took another scowling sip.
"If they care about this blighted war so much," he concluded, "I say they should fight it their blighted selves! Serves them right. Teach them a lesson, it would! It would indeed, yes, sir."
"It seems you agree with the Lady Jaina then. Pity." Vangelis had paused at the door, helmet under one arm.
"Of course I do! The girl at least has a lick of sense. Unlike those Council dullards, with their plush teaching jobs and their dodgy expense accounts. Why it always has to be MY job to put sense into the heads of idiots, I'll never know. With my arterioscoriensis the way it is."
Vangelis shook his head as if to clear it. "Hold on... are you saying that you WILL speak to the Council? What... how..."
"Not too bright, are you?" Nedward fished around in the pile on the bed and produced a stained, wrinkled traveling cloak. "OBVIOUSLY someone has to tell them what's what." Topping up a small steel flask with the remnants of the bottle he had shared with Vangelis, he pocketed it in the cloak and added, "If they are going to force me onto their stupid Council I can at least make them regret it! Plus, a piece of my mind will do them some good! The hypocrites! Unbelievable!"
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“I’m sorry, Professor Nerdwad, but Archmage Malin is not in his office at the moment. Can I take a message?” The receptionist wasn’t even looking over the edge of the desk so that she might see him, or the formal invitation to the Recruitment Subcommittee Hearing that he was attempting to wave in front of her face. He had already puffed up and down the gratuitously long staircase five times trying to find its location. Not to mention wading though the heaps of unread mail to even just to find it. Although the accumulated notices, minutes, and agendas were a virtually incomprehensible maze to sort through, he was almost certain that the hearing was EXACTLY the sort of thing which Jaina bemoaned in her letter, and was, apparently, happening TODAY. Not that anyone seemed to have ever heard of it...
“It’s… Ned-WARD,” he enunciated through gritted teeth and quivering lips. “And, for that matter, it’s Councillor Ned-WARD. Councillor? You may have heard of this obscure term, perhaps? As in, “Council of Magi”? As in, the King’s most exalted poobahs for which, and for whom, this eminent (and infinitely inconvenient) edifice was erected? The sort of COUNCILLOR who an innocent observer might…quite possibly…consider to be your EMPLOYER?!”
The receptionist took on a decidedly less cheerful tone. “There’s no need to shout. I’m right here, you know.”
“Eminently in the flesh, but certainly not in mind.” Nedward stepped stiffly backward so that she might see his ireful glare. No luck. She was filing her nails, a gnomish communicator pressed between her ear and her uplifted shoulder.
Furious, Nedward spluttered out, “If you took your head out of that blasted contraption for a minute, and listened to what I’ve been telling you, you brainless nitwit, you’d know that I know that Malin is down in the commons sucking back mirthweed, plastered out of his gourd, and absolutely useless to anyone! As I just finished telling you…” He took a breath to contain himself, and then forged on, “Before I began wasting my time trying to talk to YOU, I had already spent a blessed half an hour wasting my breath with HIM!”
“I’m sorry, Master Nerdward, but I’ve never heard of you, and I’m not accustomed to be so talked to.”
“Well, you’d better get used to it girlie, because I’m just getting warmed up!”
At that, her face shrivelled as if she had sucked on a lemon. Surging to her feet, she primly announced, “Excuse me, but I have to go.” A moment later, she had dashed off into the Archmage’s office, slamming the door behind her. Through the door, Nedward heard the muffled sounds of her complaining about him. “Oh, you wont believe what just happened…”
It took all of Nedward’s restraint not to blast the door off of its hinges.
“Ned? Is that you?”
Nedward spun about at the sound. Behind him, standing in the door, was a wrinkled prune of a man, leaning on a cane and smiling down at him. His white-haired head bobbed vacuously on his shoulders.
“Rumple Bunderby?” Nedward exclaimed. “What are you doing here?” The man had never been better than a half-rate scholar even before dementia set in. Yet there he was, dressed in lecturer’s robes, as if he was about to teach a class.
“It is you! I thought I heard someone shouting. So very loud!” Bunderby winked cherubically. “We do love a good shout now and then, eh? Good for the lungs.”
“I don’t have time for this…” Ned muttered.
“Now, what is this…So. Now, what all…” Bunderby tottered forward. He stood for a moment, apparently having lost his train of thought. “Where was I?”
The receptionist stuck her head out from behind the office door. “Professor Bunderby, I believe you have a class on potion-making in room 54d?”
Bunderby brightened. “Oh yes!” He patted Nedward affectionately on the head. “Nice to see you again, Ned.” Then, as an aside, he commented on the receptionist. “Lovely girl…”
“Gah!”
Storming out of the office, Nedward gave up on anyone in the entire blasted “Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences” being one iota of assistance, and simply began to walk down the corridor, opening doors at random. Brandishing the invitation like a sword, he would slam open the door and demand in a loud voice if he had found the Recruitment Subcommittee Hearing. By this unorthodox process he managed locate ten classes of students without instructors (generally goofing off and getting into mischief), three junior mage instructors (sleeping at their desks), five apparently pointless committees (including the “Committee for the Consideration of the Environmental Impact of Conjured Water,” the “Advancement Taskforce for Articulation of Preventable Improvements to the Buildings and Grounds,” the “Racial Inclusion Committee for Dwarven Mages,” and somehow not surprisingly the “Subcommittee for the Consideration of Needless Subcommittees”...which was noticeably unclear as to whether it was decidedly for or against such things), as well as three meetings whose purpose no one present appeared to confidently know. No one appeared to have heard of the Recruitment Subcommittee Hearing, or to have any idea what he was talking about.
Two hours of such torture was all that Nedward could face before being fortified by a stiff drink. In a final desperate bid to make a dent in the stultifying culture pervading the tower, Ned allowed himself the small pleasure of throwing himself out of a tower window. No one even appeared to notice.
Of course, he didn’t fall to his death or anything so foolish. Indeed, the sole merit to the tower was that a small mage could featherwalk down from that particular window to the pub across the commons. Ned alighted on the steps, swept inside, and demanded three flasks of their best port. It was as terrible as he remembered.
It was in the pub that Ned finally got his lead. Georgio Bolero, artisan tailor, was sitting at a nearby table, boasting to a pretty young woman who was clearly not his wife. Ned knew him, having learned a few patterns from the fellow back in the day. Bolero had made his name with a few modestly useful patterns, and was infamous for hitting on his students. It looked like little had changed since Ned had known him. Bolero caught Ned’s ear by crowing about how he had been commissioned to sew an outfit for the “top mage” of the Circle for a personal audience with the King that very afternoon. When he heard the name “Krimp,” Nedward felt an old rage spread through his blood. He shifted in his seat and listened.
“I don’t mind telling you,” Bolero was carrying on, the doe-eyed girl hanging off his every word, “This mage, Krimp, he knows quality. He needed the best, which is why he came to me. Now…I probably shouldn’t share this, but…He told me that he was being sent by the Circle mages to lobby the King for more funding. And, of course, they would be discussing the Academy’s recruitment needs. ‘The King demands too much,’ he said! He was going to stand up to the King. Imagine!”
Something in Ned’s intuition told him this was the answer he was looking for. With a snap of his fingers, he appeared upon the table directly in front of the tailor. Then, as the pretty girl shrieked in fright, Ned took hold of the womanizing buffoon, and demanded, with fire curling around his head, that the man tell him everything he knew.
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Two minutes later, Nedward was racing across the city towards the palace, a steady steam of invectives pouring from his lips. He should have known the scoundrel was up to his old tricks.
Waldo Krimp was so vile, so detestable, that Nedward had been forced to invent a new word to describe him. He was his nemissary; the sort of toad who pretended to be your friend, while secretly angling to stick a knife in your back. When Ned had come crawling back to Stormwind, seeking only to leave the stench of blood and death behind him, Krimp had welcomed him into the Circle with open arms. He was undoubtedly brilliant, even by Ned’s standards. In the beginning of Ned’s retirement, they had spent long hours together, ensconced in Waldo’s smoking den, drinking fine scotch, and cataloguing the shortcomings of the other mages, or the Academy. Ned had enjoyed the rare pleasure of a like mind. The evenings would drag pleasantly on as they argued obscure points of philosophy or logic, all the while sending each other into paroxysms of giggles with their barbed witticisms.
But it was lie. Krimp’s towering intellect was absolutely bent in service to his own advancement. The day had come when Ned had realized that he was just a means to an end. His celebrity, his accomplishments, were nothing more than a launch pad for Krimp’s consolidation of power. To his face, Krimp would praise Ned’s dawning theory on extra-planar temporal overlap, while behind his back he would sew mockery and derision amongst the other academics. What was worse, Krimp sprinkled in enough probing questions and discussion topics to their late night repartee that he was able to steal some of Nedward’s best ideas. When Krimp published “his” seminar work on gnomish origins of the Blight, the scales had fallen from Ned’s eyes. Ned had been turning over the facts for years, had scoured every remnant of political and scientific writing on the subject. Broad swaths of his manuscript had somehow found their way into Krimp’s work, verbatim. That was the day Ned quit the Academy. He had never spoken to anyone of the betrayal.
Loath was too kind a word for Ned’s feelings towards Krimp. He despise-loathed him. He despoathed him! He hatested him! He was abhorgusted by the very thought of him. Whatever Krimp was up to, it couldn’t be good. And if it fell to Ned to set matters straight, well, frankly, it was long past time that he confronted his nemissary, and put him down for good and all.
Ned began to see the mail he had rifled through back in his apartment in a new light. The perpetual adjournments of the recruitment Subcommittee, the meaningless resolutions, the minutes documenting decreasing committee attendance, the eventual assumption of the chairmanship by Krimp. How had he not seen Krimp’s handiwork all along? Over the last two years, Krimp had manoeuvred himself toward this moment, so that he might alone meet with the King. No doubt to serve nothing but his own nefarious purpose.
By this point, so all-consuming was the rage within Ned that as he trotted up to the palace steps a ring of fire rippled around him. A palace guard challenge him, only to end up blackened and unconscious, thrown back fifteen feet and crumpled in a hedge. A cry of alarm went up, but Ned no longer cared. Like a heat-seeking fireball of righteous retribution he hurtled towards his goal.
Unfortunately, the palace is a big place. It wasn’t so easy to find Krimp, or the King. It was only by dint of Ned’s small stature, in combination with some particularly athletic dodges, darts, and escapes that Ned managed to avoid capture. Finally, after pelting pell-mell down what appeared to be the last possible corridor, chased by not less that two dozen royal guards, Ned catapulted into an atrium only run head first into the King himself. And, as the King was rather inexplicably bedecked in plate, Ned managed to not only humiliate himself, but also knock himself out cold.
When he awoke, Ned looked up at a ring of onlookers. Krimp was there, staring down at Ned in flummoxed astonishment, flanked by several of the tenured Circle magi. The royal guard, weapons bristling, were being called off by his Royal Highness, King Wrynn himself.
“You say this is one of your Council?” the King was asking Krimp.
Krimp’s black eyes darted frantically about, his mind clearly trying to assess the implications of Ned’s sudden arrival. He managed an inarticulate, “Um.”
“Most certainly,” Councillor Pheobe Asberger answered in his stead. She was a middle-aged mage whose matronly exterior masked a rapier research mind and exhaustive knowledge of Outland crystallization. She also knit. “Councillor Underhill is one of our more esteemed adjunct fellows. Though he has been on extended sabbatical…” Her voice trailed off in confusion.
Krimp recovered himself enough to capitalize on her confusion. “Indeed, you Majesty. Councillor Underhill is to all intents and purposes retired from the Academy some two years past. Pay no mind--”
“Nedward Underhill?” the King asked, squinting down at Ned. “The Nedward Underhill? The one the prince has…gone on about for the last year or so?”
Ned rubbed his head, trying to get the dual images of the King to settle into one body. “I regret nothing!” he harrumphed.
Krimp again tried to misdirect. “Your Majesty, on behalf of the Council, allow me to apologize for whatever Underhill has done. But the matter at hand--”
“Apologize?” The King reached down and helped Nedward to his feet. “Prince Anduin is a huge fan of our reclusive gnomish mage!” To Ned, he added, “To this day he maintains that his time spent with you, good sir, has decided him on the arcane arts. Not to mention that he considers your parade with him the funniest thing he’s ever seen. Not that I encourage him in that.”
For a moment Ned was speechless. He knew he should answer, but was tongue tied as pride and shame blundered into each other within him. “Your Grace, I had not intended either of those things!” he managed, at last.
King Wrynn chuckled. “Well, transforming all of the horses in the parade into pigs is precisely the sort of spectacular enchantment that might catch a bored prince’s fancy, no?”
Ned blushed. “Yes. Well. That.”
Wrynn waved a hand to dismiss Ned’s awkwardness. “It’s all for the good. Lord knows, we need him applying himself!” He turned back to Krimp, and the assembled mages. “And the Circle needs mages, does it not? Now, Grand Councillor Krimp, I assume that your committee is now all present, and we can continue with the matter at hand?”
Grand Councillor? Krimp had indeed been taking airs. When Ned had left, there was no such title.
Ned took in the other mages assembled behind Krimp. Here were the true powers at the Circle. Asberger, Ballister, Sha’inrae, Zink-Fitslepiff, Unrae, Wart. Each a tenured archmage, with a mastery of at least two schools of magic. Enough power to level the palace itself in the blink of an eye. No wonder Ned had not been able to find anyone back at the tower!
But as he took in his surroundings, Nedward began to realize that they all gravitated below Krimp. He was splendidly bedecked in a jewel-encrusted robe that lent him both a air of superiority and gravity. The others' attire made them a background to him, as if their clothes had been deliberately orchestrated to build up his authority. Further, their eyes continuously watched him, like subservient dogs before a cruel owner. It was obvious to Ned, though no one else seemed to see it.
Krimp scowled momentarily, and then adopted a self-effacing mien. “Of course, your Majesty,” he replied, his unctuous voice coated with false servility. “Truly, we had almost lost hope of Councillor Underhill’s attendance today.”