The morning after Gorlandon became the greatest wizard in the known lands, he walked the palace corridors alone, carrying the gleaming scepter of his new rank in his right hand. The scepter weighed down his arm and tugged at his shoulders till his back stooped.
The other wizards were still at the banquet, but Gorlandon couldn't stay there, up at the high table with everyone watching him. For the first hour he had been kept busy answering questions: Yes, he was only thirty years old. No, he had never met his predecessor, the last Wizard Royal. No, he had never been to the palace before these magic trials.
When the questions had dwindled to a stop Gorlandon had fallen silent. The conversation skipped past him, full of elegant phrases and snide references to nobles that Gorlandon had never met. When he'd taken an apple to eat with his meat the duchess beside him had stared at his plate then smothered a laugh. Unsure what he'd done wrong, Gorlandon muttered an excuse and left the banquet hall.
Nine manservants and three of the King's guard bowed to him as he strode through the palace corridors. They asked Gorlandon if he wished for anything. Gorlandon shook his head and continued on alone, the scepter heavy in his hand. He could still see the duchess's face as she stared at his plate trying not to laugh.
Slowly the image faded and he grew aware of his surroundings. Tapestries hung from ceiling to floor along the walls, faded old scenes interspersed with newer tapestries. One of the colors caught his attention, an odd bruise-purple dye. He paused. Something was wrong, something suggested by the pattern of purple threads, the heaviness in the air despite the morning sunlight. Unable to identify the source of the wrongness he walked on, watching and listening.
He saw no clear signs. But one moment the air seem to nudge his legs in a certain direction, the next moment his shadow pointed the way.
Following these things, which might have been no more than his overwrought imagination, he walked out of the palace. Down he went, down the winding streets of the city to the sloping house where he had lived for the past six years. And all the time the scepter heavy in his hand and his back stooped.
The house was unchanged, a narrow building squashed between its neighbors on a steep hillside. Yet somehow the crooked floors seemed to slant a little more than he remembered, the banisters looked more battered as he walked up the stairs to his room in the attic. The smell of stale pipe-smoke thickened as he climbed. He thought of the long summer nights when he used to smoke one pipeful before he went to sleep, blowing wispy rings that floated lazily upward.
He stepped into his attic room, and he knew the wrongness then, the meaning so clear it knifed through him. The wrongness wasn't in the room or the palace or the city: it was him. He did not belong. He was not ready for honor or respect or the scepter in his hand.
He made a sound somewhere between a moan and a cat's cry, his grip tightening on the scepter. He had sat at that desk by the arched window, studying late into the night just to earn this honor. He had done no evil, scared no child, hurt no creature larger than a mouse these many years. So why, why should he give it up?
"Why?" he said, quietly.
A floorboard creaked, but if there was a language in its noise, Gorlandon could not recognize it. He looked around him, saw the way his body bent the whole room out of shape. So, so it was more than his fancy. He must leave, even if he didn't understand why.
He laid the gleaming scepter on the desk. To his eye, it was sorely out of place on the rough wood. He took out his best handkerchief and wiped away the smear of his fingerprints from the scepter.
The metal winked back at him, reflecting the smoke-yellowed walls.
He sighed heavily. For though the scepter was a beautiful thing, it made the attic look shabby in comparison; he had been happy here and would have liked to remember the room more favorably.
Carefully, he positioned the scepter at precise right angles to the edge of the desk. He wrote a short note relinquishing his position as Wizard Royal. He placed the note by the scepter, together with a silver coin to pay the rent he owed. He took one last look at the room, then walked back down the crooked stairs and out of the city.
)
