It took three months for Lord Catherram to find a new wizard. Wizard Shadrack NAMEISH of NAMINGTON was young, but he had served three years as an assistant to the prestigious Wizard HURR and came with generous recommendations. Phrases like “an expert in the fineries of magic,” “competent, clever and highly skilled,” and “exceptional understanding of charms and counter-spells” litter the replies to Lord Catherram’s letters of inquiries. He was hired immediately.
Shadrack appeared on the palace doorstep one afternoon in early June. He was sweating under his emerald robes and the heavy bag on his back, but he still managed to smile at the homely maid that answered the door. She took one look at him, and ran screaming into the interior of the manor.
He had that effect on women, he supposed. A pretty young girl in town had done the same thing at the sight of him. Women of Norr must not be used to proper, handsome gentlemen.
Nonplussed, Shadrack stepped through the door the maid had left open. Like the rest of the town, the antechamber was barren and dull and full of grays. There was no carpet on the stone floor, and no decoration on the wall, save a crooked good luck charm carved into a piece of ash-colored wood that have been hung seemingly at random on the far wall. It was also silent. The cries of the maid had faded, and Shadrack could hear no signs of human life.
At least it was cool inside, he though as he closed the entrance door. With no other course of action available to him, Shadrack wondered deeper into the house.
The manor continued to be colorless and cold, but every once in a while he encountered a hint of its inhabitants. The smell of bread baking, and black leather-bound book someone left on one of the deep-set windowsills (the perfect spot to sit and read while enjoying the sun and not the heat, he noted). And finally, he heard a voice.
At least, he thought it was a voice. It sounded like screeching, dipping low and then struggling up high again, as if it was trying to sing. Shadrack frowned and adjusted one of his gold rings. The letters he’d received from the town lord had spoken excessively of demons, and so Shadrack quickened he step as he followed the racket.
Turning a corner, he found the source of the noise through an opened doorway. It was girl in a rather hideous hat, sitting primly on a chair with her face strained with concentration and her mouth gaping in… well, he supposed it was song. There was an dumpy older woman, maybe forty or so, sitting across from her with her back to him, conducting. There was a dusty piano pushed to the side of the room, hopelessly ignored.
As he stepped into the room, the girl with the hat abruptly stopped the her unholy noise-making and gaped at him in awe. Women of this town certainly were depraved, Shadrack thought, and he made a note to help them.
Then the older woman turned around.
“HOW DARE YOU,” she screamed, and managed to work her shoe off her foot to throw at him with considerable force. It hit him squarely in the stomach. Shadrack winced and unconsciously pressed his hand against the injured area.
“Ma’am–” He had never expected violence from his throng of admirers.
“Who do you think you are?” she shrieked and stood up, just as the girl with the voice of a banshee leaned forward and pleaded, “Mother!”
The woman rounded on him, glaring through a pair of steel glasses. “I supposed you think you’re clever, strutting around in your fancy green clothes, like you’re a bush or something; well I’ll have you know we do NOT tolerate this kind of behaviour here at the palace–”
“Mother!”
“You’re endangering us all, young man. Just who do you think you are?” the woman repeated. Shadrack opened his mouth to reply, but the girl cut up off, a certain amount of worry in her eyes.
“Mother, I think he’s our new wizard.”
The woman’s face shifted form a look of fury to one of horror.
“But– his clothes–green!” she stuttered.
Shadrack was decidedly confused.
