The Forum Talent Pool

I
Even the most casual of observers, unworldly and unwise in such matters and unaccustomed to determining social rank and philosophical purpose by a mere glance, could see that he was a wizard. It was as plain as the nose on his face, so twisted, beaked and hooked that even his thin and wiry lips could have greeted its point with a cheery morning kiss. The gullied wrinkles on that face themselves had wrinkles so deep and worn that they suggested the face itself had once spent millennia under the gouging weight of a thousand yard thickness of rocky, flowing ice. The crushed hollows beneath the perilous cliffs of cheekbone did nothing to allay that glacial impression.

It was a face that looked to pre-date the beginning of worlds, only broken by the excruciating blueness of the ocular apparatus. These were so much more than mere eyes – keen instruments of all things mystical and mythical, with the wisdom of ages and the intelligence of the very fabric of reality itself hidden within. Teetering on the high cheekbone precipice, impossibly close to those pools of blue fire, were the wispy beginnings of the waterfall of frothy beard spume that cascaded away across the necessarily presumed chin and far into the abyss beyond. Above those intense globes of aquamarine were eyebrows that met each other not at face level, but far into the space beyond. It was as if they were striving to grow themselves away from the pitted and unfriendly crags of husky skin, to embrace the warm familiarity of their own kind.

It was apparent too from the obvious use of the requisite uniform of his station. The earthen-brown robe had arms so open and flowing that their great caverns seemed to swallow his wiry arms and the pale, meagre skin that seemed so keen to not hang from them. The heavy cloth seemed to encase his body, what little body there seemed to be within, and at the same time ooze around his form as if possessed of its own sentience. The many added patches of starkly contrasting colour battled one another to escape the folds of greasy cloth. Even without all of these strong visible signs that would point observers in the direction of the most likely conclusion regarding the manner of the man, his headgear would have given the game away completely. It was a pointed hat of deepest indigo, turned downwards at the top in apparent disbelief at its own true shape, and set off at the front with a single star that seemed to manage somehow to be simultaneously both silver and black.

There was no doubting that he was a wizard. Definitely a wizard, as plain as the tortured and deformed rod of unidentifiable dark timber that sprang from the twigs of his knotted hand. Undoubtedly he was a wizard, as clear as the protracted strands of purest yellowed-whiteness that began so tempestuously from the nether regions of his profound eye sockets. Those strands tamed their descent from his gnarled face only as they delicately explored the unknown dark neighbourhoods between the raised plinths of the computer keyboard below.

Yes, he was a wizard. His name was Martifius, and this was not how Martifius has seen his life pan out at all.

In those heady days of his youth, perhaps surprisingly not actually spent beneath the rolling mass of a sea of ice, Martifius had dreamed a dream. A dream of worlds unknown and of life unexplored. A dream of a new-found power, motivated by passion and conviction, and employed to right all wrongs and pioneer new ideas for man. A dream of adventure so profound that its scope could barely be comprehended by a mortal man had he lived a thousand of his own lifetimes. A purposeful vision of a life led so famously well that children would sing his name for all eternity, and his deeds would form the very platform on which the greatest stories ever told would be constructed. This, however, was not that dream. Things just hadn’t worked out that way for Martifius.

“Beep”, said the console in front of him suddenly, as it chose to have the temerity to flash its precious little warning light in the direction of the great man of magic.

“Beep”, it repeated enthusiastically as it tried to raise the spirit of its master into attentiveness.

“Beep”, it tried once again, showing signs of neither mercy nor understanding for the plight of the sorcerous gentleman as he steadfastly refused to rise to its bait.

“Martifius!” a voice seemed to cry from the very depths of the deepest pit of the most acidic stomach of the most hideous hell hound in all creation, “Martifius! Move your butt!”

“Aye, Captain”, Martifius finally replied tiredly, his mind emerging from its self-imposed state of self- indulgent self-pity.

Martifius weakly raised his arm in submission, as if the wand had taken on the mass of a thousand suns. Reaching out without enthusiasm, he touched the mystical baton of power to its portal with a nonchalant flick, muttering some brief incantation mysteriously under his breath. It seemed to hint in its few words at all manner of secret rituals from times long forgotten, although it seemed also to have ended in ‘Off’.