The Twilight of the Guards, or, the Plowshare Conundrum

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Sneel was so full of anxious energy that his tall, conical sorcerer’s hat floated several inches above his head as he paced the palace waiting room. As First Wizard of the Kingdom, Personal Advisor to Emperor Cradar the Conqueror, and Cabinet Secretary of the Imperial Department of Magick, he had never been kept waiting before, not in all his decades of service. “Especially not during the recent Ice War,” he muttered aloud, shaking his head. The pointed hat bounced to and fro, just slightly out of phase from the movement of the wizard’s intensified cranial magick field. He glanced nervously at the Emperor’s closed door, flanked on each side by four big, ugly trolls. Redundant description, he thought.

Sneel calmed himself down a bit and tried to generate interest in touring the Great Hall while he waited the Emperor’s pleasure. Since he had never waited here before, he actually had never paid much attention to the Hall Of Magickal Fame, to other of the Empire’s notable magickians, wizards, advisors, thaumaturgists, and sorcerers. Yet here they were, represented in heroic-sized statuary for all the world to pay homage to. First in line was the legendary Trinity of Magickians—Laneel, Opp, and T’ller—They Who conjured primal Magick from mushrooms to triumph in the First War of the Pearl. Sneel himself, then barely an apprentice, had played a significant part in that conflict, but his accomplishments were overshadowed by the fame of those giants of sorcery.

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