Pfilip of Everywhere Conquers The Moon - Part I.

Pfilip was not an old wizard by any stretch of the imagination. An old wizard would have, for instance, a flowing white beard and knobby-knuckled hands tipped with fingernails that had reached geologic proportions. However, Pfilip was not young. There were lines around his eyes and a shadow of grimness about his mouth. A better explanation might be to say that Pfilip had the sort of face one could observe and, without too much effort, visualize what it would look like in another twenty years, yelling at children to stay off the lawn. His wispy brown hair was showing a few streaks of gray already, mostly hidden beneath a gaudy, misshapen hat that resembled a chef’s toque, except the hatter had given it a warped brim and topped the whole mess off with a sort of squashed mushroom cap, the edge of which was festooned with many small charms. Overall the shape of it suggested a spool of thread plunked down atop the wizard's head; and the top of the hat had been collecting fallen seedpods and burrs all day long. There is little point in asking what color it was—the hatter, apparently, could not make up his mind.

Crouched beside Pfilip was a boy of perhaps sixteen or seventeen years of age, with (as they say) a clear brow and eyes aflame. He had blue eyes, blue as a robin’s egg, and silvery hair that fell to his cheekbones. A fierceness played about his features, and his smile showed a lot of teeth, but then he reached up to pull his hair away from his eyes, and in this movement there was undeniable gentleness. He pulled a small, steel knife from its scabbard and flipped it around his fingers, fidgeting.

“Who were my real parents?” the boy asked idly. He and his mentor were hidden in the undergrowth, watching smoke rise from the chimney of a secluded cabin.

“I told you,” Pfilip whispered, never taking his eyes from the smoke, “you were an Elven prince who was stolen from his kingdom by a beautiful wizardress and given to me for safekeeping.”

A moment of silence followed, in which the intermittent sounds of the forest testified to the sublime serenity all around them.

“Why won’t you ever give me a real answer?” Baffin sighed, though he made sure to keep his voice low. It should be noted that the cabin in the clearing was, proportionately, like unto a castle. Whoever dwelt there was large enough to turn a doorknob five feet in diameter, and thirty-six feet off the ground. The serene smoke rising from the chimney was a bonfire’s plume.

Pfilip turned toward the younger man, though his eyes still watched the smoke. He pursed his lips thoughtfully, then shook his head. “Alright. You don’t have parents. A stork dropped you in a cabbage patch. Can we focus on the task at hand, please? You might have to actively avoid dying at any given time.”

“Lessons for life,” Baffin muttered, and re-sheathed the knife. He shifted on his haunches, stretched a bit, prepared for a run.

“Now, you do remember what to look for, yes?”

“It will be tiny, smaller than my hand,” Baffin replied, speaking from rote memory. “Probably hidden among the gemstones of the hearth, pressed into the wood there. A small… orange… glass… moon.”

“With a drowsy smile and heavy-lidded eyes,” corrected Pfilip. He flexed his fingers as though preparing to snatch the object out of the thin air in front of him.

Baffin looked at his mentor with incredulity. “Really, how many different glass moons do you think she’s going to have in there?”

“If it were me trying to hide the thing? Hundreds. Literally, hundreds.”

“Great. I can see you’re going to be trucks of fun once this is done. It’s really that valuable?”

Pfilip reached out and tousled the boy’s hair, simply because he realized he was older, and believed he could do that sort of thing now. It was probably the first time in his entire life that he had ever tousled anybody’s hair. It was a fraternal sort of action. And he was somewhat amused when the boy knocked his hand away and slugged him not-too-gently in the arm.

“Baffin, if we get the moon back, you won’t believe the places we’ll go."

* * *

They watched the cabin in silence awhile longer, until suddenly a puff of sparks blew from the chimney, and the smoke died down.

“That’s it,” Pfilip whispered, “she’s finished cooking her spell. Now she’ll leave the cabin and head toward the standing stones. If she isn’t around the corner and out of earshot by the time the door latches, we wait until tomorrow and either try again or seek another plan.”

“I wish we didn’t have to speak the chant aloud,” mused Baffin. His mentor smiled.

“Well, you have to—that’s why it’s called a chant. From the Latin canere, ‘to sing’.”

“You and your Latin…”

Pfilip’s smile broadened, not at the boy, but at the prospect of finally laying claim (again) to the elusive artifact hidden within the witch’s abode. “Someday we’ll visit that facet of the Gem, and I’ll get you a book on it. Watch, now. The door opens…”

[To be continued...]