The Wizard Knight Companion Read online

  The

  Wizard

  Knight

  Companion

  The

  Wizard

  Knight

  Companion

  A lexicon for Gene Wolfe’s

  The Knight and The Wizard

  Michael Andre-Driussi

  with a foreword by

  Gene Wolfe

  Sirius Fiction

  Albany, California

  Copyright © 2009 by Michael Andre-Driussi

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  Book and cover design by Nicole Hayward Design.

  Cover art: Large coat of arms © David Crooks/iStock. Cosmology

  illustration, page 4: Palm tree © Cheryl Savala/iStock; Dancing Elf

  © Natasha Graham; Dragon © Sunil Aggarwal/iStock.

  First edition: 2009

  Hardcover isbn: 978-0-9642795-2-0

  Paperback isbn: 978-0-9642795-3-7

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Sirius Fiction

  P.O. Box 6248

  Albany, CA 94706

  contents

  Foreword by Gene Wolfe vii

  Map of Celidon x

  Detail Map of Northern and Central Celidon x

  Introduction 1

  Cosmology 4

  the wizard knight companion 5

  The Wizard Knight Synopsis 109

  Bibliography 120

  FOREWORD

  Gene Wolfe

  Michael Andre-Driussi knows me far better than I know myself. When I cannot find something in the refrigerator, for example, I email MAD pleasantly: “Dear Michael, How are you? How are your wife and kids? Last night I bought a small box of cookies. (The black kind with white icing inside.) I hid them in the refrigerator so well I cannot find them tonight. Any help that you can provide will be greatly appreciated. Faithfully, Gene Wolfe PS. Do not say the vegetable drawer. I have looked there. Do not say the freezer either.”

  Michael replies: “Dear Gene: This reminds me of the well-known instance in The Wizard Knight in which you concealed Able’s last name until he closed his letter to his brother. That is to say, the answer was not obvious, yet the place of concealment was obvious. Just so in this instance: your wife has found your cookies and eaten them. Sincerely yours, Michael”

  That exchange is only too typical. It is well-known to all my readers that I often forget characters and plot lines while writing.

  And afterward.

  Fortunately, mad has addressed this by writing this book. You will find all that stuff right here. Suppose, for example that I recall Lord Beel and his daughter (whatever her name was). I desire to use them in a new story laid “in the same universe,” as editors say, as The Wizard. (or The Knight.) We could call it An Update from Mythgarthr: Part III.

  I open this book at random: “Coldcliff Beel’s father’s castle (I, chap. 48, 301) now belonging to Beel’s brother (I, chap. 54, 337).” Now the whole thing becomes simplicity itself. The central character will be Lord Beel. The thing he wants (sometimes called the McGuffin) is the castle of Coldcliff. He will journey to Coldcliff, accompanied by his daughter whatshername, that prince she married, and half a dozen lady giants. Let us begin.

  “Father dear,” (his daughter will say plaintively) “you know you can’t possibly gain Coldcliff without you murder my uncle whatshisname.” (The copyeditor will fix up her diction, never fear.) “Surely you wood never stain the family escutcheon with your brother’s blood. Can’t you get somebody else to do it?”

  “Hardly practical, my deer.” (The spelling, too.) Beel smiles in superior and highly annoying fashion.

  “I could arrange things so that Svon is seated next to him at dinner, Daddy. Svon can be perfectly infuriating, and he’s a fine swordsman. The carving knife will be child’s play to him.”

  “But what if my brother whatshisname should kill Prince Svon?”

  “Well, easy come, easy go. If that should happen we could offer your brother whatshisname a lap dance by one of my giantesses. A lapdancing giantess should squash just about anybody.”

  Her father smiled again, it was not only highly annoying but smug. “I have saved my noble brother from being squashed, my deer. I have told him the king has need of him.”

  “He does?”

  “Not as far as I know, but farther. I have sent him to the Mountain of Fire.”

  “Wow! That’s a long way. Why not Thortower?”

  “Because he could probably find it. I think this book tells you more or less where it is.”

  “It tells you where the Mountain of Fire is, too, Daddy.”

  “Yes, but it’s much farther away. Besides, I told him the king was down inside.”

  “I . . . see.”

  “Don’t look at me like that, deer. Since nobody knows who succeeded King Arnthor, it may well be true. And of course after my dear brother sees the king down there, he will have to come back to Kingsdoom.”

  “Why not here, Daddy?”

  “Because the book doesn’t tell you where this McGuffin is, of course. We, however, are here. Possession is nine points of the law.”

  “Pretty soon me and Prince Whosis will go back to Whatchamaycallit.”

  “Jotunland, deer.”

  “Jotunhome. Read the book, Daddy.”

  “An excellent suggestion.”

  You see? Right there I have my story in a nutshell, just by peeking in here. Tie a knot in the plot, add a hundred pages of characterization, and I’d have a new novel. I’m telling you, this book is a gold mine!

  foreword

  foreword

  Irringsmouth

  Forcetti

  Kingsdoom

  Griffinsford

  Yens

  <—

  land of the lotherlings

  Griffin River

  War Way

  Forcetti

  Glennidam

  Mountain of Fire

  Kingsdoom

  Sevengates

  celidon

  Redhall

  Irring River

  jotunland

  detail

  northern

  and

  central

  celidon

  The Mountain Pass

  Sevengates

  Redhall

  osterland

  Khazneh

  Greenflood River

  Arctic

  Circle

  N 70°

  N 60°

  N 40°

  N 20°

  introduction

  “We have The Book of the New Sun,” said Michael Straight in cold indignation, “and they give us a movie of The Golden Compass.”

  “Yeah!” said James Wynn and I. We would’ve spit, too, but there were women and children around.

  We were at a waterfront restaurant in Seattle, along with Mrs. Wynn, and my wife and my two kids. It was June 16, 2007, about an hour before Gene Wolfe’s induction into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, a day in which I had decided to write this book, but I didn’t bother to mention that at the time.

  The situation was complicated by the fact that I already owed another book, the proposed Gate of Horn, Book of Silk, and I’d owed it for years. My thinking was that I’d first do a quick and easy second edition of Lexicon Urthus, then I’d buckle down and do the three-sevenths of the work remaining on Gate. But at breakfast it came to me that Gate was already years late, so another year or two wouldn’t matter. And sales of The Wizard Knight were strong in Europe as well as America, so why not write a book about that while it was relatively fresh? It should be fairly quick and easy: after all, I was long famil
iar with Norse mythology, and I knew a bit of Arthuriana.

  Well, it turned out to be not quite that easy.

  I never really know what my own reading is until I start sharing notes with other readers. That’s the first shock, seeing where my own unsuspected assumptions have led me astray. As a result everything is tested, checked. For example, I was so sure that the character Lothur was playing the role of Norse Loki (and perhaps even Lucifer!) that I failed to trace the name to Odin’s least famous brother. In another, the shaggy ponies of the Lothurlings convinced me so thoroughly of their Mongolian nature that I assumed the character He Who Smiles had led his group across land from the East, just as the Mongols had swept to the edge of Europe from the East. Because the Mongols had terrible luck with overseas invasions, having tried to invade Japan twice across a relatively narrow stretch of water, I couldn’t imagine the Lothurlings making an ocean crossing. This caused several headaches in the map-making process until I was ready to accept the rather obvious fact that they seem to have come across the Western water more in the style of Cortez. The Mongolian linkage to both the Lothurlings (with their Mongolian ponies) and the Osterlings (with their Mongolian “caans”) caused me to periodically confuse the two groups.

  Even my sense of Celidon having a Norse culture proved to be less than accurate. After all, the pagan Scandinavians had sacred groves, temples, and priests. They had wooden idols and even shrine wagons that brought the blessings of agricultural gods to distant farms. None of this is evident in Celidon: there are no priests, no temples, no statues, and no shrines. The primary belief system seems to be in ghosts, and there may be a rudimentary nature cult worshiping Aelf at Glennidam. In short it is the landscape of fairy tale, where raiding giants, trollish Osterlings, and shadowy Aelf are close, while dragons and gods are equally distant and feared. As such it is closer to pre-Norse, or proto-Norse.

  Trying to establish the timelines, along with the related question of the relationship between Mrs. Ormsby and Mag (“serial mom or clone moms?”), opened another can of worms.

  Then there is my wild suspicion that Gene Wolfe chose “Ormsby” because the noted Gene Wolfe scholar Peter Wright teaches at a university in Ormskirk, the site of such rich Orm lore.

  So there we were, three unelected representatives of Wolfe-fandom, who had flown in from different states to be there in the celebration of Our Guy. I looked across the River Gyoll up toward the Old Citadel on the hill, where we would be going soon. A few words cannot convey the headiness of that day or the personal tragedies to come later in that season.

  But you have something else on your mind, something you want to say that is as much a reflex as if the doctor’s hammer had just tapped you on the knee. Oracular or gnomic, with great delight you say to me: “Oreos.”

  I nod and smile, so happy to share notes. “Yes, I know what you mean,” I say. “But that’s just the first impression, isn’t it? I mean, after some consideration, I think they must be Hydroxes, really.”

  Thanks to the following:

  Dan’l Danehy-Oakes, who read through the first draft and offered valuable insights.

  Scott Wowra, who found glosses for a large number of names that I could not find.

  Nigel Price, for valuable leads.

  Roy C. Lackey, who surprised me by putting in a tremendous amount of work when I had thought to spare him this time.

  introduction

  introduction

  elysion

  kleos

  skai

  mythgarthr

  aelfrice

  muspel

  niflheim

  Mountain of Fire

  Sky Castle

  cosmology

  Isle

  of Glas

  Tower

  of Glas

  A

  Able name given to narrator by Parka, who dubs him Able of the High Heart (see three hearts and three lions). (Also the name of Bold Berthold’s brother “whom Disiri switched for me” [II, glossary], for whom see real able.) His bow is made of spiny orange and has a magic string given to him by Parka (see bowstring spirits). His first weapon is the strange mace Sword Breaker and he later wins the mythic sword Eterne. Able guesses that Disiri aged him ten years in one night, but Garsecg thinks it was less (I, chap. 25, 162). Able hears both of his names in the wind (I, chap. 67, 412). Able seems a bit like Don Quixote, but he is actually a lot more like Tom O’Bedlam (see both). In Skai he is known as Drakoritter, and among the Lothurlings he is Scatter of the Dragon’s Blood. See also ormsby, arthur.

  Able as tool.

  • Disiri, Queen of the Moss Aelf, wants Able to deliver message to Arnthor.

  • Garsecg, King of the Sea Aelf, wants Able to kill Kulili.

  • Baki, the Fire Aelf, wants Able to lead Aelfrice against Setr, King of the Fire Aelf (II, chap. 11, 114).

  • Gilling, King of the Jotun, wants Able to conquer Celidon for him.

  • Escan, Arnthor’s Earl Marshal, wants Able to take him to

  Aelfrice.

  Able’s message is unknown to Able until he starts giving it (II, chap. 33, 396). Arnthor interrupts him from delivering all the parts (398). After being chained in the dungeon, he is visited by Arnthor and he tells him the rest—that Arnthor is a tyrant (II, chap. 35, 417).

  Onomastics: obviously the name is an indicator of ability, but it also has a haunting link to Abel, the younger brother of Cain.

  Aegri’s isle a place the giants took by piling dirt to overreach the walls (II, chap. 17, 200).

  Myth: close to the Norse Ægir (sea, sea-giant), the god of the sea, whose wife is ran. In several name lists, Ægir is given as the name of a giant.

  Onomastics: the Latin word aegri means “sick man.”

  Aelf [alf] the people of the fifth world, made by Kulili (I, glossary; I, chap. 1, 22). There are many different types, including Earth Aelf (the Bodachan, led by King Brunman), Fire Aelf (the Salamanders, formerly led by King Weland, then by Setr), Ice Aelf (led by King Ycer), Moss Aelf (the Skogsalfar, led by Queen Disiri), and Sea Aelf (the Kelpies, led by King Garsecg).

  Most of the Aelf were directly made by Kulili. Aelf children are born, but very rarely, such that when they arrive they become king or queen (II, chap. 22, 265). The text tells us that Disiri had a childhood in Aelfrice. Thus she is a second generation Aelf and presumably Moss Queen for that reason.

  Aelf letters there are three examples given of Aelf characters (I, chap. 68, 419).

  Sound Name

  K Kantel

  A Ahlaw

  L Llo

  Aelf sword the weapon fated to kill the Black Caan, which was worn by the old Caan the day his six sons were born. He gave it to the Black Tijanamir, who locked it away.

  When Able is in the dungeon of Thortower, Uri steals the sword and gives it to him (II, chap. 34, 407). It is Ice Aelf work (408), and it is thirsty for blood (II, chap. 36, 432). It glows at times, brightest when Arnthor gets it (II, chap. 39, 468).

  Aelfrice the fifth world, under Mythgarthr (I, chap. 1, 20). It was Kulili’s world first, but after she created the Aelf, they overran the place. See cosmology.

  Myth: (Norse) Alfheim, home of the light elves.

  Agr Marder’s marshal (I, chap. 32, 198).

  Onomastics: Greek agros and Latin agr-, meaning “field” and having to do with agriculture.

  Albrecht see names on the wind.

  Alca a slave of Logi (II, chap. 17, 195), probably one of the two sleeping on the hearth (191). Later one of Svon’s slaves (II, chap. 23, 277), one of the two women (II, chap. 21, 251). She was paired to a slave named Sceef (277).

  Onomastics: (Icelandic) auk, a type of bird.

  Alvit one of the shield-maidens who ride for the Valfather (II, chap. 19, 225). The third Valkyrie to try and catch falling Able, she carried him to Skai (I, chap. 69, 429). She had been a princess and died a virgin, “facing death with dauntless courage” (II, chap. 19, 225).

  Myth: (Norse) Hervör alvitr, the daughter of Kin
g Hlodver, sometime wife of Volund (the legendary smith—see weland), and a Valkyrie. Orchard writes that alvitr is an Old Norse word meaning “all-wise” or “strange creature.”

  Amabel the woman who saved Payn when his mother died (II, glossary; II, chap. 36, 431). Her husband is Hrolfr (431).

  Onomastics: Latin name meaning “beautiful, loving.”

  Angr a giantess of Winter and Old Night, the mother of Angrboda and the Angrborn (I, chap. 61, 376).

  Angrboda a giantess, daughter of Angr, who wasn’t banished from Skai (II, chap. 24, 293–94). She is Lothur’s wife, and she attacks all who come near.

  Myth: (Norse) “harm-bidder,” giantess wife of god Loki, and mother of Fenrir.

  Angrborn the giants who were forced out of Skai, all descended from a famous giantess named Angr (I, chap. 2, 28). The giants of the ice country (Jotunland).

  Arn one of Garvaon’s archers (II, chap. 16, 183).

  Onomastics: (Swedish) eagle.

  Arnthor the King of Celidon, his picture is on the coin Ravd gives to Able (I, chap. 4, 43). Disiri gives Able a message for him. His father was Uthor, a human king, and his mother was an unnamed water dragon of Muspel. The youngest of three, his brother is Setr, his sister is Morcaine.

  Onomastics: (Norse) Thor the Eagle.

  Arthuriana: Arnthor’s role is that of a tyrannical Arthur, whose name can be traced to Celtic Artus, “bear.”

  Atl one of Thunrolf’s servants (I, glossary only).

  Myth: (Norse) close to Atli, mythic name for a King of the Huns (perhaps based upon Attila).

  Aud Thunrolf’s steward, who meets Able, Thunrolf, and Pouk when they come up out of the Mountain of Fire (I, chap. 31, 192). Vix is also there.

  Myth: (Norse) mythic name “wealth” (son of Nott, “night”).

  aegri’s isle

  aelf sword

  amabel

  atl

  B

  Bahart youngest of the Celidon dukes (II, chap. 39, 465). He survived the River Battle (II, chap. 40, 473) and thus might have become the new king.

  Onomastics: possibly from the Arabic baharat, “spice,” from bahar, “black pepper.”

  Baki a Fire Aelf girl whom Able meets at the Tower of Glas (I, chap. 23, 149). She is a khimaira at the time. She and Uri say they are his slaves. Baki is the one who renounces Setr. After Marder’s knights beat Able, Baki heals him with her blood (I, chap. 33, 206). Soon after Able returns from Skai, Baki is wounded and near death. She claims to have been caught by a giant when she and Uri scattered the mules (II, chap. 4, 51). Able refuses to heal her, having Toug do it (II, chap. 4, 43). Baki would thus have reason to strike Gilling to protect Toug, as Able must think (II, chap. 13, 149). A Fire Aelf posed as a giantess just before the strike was made against Gilling: was it Uri or Baki?