Why Do Wizards Have Pointy Hats?

Prologue

In the beginning, God created the camcorder. This was so that he could film the creation and show it to all his friends at parties.

After six days of intense thinking, and a lot of hard work he sat on a cloud, his finger happily resting on the record button. What a week! But a smile crept onto his face like a small child who realises there's something at the bottom of the cornflake box... What great results he could see!

A perfect world, with perfect people, and terrific weather. Toast always landed butter side up, everyone looked great in every photo, and virtually everything imaginable grew on trees! In fact this even included tins of protective wood stain. had the trees known this they may have tried to start some kind of revolt.

But they didn't. As perfection demanded so.

Yet still something nagged at the back of God's mind (which incidentally was so big it had to be stored in a dimension of it's own)

There was something wrong. He looked again. On planet Earth, happiness was a non-prescription drug. On the surface there seemed to be nothing at all wrong. He smiled, quickly dismissing his doubts. Easing the universe out of focus and then followed by his precious planet, he clicked the "stop" button on the camcorder and reached for the cassette.

There's times when you can't quite comprehend how a simple thing can slip your mind. A friend's birthday remembered two days too late. Your car key's sitting by the side of the bed. A name of someone you used to date.

Or, in the beginning, forgetting to create the camcorder cassette!

Panic quickly set in. Beads of sweat gathered on God's cosmic brow. How could he have missed this? He had a meeting with his High Council early next morning, and his report was first on the agenda! The highlight being the video of course...

He pictured it now, sitting at the end of the conference table, only weeks after his promotion, twiddling his thumbs and playing candidly with the set of switches that ordered the coffee. It wouldn't be good enough, thought God. For eons he had served as "Great God of Spatulas" on Yasomo IV. A menial role he'd always thought, with no space to realise his full potential, as a planetary God. Controlling people... not plastic kitchen utensils.

However, he thought, it was his fantastic developments in the Spatula field that had secured the promotion for him when the decision to create a new universe was made. Trillions of new positions had been posted on the notice board in the Hall of Gods. A carbon-based life form planet was right up his street. It had been his major in college!

He'd have to act fast.

With a wave of his hand, the grand creation before him, floating precariously around a small yellow sun on an outer spiral arm of his assigned galaxy... vanished into pure energy and filtered straight into his index finger.

A few more seconds and he was holding the first camcorder cassette in his other hand.

He frowned. It was a rush job, and the magnetic tape looked a bit flimsy. However it would serve it's purpose. God had created a perfect Earth in six days. But of course, that was his first attempt. He could rush the next one through in the next few hours and have time for a bath! Simple!

---

Hours passed like minutes, the minutes like seconds, and the seconds like something else. The clock was obviously faulty, but it would have to go down on his "to do" list. All his creating power was being directed into space.

God sighed.

Sunday was drawing to a close, and for some reason he couldn't quite get it how he had done. This planet creation business was a lot more tiring than he'd imagined when things went wrong. He'd bodged up the firmament twice, and only realised some time after he'd created the trees and oceans. Within seconds of removing the firmament to repair it.. the water and trees had floated off into deep space.

On his desk sat over two dozen used camcorder tapes, four of which had become entangled with the machine.

God's eyes were heavy.

He suspected Satan his arch nemesis had popped in again and tampered with things. But he couldn't always blame him. Besides - he was away on a fishing trip God was sure. It would be great to go out there and join him. He could show him some REAL fishing. Hehe.

Gripping a hold of his head he pulled himself together. There had to be a way through this. His gaze wandered up onto the shelves in the back of his study. Just next to his "Eternal Flame" lamp, sat a maturing bottle of Holy Spirits, which must have matured for a good few millennia now. Next to that sat a most bizarre object, which God grabbed.

There was a determination in his eye, the kind that overwhelms bullied school children in the end. The kind that rises up and says that the time for fair play is over. Spinning the dial on his Create-A-World 2000, God set the life form to "Carbon", and made various other adjustments.

This felt like cheating, and if any of the Gods knew he had purchased one of these little beauties in the Dark Universe, he'd be banished for aeons!

With a quick enthusiastic brush of his hands, and the camcorder whirring away at the unfolding results of the Create-A-World machine, God grabbed the Holy Spirits off the shelf. He poured himself a tall glass, over a cube of Glacial ice.

His chair felt warm and comfy. His feet rested easily upon the edge of the desk. The liquor tasted even and full on the pallet, and caused his head to mellow slightly. With a long puff on a fat stubby cigar from within the left hand drawer, he sank deep and sighed deeper.

Everything would be just fine. As long as the Almighty never found out. Ignorance is bliss...

This is the reason that planet Earth never feels quite right. This is the reason that toast continues to land butter side down. And also the reason why photos hardly ever turn out right. It was never meant to be like this... It was meant to be perfect...

---

Chapter 1 : A Questionable Question

It was first a blinding white colour, with nothing perceptible. A mystery to his eyes, and not at all what he was expecting.

"I can't see anything!" said a voice. It was his, he then realised.

"Patience..." came a reassuring response.

He gazed deep into the whiteness. No, there wasn't anything there, this had to be a trick. Then, a flicker. It was as if the nothingness at one place was now filling with tiny droplets of shadow.

"What the?"

"Patience, patience!"

The dark grey droplets clambered together, he could see something... a line? An outline? He stared and concentrated, trying to recognise what the shape was. It looked familiar.

"Can you see?"

But he could not yet see, his eyes danced away from the new shape into the pale void, there was something happening there too. His focus shifted slightly, blurring his vision for a second. On the other hand, maybe it was not his eyes at all - but some kind of magic... because when his focus returned, there was colour.

He struggled to understand. The shape in the foreground darkened further, and new lines and curves appeared. And in the spaces between the curves flooded the same fantastic colour. Faints hints of green and yellow. Distant washed out hues of orange and purple.

"Is this magic?" he asked.

"No this is real my friend, this is the way it works."

Part of the kaleidoscope had remained white throughout, and his concentration returned there next. In this display of evolving beauty, why would a part of it not blossom?

There was only a small patch of white and it was quickly surrounded by dark structural outlines, as thin as a hair. Around those, a vibrant red moon. No not a moon, but most certainly a crescent. Almost as soon as he had realised this, the answer to what the shape was popped into the forefront of his mind. It was a smile!

He could see what it all meant. The dark greys were cave walls now. The orange over to the left was a burning sun hanging in a whitewashed blue sky. The figure before him, actually was him. And he was smiling!

"It's called a photograph" said the voice, breaking his concentration, "Isn't it wonder-"

The voice hung in the air, the words about to be spoken bitten down upon when something else became apparent, "You have your eyes closed Yord!!!"

Yord stared in disbelief.

"I never closed my eyes!"

"You must have blinked when the flash went off." Exclaimed the wizard.

The photo in Yord's hands still looked amazing. He'd never seen one before, it was completely lifelike. The same short brown ruffled hair he wore. An identical green and dark yellow shawl, and his favourite purple pants, that only reached down as far as the tops of his ankles. Past there he couldn't see his brown boots no matter how hard he angled the photo upwards.

A few times Yord realised he was lost in it's wonder again. But Olpan was considerably right. He couldn’t see if his eyes were the same colour green. His eyes were closed in the photograph. He did not know how it had happened but many things in life happen without explanation.

"Don't worry, we'll take another when I return to get more of these blank photographs for filling".

Yord placed the picture upon a shelf on the wall of his cave, and went over to the shiny coffee machine that sat atop a large boulder. He filled the paper cone with the ground coffee beans from the glass jar, and connected it to the portable generator that sang its drum and bass rhythm into the high hills around. Then he flicked the neon switch like Olpan had showed him.

Yord was a very young wizard's apprentice indeed. The story of how he became an apprentice in the first place was confusing not to say the least. Other hopefuls usually applied to Wizard school, and underwent countless trials before being accepted. Then they were sculpted into magical vessels by older and wiser warlocks and sorcerers..

There had been little chance that young Yord could have been noticed at all in fact, as he ahd not even applied. But either Helga, the Great God of Fate had intended it so, or else he’d just been endowed with luck beyond belief.

During a school concert about six months previously he'd forgotten his lines, and was on the verge of being utterly humiliated, when a fish fell seemingly out of nowhere onto the stage in front of him. The audience had roared with laughter as he was at that time trying to persuade (in act) a very fine looking girl to dance with him.

He'd done everything his teacher had told him. After asking the girl to dance, he'd bowed and held out his hand. When she took his in hers he kissed it and started to say the lines he had been taught, something wonderful about blossoms on a summers day. But the words eluded him. Before he could regain his composure, out of the sky fell a fish!

Naturally he just stood there and stared at it. There really isn’t much you can do or say when an aquatic life form that has no place in the world above sea level lands right in front of you out of a cloudless sky. The instant he returned his gaze to young Prissa, the audience erupted into hilarity. They pointed rudely at him, heckling and bursting with laughter.

He remembered feeling completely despondent, in fact so sad that he imagined a proverbial rain cloud hanging above him. This one had no silver lining however. Instantly the heavens had filled with clouds, as black as magic and heavy with rain, which they emptied generously over the audience, who fled in confusion and terror.

He didn’t understand what had happened but someone apparently noticed and deemed him apprentice material. People who can control the weather must be skilled with magic. It's strange when he remembered that there was rain forecast that afternoon anyway.

He had eaten the fish for supper, thinking back it had been extremely tasty.

So after all that, here he was. Fourteen years young and seeing for the first time what his master called a "Foot-Graph". It was amazing. And yet it troubled him.

"Olpan, I have another question"

Olpan was examining his collection of future artefacts. In particular he was examining a compact disc he'd brought back on one of his first trips. It looked like a mirror, yet it had writing printed on the back, of a language he couldn't understand. He had heard some people saying that they listened to these things, yet when he raised the disc to his ear he only heard the troublesome servant behind him.

"What is it Yord?"

The question had been asked before, and expertly thrown aside like someone would throw aside a jacket to start a fight. The question remained on the tip of his tongue however.

"Are you absolutely sure it's safe to take all this stuff from the future?" he asked gingerly, "I mean, is that the cosmic way of things?"

Taking a deep resonant breath, Olpan turned to his young apprentice and smiled.

"There are many things in this world you do not yet understand, and hundreds upon thousands of ideas you've yet to think. Do you really believe that I would do something dangerous for the sake of this?" he asked holding a Flintstones Alarm Clock.

A button on the alarm clock must have then depressed under the wizard's clutch, as the question was followed by the plastic figurine of Fred Flintstone yelling "Down Dino!" at the purple dinosaur that leapt at the circular dial of the clock.

"As cosmically important as the artefact may be!" Olpan concluded and lay it down.

Olpan was a younger wizard of about thirty years, not the usual stereotypical long bearded frailty held together as if by magic, but a shorter fuller figure. But he was by no means any less menacing. He had straight blonde hair to the tops of his shoulders, piercing blue eyes that could stare down a rock monster, and a lovely blue badge on his purple gown that bore the word "Wizard" for all to see. And that badge could scare.

Of course, he wore the standard issue pointy hat that he had received from the Academy when he'd graduated. It bore various magical runes and symbols that worked effortlessly in the background using great powers of the unseen world to ensure three things: That the hat became lighter than it actually was, that it became warmer, and that it didn't fall off. Ever.

Sometimes the simpler spells were the most loved.

Actually, Wizard's hats were pointy shaped for a reason. But the reason was not something Olpan liked to discuss. Many years ago, hundreds of years before Olpan had been born, the great Rithermon, who had been quite a marvel in his age, had gone completely mad when he saw the results of his work. One of his disciples had suggested that he needed to sharpen his mind... and he took it a bit too literally. After that bizarre day, pointy hats were the only ones that fitted.

"Coffee?" Yord asked, waving a steaming cup at him.

"Superb!" he replied and took a huge gulp.

"I have another question."

"Then you must ask it while I have the time." Olpan Decided.

"But you have the clock there." Yord tried - pointing sheepishly at Fred and Dino.

"That's not the same, now what is it Yord?"

The small apprentice placed his coffee cup down next to the percolator and returned his eyes to his waiting teacher.

"Where am I?" he asked....

"What a silly question to be asking me!" snapped Olpan, and turned away. There was however a sly grin starting in the corner of his mouth, which Yord could not see.

"I mean," started Yord again, "That Foot-graph you have of me over there... is that me?"

The wizard remained silent, and facing the hills outside of the cave.

After another minute of silence, Yord continued.

"Tell me please master, I'm confused. The person in the foot-graph looks like me, but I'm here."

"It's a photograph." Olpan corrected, "and it's merely a picture of you."

His apprentice walked to the small image sitting upon the shelf and picked it up.

"But this person is in the past and... I'm... in the now?"

"In the present!"

"I love presents!"

"I'm not the giving kind" assured the Wizard, "What are you getting at Yord?"

Outside the sun was beginning to set, and the creatures of the night would soon be attracted to the sound of the generator if it were not turned off. With any luck, the right question would be asked. The question that all apprentices must start with.

Yord took a deep breath.

"Who am I Master?"

"You are Yord!"

"But that doesn't explain it anymore..."

"Then we are about to begin!" exclaimed Olpan, the smile broadening in his face.

"Begin?" his apprentice tested.

Olpan grabbed the photograph from Yord's grasp and held it up in front of him.

"The whiteness will give way to colour, the colour to shape, the shape to texture... If you want to understand you must watch closely."

"Watch the foot-graph?"

"The Photograph! And no. We don't watch the photograph!" Olpan said as he grabbed some things together into a small knapsack, "But like the photograph it will all become clear now that we have started!"

In seconds he'd snatched his rod from near the entrance, and turned off the generator.

Yord simply stood looking bewildered. Maybe he needed some sleep now, his eyes felt weary. Or maybe he was hungry - that would ease him. Or maybe a game of some kind. But Olpan was standing waiting outside now, holding a knapsack for him too.

"What have we started?" asked Yord.

"A journey to find out who you are! Your journey!" replied the wise young wizard, barely five years out of wizard academy.

Then they descended the rocky outcrop via a meandering path that was not food or sleep or a game to Yord. Nevertheless, he was driven by curiosity to follow.