Wizards, it would seem, are often found going for walks. These walks serve little purpose, as they almost end either where they started or in death. Many who are not wizards often wonder why one would take so many walks when they have all the mysteries of the universe at their fingertips. Should wizards not be recluses, hiding away in libraries and towers? Wizards, of course, understand that to become a wizard, one has to be wise. To become wise, one has to change. And it is easiest to change in places new to you, for external stagnation influences your own. The wizards take walks because of the possibility of seeing something new. On the road, all travellers are equal. On the road, all stories become lessons.
Even the most powerful of wizards still goes for long walks, perhaps in memory of when they still had lessons to learn. Solroxoth, master of form and mind, did so. He did so despite having already achieved his goals. Sometimes he walked between the stars. Sometimes he walked through the oceans. Sometimes he wove a little path through the wood and city. Sometimes he took his only friend, Aza, with him. Sometimes he took one of the apprentices with him. Sometimes he went alone.
He saw many things on these walks. They did not phase him, for over the countless millennia of his walks, he had already seen anything. These walks were definitionally habitual. They would blend together, a formless mass of similarity. Despite that, let us indulge in telling a story about one of these walks.
One time, while out for a walk, Solxoroth met a child on the road.
The child looked at his worn cloak and pointed staff and cavernous hood. "Are you a wizard?" asked the child.
Solroxoth did not much care for children. "No," he replied.
The child wasn't so foolish. "You look like a wizard. Why would you lie?"
"It isn't a lie," said Solroxoth. "I am no wizard." This was true, but not in any way that mattered.
"Then," said the child, "surely you must be a demon come to trick me." This was true, but not in any way that mattered.
Solroxoth, eater of stars, laughed. "Yes, that's right," he said. "I am a terrible demon and I'm going to eat you right up." This was true in many ways that mattered.
"You're lying," said the child, who was very perceptive. "You're a wizard and that means you have to play with me."
The problem was the Solroxoth had not been human for a long time. He could get the shape of it right. He could straighten his bones and tighten his muscles and inflate his skin. His hair fell right and his face curled into the right shapes. But he no longer knew how to be human, so far removed was he from mortal experience. His attempt was itself a lie and it was a lie built on belief. But none believe harder than a child who hasn't had their belief beaten out of them yet.
In this way, beliefs reflected back upon his form. "Yes," said Solroxoth. "Yes, I suppose I do." This was true, but only in this singular time and place.
The child scampered off into the words, cackling gleefully. Solroxoth had no choice, bound as he was by the promises of form. He shed his skin and gave chase as a wolf bounding on iron paws.
They ran under tree and over root. They ran as the sun climbed in the sky, giggling and howling. Every time, Solroxoth eventually snagged the child's shirt in his teeth, hauling him off the ground and tossing him into the air. The child giggled and laughed and Solroxoth bid the air set the child down gently, so it did. Then he was a bird fluttered through the undergrowth, nipping at the child's heels. He was a mighty bear and the child rode upon his shoulders. He was a little fairy and he whispered the secrets of mushrooms and rocks.
And then it was late and the sun was dipping low in the sky.
"Come child," the wizard said. "Play is at an end. Surely you must return to your home."
Solroxoth was pretending to be human again. In their joy, he was doing better at it and the child could see the way his flesh sat still, as flesh should. "No," said the child. "You are a wizard and therefore this is a parable."
Solroxoth had lived through many parables in his time. He had forgotten most of them. "No," he replied. "It is merely a moment in time and it is now at an end."
But the child was stubborn. "I demand wisdom," it said. "Play cannot end until I have learned a lesson. What else are wizards for? Why else do we play?"
Solroxoth considered. There were many lessons he could teach the child easily. He could show it to make fire, in so imparting the wisdom of sacrifice. He could show it the pain of war, in so imparting the wisdom of pacifism. He could pick it up and swallow it whole, in so imparting the wisdom of not provoking demons.
Finally, Solroxoth said, "then you are a damn fool. Wisdom is not to be passed around so casually. I have naught to teach a child such as you. This is no parable because you are insignificant. I shall forget it surely as I forget all insignificant things. Let that be your lesson."
The child stood firm. Perhaps it understood more than it let on. Perhaps it believed that this was part of the lesson. Whatever the case, it retorted calmly. "Prove it. Play with me for another day and see if I learn nothing."
Solroxoth replied harshly. "No."
But Solroxoth was still determined to appear human and the child believed strongly in its own righteousness. "Yes," said the child.
And so they did.
Solroxoth plucked the stars from the sky and the two of them kicked them as balls. They built a goal from rocks and crabs and cast the planets through it, one by one. They swam through the oceans deep, each of their strokes throwing up great typhoons. They danced through the sky as birds on the wing, scattering clouds and drawing dragons with their shadows.
And through it all the child laughed with joy at impossible sensations. But it harboured a deep and hidden sadness, because it wasn't learning anything. Solroxoth also laughed, because that was expected of one who was pretending to be human. But he harboured a deep and hidden sadness, because he knew he had done all of this a million times before and he could remember none of them. Perhaps if he knew what happened next, if he knew how the story ended, he could skip to it. But without that, he was forced to play along. In this way, a child bound the most powerful monster in the universe to play.
And when the stars were back in the sky and the sun was long gone, Solroxoth clutched at the child in frail fingers. "It is over," he said. "Let us return home."
The child stared wistfully at the sky. Where once there was beauty was now only the disappointment of once again being trapped on the ground. "I haven't yet learned my lesson."
In his mounting rage, Solroxoth was struggling to maintain his humanity. His shadows grew sharper as his flesh roiled. "I have nothing to teach a child."
The child was also quite upset. "Why?" it demanded. "Why do you hoard your knowledge as though it were gold?"
Solroxoth howled in reply. "This is a path of suffering, child! I hoard my knowledge as protection. To follow in my footsteps is to invite in madness and damnation. Return to your pleasant life and enjoy it."
"I am but a tanner's child," said the child. "Day after day, I will live and breathe leather. I will do so for decades until I pass. I shall do so from the ground, gazing at the stars which you touch. I spend a lifetime mastered what you merely ask the universe for. Did you weave your cloak through study or did you simply bid the shadows bind themselves to your whim? Did you choose your fate or were you forced into it by the cruel machinations of the universe?"
Solroxoth laughed bitterly, for who was a child to lecture him about fate. "You wish to be a wizard, then? You think that will save you?"
"Power and wisdom," said the child. "That will change my fate. That would define me. Grant me power and wisdom."
This was tragically foolish. "What will the others do when they need leather worked?"
"I'll share my power freely. All will share in it. All will use it."
"What then?" asked Solroxoth. "When you have bent the universe to your collective whim?"
"We'll play," said the child. "We'll dance through the stars and woods. We'll flit from form to form and mind to mind. We'll be happy."
Solroxoth was quite angry now. "Impossible! For you will grow tired of such things as I have. For eternity is far too long a time for ones such as you."
"If eternity is too long for me, how long is too long for you?"
Solroxoth muttered darkly, but did not reply.
The child seemed to be on the verge of tears. Hesitantly, it asked, "Was there ever a time where we weren't so different?"
Solroxoth paused because something twitched in the depths of his memory. His very oldest memories, the ones he never touched. Back when he wore a different name and his face wasn't a boldfaced lie. "No," he lied. Lying was quite natural to him by now.
The child tried again. "If you consign me to my life, then my suffering is on your conscious."
Seri wouldn't have it. "If I grant you the path of wizardry, then your suffering will be tenfold."
"Such is my choice."
"Uninformed and hasty."
The child turned away. Its belief was cracking, as was its heart. It could taste the tanning acid, the decades of stained hands to come.
Solroxoth turned away. He could feel the call of home, the sweet siren song of Aza's tower ringing through the cosmos.
"Prove it," said the child.
"How?"
"One more day. All things come in threes."
Solroxoth considered. "Okay," he said. "One more day. And then you go home or I'll destroy you."
The child extended a hand and the two of them shook on it.
Soloroxth yanked on time itself, forking in two and wrapping it into swords for them to duel with.
"No," said the child. "I don't want to play that game."
"It's as good a game as any," said Solroxoth, who was really quite hungry by this point.
"No," repeated the child. "I want to play forking."
Solroxoth had not been a child for longer than the stars had been in the sky. "I do not know that game," he said.
"Forking," said the child with a cunning smile, "is a game of pretend. We pretend to be things we're not. And we see who can pretend better."
Solroxoth had long mastered form and in way that was the ultimate game of pretend. "Okay," he said, because surely this would be easy. "What should we pretend to be?"
"I'm going to pretend to be a wizard," replied the child.
"And me?"
"You pretend to be a tanner's son."
"Okay," said Solroxoth. In his hubris, he didn't see the pattern this was taking. Because he was a master of form and mind. Body and soul, he would embody being a tanner's son in every way, as would the child embody the very essence of a wizard. They stood there then, child and wizard.
The wizard reached out to the child and plucked memories of this game from its head. "There," said the wizard. "Now begone, child." In this way, the two parted, their game afoot.
The child walked home. It worked a long time, mastering its craft. It worked for little money and little food. It worked through harsh summers and harsher winters. There were small moments packed into the life, too many to tell stories of. Stolen kisses and quiet laughter. Borrowed books and countless told stories. It lived, as all things do. Unapologetically, affectionally, practically. It lived and formed a family. It smiled and it cried. Eventually, it died.
It never remembered that it was once a being who ate the very stars. In this way, it won the game of pretend.
The wizard walked for a while longer after that game. He tried to work wonders to help people, conjuring food and weather and health. But the wizard found that at every moment, it would cost him the game, for the wizard would not have done so. The wizard had believed in non-interference and now, so too must this wizard. Frustrated, he raged against the heavens. It did nothing to calm the swirling emotions in his soul.
Finally, with no options left, he reached into his own head and plucked all the memories of the child and the game out. He bound them into a pebble and hurled them into the sea. He finished its walk and returned home to Aza's great tower.
"How was your walk?" she asked him.
Solroxoth shook his head. "Disappointing. It didn't change me."
"Come and have some tea," Aza said. She was smiling ever so slightly.
"Okay," said the wizard.
Aza smiled because she could see that he had changed. In this way, the wizard lost the game of pretend.