Korm's Master

Illustration for the story Korm's Master (available here on NOT), the title of which refers not only to Belmok as the head of his department, but also the subject Korm is seeking to be Master of.

 

Museum Piece

Master Belmok and Korm examine an Ogre skeleton. A scene from the short story Korm's Master, published here on NOT.

 

Friday Fiction Concluded: Korm's Master (Part Two)

 

          In the few days of the old Morg's absence, Korm had been acting out a little fantasy. In the morning, having kindled the fire in the front office, he sat down behind the Master's desk with a selected volume, ink and paper for notes by his side, and then worked for the day as if he did indeed belong there. Looking up every now and then at the spotless shelves and gleaming accouterments, their restored condition, at least, the product of his labor, he felt a proprietary thrill, as if they were a hopeful prophecy of his future. A small sign outside the door gave notice of the Master's absence and kept anyone from peering in on his indulgence.

          On the final morning of the holiday, Korm crept from his cramped cabinet, through the silent space of the early morning hall, and eased his way through the entrance of the office. With the school mostly abandoned, there was really no need to be so stealthy, but something about the hour seemed to forbid noise. He closed the door and made his way through the dim chamber to where the banked fire glowed dimly on the hearth.

          He grabbed some sticks of kindling and thrust them down through the ashes into the live embers beneath. He crouched watching for a few moments until he was sure the wood had caught fire, then creaked back to his feet, satisfied. When Master Belmok came back this afternoon, the chambers would be nice and toasty. In the meantime, the young Morg would be quite comfortable in the last hours of his imaginary way of life.

          He looked around the room in the growing light of the fire, thinking about which book to shuffle through in the early hours of the day before he could expect the old Morg's return. His eyes snagged on a bundle of old brown rags piled on one of the visitors' chairs. That hadn't been there when he'd left last night.

          Then he remembered that he'd requested some of the groundskeepers be sent to touch up the pocked and crumbling plaster along the walls. They had obviously dumped these tarps off last night in preparation of a day's work. He frowned at the thought about the infringement on his last moments of free time, and stumped over in irritation to throw the pile to the floor. It certainly shouldn't have been left on the furniture, anyway.

          He put his hands on the pile of rags, and to his shock it burst into startling, struggling life. He jumped back in consternation, gasping, and watched as the growling bundle thrust out arms and legs and finally tossed back a folded hood to reveal a round white head with a short scruffy beard. Two blazing blue eyes glared at him in angry confusion.

          "You're a Man!" Korm barked.

          "Last time I checked, son," the other said crossly. The old man stretched out his scrawny brown limbs and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, looking around. He focused on the young Morg and seemed to suddenly realize where he was. He smiled wanly and leapt out of the chair.

          "Where's Belmok?" he asked casually, scratching his head and stretching his ropy neck. "I need to ask him a couple favors right quick."

          "Grand Master Belmok is visiting his family for the holiday. He'll be returning shortly," Korm answered, frost in his voice. He'd recovered a bit from his surprise, and now was feeling on his dignity. This wolfish old beggar in tattered dun robes was treating Master Belmok, his chambers, and by extension all of Tronduhon Library School in far too familiar a manner. "Perhaps you'd like to go wait somewhere until he comes back?"

          "No, I'd like to catch him pretty quick when he arrives. But you go on then, whatever you're doing here. Don't mind me." He settled back down in the chair.

          Korm edged his way over to the desk, eyeing the tattered figure as he went. He pulled a book, almost at random, from a passing shelf. He sat down and lit the ornate reading lamp. He started to read, glancing up every now and then at his unwanted visitor, who waved cheerily back.

          The random text proved to be in old bardic Morgish, and he soon found his mind more engaged with puzzling out the sense of it than on the old man sitting quietly across the room. Korm began muttering the lines aloud, trying to untangle the meaning and murmuring with pleasure when he hit on a solution. But finally he came on a word that completely stumped him.

          "Abirmokon," he grumbled. "What is 'abirmokon'?"

          "It means 'he awakens the flame.'"

          Korm looked up in astonishment, then annoyance. He had forgotten the grimy beggar slouched across from him while he was lost in the wonders of the elder tongue. He slammed the book shut. To think that this impertinent wanderer should listen in and think to offer his rigamarole suggestions to a real scholar! To make it worse, his answer seemed to make a sort of sense in the context of the writing. The old man smiled at him.

          "Are you sure you would rather not come back later, when the Grand Master will more likely be returned?" the young Morg asked through clenched teeth.

          "No, this is fine," the old man said. "Though I wouldn't mind a bit of breakfast while I wait."

          "Well you can't eat in here," Korm snapped. "School rules. You'll have to go to the refectory and ask them to give you something there." He smiled, suddenly crafty, struck by a thought. He rose and walked over to the chair. "In fact, I'll take you myself. It's a big place, you might get lost."

          The old man looked at him and grinned.

          "Well, that's mighty kind of you, young fellow," he drawled. "Mighty kind." He stood up and drew in close, taking Korm's hand and squeezing it tightly. The odor wafting from his robes was musty and rank, as if he had been trudging for weeks and miles through the wilderness. The Morg's flat nostrils flared snuffling at the smell.

          "Perhaps you would like to visit the water rooms before eating," he suggested, trying not to breathe too deeply.

          "Well, that's a good idea," the other laughed, wheezing, and slapped the young Morg's shoulder. "Now that you mention it, I've got to pee like a racehorse."

          The old man followed the young scholar into the quiet hallways, the arched corridors echoing with the shuffle of his robes and the slapping of his loose sandals. Though Korm darted his eyes around desperately as they passed room after room, his plan to relieve himself of his unwanted visitor by handing him over to a passing lector was constantly foiled. Every spare staff member seemed to have disappeared for the holiday. At last they reached a green-painted iron-bound door in the bowels of the school.

          "Here you go," the young Morg said, standing in front of it and pointing dejectedly at the sign. "Baths and bogs."

          The old man laughed.

          "Maybe you better come in and show me which is which."

          Korm turned on him in outrage.

          "Oh, now see here! You can't be that stupid..."

          The old man grinned like a wolf and uttered a few flat words. For a snip of time, Korm thought he was being mocked in some foreign tongue. But a flash of light coming from the door at his back distracted him, and he turned in alarm.

          "What...? Is the place on fire?" Instinctively he reached out to the door handle and barged stumbling through, skidded to a stop, and stood frozen, his muzzle gaping in wonder. The old vagabond stepped in behind him, quietly shutting the door.

          Instead of the low, dim, dripping rooms that he had been expecting, Korm found himself taking dazed, hesitant steps over a white marble floor into a vast, bewildering space. The room, if it was a room, was colossal; the walls, if they were walls, seemed to bow inward, reaching dimly to an unseen point in the hazy purple-blue heights. A kind of bright twilight with no definable source hung about everything. Korm could sense the curve of the wall or fence where the door was set falling away behind, but he paid no thought to it. He was drawn to the mesmerizing spectacle before him.

          In the center of the chamber or courtyard was a vast pool, almost a lake, set round with a massively carved curb of stone. In the center of the pool, rising in a thick, turbulent column, taller even than the Sun Tower in Morg City, was a pillar of water, that rose and fell heavily without spray or splash, just a low rumble like distant thunder as it raised itself up and poured itself back down into the pellucid water below, which received it again with hardly a ripple. Playing on top of that pillar, slowly but continually spinning in the roll of water, danced a huge translucent green globe.

          Korm approached the cascade reverently, entranced, eyes wide, stopping only when he finally placed his arms outspread on the stony coping surrounding the water's edge. He gazed up, up, up at the globe, turning ponderously but ceaselessly, looking heavier than a mountain, then had to let his eyes fall, dizzy at the fearful weight held poised so delicately above him. But when his gaze had focused downward, his stomach tied itself into an instant knot.

          There was no bottom to the pool, no slow incline, no rippling play of light on a floor, however deep. Just the depths, down, down, ever deeper, until it seemed more profound than the sky above, if sky it was. Korm thought he saw, past the lowest darkness of its abysses, the distant glimmer of stars, as if the world had been turned upside-down and he was suspended, somehow, over a chasm of sky that could suck him into its profundity as inexorably as any vast and heaving sea. To his horror he found himself helplessly leaning over, unable in his vertigo to stop himself from plunging forward headfirst into the waters.

          A rough brown hand clamped on his shoulder and pulled him back.

          "The Fountain of Forever," the old man said quietly.

          Korm turned back, panting, eyes rolling, and gaped at the man.

          "Where--?" he stammered. "Where--? How did we--?"

          The other swept his arm, pointing back behind them, in a gesture of introduction.

          "The Domain of Doors," he said matter-of-factly.

          Korm squinted back at the way he had come. Had he really walked that far? Back behind them was the wall or fence he had walked from through the door. It curved around until it was lost at either end behind the falling waters. Could that be right? The dimensions of this place seemed to be playing tricks on his eyes. He rubbed his hands over his face, then pulled them down, tugging his beard to try to center himself. He looked up with a clearer gaze and got another jolt of realization.

          The wall behind him, the wall that stretched out of sight to either side, was entirely made up of doors, linked only by short brambly trees growing between them. There were wooden doors, and iron doors, and doors of stone, bound in brass or steel or simply hanging on a leather hinge, some so tall and wide an Ogre might walk through with ease, and some so low a hound might have to stoop to pass in. A dizzying array. And Korm had no idea, looking panicked at the multitude, where the one he had entered by was.

          "The thing about the Domain of Doors," the scruffy man said, scratching his beard thoughtfully, "is you really got to pay attention where you came in from. These doors go all over everywhere in Ortha, and some of them beyond, they say. Walk through the wrong one, and you might end up in a dungeon somewhere, with some real nasty folks wanting to ask you some real nasty questions."

          "You seem to know a lot about it," Korm said, turning on him. "What do you think we should do?"

          "Eh." The old man shrugged, as if he had no idea and was leaving it up to him.

          It should be simple, Korm thought, turning away. Just walk back the way I came. Go back through the door to Tronduhon Library School, back into a place where things make sense. Simple. He sighted a path to take, and strode decisively forward, the brown-robed figure flapping carelessly after him in his wake.

          To his dismay, they came to a halt in front of a battered wooden door with brass bolts. Some crude runes chipped into it declared it to be of Ghamen make.

          "It's a funny thing about setting out from the inner rim of a wheel to the outer wheel. The smallest deviation from the path increases exponentially the further you travel."

          Korm looked over at the man with one eye.

          "That's a brilliant observation," the Morg said sarcastically. "What should I do, go back and start again?"

          "That would be a recipe for disaster, I think."

          "Then I'll just walk along the wall till I find the door."

          "Ah, but which way?"

          Korm looked again at the wall. He looked left. He looked right. Either way seemed to curve off into a haze. He looked at the old man in frustration.

          "Well, what do you want to do?" he asked angrily. "How do you know all about it, anyway? Who the hell are you?"

          "I want to go to the right here, because I've been keeping my eye on the door since we first came in," the old man said calmly. "I know all about it because I brought us here by a spell. I happen to be a wizard, and my name," he bowed slightly "is Dunwolf, Dunwolf of Rhavenglast." He paused. "You may have heard of me."

          "Dunwolf?" Korm boggled.

          "Yes."

          "The wizard?"

          "Yes."

          "That's impossible!" the Morg burst out. "He lived five hundred years ago!"

          "One of the side-effects of using magic - or having magic use you - is long life. It's not always the kindest of powers." The old man hitched himself up and began moving to the right. "After the journey I've been on, I feel every day of those years. Right now I want a good breakfast. But first, I do need that bog-stool. To go in this place ... it just wouldn't be right."

          "Yes, about this place," Korm said, floundering after him indignantly. "All right you're a wizard, all right maybe you’re even Dunwolf himself, but what do you mean by bringing me to this ... this terrible place?" he finished in consternation.

          "Shake you up a bit, teach you a lesson. You seemed a little on the smug side to me." The old man chuckled as he strode along. "Thought you could get me booted out, just like that. Let me tell you, lad, the world and the people in it are not only more than you know, they're more than anyone can know, even an old wizard. Don't be so quick to judge."

          "Now you're being the quick one to judge." Korm's muzzle kinked in a wry grin. "I've been about as far from smug as I could be for a whole season."

          "Hold that thought," the other said. They had stopped in front of a door. Korm recognized the dark green paint and bronze fixtures of the school bog. The old man tapped the wood three times in a triangular pattern and pulled it open. As it swung wide, the young Morg felt great relief to see the familiar hallways of the school on the other side again. He stepped through eagerly.

          The old man pulled it to, and almost immediately threw it open again, to reveal the unmistakable sounds and odors of the gurgling washroom. He sprinted in and slammed the door behind him, leaving Korm to blink alone in the plain light of day.

          Afterwards they walked together to the refectory, the young Morg as if he had just awoken from a dream, the old man simply talking cheerfully about what he felt like for breakfast. They made it to the long hall crowded with tables and benches, and Korm automatically arranged for their meal. When it arrived, he sat silently while his white-bearded guest shoveled down eggs and toast and sugared gruel, chased by several cups of strong sweet hot mocha. Every now and then the young Morg opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it, baffled, shaking his head.

          They walked back to the Grand Master's chambers through the returning stream of students, who were beginning to wind their way again through the channels of the school. Korm lifted the latch and led the way into the office. To his surprise, Belmok lifted his pursed lips and squinnied eye up from his desk as he entered.

          "There you are, boy," he barked. "I thought you'd at least be on hand when I ... Dunwolf, old man!" His eyes sprang wide, dropping his ocular to his chest where it bounced on its ribbon. He heaved himself up from his chair and stamped ponderously over in delight, and took the wizard's hand. "What a surprise to see you here!"

          "Greetings, Grand Master," the old man grinned, vigorously returning Belmok's grip. "I have a few questions I thought you might be able to answer for me, my friend. Your new famulus here was just helping me grab some refreshment while we waited for your arrival. Wandering's a hungry business, you know, and I have to take meals where I can get them."

          "Of course, of course. Korm's a good lad," Belmok said. He laid his knobby claw heavily on the boy's shoulder. The young Morg seemed to sink beneath it. Wedged between the two towering elders he felt like he was standing in the bottom of a ditch. "Inspired me, in fact, to start trying to complete work on my old 'Notes on the Morg Migrations.' Might actually finish it before I die, now. Sit down, let me pour us some Lorelied."

          Belmok lumbered over to the barrel in the back of the room, and Dunwolf sat in the chair between the fireplace and the desk. Korm, unsure what to do, hovered between them.

          "He's in a bit of a pickle at the moment," the old Morg said as he twisted the tap. "Been here for five months already, doesn't have a subject for his master. Shame, too, because I think he has good potential." He handed Korm a cup with a wink. "Don't let it go to your head, lad."

          "Really," Dunwolf said, accepting his own cup thoughtfully. He looked at Belmok. "Talented?"

          "He put my papers in order." Belmok bent to pour his drink.

          Dunwolf whistled. He twirled the wine and took a sip.

          "You know," he said slowly. "I may have the solution to both our dilemmas. I was going to ask you to delve into this, Belmok, but if you're working on something else again ..." He looked up at Korm. "Tell me, lad, have you ever heard of ... the Goldfire?"

          Belmok went still, then slowly raised himself up straight, watching. Korm bent his head, staring into his drink, thinking deeply.

          "The Goldfire? The Goldfire... yes, a talisman of some kind, I believe. Lost during the reign of Tarth. What about it?"

          "I need someone, a hell of a good scholar, to look into its history, and trace down where it could be now. I think we may need it again pretty damn soon."

          "Well, I suppose...," Korm started.

          Belmok barked in jubilation, making the others jump. The fat old Morg sat down his cup, crossed his arms over his chest and bowed his head. Then he looked up and, elbows at his sides, spread his arms palms upward in triumph.

          "I call Morlakor Shyreen to witness," he crowed, "And you, too, wizard, that neither I nor any Morg has given him this idea, neither by deed or word or prompting aforethought. Come, come here, boy." The old Morg turned and took a box from the shelf behind him.

          Korm walked over in a daze. Dunwolf looked bemused. Belmok unlatched the box, put back the lid, and pulled out the long unreeling length of a red sash of History. He folded it so that it lay cradled between his hands and presented it to the stunned young student.

          "Well, take it, take it, tie it on," he commanded. Korm took it with trembling fingers and looped it gingerly around his waist. For a moment he felt the strong fabric girding his middle. Then suddenly, decisively, he cinched it in a tight knot, and looked up, grinning fiercely, as if challenging the world to try to take it from him.

          "Excellent, excellent," Belmok chortled. "I've had a room held for you, a real scholar's chamber. You can begin your proper studies tomorrow! Ah, you'll need this book...and this one...and this..."

          As the fat old Morg went shambling around the rooms, disarranging his newly immaculate shelves and gathering volumes, Dunwolf rose quietly and walked over to where Korm stood beaming, quaffing his Lorelied in triumph. He put his hand on the young Morg's shoulder and patted it.

          "Congratulations, Master Korm," he said in a low voice. "But don't forget the Goldfire. Start on it quickly, now rather than later. I have the feeling that in the close future we in the South will have need of it, quite badly, quite soon."

          The old wizard turned to the Grand Master and started following him around the room.

          "Now I have a couple more questions, Belmok...," he began.

          Late that night saw Korm moved from his little closet to a properly appointed chamber, with a real bed, shelves for his books, and a bottomless supply of ink and paper from the school stock. Already, as he had moved to and from Belmok's office, his red sash was catching eyes and getting whispers about the new protégé of the Grand Master.

          He sat down at his desk, a heavy tome before him, and pen and paper ready for notes to the side. As a finishing touch, he lit the little brass lamp and put the old stuffed owl on the ledge above him. He cocked an eye up to where it stared solemnly down at him. He tangled his beard with his black claws.

          "Well, Lord Fluffy," he said, "Let's get started."

Notes

Belmok (alternate names that I considered: Balmog, Bermog, Brogg, Bermoq – ‘Lose your bow, mok?’) went on to star in his own tale, Eye of Darkness, and appears as a guest star in Korm and the Lost Library. Belmok in fact became one of my favorite Morg characters. I rate him almost as highly as the more traditional Roth and Korm.

It was in this story that I first started developing the Morg academic color tradition, with the color of one’s tunic declaring your area of study and one’s sash indicating one’s level. I have a whole chart about it; I am not sure that I am always correct on this between stories. Academic Levels: First Master (big frog in little pond), Great Master (big frog in big pond), High Master (big fish in big pond), Grand Master (the eel who could eat all the fish and frogs; prestigiously speaking). Grand Master Emeritus (could dine on eel pie). Academic Politics Are So Vicious Because the Stakes Are So Small.

Dunwolf has been a part of the Ortha mythos from the beginning. John made up the name, in a line-up of fantasy characters: Dunwolf the Old. He had as much Obi-wan Kenobi DNA as Gandalf DNA.

The Domain of Doors enters the mythos in this tale. I had Roth mention the Domain in the short story Come Together, where he says Korm talked to him about it. It plays a big part in Shutting the Door (previously published here) in which you will find a lot more about Dunwolf and notes about the background of the Domain and its creation. The Domain existed almost as long as Ortha has; I worked hard at retrofitting it into the Goldfire narrative.

I made up the word "abirmokon" from a combination of elements from an old list of Morgish words I had drawn up ages ago.

Korm wore his horrible hairy hat for decades, as a kind of penance and a check to pride. When it finally fell apart and he threw it away, he found to his consternation that his students had rescued it as a relic, ensconced it in the school museum, and presented him with a new hat made exactly to the old pattern.

Korm shares my own penchant for owls; Lord Fluffy is a tribute to that.

Friday Fiction: Korm's Master (Part One)

 

KORM'S MASTER 

          When Grand Master Belmok decided that the new postulate had stewed long enough, he swept abstractedly into his book-lined office, a dripping pork sandwich clutched in one clawed hand, and sat himself down at his cluttered desk without a glance at the young Morg fidgeting nervously in the chair opposite him. He took a huge bite and cast a cursory and careless eye over the fellow's records as he chewed, juice dribbling down his thin pewter beard. He looked up, and swallowed in indignation.

          "What is that...thing on your skull?" he asked waspishly.

          The prospective student fidgeted, adjusting the hairy cone that sat on his head.

          "It's my new hat, sir," he said. "It cost me twenty-five gold. I bought it before I left the City. It's all the rage, there," he explained lamely.

          The older Morg snorted.

          "Whenever I hear that, I know that it will soon be hopelessly old-fashioned. By the time you get twenty-five gold's worth of wear out of it, people will be able to date exactly when you joined our academy, Master..." He put a pork-stained finger on the document before him and squinted his one good eye behind its ocular. "...Korm."

          The younger Morg stiffened to anxious attention at his name, then under the guise of straightening his dark green tunic ran a comforting hand over his medals of achievement. He adjusted the cap, which he had bought partly because it echoed the dark brown length of his Third Beard. The hat still smelled a little of goat. He tried to read who the Grand Master of the Tronduhon Library School was, and what he expected of him.

          At almost six feet tall, Belmok was certainly an intimidating height for a Morg, and as fat as he was, the fat hung in a sack of skin that showed he had once been fatter still. In the dark gold robes of Grand Mastery, cinqued with the red sash of History, he looked like a withered winter apple. His bald, spotted forehead certainly helped that appearance. The long pewter spike of his beard hung over a hairy roll of neck fat that gave the illusion of another beard underneath. One lone tooth in his upper jaw gnawed his pendulous underlip as if it wanted to eat it.

          But it was the eyes that were putting the young scholar off his balance. The right eye stared out shrewdly behind its gold-rimmed ocular, held on by folds of fat. The left eye was as white and dead as a day-old fish's, and slashed across from forehead to cheek by an old, ragged scar. As much as he knew he should be watching the right eye, Korm was drawn to the dead orb by an uncanny fascination that he knew must be insulting to the old man, but which he felt powerless to control.

          He was snapped back to attention by Belmok putting the butt of his sandwich down on his papers and pushing the certificates and letters of recommendation, mostly unread, it seemed, dismissively across the desk. Belmok leaned back in his cushioned chair.

          "So," the old Morg said. "You got your first mastery at the New Royal School in Morg City. I understand that though they are modern, they are quite adequate. Why do you want to pursue further degrees of study here in Tronduhon?"

          "Need you ask, sir?" Korm said, and to his inner horror he heard himself tittering nervously as he answered. "The Royal School, big as it is, does not have the...the prestige, the history that you have here. Any scholar worth his salt aspires to attend the Tronduhon Library School." His muzzle kinked itself into an uncontrolled, ingratiating smirk.

          "And you think yourself worth your salt, do you?" the Grand Master retorted. His tone were cutting, but the young Morg read something in his body language that seemed to indicate that he was secretly pleased. Korm bowed his head. The bow could have either meant that yes, he did, or that he was humbling himself before the judgement of his elder. Belmok put his hands on his desk and heaved himself up.

          "Come, let's do a few revolutions through the halls and discuss your proposed thesis for earning your Great Mastery. I need some exercise." He nodded to the fireplace. "No one ever earned their Scholar's Sword by sitting on their ass."

          Korm glanced over, expecting to see the coveted award hanging over the hearth, and was disconcerted to see the short blade pinning a sheaf of tattered documents to the mantelpiece. Belmok hooked an ebony walking staff from a stand next to the door and started out, Korm scuttling to catch up to his side as he hastily pulled a few scrappy parchment notes from his poke.

          They walked together for a few yards before the younger Morg could catch his breath and organize his thoughts. It was distracting, passing door after open door, glimpsing rooms of shelves stacked with scrolls and ancient books, or assembly halls milling with figures dressed in green, brown, and scarlet like autumn leaves, or vaulted galleries of exhibits and artifacts from nature or history. The old Master rumbled the phlegm in his throat and spat, and Korm snapped back to attention.  He shuffled his notes and pulled out a slip.

          "Ah, yes," he began. "Well, my best idea is an investigation into a promising new theory of history that one of the teachers in Morg City was proposing, High Master Porlu. His thought is that all the old tales of the Yeroni and Mog Gammoth and the other First Fathers of the Peoples are just that, stories made up to explain the wanderings and clashings of the different races. It's quite intriguing, and puts a whole new spin on the nature of history..."

          Belmok snorted in amusement. He never slowed a step.

          "Old 'Beans' Porlu? Is he still alive? He must be getting senile. Believe me, there is more evidence that Mog Gammoth trod the world in the First Days than that your great-grandfather ever existed. And as for the Yorns..." He trudged along silently for a moment. "Take it from a Grand Master in History, they exist; both the Light..." He shuddered. "...and the Dark."

          They walked along silently for a moment. Korm's heart sank. He had been counting on the elaboration of the Naturalistic Theory of History as his strongest shot, new, intriguing, and bold. He shuffled through his scraps of notes. His other ideas all seemed poorly improvised now, feeble second strings to his bow. He had rather been counting on Porlu.

          "Well, what else do you have?" Belmok prompted.

          The young Morg hurriedly snatched a note, almost at random, and started babbling.

          "Oh, well, the Ogres. What's their true character, I mean, what are they really like? This question borders both on the study of Nature and of History. Could we reach some understanding between us, in spite of what's gone before? I mean, we've had quarrels with Men, and now we're the best of allies. It would probably involve some sort of delegation going North, but the benefits should it succeed might far outweigh the danger...I mean, in these times of peace..."

          Belmok stopped, looked down, sighed in frustration, and ran his black claws impatiently over his bald head. He looked up, and for the first time in their meanderings seemed to take note of where they had wandered.

          "Come with me. Over there," he said, pointing to a door about halfway across the cloister through which they strode. They walked forward in silence, except for the grim tapping of the Grand Master's staff. Several students they passed by bowed their heads and hurried by at the look on the old Morg's muzzle. They stopped at the brass bound door, and he pushed it open. Korm drew back in horror.

          Before them stood two monstrous articulated skeletons. One loomed twice as big as the other, almost eleven feet tall, its splayed limbs longer in proportion. The other was a little less than half that height, but seemed sturdier and sleeker in comparison. The similarity of their bulbous craniums and four-digited limbs declared them variations of a single species, however.

          "The Greater Ogre," Belmok declared, clonking the large hollow skull with his stick, "And the Less. In this room you can examine articles of their manufacture, gathered through the years. Not all of them are weapons." He gestured to the left. "Come look at this."

          Korm shrank behind him as the broad old Morg led the way. They stopped in front of what looked like a rack of torturer's tools.

          "Cooking utensils," the Grand Master said. "Not really much different from some of ours. But read on that placard what was found on them."

          Korm leaned forward nearsightedly and peered at the writing. About halfway through he gagged and had to turn away. Belmok sighed.

          "Every fifty years or so someone with more hope than wisdom raises the same idea as yours and toddles off North; sometimes the patrols find their skeletons. I recall the last Morg to test the idea found a young Ogre runaway and tried to raise it; it ate his baby son out of the cradle." He turned from the display and started to leave. "Those of us with long memories try to discourage the experiment."

          Once outside and the door closed, Korm felt he could breathe again. They walked slowly and thoughtfully on, the old teacher giving him time to recover. At last Belmok pursed his wrinkled, blubbery lip and asked brusquely, "Any other ideas?"

          Korm looked up, dazed, and realized he was still clutching his bits of parchment. They were twisted and smudged with sweat. He fumbled through the few remaining notes. Each seemed more useless than the last. They slipped from his fingers and fell as he hopelessly rejected them. At last there was only one scrap left.

          "Magic," he mumbled.

          "Eh? What?" The old Morg leaned in.

          "Magic," Korm repeated, his voice flat and despairing. "Magic. Does it really exist or not. I guess...," he stammered. "I guess it's really just a variation on Porlu's Naturalistic Theory. But when does anybody see Magic these days? What's the deal with that?"

          "Ah."

          They trundled on a few yards, their heads bowed, Belmok in thought, Korm in dejection. They stopped briefly at a burbling fountain, set in a cool recess, and the old Morg took a long quaff at the clear jet of water, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. They walked on.

          "The thing about Magic," Belmok began, "The thing about Magic is, we Morgs don't have any."

          "But I thought..."

          "Yes, yes, we can use magical objects. That's sure enough. There are plenty of tales about that. But wielding the power itself? It's just not in our blood. That talent resides in Mankind, in Humans and their cousins the Woses."

          "But I've seen plenty of humans. Morg City is literally crawling with them," Korm protested. "And in twenty years I've never seen any use a scrap of Magic."

          "And a good thing, too. It's a damn rare power, and only a few can use it with any skill. There is only one premier practitioner that I know of at the moment. And let me tell you, boy, nothing sees Magic but misery. Evil magic to cause misery, and good magic to fight it. I hope I never see it again."

          "Then you..."

          "Here we are," the old Morg said. "Back at chambers."

          They went in the door, and the room seemed even darker and dustier than before. Belmok pointed for Korm to have a seat again, then busied himself drawing a couple of cups of wine from a cask half-hidden behind his desk. He took one over, handed it to the younger Morg, then sat back in his own cushioned chair, eyeing the dejected youth.

          "Well?" he asked. "Any other ideas?"

          Korm drew in a huge breath, took a gulp the wine, then sighed, shaking his head.

          "No."

          "Well, that's too bad. I suppose you know it's against the rules for me to suggest a subject?"

          "Yes." The younger Morg ticked his black nails across the medals of achievement on his chest, making them dance. A half hour ago they had seemed like trophies. Now they felt like toys. He took another, bigger swallow of wine.

          "Hey, careful, son, that's the real Loreleid your swigging. It's a lot stronger than it seems." Belmok took a long, smooth sip, then set his cup down. He leaned forward over his desk and looked at the crestfallen scholar over folded fingers.

          "Tell me now," he said. "You were near the top of your class, weren't you?"

          "The very top," Korm pointed at his neglected documents on the Grand Master's desk and sucked down another draft. The tears were starting to brim in his soft brown eyes.

          Belmok picked the dribbling remains of his sandwich up and wiped the pages off, squinting at the smudged letters praising the young Morg's accomplishments.

          "I suppose," he mused slowly, "that you spent all your money on clothes and supplies and travelling a hundred and twenty miles to get here?"

          "Every last minae," Korm agreed wretchedly, his voice starting to squeak.

          "Including twenty-five gold on that ridiculous hat?"

          Belmok had seen a lot of students crumble, but not like this. The young Morg's limbs went rigid, but every muscle shuddered as if his entire body were clenching. Hot tears came squeezing out of his eyes, and it sounded to the amazed Master that the lad was somehow screaming back down into his lungs behind his tightly clamped lips.

          He watched, fascinated, as the smothered wails shook the scholar's slender frame, peaked, and finally died away. Korm's appalled eyes flew wide open, his breath whistling through his flaring nostrils.

          "I take it," the Grand Master said calmly, taking another sip, "That you've never had wine before. Certainly none like Lorelied."

          Korm shook his head, staring at the fat old Morg, not daring to open his mouth yet.

          "I thought not." Belmok set his cup down and folded his knuckled old claws together. "What I was going to say is that it would be a shame for a fellow of your promise to have to pack it in so soon. Without a subject, of course, you can't be accepted into the School, and no acceptance means no scholarship, and no scholarship, in your case, means, I take it, that you'll starve. Correct?"

          Korm nodded wordlessly.

          Belmok grinned ferociously, exposing his gapped and yellow fangs.

          "Well, behold a fine bit of legal chicanery, boy. Although it's traditional to join the School immediately after the graduation of First Mastery and an interview, it is not mandatory. In fact, history is rife with examples of elderly Morgs who pursued higher learning later in life. You just need to hang on until a suitable subject occurs to you."

          "But...but what will I do till then? How will I live?"

          "Look around this room. Tell me what you see."

          "I... I see a lot of books."

          Belmok smashed his fist on the desktop and laughed.

          "Spoken like a scholar, lad. But what you don't see, or are too polite to see, is the dust, mess, and confusion I'm squatting in the middle of. It's my own fault. I'm entitled to have a scout, but for ten years I've been too sour and solitary to keep one around. Well, I've got one now."

          Korm's eyes widened.

          "Me, sir?"

          "You, sir." The old Morg opened a desk drawer and drew out a round plug of brass. "Here. Go to the refectory and get yourself a meal. Put on some ballast to settle your stomach on that tossing sea of Lorelied wine." Korm plucked the bit of metal out of his hand with trembling fingers.

           "Now, the job doesn't pay anything, just room and board, but in the meantime, you have access to books, books, and more books. You'll begin this afternoon. When an idea for a subject pops into your head, just run it by me and we'll see if we can't have you in some classes in a twinkling."

          "Oh, yes sir!" Korm said, bowing gratefully, holding the brass slug like a prize. "Thank you, Grand Master, thank you very much indeed!" He turned to leave.

          "Just a minute, Master Korm!" The old Morg held up an imperious hand, the underfat of his arm wobbling like a jelly. Korm turned back fearfully. Belmok pointed to the young Morg's chest and stroked his long pewter beard.

          "A word of advice? Those medals. I'm sure they made you seem pretty distinguished at your old school, but everyone here has a collection just as impressive, if not more so. To wear them at Tronduhon might be seen as a bit of ... juvenile boasting, shall we say? Especially if you're not officially a student yet."

          "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," Korm said sheepishly. He stepped outside the door and began trying to unobtrusively pluck out the pins. He looked both ways uncertainly.

          "To your left, Master Korm."  Belmok's dry, sarcastic voice floated behind him through the door. The young Morg hunched, flinching, and escaped into the hallway.

          That afternoon started a time that Korm came to consider a strange fold in the tapestry of his life. It began with him clearing out the small room reserved for a scout near the Grand Master's chambers. It was hardly bigger than a closet and had filled up with a strange stew of odds and ends over the decade. Once it was clear, he had a puzzling time trying to wedge the trunk filled with all the clothes and books he had brought into the tiny space. He ended up sleeping that night inside the open trunk, on top of his spare wardrobe.

          In the coming days he found a little shop in the city specializing in student trades and exchanged his trunk for a second-hand bedroll and several other small items, including a brass lamp and a stuffed owl. The lamp was for reading at night, and the owl was for company. He needed the company.

          He was in a very strange position. He wasn't part of the School just yet: without the colored sash declaring his area of study, he existed in a sort of limbo. Regular students and teachers, seeing him dusting shelves or, later in the year, laying on fires, ignored him. They never saw him in classes; there never seemed a chance of introductions or explanations. In a forest of three thousand scholars, he was alone.

          On the other hand, his dark green tunic of First Mastery kept him separated from the three hundred or so folks who serviced the school, cooking and cleaning and mucking out. They would answer his hesitant requests and inquiries with deference, perhaps finding him a brush or a bucket, then speed away, happy to be done with the eccentric requirements of their 'betters.' On the whole, they treated their betters as if they were the prize inmates of a glorified chicken run, and Korm was the odd duck out.

          In the meantime, he attended to Belmok's needs. In the better moments, for instance, when he was putting fifty years of disarranged books in order or sorting ancient files, he was quite content. At other times, such as when he was clipping the old Morg's ancient gnarled toenails, he felt that the whole arrangement was a fiendish plan, perhaps by the old Master, perhaps by the whole world, to humiliate him. In the evenings, chores done, he retired to his little room, and read his way through borrowed volumes in search of an area in which to master.

          Now and then he stumbled across a promising idea and took it to Belmok, only to be told that Old That had done it recently or Young This was already deep into the subject. Every now and then Korm got the feeling that the fat old Morg desperately wanted to suggest something, but he knew that the rules dictated that the student must find his own subject. According to the etiquette, he couldn't even point out a book where such an idea might be found.

          Still, the young Morg wasn't isolated from where inspirations might occur. His legwork often led him into mindwork, either in Belmok's library or his personal papers. His memory improved, as what notes he made had to be written on whatever scrounged scraps of paper he could find. He started to develop quite good organizational skills, and the ability to grasp the substance of a page, often at first glance.  And then there were the tutorials, when students would meet with the old Master to air out their ideas in progress or read drafts of their papers. It was an education in itself to hear Belmok picking holes in arguments here and asking for clarification there. But these meetings never sparked an original idea for a thesis.

          What it did spark was a crush. A young student, Gulda, was preparing the first new translation of "Karn and the Lost Nine Hundred" in over two thousand years. She came to read it to Belmok, to have him check her work for historical accuracy. The saga, while quite beautiful in the ancient tongue, was proving a little difficult to wrestle into modern language. While Korm sat in the corner trying to get a shine on an old silver award plaque, Belmok lay back in his chair, eyes closed, and listened intently as she read.

 

                   "Karn, bitter with sibling rivalry,

                   Sits brooding in gloomy reverie,

                   Thinking of evil treachery.

 

                   "Old Mog, our ancient ancestry,

                   Comes and greets him pleasantly.

                   'Good my son, and how are ye?'

 

                   "'And why, sir, ask thou thus of me?

I am as well as I may be.'

                   But Mog gazed on him thoughtfully."

 

          And so on and on, for ninety-nine drasty verses. But Korm heard only those first few lines as he automatically polished the tarnished silver. Instead he was entranced by her light grey eyes, her shy manner, and the silky shining underdown of her throat that rippled as she chanted her deplorable efforts at poetic translation. After Belmok had given the girl his critique and shown her out the door, he complimented Korm on the gleam he had been able to put on the old trophy.

          For a while after that the young Morg forgot his quest for academic achievement and could only moon about Gulda. He flapped and floundered around her for days. When he went out on an errand, he searched the crowd for her brown robe and grey sash. Whenever she came by Belmok's office to read revisions, he found an excuse to be working there. At night, by the light of the brass lamp in his little room, he wrote verses that he never worked up the nerve to give her.

          That stopped at the end of summer, when he discovered that she was walking out with Drigg, a burly young Morg who wore the black belt of a student of law. Discouraged, Korm put his poetry away, and when it was found a hundred and fifty years later, it was marveled that he had ever written in verse, and that it had been so bad.

          It was no wonder that he was feeling fractious as the fall started. Five months had passed in this betwixt and between state, and he seemed no closer to his goal. It was during the days of the Autumn Festival, when the School was mostly deserted and even Master Belmok had travelled into the suburbs to visit his ancient mother, still somehow miraculously alive, that something finally happened.

Notes

I wrote this story in three days in the December of 2017 (Dec.4-Dec.6. Day One: The Interview. Day Two: Korm's Summer. Day Three: Dunwolf. Revisions: Dec. 7&8). I had already written Thron and Mighty Mikku (about Roth), and thought it was time I wrote an origin story for Korm, who, after all, was my spirit animal and one of the ‘Big Three’ Morgs from Goldfire, certainly bigger than Thron. I understand Korm’s character better than the others, anyway: he is like Cornelius from The Planet of the Apes, but imbued with my own insecurities, passions, and weaknesses.

Much of the tale is fleshed out from ideas sparked by old drawings from the Goldfire days. Korm’s hairy cone of a hat was well established: why not tell about why he wears it? I had a picture of an old nameless Morg that I had colorized with a computer program: why not name him Belmok and make him Korm’s superior? I have a picture of Great and Lesser Ogre skeletons (not scanned yet): why not make them a museum exhibit? This is, by the way, about the time I really began to develop Ogres as a culture and not just another simple evil fantasy race. Sprinkle in an old unfinished Morg poem, and you’ve got plenty of recycled ‘thickening’.

The title, Korm’s Master, comes not only from Belmok, his ‘master’ at the college, but also his search for a subject to be a ‘Master’ of, in this case the history of the Goldfire and trying to trace its location. This would lead to his involvement with the later quest.

Korm’s poverty, his unpreparedness for an actual college life, his emotional immaturity, his snobbishness, his outsider status (not easily categorized), are all my own. Even Gulda, his crush, is based on a girl with grey eyes (though no underdown, which I here discovered that Morg females have instead of beards) that I knew in high school and who I considered an eminent possible target for my affections. I, of course, hardly ever even spoke to her, though I did give her one of my drawings. And I never let go of my drawings; they were expressions of my soul.

“Gulda”, by the way, helped solidify a tradition. While male Morg names tend to be one-syllable, female Morg names tend to be two-syllable and end with a vowel, often -a. This is not a hard-and-fast rule. But it helps me make up new names.

Scholar sword: It became a metaphor for sharp insight; in the old days, scholars challenged each other to duels to prove their points. A note implied it was how Belmok lost his eye before I discovered the ‘real’ reason.