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1Aramini 
2# *THE WIZARD KNIGHT*: “HOW FAR TO THE DREAM MY MOTHER HAD?”
3
4>“You come near the secret that lies at the heart of all things, Able. Worship me, and I will tell it. […]
5You behold me as I am, Able. It may be the sight is too much.” As it spoke, it no longer surrounded me. Instead there was before me upon a throne of ice a creature grossly great. Toad and dragon were in it. So was the Earl Marshal, and so was I. […]
6
7> “I wish I could sit here forever,” [the Earl Marshal] told me solemnly, “watching those waves and this sky, and eating this food.”
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9>I paid little heed when he said it; but when we rose to return to Mythgarthr, I chanced to look behind us. There he sat with food before him, staring out over the sea, his face rapturous. I stopped to point, and he whispered, “I know.” There are things in Aelfrice I still do not understand. (*Wizard*, XXXV 422, 424)
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11Wolfe opens *The Wizard Knight* with a poem by Lord Dunsany that answers a very particular question. The answer might be applicable to the people and creatures encountered in the seven worlds of the novels:
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13>Who treads those level lands of gold,
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15>The level fields of mist and air,
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17>And rolling mountains manifold
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19>And towers of twilight over there?
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21>No mortal foot upon them strays,
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23>No archer in the towers dwells,
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25>But feet too airy for our ways
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27>Go up and down their hills and dells.
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29>The people out of old romance,
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31>And people that have never been (“The Riders”)
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33The weighty religious and philosophical themes of Wolfe's longer fictions seem almost secondary in his *Wizard Knight* series, which at first appears to be a fun and fast-paced examination of power. Wolfe portrays a violent and class conscious (but still chivalrous) age; might is used (and misused) to maintain order. However, the narrator Able’s insistence that he is really just a child in a man's body establishes a metaphor for the love of fantasy fiction in general that encapsulates the youthful yearning for a better time, free from office jobs and bills, containing magic, love, and strength of arms. Almost everyone Able encounters makes much the same admission, aching for childhood and feeling as if they, too, are still very young, no matter how battle hardened and experienced they appear to be. At one point, Able insists that everything he is and will be depends upon the singular object of his affections: "I loved Queen Disiri, always, and nobody else; and if you do not understand that, you will never understand all the things I am going to tell you at all, because that was always the main thing. ... I knew I was just a kid inside” (*Knight*, XIII 93).
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35Two things separate Wolfe's fantasy from mere escapist fare. The first is characterization: in order for Able to mature in a world devoid of truly Christian concepts, there are certain self-imposed restrictions by which he attempts to live. Wolfe's sophistication as a writer becomes evident when his seemingly traditional narrative refuses to take us to the places we expect. The way that these characters employ their powers is just as important as having them. The other feature which sets Wolfe apart from almost every other fantasist involves a mountain of metaphorical subtext that congeals at times but might easily be ignored, and in *The Wizard Knight* the dream sequences suggest a tragic allegory which answers the primary questions of the text – what kind of boy does not get to live his life as a boy, is promised a sword he cannot use, and is given magic he must never wield? Why does Able seem to have so much potential that he is never able to enjoy? Why is so much time spent on the subtle distinction between *can* and *may* in his education? When the dreams and other seemingly random patterns in the text come into a rigid structural focus, we can discern that Able truly *is* still a child in an adult body, “a kid inside,” although the body he inhabits is ultimately his mother’s. At one point, Able waxes philosophical about how to reach Aelfrice, and asks, “How far to summer, sir? How many steps? How far to the dream my mother had?” (*Wizard*, XXVI 314)
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37The irony of this question is almost too much to bear. All that Able could ever be is encapsulated in it, for he is but a potential, a dream in his mother’s womb, one of the “people that had never been” from old romances, as noted in Lord Dunsany’s “The Riders” above, which Wolfe quotes to open his fantasy sequence. When Able meets the brothers Uns and Duns (one of them crippled, weak, and jealous of his taller and less afflicted sibling), he is drawn into an encounter with the ogre Org, a chameleon-like monster whom the handicapped Uns saved from starvation and death so that he might have some secret power over his brother. After fighting with Org and attempting to sneak the monster into Sheerwall Castle, Able experiences three “unrelated” visions that highlight his condition. Readers are tempted to ascribe the dreams to the presence of the mystical bowstring which supposedly grants Able knowledge of those who live in America:
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39>I was a woman in a dirty bed in a stuffy little room. An old woman sitting beside my bed kept telling me to push, and I pushed, although I was so tired I could not push hard, no matter how hard I tried. I knew my baby was trying to breathe, and could not breathe, and would soon die.
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41>“Push!”
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43
44>I had tried to save; now I was only trying to get away. He would not let go, climbing on me, pushing me underwater.
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46
47>The moon shone through pouring rain as I made my way down the muddy track. At its end the ogre loomed black and huge. I was the boy who had gone into Disiri’s cave, not the man who had come out. My sword was Disira’s grave marker, the short stick tied to the long one with a thong. I pushed the point into the mud to mark my own grave, and went on. When the ogre threw me, it became such a sword as I wished for, with a golden pommel and a gleaming blade.
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49>I floated off the ground and started back for it, but I could no longer breathe. (*Knight*, XLI 257-8)
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51As with so much in Wolfe, the brothers Uns and Duns and their pet ogre are symbolic of something that Able is actually experiencing, and these chimeric visions represent a more certain actuality than the surface impressions our narrator perceives as his reality. In the second of these dreams, we should note that Able faces the same threat as the unborn child in the passage above, and that he cannot escape from something which has a fierce hold on him. Pregnancy imagery in *The Wizard Knight* usually accompanies the omnipresent threat of starvation and strangulation. The books also feature a continually renewed conflict and uneasiness between forces that would be on the same side if they saw each other clearly. Able fights with the knights who serve King Arnthor as often as he fights the Angrborn, if not more. However, sometimes Able’s foes wind up being surprisingly generous and capable of kindness as well as violence, as Garsecg demonstrates. King Gilling displays real affection for his human queen. Although Mythgarthr is known as “The Clearing Where Tales Are Told,” we should also note that it is formed from the dead body of the giant Ymir (*Wizard*, IV 47). One vital aspect of this involves a possible meaning of the name Ymir: “twin.” The strange doubling of the Earl Marshal in the opening quote above begins to make metaphorical sense when we consider the possibility that, if Able is indeed still a child of the womb, he is not alone.
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53Even on the surface, the novels explore the development and actualization of a mature self. Perhaps the most important figure in understanding the shifting characters and repeated motifs in *The Wizard Knight* is Carl Jung, whose idea of recurring and primordial archetypes based in the collective unconscious might help illuminate many of the most inexplicable moments in the text. While it would be easy to map family, story, and animal archetypes onto the fantasy elements of Able’s adventures, on a deeper level Jung’s examination of the forging of the self against the threat of fragmentation and flawed self-perception also resonates strongly with Wolfe’s series. In *Man and His Symbols*, Jung says, “Man, as we realize if we reflect for a moment, never perceives anything fully or comprehends anything completely. … There are, moreover, unconscious aspects of our perception of reality. The first is the fact that even when our senses react to real phenomena, sights, and sounds, they are somehow translated from the realm of reality into that of the mind.” These psychic events are still subject to a kind of symbolic framework that of course reveals something about the self, but sometimes those revelations are very far from obvious. In discussing the unconscious psyche, Jung asserts that it might very well manifest itself in dream, which operates not on rational thought but on symbolic images. We shall return to the idea of Able’s story as a kind of dream at the very end of this write-up in an attempt to explain his memories of America (as well as the first-person pregnancy imagery glimpsed in the dream above). The unconscious mind Jung describes manifests itself as a kind of double, two personalities or subjects within the same individual. Jung even goes on to say, “[I]t is one of the curses of modern man that many people suffer from this divided personality … It is not merely the neurotic whose right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.” In his assessment of consciousness, he claims that humanity may not yet have achieved a reasonable degree of continuity: “It is still vulnerable and liable to fragmentation.”
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55The most important aspect of Jungian archetypes for our discussion involves the idea that myths, art, religion, and dreams are all, in Jung’s assessment, based on potentials which are like psychological instincts. Archetypal images like the mother, the child, the flood, and the trickster are transformed when they intersect and combine with the waking world of culture and personal experience. These archetypes are primordial in nature and do not require indoctrination or even education, existing at first on an unconscious level and binding all of humanity in a collective unconscious. It might be worthwhile to note that some very common animal archetypes include the enduring horse which never surrenders, the faithful dog characterized by unquestioning loyalty, and the devious cat motivated by selfishness. (This alone might serve as the best explanation for the cat Mani’s sudden departure from the text, while Able has a small dog even in the final scenes.) However, these archetypes are all aspects of the self and expressions of the previously mentioned collective unconscious. They are elemental forces, which play a role in the creation of the human mind, and were often identified, according to Jung, as elemental spirits in antiquity. Among the archetypal events Jung describes are birth, death, marriage, separation from parents, and, perhaps essentially for our discussion, the union of opposites. Some archetypal motifs include creation, the apocalypse, and the flood.
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57The threats of drowning and an inability to breathe saturate the text (whether through Org’s strangulation, the garroting of Setr with Parka’s cord, the nose injury of Svon, the air-sucking wound of King Gilling, or even Uns’s own easily forgotten injury, amongst many others: “Uns had been stabbed; the wound sucked air until we bandaged it, and he seemed weak” (*Wizard*, XXXIII 392).) The possibility of drowning occurs most notably when Able meets what could very well be his doom riding on the white griffin in an attempt to vanquish the dragon Grengarm. As the younger Toug later says, “He fell into the sea” (*Wizard*, II 27). The cat Mani stresses that this did in fact kill Able, somehow. (Perhaps more accurately, Mani insists that Able is dead in the second volume, despite his palpable presence throughout.)
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59Water and the sea also become explicit in their connection to the womb when Able learns how to harness the powers of the sea to heal himself from Garsecg: “You will never drown. … You are one with the sea – more than you know” (*Knight*, XXVII 169). Soon after, as Able first meets the massive creative force of Aelfrice known as Kulili, he reflects: 
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61>I was thinking about Disiri and the statue [of Kulili], and they got mixed up in my mind, and I started wondering if I was really real at all. It seemed to me this might be what it was like when you were just a memory, and maybe Disiri was remembering me, and would always remember me, would always love me like I would always love her, and this was me in her mind. (*Knight*, XXVII 170)
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63As with many of the most poignant ruminations in Wolfe, Able’s thoughts bear a closer resemblance to his situation than he realizes; Kulili, composed as she is of threads and worms which can scatter and unravel, whose constituent parts somehow forge the various Aelf species, represents a profoundly scientific biological creative force. The fiery Aelf, who can sustain Able by sharing their blood, without a soul of their own, bear an uncanny resemblance in function to red blood cells, which lack nuclei and do not contain their own DNA, so that they may carry more hemoglobin and distribute oxygen throughout the body. Some of Able’s dreams also seem to be readily explicable only as describing a metaphorical conception, with the swallowing of sperm by an egg:
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65>In the dream I had that morning, I was myself for a change, but very young, much younger than I had been when I came out of Parka's cave. I was sitting in a little boat and paddling up the Griffin. Bold Berthold stood watching from the bank, and Setr swam beside me, spouting water and steam like a whale. Up the river, Mother was waiting for me. Pretty soon Bold Berthold was left behind. I saw Mother's face among the leaves of a willow and in a hawthorn, beautiful and smiling, and crowned with hawthorn blossoms; but the Griffin wound on, and when the hawthorn was past I saw her no more. From time to time I glimpsed a griffin of stone from whose mouth the river issued. I tried to reach it, but came instead to an opening in a tube of thick green glass.
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67>And emerged at once, mounted on a gray warhorse and gripping a short lance from which a pennant fluttered. The stone griffin stood before me, tall as a mountain and much more stern. I couched the lance and charged, and was swallowed up at once. (*Knight*, XLI 319)
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69The hawthorn tree is known as a fairy tree, as those who sit under it might enter the fey underworld, especially on May 1st; it is also a symbol of fertility. One legend associated with the hawthorn suggests that taking it inside a house will prove fatal to the perpetrator’s mother. The willow tree implies renewal and fertility because it can be regrown easily from a small branch, no matter how its fragment is planted (Kendall). We should also note that in this vision, Setr, the brother of Arnthor, is actually in the water with Able. On the plains of Jotunland, Able experiences an even more explicit version of this dream after fighting the Angrborn:
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71>Water surged about me, carrying me with it. A school of fish like scarlet jewels passed and met a second school of iridescent silver. They intermeshed, passed. The iridescent fish surrounded me, and were gone.
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73>The girl-face of Kulili lay below me as an island must lie below a bird. Her vast lips moved, but the only sound was in my mind. *I made them. I shaped them as a woman molds dough, taking something from the trees, something from the beasts that felled the trees, and something from myself.*
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75>I saw her hands then, hands knit of a million millions of thread-worms, and Disiri taking shape as they labored.
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77>That dream was lost among [many others], dreams of death, long before my eyelids fluttered.
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79>But not lost completely. (*Knight*, LXIII 390)
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81We should keep these images in mind throughout the entire series, for Wolfe has managed to switch the dreams and the waking world in a subtle and symbolic fashion: Able’s dreams of death are real, but his memory will not be lost, for there must be a dreamer in whose mind his memory still exists. While he speculated above that he might exist only in the mind of Disiri, it might be more accurate to assume that the dream Able inhabits belongs to his mother. Right before these dreams, Able realizes that his understanding of the events he has experienced is somehow flawed: “But in Aelfrice, Setr changed into a man called Garsecg, and Uri and Baki had been turned into Khimairas. Or maybe turned themselves into Khimairas. I don’t know which. … Flying monsters. Only there’s something wrong about all this. I can’t put my finger on it, but I know there is” (*Knight*, LXIII 390). Part of what is wrong involves the defensive, subjective filtering of Able’s perceptions and sensations into a coherent narrative, a myth which describes the biological events and the pain, hunger, and difficulty breathing he is experiencing. This idea is also introduced when he learns that the Aelf might seem loathsome to some. Able defiantly proclaims, “My eyes are mine … and they do what I tell them” (*Knight*, VII 58). This is further emphasized in the second volume when Able assures Toug of something which is difficult to reconcile with the surface story concerning the Aelf. When Baki renounces Setr and says that her mother is Kulili, Able rests a hand on Toug's shoulder and says, "She's a thing in your mind, and you can trust me on this. She's a thought, a dream" (*Wizard*, IV 44). [Of course, Toug might be another such manifestation of the self or the dimly perceived brother, though the Aelf are distinct in representing truly external (and biologically “lower”) forces within the environment of the womb. Able’s fights with the young Svon and Toug at the very start of *The Knight* are also symbolic of the struggle he faces within and without, and soon enough in the narrative, Toug and Svon fight each other (while the giants Thiazi and Schildstarr form an alliance.) The relationship between Toug and Able is reinforced by a vision representing the past during Beel’s divination: Toug and Able appear in Aelfrice together. Their names even mean much the same thing: Toug is an “Old High German word for ‘it is useful; be useful.’ In this sense it is similar to the names Able and Nytir” (Andre-Driussi 94). A rather innocuous statement from Bold Berthold concerning Toug reinforces this detail: “He’s not too bad a lad, Toug ain’t. Recollects me of my brother” (*Wizard*, III 29).]
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83When we consider that Able and Bold could somehow be twins locked in a silent struggle in the womb, another dream Able has after the Osterlings invade the *Western Trader* and injure him gains an extra layer of meaning. He is led to the ship by his servant Pouk, who says, “I was lookin’ out sharp for a berth when you spied me on th’ wharf” (*Knight*, XVIII 117). [Able might be looking out sharp for a birth as well. While the name Berthold can mean “splendid” or “bright rule,” it might also be considered as a homophone accurately describing the struggle between Able and his brother.] After his injury, the dream invokes the fear of strangulation:
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85>In the dream I had been way down under the main deck. It had been pitch dark, but I had known somehow that our mother was not really dead at all – she was down there, tied up and gagged so she could not make any noise, and if I could find her I could cut her loose and bring her up on deck. Only the captain was down there too, and he had a rope he wanted to choke me with. He was moving around very quietly, trying to come up behind me and get it around my neck. I was trying to be quiet, too, so he could not find me. …
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87>There had been somebody else down there with us in my dream, somebody that never moved at all or made any noise; but I did not know who it was. (*Knight* XVII, 114)
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89Here Able, some quiet stranger he can sense without knowing, and his mother are all somehow below deck in the dark; he is aware of the threat of the captain lurking to strangle him with a rope. Soon after this, Able and the captain argue about his possessions. The captain is concerned with his own ship and cargo, and winds up attacking Able. Able’s response is accidentally fatal: "I hit him with Sword Breaker thinking I would knock him out. I hit him too hard, though, and the diamond-shaped blade went deep into his head instead" (*Knight*, XX 129). Their argument over resources, sleeping space, and personal ownership ends with a splash after Able drops the captain’s body into the ocean. Yet who could that silent and unseen stranger in the dark from Able’s dream represent, along with Able and his mother? Could it be a dimly perceived brother in utero, whose very presence has begun to encroach on Able’s space within the womb, stealing his resources and starving him of even the oxygen he requires? These recurring dreams eventually intersect with the idea of nonlinear time, as revealed when King Arnthor imprisons Able for delivering his message:
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91>I slept in my cell that night, and wished (if the truth be told) that I had some means of locking it from inside. I was back on the *Western Trader*. (This was not the first time that dream had recurred since my return from Skai.) I saw the vicious, famished faces of the Osterlings and knew they meant to land on Glas and that my mother was there. I went to the captain and ordered him to put about; he did not hear or see me, and when I knocked the hourglass from his table, it returned of its own accord. (*Wizard*, XXXIV 402)
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93It is in these times of desperation, after Arnthor has rejected his message, that Able considers joining the invaders: “I might also have asked Org to bring me whatever meat he could find and united myself with the Osterlings, who eat the flesh of their foes, and howled in my madness” (*Wizard*, XXXV 416). When the Earl Marshal of Thortower becomes disgusted at just such a display of Osterling cannibalism, Able asks, “Is it worse to kill a child, or to eat it before the worms do?” (*Wizard*, XXXVI 426) We should also keep this question in mind when considering the absolute lack of resources Mythgarthr suffers during its final siege, as if permanent famine and cold weather have come to the world.
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95Only at the very end of the series will Able look through his helm and see a portion of the reality around him in his waking consciousness – otherwise, his situation is only glimpsed through the visions and dreams which saturate the tale. Able finds the very idea of the Khimairae to be unsettling for some indeterminable reason he can’t quite pin down. The word used to describe them itself seems to serve as an extra-textual component in Wolfe’s puzzle. At one point, Able even asks, “What has a Khimaira to do with me?” (*Wizard*, XIII 146) From our experience with Wolfe and his oddly random challenges, we can anticipate that the answer might be “everything,” though not in an obvious way.
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97First, let’s look at the idea that these two almost indistinguishable Fire Aelf might have somehow “turned themselves” into Khimairae, though they are obviously beholden to Setr. Clearly, we are meant to associate their names with a chimera, a thing hoped or wished for but ultimately impossible to achieve. In science, a human chimera is a person with genetic information from two sources, normally occurring when one twin absorbs the other during gestation. Though we shall leave behind this bit of information for now, it might be useful to think about every interaction in *The Wizard Knight* as a manifestation of just such a process, encompassing the monstrous, metaphorical, and biological meanings of the word chimera; Wolfe employs all of them. This is especially evident in the pivotal scenes in which Bold Berthold loses his shadow in the lake and in the climax, in which Able heals his brother, restoring what Bold once lost.
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99We shall mention two more examples of this underlying metaphor before putting aside these claims for a time to look at the surface story of the text. When Able learns how to wield a sword from Garvaon, the lessons he learns would be strangely applicable to the needs of a sperm: he is told that his sword must flow like the sea, and that “Speed isn’t the main thing. It isn’t the most important thing. It’s *everything*” (*Knight*, LV 343). Later, Garvaon will teach Able about foining in fights that are a matter of life and death, pushing the blade through an opponent. He even gives an example of foining entirely through a giant’s neck (*Knight*, LVII 354). While the verb certainly implies thrusting, Shakespeare often used it with a sexual connotation, as this description of Falstaff shows:
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101>Alas the day, take heed of him – he stabbed me 
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103>in mine own house, most beastly, in good faith. ‘A cares 
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105>not what mischief he does, if his weapon be out. He 
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107>will foin like any devil; he will spare neither man, 
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109>woman, nor child. (*2 Henry IV*, II.i.13-17)
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111Able and Garvaon also have an archery competition, and Able’s shot, which he intends to miss on purpose, has a rather dramatic effect:
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113>I was starting to feel like I was cheating, and I did not like that. Instead of shooting at the target, I aimed for the top leaves of the scrubby little tree they had hung it on. I shot, and watched my arrow fly true to aim. It passed through the leaves and hit the cliff-face behind them. A few pebbles fell, then a few more.
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115>All at once the cliff face gave way, collapsing with a grinding roar. (*Knight*, LII 327)
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117Beyond the powerful implications of Able’s accuracy with a bow and the long ranging effects of one such arrow (a sperm) reaching its ultimate destination and piercing a living “cliff-face,” the novel creates other metaphors that are suggestive of our narrator’s condition without being immediately obvious. One of them involves the strange meal that Able experiences after killing the Queen’s undead champion, Loth (whose name bears an uncanny resemblance to the figure who encourages Able’s disobedience to the precepts of Skai, Lothur).
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119>A chef put a great roast swan on our table, and at a signal from Arnthor split it with a knife not much smaller than a sword. Split, it could be seen that a goose had been stuffed into the swan to be roasted with it, a plover into the goose, a duck into the plover, and three lesser birds into the duck, all these save the swan having been boned. (*Wizard*, XXXIII 395)
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121During this dinner scene, in which Able must reveal how he came across his dog Gylf, we see a strange collapse of Morcaine into Arnthor:
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123"[Morcaine's] face became that of her brother, I cannot say how. I was not conscious of having turned, yet it was to him I spoke (*Wizard*, XXXIII 396).
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125It is in this scene that Able delivers his message from the Aelf. As we should have come to expect, rather than granting him freedom, completing his great task merely serves to entrap him once again: “After that I was locked in a cell with walls of living rock, reeking, narrow, and very dark; and left alone there” (*Wizard*, XXXIII 398). It is at these moments in the text, when Able is trapped and hungry, that we begin to see something of the truth behind the Gnostic fantasies that he has constructed in his trauma. If these metaphors are taken seriously, it is quite easy to determine why the walls around him are living, and why he is constantly stationed at a narrow pass or trapped in a cell at every turn. As we consider the novel, we should always keep in mind the manner in which the swan is split in twain at Arnthor’s signal, containing a goose with a plover inside it, leading to a duck with three lesser birds in that – not only does this echo the manner in which the cosmology of *The Wizard Knight* is constructed, with its seven levels, it also reveals something about the various people, monsters, and magical beings populating the novel, all ultimately contained within one biological system, just as the large and unsettling creatures visible in the blood and the semen of the giants also suggests. In many ways, the swan torn asunder reflects what has happened to Able and Bold, calling back to the grouse Able initially offered to share with the older man. Bold always insists that the young boy is truly his brother, though they are initially at different stages of their life cycles.
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127Of course, Able is not the only character whose story seems to rely upon biological metaphors. When he is tasked with guarding the mountain pass by Duke Marder and finally takes up his position, Able encounters three knights. One of them, Sir Woddet, describes a battle scenario that can really only be understood as another metaphor for impregnation. When Duke Marder enters the Sun Room, he selects companions by using seeds. (Woddet’s original symbol, that of a menhir, a tall upright stone with a spear through it, is also slightly suggestive of a stylized sperm cell.) Woddet says, “We herded the Golden Caan and his elephants into the angle between two canals and charged him. He had the elephants out front, and they killed a score of us and took that many lances before they fell. I lost my sword and used my mace” (*Wizard*, XI 127). In this manner, Woddet conquers the Golden Caan and becomes the Sun Knight (with an obvious play on the word son). Able’s response after this story as he scans the nearby cliff tops is not quite the *non sequitur* it first appears to be: “It isn’t easy for a boy to become a man” (*Wizard*, XI 127). A map of those two canals might look suspiciously like fallopian tubes. Woddet affirms that the process of becoming a man is irrevocable, and that one can never go back. However, the entirety of *The Wizard Knight* emphasizes Able’s reaction to the story: in some difficult situations, becoming a real man remains but an impossible dream.
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129Many fans insist that there is no right way to read Gene Wolfe, and further claim that settling on one “true” reading actually limits the work. One of the literary models for *The Wizard Knight* might very well be *Don Quixote de la Mancha*, in which the addle-pated Alonso creates a love interest in the form of Dulcinea and then proceeds to prove that he is a true knight, acting in imitation of the romances which so influenced him, assuming the persona of Don Quixote. Able, too, seeks out Disiri and knighthood and discovers that it is not only might and battle that make chivalry something worth exalting. Cervantes, of course, has a more complicated relationship to chivalry, but an introduction to *Don Quixote* by Paul Montazzoli explores what makes the novel of the delusional knight so enduring:
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131>As the pleasant, instructive satire it had turned into during the eighteenth century, *Don Quixote* might have lost its international audience as soon as that century passed. The Romantics’ belief that the book was a grave parable and hardly a burlesque at all insured its fame in their own time, and also – by allowing us to see it as a burlesque that transcends the genre – made possible its fame in ours. Today, readers continue to turn to this dauntingly huge novel because they know it offers serious themes to grapple with, not just hilarities to revel in.
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133>To try to describe these themes is, first of all, to try to crystallize the meaning of Cervantes’s delicious and exasperating protagonist. At the same time, we might keep in mind those twentieth-century critics for whom *Don Quixote* is an example of an open text, inviting an infinite number of equally valid interpretations and excluding only a definitive one. According to this approach, a nihilistic view of the book that construes it as satirizing the human imposition of value on a meaningless universe would be as respectable as a Romantic view.
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135>As an archetype, this monkishly wasted, overtopping figure with a lance and helmet can be said to stand for virtue rendered useless or destructive by deluded egotism. To give Don Quixote this significance makes him sound like the hero of a tragedy, or of a comedy of a disturbing kind – which is exactly what Cervantes’s masterpiece is. And doubly disturbing since it insists that the virtue in human beings cannot survive without the distortions of self-exaltation. (Montazzoli x-xi)
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137Wolfe’s novel also interrogates the value of romance and chivalry in a world in which pain, suffering, and scarcity are very real, though Able’s struggle seems to culminate quite differently: relinquishing his ego does not invalidate his maturation, nor does it deflate the power of romantic ideals. In many ways, Able’s final sacrifice upholds and buttresses the mature principles and responsibilities chivalry demands. Even with all of the power of Skai and of Eterne, Able’s ultimate challenge is to use his powers to heal, sacrificing his potential rather than selfishly seeking only his own glory. Is there truly no definitive reading of Wolfe’s novels, as Montazzoli suggests of *Don Quixote*? If we accept that Wolfe is capable of constructing scaffolding and puzzles which point to an explanation that makes sense of many mysterious, seemingly insignificant details which are clearly present in his work, then pattern, repetition, and objective information outside the text can all support a reading that helps us to understand the narrative (and Able’s sacrifice) more clearly. Wolfe has several modes, and *The Wizard Knight* appears to be similar in nature to *Peace* and *There Are Doors*, in which the surface understanding of the main character requires some extra contextualization to truly ground the narrative.
138
139In *Peace*, Weer’s status at the time of his narration is not controversial, and this might be in large part thanks to Wolfe’s candidness in interviews concerning the novel and the significance of the first line. Since Wolfe’s early openness, we have been largely left to our own devices, and our trickiest of authors has become increasingly reticent to reveal the overarching structural mysteries of his major works. In *The Wizard Knight*, the harsh and bewildering physical circumstances in which Able finds himself encourages the creation of a consistent story, the birth of a powerful myth intimately tied to his biological experiences: he undergoes many tests and trials, and the story engages the power of imagination to describe Able’s own personal development. Furthermore, Wolfe plays all the tricks of late Modernism that authors such as James Joyce employed, even going so far as to create letter associations for characters and cloaking mimetic scenes in myth and allusion – but he does it in a readable adventure story that by and large escapes the attention of all but the most pedantic and obsessed readers, in a way that never compromises the tale itself. If given the choice between reading *Finnegans Wake* or *The Wizard Knight* on vacation without secondary sources and an experienced literature professor to consult, most readers would probably get much more out of Wolfe’s series.
140
141After the difficulty of convincing anyone at all of my reading of *The Book of the Short Sun* soon after its inception, I flirted with the possibility of burying the thesis of this essay much deeper. However, if we are to achieve a holistic understanding of the thematic weight of Able’s sacrifice at the end of the book, it is necessary to be aware of the subtext. Enjoyment of the book, however, requires none of this. Having said that, *The Wizard Knight* still directly challenges readers to understand the intersection of Mythgarthr and America in its conclusion. When Able puts on his helm of true seeing, he is shocked when he discovers something far beyond his understanding:
142
143>Lovely Disiri became a puppet of mud and leaves. That was horrible, but I had expected it. Two other things I had not expected and cannot explain. The Valfather was a bright shadow. Nothing more.
144
145>And Bold Berthold, who had been sitting beside Gerda, vanished. She was the same lovely young woman, but Berthold was gone and you, Ben, sat in his place. As I say, I cannot explain these things. (*Wizard*, XL 476)
146
147Just because Able can’t explain these things does not mean that the details are forever doomed to murky incomprehension. The conclusion of *The Wizard Knight* clearly involves several important acts of healing: Able mends Bold and others in this climactic scene, breaking his oath to the gods of Skai and using the magic he has been granted, but at a terrible cost: “It took a lot to restore the thing [Bold] had left in a pond so long ago” (*Wizard*, XL 474). Able also heals several other characters, including Uns, Lynett, Gylf, and Wistan (who once fought with Toug over Able’s mace and dropped it into a well – we will stress the significance of falling into water at greater length soon, keeping in mind that Able fell into the water on the back of the composite griffin at the conclusion of *The Knight*, when he “died.”) When Able straightens the crippled and bent Uns, the text notes, “How slowly he rose! He thought it was a dream …  and feared at every finger’s width gained that he might wake. Toug came to stand by him. Toug was crying, and so was I.” The tears here are far more poignant than a first reading might suggest; the Valfather reveals that Able’s destiny is already sealed: “You would end your life if I asked, and will end it in any case” (*Wizard*, XL 475). Able’s act of healing, even though his narrative continues, cuts off many of the opportunities he might otherwise have had – the possibilities of *can* have been exhausted in his final choice, in favor of healing those he loves and returning to Aelfrice with Disiri.
148
149Yet how can we understand the nature of Able’s sacrifice and rationalize how Bold Berthold could actually be Ben when Able looks at him, if Arthur Ornsby truly crossed from our Earth into Mythgarthr after fleeing his family’s cabin? As with much in Wolfe which is at first opaque, several seemingly unrelated mysteries can work to help clarify others, though there is a little bit of lupine trickery in the narrator’s initial memories of America. For the necessity of making this write-up worthwhile to those who do not accept that Able’s experiences represent psychological myths describing a difficult twin-ship in the womb, in which two brothers vie for increasingly scant resources and risk killing the mother before one chimeric twin is reabsorbed and assimilated by the surviving brother [in one sense, Able *is* named after the slain Abel, though his brother Bold/Ben is not truly an intentional Cain], with Able’s story but a symbolic dream message sent by the archangel Michael to his mother and perhaps his living brother, we must emphasize that Wolfe is successful in carrying out a consistent surface story, one which features memorable characters and thematically apt lessons for maturation, even as the text explores the intense and mystical struggle of becoming real against harsh, if not impossible, odds.
150
151Just as Bold dropped a shadowy “something” into the pond when his village first came under siege by Schildstarr in the cold of winter, our essay will soon split in twain, and attempt to accomplish two very different things, treating the story as a serious and “real” narrative first while trying to resolve any narrative mysteries without fully explicating the repetitive and inconclusive details which can only be reconciled metaphorically and symbolically in our second half. However, letter associations should always be considered by readers, as we have already hinted in suggesting that the struggle between Svon and Toug at the start of the second book is counterpoised against the alliance of the giants Schildstarr and Thiazi later in the volume. [These letter combinations are omnipresent, as when we consider Marder’s Sheerwall and the wounding of its Master Thope, who receives a stab wound which foreshadows both King Gilling’s initial injury and Uns’s own sucking wound. So, too, do the letters A, B, G, and O seem supersaturated with consistent meaning, among other less prevalent patterns. The reason I mentioned *Finnegans Wake* above involves Joyce’s innovative use of shifting letters to denote characters, with H.C.E. and A.L.P. in various combinations standing for continuous male and female character, respectively. Thankfully for casual readers, Wolfe uses these literary tricks in very subtle ways.] The ravenous hunger of Org is of course synonymous with the cannibalistic tendencies of the Osterlings, and it is also vitally important that when Able delivers the starving child Ossar (born of the woman Disira and the criminal Seaxneat) to the Aelf (receiving Gylf in exchange), Bold is nowhere to be seen. In an act which only makes sense symbolically, Seaxneat has split open Disira’s head, but left the child Ossar intact; this reveals the violence of fertilization, which destroys the integrity of the egg and alters its nature, but leaves something else in its place. It is no coincidence that one of the final visions involves Able’s glorious knowledge of Bold’s triumph over Schildstarr at the very end of the book, though in many ways Svon, Schildstarr, Sheerwall, Seaxneat, Setr, Sword Breaker, and even the swan split in half at Arnthor’s dinner are different aspects of the same basic thing in Able’s consciousness. They are further linked to the G elements in the text through the relationship between Garsecg and Setr. Perhaps the largest task of the mythographer and of Wolfe’s reader involves discerning how reality and myth actually conjoin, and in *The Wizard Knight*, as in much of Wolfe, this intersection is fully defined through the structural choices and parallel situations Wolfe constructs.
152
153## The Reflection of Reality and the Echo of Myth
154
155One of the features which consistently separates Wolfe from other fantasists is his presentation of fully formed secondary worlds with very real connections to our own. There are many of these "parallel" worlds in fantasy, from Lewis's *Narnia* to Zelazny's *Amber*, but in Wolfe’s series we never actually get to see the "real" world save for a brief opening chapter, with Able running through the woods, afraid that he will be in his brother's way, reinforced by the occasional memory or dream granted by the strange bow-string given Able by Parka of Kleos. In the surface narrative, this bow-string functions as the link between Mythgarthr and Earth (though it also vanquishes Setr, the sibling of King Arnthor, through strangulation).
156
157In order to draw conclusions about the relationship between Earth and Mythgarthr, it might be necessary to take a closer look at how Wolfe alters Norse cosmology. There are usually nine worlds rather than seven in standard Norse myths; Wolfe has completely taken out a few and seems to have combined others. In the branches and roots of the world tree Yggdrasil, the worlds are Niflheim, Muspelheim, Asgard, Midgard, Jotunheim, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Svartalfheim, and Helheim.
158
159In misty Niflheim, the well Hvergelmir sits – the origin of all life, to which it returns eventually; one of the large roots of Yggdrasil drinks there. Wolfe’s novels have Niflheim as the lowest world, where the most low god dwells. Above that, Wolfe places Muspel. In myth, Muspelheim is a land of fire ruled by Surtr, the enemy of the Aesir. Wolfe has Setr originate in Muspel, though he has been able to subvert the worship of the Aelf to himself away from the humans above them. Skai is appropriately Asgard, which also existed in the sky, home to Odin and the other Aesir.
160
161In Wolfe’s novels, Jotunhome is the secret country of the giant Angrborn women, and thus mythic Jotunheim is combined with Mythgarthr/Midgard in the books. While Able travels to Jotunland in the north, he never actually visits Jotunhome, where the female giants rule. [This might make sense in our reading of the text as a biological metaphor of the womb – there is no return to the ovaries for either Able or Ben]. However, just as in Norse Myth, the well Mimir is in Jotunhome. To drink from this well of wisdom, Odin gave up one of his eyes. [Readers should also be aware of a repeated motif featuring a broken head or skull, which we will expand upon below.]
162
163Another issue which confounds easy interpretation involves the way in which Wolfe splits Norse myths between Mythgarthr and Skai: “normal” humans in the books such as Seaxneat, Ve, and Vil are all named after important Norse figures. Indeed, in myth, Seaxneat is one of Odin’s sons, and Ve is one of the primary deities of creation – but they are merely a brigand and a child in Wolfe’s novel, respectively. [Making such an influential demiurge a child of course resonates with and reinforces Able’s role in conceptualizing the world around him, creating it from incomplete and desperate sensory impressions.]. Gods such as Forseti, the deity of justice, are transformed into city names such as Forcetti (though the novel explains this as a homage to the god). The place of the giantess Hel, who will amass all of the wicked dead to storm Asgard at the time of Ragnarok, is taken by the most low god.
164
165To make matters worse, there seems to be a similar “echo” between all of the plot strands: Arthur Ormsby is left by Ben, who is interested in Geri; Able might have been neglected by Bold, whose girlfriend’s name is Gerta; and even Arnthor has Gaynor, though his half-brother Setr does not match the “alphabetical” pattern. [However, Arnthor *does* die in struggle with the Black Caan. As we have noted, the letters A, B, D, G, O, M, T, S, W, V, and U (perhaps amongst others such as C, I, N, L, M, and R) should be given careful attention in the novel in all of their iterations; Able trades Disira’s child Ossar to the Aelf for Gylf at a time when there is no food to survive the harsh onset of winter, and this seems to be something which never comes up again; however, it illustrates a vital point. Even the cannibalistic Oesterlings and the aggressive Angrborn fit into this pattern, as invasion comes to settlements such as Glennidam, Griffinsford, Sheerwall, or even Skai itself. These letter associations can also explain the double name of Garsecg and Setr in different guises. Understanding that each of these invasions and battles are metaphorical repetitions on a theme really opens up many of the mysteries in *The Wizard Knight* which would otherwise remain sealed. It can even make sense of small, seemingly inane details, such as Bymir being “the first Angrborn” Able ever sees, resonating with his sundering from Ben/Bold (*Knight*, 10). In this way, Org, the Osterlings, and perhaps even a lack of oxygen all represent a very real double threat of starvation and strangulation, just as Gylf and Setr come to represent the will of the self to fight and destroy in order to exalt the individual regardless of the consequences to those perceived as enemies.]
166
167On a larger scale within the text, there are further locales culled from outside Norse cosmology, including a blending of Greek and Arthurian myth. One of the interesting legends surrounding the Fortunate Isles, also known as the Island of Glass (though it appears as the Isle of Glas in *The Wizard Knight*), involves the idea that those worthy of it were found virtuous in three incarnations and judged fit for the Elysian Fields each time. It might be no coincidence that Wolfe chose three iterations of Able/Arthur/Arnthor to illustrate Able’s development as a character, but the symbolic reading of the text moves much of the action to an internal setting. Given the absence of Christ in Mythgarthr, save for the lonely cross which decorates the grave of Ossar’s mother Disira, the book becomes an interesting examination of the risk chivalry runs if it is completely divorced from a Christian setting. At times, the behavior of the knights in the text closely resembles desperate bullying and selfishness. Even though there is no sense that Christ is acting in the world of Mythgarthr, we do, however, have the Archangel Michael appearing. He comes to a vital realization in speaking to Able: "Your mother never knew you ... I, who know so little, know that now. I make mistakes, you see. I am near perfection" (*Knight*, XLIV 275). [At the end of the novel, Michael finds a way to deliver Able’s “letter” – perhaps it is intended both for Able’s brother and for his lost mother, so that she might know, even in symbolic form, the child she carried for a time.] Michael appears after Able is banished from Marder's court, so it might also be important to pay attention to the resonance created through the letter M, especially considering that Mag was Bold Berthold’s mother. Michael’s exit, to seek out “that far-famed knight, Sir Able of the High Heart,” involves diving into a pool of water and sinking out of sight, somehow transcending the normal flow of time (*Knight*, XLIV 277). In the final scenes of the novel, even the Valfather will fade into nothing but a bright shadow. What, then, could possibly be real?
168
169This project has been involved in bringing Wolfe’s subtext into the open, and it seems that the primary mystery of this text, the ontological relationship between Able of Celidon and Arthur Ormsby of America, really is intimately related to the very cosmology of the worlds described in the novels. It should be noted that the corporeal remains of important (often villainous) characters from higher realms somehow seep down and create the landscape of the world below them. While the body of Ymir the giant formed Midgard in Norse mythology as well, Wolfe applies the pattern more thoroughly to the seven layers of reality in his series. We should reiterate that the name of Ymir can mean “twin” or “groaner,” another potential clue to the world in which Able finds himself. When much of Mythgarthr is viewed as the corpse of a giant, perhaps it can also make sense of Able’s own relationship to Bold Berthold (and Ben) and the original Able. Luckily, Wolfe often provides small set-pieces and parallel situations that will allow us to extrapolate some facts about Able. Dead or alive, Able’s journey involves change and development.
170
171It seems that the denizens of one world can ascend only one layer to the next in Wolfe’s novels, but they can descend freely all the way down to Niflheim. If we view this as a biological metaphor, it makes a kind of sense: a nucleus is a nucleus, and a liver cell a liver cell, but once we ascend one biochemical level, it is a part of the liver. After that point, the liver is a part of the digestive system, and the digestive system is a part of, in this example, a human being, a small but commanding part of the ecosystem. If we take a part of the human, there is no guarantee that the liver cell will be found within that part – individuality is lost as the levels go up, but individual cells can die even while the entire organism continues. We see the visible creatures stirring in the blood of the giants in *The Wizard Knight* with some disgust, but this literary act involves making clear that blood actually is composed of living cells which are simultaneously a part of (while still independent from) the macrocosmic organism.
172
173## The Creatures
174
175There are many strange beings in Mythgarthr, and when Able falls under the tutelage of Bold Berthold, he begins to learn about them. He notes that "If the Angrborn had been giants, the Osterlings who sometimes came in summer had been devils, gorging on human flesh to restore the humanity they had lost. The Aelf had come like fog in all seasons, and had vanished like smoke." Bold describes the Bodachan as mud, begging for blood in return for finding lost stock (*Knight*, III 35). However, Able will later learn that the Aelf spawn from a gigantic creative force named Kulili which lurks in the waters of Aelfrice. His description of her is expansive and strange:
176
177>There were trees like phone poles, with a few big leaves at the top. There were pools of water all over, and down where the roots were, something really big was getting bigger and sending out feelers everyplace. The trees talked to this woman under them, and the little plants did too; she answered all of them, one at a time, and was great. She saw them all, and she saw their souls, because each of them was wrapped in a soul like a man would wear a cloak. …
178
179>Insects ate the leaves and spilled their sap, and there were all sorts of animals that would eat the bark and kill the trees. So the woman underneath them made protectors for them, taking little bits of their souls and little pieces of herself, pale gray wisdom that gleamed like pears. Sticks, leaves, and mud, too, and fire and smoke and water and moss. (*Knight*, XXVII 171)
180
181The Aelf of various elements, all born of Kulili, now wish her to be vanquished and overthrown. It is significant that these creatures are made from the small pieces of herself, for later she will be described as a being composed of “white thread, a big big tangle of white thread, all of it alive and sort of groping,” which congeals into a massive and beautiful figure (*Knight*, XXVII 172).
182
183When Kulili reveals that she shaped the Aelf “as a woman molds dough,” Able notes that her hands are made from uncountable threadlike worms (*Knight* XLIII 390). Our biological metaphor for the action would ascribe this gigantic being as something like ribosomal RNA or DNA, which transcribes its raw information into the cells and structures of the body, creating defensive and necessary components so that infections are fought off and other biological needs are fulfilled.
184
185However, all of these beings are of course primarily described in the language of fantasy and myth. The elemental spirits and “ghosts” that are present in Aelfrice and even Mythgarthr manifest themselves in several different ways. Beel, the Lady Idnn’s father, says of the Aelf:
186
187>"There were disembodied spirits in Aelfrice then, creatures something like ghosts, although they'd never been alive. Kulili made magic bodies of mud and leaves and moss and ashes and so forth, and put the disembodied spirits into them. If she used fire, mostly, they became Fire Aelf, Salamanders. If she used mostly seawater, they're Sea Aelf, Kelpies."
188
189>[Beel responds,] "Correct ... [Humans are] not like the Aelf. We're much more like Kulili, having been created, as she was, by the Father of the fathers of the Overcyns, the God of the highest world. Here, as there, he also created elemental spirits. As Sir Able says, they're rather like ghosts. They are creatures both ancient and knowing, having the accumulated wisdom of centuries of centuries" (*Knight*, XLVI 350).
190
191There are other creatures compared to ghosts throughout the text, and we shall return to them soon. It is worth noting the almost universal apprehension involving the Aelf; the people of Mythgarthr have begun to worship the world below them, inverting the natural order. Some are afraid to say Disiri's name, for it is a name people use to conjure, and some are by extension reluctant to say Sexneat's wife's name, though she is merely human. The Moss Aelf are known as Dryads, Skogsfru, and Treebrides, and when Able experiences his growth by meeting with Disiri again, he finds her stuck beneath a "blasted tree," which may have been struck by lightning (*Knight*, VII 56). [I will leave unpacking this metaphor to the reader’s imagination.] The Aelf send Able with a message for King Arnthor and Mythgarthr to remind the king how he should behave, as an example for those meant to look upwards at him as an ideal.
192
193While Disiri insists that those who do not worship the Aelf find them hateful, almost from their initial description, the Angrborn are described as far more intrinsically unlovable. They supposedly originate from Lothur’s mating with a giantess. (Lothur is another name for Odin’s brother Ve, but it is also used to denote Loki.) After describing a heavily built and broad man with tusks and coarse, ugly features, Able says of these giants:
194
195>When you have imagined a man like that and fixed his appearance in your mind, take away his humanity. ... [The Angrborn] are never loved, neither by us, nor by their own kind, nor by any animal. Disiri probably knows what it is in people, in Aelf, in dogs and horses, and even houses, manors, and castles that makes it possible for somebody to love them; but whatever it is, it is not in the Angrborn and they know it. I think that was why Thiazi built the room I will tell you about later. (*Knight*, X 75)
196
197Returning to the cannibalistic Osterlings, Able notes that while the higher ranking and more civilized ones are human looking, the others seem to be ravenous and skeletal creatures. He says, "what you eat makes you more like it, and the closer it is to you, the more it moves you that way, if you know what I mean. ... That is how it works, and sometimes I think it must be mostly in the blood, because when I drank Baki's blood it healed me a lot in just a day or so, and in certain ways I was more like one of the Aelf. I guess I still am" (*Knight*, XIX 123).
198
199[In a sense, Able’s inability to maintain his body’s autonomous existence throughout the story does make him more like the Aelf. In the text, what seems to make the Osterlings so dangerous is their need to consume indiscriminately to survive, even eating their own to selfishly stay alive.] The Aelf are not the only fantastic creatures working in the shadows. When Org is introduced as a ghost haunting the farm, Able learns the motives of such phantasms: "If it's a woman's ghost ... she may be after some property or something she thinks is coming to her. I talked to an old lady down south who knew a lot about ghosts, and she told me that women's ghosts generally mean the woman was murdered. More often than not, justice is all they want" (*Knight*, XXXV 221). One such spirit seems to be Mani’s mistress, Huld.
200
201Huld appears intermittently throughout the text, bequeathing her sentient cat Mani to Able, though the cat soon attaches himself to Idnn and also fascinates the King of the Angrborn, Gilling. Of course, Mani identifies Huld as his old mistress, and is not shy in saying that Able is dead by the second volume: “There’s old Huld, whom I used to belong to. She’s dead, but I still talk to her. There’s Sir Able, my newer owner. If I say he’s dead too, will you start crying again?” (*Wizard*, I 21) There is one more important connection to cats in a relatively minor detail Able reveals. At one point, when Ulfa tries to seduce Able, he says, “She was rubbing herself against me, reminding me of grandma’s cat” (*Knight*, VIII 63). When Able first encounters the body which might once have belonged to Huld in a small hut, he feeds it, even though it might do no obvious good. Later, we will be treated to the idea that "Ghosts can't [eat]" (*Wizard*, III 34).
202
203Huld’s method of communication seems to stem from the environment: "It was the rain outside talking. the way the drops hit amid the words. They said, ‘Her blessing ... wherever ... […]  I ... bless. Curse. ... Never die....’" (*Knight*, XLVI 285). Able concludes that feeding the dried-out head stops the talking: “When I put some meat in its mouth it found out it was dead, or anyhow that’s what it seems like” (*Knight, XLVI 286). [Sustenance and mortality are hugely important motifs in *The Wizard Knight*.]
204
205Mani is a far more consistent companion than the ghost of Huld, and he also insists that cats have a profound ability to detect the supernatural: "It goes along with our nine lives. Once you've been dead, it seems very natural to see ghosts" (*Wizard*, III 40). Later, he will identify himself more clearly. When the Aelf reveal exactly why they have stopped worshipping humans, who are “dull and sleepy and stupid,” and have turned to Setr, Mani says, “We’re their numina, you see. I am a tutelary lars in animal form myself, a totem. My images confer freedom, and what’s always essential to freedom, stealth” (*Wizard*, X 113). Numen is the spirit or divine power presiding over a place. In our history, there was a Gnostic religious figure named Mani, whose Manichean philosophy allowed for the separation of the world dualistically into good and evil, but the fact that Mani calls himself a lars is even more important. While the Gnostics insisted that the real world was quite different than the fallen and illusory one that the senses perceived, lars or lares served in ancient Rome as guardian spirits of a place, person, or family. For men, this guardian spirit was often called a genius, a bit of the divine spirit present in everyone and everything. This genius would follow a person from the hour of birth to the moment of their death. (Dwight 253). [In this case, we argue that Mani might actually follow and serve Able from the moment of his conception, since he will die before he can be born.] Ultimately, the surface text claims that "Mani's mistress made him, too," by combining a cat and an elemental (*Wizard*, IV 45). In Norse tradition, which we should probably defer to, the personification of the moon is masculine and is called Mani, while the sun is the female goddess Sol.
206
207Ghosts in *The Wizard Knight* would seem to follow the path set up in standard Norse myths. The heaven for heroes in Skai involves ascension at the hands of the Valkyrie, but the bridge to the common land of the dead is known as the Bridge of Swords. For ghosts to interact with the living, they must cross that bridge. Able’s description of Skai and the Giants of Winter and Old Night to Idnn resonates strongly with our inescapable thesis:
208
209>“Of the women, Skathi is beautiful and kind, though so big in her natural state that feasts are held upon her belly. … Many tables [are set there], Your Majesty, and when we sing she sings along with us, and when we eat opens her mouth so we can cast dainties into it. Yet at other times, she seems only a tall lady, with strong arms and many plaits of golden hair, her husband’s shieldbearer.” (*Wizard*, XXIV 293)
210
211Able goes on to describe some of the other, more ominous Giants of Winter and Old Night:
212
213>“Yes [I fear Angrboda], because her husband is Lothur, the youngest and worst of the Valfather’s sons. If she attacked me – it’s said she attacks all who come near – I would have to defend myself or perish. … She’s hideous, and they say that the time of her womb is a thousand years. When it’s complete, she bears a monster and couples with her lord again. It may not be true. … Modgud guards the Bridge of Swords. If it were destroyed, no ghost could visit us, and there are those who’d destroy it. Thus Modgud, a giantess, protects it night and day. Because she does, the ghosts may come forth when Helgate stands wide.” (*Wizard*, XXIV 294)
214
215It might not be inappropriate to consider that Huld represents just such a ghost, though her origin could be rooted in an external source – why should the spirit of Able’s possibly departed grandmother or another of his female ancestors be bound by space? [While Able’s time in the womb may not truly be a thousand years as it is for Angrboda’s brood, his perceptions have certainly stretched it out beyond the normal gestation period for humans.] Returning to Mani’s description of himself, one of the aspects of tutelary lars includes their identification as ancestor-heroes or deities. They served as divine witnesses at important family events such as weddings and births and were often invoked at meals. This spirit, guarding over the secret and hidden life of Able, might otherwise simply be considered an elemental who eventually simply disappears from the text. Why would such an important character simply fade away? Does the life force of Able inspire the presence of Mani, who symbolizes stealth, involving that which is hidden, and freedom, which Able requires, bound as he is on all fronts, or should we view the cat as a purely Jungian manifestation of tricky selfishness?
216
217Finally, the structure of the worlds in *The Wizard Knight* creates a pattern in which the debased and decaying are cast downwards. This process of “falling” into death can also, transcendentally, be redemptive. Able describes the entire world of Mythgarthr in the context of myth, established with the defeat of the giant Ymir. He says, “The living giant was horrible, as those parts that lived on are horrible still. A dead man is horrible. Have you ever seen one? Not a man newly dead, but one who has begun to decay? … But a dead man returns as trees, grass, and flowers. So with Ymir. It’s useless to condemn the evil he was. That is gone. The good he has become remains” (*Wizard*, IV 47). Sometimes things which can do no good acting selfishly can bring about some greater good in their passing, and this is a motif which lies at the heart of sacrifice.
218
219Baki describes the evil of Ymir in almost Augustinian terms, as "merely badness, imperfection" (*Wizard*, IV 46). In order to destroy him, those servants of the High God in Kleos agreed to descend to a lower level forever, losing the ability to speak directly to their god. “They had to ask their brothers to intercede. They multiplied, and their children knew no other place. Their brothers became their gods” (*Wizard*, IV 47). Even when Ymir died, some fragments lived on. His body created "the Clearing Where Tales Are Told," and, according to Able, the people of Mythgarthr, “call [Ymir’s] bones rock, his flesh earth, and his blood the sea" (*Wizard*, IV 47). [Even though I promised to separate the two strains of this essay, much like Able, I cannot extricate myself from the shadowy twin idea, which will live on after this short-lived branch of our analysis fizzles out: in being chimerically incorporated to sustain his brother, Able will be thrust into a lower level, and his brother will become his “god,” using the elements Able’s body provides constructively; otherwise, both would perish. The Aelf, too, are parts of this exchange, as Baki says: "We are what was left when the Highest God finished building your world. What he piled together and buried" (*Wizard*, IV 51). The need for self-preservation is strong, and will inspire monstrous measures, as Uri’s willingness to call upon the dragon Grengarm to heal Baki suggests (*Wizard*, IV 51).]
220
221Yet giants and their remains are not the only threat to Mythgarthr. The dragons and the griffin Able meets all evoke a kind of ambiguous threat, but it should be noted that for Grengarm to finally become solid and real in Mythgarthr, he must succeed in consuming Arnthor’s sister Morcaine at the end of the first volume: "Had he who turned that altar devoured me, he would have been as real here as in Muspel" (*Knight*, LXIX 426). We shall return to the implications of this below, though the correlation of consumption with becoming real is telling. Despite all of these fantastic and marvelous creatures in Mythgarthr and the other realms, we should always think of Able as a human being who attains abilities that seem to extend beyond the mortal, even while he is chained to such strict limitations on his behavior.
222
223## Frustrating Expectations
224
225Sooner or later, Able is given all of the powers of a child's wish fulfillment. He becomes large, strong, physically capable, attracts the attention of women and god-like beings, attains sentient servant animals and even the endorsement of angels. However, even in upholding some of the most dogmatically traditional ideas about gender and class responsibilities, Wolfe's novel still manages to go in directions the first-time reader never expects. When Able ascends to Skai and the Valfather's castle after defeating Grengarm and gaining the blade Eterne, with its legion of phantom knights to aid him, we expect the second volume to pick up from that point. Instead, the narrative shifts to Able's young peers, secondary characters like Toug and Svon. Wolfe even presents many of the background details through one of the most frustrating narrative techniques imaginable - Toug breaks Svon's nose, and we are treated to exposition which vastly alters the pace and tone of the book: "You wand do know w'eder we god a mon'der wid us? Da answer's yes. Bud dad isn'd my mon'der - isn't da mon'der Zir Able gave me do. Id's your mon'der" (*Wizard*, II 25). We shall return to the deeper significance of the damaged nose and difficulty breathing later, as well as Svon’s assertion that both Toug and he have been bequeathed “monsters,” but here the narrative pace and our own understanding is filtered through Svon’s physical limitations.
226
227Once again, narrative development in Wolfe consistently reflects important points. When Svon and Toug fight, Able has left the world of Mythgarthr and his old concerns, and while we receive hints of the adventures he had in Skai fighting the Giants of Winter and Old Night and serving the Valfather, the larger surface narrative in *The Wizard Knight* is always about maturation, and that cycle includes how we influence others. Svon and Toug, when Able leaves, are not yet the men they will become, and progress for them is much more difficult and developed more slowly than for Able, who has left them behind. That slow percolation of character and maturity is more important to the themes of *The Wizard Knight* than Able’s adventures in Skai. Able has truly ascended into myth once he grabs Eterne (and then dies from grievous wounds in confronting the dragon Grengarm and falling into the water, as the text suggests). As he reveals in his tale to Leort, Able even becomes the Green Man who challenges Gawain in our stories of the round table. [While the myths of the Green Man show him as an ambiguous and mystical foil to King Arthur’s court, perhaps here we should consider him as someone who cannot be truly destroyed even if his head is cut off, and as a fey character, one who is ultimately associated with the letter G. Given that Garsecg helps Able become truly strong, and that Gylf serves as another somewhat frightening guardian who helps Able, perhaps Able’s “transformation” into the Green Man for a time is significant, reinforcing the idea of Gylf as an almost primal and Jungian aspect of Able’s mind, which comes out when his life is threatened. Org embodies a similar (but perhaps opposite) force.] Though Able was able to ascend rapidly to Skai, the stilted and injured dialogue of Svon reflects the difficulty he has in progressing as a knight, for his wounded pride slows his momentum to a crawl, and this marriage of theme and style subjects us to the least enjoyable section of the novel, filtering words through his deviated septum. His path to knighthood is equally slow, laborious, and painful, hampered by his mortal weaknesses. It is, however, important that he seems to receive Idnn’s affections after Gilling and Garvaon perish.
228
229Another important concept of knighthood involves a dedication to the truth and weighing the value of honesty against the chance that honor and justice might be compromised. When Toug discusses Svon's pride and his injuries with Idnn, Toug realizes he must not impugn his recent adversary’s honor: "[I]t was time for a good solid lie ... and he lied manfully. 'I said something ... I don't think he's forgotten; but I don't think he's mad anymore, either'” (*Wizard*, V 61). Here, the absolute truth is not as essential as the effect it would have, something which Wolfe has explored many times in his fiction. Though Svon and Toug have fought, Toug still feels some responsibility toward his brother in arms. The esteem Idnn has for Svon becomes more important than revealing his character failings, and Toug does not pounce upon the chance to make himself look more heroic in her eyes. The movement of the books is from selfish and individual preservation to sacrifice and concern outside the self, from competition to true brotherhood.
230
231These characters learn by example. When Toug must take the cat Mani to King Gilling, he asks himself if Able, Sir Garvaon, or Svon would perform the task, and, from his perception of how they would act, resolves to do so as well (*Wizard*, VI 66). The importance of role models in determining proper action is vital. Even though Sir Ravd dies near the start of the text, his early lessons to the boy Able are not soon forgotten. The shouldering of responsibilities becomes a huge theme throughout the book, and Able, too, is subjected to many almost unbearable duties.
232
233Upon Able's return from Skai to fulfill his obligations, we expect him to be unbeatable, yet the first thing he does is lose a joust to a young and inexperienced knight who refuses to grant his requests - because Able wants to get on with what he believes are more important goals. [This loss, too, seems to have a symbolic resonance with Able’s ultimate destiny, purposefully losing to an inexperienced fighter on the same side.] When Able’s plan to abandon his responsibilities doesn’t work, he stations himself at the pass and fulfills the tasks he has been set. This becomes one of the central features of the two volumes. Even though Able's physical development has been meddled with by external powers, he still has some important lessons to internalize. For the most part, these are by necessity self-imposed. It is not the body alone which makes a worthy man. The first volume, *The Knight*, gives us a hero who refuses to take up a blade until he finds the "right" one. The second volume, *The Wizard*, has Able attaining almost god-like powers from Skai, but refusing to engage those magical forces until he has no choice. This frustrating refusal to use the powers at his command is of course exactly what it feels like to be an adult in the modern world, bound by expectations, social responsibilities, and an inner sense of what is just - and sometimes the only escape from all of these feelings is of course to imagine the world as one conceived of it when one was a child. To actually use great strength to resolve problems runs the risk of transforming a person into a bully or perhaps even a monster.
234
235Able gains several powerful allies over the course of his adventures. The most significant awakening of his power before ascending to Skai comes after he falls into the sea from *The Western Trader*, faces the transformed manifestations of the Khimairae, and is aided by Garsecg (who is also Setr) in gaining the power of the sea. Garsecg tells Able that "your blood is the sea" (*Knight*, XXII 139). Able realizes, more profoundly than he could possibly understand, that "I was a sea-creature in Mother's womb, and she was a sea-creature inside her mother, and I will be a sea-creature as long as I live. The king must know, exactly the way I do because he put a nykr on his shield" (*Knight*, XXII 139). [The nykr or nixie is a shape-shifting water spirit from Germanic folklore, but Able’s self-identification as a sea creature within the womb is vitally important, and clues us in to the tragic reality of *The Wizard Knight*: Able truly will be a sea-creature in his mother’s womb as long as he lives, and the miraculous transformations of twin-ship, encroachment, and the threat of the Khimairae he faces as he attempts to ascend the Tower of Glas to gain his full power actually symbolize the dangers of that womb, behind his Gnostic dream of heroism and adventure.]
236
237As we noted briefly above, a strange pattern resonates between Arthur, his brother Ben, and Ben’s girlfriend Geri; Able, his brother Bold, and Bold’s love Gerda; and Arnthor, his brother Garsecg, and Arnthor’s queen Gaynor; they all seem to be variations on a theme. In the first scenario, from Earth, Arthur becomes a third wheel who feels he must get out of his brother’s way. He flees from his family, abandoning (and perhaps never truly having) any responsibilities to disappear into a world of fantasy. In Mythgarthr, as Able, he finds himself a child thrust into positions involving enormous commitments of character, which he first approaches selfishly before putting aside that childish self-preservation to become truly altruistic and heroic, maturing beyond the bullying of the first volume to genuine selflessness. The harsh and arrogant Arnthor represents the threat of what Able could become if he takes all of those responsibilities and misuses his authority thoughtlessly over those loyal to him, to whom he should also be loyal if his sovereignty is just. When Able finally brings his message, Arnthor’s reaction makes him just as monstrous a figure as King Gilling, for he lacks mercy and compassion. Even with the clear parallels between Arthur, Able, and Arnthor, in the final iteration of the selfish and domineering Arnthor there is no “B” brother cognate who wins the “G” love interest – only the monstrous rival Setr, a form of his brother Garsecg. [Even in the non-metaphorical reading of the story, however, Arnthor still faces death in struggling with a “B” figure, in the form of the Black Caan, as Mythrgarthr is afflicted with a great winter that might resemble Fimbulwinter, the Norse prelude to the final battle of Ragnarok. We should also keep in mind that after Ragnarok, the world will be submerged in water, a repetitive theme in the book, given the fate of Able on the back of the griffin as he fights the dragon Grengarm. It is also no coincidence that many of these “G” names are associated with a watery threat, including Garsecg. In the dream Able has which shows the knight Garvaon struggling with Garsecg, he sees Garvaon fall into the water and seemingly perish.] Able may have expected to gain power and glory, but the conclusion of *The Wizard Knight* only shows something else, as he abandons the opportunity to reach Skai once again to descend to Aelfrice. Perhaps we might have expected his sacrifice to catapult him into the transcendent glory of Kleos or beyond, but instead he is relegated ever lower – because a real sacrifice requires actually giving up something important.
238
239## The Bully Born of Necessity and the Risks of Sex and Procreation
240
241Perhaps the biggest hurdle to enjoying Able as a character involves his excessive use of force, sometimes for seemingly petty reasons, especially in *The Knight*. Is Able truly a bully? Unnecessary uses of force happen when imbalances in power run rampant without a just (or perhaps even an adult) perspective, allowing the strong, either through physical attribute or strength in numbers, to victimize the weak. The relationship between the just and unjust use of strength is one of the primary explorations of the first volume [though, as we will discuss in highlights of the metaphorical exploration of the text, Able has some very good reasons for his attitudes, thrust into an exceedingly harsh environment where only the fittest, the quickest, and the sturdiest can survive]. When Able first finds himself in his virile and potent man's body, without suitable clothes, he immediately goes back to Glennidam and knocks down a man who laughs at him (who winds up being Toug's father of the same name) (*Knight*, VIII 59). In addition, without reflection, he declares himself a knight to Toug's sister Ulfa, whose advances become overt because of his newfound physical characteristics (*Knight*, VIII 61).
242
243During this scene, Ulfa confirms one of the biggest imbalances in the books, which Able has been sent to rectify. When asked if her mother is alive, she says, "By Garsecg's grace she's still among us" (*Knight*, VIII 61). Garsecg, a dragon of Muspel who has ascended to Aelfrice with (self-proclaimed) decent intentions, has been swayed by his hunger for power over those who dwell in Aelfrice and has subverted their worship, inverting the natural order of reverence downwards towards his own home. The city of Glennidam in the world of Mythgarthr even further above Aelfrice seems to have turned to his worship as well. Unfortunately, Garsecg has no grace to offer them. The human misdirected devotion towards Aelfrice and Garsecg resonates with the thematic focus on short term individual survival rather than a commitment to the greater good or to spiritual sacrifice, epitomized most by the solipsistic certainty of the most low god, who believes that he contains everything in creation. Seeking after individual survival alone focuses the heart and soul downwards, rather than up to the glories of Skai and Kleos.
244
245When reason and temperance do not exert any influence on strength, and action merely begets reaction rather than a reflective breaking of the cycle, then to those who live and die by strength of arm, perhaps injustice becomes imperceptible. Toug's father and some other citizens of Glennidam plan to ambush and probably kill Able, but Able manages to subdue the younger Toug. He tells him, "I was younger than you are yesterday. That may be why it doesn't feel like bullying to do this. But maybe it is" (*Knight*, VIII 65). Without the perspective of a mature man, Able does not understand how to temper his strength with reason, responding in kind to the violent reactions of the people. When Able leaves town with the young Toug, they find themselves in Aelfrice, and Able is reunited with Disiri for a short time in what seems to be his *third* visit to Aelfrice, at which point Toug will disappear from the narrative for a significant portion of the first volume, lost in Aelfrice (*Knight*, IX 67). Later, this will represent a key vision of the past as Idnn’s father Beel performs a sorcerous scrying. Able will see himself with Toug and Disiri in Aelfrice. [The knight Garvaon, enchanted with the Lady Idnn, will instead see his first wife and his son dying in childbirth during this vision, a thematically important juxtaposition which buttresses our later argument. How could Toug, Able, and Disiri in Aelfrice possibly conjoin with images of Garvaon’s wife dying in labor?]
246
247In addition to the problems of bullying, sexuality also occupies a strangely ominous position in the novels, and not only for Able. Later, the noble Idnn will be offered up to King Gilling of the giants in the north to bring peace (or perhaps even to ensure that Jotunland eventually comes under the sway of Arnthor). These giants are capable of breeding with human-sized women to create beings called “Mice,” but the risks for the mother are great. With members far too large, the intercourse involves a strange external ceremony, somewhat repulsive macromolecular semen, and dressing up the giant’s phallus as a human. [The “blowing up” of semen to perceptible size and giving it motive power is another huge clue about the entire set-up of *The Wizard Knight*.] The risks of sex are not limited to human/giant intercourse. Right after he becomes man-sized, when Able kisses Ulfa, "a wolf howled in the distance" and Ulfa declares it a bad omen: "A Norn-hound." (*Knight*, VIII 63). Later, when Uri offers to kneel before him and invites him to Aelfrice, "Something too deep-voiced for a wolf howled in the distance" (*Knight*, XXXVIII 237).
248
249As any fan of *The Book of the New Sun* should already know, the three most famous Norns, who rule the destiny of gods and men in Norse mythology, are Urth, Verthandi, and Skuld. In some myths, the arrival of these giant figures (Jotuns) ends the golden age of the gods. In addition to sharing some features of the European Fates, the Norns visit newborn children and also determine the future (Sturluson 18). Parka, who gives Able his strange string in the very opening of *The Knight*, is the Roman version of just such a Fate. The three Roman Parcae, who correspond to Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos in Greek myths, are Nona, Decima, and Morta: they spin, measure, and cut the thread of life. [It seems that our singular Parka in the initial chapter does all three of those before handing the cord to Able. Obviously, further discussion of this point belongs with our symbolic second half, but the Norn habit of visiting human life at its very beginning should be kept in mind when contextualizing Able’s arrival in Mythgarthr – especially considering Parka’s command to “Plant one seed” as she gives Able a cord which somehow connects him to America (*Knight*, I 22). He actually does plant a seed at Bluestone Castle – and is surprised at the sudden appearance of “a knight watching me … [with] a black dragon on top of his helm that glared at me. … Bluestone Island is entirely in Mythgarthr, but before I drank the water I was not. Or to write down the exact truth, I was not securely there. That is why the knight came when he did; he wanted to watch me drinking that water” (*Knight*, II 24). Later we will learn that this is the adult Able watching the child – and though the text does not mention that Able had planted the seed until the next page, it becomes clear that the appearance of the fully grown Able after the child plants a seed and becomes “securely” there is another symbolic moment tied to conception. By this point it should be obvious that this essay equates Parka’s string with an umbilical cord connecting Able to Earth and his mother. The string is also associated with dreams of Earth, and this represents another link between Able and his mother, a conduit that Michael could exploit in delivering Able’s “letter,” though we will ultimately argue that the dreams which make up the surface story of *The Wizard Knight* occur after Able has already met his fate, serving as both a memorial and a means through which his mother can finally come to know the life she once bore inside her.]
250
251In any case, sexual temptation, from women both fey and mortal, prompts the call of the Norn-hounds, and the dangers of sexuality and childbirth, as well as the equivalent association of the Norns with death, serve as omnipresent themes throughout the book. The threat to Idnn is not the only one, as other characters experience the dangers of childbirth as well: the Earl Marshal’s love interest dies giving birth to his illegitimate son, Garvaon’s wife dies in childbirth with their son, and, at least according to the Archangel Michael, Able’s mother never seems to know him (though perhaps not for the reasons originally established in the text).
252
253Scarce resources and the pull of sexual attraction bring out the most merciless components of Mythgarthr from the very start; however, there is still a kindness offered in attraction that makes it far from an exclusively negative force, tempering its dangers. Able scares the boy Ve with his size and strength so that he will not tell the outlaws that Able is coming for them, in order "to make him do what I told him, because I did not have any money" (*Knight*, XIV 98). Ulfa suggests that "kindness might have done it"(*Knight*, XIV 98). However, her feminine mercy does not seem to influence Able long, for as soon as he finds himself in Aelfrice again, he immediately offers to kill Toug if Disiri desires it. She says, "You mortals ... are often tender about such things. It is supposed to be a good example for us, and sometimes it is" (*Knight*, IX 68). [While this seems extremely dissonant and unlikable when expressed by Able in such a coarse fashion, the stakes of competing for resources in the womb in our metaphorical reading would make it a totally justifiable position: if Able does not consider defeating all of his potential rivals in his race for conception and growth, he will never be at all. The environment which engenders life is both protective and fraught with innumerable threats. Only the fittest and most selfish gamete can survive.] The passage of time in this encounter seems different for Disiri and Able: she supposes they have been apart over a year, though to him it is but a day. In this case, Able explains exactly why he seeks to exalt himself: "I just made myself a knight. I was hoping it would make me somebody you could love" (*Knight*, IX 69). She says that by the same measure she made herself a goddess (*Knight*, IX 69). Yet does the self truly maintain the authority to grant knighthood and divinity?
254
255Another less metaphorical reason for this mercilessness must involve the very concept of knightly chivalry itself, especially as we see in examples such as Sir Thomas Malory’s *Le Morte d’Arthur*. Even in that most famous of knightly tales, the primary action seems to be based around two knights coming upon each other and jousting or fighting, sometimes to the death, often with little greater motive. The Christian backdrop behind the stories of King Arthur and his pending return paste a redemptive framework atop the pagan elements, but in Mythgarthr, as we soon learn, there has been no Christ. Indeed, the only mention of a cross involves the death of a mother Able protects for a time, with a name very close to his ideal Aelf. Disira, the wife of the outlaw Seaxneat, is killed by her husband: “He had hit Disira in the head with a war-ax and left his little son [Ossar] there to die, but he had not killed him. I suppose he lacked the courage; people can be funny like that” (*Knight*, X 76). Able buries Disira in “a shallow little grave down by the Griffin … and covered her up, and piled stones from the river on her. I made a little cross by tying two sticks together to mark the grave. It is probably the only grave marked with a cross in Mythgarthr” (*Knight*, X 77). While we shall return to the child Ossar, traded to the Aelf in exchange for the fierce dog-like Gylf, this scene makes us aware of the true differences between the spiritual basis for medieval chivalry in our own history and in Able’s world. Can there be true and lasting significance to ideals that might sputter, die, and change with the passage of time if they are not held to be universally and spiritually grounded? The first volume asks this question, and we often see the possibility and risk of mercilessness and greed even in our main character.
256
257The absence of true Christian charity allows the novel to explore the struggle at work between selfishness and justice in many character interactions as the novel proceeds. When an innkeeper tries to charge Able for his unseen dog eating the food without presenting the bill honestly, Able resorts to force: "I picked him up, turned him over, and dropped him. ‘I’m living at Sheerwall Castle now. You can go to Duke Marder for justice, and I'm sure you'll get it if you do. Only first it might be smart for you to think about whether you really want it’” (*Knight*, XXXVI 225). This scene prompts him to fight yet another knight named Nytir, who believes that he is actually serving the cause of justice. However, Nytir tries to stab Able even after he is defeated, in much the same manner that the captain of *The Western Trader* insisted on continuing an ignoble attack after he was vanquished. When Able comes at last to the Isle of Glas, he dreams: "I rode down out of the sky like the Moonrider. I think I came to do justice on earth, only the earth swallowed me. What does it mean?" (*Knight*, XXIV 153) Wolfe might very well be demanding that we ask ourselves the same question.
258
259The most egregious example of Able’s bullying in the entire sequence occurs right before these thoughts of justice and the fear of being consumed by the earth. When he attempts to gain passage on *The Western Trader* (and the best berth on the ship), he takes over the captain’s cabin. Even though he is certain that the captain is plotting to kill him, Able’s actions result in a confrontation that leaves the captain dead. Able merely dumps him out the window into the sea after breaking his skull. This theme of a broken skull is pervasive, and it begins with Able feeling the ghastly wound on Bold Berthold’s head. Head wounds also kill Disira, the captain, and resonate with other injuries throughout the story, including the skull which decorates the Black Knight’s arms, broken in his contest with Sir Able at the start of *The Wizard*. This motif is also tied to strangulation, introduced when Able is wounded on *The Western Trader* during an Osterling invasion in his dream. What kind of environment makes this kind of behavior and fear necessary? From the brigands who raid the smaller cities to the giants in the frozen wastes, the world of Mythgarthr seems to suffer from permanent shortage and hardship, where everyone must struggle to survive, and it is understood that knights will kill each other for much less than honor. As the book progresses, even as Able becomes more generous, the setting becomes far worse, set in the frozen north of the unlovable giants and then in the war torn south in *The Wizard*, where people regularly die of starvation and the invading force must eat its own to maintain its siege. Before Able’s maturation, he even treats his loyal servants with a harshness that is difficult to contextualize in what seems a desire to maintain face. When Able forces his way into the captain's cabin, he fears he might vomit and resolves, "I would make Pouk clean it up if I did. And kill him if he would not do it"(*Knight*, XVI 107). Both the harsh, barren environment and the fierce competition evident in Mythgarthr make far more sense in our metaphorical analysis below, but before we turn to that, one great mystery suffuses the text that has both a narrative and a metaphorical solution.
260
261## The Use of Norse Myth and the Murder of King Gilling
262
263Many of the events in *The Wizard Knight* mirror Norse myths without having clear and direct relationships. For example, one such story from myth involves the kidnapping of the goddess Idnn, who is spirited away from Odin, Loki, and Hoenir as they travel through desolate mountains by the eagle form of the giant Thiazi. This occurs after Loki bargains her and her fruits away. As a result of this, the gods and goddesses begin to age and wrinkle. Comparing this with Queen Idnn's marriage, in large part engineered by Thiazi for King Gilling, creates a parallel situation that has a subtly different connotation [though age, growth, and mortality are all ultimately involved in Idnn’s symbolic risk].
264
265While Michael Andre-Driussi's *The Wizard Knight Companion* lists the mythical connotations of the names Thiazi and Idnn, he does not equate the things which befall the mortal Idnn with what happens to the goddess after whom she is named; any complete look at the series should inquire why mythical and mortal figures and tropes are so intertwined, especially when these same struggles might be occurring in Skai as well. Able’s errors about Norse cosmology can also be telling. When Toug speaks to Able about the gods of Skai, he mentions Nerthis, described in the index of characters as "An Overcyn who lived in Mythgarthr. She was the queen of wild animals and made trees grow" (*Wizard*, 12). Able claims never to have heard of "him," though Toug asserts it is a woman (*Wizard*, III 35). This matches the Germanic fertility deity Nerthis, (who is considered a direct precursor to the male Old Norse god Njörðr). More importantly, on a symbolic level, further growth and development is something which Able will no longer know after his sacrifice is made, contextualizing and making sense of his ignorance of Nerthis.
266
267Gilling, too, is a character from myth. He was murdered by two dwarves named Fjalar and Galar. They rowed him out to the center of a lake to accomplish their crime. The outcome of that murder bears little resemblance to the story of King Gilling in *The Wizard Knight*, but the murder remains, perhaps in some way indirectly inspired by the inversion of priorities engendered by the most prominent figure of the sea, Garsecg. The mythic version of Gilling’s murder involves two brothers and some very strange imagery that resonates with the text on a deep structural level.
268
269According to Snorri Sturluson’s *Edda*, Fjalar and Galar kill Gilling (and his wife) at sea, but their child, Suttungr, seeks out the dwarves for the purpose revenge. Tied to a soon to be submerged rock, the dwarves beg for their lives and offer Suttungr a magical mead which represents the inspiration for poetry. He accepts, and hides the mead inside a mountain, using his daughter as a guard. Odin eventually decides to attain the mead, and does so by working for Suttungr’s brother Baugi, convincing him to drill into the mountain. Odin gets past Suttungr’s daughter by turning into a snake to slither inside the mountain, where he drinks all of the mead. [Hopefully readers have already picked up on our main thesis: Able is first a sperm who seeks after a wondrous egg in the sky, emerges from the mouth of the griffin to plant a seed, becomes a fetus, and splits into twins who encroach on one another’s territories. The battle between the brothers, A and B, summons up all of their defense mechanisms, whether that be Org or Gylf, and they invade one another. Finally, one of the twins relinquishes his life and is absorbed into the B twin, healing the damage he has done in the process. The transformation of Odin into a snake in this myth involves the magic of poetry, and the struggle to become a real person in a hostile womb becomes the essence of myth and artistic creation for Able’s story – indeed, he signs his letter “Art” – Arthur Ormsby – at the conclusion of the story. The impossible travails of life inspire myth, beauty, and enduring art.]
270
271Gilling’s death in Norse myth bears little resemblance to the slow, two-stage death of King Gilling in Wolfe’s novels. General consensus on who killed Gilling on the surface level is upheld by the text: motivated by love for Idnn, Garvaon first attempts to kill Gilling and eventually succeeds. In one interchange, Garvaon seeks to attain Able’s promise that he won’t try to take Idnn for his own:
272
273>All the time we were talking, I was thinking about what Idnn had said about Beel giving her to King Gilling, but I could not tell Garvaon and I would have been afraid of what he might do if I did. And underneath those things I kept thinking over and over that if Idnn really wanted to be rescued, here he was. ...
274
275>"If she rejects me, I'll tell you. But until she does, and I tell you so, I want you to promise you won't try to win her for yourself." (*Knight*, LVIII 356)
276
277Able experiences a sequence of dreams featuring Garvaon that show his death at the hands of Garsecg:
278
279>Waves crashed against a cliff, and I leaped and sported in them, together with the maidens of the Sea Aelf, maidens who save for their eyes were as blue everywhere as the blue eyes of the loveliest maids of Mythgarthr, fair young women who sparkled and laughed as they leaped from the surging sea into the storm that lit and shook the heavens. 
280
281>That lit and shook Mythgarthr. Why had I not thought of that....
282
283>Garsecg and Garvaon waited on the cliff, Garvaon with drawn sword and Garsecg a dragon of steel-blue fire. The Kelpies raised graceful arms and lovely faces in adoration, shrieking prayers to Setr; they cheered as a gout of scarlet flame forced Garvaon over the edge.
284
285>He fell, striking rock after rock after rock. His helmet was lost, his sword rattled down the rocks with him, and his bones broke until a shapeless mass of armor and bleeding flesh tumbled into the sea. ...
286
287>The cliff from which Garvaon had fallen was the Northern Mountains now, mountains my stallion's hooves had somehow transformed into southern mountains; and the Kelpies were nothing more than a shrieking wind.
288
289Able then dreams of the Armies of Winter and Old Night advancing, and the Valfather’s castle standing against them alone (*Knight*, XLII 380). However, this transformation of northern to southern mountains in the dream should also remind readers of the sinister Mountain of Fire into which Pouk was thrown, stapled to a rock which caused him to plummet all the way down to Muspel. Able’s next dream is equally disturbing. He seems to "become" Bold Berthold in the dream, though it might be useful to think of this dream as a revelation of Able’s true state, facing strangulation from an umbilical cord in a hostile and cold womb:
290
291>I could not see. It might be night, it could be day - I had no way of knowing. The chain around my neck was held by a staple driven into a crevice in the wall. Once I had tried to pull it out, but I did not do that any more. ...
292
293>Once I had hoped some friend would bring me a blanket or a bundle of rags. That the seeing woman who had been my wife once would bring me a crust or a cup of broth. Those things had not happened, and would never happen.
294
295>Once I had shivered in the wind, but I had disobeyed, and would shiver no more. I was sleepy now, and though the snow brushed my face and crept up around my feet, I was not uncomfortable. There was no more pain. (*Knight*, XLII 381)
296
297Able is awoken by Gylf here, and we are treated to one of the few moments which cannot be narratively true. Early attempts to explain this were actually met with some ire on the Urth Mailing List, and the fierce insistence that the text resulted from an error in editing, with Garsecg mistyped as Garvaon: "Garvaon would have been all right, but no Garvaon was better, because he was really Setr" (*Knight*, XLIII 392). Sometimes a typo is just a typo, but here we should recognize that Garvaon, Gilling, Gylf, and Garsecg represent different subconscious desires in the same being, with some manifestations more altruistic and others more rapacious, selfish, and dangerous. The narrative throws suspicion on multiple parties for the murder of Gilling. Michael Andre-Driussi delineates that suspicion falls on Toug, whom Idnn and Beel suspect; Org, who was putting out lights at the time and is suspected by Pouk; Baki, who is accused by Uri; the two headed-giant Orgalmir and Borgalmir, in an example used by Able to discuss the murder; Able, as he is suspected by Morcaine; Schildstarr, whom Wistan thinks took advantage of the situation; and finally, Garvaon, who seems to confess and be absolved by Able as he dies. In the surface narrative, Garvaon is ultimately responsible for the death of Gilling, undertaken for the love and preservation of Idnn. [Only in a metaphorical reading can *all*of these suspicions, especially the seemingly absurd example of the two-headed giant, be true: Gilling’s death, Garvaon’s fall into the sea, Able’s own plunge from the back of the griffin into the sea, and the strangulation of Garsecg are merely retellings of the same event, understood as the plight of chimeric twins: one of the children cannot breathe, strangled by his umbilical cord and starving from scant resources. Uri and Baki, created by Kulili, a being of strange white worms, might be something like red blood cells, transmitting oxygen, and they, too, are responsible for “Gilling’s” death. Thus, in narrative logic, Garvaon is guilty, but all of the suspicions are equally correct: Able, Garvaon, Org, and the Khimairae are all partially responsible because of what they represent.] The murder of King Gilling and Odin’s transformation into a snake are in some ways the central Norse myths of *The Wizard Knight*. In addition, the stories of Weland the Smith also seem important, and the death of Baldr is vital to contextualizing Bold Berthold.
298
299There remains some confusion in the text over whether Weland the Smith was a man or a king of the Fire Aelf, but Eterne is definitely considered an artifact of the Aelf (*Knight*, XXXVII 231). However, he would seem to hold some importance, for in Able’s discourse with Michael, he is told, "You should ask whence came the tongs that grasped Eterne. Notice, please, that I did not say I would answer you" (*Knight*, XLIV 277). Whether Weland came from the world of Mythgarthr or from elsewhere, his origin is disputed. In “All You Never Cared to Know about Weland the Smith,” K. Navit notes the complex and ambiguous morality which surrounds the figure of Weland in myth:
300
301>After all, Weland seems to come from a mythological tradition that emphasized his suffering and his bloody revenge, which involved dismembering children, raping women, and making tableware out of body parts (“Lay of Volund”). “Deor” mentions his suffering and his impregnation of Beadohild, and it seems to find in Weland a figure worthy of admiration, the rape of Beadohild notwithstanding. “Waldere” evokes both Weland and Widia, his son by Beadohild (Nithhad’s daughter), and here Weland clearly figures primarily as a legendary smith, as he does in Beowulf; there is no indication that he was associated with the sort of bloodthirsty behavior he portrays in “The Lay of Volund.” As if the multivalence of Weland as a literary figure were not stunning enough, his story is also portrayed on the Franks Casket, and his panel illustrates episodes from his revenge and escape right in the midst of other panels showing the Adoration of the Magi, for instance (“Franks Casket”). Plainly, Weland could move easily between the pagan and Christian, the oral and literary, the classical and vernacular. His story was apparently well known to Anglo-Saxon audiences, as it is alluded to in the corpus but never laid out in full. Primary sources from the Norse-Icelandic corpus suggest a darker and more dangerous figure than do Anglo-Saxon sources, so it’s possible that, as Bradley suggests, the association with the supernatural in the Anglo-Saxon imagination was not as pronounced as it was in the sagas.
302
303We should keep in mind that it is ultimately the smith Vil who manages to strangle Setr with Able’s cord, with the help of a young girl named Etela who seems to have fallen for Toug. Of course, Weland is but one of many Arthurian and Norse references scattered throughout the novels.
304
305Duke at the Duchy of Cumberbach has compiled a list of possible references and allusions online for *The Wizard Knight*. Some of the parallels noted there are most interesting, especially comparing many of Able's accomplishments with the Labors of Hercules, the trials of Odysseus, or the efforts of Theseus, implying the interconnectivity of all of these mythic patterns and also explaining something of the structure of Able's adventures from that mythical perspective. However, Duke also attempts to map many of the characters on to traditional Arthurian myths. I think that one of the tricks Wolfe is using here involves a heavier reliance on Norse Myth. While Arnthor's name is meant to put us in mind of King Arthur, he has much more in common with Sigurd. It seems that Arnthor’s grandfather was King Pholsung, practically equivalent to the mythically super-charged name Völsung.
306
307Völsung’s son Sigmund is the father of Sigurd the dragon-slayer. Odin brings the sword Gram (forged by Weland, as Eterne was) and plunges it into the Barnstokk tree. Only Sigmund can free the sword. A jealous rival uses his shapeshifting mother (who turns into a wolf) and devours Sigmund's brothers one by one until only he remains. Sigmund eventually becomes something of an outlaw, and must face Odin, who shatters his sword. As he dies, he tells his wife that his son Sigurd will one day make a great weapon out of the sword. [The shapeshifting mother and the eating of brothers also resonates with *The Wizard Knight* to some degree, and Weland seems important even to the Archangel Michael in his dialogue with Able.]
308
309Sigurd's life in the Völsunga Saga has some slight parallels to the story of Arnthor, just as his father Sigmund's actually seems to resemble the legendary stories surrounding King Arthur. Sigurd's mother marries King Alf and sends Sigurd away. Eventually he reforges Gram. Upon the insistence of the smith Regan who helps to raise him, Sigurd uses the sword to slay the dragon Fafnir; tasting of its blood allows him to listen to the speech of the birds, who warn him that Regan intends to kill him. Eventually, he is entangled in a complicated love quadrangle that results in his death. (He is stabbed in the back by the younger brother of his rival, who has consumed wolf’s flesh beforehand.) None of this would seem to illuminate the importance of Weland to the text or the reason for Michael’s question, though these myths echo throughout *The Wizard Knight*. If Eterne is understood as a kind of quickening to life and birth, then the tongs which grasp it might represent the essence of the mother and her womb, shaping the child in the heat of a living furnace.
310
311Of course, not all of the references are purely Norse and Germanic, as Wolfe freely synthesizes multiple allusions into his story, quite seamlessly. The relationship between America and Mythgarthr and the entire cosmology of *The Wizard Knight* come into a different light when we recognize that much of the conflict in the story is metaphorical, and that while there is no named Cain to Able’s Abel, his relationship with his brother Ben is fraught with peril for both of them. Just as Uns resents his whole brother Duns, the text is full of jealous brothers – and even murderous ones. Perhaps the most significant aspect of Bold Berthold’s name involves a reference to the Norse god Baldr (the old Norse world for Baldr means “bold”). In myth, Baldr is accidentally killed by his twin brother, Höðr, who happens to be a blind god, after he is tricked by Loki. In *The Wizard Knight*, Bold Berthold is the blind brother. The joining of Baldr and Höðr into one character actually holds huge significance for our understanding of what happens in the novel, given that two of the most difficult characters to distinguish are the Khimairae Uri and Baki.
312
313So that I might not be accused of a one-sided presentation, I would like to mention an alternative examination of the books. Duke at the Duchy of Cumberbatch has an argument for the texts which also involves Baldr. Duke notes:
314 
315>[*The Knight*] is noteworthy for the absence of women. Beel and Garvaon’s wives are dead. Duke Marder’s is never named, and apparently lives in her own tower. Marder apparently has no children by her, and Ravd was his surrogate son. Baron Thunrolf of Thortower apparently is unmarried and/or childless, and he offers to adopt Able and make him his heir. Berthold and Able’s mother is missing. Berthold’s love Gerda has been kidnapped by the frost giants. Disira is killed by her husband. We do meet a few intact families, [such as] Scaur and Sha, and Ulfa and Toug’s family.
316
317>Things change for the better after Able returns from Skai and enters the Room of Lost Loves in *The Wizard*. There is almost an embarrassment of riches: Svon and Idnn, Pouk and Ulfa, Toug and Etela, Vil and Lynnet, Uns and Galene, and maybe even Hela and Woddet. Berthold and Gerda are reunited, and even restored to their youth. The book closes with Able finally winning Disiri, and them beginning a relationship on something like equal terms.
318
319>I think these positive outcomes are a consequence of Able’s success in his mission of setting things right in Celidon. He is faithful to Disiri while in Mythgarthr. He is a model of good conduct, and declines many opportunities with other women. Able is, in a mystical way, an instrument of reconciliation between the sexes in the [*Wizard Knight*]. The Embassy to Utgard is the vehicle for this reconciliation … .
320
321Duke also asserts that in some way the events in Mythgarthr echo what happens in Skai and myth:
322
323>Much of what happens in the seven worlds … is reflected in the worlds below, but in a different form. Many people of Mythgarthr are named after the gods of Skai, or are reflections of the gods. I think Woddet is a reflection of the god Frey, for example. The one-eyed Pouk is a wise, human version of the one-eyed Valfather. Idnn is a reflection of Norse goddess Idunn. (Both were menaced by a giant named Thiazi).
324
325>The “Real” or first Able, Bold Berthold’s brother, was Mythgarthr’s version/reflection of the Norse god Baldr. Bold Berthold was a reflection of Baldr’s brother Hodr. Mag was a version of Baldr’ s wife Nanna (which means “mother”). The name “Able” is a partial anagram for Baldr. And the second syllable of Berthold’s name is a close match for Hodr; Berthold= Hodr.
326
327>In Norse legends, Loki had Baldr killed out of spite or jealousy. Loki is Lothur in the [*Wizard Knight*]. Loki tricked Hodr, who was blind, into killing Baldr with a mistletoe projectile.
328
329>Baldr is dead by the time of the events in the [*Wizard Knight*]. Baldr’s death is alluded to in several places … . When Able is talking with Setr in *The Wizard*, Setr asks if there are bad Overcyns. Able says:
330
331>”I explained that there was said to be one at least, and that the rest—though they punished him—did not take his life for his brothers’ sake.”
332
333>This is a reference to Loki’s/Lothur’s plan to kill Baldr, and his subsequent punishment by the other gods of Skai/Asgard. Loki was not killed, but imprisoned until Ragnarok in Norse mythology. It’s unclear how the gods of Skai punished Lothur for Baldr’s death.
334
335>Lothur later threatens to kill Gylf when we finally meet him near the end of *The Wizard*. Lothur says that the Valfather would forgive him, as he has already forgiven him “worse.” Another reference to the death of Baldr.
336
337>I think the generally poor state of affairs in Mythgarthr is cosmic fallout from the death of Baldr. His death has left a spiritual void or upset that has affected the lower worlds. In Norse legend, Baldr’s death began the negative chain of events that eventually culminated in Ragnarok.
338
339>Let me expand on the “Real Able”/Baldr connection … . First, Baldr has a blind brother in Hodr and, and Able had one in “Blind” Berthold. Second, Berthold mentions that he and other surviving men of Griffinsford were herded into a pond by the giants after their battle. They were then surrounded and had “brands” thrown at them. This is a good match for the death of Baldr in Norse legend. The other gods had surrounded him and were throwing sticks, rocks and other objects at him as sort of a joke, since nothing could harm him (except mistletoe). Berthold mentions that he hid in the pond, but when he got out, he slipped, and his shadow fell back in the pond and stayed there.
340
341>The reference to the “shadow” may be the signal that the Real Able died in the pond. The Real Able was Berthold’s little brother, and like a “shadow” to him.  …
342
343>One of Able’s dreams may show exactly how the Real Able died. In Chapter [XLI] of *The Knight*, Able dreams about trying to save someone who is drowning. The person he helps won’t let go and is now drowning him. I think the Real Able was trying to save his bigger, stronger brother from drowning in the pond. The badly injured Berthold accidentally drowned his brother Able in trying to stay alive. An alternative possibility is that the Real Able was struck by one of the brands the giants threw at the men in the pond. A brand would probably be a wooden torch or stick, sort of like the mistletoe arrow that Hodr shot.
344
345>In Norse mythology, Hodr was punished for killing Baldr by being killed in turn. Berthold is sort of “punished” by being captured and blinded by the giants. After Baldr died, his wife Nanna (“mother”) killed herself. The Real Able’s mother, Mag, committed suicide on the Isle of Glas around the time of the Real Able’s death.
346
347>Hodr and Baldr’s tale does have a happy ending of sorts. They are freed from Hel and reunited after Ragnarok. In the [*Wizard Knight*] Able rescues Berthold and heals him and Gerda.
348
349It seems that vastly divergent readings in terms of assessing tone and mood are possible even when the allusions and details are considered thoroughly. Needless to say, the thesis of this essay dwells far more on the unhappy fate of Able, whose honor demands the ultimate sacrifice, and suggests that the entire book is something far more akin to tragedy.
350
351## The Plunge into Metaphor
352
353By this point, the threads of our analysis have become hopelessly entangled. So that this essay can live, everything must now be absorbed entirely into our primary thesis. I shall at least make an effort to map a metaphorical reading onto the major plot movements of the text, with sufficiently nauseating detail to effectively argue my position. This is not intended to undo the power of the narrative – Wolfe’s skill in weaving a consistent, moving narrative on top of circular and repetitive themes truly does suggest moral movement and growth, not stagnation. However, I hope to emphasize how many times two potential allies struggle with each other based on either greed, envy, or a misunderstanding over the course of the novel. The primary feature of this approach involves Jungian archetypes, which are often mutable and complex – though the four major ones, the self, the persona, the anima, and the shadow, are all probably present in the text. The anima, the feminine image projected from the male psyche, might best be expressed as Idnn and Disiri, while Org and Gylf share in aspects of the shadow. In order for actualization and individuation to occur, Jung believed that the various traits embodied in these archetypes had to be integrated rather than repressed. Able’s very existence becomes something like a persona, an expression he projects outwards from the vulnerable child: the chimeric and idealized dreams of what he would like to be.
354
355“How Far to the Dream My Mother Had?”, the subtitle of this essay, implies that much of the action that we experience through Able’s narration is actually dreamlike. In *Man and His Symbols*, Jung notes:
356
357 >Very often dreams have a definite, evidently purposeful structure, indicating an underlying idea or intention – though, as a rule, the latter is not immediately comprehensible. I therefore began to consider whether one should pay more attention to the actual form and content of a dream, rather than allowing “free” association to lead one off through a train of ideas to complexes that could as easily be reached by other means.
358
359It is the structure of *The Wizard Knight* which I hope to unearth in this rather exhausting section, noting the many repetitions and themes which point to a unified underlying idea. Jung continues:
360
361>A story told by the conscious mind has a beginning, a development, and an end, but the same is not true of a dream. Its dimensions in time and space are quite different; to understand it you must examine it from every aspect – just as you may take an unknown object in your hands and turn it over and over until you are familiar with every detail of its shape.
362
363These patterns in *The Wizard Knight*, once they are apprehended, are too concrete to be accidental. The dream is not linear in the way that some narratives are, because it constitutes a gradually transformative cycle, approaching the union of opposites and a sacrificial individuation. The symbolic representation of events is nothing new to Gene Wolfe, but the presence of so many shifting archetypes and the repetition of such a profoundly specific conflict suggests that we truly are dealing with the logic of the unconscious. Our final argument involves the method which Michael will choose to deliver Able’s letter to his brother, and, more specifically, to his mother, so that she may know her son at last: he sends her a dream of the child who died in her womb. At times, Able’s memories and his identity are mixed up with those of her unconscious mind. This is why the Jungian dream logic of the text works so perfectly.
364
365One of the lynchpins of my approach to Wolfe in general involves applying smaller sections of the narrative that either provide closure or elucidate a more obvious theme to the larger work. Perhaps this structural tendency in Wolfe’s writing is most obvious to readers in *Peace*, but my reading of *The Book of the Short Sun* heavily relies upon many of these micro-stories to provide the closure that at first seems missing, even in resolving plot questions. In *The Wizard Knight*, many of the scenes become highly metaphorical, but perhaps the most important one occurs right at the heart of the second volume, when Gilling lies injured in his bed. Sir Able comes to Utgard and takes Toug’s sister Ulfa back to Glennidam, far to the South. He sees two pigs hanging in the kitchen, which have been butchered by her father. Gylf hungers for their meat. Even as Ulfa looks for other meaty bones her father had been saving for the soup to feed the dog instead, decrying the universal dangers of raw pork, Able hears the wind moaning, “in the chimney, stirring the ashes” (*Wizard*, XVIII 213).
366
367>I was already outside, and for a moment there can have been no sound in the kitchen save the creaking of the hinges of its door, which swung back and forth, and then (caught by a gust of wind) slammed shut.
368
369>One sunny afternoon I had jogged through this field on the same errand, a field full of barley. The barley was reaped now. I ran on stubble, my left hand clutching Eterne to keep her from slapping my thigh. “*Disiri? Disiri?*”
370
371>There was no answer; and yet I felt an answer had come: the leaves had spoken for her, saying here I am.
372
373>“*Disiri!*”
374
375>You can’t find me.
376
377>I stopped, listening, but the leaves spoke no more. “I can’t,” I admitted. “I’ll search the seven worlds for you, and turn out Mythgarthr and Aelfrice like empty sacks. But I won’t find you unless you want to be found. I know that.”
378
379>Give up?
380
381>“Yes, I give up.” I raised both hands.
382
383>“Here I am.” She stepped from behind the dark bole of the largest tree; and although I could scarcely see anything, I saw her and knew she was tall as few women are tall and slender as no human woman ever is, and too lovely for me to understand, ever, exactly how lovely she was.
384
385>My arms closed around her, and we kissed. Her lips were sweeter than honey and warm with life, and there was nothing wrong that mattered because there was nothing wrong we could not mend; and there was love as long as we lived, and love did matter, love would always matter….
386
387>“You have the sword Eterne.” Her voice smiled.
388
389>I gasped for breath. “Do you want her? She’s yours.”
390
391>“I have her already,” she said, “because you have her. Know you why she is called Eterne?”
392
393>“Because she’s almost as beautiful as you are, and beauty is eternal.” (*Wizard*, XVIII 213-4)
394
395Disiri says that there are signs of age on Able, and he hints that he could be younger if he used the power of the Overcyns he now has, but that he would then have to go back to Skai, having broken his oath. Disiri replies:
396
397>“Yet you ride among clouds.”
398
399>“Cloud bears me up. I do not bear her.”
400
401>Our lips met; when we parted we were lying upon moss. “The game is nearly over,” she whispered. “That is what I came to tell you. Did you think it would go on forever?” (*Wizard*, XVIII 215)
402
403Gylf finds Able alone after this and tells his master that he has eaten. Able then arrives at Idnn’s camp in Jotunland almost instantly, borne by Cloud. In the matter of a few pages, Able traverses the entirety of Mythgarthr, from the deepest south to the camp where Idnn waits, but this entire scene is essential for its thematic implications: Able seeks for Disiri everywhere, but he cannot find her. The instant he surrenders, she appears again; however, this should not be seen as a sign of her perverse cruelty, which will only accept Able on her terms. It is Able’s sacrifice which makes Disiri’s appearance possible, the surrender to inevitability. We shall return to this theme over and over, but here Disiri makes clear that the shapes Able sees in the clouds in the very first scene of the novel never stopped influencing him: it is a game he plays, though his situation is the furthest thing from carefree play. With this scene in mind, knowing that King Gilling lies wounded and near death and that he will leave his bed one last time when he hears Idnn’s voice for love, and in doing so, die, we are prepared to contextualize the emotional impact of the sacrifice Able will make. Let’s circle back to the beginning, as Able does so often in his thoughts.
404
405Written as a letter from Aelfrice after the events of the novel are finished, the text is addressed to our narrator’s brother Ben. [In personal correspondence, Robert Pirkola of the Urth Mailing List brought to my attention an interesting fact: in vanishing twin syndrome, in which a twin who dies in utero is reabsorbed into the surviving sibling, the dead twin will sometimes be compressed into a flattened, parchment-like state called *fetus papyraceus*.] Left in a cabin alone while his brother goes to spend time with his girlfriend, Arthur Ormsby chases fantastic figures in the clouds (one of them a six-sided castle, “all spiky like a star because there were towers and turrets coming out of all its sides” (*Knight*, I 20). In his wild chase, he descends a slope in darkness and is soon grabbed by mysterious figures later revealed to be the Aelf. When he comes to himself again, he finds himself in a cave with Parka, who instructs him to plant a seed but advises him that he will have to wait for the slack of the tide. She also gives him the name Able of the High Heart. He realizes that he has lost something while he tarried with the Aelf. Indeed, he notes, “it was all mixed up with somebody else, a little girl who had played with me; and there had been big, big trees, and ferns a lot bigger than we were, and clear springs” (*Knight*, I 22).
406
407[This sudden shift in environment at the start resembles a sperm chasing an idealized vision of an egg, being hostilely transplanted from one environment to another, winding up in a strange cave, and even given the mandate of planting a seed. Since the events in *The Wizard Knight* are the myths which the fertilized Able uses to romanticize the terrible struggle to survive in the womb’s hostile but loving environment, an a-temporal quality to his story emerges. On one level, Able’s union with Disiri here results in Able being “all mixed up” with her (a meeting which, when it recurs in the text, will result in him suddenly “growing,” as she is trapped beneath a lightning-blasted tree) - this represents fertilization, the doubling of genetic content and a vastly and rapidly increased size. Later dreams he has of swimming with Garsecg among silver and red fish harken back to his recollection of life as a sperm, and several of the scenes involving the Moonrider and the figure of the moon also resonate with his mad chase after the castle. As we emphasized at the very start of this essay, Able will eventually dream that he is a pregnant woman, whose child cannot breathe and will certainly die. He might share some knowledge of America with his mother through the umbilical cord which links them, but beyond that, as a dream sent by Michael, on a deeper level, Able’s memories become all mixed up with those of his sleeping mother, explaining his knowledge of America in addition to suggesting fertilization. The events of the book repeat some of the worst struggles which both the unfertilized sperm and the fertilized egg undergo during the troubled pregnancy. Another pattern that will be repeated involves Able’s utterance of the words, “Good lord!” He will say them at the start here when he plants the seed and the dragon knight appears, when he suddenly grows after making love to Disiri, multiple times when he kills the captain of the *Western Trader*, when Morcaine drinks the wine after Able saves her from Grengram, and when Org startles him in Redhall and Morcaine appears, laughing in the corner. His initial memories of Earth also have another spiritual explanation, which we learn from a very diabolical source much later. For all intents and purposes, the memories of America come from his mother’s subconscious and sleeping mind.]
408
409Parka tells Able that he has been sent by the Aelf with tales of their wrongs – a message he will not remember until he stands face to face with King Arnthor of Celidon. (The message is that humans must direct their worship in the proper direction and lead by example, not worship things that have been placed beneath them.) The scene with Parka ends as he waves to her, and Able notes, “[I]t seemed like the whole cave was full of white birds, flying and fluttering” (*Knight*, I 23). [Later, Bold will make clear that only birds can perch for a time on the battlements of the castle Able saw in the sky. Bold will also react with some surprise when Able reveals that he has seen the floating castle, too. The white birds in this scene are suggestive, as is their frenetic activity.] Able suddenly finds himself near a shattered tower with only Parka’s strange bowstring [probably representing his umbilical cord], three seeds, and a small knife in a pouch at his waist. As he plants the first seed in the remains of Bluestone Castle, he sees a large man watching him in chain mail decorated with a black dragon. Only later will we learn that this is a future version of Able, ascended to Skai, who drinks from the well of Mimir and watches his past self. [Able’s appearance here also hints that there is a cyclical or circular nature to the narrative, whether he is aware of it or not – he will come back to these events in metaphorical re-enactments again and again. His wave to Parka will be repeated in waves that Toug makes to Ulfa and to Able himself, and this shattered tower where Able plants his first seed will also come to resonate with the tower that leads to the Isle of Glas, which Garsecg hopes to retake. In its first iteration, it is named Bluestone, starting with the letter B.] Soon, Able finds himself among fishermen, who share food with him and tell ghost stories. (In a way, his own story is also a ghost story). He is told that most spiny orange trees only have one fruit with three seeds, but that when the tree is chopped down, it must be planted in three places. [While metaphorically it is difficult to pin down some of the details of the text and precisely map what the three plantings might be, the initial planting could coincide with fertilization, the second with the splitting into twins, and the final one with Able’s reabsorption back into his brother, given where and how it takes place. The firing of three spiny orange arrows in his competition with Garvaon definitely serves as a riff on these three seeds, but the number is also repeated in numerous ways, from the three flying horses which attempt to catch Able as he falls on Grengarm, the three sharks he engages in approaching the Island of Glas, the three knights he faces at the mountain pass, and the three defeats the heroes of Celidon suffer at the hands of the Dragon Soldiers at the very end of the series.]
410
411In his discussion with the fishermen, Able describes planting one of his seeds and seeing the knight materialize before him as he drank. When the knight disappeared, he turned into a cloud, which is called “the breath of the Lady” by Sha’s grandfather. The fishermen indicate that the Lady’s name cannot be spoken (*Knight*, II 26). [The goddess of clouds and the sky, Frigg or Frigga, incidentally has a name which bears some mirrored resemblance to the name that is running through Able’s head during his introduction to Mythgarthr: Griffinsford. The griffin will come to have a far more symbolic meaning by the end of the story, since the novel deals heavily in letter tropes. Garsecg, Garvaon, Gilling, Gylf, and the griffin all pose a similar threat: the hostile embodiment of the greedy will to destroy a brother that the struggle for survival between the twins involves. The benevolent fraternal presence is described by B names, such as Ben and Bold Berthold, which embody a more positive and loving characterization. It should already be obvious that Able, Arnthor, and Arthur Ornsby all represent almost Jungian personas of our narrator’s psyche. Able seeks both survival and self-understanding, and he might be denied both. Very late in *The Wizard*, when Able risks losing his horse Cloud, we should remember the equation of clouds with the breath of the Lady, especially considering the cold and starvation which will come to Celidon as the Osterlings invade.]
412
413When Able leaves Irringsmouth to search for Griffinsford, two boys attempt to rob him. [Later we learn that one of them is Toug, who will play a prominent role in the second volume. The other’s name is Haf, though we will not learn this until the second volume. A phonetic relationship to “half” might be implied, which we shall return to later. Haf is a female Welsh name meaning “summer.” Within a few chapters, Toug will be lost in Aelfrice with Disiri, just as Able was.] Able beats them and takes a bowstring from one of them. He learns to hunt with his bow and eventually presents himself at Bold Berthold’s hut with a grouse to share. [This sharing of food and the threat of starvation will become a huge theme throughout the novels, especially when winter comes to the land at the end of the second volume. The increasingly barren terrain and cold climate bodes ill for the survival of Able’s mother, also reflected in the text through the death of Garvaon’s spouse in pregnancy and the manner in which the mother of Uns and Duns dies during the Osterling invasion – maternal death and the hardships of winter are at the very least tangentially connected.] Bold tells Able that no one lives in Griffinsford, and Able realizes, “the name of our town had not been Griffinsford. Perhaps it is Griffin – or Griffinsburg or something like that. But I cannot remember” (*Knight*, I 28). The village was destroyed long ago by giants. [These giants were led by Schildstarr, who will one day take Gilling’s place as the ruler of Jotunland. There is resonance between Schildstarr, Svon, and Setr in terms of understanding the metaphorical action of the novel, as we have already said. In the final pages of the novel, after Able has made his sacrifice, he will watch the healed and whole Bold Berthold defeat Schildstarr at last.]
414
415During the burning attack of the giants, Bold took refuge in a lake, and a shadow slipped from him. [As we have indicated several times, Able is the twin who separated from the fertilized egg at this point, and something happened afterwards to compromise airflow and resources to both developing embryos. This is the moment when life becomes hard for Bold and for Able, when brother is pitted against brother in a war in the womb. All of Able’s cruelty in the first volume, all of his selfishness, is predicated upon a struggle that boils down to survival of the fittest: the sperm must be quick and ruthless to win the race, and if it must share resources, it must fight to take as much as it can. The moral quandary of the entire first volume, with Able’s bullying parsimony, makes much more sense in light of the harsh environment of the womb. All life begins in intense struggle and fierce competition; only the strong can be born.] This is also where Bold attains a nasty head wound; even touching it is enough to disturb Able. As we have previously mentioned, various head wounds will be incurred several times in the text, afflicting Able, Disira, and even the skull decoration on the arms of the Black Knight whom Able fights. Able’s split from Bold can also explain the significance of Ben and Bold becoming parental figures to Able – in a literal way, one twin truly does become the parent of the other.
416
417During Bold’s discussion of that initial attack, he mentions some of the houses in the village, bringing up what might be some pertinent symbolic details: “This right here was Uld’s house, and across from it Baldig’s … Uld had six fingers, and so’d his daughter Skjena” (*Knight*, III 34). These names are oddly resonant with the almost indistinguishable Uri and Baki, but more importantly during this scene, beyond the hints of extra if not abnormal growth, we soon learn that in Griffinsford, somehow, there are two spiny orange trees. This is the tree that Able originally blames for his presence in Mythgarthr. When Able looks upon his tree, it is but a stump. Bold says, “Spiny orange … You planted it ‘fore you went away. It was on my land, and I wouldn’t let nobody cut it. Only somebody done, when I wasn’t looking” (*Knight*, III 36). As he looks upon the stump of the tree with Bold, Able plants the second of his seeds there, and, in a moment which seems confusing in the surface narrative, Bold then takes him to a much larger spiny orange, his eyes streaked with tears. [The presence of two spiny orange trees, one cut down, makes far more sense metaphorically than in the actual surface plot: why are there two? Were these intended to be different trees or not? Symbolically, they represent fertilization and a sundering into two parts. The cutting of one might also embody that one of those lives will be cut short. We should keep in mind that at points in the text there appears to be *two* Idnns and Earl Marshals, though the doubling of Idnn has a textual explanation.] Before this look at the trees, Able tells us something that we should take very seriously. Bold suggests that Able would have run away if he faced the giants attacking the village: “How you know you wouldn’t run?”
418
419Able answers, “You didn’t … Aren’t we the same?” (*Knight*, III 35) Since the event occurred before they split into uneven twins and Bold’s immersion in the lake, the answer must of course be yes – they were indeed the same at that point. Bold’s tale of this old battle also reveals the coming of Schildstarr, the loss of Gerda, and the destruction of Griffinsford – even as Able notes that he has many questions about Skai, which prompts the gravid howling of a wolf (*Knight*, III 31). (Able’s eventual ascent to Skai with the Valkyrie will be associated with death.) Bold and Able sit beside the Griffin River and talk, a reunion at a location named after a composite beast, a monster which will also haunt Able’s dreams. Later, Able will ride a griffin fighting Grengarm before he falls into the sea and, at least according to Mani, dies.
420
421It is worth thinking about the extra appendages that Uld and Skjena grew, exceeding normal developmental patterns. In the Room of Lost Loves, Able learns from Bold’s mother Mag that when she was pregnant with him, “A turtle with two heads crawled out of the river and bit Deif and Grumma, strangers were on the road by night, and there were howlings at our windows” (*Wizard*, XXII 264). The evil implication of the bite is not enough: the Norn Hounds are at work as well, reminding us with their howling of the intrinsic dangers of procreation and of… two-headed turtles. [This might be an appropriate time to note that in Norse mythology, Ymir spontaneously generated three children: a son and daughter from under his arms, and a son with six heads from his legs. Ymir’s death resulted in a flood so catastrophic that only the giant Bergelmir and his wife survived to repopulate the giants.] When Able thinks who might have killed King Gilling (a metaphorical killing resonant with Able’s own impending death and the intentional reduction of Gylf from an all-consuming self-defense mechanism to a tame dog who serves others), he chooses a very peculiar example, using a two-headed giant to prove his point, as previously mentioned: “I guess that Orgalmir wounded the king and Borgalmir killed him” (*Wizard*, XXI 253). [Will only one head survive, metaphorically? In the text, certainly: one of those heads will be cut off by Able.] Suspicion for Gilling’s death also falls on the Khimairae, the twinned figures who will soon threaten to eat Able as he attempts to ascend to the Isle of Glas; however, he is not the only person they have endangered.
422
423The Khimairae also threaten to consume Bold’s mother. In her letter from the Isle of Glas, Mag writes, “[S]oon the Khimairae will eat me. I have caught Setr’s poison in a cup. I write with it, and with a feather of the great bird. When I have written to the end, I will put this scroll in the vase, and stop it, and drink” (*Wizard*, XXII 265). While our argument will not go through every symbolic or metaphorical reiteration of the text, these conflicts and assimilations are omnipresent and certainly not coincidental. Idnn will complete this metaphor by comparing herself to a goblet: “I will be given to King Gilling like a cup, a silver goblet into which he may pour his sperm. So that when my father returns to Thortower he can say, ‘Her Majesty, my daughter’” (*Knight*, LIV 338). The Khimairae and what they represent are a great threat to Able’s mother as well, and the catching of Setr’s poison in a cup is certainly related to copulation and pregnancy through Idnn’s words.
424
425Returning to the plot, Able and Bold visit Griffinsford, where the human inhabitants have been offering worship to the world below Mythgarthr, Aelfrice, adopting as gods those who were meant to worship them. [Here the implication is not only that human beings are caught up in greed and in material things rather than in the gifts of the spirit, but also that the harsh conditions in which Able finds himself cause all of his instincts to focus downward toward the lowest goal: individual survival and self-advancement at all costs. It is only natural, but is humanity capable of more than nature? In many ways, the movement down towards Niflheim involves pride and selfishness: the most low god believes that he is the only thing in creation, but his putrid back, which he claims to be the Most High God, suggests only rotting and death.] Eventually Able meets the knight Sir Ravd and his squire Svon. [Ravd tutors both of the boys, as he was instructed by Sabel as a youth. Bold’s father’s name is Black – which might also be called sable. While Michael Andre-Driussi asserts that the name Ravd is likely derived from Raud, meaning “red,” he also notes that in the text it is presented as meaning “ravisher” (77). “Ravisher” need not imply that Able and Bold were born of rape, but it does suggest that something violent and violating has to occur for germination, even on the cellular level.] Ravd pays Able to escort him to Glennidam.
426
427If you take our main argument seriously, you have no doubt already been able to guess that Svon and Able, though they are both under Sir Ravd’s aegis, soon fall to fighting by the fire. The fight begins when Svon asks how Able might support a mate, saying they would only be, “Two rats to starve in the same hole” (*Knight*, IV 39). [Wolfe really should be taken literally: *The Wizard Knight* is about two desperate creatures starving in the same closed environment. During this scene, Able even compares the tent of Ravd and Svon to the hut he shares with Bold Berthold in size.] During the wrestling which ensues, Able casts away Svon’s weapon, and the boy runs off. As the squire sneaks back intending to stab Able with a small dagger called a saxe, he is grabbed by the Aelf in a scene which might resemble Able’s own earlier experience as he chased after the castle in the sky. Svon says the Aelf sent him with a message (which also resembles the task they bequeathed to Able) – the reassurance that Able’s childhood playmate was watching out for him. They also gave Svon a warning: “[I]f I hurt Able I’d belong to them. I’d have to slave for them for the rest of my life. … They gave me that message and made me say it seven times, and swear on my sword that I’d do everything exactly the way they said” (*Knight*, V 48). The repetition of the same warning seven times is a key structural component of the book, and the number is worth looking out for, whether it be the seven chests and locks within which the sword that can kill the Black Caan of the Osterlings is sequestered, the seven worlds of the novel, the seven birds stuffed within each other at Arnthor’s feast, the seven pitched battles that Garvaon has lived through, the seven mules Beel presents to Gilling, the seven slaves who earn their freedom by fighting in Utgard (though one of them dies), the seven dragons on the Isle of Glas, or the seven attempts at forging Eterne that Weland the Smith undertook. When Able is asked how many times he has been to Aelfrice at the very end of the series, he emends his answer to six – making his next trip to Aelfrice with the Earl Marshal, when he finally confronts the most low god, the seventh.
428
429Ravd also reveals that after the death of Indign, Marder is attempting to assimilate the deceased duke’s lands into his own duchy. Ravd’s presence in Glennidam involves gaining loyalty and allegiance for Duke Marder. We shall now fast forward past Able’s next sojourn into Aelfrice, where he couples with Disiri and instantly quickens to maturity after being separated from Ravd and Svon. [When Able denies that he is a man, Disiri says, “You are! You are! Let me have one drop of blood and I will show you” (*Knight*, VII 57). Her insistence on receiving one drop to show him that he is a man is also suggestive. Suggestive of what, Marc? Well, sometimes when a man and a woman love each other ….] Upon returning to Glennidam naked, Able tries to find out what happened to Ravd and his squire. He suspects that they may have run afoul of a band of brigands, betrayed by the people of the town. Of course, he must attain clothes, and the people try to use this as an opportunity to ambush him. He manages to subdue the boy Toug and escape. Able winds up taking Toug with him into Aelfrice. There, Able meets Disiri again; she knights him. He offers to kill Toug if she desires his death; she says, “He wants to talk, see how his mouth moves. … Speak, boy. I will not let him strangle you – at least, not yet” (*Wizard*, IX 68). [The motif of strangulation will become very important as the text progresses, and when Toug reappears he will be unable to speak until Able recovers Eterne. Even in the second volume, he is reluctant to speak at times.] Disiri also declares that Able should have a very special weapon:
430
431> “[A] fabled brand imbued with all sorts of magical authority and mystical significance – Eterne, Sword of Grengarm. … Such swords were forged in the Elder Time. The Overcyns visited Mythgarthr more often then and taught your smiths, that you might defend your world from the Angrborn. … The first pair of tongs was cast down to fall at the feet of Weland, and with them, a mass of white-hot steel. Six brands Weland made, and six broke. The seventh, Eterne, he could not break. Nor can the strength of the Angrborn bend that blade, nor the fire of Grengarm draw its temper. It is haunted, and commands the ghosts who bore it.” (*Knight*, IX 69)
432
433[This passage should remind us that there are seven worlds, with the highest being Elysion. The swan at Arnthor’s feast, similarly, has six birds stuffed inside it. Eterne would seem to represent a kind of holistic reality and perhaps life itself, though Able calls it beauty. Unfortunately, for every seed that reaches its destination, the ovum, thirty to a hundred million perish per attempt. How could so many ghosts have tried to wield Eterne? The mass of white-hot steel at Weland’s feet, meant for forging, is also suggestive. We should remember Able’s first romantic description of Disiri: “Remember that Disiri was a shapechanger, and all her shapes were beautiful” (*Knight*, 15). Certainly, an unfertilized egg could take many different shapes.]
434
435After this proclamation, Disiri disappears: “She had vanished among tall ferns as green as she; like a dog too fearful to disobey, Toug hurried after her and vanished too” (*Knight*, IX 70). There is a circularity at work over the course of Able’s story, and the next thing he does emphasizes this point. He decides to plant the last of his seeds. Much like the surrender of Org in a few chapters, in which the defeated ogre places Able’s foot upon his neck in supplication, this planting foreshadows a capitulation and surrender into peace, though it is married to resignation rather than bliss:
436
437>I took the last of my seeds from the pouch at my belt and planted it in a glade I found, a place of silence and surprising beauty. Whether it sprouted and took root, I cannot say.
438
439>In this glade, I paused at my planting to look up, and saw the comings and goings of men, women, children, and many animals – not each step each took, but the greater movements of their days. A man plowed a field while I blinked, and returned home tired, and chancing to look in through his own window, saw the love his wife gave another. Too exhausted to be angry, he feigned not to have seen and sat by her fire, and when his wife hurried out, looking like a dirty bed and full of lies, he asked for his supper and kept quiet.
440
441>As I finished planting the seed, I thought about that, and it seemed to me that the things I had seen in the sky of Aelfrice were like the things my bowstring showed in dreams; I had unstrung my bow the way you do, but I strung it again and held it up so I could study my string against that sky, but Parka’s little string vanished into the great gray sky, so that I could not make out its line. I did not understand that then and do not understand it now, but it is what I saw.
442
443>When I had tamped earth over the seed, I would have gone back to the spot where Disiri had left me if I could. Unable to find it, I wandered in circles – or at least in what I hoped were circles – looking for it. Soon it seemed to me that the air got darker with every step I took. I found a sheltered spot, lay down to rest, and slept.
444
445>I woke from terrible dreams of death to the music of wolves.” (*Knight*, IX 71)
446
447Here, Able has planted his final seed, and at that point the tales he sees in the sky of Aelfrice, the stories of Mythgarthr, conjoin with his bowstring – they have been colored in much the same way from that connection with his mother, which will also fade away in time as he is compressed into the life of someone else – perhaps betrayed by his hopes, but too weary to rail at the injustice. Toug has gone with Disiri here, and Able’s dreams, of death and of wolves, are perfectly appropriate, for this is yet another symbolic presentiment of his ultimate destiny, something which he will circle around and around in the course of his journey. [As we have suggested, the final seed he plants might be back into his wounded brother, so that one whole half might survive and grow. Life will continue, but it will not involve Able directly. The circles in which he steps here are a slow spiral of the repetition to come: the same event will be retold metaphorically over and over until *The Wizard Knight* finally closes on Able consciously making his sacrifice so that Bold and those he loves will not die.]
448
449Upon returning to Mythgarthr, Able comes upon the bandit Seaxneat’s mate, Disira, and her child, Ossar. He decides to live with her and Bold, though soon enough an unseen Seaxneat will come to kill her and spare the child, even as the giants attack Bold’s home yet again, taking him far to the north. Before this occurs, “Bold Berthold played with little Ossar, and talked about how life had been when his brother was no bigger than Ossar, and he himself (as he put it) only a stripling” (*Knight*, IX 72). Soon, Able begins to doubt his life in America: “I said something about your mother and mine, Ben, and Bold Berthold hugged me and cried. I had already started to wonder if America had ever been real and not trust the life I remembered there with you (school and the cabin, my Mac and all that) and this made it worse. I lay down, and to tell the truth I pretended I was asleep, wondering if I was not really Bold Berthold’s brother Able” (*Knight*, IX 73). [The final section of this essay will attempt to explain Able’s memories of America at greater length, though it should be noted that Able himself begins to doubt their accuracy after thinking of his mother, reinforcing the close relationship of memories of America with thoughts of her.]
450
451The weather grows colder, and one day Able comes across a giant while he is out hunting. When he returns to Bold’s hut, he finds that something is amiss, with the smell of burnt leather in the air. However, the tracks he finds are not giant-sized, but human, made by feet that turn in (which matches an earlier description of Seaxneat – one which is oddly infantile). When he finds Disira’s body, Ossar is clinging to it. He tries to feed the child, but there is little for them to eat in the terrible weather. Even in his desperate hunger, Able spares a doe and a fawn, and this prompts the Bodachan to appear to him, as they frequent Mythgarthr in such forms. He trades Ossar to them for the large dog Gylf. They agree to educate the child. Gylf seems to be a young dog who has dropped form the wild hunt of the Valfather. (The coming of cold weather and the lack of food for Able and Ossar are of course telling, as is the absence of Bold. The appearance of the bandits, the giant, and colder weather at the same time is no coincidence, for they represent much the same threat. Able is certain that Bold is dead when he cannot find him at the hut. The association of Ossar with Org will become much stronger soon, but the education the Bodachan offer Ossar reflects the same thing that Able received from the Aelf.)
452
453Able returns to Glennidam and, with the help of Old Man Toug and Gylf, gets revenge upon the bandits whom he eventually discovers killed Ravd. Gylf becomes so fierce during their attack on the bandit cave that Able is frightened of the dog himself. The attack prompts the Able writing the story to remember the later slaughter of the Osterlings undertaken by Sir Woddet. In his eventual discussion with Duke Marder, Ravd’s master, Able reveals that twenty-three bandits were killed between he, Toug, and Gylf. [This conjoins nicely with the number of chromosomes in a human gamete. After fertilization, future somatic cells will have forty-six. This bandit cave is also resonant with Parka’s cave and the cave where Garsecg chains Gylf when the dog seeks help for Able after the Osterlings wound him.]
454
455At this point, I would like to reinforce the concept of Gylf as one of Able’s defense mechanisms and as an aspect of his personality. In an online discussion of *The Knight*, Charles Cox presents Gylf as Able’s unconscious shadow:
456
457>In Jungian psychology the shadow is a semi-autonomous part of the unconscious that is comprised of the parts of you that you attempt to suppress and hide from others. Usually a significant part of the shadow is our ability to behave aggressively and violently, because exhibiting that behavior is extremely problematic in most circumstances.
458
459>There are lots of themes in *The Knight* [that] could be considered Jungian, but these things are often present in literature without direct influence from the man himself because they are concerned with archetypes, symbols, and psychology in general. But the relationship between Gylf and Able is so close to Jung's portrayal of the ego and shadow that it seems very intentional to me.
460
461>The first time Able has to fight and kill a bunch of people he sees Gylf transformed into a black figure and is terrified of him. It's as if in order to fight the bandits he has to unleash the shadow, and he is afraid of what the shadow is capable of. In dreams the shadow often appears as a figure dressed in black, or something blacker than normal. …
462
463>There's additional Jungian psychological symbolism here, as animals often appear in dreams during times of transformation or as a marker of overcoming a milestone of psychic growth. Gylf certainly seems to appear when Able grows in some way, and this could also be said to be true regarding the whole debacle with the bandits early in the book.
464
465>Able tries to abandon and run from Gylf often, which is a common method of dealing with the shadow. But doing so causes two problems. First, denying the shadow strips you of its benefits. The shadow is problematic in a lot of ways, but it is also essential because you need to be capable of aggression in the right context. The second problem is that as the shadow is suppressed it becomes more "dense," as more and more of one’s psyche is funneled into it. When it becomes too strong one runs the risk of being "possessed" by it, where it manifests itself in your behavior more and more without your conscious consent.
466
467>This seems to occur with Able, as he is wild and out of control throughout much of the book, but as he begins the formal process of becoming a knight Gylf is suddenly there again. Resisting conscious awareness of the shadow is often symbolized as it being trapped in the underworld, which is literally what happened to Gylf. Moreover caves and large bodies of water are common symbols of the unconscious mind, and IIRC Gylf was held in a cave under water.
468
469>But when Able begins his training there he is again, and the two begin to be reconciled with one another. In order to be a true knight Able must learn to control his capacity for violence, and to do that he must be open and honest with his shadow/Gylf, and develop a meaningful relationship with it.
470
471I think for the most part this resonates very well with what Gylf comes to represent in the text, and the eventual killing of Garsecg and Gilling is paralleled with a passive and shrunken Gylf – for though Able’s sacrifice will require courage, it also requires that he come to terms with his defense mechanisms and eventually turn them off. In the final battles of Celidon, Gylf is actually double-chained: both twins must relax their defenses and accept what must be. When Disiri walks away and leaves Able to plant that final seed in Aelfrice, Toug follows her like a subdued dog. Much later, when Able goes to fight the Griffin, Toug will finally return from Aelfrice, unable to speak. A dream during this part of the novel is quite suggestive: 
472
473>In dream I was a boy I had never been, running over the downs with other boys. We caught a rabbit in a snare, and I wept at his death and for some vast sorrow approaching that I sensed but could not see. We skinned and cleaned the rabbit, and roasted it over a little fire of twigs. I choked on it, fell unconscious into the fire, and so perished. I had wanted to save the bones for my dog, but I was dead and my dog had followed the Wild Hunt, and the rabbit's steaming flesh was burning in my throat. (*Knight*, LXVIII 417)
474
475After Toug the Elder and Able defeat the bandits, Gylf brings them two rabbits to eat. Immediately after Able meets the ghost of Huld and Mani, Gylf once again brings Able rabbits to eat (*Knight*, XLVII 290). Only when Able faces Grengarm, gains Eterne, and rides on the white griffin will Toug the Younger regain his ability to speak, and this once again ties in to the strangling and choking theme that is repeated many times throughout the book, suggesting that Toug is an aspect of at least one of the twins. On the surface reading of the text, there is little reason that Toug should lose or regain his ability to speak at this point, save some strange compulsion or some invisible goal which Able fulfills. Of special note in the dream above is the verbiage surrounding “some vast sorrow approaching that I sensed but could not see” – this is an apt description of the subtext of *The Wizard Knight*, where perceptions simply cannot be trusted, but the echo of important events can be heard everywhere.
476
477In any case, after Able’s vengeance against the bandits is complete, he decides that he must get to Forcetti to offer his services to Marder. Able soon allies with Pouk, who later claims to join him out of “selfishness” (*Knight*, XXVIII 175). He also resolves not to wield a sword until he finds Eterne. Certain that Able will not be respected until he at least appears to carry a sword, an armorer named Mori convinces him to purchase a mace that looks like a sword: "It is the seeing of the sword - the perception of it - that matters. Not the sword itself" (*Knight*, XV 105). This becomes another central theme of *The Wizard Knight*, where perceptions are more important than reality, for they offer a kind of heroism and redemption. We have already discussed the importance of the struggle for possession of the ship that the captain and Able undergo, ending with the head wound of the captain and his unceremonious deposit into the sea. It is also worth noting that when Able first barges in on the captain with the intention of renting his quarters, the captain is naked. Though he refuses to rent the room, the captain does say that the charge would be seven full cepters (*Knight*, XVI 109). During his stay on the ship, Able begins to record what has befallen him, but he abandons the project when he reaches Disira and Ossar in his memoir (*Knight*, XVII 121). [This would seem to represent one full cycle of the metaphorical story, after which Able circles back and the motifs begin to repeat themselves with slight variations.]
478
479Soon enough, the Osterlings invade, with all of the threat and horror a cannibalistic attack involves. Able himself is stabbed, and it is at this point when his perceptions begin to unravel a bit. He finds himself sleeping on a coil of rope in the hold (*Knight*, XIX 124-5). He soon tells Pouk, “[I’m] just a boy … A boy who thought he was a brave knight.” [This is literally accurate.] When Pouk asks Able who went after the Osterlings, he answers, “The dog, I’m sure” (*Knight*, XX 127). [In a way, this is true, if the dog is considered as the tenacious and combative part of Able’s personality. Pouk also reveals that the dog, when it is seen at all, looks thin and starving. By this point, Able and his twin must be struggling for sustenance.]
480
481Even though Able is determined to return to the deck of the ship and retake his belongings from the captain, he thinks, “The thing was, I was afraid my wound was not getting any better, and I thought it might be getting worse. It felt as hot as fire, and when I pressed it blood came out, mixed with other stuff” (*Knight*, XXI 131). After Able disposes of the captain, the crew decides that it would be best to say that the captain merely died at sea, going along with Able (ostensibly thanks to his bravery during the Osterling attack).
482
483The cycle starts again when he sees the Moonrider in the sky and then notices the Aelf known as Kelpie swimming in the sea. Gylf has supposedly gone into the water to seek the aid of Garsecg in healing Able. The verbiage surrounding Able’s plunge into the water is worth examining. The kelpies jump onto Able:
484
485>All four of us jumped into the sea then. I did not mean to, but I did anyway. It was all really strange. There had been this greasy swell up where the ship was, but before we hit the sea was tossing waves, and they looked as clear as crystal – chimerical, like ghosts in sheets of snow-white foam, ghosts spangled all over with moonlight and reflected stars. (*Knight*, XXI 135)
486
487The direct use of the word “chimerical” to describe something like specters in white foam is also … wait for it … suggestive. After swimming among strange fish (some with ominous teeth, a motif which will oddly be repeated in talking about female genitalia at the end of the books: “Some sorceresses have teeth down here. You stick it in and they bite it off. Mani told me” (*Wizard*, XXXIV 409)), Garsecg, in Aelf form, examines Able, and takes him to witness the birth of an island from a rent in the sea, which also features the same imagery: “White-hot rock roared up from the seafloor so that great white clouds of steam belched up and all the fish and crabs and things ran away, everything except us” (*Knight*, XXII 137). When the noise subsides, Able compares the sudden silence to Gilling dying in his bed. He watches the island develop, sees it sprout with life, sees Disiri running on it, and even tries to join her, though he and Garsecg argue about it. Eventually, the newborn island sinks and disappears into the sea (*Knight*, XXII 138). [Once again, Wolfe is using a metaphorical set piece to illustrate exactly what is happening in the text: a surge of white-hot seed gives birth to a new biological island, which all too soon decays, still-born. In order to avoid future embarrassment, I will here directly equate the words “suggestive” and “seminal.”]
488
489Garsecg teaches Able how to become strong and offers to give him a weapon; Able will have to face Kulili in return. Here, a plot inconsistency develops. We know that Able has been in Aelfrice three times: once after being grabbed from America, once when he gained his present size, and once when he left Toug with Disiri. Here, he tells Garsecg, “I don’t know if I told you I’d been to Aelfrice twice before, only one time I don’t remember it” (*Knight*, XXV 159). Able climbs a tower with the omnipresent threat of the flying Khimairae around him, who have been turned to the worship of Setr. At the top of the tower lies the Isle of Glas in Mythgarthr, where Mag, Able and Bold’s mother, died, drinking from a poisoned cup after Setr took her there to lure *seamen* to their deaths. [Homophone much?] The presence of the Khimairae here is definitely metaphorical, but their threat to Able is very real.
490
491We have already established many of the patterns which will repeat over and over in the text, from a struggle between allies to the threat of strangulation or being stabbed in the back, with a constant return to imprisonment or confinement. Though Able tries to make the Khimairae renounce Setr when he grabs two of them, the attempt seems futile. As Garsecg says, “If a prisoner renounces his chains, do they fall from his wrists?” (*Knight*, XXIII 147) This question might very well be applied to Able, though he does not recognize the fashion in which he is currently bound. Are perceptions enough to grant him a kind of freedom? In any case, when he throws one of the Khimairae down, he places his foot upon her neck (*Knight*, XXIII 147). [This resembles Org’s surrender strongly, which seems to be another key scene in the book. In that case, Org places Able’s foot upon his own neck. That is far from the only echo of the pose made famous by depictions of the Archangel Michael’s triumph over Satan during the war in heaven.]
492
493During this scene, Garsecg asks Able some other poignant questions: "The old high gods of the Aelf are likewise immortal [like the Overcyns]. What will become of your spirit when you die?" (*Knight*, XXIV 155) Able’s silent reaction seems ominous: “I tried to remember” (*Knight*, XXIV 155). After attaining the power of the sea and talking to the gigantic form of Kulili, Able returns to the *Western Trader*, where he finds, quite oddly, that everyone has been waiting for his return, though three years have passed. They approach the Mountain of Fire, which once belonged to the Osterlings. The Osterlings used the Mountain to cast their victims directly down to Muspel, where Setr dwells. [Later, when he looks into the maw of Grengarm and faces death, he sees the faces of those sacrificed to the Mountain in the dragon’s mouth – in *The Wizard Knight*, those who are sacrificed wind up inside some other living thing, and we should consider that, too, to be something pertinent to Able’s individual story.]
494
495When Able arrives, the Mountain is under the command of Lord Thunrolf. As Able describes it, “With only one road going up to the top, it was pretty clear the Osterlings could not take back the Mountain unless they took all the fortifications along the road, one after another, or starved out the garrison” (*Knight*, XXIX 179). This emphasis on food and supplies in taking back territory does not end there, for, as we might predict, conflict involving mealtime frequently occurs even among the servants of Arnthor. Thunrolf tells Able, “You might sup with us, Sir Able, but if you do, two points must be settled before supper. The first is the rank of your companion” (*Knight*, XXIX 181). The other point involves Able’s identity as a new knight and the tradition of fighting an older champion. Able does so, fighting a more experienced man with spoons before being knocked off the table. [At this point, he explicitly likens Thunrolf’s drinking habits to that of Arnthor’s sister, Morcaine (*Knight*, XXIX 184). Food, fighting among allies, and being cast down – these patterns are ubiquitous throughout the text. Even the strategic importance of the Mountain of Fire and Able’s eventual command over it resonate with this pattern: "Back then I did not know that the Osterlings were going to take it away from us, or that we were going to take it back. If you had told me I was going to be the one that gave the order to give it up and retreat south, I would have said you were crazy" (*Knight*, XXIX 179). Able’s capitulation against his better interests is already being written into the text, and will be reinforced several times, especially in the pivotal moment when Org surrenders. As if to symbolize the reason for all of this combat between those who should be allies, Able and his foe actually dual with *giant spoons*.] This scene with Thunrolf, however, will become even more explicitly metaphorical.
496
497Citing offense at the manner in which Pouk has been elevated above his station, Thunrolf declares, “You have pushed in among your betters … and turned your back on your comrades. If I left your punishment to them, you would get such a beating as would cripple you for life” (*Knight*, XXX 185). Inviting six of his knights and Sir Able to the top of the mountain (that’s seven knights!), Thunrolf has Pouk chained to a rock and cast down into the Mountain of Fire. Able doubts that Thunrolf will go through with it until it is done: “[H]e was not going to throw him in, because that was what the Osterlings did” (*Knight*, XXX 187). [Pride and other concerns can make otherwise noble people like Osterlings in this book – this sacrifice resonates strongly with the fight between Grengarm and the griffin at the end of the first volume, and even with the eventual conflict at the Tower of Glas in which Setr finally dies.]
498
499Able tries to descend into the gorge to save Pouk, but Thunrolf will not let him go alone. When none of his knights will volunteer, he chains himself to Able in an odd and surprising move. [This act, of course, makes much more sense in our metaphorical reading, in which two competitive brothers are shackled to each other inescapably.] Able drags Thunrolf far lower than he wants to go, all the way down to Muspel. They both begin to choke, and Able notes:
500
501>I knew there was a good chance we would both die, and I did not want to.
502
503>(This is one of those places where it is hard to tell the truth. It may be the hardest of all. I think it is. I went outside and walked round and looked at the sea and the mountains and the beautiful place where we live. If Disiri or Michael had been there I would have talked to them about it, but they were not, and I had to decide for myself. I have, and this is the truth.) (*Knight*, XXX 188-9)
504
505Soon they come upon Arnthor’s brother, the dragon Setr, who alights upon Pouk and threatens to destroy him. In his desperation, Thunrolf tries to attack Able with his sword. [Thunrolf, too, serves as a character folded into the struggle between two brothers.] Despite his vow to Disiri, Able tries to get Thunrolf’s sword in this scene, but it falls into a deep crevice. [Later, his arm in a sling, Toug will fight his way down the Tower of Glas, which resonates strongly with this battle.]
506
507When Able throws a rock at the dragon, it turns to him and opens its mouth, with Garsecg’s face visible inside it. The creature asks him, “Sir Able, why war you against me?” (*Knight*, XXX 190) [In a few chapters, this scene will be presented once again in Able’s dreams, but one important substitution will be made involving Able’s brother, Bold.] Only Able’s offer to fight Kulili for Setr causes the dragon to take flight. Able breaks the staple which holds Pouk to the rock, allowing them to begin their ascent at last.
508
509As Able struggles to bring Pouk back up to Mythgarthr, he thinks, “It seemed to me that I had never been anybody’s kid brother in America then, that I had never gone looking for a tree or lived in a hut in the woods with Bold Berthold. That there had never been anything for me, really, but climbing and choking and weariness” (*Knight*, XXX 191). [This agrees with our assessment of his actual condition.]
510
511Continuing the letter associations, when Thunrolf returns, his servants Aud and Vix attend him. Thunrolf even offers to adopt Able, as Bold Berthold seemed to before him. Vix says, “We were going back to Seagirt, Your Lordship. Leaving tomorrow. Lord Olof would give us places, but we didn’t want them” (*Knight*, XXXI 192). [The name of Olof in conjunction with Seagirt should probably keep us in mind of Svon and Org and what they might represent. The Mountain of Fire has certainly changed hands after the descent of Able and Thunrolf. Eventually, in the case of a chimeric twin, the cells which once served one brother will wind up serving the other. Also, given the injuries which Pouk incurred during his fall, it is worthwhile watching out for broken arms from here on out.] When Able sleeps, he notes that “It was one of the few sleeps I had in Mythgarthr in which my dreams were not troubled by the people whose lives wove the bowstring Parka bit through for me” (*Knight*, XXXI 193). It should be no surprise that even though a year has passed since Thunrolf and Able descended into the mountain in Mythgarthr, Pouk soon happens to chance upon the *Western Trader* again in port, and the two board it once again.
512
513Able continues on in his desire to reach Duke Marder and Forcetti. When he catches sight of the Tower of Glas, Able begins to cry, though he does not understand why. Finally arriving at Sheerwall Castle, Able speaks with Master Agr, who desires that Able jousts with Master Thope. [During his introduction to Sheerwall Castle, Able notes, “It always seemed to me that people ought to see right away that I was not really a man, just a boy that Disiri had made look like one. Only they could not” (*Knight*, XXXII 198). [If that’s not some metatextual commentary on Wolfe’s part, I don’t know what is.] After three passes jousting with Thope and some insults exchanged with the watching knights, Able’s fall from the horse precipitates a physical struggle between Able and Marder’s other knights; Able is injured, but so are many of the others. He has another dream:
514
515>I thought I was in the cable locker. Not that I had been put back in there, really, but that I had never left it. It was dark and I hurt bad, and I was not really thinking at all.
516
517>After a while it got through to me that I was in a bed instead of lying on rope, but for a while I thought the bed was in a hospital. The moonlight came through the window, and I saw it was a window shaped like the point of a sword, and it seemed like I was not in the cable locker or the hospital at all, but I did not know where I was, or care.
518
519>A long time after that I tried to get out of bed. I was going to look out and see whatever there was to see, I think. But I fell down. (*Knight*, XXXIII 203)
520
521Able’s thoughts here stray close to his situation: he hasn’t truly gone anywhere, and it already seems that he is destined to fall in this environment. Able soon learns that Master Thope was stabbed in the back during the scuffle (just as Able was during his fight with the Osterlings, as King Gilling will be by Garvaon, and as Uns will be during Able’s fight with Morcaine’s undead champion Loth.) Able has another quite telling dream here which we mentioned above, in which Garsecg and he are in the throne room of the Tower of Glas. A blue dragon sits on the throne: “[I]t hissed at us and opened its mouth just like Setr had down in Muspel, and Garsecg’s face was in the dragon’s mouth. So I looked over at Garsecg to see if he had seen it too, and it was not Garsecg at all. It was Bold Berthold” (*Knight*, XXXIII 206).
522
523This explicit link between Garsecg, Setr, and Bold should not be ignored, nor should the fact that when Able awakens and looks up at the moon he believes that he sees Khimairae temporarily. When he falls back asleep, he finds himself back on the island, with someone calling out “Lord?” to him as he looks for trees. [The moon will become linked to the ovum in several of these visions and metaphors throughout the text. In the case of Able and Bold (or is that Arthur and Ben?), fertilization will eventually lead to the formation of chimeric twins.]
524
525>There were no spiny oranges, though. I wanted to find one and let it thank me for planting it, but I knew it could not hear me, and there were not any anyway. What there was, was big red snakes. They were wrapping themselves around my legs, but that was good because my legs were cold and they felt hot. (*Knight*, XXXIII 206)
526
527The Khimairae are enwrapping his body when he awakens, begging him to drink from them, and Able’s description of the feeling of starving once again reveals something about his actual state. During this scene, he drinks of Baki’s blood. She says, “I have sacrificed myself to you … to make you stronger, and my lord forever” (*Knight*, XXXIII 207). Though it is spring, Able feels that the room is freezing. [Drinking from the Khimairae with the B initial no doubt suggests that in order to maintain his strength, Able has had to draw on the resources of his brother.]
528
529The next day, Able meets with Sir Woddet of East Hall. In their conversation about the fight, Woddet reveals that Able injured him as well: “I was fighting you too. You got me right here … Knocked the wind out” (*Knight*, XXXIV 210). [This might also explain why Toug has such difficulty talking when he reappears, as he indicates a place on Able’s side as if it were sufficient explanation for his muteness.] When Able meets with Marder, he offers his services and they discuss the death of Ravd, whom Marder considered as a son. Marder reveals that Svon has been having a difficult time becoming a knight because of his character. Some do not believe his description of Ravd’s death. Supposedly Svon “had his head broken on the field. When he came to himself, he said, wolves were tearing the corpses” (*Knight*, XXIV 213). Now, Svon is Sir Hermad’s squire, whom Able injured and insulted during the jousting. [When Able himself was injured aboard the *Western Trader*, the cook Horsvun, who smuggled food and refreshing drink to Able, said that he and his helper Surt also fought against the Osterling invasion (*Knight*, XIX 125). The subordination of Svon to Hermad is not a chance repetition of S apprenticed to H, though in each cycle the relationships between given letters seem to change slightly. The broken head of Svon resonates with Bold’s injury as well.]
530
531During this discussion, Able reveals that Gylf and Toug helped him kill the bandits in revenge. Marder asks if there were only two men fighting against all of those bandits. This is where we learn that Ulfa counted the bodies of twenty-three bandits. [At this point, it is possible to ascribe some metaphorical meaning to the death of Ravd in terms of genetics. The human body has twenty-three pairs of chromosomes. The emphasis on pregnancy in the earlier sections of the book heavily implies that at least some of the knights are something like sperm, who die on their mission and compete for the limited resources available.]
532
533Here Marder surmises that Able must also have known Sir Svon during his employment with Ravd. Able speaks boldly and encourages Marder to send him out to face the Angrborn or to fulfill some other difficult task. Marder responds:
534
535>”From a raw stripling with a broken head! … For a fortnight you are to remain here at Sheerwall to mend. When that time is done, Master Agr will furnish you with whatever you may require. Go to some remote bridge, ford, or mountain pass as you have suggested, and take your stand. Remain at your post until winter – until there is ice in the harbor. When winter has set in, return to tell us how you fared.” (*Knight*, XXXIV 215)
536
537On his way to square his accounts at an inn he stayed at before reaching Sheerwall, Able, traveling alone with Pouk, decides to rest at a lonely farm. During this time, he recalls his injury at the hands of the Osterlings, whose daggers succeeded in opening the rings of his mail. He supposes that without Garsecg he would have died (*Knight*, XXXV 219). [This thought might link Garsecg to Gylf.] They ask the middle-aged farmwife there for water, but she does not respond. Able says, “If you’d rather leave us thirsty, say so and we’ll go” (*Knight*, XXXV 219).
538
539Able spends fair effort describing the food she eventually gives him. This woman, the mother of the brothers Uns and Duns, asks if he is afraid of ghosts, indicating that the spirit of an ogre has been haunting her fam. The “ghost” even broke both of the arms of her son Duns. Able agrees to stop on his way back to investigate. [Arm injuries will also occur in the battles in Utgard in the second volume – one of these will be incurred by the smith Vil, who strangles Setr, but Toug will also suffer them. Able will cleave off the arm of Morcaine’s undead champion, but that does not stop the fight, nor does it halt the efforts of the arm, which continues to try to reach for a weapon.]
540
541In his attempts to settle his bill at the Dollop and Scallop, Able learns that the innkeeper has been providing food for Sir Able’s dog, who not only ate the food he was given but also stole a roast, though Able never saw him. Able refuses to pay the full amount, saying that the roast is the price of the innkeeper’s carelessness, even as he unconsciously wrenches the innkeeper’s arm. [That came up again quickly, huh?] Able agrees to pay if the man can show him where Gylf is, but when he learns that his dog has run off, he refuses to pay for what the dog ate. When the innkeeper (whom we will later learn is named Gorn, which is a Norse word for “guts” or “bowels”) threatens to call the watch, Able turns him over and drops him. [This scene is about the consumption of limited resources by Able’s unseen companion, and it resonates with the invisible strain both Able and the environment are experiencing from the competition for limited resources in the womb, with Gylf here seeming to be the threatening and looming presence of his companion, though not one he perceives as an enemy.] Much as he had to fight the captain of the Western Trader, here Able must face the knight Gorn apprises of the unpaid bill: Nytir of Fairhall. According to Michael Andre-Driussi’s *Wizard Knight Companion*, the name Nytir implies “‘(a number of) uses,’ functions or purposes for which something may be employed. In this sense [Nytir’s name is] linked to both Able and Toug” (69). In the cramped spaces, Able still manages to disarm the knight, agreeing to leave him many of the things that a triumphant knight might otherwise take. However, Nytir tries to attack again, in exactly the same fashion that the captain of the *Western Trader* insisted on pressing the attack against Able. In this case, Able spares the defeated foe and takes Nytir’s green armor. Nytir, just as Svon will later in a fight with Toug, suffers a bad facial injury during this altercation. [Nytir’s horse is named Stamper, and Able gives him to Nytir’s squire to take his knight for treatment. The taking of Nytir’s armor and the similarity in meaning his name has to Toug and Able makes this another echo of both a fraternal and internal struggle.] Able leaves word at the inn that if Gylf shows up, he will be at Sheerwall Castle. While it should be obvious by now, the confrontation at the Dollop and the Scallop is highly symbolic, concerning the greed of the bowels which invokes the monstrousness and hunger of Gylf. Who will pay that cost? Even more overtly, Able must confront someone whose name mirrors both himself and Toug in meaning, even repurposing Nytir’s armor to become his own. [While a confrontation in Mythgarthr will have Able acting as the Green Knight, this victory actually makes him become a green knight in fact. Though I am not anxious to keep identifying every character as some biological force, Able makes a point to keep referring to Pouk Badeye in the following manner: “Seamen lie just as we do, of course, and for the same reasons” (*Knight*, XXXVI 227).]
542
543At the armorer’s, intending to redecorate Nytir’s arms, Pouk is attracted to a leaf shaped blade of the Aelf. The armorer says, “Mixed metals. We try ter mix metals ‘n they run together like you’d mix water ‘n vinegar. Aelf got some way ter mix ‘em like oil ‘n water. They mix, only they stay separate. See what I mean?” (*Knight*, XXXVI 231) Able also learns more about Eterne here, which was forged by King Weland. The armorer insists that Weland was not a man, but a Fire Aelf, and when the smith says that a dragon got him, a voice (belonging to one of the Khimairae) rings out behind Able, affirming that Weland is still remembered and mourned by them. As Able leaves, he notes the increasing chill of the air.
544
545On the way back to Sheerwall, Able stops once more at the home of Duns and Uns (whose fraternal struggle of course serves as another echo of the conflict at the Dollop and Scallop.) We have already emphasized the importance of Org to the two competitive brothers, but we should also repeat that Uns found Org as a helpless child. One of the ogre’s skills involves the ability to blend into his environment perfectly. Able’s perceptions of Uns are interesting: “At first I thought him only a shorter version of Duns; later on, when I got a look at him in a better light, I saw there was something the matter with his back” (*Knight*, XXXVIII 234). [Many of the characters in *The Wizard Knight* will suffer being stabbed in the back, most prominently Gilling. To solidify this association later, so will Uns.] As they discuss this “ghost,” amidst the fire and food of the kitchen, Duns acknowledges that the storm outside is getting worse. The mother, Nukara, identifies the disturbance as “the wind in the chimney” (*Knight*, XXXVIII 236). [Earlier, Disiri had told Able that when he heard the wind in the chimney, he was to seek her out, for she would be mourning the lovers she had lost.] Able goes out in the rain but fails to find Disiri. As he looks, Baki appears to him, offering herself. When she tries to tempt him to Aelfrice, where it is not raining, “Something too deep-voiced for a wolf howled in the distance” (*Knight*, XXXVIII 237). When he asks her about the metal work of the Aelf, she says, “Would you like to see a sample of my own work? What of a silver chain with but one end? Whenever you needed money, you could cut off a piece and sell it” (*Knight*, XXXVIII 238). [This too might be a kind of biological metaphor, given that Baki’s name starts with B and that Able fed from her. The later competition between Uri and Baki might be explained by a splitting of their allegiance between two different bodies, both yearning and striving for survival.] He tries to learn why the Aelf harassed Bold so, which he fervently desires to know. He reflects that the Moss Aelf have been very kind to him, and that Baki’s temptation must stem from his loneliness amongst the trees.
546
547When she disappears, Gylf finds him. Able notes, “He was bigger than I remembered, but you could count his ribs” (*Knight*, XXXIX 241). [Hunger makes Able’s dog more dangerous.] Gylf knows that the ogre they seek does not actually live in the woods. He thinks they are looking for “A big thing like a snake shaped like a man. That’s the way Duns described it and Duns should know” (*Knight*, XXXIX 241). At last, Able reveals how he feels regarding Gylf: “I’m scared of you. That’s why I tried to leave you behind before we crossed the Irring” (*Knight*, XXXIX 241). In a fit of self-doubt, he asks, “How am I supposed to fight a dragon if I’m afraid of my own dog?” (*Knight*, XXXIX 242) [These two forces might be more related than Able understands.]
548
549He says that he does not want to fight Kulili, who is hated by the Aelf only because they fear her. When Able asks why Gylf did not return to the boat, Gylf says, “Chained me” (*Knight*, XXXIX 242). Garsecg seems to have chained Gylf out of fear. Able assumes, “He let you go free, though, once he and I had separated. I’m glad of that” (*Knight, XXXIX 243). [The separation mentioned here might be more portentous than it first appears.] Uri then appears to speak up for Garsecg. She says that Gylf has been in this wood in many different weather conditions. The chain is still dangling from his collar, indicating that he broke free.
550
551Able says, “When we find this ogre … I’m going to fight him by myself. I’d like any help you can give me finding him, but once the fight starts you leave him to me” (*Knight*, XXXIX 244). He wonders about his own worthiness: “I knew I was no good with a lance. Was I good at all?” (*Knight, XXXIX 244) The sun comes out and a rainbow leaps into existence: “[N]ot the enemy sun that had pounded down on Pouk and me earlier that day, but a beautiful sun of new gold. East, a rainbow leaped in glory, the bridge that the Giants of Winter and Old Night had built from the Overcyns so they could climb up to Skai” (*Knight*, XXXIX 244). [If one buys into T.S. Eliot’s objective correlative (especially applicable to this novel), in which the external symbols reflect character emotions and reactions, this emergence of a rainbow and the sun seems full of the promise of potential and new life after the wind and rain – perhaps suggesting an Able free from the bonds which constrained him, ready and hoping for his own independent life.]
552
553As Able prepares to seek out Org to fight in earnest, night has fallen and he notes that the moon will be out (*Knight*, XL 246). In Able’s talk with Uns, he confronts the crippled brother about the nature of Org: “[Uri] saw you go into the cellar and talk to the ogre. … That’s where it hides, I guess. I suppose it steals food from your mother’s kitchen” (*Knight*, XL 247). [Org and Gylf seem to be operating from the same playbook.]
554
555Uns reveals how he came across the ogre: “Da ma was dead, layin’ inna woods wid arrows all over in her ‘n Org starvin’” (*Knight*, XL 247). Despite his pity for the beast, Uns still considers making Org leave: “He stinks, he do, from sleepin’ in his shit, ‘n sumptimes I wants ta turn him out. On’y he’d git stock. Dat got his ma kilt. Sa I don’. On’y I want ta, ‘n I wall, ta, ‘un day” (*Knight*, XL 247). The ogre represents power over both his mother and his brother for Uns: “’N it’s her farm, ‘n she’ll give it ta Duns when she passes” (*Knight*, XL 248). Able strips to fight the Ogre. [This is, of course, not that odd if it represents a combat in the womb – he will also disburse himself of his armor to face Grengarm, as he came upon the captain in his cabin naked earlier. Indeed, even when he first came to Glennidam, Able was naked and had to knock down Toug the Elder for mocking him. Alternatively, it could be like gymnasium practice in Ancient Greece. Fetal strife or a proud tradition of wrestling practice in the nude? I leave my discerning readers to decide.] Able notes that “The swing of the sea was strong in me, and I called upon it as I loosened up my muscles” (*Knight*, XL 248). Able recognizes that this will be a pivotal test for him.
556
557He even notes, “[Org] can eat me if he can.” (*Knight*, L 250). The fight ends abruptly when Able is thrown, though he cannot even remember flying through the air. When he awakens, he thinks, “Pretty soon Bold Berthold would come and see I had not finished the job, and he would be too nice to say anything and I would feel like I ought to just kill myself and get it over” (*Knight*, XL 251). [The manner in which Vil will throw one of the giants in a combat in the second volume might resonate with Able being thrown here. Org’s preferred method of dispatch, strangulation, also resembles how Vil finally destroys Setr. Able seems to react when Vil talks about throwing his enemy.]
558
559Able is disoriented, thinking he has fallen asleep, but the sound of Gylf, which he confuses for sheep which he has promised to watch, stirs him back to action. He notes, 
560
561>The dog sounded as big as a bear.
562
563>Bold Berthold was most likely dead. Disira was dead too, and I had given little Ossar to the Bodachan when they gave me Gylf. I got up, dizzy and near to chucking. The grass was barley, high already but nowhere near ready for harvest (*Knight*, XLI 251).
564
565[Compare this to the barley imagery found at the start of this section in Able’s desperate search for Disiri, when it has been harvested. Thinking of Ossar in a scene which features Org creates a strange resonance which on the surface seems inexplicable, especially since Ossar, though he seemed important, never reappears in the text. That barley will also figure in Mag’s story in the Room of Lost Love during her pregnancy with Able, during which Garsecg comes to spread worship of the Aelf and subvert it from the Overcyns.] Able finds that Gylf has Org by the throat, with a “two-headed snake of fire and brass” striking at its face, which eventually turns into Uri and Baki. Org surrenders. Baki says, “He wishes to join us, beautiful naked lord” (*Knight*, XLI 252). [In a much later confrontation, Vil and Etela will act jointly to strangle Setr even as Svon and Garsecg engage him.]
566
567Thinking of what to do with Org, Able asks if the creature might be taken beyond Mythgarthr. Baki says, “I doubt that we could take him to Aelfrice with us. He is too big - … Besides, he is too stupid. Once we had him there, we could not control him. We could not do it here even with Gylf helping” (*Knight*, XLI 253). She describes ogres as “stupid, lazy, and treacherous. But they are very good at hiding themselves and sneaking up on people, because they are of whatever color they wish to be.” 
568It is at this point, when he agrees to take Org, and Gylf refuses to talk in front of the ogre, that Able knows that Disiri can see them:
569
570>Disiri was watching us then. I know that because of something that she gave me when we got here, not a drawing (although I thought it was a drawing at first) but a cutout of black paper glued to blue paper: a knight swaggering along with his hand on the hilt of a short sword; a monstrous thing behind him taller than he is, shambling on bowed legs with one scaly hand upon the knight's shoulder; and a big dog that looks small because it is following the monster. I have put it where I see it every day. It has not made me wish to go back to Mythgarthr, but I know it will someday. (*Knight*, XLI 254)
571
572[This scene, of Gylf diminished and a hulking Org, might also reflect the capitulation and sacrifice which Able will make in turning off his defenses, allowing the monster to live and surrendering as Org did to an inevitable fate – the only way that Able might be reunited with Disiri, though it involves leading something very dangerous. Org, too, seems to be a shadow in the Jungian sense, whereas Gylf manifests the loyalty of the dog consistently – a true guardian.]
573
574When Able sneaks Org into Sheerwall, he has the triple dream of a pregnant mother certain her child cannot breath, of someone pushing him underwater, and of facing Org in a surreal battleground, as the cross marking Disira’s grave becomes a sword. When Able returns from Muspel after the passage of a year in Mythgarthr, his dreams are not troubled "by the people whose lives wove the bowstring Parka bit through for me" (*Knight*, XXXI 193). However, the presence of Org seems to have reawakened those haunting voices.
575
576The first thing Able does when he wakes up at Sheerwall is to go take Master Caspar’s place at the breakfast table so that he might discuss keeping Org in the dungeons. [Sitting in Caspar’s chair also resonates with the way Able commandeered the cabin from the captain of the *Western Trader*.] Caspar, as master of the dungeons, does not take kindly to Able’s presence, and accuses him of crippling “all the other knights” in the earlier jousting incident (*Knight, XLII 261). In his threats, Caspar asks if Able has ever been branded, showing one on his own forehead (which resonates strongly with the fate of the captain as well, given the head injury which killed him). During this scene, Able drops a man named Hob and then stops him from attacking with a small knife, which also mirrors what happened with Svon at the very start of the novel (and will be repeated many times, though the attacker and the defender seem to fluctuate). Within a matter of pages, Org will have killed and eaten Hob. To rectify the situation and show his devotion to Marder, Able volunteers to go north and guard a pass until the coming of ice. The pattern of conflict between allies, featuring descent, hunger, and death, is repeated until the second volume, where Able seems (at times) to have risen above these conflicts and matured. The coming of ice also becomes a rather sinister motif, given its association with Morcaine, the winter of Jotunland, and the realm of the most low god. Even Cloud is covered with ice crystals when Able rides her for the very last time.
577
578Marder sends Able to the War Way, along with another difficulty plaguing him: “That was Svon. I remember looking up from the fire that night to get a good look at him, and seeing he was asleep and that Gylf had laid a dead hare pretty close to his head” (*Knight*, XLIII 269). Svon, serving as Able’s squire, does not waste much time before antagonizing Able as he cooks the food. [This scene, too, strongly resonates with the choking dream Able has at the return of Toug from Aelfrice at the end of the first volume.] Svon says, “[Y]ou’re afraid to sleep without your dog and your monster to guard you. Isn’t that right? You’re afraid I might stab you” (*Knight*, XLIII 269). Soon enough, they fight (while Svon is eating). Able says, “I walked around the fire and knocked him sprawling” (*Knight*, XLIII 270). Able leaves the fire, to get away from both Org and Svon. At the start of *The Wizard*, the opening index of names indicates that Able left Svon there because he was afraid he might kill his squire. [While this seems like an act of uncontrollable rage, in a more metaphorical reading it might be taken as constraint – Able’s mere presence might threaten the one closest to him.] Able rests for a time, and Uri, Baki, and Gylf guard over him. They say that Org has eaten a mule which threw a woman traveling up the road. Even though she had a sword, she fled. This winds up being Ulfa. In the surface plot, when Able returns, Pouk and Svon are nowhere to be seen, and he sends Uri and Baki to look for them. Gylf leads him to a pool of water where the dog says a god is waiting for him, and Able beholds through it:
579
580>Uri and Baki. They were in a room that seemed to be about the size of an airport. It had sword and spears and axes all over the walls and in stands and long racks, so that you saw the gleam of steel everywhere you looked. They were talking to something big and dark that writhed like a snake. Uri turned back into a Khimaira while I was watching (*Knight*, XLIV 274).
581
582[While this serpentine imagery is associated with dragons such as Setr and Grengarm, when Morcaine offers Able a chance to become ruler of Celidon, her own appearance becomes serpentine from the waist down. In addition, Org is often described in slightly serpentine terms as well, preferring darkness. Able just sent them to look for Pouk and Svon, however, which should be kept in mind.]
583
584The archangel Michael appears to Able with glorious wings; he, too, has been sent away. Michael says he knows Able better than his mother ever could, for he can hear Able’s thoughts. This scene also provides several important details: Michael warns Able of finding Disiri and says that he cannot teach Able what he must learn. To prove it, “He closed his eyes, and a one-eyed man with a spear came out of the trees, knelt, and laid his spear on the ground at Michael’s feet. Gylf fawned on this one-eyed man” (*Knight*, XLIV 276). Michael asks, “How could I, or anyone, teach that?” This scene then, shows the power of the mighty bowing down and surrendering their arms, illustrating that even the most powerful being in Skai should still supplicate to something higher, which lies beyond skill – to, as Ravd suggested, honor. Michael sinks out of sight into the pool after he tells Able that the question he should ask involves where the tongs that grasped Eterne came from.
585
586After this scene ends, Able instructs Uri and Baki to go south with Svon and Org, while he will go after Pouk and the horses. Gylf wants to know how Pouk wound up with the horses, and, somehow, Able explains, “He and Svon fought … and Pouk won. He let Svon keep his money and his weapons, but he took the horses, Svon’s included, and the camping gear” (*Knight*, XLV 280). [Able’s knowledge seems a bit preternatural, here, given that he was, on a textual level, absent.] Eventually, Able and Gylf come to Huld’s stone cottage and stop there to get dry. In that cottage, Able attempts to feed the husk that was Huld and meets the cat Mani. Gylf once again brings rabbits, and the cat and the dog divvy up the food between them. From here on out, the ghost of Huld will occasionally manifest itself in the text, supposedly to do Able kindness. [In Jungian terms, the mother is not only someone who nourishes – there is also a sexual, orgiastic side, as well as a third - the stygian depths of the barren womb. The witch figure is associated with channeling energy inward rather than in providing, and here Huld might stand for the more selfish and greedy aspects of Able’s anima – after all, she asks for food which can’t serve much purpose. The appearance of the cat, though he often serves as a source of snide humor in the novel, is also a Jungian archetype of selfishness and deviousness. Selfishness is exactly the thing which Able must overcome. Morcaine, too, will materialize in Able’s room at Redhall, just as Huld does from time to time, and she seems to represent the anima or female spirit of the most power hungry and untrusting of all of the A avatars, Arnthor.]
587
588Eventually, Able comes to the camp of Beel, where he is first introduced to Lord Crol. Able says he is interested in … food. [Given that this story is really about a struggle for nutrients on its most basic level, this should be no great surprise.] While this confrontation between Able and a C character in authority is far friendlier than previous ones, there is a moment when Crol grabs Able’s hand and squeezes it to test his strength. [Later, Crol will be smashed to death by Gilling’s bare hand in a capricious act which still somehow calls back to this minor contest between Crol and Able.] Only after that brief exchange is Able brought before Beel. Beel’s daughter Idnn sits beside him, eating, and Able asks if he might borrow a steed and equipment from Beel. The motifs in the text are still being repeated, but they are gradually being resolved more peacefully. Even so, Able tells Beel that he must go ahead and guard the pass as he was directed to by Marder: “I’m going to ride ahead of you … I’m supposed to take my stand at a mountain pass and challenge all comers. Before we engage, I’ll return your horse and thank you” (*Knight*, XLVIII 297). Even given their friendliness, Able still feels compelled to challenge his allies and guard the pass.
589
590Baron Beel, whose grandfather was also Arnthor’s, asks, “When [Sir Garvaon] breaks your head and a few other bones, will you expect us to stay our errand to nurse you?” (*Knight*, XLVIII 298) [After this point, I will stop commenting directly upon broken heads, but the pattern is worth paying attention to.] Beel also says that a crippled beggar was looking for Sir Able, and though soon enough the plot *seems* to reveal that they have encountered Pouk, this actually refers to Uns. [When Able finally shows up where Pouk made camp to wait for him, at the mountain pass where Able will eventually stand against Leort, Woddett, and Marder, and where the giants will eventually rebuff Idnn’s attempts to return south three times when they bear the body of Garvaon, instead of encountering Pouk, Able finds Uns. He also learns that Ulfa has joined up with Pouk after leaving Glennidam to search for Able. While Wolfe does an excellent job of providing surface explanations for these kinds of substitutions, they become increasingly frequent in the latter parts of *The Wizard Knight*, with characters showing up where they are least expected and other characters randomly disappearing. This is most obvious when Toug and Svon are sent into the town surrounding Utgard’s fortress: after insisting on his own bravery and unfairly maligned honor, Svon disappears, leaving Toug to fight a giant alone. Almost immediately afterwards, Svon fights a giant without hesitation, and is quick to challenge Toug over a perceived assumption that he fled the fight. On a deeper level, they were almost certainly fighting each other.]
591
592When the question of whether or not Able thinks he is invincible comes up, Able randomly describes Beel’s pavilion: “Here I have to stop to say that Beel’s pavilion was divided into halves by a curtain – more scarlet silk, but not as heavy as the outside stuff. I have to say it because Baki peeked around it and grinned at me” (*Knight*, XLVIII 300). The hut Able shared with his father figure Bold is here being echoed by the pavilion which Idnn shares with her father Beel, showing the mutability of characters but the continuation of certain motifs. Baki’s presence in the pavilion seems more metaphorically significant than its importance to the plot, and she will peer from tapestries and tents frequently over the course of the story – Uri does not seem to make these gestures. As the conversation continues, Beel brings up a kinsman named Lord Obr and enquires about Squire Svon. He also beckons for his servant Swert to get a chair for Able.
593
594Since the details surrounding Beel might reflect back on Bold and Able, it is worth noting that Beel relates a story of his own youth: “I spent much of my boyhood in a peasant’s house. … It was my nurse’s outside my father’s castle of Coldcliff. When my older brothers were at their lessons in the nursery, my nurse would take me home so that I might play with her own children. We had great games, and ran through the woods. And fished, and swam. Doubtless it was much the same for you.” (*Knight*, XLVIII 301). Beel offers Able a horse only on the condition that he rides with Beel and his party to the pass.
595
596Soon, as they continue forward, Able catches sight of the Griffin, and thinks, “Tomorrow I’ll find the spring it rises from … and drink from the Griffin in honor of Bold Berthold and Griffinsford” (*Knight*, XLIX 304). The narrative becomes slightly fragmentary as Able experiences an ambush while on patrol.
597
598The attack begins with some more odd imagery:
599
600>The moon rose. For some crazy reason I looked at it; and when I did the flying castle passed in front of it, black against the white face of the moon and looking like a toy. Back then I was not even sure it was the Valfather’s (which it is), but seeing it like that helped a lot. I know you will say there is no sense to it, but it did. I was the sea, and I was looking up at the moon and that six-faced castle and reaching for it with big foaming waves like white hands. And bang! I was at the top with my fingers all torn up and the blood running off them a little and there was war in the wind and it was too dark to shoot a bow. (*Knight*, XLIX 306)
601
602[The white hands Able uses to reach towards that moon do seem to suggest a reboot of the struggles he has been experiencing – his difficult goal was only the beginning of the strife waiting for him, and after attaining the castle, the bow has become much more limited in its utility – before, hitting the target was all that mattered for survival. The cycle seems to have begun again.]
603
604Able helps to deter the attack on Beel’s camp. However, somehow, Idnn attains knowledge about what Able experienced as he fought the Mice (creatures born of giants and humans) on the cliff tops. Later, Beel is curious about her knowledge, which only Able might have been in a position to know. Able insists that only his dog and his cat were on the cliffs with him. During this conversation, Beel spends some time describing his pavilion:
605
606>“You see that curtain that divides our pavilion. She sleeps behind it, and I before it. I wash and dress here, she there. … Thus we cannot see one another. But we can hear one another perfectly. The curtain is of silk, which has small weight and occupies but a little space. It blinds us, if you will permit the expression. But it offers no resistance to sound. … Thus we often speak to each other when we lie abed. In the morning too, while her maid dresses her and Swert dresses me.” (*Knight*, L 316)
607
608After this discussion, which really should keep us in mind of imagery surrounding a shared womb in which true sight is impossible but communication nevertheless occurs, Able has a dream in which he is paddling up the river heading towards Mother, who is waiting for him, with Bold watching from the bank. After emerging from a tube of green glass (where Mag stored her final letter to her children on the Isle of Glas - when Able leaves the Room of Lost Loves, he also leaves through that green tube, become a tunnel; this symbolically conflates the letter with the running Able himself), Able emerges as a mounted knight and is eventually swallowed up by a stone griffin.
609
610Garvaon and Able have an archery competition for a replica of the helm which Arnthor has gifted to King Gilling. [Arnthor has made himself a copy, as well. The large helm will be brought to Gilling on mules; eventually, when Able rules Redhall, he will also receive gifts from his followers, brought on mules – and the truly magical gift he receives near the end of the second volume is a helm which allows him to see things differently.] After Able loses on purpose (though he wins the helm regardless) by firing his third shot into the cliff and causing it to collapse, there is a sudden cut to Gylf finding him a mile from the camp: “I sputtered and sat up, thinking for a minute that I saw the old woman from my dream, the one who had owned the cottage, behind him. It was very dark” (*Knight*, LII 327). Able decides to send Gylf to Pouk. [Whether Parka has any relationship to Huld remains impenetrable, but the appearance of this ghostly presence has certainly been linked through this abrupt transition to Able’s attempt to avoid humiliating his opponent and losing on purpose. Suddenly, Gylf and the ghostly figure are there. This might even resonate with Disiri’s appearance after Able decides to “give up” pursuing her. It could be that the manifestation of a flickering “wise old woman” is understandable in terms of Jung’s archetypes, as “Mana” or “power” personalities can come to represent the wholeness of the self as the individual develops, though her association with magic probably has some slightly less than altruistic connotations: perhaps Able’s partial concession has brought her out to defend him (Jung, *Archetypes* 183).]
611
612Soon, Able and Idnn have some time to talk alone, and Mani jumps to her. During this talk, Able reassures her that no matter what, he would never come into her half of the pavilion (*Knight*, LIII 331). One of his later discussions with her concerning her uncle’s estate Coldcliff involves a story about her pregnant mare. She relates that even though the grooms managed to cut out the foal, the mare still died. Idnn refused to ride the foal, and eventually they sold the horse. This brings her to the verge of tears, and she reveals what it truly puts her in mind of:
613
614>”I owe a duty to my father. … My father’s the younger son of a younger son. Do you have any notion what that means?  … It devours my father. It’s as if he had swallowed a rat, and it were gnawing his heart. … Do you know what [my father’s] reward is? … Why, I am. His daughter, the daughter of a mere baron, is to be queen, the Queen of Jotunland. I will be given to King Gilling like a cup, a silver goblet into which he may pour his sperm. So that when my father returns to Thortower he can say, ‘Her Majesty, my daughter.’” (*Knight*, LIV 338)
615
616Soon after this, Garvaon continues Able’s training with the sword, using, most notably, a green stick of the type which will resurface several times over the course of the tale. As they practice, “The cuts became the surges of the clear sea of Aelfrice, the green stick that was the Green Sword, that was Eterne, curling like a wave and breaking like an avalanche, only to return to the sea and rush ashore again” (*Knight*, LV 342). [Here, the green stick, too, becomes associated with fecundity and burgeoning life – many characters will cut such a stick over the course of the series, and some will even fight with it.]
617
618When they come to the place Able expected to find Pouk, he finds only two sets of fires and ashes in the pass – and Able also discovers that Uns has followed him, though he fails to recognize him at first. Uns even claims to have fought Org for Able after he was thrown (*Knight*, LVI 345). [As Able presented the scene earlier, we only saw Uri, Baki, and Gylf struggling against Org. However, in terms of what Uns represents, the struggling brother desperate for recognition and jealous of his sibling’s resources, that fight with the shadowy Org makes perfect sense.] Mani also reports that Able’s dog has been chained up, claiming to have learned it from “Those Aelf girls” (*Knight*, LVII 351). [This time, the giants have chained Gylf. For such a fierce beast, Gylf is certainly chained frequently. It might be more appropriate to think of these events as echoes and variations on a more literal chaining event. (Or is that a more metaphorical chaining? Dear reader, I trust you know what I mean.) In any case, Gylf is chained continually throughout the book.]
619
620Beel performs a spell of divination to help determine where Pouk might be. Both Able and Lady Idnn give him advice about how to set it up, thanks to the prompting of Mani. When Beel attempts to perform his magic, he drinks from a goblet and calls on three names from Celtic mythology: Mongan, Dirmaid, and Sirona (*Knight*, LIX 362).
621
622While the middle name seems the least interesting (and also has the most possible subjects), likely being the name of the forebear of an exterminated group from Ireland, the allusions to Mongan and Sirona contain interesting similarities to the plot and subtext of *The Wizard Knight*. The cycle of tales surrounding Mongan are convoluted, but it is worth mentioning that his “father” Fiachnae ruled Ulster in joint kingship with a cousin. During a complex stand-off with Scandinavia, the god of the sea Manannan Mac y Lir appears and offers aid: he employs a fierce dog to wipe out the strange sheep of Scandinavia, and in return the sea god gets to sleep with Fiachnae’s wife. [See the earlier description of Gylf’s barking, compared to the sound of sheep which Able supposed he was tasked to shepherd.] Manannan’s deal engenders Mongan, who learns the arts of shape shifting and prophecy. Fiachnae’s cousin kills him to rule Ulster alone, but, in fear of Mongan, eventually extends co-rulership to Fiachnae’s heir. Chastised in a dream by the sea god, Mongan murders his rival and takes sole control of Ulster. He is ultimately slain by a rock that his mother dreamed would kill him – to avoid that fate, she cast it far into the sea. (Mongan was also said to be a reincarnation of the hero Fion mac Cumhaill). Sirona is a Celtic healing goddess associated with snakes and, most appropriately, eggs. Later, Morcaine will tempt Able to become king, appearing as a serpent from the waist down. (In this text, snakes need not be limited to signifying temptation.)
623
624As we mentioned earlier, during the divination, Able has a vision of he and Toug kneeling before Disiri in Aelfrice as she touches his shoulders with a slender blade. When Beel adds ashes into the wine, the vision shifts to show a large man who strikes Ulfa and a figure which is, at least on the surface, certainly Pouk. This portion of the text becomes slightly disjointed as Garvaon suddenly mounts and gallops off. Able surmises that the camp must be under attack (by giants who serve King Gilling as border guards, who confiscate the gifts that were intended for Gilling regardless). In a surreal cut, a giant hurls stones at Able’s white stallion. Able sends three arrows hurtling at the giant before it crumples (*Knight* LIX 363). [In *The Wizard*, Toug will inherit Able’s stallion, which will be known as Laemphalt.] Riding back to Beel’s camp exhausted, Able learns from Uri that they have managed to unchain Gylf. [The giant striking the young woman Ulfa might be a result of Gylf’s unchaining, as a monstrous part of Able’s psyche lashes out in self-defense, slapping down the more compliant aspects of the maiden anima.]
625
626Uns follows Able, and the knight reveals that he has been somewhat harsh on Uns for a reason:
627
628>“It’s because he’s crippled that I treat him as harshly as I do. … He could have gone on living with his mother, and done little or no work, and his brother would have continued to take care of him when she was gone. That was why he left. … He wants to be useful – to do real work, and sweat and train and share his master’s fortunes. … I’ve made myself a knight. That’s high up for a poor kid that lost his folks early. Uns is scared he may never have a spot at all. I’m trying to show him that he’s got one - that somebody wants him around for what he can do, and not just because they feel sorry for him.” (*Knight*, LX 367)
629
630Given that Able, Toug, and Nytir have names meaning “useful,” more or less, it is telling here that Uns is said to desire above all to be useful. 
631
632[When Able returns to camp, Garvaon indicates that there were twenty-four people fighting on his side – two knights and twenty-two archers. If this is another cyclic repetition of the struggle to fertilization, Able and Garvaon might be counted as one, bringing the number of defenders to twenty-three. However, this number might have little significance. Archery does seem to resonate with conception on a certain level in the text.]
633
634When Beel discusses what the various individuals saw during his divination, Garvaon says he saw, “My wife’s deathbed. … She died in childbirth, Your Lordship. … Her bed, and me kneeling beside it. The midwives had taken my son. They were trying to revive him. I was praying for Volla when one came in to tell me he was dead, too” (*Knight*, LX 370). When Beel added ashes to his wine, Garvaon’s saw the Angrborn coming to attack the hill (while Able saw the attack on Ulfa and Pouk). Volla is another name for the Norse goddess Fulla, whose name might mean “bountiful.” She serves as Frigg’s confidant and tends to the ashen box Frigg owns. There seems to be some great significance to the ashes here, given that they are also associated with the remains of the two fires that Pouk made in different places in the camp (the second was kindled to avoid visibility). Very early in the book, Able claimed that the Aelf, too, were associated with ashes. The threat of death and waste might not be a bad guess for their signification.
635
636Beel thinks that the towers Able describes to him from his vision of Pouk must correspond to Utgard in Jotunland. Beel is also disheartened, as the gifts he was supposed to bring to the giants were lost in the raid. Able attempts to rally morale and convince everyone to pursue the remaining giants.
637
638Shivering in the cold of the Mountains of Mice, alone again, Able thinks of the heat that must surround the Griifin and the hut where he lived with Bold. He lies down to experience another vision, in which Kelpies leap from the surging sea into a storm that shakes the heavens. He sees Garvaon and Garsecg fighting, until the knight crashes down into the sea, his helmet lost. This is interspersed with thoughts of the Giants of Winter and Old Night attacking the floating castle of Skai, and then of a vision in which he is chained by the neck to a staple driven into the crevice of the wall in the cold, senseless and becoming numb to the pain (*Knight*, LXII 381). [On the plot level, this is what Bold Berthold has been experiencing to the north, but it could just as easily be an image of a dying and choking infant and also resonates with what happened to Pouk when he was cast down the Mountain of Fire to Muspel. It even recalls the many times that Gylf has been chained – the onslaught of the Giants of Winter and Old Night is certainly invasive. The loss of Garvaon’s helmet here probably relates to both the helm that Gilling will receive and Able’s later helm of seeing.]
639
640Gylf awakens Able. The great dog claims to have found Pouk, though Able’s horse has wandered off in the night. Soon Uri and Baki appear, warning Able of Utgard’s immensity. They want him to cease his pursuit, lest he be killed. When Able finally comes upon the giants, he finds that there are only seven there. [I have already talked about the portentous nature of seven for *The Wizard Knight* without offering a reason. I find myself reluctant to advance any possibility too firmly, so here are some nebulous thoughts. Perhaps the number is related to the seven deadly sins and their opposite, the seven heavenly virtues. At least according to some apocryphal sources such as the Book of Enoch, there are seven archangels who correspond to the seven days of the week: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Selaphiel, Raguel or Jegudiel, and Barachiel. While in most Christian traditions these names are not mentioned, it should be worth noting that almost all of the letters which begin these angelic names resonate with characters in *The Wizard Knight*. Of course, besides the character of Michael himself, they are certainly not angelic in the book. In 1916, Jung self-published a pamphlet entitled “Seven Sermons to the Dead, written by Basilides of Alexandria, the city where East and West meet.” These were seven mystical, Gnostic texts which he did not identify himself as authoring. Whether that is related to Wolfe’s use of the number seven to structure *The Wizard Knight* is anyone’s guess, but Wolfe’s 2003 short story “Of Soil and Climate” makes extensive use of Jung and mentions him by name. Both *The Wizard* and *The Knight* were published in 2004. Of course, there are many other significations for the number seven; I will merely suggest that overcoming the sins of pride, wrath, gluttony, and envy might represent significant progress towards Able’s eventual self-denying sacrifice and afford him an opportunity to practice prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith and charity, even if there is little hope.]
641
642Able sneaks up on the giants as they sit at their fire. He feels the tether from one of the mules touch his cheek and begins sawing at it to free them. [This might also echo the cord which always threatens strangulation.] In the onslaught, Gylf manages to wrestle one of the Angrborn while Able strikes at another with Sword Breaker. Uri and Baki attempt to herd the freed mules as well. Able notes, “Without time or preparation that I could recall afterward, I found myself astride the ravening beast I had fought to save, and racing like the wind across the hills. I felt I rode a storm” (*Knight*, LXIII 388). [He successfully steals back the gifts intended for Gilling here, but the mules are separated into two cohorts, as we learn later from the Fire Aelf.]
643
644Afterwards, Able tries to pin down the nature of Gylf, and also thinks about the Khimaira state of Uri and Baki. Gylf advises his master to sleep, and Able has a dream of silver and scarlet fish passing by him, with Kulili far below, forming the Aelf. When he awakens at sunset, Able continues his discussion with Gylf. He thinks that the Bodachan must have educated Gylf just as he himself was taught in Aelfrice. Gylf mentions, quite mysteriously, smelling pigs. [This harkens to a future scene, in which Able returns Ulfa to Glennidam and Gylf lusts after the dead pigs hanging in her kitchen, before the wind in the chimney calls Able out, where he finally surrenders and finds Disiri at last; she tells him that the game must end. The fact that there are two pigs hanging dead in Toug’s kitchen would seem to imply that if Gylf (or the most aggressive aspect of Able’s persona) is not chained, both brothers will die.] Gylf here says that the roughest time he has shared with Able was “in the cave” (*Knight*, LXIII 392). The dog further qualifies that he was the only one in the cave at the time. Able thinks of all the companions he would like to have with him, including Disiri, Garvaon, Pouk, Bold Berthold, and Ravd. Able wonders why Gylf would have allowed himself to be chained by Garsecg:
645
646>So Garsecg had chained Gylf up like the Angrborn had, and for a while I wondered why Gylf had let either one of them do it. Finally I saw that he did not like to change into what he really was. He did it when he had to fight, but he would rather let somebody chain him up than change.
647
648Able continues:
649
650>“Garsecg’s cave brings us back to shapechanging … and your shape does change, but mostly you get bigger. Garsecg told me once that though the Aelf could change their shapes, they were always the same size. … Uri and Baki can take flying shapes, and I’d love to be able to do that. But if it’s true, it isn’t what you do. We’re looking at different things that only seem to be about the same.” (*Knight*, LXIII 393)
651
652Gylf senses something and alights upon an elderly woman with chains binding her arms. Gerda reveals that she has been enslaved by the Angrborn. She once belonged to Hymir, who was relatively kind and seemed to have some affection for her, but now she serves his son Hyndle. Able offers the thin old woman a ride. She describes how once she was loved by a man of the far south (Bold Berthold of course) before she was taken by the Angrborn. She says that afterwards she had to bear Hymir a son named Heimir, whom she identifies as a good one. She later had a daughter named Hela. Finally, Able learns that the man who loved her when she was young has been blinded and taken to a nearby farm owned by an Angrborn. Gerda is choked up over the idea that the only way he can think of her is how she used to be: “Only when he sees me inside a’ himself – an’ that’s the only way he can, sir …” Able finishes, “You’re young again. For him” (*Knight, LXIV 399). [Gerda’s appearance here would seem to invoke the archetype of the wise old woman, a more benevolent and less selfish expression of femininity than the witch. Perhaps there has been some movement towards greater self-understanding, and this might even be related to his consideration of Gylf’s nature. However, Able’s strong desire to have Bold as a companion might have prompted the sudden re-emergence of his character. While the twin brother never truly leaves Able, the manner in which Able perceives that brother constantly shifts. In addition, the idea that Bold Berthold sees Gerda “inside a’ himself,” in the only way he can, will echo the manner in which Able’s mother will be able to learn that he ever lived at all – an internal vision.]
653
654Gylf finds Bold and tells Able that he is not strong. After Able attempts to conceal that he knows Berthold, the blind old man recognizes Able’s voice and wants to feel him. Gerda says, “I recollect Able now. He was little when you was big, that’s right, but he must be as old as us, or near it” (*Knight*, LXVI 403). [Twins would be “near” the same age, even if one was in a different stage of development or suffered some anomalous growth. This also resonates with Duns and Uns.] Able realizes that he must fulfill several responsibilities, which include freeing Pouk and Ulfa as well as Bold and Gerda, then helping Beel deliver his tribute to King Gilling. Uri reappears, and Able learns that Bold is now the property of a giant called Bymir. Able decides to sleep in Bymir’s barn, hiding himself there. When Able assures them that soon he will come back to help them, Gerda says, “You’re a good man! I knew it soon as I saw the old lady with you, sir” (*Knight*, LXVI 406). [While this might be the ghost of Huld, the spectral woman accompanying Able maps very well onto Parka and Lynnet as well – these archetypes are slippery, but even the feminine is still in part an expression of the self on its path to completion and individuation. Able does not truly know his mother, but the subconscious archetype of the mother is still a part of the collective unconscious in which he dwells, and it might develop and change over time.] Able does not understand what Gerda is talking about and ignores it. As they walk to Bymir’s barn, Gylf asks, “Which one’s really me? … Is it the way I am now? Or is it the way I am when we fight?” (*Knight*, LXVI 406-7)
655
656Able sleeps and is soon awakened in the barn by the Frost Giant he had seen years ago when Bold disappeared. Bymir figured out where Able was hiding by his tracks. The giant accuses Able of sneaking and hiding, and the knight wonders where Gylf is. [In this case, Bymir is perhaps a more hostile manifestation of his companion, explaining why Gylf is absent on a metaphorical level.] Able manages to injure the giant’s hand with Sword Breaker and then surprise him in the kitchen with a shot to the groin with a spit, which allows him to hit the giant in the neck. One of the servants warns him not to slip in the blood: “I had been avoiding the seething mess anyway for the sake of my boots, although I was tempted to stamp on the ugly little creatures that swam in it” (*Knight*, LXVII 411). [These creatures inside the blood of the giants should clue us in to the larger story of *The Wizard Knight* - in many ways, almost everything that we have been experiencing through Able involves these “ugly little creatures” living inside a larger organism when the dream logic of Able’s narrative is stripped away. Bymir and Bold might be different aspects of the brother, one hostile and threatening, and the other loving and accepting, but unable to reconignize its companion.] As Able instructs the servants to get rid of the body, he notes that the wind is in the chimney. He runs out into the storm towards the nearest wood. He calls for Disiri and hears a wolf howling. The rain suddenly stops and he finds himself in darkness. Able hears a voice chanting many names, which include Walewein (another name for Gawain), Wace, Vortigern, Kyot, Yvain, Gottfried, Eilhart, Palamades, Duach, Tristan, Albrecht, and Caradoc (*Knight*, LXVII 412).
657
658[Briefly, Gawain was King Arthur’s nephew, most famous for his confrontation with the Green Knight. It is notable that Able will become the Green Knight in Skai. Wace was a twelfth-century cleric and translator who also wrote several histories and romances. In one of those, the earliest mention of the Round Table might be found. Vortigern was a possibly mythical fifth-century king of Briton who fought the Picts and the Scots. Kyot serves as a probably mythical source for Wolfram von Eschenback in his assertion in *Parzival* that the Templars were guardians of the Holy Grail. Yvain, also known as the Knight of the Lion, was the son of King Urien and Morgan le Fay. He was also associated with King Arthur and was typically depicted as one of Gawain’s friends. Gottfried might refer to Gottfried von Strassburg, whose *Tristan* is usually considered to be as important and influential as Eschenback’s *Parzival* to the German Middle Ages. Eilhart von Oberge also wrote of Tristan and Isolde in *Tristant* - and Tristan himself is soon mentioned in the list of lost loves. Palamades is one of Tristan’s rivals for Iseult’s hand. Duach was a fifth- or sixth-century king of Connacht. Albrecht might refer to the powerful dwarf, guardian of the treasure in the *Nibelungenlied*, whom Siegfried defeats using a cloak of invisibility, who later serves him. Caradoc was another semi-legendary figure of the same time associated with the knights of King Arthur, an ancestor to the kings of Gwent. Given that many of these allusions are concerned with the tale of Tristan and his love Iseult, it is worth glossing over at least the basic allusion. Tristan was sent to deliver the Irish Princess Iseult to his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, to be the king’s bride. A love potion either accidentally or intentionally causes Tristan and Iseult to fall in love, and they maintain a relationship covertly, though eventually it comes into the open. It is considered a precursor to the Lancelot-Guinevere-Arthur love story. In some versions, Tristan is killed by Mark, while in others he returns Iseult to the king and leaves. Some iterations of the tale even resemble the death of Theseus’s father from Greek myth, in which grief kills both Tristan and Iseult over a mistake involving the ship’s sails. (In those versions, it should be noted that Tristan marries *another* woman named Iseult, who deceives him.) In *The Wizard Knight*, Lady Idnn might be considered the closest cognate to Iseult, though Disiri here seems to be the one mourning Iseult’s lost loves. When we consider that in some ways Idnn represents “life” and “aging,” mythologically, the love triangle at its most basic level involves Able and his chief rival, his often-invisible brother, struggling for life.]
659
660In any case, after hearing these names, Able is approached by a teenager, Toug, who comes running up to him, unable to speak and pointing to his mouth. Able ascertains that he is hungry and gives him some of the food from a bundle of provisions he received from Bold Berthold. It takes some time, but Able soon remembers the boy. He asks Toug to take him to Disiri.
661
662Eventually, they find themselves in a place that does not seem to be Aelfrice, featuring a giant stone griffin, carved around a cave. Some speaker lost in the darkness warns them that there is danger within, though it was once a home. A white shape on the cliff face springs off of it, eclipsing the moon. It tells them that the dragon Grengarm waits inside, and that no strength will avail Able against that dragon until he has Eterne. Able ascertains that the speaker is the griffin, but he is angered that Disiri does not seem to be there. Able and Toug return to their camp, where Able has a dream of choking on a piece of rabbit he had intended to save for his dog. [The moon imagery has been associated with fertility quite overtly in *The Wizard Knight*, especially in the passage of the Valfather’s castle in front of it. Here, the griffin eclipses that lunar image, and its composite nature should certainly be considered, made as it is from a potpourri of features from different animals.]
663
664When Able awakens, Toug is still weeping. Able sits next to him and asks why he can’t talk; Toug points to Able’s side. He draws the sword on the ground, and Able surmises that Toug will be able to speak again if he attains Eterne. As Able approaches the carving of the griffin, its eyes disturb him: “Those eyes had been trying to tell me something, but I was pretty sure I would never understand it” (*Knight*, LXVIII 418). [Here, the relationship between Toug and Able suggests that their destinies are intertwined. However, it is not yet clear if Toug represents his brother or another self. Luckily, at the start of *The Wizard*, Idnn will address this very dilemma. Able’s experience at the Grotto of the Griffin is worth exploring in depth for the resonance it will achieve throughout the second volume.] Able bids Toug to wait while he approaches the cave.
665
666The water leading into the cave threatens Able, but he pulls off his mail and swims back to the surface inside the grotto. (It seems that this is actually the source of the Griffin River). Able sees Aelf letters on an altar there that spell “*Call and I will come*” (*Knight*, LXVIII 419). He calls upon the griffin or whomever the altar might be dedicated to, but nothing happens. Able strips and jumps into the current again. He is able to retrieve one of his boots. On his third attempt, he regains his other boot. [This scene will be echoed by a much later scene in which Toug and Baki scale the wall outside of Utgard, in which Baki’s refusal to change into a Khimaira almost causes both of them to plummet to their doom. Toug has to catch her, managing to save them both.] Able tries to retrieve his mail from the depths of the water yet again, and eventually grabs a heavy stone to help him sink. [This may remind some readers of Pouk’s descent down the Mountain of Fire.] Able realizes that the water no longer threatens suffocation. In his surprise, he drops the rock and returns to the surface, where he finds two smaller rocks to help him descend again. [This scene, too, might be metaphorical.] Able feels something rough and hard, and releases one of the stones to grab it, then he lets go of the other one to return to the surface. There, he hears a chanting: “Eerie and splotched with sour chords, sinking and rising again, foreign and familiar all at once, it snapped like a flame, then sang the way a swan sings when a hunter’s arrow takes her life” (*Knight*, LXVIII 421). [Svon’s shield bears a swan, and much later the feast of Arnthor will feature such a bird cut in twain.] The song makes Able homesick. He realizes that the hauberk he had brought up with him on this last dive is not Nytir’s armor; attached to its sword belt, he finds a black blade mottled with silver: Eterne.
667
668The dragon emerges from the well, and Able hides. The grotto is too tight for the dragon to unfurl its wings fully. [Crowded conditions might also be a feature of the womb we suppose underlies all of these settings.] Singing Aelf enter to praise the dragon, and a sacrifice is brought to his altar – the dark-haired Morcaine. When Grengarm questions whether the sacrifice is worthy, over twenty Aelfmaidens come, dancing. Able thinks, “I knew then that I had danced once like the dancers that were coming” (*Knight*, LXVIII 423). He sees Uri among them. Able finally draws his blade, and a phantom knight appears to confront Grengarm. Grengarm asks, “Who has overturned your stone, shade, that you should rise to oppose Grengarm?” The knight responds in almost the same fashion: “What stone was overturned … that you have seeped from beneath it, shadow?” (*Knight*, LXIX 424) [Grengarm here is directly named as a shadow, and the dragon emerges from a deep well after Able descends into the depths of the water. Jung notes that the shadow personifies everything that the subject will not or cannot acknowledge about himself and represents "a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well" (*Archetypes* 21). Certainly, the dragon’s emergence from that source is no coincidence. The rush against a very large foe should also put us in mind of the process of human fertilization.]
669
670Able moves to defend the phantom knight, and more knights appear to flood the hall through the power of the unsheathed Eterne, unworthy knights who attempted to wield the blade. Wounded, Grengarm transforms into a bleeding dwarf, who jumps into the water of the Griffin. After the Aelf flee or are killed, Able sees that one is cutting at the bonds of the woman who was to be sacrificed, though the Aelf’s head is nearly severed and he is clearly dead. She advises Able to put his sword away and help free her. The knights tell Able to do what she says, but not to trust her. They bring him some wine to give to Morcaine, but as he puts away his sword the knights disappear, causing the wine to spill: “Picture a hall lit by many candles. A wind sweeps it, and at once the flame of every candle is put out” (*Knight*, LXIX 425). Able manages to save a small cup to bring to Morcaine. [This scene, too, seems to have its reproductive echoes, given the dancing Aelfmaidens and Able’s memory of once dancing in that fashion, as well as its culmination, in which most of the liquid is wasted, just as impregnation features so many wasted resources. The labor of the undead Aelf to free Morcaine will come to be repeated: Able’s eventual death will finally free his brother, and probably his mother, too, the constant strain on them reversed. Sometimes true service is possible even after death.] When Morcaine gets the wine, she thrusts her finger into it, making it burn blue, at which point she downs it. Able says, “Good lord!” (*Knight*, LXIX 426) [We have already mentioned that this exclamation accompanied his planting of the first seed and the appearance of the dragon knight who was ultimately himself. Morcaine’s drinking of the salvaged wine might be an echo of that first planting. She maintains at the end of *The Wizard Knight* that she is good, but it is probably worth thinking about her as an anima of Arnthor and his fierce pride and jealousy.]
671
672Able offers her his wet cloak, but she is far taller than he is. Before she leaves, Morcaine tells Able that if Grengarm had eaten her, he would be as real in Mythgarthr as he is in Muspel. With that, she disappears. Able climbs out over the stream, thinking: “I did not want to fall back into the water – no matter what else might happen, I did not want to fall back into the water” (*Knight, LXIX 426). [His fear is justified, as that will be his fate at the end of the first volume, but it also resonates with a refusal to embrace the id-like or unconscious qualities of Grengarm, who emerged from the well. Able does not want to accept or acknowledge that part of himself.]
673
674Back at the camp, Able hears the voice of the griffin, who instructs him to look west. Under a gathering storm, the dark figure of the dragon flies. The griffin wants to know if Able will spare or destroy Grengarm, and Able says that he will kill it. [Kulili asks the same question of Able regarding herself at the pivotal confrontation at the Tower of Glas, when Able mounts a phantom ship that reminds him of the white griffin. He will also face a dragon near a cloud formation at the very end of the entire series, a clear echo of this moment.] The griffin says that he can fly just as swiftly as the dragon, and Able feels that Ravd stands behind him when he agrees to go face it. The griffin then calls Toug by name. “Toug appeared so quickly that I knew he must have been watching us from some hiding place” (*Knight*, LXIX 427). Toug gives Able his bow, arrows, and helmet. Able hands Toug Sword Breaker. Toug asks, “Can I go with you?” and Able responds, “May I” (*Knight*, LXIX 427). They ride the griffin, and Able tells Toug that he will be a knight. Able asks that Toug have the griffin painted on his shield as a boon to him.
675
676The time has come for another pattern of three: Able shoots Grengarm, who dives into the sea to hide, then shoots him again later when he surfaces. Finally, the third time, Grengarm rises into the night sky. “Long we pursued him and high we rose, and saw a million stars under us like diamonds cast on a blanket of cloud. Between the moon and the Valfather’s castle we overtook our prey” (*Knight*, LXIX 428).
677
678As the denizens of the castle cheer, Able leaps across the void to Gerngarm’s back, where he plunges Eterne into the dragon. He feels Grengarm die, but when he sheathes the sword as they plummet to the sea, Grengarm turns its head towards him and opens its maw. “And I, staring into it as into the face of death, understood certain things that had been hidden” (*Knight, LXIX 429). [Later, Able will reveal that he saw the faces of those sacrificed to Muspel in Grengarm’s mouth. His own sacrifice will eventually come to echo this: he is going to wind up inside another, as well.]
679
680Three galloping horses from the Valfather’s castle attempt to grab Able, and the third manages to catch him. The female riding it is taller than he, naming herself Alvit. She asks Able if he will help defend them from the Giants of Winter and Old Night. Able says that he will, and vows to fight even after any leader he is given falls. Alvit kisses him. Her steed turns in air and lands upon the Valfather’s castle, ending the first volume. [Later, when Setr dies, Garvaon will be fatally injured as he acts to save Svon. Alvit will appear to him to aid in his ascension, even though it is heavily implied that he acted twice to kill Gilling. The close association of the finale of the first volume with the slaying of Setr in the second is certainly no coincidence, and in many ways the two scenes are mirrors of one another: Garvaon should probably be seen as another aspect of Able, given his acceptance by Alvit, and his further identification with Setr, whom he helps to kill, metaphorically illustrates the sacrifice necessary to save Svon – it is a sacrifice of the self, representing the loss of Garsecg as an ally forever. Throughout the first volume, Toug seems to be a subtle manifestation of the hidden brother, but in the second volume he will come to resemble Able more and more strongly, while Svon increasingly takes the place of the chief rival, even marrying Idnn after Gilling dies.]
681
682*The Wizard* begins with Toug’s report to Lady Idnn as they make preparations for mobilizing everyone in a fight with the giants. Idnn notes that Toug sounds like Able. She also makes what might very well be a metatextual and superstructural joke when Toug says that he will attempt to do what knights must do, even if he might not always succeed. She asks, “You won’t always be Able?” (*Wizard*, I 18) [When Able and Toug are in conflict, he would seem to resonate more with the unseen brother, but by and large Toug is far more like Able than Svon could ever be; he might be considered as an aspect of Able’s personality, especially when he tries to fight his destiny but refuses to battle Setr. This will become clearer in the text after the death of King Gilling. After that pivotal moment, the surface story starts to fragment and much of the cast is randomly relocated to the Isle of Glas for the final confrontation with Setr.] Toug is paired with Uns, who is only armed with a stick he was able to cut with his hatchet. There are not many weapons, so Garvaon suggests that Toug arm himself similarly. Uns cuts him a stick from a sapling with “three mighty blows” (*Wizard*, I 19). While Uns and Toug are supposed to be allies, the first thing that happens is an argument: Uns refuses to take Mani back to Lady Idnn and says that he is not Toug’s man.
683
684Soon enough, Toug runs into Svon coming over a hill, and (did you see this coming?) they fall into a fight almost immediately when Svon implies that Toug is but a boy. Toug breaks Svon’s nose, and then we are treated to Svon’s talk of the monsters each of them has been bequeathed by Sir Able: Org has been haunting Svon, while Gylf seems to be following Toug. With his wounded nose, Svon calls Toug by the name Doog, which might help draw a parallel between the dog Gylf and the young would-be knight. Another telling aspect of the struggle between Svon and Toug involves the conditions Toug imposes on Svon: “You can keep your horse, your sword, and whatever else you’ve got. … Except food. Give half of it to us” (*Wizard*, II 24). These struggles really do seem to engage in a concern for resources with alarming frequency. During his long and painful recitation, Svon insists that it was Able who left him behind.
685
686Toug knows that Bold Berthold is still at the farm of the now deceased Bymir, and heads that way. The battle with the giants is joined, but Toug’s point-of-view becomes confusing:
687
688>The Angrborn roared, horses and mules shrieked, and men shouted, bellowed, and groaned. An Angrborn rose before him. Perhaps he rode toward it; perhaps he thrust at it with his rude lance; perhaps he fled. Perhaps all three. The image remained in his mind, bereft of fact.
689
690>Abruptly, there was a servingman in the saddle behind him. The reins were snatched from him, and they were riding away, streaming from the fight with twenty or thirty more; my knife was crooked on the end of Toug’s staff, crooked and dripping, a drop striking him in the face as he raised his staff and the stallion dropped to a weary trot.
691
692>He twisted and snatched the reins, wanting to say they were running but must not, that they had to fight again and win; but the servingman hit him on the ear, knocking him into a night in which there was no more fighting. (*Wizard*, III 39)
693
694[In this scene, Toug finds someone else in the saddle with him, fighting for control of the horse. It is not clear if he is fighting or running, but he definitely has Able’s dagger. It is interesting that the narrative voice says that the image in Toug’s mind is “bereft of fact.”] Soon, Toug comes to himself and starts to run on the battlefield. Uns scoops him up, saying that he has no sword to fight on. Once again, Toug drops to his own feet and approaches the Angrborn. A dark beast kills one, and Toug grabs its knife. At that point, Able reappears on the horse Cloud. [Toug has been using the horse Able received from Beel, and has also been using Able’s knife, which he has attached to the staff Uns cut for him.] Able invites him up onto the horse. [In this scene, Toug shared his saddle with a servingman, lost control, rode with Uns, and mounted with Able. The weapon he takes from the giant could, in some way, resonate with Able’s knife. More importantly, when Svon grabs the giant’s weapon, he begins a pattern that will be repeated several times in the text. When Org fights the smith Logi at Utgard, Toug is able to grab a knife and stab the creature in the eye. These eye injuries and picking up the weapon of a monstrous foe are patterns that should not be ignored. Able, too will stab a dragon in the eye on his way to meet the most low god, and this is also the manner in which Sir Woddet kills the Golden Caan.]
695
696Reunited with his companions, Able details some of his adventures in Skai, including one in which he emerges from a five-chambered cave to see “[A] great big face to the west with its eye shut. The beard was like a forest, the mouth was like a pit, and the nostrils were like a couple of tunnels. I looked downhill, and saw my friends leaving the cave. I saw, too, that it wasn’t really a cave at all, but the glove of the giant I was standing on” (*Wizard*, III 38).
697
698After that, Able and allies were able to make themselves grow, as well. In his description of Skai, Able says, “I saw a cat at Sheerwall that had been born crippled. It had to hop like a rabbit, more or less. … Now imagine every cat was like that. And after years and years something happened to you so you could run and jump the way you do. How would you feel? … That was what Skai was like. Our lives in Mythgarthr had been bad dreams and now we were awake and the sun was shining, and those dreams had no more power over us” (*Wizard*, III 39).
699
700Mani reveals that he has seen his old mistress’s ghost trailing them since they left her house, waiting for a chance to do them some kindness. The cat tells Able, “A friend of yours has been hurt. … And another friend, knowing you could help her, is refusing to ask you to” (*Wizard*, IV 41). [While on the surface this is certainly a tale of the injured Baki and the reluctant Uri, it might very well resonate with several other pairs in the novel. If Uri now serves the autonomy of Able, then she would not want the injured Baki to be healed at the expense of his blood. Any time the troops or main characters engage giants, there is the sense that the brothers might be fighting each other. It seems that Uri preferred to ask Grengarm to heal Baki.] They return to Bymir’s barn, where Baki seems to be suffering from a broken back. Able implores Toug to heal her as her god, insisting that he has the capability to think her whole. She renounces the names of Setr and Garsecg and acknowledges that her mother is Kulili. At that point, Able assures Toug that she is but a thing in his mind, a dream. Toug cuts his arm and collects his blood in a cup, from which Baki drinks. Able identifies Kulili as “The group mind of creatures who are largely unaware of their individual existences,” comparing this to Toug’s own consciousness (*Wizard*, IV 46). [Later, in Utgard, Uri (perhaps) will offer her blood in a chalice, and Svon will wind up drinking it, presented by Toug. That could very well be a different presentation of the same basic event.] Able and Toug then discuss the structure of the seven worlds and how imperfections are constantly cast downwards. Able wonders where Baki was if she was not dancing for Grengarm during his manifestation in Mythgarthr. He also mentions that he knows the fate of those who were sacrificed by the Osterlings on the Mountain of Fire: “I saw their faces screaming in Grengarm when I killed him” (*Wizard*, IV 50).
701
702Baki describes how her injury occurred: “I was scattering the mules for you Lord. Uri and I found twenty or so. When we tried to scatter those, they broke into two groups. She followed one, and I the other. One of the Angrborn came for mine” (*Wizard*, IV 51). [This splitting into two groups is of course another significant echo of what Able and Bold have undergone. Here, Uri and Baki are separated by the split, and this would seem a good way to contextualize why their goals evolve differently, separated in the creation of the twins.] Able dismisses Baki back to Garsecg and informs her that he has not forgotten his promise to fight Kulili.
703
704When they sleep, Able takes Toug into Dream with him, saying that “Cloud brought us here” (*Wizard*, V 53). He also describes his understanding of Gylf. Sometimes during Hern’s Wild Hunt (Hern is another name for the Valfather), a pregnant dog drops a pup, and it if is taken care of, someday its caretaker will be rewarded. “If [the Valfather] finds the hound he lost loved the man who saved it, do you think he’ll hate that man? That’s not his way” (*Wizard*, V 53). In order to return to Mythgarthr, Able had to vow not to use the authority of Skai. He needs Toug to wield that for him. In the world of Dream, Toug notes that Uns is approaching, and Able says they must leave. [Several scenes in *The Wizard* seem to have a far more nebulous setting than any of those found in *The Knight*. It is worth considering most of Able’s perceptions dream-like – indeed, the entire setting should probably be thought of as his mother’s dream, sent by Michael.]
705
706Back in the “real” Mythgarthr, Able knights Svon with Eterne, and a phantom army appears. He appoints Toug as Svon’s squire and bids them to send Pouk to him when he is freed, as he goes to take up the mountain pass he once promised Marder he would guard.
707
708Toug speaks with Idnn, who wonders why Svon treats her as he does, and what Sir Able is like. Toug tells her: “[Svon] ought to be a nobleman, but he’s a younger son, and then his mother died and his father married again. They’re just trying to get him out of the way, really. … He’s got to learn it’s not all looking up or looking down” (*Wizard*, V 61). [This feeling of being in the way is something that Able once expressed, as well.]
709
710Soon, Svon and Toug approach Utgard in its vastness. Gilling sends word that he wants the cat, though Beel does not understand how the king might have come to hear of Mani. The giant Thrym demands that Mani come with him, and Toug agrees to take the cat to Gilling, alone. When Toug offers the excuse that Lady Idnn was not dressed to appear before him in Utgard, Gilling orders a tunic and golden chain for him. [The constant presence of chains should also be noted, but here the symbolic meaning of the devious and selfish cat archetype must absolutely be considered. Gilling wants to maintain his own reign and authority.]
711
712The narrative jumps back to Able, accompanied by Bold, Uns, Gylf, and Gerda. Able wonders if the Valfather foresaw what he would be facing, and Gerda warns him that thinking can lead to drinking. “Too much worry, you mean. Too much circular thinking in which the mind turns around and around, shaking the bars again and again. Yes, it does, but I try not to think like that. I try to think as the sea flows. I miss it, by the way, though I doubt the rest of you do” (*Wizard*, VII 72). Able here reinforces the idea that his thoughts truly have been tracing a circular and repetitive pattern, rehashing the same conflict over and over with some surface variations, still trapped in a prison. Able thinks that there are three mysteries involving his time in Aelfrice: “First, why could he not remember? Second, why was he taught fair speech? And third, why has he not spoken?” (*Wizard*, VII 73)
713
714As they talk, Bold perceives that someone is there watching them, though Gylf does not detect anyone. Able tells Gerda, “Uns wanted to know what was troubling me. I said there were a thousand things, I believe. … That was a slight exaggeration, but one of them was the memory of Gylf’s catching you. I saw your chain, and there was a moan in my mind. Almost a scream” (*Wizard*, VII 75). Able wonders who made the moan. “I had just about settled on my answer when it struck me that it could have been Berthold who Gylf found” (*Wizard*, VII 75). Gerda feels that the figure Berthold senses might be her son: “I feel like it is, like he’s come back to me, or I’ve come to get him, sir, or however a body might say it. But I don’t know, sir, it’s all in my heart. I ain’t seen him nor heard him nor nothing” (*Wizard*, VII  75). [All of these scenes where someone unperceived or unidentified lurks just beyond the fringes of the visible should probably be considered as referring to the same individual, though sometimes the unseen threatening figure might be Org. There is a variation and mutability to Able’s reality that becomes increasingly clear in the second volume. The reclamation of a lost son involves the union of sundered parts which looms large over the entire text. The screams could come either from Able’s subconscious fears or from the shadowy presence of his brother, trapped in the same struggle, chained to each other in a sinking cage. If the symbolic logic is followed through to its end, these feelings Gerda expresses are a mother’s knowledge of her lost child in her heart, the ultimate setting of the tale.]
715
716Gerda advises Able that her son might hurt him in his hunger. [This is the heart of the matter.] When Gerda assures Able that she knows he won’t let them starve, the text jumps: “Someone big lay on a bed of fern in a low cave; for a fraction of a second, I felt his hunger and his loneliness. I looked up. Cloud was watching me, her head and dark eye scarcely visible. Hoping she could see it, I nodded” (*Wizard*, VII 76). Able concludes that there is someone else there shadowing him. He mentions the ghost of Huld, who seems to have been with them for some time. [Able’s sudden communion with Gerda’s son here is once again more understandable in the metaphorical reading of the text, as he represents the same kind of threatening aspect which Org does, though he seems slightly more intelligent – rather than exist as an orphan, Heimir has a sister and a mother who vouch for his goodness.]
717
718As Able hunts a boar with Gylf, he realizes that Arnthor would have done better to send food to the Angrborn, for they simply can’t stop raiding for slaves, being unable to produce enough food to feed themselves. [This scene might also be tied to the pigs hanging in Toug’s house in Glennidam, but it also highlights why a peaceful coexistence is never possible even among the closest of allies: resources are simply too limited.] Able comes across the giant form of Hela, Gerda’s daughter. She asks for food. When Gerda sees her, she calls the enormous Hela, “My baby” (*Wizard*, VII 79). As Bold and Hela embrace, Uns appears at Able’s side with green sticks, asking if they might cook. [The green sticks and their association with fertility and even Eterne is a definite feature of the text which I will not mention as aggressively from here on out, but it should be remembered.] As Hela tells Able of the life she has led, even suggesting that she might warm his bed, Able perceives his danger. “Thanks to Cloud, my inner eye glimpsed a shadowy figure larger than a man – with a rope between its hands” (*Wizard*, VII 81). Uri also appears to warn him that someone is lurking in the darkness to strangle him; he says that Hela has already been his protector twice. Hela lures her brother Heimir to the fire with food. [Finally, the pattern of fighting over food is gradually becoming less hostile and more welcoming. The threat is there, but here it begins to go unexpressed. However, that lurking strangulation is certainly ominous.] Heimir’s shoulders make Able think of Org. [And why shouldn’t they?] Able also sends Uri to Utgard with Baki.
719
720Back at Utgard, Mani concludes that the ghost of Huld must have told Gilling about him. Thiazi spies on Toug and Mani from a painting before entering the room and introducing himself. He reveals that the thirteen giants who took Beel’s tribute were in royal service, and that Beel’s party appeared warlike to them, perhaps the forefront of an invasion force. Thiazi says, “We – His Majesty – wished to determine how strong you really were” (*Wizard*, VIII 87). [All of these struggles are in some way based upon determining the strength of the foe. The greedy self asks, how much can I take until resistance is too much to overcome? It takes what would eventually have been given freely.] Thiazi claims to have watched what transpired afterwards in his crystal. He also explains the situation Gilling found himself in when he ascended to the throne:
721
722>“Young and inexperienced, he was thought weak. Distant lords rebelled. When we went east, rebellion broke out in the west. When we went west, the east broke out afresh. In the mountains of the south, Mice plotted to bring low the pure get of Angr. Partiality toward your kind was out of the question. The loyalty of many was doubtful or worse. We dared not lose a battle, and any trivial act that might support the lie that His Majesty favored you would’ve been disastrous. Thus he treated you with utmost rigor. He had to.” (*Wizard*, VIII 88)
723
724Thiazi says that the rebels are now dead and thinks that someday he might show them the estates of Thiazbor or Flintwal. Gilling and Thiazi want Mani so that Sir Able, the Green Knight, might be brought into their service – Gilling has learned that if he can attain an alliance with Sir Able, he will triumph. After Thiazi leaves, Toug and Mani discuss all of the goals they have, but Mani is certain that Thiazi has returned to the painting to spy on them, so he springs up to the window and asks Toug to follow him outside. [Toug sees Mani disappear into various windows and around corners three times]. Baki suddenly appears, asking Toug if he is going to climb outside. Toug thinks that taking off his boots would make it easier; Baki asks if he can change into a bird. [This echoes the earlier scene in which Able infiltrated the grotto of the griffin and relinquished his shoes, eventually gaining access to Skai. When Mani disappears, it is interesting that in this case Baki manifests herself. She often peers out from various tapestries and pavilions, beckoning Able.]
725
726Baki offers to carry Toug’s boots and Sword Breaker. However, she fears that changing to a form in which she can fly, that of a Khimaira, will make her ugly. Out of some perverse desire to appear beautiful to him, she opts to cling to the wall instead and slips as she hands his boots back to him. He catches her, but she laments that she almost killed him. Then she says, “I want to be like you. The other half. … But I am the other half. This is what Queen Disiri did for Sir Able to m-make him love her, and I can do it too. See?” (*Wizard*, VIII 93) [While this scene on the surface incorporates the vanity of the Aelf and their desire to be loved and worshiped, it has far more significance. In her reluctance to turn into a Khimaira, Baki almost dooms both of them. The “other half” has immense significance, as it suggests not only fertilization in the joining of sperm and egg but also twinning. It is for this reason that Uri and Baki’s goals become different – they truly do serve different biological masters when the separation is complete. The union of opposites and the final merging of Able and Bold requires that someone take the form of a chimeric twin, but who will surrender their independence so that their brother might live? The subtext here seems to suggest that if *someone* is not sacrificed, then both might die.] Toug covers her in a green cloak. He thinks that he should continue to look for Mani and complains that trying to be like Able has caused quite a mess. She says, “You are more like Sir Able than you know, Toug” (*Wizard*, VIII 94). [Hopefully, my comments on dialogue such as this involving character self-awareness is no longer necessary. Self-knowledge and its limitations are brought up consistently in the second half of *The Wizard Knight*.]
727
728At this point, Toug notices, “Something that was neither fog nor gray smoke was shaping itself above the great stone in the center of the room. For an instant he glimpsed eyes and teeth; they shuddered and disappeared. The light from the window, which had never been bright, dimmed, and the high, cracked voice of an old woman spoke” (*Wizard*, VIII 94). [This scene would seem to indicate that Huld has come, though Mani is conspicuously absent. There is a faint echo of Lynnet and Parka in this ghostly female presence as well, and perhaps the mysterious ability of Morcaine to appear and disappear thematically associates her with the phantasm, as well. Later, we will learn that Setr’s mother from Muspel kept her dragon son near her wherever she went, but Arnthor’s mother seems hard to pin down anywhere in the text. The following chapters will make clear that Huld speaks to Toug in the guise of Idnn. One suspects her manifestation involves the problem of selflessness.]
729
730The scene shifts to Able, who must face his first opponent at the pass, Leort, the Knight of the Leopards, who has a herald, a squire, two pages, and seven manservants. The Knight insists on giving Able a lance to make the joust fair, and he knocks Able from the saddle, who notes, “It was the first time I had been unseated since LLwch did it” (*Wizard*, IX 96). [There is a lake in Wales called Llyn Cwm Llwch associated with the figure of an old woman who lures children and trusting people into the lake to drown, so that she might regain her youth and immortality. There is also supposedly an invisible island paradise of the Fair Folk somewhere on the lake. These fey figures demand of those who find their world on May Day, when a tunnel opens on the shore leading to the island, that they take nothing with them. One man did so, leaving with a flower, and his curse was to walk in circles and talk nonsense all the remaining days of his life, which were not long (Evans). Actually, for those who do not like my reading of Able and Bold as twins in the womb, here is a nice alternative, with Arthur Ormsby doomed to talk nonsense in circular patterns after taking the spiny orange from where it belonged. Of course, that reading leaves a whole lot of the subtext and Able’s sacrifice feeling a bit hollow. LLwch was also a figure from Arthurian myth who led Arthur through the underworld with a flaming sword.]
731
732Leort says that Able may keep his spurs and servants, but refuses to grant his horse and his sword, though Able offers up everything else. Able tells the victorious knight of being sent to the court of another king to mock them. There, he challenged a knight to strike off his head, but the condition he set was that in one year Able would be allowed to strike off that knight’s head in turn, in what we should all recognize as a fairly direct retelling of *Sir Gawain and the Green Knight*. “He had a good sword with [a] good edge. One blow clove this neck of mine and sent my head bouncing across the rush-strewn floor. I got to my feet, retrieved it, and tucked it beneath my arm” (*Wizard*, IX 98). Able drops the mail worn by Sir Skoll at the knight’s feet as well. [*The Wizard Knight Companion* asserts that Skoll was the name of the last knight to bear Eterne, and that his mail, with every fifth ring made of gold, resembles Beowulf’s armor, made by Weland. More importantly, Skoll is the name of the wolf that chases the sun through the sky every day, which means “treachery” (Andre-Driussi 84). Supposedly, big cats such as Leort’s leopards are related to feminine power in Jungian terms.]
733
734Leort makes the mistake of insulting Gerda, and Heimir attacks him, breaking the knight’s sword. In desperation, he draws Eterne, and phantom knights buffet him. Terrified, he offers it back to Sir Able and apologizes. He also promises Gerda lodging at Sandhill Castle in the south for as long as she desires. Able asks to be fed by Leort, who relates the constant strife in his part of the realm. He assumes that Able lost to him on purpose. The Knight of the Leopards had planned to join Beel’s party on its way to Utgard. In further conversation, Able describes that even though he had strong friends in Skai, he was not happy, and had forgotten some of his life. A “wise friend” returned Able’s memories (*Wizard*, IX 102). Leort asks if Able has been on the Isle of Glas, for he knew a woman who told stories about how men forgot their lives there. Able reveals that he had planned in advance to give up his horse and sword to Leort so that he could leave the pass and get on with his own business, but that it was “a coward’s path I followed with a thief’s conscience” (*Wizard*, IX 103).
735
736The text cuts back to Toug, who has met up with his sister Ulfa and Baki in Utgard. Ulfa describes how she left her parents to seek out Sir Able, burying half of what she had from raiding the outlaws: “I took the rest, just walking you know, with a long stick” (*Wizard, IX 109). [There’s that stick again. The act of burying half of the resources she had puts Ulfa in the same metaphorical situation as many of the other characters, casting her as a type of anima, though not precisely equivalent to Idnn or Disiri.] Ulfa also describes how she was a servant and barmaid and would have been willing to do other things at night for Sir Able (very reflective of the offer Hela just made to Able at the mountain pass.) Of Toug, she says, “I used to imagine you starving in a dungeon. You’re thin, but I wouldn’t call you starved. What did [Able] do with you, anyhow?” (*Wizard*, IX 109) Baki offers to help them if they will all swear to help each other. When Toug swears as a “squire and a true man,” “something took [him] by the throat, but he gulped and pressed on” (*Wizard*, IX 109). When Toug mentions the Valfather and all his sons, it seems as if Able has drawn Eterne in the room: “[T]all figures stood in the corners of the room, gleaming shades of dust and firelight; and he felt their eyes upon him” (*Wizard*, IX 110). [The actual presence of the blade is not necessary for a similar effect to be achieved. When Toug makes this oath, the knights appear, but is there anything to connect this scene to Leort’s drawing of Eterne?] Mention of the Lady brings the scent of lilacs into the room. Baki renounces Setr forever and chastises Ulfa for her worship of the Aelf: “It was very wrong, what you were doing. I am greatly honored, but honors one does not deserve are only crimes by another name” (*Wizard*, X 111).
737
738Mani reappears, and tells them that though Org might show up, when the cat is near they need not fear the ogre. Baki repeats how Setr came to have power over them when their own king was crushed by a monster of the deep, which prompted the construction of the Tower of Glas. “When the Tower was complete he made us Khimairae to guard it.” She transforms into one for them, and the sound is “ice on ice, and held the chill of death” (*Wizard*, X 114). [In this scene, with so much interaction between Toug and Baki, it seems that Toug might parallel Able, while Baki mirrors the hidden sibling. When the Earl Marshal and Able meet the most low god in his tomb of ice, a similar mood is created, linking his all-encompassing presence with the Khimaira form of Baki.] Mani reveals that Gilling plans to entice Able to his side, so that loyal men could invade the south for him to make Celidon a vassal kingdom. [Invasion and domination are repetitions of the biological metaphor behind the text. Before Able makes his sacrifice, it seems as if Celidon is dying from the Osterling invasion. It is.]
739
740The point-of-view switches back to the approach of a golden knight to challenge Sir Able at the pass. Before that knight presents his challenge, Heimir speaks with Able and asks if he dislikes the half-giant for being “too big” (*Wizard*, XI 118). Heimir offers to fight the golden knight for Able. Refusing, Able engages the golden knight instead, laming his horse. [Able, too, had a horse injured by giants during his time with Beel. He gave that horse to Toug. Able’s refusal to allow Heimir to fight for him represents a kind of control over his anger and needs.] The Knight of the Sun challenging Able demands gentle right, and once again they charge: “We met as a thunderbolt meets a tower. The golden lance shattered on my shield” (*Wizard*, XI 121). For the third charge, the knight waits for his squire to bring a fresh mount. He reveals himself as Sir Woddet to Able at this point, and both of them fall in the charge. Able loses his helm, and Cloud falls atop him. Woddet gets up first and refuses to accord Able gentle right, but Cloud strikes him. Woddett and Able fight, and finally Able wounds him with a “grievous cut” (*Wizard*, XI 124). [In these patterns of three, the third iteration normally goes differently than the other two, usually to Able’s surprising detriment.] Able decides to build an altar to beg the Overcyns of Skai to heal Woddet. Hela, impressed by the knight’s size and bearing, begins crying for him; Able sacrifices the lamed horse in the ceremony. That night, he dreams of ascending to Skai with Alvit and of falling into the sea from the griffin’s back. He also dreams:
741
742>Garsecg swam with me, and Setr was in Garsecg’s mouth. I knew the battle was coming, and knew Setr knew it too; but this was not the time to think on battles; we gloried in the waves, the scour of the tides, and the strength of the sea.
743
744>I was a boy in a garden that stretched very far, searching for a girl who had hidden, and I searched trees and grottoes, looked behind bushes and in the waters of a hundred fountains. At last I turned and saw her behind me, and she was small and green and sweet, with eyes of laughing fire. (*Wizard*, XI 125)
745
746When Able sacrificed the horse, another “cycle” seems to have been complete, and the text begins to wind back towards the imagery of impregnation. When he and Woddet speak again, Woddet reveals that his plan was to best Able and return him to Sheerwall (and though he does not mention it, his motivation was that his duke, Marder, is coming to challenge Able himself.) Woddet talks about being chosen by seed to attack the Osterlings and the Golden Caan. As he describes the spiky mace he had, which he has lost, he says that only when battle is engaged does the understanding of all of the practice actually hit: “That’s when you grow up, and afterward you can’t go back” (*Wizard*, XI 128). Able hears Disiri’s laughter at that point echoing on the rocks. [We have already discussed how much this description of the battle with the Golden Caan resembles impregnation, but Able’s fall here is also telling, as it strips him of his helm. Later, Able will have to fight a series of champions to gain an audience with King Arnthor, and then, in an odd reversal near the conclusion of the series, the knights of Celidon will have to lose three times before the strange Dragon Warriors are added to their own numbers. All of these fights seem to be echoes of Able’s stand at the mountain pass.]
747
748Back in Utgard, Beel has been welcomed into the throne room of Gilling, bringing his precious gifts on seven mules. Toug does not reveal that he has seen Baki there, keeping her assistance a secret. We also learn during this scene that Garvaon has a tree on his shield and that Svon’s bears a swan. Gilling had intended to have the champions Schildstarr and Glummnir fight Beel’s champions but has decided on something more random. He throws a dagger at the high ceiling to see who will stand as his champion. In the pandemonium of the hall, Toug thinks, “That all those hands belonged to one monster, one beast with a multitude of heads and arms and glaring eyes” (*Wizard, XII 136). This is repeated on the next page: “Toug felt, as he had in the banquet hall, that they were in truth but one great beast” (*Wizard*, XII 137). [They are, and the fact that Schildstarr and Glummnir were intended to be the champions to stand against Svon and Garvaon is not a structural coincidence, as perhaps gigantic and twisted manifestations of their own personalities – but will Svon and Garvaon fight each other or themselves?] Garvaon and Svon protest the terms of the combat.
749
750When Crol insists that the gigantic spectators must not interfere, Gilling strikes him down with his bare hands. “For a few seconds he trembled; then he lay still, his heavy, middle-aged body twisted, quartered lamiae and lilacs seeming to writhe upon his back” (*Wizard*, XII 138). [We should remember that the scent of lilacs also entered the room at mention of the Lady earlier. Not only do they stand for first love and innocence, “Herbal lore credits lilacs astrologically as the flower of Gemini, the Twins, and as evoking the root energy of expansion and growth” (Aspen). Crol’s death here becomes associated with a flower standing for growth and expansion tied to twins, and much later, when Morcaine tempts Able to usurp Arnthor’s rule, she appears as a serpent from the waist down, perhaps accounting for the lamiae which flicker into existence here as well. The death of Crol should be seen as another reflection of Able’s accidental slaying of the captain of the *Western Trader*.]
751
752Svon and Garvaon must fight Skoel and Bitergarm (in this case, the G component has been switched out with the usually less threatening B). Mani says, “The weak must close if they can, while the strong have to try to keep them off. Strange battle, wouldn’t you say?” (*Wizard*, XII 139) [Mani’s comment about the battle describes both the only hope of Svon and Garvaon on the surface and the situation within the womb, as the strong twin attempts to keep the weak one from taking his substance and nutrition, while perhaps the damaged and incomplete one cannot survive on its own.] As the fight continues, Thiazi realizes Toug has Mani and grabs him. Idnn demands that Toug and the cat be released. As Gilling calls for the celebration of his heroes, the torches begin to go out in the hall. However, Svon and Garvaon emerge to fight on. In spindly gigantic form, Uri appears to Thiazi; he offers her his cloak so that her nudity will not inspire the giants to rape her.
753
754In the chaos, Toug decides to join the fray when it appears certain that Svon must die.
755
756>And it was dark, snow swirled past his face, and there were more swords out than Skoel’s and Bitergarm’s, more swords than Garvaon’s and Svon’s, and his pain was terrible but distant. Once he watched a dark thing strike one of the last torches. And once he saw a lance-long blade descend and raised his arm, knowing that Sword Breaker could never break that sword, which would carry all before it with a blow like a falling tree. Something dark that seemed transparent (for he could make out what might have been a giant’s wrist still) closed on the wrist of the hand that held that sword, and something else circled the giant’s neck, blurring it. And under all the shouting and all the rough music of blade on blade, he heard the sickening snap of breaking bone.
757
758>A giant fell, nearly crushing him; he thought it was Bitergarm until he saw the fallen crown. (*Wizard*, XII 142).
759
760[This description of Org cracking the neck of a giant is surreal, for the text here indicates that Gilling is nearby, and falls as a result of this “sickening snap of breaking bone,” when we know from later narrative exposition that he suffers a sucking stab wound. This is one of the moments where the small fractures in the surface story show us that two seemingly unrelated events are describing the same basic moment: there are no daggers in the womb, but there are certainly injuries that compromise the ability to breath. The circling of the neck also resonates with Setr’s strangulation much later.]
761
762Afterwards, Toug tells Pouk that there seemed to be another giant there invisible to the others. Pouk reveals that he employed trickery to avoid blinding, and also assures Toug that Org will not hurt him when he is around. [This is the same assurance that Mani gave a few chapters ago; narratively, it is a boast that Uns might make with confidence, but here it is placed in the mouth of Pouk, who is now shown to be a trickster figure like Mani, Vil, and Lothur, though by far the most malevolent of these tricksters is Lothur.]
763
764Beel and Thiazi soon confer about their situation in the wake of Gilling’s severe injury. During this scene, one of the Fire Aelf gives Toug a chalice, of which she says, “*My blood in wine, Lord. It will heal you*” (*Wizard*, XII 143). Rather than drink it himself, Toug kneels before Svon and presents him the cup. Svon drinks it without much notice. Thiazi reveals that he was warned of Gilling’s danger by an Aelf girl, and that he has long had friends among them. Svon and Garvaon speculate that Gilling’s challenge was meant to determine “whether we might be substituted for Sir Able” (*Wizard*, XII 145). [While the Fire Aelf offering the blood to Toug is unidentified, since Svon drinks of it, it might be that it is Uri rather than Baki, though Baki will appear in King Gilling’s chamber in the upcoming scenes.]
765
766The text cuts back to Able, watching the clouds above him, which he thinks must be prophetic. Uri appears in her monstrous form above him, blotting out the stars. This prompts Able to wonder what a Khimaira has to do with him (*Wizard*, XIII 146). She tries to accuse Baki of betrayal, saying that she is motivated by a desire to have Able fight Garsecg, and implicates Toug, Ulfa, and Mani in her schemes. [Clearly, by this time Uri and Baki have very different goals. Uri even says that Mani is acting out of malice. In an attempt to pin down something which is still very slippery, it is worth saying that Baki renounced Setr and Uri swore to serve Able. Should Setr be considered an aspect of Able or of his brother? Perhaps insofar as Able inspires the defense mechanisms of his brother, he is also a part of this fierce beast, the element known as Garsecg. This never becomes entirely clear. If Baki’s renunciation of Setr somehow involved leaving Able (as some of her words suggest at the very end of *The Wizard*), then Uri desires that Able live, while Baki wants to absorb him into herself.]
767
768In discussing this development with his allies, Able considers that Baki might act in such a fashion, “If she were provoked or desperate,” or if a young man she cared for was threatened (*Wizard*, XIII 149). During Able’s discussion with the knights and the men who have attached themselves to him, Leort suggests that Able seek out Disiri, asking him if he is the only man who does not know the tale of the knight and the tumbrel. [Michael Andre-Driussi asserts that this is “a reference to Lancelot, who, having lost his horse, hesitates to take the tumbrel. ‘Does a knight of honor mount the cart of dishonor? Anything must be endured to save the queen.’ He climbs on and is tagged ever after as ‘knight of the cart,’ signifying chivalry and shame” (94).]
769
770Soon, Idnn arrives from the north on a horse, though she is not identified immediately in the text, at about the same time that a mysterious Black Knight, Duke Marder in disguise, arrives to test Sir Able. The Black Knight reveals that he will only fight to the death (*Wizard*, XIII 153). Able considers who this figure might be, dismissing the possibility that it might be one of his companions from the Valfather’s castle, such as Sir Galaad or Sir Gamuret. Woddet was willing to kill Able to prevent this fight. In the charge that ensues, the Black Knight is thrown. “The Black Knight lay motionless, and I noticed (in the way you notice a hare between two armies) that the skull had broken, losing part of an eye socket” (*Wizard*, XIII 154). [This mention of a hare crushed between two much more massive forces might harken back to the rabbit which choked a boy in Able’s dream, and also resonates with Toug piercing the eye of a gigantic foe, as well as the manner in which Sir Woddet killed the Golden Caan, through the eye, and Able’s later piercing of a dragon’s eye on his way to meet the most low god.] The Black Knight does not die, and Able’s allies attempt to care for him even as Idnn introduces herself as a Queen, assuming the royal we.
771
772The story shifts once again to the north, with Gilling under the care of *another* Idnn. Toug surmises that it must be the witch in disguise. Mani calls the figure his beloved mistress (exactly what he called the original Idnn), and Toug hears a voice “from the dark” asking if he wants to see her. “It might almost have been the voice of the wind outside, had it been possible for that wind to make itself heard” (*Wizard*, XIV 157). The false Idnn descends the stairs and declares that Gilling must not possess her: “I bring Sir Able, and Sir Able may save me” (*Wizard*, XIV 157). She describes the manner in which the giant might couple with human women, lying upon his back with his member dressed up like a dwarfish man, upon which will be drawn “staring eyes and a smiling mouth” before his semen violates his mate. “The false Idnn began to swell. Toug shut his eyes but found he saw Idnn still, her body monstrous, misshapen, and surmounted by a weeping face” (*Wizard*, XIV 158). Mani maintains that the witch wants Queen Idnn to be saved, but he also seems to be aware that Toug is planning Gilling’s death.
773
774The text switches back to the “real” Idnn describing Gilling’s injury and the chaos surrounding it. She only says that it was very dark when he was stabbed from behind. Marder asks if she stabbed Gilling, and she proclaims her innocence to the Lady of Skai. She asks Able if he will return to come grant Gilling aid in Utgard. While the knights clamor for more information before agreeing to go, Idnn reveals that she is absolutely famished and must eat more (*Wizard*, XIV 163). As Idnn goes through the details of Gilling’s wound, she also discusses the manner in which great clots of his blood fell to the ground: “We were going to tell you they seemed alive … but that wasn’t really how it was. They were dying. Like - like jellyfish” (*Wizard*, XIV 165). [The creatures in the giant’s blood can live for a time independently, but they, too, will soon die. As the second volume progresses, everyone seems to be famished all of the time. Wolfe has been criticized for attention to food, but here it is a thematically essential component.]
775
776Marder intends to send his herald south to Thortower, where he will enlist aid from King Arnthor, while he goes north with Able and the other knights. He frees Able from his obligation to hold the pass. [It would seem that Able is released perhaps two months shy of ice in the harbor, though in this very scene Marder reveals it took him two months to reach the pass from Thortower, indicating that the aid of Arnthor will be long in coming. Given that Wolfe has placed seven worlds where nine normally exist in myth, perhaps this two-month reprieve is *significant* given a normal nine-month gestation period in human beings.] On the trek north, Able feels Thiazi watching him from his crystal.
777
778Back at Utgard, Toug listens to Thiazi, Garvaon, and Svon argue with Schildstarr, who demands to see King Gilling. “Mani lay curled in the dark corner Toug watched, his luminous green eyes opening and closing; the shadowy figure behind him seemed Idnn at times, at others an ancient crone, and at still others both, or mere emptiness. And though the fire on the broad hearth had faded to smoke and ashes and the windowless guardroom was freezing, Toug was sweating” (*Wizard*, XV 170). [This will resonate with the unnatural heat which follows Able and his companions as they flee Utgard later in the novel, which only seems hot because of Thiazi’s interference. Juxtaposed between the overwhelming heat of another body and the ice of eternal death, which is preferable? The looming invisible presence of the feminine might just as easily be ascribed to the unseen mother linked to Able.]
779
780During the discussion, Schildstarr indicates that his obedience to Idnn depends upon her desires: “You pick chains and lock ‘em on you. … My folk dinna take to chains. Somebody else has got to do it.” (*Wizard*, XV 170). Baki comes from the chamber to say that Gilling is calling for Idnn, and Toug says:
781
782>“It would be better for me if he died … . I’m going to kill him, and since I am the man I am, I’ll have to do it in a fair fight.” The words came of their own volition, and the pitiful thing in him that cringed and wept was locked away. “That means a fight after he has recovered, a fight in which he has a chance to defend himself. I’m not looking forward to it.”
783
784>”Lord Toug,” Baki said, and knelt at his feet.
785
786>“Don’t do that,” Toug told her. “What if someone should see us?”
787
788>“I see you,” Mani yawned. “I’m wondering whether you see yourself.” (*Wizard*, XV 171)
789
790[This entire scene questions Toug’s ability to perceive himself, as well as equating his moral actions with those of Able: he must lock away the part of him that recoils in fear, and he succeeds in doing so. However, it is difficult to ascertain, even with all of Toug’s Able-like echoes, if killing Gilling represents external or internal hostility. We should also note the parallel with the constantly chained Gylf.] Soon enough, Toug encounters Wistan, who asks him about what was in the corner and seems to have heard a woman’s voice. When Toug is reluctant to talk about it, Wistan becomes hostile. “Sir Able isn’t like most people. … There’s something of that about you, too. ... I’m your senior. If you won’t acknowledge that, we can have it out right now” (*Wizard*, XV 173). [The struggle between allies has once again shifted, and here Wistan notes the similarities of Toug to Able before becoming resentful. These same kinds of interactions will later occur between Toug and Svon, and even between Able and Svon, though with increasingly less hostility as time goes on.] When Toug continually refuses to tell him more about the “ghost” in the corner, Wistan implores him to draw his sword. Rather than fight, Toug yields, and Wistan takes Sword Breaker, threatening to drop it in a cistern in the cellar so deep that it has never been filled. Toug simply watches him climb the stairs and lets him go.
791
792Svon lets Toug into the king’s bedchamber, and he meets with Baki and Mani under the bed. Toug discusses his recent encounter with Wistan, admitting, “I told him about the witch and did it in a way that made him think he’d heard her when he’d really heard Mani” (*Wizard*, XV 175). Mani says that there is very little difference. Toug feels that Wistan would have pushed him until he either fought or became like a slave: “If we’d fought, he’d have been killed or wounded – or else I would. He thought he’d beat me, and he may have been right. … The funny thing is that nobody’s a good fighter ‘til he’s lost at least one fight, and won one, too” (*Wizard*, XV 176). Baki reveals that her heart’s desire is that Sir Able lead them against Setr. She also says that Uri has told Beel of Baki’s plans to have Able help her in Aelfrice, and Beel has become determined to prevent it. He wants Able in Utgard to solidify the alliance between Celidon and the Angrborn. Baki also believes that this will prompt Beel to send Toug into danger and to keep him separated from Sir Able. They are interrupted by the blood of Gilling falling upon them. [If the death of Setr is at all related to the death of Gilling and the sacrifice of Able, then Baki’s goals here might align with the loss of Able’s individuality. Beel’s plan, however, to cement the power of Gilling, would probably not benefit Celidon and Arnthor, though it would benefit his family. Even though it seems that Beel and Baki must be related to the triumph of the B brother, in the narrative their goals are distinct, and the complex scaffolding which Wolfe has erected at times makes certain identifications very difficult, though we can always retreat to the secure position that different aspects of any given personality desire very different things.]
793
794Schildstarr’s giants demand access to the castle; other giants outside have become concerned that Gilling is being held hostage, raising the possibility of a new rebellion. Beel is concerned that Gilling’s wound will encourage these malcontents to finish the job. Schildstarr assures them in a public speech that he and those loyal to him will guard access to the king: “My own to the door, every one a’ you, an’ nae one nae ours” (*Wizard*, XVI 179). Sir Garvaon instructs Toug to go to the guardroom and tell them to pull everyone off duty, to assemble in the large hall and wait. [The removal of guards here is an important step both literally and metaphorically.] Beel also finds Toug and tells him that they must speak alone in the night, suggesting that Sir Svon does not need to be aware of their meeting. As the tension in Utgard rises, the text switches back to Able.
795
796Marder has given the largest pavilion to the “real” Idnn, who refuses to allow Hela and Heimir to serve her out of fear. She asks Able for Uns to aid her in setting up the pavilion and in serving her, saying that he has Heimir for his tasks and can have him back when necessary. She says that she wants Uns because he is closer to Able than anyone else. Able says, “[Y]ou’re wrong about his being closest to me. Bold Berthold is closer, and so is Gylf” (*Wizard*, XVI 181). [Her refusal to accept Heimir might be another reason why healing is delayed – the body still sees that which it cannot recognize as other and resists it.]
797
798Idnn also describes how there seems to be no women at all in Utgard: “His Majesty … has no children. And no wife but us. The wives and children of the rest are hidden. The girls will remain hidden throughout their lives, the boys ‘til they are old enough to understand that they’re hidden, and where they are hidden, and why. Then they’re put out” (*Wizard*, XVI 181).
799
800She calls Jotunhome women’s country, and says that on her wedding night, while Gilling bled, she was visited by those giant women, who recognize her as monarch.
801
802In what might be a surreal cut, that night, Able notes, “Uns came to my fire. Heimir was asleep, his big body half covered by his bearskin. As Uns watched I saddled Cloud, whistled for Gylf, and galloped north across the night sky. All this Uns told me afterward” (*Wizard*, XVI 182).
803
804Back at Utgard, Beel sends Toug into the town to look for signs of a siege, advising him to get a stick and feign blindness. Toug agrees, and on his way out he runs into Wistan, whom he assaults without warning, smashing his nose and stopping just short of kicking. [Currently, Wistan is Sir Garvaon’s squire. By the latter parts of the book, he will be Sir Able’s.] Toug talks with the guard, named Arn, and arranges that when he returns to the keep Toug will knock three times, pause, and then knock twice more.
805
806As he leaves the gate, he looks back:
807
808>Toug stopped to study the sullen mountain that was Utgard’s keep. Near its top, a crimson glow showed that some slave still fed a bedroom fire. For a moment he stood motionless, staring up at the tiny beacon, a constricted slit as remote as a star. It was eclipsed. He waved and waved again, and at last turned away, knowing his sister had seen him, that she too had waved, though he had not seen her face. (*Wizard*, XVI 184)
809
810[This waving reaches backwards to Able’s own tentative wave at Parka and forwards to the unnamed figure waving on top of the Tower of Glas as Able approaches – though here it finally involves an unseen sibling. The fire will also resonate with Toug’s later fight at the forge and perhaps even the Mountain of Fire, which Pouk was cast into.] In the nighttime city, Toug sees the small figure of a young girl outside, and then notices a huge shadowy hand reaching to grab her. Toug orders Org not to kill, and he soon catches up to the girl, named Etela. He identifies Org as Sir Svon’s pet. She is surprised that Toug has eyes. Etela also reveals that many shovels and picks are being constructed by the giants, and that she was sent in the darkness to tell the knights about the pending danger to Utgard keep and the reign of Gilling. Her master’s name is Logi, a smith. [This introduction of a host of new characters seems to be one of the most important thematic moments in the text. Etela is an innocent child on the cusp of sexual maturity. Her mother, Lynnet, seems to be simultaneously alive and dead, while the father figure interested in her mother, Vil, is a blind smith who also seems to wield substantial skills as an illusionist, which would help solidify him as a manifestation of the trickster archetype. Lynnet, along with Mani, will enter the Room of Lost Love with Able. In myth, Logi means “flame” and represents a giant who defeated Loki in an eating contest in Norse myth (Andre-Driussi 54). In some ways *The Wizard Knight* is the most epic, pathos-filled eating contest ever written.] Etela takes an instant interest in Toug. She tells him that there is a forge with heat, though there is almost no food. She is also very hungry. He notices that she is cold and resolves to take her to the castle, though there is little food there. [Scarcity and starvation appear every few pages. I will not mention it every time it comes up, but it is alarming.]
811
812For a brief glimpse, the text shifts to Able and his bird’s-eye perspective on Cloud. He talks with Gylf, telling him how much the dog would love Skai. He sees the fires of a forge in Utgard but does not hear hammers; Gylf goes to investigate as the wind rises. He returns to say, “Man and a girl” (*Wizard*, XVII 189). Able thinks that kids should not be up so late. The text returns to Toug. [It is important to consider that Gylf was somehow *there* during Toug’s upcoming struggle with Logi.]
813
814At the forge, Toug meets the blind smith Vil, who asks him, “Where’s your stick?” (*Wizard*, XVII 189) He says he could not carry Etela and a stick, too. Vil says that he and his fellow slaves must continue making mattocks. Soon enough Vil determines that Toug can see, and Etela reveals that he is one of Arnthor’s men. As they pass through a large door to meet Etela’s mother, Uri appears. She says that the people of Toug’s villages revered the Aelf because Disiri offered to hide their children when the Angrborn came. [She is impressed with Vil, saying that she loves smiths.]
815
816>Leaving Uri in Vil’s embrace, they hurried through the kitchen. There was a fireplace in the next room, a little, niggardly fireplace by the standards of the castle Toug had left, but a large one just the same. The coals of a fire smoldered there, and two slave women slept in its ashes.
817
818>A third, a white-faced black-haired woman in a dress of black rags, sat bolt upright on a tall stool. In the firelight her wide eyes seemed as dark as sloes. (*Wizard*, XVII 191)
819
820[This will be almost exactly the same description that Morcaine gets. Given Morcaine’s presence as the intended sacrifice in the ceremony of the Grotto of the Griffin, perhaps a similar “moment” is being re-enacted here.] Etela identifies the third woman as her mother, though she does not speak or move. Toug says he would like to take her to the castle, and the angle of her head seems to shift. Saying that he might find clothes or food for her, “One hand stirred as the feathers of a dead dove might stir in a draft, and Etela hurried over” (*Wizard*, XVII 192). Etela says that she can go with Toug, but that they must hurry. [Queen Gaynor will be associated with the cooing of a dove, but, in her case, it will be a living bird. Lynnet’s strange half-life also resonates with the presence of Huld’s body in the cabin in *The Knight*.]
821
822The master of the house, a misshapen giant, appears. Logi has three arms, and Toug attempts to flee, but the giant grabs him.
823
824>The Angrborn spoke. (Or might have believed he spoke.) All Toug heard was the voice of a beast, snarls that would have sent the biggest bear that ever walked into panicked flight. He shrieked, and could no more have repeated what he had said afterward – what he had promised Org or any Overcyn who would send Org – than he could have repeated what Logi had said to him. (*Wizard*, XVII 192)
825
826The form of Org actually appears at Toug’s call, and the ogre and Logi wrestle. Toug does not take the opportunity to flee, but instead takes Logi’s fallen dagger and stabs the giant in the eye, even as “all Logi’s hands circled Org’s neck” and “[Org’s] free hand [raked] Logi’s back and side so that blood and flesh rained down” (*Wizard*, XVII 193). [We have already mentioned Able’s stabbing of a dragon in the eye during his descent to meet the most low god, further cementing the cyclical nature of these events. Gylf supposedly came to see Toug and Etela here, but we see no evidence from Toug’s point of view that the dog was ever there, though Gylf will later claim to have bitten someone. Lynnet’s height also links her to Morcaine, who will ask Able later if he considers her a servant of the most low god.]
827
828The scene cuts back to Able, who knocks at the entrance where Toug was supposed to return. He is admitted. At Logi’s, Toug gives Org permission to feed off of Logi, though he stresses that the ogre must remain hidden and take the body elsewhere lest he be killed. Etela reveals that her mother told her to go to the castle and never return, to stay with her own kind. “Only if you said I had to go, don’t do it, hide ‘til you forgot. … She said don’t come back for her, she’s dead anyway. … Only Vil will take care of her, he always does, ‘n Gif and Alca will too” (*Wizard*, XVII 195). [Gif and Alca taking care of Lynnet even as she casts off Etela, the archetypal female child, suggests that A and G letters are both a type of guardian. In Jungian terms, the child archetype is engaged in the process of growing up with the help of illusion and eternal fiction – the child represents a potential and the symbol of a developing personality.] Etela also reveals that her mother constantly repeats the mantra, “manticores and marigolds.” As they return to Utgard Keep, Toug tells Etela that he is done being scared – death will simply mean the end, but he will not be afraid all of the time. He thinks of putting Etela with his sister, so that she could help take care of Mani. [Even though he thinks of Mani at a point where he resolves that death is nothing to be afraid of, Toug is thinking of letting Mani be someone else’s responsibility – he has moved beyond selfish fear.] When he mentions that Huld is a ghost taking care of Gilling, Etela says, “There was a ghost where Mama used to live. … Only he was real scary ‘n took care of the house but not people. Mama said he didn’t like anybody much ‘n there were a whole lot he hated” (*Wizard*, XVII 196). [This is a difficult allusion to pin down exactly, though Lynnet’s estate, Goldenlawn, will eventually appear in the book. The question is whether or not that scary and hateful ghost represents anyone we know. Vil and Lynnet will reclaim Goldenlawn much later. In our final reading, Able has died before his mother’s dream of him even begins, and he a mere ghostly memory, but he does not seem particularly hateful even at his most bullying.]
829
830When Able comes to the bedchamber of King Gilling, he compares it to the vastness of the Grotto of the Griffin and thinks that the sheets could be the mainsail of the *Western Trader* (*Wizard*, XVII 197). In Beel’s presence, Able speaks with the injured Gilling, who counts Able’s arrival as fortunate. Gilling forgives Able for killing his Borderers earlier. Toug arrives and reports on the mattocks and shovels which are being constructed for digging. The king thinks that the rebels intend to pile up earth and stones, saying: “So we carried Aegri’s isle” (*Wizard*, XVII 200). [This means sick man’s island. There is a sense in which excavating the depths of one twin will heal the other, but it is not clear if harm or healing is intended in Gilling’s allusion. One assumes that the sickness is conquered and assimilated.]
831
832They reconvene in other chambers to meet with Thiazi and Schildstarr to determine a clear course of action. Schildstarr insists on having four companions with him, and Thiazi demands that they leave. Beel says, “You think we can’t drive you out. You’re wrong. We can, and if necessary we will” (*Wizard*, XVIII 202). Able attempts to placate Schildstarr and Beel asks if Garvaon and Svon can attend. Toug is sent to fetch them. They discuss what to do about the tools, and the giants agree to help bring them back to the castle. Toug becomes concerned about what will happen to Logi’s slaves, hoping that the king will buy them. [These scenes resonate with the reapportioning of bodily resources so that they are not wasted and lost.]
833
834Able says that he must leave again, and Thiazi, acting as Gilling’s surrogate, makes Toug his sister Ulfa’s master. As Able prepares to go, he discusses what happened with Toug and Logi. Toug admits Org was fighting the smith, and then Gylf appears, saying, “I bit one.” (*Wizard*, XVIII 206). [While there are many places where Gylf has bitten enemies, there does not seem to be a clear bite in the encounter with Logi. That’s okay – these battle scenes all blur together in lots of important ways. The most memorable bite in the novel involves the struggle at the Tower of Glas, when Garsecg fatally bites Garvaon. That’s a lot of G for one scene if we factor Gylf in as well.] Cloud also joins Able. Toug notes that Able made the stable hands clean out the shameful stables and is remonstrated for failing to think of his own mount. Ulfa appears and Able tells her he is leaving. She asks where Toug is: “In the stable, seeing to his horse. Pretty soon it will hit him that he ought to see to Sir Svon’s. Maybe it already has. … You belong to him now. Do you feel you’ve got to have his permission to leave here?” (*Wizard*, XVIII 208) Able offers to take her somewhere she can be free, back to Glennidam. [From here on out, attention should be paid to the distribution of slaves and servants: sharing resources in an equitable fashion and clearing out the detritus and decay of the stables so that the “mount” can live is hugely important to the second half of *The Wizard*, and the transfer of servants from one master to the other might very well be a sign of one twin abandoning his nutrients and biological resources to the other. While Toug is here taking care of his own horse, it might soon come into his mind that he has a responsibility for Svon’s as well. Lynnet gave Etela to Toug and told her she must never come back. Toug thought of keeping Etela with Ulfa, and here Able takes Ulfa away from Utgard. The equivalence of Etela and Ulfa in these scenes is suggested, especially since Toug looked up at his sister and saw red lights (like lights from a forge) when he waved to her, collapsing those two disparate scenes together.]
835
836Svon says that he wants to ride with Sir Able, but he is told, “You can’t ride where we ride” (*Wizard*, XVIII 209). Mounted on Cloud with Ulfa, Able feels that he stands upon an invisible tower, “but a real tower just the same” (*Wizard*, XVIII 209). He ascends: “I touched Cloud’s flanks, and pictured myself (and Ulfa, too) on Cloud’s back as she galloped across the sky. And at once it came to be, and the pennant on my lance, the green pennant the old captain’s wife had sewn from scraps, snapped in the cold wind of Cloud’s passage” (*Wizard*, XVIII 209).
837
838As Toug watches Ulfa leave, he waves. (Do other people get a sense of déjà vu reading this book?) “In his boyhood, Ulfa had held authority. He had protested that authority often and loudly, and acknowledged it only when he might have something to gain. As he had grown older and stronger they had come to blows. Now he might never see her again; the past reclaimed in her face and voice was gone once more” (*Wizard*, XVIII 209).
839
840As they watch Able leave, his vanishing form is described as swans dwindling “when ice closes the marshes … seen only as specs of white against Skai, specs that wane and fade and are seen to be very small indeed,” and a high keening fills the courtyard, “coming from everywhere and nowhere, a sound more lonely and less human than that of a dog howling on its master’s grave” (*Wizard*, XVIII 209-10).
841
842Toug identifies the sound as Org, but when Garvaon asks who that might be, Toug says, “Org isn’t anybody. … I just meant Pouk was hurting my arm” (*Wizard*, XVIII 210). [We should note that an arm injury, too, seems to be a recurring image – Able often wrenches the arms of his foes, and if the three-armed figure of Logi is indeed synonymous with the slow reclamation of one of the twins into the other, it could be that the first thing lost is the function and autonomy of an arm. Toug and Vil also have their arms incapacitated soon. The keening at the loss of Ulfa, taken away to Glennidam, might also illustrate the despair that the loss of Idnn foreshadows for Gilling and Garvaon.]
843
844When Garvaon insists that everyone saw exactly what he did, Svon quotes, “With a lance of prayer and a horse of air … summoned I am to tourney, ten thousand leagues beyond the moon. Methinks it is no journey” (*Wizard*, XVIII 210). Garvaon says that the knight in that poem is crazy, and Svon suggests that they will all be insane if they discuss the matter further. When Toug returns to his bed, he finds that Sword Breaker has been returned to it, next to Etela, who is sleeping there. [Andre-Driussi claims that this poetry is from the anonymous poem “Tom O’Bedlam,” in which Tom imagines himself a knight questing for his love Maudlin. The most pertinent alterations to the poem’s lines involve changing a “burning spear” to a “lance of prayer” and “Ten leagues beyond the wild world’s end” to “Ten thousand leagues beyond the moon” (93). The moon has additional fertility connotations in *The Wizard Knight*. Etela’s presence probably should be considered as a kind of growth for Toug – unless he has been stagnating in a kind of puerile stage; his acceptance of the possibility of death without fear seems a very important developmental step.]
845
846Able takes Ulfa to Glennidam and experiences the encounter with Disiri which began this section, hearing the wind in the chimney and only finding his ideal when he relinquishes his pursuit. Gylf comes to Able afterwards and they travel to the camp in Jotunland, where Uns says he has been keeping Able’s fire going. In his discussion with Uns, Able reveals that Disiri has been watching him, just as Baki and Uri have been, and also as humans watch the Overcyns. When Uns denies ever seeing the gods of Skai, Able says, “[T]hose who look see them. We see what we want to see” (*Wizard*, XVIII 216). He asks that Uns take care of Cloud and unstring his bow for him, putting it in his hand as he sleeps. Soon, we learn that Mani has smuggled himself into Able’s right hand saddlebag. He extricates himself and goes to report to Idnn. She is incredulous that Able might go to Utgard and return in one night. [She doesn’t even know about his trip to Glennidam far to the south as well.] As Idnn and Mani talk, Gerda stirs. Mani insists that Able was unaware of his presence and suggests keeping it discrete. The cat also says that the king is only eating soup (which echoes the meaty bone set aside for soup by Ulfa’s father in Glennidam, which wound up feeding Gylf rather than the slaughtered pigs which he coveted.) Mani indicates that Beel believes Able must become Gilling’s vassal to secure Idnn’s crown, and that he is also planning the death of Toug. “At these words Uns, who had been listening outside the pavilion for the past minute or two, edged a little closer” (*Wizard*, XIX 220). [Whether Beel has any such intentions for the surface plot, it is certainly related to Toug’s own burgeoning sense that Gilling must die.]
847
848At Utgard, Svon wakes Toug to speak with Beel. (Of course, they discuss food and warmth first. A man’s got needs, eh?) Schildstarr offers to carry Svon and Toug on the steps, but they decline. Beel instructs them to go into the town alone, with gold to purchase food (Beel admits they have been hiding in the keep, but that food is running out) and to sequester the slaves of Logi in the king’s name. Thiazi adds, “Or kill them if you cannot” (*Wizard*, XIX 224). [While this seems to be a bit ruthless, in the biological metaphor of assimilation it makes a bit of sense. Those who are not for the body are surely against it.] Toug asks a boon if he is to go out in daylight, and Svon says, “I must speak to you privately” (*Wizard*, XIX 224). Toug requests freedom for the slaves who come to help the king. Thiazi says the law forbids it but offers to divide the slaves between Svon and Toug, though Svon will have first choice. If they return to Celidon, the slaves will be freed.
849
850The scene cuts to Able awakening from a dream, with Uns nearby saying, “I got sumpin’ I gotta tell ya, sar” (*Wizard*, XIX 225). [This is of course quite the same sentiment that Svon just shared with Toug, probably meant to relate the same event.] Able says he did not dream in Skai, and tells Uns about his Valkyrie Alvit, a princess who died a virgin, “facing death with dauntless courage” (*Wizard*, XIX 225). Able says that his bowstring is spun of “severed lives …. Of lives that are ended, and I think lives cut short. … Maybe only because a woman cut them with her teeth for me. She may have ended the lives by that act. I can’t remember her name. … She will remind me of it eventually, I feel sure” (*Wizard*, XIX 225). Just as when he draws Eterne and the knights who held her unworthily appear, when Able knocks an arrow he hears voices in the bowstring. Uns and Able are interrupted by Mani, who says he addressed Idnn first because Able had given him to her. When Able asks if Beel is trying to have Toug killed or to kill him himself, Mani says, “He is not” (*Wizard*, XIX 227). [Here, it seems that Mani is relating what Uns needed to tell Able.] However, Beel *has* been thrusting Toug into positions of danger. Mani reveals that his first mistress told Thiazi that Gilling would keep the crown if Able was in his service. (What this has to do with eliminating Toug is not obvious on a plot level – though Toug has sworn to kill Gilling.) Mani says that Huld no longer confides in him as she used to, “When one is dead…” (*Wizard*, XIX 227). He believes Huld prophesied in that manner so that Gilling would do Able no harm. Able says that there is one voice in his bowstring that cries out to him over and over. “I tried not to hear it. … Now I have been listening, for that one especially. I hear it now, and I can make out a few words, and sobbing” (*Wizard*, XIX 228). [If this is a string made up of the voices of those whose lives are cut short, then that sobbing voice might be another part of Able’s psyche. The other alternatives are of course the mourning mother and the suffering brother, though the sacrifice at the end and Able’s surrender in order to find Disiri surely suggest that his is the life cut short.]
851
852Mani tells Able of the Room of Lost Love. When Able asks if Mani has lost love, the cat vanishes into the night. [When Baki is confronted with Able’s helm of seeing for the first time, she vanishes as well.] To Uns, Able says, “I don’t want [Toug] killed or maimed any more than you do.” However, when Uns asks if Able will act to prevent it, he says that he will not. “‘She may stop it. Or not. Surely she’ll try. As for me … […] Toug wants to be a knight.’ The song of the string had begun, and although Gylf laid a gentle paw upon my hand, I said no more” (*Wizard*, IX 228). [There seems to be several *non sequiturs* in this string of dialogue. How Idnn might prevent Toug’s killing or maiming is not entirely clear, nor is Beel’s motivation for wanting Toug dead. At the very least this is confusing on the plot level, especially considering that Able has decided not to take part in it. However, the battle in which Toug and Able abstain from fighting Garsecg might help contextualize some of the confusion in this scene. It seems that in order to be a knight, one must be willing to make extreme sacrifices; Able will not interfere with any sacrifice Toug must make.]
853
854The text cuts to Svon and Toug. Svon relates the ruination of his reputation through the death of Ravd. Svon tells Toug to bring both the smith’s dagger and the mace he has. During their talk, the young knight finally says that he is proud of Toug, and as Svon walks away, Toug sees another knight decorated by a golden lion watching him, whom Svon does not see. He wistfully wishes that Mani were there. [This is Ravd’s apparition. Toug’s sudden yearning for Mani is also difficult to understand, unless Svon’s pride in Toug is motivated by a sudden willingness to become even more self-sacrificing.]
855
856Idnn has a dream of sitting with Svon and kissing him, awakening to a hot sensation. Uri appears and says she brought the queen that dream. The Fire Aelf also claims that she sent a dream of the Isle of Glas to Sir Able. To reach the Isle, he must remain in Mythgarthr. She reveals that she hopes to have him enter Gilling’s service (this would prevent him from fighting Garsecg – here, her goal aligns with Beel’s). Uri says that she has come to reveal the name of the person who wounded Gilling, and as she begins, Idnn’s attention is drawn to the door of her pavilion: “[I]t stood open, though it ought to have been tied firmly with five golden cords – a discrepancy which at the time failed to disturb her” (*Wizard*, XX 234). She sees the Valfather through it, bearing a staff and wearing a wide hat. He tells her to open her eyes and look upon him, and she says that his voice is the wind. He blesses her, tapping her shoulders with his staff. He enjoins Idnn to help his friend, calling Able Drakoritter, in seeking for his love. Idnn finds herself standing alone in the pavilion, with Gerda sleeping at the foot of the bed. As she calls for Gerda to get up, the wind extinguishes the candle in the pavilion, which had reminded her an instant ago of Uri. [The wind blowing out the candle would seem to symbolize that the Valfather erases Uri’s intentions. While she might seem the more treacherous of the two Aelf at times, thanks to the split between brothers, Uri might be the one most associated with the autonomy of Able. Gilling will die rushing out to meet his love, just as Able will surrender in order to find Disiri at Glennidam. As odd as it sounds, if Gilling and Garsecg had survived, there is every likelihood that Able would have continued to fight his destiny with an iron and uncompromising fist – Gilling’s smashing of Crol directly echoes Able’s conflict with the captain and Caspar. The death of Gilling and Garsecg signify a change in Able. Here, Idnn’s glance into the Valfather’s one eye resonates with hope, though it also makes the implied loss of the other eye quite clear. What happened to that lost eye? Later, Able will have a very different feeling staring into the two dark eyes of Morcaine.]
857
858The scene shifts back to Able. As he prepares to ride, he asks Mani about the Room of Lost Love.
859
860>“Lost love’s got to go somewhere. … People act as if lost things vanish. I used to have a house I liked …. I left – my mistress made me – and now I hardly think of it. But it’s still there. … It hasn’t gone away … unless it’s burned. I’m the one who’s gone away. … Now suppose you stopped [loving Bold Berthold.] You’d feel a sort of emptiness, wouldn’t you? … That would be the space the love used to fill. It’s like losing a tooth. If a tooth comes out, you throw it away. Very likely you never see it again. But it’s still somewhere. A peasant digging might turn it up, or a jackdaw might put it in his nest. … Love is the same, and love tends to go where it is most needed. … So lost love comes to Jotunland, where no love is, or at least very little – some poor slave whose cat is her only friend. Anyway this is one of the places where it comes. … It’s stored in the Room of Lost Love in Utgard. … Those who’ve lost love can go in there and find their lost love again, sometimes.” (*Wizard*, XX 239)
861
862[This room is central to our argument – the entire narrative operates as a letter from the Room of Lost Love.] Back in Utgard, outside the keep, Svon and Toug are challenged by a giant, and Svon simply gallops right on past. Toug distracts his foe and wounds the giants in the rib as he passes, before coming alone to the slave auction at the forge. Svon reappears and asks if Org assisted Toug, saying that he returned to find his squire gone. Soon enough, Svon begins taking umbrage out of shame: “This is offensive, and should you challenge me when you’re a knight, your challenge will be accepted” (*Wizard*, XX 241). [The reason that Svon disappears from this scene is that he and Toug might be fighting each other here – readers are about to see the flip side of this when Svon engages a giant without Toug. Svon and Toug were together, until one was left to fight alone.] Baki appears, leading Lynnet. Toug is surprised at her height. Svon declares that the slaves are freed by order of the king and wants them to join him at the market to buy food. He declares they should be loyal and obedient to their new master. Lynnet is seated behind Toug on his horse. In the market, Etela appears out of nowhere and grabs Toug’s hand. They attract the ire of an Angrborn, and Svon attacks it with his sword. Etela’s mother mounts a wagon with her daughter and whips at another giant’s face, and the market explodes in chaos. Lynnet’s war cry is “Marigolds and manticores!” (*Wizard*, XX 244) [A manticore would typically have the head of a human, body of a lion, and tale of a scorpion. It was reputed to devour its prey whole. The griffin has the head and wings of an eagle and the body and back legs of a lion. These composite beasts occupy a prominent place in the text. Lynnet seems far more significant than her surface story indicates, given that this phantasmagorical attack on the eyes of the giants is serpentine in nature. The blinding of slaves is something that the giants do to male humans, but here Lynnet reverses that. Our thesis proposes that no one in the text can see clearly, but there is also a parallel between the destruction of an eye and the sacrifice that one of the twins must make that becomes gradually more aparrent.]
863
864The description of Lynnet’s attack is also disconcerting: “A shrieking demon drove the wagon with a curling, cracking viper that struck and struck until it roused the bullocks to its own frenzy and they charged head down and bellowing, threatening to overrun Svon, then rushing past him” (*Wizard*, XX 244). [The similarity of this description to the form Uri and Baki take when they attempt to strangle Org is striking. In Able’s final discussion with Mag-in-Lynnet at the end of the novel, she will tell Bold about her husband wrestling a bull and finally pinning it – something she made him promise never to do again.] They head to the castle, but the wagon loses a wheel even as Garvaon and his men emerge from the keep to provide support. Toug’s stallion falls, and his own arm is rendered useless, though he fights on. From the battlements, the “real” Idnn (mounted on a gray horse with Able) decrees that Schildstarr must restore order: “He who strikes Schildstarr strikes us, and he who strikes us strikes the king!” (*Wizard*, XX 245) In the bailey, they see the body of a giant lying dead, and Svon identifies it in awe as King Gilling.
865
866Afterwards, Able bandages Toug’s broken arm. He also notes that Lynnet’s eyes contain moonlight, and wonders what they might be like when the moon is full. Toug says that Able must stay there with them, even if Baki wants him to go to Aelfrice to fight Garsecg. Mani insists that he will do what he can to protect Idnn, and that the slaves would be treated as loot, not killed as foes, if a giant rebellion succeeded in overthrowing the queen. Able says, “So you see, Toug, Gylf, and I are the only ones present who’re in real danger, and only Gylf and I are in much” (*Wizard*, XXI 248). [This probably aligns with the conclusion of the book as well.] Thiazi enters, for they have been unknowingly using one of his private chambers. Able introduces everyone, ending with, “And this woman is [Etela’s] mother. I think I know her name, but it would be better if she were to introduce herself” (*Wizard*, XXI 249). [How Able might now Lynnet’s name is never given a satisfactory explanation, unless he recognizes her by a different name and identity.]
867
868Thiazi cannot discern who killed Gilling. Soon, a quarrel almost starts between the giants and the humans over who has rightful dominion over Mythgarthr, but Able asks if it might be set aside for a while. He relates how the giants who would install a new king attacked a force consisting only of Svon, Toug, and seven slaves (three of them women and one a child). Those slaves have already been divided between Svon and Toug, with Thiazi acting in Toug’s interests. There were only six remaining (one perished in the fighting). “Another has an injured arm” (*Wizard*, XXI 251). Toug gets Etela, Lynet, and Vil (whose arm injury echoes Toug’s.) Able asks Lynnet’s name, and while Etela answers, her mother only repeats, “marigolds and manticores.” Thiazi says that marigolds symbolize “wealth or the sun” (*Wizard*, XXI 252). [It is probably worth noting once again that the personification of the sun in Norse myth is female, Sol, sister to the male moon, Mani. This might cement Lynnet’s association with Huld even further. In myth, Mani’s fate is to be devoured by a wolf chasing the heavenly bodies at Ragnarok. The warg Skoll chases the sun, while Hati chases the moon. Hati will not only swallow the moon but gorge upon the dead (Sturluson).] If Able will answer his own questions, Thiazi agrees to attempt to heal Lynnet.
869
870His first question involves who stabbed Gilling. Hypothetically, Able says for him to imagine that it was a foreign knight named Able, and how the rumors and accusations would spread unfairly. He then uses the example of Orgalmir and Borgalmir to prove how absurd all of his guesses might be. Able also tells Etela that her mother was taken from her home and used in ways she might not be able to understand, and the shock disordered her mind. He thinks returning her to Celidon will restore her gradually. [The group he includes here to be returned to Celidon is comprised of Lynnet, Etela, Toug, Gylf, Mani, Vil, and himself – seven. If one were forced to map the archetypes onto this group, one would venture that this included the old wise woman or her chthonic witch form, the young female child, the young man, the loyal dog, the devious cat, the trickster smith, and the persona of the idealized hero.]
871
872Thiazi asks if Beel was sent to assassinate Gilling, to which Able answers no. He also says that Arnthor would not benefit at all from Gilling’s death, since Gilling’s cut from raids actually discourages wholesale incursions into Celidon. Thiazi asks if Able would approve of Lord Beel if Arnthor appointed him to ensure the death of Gilling. Able says, “When failure is preferable to success, the course of true wisdom is to choose the man most apt to fail” (*Wizard*, XXI 254).
873
874Thiazi says that an invisible creature has been seen in the keep and that invisibility is never total. “Invisible entities sometimes cast shadows, more or less distinct, by which their presence may be detected” (*Wizard*, XXI 255). [That is what this overlong essay is attempting to unearth, though Wolfe would have us believe that Thiazi is only talking about Org here.] Thiazi admits that this figure seems to “fracture the cervical vertebrae” in its attacks, and that Gilling’s injuries would be out of character for it (*Wizard*, XXI 256). Able manages to bring up the fact that he has always felt an emptiness inside him. He asks Thiazi about the room whose door reads, “Here Abides Lost Love,” wondering if he can go in as a favor (*Wizard*, XXI 257).
875
876Thiazi says, “‘You will have to come out again.’ Every word seemed weighted with double significance” (*Wizard*, XXI 257). Thiazi says that Able may enter, but that he must take Lynnet inside with him. Able notes that she seems to be sleepwalking and Thiazi says that “A terrible rage burns in her” (*Wizard*, XXI 257). [This “sleepwalking” and Lynnet’s rage might equate her in some ways with the sleeping mother we propose as the ultimate setting for this tragedy.]
877
878Able responds, “I’m still a kid – a boy still – in a lot of things” (*Wizard*, XXI 257). [Even though he lived something like twenty years in Skai, he’s still pulling this old excuse out of his helm. Let’s see what our thesis says … hey, he really is still a boy, and always will be.] Toug relates that Lynnet was blinding giants with her whip, and Thiazi suggests that Able avoids looking in her eyes. He also says, “Angr was our mother’s name, Sir Able. We are descended from her, all of us. Thus we know something of anger. I tell you that this woman must control hers or destroy everything in her path. She seems a woman of wax to you? … You will have seen a candle stub thrown into a fire. Remember it” (*Wizard*, XXI 258).
879
880Without further fanfare, they proceed into the Room of Lost Love, and Able thinks that they might even step through the door without opening it. [In a way, everything Able has been narrating is inside that Room already – no need for a door.] The instant he is inside, Able perceives:
881
882> Night blacker than the blackest night of storm enveloped us. I heard the rush of waters, as I had when I had breasted tides and dark, uncharted currents with Garsecg. There was a great pounding, swift and very deep. I tried to imagine what sort of creature might make such a noise, and the image that leaped into my mind was that of Org, green as leaves and brown as bark, alone in a forest clearing and pounding the trunk of a hollow tree with a broken limb” (*Wizard*, XXII 259).
883
884[Immediately back to the seminal imagery, but this time Org is given a role of possible rage and loneliness – is the broken limb a part of a tree as it first seems or one of Org’s own limbs?]
885
886Lynnet claims that the pounding they hear is the beating of her heart. “As soon as she spoke, … I knew she was right and wrong, that it was my own heart, not hers” (*Wizard*, XXII 259). [This is close as we are going to get to the outright admission that Lynnet is in a way Able’s anima, and though she will come to represent the lost mother and become less angry and destructive, her transformation is ultimately because of Able’s increasing incorporation of these archetypes into his own personality.] The darkness parts in pearly mist, and Able sees grass. Lynnet recognizes it as her home, Goldenlawn. Able thinks, “[I]t was a place very easy to love, and made me think, all the while that I was there, of the Lady’s hall in Skai. The Lady’s Folkvanger stands to it as a blossoming tree to a single violet, but they breathed the same air” (*Wizard*, XXII 260). Lynnet introduces Able to her family, her sister Leesha who died in childbirth, her father Lord Leifr who was slain by Frost Giants, and her mother Lady Lis. She takes him to her mother’s grotto. “It made me think of the cave in which I had lain on moss with Disiri, but I said nothing of that” (*Wizard*, XXII 260). Lynnet fears it, as she was not allowed inside it when she was young. Able finds a rough tunnel there, and, proceeding alone, finds Mani. Able says, “Some of these people are dead, and it doesn’t seem to make any difference” (*Wizard*, XXII 261). Able smells the sea with Mani in his arms, and he is not certain if the grotto he approaches represents going forward or back the way he came. Mani calls out that there is a woman there, and Able comes across Parka. She tells him that he must put the string away from him when he sleeps. She points beyond the breakers. Able must leave behind his mail and sword to reach it. [This is much the same disrobing that occurred when he entered the Grotto of the Griffin (note that Lynnet claims that this grotto belonged to her mother at Able’s first approach). Able will also cast his armor aside when he swims to the Tower of Glas in what becomes the final confrontation with Setr.] Able eventually comes to understand that only lost loves can be found here; he then arrives at the Isle of Glas. [I pre-empted your déjà vu.] A peasant woman there says that he is her son, and that Berthold and he suckled at her breasts. She extends a tube of green glass to him, telling him to read it; its language is that of the country of the heart. “You will wonder, Ben, as I wondered, whether she was not our mother as well as Berthold’s and his brother’s. I think that she was both” (*Wizard*, XXII 263). [These kinds of statements produce elaborate theories about the conduit between Earth and Mythgarthr, but we are obviously arguing for a more archetypal union – this is a mother whom Able will never know in the waking world, but in order to grow he must come to embrace and understand the very idea of maternal affection.]
887
888Her letter describes her life with Berthold the Black. Their village was ensorcelled by the Aelf: “Our cows birthed fawns. Our gardens died in a night. Mist hid us always, and Griffinsford was accursed” (*Wizard*, XXII 263). Because of the resonance with larger patterns in the text, it is worth looking at her story. A demon came in disguise as an old man when Mag was pregnant with Able and said that the Overcyns would not help – the people of Griffinsford must worship the Aelf. Mag says, “Snari fed him. Berthold said we would not, that we must offer to our right Overcyns. He built an altar of stones and turf, with none but our little son to help. On it he offered our cow, and sang to the Overcyns of Skai, and Cli and Wer with him” (*Wizard*, XXII 264). [Cows can be symbols of fertility and abundance. Here, Cli, Wer, and Berthold opposed Snari and Garsecg ideologically by offering proper worship.] A two-headed turtle emerged from the river and bit Deif and Grumma, and the old man demanded seven wives for the gods of Aelfrice. He even claimed that Mag could never give birth without the permission of the gods of Aelfrice. “I begged the Lady of Skai to take my life if only she would spare my child. I was able to bear him, and I named him Able because of it” (*Wizard*, XXII 264). The old man insisted that Grengarm wanted seven virgins, and if he did not get them, he would take other women or children, whom he would eat. The demon said he could hide Mag from Grengarm, so she mounted his back, and he took her to the Isle of Glas, where she eventually lured seamen to feed Setr and the Khimairae. After some years, she resolved to poison herself.
889
890[This entire scene equates the coming of Garsecg with Mag’s pregnancy. There’s even a two-headed turtle in it. Mag confuses Setr and Grengarm, and this is probably a meaningful confusion. We finally learn the surface reason for Able’s name, and his final denial of the name Able will ring much more powerfully when we consider what he is actually denying: he will never be able to be born.]
891
892Able asks if he might take the scroll, but she says that nothing he takes from the Room of Lost Love will remain with him. She says the letter is still on the Isle of Glas in the green tube, and when he reaches his fingers into it, his entire arm enters the tube. He finds himself running down a green tunnel, and Eterne is slapping at his leg. [When he surrendered and found Disiri at last, he had to keep his hand on Eterne to keep it from slapping at his leg, drawing a parallel between leaving the Room of Lost Love and finding Disiri again. In this scene, the running Able actually seems to take the place of the letter, and that green glass leads him back into Mythgarthr. Able actually becomes the letter metaphorically.] When he comes to a pale door, Mani and Lynnet are following him. Etela hints that very little time has passed in Mythgarthr. Able tells Toug that he found a mother he had forgotten, and that he plans to inter her bones and raise a monument. Lynnet says that she saw dead women and men who had fallen when the giants came to Goldenlawn, and that she danced the May Dance and cut flowers.
893
894Pouk arrives to tell them that Schildstarr has declared himself king. Toug and Gylf guard Utgard during Schildstarr’s procession. Later, Able notes, “A dark and silent figure waited outside the chamber Thiazi had assigned me” (*Wizard*, XXII 267). The figure, Lynnet, vows to return south with him and tells him there are two girls, a cat, and a man in the room, and Able assumes they will be Etela, a slave girl, Mani, and Toug or Garvaon, though when he enters he finds Uri and Vil instead. [This mutability of character is of course at work in the text, and Wolfe calls attention to it by playing small games like this one. Vil’s arm is supported by a sling, tying him directly to Toug as well.] Etela says that Toug no longer wants to be a knight. Able insists that a knight makes himself but cannot unmake himself. Uri says that if he should kill Kulili, the Fire Aelf would even help him attain King Arnthor’s crown. When Able suggests that he might wind up dead with that kind of ambition, Uri says, “You are dead! … You know that and so do I” (*Wizard*, XXII 271). Able wonders why Etela fears Vil, and the smith says that he is a conjurer. [This scene links Vil to the trickster figure – and the ultimate trickster in *The Wizard Knight*, if we discount Gene Wolfe, is Lothur, who should probably inspire some wariness. Pouk and Mani also share some features of the trickster.]
895
896Vil borrows a gold coin for his trick. He describes how he fought the giants, getting a hold of one’s leg and throwing it before another kicked him. [Able seems to react to this information for some reason, probably hearkening back to his fight with Org.] Uri returns with a gold coin, and Vil says that she must be his eyes. Vil touches Able’s ears, pulling a brass cup from it. Able demands the gold coin back, and Vil maintains that he would not lie to him. He displays his empty hands, and after some distraction produces a brass farthing. Able threatens to cut him open to see if the gold coin is inside him, and Vil says he hid it under Mani. Vil reveals that during his normal trick he would say it was far away, so that it would give him time to escape with the coin. [Whether serious or not, Able quickly resorts to threats in order to get the gold coin back. Its final position under Mani is interesting.] Uri insists that Able comes to Aelfrice to fight Kulili for her. Mani asks if Able can defeat Garsecg, and he boasts that he killed Grengarm. Mani says, “And he killed you, dear owner” (*Wizard*, XXII 276).
897
898Vil wonders how he is going to eat in the south. He asks how far he might get without eyes. Mani says, “You told us you could hide. I do that at times myself” (*Wizard*, XXII 277). Vil reveals the structure of the slave household at Logi’s, with three couples and a child: “Gif for Rowd, you know, and Alca for Sceef. So Lynnet for me, it was supposed to be. Only she wasn’t right” (*Wizard*, XXII 277). Vil promises to work hard, but Mani snidely suggests that he will “Work hard and steal.” (*Wizard*, XXII 278). As Vil leaves, he stares at Able with eyes of bright blue. After he is gone, Mani voices his regrets for entering the Room of Lost Loves: “Once I was a free spirit. Once I was a normal cat, not troubled by lies. … The first is the finest of existences, the second the finest of lives. I have lost both” (*Wizard*, XXII 279). [With Able’s increasing acceptance of the mother figure, it seems that he has less need of the stealthy and hidden tutelary spirit. The gradual disappearance of Mani from the text is synonymous with a turn to selflessness in Able, but here Mani laments death, wondering what will happen to him, for Able, too, assures him that he is not purely a being of spirit, but a mortal cat as well. The moon will be eclipsed by a storm summoned by Able in the pivotal scene in which he returns to Redhall; during that scene we should keep in mind that Mani is the moon in Norse mythology.]
899
900Meanwhile, Idnn begs Schildstarr’s permission to leave and he acquiesces, providing gifts for Arnthor. Idnn’s party leaves Utgard even as Marder approaches it. The Duke vows to eat there for his next meal. Hela tells them that the large stones they see on the path to the keep are giants in disguise. They have been positioned to ambush Idnn and her party, but the presence of Marder’s group springs the trap too soon, allowing Able and those with Idnn leaving the castle to catch the giants from behind.
901
902In the battle, Able tries “to sweep the heads of Orgalmir and Borgalmir from their necks with a single blow, I failed, and that giant who had been two-headed fought on with one, though blood spurted from the severed neck as though to dye Mythgarthr” (*Wizard*, XXIII 282). Able also says, “I have been writing too much about myself. Let me write about others” (*Wizard*, XXIII 282). [I argue, of course, that Able truly has been writing about himself, especially with all the talk of two-headed turtles and in sweeping off one of those twinned heads.]
903
904Beel fights, and Able says:
905
906>[W]e who thought him dead found him under the corpse of Thrym, and gloried, laughed, and shouted to see him blink and gasp for air.
907
908>Toug, who had sworn never to fight again, fought and fell, and would I think have died that day were it not for Gylf – bigger than any lion, and more fierce – who stood over him until Wistan dragged him to safety. (*Wizard*, XXIII 283)
909
910After the ambush is thwarted, Able is resting. He is awoken by Beel’s servant Swert, to visit his wounded master. Able is concerned that Swert has not eaten, and they both share food offered to them by Uns. [Finally, after establishing a positive and nurturing relationship with a genuine mother figure in Mag, the sharing of bread begins in earnest. This does not, however, imply that there are unlimited supplies.] Idnn wonders why Schildstarr wanted to kill her father and his knights, but Able thinks that the ambush was actually intended for Idnn, in order to reclaim the presents Schildstarr was sending to Arnthor. He says that even the giants will honor hospitality, relating a story of being lodged and entertained at a castle after fighting some giants only to discover that the castle was in fact that of their attackers. He and his companions left in stealth to circumvent a second attack. [No doubt this is a tale from his time in Skai. It also illustrates the difference between internal and external defenses, which explicate some of the biological issues at stake over the course of the novels.]
911
912In considering the assets that he has, Able says that he values his bowstring and his other great possessions: “the queen of seven worlds’ swords as well, and the best of all dogs” (*Wizard*, XXIII 287). For his services, Marder grants Redhall to Able, and promises to do more later. When Able leaves their council, he says that he “left abruptly enough to see a tall figure steal off into the shadows” (*Wizard*, XXIII 288). [As far as the surface text, Hela, Heimir, Woddett, and Lynnet are all noted for their height, and are also all “present” during these scenes.]
913
914Able notes that the plains of Jotunland are strange, producing intermittent phantoms and odd noises. On the plains, Hela finds a piece of earthenware pot that was once beautiful. It has lost a segment, and Heimir notes that the pot reminds him of Idnn. Hela asks if Woddet likes Idnn, which turns the conversation to Svon. Woddet says, “[Svon]’s someone I’ve wronged Hela. Or I think he is.” Able agrees: “So do I” (*Wizard*, XXIII 289). Woddet continues, “[A] man’s honor is sacred, even if he’s not a knight. You believe the best, until you see for yourself it’s not right” (*Wizard*, XXIII 289). Woddet believed the stories surrounding Svon and his ignoble behavior. Able notes, “I ought to have realized that Hela was planning to do Idnn and Svon some favor, and that her favor would prove no small thing” (*Wizard*, XXIII 289). [She will go to gain the support of the Daughters of Angr, the women of Jotunhome, for Queen Idnn, to become an important part of her army.]
915
916Able notes how warm the day is, and the cohort opts to fight pursuers following them from Utgard. The heat has been affecting Hela, and Able considers:
917
918>Old Night, the darkness beyond the sun, is the realm of the Giants of Winter and Old Night, and it is ever winter there, as their name implies. Winter, and ill lit – for them, the sun is but another star, though brighter than most. Thus huge eyes, which like the eyes of owls let them see in darkness; and huge bodies, too, hairy and thick-skinned to guard against the cold. (*Wizard*, XXIV 291)
919
920Able says that they should slow down – if the Angrborn catch them with their horses exhausted, “They’ll slaughter us like rabbits” (*Wizard*, XXIV 291). They camp, and Idnn invites them to eat with her. Able brings her “half of one of the twice-baked loaves Svon had secured for us before war broke out in the marketplace” (*Wizard*, XXIV 293). Able describes the giantesses of the Giants of Winter and Old Night, including Skathi, upon whose belly they feast, and Angrboda, whose womb lasts for a millennium. He tells her that Modgud, who guarded the Bridge of Swords, opposed neither he nor his Overcyn allies leaving or coming in. He describes her: “Modgud’s face is that of death. It’s naked bone, save for a maiden’s eyes” (*Wizard*, XXIV 295). [Thiazi warned him not to look into Lynnet’s eyes. Whether this links her at all to Modgud, she is certainly somehow associated with the living dead.] Idnn thinks that Able is anxious to leave, and wonders where the Angrborn women are. Hela had assured Idnn that she would bring some more of her subjects there. Oddly, Idnn says that the giant women are only visible early in the morning or right before moonrise, and that the scariest part of Utgard for her involved a very particular type of Angrborn: “The ones with two heads or four arms. We don’t know why, they were no worse than the others, but they did.” From this, she asks, “Who killed our husband, Sir Able?” (*Wizard*, XXIV 296) She thinks it was one of those monsters: “There was one with a lot of legs. Did you see him? Like a spider. A big eye and two small ones” (*Wizard*, XXIV 296). [Hopefully, readers of this essay will recognize the true reason that the giants with two heads and four arms disturb Idnn so. The invisible echo of Able and Bold’s ultimate fate, merged into one being before one of them is entirely absorbed into the other, costing one of the twins his life, lurks powerfully in the subconscious and even threatens Idnn, whose association with continued life and prosperity is unmistakable. The Valfather will display a single eye that shines like the sun, while Morcaine and others will have two small dark eyes that seem to contain only night.]
921
922Able says that the Angrborn were cast out of Skai because they were inferior in some way. Idnn convinces him to take her on his reconnaissance north. There seems to be no sign of the pursuers as they soar on Cloud, but Gylf scents something. Idnn says that Able must not ambush their pursuers, for her female subjects are coming, and there is a sacred trust involved: “If they are ours, we are theirs, and we must trust them” (*Wizard*, XXIV 301). [Borda, one of these female giants, is instrumental in getting Able’s special helm to him, the one which allows him to see Ben when he looks at Bold. If anyone can explain the appearance of Ben in Bold’s place in a way which does not involve a Gnostic and Jungian dreamscape, I certainly welcome the enlightenment.]
923
924Later, Vil reveals that he knows about Hela’s errand to fetch the women of the north; he also insists that he has not been listening in, being too busy setting up for Toug. “He’s mendin’ like I said, only he’s shamed, Master, to talk to you. He want’s [*sic*] to come ‘round, only he’s that shamed. He won’t hardly talk to Sir Svon, even” (*Wizard*, XXV 303). Able says, “If he won’t come to us … we’ve got to go to him” (*Wizard*, XXV 303). Able notes that Gylf does not seem to trust Vil, who denies stealing anything from Able. [We should at this point repeat that Vil is a manifestation not only of the smith but of the trickster figure, even more so than Mani is. As the benevolent figure of Mani begins to wane, Vil becomes more prominent, until the trickster eventually manifests as Lothur in the final cycles of Able’s conception. Vil and Etela are the ones who finally kill Setr.]
925
926Svon comes to speak privately with Able and denies that Able could possibly be the boy who threw his sword away at Ravd’s camp so long ago. When Svon’s leg heals, within the month, he intends to challenge Sir Able, but he hopes that they can engage as friends. When the discussion turns to Idnn, Able asks, “Would you like me to lose? To yield to you? After a considerable struggle, of course” (*Wizard*, XXV 305). [Finally, we can see true progress in these unfortunate conflicts between allies. Able offers to lose, and Svon is more concerned with honor than anger.] Able says that Svon has already proven himself, and Svon informs him that Toug despairs, though Etela is helping him slightly. Svon also reveals that Marder was interested in who he had pledged allegiance to, if Able had knighted him. He has given it to Lord Beel. Able orders him to send Toug to talk to him. Svon responds:
927
928>”Thank you. Thank you for everything. You taught me more than you realize.” He turned again, and was lost in the fog after a step or two. When I could no longer see him, I heard him say, “We’ll engage when we get home. You agreed. Perhaps she’ll accept me after that.” From the sound of his voice, he was still quite near. (*Wizard*, XXV 306)
929
930Mani then comes to Able, asking if he will truly be free when the cat dies, so that he will simply be an elemental once more. Able says, “No, you won’t. … The elemental will be free, no longer having any share in life. You’re not the elemental or the cat. You’re both, and the cat will die like other cats” (*Wizard*, XXV 307). [Archetypes are in some ways elemental spirits. However, Mani’s concerns over his own mortality suggest that the threat of death truly does linger over him, and the root of that is Able’s own moribund destiny.] Mani says, “I’d like to think that I’m just … The other thing. The thing that talks” (*Wizard*, XXV 307). Able threatens to cut off his ear to see if it hurts, and the cat flees. When Toug does not show up, Able recalls what he said earlier: “[W]e would have to go to Toug if Toug would not come to us” (*Wizard*, XXV 307). [While this seems to be a highly rhetorical conceit, the merging of the two brothers into one and the convergence of opposites are important themes of the book. Here, the existential dread of Mani is of course the same malady which is keeping Toug so forlorn. Mani’s arrival in place of Toug does not imply that Svon did not send Toug to Able; this is the chapter where reality has truly begun to fray, or at least reality as Able perceives it. Everything is obscured in fog, and the setting has become increasingly nebulous as Able drifts from conversation to conversation, often with little continuity or sense of action. It is in this chapter and the sudden relocation to the Isle of Glas that we can truly see the Jungian patterns emerging: Toug’s despair is Mani’s, as they are but different archetypes confronting the same basic conflict and impediment to personal growth. It was not only Toug’s injury in battle that has made him despair – we are finally getting a sense of what Ravd was talking about when he said that a knight fights for honor, not for property. Sometimes honor requires losing something, and the part of Able’s unconscious that Toug represents is not yet willing to surrender, fearing death.]
931
932The phantasmagorical nature of this scene continues, as, through the fog, Able hears something:
933
934>Soon I heard voices, followed by a deep grinding or grating that I could not at once identify. Someone (I was nearly certain it was Svon) spoke. Then someone else, who might perhaps have been Toug himself. The grinding came again, the sound one hears when one heavy stone slides on another, the sound that precedes an avalanche.
935
936>Another step; I heard the voice I now felt certain was Toug’s say, “If you said you killed him, that might do it.”
937
938>Never have I been so tempted to eavesdrop. I called, “Toug? Is that you?” and nearly choked on my own words.
939
940[Perhaps the fragmentation of Able is so profound that the eavesdropping figure from earlier in the novel was actually him.] Org answers Able’s call for Toug and bows before him. When Able touches the ogre, he notes the extreme heat. He hears Svon’s voice call out to him, and asks, “Have you been bad, Org?” (*Wizard*, XXV 308)
941
942Org responds, “‘Many.’ He looked up as he spoke; there was unspeakable cruelty in his slitted eyes, but suffering, too” (*Wizard*, XXV 308). [This does not seem to be a very cogent response, though it bears some resemblance to the name Mani. If we are looking for an explanation in the surface plot for the cat’s disappearance, here is one.] The monster denies killing Gilling, and Svon emerges to say that he himself could easily have done it. Able says, “Why do we fight, if not to purge evil? We’re afraid to die and afraid to live – afraid of what we may do. So we shout and charge. If we were good -” (*Wizard*, XXV 308).
943
944Wistan appears as if from nowhere, and Able asks where Toug is. Svon answers, “With you, I thought” (*Wizard*, XXV 309). [In one way, Svon is right, of course, but isn’t this kind of infuriating on a plot level?] Svon says he sent Toug with Etela, her mother, and Vil to Able, and at that point Able notes, “Gylf whined, pressing his shoulder against my hip; I had not been aware that he had followed me” (*Wizard*, XXV 309).
945
946Svon asks if Able wants Org back, and the monster replies affirmatively. Wistan reveals that he thought it might help Toug if Org confessed to the murder of Gilling. [Thus, the voice which Able confused for Toug’s at the start of this scene was Wistan’s.] Able denies that Toug’s malaise could stem from guilt over the murder. Wistan says, “If I thought he’d done it, I’d lie to save him” (*Wizard*, XXV 310). Svon responds differently:
947
948>“I wouldn’t. Why are you looking around?”
949
950>“The air stirred. It hasn’t since the fog came. Gylf wanted to tell me something a minute ago, and I imagine that was what it was.” My hand was on his head; I felt his nod. “It wasn’t a breeze, but on a ship, sometimes, when you’re becalmed, a sail stirs and everyone looks and smiles. Soon it stirs again, if you’re lucky. The thing that stirs it isn’t really a wind, only air that’s been moved by a wind far away. But you’re desperate for wind, and when the sail stirs you know one’s on the way.” (*Wizard*, XXV 310)
951
952[By this point they realize that the unnatural warmth and stillness that surrounds them is from Thiazi’s interference: when he removes it, the cold atmosphere returns. This return of the air might very well constitute a momentary reprieve from strangulation.]
953
954Able says that they should be concerned for Toug: “He’s lost in this with Lady Lynnet, Etela, and Vil, it seems, and the four of them may meet with something worse than Org – a nice steep drop, for example. … Or a bear, or any of a thousand other things. Would you like to meet Org when you were wandering in this?” (*Wizard*, XXV 311) [Very early in *The Wizard Knight*, Able is chased up a tree by a bear. While we have not commented on it previously, Arthur’s name, if considered from a Celtic origin, derives from a word for bear.]
955
956Able orders Org to search for Toug, saying that he won’t harm them, though “It may depend on how hungry he is” (*Wizard*, XXV 311). Svon notes that Org “says there’s no better eating than a corpse that’s been dead a week in a cold climate” (*Wizard*, XXV 312). Svon also says he hopes to have a dog like Gylf someday, and Able expresses the hope that he will. Next, something is brought up which we have to consider metaphorically:
957
958>“Do you think I killed his majesty? … I was fighting. Both times. Both times when he was stabbed, I was fighting. Had you thought of that? … Well, I have. … I’ve thought about it often, and even talked about it with Her Majesty. I could have done is so easily. … The first time, particularly, the night we fought his champions. My sword was in my hand. It was dark, and there was a great deal of noise and confusion. Pandemonium.” (*Wizard*, XXV 312)
959
960[Finally, we begin to get direct acknowledgment of the true situation. Even though Svon is a character in Able’s mind, he is far more associated with the hostile brother figure than Toug is, and the wounding of Gilling, who is so prominently linked to Able through his final attempt to reach Idnn, even as Able sought outside Glennidam for Disiri, truly is in part Svon’s responsibility. When Toug fought the giant alone on their foray into Utgard, the text suggested Svon’s cowardice. However, the gigantic manifestation of aggression from the brother simply colored Toug’s perceptions. They wounded each other, as Svon’s mounting indignation and hostility suggested in that scene.]
961
962Gylf searches for Toug, and eventually tells Able, “Not alone” (*Wizard*, XXV 312). The dog grows larger and darker as Able watches. A voice behind him says, “Nor are you” (*Wizard*, XXV 313). [Soon, this is revealed to be Uri’s voice, but she has been sent by Garsecg to get him.]
963
964The next chapter sees Able descending with Uri and Gylf through a wood that is certainly Aelfrice. When the fog parts, he sees a beach and perceives “waves that pounded it with every beat of my heart, and beyond them (where the water was no longer clear or green, but deepest blue) the head and shoulders, claws and wings, of a snow-white dragon greater than Grengarm” (*Wizard*, XXVI 315). [This is Kulili in dragon form.]
965
966Uri tells him, “If you fear her you will not fight her, and if you do not fight her you will live. … A second death for you, here, may mean oblivion. Do you think to ascend beyond your Valfather? … Nor will you, Lord, if you die again – here or in Mythgarthr – you may perish utterly. This I hold is that part of the Able who was which survived” (*Wizard*, XXVI 315). [In terms of the biological metaphor, it never becomes truly clear if conception, the original sundering, or the first rejoining with the brother is the moment of Able’s first death, but the final death is certainly a relinquishing of resources and a full absorption. Kulili can certainly be seen as life and the drive to survive, as might Disiri: to Jung, the libido is a desire or impulse unchecked by authority, whether it be moral or not, which flows naturally and represents all bodily needs, including those born of hunger, thirst, and fatigue – thus, Able’s desire for Disiri.]
967
968Uri asks if Able has seen the Isle of Glas and Garsecg with the others. When the fog clears, he sees the top of the tower, and the white dragon is gone. On the beach, he sees figures waiting: “I knew that they were Vil, Toug, Etela, Lynnet, and another. One waved to me” (*Wizard*, XXVI 316). [His original wave to Parka should not be forgotten. Later, he will think that it is a female figure, but is still reluctant to identify it as Mag or Parka.]
969
970Garsecg meets him on the beach, embracing him as a father. “They have slandered me to you … and I dared not come to you. You would have slain me. … Uri and Baki told you I was Setr, and you believed it” (*Wizard*, XXVI 316). Able notes, “Another man of the Aelf (as it appeared) came near. ‘If he denied it, would you credit him?’ His eyes were endless night, his tongue a flame” (*Wizard*, XXVI 317). [This chapter and the preceding one seem to fit poorly into the surface plot, for they rely on a coincidental dislocation of almost the entire cast of characters to the Isle of Glas. Toug’s existential despair has led him here, and we have already noted that it is somehow synonymous with the Room of Lost Love. The other Aelf here has eyes which are reflective of Lynnet, Morcaine, and Lothur, but, frustratingly, is not named. Is this, on a surface level or otherwise, intended to be a double of Garsecg?]
971
972When Able says that Setr is not as he was told if he is indeed Garsecg, Garsecg admits that he is indeed Setr. He asks that they leave the others so that they might sit alone. Able whistles to Gylf to join them, and Garsecg says, “It would be better … if we were two” (*Wizard*, XXVI 317). [Garsecg would say that, wouldn’t he? It is better if twins remain twins, if they can both live.] Garsecg also says that his plans went awry. He asks Able if all the men of Mythgarthr are good. Able thinks of Master Thope, stabbed in the back trying to save him and protect the duke’s honor. “On balance … many who think themselves good are not” (*Wizard*, XXVI 317). [The stabbing of Thope is an echo of Able’s wounds at the hands of the Osterlings, but it also reverberates with the wounding of Gilling and the stab wound Setr is about to suffer.] Garsecg asks about the Overcyns and if any of them have natures in which the worse part outweighs the better. Able, thinking of Lothur, says, “I explained that there was said to be one at least, and that the rest – though they punished him – did not take his life for his brothers’ sake” (*Wizard*, XXVI 318). [The myth of Loki and his involvement in Baldr’s death might be intended here. The binding of Loki until Ragnarok also resembles some of Able’s dreams and experiences. After Baldr’s death, Loki antagonizes the gods at their feasting, to cause malice in their halls. This conflict might even resonate with some of the dining hall fights that Able has experienced, such as those at the Mountain of Fire. Loki winds up cursing Thor and goes to hide on a high mountain. When the other gods come to get their revenge, Loki throws the net he had used for catching food into the fire and transforms into a salmon to hide himself in a stream. The gods repurpose the twine of the net to capture Loki. Finally, he is captured and dragged to a deep cave where he is bound by a chain – but his chain is made of the entrails of his son Nari – who was killed by his brother, Loki’s other son Vali, who had been turned into a wolf (Sturluson). This myth might actually be the basis for much of the action in *The Wizard Knight*, from the dream-like fish imagery to fratricide and chaining.]
973
974Garsecg claims that Able’s friends simply wandered into Aelfrice and that Kulili snatched them, taking them to the Isle of Glas. He intends to recapture his tower: “And if I can, I will mount to its top and see to their welfare” (*Wizard*, XXVI 318). [In this case, I think it is best to view these characters as part of the living organism whose head and will Garsecg represents: he might lose control of them, but he intends to keep his identity and to avoid sacrificing himself.]
975
976Able thinks, “My whole life, it seemed to me, was wrapped up in this – my knighthood, the Valfather and the Lady, even Disiri” (*Wizard*, XXVI 319). He takes his mail off, considering that once Grengarm owned it, then draws Eterne in his resolve to swim out to the island to fight Kulili. “The sound of her blade leaving the scabbard became a wind. (You cannot imagine this.) That wind snatched away such fog as remained. In Aelfrice, one never sees the sun. But there is light; and as the fog vanished, that light waxed until the whole sea flashed like a mirror” (*Wizard*, XXVI 319).
977
978A phantom ship appears, and Able dives into the sea. He notices that breathing is not necessary and overcomes the assaults of three sharks by killing the nearest. Sir Hunbalt, a phantom knight, welcomes him to the ship: “There was a ram beyond the prow; I stood on it holding the carven figurehead with my free hand while the oars beat behind me like the white wings of the griffin, and churned the sea to foam” (*Wizard*, XXVI 320). [The conflict on the Isle of Glas is much the same as that surrounding the Grotto of the Griffin.]
979
980The white dragon seems to dissolve into the sea, becoming a shifting cloud and then Kulili, asking if Able will spare her. Before she will yield, she wants to show him something. “I agreed, and in the dark abyss we men call the bottom of the sea, I saw that of which I will not speak – though I shall speak of it in time, I hope, to one mightier than even the Valfather” (*Wizard*, XXVI 320-1). [In my hubris, I suppose that he was shown something about the necessity of surrender, the Gnostic nature of his perceptions, or the nature of Kulili.]
981
982Toug, Etela, Lynnet, and Vil are waiting for Able at the beach below the Tower of Glas, with Toug’s arm in a sling and Sword Breaker bloodied. Able notes, “Whom he had fought when they descended the tower I never inquired; but Etela let drop a hint now and again, as women will” (*Wizard*, XXVI 321). [Given the resonance of this scene with Able’s descent into the Mountain of Fire chained to Thunrolf, perhaps Toug had to struggle against a cognate of Able.] Seven dragons come to attack – black, gray, turquoise, blue, green, golden, and red. Without the white dragon to scare them away, they attack those they once threatened. Toug believed that they had to descend from the Isle of Glas to help Able, “And there was big snakes ‘n Vil couldn’t even see them, ‘n a thing – I don’t know ” (*Wizard*, XXVI 322).
983
984Toug wishes for his sword to fight the dragons, and Hunbalt declares him to be a true knight, even if he does not know it, declaring, “What a man knows hardly matters. It is what he does” (*Wizard*, XXVI 322). Svon and Garvaon come riding out of the woods. Able sheathes his sword and asks if Svon still wants to prove himself by fighting him. Able also says that he knows Garvaon looked for death in fighting the Angrborn, and Etela notes that Garvaon was very brave.
985
986“So was Sir Toug. We’ll come to him in a moment Etela. … In a way, we come to him now. He has told me that when you led your men-at-arms out to take part in the fight that began in the marketplace, they appeared badly frightened” (*Wizard*, XXVI 322). Able says that he judges what Garvaon did to be no crime, heavily implying that he knows Garvaon was responsible for Gilling’s injury and death. His men must have witnessed something before the battle, prompting their fear.
987
988Able asks Toug if he will engage Garsecg, and Toug says, “I won’t fight … Never again if I can help it” (*Wizard*, XXVI 324). [This is an odd change in attitude from two pages ago, when he wished for a large sword to fight the dragons.] Able tells Garsecg that he yielded to Kulili, and she spared him. Garsecg transforms, and in the fight, Setr goes for Svon. Eventually, Setr is stabbed with Svon’s saxe. [This is the same type of weapon that Svon threatened Able with at the very start of *The Knight*. We should also remember that at one point Able was stabbed by Osterlings.] Setr’s jaws close upon Garvaon and rend him. Able notes:
989
990>A monstrous figure to which I could put no name rode Setr’s back. A moment more and that figure had broken, becoming Etela, who had slipped from Vil’s broad shoulders and fled, and Vil, with a thousand hands about Setr’s neck. No artist could paint it; but if one tried, he would show a chain of arms and hands, living and strong, that tightened until that scaly neck burst like a blasted tree. (*Wizard*, XXVI 325)
991
992[We should recall that Able found Disiri beneath a blasted tree, and that this thing strangling Setr, made up of Vil, Etela, and the power of Able’s bowstring, resembles the Khimairae and Gylf as they strangled Org.] Able feels both rapture and a deep sorrow at Setr’s death. In the still air, Able hears a whistling, and Alvit the Valkyrie comes to take Garvaon up to Skai. Vil returns the bowstring to Able. However, for Able, its return seems a good-bye:
993
994>I took the bowstring from him and ran it through my fingers, reeling the lives of many, so very many, who dwell in America. I had passed beyond them, above or below them, and as they plowed and coded and traded, swept their floors and minded their children, we said our farewells. For a moment, my hands embraced them, and they embraced my hands. (*Wizard*, XXVI 326)
995
996Vil says that there are tricks that can be done with string, such as, “Making things that ain’t there” (*Wizard*, XXVI 326). Refusing to keep it, Able returns it to Vil, saying that it was given to him by someone even higher than the Valfather. As Uri guides them back to Mythgarthr, Able notes how scared she seems. [The surrender of Parka’s string to the one who stole it is not a good omen for Able’s continued existence. The hands wishing him good-bye are the same ones that just strangled Setr.]
997
998Upon returning, they inter Garvaon, though the Angrborn hold the pass against Idnn’s forces, preventing them from returning his body to the south. A giant named Bitergarm comes to say that he had hoped to kill Garvaon himself, and as a result he is sorry for the knight’s death. Idnn says:
999
1000>[Schildstarr is] a king who’d have you war on your queen, your mother, your wife, and your sisters. I don’t order you to fight for us against King Schildstarr. But I ask you, what sort of king is it who makes the right arm smite the left? You’re never loved, you Frost Giants. Not even by your mothers. I know it, and I pity you. But is the canard true? Is it true that you yourselves never love?” (*Wizard*, XXVII 329)
1001
1002[It is worth comparing this to the fracturing and fragmentation of personality that Jung talks about, as quoted far above, in which the right and left arms of modern humans seem to be unaware of each other. In this case, Idnn’s imagery probably has a literal implication.] The forces of Celidon are repelled three times, until Able leads the women of Jotunhome against them, joined by Baki’s kin and the Mice: “There, in the pass I had held against the Black Knight who was Marder, those Mice they had driven out rained stones and spears on them until the sun was high” (*Wizard*, XXVII 329). The giants eventually retreat south into the mountains. Able refuses the lands and the title that Idnn offers him. He says that Sir Svon must be her champion. She tries to get Able to admit who killed Gilling, but he maintains that only sorrow can come of it. He hints that the guilty party is beyond being punished. The voice of Mani suggests that it was for love. Able also admits that he did not fight Setr because he knew Setr had to die. Since Setr had formed him, the dragon of Muspel had known that Able could defeat him and would have fled. [If we see Able himself as an aspect of Garsecg, then perhaps Able’s desperate desire for life would have prevented the final dissolution of the monster.]
1003
1004When Able returns at last to his fire, he sees a woman he thinks is Lynnet, who talks with a different voice; she invites him to rest with his head in her lap. “[S]he told me many things: her girlhood in America, how she met my father, and how they came to wed” (*Wizard*, XXVII 335). [It seems that he has relinquished the string, and only now does the tall female figure begin speaking to him in the voice of the mother. Lynnet seemed a stand in for the mother figure from the start, but a dangerous and destructive one, as Thiazi warned. Her time in the Room of Lost Love and the death of Setr has gentled her, but the protection that she offers Able can only comfort him. Her description as “dead” earlier certainly indicates Able’s lack of awareness of maternal care, given the harsh paucity of the stygian womb he inhabits.]
1005
1006On his way to Redhall on Cloud, Able goes to the wrong manor twice. His second stop is Goldenlawn, decorated by a manticore. An old woman answers, saying that she had hoped her visitor had come to kill her. He tells her Lady Lyynnet is returning as well, and the woman immediately accuses him of being a tormenting Aelf. “This is my house … and I am Lady Lis” (*Wizard*, XXVII 337). She shuts the door, sobbing. [Even though Able took Lynnet for a mother figure, she is in actuality just another dead child, the lost love of her mother, cementing her as perhaps an anima of the most vulnerable parts of Able.]
1007
1008Able forces his way into Redhall, and, surprisingly, begins whipping the servants into shape. Somehow, the mastiffs there already know Able, though he cannot say how. He tells the servants to take care of Cloud or suffer severe consequences. He promises the men gold if they can beat him with cut quarterstaves. During a practice in which he actually takes a fall, “The storm-surge returned in that match, and it seemed almost that Garsecg swam beside me. I broke his quarterstaff and knocked him to his knees when he tried to defend himself with the halves. After that I had him teach them first, and afterward set them against one another, with us to judge between them. Balye was his name” (*Wizard*, XXVII 338). [It seems that entering Redhall represents another reset on Able’s perceptions, as he is instantly thrust into competition with a B figure again, though in this case they are working towards the same goals in preparing the household for combat.]
1009
1010Later, Able’s servant Halweard, who brings him soup and ale, mentions how cold it is, asking Able if he can hear the wind in the chimney. Able rushes out to find Disiri yet again, and she tells him that her task was foolishness, advising him to stay away from Arnthor. She says there is worse than he has ever faced waiting for him at Thortower. [Thortower, Redhall, Sheerwall, Utgard, and even Celidon itself, though they are locations in the text, might also be considered manifestations of bodily territory on a metaphorical level. The invasion and movement from one to the other describes the conflict and reabsorption the twins undergo.]
1011
1012In his hearth room, Able wonders what the message he is to deliver could mean, and when he shuts his eyes, he hears “the cries of the gulls outside Parka’s caves, the waves, the fluttering wings” (*Wizard*, XXVII 340). The darkest corner of the room grows darker, and he calls for Uri and Baki. Finally, when there is no answer, he calls for Org “although I thought him behind me with Svon and the rest” (*Wizard*, XXVII 340).
1013
1014[Later, Able will say exactly the same thing about Mani to Huld: he left Mani behind. This almost sounds like a statement of personal growth and progress, though obviously Org still lingers.] Org answers from behind Able’s chair, causing him to exclaim “Good Lord!” “At that there was laughter from the corner, a laugh that made me think of ice in the northern caves, and the icicles that sang (as Borda had told Marder and me) if a spearhead touched them in the dark” (*Wizard*, XXVII 340). [The sudden chill of Morcaine’s manifestation resembles the manner in which Huld materializes from time to time, but it is far more sinister. In addition, the ice resonates with the realm of the most low god, though it also echoes what Able experienced in Jotunland and is a well-known Norse trope. A spear-head touching icicles might also signify some procreative (but sterile) imagery.]
1015
1016Morcaine appears, reminding him of his encounter with Grengarm, where she was intended to be the sacrifice. She also says that she knows he stabbed King Gilling. “You didn’t? Or are you startled that I divined it?” (*Wizard*, XVIII 342) [There is usually a way, even if it is metaphorical, for *everything* to be true in a Wolfe novel. Guilt for the death of Gilling and what he represented, independent sovereignty, should be widespread in this particular case.]
1017
1018Morcaine says she is the only princess in the land, “since the queen keeps her legs crossed” (*Wizard*, XVIII 343). She begins discussing her breasts and underclothes, and says she is a good friend but a terrible enemy, offering to be Able’s ally in Thortower. Able rebuffs her advances, and soon he has visitors. He notes the absolute blackness of Morcaine’s eyes. [During this scene, we learn that Morcaine was raised in Aelfrice, just as Able was – another hint that she is a kind of anima, given their similar back stories. She steps backward and the firelight returns as she disappears– compare this to the scene in which the Valfather appears to Idnn; his wind blows out the candle, ending on morning and the open air rather than in the depths of night in a closed room. In that scene, he asked Idnn to look into his eye, and she told him it was where the sun lived. Here, the two eyes of Morcaine are filled with darkness. We should be mindful of the spider-looking Angrborn that Idnn feared, with one big eye and two small ones. Two eyes will lead to darkness, but one sun-filled eye will grow in the radiance of day.]
1019
1020Halweard, Qut, Wistan, Pouk, and Uns enter. They offer Able mules filled with loot. [This is eerily similar to the scene in which Gilling was presented with Arnthor’s gifts, though in this case many of the gifts are from Borda and the female giants.] It seems that when the shares were being divided, everyone added from some of their share so that Able might receive more. He hears a voice saying, “*There is magic there, Lord. I feel it.*” [This winds up referring to a helm that seems to allow Able to see things as they are. Later, Uri will say that the voice belonged to her.]
1021
1022Able turns for a second to his condition as he writes in Aelfrice, discussing how often Disiri is gone, and how he walks besides the sea. He also reveals that by this point in his tale Cloud was growing a horn upon her head. Returning to his narrative, Able wishes that he had Mani to advise him in combing through the gifts. The first is a cup “in which you could have washed a baby” (*Wizard*, XVIII 347). He supposes its special property might be to disarm poisons. [Compare this to the cup of poison Mag drank and the semen which threatened Idnn’s metaphorical goblet.] Then Able considers the helm, and finally a gold circle in the shape of a serpent, which he thinks might be from the finger ring of a frost giant.
1023
1024Able writes, “I went to bed sorely puzzled, dreamed of the Tower of Glas, and woke thinking of the woman I had seen there with Lynnet and Etela. I built up the fire and slept again, dreaming of the raiders I faced long ago – we had captured their ship, which had something in its hold we dared not face.” (*Wizard*, XVIII 348) [Of course this should keep us in mind of “mother” down in the hold with him, but a manifestation of Parka might also be appropriate. Uri claimed that she sent a dream of the Tower of Glas to Able when she spoke to Idnn about the dream of Svon, but it seems to be appearing anachronistically or out of sequence.]
1025
1026They depart from Redhall. At an inn near Thortower, he calls for Baki. “I hugged her, which I should not have. She gasped for breath when I released her. ‘Lord, I came to say I would come no more. Now – well, who can say? Do you love me?’” (*Wizard*, XVIII 348) She says neither she nor Uri are his slaves any longer, and that soon they shall part, and he will never see her again: “That parting will be forever” (*Wizard*, XXVIII 349). She says that it was surely Uri who whispered she detected magic in his ear at Redhall. Baki says, “She thinks only of her long betrayal. I – they broke my back. You healed me. I cannot forget” (*Wizard*, XXVIII 249). He insists that it was Toug who healed her. When he shows her the helm, she disappears, and he goes to bed thinking about the helm and King Arnthor. [While the surface plot might make her claim that Able healed her an examination of causation, in a deeper sense the A brother did indeed heal the B figure, and this parting, while it might just as easily refer to a sundering between twins, seems to also imply the permanence of death.]
1027
1028Able comes to the Earl Marshal of Thortower, who is trying cases. The first involves a widow, who is not afforded the respect she feels she deserves for her first husband, a knight, though her second was a draper. (She is Dame Eluned, and her dead knight was Sir Owan.) The Earl Marshal says that she has the power to earn that respect by honoring Owan with the livery of her servants and his arms upon her house. [This would seem to be a story in which the living can deserve the glory of the dead with sufficient reverence and respect; recognition involves individual rather than societal obligation.]
1029
1030Able asks the Earl Marshal if he might have an audience with King Arnthor, but he will not tell him that his message comes from Disiri. With Wistan, Able is taken to the Earl Marshal’s library. Waiting there, they see a book of the Aelf. Able reads a spell to turn ghosts visible: “By Mannanan and Mider, by Bragi, Boe, and Llyr, by all you hope from Bridge of Swords, I conjure you, appear!” (*Wizard*, XXIX 354)
1031
1032[We have already discussed the sea god Manannan (Wolfe uses a different spelling) and his role in the reign of Mongan. Bragi is a bard of Valhalla who entertains the dead, Llyr a derivation of the god of the sea who was the father of Mannanan (and whom, in the glossary, Able says some people thought was his brother). Boe is one of Odin’s sons, who kills Hodr (whom we should remember for the accidental death of Baldr.)] This spell causes a “hag” at the fire to laugh, and suddenly both the Earl Marshal’s page Payn and Wistan are gone. She asks what has happened to her cat. Able says he left Mani behind him, though he misses him. [In myth, we might as well mention, Huld was an obscure sorceress once mentioned as Odin’s mistress. Able’s putting aside of Mani seems to correspond very well with the death of Setr.]
1033
1034Huld “scooped coals from the fire, shook them together in her hands, and cast them onto the hearth. … ‘You fear the sister … Fear the brother’ (*Wizard*, XXIX 354). [This is good advice. Despite the fact that Able was instructed to plant three seeds, I do not think the text supports a reading in which triplets are sustainable. The strong binary opposition throughout shows allies struggling with each other over and over. The sister will be reduced to a manifestation of the brother soon enough. Even the beating of Lynnet’s heart was reduced to Able’s own heartbeat in the Room of Lost Love. Huld’s warning also reinforces that a brother truly is the root of all of Able’s problems.] The Earl Marshal comes in with Wistan, who has told him a ghost is present. When Able still refuses to reveal the source of his message, the Earl Marshal asks, “Are we antagonists, Sir Able? I hope otherwise. I bear you no ill will” (*Wizard*, XXIX 356). [Antagonism between allies begins to grow once again, thanks to secrets and maintaining that which is hidden.] Able mentions Idnn, calling her the Queen of the Skjaldmeyjar, the Daughters of Angr. When the death of King Gilling comes up, Wistan supposes that some partisan of Schildstarr did it, saying that he knows Toug didn’t commit the murder. Able shows the Earl Marshal Cloud, but he will not permit him to ride her. During their discussion of Morcaine, when the Earl Marshal considers her friendship, he says, “It’s the wind” (*Wizard*, XXIX 359). Finally, the Earl Marshal advises Able that his best chance of gaining an audience with the king is participation in the tourney held for Yeartide, though the Earl Marshal might, when the time is right, put in a good word for Able. Able resolves to attempt it.
1035
1036Later, Wistan reveals that he wants Able to take him back as a squire. While the Earl Marshal might take Wistan into his service and he could then live comfortably, he prefers to be a knight like Able. With a hug, Able accepts him back, then calls Org to appear to demonstrate to Wistan that he might be frightened without fleeing. Able reiterates that a knight’s actions are always governed by honor. Wistan also says he told the Earl Marshal, “Toug saw you die, but you came back to help us anyway.” (*Wizard*, XXX 363). [Once again, this is an accurate assessment of Able’s sacrifice, though not quite in the manner in which it is intended here. Able will not stop being useful just because of a little thing like death.]
1037
1038Wistan anticipated Able’s needs and signed him up for several events in the tournament, including the bow (mounted and dismounted), halbert, joust, and melee. The instant that Wistan leaves, Uri appears, begging Able’s forgiveness. “I made her stand, adding that I had not decided whether I would spare her life” (*Wizard*, XXX 363).
1039
1040When he accuses her of neglecting to tell him about Baki’s injury, she says, “Another brought you, Lord, but you did not heal her. The boy did it. Not that boy. The other” (*Wizard*, XXX 364). She says that she came to preempt his vengeful return to Aelfrice with his hound, or the queen with her pack, and hoped to forestall her death. Org edges closer to catch her. Able demands that she discover why the Earl Marshal has a book from Aelfrice, and what his connection with it might be. She admits that it was her voice that told him there was magic in the gifts brought by his companions to Redhall. [It seems that she requested that Grengarm heal Baki rather than Able. This might be from self-preservation.]
1041
1042Able puts on the helm and sees “a writhing thing shaped of flame and offal, of dung and blazing straw and such tripes as might be taken from a goat a week dead. Gylf snarled as if he saw it as I had, and he was a dog of gold with carnelian eyes” (*Wizard*, XXX 365). Able also sees Org as a monster of swarming vermin.
1043
1044The days to the tournament pass uneventfully, and Able does not start auspiciously. He fails to win the archery on foot, and even as he seems set to lead the archery on horseback with two dead center shots, on the third shot his bowstring broke (it was not, of course, the one Parka gave him.) On the fourth day of the events, during which Able does not have a scheduled competition, he is invited by the Countess of Chaus to a private garden. There, he meets “a girl with hair like a bouquet of yellow roses” in an arbor covered in snow. [While this is Gaynor, the name Chaus means “jungle cat,” which could very well be a link to Mani.] She asks if Able will wear her scarf for the tournament, and he agrees without even realizing that she is Arnthor’s queen, though Wistan recognizes her. As they are leaving, Able’s squire says, “You couldn’t [have acknowledged she was queen]. That’s one of the things it means. You have to pretend she’s whoever she says she is. She would’ve been mad, and her knights might have killed you” (*Wizard*, XXX 367).
1045
1046The next day he fights with the halbert, and his first foe is Branne of Broadflood, the champion from the previous year. [Could anyone have ever guessed that a B would be involved?] His next is Lamwell of Chaus, a small and quick knight. The third is a kinsman of Svon. (Here Able says, “I went for my man to kill him if I could and had him down before he struck a blow” (*Wizard*, XXX 369).
1047
1048After defeating Rober of Greenglory, he fights a knight as big as Woddet in Gerrune. “He had no hall, but traveled from place to place and fought for pay, a free lance is what such knights are called” (*Wizard*, XXX 369). Even though Gerrune breaks Able’s halbert, Able fights on with his broken weapon, hitting him on the knee, “and grappling him lifted him from his feet and threw him down” (*Wizard*, XXX 369). Somehow, Gerrune is still named victor. [This scene might resemble the manner in which Able was thrown by Org and how Vil threw one of his foes. The term free lance is also a reminder of the free companies which killed Ravd and broke the sword Battlemaid, made by Lut. The fight with Ironmouth at the very end also bears some similarities to this encounter.]
1049
1050That night, two figures pays Pouk to tell Sir Able they want to see him. One names himself Belos, which Wistan says means, “Warlike.” [Later, the name of the knight who starts the final pitched battle of the novel, Marc, also has a name meaning warlike.] The two men want to bring Able to Morcaine, whom they call a great lady of Thortower. When Able demands that he be permitted to take Gylf, Wistan, and Pouk, they cannot come to an agreement and disappear. Able identifies them as Aelf, talking about their tendency to fade in the sun and avoid it. Wistan says he remembers from the Aelf who fought for them, whom Able identifies as Uri’s people. [During the conflict in Jotunland, they were called Baki’s kin.] Able ends with, “There’s another brother – no doubt you realize that. We’re not going to talk about him” (*Wizard*, XXX 371). [For the plot itself, this is Arnthor.]
1051
1052In the joust the next day, six lances are shattered between Kei and Able before Kei’s mount falls. Afterwards, Able meets Morcaine in her private tower. Amidst their banter, she asks, “If the dead walk at my command, what is that to you?” He responds, “The dead aren’t always to be commanded. I fear for you” (*Wizard*, XXXI 373). She says that she seeks to do good, and that she deserves his homage for her goodness. She claims her brother ordered Gerrune a champion. She also reveals that Arnthor hears many stories about Gaynor’s infidelity that he half believes. As Able talks with Morcaine, who mentions the humiliation he knew when his string broke in the archery competition, Baki peeps out from behind a black velvet curtain. Morcaine tells him that the melee is dangerous. Her champion, Sir Lich, actually died in the melee. He appears, and Able notes maggots in his flesh. Morcaine implies that Able cannot hope to kill her knight. She lets him fall, and speaks to Wistan, asking if the Sea Aelf she sent scared him. “Sir Lich’s worm affrighted you. I saw it. When next you meet my messengers, recall that they were made by worms” (*Wizard*, XXXI 375).
1053
1054Morcaine says that Arnthor thinks his queen an easy woman and that she herself wants him dead for the throne; she denies both of those possibilities. “He may kill me, fancying he defends his life. He may kill her to get a queen who’ll bear him sons. She’s no friend of mine. … My brother is my brother, the playfellow of my childhood. I love few, but I love him. Do you understand?” (*Wizard*, XXXI 376) [Earlier, Svon delivered the message to Able that the playfellow of his childhood was watching out for him. This language mirrors it quite closely.]
1055
1056She says that she will ask her brother for a boon and invite someone to dinner, which will prompt the queen to ask for a guest as well, who will no doubt be Able, her champion. Able wins three matches the next day but receives no summons. The Earl Marshal informs Able that he himself has asked twice that Able be granted an audience. He tells Able that Morcaine’s initial boon was refused by Arnthor in front of everyone. The Earl Marshal goes on to say that Idnn and Gaynor are the same age and were friends at court, and that Idnn was sent away to deprive his queen of a friend. The Earl Marshal has his illegitimate son Payn provide Wistan and Able with wine and food.
1057
1058Escan, The Earl Marshal, wants information. He asks how many times Able has been to Aelfrice and Able settles on six. The Earl Marshal also asks about how the time differential runs, but Able believes that it is variable. As Escan prompts Able to speak more of Aelfrice, the hero says that he is still just a boy. Finally, Able mentions the sacrifice to Grengarm. By the end of the conversation, the Earl Marshall has ascertained that Queen Disiri has sent Able. He has knowledge of the rulership of the Aelf and declares that most of their clans are governed by kings.
1059
1060Wistan supposes that Able must have been singled out by Queen Gaynor not only because of his looks and the mystery surrounding him but because he was the only knight who shot two golds in the mounted archery before his string broke. Cloud also played a huge role in her selection. The next day, the queen summons Able urgently to her snowy garden. It seems that Gaynor and Morcaine had a fight. She asks Able if he would like to disrobe, and he simply says that he would not sully her honor in any way. She calls herself an awful person for asking Able to be her champion, but she asks him regardless, to fight Morcaine’s champion.
1061
1062>”It’s for me, too. So the king will see that – that I’m not what he thinks. The Valfather will give the victory to the right, won’t he? … And she said something awful to my face. That I’m a slut or something. We haven’t decided exactly what it was, and probably we won’t have to. So I challenged her and it’s at noon, and you have to die for me.” (*Wizard*, XXXII 386)
1063
1064[It almost seems as if this strife has been manufactured merely to allow Gaynor’s honor to be upheld. Was there even an insult?] Gaynor warns Able that Morcaine will try to kill him even if she likes him. Able supposes that no one will have to die if his foe will yield. “She wants him to put me away and marry again. If she wins, he may. … *And I’d like that*. But I have a duty, and I love him. And I’m not sterile. It’s just that … That –” (*Wizard*, XXXII 387). Able agrees to do it, but his primary motivation is to speak to the king so that he can claim Disiri.
1065
1066As Able writes of his fight with the undead Loth, he says, “no other [fight] stays with me like that one. I can shut my eyes and see the bailey as it was then – the winter sunshine, the cold air sparkling with snow, the pennants and banners snapping in the wind, a mad dance of bears and elephants, falcons and bulls and basilisks and camelopads, red, blue, green, yellow, black, and white. I hear the thunderous cracking of the great sea-blue flag of Celidon, with the royal Nykr embroidered in gold” (*Wizard*, XXXII 388). [We should remember that Garsecg was the blue dragon, and here the color of the flag of Celidon is also blue.] Loth of Narrowhouse is presented, and the crowd mutters that he was Loth of Northholding. Able engages the knight in the joust left side to left side. Loth is thrown and Able tries to impale the standing figure with his lance: “to cut him down before he could free himself. It was a good plan, but none of it worked. His shield turned my point. His sword did what I would have said no sword but Eterne could, hewing my lance as a woodman fells a sapling” (*Wizard*, XXXII 390). Fearing for Cloud, Able turns aside and engages the knight on foot. He buries his ax in the knight’s helm, and Loth falls. “Fallen, he moaned aloud. All death was in it, lonely graves in winter, the wind that leaves beggars’ bodies on the streets of Kingsdoom, and the howls of the wolves that tear the slain” (*Wizard*, XXXII 390).
1067
1068In gentle right, Able asks Wistan to give Loth his own sword while Able wrenches the undead knight’s sword from his own shield, then hands it to Wistan to keep. As they engage, Able sees that his ax has put out one of Loth’s eyes. He also cuts off one of his opponent’s arms, though this does not stop Loth. [It is appropriate that Loth winds up with Wistan’s sword, and vice versa, given what this battle represents. Able even says, “This is yours” as he presents the sword to Wistan (*Wizard*, XXXII 391). The wounds incurred here are the wounds which had been spread across many of the other battles in the book.]
1069
1070More dead come at Loth’s call, and Able draws Eterne in response: “[D]ead contended with dead for the honor of a living queen” (*Wizard*, XXXII 391). His allies come to fight beside him, and at the conclusion of the battle Able notes that the bravest knights of Thortower stand before Arnthor’s throne – Marc, Lamwell, Gerrune, Rober, and Oriel. Morcaine admits Gaynor’s innocence, and Arnthor asks if they will “share meat” (*Wizard*, XXXII 391). [Uns is injured in this fight, with the sucking wound similar to the one that afflicted Gilling.]
1071
1072As Able prepares to meet Arnthor, he tells Wistan, “I wanted to be a knight, and I became one – not because I chose to be one, but because of the things I did and the way I thought. Good and evil are decided by thoughts and choices, too” (*Wizard*, XXXIII 393). During the dinner conversation, Able learns that they are expecting war with the Caan of the Osterlings. [Here, Able describes Morcaine as the same height as her brother Arnthor, and mannish in comparison to Gaynor. When he first met her in the Grotto of the Griffin, she was taller than Able. When Able is imprisoned in Thortower and Morcaine and Arnthor come to visit him, he will claim to be of the same height as both of them. Dreams need not be consistent in these details, but they might perhaps be thematically important details.]
1073
1074Able considers that Arnthor must show more of the blood of Muspel than his sister does. The food is the swan which is stuffed with other birds, described at the very start of this essay. Arnthor takes the quail and the thrush, Gaynor takes the duck’s breast, and Morcaine refuses to eat. Able chooses the lesser bird inside the duck which Gaynor had refused.
1075
1076Arnthor says that it is the custom to have dogs eat at the table, and boasts that he hunts, whistling for half a dozen of his own dogs. “I hunt boars, Sir Able, and greater prey, when I can get it. Those who hang back are drowned at my order” (*Wizard*, XXXIII 396). [The pair of pigs that Gylf wanted earlier come to mind.] Arnthor tries to offer a swan’s leg to Gylf. Gylf scares off the boarhounds who converge on it.
1077
1078Finally, Able remembers his message. He describes the structure of the world, from highest to lowest, and the rebellion of the Aelf, casting Kulili into the sea. “The foolish, seeing our vanity, our avarice, and our cruelty, have turned from us to reverence dragons, by which much harm has come, for even the best of them are insatiable of power” (*Wizard*, XXXIII 397). Their message implores Arnthor to reshape humanity: “They know that you might reform us, making us strong but merciful, and though merciful, just” (*Wizard*, XXXIII 398). He accuses Arnthor of taking everything from the poor people plagued by the free companies. Arnthor asks, “Are betrayal and sedition the reforms you would have me encourage?” (*Wizard*, XXXIII 398)
1079
1080Arnthor demands that Able surrender his sword and that he be thrown into the dungeon. Able is locked in a cell with living walls and left alone. A jailer tries to extort a scield a month from him for good treatment. Able offers one large gold coin that would pay for at least two years but refuses to pay more or by the month. Finally, the man says, “It’ll be ours before the year’s out, and I won’t waste any more breath on you” (*Wizard*, XXXIII 401). Able hears him walk away, “six steps maybe, or seven; after those, the cracking of his bones” (*Wizard*, XXXIII 401). Org releases Able and he goes to explore the dungeon.
1081
1082In his new and improved cell, Able dreams that he is on the *Western Trader* and sees the faces of the starving Osterlings. With access to rooms well beyond the dungeon, Able enters the hall in which he had eaten with Arnthor and finds a great mirror behind it. With soap, he writes, “Your thoughts – our lives,” in the letters of Aelfrice and in the runes of Skai, before returning to his cell with stolen blankets (*Wizard*, XXXIV 403). [Able’s thoughts, too, bear a close relationship to the lives of the characters in the novel.]
1083
1084When Uri finally appears, he expresses that he thought Disiri would come for him. Able says he remembers playing with Disiri as a child, at her palace, with trees for towers. Uri says, “You will not ask me to carry a message to her, will you, Lord? Baki could do it. They would not harm her” (*Wizard*, XXXIV 404). [Baki seems to have access to Disiri’s home in a fashion which Uri no longer does.]
1085
1086His next visitor is Morcaine. She says that only two men have ever refused her (one imagines that the other might have been Arnthor). During this scene, in which she fantasizes that he might ravish her, she says that they are “of a height” (*Wizard*, XXXIV 405). Finally, she proclaims that he is dead, and blames the Valkyrie kiss, indicating that he was too badly hurt to live. She kisses him, and her tongue is invasive.
1087
1088Morcaine says that the Aelf were her and her brother’s nurses, though Arnthor had some disturbing habits: “He caught little fish and killed them in ugly ways. Sometimes I helped him. They punished us for it, and he’s never forgiven them. You dead obey me, Able. I bring you all to heel, even you difficult cases” (*Wizard*, XXXIV 405-6). [While this emphasizes the arrogant cruelty of Arnthor, the killing of these fish certainly relates to the many dreams Able has had throughout the novel, which we have equated with fertilization. The dead will wind up serving the living by the conclusion, though it will be a more harmonious and less sinister sacrifice, undertaken willingly by Able.]
1089
1090Later, Able fights three gaolers who wield keys as weapons.
1091
1092>It had ended almost before it begun. (They must have felt they had lost before they had begun to fight.) The two who were still conscious prostrated themselves. I put my foot upon their necks and made each declare himself my slave forever – at which point Uri appeared, laughing, to remind me that she and Baki had been forced to swear in the same way. … I doubt that the gaolers heard a word she said; but her appearance, with a slender sword in one hand and its jeweled scabbard in the other, reduced them to gibbering.” (*Wizard*, XXXIV 407)
1093
1094Able tells them he is keeping the key, and Uri gives him the sword, which she thinks is Ice Aelf work. She found it in a chest bound with seven chains and seven padlocks. Uri also mocks Able for Morcaine’s interest in him, even suggesting that the genitals of a sorceress might be dangerous. Able asks if Arnthor fears his sister. He also describes the aftermath of his fight with Loth, in which Gaynor did not flee: “King Arnthor remained, and the queen, I think because Arnthor had her arm” (*Wizard*, XXXIV 409). [Given the attachment at the arm our subtext might imply and the injury to Loth, perhaps this line is significant as well.] Able thinks that Morcaine is terrified of Arnthor, and that it contributes to her drinking.
1095
1096When he asks if Uri could find Eterne, she claims to have been unable to. Able says that she is lying, but is glad of it, since Arnthor is his king. She also says that Gylf had been chained again, but she freed him. Able stays in the dungoen until he hears that Arnthor has left to lead an army against the Osterlings. [The reason for their invasion and the famine coming to Celidon should be clear by now, as the most troubled and fatal stage of the pregnancy has been reached.] The gaoler Ged is placed in sole control of the dungeon, and Arnthor enlists some other prisoners to help as long as they agree not to escape. They distribute food more fairly to the prisoners, as well as blankets and straw. A Lord named Colle permits Wistan to visit, who tells Able that Pouk and Uns are working on erecting a wall around the city. [The protective and territorial instincts of the C character may have at last relaxed.]
1097
1098Able is then summoned to a meeting with Queen Gaynor and Queen Idnn. Gaynor says that she was forbidden from releasing him and that Able will die if he escapes. Lord Escan, the Earl Marshal, is also present at their meeting. Idnn vows to free Able somehow. When Able is asked if he is hungry, he declines food. [Perhaps for the first time, we see Able beyond individual needs. The resources of the tower were redistributed, but he is still not free.]
1099
1100The Earl Marshal tells him that Arnthor is in the east, and that the Caan of the Osterlings wants revenge for the raids. Idnn says that the Osterlings have taken the passes. Idnn asks Able if he knows anything of siegecraft, and he replies that he was at the siege of Nastrond. [Nastrond is the afterlife for those guilty of murder and oathbreaking, where they are chewed by Níðhöggr. While Able will break his oath not to use the powers of Skai, there is good reason to suppose that the Valfather will forgive him for what it costs Able. The idea of an afterlife is thematically important, however.]
1101
1102She tells him about Lynnet and her daughter: “She has reclaimed Goldenlawn …. This was on our way south, of course, and we stayed there with her for a few days to help, all of us. She and Vil intend to rebuild it, and are wed. They – I’m sorry. You *will* win her. … She thinks there’s another woman with her, a woman she calls Mag” (*Wizard*, XXXV 414). [Talk of marriage between Vil and Lynnet upsets Able, which Idnn picks up on. Lynnet’s claiming of the estate next to Redhall and her marriage to the trickster figure might indicate that she has become a fixture of the other brother. Lynnet seems to be less insane, and Vil agrees that someone is there, though no one can see Mag. In the glossary, Able says of the Overcyn Ler, “He was the sort of friend you do not have to talk to, and some people thought we were brothers” (*Wizard* 11). Ler is a personification of the sea, but the link between Ler and Lynnet through the letter L might be an important thing to consider.] Able inquires after Bold and Gerda, who are said to have returned to their village. Able says it has been destroyed, and wonders if Bold believed Mag was present. Their interview ends with Escan doubting that Gaynor would dare to parole Able.
1103
1104That night, Able escapes, letting Cloud’s thoughts lead him to her, where he finds Uns and then eventually rejoins Pouk. A patrol catches them and shoots Cloud with an arrow; when Able is retaken, Gaynor has him chained to the lowest level of the dungeon. He is only taken to the twelfth level, however, and vows not to free himself until Thortower falls or Arnthor wins. [While there are probably innumerable archetypes, Jung does stress twelve very common ones. Otherwise the significance of the twelve floors of the dungeon is unclear, though it can symbolize order and a complete set. Perhaps the twelve months of the year could indicate a duration longer than the seven days of the week, since seven previously saturated the text.] In the cold, Able gives Org permission to eat anyone he does not know; the ogre occasionally returns to warm him. Eventually, Able’s food stops coming, and his calls to Baki remain unanswered. “And at last I realized that chained as I was she no longer feared me. … [S]he whose love I had so often refused was free at last” (*Wizard*, XXXV 416).
1105
1106After an indeterminate time, Able sees the glimmer of torches and hears someone who might be Beel swear, “By the Lady’s crotch …” (*Wizard*, XXXV 416). When Arnthor comes into the cell, Able notes that they are of a height. [Perhaps Able has achieved an equivalent power through his moral resolve; when he feared falling into the water after wounding Grengarm, who became a twisted dwarf to flee into the well, Able was definitely much smaller than Morcaine.] The king claims that he loves his queen, and Able says that he does not, calling the king a tyrant. Able says, “Celidon is blessed every moment you neglect her. … The Most High God set men here as models for Aelfrice. We teach it violence, treachery, and little else; and you have been our leader” (*Wizard*, XXXV 417). Arnthor asks if Able worked wonders in Jotunland, for only wonders can save them. Able says, “Strike off these chains … and I’ll try” (*Wizard*, XXXV 417). At Arnthor’s word, they fall to the floor. [Able thinks that only the presence of Org prompted Arnthor to free him.]
1107
1108Able believes that Arnthor lost Eterne in attempting to regain the passes; regardless, he is very weak after being freed from the dungeon. The pages who wait on him fear the coming of the Osterlings, and he invites them to the dungeon to be devoured at once, seriously or not. He tells them about the Isle of Glas, and its beauty and light. He even asks for poison. The Earl Marshal brings him the blade Baki found for him (*Wizard*, XXXV 418). [This blade of the Ice Aelf seems in many ways the opposite of fecund Eterne, a blade symbolizing the ice of death rather than the green of burgeoning life. However, I will finally admit that perhaps the description of the sword as being brought by Baki in this scene is possibly a mistake – it was Uri who brought him the blade. Of course, even though Baki insists that she and Able must be parted forever, there is a potential reunion in one body if the chimeric twin model is accepted as Able’s destiny – Baki and Uri will become one again, as not everything inside Able dies.]
1109
1110Able threatens the Earl Marshal with the blade, pricking him, and telling him that they will go to Aelfrice together. When he takes Escan to the dungeon, Able finds that he fears it more than the Earl Marshal and compares it to a grave. He frees the prisoners on the twelfth level, then they descend even below the fifteenth level, to a rocky plain that smells of the sea. Able tells him that winds are rare in Aelfrice, though there is a discernible breeze at dawn and twilight near the sea. [This matches the times when the females of Jotunhome are visible in Jotunland.] The Earl Marshal says that they have lost to the Osterlings, who are less than human. Able warns that humans may become just like the Osterlings in time. Overcome by beauty and peace, the Earl Marshal thinks that he could stay in Aelfrice forever, surrendering his fortune and castle. Able says, “‘Maybe you will,’ … because I was thinking of leaving him there; but soon I said, ‘Follow me,’ for I had spied a crevice in the base of the cliff to our left” (*Wizard*, XXXV 421). [Given the times that swords and binding rocks have fallen into crevices, this trip to Muspel bears some resonance with Able’s first journey there, chained to Thunrolf. It should be noted that Able is the one who thinks of leaving the Earl Marshal in Aelfrice; some part of the Earl Marshal actually does seem to remain in Aelfrice after their confrontation with the most low god.]
1111
1112A dragon attacks in the darkness, and the Earl Marshal falls down a stony slope. Able pierces the dragon’s eye. As he tries to follow the Earl Marshal, heat and color are sapped from the world. When he finds Escan, he has been disturbed by the sight of a giant monster which Able assumes must be Org. Great sheets of ice hang from the ceiling, and the Earl Marshal and Able encounter the most low god, who demands their worship in exchange for a great secret. [We shall return to this scene below in our final section.] The most low god claims that his back is the Most High God, and that they stand in Niflheim and Elysion at the same time. As the monstrous “god” flees amidst a disturbance shaking the very foundations of Niflheim, Able sees that his back is only comprised of lumps and running sores.
1113
1114When Able and the Earl Marshal ascend to Aelfrice, the older man expresses his desire to stay there, and seems to leave an image of himself behind. [Given that Able thought about leaving him there earlier, I think this is a fairly straightforward illustration of twinning – a copy of the Earl Marshal has dropped off, just as Bold left a shadow in the pond in Glennidam so long ago.]
1115
1116When they return to Mythgarthr, Kingsdoom is ruined, summer has come, and a red flag flies over Thortower. They find a woman begging for food who says, “The king’s dead … and Osterlings rule Celidon, eating those they don’t enslave. I have a hiding place” (*Wizard*, XXXVI 425). Escan is concerned for his bastard son Payn, who had served him unacknowledged. There is evidence of cannibalism everywhere, and Able says, “I’d a servant … who did the same, though he didn’t cook his meat. Thus I’m inured. Is it worse to kill a child, or to eat it before the worms do?” (*Wizard*, XXXVI 426) [The Osterling conquest truly does serve as the final re-appropriation of dead Celidon’s resources. The beggar woman, Galene, has a name starting with a G. Normally, the defensive line represented by knight such as Gilling and wizards such as Garsecg were strong and powerful, but since the death of Setr, the G figure seems more concerned with hiding and begging. Gylf did not stay with Able during his final incarceration – it was Org who warmed him.]
1117
1118Uns is still at the inn, and together they fight an Osterling patrol: “[T]he Earl Marshal snatched the leader’s sword as soon as I dispatched him, so we fared well enough” (*Wizard*, XXXVI 426). Uns has Able’s bow, quiver, and helm. In their attempt to get back inside Thortower, they go through a passage which almost sees them dragged down into Aelfrice as hands grab at them. Able pulls Baki from the mass harassing them, and Able feels “a cold justice that had pronounced sentence already” for her abandonment (*Wizard*, XXXVI 427). He offers her to Escan.
1119
1120Baki says that she hoped if she left him in the cell until he was nearly dead, he would be grateful for her help. Able once again claims that he is “just a boy playing knight,” and that Escan would see him that way if he could see as Able sees with his helm (*Wizard*, XXXVI 427). Baki says that she was trying to draw him to Aelfrice, and that was why he could only lay hands on her in the tunnel. This seems to anger Able, but they are interrupted by an Osterling attack. Grabbing a sword, Baki fights them off viciously. After the battle is won, she offers to meet Able sword to sword, and he refuses. They do not find Wistan or Payn in Thortower and then continue towards the Mountain of Fire. Able tries to reach Cloud with his mind but receives none of her thoughts. On their path, hungry, the Earl Marshal suggests that they go to Aelfrice again. Able lists the dangers, and asks, “Don’t you remain there? … Let that be enough” (*Wizard*, XXXVI 429).
1121
1122Around the fire, the beggar woman who came with them, Galene, complains that the knights did not fight hard enough. She seems to have lost a man and a child to the Osterlings, and Uns grabs her hand to comfort her. In the fire, Baki appears, and Able goes off in the direction she points. He finds a woman with eyes of yellow flame, and she tells him that the wind is in the chimney and that Payn and Wistan are defending Redhall. [Does the comfort Galene receives from Uns mirror the comfort Able gets from Disiri?]
1123
1124Disiri calls Wistan by the name Toug here, and when Able corrects her she responds, “I doubt it matters” (*Wizard*, XXXVI 430). [Once upon a time, Toug and Wistan were definitely associated with opposing forces. Now, they seem to have joined in a profound way, indistinguishable to Disiri, collapsing into each other even as Celidon collapses.] Disiri invites Able to come with her to Aelfrice and leave the others to their deaths.
1125
1126>Until then I had not known we stood upon a hilltop; the ground ahead fell gently; jeweled air shimmered not far down the slope. “I can’t,” I said.
1127
1128>Disiri sighed. “And I cannot love you as you love them. Will you come if I promise to try? To try very hard?”
1129
1130>“I can’t,” I repeated. “Not now.”
1131
1132>“I will tire of you. I know you know. But I will come back to you, and when I come back we will know such joy as no one in either world has ever known.”
1133
1134>She must have seen my answer in my eyes, because she vanished as she spoke. The hill vanished with her, and I stood on level ground. (*Wizard*, XXXVI 430)
1135
1136[Here, Able does his duty even though the thing that he has dreamed of for so long lies within his grasp: he gives it up so that his friends will not die, and this elevates him.] Escan says that he must go to Redhall as well when he learns that Payn is alive there, telling Able the story of his birth: “I loved his mother. … I loved her very much. I couldn’t marry her. … She became pregnant and hid in the forest, half a day’s ride from Sevengates. … She was four days in labor. She could not deliver. A forester had fetched his wife, and when she stopped breathing Amabel opened her and took out my son” (*Wizard, XXXVI 431). [This reinforces the danger to the “real” mother in America – Idnn’s horse, Garvaon’s wife, Escan’s love, and even the mother of Uns and Duns all perish, as Mag drank from that poisoned cup long ago. One of the three gifts that Able considered could be magical was a chalice that might nullify poisons, big enough to bathe a child in. Does Able have the power to nullify the poisonous growth killing his mother?]
1137
1138When they come to Redhall, the group hides in the forests to avoid a fight. Escan thinks that rain would help them sneak in past the Osterling siege; though the moon is waning, it is still too bright. They are starving, and Galene says, “You can eat me when I die … but I won’t die so you can eat me” (*Wizard*, XXXVI 432).
1139
1140These words prompt Able to disobey the precepts of Skai and to call up clouds to “blind the moon at my order, and autumn’s chill crept south from Jotunland in servitiude” (*Wizard*, XXXVI 432). [Given the connection of lunar imagery to fertility in the novel, this might be a more serious portent than it first appears to be, even though it lets them rejoin their allies in Redhall.]
1141
1142With the darkness, the defenders decide to attack, opening the gates of Redhall. Able sees a golden knight emerge, “fearless and swift as any lion” (*Wizard*, XXXVI 432). That knight’s battle cry is “Idnn!” The thunder Able feels manifests itself once again as Gylf reappears to him. The power of the sea returns when he faces an Osterling chieftan wielding a mace of chains with three stars.
1143
1144>They outreached my shield as a man reaches over a hedge and knocked me flat in the mud. I rose as the sea rises, saw him for the horror he was, and I drove the stolen sword into his throat as Old Toug might have dispatched a hog. How many fell after that I cannot say; but the rest fled, so that what had begun as a sally ended as a victory, the first of Celidon in that war. (*Wizard*, XXXVI 433)
1145
1146The dead and screaming Osterlings strew the battlefield afterwards, and Able finds Svon:
1147
1148>Svon with half a shield still on his left arm, and half a swan on it, and a swan on his helm, a swan of gilt wood that had lost a wing in the fight. We embraced, something we had never done before, and he helped me get the Earl Marshal into the manor, with Gylf gamboling to cheer us by his joy, and wagging his tale.
1149
1150>Twenty or thirty people came crowding into the room, drawn by the news that a nobleman of high station had joined them. They hoped, I am sure, that he had brought substantial reinforcements; but they were gracious enough not to grumble when they learned that Gylf, Uns, and I comprised the whole. (Some may even have been relieved, for they were on short rations.) (*Wizard*, XXXVI 433)
1151
1152Svon says he is a prince now, and Able congratulates him on his return to nobility. The coming of warm days revealed that Idnn’s best troops, the daughters of Angr known as the Skjaldmeyjar, could not continue to fight, so they fled to Redhall. Svon also reveals that Toug is there, though he is reluctant to speak. Able notes, “[Toug] gave me his hand. I asked about his shoulder, and he said it had healed. That was not the case, as I soon discovered; but it was better” (*Wizard*, XXXVI 434).
1153
1154Toug describes how he felt compelled to lead his village against the Osterlings, joined by the Free Companies, even though their stock was lost and the barley stomped flat. He says he arrived at Goldenlawn in his retreat, but it had not been restored yet. Toug and Etela will be wed next year if they both still live; this prompts Gylf to lick him in the face. He mentions that there is someone else there: the old couple from Jotunland, one of them blind.
1155
1156>A thousand things came rushing at me then – the ruin of the land, Arnthor’s eyes, the drunken smile of his sister, and the empty, lovely face of his queen. Sunless days in the dungeon, cold that was the breath of death, Bold Berthold’s hut, wind in the treetops – Disiri’s kiss, her long legs and slender arms, the green fingers longer than my hand. Gerda young, as Berthold had remembered her, with flaxen hair and merry eyes. Mag in Thiazi’s Room of Lost Love.
1157
1158>The Lady’s hall in the flowering meadows whose blossoms are the stars, and, oh, ten thousand more. And I, who had been laughing only a moment past, wept. Toug clasped me as he would a child, and spoke to me as his mother must have to him: “*There, there … It don’t matter. It don’t matter at all*.”(*Wizard*, XXXVI 435)
1159
1160[The knowledge that Bold is there fills him with the sorrow and memories of his entire existence, which will now be inextricably linked to that brother, whom he has struggled against and finally embraced. The sundering and bisection of Svon’s swan heraldry on the helm and shield immediately after Able called up the rains to blot out the moon is of course immensely significant, as we are getting closer and closer to the sacrifice which will forever render Able unable to be.]
1161
1162Lamwell of Chaus arrives to tell them that the king needs them in the south. Svon and Idnn go north, but Able resolves to join Arnthor. The boon he asks of Idnn, which she grants in fulfillment of her promise to the Valfather, is for Bold and Gerda. She also makes Payn a baron, and the Earl Marshal acknowledges him as his heir. Able calls to Cloud one more time, but there is no answer. “After we left Redhall, I called to her no more” (*Wizard*, XXXVI 436). [Cloud has not been available to him since his imprisonment in Thortower. Given her association with the breath of the lady, this might speak to Able’s state. In addition, the Jungian association of horses with endurance might also indicate that the time and the ability to endure is past: now is the time to capitulate, so that all is not lost for both brothers.]
1163
1164Going South, Bold and Gerda, Pouk and Ulfa, Uns and Galene, and Vil and Lynnet form couples. Lamwell serves as Able’s lieutenant, with Toug and Wistan below him. As they proceed, Able notes that sometimes the Aelf brought food, but never enough. At Forcetti, Duns joins them, his mother having been killed. “With us, Duns quickly learned that he could no longer boss his younger brother” (*Wizard*, XXXVII 438).
1165
1166The group finds Osterlings in the Rook’s Tower, eating their own, but they also come upon Org there, who has grown monstrous and huge. The ogre had climbed into a large breach in the tower. He leaves with them. “When we had gone some way south, I saw [Galene] floating as it seemed over the plain, borne up by a shambling monster more visible to my imagination than to my sight” (*Wizard*, XXXVII 439). [It is only natural that Org would appear in a tower overrun with Osterlings, but here the ogre carrying the weakened elderly beggar woman associated with the leter G on his shoulder as Gilling once carried Idnn on his own shows the extreme change in fortunes.]
1167
1168He comes upon the wounded Arnthor, who is curious about the force Able can bring against the Osterlings at the Mountain of Fire. When Arnthor learns who killed his brother Setr, he says that he will not avenge his brother upon “a man who cannot see” (*Wizard*, XXXVII 441). Able indicates that this makes him worthy to triumph even if he does not. Beel informs Able that Arnthor’s second in command, Coth, was killed. Marder now fills that role and has been summoned, and he gives his sword to Arnthor and receives it back ceremonially. Alone, Marder tells Able about what has transpired and how his men drove the Osterlings from the Burning Mountain. Marder describes the battle of Five Fates, which he calls “a tale for children” (*Wizard*, XXXVII 442).
1169
1170Long ago, the Caan of the Osterlings gave a sorcerer a chest of gold and was assured that his barren queen would produce an heir. She gave birth to six. “In all my life I’ve never heard of a woman bearing six children together, yet six there were, like as peas” (*Wizard*, XXXVII 442). These children were marked by ribbons of red, brown, white, gilt, blue, and black. [In Able’s description of his fight with Loth, he noted almost all of these colors, if we consider gilt equivalent to yellow. However, he mentioned green there and brown here – G and B have been significant elements of the text. Many of these colors appeared both on the sails of the phantom ship and on the dragons themselves in the final confrontation with Setr.] The five fates of the battle’s name are the fates of the five tijanimirs. A seer prophesied that all of them would die young. Their dooms involved a crushing by stone, a trampling into the mire, a death at the hands of followers, perishing in a golden fortress, a drowning, and being run through by the old Caan’s sword. The deaths, when they come, are not enacted literally: one was killed by a slingshot when he removes his helm, the next was trampled by horses, and the third injured by a lance so badly that he begged his followers to kill him. The fourth was killed by Sir Woddet with a thrust through the eye socket, and the fifth had his lungs pierced by a dagger, drowning in his own blood, leaving the sixth and final son as Caan.
1171
1172The Black Caan locked the sword that could kill him away in a vault, and of course this is the sword given to Able by Uri. Celidon surrenders Burning Mountain to seek north for more supplies. In battle, without food, any horses that die are eaten. Gylf helps Able find more food as he makes up the rear guard of Arnthor’s forces.
1173
1174At one point as the war proceeds, Able falls, but Gylf viciously defends him, and then Able is summoned to speak to Marder, where he learns that Queen Morcaine wants him. When he goes to see her, she appears as a serpent, tempting him to be king and take Arnthor’s crown by marrying her, in order to gain revenge. He refuses, and she says:
1175
1176>“Listen! We haven’t much time. My brother will be dead in a month. No one will want Gaynor. Many will cleave to me for my father’s sake. More will want you. Wise men like His Grace will fear a new war, pitting brother against brother, ‘til the Osterlings conquer both. Calling those who favor us together, we’ll declare our intentions to wed.” (*Wizard*, XXXVII 446)
1177
1178[Her acknowledgment of a joining and of the possibility of brother fighting brother strikes close to home.] Able looks behind the curtain in her pavilion, where she told him someone very important was waiting to see him. Wearing the helm, he sees an empty inferno there. Without it, he perceives the fox-featured and fire-crowned Lothur. Lothur says, “You know me … and I know you. You called me the youngest and worst of my father’s sons not long ago, and insulted my wife” (*Wizard*, XXXVII 446).
1179
1180Lothur says that he offers help, perhaps jokingly calling himself a good person. Gylf and Able kneel before him. Lothur says, “If I told you to touch your nose to the carpet so I could put my foot on your head, would you do it?” (*Wizard*, XXXVII 447) [Here, the image which started with the Khimairae and Org is given its ultimate expression, when Gylf and Able bow down to Lothur.]
1181
1182Lothur says that he will grant three wishes. Able asks for food, men, and Cloud. Able has not been able to find her since the queen imprisoned him. Lothur says, “You’ve changed, both of you. … You met the most low god. … He grants wishes, too, but he grants them in such a way that you wish he hadn’t. I never stoop to that” (*Wizard*, XXXVII 447).
1183
1184All Lothur wants from Able is for him to break the promise he made the Valfather and use the powers of Skai: “I enjoy salting his silly dreams with reality now and then” (*Wizard*, XXXVII 448). Lothur agrees to provide the first two boons before Able must break his word: “[T]hree times and big and showy” (*Wizard*, XXXVII 448).
1185
1186In his letter to Ben, Able admits that he had already made up his mind by the time he entered the pavilion to use the powers of Skai and break his oath, and though he could not raise the dead, he could do many other things with Skai’s power. That night, Queen Gaynor comes to him, waking him with a touch and speaking with a voice he compares to a dove. She says he must hate her, and he says that they are both kids, “And us kids have to stick together, or the wolves will tear us apart” (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 450). She says that Arnthor has seen the future, and “Before the new moon” he will kill the Caan and be killed in turn (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 451). She seems to insinuate that Able would be the best replacement for Arnthor, but Able says nothing.
1187
1188On their way back south, the army meets a strange group who consider themselves the children of the Dragon. Able understands their speech, though no one else can. Able and Wistan meet their leader, Smiler, under a flag of truce. Smiler has three ministers with a staff, a whip, and a sword in dragon shape. The one with the sword asks for their surrender. Able refuses and requests to share food in order that they might be friends and gain glory together. The minister with the whip says that they are sworn to conquer or die, and Able says that they will die then. The one with the staff says that the people of Celidon are barbarians who do not understand civilization, and Able agrees that he would like to.
1189
1190“We are the children of the Dragon, Sirable [*sic*]. For most, by adoption. For the Son of the Dragon, by blood. The Blood of the Dragon is his father. … His Sons are Sons of the Dragon. Dragon Blood fills him each time he engenders sons in his wives” (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 453). [This imagery linking blood with a kind of creative force is directly applicable to the idea that all of the creatures living in this narrative exist in a biological stratum.]
1191
1192Their conversation becomes even more relevant to our thesis: “Each would rule. Is he not Son of the Dragon? … A son may bow to his brother, and be cut. He remains. If no, they fight with magic. Our prince chose to fight” (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 453). Able assumes that this prince must have lost, but he is corrected: “He won. The winner leaves Home Throne to his brother. Do you not understand? … It is his glory to extend the Realm of the Dragon” (*Wizard, XXXVIII 453). [Here, a brother can surrender in order to gain the kingdom, but his brother, who wins, will expand outward.]
1193
1194They demand that Able and the Land of the East obey in order to prosper, and the minister with the whip threatens them with its coils. [This should remind us of the coils upon which Able slept when he was injured in the hold of the *Western Trader*. The children of the Dragon also talk about their expansion to the north, south, and west.]
1195
1196They insist on strange rules for their combat: “When one fights one, three victories are sufficient” (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 453). When three losses are suffered, everyone must submit or be put to the sword. Able manages to make himself the first champion, with Woddet and Kei as the second and third. As they prepare for the fights near a cliff, Gylf is chained so he will not interfere. [The sudden appearance of these foreign invaders, whose language Able mysteriously speaks, relies on a kind of numinous magic to make sense at the plot level, but their arrival and their tradition, in which the brother who loses wins the kingdom, serves as a vital reinforcement to Able’s resolve. Able insists upon being first among champions even if he loses. It is also important that Able once faced Woddet in the mountain pass, who became the Sun Knight after killing the Golden Caan; he also faced Kei at the tournament, who was the previous year’s champion. In some ways, this final individual combat is an echo and reversal of the fights which came before, with Ironmouth in the place of Able.]
1197
1198When Able looks through his helm at his opponent, he sees that Ironmouth is a bold knight who might add real strength to his side against the Osterlings. Ironmouth cuts through Able’s lance, but Able manages to trip him. They wrestle (just as Able wrestled Gerrune after Gerrune broke his halbert). Able sees Lothur’s inferno on the cliff, and Ironmouth succeeds: “an unexpected slight threw me down not a hand’s breadth from a sheer drop. I regained my feet, but not quickly enough. I snatched air, caught thick, coarse, white stuff – I knew not what – and clung to it for dear life” (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 454-5). The voice of Cloud in his head asks if he can’t run on it as Gylf and the horse do. Able realizes that he could, but choses not to. He mounts Cloud’s back, which has transformed from gray to “spangled with ice crystals.” Cloud says that they are born dark, reaching their true color with age. As he talks with Cloud, he sees Woddet fall, and Kei dies facing Ironmouth. Then, Able descends on Cloud and grabs Smiler, pulling him up with him. He says, “We’re going to Skai … where time runs fast. We’ll find Lothur, or if not Lothur, Angrboda, and confront her together.” In one sentence, Able leaves this meeting dangling: “It did not prove necessary, for Lothur found us” (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 455). [The conclusion of his meeting with Lothur seems as inconclusive as the confrontation with Kulili. Whether it is reflected elsewhere in the text seems slightly impenetrable.]
1199
1200The next scene finds the two forces allies, marching north together. Passing over the Greenflood south, they had burned the bridge and swept the sea-lands of food, though Stonebowl, the minister with the sword, says that he had found more inland. The Knight of the Leopards joins them. Able says, “Now I know we’ll win … There’s a tide in war not even Overcyns can turn aside. It’s making – I feel it in my blood” (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 456). He explains that the Son of the Dragon wants to carve out his own Kingdom in the south and will have help from Celidon in doing it. Able is concerned by the early return of Cloud, before he broke his oath to the Valfather:
1201
1202>The Valfather is the kindest and wisest ruler, and the bravest. His son Thunor is the model for warriors, as is often said. A hundred times more is the Valfather the model for kings. In that time, when I thought about him often, it came to me with a shock that he was the model for fathers, too. I had told myself I never had a father. Far less than you, Ben. It was not true. He had been my father, and he had known it when I had not. (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 457)
1203
1204Able fears that all he had hoped to do will be undone. Arnthor, plagued by a wound, seems to be upset when Marder mentions the forest fight to him. Woddet tells Able about how the Osterlings had chased them into the wood, so full of trees that there was no room to swing a sword. “I had never used a mace since – never mind. I used it again, and dropped it wrestling two fellows Heimir brained for me. We had no time to look for it, and I used a saxe after that. … I’d hold it low and rush them with my shield up. Some had mail shirts, but their legs were bare. I’d put it through the thigh and cut my way out, and go to the next” (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 457). In that battle, the forces of Celidon retreated from the Black Caan, who slept on the ground that night.
1205
1206Etela comes to bring Able to Lynnet, who has been talking strangely. She is telling Bold Berthold about his father Black and the presence that made him seem larger than he was. [Able, too, has that presence.]
1207
1208>”Once I saw him wrestle a bull. The bull threw him twice, but he jumped up each time before it could gore him. He threw it and held it down. It struggled like a puppy, but he wouldn’t let it get its legs under it again. It frightened me so much I made him promise never to do it again, and he never did. I never knew him to break a promise to anybody.” (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 458)
1209
1210This is juxtaposed against Etela’s announcement that Able is there. Lynnet says she would like to think of him as a son. She asks, “May I?” (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 458) [The distinction between “may” and “can” has been repeated throughout the text, and here Lynnet drives home that word by asking permission to call him a son. Her tale of Black Berthold wrestling a bull should keep us in mind of the bull’s connotations, from fertility and virility to the sun itself.] At Lynnet’s question, Vil comes forward with hope and fear in his face. Able says he would be proud to be called her son and to call her mother. She says, “You’ve always been my boy, because I love the boy you were before I met you” (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 458). [How far is it from here to the dream Able’s mother had?]
1211
1212He asks her about the Room of Lost Love and the Isle of Glas, saying that he is troubled. “Do you remember how I came there? How we met, and what you told me?”
1213
1214She answers, “My son Able came to me in that beautiful, terrible place, Sir Able, not you. I was chained there, and though I would willingly – oh, very, willingly – have come away with him, I could not” (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 459). [While this might seem to be talking about something that happened before our Able came to Aelfrice long ago, more likely this is a direct memory of her time in the Room of Lost Love, where Able appeared to her as a child, or from a different dream Able had.]
1215
1216That section ends, and Able relays another dream. In it, he is in the Forest Fight with Woddet and the others, with green bushes and trees all around; they struggle to push through. Eventually, Able finds himself in the treetops atop a great tree, beholding a pavilion of black silk with Eterne inside it, feeling the guilt of taking another sword. He sees a highway beyond the tent, full of vehicles, including emergency ones. He tries to catch up to the ambulance, but he cannot. “Able – the real Able – was in that ambulance. I knew that, and I wanted to help him.”
1217
1218Able awakens and wonders if Baki is next to him, but the voice says, “Guess again.” “I thought it a better dream than my dream of the treetop and the crowded highway, my dream of the Forest Fight” (*Wizard*, XXXVIII 459). [The Forest Fight is the last iteration of the mad dash of conception, with the sperm beating against each other in a fierce race. Woddet wields a mace in it as he did before he was the Sun Knight, and the pavilion, which has served as a symbolic representation of the womb, here seems to be the ovum as well. Eterne rests inside it, representing true life. The icy sword of the Osterlings is something else entirely, and Able’s presence in the hospital does not preclude the idea that his mother might be in that hospital as well, suffering from complications from a difficult pregnancy or labor. The touching story of Lynnet being chained and unable to follow her son might even be a kind of inversion – the chains of life might bind her so strongly that Mag cannot be with Able.]
1219
1220As the novel winds down, Able and his followers encounter a starving traveler who bows before them and begs food for his wife and children. Able says that there is someone coming behind him, a knight with leopards on his shield, who might be able to feed them. “Tell him you’ll fight the men from over the mountains with us if he’ll feed you and your family and give you weapons” (*Wizard*, XXXIX 461).
1221
1222Finally, they encounter the hordes of the Osterlings and engage in battle. Leort asks Able how Gylf is, and Able says, “He’ll live, I’m sure, if we can keep him from fighting ‘til he’s well” (*Wizard*, XXXIX 462). Able says he has learned that he can be killed. The summary Able offers of the tides of battle could just as easily be talking of the landscape in the womb:
1223
1224>Osterland had been beaten by Celidon (decisively, it no doubt seemed) at Five Fates, the battle that had cost him his father and brothers and made him Caan. He had regrouped, beaten Celidon at the passes, and pressed on, his army gorged on flesh and ready for battle on any terms – a battle he must have felt sure would be the last.
1225
1226>The result had been the Forest Fight, over which neither he nor Arnthor had exercised control. He had won in the end; but his camp had been sacked, and the war that seemed nearly over had become a long struggle. He had outflanked Arnthor and taken Kingsdoom and Thortower, had sacked them both and butchered thousands, and so regained the prestige he had lost in the Forest Fight; but Arnthor had refused battle again and again. 
1227
1228[Arnthor’s refusal to engage has prolonged the battle, but while this might perfectly encapsulate the condition of the two brothers whose struggle has stood behind all of this conflict, Arnthor and his actions are not necessarily synonymous with Able.]
1229
1230The wounded Gylf tells Able that his Master, the Valfather, walks. Though there is no wind, Able feels that someone far bigger than Schildstarr is moving. When Able rises, he notes that there is no more strength in Gylf’s jaws. Able comes to the pavilion erected by Arnthor, where he discusses the attack. Able says that if they wait until nighttime, he can promise a thousand archers, Wood Aelf. Smiler says, “You, Scatter of the Dragon’s Blood, are my ultimate ancestor … but let us have also the blessings of the Fox” (*Wizard*, XXXIX 465) [Calling Able his ultimate ancestor is a bit disconcerting, though of course Able is responsible for engendering all of the personas we encounter. In addition, this dreamscape exists in the sleeping mind of his mother and perhaps his brother, sent by Michael. The blessings of the Fox involve the trickster figure, probably Lothur.]
1231
1232Arnthor speaks with Able alone, saying that he does not fear death but that none of the Valkyrie will acknowledge him when he dies. Arnthor says that his queen would receive Able if he went to her, and Able refuses to do so. Arnthor is concerned about his honor, and reveals that he has Eterne, which was temporarily lost. He gives it to Able, and Able feels as if a part of him which was lost is found again.
1233
1234When he unsheathes the sword, the phantom knights appear to bow to Arnthor. The king asks if it is possible that he might join them. Phantom voices whisper “*It may be – it may be*” (*Wizard*, XXXIX 467). Arnthor asks for Able’s sword. “I saw then how Parka shapes our fates, and took off my sword belt, and the sword Baki had found for me” (*Wizard*, XXXIX 467-8). He tells Arnthor that the king may draw it, and gray light fills the pavilion. Arnthor can feel that it thirsts: “It walks in the desert and dreams of a lake of blood” (*Wizard*, XXXIX 468). [In many ways this blade seems the opposite of Eterne, lonely and solitary in its terrible thirst.]
1235
1236The final chapter, “The River Battle,” begins when Wistan and Yond find two points at which the river might be passed. Able gives the better pass to Arnthor, as well as the best figthers and the Dragon Soldiers. One of the sentries on the river, Sir Marc, refuses to let an insult from the Osterlings go unreturned, and they wade into the river to start the fighting. The fighting spreads, but when Able goes to mount Cloud, she hears another call and takes off into the sky, where his thoughts cannot trouble her. At one point, Able fights a captain who wields a pole mace. “Eterne hewed the iron chaps behind the head and left him with a stick. He flung it at me and tried to draw sword, but I took off his arm at the elbow before I split his helm” (*Wizard*, XL 471).
1237
1238The army that he is fighting seems mutable and confusing:
1239
1240>They were running, and the riverbank much too far to my left, and ahead a great cloud of boiling dust in which a flag and a few plumes were visible, a cloud so thunderous that the trumpeting of an elephant sounded small and lonely, like the crying of a child. We would take the cloud – the cloud that was an army – in the flank. We would damage and delay it, and that might be enough; but wether it was enough or not, it would turn and crush us. I ordered my brave, desperate, untrained badly armed troops forward, and ran ahead of them shouting, “*Disiri*!” Our arrows raked the cloud. It might do some good. Better to die than not fight and know that Rober and Lamwell would have fought like the heroes they were.
1241
1242>And then the dragon roared above us belching flame, and wheeled in air (I had stopped to look up) and came at us so low its wind stirred the parched dust, and straight for me. Its flame washed over me, and its jaws closed on me, burning; but the sun’s last rays were saping its reality still. It could not lift me or crush me, and our arrows flew through its scales and into its vitals.
1243
1244>It rose with a wild cry that swiftly became a cry of triumph. The sun was setting, and the blazing breath that had been weak as a candle in sunlight strengthened every second. It circled, skimming the Osterling army it had made its own. The shadows that had been sharp when we crossed the river were vanishing, melting into a general darkness. And the dragon, Ben, was as real as I, as real as Setr had been in Aelfrice, a monster of jade and jet. (*Wizard*, XL 471-2)
1245
1246Able actually mentions the crying of a child as a simile in this battle scene, and the entire set up is another iteration of the cloud under which Grengarm flew before Able engaged him on the back of the griffin, though this time inverted, from the conclusion of the first novel. The cloud seems to be storm, army, and even dragon all at once.
1247
1248Able charges the dragon with the Knights of Eterne. “That was when I did the thing I had hoped to do when I spoke with Arnthor, the thing Michael had done beside the pool. All that I had told Toug became true for me; and the Aelf, even Disiri, were less than dreams – only thoughts to be created and dismissed at will. I called for them as a god, and my call compelled them” (*Wizard*, LX 472). The sky fills with arrows, and thousands of Aelf come with Disiri. The Osterlings hold for a time but are crushed: “They were the best that Osterland had to show, the Spahis and the Caan’s own war band, and few lived” (*Wizard*, LX 473).
1249
1250Able falls on the field, but a scarecrow figure of mud and moss saves him – Disiri. Arnthor and the Black Caan meet at the water’s edge, and both of them die there. That night Arnthor is burnt. After the battle, Able realizes that Bold will surely die from a spear injury: “Otherwise I might not have chosen as I did” (*Wizard*, LX 473). Able sends Pouk for Gylf, who had been “double-chained in the rear to save his life” (*Wizard*, LX 473). Everyone watches as Able addresses his friends, saying that he had thought to lead them on Cloud, but had lost her at the worst possible time. [While the dark dragon he fought was an echo of Grengarm, it would be interesting if it actually was in some way a manifestation of Cloud suddenly turned against him, given its association with the cloud containing the Osterling army.] Able plans to break his oath directly now, and heals Bold and Gerda, restoring what was lost in the pond. Lynnet says to him, “You are not my son … and yet you are. Will you make me go?”
1251
1252He replies, “Never … But I cannot make you live again. That is beyond me. Kneel. I don’t have much time” (*Wizard*, XL 474). [Here, he seems to be addressing the spirit of Mag, but judging from the initial description of Lynnet and the sorrow and anger expressed by her mother Lis at Goldenhall, Lynnet is another lost child, who seems to be more mature than she is.] Able cries as he heals the rest, including Uns and Wistan. Vil gives the bowstring back to Able, and for his last act Able blows on Pouk’s blind eye.
1253
1254The Valfather tells Able that he is finished, and then forbids that Able should end his own life: “You will die when Winter and Old Knight whelm us. So will I. So will my son Thunor, who does not believe it. Meanwhile, I thank you for mending my dog. Shall I return Cloud?” (*Wizard*, LX 475)
1255
1256Able refuses, and the Valfather says that Lothur is neither kind nor generous. Able defends him: “I never entreated your son for help, nor did any act of mine deserve gratitude. He told Morcaine to summon me and offered his help. We were starving and too weak to face our foes. He brought us food and men. I will make no complaint of him – never again” (*Wizard*, XL 476). The Valfather asks if Able is coming back, saying that few are asked even once.
1257
1258Able responds, “I am not Able.”
1259
1260Once again, the Valfather offers to summon Cloud and let him mount, but Able refuses. Etela says that it is out of consideration for Disiri, who would not be able to go with him. The Valfather asks that Able’s helm be put on his head, and he sees the Valfather as a bright shadow and Bold Berthold as Ben. Able cuts his arm and lets Disiri drink, “great sobbing gulps while I clenched and unclenched my fist so that human life flowed freely, never stopping until a small, green-eyed woman stood beside me” (*Wizard*, XL 476).
1261
1262[The Valfather’s presence here as but a bright shadow indicates that he, too, might be composed of the most benevolent aspects of Able’s psyche. His offer to bring Cloud again, associated with breath and endurance, is denied, and Able chooses instead to sacrifice his blood to someone who can never care for him in the same way he cares for her rather than ascend to Skai. The comments Able makes about starvation and weakness bleed through the illusion here to reveal the true necessity at work.]
1263
1264As Able leaves with Disiri, he catches his reflection, and sees a grim warrior rather than a boy. He casts the helm away into the water, and goes with Disiri to Aelfrice, where they can act as children again. They have a puppy named Farvan, whom they speak to of “the play now past and the play to come” (*Wizard*, XL 477). They watch the sky and see Bold Berthold kill Schildstarr, and Able says “Soon time will ripen and we will come again” (*Wizard*, XL 477). He claims Michael has found him, and that a great lord is in need of a champion. He ends, “Do not worry about me. I am fine” (*Wizard*, XL 477).
1265
1266The letter that Able writes is very similar to the one which Mag proffers to him in the green glass which encompasses everything, through which he exits the Room of Lost Love. Like that letter, it is written in the language of the heart. While Able does not achieve Skai, his talk with Farvan perhaps promises that he will someday come again. Here, at the end of Able’s story, we should remember his certainty from near the start of his journey, about pride and kindness: "I thought about the highest world, Number One. It seemed to me that living way up there and looking down on the rest of us would make him proud. After a while I saw where that was wrong, and under my breath I said, ‘No, it wouldn't. It would make you kind instead, if there was any good in you at all’” (*Knight*, XXI 133). Perhaps Able’s entire bittersweet existence, both dream and reality, afforded the chance to see himself as a great hero and experience something of life, was just such a gift of kindness.
1267
1268All of Able’s struggle truly does emphasize that, according to Ravd’s earliest instruction, it is the sacrifice which has made him a knight - no amount of strength, wisdom, or money can make one: "A knight is a man who lives honorably and dies honorably, because he cares more for his honor than for his life. ... he acts honorably toward others, even when they do not act honorably towards him. His word is good, no matter to whom he gives it" (*Knight*, IV 42). Because Bold fought for his own selfish purposes, for his home and his life, he was not a true knight. Able has made a choice to treat his brother better than he was treated, and to give of himself in an act that will at least keep one of them alive.
1269
1270## The Power of the Collective Unconscious: The Last World is the First
1271
1272*The Wizard Knight* is not the only text in Gene Wolfe’s illustrious career that uses mythological elements to mask far more biological events. The middle novella of *The Fifth Head of Cerberus* and the short story “Peritonitis” are perfect examples of how Wolfe employs the tropes of adventure stories to overlay allegories of disease and infection, which actually occur on a very small biological scale. Here, that metaphorical approach to biology is turned to the numinous and miraculous start of a human life. However, even with our understanding of the text as a Jungian palimpsest, there are still some difficult details to explain. The biggest obstacle to our primary argument involves Able’s initial presence in America, with later mentions of teachers he knew, his Mac, and glimpses of situations which clearly occur on Earth, such as the dream of a machine gun and hijackers. The hijackers might be just another metaphor for the biological processes at work, when brother encroaches upon brother, a mimetic representation of the same invasion we see in the surface story as a fantasy metaphor. They could even be based in events from his living brother’s future life, justifying Able’s sacrifice; if this is the case, his brother becomes a hero.
1273
1274The final pages of the novel reveal that Michael has found a way to deliver Able’s “letter” – and there might be no way to do that other than in the dreams he sends to Able’s brother and mother. When Able first arrives in Mythgarthr, he supposes that he can somehow return home to his brother, but questions its wisdom:
1275
1276 >[A]t that time I believed I would be home soon. I had been kidnapped, I thought, by the Aelf. They had freed me in some western state, or perhaps in a foreign country. In time, the memories of my captivity would return. ... You would get married, and I would be in the way all the time until I was old enough to live on my own. The best plan might be for me to stay out at the cabin, for the first year anyway. It might be better still for me not to come home too quickly. Home to the bungalow that had been Mom and Dad's. Home to the cabin where we had gone to hunt and fish before snow ended all that. (*Knight*, III 33)
1277
1278Even in these early ruminations, the threat of cold and snow serves as an ending. When he talks with Bold Berthold, he even begins to doubt the veracity of his memories:
1279
1280>I was confused already, memories of home mingling with stories Bold Berthold had told me of the family here that had been his and was supposed to be mine. It was all in the past, and although America is very far from here in the present, the past is only memories, and records nobody reads, and records nobody can read. This place and that place are mixed together like the books in the school library, so many things on the wrong shelf that nobody knows what is right for it anymore. (*Knight*, IV 39)
1281
1282Able does have a valid link to the experiences his mother had in the form of his umbilical cord, which, coincidentally, also serves as his link to the lives of Earth, if we accept that Parka’s bowstring serves that purpose. In addition, if he truly lives only in her dreams, then those memories of America can result in being “all mixed up” with his mother’s own childhood, as the very opening chapter suggests. It is important that Jung’s understanding of archetypes and myths be understood in terms of the collective unconscious: the struggles and patterns that are repeated in the text, while they are informed by Able’s limited experience, are part of the inheritance of mankind. They pre-exist conscious thought. The most surprising source suggests that even the world of dreams and the unconscious reflections Able perceives are highly ordered, because they, too, are somehow true in spirit. When Able confronts the most low god, he hears that he has “come near the secret that lies at the heart of all things …. Worship me, and I will tell it” (*Wizard*, XXXV 422). The Earl Marshal worships, but Able does not.
1283
1284The most low god emphasizes the difference between perceptions and reality: “’You behold me as I am, Able. It may be the sight is too much.’ As it spoke, it no longer surrounded me. Instead there was before me upon a throne of ice a creature grossly great. Toad and dragon were in it. So was the Earl Marshal, and so was I” (*Wizard*, XXXV 422). Here the reality of the most low god’s existence is an amalgamation of everything that Able has been narrating, a monster that sees itself as the only thing in creation. Its lies are not entirely mistaken, but they are misguided, for there is something *outside* of its closed system. Able’s awareness, whether supernatural or not, of life in America is like a small gift, a connection with the outside world towards which he can strive. The patterns in the text explored in the section above hopefully display that linear time means very little in *The Wizard Knight*, and the most low god reinforces this concept.
1285
1286Seeing himself inside the most low god on a throne of ice, trapped with the Earl Marshal, is actually a succinct and clear visual image of Able’s actual physical condition. This truly is the secret of the text: Able’s only freedom is of the mind and spirit; his body is trapped, and the fires of life threaten to abandon him, leaving only ice and death behind. When the most low god tells him, “Know the great secret, which is that the last world is the first - … You stand in Niflheim, and Elysion,” we are right to be skeptical of the knowledge. The back of the most low god is but a rotting mess, though he proclaims it to be true divinity. As I have always insisted, even lies in Wolfe stories are usually somehow true, and Lothur suggests that the most low god actually does grant wishes in such a way that one would prefer not to have them come true. In these novels, the last world is the first: before coming to the womb of Mythgarthr and Aelfrice, Able seemed to dwell in Earth, but it was yet another presentiment, a dream of a potential waiting for him after his time in the womb, a vision of what might be for when he entered the true final world of reality. However, Able’s sacrifice, and the loss of Cloud and Mani, suggest that his gift was in living out an unconscious fantasy, the inheritance of humanity in all of its glory and all of its pain, where monstrous myths reflect real feelings, and a fierce struggle for existence is felt without being understood fully. When Able trades Ossar to the Bodachan, the unnamed voices there, several males and a female, offer to teach the child. Perhaps Able’s teachers from Earth, too, are tied up in these spiritual voices, just as some of the characters seem to be beings of elemental spirit sent to guard Able’s burgeoning life. The transferring of Mani’s allegiance to Idnn, as she represents true growth and development, does not mean that Able is left destitute, but it does mean that he has relinquished a symbol of selfishness, leaving it behind him as he matures, learning from the archetypes and incorporating their virtues into the development of his person. The first world Able knew, inside his mother’s womb, becomes his final world, too, as he lives on only in her dreams. Indeed, many of these memories are probably best understood as the memories of the little girl he is “mixed up” with – a designation that works just as well for his mother as for Disiri in a spiritual sense.
1287
1288After the most low god’s revelation, the inexplicable twinning of the Earl Marshal occurs, as he wishes that he could sit in Aelfrice forever, looking at the sky and enjoying the simple life. Like much in Wolfe, this serves a double purpose. Not only does it emphasize the creation of a twin that was suggested when the shadow dropped off of Bold, but it also symbolizes a spiritual and a material existence. Able may sacrifice the life of his physical body, but even unborn, his soul still exists, and will continue even beyond Ragnarok.
1289
1290When they return to Celidon, Able and the Earl Marshal learn that Arnthor is dead (erroneously) and that the Osterlings rule, but that image, of the Earl Marshal somehow twinned and staying in Aelfrice while a copy ascends to Mythgarthr, is another perfect metaphor showing (but never telling) what Able has experienced. Even in the ruins of Celidon, something remains. Physically, Ben will continue on, incorporating many of his brother’s parts in his own continuing struggle. Spiritually, Able is not entirely snuffed out – there is more than oblivion even to the unborn, whose struggle for life begins long before they leave the womb.
1291
1292In this turning of the cycle, Able becomes a hero in fact, even though he is doomed. Arnthor is defeated by the Black Caan, but rather than allow this to be a nihilistic tragedy, Able will feed his brother and strengthen him, accepting his transformation into a chimera. The words of the most low god, while certainly false, are in a deeper sense true. Only in dissolution can Able cast those bonds from him. Garsecg’s question about shackles does have an answer: a prisoner renounces his shackles when he dies, for no material bonds can enchain the spirit forever.
1293
1294Some readers might still be unsatisfied with this explanation for Able’s memories of America: the unconscious fragments of his brother and his mother’s lives influence the dream that tells them of Able. Another alternative explanation involves the myth of the Elysian Fields, in which three perfect, heroic lives finally result in admission to those fields – though I am reluctant to ascribe actual reincarnation a valid place here. The series seems preoccupied with ultimately Christian concepts as it reorders pagan mythologies to a complicated but still ultimately monotheistic theology, with the Most High God in Elysion.
1295
1296The overturning of the surface plot does not betray the romantic and chivalrous ideals of the story, as Able’s perceptions are real: they allow him to learn, grow, and develop, but the elements of myth are ultimately referring to him and his personal struggle. This reinforces that myths are not simply abstract and arbitrary lies without any vestige of truth. They are about very real struggles and hardships; everyone who has ever been born has overcome almost insurmountable odds. The harsh competition that marks the start of all life truly is strange and miraculous; at its heart, the continuation of humanity is based around both lust and love, light and darkness. Able must suffer and die, but his sacrifice is poignantly triumphant as well, for it allows someone else to live the life he might have had. Myths are about the beauty of life, and the fact that we are here, living and breathing, implies that sometime, somewhere, someone made a sacrifice for us, too, and defended us when we were most vulnerable – no human child is born with the ability to survive on its own. Perhaps if we could see each other clearly, the face of every enemy that we fight might be that of a brother, too. Able’s story, for all its particulars, is universal, and we can answer at least one of the questions he poses rhetorically: the dream his mother had is all around us, of life and joy and striving against nothingness. Perhaps the message of the novel is to make the hope in that dream come true, so the sacrifices others have made so that we might live as we do will not be for nothing, even if they are never known or acknowledged.
1297
1298## Resources
1299
1300- Andre-Driussi, Michael. *The Wizard Knight Companion: A Lexicon for Gene Wolfe’s The Knight and The Wizard*. Albany: Sirius Fiction, 2009. Print.
1301
1302- Aspen, Kate. “Love and Lilacs.” *KateAspen.com*. 5 Oct 2009. Web. 25 Jun 2018. < http://www.kateaspen.com/blog/2009/10/05/love-and-lilacs/>
1303
1304- Cox, Charles J. “Jungian Shadows in ‘The Knight.’” Reddit.com. 28 Jul 2017. Web. 5 Feb 2018. <https://www.reddit.com/r/genewolfe/comments/6q44g0/spoilers_jungian_shadow_in_the_knight/>
1305
1306- Duke. *The Duchy of Cumberbatch*. 2015. Web. 25 Jun 2018. <https://duchyofcumberbatch.wordpress.com>
1307
1308- Dwight, Mary Ann. *Grecian and Roman Mythology*. New York: A.S. Barnes & Burr, 1860. Print.
1309
1310- Evans, Zteve T. “Welsh Lake Legends and Folklore: Llyn Cwm Llwch and the Door of the Tylwyth Teg.” *Folklore Thursday*. 29 Jun 2017. Web. 25 Jun 2018. <http://folklorethursday.com/regional-folklore/legends-welsh-lakes-llyn-cwm-llwch-door-tylwyth-teg/#sthash.U7vH8Ds5.dpbs>
1311
1312- Jung, Carl G, M.-L. von Franz, Joseph L. Henderson, Jolande Jacobi, and Aniela Jaffre. *Man and His Symbols*. New York: Dell, 1964. Kindle Edition.
1313
1314- Jung, Carl G. *The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious*. London: Routledge, 1996. Print.
1315
1316- Kendall, Paul. “Willow.” *Trees for Life*. 2017. Web. <https://treesforlife.org.uk/forest/mythology-folklore/willow/>
1317
1318- Montazzoli, Paul. “Introduction.” *Don Quixote de la Mancha*. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1995. Print.
1319
1320- Navit, K. “Everything You Never Wanted to Know about Weland the Smith.” *Live Journal* 7 Dec 2007. Web. 6 Jun 2016. http://k-navit.livejournal.com/683252.html
1321
1322- Pirkola, Robert. Personal Correspondence. 14 Jul 2017.
1323
1324- Shakespeare, William. “The Second Part of Henry IV.” *The Complete Works of William Shakespeare* 1993. Web. 25 Jun 2018. < http://shakespeare.mit.edu/2henryiv/2henryiv.2.1.html>
1325
1326- Sturluson, Snorri. "Gylfaginning". *Edda*. London, England: J.M. Dent, 1995. Print.
1327
1328- Wolfe, Gene. *The Knight*. New York: Tor Books, 2004. Print.
1329
1330- Wolfe, Gene. *The Wizard*. New York: Tor Books, 2004. Print.