The Wizard of Xamba

Central Asia, 1280 A.D. ...

Samuel of Locksley awoke. His head throbbed, his dry tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, and his vision was blurry. Yet he was able to discern, standing about forty paces away, a man dressed head to toe in metal armor.

Pushing himself up, Samuel gained a knee in the dry and dusty dirt. Eventually, though it pained him to the core, he stood.

“Are you a knight?” he called out to the man. “I am in distress and require aid!”

Samuel looked down at his bloody tunic. He felt the spot on his belly where the dried blood was thickest, and the pain nearly sent him back to the ground. Nevertheless, his feet held their place.

The metallic man made no reply.

“Did you hear me?” Samuel shouted. “I need your help!”

He staggered toward the motionless figure, but stopped as suddenly the question of the fate of his sister and friends came to mind. What had happened to Rhiana, Kristopher, and the Little brothers? Were they alive? Could they have survived the flashing swords and stinging arrows of the Turkish horde?

Samuel could not know. All he knew was that, with the exception of the armored man, he was alone in this vast wasteland. The ravages of disease, hunger and barbarian attack had destroyed the Papal delegation to Xanadu. The grand party of One Hundred Men of Learning and Letters, along with their squires and retainers, had been utterly destroyed.

Suddenly, the man of metal began to slowly turn around and walk away. A strange whistling sound seemed to match his movements.

“Wait!” Samuel cried. “Speak with me at least!” He struggled to move forward and pursue the mysterious stranger.

After a seemingly endless and painful march through the swirling dust and shadows of twilight, Samuel wiped the caked dirt from his eyes just in time to see an astonishing sight.

A doorway had opened in the middle of nowhere. The metal man shuffled through it, and then the doorway vanished. Samuel was truly alone.

He lurched ahead toward the spot where the stranger had disappeared, waving his arms as if to grab hold onto any remnant of hope. He had reached the pinnacle of despair, when his hand struck something hard.

He banged his fist against the invisible object, and it echoed as if hollow.

He banged again.

And a third time…

Then with a quiet creaking sound, the same miraculous doorway reappeared. Beyond the opening, Samuel could see a vast though dimly lit chamber. Though he had no reason to trust that the place beyond the door would be safe or welcoming, he knew that the desert behind him offered no comfort either. He stepped through the door.

Once inside, it slammed shut behind him.

He looked around, allowing his eyes a chance to adjust to the dim expanse. Eventually, he noticed the metallic stranger standing on the far side of the chamber.

“I am Samuel of Locksley,” he announced, his voice echoing wildly, “and I come in peace.”

Again, there was no answer.

Soon though, a figure dressed in white appeared on a balcony high above.

“Locksley, you say?” a rich and resonant voice floated down to Samuel’s ears.

“Yes, my lord,” Samuel bowed as far as he could. “I am far from home, and I fear not far from death’s door. I asked your knight for aid, but he has not heard me.”

“He is no knight,” the figure in white declared, “but rather an automaton of my own making. He cannot help you, other than in the way he already has, by leading you here.”

“If I may ask,” Samuel panted in his near total exhaustion, “what is this place, and who are you?”

The man in the white robe lifted up his arms and then proceeded to float down from the balcony, until landing on the ground several paces away from his guest.

“You see before you the great and powerful Wizard of Xamba!” the man in white proclaimed. “And you have arrived at my invisible tower, which no mortal has ever found and then departed to tell the tale.”

“I do not doubt that you are one of great power and might,” Samuel said humbly, “and so I plead for your mercy and kindness.”

“And so you shall receive both,” the Wizard replied in a suddenly softer tone.

The Wizard stepped forward into the flickering torchlight, and his face became illuminated. Behind the wrinkles and lines from many years of pain, sadness and regret, Samuel could see eyes and a face that looked strikingly familiar.

The two studied each other for several awkward moments.

Samuel was the first to speak again, and the words he uttered awoke something inside the Wizard that had been long dormant; words he had never expected to hear again.

“Uncle Edric, is that you?”