Wizard World by Roger Zelazny
"Wizard World" is a fantasy narrative centered around the themes of magic, identity, and the struggle between good and evil. The story begins with the tragic deaths of Det Morson, a lord, and his wife Lydia, leaving their child Pol in peril. Mor, an old sorcerer, takes drastic measures to protect Pol by exchanging him for a human child and hiding powerful magical artifacts. As the plot unfolds, Pol finds himself in a complex world where he must navigate his newfound abilities and the perceptions of others who view him with suspicion and fear.
The narrative explores the consequences of magical power through Pol's journey, as he learns to embrace his identity while confronting his legacy and the darker forces at play. Alongside him are characters like Mark Marakson, a genius in the magical realm who struggles with his own emotions and conflicts. The story is rich with fantastical elements, including dragons, sorcery, and the allure of dark powers, culminating in battles that highlight the struggle for balance between two worlds. Ultimately, "Wizard World" presents a compelling tale of growth, alliance, and the quest for understanding amidst chaos.
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Subject Terms
Wizard World
First published: 1989 (previously published as Changeling, 1980, and Madwand, 1981)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Fantasy—magical world
Time of work: The near future
Locale: Earth and an alternate, magical world
The Plot
After Det Morson, Lord of Rondoval, and his wife Lydia are killed, Mor, an old sorcerer, finds their child, Pol. Fearing for the child’s life, Mor exchanges him for the child of Michael and Gloria Chain in the human world. Knowing that Det had courted the dark powers, Mor also breaks Det’s scepter into three pieces, hiding them at various sites in the magical world. Finally, he lays a sleep-spell on the castle and seals the cavern beneath, trapping a thief named Mouseglove who was there stealing figurines.
Each child is displaced from his natural world. Pol, now in the place of Dan Chain, displays magical abilities on Earth, and Mark Marakson, the real Chain child, displays a genius for technology in the magical world. His inventions scare the villagers, and they regard him as an evil sorcerer. After a battle with them in which his adopted father is killed and he is wounded, he retreats to Anvil Mountain, where his work threatens the balance between the two worlds. Disturbed, Mor convinces Dan/ Pol to return to the magical world because he has a talent that can save both worlds. Mor dies shortly thereafter.
Pol feels comfortable in the magical world, but he is regarded as evil. He eventually discovers Rondoval and his own abilities with spells. He wakes a dragon named Moonbird and the thief, Mouseglove. He traps Mouse-glove, finds out where the parts of his father’s scepter have been hidden, expresses a desire for revenge on the villagers, rescues Mark’s former girlfriend, Nora, and visits Anvil Mountain. He tries to make peace with Mark, but Mark believes that Pol is interested in Nora. They fight, and Pol subdues him. Mark is too warped by his hate to listen to reason.
Pol recovers two parts of the scepter, but during the attempt to recover the last, Nora is captured by Mark’s men and carried off. Pol and Mouseglove, aided by an army of dragons, rescue Nora from atop a building. Mark falls into a fiery chasm.
Madwand begins with Pol, after an attack by an unknown sorcerer, vowing to perfect his skills by attending a gathering of sorcerers at Belken Mountain. On the road there, he meets another sorcerer, who identifies him as a “madwand,” a person with magical but undisciplined powers. As Pol sleeps one night, Henry Spier, another madwand, enters the camp and warns him against using his real name at Belken because Rondoval has enemies. Spier believes that Pol’s interests match his own. He also alters Pol’s appearance and arranges matters so that no one will notice.
The party reaches Belken Mountain. Mouseglove sees Ryle Merson, who hired him twenty years earlier to steal figurines from Rondoval. Pol dreams of a strange, dark land beyond a gate, marked with a serpent and a bird, where he takes bird-form as a god named Prodromolu. Larick, a sorcerer, conducts him through a night-long initiation that organizes his points of energy. Pol learns later that Larick has exchanged all of his body parts, except his head, with parts of one of the dwellers in the dark world and has bound Pol with spells because he believes Pol will do evil. Spier appears and undoes the spells.
Larick then takes Pol to Ryle Merson’s castle, Avinconet. There, Pol dreams again of the dark land, discovers the gate that leads to it, and is warned by the ghost of Det to remember the name Belphanior if he gets into serious trouble. He also discovers Taisa, Merson’s daughter, sleeping in a glass-lidded coffin. At the urging of the figurines, he moves her body to a stone slab in front of the gate. The figurines also get him to remove them from their hiding place and place them on marked positions on the floor in front of the gate. They will act as keys to open the dark world.
Pol learns that Spier wants to release the dark powers that lie beyond so that he can become a god in this world. Merson wants to stop Spier and Pol, whom he believes to be evil like his father. Pol convinces him otherwise, and along with Larick and two friends, they eventually battle Spier. He prevails until Pol calls on Belphanior, an animated spell hung years earlier by Det to protect the family. Pol and his comrades finally defeat Spier, but he escapes with one of the statuettes, itself enough to open the dark world under certain conditions. The remaining keys are hidden away, and the sorcerers plan for their next encounter with Spier.