Sam looks exactly the way you would expect a great wizard to look. He has a pointy white beard and an equally pointy hat (but his hat is blue, not white). He wears a gaudy silk robe and carries an equally gaudy wand (but his wand is made from the bars of a long-forgotten song, not silk). He has a mischievous smile and a twinkle in his eye (and the twinkle is mischievous too... or is it?). Sam looks so much like a great wizard that whenever he walks by, people say "look, there goes Sam, the great wizard."
"No, no," Sam says, and here he always blushes red, for Sam is a modest sort who can't really help the way he looks. "I'm not a great wizard. I'm not even close. I'm mediocre. Semi-great at best." Then, to the crowd's astonishment, Sam exhales a cloud of phantasms who waltz through the air.
It happens just this way on Wednesday, which is sacred to fewer gods than you would think, since not even gods like Wednesday, only instead of exhaling he flashes a smile and a bolt of lightning that paints a vivid picture of the dawn times.
The crowd "oohs" and "ahhs" and a child says, in a winning, precious voice that only children in movies ever have, "Sam is the greatest wizard ever."
And Sam kneels down to face the child and he shakes his head slowly. "No," he says in a voice as cold as the grave, "I'm not a great wizard. If I were a great wizard I wouldn't have to fear the Shadow."
The child would shudder then, but before she can a man (perhaps her father?) steps forward. "The Shadow who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"
Sam looks up at the man, a little cross at having his moment ruined. "No," he says, in a voice now grown cold as the dark of nothing, "not that Shadow. The other Shadow."
The whole crowd shudders, then, and they are gone. Sam walks home to his tower. But the Shadow dogs his steps.
No, not that Shadow. The other Shadow.
* * *
Wednesday night is longer and darker than the townsmen feel it has any right to be. This is because they haven't been paying attention. They shiver in front of their fires and they hunger in their bellies and in their souls and they think of the dawn times that Sam showed them, the times when things were good. Things twist inside their guts. Things they call "fear" and "loneliness" and "sorrow" and "hate" but which don't really have names. They haven't slept a wink, they haven't said a word, but by the time morning comes (and it comes with more than a little hesitation) they have torches and pitchforks in hand and are mobbing towards Sam's tower.
"He's a witch," cries one man. "Burn him!"
"First of all," another man replies, "he's a wizard. Second of all, I think this joke's been used before."
"Oh, right," says the first and, embarrassed, he slinks to the back of the mob.
They smash open the door. They climb the long, spiral stairs. They find Sam, dead in his chair, a victim of the Shadow. No, not that Shadow. The other Shadow.
Afraid and uncomfortable around the corpse, the mob leaves as quick as it came. If he had been alive, Sam would not have been able to stop them. He was, after all, only a semi-great wizard. But his corpse is smiling. A timely death has saved him from being burnt alive.