Urtho is considered to have been one of the most powerful Adepts in the history of Velgarth. He is frequently referred to as "The Mage of Silence" because he used only the power necessary for the task, and no more. Without the "loud" magical signature, his creations could not be detected by magical sight, mind-scanning, detection spells or magical scrying.[1]
As a very young man, Urtho was one of the nearly sixty journeyman mages involved in the first ever Great Work, restoring an eroded floodplain.[1]
Urtho sought to improve the use of magic by making written records, treating it as a measurable science, and pooling the knowledge of a variety of mages.[1] But his passion was to create; he was both artist and inventor, ever pursuing the creation of beauty. He designed some of the sentient magical races of Velgarth, such as the gryphons.[2] He picked up Khal Herta's work with the hertasi, blending more intelligence into each generation of children so that the changes would be smoothly accepted.[1]
Urtho lived in a tower, his second, in a kingdom called Tantara, where he was eventually named Archmage. His tower had multiple floors both above and below ground, as well as outbuildings, all housing the workshops and quarters of a small army of lesser mages and their assistants who worked on Urtho's designs, including the gryphons.[1]
In addition to creating living creatures, he was also an expert with Gates. He set up a network of permanent Gates running from his tower to various locations in and around the kingdom.
Urtho is described as "an eternal image of genius. Tall and thin, storklike, with a waist-length fall of curly silver-gray hair, huge gray eyes, a nose as prominent as Lady Cinnabar's and a lantern jaw kept scrupulously clean-shaven ... Skandranon thought there might be Kaled'a'in blood in Urtho's veins."[3] He did not appear to age: "he could be sixty or six hundred."[3]
The Mage Wars[]
Larry Dixon's drawing of Urtho the Mage of Silence
The Mage Wars occurred about a thousand years before the founding of Valdemar: seventy years of fighting the evil Adept mage Ma'ar.[1] After Tantara's King Leodhan died without heirs, Archmage Urtho was the highest ranking member of the Court remaining.[2] He took command of the armies, and did his best to halt Ma'ar's invasion. He used his Gates to move troops where they were needed, allowing the soldiers to return to their base around his tower each night, rather than deal with long supply lines.
Eventually losing ground to Ma'ar, in the end Urtho was betrayed by a few of his own commanders. General Shaiknam deliberately admitted Ma'ar's forces behind their lines. Then Mage Conn Levas attacked Urtho with fatally poisonous Miranda thorns. Though the effects were slowed by Healers, his death was inevitable. Urtho evacuated his remaining people from around his Tower, knowing that his death would trigger its destruction.[4] He gave Skandranon an ultimate weapon to be used against Ma'ar at some future date, but Skan chose to use it right away on Ma'ar at what had been the Royal Palace of Tantara. The explosion of both buildings became known as the Cataclysm, and spawned the first Mage Storms.
In the Series[]
Urtho as depicted in the Polish cover art
Urtho appears in the following work:
- The Black Gryphon, Mage Wars, volume 1
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Under the Vale and Other Tales of Valdemar, "Under the Vale"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Black Gryphon
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Black Gryphon, Chapter Three
- ↑ A dead man's switch (Wikipedia link)