Lizard Dreams
Words by Mercedes Lackey, music by Leslie Fish


Most folk avoid the Pelagir Hills, where ancient wars and battles
Were fought with magic, not with steel, for land and gold and chattels.
Most folk avoid the forest dark for magics still surround it
And change the creatures living there and all that dwell around it.
Within a tree upon a hill that glowed at night with magic
There lived a lizard named Gervase whose life was rather tragic.
His heart was brave, his mind was wise. He longed to be a wizard.
But who would ever think to teach their magic to a lizard?

So poor Gervase would sit and dream, or sigh as sadly rueing
That fate kept him forever barred from good he could be doing.
That he had wit and mind and will it cannot be debated
He also had the kindest heart that ever gods created.
One day as Gervase sighed and dreamed all in the forest sunning
He heard a noise of horse and hound and sounds of two feet running.
A human stumbled to his glade, a human worn and weary
Dressed in a shredded wizard's robe, his eyes past hope and dreary.

The magic of his birthplace gave Gervase the gift of speaking.
He hesitated not at all  ran to the wizard, squeaking,
"Hide, human, hide! Hide in my tree!" he danced and pointed madly.
The wizard stared, the wizard gasped, then hid himself right gladly.
Gervase at once lay in the sun until the hunt came by him
Then like a simple lizard now he fled as they came nigh him.
And glowered in the hollow tree and hissed when they came near him
And bit a few dogs' noses so they'd yelp and leap and fear him.

"Thrice damn that wizard!" snarled his foe. "He's slipped our hunters neatly.
The hounds have surely been misled. They've lost the trail completely."
He whipped the the dogs off of the tree and sent them homeward running
And never once suspected it was all Gervase's cunning.
The wizard out of hiding crept. "Thrice blessing I accord you!
And is there somehow any way I can at all reward you?"
"I want to be a man like you!" Gervase replied unthinking.
"A wizard  or a man?" replied the mage who stared, unblinking.
"For I can only grant you one, the form of man, or power.
What will you choose? Choose wisely, I must leave within the hour."

Gervase in silence sat and thought, his mind in turmoil churning.
And first the one choice thinking on, then to the other turning.
Yes, he could have the power he craved, the magic of a wizard
But who'd believe that power lived inside a lowly lizard?
Or he could have the form of man, but what could he do in it?
And all the good he craved to do  how then could he begin it?

Within the Councils of the Wise there sits a welcome stranger
His word is sought by high and low if there is need or danger.
He gives his aid to all who ask, who need one to defend them
And every helpless creature knows he lives but to befriend them.
And though his form is very strange compared to those beside him
The mages care not for the form, but for the mind inside him.
For though he's small, and brightly scaled, they do not see a lizard.
He's called by all, both great and small, "Gervase, the Noble Wizard."
He's known by all, both great and small, Gervase the Lizard Wizard!