When Murchison Met Magick

Although we're understanding the institutional details of the Wild Republic more and more all the time, there are still a number of aspects of it that AJD and I don't really understand.  The arrival of the new delegation from the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy has only highlighted some of these deficiencies in our understanding.

Near the top of our list is Murchison.

Murchison is an arctic fox and a secret agent of some sort; apparently most arctic foxes go into espionage.  When you think about it, this doesn't make all that much sense: how can your secret agents possibly be effective if everyone knows about them?  Murchison isn't undercover here, but surely he can't truly be undercover anywhere, right?  And what exactly is he doing, anyway?  We know he's up to something, something beyond merely being highly suspicious of Sir Tristan, but we haven't a clue as to what it is.

Now that the new delegation is here, we're even more intrigued, because the new delegation includes Magick, and Murchison is very clearly interested in Magick.

To be fair, everyone is interested in Magick.  Magick is an interesting character.  We're not certain, for instance, what exactly his role in this delegation is supposed to be.  He's a peer's heir and not precisely expendable, yet he's clearly known more than his fair share of danger; Pedro is apparently always having to patch up unusual and unexplained wounds for him.  Some of these are probably from duels (Magick's been in so many duels he's lost count) or from escaping from ladies' bedrooms (Magick's taste in women often runs towards the inappropriate), but he's definitely up to something and neither of us is certain what that is.  We suspect, from what Angel Joe has let slip, that Magick was given this assignment after a particularly ill-advised liaison with a married noblewoman necessitated sending him somewhere out of trouble (though Sir Tristan probably had a hand in that too), but that doesn't help to elucidate what his assignment actually is.  From his general attitude, one would be forgiven for thinking him primarily a bodyguard for Sir Theo and Lady Faraday, except that his rank precludes his accepting such a menial station.

We suspected that the meeting between Murchison and Magick would be epic.  Murchison, we know, has been rather bored here for some time; Magick is probably the answer to any number of his prayers.  Naturally he'd have heard of someone of Magick's storied reputation.  Nor were we disappointed, either; they met and promptly made it clear that they're going to be keeping an eye on each other.  Conceivably, this is evidence in favour of a theory making Magick Murchison's WPM equivalent.

Here they are, staring each other down.  They both wanted to make it clear that they are in no way intimidated by the other, and that even though Magick is here on a diplomatic mission, neither of them is letting down his guard.

I'm particularly fond of this picture for two reasons: I have always appreciated the aesthetic quality of a good black-and-white contrast; and this is the only picture we have of Magick that really shows him off, since photographing someone that black turns out to be hard.  Look at that gorgeous silhouette.

Here's the thing, though: we have reason to suspect that there's more to the relationship between Murchison and Magick than meets the eye.  We suspect, for instance, that this was not their first meeting, although it's difficult to articulate where this notion comes from.  We also wonder if they're less adversaries than they appear to be.  Consider this picture of the two of them in an unguarded moment:

Murchison appears to be whispering in Magick's ear.  Is he issuing a threat, or are the two of them in collusion over something?  Do they meet up in Bombay for friendly chess matches with lots of witty banter and then get back to being nemeses?  Are they secretly allies?  We'll have to keep an eye on them.