Larry Niven's Warlock

This is a very old picture of mine, so old that its number in my art catalog is a single digit. (4, if you must know.) It was done for one of my early arts patrons, who features it in his online gallery. This image is from a story by well-known science fiction writer Larry Niven. He tried his hand at fantasy sometimes, purely for fun, trying to re-create fantasy concepts on a scientific basis. This series of stories, which my patron especially liked, take place in a universe where magical power, or mana, is a non-renewable resource that is permanently used up by magical workings. In this scene the main character, the Warlock, interrogates a young werewolf who had broken into and entered the Warlock's dwelling. The Warlock holds a glowing glass dagger, a powerful magical weapon. The title of the story is "What good is a glass dagger?"

My art patron is still active as a writer and blogger and supporter of the arts, often in the virtual Internet world of "Second Life." His gallery is here, where you can see other works by me dating way back to my early days in Cambridge, Mass. even when I was still a graduate student. By the way, the lighted brass lantern which you can see hanging at the upper left center of the picture, is a real lantern which still hangs in my studio right here where I'm typing this.

"Warlock and Werewolf" is ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper, 6" x 9", fall 1977.