A Wizard's Tale Read online

A Wizard’s Tale

  I waited patiently atop the Place of Redemption. This place, in fact, was not a Place of Redemption. It was a place of choosing. It had nothing to do with my choosing, but rather the Order’s choosing of whether I was worthy of the Regeneration.

  I had been waiting for about five weeks now. It was part of my test. First, you spent a week climbing the mountain, next; you would hunt and search for water until the Order arrived. I could have used my wings to fly, but it was forbidden.

  It was partly a test of endurance, partly worthiness, but mostly, it was because the Order didn’t offer the Regeneration to just anyone. When they did however, it was incredibly taxing. They would lie in bed for weeks afterwards. The test was to make sure you weren’t wasting their time.

  The mountaintop was green, very green, and it smelled like spring. There was a faint mist hanging in the air, and the sun shone brightly through the mist.

  Alone, in a grove atop the mountain, I sat next to a spring, and I stirred the water with my stick. In the water, I could see my reflection staring back at me. I always wore a hood that shaded my face, so that all anyone could see who looked were my eyes-I was an old man, an old pixie, to be exact. There weren’t very many pixies left; we were a dying race. We did not age well. We were a short bunch who became extremely wrinkly when old. My wings had lost their colorful luster and my eyes had lost their emerald flare.

  I leaned back against a tree and closed my eyes. When I opened them, there was a young man staring at me from across the spring. He was part of the Order, I knew, because he was wearing a white robe. He was an overly serious youth with large eyebrows and a crooked nose- and very, very harsh eyes.

  Inside my hood, a smile adorned my face. “Someone takes himself too seriously.”

  “You are taking a test to judge whether you are worthy of regaining your Anima, Mr. Aled. From what I’ve heard of you, if you don’t regain your Anima soon, you will wither and die from old age. If I were you, I would be taking this seriously.”

  In mock imitation, I straightened my back and glowered right back at him, mirroring his face. Not that he could see me.

  Ignoring me, he got down to business. “You wish to have your Anima back,” he said, “and yet you are not even a Believer. It’s insulting that you should even ask the Order for Regeneration.”

  I leaned back and crossed my arms with a lopsided smile. “And yet, here we are…”

  He looked over me for a second. “How are you worthy, otherwise?”

  “Well… I may not share your beliefs, but I strongly value life, and I have defended it on many occasions.” I said, very sure of myself.

  His large eyebrows rose questioningly. “You strongly value life, and yet you tried to take away His greatest gift?”

  A surge of panic rose in me. I was grateful for the shade of my hood. I pulled down my sleeves. “What do you mean?”

  He reached out across to me over the spring and rolled up my large sleeves. There were two ugly scars across my wrists. I yanked my hands away. “How did you even see those?”

  “When you were crossing your arms,” he said. “Care to explain?”

  “I…” My voice wavered. I hadn’t wavered for the longest time when speaking. Words came easily to me; sometimes too easily, to the point where they got me into trouble. But I was determined to get my Anima, and even more determined to put this youth in his place. “It happened when I was still part of a pixie colony…”

  As I explained, my mind grasped details of my past in clarity, despite the fact that I hadn’t thought of those things in my life for the longest time.

  It was a rough time for me. I was twelve, and my father was pushing me hard at Anima because he was sick and dying. And he wanted me to take over when he was gone.

 

  We were a tiny colony. Even for a—well—tiny colony. We had our small village built atop a patch of mushrooms. There were precarious bridges leading from mushroom to mushroom with charming little houses on top of them. We pixies, you see, are originally tiny to begin with, smaller than a human thumb. Using our magic, however, we can grow to the size and height of a human child.

  Anima was a destructive type of magic. It was wild, precisely because it was attached to the mood of the user. You needed intense concentration and a calm mind to work it properly. It was not like the type of magic the Order used-‘Light Magic’ as they called it, it was simply a rarity to be able use, and if you could you were just good at it. Only Humans had Light Magic.

  My mood was not calm back then. I was angry, tired of being pushed around and yelled at. Sometimes, my Father was busy. These were moments I took to sneak away out into town and play games with friends.

  But when I came home, he was always waiting for me. “Where did you sneak off to?” He would say, “you need to get right to practicing!”

  I tried my hardest. I kept trying to concentrate, but if I did the spell wrong it fizzled out—or worse--I accidentally lit something on fire.

  My fingers would tense, I would look at an object intently without blinking, and willing it to burst into flames, but it never would. My forehead would start to drip with perspiration; I could feel my Father’s disappointment. Dark rings appeared under my eyes, and I was panting for breath before I knew it.

  I moved out of the way before he smacked me. He seized my wrist before I ran away. “This isn’t a joke, Keenan,” he gritted through his big teeth—I was a joker and a slacker even back then—and then he yanked me back to where I was standing and forced me to try for another hour.

  It was the most taxing, frustrating, inhumane thing that could be done to a person. Sitting there for an hour, knowing I could never hope to make anything happen, but hoping that I would. It was like reaching out for a piece of fruit when you are dying, but knowing you could never reach it.

  “You are too emotional!” He claimed. “You must purge your emotions! Don’t you cry…”

  I was biting my lower lip, and biting back tears as well. I covered my eyes.

  He sighed. “You may go rest,”

  I bumbled off, almost falling down from lack of energy. As I lay in bed, I decided I couldn’t take this pressure or lack of energy any longer. I had to do as my Father said. I must purge my emotions.

  So, in practice for doing magic, I decided not to feel anything at all.

  As the weeks rolled by, I came to realize my plan worked excellently, and Father had never been prouder. I was stoic, emotionless, and even when I finally succeeded that first time in doing a spell, I felt no joy.

  I could still remember my stiff face, my blank mind and personality. I tensed my fingers, and made that first tiny blade of grass our servants had plucked for us burst into flame. There were even claps and cheers. Cheers for me losing my personality, but gaining the wondrous ability called Anima.

  My Father put a proud hand on my shoulder. “Excellent job, son. You have a proud Father.”

  I looked up at him expressionlessly. Well, I had certainly made him happy, and he was unaware of the things I sacrificed, to gain the respect of a man whom I now resented and despised. Really, it didn’t matter how important it was for me to learn his little magic tricks. He took something away from me that I could never get back. I just wanted to be me—a child of twelve.

  Months after I first made that blade of grass burst into flames, I realized, I was in a sort of pain. An unbearably numb pain.

  Wordlessly, I slid my hand over to the small knife in the desk next to my bed, held it for a moment, and subconsciously put it lightly to my wrists.

  The Order boy looked at me without a noise. He hadn’t lost his stoic face, but I knew he was feeling sorry for me. “That’s awful.”

&nb
sp; I shrugged. “He wanted me to be a leader.”

  “You were a child,” he said, disgusted that I was defending my Father.

  I snorted with an indignant smile. “I was pathetic.”

  He shook his head with an incredulous little unintentional grin. “You are very funny, Mr. Aled. You make light of everything, even yourself. You had an issue, and you needed help. It was not your fault; it was your Father’s.”

  In my hood, I looked at him intently with a frown. “It was a silly reason to do such a dreadful thing. It was like… throwing a tantrum because you can’t pour your juice without spilling. And please, call me Keenan,”

  “It was not silly, and equating it to a child wanting juice is insulting,” he said seriously with downcast eyes, and suddenly he seemed to be lost in thought.

  I looked at him unflinchingly. Gauging what he was thinking. “You are like me?”

  “What?” He said, brought out of his reverie.

  I leaned forward and poked his scarred wrist with my stick. “You are like me?”

  He rolled his sleeves down, his cheeks red with embarrassment. “That is beside the point. You made the decision to become large forever. Why, Mr. Aled?”

  “Keenan,” I corrected, “Why do you think, Mr. Serious?”

  “Well… Keenan,” he said awkwardly, “it’s something to do with your Father, isn’t it?”

  I leaned back thoughtfully. “Partly,” I assented. “It of course goes deeper than that, though…