[941] Spellfire

This is a short attempt at world building.

#Previous critiques: 194 192 631

#Spellfire

Spellfire is an ugly thing.

Natural fire, by and large, won't kill you by flame or heat. It will often suffocate out with smoke and toxic fumes; a mercy of nature really. But spellfire is the work of man, and it was not designed for mercy, but by the odd logic of a warlock's fevered mind, molded into the abstract paradoxes of language, all made manifest. Where flame burns, spellfire will torture; where flames roars, spellfire will whisper dark words; where flames light the way, spellfire will absorb all light but its own.

I've seen men melt, fully conscious, crying out for a parent or some blind god. I've seen people walk unaffected into the blaze, talking lovingly to an invisible face, and then vanish altogether. I've seen the fire take violent forms, and rip apart men, horses and ships, before birthing them anew in flame, setting them against former friends and countrymen. I've seen still flailing corpses fall into the deep waters, yet still burn under the tides.

And I've seen Port Soyeur, aglow as on a bright summer day, before it was swallowed whole by the blast.

You understand that I don't think kindly of the mighty magician, be them free or enslaved. The gods have in their madness decreed that some men would have power over existence itself, and of that terrible choice was born only tragedy.

But their power is still, after all these years, a source of infinite curiosity to me. They affect all, bend logic to their will. A strong magician might create all kinds of mathematical paradoxes simply by walking near a busy chalkboard.

Why they cannot just wish people out of existence, I do not know. It appears that living things have some kind of resistance, of inertia, preventing them from being directly affected. A warlock in some desert is an even greater threat. Without common grass, worms, insects to bind the world by sheer force of expectations, there is little limit to their power. But in the great prairies, unfarmed and untended, there are but two great tools left to them. Imagination, and fire.

The magicians are thankfully not immune to their own power. They can fall asleep by a single thought. Turn themselves into savants, or idiots. Wish themselves hungry or full, men or women, beautiful and agile, happy and wise, or all the opposite. And should a great tragedy happen to them, wish their minds cold as stone. That is the price they pay for their terrible power.

When your physical and mental self can be modified instantly, wishing to love someone or discard another, or binding yourself to promises you can never break, you tend to turn quite mad. Or maybe only the mad survive the gift; I do not know. But I do know that those who do not turn to stone statues or erase themselves from history are quite dangerous.

We call warlocks the magicians who dedicated themselves to the art of killing. The ones who birthed spellfire. As things are now, your only real chance against a warlock would be another warlock. They are thankfully drawn somewhat to each other, seeking to dominate, modify, and subjugate any form of competition; and through that bloody contest have arisen witch-kings and god-emperors.

You might think that a magician would have no interest in ruling. After all, they could just take the safer path, and wish themselves immortal, happy, and far, far away from any other possible threat. I assume some do just that.

But it is the nature of man to give himself objectives, needing for only right and for only justification that the goal is hard to achieve. That it requires interesting choices, a test of skill. A magician will have no interest in wealth, health or comfort, but the subjugation of the living is the limit to their power, and for that, they seek it. They will search for youths coming to their abilities, and through shear power will break the young magicians' will, until the broken can swear their undying allegiance.

Mind you, some of these great kings wished themselves, early on their rise, to be kind, merciful and sane, and of them arose great and prosperous civilizations. Our local warlord is not one them, but King David of Zion, or King Otalgn of the Sea People still come to mind. Ruling great deserts of sand or water, they willed nations into existence, providing food and comfort, and letting the people trade for wildflowers and exotic pets.

But others have shed more blood and sowed more suffering than any mortal man could have ever dreamed of. When Axayacatl let loose his animated clay jaguars, they wiped out half a continent before he could be put down, and the beasts still roam the many shattered isles that remain of his domain; and when the tamed fires of the Un landed on Istani shores, and the slave battlemages of distant Avalon began their rampage, it was said the rivers boiled and ash blotted the sun for decades.

Sometimes the rules change. An immensely powerful magician is born in some forsaken land, and for a while, things stop making sense. Lands disappear. People wake up and find themselves lost, their language and culture extinct. The days run twice as fast, or stop altogether. I do not know if what we live now is normal. If the sky should really be green. If what we call green is still the same color as yesterday.

But I can feel the earth move. There are strange lights in the sky, and land freezes deeper every year. The crops are dead, and the slave magician tasked with protecting us, with feeding us, killed himself yesterday. You'd think that I'd be used to it now. You'd think that I would have stopped caring for my mundane life, so easily wiped in a land of men made gods. But I did not. I still very much want to live. And now, more than ever before, I am afraid.

#Afterword

I'm not a native speaker, but I love English. I love the flexibility, the complexity of it, and I want to get better at it. So here it is, about 4-6 hours of work total.

I tried to write about things I love: fantasy, bronze age references, some hopefully subtle foreshadowing, a grimdark world, and eldricht powers. Some inspiration comes from the Reckoners series by Brandon Sanderson, that I will suggest to anyone who will listen.

I am utterly incapable of assessing my own work, so I would welcome any kind of criticism.

#Edit

A bit late, but I've created a google doc with the new version