Chương 10: Ignorance

Ch 10: Ignorance After they'd fed him and patched his wound (the healing failed miserably), the islanders took Felix to a damp, cramped little room. It had nothing but an altar and a bunch of unlit torches, some candles, and what looked like bundles of hay and sticks. Otherwise, the 'temple' looked like a sewer. Just cleaner, with all kinds of dark tunnels leading off, with little gutters filled with water. The princess stood beside him, a bunch of priestesses down the hall.

"This is the test of flame," Isavey told him, gesturing to a cushion in front of the altar.

"You kneel down and try to light as many fires as you can. Start with the candle. Then move up to the torches. If you manage that, just go along the line and try to burn everything you can."

"Uh." Felix glanced around the 'temple'.

"I can't do that."

"Do what?"

"Any of that." The princess furrowed the thin lines of her eyebrows.

"Of course you can. You're a fire wizard, Felix. It needn't be anything fancy. Just let out some of your pool. Your mana. Whatever you have available." Felix was a Lifestealer. He had no 'pool' available, which apparently both continental mages and island wizards understood was a thing. And it was at this moment he began to realize: he had a problem. He'd expected another 'crystal' test like the one he'd been given as a boy.

'Stare into the crystal like a good boy, Felix. Very good. Your power is useless, Felix, because you have no pool. Now off you go for a treat.' The islanders didn't seem to know what Lifestealers were. He kind of figured he'd get away with being a 'uselessly weak, dual wizard, and that'd be the end of it. Except here they were, asking for a real fucking magic trick. They knew he had power, which meant they thought he should be able to do this. Light a candle? Child's play to a real mage.

An elementalist could have done what they were asking drunk, with his eyes closed. Except Felix was not an elementalist. He had no pool. No mana. The only way he could burn anything was to flash his ridiculous trigger—to release the endless flame he spent his whole life burying, because he couldn't control it and would probably explode in a fiery inferno if he did. He cleared his throat.

"Listen, ah, princess…your father was right, my magic is incredibly weak. Must be the whole 'dual' thing, right? I don't think I can even light a candle." Isavey stared with a 'you're full of shit but I don't know why' kind of face. Apparently he wasn't such a great liar. He looked away, then back again, and her big, beautiful eyes were still locked on him like they were trying to bore a hole into his brain.

"Here in the isles, it's far better to be a powerful wizard than a weak one, Felix." She lost some of her intensity and knelt down beside him, right on the stone, and lowered her voice.

"If you are tested as a weak, dual wizard, they may not let you leave. They'll want your bloodline, do you understand? They'll think of you like a dog, and hope to fix things with a few generations of better breeding." It was Felix's turn to stare. Isavey looked up at him then back at the stone, clearly embarrassed.

"My people have many fine qualities. But…we judge those without magic. And those who've squandered their gifts, even through ignorance. I tell you this because whatever your talents, it's far better to use them fully. To impress my father and his court. Please try."

"I understand," he said, trying not to let too much resentment enter his voice.

"Better to be a valuable slave." Isavey met his eyes with a flash of offence, but soon looked down again.

"Test well, and things will be different. They will think of you as a foreign asset. Even a potential equal to be nurtured and trained." Felix shook his head, knowing he couldn't do what she asked. It was frustration talking more than anything.

"It's not a trick, princess. My magic doesn't work like you think. I'm…" A fucking Lifestealer. A destroyer of all things and people who get in my way, and not a performer of parlor tricks!

"Please explain it to me," Isavey said, putting a hand over his.

"Tell me how your magic works, and maybe I can help you."

"No one can help me," he said, staring at the wall.

"I have no pool, princess. Don't you understand?" If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"I'm sorry, but no. Do you mean mana? Because mana builds inside you over time. A wizard need only wait a little while and…"

"No." Felix felt his voice raise. He took a moment, and a breath.

"I never had any mana. I'm all trigger. You understand? Since I was a boy. There's nothing in me but a fucking inferno I can't control. And if I touch it…if I even think about it getting out…" he mimed an explosion with his hands, then shook his head. Isavey blinked, watching him closely for a long time.

"I don't understand 'trigger', Felix. And you mean you've never let it out? This 'inferno'? Since you were a boy?"

"No." He had no idea how to explain.

"Well, sort of. I mean little bits, once or twice, over the years. But no."

"But…" Isavey actually scoffed at him.

"That's…I'm sorry, that's ridiculous. That's not possible, Felix. You would have had to at least let it out through your body. Your skin. When you…"

"I'm telling you," he interrupted, clenching his hands.

"I don't let it out. I can't. I was trained not to."

"Is there a problem, my lady?" echoed the voice of one of the priestesses down the corridor.

"Does he need a focus, or a charge?"

"No." Isavey turned and smiled.

"We're fine. Thank you." She looked back at him and scrunched up her face in thought. She was so cute Felix couldn't bring himself to hate her for treating his life-long curse like he was an idiot.

"Sometimes the…mana escape, is hidden. A fire mage might warm water when he drinks it. When he bathes. He might cook food in his mouth without thinking. Or especially…" here she paused and turned red.

"When he… releases. Either alone, or with a woman. It can be extremely hot. Or… so I'm told." Felix blinked, a strange feeling of recognition spiking through his brain. His whole life he'd thought everything was overcooked, teasing his father endlessly despite the man's protests. It was the same on every ship. The same when he cooked it himself. Meat that looked juicy and tender was always dry in his mouth. He thought of the winters on the coast, the cool rains, the snow he'd always loved and never worried about.

The spray off the prow, the storms he'd always ignored. He'd just never seemed to comprehend the cold like other men. He'd assumed it was the way of Lifestealers. But now… he suddenly wasn't so sure. It wasn't like he'd ever met one and sat down for a chat.

"Say you're right. How does that help me," he said, staring at the candle.

"I'm still holding an inferno inside. I can't just let it out." Isavey shook her head.

"It's not an inferno, Felix. It's your mana. And it sounds like you've been digging a channel your whole life. Though I don't know how that's possible." Felix stared in frustration and the girl nodded and held up a hand for patience.

"The longer a wizard 'holds' his mana, the longer he lets it charge, the deeper his channels. That is, his ability to hold more. We train children to do this just before their final years—to dig their channels as deep as possible, to hold as much mana as they can before they reach adulthood. It lets them express more powerful spells. To work in conjunction with their…" she shrugged, "their trigger, as you call it."

"And what do you call it?" Isavey shook her head, and squeezed his hand.

"We call it their spirit. Their soul. And you've somehow been…suppressing yours. Though you must have been releasing far more mana than you think, because otherwise you'd…" she trailed off, and Felix raised a curious brow.

"Wizards who don't release their mana go insane, Felix. They become…violent. Deviant. They often do terrible things. It warps them, body and soul." Another few simple words like a smack to the face. He stared, thinking about all the things the people of the continent said about Lifestealers. It was like the exact same description. Is that what was happening to them? Were they just mages who couldn't release their mana? Use their 'spirit'? But he'd been tested!

"This doesn't make sense," he hissed.

"We have…academies. When I was a boy a mage brought crystals and tested me. He told me I had no mana. That I had a large 'spirit', as you call it. He said I couldn't ever use my magic except by taking it from the world. They call people like me Lifestealers. They always have. They lock us away so we won't hurt anyone. Or they fucking burn us at the stake." Isavey put a hand to her mouth, staring into his eyes.

"Some wizards… especially ones with powerful spirits, they need help to release their mana. Especially the first time. We use objects. Focuses. Different techniques. It can be stored differently. In different places. I don't know what these crystals were, but they must have only tested a specific place in your spirit. I'm sorry, Felix. But… it sounds like they were just wrong. That they didn't understand." He stared into the girls eyes, a dizzy feeling threatening his gut. He felt lightheaded. Numb.

It couldn't be right, could it? That his father had been wrong? That everyone on the whole continent had been wrong since anyone could remember? That they were torturing and killing boys and girls because they didn't know how to test or train them properly?

"Why…" he swallowed bile.

"Why are your people hidden on this island? If this is true, why don't you go out there and teach people? Why don't you fucking… help us. Why don't you teach us what you know?" By the end he realized he was shouting. That he'd stood and jabbed a finger in the poor girl's face like a lunatic. The priestesses had come forward down the tunnel with at least two guards. They pointed their stupid wooden sticks at him like he couldn't rip them away and beat them to death.

Isavey stood and met his gaze, a bit of wetness in her eyes.

"I… don't know, Felix. We didn't know. We're hidden because we fear the outside world. Because our gods and our wards protect us here. That's all." He'd suddenly become very tired. He closed his eyes and walked to the fortress in his mind. Sorry, his soul. Or whatever and wherever the fuck it was. He put a hand against the stone and felt the familiar warmth, breathing in the heat. It was comforting. In his control. His. Isavey was telling him his whole life had been a lie.

That all his struggle, all his discipline and suffering and fear had been a monster of his own creation. Of his ignorant father and people's creation. Worthless. Meaningless.

"I don't want to do your test anymore," he said, walking down the tunnel, feeling off balance, his footsteps echoing like drops down a well. The islanders held their stupid sticks in his face but he just pushed them away and walked on, not really caring what they did. Isavey maybe said something. Maybe called his name. It didn't matter. He just walked and walked, his body a thing that didn't much matter, his mind far away, safe and comfortable with its hand on a fortress of stone. They couldn't hurt him there.

Nothing could. And as it had been all his life, where there was no one to hurt, no one to kill, Felix always felt safest when he was alone. And all he knew for certain was that he missed the sea.