The Wizard Meets Himari – Part 1

I was reluctant posting the Wizard’s and Himari’s meeting in this group of posts, as it spans for two chapters. Almost the whole 17th and the whole 18th chapter. The meeting can’t be cut shorter, but I think it’s worth reading. Well… I wouldn’t have written it otherwise, so it’s a biased opinion. 😇 Also, there aren’t any spoilers for the main story, as this meeting happens more than 2500 years before the main story.

Anyway! The 17th chapter reads almost as a first-person narration, because it’s mostly Himari confessing his past to Albert. Then, on the 18th chapter the third-person narrator takes over.

Well, that’s all! Enjoy!

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“A long, long time ago, about two and a half millennia, in a world where magic was much more abundant than it is here, but not so widely distributed, I came to be. The Wizard was born in that same world. As magic wasn’t widely distributed, there were some beings that had too much magic. Not only humans, but humans, too. The Wizard was one of those beings, and even in that world, he was one of the strongest wizards. You can understand why, here, he seems as powerful as a god.”

Himari smiled nervously. The boy squeezed him, hoping his love will set the familiar’s soul at peace.

“Yes,” he simply replied, and he kissed, softly, Himari’s lips.

“Other than the powerful wizards, there were some not nearly as gifted ones. But these wizards realised two things. First; they could combine their powers to cast spells stronger than each, individually, could. Second; no human has zero magical capacity. And that’s true, Albert, in all worlds. Even in those where magic almost doesn’t exist. But, just like here, when a person has such a weak magical ability that they can’t use it for any purpose, we tend to say that this person has no magic, or no magical potency. It is true they can’t cast spells. But gather a lot of them together, and lead them to combine their next-to-zero magic and you can make miracles happen. Just like when a powerful wizard casts a spell.

“So, these weak wizards, came up with a way to make use of these facts. They created religions. At first, there were many small such groups. Many religions. But slowly, some of them joined forces making a stronger and greater religion. Some of them joined forces willingly. Some, forcibly. In any case, the many religions became the five great religions of the land. But humans are vain, and they always want to be the strongest. So, a war started amongst those five religions.

“You’d think that a monastery should be a peaceful place. But during that war, those very monasteries were the strongholds of the ‘armies’ and the targets for the enemies. So, it was common practice for the monks to create what they called a ‘Deity of Protection’. A powerful familiar, whose role was to protect the monastery from the enemies. One such monastery, full of fanatics, used the whole magic and life-force of three monks, along with the reinforcement of the rest of the monks and the devotees to create one such familiar. Me. You see? Even my birth cost the lives of three humans.”

“That’s not your fault, Himari. That was their choice.”

“Maybe. Has the Wizard told you about the houses, or temples of the familiars?”

“Yes.”

“Well… I was created in the middle of the war, so, to save time and energy, I wasn’t given a house, or, more precisely, the actual temple of the monastery was made my house. And usually, the familiar haunts the one who created him, but my creators died in giving birth to me. Therefore I would haunt the one who made contract with me. But familiars like me made contract with the Order itself, and not a person. This way we could protect the monasteries for generations and feed from the whole Order, without endangering any individual. On top of that, we were advertised as deities, and the devotees were encouraged to pray to us and give offerings to us, according to our nature. In other words, to feed us, too. Even less of a danger for the monks, then, even when we needed to overwork, like when some foe were to attack the monastery.”

“I get the logic, yes.” And the boy kissed the familiar’s chest warmly, and laid his head on it.

“The warring period lasted for about five hundred years. It wasn’t a constant warfare, just to be clear. That’s why it dragged on for so long. At the end of this period, out of the five great religions, only three had survived. The one in which I was born, was one of the winners of the war. If you can call what caused so many deaths of your own, a victory. But humans do that. And on top of that ‘we’ had completely subdued one of the religions that perished. That means, a lot of new devotees and a lot of money and land, as the monasteries, their fortune and the regions of that religion became ‘ours’.

“The monastery I was born in was in a difficult to approach area. It was selected for war reasons, after all. But, once peace was reassured and the fear of a new war ceased, such a place had more disadvantages than advantages. People – the simple folks – wouldn’t care to visit an isolated and difficult to approach monastery when other monasteries of the same religion were in more convenient places. And of course, where believers go, money goes, too.

“So, the Order decided to abandon the monastery I was born and bound in, for a bigger place, next to a city. Many other Orders, both of my religion and of the other two surviving religions did the same. If their Deity of Protection had a temple of their own, taking the familiar with them was a simple task. You only need to relocate the familiar’s temple to the new monastery. But I didn’t have such a temple. I was bound to the actual temple of the monastery, as I said. You can’t move a whole building! And my contract wasn’t with a person, either. Even worse, haunting a single monk would endanger his life. But now it wasn’t a warring period. A human’s life was more valuable than a ‘weapon’s’ life. And, thus, I was left behind. Alone. To perish.”

The boy, eyes wet, squeezed the familiar with all his strength and kissed his chest, again and again.

“That’s so cruel!”

“Cruelty was yet to come. We are tools, all right – created by humans, for them to use – but we are living beings too. And all living beings, Albert, have something called a survival instinct. Familiars have this instinct, too. Indeed, if a familiar loses their food, they lose their life-force and vanish into nothingness. But a strong familiar won’t vanish so easily. And I was a strong one. A hell of a strong one. I was adored as a god for five hundred years. But the longer we await for food, the hungrier we get and the more desperate, too.

“An abandoned monastery, in a place off the beaten track, in a period of peace, is the perfect hideout for groups of not-so-decent people. So, eventually, one such group came to my monastery. By then, I was too hungry to restrain myself. So, I fed on one of them. And by that, I mean I sucked all his life-force and killed him.”

The familiar paused. The boy kissed his chest, again. He looked at the familiar’s eyes. Himari couldn’t detect any fear, disappointment, or disgust. Albert’s eyes were wet, but the familiar couldn’t see any pity in them, either.

“I love you, Himari!” And he kissed the familar’s lips.

“By then, Albert, I had cracked. And absorbing the life-force of a criminal tainted me even further. So, I devoured the rest of the group, too. In a single night. While they were asleep. My strength had returned, but my sanity had been lost. When the next group arrived, I didn’t even wait for them to settle and sleep. I attacked them right then and there. And killed them, almost all. A few had the time to run away, and I was bound in the land, so I couldn’t hunt them. And this thing, happened more times than a few. And the place became known as one haunted by a demon, who’s eyes were burning flames.

“You’d think this would keep people away, but the exact opposite happened. More people started coming. Stupid, curious people, who wanted the excitement of meeting, subduing, or escaping the demon. And I was killing as many of them as I could, feeding myself, almost daily for some time. Now that I wasn’t desperate to eat, whenever a group would come, I would trap them and feed on them, later, whenever I wanted. That’s why I could eat daily. Were I half sane, I would trap a bunch of those, and feed enough to sustain myself without killing them. Then let them rest for days until they would have regained their life-force, and then feed on them again. But I wasn’t even half-sane.

“And as now, not only criminals, but normal people were dying, the authorities started sending priests and monks to exorcise the demon. That was a feast, for me. People with magical potency on top of their life-force. And as the priests and monks failed, wizards came. Even richer in nourishment. I was enjoying myself, Albert. I was enjoying feeding on them. Killing them. I was enjoying seeing their despair, when their spells had failed, and I had trapped them and they knew what was coming for them. Fear is fire. The more terrified they were, the more flavoursome they were. So, I made sure to terrify them as much as possible.

“And finally, a wizard more powerful than anyone before him came to kill me. By then I was certain there was nobody I couldn’t kill. I could see this wizard had more magic than anyone before him. I could see that even his familiars had more magic than any previous wizard – let alone their familiars. So, I thought I’d be having a feast greater than ever before. Of course, I was wrong. This wizard, after all, was the very same Wizard you know.

“Stupidly of him – or so I thought – he grabbed me and started absorbing my energy. That’s the most dangerous way to try to kill a being like me. We are concentrated feelings. Once you start doing that, our feelings will overwhelm you, and this will restructure your energies to highly compatible ones to ours. And that means, energies we can easily eat. That is, of course, unless the wizard has the mental strength to overpower the intensity of those feelings.

“So, when the Wizard did what he did, I wasn’t scared. I was overjoyed. I thought he couldn’t be stupider and fed him more of my energy. When fear struck me, it was already too late. The Wizard, by then, was absorbing my energy so fast and strongly, I couldn’t even reduce the quantity he was ‘stealing’ from me. And when I reached the brink of death, when I had abandoned all resistance and all hope, my mind cleared. Then I could see the crimes I had committed, for what they were. And that’s when – for the first time – I felt grateful to this wizard who was ending my misery along with my life.”

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To read the next part click here.