Majutsu-shi no Chikara Ch. 01

Majutsu-shi no Chikara looses translates to "Sorcerer's Power".

CHAPTER 1: Finding Talent

Wizards are powerful beings, wielding arcane energy through rigorous study and discipline. The nature of that study can take many forms, though often leads to things like civilizations -- large cities, colleges, academies, and guilds... these places develop standardized practices of magic, books of spells, magical items, and all manner of technology.

In another world, these Wizards might be called Scientists. Maybe. If Wizards' accomplishments weren't so damnably remarkable.

Of course, Scientists never had to fight-off a bored, centuries-old dragon or horde of resource-raiding giants... so, there's a certain urgency to the methods that Wizards use that no otherworldly Scientist would ever dream of using... at least, not without suffering some serious public relations nightmares or literally world-shattering consequences.

In the wilds of the world, Wizardry is far less codified... less "formal". This gives rise to arcane wielders called Shamans, Sorcerers, Hedge-Wizards and Magicians. Often seen as "lesser Wizards" by the more elite caste of Wizard, they are no less determined in their study -- if somewhat more preoccupied with survival (large cities, while tempting targets, are not so easily raided as a smaller town, village, or solitary tower). These arcane scholars in the more remote areas of the world often develop their own unique style of magic, their own signature... and can still twist the fabric of reality into knots alongside the best "classically" educated big-city Wizard.

In another world, perhaps, these more... rural Wizards, or "Wild Mages" would likely be seen as crackpot visionaries with barely-working "prototypes" or small-scale wonders and miserable marketing campaigns. Still, that doesn't mean that word of a powerful Sorcerer can't attract attention from any other corner of the world.

When considering all the fantastic, wonderful, and terrible creatures, powers, and planes of reality such a world may face -- it's easy to forget the small, seemingly insignificant creatures and events churning along without cosmos-altering abilities... creatures only looking to "evolve" or plants struggling to "grow".

"When the seeds ripen in the ground, they will sprout." Elder Matta said for the dozenth time, that planting season. "Only then will the soil be embraced by the root."

"Ser, I know." Damon groaned, his back complaining from trenching furrows the entire morning. "But nary a drop of rain in two ten-days: I don't think theseeds are the problem, Elder Matta."

"Now, now." Matta tutted, his wizened, tattooed, bald head covered by his pale hood and shawl. "It will rain. My rain-calling spell has never failed... I do this the same way every season, and the rains always come."

Damon sighed wearily, wondering again how quickly Matta was losing his mind, as his own parents had often worried. Wielding magic was not a task for the venerable, so it was said... it wasn't a good idea for the young to meddle in magic, either, but Matta was old. Two of the oldest Elders of the Village were easily years younger than Matta, and one of those Elders was Bhosti, Damon's great-grandmère, who had already seen more than seventy winters (if Bhosti could be believed, it was nearer eighty). Now, after three winters of drought, Matta's rain-calling was the only thing between the village crop and starvation. Irrigation efforts were draining their reserves, and a new water-wheel wouldn't be finished until late autumn -- long after harvest and well before it would be safe to plant again.

Damon was a grown man nearing twenty winters, with long, straight black hair, and broad shoulders. Solidly built, his body was the red-brown of the plains folk -- with broad cheekbones and a narrow, long jaw. His eyes were likewise narrow against long days in the sun and so brown as to be nearly black. The ridge of his nose was like a mountain peak above other mountain peaks, contrasting the lines of his brow, cheekbones, and chin. He still had all his teeth, and they yet shone brightly in the light or reflected firelight when he smiled -- which was often. More than eight handspans in height and nigh on fourteen or fifteen stone -- his body had a smoothness of limb that belied the strong sinew beneath.

He was also skilled enough at hunting and planting that he could lead the other men in his father's stead; and he respected his elders (especially the Village Elders) enough to not question them outright... still, there was no denying that twenty days after Matta's rain-calling spell had been met with no rain -- for the second time in as many seasons -- anyone could have guessed that the aged Sorcerer had lost his touch with magic.

Perhaps just as well, Matta had been leaning heavily into the mentoring of his responsibilities: talking with several of the villagers about testing the young of the village for magical aptitude. Matta called it "sensing", with a special emphasis in his voice, tilting his head forward meaningfully and wiggling his fingers cryptically. Damon didn't care, as long as there was a good crop and fair hunting: the Village would prosper. He wasn't interested in the arcane -- beyond what it did for the Village. What mattered to Damon was Ginga, the Tanner's oldest daughter, who was only a few seasons younger than him. They were a good match and she'd give him plenty of healthy babies. Her parents weren't opposed to the match, as Damon had already proven himself several times in the last five winters: fending-off ork or goblin raiders, leading hunting parties into the wild-lands, and demonstrating a mastery of cultivation... His family also had a ready path to the Elder council, and Damon had made no bones about bending Bhosti's ear when it suited him.

Damon intended to talk to Bhosti that evening about Matta's decline. Sorcerers, especially old Sorcerers, were a serious risk to a small community like the village of Southwold.

"There... thunder." Matta brightened, his crooked back straightening slightly. "I told you..."

"It's a horse, Ser." Damon sighed again, rubbing sweat from his brow as a runner came jogging over.

"Rider coming this way, Damon." Jatheb barked as he ran by to notify the Elders. "Big fella, heavy armor."

"A rider?" Matta scowled, turning back the way Jatheb had approached.

"S'what Jay said, Ser." Damon walked several paces to a split-rail fence and tilted his trenching shovel against the cross-brace. Turning his right hand up to his lips, he tucked his thumb and forefinger into his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. He grinned to himself when he heard the complaint of the approaching horse, but waved to the other field-hands to gather together. Riders never meant good news, and it was always best to get it to as many ears as possible to prepare for whatever horribleness was coming. The last rider had brought warning of drought -- five years ago.

As the field-hands gathered, some younger folk of the Village were also milling closer -- beckoned by Damon's call.

"At least that works for any ear." Damon grumbled, glancing up at the cloudless sky and turning his own ear to the fast-approaching horseman.

Ginga strode out from her family's house across the main path, tucking a long-knife into her skirts and straightening her belt before grabbing a stave from beside the doorway. Damon looked at her appreciatively. Ginga's smile was a little crooked, but her body was very healthy and broad. He liked the curve of her arse and the thick meat of her legs, but Ginga's skirts only outlined the pleasant upper mound of her flanks. Ginga's breasts, young and full though they were, were done no favors by her shirt -- but Damon's mind recalled a more intimate time not long ago when Ginga had surprised him in the creek while he was bathing. She had healthy dark skin, like fresh soil, and thick, raven hair that she kept cropped close to her scalp most of the year. In winter, she would grow her hair out into a wild nest of fuzz in all directions, and Damon loved the tree-like beauty of it.

"Rider comin'?" Ginga walked over, glancing about quickly before brazenly grabbing Damon's crotch with a deliberate squeeze and kissing him full on the mouth before whispering right to his face. "Fancy a dip in the creek, later?"

Her gray-blue eyes twinkled bright with lust, contrasting her dark skin most pleasantly to Damon, and her smile -- crooked as it might be -- struck the song of his heart... and his loins. He savored the taste of her mouth for a moment.

"More than anything." Damon growled, his teeth baring as their lips parted. "Tell yer da you're gon' huntin'."

Damon thought back to yesterday morning, when they were bathing in the stream and Ginga had taken to riding him in the water until he'd spent himself inside her. Her ample breasts, each nearly the size of a honeydew, would clap together lustily with each down-stroke and the water splashed all about her in a delightful spray. The thought of another tryst that night hardened his cock -- which Ginga noticed with a toothy grin.

Several children, some only four and five winters, scattered noisily from where goats were being herded away from the path. The cloud of dust from the rider, whose horse had slowed to a weary trot, rolled over the village before the rider made it to the large gathering. Midday sun beat down upon the dusty paths of the village, cracking the over-dry soil and withering the already fading grasses. Hot gusts from the south would occasionally taunt them with dreams of respite, only to blast more dust about them and scour the fields of carefully irrigated water.

The horse was a strong mare, well-kept and healthy. Her brown mane was close-trimmed and the heraldry bore markings of the large city-state of Renks Cairn, which was easily twenty or thirty miles away. The rider was likewise an imposing figure: heavy of shoulders; heavier still of arms and armor. Damon took him for a warmaster or mercenary, else a Knight of the Tower -- the soldiers of a Wizard's guild. The man's face was that of a weathered northerner (pale with pink-red flush or burns from the sun) with a thick matting of blond mustaches, easily in his thirtieth winter, if not nearer to forty, and he gathered the dust from his mouth and spat it casually to the dirt beside him before addressing the Village. He doffed his helm with some decided slowness, revealing a mop of short, blond-gray hair -- neatly trimmed some days ago -- plastered to his scalp by the sweat of riding. Damon thought he looked far to heavily armed to be a courier.

"Message for Wizard Matta." the man sneered, his cold blue eyes narrowing as he looked down at the only person in town with a pale cloth hood and shawl wearing anything that looked like arcane markings.

"I am he." Matta stiffened his spine proudly, with a creaking of joints and faint breaking of wind. "What missive?"

"Renks Cairn and the Wizards Tower beseech you cease all sorcery in this village." the messenger's face relaxed some and he shifted in the saddle. "I've been riding two days, where's your well?"

Murmurs and grumblings rose, but the villagers parted as Matta walked forward and the rider dismounted cumbrously. The horse looked relieved, Damon thought. The messenger was easily nine handspans tall and twenty-five stone (fully clad), to Damon's eye; and the dents his boots made in the path left little doubt.

"I've a letter, as well." The messenger lifted a sealed leather roll from some sort of crease in his armor that bent in a most unnatural way for metal. "Direct from the Tower."

"I'll have it." Matta politely stated. The messenger smiled a mirthless grin.

"More a proclamation, Wizard Matta." He harrumphed, glancing about. "Instructions from the Tower, if you please. About that water?"

"This way, Ser." Damon stepped forward, gesturing deliberately and fighting a sudden urge to bloody this sneering visitor's chops for his rudeness. "We've cisterns and stream -- no well."

"A stream?" The twisting of his face showed a profound distaste for such a thought. "Down-stream of Renks Cairn? I think not."

"Nay, Ser." Damon pointed. "It's fed from a spring in the Willow Wood, two miles from here. It marries the river you suspect, some two more miles hence."

An air of greed took the messenger's eyes at this news.

"Spring-fed, you say?" He smiled, suddenly remembering his manners. "Well, good man, lead on! Lead on, pray."

"Begging pardon, Ser." Damon bowed thoughtfully and lead the messenger toward the stream. "And whom do I address, Ser?"

"Billsby of the Thirsty Blade." the messenger cast his eyes about, near salivating at the idea of spring-fed water. "A poor jest, to be sure... I'm just a messenger, Ser...?"

"Damon, Ser. A pleasure." Damon turned his shoulders while they walked and offered a nodding courtesy.

It was some minutes of silence, which Damon took to mean ill news indeed from Renks Cairn, as they walked. The stream was just beyond the edge of the village, beyond the smallest of their fields -- for the ground was too sandy to grow much there. In this smaller field, they grew peppers and squash -- favoring the larger fields further out for more demanding crops -- a few fruit trees -- and pastures for livestock. A small herd of cattle were being tended by the young, mischievous red-haired twins Wanda and Tomas -- now twelve winters, and always tasked with tedious chores to keep them away from more delicate village business. The two were skipping stones at one another from across the river, taunting each other merrily and heedless of the cattle -- who largely tended themselves anyway, unless wolves hunted too close to the village.

"Just here, the stream is." Damon bowed politely, still several paces from the water. His soft boots shifted the soil and gravel as he steadied himself to wait for the messenger.

Billsby fairly attacked the stream, wading into the water fully-armored (a poor decision, to Damon's mind), and taking a lusty mouthful of water and rinsing it through his teeth before spitting back into the stream and proceeding to slake his thirst. The horse, as road-weary as her passenger, crept into the water upstream and began stamping her hooves to cool her belly. Wanda giggled, signaling her brother -- but Damon caught their gaze and shook his head somberly. They frowned, hefting their crooks and making to shepherd the cattle elsewhere.

"Devil-breath and dragon's bollocks, Damon -- that is good water." Billsby laughed. "I say, have you been to Renks Cairn? Dreadful stuff, magicked water... dreadful."

"I've been, Ser." Damon nodded flatly. "Can't say as I remember drinking but a tumbler of beer or two."

"And a wiser man never does." Billsby laughed, though Damon didn't see the humor in it. What could be so horrible about water?

Billsby then opened his armor below his waist, levered-forth his penis, and pissed into the stream. Damon's jaw tightened, but he reasoned the stream would be clean enough by morning. Once the messenger had relieved himself and emerged from the stream, Billsby unhooked a small metal flute from his vambrace and blew a single, soft note. Damon wondered at the thing and noticed the water sloshing all about Billsby was shedding from his armor faster and faster, until Billsby appeared near as dry as when he'd arrived.

"Useful tool, fae-flutes." Billsby waved the device triumphantly before clasping it securely to his vambrace again. "Never travel the wilds without one, says I."

"Ser's judgment is sound." Damon nodded, though he had no idea what a fae-flute was or what it might do... other than evidently remove extra water from a rude and careless wastrel messenger. "Elder Matta will likely be eager to hear the content's of Ser's missive from the Tower."

The mare, sufficiently cooled, took to imbibing from the stream -- ignoring her passenger and the village entirely for several minutes before she ambled from the water to crop grass nearby.

...

"To the Wizard Matta, and the village of Southwold in which he resides." Billsby took a moment to clear his throat, his eyes flicking across the assembly of the village plaza before he continued. "The Guild of Wizards and the Arcane Tower, in their wisdom, acknowledge the many years of dutiful service of the Wizard Matta, offering him peace and respite in this uncertain time."

This bit of frippery took many villagers aback, as they had never received a message direct from the Tower of Renks Cairn -- or anywhere beyond... but the older folk (and certainly a few of the Elders) nodded their heads sagely at the formality -- their attitudes seeming to placate the more uncertain members of the assembly.

"The Guild, in honor of Wizard Matta's tireless service, give him leave to retire in grace -- without apprentice -- with all ceremony. A new Wizard, seasoned in the Guild-hall, shall arrive on the equinox to provide for the needs of Southwold in fullness -- and to provide for Wizard Matta's succession. The Guild further beseeches Wizard Matta to attend the Guild-hall in his honor and commemoration of this most esteemed Wizard's legacy, by and through which the Guild shall make known the many deeds for which Wizard Matta, the Elemental, shall be remembered..."

And on and on, the letter went. Billsby stopped for breath many times, clearly having rehearsed this message more than once before his days-long ride from Renks Cairn. For every platitude and lofty honorific, Damon noted Matta's mood darkening into a very clear despondency. Whether from this "sudden", cognizant ouster, or something else only Matta might know, Damon couldn't be sure -- but it was evident to the eyes of those present to see: the Wizard was not pleased.

At length, and with practiced ceremony, Billsby concluded the recitation.

"...and so set forth on this day, the tenth day of the Spring of the seventeenth year of Ser Majesty Soraya Hitsuyo, long may She reign." Billsby then coughed, spit, and nodded resolutely before handing the letter to Matta, who took it reluctantly as one might a venomous serpent.

Tenth of Spring? Almost two ten-days ago... Damon frowned thoughtfully, but was looking toward the ground, so as not to appear rude. Ginga, to his immediate right, touched his hand with hers. He offered a curt tilt of his head, letting her know he'd talk with her about it later.

"I take my leave, that you may discuss your business." Billsby cleared his throat, his hand casually drifting down to steady his sword-hilt as he turned. "I shall take my respite on the north road, whence I return. If you have answer for the Tower, I shall receive it on the morrow."

"I shall have answer." Matta grunted darkly, his gray-brown eyes staring into the distance.

Without further ceremony, Southwold resumed its daily business... though more quietly, perhaps, and Matta hastily met with families to discuss -- albeit unsteadily -- the cause for sensing the children for magical aptitude. As afternoon became evening, and meals were shared, Elder Matta wearily approached the signal bell at the edge of Southwold's central plaza. It was a simple affair, plain iron without special markings, no larger than a man's head, and a wooden mallet tethered to the post on which the bell was raised. It looked an iron mushroom rising from the dirt, but its chime was both clear and even. The mallet's head was wrapped in several layers of stripped leather bands, adding to the sonorous notes a smoothness of their rising -- for the mallet scarcely struck the bell with any great rapport. And yet, the bell would sound. Rising from a low moan to a clear and steady call, the bell summoned all of Southwold to gather before the Elders.

Damon sighed, knowing that, at least until middle night at the soonest, he was not to enjoy folding himself together with Ginga and spilling his seed into her fertile womb. There were other, similarly forlorn faces and grumbled whispers as Southwold gathered. The eldest of the children were separating-away the children from their parents to wait away from the gathering-place -- lest their fussing interrupt Southwold's business. Only the youngest babes, nestled and sleeping on their father's breast or suckling at their mother's tit would be suffered to attend -- for who would scold a nursing babe for its hunger?