The Last Philosopher

The Khmur desert

Thunder rattled the penthouse's windows. Not that it took much, the thin glass panes blew around like autumn leaves in the frames. Even so, the rumble and flashes eased Lyeasrakardsul's mind. Violent weather always had helped him concentrate.

Outsiders probably think we chose to live in such a dramatic landscape, his bickering thought.

He knew other sorcerers tended to exaggerate their own importance. It showed in every building, every piece of furniture, and even the elitist words spoken in Pentakl. But in the case of city's location, this hypothetical outsider was incorrect. A fact he would now attempt to explain to the moron. Not the easiest task, but at least he could entertain himself by asking rhetorical questions. Giving the boy the third, fourth, and perhaps even fifth degree. As headmaster, it was his prerogative to be as obnoxious as he wanted.

"Have you ever wondered why the first rule of Empris is the one we never talk about?"

"I am not sure what you mean, Master." The muscular moron looked like a giant puppy who had done its business on the rug.

"The first rule is, we do not talk about how we ended up in Empris!" Glaring, he drew a frustrated sigh, "but you do know about the Khmur gatherings?"

"Oh, yes Master, long ago that was where sorcerers met to compare magick, right?"

"In a way yes, but not really, no." Discouraged, the boy tugged at his robes fraying neck hole.

"Let me ask you this, what do you know about the last gathering?"

"Nothing Master."

Correct, his vanity shrilled.

The gatherings had been held, every ten years, in an area of bountiful grasslands. It'd been going on since long before the first Dalmicir practitioner. As a rule, it was a peaceful time. A rarity among the old factions. Arguments at the conference were limited to things like whose tents were grander. Or who had the rarest delicacies. But that was only because the penalty for breaking the peace was death for one's entire faction. So, with stern limits on violence. It became what every conference boils down to: boring people being bored by professional bores. That was until the incident.

Outside the gatherings, even talking to another faction was treason. In fact murder was the only acceptable form of communication. For solitary sorcerers, death could have served well as a final reply. But as factions they nursed their grudges. Passing them along to the next generation as feuds. Yet in the serving tents surrounding the colloquium. The younger sorcerers had enjoyed flinging drunken obscenities at each other. Perhaps not the best way, but still a less bloody form of communication. Binge drinking was the only known way to end a feud without some light genocide.

"Master! Are you saying they used... language, and no one was peer-reviewed? Not even killed?"

"You are ignoring the important part! But no, they did not have peer-reviews back then. What they had, was an award for the best insult. Ever heard of the Bubtai?"

"No Master."

"How does no one remember that our courts were named the Bubs after him?"

"It was a person?"

"Yes! An incompetent sorcerer to be sure, but he had other skills, and they led to the award."

Bubtai's talent had been competitive banter. It may not sound like much, but it got an entire Xefef faction put to death. In doing so, he set the standard by which all other insults were measured. The head of that faction had been halfway through a slow-witted response. When the hopeless sorcerer yawned and casually interjected, 'No no, you go ahead, I always yawn at a good insult.' Bubtai was killed on the spot, handing him the moral victory.

"So, what do you think happened next," he asked an intrigued moron.

"Uhm, the other Xefef sorcerers, they--"

"Yes, what did they do?"

"--they stopped attending the gatherings?"

"Lucky guess," he sneered, "but yes, it put a bullseye on the whole Xefef school. And Bubtai's name became immortal. Which is funny, because the Macbiar quest for immortality, that was what the gatherings were really all about."

"Yes, but--"

"No! No more questions! We will never get to the incident."

The factions weren't interested in regulating magick. Instead, they required nothing less than absolute loyalty from their members. But with the lack of rules some half-wits inevitably took too much advantage. And in so doing, they ruined everyone's good time forever.

In this case, the half-wits was a group of Loitar sorcerers. They used a ritual spell against another faction, the Brotherhood. The Spell was cast near the last gathering and started a chain of events that led to the Khmur desert. Which, in turn, led to the great relocation of sorcerers.

Traditionally, Loitar magick focused on influencing green things. Making them grow and take on monstrous proportions. But the Spell that caused the incident was the opposite. Instead of promoting life, it turned the Brotherhood's territory into a wasteland.

If only we had lived in that time, his inner sorcerer thought, when magick was free, and the only limit was ones will.

The factions had freedom to practise magick, but the Sols used it unwisely. Of course, they tried to take precautions, but they were playing with forces out of their control. Their Spell turned a large part of the grasslands into a desert, and was the straw that broke the continent's back. After that, the nations of Sojurut had no more patience for sorcerers.

But the Spell was powerful, Lyeasrakardsul considered. Nothing even close to it has been done since then.

He had tried to divine what happened to those who cast the Spell, but it was impossible. The vision was scrambled by the pure force of magick. Out of curiosity, he had instead divined what happened to the previous group to attack the Brotherhood. All the members of that faction fell to the simplest of Xefef Voice commands. Move! That was all it took for them to march until their feet were raw. When their legs no longer carried them, they kept crawling until their bodies were battered and bruised. The lucky ones crawled over something sharp and bled out.

"But Master, why did the Sols attack in the first place? What could they gain by turning the grasslands into desert?"

"We still do not know the whole truth of the last gathering. I think they hoped the attack would be mistaken for a natural disaster. Thus when the Brotherhood left, they would break the spell and take their territory for themselves. The attack was likely planned during the gathering, to use the neutral ground as cover."

Cowardice may not be the most attractive quality, but calculated sneakiness wins more conflicts than bravery. His cynicism made him smile, but he had a feeling that he was missing something.

"But Master, why then did they not break the spell?"

"As you know, powerful magick must be paid for, blood and death are the classics. We think the Sols choose death, and when the Spell grew out of their control the price went up. Whatever happened, when their remains were found, there was nothing left but pieces of gnawed bones. But payment was still due, and magick took it by killing everything that could not get away from the spreading desert. Which left us what we have now, a wasteland that splits Sojurut into east and west."

A nice, harsh, lesson in the fact that ambition is a poor substitute for sense, he thought, doubting that the lesson had been effective on the moron.

Updated: 21.03.2024