The Last Philosopher: Part One

The rule of rules

Warming his feet was his favourite personal item. A small pair of rebellion in the form of pink, fuzzy bunny slippers. They were a nostalgic connection to his short life before Empris. His grandmother had given young Lug identical slippers for his last birthday at home. Back then he had been angry at her for not getting him a Kor tattoo like one of hers.

But as a sickly old man, he knew only one absolute truth: Never underestimate the value of fuzzy slippers. Even so, the bunnies were not his dirtiest little secret. There was one other thing he could never let anyone find out. Something he had hidden deep in his subconscious. At the core of his being, he was basically nice. A terrible handicap for a sorcerer!

He had lost most of his early memories, but getting dragged away by a black robed sorcerer at age four wasn't something he could forget. It was the last time he saw his grandparents alive. Because by the time he learnt to divine and could see the pirate archipelago, they were long dead.

"Back then I believed what Xefef tells all sorclings, that my family didn't want someone with magick and begged them to take me away."

Once he learnt to see the present and the past, the lie had become obvious. But by then it was too late, he was as much a part of the system as anyone in Pentakl and he had decided that divining his own childhood would only bring needless pain. That was one way the council excused keeping the lower ranks in the dark about their own history.

Of course we both now the real reason, his Dalmicir practitioner thought. It's because knowledge is power.

It wasn't until after he reached the rank of professor apprentice he found out the whole truth, that they had the legal right to take sorclings from anywhere on the continent by an agreement made when Empris became a nation.

Yes, yes, I'm sure all this feeling sorry for yourself is very fascinating! his priorities condescended. But have you forgotten about the Darkness?

Shamed back into concentration, he sat motionless, not even rocking his chair. After many nights of probing his memories, he now believed his nightmares were signalling the end of magick. That they were a warning, a final notice of sorts.

"I would bet my life that I know as much about the past as anyone. That is, if someone could bet something of equal or greater value, which I sincerely doubt," he sneered.

Then use that knowledge, the historian in him thought, because you won't be able to pawn this off on your professor apprentices.

"Like the PAs do any actual work. We all know they shovel it down the ranks until most of it lands on the sorclings."

The council liked to see sorclings as expendable, but they weren't an endless resource, since no one knew why so few children were born with the talent for magick. Still, from the council's perspective, the important thing was that any child brought here was nothing but a sorcerer.

So what? We're not supposed to have any use for things like race or gender? his Kor side wondered.

"No! They only get in the way."

But whatever sorcerers pretended in public, in private, they were somewhat aware of their own parts. But their 'don't ask, don't tell' tradition, combined with the rule that all sorcerers go by the pronoun 'him', stopped them from asking personal questions. Just a few of the things sorclings had voice-beaten into them during their first four decades in Administration.

Putting his pipe away, he started rocking in a steady rhythm. In his mind he returned to the time, thousands of years ago, when it had all gone wrong. He couldn't use magick since it was only allowed in specific areas. Instead, he used his potent memory as a workaround. It took him little effort to queue up the relevant pages of the secret tome in his mind, it described the taboo subject of their relocation, something only headmasters were allowed to read.

Diving head-first into those events, he would try to paint a clearer picture. The era surrounding the relocation was a cataclysmic time for magick. The old factions could have been wiped out, and were only saved by reluctant negotiations. It also led to many changes in the lifestyle of magick users. They went from having no rules to having nothing but rules, and that was the problem. Still, proving it to the satisfaction of the council would be an uphill battle on a slippery slope. Because in Pentakl, stubbornness was a required survival skill.

But we are right, his stubborn streak thought.

Nonetheless, even if he could prove both cause and effect, it wasn't like he intended to do anything about it himself. Because as a lifelong Dalmicir practitioner, he knew two things for certain. Those who study history are doomed to watch others repeat it, and everything you need to know about the present is hidden in the mistakes of the past. The unofficial motto of his school.

And whatever happens, you won't survive long without some sleep anyway, his morbidity thought, actually cheering him up a bit.