Full Circle

A spellcaster comes to learn about the dark truth about himself

The skin of my palms tingled, rippled, and then burned as arcane power burgeoned within me. Extending my arms into the air, I released the energy into the clouds in pillars of silver fire.

Fingers of lightning reached from the ground to touch the sky, met by a set of matching electric hands, their contact expelling a thunderous blast. Impressed with my work, I clapped my hands and dismissed the storm.

And it was then that the sky tore open.

The seam started as a hairline from the horizon, highlighted in magma orange, but the tremendous force ripped the sky apart and pulled from and easterly direction, and then to the west, creating a massive fissure of pure nothingness. To describe it as darkness would be false, for dark is an absence of light, but the abyss splitting the heavens was devoid of even darkness.

Movement rippled from within those depths, but I couldn’t distinguish what was moving. It looked black at first, in the shape of a massive horned head with yellow eyes. The demon roared as it emerged from the gap, the sound of it bellowing from its own gaping maw as it plummeted to the earth.

The ground responded with an earthquake. Both land and sky were being torn asunder.

Rising to my feet, I looked up into the abyss again, and noticed more of the same demons appearing, like an army heeding its master’s summons. Their descent upon the earth shattered the landscape. Canyons opened into the ground where verdant plains had once stood. An unforgiving hailstorm rained from the vacant sky, mixed with radiant bolts of lightning that sundered trees through their once-mighty trunks.

Never had I seen such power, and even then, I couldn’t believe I was capable of controlling it.

But I couldn’t control it. I didn’t know how to stop this apocalypse. Perhaps my former master would have some advice. I raced to the hut where he lived, to seek his council.

However, the old man was dead, and I had killed him.

I remember his skin paling as he saw the level of magic that I had acquired, realizing he was no longer in control of me. He pleaded for mercy, and I laughed at his weakness. “You’re nothing now,” I mocked him, extending my hand in his direction.

“I am nothing. You are the true master,” he whimpered as he stared, almost longinly, at the metal band around my finger. He bowed his head lower to the ground, burying his chin into the dirt before I swatted the air with my other hand. I watched his decrepit body fade to ghastly gray as decay came over him within seconds, and the bony form withered away to ash, which blew away in the breeze.

I looked upon the ring, the prize I had won from him. The fool had left it on his bedside table next to the bed where he slept. And though he had so cleverly planted spying crystals that would alarm him if anyone moved within the room, I had been able to slip in undetected and make off with the ring.

But then again, I had been invisible.

Such spells were forbidden to me at my level of training. There were many I had longed to learn. The master had an underground library deep in the bowels of the ground below his home, four stories deep, lined with rows of shelves. Every shelf contained, in neat alphabetical order, a multitude of massive grimoires and ancient tomes. He possessed an extensive wealth of magical knowledge, but I was not allowed to enter the room without him. “Impetuous boy,” he told me when I asked him about doing some of my own research. He slapped my hand to put me in my place, and I listened.

I always obeyed when he was wearing the ring, like a dog beat into submission. I knew I had to get it away from him, to free myself from the leash of his control.

Sneaking in the library when he left me to my own devices, I found a selection of powerful spells, and I read the incantation that would turn the caster invisible. I looked at the words, devoting them to memory. I was distracted by my excitement, and missed his presence behind me, until I felt a talon grip on my shoulder.

“What do you think you are doing? That is off limits to you, stupid!” he shouted in my ear.

He rendered me blind for a week, what he considered a suitable punishment for someone who attempted to rob another of their sight. During that time, my hearing had improved some, but it didn’t do me any justice. My ears developed a new acuity, allowing me pick up his mutterings and laughter as I tried to do my daily tasks without my sight, tripping over chair legs or bumping into doors. And the entire time, even though I couldn’t see his ring, its influence on me was always there.

When my sight returned, I made up my mind to go unseen by my master and rob him of that ring, as well as his dominion.

I first came under his tutelage after being refused entry into the arcane academy. The stuck-up, egomaniacs that run the school thought that I would be unable to control my ability to pursue and practice magic. They said I was a fast learner, and my mind was an open scroll just waiting to be written upon, a scroll made of “fragile paper.” Perhaps someday they would regret having such a valuable student among them, for I would end up more powerful than all of them combined.

Touring the world, I heard rumors of a wizard from a bygone age who had tutored many apprentices in magic, some of which had become heroes. Their names didn’t matter to me, just my goal of attaining knowledge of deep magic only known by the high arcanists.

I reached his doorstep with a dry mouth and sweaty brow. His reputation for being ruthless, sometimes demeaning, on his students preceded him. The moment he opened the door, I could see why. His wide owl eyes with large pupils flanked a thick beak-like nose.

“What brings you?” his deep voice contrasted his thin, wiry stature.

I could barely speak, and the words I was able to stammer fell to the volume of a whisper. “I want to learn from the best, so I can save the world.”

“Just like all the others. And I’m sure you will do no better.”

The seventeen years of my training, I studied diligently to prove him wrong. Instead of receiving praise and compliments on my hard work, his icy words pulled me back like a leash.

“You moved that statue five feet across the room?” He turned his back to my newest accomplishment. “By now you should have made it get up and dance fifteen feet! A big waste of time! What have you been doing? Sleeping?”

I pushed myself, determined to meet his approval. Perhaps a mind-reading spell would impress him. I remembered seeing a book in the part of the library to which I was permitted access, a blue leather-bound tome with a silver eye design embossed on its cover. I devoured the knowledge on the pages within like a scavenger on a corpse. The words came to me easily, and I practiced the incantations for days until I could recite them backwards.

I looked into his gray eyes, attempting to gaze into the expanse of his soul, but I couldn’t get in. Somehow, I was blocked.

“My will is a castle wall, and you are trying to breach it with a broomstick. Pathetic,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “Come here, I’ll show a weakling like you how to do it.” As he crooked his finger at me, I noticed the ring on his other finger for the first time. It drew me closer, and the detail on it captivated me. The solid band of gold had an elaborate design resembling a serpent that swirled along its surface.

It was not the first time I had seen that ring.

In my youth, I had horrible nightmares I couldn’t remember upon waking. I only knew they were related to the future, and how afraid they left me. I couldn’t tell my parents about such things, or they would have sent me away. Instead, I consulted one of the high clerics of the temple, for she had the ability to interpret my dreams and visions.

“Doom! I see dark tidings for us all!” Her eyes went blank with terror.

“What kind of dark tidings?”

“A sorcerer of intense power will open the gates of hell, unleashing most malevolent devils and demons upon our world. It will be the end of everything as we know it!”

“Who is this sorcerer?”

“I cannot see his face, but he wears a ring. A serpentine ring of gold. You can stop this ending, if you do the right thing.”

I knew what I had to do. If I could become the most powerful wizard in the land, I’d be able to seek out this dark sorcerer and defeat him before he could bring such doom upon the world. I thanked the oracle for her predictions and set out on my heroic goal.

I had such lofty aspirations for a young man, and with a heart in the right place. Though my father did warn me once about where good intentions can lead. I had admired my father above all else, but even he didn’t acknowledge my attempts to gain his approval.

The downpour of hail and fire blotted my view of what was left of the sky. There was nowhere to run, and I fell to my knees from the biting volley that scratched my skin. I screamed in pain, but no one could hear me. I was alone in my agony.

I watched in horror as the legion of boar-like devils, armed with tridents and gleaming black swords, trampled over the grass, destroying everything with each step.

It was then that I remembered the details of the dreams of my past. The very monsters that haunted my dreams now surrounded me. I held out my hands again, to stop this destruction from continuing, but I could no longer feel the power surging inside me. I felt nothing.

I noticed the ring on my finger, gleaming at me. And I remembered.

The voice of the oracle’s prediction echoed in my pounding head as I closed my eyes. I saw her vision, with myself in the place of the sorcerer bringing about the end of all existence, just as I had done.