Adamagika: The Spirit Within - 1. Ch 01: Adam's Rescue

CHAPTER 01: Adam's Rescue

Sixteen years later…

My name is Adam. Just Adam. I used to be Adam, son of X. But like my old life, I’ve left that name behind along with everyone else who belonged to it. I don’t miss it in any way. I was miserable living with all those people from “the village.” That’s the term we use here in the city for my former home. My family was from the village. Pretty much all my memories with them were unpleasant.

The village isn’t really one place, but actually the entire group of villages found in the outskirts of the kingdom. Don’t let the name make you think these are simple places with just straw and wood huts. Well, most of them are. But others were much larger, much stronger. They have their own government, their own laws, and their own armies. And they live and are united by one common belief – their absolute hatred of magic.

And I am magic.

Yes, I am a magician, a sixteen-year-old-brown-haired-brown-eyed-does-not-know-what-he’s-doing-here magician. I’m not exactly a powerful sorcerer. In fact, my magic can barely be considered magic. My teacher, Magister Aenhol, brought me here seven years ago. He found me in our little settlement in the village. Well, he said he was looking for me. I asked him why he was looking for me, but he always told me that I will know with time. He’s always ambiguous about it and he would often change the topic when I would ask what he was doing in the village.

You see, magi were not welcome in the village, even if you meant to be diplomatic. The people there wanted nothing to do with mages. If you’re a mage and you went there, you won’t come back. I believed along with my family that mages were evil, that they brought about the destruction of the world. We believed that it was their tampering with the ill-mannered use of the sacred lore called “science” that a new dimension was ripped in the world. All forms of demons and dark magic fell through the void. According to our village history, all forms of evil spirits came out of the void and possessed people to become evil wielders of magic. And all these people who were collectively called mages were out on a mission for power and destruction.

As a child, I absorbed all this information like a sponge and completely believed in their factuality. This made me horribly sick when at the age of seven, I began displaying signs of magic. Yes, there I was – a seven year old mage in a small outpost of hundreds of mage-killers. I was deathly afraid for my life. But, more importantly, I was afraid of what I would do. You see, we’re told that mages were consumed by their magic and eventually they began losing their souls to the spirits that grant them magic.

I would cry in the middle of the night. I would cry in the day. I would cry in the afternoon. As you can imagine, the others started paying close attention to me – my teachers, my classmates, my older brother, and my mother. My god, my mother… you should have seen her when she eventually found out that I was a mage. She looked like she laid an egg the size of a small boulder.

I think she actually did.

So, there I was, conflicted between what I’ve been taught and what I was starting to experience. For the most part, I was able to hide it well. Most people just assumed I was just sensitive or that I was a girl trapped in a boy’s body. That wouldn’t have been too bad. There was nothing wrong with a boy being with a boy, or a man being with a man, or heck a boy being with a man in the village. After all, the big chief of our outpost has three wives and two husbands.

What was wrong was being a mage.

So my mother, seeing my lack of “warrior-like” skills started grooming me to become a husband to the big chief or one of the elders. She looked disappointed whenever she looked at me, as though being a warrior mage-killer was the one and only hope she ever had for me.

You see my father was a warrior mage-killer. Unfortunately, he became warrior mage-killed.

So I felt sick knowing I was one of those people that killed my father. I felt like I was being punished for the crimes of the mages. I didn’t know why, but it was entirely my fault. This only fueled my crying even more.

I felt so alone.

It got so bad that one day while I was crying by myself at the edge of the village. I was by this big tree I like to hang around in. A group of children slightly older than me came by to give me a hard time. They were pushing me around calling me a sissy. Heck, I didn’t even know what a sissy was, but I knew whatever it was, I was probably that.

Eventually, the boy with the biggest ass of them all grabbed me by the arm. He twisted it around so hard it really hurt. It felt like my arm was about to fall off. It was then that I heard that voice for the first time.

She whispered to me.

Hold out your hand towards him.

And so, I did.

Surprising even me, a very tiny electric bolt shot out of one finger towards him. And when I say tiny, I mean really tiny. I wouldn’t have know it was there if I didn’t feel this weird rush of wind leave me. My tormentor wouldn’t have known about it too if he didn’t feel that sudden tingling in this arm that made him let go.

He stood there for a moment, with a shocked look on his face. Shock was immediately replaced with hatred.

“You’re a mage!”

The others around him looked uncertain, their eyes bulging with fear.

“He’s a mage! Kill him!”

I just stood there in fear and shock, my secret was out. They were going to kill me like we were taught to do. The big boy grabbed a stone at his foot and threw it straight at my face. It hit me on the forehead and left a cut there that immediately started bleeding. I fell to the ground and threw my left arm in front of my face as though willing a shield to manifest itself before me.

Naturally, no shield appeared.

The others seeing my weakened position (or more likely my blood) seemed to have found their courage. They began picking up stones and sticks and started whacking me with them. They hit my arms, my chest, my legs, every damn bit they could get of me. Everything was starting to fade out and I could distinctly feel blood and sweat mixing on my face. I just wanted it all to end.

I didn’t get my wish though as I was suddenly yanked up by hands much too big to be a child’s. I looked to the hands’ owner and found myself staring up at one of the adult warrior mage-killers.

“What is going on here?” he asked roughly.

The big ass boy started yelling, “he is a mage. We saw him conjuring light and fire. He was hurting us with it.”

The others followed with similar accounts of my attack.

Despite my weakened state, I was still shocked by the lies they told.

“I didn’t… hurt them… I don’t do… magic…” Ok, perhaps that last one was a lie.

I looked up to the adult warrior’s eyes and felt my resolve waver. There was no compassion or mercy. It was filled with the same hatred I saw in the big ass boy.

Wordlessly, he pulled me by my arm back to settlement. I, in my wonderfully bloodied and bruised state, was dragged through the center of the encampment and dropped before the hut of the elders. A small circle of people started gathering around us, some curious, some concerned.

I don’t know how she found out, but my mother appeared at the edge of the crowd. A man I did not recognize held her back as she screamed and thrashed in her attempts to get to me.

I was on my knees before three elders, each smoking some grass. I always did wonder what they found interesting with burnt grass.

“Waat hapen to dis buoy?” the middle elder said in that mysterious way that all our elders seem to talk in.

The adult warrior still holding my arm – painfully if I might add – breathed in deeply and responded. “He was seen practicing magic in the borders of the village.”

My mother stopped screaming and thrashing.

I heard a boulder sized egg drop somewhere in the distance.

“He was hurting us with it,” Big Ass Boy said. “He made light and fire come out of his hands. We barely defeated him.”

A chorus of angry shouts echoed all around. Everyone watching from the edge called out for my death. I looked around and saw all the angry faces; among them were my mother and older brother. I felt weak and defeated. I wanted to cry out to them and threaten them with unearthly magic for what they were doing to me. I would have done it if the voice didn’t speak to me again.

Hush, young one. He is coming for you. Be brave.

I looked up to the elders with defiance as though her words gave me strength – the words of someone I could not see, but seemed to be heard exclusively by me.

I didn’t say anything, but the look I gave them must have been menacing because all of the sudden, one of the elders, the fattest of them, seemed to become uncertain. The other seemed to be feigning disinterest as though he could be doing other more important things than dealing with this boy before him – like smoking grass perhaps.

The middle elder stared me down as though trying to decide if he should swat me himself or leave me to the angry horde.

After several seconds of continuous angry screaming from the crowd, the elder raised his hand and called for silence.

“Yu buoy, have bin akyuuusd of practissing ma-jik.” He said the last word with a lot of spit. “Do yu deny eet?”

I thought for a moment, staring him down. The voice, the spirit, whatever it was, egged me on.

“No. I am a mage.”

The roar of the crowd immediately rose again. This time, some of them began brandishing weapons.

The elder looked down at me with disgust.

“Den yu daaay.” He waved his hand towards me as though in dismissal and returned to smoking his grass.

The others started inching closer towards me. The adult warrior who still held my arm let go, but just as quickly yanked my head backwards exposing my neck.

He brandished a sharp dagger with his other hand and held it to my neck slightly cutting into the skin.

“Die, magi!”

I’m not sure what happened next. What I do remember was there was suddenly a blinding light that flew down from the sky. I felt the hand on my head suddenly let go and I saw dozens of people being thrown about as though they were leaves in the wind. And then, there were these gentle arms that grabbed hold of me and pull me up as though I was as light as a feather.

The middle elder’s face was contorted in shock and fury. The fattest one looked like he must have swallowed the egg my mother laid while no one was looking. The other elder went missing.

I looked towards the light and saw the faint outline of a man’s face. But his did not have a look of shock or anger. His face was calm, gentle, and compassionate, as though he was simply taking a walk on a warm summer day with a good friend. He smiled at me for a moment before his entire face and body was enveloped again in pure, blinding light. It took me a moment to realize that my body was also covered in light and I was no longer standing on solid ground. The world was going by in a rush, a wild mixture of blue and green. I felt the world getting dark at last, as though my wish were finally coming true.

You’re safe now, young one, the voice said. Go with him. I will return when the time is right.

I closed my eyes and let the darkness come.