It’s not every day one has to bury a student
Sigmund was a Wizard with much poten
Sigmund died as he would’ve wanted
Oh for fuck’s sake! At this rate I won’t have any room left
to write any spells in this damned book. I’ve never had to write an obituary
for a student before. That’s not to say plenty haven’t been written bearing my
signature, apprentice wizards are about as prone to spontaneous combustion as
the bloody sun. However, this is the first one I’ve sat down to think about. Come
to think of it, perhaps that’s the best endorsement of Sigmund I can give. He’s
the first one that’s made me feel I ought to be the one to write it.
So what to say about the boy…? I could say he was a good
student, but that would be a lie. Good students make for poor Wizards; you don’t
get ahead of your classmates by turning up early to lectures, you get ahead
when brighter classmates start mysteriously disappearing and your handwriting
seems to have changed on your next assignment. What Sigmund was, above all
else, was the right amount of promising. Good enough to survive each night in
the student dormitory without waking up smeared across the ceiling, but not
good enough that I’d have to worry and take matters into my own hands. He came
close though, Professor Felaby always warned me about him. “Best deal with that
one now,” he’d say. “He’ll be wearing your shoes in decade or so otherwise.” But
I ignored Felaby, and not just out of habit. Damnit if I didn’t grow to like
the boy. Little Siggy started off so pathetic… none of us thought he’d last the
week. The little shit used to get teased by his classmates constantly. That was
when the straw-man incident happened. The boy got so tired at the fact he could
never win an argument that he took one of the training dummies we let the
students practice their magic missiles on. He enchanted it, finding a way to
record the nasty things his classmates were saying to him, and making the straw
dummy repeat them, while he tried to come up with witty retorts. Three months
later, he had wit to rival my ow… He… No, no, I know the bastard just died, but
I’m not feeling that generous. Wouldn’t want anyone who finds this book after
my death to find it full of blatant lies. He was wittier than before… lets just
leave it there.
Anyway, that little runt of a boy became a promising wizard.
He even found himself a woman who could put up with his annoying questions so
that I wouldn’t have to. The sad thing is, I don’t even remember her name. She
was kind though, I remember that much. She looked at him as if he was the most
interesting man in the world (and take it from me, he wasn’t). Sadly, their
marriage was never to be. I didn’t know she died in the explosion, in fact I
don’t know how many died.
Just as Felaby had predicted, he came for me in the end. I
don’t know how he’d learned so much necromancy in such a short space of time.
Grief is a powerful force I suppose. Truth be told, since the incident had
stripped me of my own powers, he’d surpassed me in magic. However, he forgot
one small thing. Its not the magic that makes the Wizard, but the mind. Any two-bit
sorcerer can throw a fireball, but a good wizard will make sure that when it lands,
he’s about six miles away in bed with the sorcerer’s wife, watching through scrying
font as the sorcerer is blasted into the air by a trap he laid there the day
before. It never occurred to Siggy that I haven’t just survived this long by
being brilliant at magic. I survived by being Professor Bloody Faelon! No one
expects you to bring a sword to a Wizard duel, and I sliced him up with it before
he could touch me with a spell. I suppose I must give some credit to Drev’nae
for that. A very fine counterspell it was too. Damn I’m a good teacher. Since
we met she’s learned a vast array of new spells. I haven’t even given her any
formal lessons, that’s how good I am. Clearly just being in my presence is enough
to inspire and illuminate.
So, there we are. That’s how Sigmund Vrak met his end. With several
bangs and several whimpers, and me with a new (and pointer) set of shoes. I
hope this is the last of these I’m compelled to write. I doubt I will be so
lucky…
