The First Wizard

I - The Faithful Servant

Air brushed against the banished novice's hair, mustache and his slight chin stubble. A flowing wind rushed through his yellow monk habit as it flapped away in the breeze. It had been a while, but, for just a moment, the former monk felt happy.

It was not to last, however, for he opened his eyes and remembered where he was. High in the clouds, he looked down to the ever-approaching ground and realized —"Oh, right."—he was falling from the sky.

Behind him, the great Palace of the Gods, the origin of his banishment, quickly disappeared beyond the climbing clouds. The vast continent of Vaelia stretched open beneath him. Forests, farmlands, rivers, hills, and mountains dotted the looming terrain.

The falling ex-monk focused his mind into himself and tried to ignore the fact that he was about to be squashed. He brought his hands together and cleared his mind of any ill will or anger that he felt towards the gods who had done this to him. As he did this, the passing wind current became slower, and as he looked down, he saw his descent slowly halt.

However, this was not enough, and he continued to plummet down into Vaelia. He looked at his hands, where two great orbs of air tried to pull him up and slow him down.

"Parhon! Parhon! Parhon!" he shouted to the orbs, hoping his magic words would save him. Instead, as he panicked, the orbs slowly diminished until they disappeared into the air from whence the monk had summoned them.

He looked down, and before he had even realized it, the ground arrived. With a deafening thump, the monk landed, and as his body met the dirt, he passed out.

A buried memory resurfaced. A regret of ages past. In the great dark of the void, a voice spoke.

"Do the gods fall?" a young child asked an elderly man. The blurry manifestation of the past faded and reassembled itself in the floating emptiness of the void.

In the memory, the faint sunlight illuminated the dusty, crumbling schoolroom. Its cracked amphitheater-like brick seats were filled with rows of children and teens, all donning a similar light blue monk habit.

"Do the gods fall?" The elderly man, wearing his time-scarred gray-blue habit parroted, as he moved closer to the inquisitive child.

"Heresy!" the elderly man said as he hit the child in the head with his hollow teacher's stick. "The gods care for us. They created us! They are our benevolent guardians; the defenders of all the kin races," he proudly recited as the child reared from being hit. "Gods do not fall, child. Perish such heretical thoughts. The gods are eternal. They came from the heavens, from the earth, the waves, the wind, and even the darkness itself. And just like the elements they sprouted from, they are eternal." He finished, but despite the pain, the child raised his hand and riposted:

"But even the stars fall." The old man scowled.

The memory faded. The darkness became overwhelming, and the void began to close in as all grew cold. But he could hear something. Voices called from beyond the haze.

He followed them through the nothingness with whatever strength he had left, and the words became clear: a prayer. From it, a speck of light emerged and he grasped it within his hands.

He slowly opened his eyes as he heard the voices that called to him.

In a humble clay and thatched roof peasant house, barely holding itself together at the seams, a couple was deep in prayer to a small clay altar, depicting a selection of various godly symbols and sigils.

The fallen monk grasped around him to make sure he hadn't died. As he smelled the stench of dirt and fertilizer and felt the pain from his broken ribs, he knew that at least he had not been sent to the Dreggers. The stench there would be much, much worse.