A Useless Trinket

If they knew what he was about to do, they would call him a traitor. They would call him a madman, a terrorist, a menace. But their enemy left him no choice.

Varion locked himself up in his library, enslaving the minds of his students with a curse, a few hours after the siege had started. There was no hope, no chance at winning this battle. The Magocracy lost its armies to the otherworldly invaders at the Battle of Erian. The enemy developed resistance to most of their spells. The final siege was just a formality. A farce to die as a "warrior". A farce, because they will be slaughtered. Every single person in this city will die a horrible, painful death when the protection wards wear down. And they will very soon.

He knew it because he made them. The protection wards that he created for the Magocracy were designed to stop any threat from this world. Back then, he didn't know there was anything else out there. It's a miracle they hold up for so long. He was amazed by his own genius incarnated in those protection spells.

But it was not enough. The fools in the Council believe they are safe and decided not to listen to his warnings. Fools. He should have disposed of them and claimed the rule for himself long ago. Too late for that. Because there will be no tomorrow. But on his terms.

Enslaved students cleaned the entire floor of the library. He needed a lot of space. Some of them were crying behind the curse. He could feel it through the binding. An unfortunate distraction.

All the bookshelves, desks, and his favourite armchair... gone. Only things left were relevant scrolls. What he was about to do has never been attempted. Nothing, nothing close. The mere thought of the scale of his spell would make the most powerful mages in history shiver and tremble. But he, Varion the Iron Mask, father of the Magocracy, The Gardener of Eternal Tree, The One Who Absorbed The Comet. He was THE most powerful mage in history. And if someone could try to do something like this, it was him.

Honestly, if this weren't for the life-or-death, or worse, situation, the thought of surpassing every magical feat in history by a whole league, he would be proud of his work. But even if some would call Varion arrogant and prideful, at this moment, he wasn't thinking about his grandeur. He was thinking only about the ritual he had been preparing for the past week.

The idea came to him years ago. Giving credit where it was due, it came from one of his students. Varion didn't remember her name; she may have had a weird scar on her hand? Visibly, she had one good idea, but she was not particularly brilliant overall. During a lecture, she asked if there was an "apocalypse" spell. Varion back then laughed, "If there was such a spell, we wouldn't be speaking about it, don't we?" But it sparked his curiosity. As a thought experiment. As a theoretical ritual, never to be cast. He spent years of his free time thinking about what support spells to use, what power multipliers to apply, or the ratio of power input to obtained effect.

He has written down a ritual that should work in theory. He never attempted it, of course. It used plenty of more "controversial" magic disciplines, not appreciated by his peers, like anti-magic, necromancy, mind manipulation and vizian blood-powering magic. He never talked about it to anyone, they wouldn't understand, and they would accuse him of madness. After finishing the project, he had simply thrown it in his cabinet, to be forgotten forever. And now he was making it happen.

The slaves have just finished the circle responsible for draining the life and transforming it into pure magical energy. With this smart trick, the spell will cascade and power itself until it finishes working. It was the only circle unprotected from the mana annihilation spell, but he will use a part of his will to protect it himself. Blood-marked apprentices will serve as the start-up for the whole thing. If this works, the world as anyone so far knew it will cease to exist.

Magic was not a tool. That was the first lie children were taught. Magic was marrow, breath, hunger, rot. It slept in wheat, in wolves, in kings, in plague. It glittered in a newborn’s first scream and leaked from the dying with their last. The enemy was magic, too. The difference between the inhabitants of this world and the invaders was that their power scaled exponentially with their numbers. And Varion couldn't cast a spell to aim specifically at their race; he didn't know enough, and no one knew enough about them. One day, they just appeared. What Magocracy learned, it learned through the sacrifice of thousands.

So to destroy them, he would need to wipe out at least 90% of their numbers at once. And since he couldn't aim that specifically at them, he wouldn't aim at all. This spell was not a precise arrow from a bow. It was a wildfire that, once started, would annihilate, turn into dark residue, every ounce of magic it encountered. Without discrimination for humans, elves, dwarves, invaders, and animals.

But his pride had one say in this desperate project. He knew that the eventual survivors would not call him Varion the Hero, Varion the Saviour. They will call him The Great Slaughterer, The Genocidal. Such simple minds. But his reputation will not be tarnished, not even if the world ends. The last circle, he drew it himself. His name was not to be spat on by fools unable to comprehend his sacrifice. Memory circle will activate last, after the wildfire burns the whole magic in the world will disappear. It will wipe the memory of every last survivor. He did not have time to precise how much memory should be erased, or what part of it. Precision requires time. He had none. “Everything” was a vulgar parameter, fit for battlefield butchers and third-rate curse wrights, but it would hold. He would make it hold. And there was not much time. The protection wards will wear down.

The incantation itself lasted a few days, with the support of the enslaved students. He didn't eat, he didn't sleep, draining life force from another student. He needed to keep going. He needed to configure the circles for them to activate in perfect harmony. A ritual of such scale needed to work perfectly; there were too many "moving parts" to leave anything to chance.

But he managed it. It was ready. One last sacrifice to start a chain reaction that will consume the world. But the energy input needed to be substantial. A very strong soul. Students weren't enough, and there was no time to hunt for another mage, even if there were plenty in the city. They would probably fight back, and Varion couldn't allow himself to waste a single drop of his strength.

He kneeled down in the middle of the necromantic circle and held a kharmian dagger (which he bought years ago from some stupid merchant who wasn't aware how precious and powerful a thing he held).

He was not a religious type; gods were just creatures more powerful than mortals. But, if the spell didn't require his absolute concentration, even Varion would have a thought of prayer. Maybe not asking for grace, but for understanding the reason for his sin.

The magic was slowly filling the room with a low buzz. His chants were stronger.

He raised the dagger above his head, no witness to see his sacrifice.

Varion.

Varion the Iron Mask struck himself down.

***

The enemy had breached the wards. It was not a fight; the invaders were simply slaughtering them. Few days ago, Erdrick was just a blacksmith who got conscripted into a guard. Now he was facing a nightmarish creature, while everyone he knew was getting massacred. He dropped his sword. His companions, too. Enemy bodies disappeared. And the whole city emptied.

Far from the Magocracy, the harsh people of the mountains were leading their own war with the Invaders. Their clan villages burned one by one. For the first time in recent history, the clans have united, deciding to hold a last stand in the ancient fortress, built by the last Great Warmaster , the Unifier, a thousand years ago. They will die as brothers and sisters, even if, deep in their guts, they still hated each other. Bjarg couldn't believe he was fighting along with the savages from the Hailbearer village. Until he wasn't. Because now, he was standing alone, in an empty hall, he wasn't recognising.

Marcurio sneaked onto the last "explorer" ship leaving the continent. They went looking for another place to live, where the Invaders wouldn't find them. Where to go? Not a single soul knew. Far from war, that's all. No other continents were known, and no destination was better than the other. But many preferred the hope of dying at the claws of the enemy. He looked at a father holding a baby, no older than a few months. He had been looking at a father holding a baby no older than a few months. Then the father was gone. The baby remained. So did Marcurio. Two souls on a ship in the middle of the sea, and neither of them knew where the ship was meant to go.

The Mother had found no luck in the woods. Since the monsters came, all prey left these woods. And she just had a few pups to feed. They were hungry; they needed to eat to grow as strong and fearful as the Mother. But there were no deers, hares, not even those weird two-legged monkeys with skin of iron. She needs to rest before going on another hunt. She walked back to where she hid her pups. But they weren't there, and she couldn’t remember why she should grieve.

***

She woke up, her head hurting with a pulsating rhythm. She had some trouble trying to get up. The grass around her was soft, almost inviting to lie down a bit more. But she couldn't, she was in danger, her pursuers were right behind, and she had to bring the message to... Who? Who was chasing her? Where was she supposed to go? It didn't make any sense, her heart was racing as she had just run away from something... but there was nothing there, was it? The whole world around her seemed empty. Was it normal? Is the world supposed to make noise? Was she supposed to hear something? Was she... Wait, who was she? Should she know what her name was?

Through the headache, she tried to stand up. The sun was gently warming up her face and shining light at her clothes. They were in a terrible state. Torn apart, ragged and bloodied. Was it her blood? If not, whose?

She fell immediately again, because not only was her head hurting. The pain in her left leg was sharp and brutal. What was going on?

She found a fallen branch and crawled to it. Used it to stand up. Now seeing further than a few meters, she realised she was on a hill. Below, in the valley, the grass wasn't so much green. It was burned, trampled upon by thousands of boots, burned. Further away, there was a ruin of a city. Also wrecked, destroyed and burned. It must have been beautiful before whatever happened there. Golden domes and ivory towers were now broken, but she would give a lot to see it in its full glory. It felt like a place she would belong to.

Not knowing what to do next, with a branch as a provisional crutch, she started descending into the valley. The gentle breeze was blowing through her hair, relaxing. She felt like the last few months, maybe years, were a constant struggle, responsibilities and fear. She couldn't remember any of it. Maybe it's for the better. Maybe what she needed was a reset.

In the valley, she found another living creature. It didn't look like her. It had grey fur all over itself and walked on four legs. It was digging in the ground. Seeing her coming, the beast showed its teeth and started backing down. She stopped. She didn't plan to fight. Instinctively, she raised her hands. The grey one, step by step, was backing down until it got a solid distance away, then just turned back and ran away.

She approached the hole that the thing had dug. It wasn't big, a few fingers deep. But inside it, there was lying a dirty, iron mask. Really poor taste, if you would ask her. But more importantly, she realized her hand is scarred. The scar itself was old and had a weird, spiral form. Of course, she didn't remember how she got it.

She dropped the mask. It wouldn't give her any answers; it was just a useless trinket. The laid somewhere else.

But she had time.

She looked around. The sky was blue. The nature around the valley was blooming. The gentle breeze was relaxing.

She could not remember why, but things felt good.