STEEM MONSTERS SHORT STORY CONTEST | The Inferno

bohemian.machine (55)in #steemmonsters • 5 years ago (edited)

Falling Skies, Lewin Reimann | Source: Artstation

Legend has it that, many centuries ago, Malric was the jewel of the Beril Sea's coasts. Strategically located on the edge of a huge cliff, Malric was known for two things. Through its port, crowned by the great Lighthouse of Malric, the best skins, the freshest fruits and the most finely decorated crafts of the known world were traded. And, in the halls of its Academy of Pyromancy, young people from every corner of the globe learned the secrets of centuries of mastery of the most rebellious element of all.

One thing was certain: Malric produced the best pyromancers in the world.

For centuries, the city would be known as the cradle of a rich and prosperous civilization that would dream of dominating other cultures and becoming an empire.

Those dreams would come to an end in a terrible and tragic night.

To understand the cataclysm that fell on Malric, one must first understand Ephraim's life.

Ephraim was a promising student of the Academy, aware since his very infancy of the virtues and dangers of fire. During his childhood, an unfortunate accident in the port, in which several amphorae of dragon oil violently burned and exploded, took the life of his father. Ephraim had to work with his mother as a fruit vendor in the great Akhoum Square, Malric's abundant and rich agora, from a very young age.

One afternoon, when Ephraim and his mother were about to close their tarantine, a tumult of people formed in the center of Akhoum Square. Curious as his age forced him to be, he ran there to see what was going on. As he drew nearer, the screams and cheers of the people increased. Paving his way through the crowd, Ephraim finally reached the square's center. What his eyes saw marked him forever.

Thieves, who had tried to rob one of the agora's shops, had come across a veteran pyromancer in front of them. Armed with razor-sharp cutlasses, the evildoers were willing to murder the man who had dared to challenge them to stop their madness. But they did not expect the sorcerer to melt their weapons with his spells before the first of them even managed to strike a blow against him, turning the hand of the daring scoundrel into an indescribable stump of melted iron and scorched flesh.

That afternoon, amid the bustle of the crowd and his mother's scolding for having escaped, Ephraim knew he wanted to be a pyromancer.

Many dawns later, and after evading his mother's pleas against his decision, Ephraim became one of the Academy's most prodigious students. Known for his creativity and cunning in handling diverse ignition spells, the young man had only one true peer in the whole school: Alberic, a young barbarian from Wryngard's icy steppes who had given up the cold of his lands in order to be able to handle the opposite element skillfully. Eventually, parity, through puberty and impatience, gave way to rivalry.

This fierce enmity would reach its peak in the middle of dark days for Ephraim. His mother, who had so far been able to give him a comfortable and quiet life thanks to the success of her business in Akhoum Square, fell prey to a mysterious and vile disease that had no known cure. There was no doctor, healer or shaman, either born in Malric or just visiting, who did not give Ephraim a diagnosis different from the obvious one. If something was not done soon, he was told, his mother was in serious danger of dying.

To complicate matters, a multitude of merchants in the agora of Akhoum Square were interested in the trading spot belonging to Ephraim's mother. Some of them honest, others less so; by then, the crime at Malric had been organized into a dark and dangerous guild of thieves to which, behind the scenes, virtually every citizen owed one favor or another. Ephraim's mother had never bowed to her designs, and Ephraim spent many sleepless nights wondering whether the reluctance of so many healers to care for her would have anything to do with that fact.

The only light of hope on Ephraim and his mother's path was the Academy Tournament. Year after year, wizards and artificers from the most remote places in the world gathered at Malric to test their skills against each other in the presence of the Tribunes of Malric, the most powerful men in the city. Ephraim was sure that if he had an outstanding participation in the Tournament, perhaps he could convince some wealthy merchant or even one of the Academy's grandmasters to save his mother.

But for that to happen, there was a great obstacle between Ephraim and victory.

That obstacle was Alberic. The only student of the Academy better than him.

In order to defeat Alberic in the Academy Tournament, Ephraim had to find a solution to his scarce but important shortcomings as a pyromancer. And he had to find it in just weeks.

Alberic had grown to be the scourge of the Academy because of the speed and fluidity of its invocations, which had made more than one student think that his stories about being born in Wryngard and having been on the verge of dying of cold were only inventions that he made to be seen as a hard man by his many admirers... from both genders. The grandmasters of the Academy already considered him a promise at the level of the greatest heroes of Malric... unlike Ephraim, of whom many times they expressed themselves as wasted potential.

And Ephraim was not willing to tolerate that one more day.

On a restless night, unable to sleep and immersed in various concerns, Ephraim went to the Academy's library to read about Malric's ancient and venerable pyromancers, including those who had created the school in the first place. Hidden among thick books and past-scented scrolls, Ephraim found the story of a powerful pyromancer who had voluntarily exile himself from the city, rejected and sidelined by the Academy's grandmaster for what appeared to be dangerous practices of ancestral arts, believed to be the work of pagan gods. A knowledge that the Academy fervently rejected.

According to records, this pyromancer had gone into exile in the woods on the outskirts of Malric, where he was rumored to live as a hermit, cut off from civilization and focused only on his own affairs. Ephraim knew that, if he were still alive, this man and his irreverent sense of pyromantic mastery were the only key he had left to defeat Alberic in the Tournament.

In the shadow of night, and after sneaking into the Academy's quarters to supply himself, Ephraim slipped away from his teachers and guardians, leaving for the Ashwoods alone.

Not a single book or parchment warned Ephraim of the icy cold that lurked among the trees of the Ashwoods at night.

There was no torch, campfire, or spell that Ephraim knew in his considerably vast domain of pyromancy that would not make him curse himself for not having brought enough skins and tunics to keep himself warm.

And yet Ephraim suspected that that was precisely why the hermit in the books had chosen the Ashwoods to hide himself.

The Academy's young promise walked and walked among the thick maples, evading branches, spikes and rocks. At one point, the only way to warm up was to burn the thick branches, which from time to time erected themselves as atrocious portals, until nothing remained of them but ashes. But the weather was inclement, to such an extent that Ephraim was not surprised that, at any moment and under the moonlight, it began to snow.

But that did not stop Ephraim. On the contrary.

He walked until his sandals frayed and his soles broke.

And it was there, right there, near sunrise, that Ephraim found what he was looking for.

Deep in the forest, near a cave on the slopes of the Hedgehog Peaks, the young pyromancer spotted a bonfire that was still blinking. Ephraim accelerated his step in his direction, appreciating various articles, stretched skins and what appeared to be a hut made of rocks and mud. As he approached the place, the door to the house opened with a characteristic squeak. From inside, a middle-aged man, with a thick, snowy beard and an enviable physical complexion, came out looking at him cautiously.

That wouldn't have bothered Ephraim had it not been for the axe in the man's right hand, he grasps with suspicious intent.

Faced with danger, Ephraim did his best. With a click, he created a spark of fire that went straight to the blade of the axe. Although it was strong enough to deform its tip, it was not intense enough to emulate its childhood hero.

But, in a strange coincidence of fate, surprise was waiting for the young pupil.

After seeing the edge of his weapon half melted, the savage man smiled.

'You almost did it, kid. But that wouldn't have worked against a thief.'

Ephraim needed a very long talk to come out of his astonishment.

The man he had found, though by no means the legendary and rebellious fire master whose life was recorded in the records of the Academy's library, was something much better. He was the hero of Akhoum Square, the man who had inspired Ephraim to follow his path.

However, life had not been gentle with the image he had in his memories.

Whether it was cold, isolation or the passing of years, the glittering courage that Ephraim had seen in the eyes of that daring pyromancer had dimmed considerably. And yet the man was still as fearful as he was then, or perhaps even more so. After offering him some herbal tea and a few servings of salted meat on the grill, the hermit, who no longer even remembered his own name, spoke to him about the future of his own life.

As he had done, Ephraim's childhood hero decided to leave for the Ashwoods to see how close to reality was the myth he had read in the library. When he reached the Hedgehog Peaks' foothills, he was received in a similarly hostile manner... by a woman.

That woman, as the man told Ephraim, had also made the same journey as he years before. Neither had she found the mythical rebel, but another dissatisfied student who had also left his education and his city life in order to become stronger. The cyclicality of the situation, although seemed ridiculous at first, made Ephraim suspicious of whether such a pilgrimage was not a trick carefully invented by the Academy's grandmasters. A way of separating those pupils given to sedition and non-comformity from those who followed Malric's creed to the letter.

But, after all, that didn't matter. There was no time to lose. Ephraim asked the hero of his past for advice and guidance regarding his predicament: he needed to win the prize of the Academy Tournament at any cost. He needed to train with him, in order to know how to defeat Alberic. But when he proposed the man to be his pupil, he did not hesitate to refuse.

'You're still fresh meat, kid. You are not prepared for what I know.'

Fresh meat? Such insolence, Ephraim thought. Perhaps the years away from civilization had made his possible teacher believe himself above the Academy of Pyromancy, and him, and Alberic... But he knew he could not convince him with a challenge. I would have to convince him with the truth.

After exposing his difficult personal situation, and telling him about his mother's illness, the mysterious hermit accepted. But not without giving him a dark warning.

'What you have been taught at the Academy pales in the face of the power of true pyromancy, kid. If you decide to devote yourself to this path, if you really decide to give your life to Ifrit, master and lord of fire... Be warned, there is nothing Ifrit can do without first transforming you into whatever he wants for you.'

When Ephraim tried to ask him what he meant, his new teacher only told him to return on the following day.

During the following weeks, Ephraim continued to faithfully escape from the Academy in the evenings, in the direction of the Ashwoods, to train with the nameless master. His lessons proved to be very enlightening for the young pyromancer, though very hard, and undoubtedly ill-removed from what he would have initially expected.

In essence, his experienced tutor showed him that what the great masters of the Academy imparted to his pupils was nothing but a strange deformation of true pyromancy, a simplification that ignored the most fundamental aspects of it and its close connection with nature. The reason, according to him, was to maintain order and peace in Malric, after the mythical tribal wars that marked the foundation of the city were largely provoked by dissonant beliefs among them.

One of those beliefs was the praise of Ifrit, the fire god of the ancient Malricans.

And the only thing his master did during the weeks leading up to the Academy Tournament was to show Ephraim how wrong the great masters were.

Day after day, their teachings demolished the prejudices, insecurity, and burdens that bound Ephraim to the earth and limited his true power. Temperatures he never thought he could reach, sparks he never thought he could create, things he never thought he could burn: Ephraim accomplished all that and more in just days.

When he had finished his training, little remained of the anxious and insecure teenager who had entered the Ashwoods in search of guidance and wisdom. What came out of those innumerable walls of trees was a different man, secure, full of strength and with an incomparable mastery of the arts of invocation.

What came out of there was the winner of the Academy Tournament.

And just days later, in Akhoum Square, that would be confirmed.

On the night of the competition, before leaving for the Tournament's opening, Ephraim and his mother shared a minute of peace on her bed. The health of her progenitor, who had been stable until just recently, had begun to worsen again. Suffering from an intense fever, with dark circles under her eyes that perfectly revealed the shape of her skull, the family's relatives and neighbours expected the worst.

Ephraim, however, knew he would save her.

Taking his tunic and jewelry that distinguished him as a student of the Academy of Pyromancy, the boy departed for Akhoum Square as he had done years before.

The streets of the city were filled with attendees, sponsors and curious people from all corners of the world. Like a procession, Malric was invaded by a mixture of rich and poor, men of faith and courtesans, citizens and outsiders. All of them crowded the wooden steps around the square, eager to see the best pyromancers in the world demonstrate their skills and not die trying.

Because, yes, although Malric's Academy of Pyromancy was the best in the known world, it was not free of accidents. And, although the great masters took precautions, occasionally some student wanted to show more than he really was... and people got hurt.

That night, however, disaster would come much later.

The first test of the Academy Tournament was literally a walk on the beach.

So much so that even first-year Academy students could participate. But they knew that they could hardly win against the sixth-year students.

The Academy's grandmasters had arranged a series of torches in two huge rows in the middle of Akhoum Square. The aim of the test was for participants to manipulate the flames' intensity in each torch according to a series of aesthetic criteria. Whoever created the most pleasant visual spectacle with the flames would be victorious.

In other words, it was a fireworks test.

A freshman, whose name Ephraim could not remember, had the help of a sihar interpreter, Malric's own stringed instrument. The boy managed to make the flames of the torches dance to the rhythm of the sad melody played by the musician; he did it in such a precise way that the audience was moved and applauded in tears.

Not bad, Ephraim thought.

The third-year students were more creative. More aware of the flames' elasticity and concentration, a pair of students made both rows of torches battle each other, with each flame taking the form of pieces of ragash, a strategy game well known in Livonia; as expected, this surprised all attendees, but bewitched the Livonese ambassadors who had attended the ceremony above all others.

It had been a good intention, Ephraim thought.

But he really only cared about what Alberic would do.

When the wild, hairy Wryngardian entered the square, carrying two barrels of undetermined liquid under each arm, the crowd clapped madly. With tribal tattoos on his torso and arms barely covered by his reddish braids and gold bracelets, Alberic dropped as gently as he could the barrels on the floor under the columns and, using a metal lever, opened both containers.

They were full of liquor.

Staring from the students' harrows, Ephraim waited patiently for his rival to take action.

After filling a whole jar with liquor and drinking it until his cheeks swelled with drink, Alberic began his show. Spitting spirits into the rows of torches at each side of him, the barbarian told nothing less than the story of his people in the flames, to the rhythm of the war drums of a gang of his countrymen who, to Malric's fortune, had only gone there to drink and fuck.

As the flames fanned, Alberic contorted and united them to form images of Wryngard's fearsome wyrmships sailing the sea, passing from torch to torch as if each of them were a city or country to conquer and invade. Then, he joined the fire of all the torches in the form of chevrons, creating the shape of the unique Wryngardian barracks' roofs. Walking under them, Alberic kept spitting liquor that enlivened each chevron and transformed it into one of the several warrior kings of Wryngard, recognizable only by the truest scholars of war history standing there. And, although many of the attendees were indifferent to the legends, not so to the art behind the figures that Alberic made with his invocations.

The ovation that the young barbarian received after his presentation was apoteosic.

And there was only one thing with which Ephraim could improve it.

Unlike the other participants, the young pyromancer did not have a musician to match his invocations, nor did he have a very elaborate story to tell.

Only that of his city, and that of his own life.

Using all his arsenal and creativity, Ephraim brought out the flames, not only from the torches, but from almost every fire in the Plaza. Centering them in the air, Ephraim created one by one the most emblematic buildings of the city, imagining in his mind how they had been built, brick by brick. At times, he played with the shapes of the buildings and integrated them to form the faces of his loved ones. The seriousness of his deceased father, the candor of his now dying mother. The courage of his teacher in his youth, an image that awoke equally cheers in the crowd and uncomfortable smiles among the grandmasters.

When he finished his chronicle of Malric, the crowd gave a more thunderous applause than the one Alberic had received. Ephraim had won the first round...

Or not.

The Academy's grandmasters, after congratulating all the participants, announced that Alberic had been the winner of the first round by a three-vote majority over Ephraim.

The boy had gone a long way in showing his exiled tutor in his show.

The second round of the Academy Tournament would be a somewhat more complicated affair.

Eight participants, four belonging to the fifth year and four belonging to the sixth year, would fight in a melee inside a combat ring arranged specifically for them in the Square's center. Each of them would wear an Academy training vest, a work of science and alchemy that carried within itself enough water reservers to cool its user as soon as it received the impact of any object or spell that burned at a certain temperature.

The last opponent to keep his vest intact would win the round.

Ephraim, Alberic and two of their companions, Timru and Hvansar, were the sixth year's representatives. Naturally, the eyes of the audience were on them as they were closest to graduation, as well as the most skillful in the use of pyromancy. Although among the fifth graders there were some public favorites, the truth is that, at that level, such a confrontation would be the equivalent of first-year boys participating in the first challenge. A novelty to allow them to practice and prepare, and nothing more than that.

The participants were arranged around the Square's great fountain, interspersed according to their year of study at the Academy in such a way that their first combat would always be against a student of their own promotion. It was the most honorable thing, Ephraim thought, but it was also a sign of a vain hope according to him; if you managed to barely defeat your peer, any other experienced student would tear you to shreds.

Or, as Ephraim feared, he would have to face Alberic directly in the first shift.

Fortunately, when he entered the combat ring, it surmised that Hvansar the rival that the grandmasters chose for him. Alberic would have to face Timru in the first part of the melee.

Even so, the look Alberic gave Ephraim when they entered the ring and assumed their positions had only one meaning: Alberic was not looking for the blood of any rival other than Ephraim. Nor did it help that, while looking at him defiantly, he ran his thumb down his throat.

The long rivalry had suddenly become serious.

When the horn that started the battle sounded, the initial order of the opponents quickly turned into chaos.

Ephraim ran to hide near one of the pillars of the fountain, throwing fireballs at Timru; the latter did the same as he tried to evade the spells the other opponents were casting on each other. In the middle of the fight, one of the fifth-year students miscalculated his spell dissipation; a fireball that Timru threw at Ephraim went straight to his vest, taking him out of the competition.

As Ephraim took a deep breath, slowly forming two fire pillars in his hands, he heard two more vests exploding. Carefully cornering the column in which he had taken refuge, Ephraim saw that a fifth-year student, and not Alberic, had liquidated Hvansar; both had pulled each other out of the fight. Now there were only five left.

Or four. Alberic, invoking a huge pillar of direct fire under the feet of one of the other fifth-graders, took away any chance of reaction out of the poor boy's hands. Although the explosion of his vest attenuated the intensity of the pillar, the guards outside the ring had to quickly remove the young man from the fight so that the residual heat would not hurt him or reignite the air around him.

Alberic, Timru, Ephraim and a lucky fifth-grader were the only remaining participants now.

The visibly frightened fifth-grader took the torch flames out of the ring and conjured up a shower of fire with them in order to get the rest of his opponents out of the game. A rather crazy strategy, Ephraim thought, but it worked when one of the meteors blew up Timru's vest. The boy's celebration caused many in the stands to laugh and applaud him; it was not uncommon for the audience, especially the most dispossessed, to bet on the most disadvantaged.

But the revelry was short-lived.

Alberic shattered the vest of the fifth year old with a fire axe that exploded violently against him, throwing him outside the combat ring's enclosement and ramming his body through the wood railings.

Without even having had a chance to throw the pillars of fire that he had been carrying in his hand, Alberic and Ephraim were now the only participants standing inside the circle.

And Ephraim's barbarian rival was enjoying it to the fullest. Like the audience, whose cheers and cries suddenly gave way to silence, filled with expectation.

Looking sideways through his hiding place, Ephraim saw Alberic standing in the middle of the Square, holding two newly-created fire axes between his fingers. The force of the current made the hair of the Academy's most savage student shake violently in the wind.

'Oh, come on, Ephraim, get out of there. Let's get this over with, shall we?'

Swallowing thick, knowing he was an easy target for Alberic axes if he pleased him, Ephraim changed his strategy.

With the energy stored in his hands, he created a wall of fire beyond the column where he was hiding, so large that it covered almost half of the ring. On the other side of the wall, Ephraim swore he heard Alberic's laughter as he himself ran to the opposite side. He had not taken three steps out of the column where he hid when one of Alberic's axes went through the wall and hit the column, tearing it to pieces. Through the hole that briefly formed in the wall of fire, Alberic threw the other axe directly towards Ephraim.

That was just what Ephraim wanted.

Kneeling on the ground, Ephraim evaded the axe and, taking it by the handle as he passed over it, the boy reoriented it toward Alberic. Unable to expect his own weapon to be used against him, Alberic only closed his eyes as he felt the impact against his vest, sending him through the air directly to the railings on the other side.

Ephraim had won the second round. After being speechless for a few seconds, the entire Akhoum Square collapsed at Ephraim's feet, applauding him and celebrating his triumph.

But, for some strange reason, Ephraim felt that this had been too easy.

After a brief interruption, in which the Academy's guardians dismantled the combat ring and prepared everything for the formal prize-giving ceremony, Ephraim had only one doubt in his mind.

Why had it been so easy to beat Alberic?

The fierce Wryngardian had been left in a state of post-battle shock, still unable to believe how someone he had clearly underestimated had beaten him in the round of the Tournament in which he believed everything would have been made easier. Sitting under the student stands, arms folded and not looking at each other, the two rivals remained in a tense calm.

At least, until Alberic's curiosity outweighed his hatred.

'Redirection. That's what you did against my axe, wasn't it?'

Ephraim remained silent, looking at Alberic with a mixture of complicity and fear.

Alberic, laughing briefly like a maniac, realized his mistake.

'Well played, boy. Well played. No man would expect anyone in Wryngard to throw his own axe at him. But don't get excited. In Wryngard we have a saying for things like this.'

Rising from the box where he was sitting, ready to come out from under the bleachers, Alberic sentenced Ephraim with a phrase that became very familiar to him.

'In our pantheon, in Wryngard, there is no god we fear more than Baragul, the god of war, currents and change. And, although we all entrust ourselves to Baragul's protection, the truth is that Baragul gives nothing without transforming you, without changing you.'

That was the same thing that his master had told Ephraim days before.

When the horns sounded again, all the participants in the two rounds of the Tournament went out to Akhoum Square, to meet the people's revelry and applause. Waiting for them in the center of the stage, the Academy's grandmasters, talking and smiling among themselves, also applauded and honored them.

After a brief moment, the voice of the Academy's archmaster, asking for the silence of the crowd, roared solemnly through the Square.

In an Academy Tournament it was very difficult for the same student to win both rounds, and this edition was no exception. Alberic had deservedly won the exhibition round, just as Ephraim had won the battle round. But the Tournament could only have one winner, and for the archmaster, everything depended on a simple question.

'Why do you want to win the Tournament?'

The question took both participants by surprise. Waiting for a final challenge between them, or a new round of battle, the least they had in mind was such a personal questioning.

Alberic, however, did not hesitate to respond.

'I want to win the Tournament because I want to be the best pyromancer in the world.'

After laughter and applause from the audience, and the permission of the architect, he replied.

'Quite a valid wish, young Alberic. However, winning in a friendly competition does not correspond to the work of a lifetime, which is the only thing that will really make you worthy of that title. Now, young Ephraim... why do you want to win...?'

Ephraim did not give the archmaster enough time to finish his speech.

'Because I want to save my mother.'

The expression of surprise on the archmaster's face was priceless.

But that didn't stop Ephraim from appealing for the clemency of the archimaster, the great masters and the assistants. Nor did he prevent her from telling them of her mother's delicate state of health, the difficulty in finding a cure for her illness, and why she believed she should appeal to her wisdom and generosity in the act of finding her salvation.

After meditating briefly, and looking at the expectant crowd, the Archimaster spoke.

'How much we would all like to save our loved ones from misfortune, young Ephraim. How much I, how much all of we grandmasters of the Academy would like to have the perfect answer to go against destiny. But we are well informed of the misfortune that has befallen your home, and I am very sorry to tell you that, as all of Malric's intellectuals have discussed before, there are lessons that only life can give us.'

Ephraim looked at the astonished archmaster, feeling that something was missing from his intervention.

'While our young Alberic's assumption of what the Academy Tournament may mean to him is naive, it is more in line with the path he must travel. Indeed, his life from now on will be a constant competition with others to achieve the title he so desperately wishes to deserve. However, young Ephraim, yours is a competition that cannot be won. And I recommend to you that the sooner and wiser you accept it, the better you will understand it.'

Ephraim couldn't say a word. He could only babble.

'What... what are you trying to say, archmaster...?'

'In Malric we are masters of fire, young Ephraim. Not life, much less death. We extend our condolences and apologies to you, but as for your mother, there is little we can do but wish her a peaceful demise.'

Ephraim felt his forces fading out of his legs, falling to his knees on the ground.

The only word in his mind was 'no'.

That night, Ephraim did not return home. He couldn't see his mother after what happened.

Not only could he not look him in the eye after he had been humiliated as he had been, in front of all of Malric. He could not return to his abode like a loser.

All Ephraim could do was wander through the Ashwoods, looking for his master.

When he finally reached the caves on the Hedgehog Peaks' slopes, his master waited for him at the campfire outside his hut, skinning some rabbits for dinner.

'Judging by the way you look, I guess you didn't win, kid.'

Ephraim, still unable to say a word, could only nod.

'You have understood, then, which is the true path of a pyromant. Your final test has been completed.'

To Ephraim this seemed like everything but a test.

'There's something... There's something I haven't been able to understand, master.'

After impaling the rabbits and putting them on the fire, his master silently gave him permission to speak.

'If you knew this would happen, why didn't you do anything to prevent it?'

After a sigh of visible discomfort, the master rose from the campfire and walked threateningly towards Ephraim. In a heartbeat, his master pushed him forward, causing him to fall in the snow.

'You fool. In all this time, have you not understood what the Academy does to its students? Why the hell did I train you then?'

Again, Ephraim could only babble.

'What... what are you talking about, teacher?'

'I didn't do anything to prevent it because exactly the same thing happened to me, child. The Academy's grandmasters are Malric's true masters as well, and anyone who wants to believe otherwise is fooling itself. Why do you think they let this so-called Alberic win?'

His teacher had been in Malric. He had been among the audience, Ephraim thought.

'To let you win would be to let real pyromancy win, child. It would be to admit that Ifrit is real, that Ifrit is power. And they are not going to risk the control they have over the city for the dreams of a child who only wants to rescue the mother they themselves got sick in the first place.'

Where impotence had been before, now there was only astonishment. Simmering slowly, heating itself and becoming anger.

Ephraim's teacher looked at him with a hint of mockery in his pupils.

'Yes, child, what did you expect? That ring of crime that has been destroying the port all this time? Why do you think the Academy does nothing against the thieves and hitmen who populate the city? Because they answer directly to the grandmasters. I understood it in my youth, and so I went into exile the way I did. And that's why I understood that Malric has only one solution.'

Ephraim watched in astonishment, anger and confusion his teacher, who played with a fireball in his right hand. The ball of fire slowly began to take the form of the Palace of the Academy, looking over the great cliff of the city.

'Malric has to burn, child.'

Ephraim did not fully understand the harshness of these words when his master threw the fireball directly into his chest, sinking hell unto it. The intense pain of what he felt made him lose consciousness.

That same night, Malric burned in flames.

Accounts of the tragedy are by all means scarce, as the city's libraries and records were lost in the fire. But the most knowledgeable historians and chroniclers of the long-dead Jewel of the Beryl Sea agree almost unanimously on a single fact.

That day, all the pyromancers of the city fell before the hand of a young man who, survivors said, had been one of their own. A boy from the capital, visibly changed; as if an ancestral creature had taken possession of him. From his clothing, however, no one knew whether he was Ephraim, his exiled master, or something far worse.

The fact is, that night, Alberic fell. The great masters fell.

The archimaster perished in a pillar of fire so intense that the ashes of his body vanished in the wind as soon as the flames gave way.

And not even Malric's plebs, not even his merchants, his scientists, his thieves, were saved from misfortune.

Whatever Ephraim's fate may have been, no one knows.

But whatever walked out of that burning city, barely dressed in flaming rags and the jewels and bracelets that distinguished so many Academy's pyromancers before the cataclysm fell, was certainly not called Ephraim. Much less Herlazon, the name by which the grandmasters still called their old tutor.