The Magister's Rage- Prologue

The Magister's Rage is an earlier attempt at publishing a short story online that quickly fell through. I have decided to update the story and publish a longer version of it here on this blog, but I'm going to start here with the prologue, which is completely unchanged.

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Despite common proclamations of my sharp intellect, I have made many mistakes in my life. I have taken lives, destroyed emotions, and warped my perception of magic. I will never again understand the world as normal people do. They see a world of balance, preserved by the Gods we all love. I may have been one of less than two dozen that have realized that they are not infallible. They have mortal weaknesses and desires as we do. It is one goddess' desire for revenge that made me the person I am today.

I carry a curse for which one could never truly be prepared: the presence of a spirit of death and destruction. It was because of this that I turned my back on everything I believed in and chose a darker path. I never wanted to hurt anyone, but that choice was never given to me or the cousin with whom I share this curse.

For my crimes, I am to be considered gullible. Unlovable. I am a blight upon decent folk. There was a time I hadn't a single care for what people should think of me, but I realize now that by giving into the despair that drove me down my dark path, I am perpetuating her plan. I did not choose this curse for myself. It is merely my birthright. But for a time, I unwittingly embraced the destiny the Death Goddess Maula inflicted upon me. For a time, I was to be an instrument of her will.

I was considered by many to be a prodigy. As a boy, my family and friends always told me that I had the potential to pursue any dream that should occur to me. I could have been a seer, empath, arcanist, or templar. But I chose to follow in the footsteps of my father and brothers and walk the path of the spellwarrior. Nobody knew then that my fate was sealed when my ancestors Artix Maloran and Lady Orion joined the heroes who would banish Maula from our mortal realm of Comalan. It was they who provoked her curse, and it was ultimately determined that I would be one of two who would suffer for it.

Perhaps, in retrospect, I should have seen that these circumstances are hardly an appropriate justification for the atrocities that I have committed. The evil spirit that plagues me destroyed my dreams and I only had thoughts for the injustice of it all. Forever was I marked as dangerous. Forever was I marked as a potential instrument of the Goddess of Death. Nothing anyone, including the other deities, could do would change this perception, even were I to become free of the curse.

In my rage, I have done exactly what the evil within wanted of me. In a sense, I have lost a very important part of myself. What has there been in these past three years to distinguish myself from the terrible alter ego I had acquired? Frankly, no one can answer this question for me, because no one even knows half of what has transpired in that time. It is for this reason that I must confess to everything that has happened as a result of my curse.

Before I begin to tell my story, it must be said that anyone who denies me any blame for what has happened is harmfully deluded. It was not my choice to be possessed by the Avatar of Death, but it was certainly my choice not to control myself as my dear cousin has. While she suppressed her demon, I chose to indulge mine.

Click here to read part 1!