Catalyst(25)

I cupped my head in my hands, remembering what the others had told me when I was younger. I tried to see if I had missed something. While I might have forgotten a holiday from time to time, performed a ritual in error, or dressed wrong, I couldn't remember two missing gods.

I had always thought those in town who worshipped one god were ignorant. It just seemed like the world and the heavens were far too much for only one god to handle. If I was wrong about the gods, what else was I wrong about? What would happen when I died? What had happened to my father?

“If what you say is true, then why don't people worship all six gods?” I asked.

“I'm not a priest, Hellsfire. I won't be able to answer the truly deep questions you have about your faith.”

“But—”

He raised his staff in front of him. “We can go over this later. You need to pay attention to what I'm going to tell you.”

I bit my inner cheek and pursed my lips. I guess he was right. The gods weren't going anywhere, and I had a more immediate problem to deal with—my powers. The wizard stared at me, waiting to see what I'd do. I nodded and relaxed.

“As I was saying, the other two gods don't quite represent the elements of nature, but at the same time, they do,” he continued. “One represents death and destruction while the other represents life and healing. Like the other four gods, these are neither good nor bad, just a fact of life. No one worships these gods in most of Northern Shala, but I guess those in Sedah do. They worship the life god.”

“Magic,” the wizard continued, “works, more or less, the same way as these six elements. Inside everyone and everything lurks a magical force. What separates us wizards from everyone else is our ability to access this force called mana. There's a mana for each of the six elements, and it can be represented by color. You have blue for air, red for fire, black for death, white for life, green for earth, and a blue-green for water. Water always was a tricky color.” Stradus laughed.

“Inside everyone, there's always one mana that's dominant—one mana that outshines the others and which people have the most ability to use. Even though most people will never in their lifetime be able to look inside themselves and use it directly in its purest form, they’ll still access it. For example, you have people who are good with nature or able to take care of the earth with their green mana; or people who are good at sailing and fishing, which uses the blue-green mana; or people who are able to understand poisons, death, and decay, which are linked to black mana. You have the power of red mana, but, more precisely, of fire. Do you follow me so far?”

I stared at him wide-eyed. I wanted to say no. Instead I scratched my head and said, “Sort of.”

“What don't you understand?”

“You said yourself that your…mana, was that of the air, and yet you're able to keep a beautiful garden without any sunlight, and you're also able to keep the torches consistently burning. How? Those have nothing to do with air.”

The wizard rubbed the globe on his staff. “I started out like most people do in all walks of life, with something I was naturally good at. It just happened to be air magic. It's not all that different from you with fire.”

When he reminded me of what I could do, I realized I had forgotten about using my power. I closed my eyes, concentrating on keeping the flame lit but not doing anything with it. It rose near the surface, where I could release it quickly with but a thought.

“As I advanced,” Stradus said, “I learned other things. I learned to tap into the other mana that were inside me and in the world. I'm not as skilled with the others as I am with air, but I can use them well enough.

“The only real trouble I have is with white and black mana. Even in my day, they were very elusive and hard to control, and only a few have mastered them. The only wizards I knew who had mastered them to their fullest—besides those on the Wizards’ Council—were Renak and Shala.” He whistled. “And no one could compare to those two. The things they did baffled even the Council.

“You will learn, just as I did, the skills and knowledge you'll need to use the other mana and you'll experience just how difficult it may be. Lastly, when you master using mana, your eyes will reflect that.”

To prove his point, the wizard's eyes lost their pupils and solidified into each of the colors in turn. I felt the intense power, even though he didn't do anything with it. It reminded me of being close to a powerful storm. I couldn't see it, but I knew it was there. I nodded in understanding. He let go of the mana, and his eyes returned to normal.

Stradus was going to say something else, but stopped when he saw the look on my face. “If you have any questions or don't understand something, you shouldn't hesitate to ask. One of my old teachers used to say, 'When it comes to the Arts, there's no such thing as a dumb question.'”