NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 1: Invisible
The great irony of the fall of the tower was that it freed sorcerers from persecution while simultaneously sealing their end.
-Tallen Elmheart, On Mages
—
Kohlyn spent the last day of his old life the same way he had most of those before it, studying. While the magistrate was declaring his parents dead in absentia, placing him under the stewardship of his uncle, he was digging through the deep archives in the hopes that some antiquated spellbook would be the key to his magical troubles.
Kole—as he preferred to be called yet no one seemed to ever do—was a wizard. Or at least, he wanted to be. As far as being a wizard went, he checked most of the boxes and even excelled at quite a few. Unfortunately for him, he struggled with the whole "spell casting" thing. But, we'll get to that later.
On this particular day, he left the library earlier than usual. He vaguely recalled there was something important he needed to do that day, but couldn't remember what. As he left, eyes on his spellbook before him as he tried to glean some last insights from his notes, a fish struck him in the head.
Now, in most regions of Kaltis this would be an immediate cause for concern, but in Illandrios the raining of fish was a common occurrence and a significant source of a family’s daily meals. Kole looked down at the fish and then up to the ocean suspended above.
Seeing that the fish was dead and no others fell with it, Kole sighed and looked around. Not far away three boys of similar age stood laughing and pointing. This was not the first time people had thrown fish at Kole, but unbeknownst to him, it would be the last—at least in this specific situation, fish were everywhere after all.
Corbyn Oldhill led this particular hunting party. He led most in fact, recruiting from the wide pool of volunteers with varying degrees of enthusiasm that were Kole's classmates.
Due to his particular confluence of magical heritages and single-minded dedication to becoming a wizard, Kole had been hailed as a prodigy at an early age. But, due to that same heritage and single-minded born stubbornness, he'd eventually hit a wall.
Children—and adults for that matter—don’t take well to being shown up by their peers, and when Kole began to fall behind his classmates were more than eager to wave mockingly at him as they passed.
When he’d completed his mental vault at the age of nine and his bridge at the unheard-of age of ten, he’d been put into classes with children four years his senior. His understanding of magic was nothing special, but he leveraged his massive pool of Will to practice three times as long as his new older peers.
At first, his work paid off, and he constructed his first cantrip on pace with his classmates, but then he hit his particular wall. The simple spells that ought to have taken minimal mental effort, completely exhausted his Will whenever he cast them. He agonized over the constructions in his mind, but they were flawless. The problem was in him. Not willing to give up, he continued to learn cantrips while those around him moved on to first-tier spells. When no cantrip worked, he tried first-tier spells himself. Those too proved within his capacity to learn—as far as he could tell at least—but the Will cost was more than he could bear. Fruitlessly, he kept at it until eventually he was only three years ahead. And then two, and then one, and then, he was learning alongside students his own age.
These classmates had grown up in the shadow of the so-called-prodigy, constantly compared to him by their parents and teachers, and took no small amount of pleasure in his stagnation. They harassed him endlessly, and by this day he had long since given up fighting back.
So, when Kole realized the dead fish had not fallen from the ocean above, but had been thrown at him by a classmate, he used his singular magical talent and turned Invisible. Now unseen, he continued on toward his home at a casual pace. Until that is, another fish struck him in the head.
Surprised by the unexpected blow, he stumbled, dropping his book. Beyond him, the three boys approached, Corbyn leading the rest with a basket of fish and wearing strange glasses, that if the ornate nature was any indication, were magically piercing his spell of invisibility.
“Flood,” he cursed.
This was not the first time other kids had learned to circumvent his invisibility. When the class had learned Color Spray, they'd continually hunted him, painting him with magically conjured pigments. But, his uniquely large pool of Will, and incredibly efficient Invisibility spell meant that he could recast his spell more than his pursuers could theirs, even if they worked together. He was forced to pay for magical cleaning each day he escaped, but he did always manage to escape.
These magical glasses however were another matter.
Kole picked up his book, now smelling of fish, and ran clutching it close. He’d been caught before, and the bruises he bore for the weeks that followed may as well have been invisible for all the sympathy it evoked from the adults in his life. He ran through the market square hoping to lose them in the crowd. His invisibility, however, was to his disadvantage as no one could see him barreling towards them, and he crashed into more people than he dodged before he thought to banish the spell.
On the far side of the market, he snuck into an alley and saw Corbyn's gang had tracked him through the crowd and restocked on ammunition in the process. He continued to run, casting Invisibility on himself again as he went. The alley opened up to the main thoroughfare of the city. Normally this road would be packed with stalls, shoppers, and wagons, but it was the eve of the migration and those present were working to erect the barriers that would guide the deep whales through the city while others cleared the street of anything that might cause the giant crustaceans to linger.
The workers shouted in frustration as the three teenagers ran past them in pursuit of something they couldn't see.
"He turned left at the baker!" Corbyn shouted to his cronies when he saw Kole try to escape.
Kole had indeed turned off there and quickly came to regret it. The stalls that normally lined the thoroughfare had all been packed up in anticipation of the migration, and this road, to Kole’s Riloth cursed luck, was where they’d all ended up. He was met with a barrier of stacked panels, which he immediately began to climb hoping to reach a roof.
Halfway up another fish struck him, followed by some fruit and then a rock. The first two were more embarrassing than painful but the third caught him by surprise and he lost his footing. He fell back from the steep stack of timbers, crashing hard on the street, where his concentration lapsed on his invisibility once more.
"There he is!" Corbyn shouted with feigned joviality. "We were looking for you! We heard your parents were officially dead and wanted to give our condolences."
Oh, that's what I forgot.
The words didn't sadden him in the way Corbyn probably intended, but they did cause him distress.
Uncle Jaryn's going to be mad.