The Fire Wizard

It was the week’s end and the colonel entered his cavernous retreat of a home almost at midnight. It hasn’t been five minutes since he’d finished the previous week and he was already on the brink of another. What a bother, he thought and slumped down on the grand sofa. The fire he’d lit this morning was still going. No wonder. It was a magic fire after all. His magic. 

You see, the colonel was a wizard. And a top ranking one at that; serving under the government of Grenamonowa. Some would call him a prodigy. To be so highly ranked at the young age of twenty-eight. He was a decent looking man, tall and lean, with raven hair kept at shoulder length; and was certainly capable of quickening a heart’s beat when his eyes smiled beneath the raven locks that occasionally fell over them. When duty called and he visited war torn villages of Grenamonowa, the colonel could leave a person or two spellbound with his “I live to serve you so be careful out here”. He was loved. Admired. Envied, even. 

And yet here he was, so tired and overwhelmed, fuming at the state of his progress this past week. How could he have let this happen, he wondered, trying and failing to breathe evenly through the frustration that was eating away at him. 

The fire was still going. In fact it was beginning to grow.

******

Deren was running late. His Nonna was surely already in bed. He’d applied to teach healing and medicine at the University of Grenamonowa and promised his nonna that paying a visit would be the first thing he’d do once he got the job. To Deren it wasn’t a matter of if but a matter of when. A career in healing and medicine was a long time coming and so was his visit to nonna. 

He ran through the empty streets, a petite thirty-year-old young man in a brown suit and a hat with a basket of fruits, slung over his forearm. And his stomach growled. Nonna’s crumbly cinnamon apple pie, I’m coming for you, he kept thinking as he made his way swiftly around the street corners.

******

Five hundred soldiers had died. Privates, just over the age of sixteen. The colonel heaved a painful sigh. Their blood was on his hands. He was the one who had ordered them to divert from their path. To take the less susceptible route because the mission had already reached levels of danger that were too threatening even for him. As it turned out he had underestimated the enemy, a vast tribe of cannibalistic monsters, the Vyshkyals. 

It was all too late when he found them, guts ripped open and lying dead on top of a fiery moor. The place reminded him of the moor on which he lived. With his fire magic, the Vyshkyals’ inferno could have easily been his own. A gush of fear raged within him just as the flames slowly but steadily burned hotter from within the fireplace. 

******

The dome shaped roof was an epitome of Grenamonowa architecture. Deren observed the domes on every house that flanked the street he was on. He had stopped running and settled into an amble. After all, there was no point to rushing. There was simply no way nonna was awake at this hour. Besides a leisurely night walk was something he knew he had to savour in his nonna’s breathtaking town. 

Even at midnight, when the world was asleep, the city was alight. Grenamonowa’s fire wizards have gone to great lengths, concocting magic that could keep the city awake even when its residents weren’t. 

Deren thought about finally becoming a doctor. As nerve-wracking as it was, getting into his dream profession at thirty, it relieved him. Not because he was able to get into it at long last. But because he felt liberated at the thought of saving lives. It has always been liberating to him. Ever since he’d nursed that dying squirrel back to health at seven years old. Almost as if it isolated him from the chains that bound one to reality and its expectations. When he was saving lives, healing, helping, it was all him. Nobody could interfere, nobody could question him. Because as far as his passion went, he knew what he wanted to do was wholesome and true.    

******

The living room was quiet save for a loud crackling at the fireplace. The colonel lay on the floor at the foot of the sofa. His armor had come off and only a dress shirt remained tucked to his black trousers. Fixating on the gradually growing fire he clenched and unclenched his jaws. He became like this every time he lost his men. Lying on the floor, devastated, contemplating life. And it was especially bad this time. The Vyshkyals were a vicious race. Capable of tearing apart their own kind and feeding on them too. On some level the colonel took it quite personally. It was a mockery of his valour, his experience, his prodigious talent. 

“You tell me, colonel” a distant voice seemed to echo in his head, “What is it that we’re fighting for this time? Your honor? Your territory? Your popularity?”, his lieutenant’s last words before they set off for the final battle pierced deeper than any Vyshkyal blade could possibly have; to think that the man who long had his utmost faith would begin to question his intentions. 

He tried to heave another sigh as the air in his lungs collided with his heart’s erratic thumping and formed a painful lump in his chest. He feared betrayal. And yet what he feared the most was the possibility that he deserved it. 

“Someday you’ll leave us and never look back” his dying father’s words haunted him, “I never believed you to be considerate in the first place”

His breath quickened. Crackles grew even louder and echoed through the halls of his reclusive manor. That’s what he was; a recluse. His own family never paid attention to him anyway. And when he enlisted twelve years ago, his father had been on his deathbed, spiteful still. They have always doubted him.

Jaws clenched. Unclenched. Sparks flew, the fire as angry as he was. Maybe more. The mantelpiece shook under the fury of the colonel’s flames. 

******

Deren stood confused next to a rather sophisticated fountain in the middle of town. He was lost. After three spells of looking around, taking off his hat and scratching his head, he was sure of it. And he didn’t even have a map.

He scrunched his face and looked around a fourth time, this time hoping to flag someone down. But to no avail. The bustling lights of the city were misleading after all and it was hopeless to expect random passersby at midnight.

The young man turned back the way he came. Retracing his steps and running into his own mistake was the final resort. But not a second later, something stopped him. 

A familiar aroma tugged at his nose. Not just any aroma too- Nonna’s cinnamon apple pie. His stomach growled again and the sound echoed through the empty city. It was unbelievable to him. Unbelievable that nonna would be up and baking at this hour. But the aroma was unmistakable. It was his favorite in the world, right up there with the warm scent of nonna herself. 

Deren lifted his hat to brush hair off his forehead and pressed it back onto his crown. bracing for the sweeping wind, he dashed towards nonna’s house once again. 

******

The colonel was now sat up. His broad frame leaned against the base of the sofa. His legs crossed and his palms rested on his knees. His hair was wild. Wispy locks fell over his forehead and into his eyes. The look of humiliation and frustration from before was replaced with smoldering determination. And rage. And relief. All at the same time. 

The fire was now well beyond the mantelpiece. Well beyond the adjoining floor rug, even. It was spreading further and further, the wooden floorboards now feeling its wrath; now, the wooden chairs, now the curtains, now the wooden table. Slowly but steadily it surrounded him, just as it had risen from the fireplace not too long ago. 

“You’ve been a bad little boy, haven't you?”, another voice, another harrowing memory. Perhaps the most harrowing of them all. The colonel sat still, furrowing his dark brows.

“Bad little boys must be punished. Now, come” 

An image from the colonel’s childhood flashed before his eyes. He was being led from an altar to a dark confessional. A large veiny hand with a cassock-sleeved wrist, guided him. This memory was blurrier than most; broken and scattered. Doubt flooded him. As if he hadn’t expected to stumble upon this particular memory. As if he didn’t even know it existed; hidden in the recesses of his mind. His heart began to ache like it was eating him from the inside out. 

Writhing in pain, he fell forward. The flames too roared, mimicking his groans and cries. In despair the colonel looked around the manor, sobered by the thuds of falling wood. 

Everything was on fire. 

******

Cinnamon sprinkled apples bubbling beneath a golden crust inside nonna’s big oven. The crisp fragrance was calling Deren’s name. But for a while now he’d been running in the wrong direction. Again. The dome-roofed buildings have gradually vanished and in their place was a lone moor. Its mist veiled the tall trees and mountains that now flanked his path. Ghostly, chilling yet oddly ravishing. It’s almost as if he couldn’t stop if he wanted to. 

Gripping his hat tighter, Deren let his nose guide him. And his wildly pounding heart. 

******

Now, the windows and the glass fell, now the ceiling, now the door. The fire at the colonel's manor swept across wooden structures that fell apart like wind sweeping across a cornfield. Until all that was left in the manor to be eaten up, was the colonel himself. 

******

The fragrance got stronger by the second. On the contrary, Deren’s faith in finding nonna’s house at the end of this trail was weakening.

But his limbs moved with a mind of their own. Like a puppet tied to the strings of something set ablaze; something. If not nonna’s pie, then something else.

And that’s when he saw it; rounding along a winding hill. A gigantic manor stood alone on the plains beyond. As it came into view Deren’s eyes widened. Not because he saw a manor. Manors were a fairly common sight on misty moors, albeit not quite like this. Deren stopped dead in his tracks. 

This manor was burning. 

And falling apart as he watched. 

So it was this, he thought, this was the burning scent?

It puzzled him how it smelled just like nonna’s cinnamon apple pie a second ago and how it reeked of burning moss, damp fabric and wood, now. Soon, cries and groans began echoing amidst the cacophony of the inferno. 

Someone is in there, he panicked, someone is burning.  

Deren set down the basket of fruits in disbelief. A burning manor in the middle of nowhere was strange enough. The fact that it was occupied was stranger yet. He took off his coat and hat. Then broke into a light jog, skipping and flailing his arms to warm them up. “This is fine”, he told himself, “Not completely bonkers at all...”, he took the blazing manor all in with one last glance and walked right into the fire.

******

There was nothing left in the form of a door to be opened at the manor.

Deren walked with apprehension, proceeding immediately, to take off his waistcoat and unbutton the top of his dress shirt. Amidst the falling ruins of the building lay a man, now whimpering, as if the life had been sucked out of him. 

“Hey”, Deren yelled, “Are you alright there?”

The man whimpered and coughed. 

Flares whooshed across the living room like lassoes of death. Gracefully, Deren tip toed, straining his way to the helpless figure. 

“Hey”, he called out again, “It’s dangerous you know. It’s going to burn you up”

“So let it” a deep voice growled from the rubble and caught Deren off-guard. 

“Let it burn me then. Who are you? Why are you here?”

“I’m a doctor”

The man began to chuckle. Clawing for dear life, the colonel’s voice still couldn’t be a sharper contrast to his unsightly disposition. 

“A doctor? A medic?”

“No, a doctor, simply” 

Deren said bluntly, agitated by the man’s attitude. The fact that death was only a single wrong move away for the both of them, didn’t help either.

“Are you trying to commit suicide? Is that what this is?”

“Tell me, does this look like suicide?” the deep voice breathed.

“Trust me that's the only thing this looks like” Deren affirmed, sternly.

“Then maybe it is” 

Deren inched closer to the colonel, moving the burning wood out of the way with a fire iron he’d found lying amidst the debris. 

“If you’re going to be so stubborn about this...”

A step forward,

“....about your own life...”

Another graceful step forward,

“...then I’m afraid I will have to be the same”

With great difficulty he managed to approach the colonel just in time for a fiery beam of wood to come collapsing over them. Instincts suddenly awakened. Deren pulled the man onto him. Mindlessly falling. And rolling in search of a safer spot. Mindlessly, gripping each other and holding onto dear life. 

They rolled over other pieces of hot wood and coal. In an embrace. Until they came to a halt a few feet away from the giant wooden beam that nearly killed them. 

The crackling was still loud around them but for a second or a minute it all seemed silent. Knowing you escaped death was a strange feeling. Oxymoronic too. You jolt into reality, your senses come alive and yet you become much more subdued, careful, hesitant. 

They lay on the floor for what seemed like hours, gazing into each other’s eyes in sheer disbelief. The colonel’s visage, a picture of absolute terror. As if he hadn’t been challenging death not too long ago. Deren on the other hand, was fighting a different emotion. It kept creeping up on him. Along with the urge to brush the colonel’s raven locks off his marble eyes. He didn’t want to believe it but he knew it to be true nonetheless: they were beautiful eyes. And they made his heart quicken.

“Let’s get out of here” he whispered

“Huh?”

“Let’s get out of this place. Let’s get you to a doctor”, Deren coughed, choking on the smoke, “...and me too”

At a loss for words, the colonel glanced up at the man who had saved him. Hesitant to admit he was terrified. Hesitant to even think he was thankful. It surprised him that he could still feel a certain attachment to life.

“I thought you were a doctor”, he said finally. 

Deren smiled. A hearty smile that revealed a dimple on his left cheek. The colonel smiled back too, feebly, his eyes disappearing into crinkly lines above the cheekbones. 

******

A week later, Deren wrote to his nonna from the colonel’s military quarters. 

The seat by the East window,

Colonel’s quarters,

Military Unit 001,

Grenamonowa.

Dear nonna,

I apologize for postponing my visit. I also apologize for the hasty letter I sent informing you that I won’t be able to make it. My new residence is at the military quarters. And it will be for quite some time. 

How this came to be is a long story. Hopefully one that we could savour over some of your cinnamon apple pie, when I finally pay you a visit. But the gist of it is that I saved a colonel in distress from a fire. His house is now in ruins though and much to his despair, he too is stuck here. At the military quarters. 

And I’ve become a doctor a little earlier than expected. On the day of the fire I took the colonel over to the nearest town, not too far from his secluded moor. It was surprising, nonna. The people adored him. They were so deeply harrowed at his condition that they immediately sought out the town’s own doctor. Then the doctor himself set to work immediately. Clearly moved. And heartbroken. 

We relocated to military quarters in the big city, two days later and you wouldn’t believe it, nonna. The colonel requested for me to be his doctor. “I thought you took responsibility for me when you decided to ruin my suicide” he says, every time I begin to question my abilities; and wonder if I’m truly fit to treat a colonel - a fire wizard. And every single time I act stern with him, his eyes glimmer. 

Nonna, he’s a strange man. But I may sound equally strange in confessing that I seem to be falling in love with him. And he, with me.    

I will continue to treat him and attend to him for a few more weeks. And will write to you often during that time. Perhaps afterwards we can both pay you a visit. If the colonel doesn’t mind visiting, that is. Despite appearances I’ve discovered that he can be quite bashful sometimes. I look forward to hearing from you.

Hoping you’re well and happy,

Love,

Deren.