The First Mage

After everyone else had gone to sleep, only Berla and I remained. We stepped away from the others, so we could have that talk she had requested earlier in the day without the risk of waking anyone. We sat down a few meters away from the campfire, and Berla looked at me with a serious expression.

“It’s about Tomar,” she began. “I’m worried about him. He left out a few things in his story, but I wasn’t sure whether I should mention it in front of everyone...”

She told me about what had happened with the soldiers in more detail. About Captain Bern’s antics, how Tomar had been out of it, about the agent grabbing Riala, the first shot, and how Tomar had killed even fleeing enemies without batting an eye. All of this had been tragic, but what truly disturbed her, was what happened afterwards.

Not only had Tomar smiled before he truly realized what he had done, he appeared to be completely fine two days later. At first she thought he was just pretending. After all, it wouldn’t be unusual for someone to supplant such an experience. As time went on, however, she realized he had truly embraced the side of him that didn’t care about what happened. When asked about the incident, he didn’t even mention the soldiers anymore, and when pushed, he waved it off as if it wasn’t a big deal, just like he had done with me earlier.

“I mean... He seems fine, but it’s just... not Tomar. You know what I mean, right?” she asked with a worried expression on her face.

I had spent quite a bit of time with Tomar, and I probably knew him better than anyone else in our group. That’s why she wanted to discuss this with me. Were these changes in him good? Were they bad? She wasn’t sure, but she also didn’t want to keep digging, on the off-chance that it would somehow make it worse.

“Yea. I thought something was off. Though it was just a theory.”

“Heh, you and your theories...” she said with a light chuckle, despite the serious mood.

I didn’t understand what amused her about me theorizing, but apparently my guesses about what had happened and how Tomar had reacted were almost spot on. There was one more thing I wanted to know more about though.

“What about Ria?” I asked. Tomar said she was fine, but it was hard to believe that such a massacre didn’t leave any scars on a young girl.

“It’s weird, right? I’m sitting here, worrying about an adult, while there was also a little girl with us... It definitely shook her, but Reurig and I talked to her afterwards, and I believe she’s okay. She tried to look at the gruesome scene as little as possible and she understands that our options were limited. Riala is remarkable though. She might be handling it better than I am... I’ve never killed or helped kill a human before either, and I still see the faces of the soldiers before me...”

“Oh...”

This was somewhat unexpected. I had figured that whatever knowledge and experiences the Fighters in this world got with their Calling, it would probably include what it would be like to end someone’s life. However, for most of them, this was apparently not the case. They had absolutely no problem killing beasts, but there were basically no large human-vs-human conflicts in this world, and the executions in Alarna were handled by dedicated executioners. There was no reason for Fighters to know how to kill humans, and even though they trained for the possibility that they had to do it, most of them never ended up in such a position.

On the one hand, this perfectly explained why the soldiers who had surrounded us at the ritual square in Cerus back then had seemed so out of their depth. They didn’t know what to make of the situation, they might have been hesitant to kill or even injure anyone, and me casually threatening one of them came as a surprise, because they weren’t used to deadly violence between humans.

It also put into perspective the prowess of the south-Alarna soldiers, who attacked Tomar and the others. Based on what I was told, they hadn’t hesitated one bit, nor had they shown fear. At least not until the end. In context, this was impressive, and I had to wonder whether Captain Bern specifically trained his men for that encounter. According to Berla, there was a rivalry going on between the captains Bern and Lera, and it would be no surprise if Bern had done some extra work to accomplish what Lera had repeatedly failed to get done. With one of them dead, however, so would be the rivalry. I wonder if this will teach the remaining soldiers anything. They definitely pushed their luck.

The nature of Fighters aside, we went back to the topic at hand.

“I might have an idea about what’s going on,” I said and shared my thoughts about how Tomar and I were affecting each other with Berla.

When she and I first met, I had already changed a little, but apparently she had still noticed more changes in my behavior afterwards, even while I wasn’t aware of this happening to me at all. She wasn’t surprised to hear my description of my old self, however. How others had seen me, and how I had seen myself. She seemed understanding, but if these changes in Tomar were truly caused by me, how could that part of myself not be problematic?

“People who called you a sociopath clearly didn’t know you,” she said.

“You really think that? Even though Tomar is killing people with a smile on his face?” I said with uncertainty, while raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t think the ability to do something like that is bad. You can turn off the part in you that’s bothered by such a situation, and there’s nothing wrong about that. It is a little uncanny, I’ll admit, and if that smile was caused by you, I might be concerned, but I don’t believe that’s it.”

She continued to explain that Tomar’s behavior must’ve been a mix of my “ability” to act perfectly rationally, without paying any attention to what’s right or wrong, and Tomar’s own wish for power, to protect others, and especially those dear to him.

Even though I had been stuck inside his head for weeks, and even though I knew that he was dreaming of a better world, it had never occurred to me that he might be seeking power. It made sense, you would need power to accomplish such a goal after all, but he had never seemed the power hungry type to me. Berla’s thought process was simple though. She had recognized this wish in him, but even after gaining the power he craved, he was still holding himself back. Mixing in my personality had simply removed that barrier over time, and it didn’t seem too outlandish to think that this would bring Tomar joy, though he might not even understand it yet.

“Now that I think about it... this has happened before,” I said. “When we fled from prison in Alarna, right before he attacked the captain, Riala said that Tomar had a smile on his face that looked ‘kind of evil.’ I totally forgot about that.”

“So it’s been going on for a while...”

“I guess so. But I don’t think we should worry too much for now.”

We didn’t have any idea whether this change in him was problematic. It didn’t seem great on the surface, seeing how someone with power who enjoyed using it was like the base ingredient for a person turning evil, but Tomar was still trying to make the world a better place, and he hadn’t done anything yet that would truly be a reason for concern. In the end, we decided that we couldn’t do much but have an eye on him for the moment.

Nothing had really changed, but just talking about all of this with someone who knew Tomar well had alleviated some of Berla’s worries at least a little bit. Though I was a little surprised by her conviction that I hadn’t been turning him evil. We hadn’t known each other for long, and even though we had spent quite a few nights talking, I wouldn’t be so certain that I truly knew her. I suppose I do trust her, but how well can you really know someone?

“You seem awfully sure that I haven’t actually been a bad influence on him,” I said with a sad chuckle.

She started propping herself up on her crutches, preparing to head back to the others, and I jumped up to help her. She smiled at me, before leaning in and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

“You’re not as complex as you think you are,” she said and walked away.

“Huh,” I said, as I looked after her in a daze.