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Lilac High Dust
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I don't need to ask him about what Breaker did to me. I can't feel magic at all.
I ask him about the creature, and why it eats people.
"All magic comes from us, the Wizards. We generate it from our bodies and it permeates the world around us, like the air you breathe.
During the war, creatures began appearing that produced from their bodies a substance that is the antithesis of magic. Their bodies can annihilate ours, and similarly we are the death of them. After they destroyed utterly many of our kind, those of us remaining ceased to fight among ourselves and turned our attention instead to the monsters. They cannot "breathe" in magic just the same as we cannot "breathe" in their antithesis, and our fields of energy push against one another.
When all of the remaining Wizards banded together and escaped to a peninsula where we could not be surrounded, they could press no further into the combined energy generated by our presence, but their black energy swallowed up what remains of the world.
This creature you found has insulated itself against magic by surrounding its body in a layer of material it creates from devouring souls. As long as it continues to absorb creatures with souls it can persist. It was probably a scout or an experiment. Once my two companions have been informed, we will analyze it further."
I ask him if he took my soul, and how magical creatures can develop them.
He stares at me for a long, long time. I almost think I should stand up or leave, but just before I do so, he answers.
"A Wizard cannot take from you things that are not physical. Those powers and gifts must be freely given to be properly utilized. I could do things to you, add things to your mind or change your body, but I would gain nothing - there would be no exchange. Even if I had such power, you have no soul for me to take. I made sure when I removed Breaker's spells from you. You are a created thing, an empty container to carry out a Wizard's will. Because you are gifted with intelligence and the ability to make decisions on your own, it is possible that a soul could develop there, when you act from sources other than your plain reason. Why do you ask? What do you know about magical creatures with souls?"
I suddenly become extremely uncomfortable. The way he talks, like a teacher to a student, has something removed and dispassionate about it, like I'm pinned to a board and he's doing nothing more than dissecting me.
I ask him why he helped me, and what else he changed.
[i]"I could not get the information I needed from you. The simplest solution was to correct the problem. Soulfire, silly child that he is, was obviously too much of an idiot to understand what was happening to you.
I changed the color of your body. Attempting to alter any of Breaker's transmutations would be beyond me. Unfortunately for all of us, it is an area in which he singularly excels.
You were obviously meant to resemble a luna moth. I made your colors match your body instead of looking ridiculous."
I don't feel mocked or even insulted. Something tells me he thinks of me more as a hammer or a lantern than as an animal, much less a person.
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