Role

Chapter 2

I covered my beak with my talons to stifle a yawn.

It was that bloody Masters story again.

My mother was a skilled mage by the standards of Truy'Quiqall. Not much
inate talent, but a lot of drive and academic brilliance. She was also old,
and her memory was going. She had always endeavoured to make the social
educational, and mealtime would often be accompanied with some historical
tale or another.

Usually, they were interesting. Yet with her failing memory, she'd started
repeating herself. I'd been hearing about this bloody Tower of the Masters
every day this week, and it was now the Day of Freedom.

Masters. Bah. It was a stupid name, and given they were apparently history
they got what they deserved. How could you master magic? Magic had no
limits. Magic was unbounded. Magic could not be chained and documented and
marked out. There was only how much you could learn and how much will and
drive you had to maximise that. A master of magic was a man who had given
up. Who had accepted he could rise no higher, and wanted to draw a line in
the mud of the mountainside so that others would not pass him by.

Disgusting.

Not that I would dare say it to my elders. Not yet, at least. Sal'arkin
might not take it well, and that was one member of the blood who I'd
learned to keep my beak shut around.

Eventually, at least.