In an attempt to make this story manageable, I have broken it down into chapters, so it doesn't read as one page as long as a football field. Use these buttons to navigate through the chapters, and don't be fooled by the fact that Chapter 13 is called "The End". This story is 14 chapters long!
WRATH * XIV * WRATH
The Magician
Once there was a man who went 2,508 years before finally understanding what the point of life was. He never knew who or what he really was. No one from his family had ever told him about how his soul had been sold into service to Death, by his mother, in exchange for her husband and first born son returning safely from war. Now he'd always been a strange man, a strange man indeed, and possessing of many talents and powers, but he had never understood how it was that he came to have them while other people did not. He never knew from what source those powers flowed. He'd never known for what reason he was allowed to read people's thoughts, or control their minds, or conjure up illusions for their eyes, or send dreams to them at night.
Certainly, he was not the most powerful or the most spectacular of Death's Champions. He couldn't suck life up like soda through a straw. He couldn't shape himself into cats or blankets and sheets. He couldn't put force and motion into cars or fashion golems out of old castles. Beside that, many times he had even rebelled against his master, stubborn and insubordinate, without ever really knowing it. In the end though, when all was said and done, he was the best.
Once, he had unwittingly described himself, saying he was the subtlest and craftiest of Death's Champions -- so inconspicuously insinuating as to often go completely unnoticed. And he had hit the nail right on the head with that one. The one time he was called upon to act in compliance with direct orders by The Big Man himself, he had talked a man who would've lived forever into believing there was something noble and courageous and chaste about one's own mortality. It was the greatest trick he ever performed: convincing a man that Death was not his enemy. Abracadabra!
He had not known for sure, not for positive, until after the Animator though. Not until the last of the other three had gone down. Only then, when Death had finally come directly to him -- only because he was the last choice -- and he had been commanded to bring in Greggory's soul, had he known for sure. Up till then there had still been room for doubt.
There was a little grief in his heart for Greggory. That man had been his single greatest friend of all time, so how could he not grieve? But he did what he had to do. There was no way to go on fighting against the purpose of Death; all he could possibly get out of that was more sickness and pain; more headaches, more grief. He had shown Greggory one small mercy: he had vowed that he would not take the man's life by force, nor would he cause anyone to raise a hand in violence against him. But after all, he had simply done what he had to do. He'd followed orders.
And as a reward for his service, Death made him his Universal Champion. Death took the powers of the Succubus, Shapeshifter and Animator and put them into him, so in the end he was so powerful as to be considered godlike.
But most people just thought he was crazy. Most people didn't even bother with his second book, a story about a man who fought against Death.
He lived in a home that was an island, anchored 450 miles off shore from Hawaii.
He had all the conveniences, comforts and luxuries that wealth could afford.
But all he ever did was think.