The Lost Wizards: Ch 39 - The Mathematician (Patreon)

Felix and Cici got about halfway to the cafeteria before his ‘tutor’ started looking uncomfortable. It was early, and there weren’t many people around. But they were holding hands, and the beautiful, scantily clad Thayan noblewoman was already a source of…attention.

“I should change,” she muttered. “This isn’t…appropriate anymore.”

Felix raised a brow.

“I didn’t think you believed in ‘inappropriate’. You just about walk around naked.”

“It’s…different now. A bonded pool should be more conservative. I don’t mind them seeing I belong to you, but they shouldn’t…”

Felix just about said ‘you aren’t technically bonded yet’, but decided that would be Silas-level stupid. Instead he stopped and turned Cici to face him, and kissed her right there in the square. He was pretty pleased with himself when she actually flushed and looked at the grass.

“OK. Go change. I’ll meet you in the cafeteria.”

She nodded and slowly extracted her fingers from his, looking back once as she walked towards the teacher’s building. He stood there and watched her hips sway, the outline of her fit body, dark hair bouncing behind her.

It was hard to believe—that incredible woman was his. Or nearly his. She’d willingly given him her body, and now she wanted to give him her soul. It sent an excited chill up and down his spine. It took a moment to recognize it as…hope. As belief that the future could get better and better. This wasn’t a thing that Felix the Lifestealer was accustomed to.

And she was just one part of his future. Something like a surprise bonus en route to winning Isa and some kind of noble position, if Hasha was right.

But he couldn’t let himself get distracted. He needed to see the high mage, then maybe Cara, then get to Cici teaching him things outside the bedroom.

OK and maybe also inside the bedroom.

He practically flew the rest of the way to the cafeteria, mind far away as he collected the surprisingly decent bowl of pork and bean soup. He plopped himself at a table and wolfed it down with a groan, the world disappearing as he lost himself in the hunger.

Fire mana was no joke. As he shoveled the contents of his bowl like the sailor he was, he started wondering about his counting exercises. Could the contrary force of water mana be used to reduce the hunger, too? He didn’t see why not. It controlled his emotions, his lust.

As he chewed he started idly multiplying and dividing in his head, moving easily into the hundreds of thousands as usual. It had always come naturally, easily. His father told him the digits he worked with weren’t exactly…normal.

“No, Felix,” his father had laughed one day as they worked on division. “I can’t ‘see the numbers in the air’. Normal folk need paper to work with a thing that size.”

He remembered being…almost ashamed. Trying not to see the digits float and transform before his eyes. He was unhappy to learn he was yet again different to other people. Different than his father. The man noticed, and took hold of his arms.

“Don’t you hold back, boy, or make yourself less. Your mother was the same. And it makes me proud to see her gift in you. You understand? Very proud.”

He smiled at the memory, staring at nothing as he chewed. He’d never thought the talent much use for anything. But yet again he’d been very wrong.

He put away his plate and nodded in thanks to the cooks, then ran to the wizard’s hall. The older woman at the desk just waved him on now with a nod, and even half a smile. He supposed killing half a dozen culturally terrifying monsters bought a man a little goodwill.

The high mage’s door opened within seconds of knocking. Felix tried and failed to see how. But he walked inside to find the man completely dressed and actually looking kind of…polished. Like a proper noble. He was writing on half a dozen huge, black squares, even using some symbols Felix understood.

He saw references to mathematical calculations, and many kinds of liquids and categories of spell. Dilution. Kinesis? That was new. He cleared his throat, and Hasha turned with a grunt.

“Early. Good. I’ve taken the trouble to use some of your half baked continental chicken scratch. I realized I remembered some of it. So, we’ll do a little learning before the spells. Should make things simpler. Take a seat. I’ll explain when I’m finished.”

Felix did, eagerly reading the different formulas on display, though he didn’t really understand most of it. When Hasha finally stepped back and grunted like he was satisfied, he wiped his hands and looked at Felix with a glare.

“You’ve been up all night. Did you manage to bond Lady Mashet, at least?”

Felix felt a very annoying flush of heat. He found himself temporarily speechless. Hasha grunted in contempt.

“Oh please. At your age, and with your power, there’s not much more to you than fire and dick. I sensed Lady Mashet would enjoy both. But today I’d like to learn if you have a brain.”

Felix cleared his throat, wishing he’d had a cup of coffee or three. Hasha was sharp as hell and he’d need all his wits. Probably more than all his wits. But he couldn’t help but like the man.

“There’s not much room for brains,” he said. “After all the fire and dick. But I’ll do my best.”

Hasha snorted again, but at least this time it sounded more like amusement. He turned and looked at his board, hands on his hips.

“A desirable pool like Lady Mashet should give you a little more credibility at court. But you’ll have to worry about her family now. They’ll want you dead. At least until you’re approved of, which is not at all guaranteed. Did she mention the joys of her family?”

“Briefly.” Felix winced. “Nothing about wanting to murder me.”

“I suppose she wouldn’t.” Hasha wiped chalky hands on his fine clothes like he’d forgotten he was temporarily respectable. “You at least noticed she’s foreign to us?” He looked back until Felix nodded. “Thayan means literally ‘tribe of dancing flame’. These people are crazy. They take opium and drink boiling oil. Zealots about holy fire. Always crying doom and apocalypse. It expect it's mostly an excuse to have drunken orgies.”

“Drunken orgies?”

Felix felt that annoying heat again.

“Oh all the fire clans do it. But pools don’t take part until their bonded, if that’s your concern. Your precious new lover won't have been despoiled. Believe it or not, Cici is considered conservative amongst Thayan nobility. But she’s also desirable, for obvious reasons. Despite being from an unimportant family, I’m sure there were fire lords who wanted her. They won’t like you, either.”

Felix sighed and looked at the square boards.

“Maybe we should just focus on the things I can currently control.”

“That would be a short lesson.” Hasha pointed at a square full of calculations. “We’ll start with basic mathematics. You’ll know simple numbers. I assume you can competently add, subtract, multiply, and so on? Did you learn anything else?”

“I understand geometry,” Felix said, feeling a bit defensive but managing not to add ‘and I learned it before you people’.

“Well. That’s something.” Hasha picked up a wooden stick to point. “You’ll need to learn abstractions. How to comprehend continuous change. The likelihood of things. Almost everything that exists can be understood using mathematics. Even fire and air magic, no matter what their practitioners believe. It’s merely that neither element requires that understanding.”

“Why?” Felix was genuinely curious. “Why are the elements so different in how they function? How they effect people? What are they?”

Hasha looked at him for a moment like he might actually be a person worth talking to. However briefly.

“Don’t try to fly when you can’t walk. The simple answer is: we don’t know. Not truly. But we do know certain facts. One of those facts is that water and earth magic can not only be quantified and understood with mathematics, they are directly impacted by them. Another is that mathematics exists without earth or water mana, but the reverse is untrue.”

Hasha smiled like he was finally discussing a topic that interested in him.

“I am called the High Wizard of Elemental Water, thought by all as the greatest water caster in House Amadi. But the truth is, my interest is mathematics. My power over water is merely a function of that interest. Largely incidental. I find all this…” he spread his hands and sighed. “It is disruptive to my studies. But I have familial obligations.”

Felix nodded slowly, feeling he finally understood this man. He’d known sailors like him—men who loved the sea, and did all the rest because they had to.

Hasha was deeper, no doubt, but the essence was the same. His father talked about a man he’d known in the wars, a mage who always asked questions and had this knowing look, like he was just waiting for others to find the answers themselves. He’d had no interest in the fighting.

“Some men just like to sit and think,” his father had said, as if he didn’t really understand it. “They like it so much, everything else in the whole world annoys them.”

So. That was High Wizard Hasha. Born to think, forced to help his cousin run a kingdom. Felix stood and gestured at the boards.

“I wasn’t taught all this. But I’ve always felt…connected to mathematics. I think I have a mind for it. I’d like to learn.”

He felt a bit awkward because it had always been such a private thing—the numbers as a method of control and protection in his own mind.

He knew in his heart he’d be dead without that beautiful stream of consistency at his command. Numbers were always the same, always predictable and calming when the fire raged out of control.

“I promise I’ll listen,” he said, meeting Hasha’s eyes. “Anything you have to say about it.”

He had no idea how to explain that he was a lifelong vagabond, purposeless because he expected at any moment to die. Surprisingly, Hasha hadn’t interrupted him with some fresh insult, and just let him talk. He shrugged, feeling strangely emotional.

“I’ve never thought about a future, or what sort of man I wanted to be, or what I might be capable of. But I…want this.” He pointed at the boards. “I truly want to learn it. Even if it doesn’t have anything to do with magic power.”  

Hasha watched him carefully. He eventually nodded, ignoring the momentary demonstration of emotion.

“Good. Then we’ll start. First, liquids all have numbers, formula. We’ve mapped most of them. You’re going to learn them all.”

Felix sat and collected some papers set out at the nearby table, and picked up the pencil.

**

By mid-day, Felix felt as if his brain had stretched like too little canvas down a mast. The high wizard had sent for servants to bring their meals, never really stopping his lecture and exercises except to chew, or pace, or flop down on his couch and wait.

“It’s not sinking in anymore.” Felix slapped himself in the face. “I need sleep. A walk. To do anything else but this for a few hours. I think I’m supposed to find Isa’s bodyguard and teach her how to fight, or something.”

Hasha yawned and glanced out the window.

“What you do in your spare time isn’t my business, but I suggest you start sleeping more. Tomorrow, then. You’ve made progress. We’ll do a few more days like this before we start on spells.”

Felix nodded, truly impressed and grateful to the man, especially for working largely in his language. But his brain wasn’t working well enough to think of something appropriate to say. He just picked up his notebooks and stuffed them into a borrowed bag.

“Felix?” Hasha waited until Felix gave him his full attention. The big man took a breath. “I never thanked you for defending the school, and Isa. It’s not something I take lightly. I promise to do everything I can with her father, no matter what your future may hold.”

Felix bowed like he’d seen some of the islanders do.

“Tomorrow morning,” he said. “I’ll sleep more.”

Hasha grinned.

“See that you do.”

Felix walked out of the teacher’s building feeling very tired and very pleased. It was like a whole new world was opening up inside him, a comprehension of reality he didn’t yet understand but could see the shape of on the horizon.

The wizards of Anshan had calculated the size of the globe. They had mapped it out, almost exactly, using geometry. They could measure the speed of the sun’s shadow moving. They knew the speed of the world’s water currents and that an invisible but predictable force from the moon and the earth moved the tide.

Felix knew the size of the world!

He didn’t know enough distances back home to truly understand yet, but it was clear the coastal kingdoms and the continent only covered a fraction. He knew half of the world. Maybe less. Which meant there would be all kinds of other islands out there. Maybe even continents.

How many lands remained ‘unexplored’? How many other peoples wonders might just be waiting out there beyond the maps of men?

After all, there was an invisible island full of wizards. There were mathematical formula that described how water moved, how axes swung, how much weight a wooden beam could hold. Down to the exact measurement!

He wandered towards the palace with a far-away mind, lost in the concepts, new knowledge forming like new stars in the sky of his mind. The inferno in his soul spun on, bored and restless, waiting for something it considered interesting.

“Good timing.”

Felix blinked and found five feet of smirking blonde waiting at the doors to the palace. Cara wore a tight, stretchy fabric like a second skin, carrying an armful of what looked like long wooden poles.

“I was coming to get you. It’s time for a lesson. Also I think it’s going to rain.” She glanced up at the sky. “I thought it might be useful, since you won’t be boosting with magic. It’ll help you heal.”

Felix stared, and couldn’t help but smile. He felt a rush of energy that swiped out the cobwebs of exhaustion. Something about overwhelming his brain all day made him restless for a physical task.

He decided humbling a five foot nothing, over-confident Cara might do very nicely. But his eyes wandered to the nooks and crannies of her outfit. He tried not to remind himself that it was just ‘totally normal’ for a noblewoman’s guardian to be her husband’s concubine. Which in theory, if he married Isa, meant him.

“Haven’t learned healing,” he said. “But don’t worry, I’ll carry you to a proper water wizard when we’re done.”

Cara gave no expression, tossing one of the wooden poles at his face. He caught it out of the air, and gestured to the grass square in the middle of the grounds.

“Ladies first.”

She glared and walked on, and he regretted it instantly, doing his best to keep his eyes off the contour of her ass.