Warhammer Fiction

A Bright Missive - By Emory Felner

If you look up the robes of a Bright Wizard you will not see our fireballs! I'd like to set that record straight right here and now.

It's the image the common populace have of Bright Wizards that I want to talk about today. People think we're all fire-wielding crazy maniacs.

Well, I'm here to tell you that it's just NOT true. Just because I enjoy setting my enemies on fire doesn't mean that I’m totally obsessed with it. It’s not an unhealthy fixation that occupies my every waking thought, or anything. I mean, I don't think about fire every minute of the -

Ooh look, they're having a bonfire in that field over there... How pretty!

Ahem. Sorry, where was I?

Oh yes. Who doesn’t like the odd barbecue now and then? I mean. It's completely normal, isn’t it?

A lot of you want to know how to become a Bright Wizard. Well, you have to have many, many, MANY years of oh-so-boring-your-brains-could-leak-out-of-your-ears lessons before you can even conjure your first candle flame. I would sit in class and dream of the days when I could conjure fire from the skies and see my enemies charbroiled alive*.

Hmm. You might think that comment was perhaps a tad morbid for a sixteen year old apprentice wizard. But that is the world in which we live nowadays. There's just no getting away from it! The chosen few who make it to the College of Wizardry have their thirst for war encouraged from a very early age. We live for battle and we bring fiery destruction in our wake. It’s Government-sanctioned slaughter (my favourite kind) that’s one part defense of the nation and another part akin to the "pie bakes" we used to have when I was a child.

Only it isn’t pies we’re baking

My friends DO comment (mostly behind my back) that I am overly violent. I disagree. I call it a healthy appetite for conflict. To my kind, fire and death are our food and drink (although I am partial to a nice bottle of Reikland red, as well).

People say I’ve got an unhealthy fixation with murder - but it’s not really murder when you’re killing monsters. I mean, let’s be honest, the minions of Chaos have never really been alive. Have they?

Perhaps it’s best not to think about that too much.

And while we’re on the subject, what - exactly - is ‘too violent’, anyway? The folk quick to hurl the first accusation aren’t exactly complaining when we’re out defending the lands against the endless hordes of Chaos. It’s all ‘thank Sigmar you’re here’ and much hugging and kissing (and other - more 'specialist' favours).

Here’s a hint for you, though. It’s ALL ME! Sigmar didn’t lift so much as a garden mallet - never mind a bloody whopping great hammer - to protect your lands from evil. It was all me. That’s right, ME! Your friendly pyromaniac** Bright Wizard. Think about that next time you’re begging for compensation from the Emperor because I accidentally burned down your house

Or your barn.

Or your cattle.

Or your daughter***.

Nowadays when I use my favourite spell, Pyroclastic Surge, I often find a smile forming on my lips, even in the heat of battle, and I remember back to those first days when the rudimentary flickers of fire - the Winds of Aqshy swirled before my vision, and I knew the Path of Fire was for me. I hungered even then to take to the fields of battle and to incinerate and burn and cinder and sear the flesh of my enemies in great rivulets of blood-slicked and over-cooked meat

Nope. That’s not too violent at all. Quite healthy, in fact.

In summary, I think you can see from this essay that I’m quite sane and that my affectation with fire is quite normal.

And I think you’ll agree that after everything I’ve said - I will need my Pyroclastic Surge - and even more potent magics - before this year is done.

I know one thing: that war is hell.

OK, actually I know two things: one, that war is hell - which is less important than - two, that there’s nothing better than seeing the faces of your enemies melting away under an incandescent assault of your fire magic.

And laughing about it afterwards.

That might sound grim, but when you’re a Bright Wizard, it’s all part of a day’s work.

In summary, I'm completely normal - I like kittens just as much as the next guy****.

Yours aflame.

Emory

* In those days, matchboxes were your friends.
** Allegedly, until proven.
*** I only made that mistake once … or twice … but never more than five times!
**** Set aflame, kittens make brilliant missile weapons for scattering beastmen.