The Mage Called Jon
When your name is a burden
Jon, the mage was angrily plucking his grey matted beard; his furious gaze stopped on the MagicBook, which was the social grimoire for wizards and witches. Half a year ago he’d bought that thing, but apart from one person nobody accepted his friend request. The professors of the UOS — short for University of Occult Sciences — his former classmates; and even the wild mage Tybcsy Shytsthorm, who was the Latrine Manager, ignored him.
Naturally, he knew the reason: what kind of name is Jon for a mage? There’s nowhere a strong ‘th’, or a mystical ‘y’ in it, and it was simple and short. He tried to change it a couple of times, but the results were only tongue-twisters.
He sighed, then looked at the profile of his only friend. Sandor. The black mage of the UOS was a beloved person, his MagicBook had hundreds of pages, and the most infuriating of all: he had a simple and short name. The barbecue was clear in his memory where they were competing for the favours of Clotild the witch: the Firestarting Ritual took twenty minutes for Jon, and then Sandor conjured a miniature volcano with one flick of his fingers .
‘A miniature volcano!’ The MagicBook smacked against the wall. ‘With one bloody flick!’
He rushed to the balcony and looked down.
‘Enough! I can’t take this anymore!’
He jumped.
The air maddeningly hissed in his ears while the ground was approaching. Half way, he changed his mind and started to concentrate as fast as he could for some kind of help.
Activation of the Levitation Spell: five minutes.
Necessary components: volatile salt.
Time remaining until impact: three seconds.
‘Fuuuck!’
Of course, if Jon had been a black mage, he could have saved his own life with one flick.
