Power Magics
The crowds seemed more numerous than the trees of this jungle, causing dust to fill the mist. It’s a peculiar thing to find a peasant followed by masses. In this hill country, power is the only thing that people follow.
He came from the low lands, where the river breaks its definitions, floods reign and peasants give way. His wrist, scarred with ink, betrayed his slave past. No one dared ask.
It had taken years for him to reach these hills, though only a few days walk. The news of his coming was now history, a much delayed gratification. Many had gone down from the hills to see him, and returned to report. But he never increased his pace. The reports were always the same: “All the animals, trees, and nature bows to him.” “We’ve never seen anyone more powerful.”
The day he was to arrive in the capital of the hill people, on the dry dirt road, a bull elephant came running out of the dark green abyss directly towards him. The crowd screamed and ran, but he did not move or change. As was his way, he bowed. The elephant slowed to a stop a meter away, breathing heavily, but eyes still. Drawn back from panic, the crowd gazed as the beast kneeled and bowed to him. He pet its trunk before sending it back where it had come.
This was enough to convince all. He is the most powerful man of all time. How is he able to do such powerful magic, greater than all we’ve heard of or seen? They wished to hoist him above their heads, but he refused. Signalling his desire to speak.
Bowing again, he spoke, “Do not call me a magician, unless you mean that I am good at sleight of hand. You look at the elephant and wonder how it could bow to me, but indeed your eyes blind you to the true magic. I bowed first.
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