The Rossem Project

Graduation Field - Part 2

"Two thousand years ago," the Director began, looking out over the seated rows of wizards and youngsters, "the art of wizardry faced the greatest crisis in its history. Incompetent wizards were to be found in every city of the world, and their bunglings caused such chaos and destruction that the mundane population finally lost patience with them, banning the practice of the high art in almost every nation and kingdom in the known world. Wizards were forced to burn their spellbooks and take up mundane occupations, and those that continued to practice magic were hounded unmercifully, being killed or imprisoned when they were caught. The number of practising wizards in the world plummeted from hundreds to less than fifty in less than twenty years, and there is little doubt that wizardry as practised by humans would have died out altogether within one or two more generations. Not even during the Massacre of the Mages that followed the Mage Wars was the situation so critical, and never since have we faced a crisis to equal it.

"It was Ka Lenna-Ka who saved wizardry from extinction in those far off days. Ka Lenna-Ka, the wizard we know today as Lexandros the Founder." He waved a hand towards the statue of Lexandros, standing proudly on top of a plinth of white marble amidst the teaching buildings, temporarily expanded to giant size by a growth spell to make it visible from Graduation Field. "He alone saw how wizardry could be saved. He alone recognised the need to make wizardry acceptable to the mundanes, and knew that the only way to accomplish this was to raise the standard of wizardry. To create a standard of excellence which all wizards would have to attain before they were allowed to practice their arts. It was he who gathered six other wizards and convinced them to aid him in this most noble and worthy project, and together, under Ka Lenna-Ka's inspired leadership, they laid the foundations of the world's first school of magic.

In a wild and deserted spot far from the outermost frontiers of civilisation they gathered suitable children from all across the human occupied world. Orphans and outcasts. Children whose disappearance would not be noticed but who were gifted with that certain extra spark that marks potential wizards out from the mundane population. There, in a small, huddled collection of simple stone buildings, they trained the first twenty six Lexandrian wizards. Young men and women trained not only in the basic casting of spells, but with all the additional special training that only Lexandrian wizards receive. Those twenty six young people were not merely wizards. They were professionals, trained to use their gifts safely and competently. The first such in the history of the human race. Lexandros and his six assistants spent many years training them in secret, and then they sent them out into the world with instructions to use their gifts any way they wished, so long as they did so visibly, so as to deliberately attract attention to themselves.

"It was a terrible gamble, and you all know the fates of most of them. How they were imprisoned by the mundanes. Some of them put to death, others mutilated in ways that made it impossible for them to cast spells. Some survived and retained their liberty, however, and five years later another twenty graduates were sent out into the world, and twenty two five years after that.

"Gradually, the mundanes noticed that those who survived and continued to practice their art were of a different breed to the wizards they'd known until then; that they were able to use their magic without causing accidental death and destruction all around them. Those few nations in which wizardry was still legal employed them in their armies and intelligence gathering agencies, and the advantage they gave them enabled those nations to prosper and grow at the expense of their neighbours.

"In order to survive, the other nations of the world were forced to employ wizards as well. Under draconian restrictions at first, but with more and more tolerance and freedom as it became apparent that they were able to use their powers safely. Oh make no mistake, some of those first Lexandrians were cruel and evil and used their powers for their own personal gain, but even so they only killed those they intended to kill, which is a whole different kettle of fish from an incompetent wizard killing accidentally. Gradually, wizards were accepted back into society, back to the status that we continue to enjoy today.