The Last Spell

9th place in the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction competition 2024, round 2, group 86.

Brief Synopsis: An aging wizard, Alaric, haunted by his past mistake of summoning a demon that cursed his city with eternal winter, finds hope and redemption when a young girl helps him summon the last of his magic to banish the demon and bring warmth back to the land.

Genre: Fantasy. Location: A soup kitchen. Item: A bag of coins. Time to write, 48 hours.

The Last Spell by Lucien Telford.

Outside the shelter, a ceaseless winter wind howled beneath a bitter, white-blanketed sky. Beneath Alaric’s torn and tattered cloak, his thin, frail fingers clutched at a battered metal spoon, his body hunched over a bowl of steaming greyish lumps with a consistency that wasn’t quite gruel. Between slurps, he scanned the bustling, candlelit, low-ceilinged dining room of the Serendipitous Soup Kitchen, a community centre serving food to the town of Eldora’s hungry and homeless. He kept his head down, his collar turned up. A wizard, even a retired one as old as he could befall violence in a place such as this. Wanted posters plastered the walls, faces of magicians both old and young. Friends and colleagues wanted because of an arcane prejudice that had taken root across the land. One poster, its corners yellowed, depicted a young version of himself.

Wanted!

For the crime of Demon-Calling

Reward paid in gold!