I’ve heard people say that the most beautiful curve in a woman is her smile. Having had the displeasure of beholding the smug smirk the old witch gave me, after my newest parents had the deplorable idea of temporarily leaving me in her care, I beg to differ. What can I say? Going by appearances alone, I half-expected my immediate future to include a brief but painful meeting with an idol of Moloch and a sacrificial pyre. Granted, my expectations went unfulfilled. But, what I got was, arguably, much wor-

“How long are you going to keep playing dumb for? I know you can understand what I’m saying, and we both know you’re at my mercy.”

Yep, as an old friend of mine used to say, the Fates should be held as the patron deities of pugilism, no other is quite as adept at sucker-punching.

Needless to say, just as many times before, the best counter I could come up with was an internal shrug. Externally, though, I donned a somewhat pitiful look.

“What do you want?”

Grisella, the abominable witch, had somehow convinced my parents to leave me in her care, for a few hours. Well, not like either of them had needed much convincing, really; they pretty much jumped at the chance. Not like they could be blamed, I guess. I hadn’t heard much action since my birth, despite both of them still being young, good-looking, and, frankly, sickeningly infatuated with each other.

Anyway, as soon as we were alone, Grisella had stated her case in no uncertain terms. The accused, aka ‘me’, had committed the sin of playing with shiny magical balls. The prosecution, aka ‘the fucking harpy’, had not only testimonial evidence of it, but even produced out of her pocket some sort of crystal ball that could actually replay the scene from bird’s eye view. I tried to argue with any unseen deities of law around that the entire thing constituted a serious violation of privacy and that the images were illegitimately obtained, not to mention that the prosecution also probably had voyeuristic tendencies. Sadly, my mental plea went unheard.

In short, while hateful, her statement wasn’t wrong. Magical world or not, babies were meant to uneventfully enjoy their babyhood, not exploring spellcasting, so Grisella had pretty much all the leverage she could ask for to get whatever she might want out of me... Then again, disadvantageous as my situation might have seemed, the joke was on her; I dared to presume she wasn’t after my shiny balls, and I didn’t have anything else to offer. A piece of cloth that may or may not, but definitely had, previously been shit on, perhaps.

Of course, opposing her, on principle, was bound to be too bothersome, so I was more than willing to cede my currently-unsoiled garments to her. Depending on her intentions, though... Well, if things came to an extreme, I could always just bet on my next life.

Hell, there are things worse than death, even if I weren’t certain to come back from the latter.

That being said, my situation probably wasn’t all that bad either. From what I had gathered from her self-deluded monologue, the senile old crone had apparently mistaken me for some sort of mysterious, ancient figure that had somehow botched a so-called ‘ritual of Transcendency’ and had thus ended up either sealing away, or outright losing the biggest part of my allegedly vast powers. Putting aside the fact that I was fairly certain my ‘vast powers’ only ever amounted to foregoing the need for a candle, and outright hadn’t ever existed until just about a month prior, there was a decent chance she might actually show some restraint. Small mercies.

The main problem was that I didn’t know exactly what had given her such an idea, so keeping up with the act was likely to prove quite challenging. Of course, I had decided to try my best, regardless.

As a side thought, finding out that in this new world of mine there was such a thing as a ‘ritual of Transcendency’ was quite the welcome revelation...

“What do I want?” Oblivious to my various inner considerations, the witch gently tapped her temple a couple of times. “Knowledge.”

Catching a rather familiar glint in the coy look she gave me, I had to forcibly hold back a grin.

Ah, hello Greed, my old friend!

Now, that was something I could work with!

I’m not ashamed to confess that I’ve repeatedly relied on some particularly base parts of human nature to discretely pave my way across the eras. While such emotions aren’t pretty, they’ve often proved to be fairly reliable; empires fall and cultures change but, no matter the nation, I often found out that the susurrations of people’s inner devils are, fundamentally, pretty much the same everywhere.

Well, despite my best efforts, the blades of war, or some other manner of catastrophe somehow almost always found their way to my throat... But, I know for certain that my lives would have been much harder, had I not learned to be flexible with incentives!

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Judiciously share a bit of knowledge, fill a few pockets here and there, stroke some egos, and the world suddenly becomes much more welcoming! The best part of it is that none of it takes a particularly cunning mind, just a bit of experience, if anything!

Thankfully, wars might have gone from being fought with stones and sticks to guns and viruses, but the hands behind such weapons never changed all that much. And it seemed like the principle held true across different worlds or realities too... That thought, by the way, once again made me wonder exactly why this new world of mine was inhabited by humans too, though I decided that that train of thought was better left for later.

As the witch was visibly growing impatient, I slowly raised an eyebrow, straightening myself to make full use of my impressive my-head-doesn’t-quite-reach-your-thigh height.

“Knowledge? Sure. About what?”

The witch let out what sounded like a relieved sigh, then I felt a strange prickle as some sort of tension in the air, that I hadn’t quite been aware of, dissipated. Belatedly, I realized despite her outward bravado, she had apparently been readying herself to deal with a much less accommodating response on my part.

“The Ritual itself, to begin with...”

Well, damn.

Grisella left the last word hanging, before momentarily frowning.

Whether that was because she had a hard time organizing her thoughts, or because she found talking with an unnaturally poised toddler somewhat disturbing, I couldn’t tell. The expression disappeared so fast it almost made me doubt my eyes, anyway. Not like I cared much. I had bigger fish to fry.

Honestly, as far as answering her question went, the only idea I could come up with was inspecting the wood beneath my feet, on the off chance that some unfathomable being might have inadvertently left a clue somewhere. My best bet was probably taking a look under a bed, heavens know people tend to hide the most bizarre crap down there! Unfortunately, there was no such furniture in the room, and the couple of weathered chairs around didn’t look particularly promising.

As my brief visual quest came to an unfruitful end, the only resource I was left with was the ancient art of bullshitting.

To her credit, the witch didn’t immediately press me for an answer.

After a moment of quiet, but rather desperate consideration, I forced a sad smile to my face while reluctantly dragging my eyes back to her face.

“The Ritual, yes... I’d love to, but I can’t.”

Rather understandably, Grisella didn’t seem particularly pleased by my non-answer.

“What do you mean you ‘can’t’?” Her voice dropped to a threatening quasi-growl. “Think your next words well. I don’t appreciate dishonesty, and have access to the Unveiling One.”

I, for one, had no idea who or what the fuck the ‘unveiling one’ was, but the harpy didn’t seem to be in the mood for clarification. Just to be sure, though, it seemed fair to assume it was some sort of magical bullshit detector. Pretty unfair, honestly.

“I-”

I let out a dramatic sigh, opening and closing my mouth a few times, as if dealing with something especially hard to word.

After spending a few seconds imitating a drowning fish, and guessing that the old crone would not appreciate any further delays, I finally took a deep breath.

“The truth of the matter... is that I can’t seem to remember how to do it, or anything related, really.”

I suppose never having known about it does, technically, mean that I can’t remember how to.

After a small pause, where I held my breath in hopes that her magical bullshit detector wasn’t completely unfair, I continued.

“Right now, this is about as far as my knowledge goes.”

To illustrate my point, I breathed in, once again conjuring a shiny magical ball over my hand.

For a moment, the witch regarded the construct with an inscrutable expression, before setting her eyes back on mine. When she did, her pupils had changed in depth, for lack of a better word, they felt almost physically magnetic, yet profoundly disturbing at the same time. I didn’t shy away from the staring contest, though. I might not seem like it, but I do have my pride.

Eventually, the intangible pressure relented, and the witch almost imperceptibly nodded, before raising an eyebrow.

“How come?”

Having expected the question, I merely shrugged.

“It happens. Sometimes, I even forget pretty much everything about my previous lives...”

The conversation died down, again, and, for a while, she just kept silently staring at me with renewed intensity.

Truly, how sinful of a man can I be? To think I’d even have grannies drooling after my juvenile form!

Eventually, she spoke up, however, right about when I was starting to wonder if she had just passed away while standing. Really old people can be somewhat fragile, after all, and, kindly put, Grisella had the regal bearing of King Tut. After over three millennia of mummification, that is.

“What would it take for you to recover your memories?”

“I don’t know for sure.” I gave her a bitter smile. “They often get triggered by repeating a few related actions. Sometimes even just certain sounds or smells suffice. But, I remember I once forgot how to use the sword, and it took a couple of years with a private tutor for me to finally realize that I had already known how to do most of what I was being taught.”

Not to mention I ended up learning calculus from scratch, thrice. Yikes.

Suddenly, the ancient lady exploded into blindingly fast motion. Literally. Her hands just vanished into her robe. But an instant later, though, they were back in sight, fingers wrapped around the handle of a thin, crystalline black dagger that made me think of obsidian. At least, the small part of me that wasn’t too preoccupied trying to convince my heart that jumping out of my chest was unnecessary, and probably way too messy.

Truly, armed with the strange trinket, Grisella became a fair representation of the grim reaper -even if she had marginally more meat on her bones and a smaller weapon-. Instead of bringing an end to my continued existence, though, she turned the blade on herself. The almost invisible edge bit deep into her palm.

“Alright, it seems we both need to learn, then.”

Calmly speaking, as if the blood profusely flowing down from her extended limb was unimportant, the witch suddenly reminded me more of a demon.

“Let’s make a contract.” She added, matter-of-factly pointing at the quickly growing, unnaturally swirling crimson pool that was forming beneath our feet.

Well, fuck.