Saul woke with the taste of blood in his mouth. Everything hurt. His eyes were gummed shut, and his mouth and tongue were like leather. Instinctively, he reached for his magic.

But his magic was not there.

They took my powers, he remembered. The Seven took my powers, just like they said they would.

It was a terrible sensation, like a lost limb. The memories of everything he’d just been through flooded him.

The System. Sarkur had given him the System to use magic through. But a moment before his reincarnation, he’d seen the System’s assessment of him.

User Level: 1

So, he was starting from scratch. Clearly, Level 1 meant he would not be able to use magic like he had before.

Without opening his eyes or moving at all, he tried to access the System. To his surprise, it worked straight away. As soon as he turned his intention toward it, silver lettering appeared, as if on the inside of his eyelids.

Spells available:

School of Fire: Tier 1:

Select: Generate heat (mild) (non-combat only)

Select: Generate light (mild) (non-combat only)

Select: Kindle Fire (non-combat only, chance of success, 50%)

Non-combat only, he thought. Well, at least I can start a fire…if I can get myself moving.

He was about to try to move his arm when a sudden sound made him freeze.

There was a scuff of feet on stone, then a nasal, high-pitched voice said sharply, “What’s that?”

“Looks like a man,” a second, deeper voice said. Footsteps approached Saul warily, and then a foot prodded him in the chest.

“Is he dead?” the nasal voice asked. “What do you say, Katkin? Is he dead?” The speaker sounded frightened.

“Nah,” said Katkin’s deeper, gruffer voice, and Saul heard the rustle of clothing as the man squatted next to him.

“Look at his nose,” Katkin went on. “He’s breathing, and…” A hand on Saul’s throat, two gloved fingers placed firmly against his skin. “There’s a pulse, but not much of one.”

“What d’you want to do, then?” the other voice asked.

Katkin removed his fingers from Saul’s neck. Saul heard the man stand abruptly and step back. There was a clink of metal, and the footsteps dragged a little.

Armored, and with a limp, Saul thought. Limping in the left leg? Older man, more experienced than the other. Are they soldiers? But they’re not speaking like soldiers. Bandits, then? Northern accents, possibly Xornian.

He remembered the view of the windswept forest and the high mountains. It was not much to go on, but Xorn was a mountainous region in the northeast of Keldor. That view certainly could have been Xorn.

Xorn…the place where the rebellion had started. The rebellion that led to the Faction War.

The feeling of the man’s fingers on his throat had quickened his pulse and brought a surge of adrenaline to this battered, exhausted body he now occupied. Again, his instincts made him reach for his nonexistent magic but, instead, the System displayed again its remarkably unhelpful spell list.

Spells available:

School of Fire: Tier 1:

Select: Generate heat (mild) (non-combat only)

Select: Generate light (mild) (non-combat only)

Select: Kindle Fire (non-combat only, chance of success, 50%)

Inwardly, he cursed the gods that had betrayed him and stolen his magic. If he had retained his former power, he would not have had anything to fear from this situation.

With his vision magic, he would have been able to easily find his location in the world. With his thrall powers, he would have easily been able to take control of these two men and have them do his bidding or, if he chose, he could have roasted them where they stood with a flick of his hand.

But now, here he was, with nothing but a few basic survival spells.

Nothing but the trickster god’s System, he thought, and my wits.

That would have to be enough.

The voices of the two men had moved away, but Saul could still hear them speaking in low voices. They were discussing what that should do with him.

“If he wakes up and sees this place, it’ll be the worse for us,” the man with the high-pitched voice said.

“I know that well enough, Tyren,” Katkin grunted.

“You think he’s a spy from the village?” the man called Tyren said, his whining, nasal voice sounding fearful and suspicious. “If they got wind of our preparations, they would be better able to defend…”

“Quiet,” Katkin snapped. “Mind your tongue. He’s likely just some wanderer who’s ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, we can’t be too careful.”

With an effort, Saul carefully opened one eye. The eye did not open easily, but it did open.

For a moment, all was blurred and dark. Then, he got the other eye open and blinked slowly a few times until the darkness resolved into a recognizable scene.

From where he lay, he had a very good view of mud. He was lying on his chest, his arms spread out at his sides and his head turned to the left. A few steps away, he saw the shadows of the two men discussing his fate.

They were big fellows, armed and armored, and at least one of them was carrying a two-handed war ax. Katkin was short and stocky, and Tyren was tall and thin.

But it was their gear that Saul was interested in. They wore heavy wool cloaks and leather armor dyed black and decorated with silver symbols, strange runes that glinted with an eerie, internal light.

Shadows wound about them like black smoke. Wreaths of darkness curled around their feet and clung to their backs. When Katkin lifted a hand in a gesture, the black shadows lazily rose with his hand, then fell again.

Warlocks.

So, it was as Sarkur had said. Saul had come back into the world years before his own birth. In Saul’s previous life, there had not been warlocks in the world for at least twenty years. All the rogue covens had been rooted out by Emperor Karak’s wytch hunters, with Saul’s help.

A new life, in an older time.

Late evening lay across the land, and a steady rain accompanied the gathering darkness.

Saul moved his fingers experimentally and drew in a few deeper breaths. Everything hurt, but nothing seemed actually broken. Whoever this man had been whose body Saul now inhabited had been something of a weakling.

Saul felt the aches and pains of this new body keenly as he lay on the cold ground, but he still had his wits.

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He shifted his legs gingerly, flexed his toes. He was barefoot, soaked, and wearing only light linens.

Damn, but it’s cold, he thought.

“Right, I’ll not be long,” the voice of Katkin said. “I’ll go get Wytchlord Grimdir. He can decide what to do. You stay here and keep an eye on the prisoner.”

“Right,” the high-pitched voice of Tyren replied.

Katkin limped away, left leg dragging in the mud. Tyren was the taller man, but he was armed with smaller weapons. As Tyren stood near Saul with a morose air, staring into the darkling evening, Saul assessed the man and his gear.

Thin, gangly arms and legs, a pointed head, drooping shoulders, and a weak chest. On his back, a hide shield with a glowing red rune. On his hip, a short stabbing sword, a couple of leather pouches, and a workaday knife. A potion, glowing a pale blue color, stuck out of one of the pouches.

Tyren’s leather boots were probably too tight for Saul’s feet, but the man had a nice, thick, warm-looking cloak, and a water skin that looked at least half full. That potion looked interesting, too.

Saul waited until the footsteps of Katkin had faded completely, then forced himself to count slowly to sixty to make sure the man was well away.

Then, he gave a long, low groan.

Tyren squatted by Saul’s side.

“Hey,” Tyren said, “you awake? Who are you? What are you? Why are you here?”

Saul mumbled something deliberately indistinct.

“What’s that?” Tyren said. “What do you say?”

The man leaned a little closer. Saul mumbled again.

Just a little closer, he thought. His eyes were on the man’s knife.

Tyren shifted to put his head near Saul’s face so as to hear better.

With a sudden lunge, Saul drew Tyren’s knife. His abrupt movement startled the warlock so much that the tall man lost his balance as he tried to rise. Saul rolled over onto his back and caught a fold of Tyren’s cloak with his left hand, yanking him back down.

Then, he punched the blade into Tyren’s neck and chest half a dozen times. The leather armor resisted the dull edge of the blade, and the runes gleamed and sparkled, turning the knife as Saul tried to hit the heart and lungs. The shadows rose in wrath around Tyren as the warlock belatedly tried to summon a spell to his aid.

Saul had only a moment to work with. He needed a killing blow now.

Tyren staggered up, dragging Saul up with him, the cloak falling away to expose his neck.

Saul caught the man’s windpipe with the blade, ramming the short, blunt knife home for a single, lethal blow. Then, he pulled the blade out and managed to step unsteadily out of the way as the bleeding, gagging Tyren crashed to the ground.

Every muscle in his body aching, Saul grabbed up the water skin and tipped it up into his mouth. The water was stale, tasted of wood and mildew and the badly cured leather, and it was the finest thing Saul had ever drunk in his life. He had never felt so thirsty.

He drank off the whole flask, then put it down. Next, he grabbed the potion from Tyren’s belt pouch, the gleaming blue potion that had caught his eyes earlier. He glanced at it with an expert eye, then popped the stopper and sniffed. Yes, the unmistakable sweet aniseed sharpness of a healing potion.

He flipped the bottle, his eye catching something strange. There was a rune on the potion, a circular rune that glowed and flickered a paler blue than the liquid in the bottle. A Sigil.

Saul raised his eyebrows in surprise. Still, he thought, I suppose the use of Sigils was relatively common in the Old World before Karak and I came and hammered the lands into one unified empire. That’s where I am now, and Sigils are a part of that world. I guess I’d better get used to it.

He drained the healing potion and tossed the bottle beside Tyren’s lifeless body. Blue light shimmered over Saul’s body, and he suddenly felt a lot better. He was still in a bad way but much better than he had been a moment before.

He looked about. Nearby, a tall cliff rose sharply, and in the side of the cliff was a broad crack that looked as if it led into a cave. Near the entrance to this opening, the ground had been worn away by walking feet. So, that must have been the way Katkin had gone to fetch reinforcements.

The warlock coven’s hideout, Saul surmised. Katkin will be back soon, with… What was the name…? Wytchlord Grimdir. He sounds like a whole heap of fun. If I had my old magic, I would see that tonight was his last night on earth but, as things stand, it’s probably time for a swift exit.

Tyren’s cloak was fixed in place with a rusted pin that broke when Saul yanked at it. He swung the cloak around his shoulders. It was heavy, warm wool, and was incredibly welcome.

Taking the belt knife, Saul crouched and cut the three little pouches from Tyren’s belt. The empty one had contained the healing potion. The others held little enough: a couple of coins, a few strips of dried meat.

Saul stuffed the dried meat strips into his mouth and examined his own clothes. Aside from the cloak he’d taken from Tyren, Saul wore only a ragged tunic and trousers of filthy colorless linen. He glanced at Tyren’s boots, but there was no way they would fit Saul.

He glanced up as he heard voices coming from the direction of the crack in the cliff. Light of torches gleamed on wet walls of stone, and there was the sound of voices and of many hurrying feet.

He had managed to survive and to gain the cloak and the knife. He had eaten, drank, and benefited from the healing potion. That was enough.

Saul momentarily considered taking the warlock’s sword, but he was in no condition to fight anyone. He needed nothing that would weigh him down.

With a last glance toward the approaching voices, he turned and hurried off down the hill into the trees.

It was full dark.

Night had fallen, and a thick cloud had rolled in, blotting out the stars. Faint moonlight filtered through the clouds, but Saul could barely see where he was putting his feet. He squelched first in soft mud, then his feet stung on hard stones.

He fell, slid, and dropped the knife. It was too dark to try to retrieve it, and the small blade was next to useless anyway. From above and behind him, he heard the sounds of voices shouting in alarm.

There was a flash of light, and he felt some dark power searching through the night for him, groping with creeping dead fingers through the dark.

He had to get away.

He ran.

Rain was falling. He hurried deeper and deeper into the trees, heading always downhill. His legs ached as moments stretched on into an agonizing eternity, but still he ran until his lungs burned and then some.

He must have been going for several hours when the ground evened out a bit, and the clouds lessened. The rain eased, and the light of the half-moon showed him he was moving through an ancient forest.

On every side, tall pines and mighty oak trees stood starkly silhouetted against the moonlight. A bit of a hillock rose sharply out of the forest. Instinctively, he moved toward it, the idea that he might be able to climb to the top and get a view of the surrounding land.

As he approached, however, he realized that the hillock was completely covered in a dense thicket of thorny bushes. There was no way he was getting through them.

He considered creeping underneath these bushes. They were tall, thick, and ancient, and there looked to be a dryish space beneath their branches. He was just about to attempt this when his eye was caught by a dark opening in the rocky side of the hillock after his right.

A cave!

Wary of wild animals, he crept toward the opening and peered inside. In the moonlight, he saw a narrow entrance.

He sniffed. There was no scent of bear or wolf. It smelled dry and uninhabited.

That’s good enough for me, he thought and delved inside.

Once he was within the cave, he felt about and found, to his surprise, that something had denned in here, but that the nest was old and unused. There was a pile of something on the floor. Sticks!

Now, if only he had some means of starting a fire.

Spells available:

School of Fire: Tier 1:

Select: Generate heat (mild) (non-combat only)

Select: Generate light (mild) (non-combat only)

Select: Kindle Fire (non-combat only, chance of success, 50%)

“Ah,” Saul exclaimed as the silvery letters appeared across his vision in answer to the thought. His voice sounded strange, the voice of this new body. Well, he would get used to it.

“Yes, that will do nicely,” he continued. “A fifty percent chance of success is good enough. I shouldn’t have to try too many times. All right, then.”

He focused on the words that hung in front of his vision, then muttered, “Generate Light.”

Immediately, a pale light glowed all around him. It centered on his own body, lighting up the cave around him with about as much radiance as that of a small candle.

He glanced about, seeing that the cave went a little farther back than he had originally assumed. On the ground were a few scattered and gnawed bones, but no recent prints or scat visible in the cave.

Quickly, he gathered up the twigs, bits of straw, and larger sticks that lay scattered about entrance and built them into the shape of a small fire at the back of the cave. He was about to venture out to look for more wood when suddenly the rain came on again, hard.

At the same moment, the magical light he had conjured went out.

“Damn,” he muttered. “Oh, well. Here goes.”

The silvery letters had faded, but as soon as he desired to see them again, they reappeared.

“Kindle Fire,” he said. This time, he noticed that, before he had even spoken the words, the silvery letters he focused on got bigger for a moment, then glowed a little more brightly.

He felt the familiar and very welcome sensation of magic tingling with potential in his right hand. He held his hand above the pile of sticks and felt that spell moving forward then…nothing.

The sensation vanished.

Spell failed: Kindle Fire

Select: Recast

Saul cursed under his breath. This time, he selected Recast without speaking the spell out loud and was pleased to find that it worked just as effectively.

This time, the fire-starting spell worked. The magic flowed with a warm, pleasant sensation through his arm, and then out through the palm of his hand and into the heart of the pile of dry sticks. There was a spark, then a crackle of flame, and his fire was lit.

Magic use: Five-minute cooldown initiated

Cooldown initiated:

Spellcasting available in: 10 minutes

“What’s this?” he said aloud. “A cooldown between spells?”

The System responded immediately.

User Level: 1

Spell casting available before cooldown: 3

Cooldown: 10 minutes

“Well, that’s good to know, I suppose,” he grumbled, though he immediately wondered how having such a wait between spellcastings would influence his effectiveness.

In his old life, there had been no such thing. A mage’s effectiveness was determined only by his own capability. Apparently, the System came with some limitations.

Working in ten-minute intervals, Saul used the short-acting Generate Light spell to explore the area around the entrance to the cave, and to haul in as much dry wood as he could. Not far from the cave entrance, he came across a fallen tree, under whose trunk he found a great many broken branches that were long dead and had not been too badly soaked by the weather.

When he had enough, he built his fire up, then stripped his drenched clothing off and hung it to dry next to the flames. Then, he sat shivering in the heat of the fire, waiting for morning.

Dawn came cold and clear, and Saul woke from a troubled, feverish sleep.

His head felt light, and he had developed a nasty cough. Sick; this new body was sick from the exposure and whatever tribulations it had gone through before.

He groaned as he got up. At least his clothes were dry. He put them back on, for all the good they did.

Afterward, he kicked over the remains of his fire and stepped outside. The only thing he could do was to go on, so go on he did, downhill, away from the tall mountains that loomed behind him over the wild forest.

He had escaped the warlocks and had taken his first steps in his new life.