Amun.

***

“All affinities can heal. Figuring out how an affinity can be used for healing is the trademark of Witchcraft, and the knowledge has been passed down for almost fifteen hundred years!”

The unimpressed aura given by the majority of the class didn’t daunt Ferris in the least. She purposefully waltzed back and forth between the groups, catching the eyes of many of the young men and some of the women as she made her way to and fro the draped windows at either side of the room.

We were organized by magical type, which innately called for a few people to jump back and forth between different groups. Others, like the vampires, were entirely absent. And of course, I was off at the end in my own group; across the way from Lance.

“It’s only thanks to those that came before, that Witchcraft exists in its current state. The records indicate that Class Evolution existed before the current era, but affinity cores did not. Only Sorcerers and hedge witches or wizards possessed the ability to wield magic or do anything more than manipulate the elements without being evolved. Their sacrifices and the sacrifices of their patients are what allow anyone with a magical ability to become a licensed Witch, regardless of evolutionary status.

“Those sacrifices are still being carried out to this day.” Ferris solemnly hung her head. “It is a fact all Witches acknowledge, and none hope to experience for themselves. Moreover, it is a truth that I wish to drill into each of your minds!”

With a wave of her hands, the curtains of the adjacent rooms were revealed. Showing us a sight that many of us had never seen. Including myself.

One man, the first I happened to look upon, had vertical stripes running along the length of his body. Like glowing tiger stripes of fire or magma, they seared at the skin closest to the markings, singeing them to ash even while new skin bubbled over to take its place. He was in a never-ending loop of pain and healing. As was the next patient, an elven woman with a missing leg that was supposed to have been replaced by a knotted and winding branch. Only, the wood took root in her thigh and spread throughout her abdomen, breaching the skin in various places to form a fungal-covered maze across her body. Another had pale blue skin like Zaraxus. He constantly shivered in his bed, leaving a thick cloud of his breath lingering around his head. Yet another, supposed to have been healed with air, was gasping for breath without end. Clutching at his throat and thrashing himself into his pillow to wipe the endless tears from his face.

It was traumatizing. To them. But my eyes only saw opportunities. My eyes only saw the desperate. All around me, everywhere in this hospital- or witch hut, people were desperate to live. And I had the power to make that happen. For a price of course.

“Please keep these patients in mind while you study and practice.” Ferris pleaded. “I’ll only put you with a live patient once I know you’re ready. And I know you all want to return to your training, so do us both a favor and take this seriously.”

With our verbal agreements made and our books in tow, we followed Ferris to a multi-patient room down the hall to be split amongst several training dummies made of solid light. She then made several duplicates of herself and split them among the groups. Then surprisingly came to me in her physical form with a book in tow.

“I’m sure the Necro King has taught you how to heal?” She rhetorically asked. “Well, I know there’s no other way to do it with your sorcery, but causing patients pain during treatment is against our policy. But we can focus on your other affinities! Welcome to the club!” She thrust a book into my face. One with a cover of off-white fleece and gold with the image of a shining sun at the center. A book about Healing Light.

But… “The club?” I hesitantly asked.

“Our family is big.” She helplessly shrugged.

“Like I’ve told your… sister?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Right.” I nodded. “Like I told Felicity, I’m not altruistic enough to be a healer, but the knowledge is appreciated."

“Well, it’s certainly a required trait.” She soughed. “And you have to take this class.”

“I’m aware, but I’d like to propose another avenue. May we talk outside?”

I followed her gaze to Lance, who wasn’t staring disapprovingly, but with interest until I looked his way.

“Sure.”

“Archie lives up to his name, huh?” I turned to her with a snort once we were outside.

“That’s an understatement.” Ferris rolled her eyes.

“I can see his mastery of his work has inflated his ego and forced his morals out of alignment with his position. He’s fueled by fame. Lustful for renown.”

She stayed silent and gave me a look that implied she agreed, but not openly. Implying to me that we were being watched.

That was preferable to me.

“You're able to sense such things when you’re born with a throne in the Underworld,” I explained, tapping at my temple. “Wicked people. Corrupt souls. The Shadow of Death. The Reapers of Grimm. Ghosts. I smell and see these things like the herbs in that garden.

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“Have you ever heard of it? The Shadow of Death.” I suddenly asked, pulling her eyes away from the gardens below, if only for a second.

She shrugged half-heartedly and looked away. “I know Grimm is responsible for it. She keeps people from being healed without divine intervention.”

“Or a Faustian Deal.”

Ferris snapped to me fully. Her radiant eyes looked deep into mine as they squinted in abject betrayal. “A- are you... offering to... take the souls of my patients?”

“Only those who accept such a temptation.” I amiably shrugged. “If it is their only hope to live. If even you or Archie cannot save them, if they seek to run from the natural order of things and escape from death in any way they're able, shouldn’t they have the freedom to sell their soul, knowing full well the consequences of their actions?”

“I cannot agree to that, Amun." She sternly shook her head. "You know I can’t.”

“No.” I regrettably sighed. “You can’t. And you have my word that I won’t act against your authority.”

“Thank you.”

“That said,” I continued, draining her face entirely. “I’m already versed with using light to heal. However, instead of testing immediately, I’d like to peruse the library, if possible.”

Her face warmed immediately. “A scholar are we?” She chortled softly.

“Indeed.” I smiled. “Libraries are one of my favorite places in all the realms.”

“It’s not something we usually advertise, seeing the strict schedule the Bodhi Tree keeps. But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for you. It’s on the first floor, east of the garden in a sub-level.”

I took my time moving there. And once inside, I plucked the first book I found to begin idly scanning the pages. I made it through perhaps a dozen books by the time it happened. A slim figure with a receding hairline glided into the room to stop just behind me. And, ‘engrossed’ in the book, I hardly noticed him.

“Is it so wrong to cling to life? We humans have it naught like the elves or dwarves or, dare I say a Nox devil. A century at most for us meek men. And cursed with ambition we are. Who among us cannot sympathize with our cruel fate? Surely one versed in such a wide range of specialties as yourself can, I'm sure."

“The choice comes down to the individual in the end.” I closed the book and looked into his foul eyes. “Only they have that freedom. Should they choose to embrace the Shadow of Death, all I can give them is comfort in passing. Something a prominent and experienced Witch of decades can sympathize with, and something many young Witches should need to learn, I'm sure.”

“Show me.”

Hiding my smile, I followed him to the basement, of all places, beneath the main entrance, to a hall of rooms adjacent to a single pair of doors that reeked with the sweet stench of death.

“These patients are unlike the ones your students are helping." Archie turned to me with a sudden quiver of excitement in his otherwise placating yet condescending voice. "These people are in pain, both physically and mentally. They are on their deathbeds. All we can do is, as you say, give them comfort in passing. So show me.” He repeated, swinging the door open. "I will remain here.”

I entered to see a familiar sight from just a few months ago. The long, spindly hands of a small umbral figure were strewn across the chest of a man wrapped in bloodied rags. It raked eagerly at his chest, seemingly provoking the horrid sobs sputtering from the man’s lungs.

“Oho! No!” he sobbed louder the moment I entered. “Ooh! I’m sorry. I’m-sorry-I’m-I’m-sorry-I’m-sorry I’msorryI’msorry…” He kept apologizing. Kept wailing. Louder and louder. Shook his head madly and wildly as I approached his bedside to kneel, lowering my head down his ear.

The Shadow of Death then moved to lower its head into the crook of my neck, sending a thousand whispers trailing into my mind. Millions of them. Trillions perhaps. Telling me all types of things about this particular mortal soul.

“Oh.” I sadly groaned in a voice that was hardly my own. “Why do you cry, child?”

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. But his soul whispered. ‘Chagrin. Remorse. I must repent.’ “I’m sorry!”

“Death cares not for your deeds done in darkness, Liamond. Your soul is out of time. It must descend. You must go. To the Abyss.”

‘I must repent.’ The whisper repeated. Liamond thrashed. “I’m so sorry!”

“Shhh.” I palmed his chest, and a cold something spread through him, calming him so. “You intend to repent with gold? To bless your victim's kin with the material in exchange for another’s life a hundred times over?”

‘I cannot rest otherwise. I cannot repent otherwise. I know of no other way.’ “I’m sorry!”

“At what cost?” I asked.

‘Anything,' his soul whispered. “Please.” His mouth muttered.

“Borrowed Time,” I whispered. “That is the price, Liamond. An accursed extension of one tenday to fulfill your pursuits. And once that tenday has passed, Liamond, you shall have another accursed tenday to fulfill my pursuits. And then another. And another. As many tendays as it takes, I will keep you, Liamond, on Borrowed Time.”

“Please.” He both whispered and muttered.

“Very well,” I muttered and the Shadow of Death suddenly jumped to life and backed into me. I felt a distant shudder throughout my entire body before darkness began leaking through my mouth to write out the agreement in the air. Then, the Shadow projectile vomited into Liamond.

Veins of darkness lurched through his body, sending sounds of squirming flesh beneath his bandages while the dark trails crawled up to his recolored face in droves. At its peak, the darkness condensed and swelled, shifting the skin of his brow from a pale yellow to purple before the energy compressed into a tiny mote of darkness that popped from his head and drifted about it lazily, leaving what appeared to be a mole just above his eye.

With a deep, guttural gasp, Liamond sprang out of bed, ripping off his bandages as he bounded past an astounded Archie, screaming. “I must go! Thank you!”

“Amazing!” Archie gasped.

“He won’t think so in a month.” I snorted.

“What did you say to him?”

I studied him for a second to see if he was playing me, but all signs pointed towards him not. He didn’t hear a thing. Thus I smirked. “That’s between me and him. However, there is another who can give these people a mercifully quick end to their suffering, should they want it.” I turned away as he looked at me curiously. “His name is Rua Nun.”

I said nothing else as I stepped past him to the next room. To make another deal. And two days later, I returned from my venture to the library to make two more, and two more after every other day until the first tenday had passed.

The last and most important of them was a man with dark tan skin and a grayed beard. Raymond was his name, a Vrurian councilor of some sort who was poisoned by his political adversary in the Mazi Council. Though that was irrelevant, his time was up. Still, though, he didn’t want to hear it. So like all the others, he was cursed and corrupted and sent on his way to bring his life to ruin. And I went on to have Ferris verify my skill and return to the Bodhi Tree. But not before hearing Archie’s departing words.

“I do regret seeing you go.” He sank in his posture. “But the miracles performed in his building shall not be forgotten. Not by me or your patients. You can fully call yourself a Witch, Amun. That is something to be proud of."

I only nodded, at first. Then I turned halfway to the portal to give him a departing smirk. “I’ll see you soon, Archie.” I nodded. But my smirk grew into a hauntingly rolling laugh as I stepped through, then ceased entirely once I looked upon the overwhelming presence of the Bodhi tree and felt brisk but not-yet-winter air around me. "If only I could have flown back." I solemnly shook my head.

That would have been nice.