As the week continued and another after that; the section he was a part of continued to practise and develop their relationships with their spirits and new skills. Each day was long and hard but they could all see and feel the progress they were making. Keira became more comfortable with the predatory spirit every day and with her comfort, she was becoming a formidable opponent during combat training. She was quick, agile and had great reflexes to counter the others. When it came to using her weapon, she had more stamina than anyone else and was often the only one left at the end of sessions.
William wasn’t slacking either, he had devoted himself to the same idea he had when he formed his contract. During the weapon training with the summoned artefact, they had started to supply him with multiple wooden opponents because he’d destroy them with single powerful blows. He didn’t have the stamina that Keira had, nor was he as precise or agile but he made up for it with raw power.
The others in his section were making similar strides, each finding their own unique way to improve that matched their strengths. Faye proved invaluable as she was able to determine everyone's core characteristics and offer suggestions on where they might focus to become stronger. The one fundamental thing they all had to improve on was the relationship between them and their contracted spirit.
This was Finlay’s area of strength, he may be lacking in combat effectiveness but he was able to maintain and move using his spiritual form much better than anyone else in his section. Even Keira struggled to keep up with him when it came to running with the form stable as she’d lose and break it whenever he got ahead of her and she tried to speed up to catch him. He had even managed to focus it on specific areas and was working on moving that focused zone around his body at the order of Ronan.
By the end of those two weeks, Ronan watched him rewrite the runes on paper, set up the circle and once satisfied, he told Finlay to focus his anam onto the mark of Nochd. What happened was a different experience than he had expected as he assumed it was going to be similar to the conversations he’d had with the other spirits. Instead, it felt as though his consciousness left his body and traced down the line of anam he focused to meet Nochd in some unknown place.
The world was dark and it reminded him all too much of the time he was in the sanctuary but rather than a flame before him, it was the same mark that he had written on the paper, the mark of Nochd’s name. It was large and glowing a gentle hue of white but it seemed to shimmer as his consciousness moved around. He couldn’t help but wonder what he looked like to the spirit as he now knew that this was in reality, his mind’s interpretation of the world he entered.
“What do you wish of me?”
The voice echoed around him and only after, he felt and heard for the first time the same heartbeat he had come to associate with all the spirits. He already knew the answer to the question, he had planned this from the day he spoke to his father and was waiting for the opportunity.
“I want to see the truth of my past, I want to know if what I remember is real.”
He had no body to make the sound but as he thought the words there was a similar echo around him that matched his voice. He considered the interaction and another thought came to him; was this dialogue even necessary for the spirit or was this yet another interpretation by him? It was a question he couldn’t know the answer to but thought Ronan might.
There was a flash of light around him and the darkness changed. But it wasn’t what he saw but what he heard that surprised him—the laughter of a young girl. His sister was in the pool of blood-tainted water and covered in the red that hadn’t washed away. She was splashing and dancing with the now dull knife in hand and behind him, he could hear a cry that he knew was his own as a child.
“There is no lie in this memory, what you see is true to what happened,” the voice echoed again.
“So my sister really was laughing and acting like that?”
“Yes, this memory is true.”
“What happened to my mother?”
The scene paused and there was a strange swirling where the images faded for a second but then came back.
“I can only determine the truth of what memories you have available. Either you do not know, or do not remember for me to see the answer.”
“What about the spirit in the artefact, is that gone from this memory?”
“No, the spirit remains, though it is no longer within the item you call an artefact.”
“Then where is it? What am I missing?”
“It is with your sister, it has bound itself to her.”
“That makes no sense,” his thoughts echoed as though he spoke them or intended for their message to be sent. But this time there was no response from the spirit as it had already told him what was true and there was no need to repeat itself. But what he heard was not something he could accept, he couldn't believe that to be true.
It was impossible to tell how long he waited, how much time passed in this strange place as he tried to wrap his head around this detail but he decided he had to ask more. Just as he thought it, the memory changed, the scene shifted as it had tried to do before but this time he was back in his old room. It was the day of the evacuation and his sister was there about to tell him he shouldn’t be afraid of what was to come.
“Is the spirit with her still, is that really my sister?”
“Yes, in answer to each of those questions. Both your sister and the spirit share this form in this memory.”
“Is there anything wrong about it, did she really say those things?”
The scene played out and he watched as once again his younger self brushed off the strangeness of his sister and Nochd answered. “Yes, this memory is true.”
There was a wave of exhaustion that flooded him and even though he wanted to ask more, he couldn’t. It was as though he lost all control and suddenly he was back in the world of black with the symbol of Nochd in front of him.
“This contract is complete; if you wish to call upon me again, you need only offer more.”
In a moment, in that instant, he was back facing Ronan and with a few blinks the world became clear again. He looked up at the man across the table from where they had decided to try the invocation and was met with a smile.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“It seems that was a success,” Ronan said.
“I spoke with Nochd," he struggled to answer. The entire process felt as though it passed by in a second, yet lasted forever and he was struggling to process what he had learned. "I went somewhere, it was an awful lot like the time I was at the sanctuary.”
“Interesting, so you really did travel back then.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well from my perspective, it was only a second. You sent your anam into the mark and then a second later you looked at me like you’d just returned from a long voyage.”
“That doesn’t make sense, I was talking with Nochd, we went through,” he hesitated, unsure if he should be completely honest about his choice. “I wanted to look at some memories of my past, to see if I remembered them accurately, it seemed like the best test.”
“Yes, but that’s not entirely what happened. There is a link between our conscious minds and our souls and with that our anam. So when you sent your anam to Nochd, you essentially sent your mind to speak with him. But it seems to be that this happens in another place, I think it might be the spirit world but that’s a debate we don’t need to get into right now.”
“And time works differently in that place?”
“Oh yes, in quite amazing ways from my experience. Though it can be a little hard to predict, even worse when you try and bring a spirit here.”
“You mean, if I wanted Nochd to work with me in the physical world?”
“You could call them to you rather than you meeting them in the other place. The process is the same though, but the intention you put forward as you do it dictates how it transpires.”
“I see, Nochd seemed happy for me to invoke it again.”
“That’s good, you certainly wouldn’t want to make a bad first impression. I’m curious, what were the memories you wanted to look at?”
“My sister and mother, they died when I was young.”
“Ah, well that’s understandable. Finlay, I must ask that when you’re ready, I think it would be prudent for us to seek out answers to your experience at the mining station.”
“I had a feeling you were going to ask that.”
“You saw through my curiosity, I believe for all of our sake that it’s worth pursuing.”
“I’m happy to do that,” he rubbed his head. “But I’m feeling surprisingly tired, I didn’t think I offered as much anam as I did.”
“There’s the amount you offered but there’s also the amount you used to push through the invocation. It’s also different to what you've been training, you used a large amount all at once rather than gradually over the day. You’ll probably feel better once your body has adjusted.”
“I guess that makes sense, I’ve always used a steady flow, gradual decrease but this was a huge chunk in an instance.”
“Yes, it will take some getting used to. But now is the time to celebrate. You successfully called upon your first spirit! As a reward, I think I shall teach you a new invocation.”
Ronan continued to show him the runes for a spirit named Solast which he said was a minor spirit of light. He told him it was a good one for him to learn second as many of the runes were similar to Nochd’s. It was exciting to learn more though he wasn’t sure how useful this spirit would be unless he happened to find himself in a very dark place with no light source which seemed unlikely.
The bigger thing that was stopping his excitement was the revelation Nochd had given him. The spirit in his mother’s artefact, the spirit in the now dull knife had somehow attached itself to his sister. He was trying to understand how it could have happened and why she never said anything. She never had any markings on her so it couldn’t have been like the contracts the guild made. He wondered at first if his mother had given it to her when she realised she was about to die and made her form the contract but that seemed unlikely and it never explained why she didn’t say anything.
None of it explained why she was acting the way she was in the water or how she knew about the attack from the wraiths. Once again he had learned something that only caused him more questions. After Ronan had finished explaining Solast and given him the runes to learn, they parted ways and he returned to the hall with the others to find them finishing their training for the day.
Faye was talking to a small group in the middle and the others were scattered, mostly lying on the floor in exhaustion. William and Keira were sitting together chatting away and waved at him when he got inside. He ran over and they all caught up with what each other had done. For them, it was another day of training that largely involved Faye pushing them harder as they not only had to call upon their artefact weapons but also had to maintain their spiritual forms while they fought.
It was, in William's words, ridiculous. Afterwards, he told them about his success with Nochd and after checking there was no one else near them, explained what he had learned about his sister and the artefact. They were, as expected, surprised but they agreed that it didn’t really explain anything and only meant more confusion. He also told them of the new invocation he was to learn and while Keira seemed less than excited about it, William perked up.
“That’s amazing!”
“You must be seeing something I’m not,” said Keira.
“That’s exactly it, what we’re seeing,” he replied.
“You’re going to have to explain that more,” Finlay said.
“What we see, it’s all light; if you can control the light, you can change what others see, illusions, all sorts of possibilities.”
“I never considered that,” replied Keira.
“I'm not sure it'll work like that but if it does, it's a lot more powerful than I was considering.”
They continued to talk about the possibilities that controlling light might actually have. He couldn't quite believe it would be as powerful as they were speculating. Ronan had referred to it as a minor spirit which suggested it wasn’t the almighty god of light William had built himself up to believe. But it had a lot more potential than Finlay had first considered and he started to get excited to experiment and call upon the spirit to find out what limitations it really had. While they continued to come up with possibilities, Faye stopped them to call everyone over to her again.
“I want to start by saying well done. You’ve all made excellent progress these last few weeks.”
There were unusually happy murmurs from the group that was so used to her announcing some new torturous task. But he remained hesitant knowing full well that she was only getting started.
“Tomorrow, I want you all to rest. You don’t need to come here. Now, of course, you can still practise your communication and work with your spirit but you should all focus on relaxing for the day as your priority.”
More happy murmurs and even more he prepared himself for the inevitable.
“I announced two weeks ago that we’d be travelling to the island of Easach once I felt you were all ready. There, you will continue your training under the constraints of the miasma.”
He took a deep breath, he should have been expecting this but hearing it outright was still filling him with fear, or dread—an emotion he wasn’t quite sure of but it was very uncomfortable.
“Well the day after tomorrow, we’ll meet here and then we’ll be travelling to the island. You will need to pack accordingly, we expect to be away for four weeks, so make sure you are prepared for that. There will be suitable accommodation there but we will be taking multiple trips for several days at a time.”
She continued to explain the finer details of the trip, what they needed to bring and what they could leave behind. There was a camp built for guild members with facilities they would be staying at but they’d also need to bring their own supplies for camping out on their short excursions. This inevitably meant that tomorrow would not be a rest day but a day of shopping which Keira had clearly realised given her smile at him.
There was excitement in the air as she finished and asked for any questions. A few double-checked on the basics of what they needed but most didn’t press any further. As the three of them walked back to the apartments, they agreed to all meet the next day to shop and prepare everything they needed. William was as excited by this prospect as Keira but he was not looking forward to it.
At the same time, he was thankful for at least one more day before they would leave as the reality of his return to that island was becoming clearer by the second. When he went to bed that night, he could barely sleep from dreams of his sister, wraiths and memories of the evacuation in the mist.
One more day and then he'd return after almost a decade.