"That I am," Oliver said, relinquishing his hand. "And you are?"

"Call me Gideon," he said, with a glance at Tiro. "I'll fill you in on the way."

"Fair enough."

The man's mana cloud — his aura — was orange, vibrant channels strung throughout his body. To Oliver's mana sight, he had the look of Galen somehow. In his experience, that meant somebody who'd used mana to reinforce their body somehow.

Tiro nodded at them, then turned to Oliver, grabbing his attention. "Thanks for saving my life," he said.

"Same to you, Tiro."

Oliver's feelings were mixed. On the one hand, this guy had manipulated him, lied to him, and used him. On the other hand, Tiro had saved his life, maybe twice, and he'd saved Tiro's life in return. That meant something.

Tiro held out his arm and Oliver shook it, after a pause. Then Tiro was climbing back into the boat and rowing away, just like that.

Gideon turned to go, and Oliver hurried to catch up alongside him as his swift strides carried him off the dock.

"Traveling light, eh?" Gideon asked, as he caught up.

Oliver chuckled. "The clothes on my back," he said.

"I remember those days."

They were walking through a cluster of small wood homes on the shore of the river, and exited in a matter of moments, finding a small road hardly more than a path leading from the village out into the woods. Soon they came across a fire burning in the trees off to the side of the path, and they approached.

Oliver tensed slightly, unsure who might be there, but Gideon must have noticed. "Relax. It's my camp," he said as they approached. "There's nobody here except me."

Indeed, as they came upon the fire it was just the two of them. It was banked and burning low, just enough to provide a little warmth in the chill of the night.

There was a single white, a-frame tent set up close beside it, flaps open to the fire to capture some of its ambient heat, and a folding canvas chair nearby.

"Now, I'm sure you have a lot of questions," said Gideon, "but it's the middle of the night, and I've been waiting for you for a couple of hours. I'm cold, I'm tired, I'm cranky, and I want to sleep."

Oliver nodded, stepping closer to the fire. "Fair."

He peered closer at Oliver in the campfire's flickering red light. "Are you bleeding?"

"It's not mine," said Oliver.

"Clean getaway?"

"Not exactly."

"Are we in the clear?"

"We are now."

"Then tell me in the morning."

They went to the tent, where there was an extra bedroll waiting for Oliver, and went to bed.

Oliver tossed and turned for a while, processing the events of the night. Meanwhile, Gideon was asleep instantly, the sound of snoring filling up the tent. If he was worried about placing a watch or about Oliver's own reliability, he didn't show it. Perhaps he had magic for that.

—

The next morning was cold and gray. Oliver rose early to find Gideon had done the same and was already stirring the ashes of the fire to reveal some embers.

"Morning, sleepyhead," he called out. Oliver scrubbed at his face with his hands. It was cold.

"Morning," he said.

"Ready to conquer the world?"

"Maybe once I know what's going on."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"We've got a long walk ahead of us. There's plenty of time to explain."

"Oh?"

"We'll be walking to Velia from here. It's the better part of a day. We'll take the time to get you oriented."

"Oriented?"

"There's a lot to learn."

"How long have you been here?"

"Just over six years." Gideon flicked his hand and he was holding coffee mugs, two of them, just like that. Produced from nowhere. He placed them in the glowing coals of the fire. Then made a pot appear with the same trick, poured some liquid into the cups.

"Are there others from Earth with you?"

"Yes. Three right now, and we're sure there are more out there."

"More out there?" Oliver didn't miss that he'd said right now.

"We've been picking up strays like you for a while. There're plenty that we've missed."

"Strays?"

"The Phoenix Project," said Gideon. "What do you know about it?"

"I know that the Empire is researching ways to improve their magic, or something, and that somehow it resulted in me getting brought to this place."

"You're partly right. Let me fill in the blanks. You weren't the only one. They pulled me in too, and others. They've been at it for years."

Gideon straightened from the fire, holding the cups. He held one out to Oliver.

"Coffee?"

"Seriously?" Oliver took the cup from him and smelled it. Nutty, toasted steam wafted up his nose.

Gideon took a sip, wrinkled his nose, and said, "Well no, not seriously. But it's not half-bad and it fills an empty hole in my soul. Go on, take a sip."

Oliver took a cautious sip as well. It wasn't half-bad. "No, I mean, seriously, there are others with you?"

"The Phoenix Project," Gideon continued, "started out as a project to revive Empire soldiers KIA."

"Revive? But don't they have healing magic for that? I'm pretty sure I just healed Tiro from mortal wounds last night and I'm about as much of a beginner as you can get."

"'Course that's possible," said Gideon. "But the problem is, most folks killed with magic aren't in any shape to be brought back, if you know what I'm saying."

"So, what, they Frankenstein them or something?"

"Not to my understanding," said Gideon going around to the various items in the camp site and placing his hand upon them. They disappeared in turn, tent, bedrolls, a canvas chair, everything, just vanishing as he placed his hand on them.

"The Phoenix spell was originally created as a means to recreate the dead, gear and all, from pure mana," he said casually throughout the process.

"What? But that's—"

"Impossible? Not here." Gideon turned to Oliver. The campsite was completely cleaned up. No trace of their having spent the night remained except the smoldering campfire.

"I was going to say expensive," Oliver said. "Where do they get the mana? And why is it worth it?"

Gideon smiled. "Good questions. Ones we have only partially begun to answer. Try as we might, we haven't been able to get as much insight into their project as we'd like. They run a tight ship. But the long and short of it is, instead of reincarnating their lost soldiers from a previous point in time, the Phoenix spell somehow latched onto people like us."

"From Earth, you mean," said Oliver.

"I do."

"So this isn't—I mean, I'm not—this body isn't me? It's not my body? I've been reincarnated?"

Oliver looked down at his own hands, a feeling of alienness, wrongness, not belonging rushing over him. He was a being of thought and consciousness caged in a suit of flesh and bone, his original body lost to time and space on a planet far away from here. It was like waking up one day finding yourself wearing an ill-fitting suit that wasn't yours.

"Well, we don't exactly know," said Gideon. Oliver focused on the words like a life-line, distracting himself from the sensation. "We don't really know what happened to our bodies back home. But from what we've learned of the Phoenix spell, these bodies are new, created from pure mana."

He turned to go, leaving the small hollow of trees where the camp had been. "Are you ready to walk with me, Oliver?"

"You're talking about reincarnation." Oliver's feet felt frozen to the ground, the coffee forgotten in his hands, but he managed to force himself to move after a moment. "Souls exist?"

"It sure seems like it," said Gideon. "There's plenty of evidence for them in this world, if not our own."

They struck out onto the road, walking quickly as the sun burned through the mist above them. "If souls are real, what about God?"

"No idea about God with a big G. They have small-g gods, though, living ones. Twelve of them. Don't disrespect them in front of the locals. They might smite you."

"Okay," said Oliver. There was a pause as he walked and absorbed this. "Do I have two souls now? Or did my soul leave my old body and hop into this one?"

What had happened to his old body, if this wasn't it? If he hadn't been physically translocated here and only his soul had gone on a ride, that left his old body soulless back home. Dead? Worse? He had to know. He had to get back.

"Again, we don't know," said Gideon. "Look, let's focus on the mission and save the philosophy for later. I'm sure Graves will be happy to talk it over with you."

"I'm sorry, who?"

"Graves. Our resident philosopher, evil villainess, cat-lover, and microbiologist. You'll meet her."

"Right. The mission?"

"Yes. So, the Phoenix Project is bringing humans from Earth to this place. Eo, they call it. We need to figure out how they're doing it, how to stop it, and how to get back, before this world tears itself apart. That's the mission. No pressure."

"How are we going to do any of that? Is this a political game? And who's we?"

"We? Why, the Moderates, of course." Gideon looked at Oliver sharply. "I'm leader of the Earth cell, and high up in the leadership of the whole organization. They're the reason we escaped."

"Escaped?"

"The Moderates sabotaged some of the castings of the Phoenix spell, reconfigured the target location component away from the Empire holding cells that the others were incarnated into on a handful of occasions. You thought just appearing in the middle of a conveniently placed forest with no oversight, close to civilization but not in the middle of it and magically able to speak the local languages was an accident? Do you have any idea how much water this planet has on it?"