The path before me was an ancient creek bed, long dried up and reclaimed by foliage. It was wide and flat, the biggest impediments being stones and occasional shrubs. The shrubs were vaguely familiar in that they had a lot of the characteristics I associated with native Australian plants – spindly twigs, bottlebrush flowers, tiny gumnut-like seed pods – but I didn’t recognise them, specifically.

The creek bed continued on straight ahead for as far as I could make out. To my left and right stood high cliffs, perhaps ten metres, made of craggy red stone. I turned around, expecting to see the rainbow vortex at the edge of the Pit, but there was only more creek bed.

So I started to walk.

The sun was high overhead, there were birds chirping somewhere I couldn’t see, the scenery was pretty if a bit samey. It would have been a pleasant walk, if I wasn’t expecting something to leap out from behind a bush or fall from above at any moment. There was also the distracting feeling of… somethings… that would flash as a tiny glimmer in the corner of my eye, settle on my skin for a moment, and then fly away. Spells?

I tried to keep on my toes, but after ten minutes of walking my alertness started to slip into boredom. After about an hour, I began to wonder if the scenery was repeating itself – was that bush ahead the same as the bush I’d seen fifteen minutes ago, or were they all just starting to look the same?

You know what? Screw this.

I walked on until I found a part of the cliff face that looked a bit more climbable than the rest, grabbed on, and trusted in my experience. The going was tough at first, as I cautiously tested every handhold, not even sure if there was a way all the way up, but it quickly became easy; I found that I knew where to put my hands, where to reach next, how to move my weight. It took me a little while to realise why – the cliff face was familiar. The placement of the stones was identical to the one I’d climbed a thousand times outside the gym. Although if I fell off this one, there probably wouldn’t be an enchantment to catch me.

I made it to the top fairly quickly and dragged myself, exhausted, onto ground littered with roots and stones. I rolled onto my back and breathed heavily, staring up at foliage.

On top of the cliff was a thick wood. The leaves above were tinted with the gold and orange of early autumn, and the birdsong was louder here. The birds themselves were still invisible. The spells still occasionally tickled my face, hands, any exposed skin, or drifted above as barely-visible specks like falling pollen; I was mostly able to ignore them by then.

When I felt a bit stronger, I got to my feet and tried to get my bearings. The trees here were familiar, too, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint why. The sun hadn’t moved from its position directly overhead, but the cliff was still there, so if I followed it I’d know I was heading… somewhere. Right? I couldn’t say ‘I wouldn’t get lost’ because I had no idea where, really, I’d started. Or where I was going.

But if I followed the cliff, then what was the point of climbing it in the first place? I’d been worried that the creek bed had led me in circles; if that were the case, wouldn’t the cliff do the same? I needed to be able to determine for myself that I was walking in a straight line, not rely on the landscape.

The trees were thick, at least so far as my experience with trees went, but not so thick that I couldn’t see. I stood facing away from the cliff and noted two trees that formed a straight-ish line with my position. There; a line to follow. I marched off in that direction. When I reached the furthest tree, I sighted the tree behind me and a new one in front, to extend the straight line. Then I headed for that tree. It wasn’t a perfect system, especially when I had to take small detours around rocks and bushes, but it was the best I could do in the circumstances.

Eventually, the walking became easier; the undergrowth thinned, the roots and rocks vanished from under my feet, and I found myself on an animal trail. Great; this had to lead somewhere. Animals didn’t meander in circles for no reason enough to make trails, right? They walked to… to water, probably? And their homes?

‘Water’ was the answer; the trail lead to a wide, slow river, sparkling invitingly in the sunlight. It wasn’t until I saw the water that I realised how thirsty I was, and crouched to scoop handfuls of it into my mouth. After several gulps, I stopped to breathe, but my mouth was as dry as before.

Oh, right. Nothing here was real.

I’d sort of lost track of my straight line following the animal trail, but I still knew what general direction I’d been heading in, and the river was right in my path. Turning away would be backtracking towards the cliff; to make progress, I could follow the river, or cross it. I eyeballed the distance; a strong swimmer might be able to do it, but I had little chance. Besides, after two encounters with the tentacled lake monster, I didn’t want to go jumping blindly into any more random bodies of water at the Haven, even fake ones.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Following the river it was, then. Perhaps there’d be a bridge or a boat or something further on.

After another half hour or so, I found something better than a bridge. The trees opened up and I glimpsed something straight and uniform that had to be part of a building.

It was a cottage. And not just any cottage – there was something familiar about it. The door, the window placement… ah. This was what Terry and Mae’s cottage must have looked like, once upon a time.

I’m not an idiot. I didn’t just march right up to it. I circled around it at a distance, checking for danger, but it was just… a cottage. Woodpile out the back, some stray ivy growing up one corner. It didn’t look like anyone was inside, and as soon as I had that thought I realised how stupid it was; who’d be there? The only other people in the Pit were other initiates.

“Hello, dear.”

I span to face the person who’d spoken from right behind my shoulder. I took one look at their face and immediately bolted in the opposite direction… slamming my face directly into a low tree branch and falling, dazed, onto my back.

The face crept into my vision again, from above. “Oh, dear. Are you alright?”

I stared. It did not get less horrifying with time. The problem, I decided, was that every feature was approximately right, but something was just a little bit off. The pale, wispy hair was made of individual hairs as thick as mechanical pencil lead. The ears were too small the nose too high. By far the worst feature was the eyes, which were symmetrical – not as in each eye was a mirror of the other, but as in each eye had a line of symmetry right down its middle. The inner edge and outer edge of each eye were identical.

Then it smiled, and I realised I’d been wrong; the mouth was the most unsettling part. The lips opened far too wide, revealing too many teeth, and every single tooth was an incisor.

The figure reached out a hand of five identical fingers to help me up, and in a daze, I automatically took it. Only when I felt the tingle across my skin did I realise.

Oh. It’s a whole bunch of spells bound up together, behaving like a person.

I must have spoken the thought aloud, because the smile turned mocking. “Oh,” the spellthing said, pointing at me. “It’s a whole bunch of cells bound up together, behaving like a person.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“You’re hurt, dear. Do come inside and rest.”

“I’m actually, uh… on the way somewhere, so, uh…”

“In this weather?” it asked, as thunder cracked across the sky and rain started bucketing down. “You’ll catch your death of cold! You should come in and warm up.”

What was more dangerous, the world outside or inside? I followed the spellthing into the cabin, where it lit the stove and placed a kettle on it to warm up. “Now then, what brings you all the way out here?”

“I’m a little lost. You wouldn’t happen to know how to cross the river, would you?”

“What makes you think crossing the river would get you any closer to your destination?”

“It’s just, I was walking in a straight line and – ”

“Well, there’s your problem. Nobody ever gets anywhere walking in a straight line! You go about, walking in a straight line, and what do you do when you reach a barrier, hmm?”

“End up in a cozy cottage waiting out the rain, apparently.”

The spellthing giggled at that.

“Well, do you have any advice on finding my way out, then?”

“Perhaps you should worry less about where you’re going and more about what you’re trying to take with you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Did you bring anything that might be holding you back?”

“I didn’t bring anything,” I said, patting down my pockets. “We were told not to bring anything into the vortex that we didn’t – ” My fingers encountered something small and oval, like a quail’s egg. I pulled it out.

Chelsea’s tracker. I definitely hadn’t brought it into the Pit. It was still at home, with Chelsea. I was certain of that.

“Ah! It looks like you did bring baggage, after all. Now, you can hardly progress by letting them hold you back, can you?”

“They’re my friends. Letting go of my friends wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No! I don’t care how snobby and above the nemagisto the mages think they are, they can’t – ”

“Who said anything about the mages? Did they force you at knifepoint to step in here, little dear? This is between you and the magic. If a caterpillar wishes to become a moth, he must digest everything he was down to goo and rebuild anew. A caterpillar not willing to do that would be foolish to build himself a cocoon at all, don’t you think? When you walked into this place, you took a step forward knowing that you could not step back. And let you won’t lift your other foot to step further forward, out of sentimentality for the ground below your boot. Do not blame others for you being trapped by your own decisions. I am many prophecies, and here is the future I see for you: you will not be able to leave this place if you are carrying that with you.”

The spellthing was right. I’d seen other mages; I’d seen how they thought of nonmagical society. And I’d come back, despite how I’d been treated, choosing Refujeyo. So why was I hesitating now, at making my decisions explicit? I’d decided to become a mage, and if that meant cutting off my childhood… well, that sucked. But I was going to die in here otherwise.

I put the tracker down on the table. The spellthing snatched it up and dropped it into a teapot on the shelf, well out of my reach. “An unfortunate decision, in a way. I do like having you around. Are you sure that you want to leave?”

“Uh, yeah. Sorry.”

“If that is how it must be, my dear. A cup of tea and a fortune, then, while we wait for the rain to stop.”

Before I could politely refuse, a hand shot out and grabbed my wrist far too tightly. The spellthing traced the lines on my palm with one finger, leaving the faint tickle of spells in its wake. “Hmm. A pity there’s no room left in you for any of me, isn’t it? I’m half tempted to try anyway, but you don’t strike me as a natural prophet. But let’s see what your future does hold… oh! Now this part is interesting!” The spellthing flashed me an excited, too-wide, incisor-only grin, its symmetrical eyes seeming to stare right through me.

“What’s interesting?” I asked, trying to politely extricate my hand without success.

“Well, it appears that you’re the Chosen One! Isn’t that neat?”