La’er. It was my own interpretation, a product of my imagination. None of the books I had read mentioned a spoken language for glyphs. Possibly, it was not even close to the real sound, and surely it didn't translate to anything real at all. The name just came to me as soon as I lifted my Drak’gath; it appeared on my mind: La’er, the eternal flame.

It was so unlike anything I had drawn so far. At its core, there was still a dagger, the same one I had learned by heart from drawing so many times. It had been the proof that I was a Ga’lar, and then the subject of all my tests. And that was it, the some old sharp blade with a fancy hilt. This new tattoo, however, saw the drawing itself surrounded by circular patterns, overflowing with the runes that conformed glyphs and sigils.

Fire, a line surrounded by spurs and drops. Flame, the undulating and sinuating curves that danced with Fire. A sigil to make sure all of it came off the blade, to prevent it from harming me if it ever came in close. By all means, I had never done something as perfect. A fire that chases my enemies, burns evil, and leaves its master unharmed, that's the exact meaning that the sigil conveyed.

Yet, even accounting for every bit of perfection in my art, and the complex runes engraved, I couldn't shake the feeling that Ink was not supposed to act like that. My hand did not move by itself, propelled by the Ink, as happened with a normal tattoo. Instead, I had to direct it, make the effort to make it trace the exact lines and in the exact place. It was me conveying the intention, and not Ink expressing it. Exhausting, but also wrong.

“Wrong,” I repeated out loud for the nth time, “but I've done it.”

Exhaustion washed over me, threatening to make me fall asleep standing right there. And I would certainly have if it wasn't for the pair of eyes looking bewildered at me.

“Then,” Tali’s eyes, watery, were subtly shaking as they failed to focus on me, “are you going?”

I am sure she was beyond surprised by the dagger on my hand. She had seen how it was before, so the changes must have felt breathtaking. She must have had thousands of questions bubbling on her mind; about the sword, the flames, the runes, and who knows what more. Out of all of them, she chose to ask the hardest of all questions. Because she knew that when I managed to the the impossible, when I could create beyond what the rules of reality told, I would have to meet my teacher.

“Yes, I have to meet him.” It's not that I didn't care for her, or that it wasn't disheartening; I just had to do it.

I promised to become a Ga'far, and I did. Now, I have to be strong enough to stand by his side. If we were ever attacked again, I couldn't be a dead weight. I had to make sure I could defend myself. No, both of us. Ga'far is just a stepping stone. I can't and I won't stop until I'm a Ga’lar.

“I told you I would come back for you, didn't I? Claim what's yours, so that when I come, you can prove to my master why he should take you.”

It was left unsaid, if she failed to claim her house, I would not be able to find her. It wouldn't matter if she could become an Inker or not, it just wouldn't happen. She had to do it, and there was no other way around it.

“I will,” she said, her eyes shining with a determination that I had never seen on her.

“Then we shall meet soon enough!” I looked into her eyes, nodded, and failed at quickly turning to leave the shack.

I hated farewells. Not only I wasn't good at them, I was young and even though I didn't want to face it, I had issues with separation. But I owed it to her, to our impromptu friendship born out of necessity. I closed my eyes, extended my arms, and wrapped her in a honest and warm hug. Not too long, as I didn't want to make a big scene, just enough to make sure my affection reached her.

With a sour aftertaste and maybe some tears falling from my eyes, I finally turned and walked my way to the hideout, doing all I could to make sure I didn't leave any trace. Tali had been looking after my drawings, collecting and destroying them to make us harder to be found. Maybe it had been unwarranted, but she wasn't there anymore to make sure of it. I reached my final destination without issues, and expectedly found myself alone. Everything was as I left it last time; empty, stale. Spare had not come by.

I didn't know any better way of meeting with him than actually waiting in there. So, although I knew it was far too dangerous, I awaited. The first day was doable, I went over the books I was carrying and went over the design of my La'er once more. The second, uneasiness set on me. What if I had been followed. What if Spare wouldn't be there for another month. What if something bad had happened to him. The third day, I was a scared cat, the same way I had been the first time I was there. Every noise made me jump; a simple and harmless rattling caught my attention and completely distracted me from my thoughts.

I was losing it, and I might have completely lost it if it weren't because on the the fifth day, after one more day of torment, the door opened.

“*Hmm,*” Spare caressed his dense beard as he looked at me. “You've grown, Tarar.”

That old man had never been good at showing his emotions. But I knew of his telltales; his nervous and unresting fingers, the jerkiness on his eyes, the smile he tried to hide behind his hand and beard. You are not fooling anyone, old master. I chose not to point it out, to respect his moment of weakness, but I was convinced that he knew I could tell.

Instead, I nodded, and as I was about to nod again, I broke into a run. I jumped, maybe to eagerly, but I didn't really care. All that mattered was Spare. My jump morphed into a hug right in the air, and I landed into his extending arms and a grinning mouth that he could no longer hide. We stood there for as long as it took, separating only when it felt right.

“So, if you are here, does that mean I should call you Ga’far Tarar?” Spare said in his usual teacher voice.

“You tell me!” I was halfway through the phrase and my right arm was already uncovered.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I honestly have to say that, as much as I was really proud of my La'er, I was not expecting his round eyes and blank expression. I really was not expecting his hand shaking as it did. And I was absolutely not prepared for his lack of words. It was beyond disconcerting, something that Spare had never showed before and that I wasn't prepared for.

I had yet to invoke it, but I doubted he needed me to do that to understand what was going on. Which meant, either something was horribly wrong, or the exact opposite. A middle point would have had him speaking and trying to make a point out of the lessons I could still learn. But he was making no such point, so I was far from the middle point. Were there too many lessons to learn? Or were there none?

“I've called it La’er, it means-”

“Eternal flame,“ he interrupted me, his eyes a thin line that I could barely distinguish from being closed. “A flame that burns and consumes your enemies, harmless to the yielder but lethal to his opponents.”

He sighted and took my arm with his hand, turning it around and moving it so that he could see all the details I had drawn. As expected of an expert at his level, he didn't need much time to come to a conclusion.

“Every time I think it's forgotten, you surprise me again. How did you come up with La'er?” He sounded tired, but not the kind of tired you get from other people, just the one that says there's a deep story behind.

“The name?” I asked unsure. “I just knew once I finished. I-I’m actually not sure, but it felt like it explained the motive behind my drawing.”

He was silent for a minute. “No,” he suddenly said, just to fall silent again. “Too early,” he said, his eyes closed.

The whole interchange had been too strange. I couldn't identify the usual self-assured Spare who diligently stirred the conversation towards a satisfying conclusion. He was unsure, hesitant, it even seemed like he was waiting for someone to save him from the predicament.

“Spare?” I adventured after seeing him lost in though for too long. “Have I done something wrong?”

“No,” he dragged the word while softly shaking his head, as if he was trying to decide the next words but couldn't. “You have not. But there is people who has. And I'm afraid,” he suddenly straightened, a small quiver on his eye, “that your current path will get you right to them.”

“La’er will bring me to them?” I didn't get it, La'er was my creation, how could that be?

“Don't you realize? You knew its name even though you have no idea what La’er means. You know something feels off about the glyphs you've been learning. You've experienced the old ways, and now…” he paused, breathing after spewing all of that without stopping, “now you are connected to them.”

He pointed to the chairs and table of what used to be our kitchen, and immediately after we sat he opened the doors to the teuth. I listened for the whole duration, not daring to interrupt the first and only explanation that potentially solved all, or at least some, of the mysteries that had plagued my learnings so far.

It all started with Ink formations, with me touching something that I should definitely have not. That book, one I was forbidden of even speaking about, taught what a select group of people call the old ways. The knowledge contained in the old ways is not man-made, rather teachings that come from the Ink itself. He did not elaborate, seemingly because the explanation would take too long and it was not useful for my current situation, but apparently the old ways were only found by us, humans, not creates. Through observation and experimentation, we documented runes that serve explicit purposes. It's Ink in its purest form, ancient and powerful, unknown and untamed.

That's why when I touched that formation, I could feel something invading my mind. It was the knowledge being engraved inside me, Ink leaving a mark behind. I didn't have to understand what I was drawing, the formation that attempted to capture the rat, to be able to use its powers, because Ink itself was doing that for me.

The old ways were an untapped source of knowledge and power, but also a dangerous trap for a novice like myself. Without preparation, without previous foundations and careful study, you risked being a puppet of Ink. You could be controlled, spiral out of yourself and get lost in a sea of no return. You could do something stupid, like drawing a rat. You could become what Spare had feared happened to me, a soulless human who, overwhelmed by Ink, lost its reason.

La'er, the name, was at all effects the accurate phonetics of the meaning behind my tattoo. Even if it had not been drawn with the old ways, Ink found the way to influence me, to have me believe that I had come with a unique and perfect name by chance. La'er contained nothing related to the old ways, every single book, glyph, sigil, and formation I had been learning were far from that.

The reality of it was, in fact, quite simple. By empire law, the practice of the old ways was sentenced to death. It had been centuries since it was last used in any meaningful way, and even more since it was actively being used by the general population. Nowadays, the empire had reached its objective; the old ways were forgotten, removed from the map entirely.

The official stance was that it was too volatile, too risky for the society to practice. It opened the door for bad actors to gain quick and monstrous power, and it brought no benefits whatsoever. And while that was the official communication, or it had been when the old ways were still predominant, I could see that Spare didn't see eye to eye with that.

Clearly, the old ways were not forgotten. Spare even had books on them. Maybe the general population didn't know, but obviously Spare had a solid understanding of them. And, while I had never seen it, I had little doubts that he would be able to draw using the old ways. Surely more people like him existed; people who knew there was an alternate drawing system but still used, by choice or obligation, the new one.

Through methods unknown to me, the empire had managed to create its own language based on Ink. Each glyph had a forced meaning, and it had to be learned to be able to use it. Ink was being restricted and constrained to only act according to the meaning that humanity had conferred. It was safer and claimed to be as expressive and powerful as the old ways.

The new ways, the glyphs, sigils, and formations I had been learning—basically everything which qualified me as a Ga’far—were then the creation of the Empire. Whether that was good or bad, Spare wouldn't tell me. He insisted I had to form my own opinion on the matter.

“But it's too early,” he continued. “If they find you now, you won't survive. So I'll tell you again, forget about Ink formations, about the old ways, and never speak of any of these, not even of your La’er. Do that, and you will live a peaceful and uneventful life.”

“And if I don't?” This time he wasn't telling me to blindly obey him, he wasn't making me do something. He left a door open, and I was tempted to take a peek.

“If you don't, be prepared to swim against the current, be ready to face the empire, and be mentally prepared to face the consequences of the path that you choose.”

“What did you choose?” I said, struggling to suppress the worm of curiosity crawling on my mind.

“I carry a burden that I hope you will never do.“ Which was an effective way of both saying that he chose the hard path, and that he could not recommend it. Or that's how I understood it at that moment. I sometimes wonder if he was just trying to make it more mysterious and appealing.

”Again,“ he continued before I could protest, ”you are not ready to follow that path. However,” he raised a finger, “if you are thinking about eventually going down this dangerous path, which your face tells me you are, we can start getting you ready. I believe I promised if you became a Ga’far you could get combat training, so let's make sure you can fend off your enemies.“

He stood without asking; he knew just by looking at me that I would chase after the old ways, I would leave no rock unearthed until I got to the bottom of it. For I decided then and there that there was only a True Way, and I would learn all of it.