Cyrus Lone

Rueln was quiet as we rode. He hadn’t said a word to me since I found him, and I didn’t have the heart to scold him. I hadn’t missed the fresh body, guessing the man had been the stray that Giaus had mentioned. He probably circled back to loot what he could from the camp before he moved on.

Foolish child, I thought, looking down at Rueln again. I wish I had caught on that he had put this stupid idea in his head, but I failed to see it. I should have known when he asked about the camp and what I had seen, then had dropped the subject. Thinking back, that should have been the clue, but I had failed to put the pieces together.

I was just as much of a fool as he was. How I wanted to yell at him, make it clear to him he could have gotten himself killed. He nearly did. After stealing my horse and my sword, of course I was angry with him, but I recognized how afraid it had made me. It’s been a very long time since I felt so helpless. I clearly couldn’t hike here fast enough to save him. I could have just as easily walked into that camp and found him dead on the ground instead of some nameless bandit.

My hands tightened involuntarily around the child and I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath. I was so worked up that even my soulforce was growing unstable, interrupting my spell. Above us, my light flickered, then glowed steadily again. As overworked as this old body was since I overused my abilities trying to get to Rueln, my emotions were worse.

It wasn’t unusual for the wife and I to care for the occasional stray, some showing up in, maybe not the exact way Rueln had, but similar. It took little for me to get attached, and not having any children of my own, I projected that paternal affection on those who came into my life. I was finding the emotions stronger, somehow, with my wife no longer there. Perhaps I had grown lonely as I waited to join her. Maybe that was why I had been so welcoming to the neighbors when they moved into the area.

Bosco’s ears pricked forward, pulling my attention back to my surroundings. This late, I trusted him to be aware of any dangers approaching us. When he didn’t slow down, and seemed no more alarmed than usual, I relaxed again.

Although a necessary part of life, I didn’t particularly enjoy self analyzing and the truths I found it brought to the table. Some of which I didn’t like to think about. I had learned long ago, however, that it was even more important to be aware of my emotions and thoughts. It has saved many friendships through the decades and has made me a wiser man. At least I was not an ignorant one, over confident and spouting nonsense when I knew nothing at all.

It was well after midnight when Bosco came to a halt just outside the barn. I dismounted, then pulled Rueln out of the saddle, setting him down on his feet. “Go inside,” I ordered him. “And return this to where you found it.”

I handed him my sword, the boy unable to meet my eyes, and watched as he trudged back to my cabin, Toga following in his wake. The dog could sense something was wrong and refused to let the child out of his sight again.

Only when Rueln was safely inside did I turn to Bosco and begin the laborious process of unsaddling him. Sweat had dried all over him, proving Rueln had run him hard today, and it took time to brush him down. While I worked, I fed him a well-deserved supper, then gave him fresh hay in his stall. “Get some rest,” I said, petting his sleek neck. “It’s not everyday you’re horse-napped. You’re a good lad.” Bosco snorted at me, nudging me affectionately before he returned to helping himself to his hay.

I left the stable, locking the doors behind me before I checked on the chickens and the goats before finally heading inside. I half expected Rueln to have gone to bed, choosing to sleep rather than face what he had done. Instead, I found him sitting at the table waiting for me. I watched him for a moment before I pulled a few pieces of bread and cheese out of my stores and set them in front of him. I doubt he had eaten since breakfast and was probably hungry.

Sitting down across from him, I pushed the plate of food closer when he didn’t reach for it and waited until he took something before I spoke. “You are aware of what you did,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

He nodded anyway, his ember colored eyes downcast. “Yes, sir.” He seemed to sink in on himself as he spoke those words.

“I will not ask why you did it,” I told him. “You probably don’t know yourself, but I can probably make a reasonable guess why you would behave so foolishly.” Rueln remained quiet. “What I am going to ask is, what happened to the bandit?” By all rights, this child should be dead right now.

When he finally talked to me, it started slowly, but when I didn’t interrupt and I didn’t berate him any further, he grew more comfortable talking to me. He told me what he found and how when the bandit attacked him, his body just reacted to the danger, using skills his past life knew but he didn’t.

When he mentioned that, I couldn’t stop myself from looking at the mark on his arm. He was probably eight or nine by now. They undergo the recall at five all across the empire. Having his past life’s memories for four years, someone should have trained him before now on how to adapt to it. Considering he was still having issues, it meant that his education on it was extremely neglected. I didn’t state my concerns, however, and let him continue. The true issue had yet to be touched.

It was when Rueln got to the bandit choking him, the evidence of the bruises around his throat stark now under the candlelight, that he stumbled over his words again. I could tell he was not exaggerating in any regard, trying to stay true to the facts, but he had been panicking. Heightened emotions could warp unintentionally reality, even among veterans of war. It did not surprise me he didn’t remember as clearly. Rueln was still a child and a child who had taken a life in self defense. It was too much to expect that this wouldn’t be difficult for him.

Knowing I could do only so much to help, I made Rueln some calming tea and urged him to drink it after I saw the effort he was putting in not to cry. “If you need to cry, there is no shame in it,” I told him.

Despite my reassurance, Rueln shook his head. Sniffing, he wiped at his nose, then took another drink of the tea, blinking to keep any tears from spilling over. I couldn’t make him let the emotions go. All I could do was to give him a safe place to express them when he did.

“You seemed to get frustrated when you mentioned your bodying doing something you never learned to do. Has the priests and your elders not taught you how to control the recall yet? It should have been the first thing they did.”

Rueln looked up at me, his eyes widening for a moment at my question. “What do you mean?”

“When you went through the ceremony when you were five, did no one take the time to teach you anything?”

He looked down at the mark on his arm, then leaned over his tea to mumble, “I’ve only had the mark for a few weeks.”

He was a late recall; I realized. No wonder he knew so little about it. I would have to have a word with his master when they came to get him. It explained more than a little about the boy. “What you are describing is ‘anamnesis’. It is the experience of doing something that was very familiar to your previous life. Your connection to your other life’s memory is inconsistent, which can lead to confusion between your past and present self.”

“I don’t understand,” he admitted.

I nodded and stood, walking over to a box I kept on a shelf with a few sheets of parchment, and pulled the ink bottle down with a pen. I knew it was late, but I doubted Rueln would get much sleep tonight and this would help distract him from dwelling too much on the bandit and on what he had done.

I dipped my quill pen into the ink and drew out a very rough representation of a soul signature, including the branches in the design where the past life’s memory would dwell. “This is a soul signature, or at lease something like it. I’m not an artist, so bare with me. The soul holds memory within it.” I filled in a small part of the signature from the bottom as I spoke, leading to the first branch. “This is your current lifetime. It is accessible from the moment of your birth, but you see all these other branches? These are your past life’s memory. Though they are still within your soul, you cannot access them unless specific circumstances are met.”

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“The recall,” Rueln said, following along well.

“That is correct. Recall unblocks this channel and allows access to these memories, though to really use them, you need to practice with soulforce. soulforce, which is always filling your current lifetime’s slot, must fill your past life’s as well in order to use those experiences. The Temple teaches most of the empire’s children how to control the recall. With their guidance, most people learn to access these memories while keeping their current life separate.”

Rueln was an intelligent child, and when his eyes rose to look up at me, I knew he had caught on to my wording. “What do you mean by most? What else can you do with it?”

“There is a more difficult technique that some practice and that is to keep your soulforce active at all times. It is to work in harmony with your past life rather than cast it aside unless it is useful to you,” I explained.

“But what if… I don’t want to do that,” Rueln said softly. “I’m not her anymore.”

Her? So his last life was a woman. Interesting. It certainly wasn’t unheard of, but it probably didn’t help a little boy wanting to distance himself from that. “Working in harmony does not mean your personalities will merge,” I corrected him. “Her life is gone. She does not exist anymore outside of memory and will not possess you and take over your body. This life is yours, I promise you.” That seemed to ease some fear in his eyes, and he nodded to me. “If you don’t wish to be in harmony with your past life, that is your choice. I can teach you better control of your soulforce so that you have access to her memory when you need it and only then.”

Rueln hesitated for a moment before he asked, “Does… anam–anamn–”

“Anamnesis,” I said again, speaking the word slowly so he could hear how to pronounce it correctly.

“That,” Rueln said, not even bothering to try. “Does that happen with magic as well?”

I studied him, not liking the rise of sudden suspicion that clouded my thoughts. Could it be possible? It was extremely rare though… “You said before that you hadn’t had magic long. Before I found you was your first use of magic.”

Rueln seemed to catch on to my change in tone, but answered me. “Yes.”

“Did your past life possess fire magic as well?”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

I was afraid of that. The timing was too perfect for it to be anything else, but I had to be sure. “I am going to cast a spell. I need you to do as I had shown you before and call fire to your hand. Can you do that?”

“But my mana is-”

“I know,” I interrupted. “It won’t take long. This is important.”

Rueln opened his hand and frowned down at it as he concentrated. After several slow minutes, the first spark of orange flickered at the tips of his fingers, then spread over his palm. I acted quickly and cast the spell I had readied, the small flickering magic gliding into Rueln’s body like a ghost. Immediately I could see all the colors that were Rueln’s mana’s true nature, and it was not of the element of fire.

“That’s enough,” I told him, and he let his magic fade. I should have checked before, but his seemed so obvious that I didn’t feel like there was a need. I am just glad I caught it before it was too late. This early there was time to train him, or at least tell his master, that he needed a proper teacher. “Fire is not your element,” I informed him, receiving a look of utter shock from him. He would have argued with me, but I continued before he could. “Fire’s mana nature is closer to orange, with hues of red and yellow in specific patterns. Your mana is clear. I wouldn’t be able to tell what kind of nature it possessed at all if I hadn’t seen something like this before.”

“What is it then?” Rueln asked.

“It is called Imprint,” I said. “It is your mana’s true nature in this life. And as long as that is your nature, you can call upon the magic of your past life as your own. It’s rather impressive sounding until you realize what cost it can hold for your body.”

“Cost?”

“Yes,” I answered, gravely. “Your past life’s mana nature was fire. It means it was something she was born with the ability to harvest and control. Her body could safely use fire, bringing no undo harm to herself. Although you can use this ability as your own, her fire is not made for a body that isn’t suitable to contain it.” I tried to explain to the best of my ability, but wasn’t certain that I was doing it well enough. It was so important for him to understand what this meant. I didn’t want to make a mistake. “In fact, you aren’t using true fire mana at all, but your innate nature mimics it.”

“What does that have to do with my fire? It doesn’t hurt me when I use it,” Rueln insisted, frowning in confusion at me.

“Right now, your mana is low. Even when you are at full strength, your mana channels have not been expanded upon, so the quantity is at a low level. Your fire can only grow so hot with such limits. I can only recommend that as you grow in power, to be weary on how you use your fire. Your body is not born adapted to your mana nature as you were in your previous life. It can easily turn against you if used improperly.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“As long as you are aware of this, you will be fine. I’ve only seen this mana nature once before, so I doubt many would have recognized it.”

“What happened to the person before? Did their magic hurt them?” Rueln asked, reaching down to pet Toga as the dog pawed at his leg for attention.

“He died,” I answered, unwilling to sugarcoat it, although I was speaking with a child. “His magic turned against him.”

Rueln’s hand froze, his mouth opening a little in surprise as he stared at me in silence for a moment before he swallowed. “Was it… like backlash?”

“Backlash?” I asked, more out of the surprise at the change of topic rather than ignorance.

“Yeah,” Rulen said, hesitating before he spoke. “When my brother got recall, he was hit with backlash. The gods punished him for abusing his past life’s ability, so they blinded him.”

I snorted. “I can’t believe they are still telling people that lie. Don’t believe it, Rueln. Those priests don’t know what they are talking about. Gods’ punishment? That is ludicrous.” Rueln’s eyes widened like he thought I was about to be struck down for my blasphemy. “That isn’t what backlash is,” I said, sighing and picking up three sheets of paper.

On one side of the paper, I drew another soul signature and on the other; I drew a body signature. I did the same thing on the second sheet, making the soul signature larger than the body signature. On the third, I repeated it, except I made the body signature smaller than the last one while using an identical soul signature. When I was done, I folded them in half without waiting for the ink to dry.

“Here is a soul and body signature that is balanced.” I opened the first piece of paper and showed Rueln the finished work. Both were of the same size, the ink transposing the opposite side. “When both are equal, the person can use magic freely. When the body is more prominent than the soul signature, then you have someone who cannot use magic.” I pointed to the second sheet, showing how the soul signature overlapped the body. However, when you get someone who’s soul signature overwhelms that of their body signature,” I opened the last sheet and showed Rueln how the soul signature completely swallowed the body signature. “When this happens, during the moment the soulforce is active, during recall it grows violent when it touches the body signature and the natural mana there and the magical reaction that would normally occur twists back on itself and causes harm to the body instead. It has nothing to do with the lords and gods and is a naturally occurring event. Tragic as it is, it is part of the cycle.”

“So the gods aren’t mad at Eidke?” Rueln asked. I could hear years of fear for his brother in his voice with that question.

“No, child,” I answered with certainty. “The gods do not waste their time with worldly grudges and do not blame children for their past live’s choices. Magic is to be used freely, and is a natural talent, not a privilege given to us by the gods, to be taken away by their judgment. That is not how the true nature of our world works. What you know is the belief of a religion, and if you choose to believe that, then it is your choice. I do not mean to disregard that or be disrespectful of your beliefs,” I assured him, realizing that my bias with the religion might have leaked into my explanation. “I believe a rounded pool of knowledge leads to more informed choices.”

Rueln didn’t even seem like he cared about my apology or that I may have insulted the empire’s leading religion. “I can’t wait to tell Eidke!” For the first time since he had returned to the cabin with him, Rueln seemed happy. The business with his brother must have been a lingering concern since the backlash occurred. I had little doubt that it would have been a burden on any family, though I knew little about Rulen’s own, considering the signs of hunger on the boy. I didn’t believe he came from a well off background.

“Be calm, Rueln,” I chided gently. “To some, the knowledge I just shared with you might be offensive. Don’t forget to take that into consideration before you tell people.”

“Oh, I will,” he grinned and sat back down to take a large bite of his bread and cheese, which had been all but forgotten on his plate.

“Finish that and go on to bed. It’s very late now. We can talk some more tomorrow and if you are feeling up to it I’ll train you a little more with your magic.” If I was going to do that, then I really needed some rest. I would probably spend a good majority of the morning in meditation to help my mana reserves recover, though I would need to teach Rueln how to do that as well. The thought made me feel my age. If only I were younger. “Just enough so you have some basics down.” Standing, I grunted at my creaky old joints, then moved to get ready for bed, letting Toga out one last time before we all settled down for the night.

Just as I returned to my bed, the candle blown out, and Rueln finally settled in, I brought my hand up to hold the necklace dangling over my heart. The warmth of the metal seeped into my palm, calming my very soul with the presence I could almost feel just a breath's width away. “I’m okay, my lovely,” I whispered to my wife and for once, it wasn’t a lie.