I stepped out of an alcove in a long hallway. I stopped and examined the high arched ceiling overhead and realized that this was an exquisitely carved tunnel through flawless white granite. There were other alcoves with carved wooden signs at the backs of them. The gateways were strange and I couldn’t see where to connect with them or open them. From a doorway ahead of me, Quinn gestured for me to follow him.
We entered a wooden paneled library with sliding glass doors protecting the books on the shelves from dust. Quinn closed the door and gestured to a seat.
I sat and Quinn sat on the opposite side of the table. The chairs we were on started to go down and we got off them in a tunnel below. As we got off the chairs the columns they were on rose back up and the chairs rose back to the room where we sat in them.
I followed Quinn down the tunnel and we entered a room with three dimensional displays floating in the air. One of them showed the river where I had left my wife and the Deaths behind. The scene was frozen so I checked and the time here was running fast.
He said, “chairs please.”
A pair of office chairs appeared and he sat in one. I sat in the other.
“When you stopped using my toys to do calculations, it was pretty clear you figured out I was spying on you. Not sure how you did that. It took me a while to locate your computer center. You had already done your calculations and the routines you were running were just exhaustive dredges of what was left. I managed to get a copy of the data and despite it initially looking like you might be about to find something pretty dangerous, it ended up more confusing than helpful. Daft Fairy confusing. I doubt anyone got anything out of it.”
I kept looking at the scene with the Deaths to try and keep my emotions from fluctuating much since Daemons like Quinn can read quite a bit from your emotions.
Quinn said, “You take keeping secrets seriously. Even casual ones that have been revealed. I admire that but I honestly wonder where you got that from.”
I said, “I had a flashback when I died. It made it clear, despite my not getting to watch it and my being distracted. When you life plays back, it runs too fast to really be useful. But in kindergarten, I got a crush on a girl and told her all my secrets. When she found out I had a crush on her, she laughed at me, mocked me with her friends and told all my secrets to everyone she could. Then every grade after that, in various forms the same thing happened. So I don’t tell secrets and I don’t tell other peoples secrets.”
Quinn nodded. “Makes sense. So how do you like my EDC?”
I said, “I don’t use it. The moment I discovered it was a conduit for information, I decided I would only use it if I was sure I wouldn’t give away any secrets. So far, I haven’t had a need for it and my number one use would be as a phone or laptop, and that would be the worst choice since I might get an email or a call. Your warning said if I got into combat with it, there would be a recording, and I spar with my wife a lot so clothing wasn’t an option.”
Quinn sighed. “I really try to work hard and preserve other peoples privacy but now I feel kind of bad.”
I said, “I understand all you reasons to spy in the cases you have said you might spy and in the case you spied without warning. It doesn’t really matter though. I can’t use the stuff without risking revealing what someone else might not want shared, so I won’t use it.”
Quinn said, “Bell says you are a trustworthy trouble maker and now I feel like I have done you wrong. I have seen and heard how the Deaths have been acting. Oh, and I wasn’t spying on you, I was spying on the Deaths. No apology for that, my family has issues with the Deaths that go way back before my time. But knowing how they treated you, and how there is no way they can make it up to you, I think I can make my sins against you, up to you.
“I have two uncles who have been studying my EDC devices and my Dad has figured them out, but apart from a small, small group, I haven’t shared my secrets with anyone. So how about I gift you with the ability to hide your deepest thoughts and then gift you with the secrets to how I make these things. Then you can make your own and trust them.
“First I gift you with self encryption, then some physics and we discuss it so you can clean it up and make cross connections in your mind.”
Quinn wasn’t shy about wheeling his chair over and kissing me on the forehead twice. Then he sat back and pushed off of my chair so we both rolled away from each other.
“The current history of magic is still under consideration, but a few troves of Djinn treasures has given us a bigger picture of the Metaverse history. Early on some beings either made a transition to energy or they existed before material form. In either case, some of them existed by possessing other beings. Some of those beings became hoarders.”
I asked, “Why would an energy being hoard things?”
Quinn shrugged, “Why does a boy collect rocks? By what we know, these beings assisted with destroying worlds, possibly universes, but I don’t think so. Some of them learned to manage energy in more sophisticated ways than just possessing people and that may have been the origin of what we call magic.
“As they went from universe to universe, leaving destruction behind them, they collected what they or others valued and considered them even more rare and valuable since the original race that built them was gone.
I shook my head. “A cell phone is probably the most prized possession of a lot of folk my age. If you don’t have power, a network and other users, it’s a chunk of glass.”
Quinn rubbed one hand like he was holding a coin or something. “Value makes little sense. An old toy robot in it’s original box is useless as long as you never play with it, but you lower the value the second you open the box. I made my EDC device thinking that the objects we have, we could all have and what we value would change. It has worked a little, but not as much as I thought it would.
“So the original Giants were crystals and group minds from plankton. That sort of thing. Things that reacted to vibration that in turn caused them to react and alter the vibration. Some of them sensed the energy beings as the energy beings tried to take them over. We suspect that some of the Giants ended up with copies of the energy beings, sort of, and others trapped the energy beings inside them. The Giants had the equivalent of computer virus in harmonic form long before man started making up myths about them, so a lot of them had logical self defenses. Some of the giants made leaps and bound in thought as a result of being possessed and a lot of smart beings became conscious and smarter.
“At one point, Elves, aware that the Djinn would eventually attack their world, came up with ways for a living being to generate and control the sorts of energies and forces that Giants were doing by odd harmonics. After setting up a sort of universal kit to manage magic, they spread that kit by putting it in a virus and infecting their entire race.
“It was more like a built in computer with outputs, but there was no operating system and even the chips and memory were programmable. So their magic was there but without the programs, they couldn’t do much. Even then, despite how primitive the Elves magic was, the Djinn took a look at the Elven world and decided to give it a pass since they might end up dangerous.
I asked, “How did we get it?”
Quinn spread his hands like he didn’t have a clue. “Maybe when the Elves adapted themselves to live in our world, the virus came with them. Since humans and Elves can have children, that would make sense. Maybe Elves did it to make a buffer between them and the Djinn. Maybe a Giant did it as an experiment. A lot of Giants had figured out magic, but most of them made specific structures to make spells work instead of having a generic kit.
“In some ways that made their magic stronger. Less versatile, but specifically controlled and powerful. Some giants made living copies of themselves and incorporated the generic kit. Others converted themselves and kept the created specific magic as part of them.
“Lithos was one of those who was a bit of both. He or his father figured out transformation long before a lot of others did. So in that body of Lithos that you have, is a device that allows transformation. It also allows another odd trick. In the Falling Sands Club is a chamber intended to house gateways. In the ceiling of the chamber, Lithos transformed part of a tile. Since it is possible to hide objects that you carry by transforming, Lithos, with his own unique transformation method was able to hide what the Deaths are looking for in a way that is unique and I have no way to recover that object.
“The machine to do it, is part of you when you are Lithos.”
I asked, “How did you figure this out?”
Quinn gave a broad smile. “I made your EDC able to hide itself out of Real existence and still able to shape itself and manifest as real in Real. Wondering if someone else might have figured out some of my tricks, I came up with a way to look for such things. When you are Lithos, my detector gives me data. The way Lithos did it is different, but the clues I am looking for still worked for it and I was even able to get a few clues about the object you transformed. Give me time, and maybe I could access it, but honestly, I get bored with things and unless they stay interesting, I can’t bother with then. I already spent too long on the puzzle of how you, I mean Lithos did it and I am entirely tired of it.”
#
Ursula and I were sitting on lounge chairs on a balcony looking back at the ships wake far below us. Quinn was standing at the railing playing with his invisible drone. Ursula asked me, “Do you think Avery is cute?”
I said, “You shouldn’t ask me things like that in front of my wife and Avery’s one true love. There is no safe answer. I may just have to run off to Fairy in fear.”
Ursula said, “You may have to spar with a pretty girl when we go through the training at the lodge.”
Quinn turned. “The Effervescent Charm Lodge?”
Ursula said, “Two days before the full moon we sneak into the induction and take the classes with all the neophytes.”
Quinn asked, “What about the pledges and stuff?”
Ursula gave a cute giggle. “We get to sneak past all of that. They do the initial pledges independently and in the dark so no one would really know if we took them, apart from the people keeping records. Since we didn’t take the first part, and they think Joshua helped found the lodge, we don’t have to take the final pledges either.”
Quinn crouched in front of me and put his hands together. “I want to play. Really, my aunts and my mom and dad all got to duel with wizards and outside the family, I never got too. I’m not into hurting people, but a duel and all the initiate stuff would be fun. Please, can I play?”
#
In a stone amphitheater in a Fairyland that was apparently mine even though I hadn’t ever seen it before, we sat with nineteen others watching a boring lecture on magic. Lithos owned a lot of things I never knew about and now they were all considered mine even by people who knew I wasn’t Lithos.
My mind wandered as the speaker talked about spells and went over things that I either knew were wrong, understood better than the speaker or had no way to use.
Here I was back to my original problem with magic. I could learn it, I could do a lot of it, but making it happen was like wiggling a finger on another person’s hand. I didn’t really know how I wiggled my own fingers, I just did it. I could say wiggle all day long and the fingers wouldn’t wiggle. If you put a stick on the table and told me to wiggle it, my best guess would be to cheat and blow on it and hope you didn’t notice. I had been able to separate my fear from my going to Fairy, though fear would still take me there. But until I found the switch that did something, I was lost on a lot of magic that should have been easy.
Maybe being gifted originally by a cat who couldn’t throw the spells cursed me to be unable to cast these things. After relearning them I could do some of the spells, but a lot of the ones I was expected to master escaped me.
Quinn gestured for me to lean over. He kissed my forehead and then gestured. He had given me the sign language he was using. “Pass the gift to Ursula.”
I kissed Ursula’s forehead and Quinn started subtly shifting and barely moving his hand to talk. “Does this guy even know how to throw spells?”
Ursula gestured, “Even I know enough theory to know this guy is lost. Why does he even get to talk up there?”
Quinn gestured, “I bet he came up with these theories before he ever did magic and never compared his results to his ideas.”
Ursula gestured, “Nineteen inductees apart from us. Twelve of them have crushes on you, Quinn. There is overlap. Ten have crushes on me. Joshua you are losing. There are only four with crushes on you.”
I gestured, “Most have given up since you made it clear I was taken. That probably shifted the more mentally flexible to Quinn. I’m just a human. You two Daemons got all the looks and charm. Don’t worry. The second those four talk to me, they are going to split up their devotion between the two of you.”
Ursula gestured, “Do you think the girl in the second row one from the left is cute?”
I gestured, “Are you going to kill her first or me, if I say yes?”
Quinn started trying to keep from laughing.
#
Quinn and Ursula were nudging each other and grinning. In a class on using stage magic to conceal real magic, I had been volunteered by Quinn and Ursula for the instructor to make a fool of. Our instructor, Amber had the nerd school girl look down despite her being thirty and she kept bumping into me and pulling things out of my pockets. I avoided looking at her in fear I would disappear in front of everyone and go to Fairy.
The lunch break was right after the class so I was in a hurry to get off the small stage the instruction was being done on and back with Ursula and Quinn when Amber grabbed my arm.
I turned, Amber’s smile was too frightening to withstand.
#
In the Fairyland with all the gateways I had made, Amber let go of my arm and looked at the gazebo. “Your, Medon, aren’t you? It’s pretty obvious. I heard that Medon would be disguised and in the group of initiates and your the only one who won’t look at me.”
I looked at her and used that to go to a different Fairyland.
#
Ursula summoned me. “Ursula wants to know if that evil instructor Amber has been teaching bad things to my poor little Joshua?”
I asked, “Can you bring me through?”
Ursula brought me through. We were in an empty classroom with clean chalkboards. “I had to leave Quinn to summon you. Too many students were gathered around. They were wondering where Amber took you. They think it was her ending bit but Alyssa, that’s the name of the girl that likes you and that you think is so cute is worried that Amber might be making advances on you and asking if it isn’t inappropriate for a teacher to be taking advantage of a new initiate. Was she taking advantage of you?”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
I hugged Ursula. “I went to another Fairyland so she never had a chance to. She figured out I was Lithos though.”
Ursula said, “She made a good point in her lecture. If you are going to do something visible and you have time, you might as well make a dramatic stage gesture so you could, if caught, then pull out cards and do a magic trick to cover what you did. I think that’s why so many wizards are over dramatic.”
I gave her a squeeze. “I think ego explains why they are over dramatic just as well.”
#
Quinn was doing slight of hand with a couple of coins and telling his made up backstory to the group of students that had surrounded him and joined tables up at the dining area. “I was terribly shy in school, so in an attempt to bring me out of my shell, my father had me take a summer class where they made puppets and did a performance at the end of the show. That was where I first started sewing.
“My voice gave out before the performance so one of the instructors did the voice for me. She did slight of hand among other things and magic wasn’t the only thing she taught me.”
We sat at another table and Ursula leaned in to whisper to me. “Even I know that you don’t give your entire backstory away at the start. Quinn isn’t very good at this sort of thing.”
I said, “They don’t care, they are infatuated with him.”
Amber, the teacher came and sat with us as the waiter came.
After we ordered Amber leaned over the table and whispered, “Why are we whispering?”
Ursula laughed and held my arm tight. “So no one else hears our plots.”
Amber asked, “Ursula, Medon never looked at a single woman that anyone has ever noticed. He just slams them to the ground in battle and forces them to slap out or pass out. How did you ever manage to catch him?”
Ursula put a finger in front of her lips. “Shhh. Don’t give away our game. I kept attacking and holding him down until he gave in.”
I sighed dramatically. “It’s pretty much the truth.”
Amber asked, “Well, now you are with Ursula, how come you still won’t look at a girl?”
I said, “Scared of them. Women are scary.”
Ursula said, “He gets crushes easily but he doesn’t trust women. He is scared that I might kill him and his crush so he is extra shy around me. He has a bit of a crush on you so there is no way he is going to look your way.”
Amber asked, “Doesn’t that make you angry?”
Ursula said, “My kind plays bad games. My game may be better, but it may be worse. I’m ultra competitive. Always looking for a challenge. Since Josh here has a crush on you but stays with me, that means I’m winning. You didn’t even know you lost.”
Amber laughed. “So you won’t be killing me anytime soon?”
Ursula said, “No, you have to live to see how horribly you were defeated.”
#
Cameron, our instructor pointed at one of the initiates. “Alexis, put down the cell phone. One of the vows you made was to never cast these spells if you don’t finish the initiation. In the final vows, you will vow that to the best of your ability, you have made sure that no copy or records of these spells will be usable or translatable by any means.
“You are all encouraged to make hand copies of these spells but you must substitute terms and encode the symbols in a way that you remember but you will never share. You may forget them or need touch up training. We allow for that. You must not record or keep any of these spells in a manner that can be readily used by others.
“Every initiation, has at least one of student that thought they mostly kept the vows but knew they hadn’t. If you are that student, Alexis, then the rest will learn from your mistake. Even after that, one in ten of you will within a year learn the hard way that vows matter.
“I have no idea how many make the mistake later. If you are going to break a vow, break a minor one. You have several of those. You can learn from that. Don’t break a big one.”
Cameron continued speaking to the entire class.
“This spell activates your awareness. It’s fast and easy. If you are gifted with aura seeing, and you still can’t see them, this might help. Not all gifts work for everyone. This is the first spell I cast when preparing for confrontation, and it is almost instinctive. It mostly works in Real so get in the habit of using it. Most of you magical awareness gifts will become active with this. There are still a lot of awareness abilities that require the gift and another spell to activate, but this is the all around fastest and best way to start being aware when odd things are happening.”
I looked over the spell and used it. I noticed that the teacher, Quinn, Ursula, and two other students already had the spell running. Quinn had gateways all over him. His left shoe alone was covering twenty gateways.
I hand gestured to him. “Why are you covered in gateways?”
Ursula looked at him and signaled to me. “He has gateways on him?”
Quinn smiled and winked. He gestured, “Later.”
As the day progressed, I had to start keeping notes since a lot of the spells wouldn’t work until the full moon was closer or until I was in Fairy. Among the spells were three that I already knew but could not throw. One of them could be cast in Real and I had no trouble using it now. Quinn and Ursula were distracted and watching a pair that were whispering about skipping the classes after supper.
The instructor gestured to the nine easels that were arranged at the back of the stage. “This one is complex. I hope you are all paying attention because when this class ends the pads these spells are written on will be destroyed. There will be additional fees if you need them to be retaught to you. Maybe one of your smarter classmates will be kind and help you, but as a warning to those, if you write any of these spells down, even if it is to help a fellow initiate, you must destroy what you wrote and you cannot share the code you use to conceal your spells. Don’t try to get clever and think you will get past the binding oaths you have made. Your own conscience will betray you.”
#
In the Falling Sands, I practiced the spells we had been taught. We had been taught the basics in the simplest way. The spells had been shown to us in a way the least capable wizard could throw them. One gesture or visualization at a time, in order and step by step.
“Ursula, I am embarrassed to tell you. Everyone has assumed I was a better wizard than I am. Half the spells I was gifted, I could not throw because I didn’t know the basics of how the spells were thrown. I skipped a step early on and never learned it. I think everyone assumed, because I could throw a few complex ones easily, that I could master them all.
“Instead, I was able to throw the complex spells because they gave me all the steps someone who could barely throw the spell needed.”
Ursula asked, “Lets start regifting all the spells then. Let’s make sure you have the basics.”
#
In the middle of the morning class Cameron stopped writing down the spell he was teaching us and wiggled his fingers. He held up his fingers and bunched them together. An Illusion of flame appeared. “Class, this happens sometimes. I didn’t expect us to be able to throw spells until late this afternoon, but this full moon is giving early signs of being a powerful one.
“For initiates learning spells, it is safer for you to know them well before this time and it is safer to have a weak full moon for your first real awakening. All of you have shown potential. Not just when you saw the test display in the museum that let us know you were sensitive to magic. We followed that test with more tests and out of all the ones who passed the first test, only one in a hundred and seventy passed the second. Then, we knew you might be a possible recruit. All of you were tested again before you were approached.
“When you were shown real magic, all of you expressed that you were willing to risk your lives to learn it. Now, let me persuade you to back off a bit and show patience. Don’t risk your life to learn it. Right now with the moon waxing and showing it’s potency early, let me assure you that you are all going to be wizards. Don’t try too much too early. Till you get a feel for it, magic takes visualization to direct.
“If you direct your spells improperly,” He let the illusion of flame spread over his hand. “You could get burned.”
“To let you know how well you are able to basically visualize, direct and control magic, there is no better set of spells than the ones we use to make illusions. Sadly I am only allowed to teach a few of these spells, but it will be more than enough to let you know where you stand at this point and what you need most to work on.”
#
Near the end of the class, Cameron was hiding behind an illusion of a wall that he had slowly been inching out so he could hide behind it. He had an illusion duplicating his hidden moves so most of the students thought he was still at the front of the class. “Some of you may have noticed that others are easily fooled by illusion. An illusion can fill in missing data from the observer so they in turn are part of the spell. So even if you might have noticed a flaw in the illusion, you will help yourself be fooled. Some of you may have decided you can see past illusions. Take a good look around and make sure you are right.”
Quinn shifted position and made subtle shifts with his hands. “Our teacher is behind us by the door to the classroom.”
I started activating spells and looking carefully. The teacher behind the illusion of the wall wasn’t looking at anyone. Until I disconnected the illusion from myself, the teacher appeared to face the right way. The illusion of the wall in front of the teacher hid the illusory nature of the fake teacher behind the wall. It was a good lesson. By watching the way the illusion teacher in front of us looked it was possible to see that the teacher looked at the opposite side of the room for a moment when a student raised her hand.
“Yes, Catherine?”
Catherine asked, “Can I tell them?”
Cameron said, “Instead everyone get ready and on three, point at me. One, two, three.”
I turned and pointed where I was guessing he was by calculating where he would have to be if the teacher illusion in front of us was mirroring him when he first glanced at Catherine.
I was close, Ursula pointed at the illusion of the teacher in front of us.
Two other students had solved it.
The teacher walked back to the front of the room and stood by the illusion of himself. “A lot of you identified the illusion of me as a fake. A lot of you saw the illusions of the wall and looked past it to see another illusion of me. Only four of you saw that I was at the back of the room.
I thought about it and since Quinn gave me the clue, I didn’t count myself as one of them. I was surprised that Ursula didn’t do better since Quinn gave it away.
Ursula hand signaled. “Both of you are no good at this. While pretending you are brand new wizards, both of you are trying to looks smarter than anyone else in the class. I have been watching and two of the others that pointed to the teacher in front, both have it figured out. One of them recognized that I had it figured.”
Quinn smiled and gestured. “Four of the ones that pointed at the front version saw it. The other two were quite subtle about it but their emotions gave away the truth. I just made them think I am not as clever as they are.”
I pouted. Both Quinn and Ursula were better at this than I was.
#
In the circle at the old cement plant, our class gathered to watch a duel. Our Four instructors were playing scissor-rock-paper. Cameron lost. The remaining three played again.
Cameron stepped into the center of the area and opened the gateway. “Everyone get your prep spells ready. You should be able to see the gateway that is open. I am standing in a Fairyland right now. You can see me, but I am not here. Our fights will mostly be in Fairy, where we have all of our powers.
In general we enter the area first, and then open the gateway. Unless you are really fast opening a gateway, it is possible for a fast, fit person to attack you before most of your spells work. I have often questioned the logic of this. It was something that our originators decided.
“Since you will be given the opportunity to battle after our two demonstrations, it would be unfair to let known and skilled wizards compete with you. So I must reveal to you that you have had three initiates who are impostors. The classes are over, the starting duels, if you chose to be in one will be done and then the initiation and oath will begin.
“One of our founders used to do demonstrations of how quick a physical attack could be. I am prepared with all of my spells ready and I am still dreading this. If you will, Medon. Accept this challenge and if you are defeated, tell us why we allow physical attacks to have so much value in a magical duel.”
Since I was about to be revealed and since I didn’t know the answer. I took a step forward. “I accept. Are you ready?”
Cameron nodded.
I transported myself behind him, shifted to Fairy so I was in the same world with him and swept his legs as he cast a paralysis spell. I let it hit me, transformed into me unparalyzed and caught him. I lay back holding him gently in a choke hold. He slapped the ground so I let him go.
Cameron said, “Class, Meet Medon. One of our founders. He has always been legendary for his speed. It seems that he has been concealing his speed. I was certain I would have enough time since I had everything ready before the start.”
#
The initiates battles were mostly the spell counter spell sort of thing until someone messed up or was too slow countering a spell.
After the last battle Amber addressed the class. “For the next three moons, no one who has killed in battle will be allowed to challenge you. Till a year has passed you will be able to automatically refuse a battle with someone who has killed in battle. By then you should have learned the tricks to avoid challenges you don’t want. Scheduling challenges with others you trust, will go a long way to keep your battles safe. Listen to the rumors and look over the stats. There are a few wizards who you don’t want to fight.
“Now, if you will, Quinn, and Ursula, excuse us, but the initiation is secret and only the true initiates and those doing the initiation are invited. Medon, if you will accompany us. It has been a while since you have helped with the initiation and we would be honored if you bore the oath stone.”
#
I turned into myself as Medon before Cameron and Kevin lead me to a vault. Cameron and Kevin placed hands on the seal and opened the stone door to the vault. They entered. Cameron picked up a sheathed sword with both hands. Kevin picked up a chalice. In the center of the room was a pedestal with a large flattened stone with a hole in the center. The stone was covered with glyphs and ancient letters.
Cameron and Kevin both nodded to me and I went to the stone and picked it up. As I turned to exit. I realized this stone was, on the outside the oath stone that bound the pledges of this magical lodge. On the inside it was something else entirely. As the stone activated, I managed to walk out of the chamber. The stone was Lithos Medon’s diary. It was his recording of himself. It had transferred that information to me. I was still me, but I was also Lithos. As I walked bearing the stone, I searched my memories. Not as Joshua, I had less than forty years of my own memories. But my memories as Lithos went further back than anyone had previously revealed.
As I reviewed my memories as Lithos, I walked in and placed the stone on a pedestal in the ceremonial chamber. I knew to do this since the last time Lithos had held this stone in this ceremony he had updated his record of himself. As I reviewed my memories as Lithos, Lithos was reviewing my memories as me. I was Joshua first and second Lithos but beside me in my mind was Lithos first and second Joshua. We were of one mind and two minds at once.
We witnessed the ceremony and when it was done, we walked back to the vault to put the ceremonial devices back into storage.
“Cameron, the reason we give physical combat a chance is simple. If we do not, then wizards will be unprepared. The physical is always possible and it can attack you when you are not able to throw a spell. You must always be ready for Real.”
He looked at me. “All this time I thought it was so you as a Daemon had an advantages no one could match. But when you took me so swiftly in human form, it was clear there was something more. Thank you, I understand now.”
Kevin said, “It always seemed unfair till now.”
I said, “Magic is unfair. Physical combat is unfair. Fighting to learn more magic is unreasonable and puts the wrong priority first.”
Kevin asked, “Then why do we fight?”
“Because everyone else does. It makes little sense, but a person could decide not to come to lodge meetings and study on their own. They might make deals with Fairies and learn more. They can always find simple battles. If they agreed to, they could just play chess as the battle. Our rules are more open than those you will find in most magical orders.”
As I placed the stone back on it’s pedestal I had an internal argument with my other self. I didn’t want a record of my memories set in the stone. We finally agreed on a synopsis of events that left most of the details out. It was during this argument that I realized that Lithos, with all of his years, would inevitably take over and eventually Joshua first would be gone. I would only be one voice and I would just be a small chapter in the ancient book that was Lithos.
#
As I talked with Ursula the Lithos side of me fell in love. Apart from friend and comrades love was not a thing he had gotten to cherish.
His father would take him apart. He had no mother. His father dissected and played with his son’s mind and his body. Lithos came up with the strategy of storing himself and his memories in places he would automatically encounter. That was how he established continuity when parts of him were erased by his father as his father fine tuned and improved the body that was Lithos.
Eventually the giant matrix of crystals that was his father decided that Lithos was ready and erased him entirely. Then the giant who was his father, moved his mind into the now empty shell that was Lithos. The giant was not so well designed for existing in a mobile form and while it was still learning to manage the mind it encountered a record of Lithos. Lithos wrote over the core will that his father was and became Lithos first and his father second. There was no dual mind like I had.
#
In the Falling Sands we looked up at where Lithos had embedded a fingernail in a groove in a wooden tile on the ceiling. That bit of Lithos had been transformed independently and in it was stored the North American Deaths oath stone, just like I could change into me in other clothing. It was not time to let the Deaths use the stone that was also a diary of Lithos. But it gave me the thought and that thought was thought by the other me and we saw no choice.
#
In a Fairyland that Lithos had not shared with anyone, we pierced a finger and bled a drop of Lithos’ Daemon blood. Using mass from the Fairyland we transformed that blood into Lithos and I turned back into myself and held Lithos’ body as Lithos first and Joshua second moved to the new body. It was the only chance we had of my living. Still sharing thoughts we remembered eight thousand years without romance. My pitiful life had less than thirty years of loneliness.
#
Ursula said, “So Lithos is alive and here?”
I said, “It’s complicated. Yes and no.”
Lithos said, “We both have his memories. Out of respect for Joshua’s ethics, I have a lot of Joshua’s memories but not all. I am, I think me, but not as a human would think of me as me. Well Josh does, but I am a backup of me.”
Ursula asked, “Which of you love me?”
Lithos answered, “We both do, but Joshua is the one you first met.”
I said, “Lithos’ emptiness is eight thousand years old. While he as Josh-Lithos has only just met you, he has all of my memories of you and his love and his grief if he lost you would be more than I could bear.”
Ursula started crying. “This isn’t fair.”
#
In my old hometown, I walked alone. I had lost the Fallen Sands. I had lost the Castle Fairyland since it was a wedding gift. I had even lost the Lodge of Effervescent Charm since it was Lithos who started it. So many friends I had to leave behind. Even Lithos, I had to leave and despite having his memories I missed him. His friends and all of those things would remind me of Ursula. This time, the girl had not left me. I had left the girl. In a way, I would always still be with her, but I was not the me that was the one she held in her arms.
I had the laptop that Quinn had helped me build materialize in a bag before I walked into the coffee shop.
Sitting at my table was Bell. He gestured for me to sit and slid a mug over towards my seat.
I sipped it. It was wonderful.
Bell asked, “Are you feeling funny?”
My vision blurred.