11 – The Truth

Ward looked at Grace for a long minute, always a little annoyed when someone said his name like that, especially following it up with ‘We need to talk.’ “What? The catacombs?”

“Yes!” Grace leaned close, her voice emphatic. “You absolutely should attempt the challenge.”

Ward watched Grace sit on the rug at the foot of the bed, folding her legs under her effortlessly. There was a plushly upholstered wooden chair next to the alcove leading to the bath, so he pulled it over, facing Grace, and sat it in. “Look, I’m not a boring guy. I’ve lived a pretty damn risky life by, you know, Earth standards. I’m interested in learning more about all the worlds and,” he waved his hand around expansively, “I don’t know . . . people and magic and shit. I’m not looking to die for no reason, though.”

“It’s not ‘for no reason,’ you doofus! That’s what I’ve been trying to explain. Do you remember that feeling when you absorbed that tiny bit of mana?”

Ward closed his eyes and thought back to how it had felt when those minuscule, magical motes had sunk into his flesh. The tingles of pleasure, the brief feeling of being part of something vast and wonderful. Yeah, he could remember it. He cleared his throat. “Sure.”

“Well, that was a tiny scratch at the surface! If we can win some prizes in the challenges and use them to improve your vessel, there are depths of power and . . . fulfillment we can explore that you can only dream about.”

“My vessel?”

“Ugh! Your body! Your flesh! Your cellular structure. Let me think of an analogy you might grasp. You like guns, yeah?”

“Like? I dunno; I guess I like my revolver—”

“Okay, imagine if someone built a bullet out of a new, spectacular gunpowder. Imagine it was a hundred times more potent than regular gunpowder. What would happen if you fired a bullet like that out of your trusty little gun?”

“It would explode.”

“Bingo! Mana is potent, Ward. Using it will likely mess you up, even the tiny amount you absorbed. Now, what if we invented a way to increase the density of your gun’s frame? What if we could make that metal a hundred times stronger?”

“Well, then I’d probably break my wrist shooting something like that—”

Grace leaned forward, scowling. “Oh, brother! Come on, don’t get lost in the weeds!”

“Relax! I’m joking. I get what you’re saying. I need to make my body stronger to use the mana. It doesn’t make sense, though. How could I absorb it but not use it?”

“No, you just don’t have all the facts yet. Let me try to explain a bit more. There are three kinds of people, speaking broadly and only with regard to mana and its use. The first are the average people, those like your friends downstairs, people without the ability to interact with mana. Christina, my previous host, called people like that ‘mundanes.’ The second category is people like you. They can see and interact with mana, but using the words to try to control it would rip their bodies apart. Finally, you have the third category, those who can see, harvest, and command the mana. To most people, though, you’re either a wizard or you’re not.”

“So, to the folks downstairs, I’m a wizard, just cause my eyes shine a little in the right light?”

“Now you’re getting it.”

“You know, Grace, this is kind of like pulling teeth. What the hell can it do for me? What’s the point of being a wordless wizard?”

“Ugh! You have passive benefits! Use your little thing again—the hemograph.”

Ward frowned, but he complied, curious about where this was going. He pulled his pack over, leaned it against the chair, and dug the device out. Grimacing slightly, he took one of the knives he’d kept and gave himself a fresh nick on the side of his finger. He chuckled as he pressed the blood into the slight depression. “I wonder if that would cut down on screen time.” When Grace didn’t laugh, he added, “You know, if people had to give some blood to get the thing to turn on.”

Grace sighed. “Focus, Ward. Look at your numbers.”

With a disappointed tsk, Ward put the knife down and lifted the hemograph:

Bloodline:

Basic Human (h)

Accumulated Mana:

0

Mana Well:

Tin + 2.0

Mana Sensitivity:

Bronze

Mana Pathways:

Tin

Vessel Capacity:

Tin

Vessel Durability:

h + 2.24

Vessel Strength:

h + 1.15

Vessel Speed:

h + 0.51

Longevity remaining:

~41.12%

Anima:

NIL

His frown fell away as his brow wrinkled in confusion. “What the hell? My accumulated mana is gone! It was at five percent before.”

“Look at the other numbers.”

“Right…” Ward tried to add up the other numbers, wondering if they’d equal five percent, but it kept coming up short. Then, he remembered that his “mana well” had been at one-point-one before. That fixed the math. “So, that mana I absorbed—what? It made those other things better? My mana well, my durability, strength, and speed? Shit.” His frown deepened. “My longevity?”

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“Exactly. Before you ask, I don’t know why it went to those stats in those amounts, but the point is that you’re already making your vessel stronger. Haven’t you noticed how great you feel? Sure, I took some years off your beat-up old body and fixed it up, but have you felt very tired since absorbing that mana? Have you been overly hungry or thirsty? Think about that! Have you had any trouble traipsing about for a couple of days with just a few gulps of water out of an old canteen? I bet you’re stronger and faster than you ever were back on Earth. You just haven’t been put to a real test yet. Now, imagine getting more and more mana as we improve your body. Imagine getting to the point where you can say some of the words and work real magic!”

“Yeah, but not all of my stats have numbers. I don’t think just absorbing mana is going to do the trick. My mana pathways—whatever the hell those are—don’t seem to—”

“Now you’re getting it! That’s the point of the catacombs! We go in there, you get a refinement potion, and everything will improve.”

“Refinement pot—”

Grace waved her hand, “Forget that; it’s just something I’ve read about. There are other things too—magical treasures that can improve all or part of your vessel. The more we work at it, the better you get! Come on! Don’t you have any ambition, old man?”

“I can see what you’re doing.” Ward folded his arms over his chest. He could see it; he wasn’t a dummy. She was challenging his ego, trying to get a rise out of him. She was right, in a way, he supposed. He’d let his old job beat him down—wear him down. He’d been ready to do something small, something quiet, for the rest of his life. He frowned, thinking about it. He was just being thoughtful, running the options through his mind, weighing the possibilities. He was leaning toward agreeing with Grace, but she, apparently, hadn’t been lying when she’d said she couldn’t read his every thought.

“Look, Ward.” She stood, picked up the hemograph, and held it in front of his face, pointing one of her perfect, manicured nails at the line that read, “Anima: NIL.”

“What?”

“I have to tell you the truth about something.” She dropped the device on his lap, her eyes down, then paced toward the window. Her bare feet padded on the wood as her shoulders slumped, but her reticence to speak bothered Ward more than her body language.

He stared at the hemograph as the numbers began to swirl and fade away, a lingering doubt that he’d been pushing to the back of his mind surfacing. “So you did take it all?”

“I-I’m not the most well-learned of my kind, Ward. I had to get help. I didn’t know how to heal you the way you needed. I could have maybe stopped the bleeding, but I don’t know the first thing about kidneys, and, yeah, just ‘cause I had access to your anima doesn’t mean I knew how to direct it.” She paused and sighed dramatically.

Ward heard her; the words registered, but he was more interested in the rushing sound in his ears, in the blood boiling in his head. “Spit it out.”

“Um, so, I used a little anima to contact another, older, more experienced devil—and in this case, I mean that pejoratively—he’s a damned devil! After he used a good chunk of your anima to heal you and make you a little younger, he threatened to inhabit you and kick me out. I’d already used some of your anima to finish the portal and bring us to Vainglory. There wasn’t a lot left…”

She trailed off while Ward stared at her, anger heating his face, his heart rate increasing by the second. “You gave what was left to him?”

“I did. I’m sorry! I didn’t want to be set adrift! I didn’t want to miss out on what we might get going here on Vainglory!”

“But you took my fucking soul!” Ward barely registered the distant sound of creaking as his fingers went white, squeezing the arms of the old chair.

“No! Ward, you have to understand! People use those terms interchangeably, but it’s not like that. You always have your soul. It’s you. The anima is the, um, “energy” of your soul. The fuel it needs to protect it and move on without your mortal form. If, um…” She trailed off again and began to pace while Ward sat there, fighting to keep his breathing steady, grinding his teeth. He didn’t need her to finish; he’d put two and two together.

“If I die like this, that’s the end of the road for me. That about right?”

She whirled to face him, eyes wide, wringing her hands. “Exactly.”

“I, uh…” As Ward considered his anger, he was struck by the absurdity of it all. If anyone had asked him two days ago what happened to people when they died, he would have spouted some shit about hoping something more was out there, but he wasn’t really sure. What had changed? Why was he suddenly upset with the idea of oblivion? He’d been relatively “okay” with the possibility before all this, hadn’t he? “It’s ‘cause I know there’s something better now, I guess.”

“Huh?”

“You opened my eyes to what’s possible, and now you’re telling me I can’t have it—this life is all I’ve fucking got? You took my hope!” Ward stood, his fists balled into white-knuckled wrecking balls. He didn’t know what he would do; he couldn’t attack Grace—could he? He shook his head, unclenching his hands and squeezing his eyes shut, trying to steady his breathing.

“I swear to you, Ward. I swear on anything you believe is good—I wasn’t lying about hearing stories about people being able to regenerate their anima. There has to be a way. We can learn it if we win enough challenges to improve you and get you using mana like a proper sorcerer—wizard—whatever. If we can move up through the Vainglory worlds, we’ll begin to meet people who know more about the universe than anyone on Earth has ever dreamed. We’ll learn more than my asshole uncle who took most of your anima!”

Ward opened one of his eyes. “That’s who you called? You told me he was a bastard—”

“He is! He’s also the only one I knew how to call who could properly save you.”

“What’s his name?”

“Um, Ward, you don’t want to know his name.”

“What’s his goddamn name, Grace?” Ward's spine was up, and if he was going to be pissed, he wanted to know who he should really be pissed at.

Grace licked her lips, stepping a little closer to him. “Verithraxus,” she whispered. The name sounded more like a cough than a word coming from her lips, but Ward nodded, memorizing the sound. Anyone looking at his face would have recognized the resolve born of righteous fury in his eyes.

“Good. He’s on the top of the list.” Ward knew his face showed his anger, knew his dark, heavy brows were narrowed, that his eyes were likely bloodshot with the pressure of his blood pounding in his head. Still, it surprised him when Grace backed up a step and raised her hands.

“You can’t hurt me, Ward.”

“Hurt? I look like the kind of guy who beats up little girls?”

Grace frowned. “Right now? Sort of.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Did you mention a list?” Grace reached toward him, but Ward stepped back, angry and irritated that she seemed to be changing the subject or trying to throw him off guard.

“Gonna just brush past it, huh? Yeah, a damn list! People I need to get square with.” Ward had never made such a list, but he figured the occasion called for the start of one. He sighed heavily and turned to the wall, leaning his forehead against it, thumping his skull hollowly on the wooden planks. It was bluster, and he knew it, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t exactly trust everything Grace was telling him, but he’d hoped making her name the uncle and making a nebulous threat might get her to crack a little more. The truth was, if anyone was at the top of that list, it was probably Grace.

“Ward, talk to me! I didn’t want this to happen. I wanted us to get along—that’s why I lied about your anima!”

“Get along?” He snorted, shaking his head.

“What? I told you, I didn’t intend for any…” She trailed off, looking down, clenching her fists. After a moment, she tried to move closer to him, but he took another step away. Trying to push his emotions aside, Ward thought about what Grace had said earlier when she’d asked him if he had any ambition. He hadn’t really—not back on Earth; he’d thought that part of his life was done. Things were different now, though, weren’t they?

He needed to find out how to get his anima back. That was a given; even just the hint, the idea that it had something to do with helping him move past death—that was enough for him. He’d fight to get it back, just on the off chance that Grace wasn’t lying. Forgetting that, though, she’d hit the nail on the head describing how he felt physically. He might still look like he was in his thirties, but he felt better than he could remember ever feeling, even when he’d been in the best shape of his life after boot camp. Did he want to settle down in a nowhere town and try to live a small, quiet life with magic and mystical worlds right in front of him? Especially now, knowing it was the end of the road when he finally croaked? “Hell no.”

“Huh?”

“Hell no, I don’t want to sit around in this little town.”

“So?”

“So, I’ll see what I can shake out of those catacombs. I’m pissed at you, Grace. I’m pissed that you weren’t honest with me. I don’t trust you—not one bit, and that little display didn’t help.”

She rushed over to him, reaching for his hands. Ward pulled them back. “I was only trying to keep you alive, Ward! I swear! I was trying to do right by you. I didn’t know my uncle would do that!”

“Right.” Ward turned toward the door, scowling. “I need to go buy a ticket for this damn challenge.”