The words that she spoke, he did not know. This magic, these spells—he did not understand. He did not know them. The spirits, he knew. The flow of the land, its heartbeat, he knew. She had called him a Shai’mon, had said that he had a communion. The words swarmed in his head like insects, eating away at his skull. He looked at her in confusion, desperately asking for explanation.

“A Communion,” she elaborated, “occurs during birth very occasionally, often between the magically skilled. A spirit of one who recently died comes into contact with that of the newborn in the instant before it dissolves. It is extremely rare, as normally the moment a spirit leaves a host it dissipates. During a Communion, the two spirits will fuse to share the body of the newborn. The dead is able to pass on memories and skills to the infant, like—like sharing with them their life.” Her eyes gleamed bright as she talked, growing excited over the topic. “Among Me'jai, a Communion is highly coveted and there have been many attempts at forcing one.”

“Why?” he questioned. The idea was new to him, but the pieces fit. A spirit of the dead telling him its secrets.

She rolled her eyes in frustration. “Obviously, because it grants a great advantage. Think, an entire lifetime’s worth of experiences conveyed in an instant. Thousands of spells and magical theory passed onto the next generation. If you say that the earth taught you magic, then you must’ve had a Communion. Odds are that you just thought the dead spirit was the earth.”

Her eyebrows knitted together as she thought. “But a Communion with a demon is—is unheard of. Blood and bones, even a demon that can channel is ludicrous.” Her eyes were wide now as she realized what she was talking about. “And on top of that, being perhaps the only Shai’mon in Altaros.” she murmured. Her eyes seemed glazed over, as if she was lost in thought.

“Shai’mon?” he asked with head tilted to the side. He was struggling to keep up with her pace; few of these words he understood.

“Of course, you don’t know anything.” came the reply, not disdainfully. She let out a sigh, as if gathering her thoughts. With a bracing breath, she looked up to stare at him straight in the eye. “We’ll have to start at the beginning. You have the Maes, same as me, do you not?”

When he nodded, she continued, “The Maes are not what you think they are. They are symbols of magical ability.” That much he understood about the swirling black patterns that covered his forehead and face. He had always thought that they were proof of his birth from the earth, seeing as he had been the only creature in the Outlands to have them. Meeting her, that would have made her his sister. If she spoke truth, then it seemed that he had been mistaken in its meaning all along.

“All channelers have the Maes, and only those with the Maes can be channelers.”

“What channelers?” He felt tired of asking questions, but it was like an itch under the skin that he had to scratch. She looked at him with an expression of perhaps exasperation and gave a short huff.

“I was getting to that, if you’d let me finish.” Picking up a stick off the ground, she scrawled two circles in the loose dirt. One, she labeled “man”, and the other “world”.

“Among most mortals,” she began, tapping the circle of man, “these two spheres are utterly separate. They are strictly unable to touch the true pulse of the world and cannot draw upon it. They are utterly restricted—cut off from its heartbeat.”

She drew a line from the circle of world to the circle of man, connecting the two. “Those that can feel the pulse of the earth and can interact with it are channelers. They can channel the power of the earth and, with will of the mortal, use it for their own means. By doing so, they can cast a spell, can cast magic.” Here, she paused, looking up to see if he followed her. This much he could understand, at least. He nodded in assent and gestured for her to continue.

“To channel is to make a pact—one between you and the world. Two things are needed: you must be able to feel the pulse of the world to draw upon it, and the world needs to feel your intent to act. Chanting gives you the pulse, and focused thought draws the pact to finish. To do this successfully is to cast a spell—to influence that which is around you.”

“Chanting.” he grunted thoughtfully in acknowledgement. She seemed to take it for confusion, however, and further explained.

“Chanting is mostly just repetition, really. You can pick any syllables, as long as they are fixed. As long as you can keep the chant consistent, it is acceptable. Of course, some chants are preferable for certain spells. Fire, for example—”

“Enough.” he snapped impatiently. Any more of this would only leave him further confused, and as far as he was aware, she still had yet to answer his first question. “Time short. What is Shai’mon?”

She sighed and muttered something about being rude, stabbing her stick into the dirt. Irritation took hold of him then; he had no time for her petty, vapid feelings. He snarled, snapping his fangs shut with an abrupt snap and shocking some sense back into her. “Speak. Night comes.” he growled, and her face flushed, perhaps from anger. He did not care; he had saved her for answers, and she would give them to him.

She let out a defeated little sigh before looking at him once more, holding his gaze despite the color in her cheeks. “Among channelers, there are differences still.” She pointed back to the writing on the ground tapping the circle of earth. “Any channeler can influence the sphere of the world; it is the simplest to learn. I can summon fire, and nothing stops you from learning to either.”

“If I wished to kill a man, I could set the ground around him on fire.” she proposed, gesturing with her hands as he spoke. “That would be influencing the sphere of the world, and so any channeler can do so. However, I could also choose to set his skin on fire directly. To do so would be to influence the sphere of man.”

Once more she pointed, this time to the circle of man. “If you wish to influence the sphere of man, there are restrictions that cannot be altered. From them come the names, which define more specific classes of channelers. I am Me’jai, albeit one without magic. My spells on others have dealings in the flesh, and my conjury takes form physically. With enough mahji, perhaps, I could shatter your bones without touching you, or stop your heart in your chest. There are Oa’kul as well—channelers that deal in the mind. They could blind you from a hundred paces, or muddle your senses until reality becomes a dream. And you are Shai’mon, master of the spirit. Tales tell of Shai’mon who could kill armies with a wave of the hand and bring life back to the dead. Who knows if that is true? There have been no Shai’mon to give proof for over a three thousand years.”

She looked up at him, chewing on her lower lip in thought. “These three aspects—flesh, mind, and spirit—are the cores of life. Just as flesh is the easiest to understand, so too are Me’jai the most common of channelers. And as the spirit is the most profound, so too are Shai’mon the least in number.”

“Spells...of spirit?” he questioned. He had always felt the spirits around him—he had even seen them once when he had broken the dead free from the black stone. They had made a pact then, but he had never truly understood what he was doing. “How?”

“Weren't you listening?” she replied irritatedly. “Pacts, or spells—it matters not which word you prefer, but they require intent of the mortal and pulse of the earth. Fuel is needed as well; it provides energy for the pact. Magic is the best fuel, and by far the most effective. It comes from spirits, after all, much like how warmth radiates from the living—surely you have felt its warmth in the air around you?”

He nodded in assent. Even now, he still remembered the crackling of her magic against his skin. it was not as foreign a feeling as he had once thought—in retrospect, even the air of the Outlands was filled with damp magic that he had never noticed.

She continued in her descriptions. “Magic comes in two forms. When channelers use magic, they must use mahji. Mahji is formed from the living spirit. It comes from the decay of the spirit, from the process of death. Almost all channelers produce mahji on their own, with some being a little of a—of an exception.” Her eyes glazed over a little then and she chewed on her lower lip, but before he could nudge her on, she spoke.

“Marai is what we call wild magic—magic that cannot be used in spells. It can come naturally from the dead, where the dispersing spirit releases marai as a part of its atrophy. Alternatively, when magic has lost its channeler and is without instruction, it grows feral and tainted. It becomes unstable and turns green to the eye. In either case, the wild magic slowly collects. You have seen proof of this in the Outlands: the sky there was covered in the fog of marai.”

She paused here, clearing her throat. At some point, she had picked up the stick once more and was mindlessly poking its end into the loose dirt. Her eyes were glassy and focused on nothing, and he could see the fire dancing in the reflections as if there was flame in her green eyes.

She seemed lost in thought, but there still seemed more that she had left untold. “And?” he prompted, making her snap out of her reverie in shock. Her mouth formed a few soundless words before she gave a little sniff and licked her lips.

“There is another option rather than magic for fuel. Instead of mahji, a channeler can use vahma—their own spirit. In its own way, perhaps, vahma has its merits. For a fuel, it burns stronger, faster, and brighter than mahji ever could. But soulfire kills the user just as surely as it will the target. A part of the spirit, once burned for fuel, never heals. Memories are altered at best, lost at worst. Madness takes hold in sweeping fits, and death comes as a certainty not soon after.”

She seemed to shudder as she spoke this, the sheen of sweat on her forehead not wholly from the crackling fire. Her eyes were fixed in the flame, glassy and unblinking, and she held her knees to her chest with a shiver. Before he could ask, she spoke, almost half a whisper and half to herself.

“Perhaps worse so, the decay feels natural as it comes. The more that vahma is used, the easier it comes the next time—and the less easily it can be controlled. And the more that it is used, the more it wants to be used, until the pleasure blinds the mind and the body bursts into ecstatic flame. The spirit unravels and frays, and the insanity bites in as sweet as a sugar viper. It should be resisted—must be resisted—lest death come in a fit of madness, and you welcome it with open arms.”

Those last words seemed for her as much as for him, and he found himself wondering just how dangerous this vahma was, just how strong its addiction could be.

He was waiting for her to keep speaking, but she fell silent. If she had any more to say, then the words had caught in her throat. For a moment there was only silence. The fire crackled loudly, bits of firewood snapping in the blaze. Insects filled the night with a chorus of buzzing wings, and the wind was cold as it blew—the sparse trees gave little in the way of cover.

“And Shai’mon?” he asked finally, breaking the silence. She looked up, eyebrows drawn together in confusion.

“What?” came the reply distractedly, as if she was still thinking about something else.

“What of Shai’mon?” He had the sneaking suspicion that there was more that she had left unsaid. “What happen?”

“They're gone now. All gone.” she replied brusquely, eyes flickering dangerously in the light. A howl from some beast or other rose out from behind the trees, as if to give emphasis to her words. With the way she acted, it was clear that she wanted nothing more to say on the subject, but he pushed her further nonetheless.

“Gone? Where? Why?” There was a finality to her words that boded ill, but he had to know. He remembered the images of the men garbed in blue and violet, remembered the Unseen, remembered the once-buried dark now loosed from its shackles. The more he thought about it, the more he had a sneaking suspicion that he already knew the answer. Even still, he needed confirmation.

“Gone. Disappeared. Vanished. Can’t you get that through your skull?” she barked in a sudden fury. “Dead or lost or what, I don’t care! They’re gone, and you’re the only one left! So five and three curses, demon, ask me no more on this.”

See how she hides? See how she lies with a slanderous tongue? See how she flees like prey and runs like the condemned? She has her crimes that eat her from within. She has been seduced by Sin—she even bears his scent. Andahiel is a fool. Kill her. Kill her now, scion.

The dead rose up all of a sudden, as if in response to her outburst. Like a swarm of buzzards, they descended upon his thoughts—ripping, shredding, tearing, until he could not even think. A storm raged inside his skull, and he roared in pain as warm blood dripped out of his ears from where he clawed himself madly.

He struggled to regain control of himself, to wrestle his body back from the dead. It was him against a thousand, but he was the strong. They were the dead, mere spirits, and he was Shai’mon. He was the last.

Lies, they hissed. She feeds you lies.

We are Shai’mon, blood of your blood, last of the last. We fought the coming darkness. We were rewarded with eternal pain and servitude. We were betrayed and forgotten, and now the new generation dances over the ashes of our graves. Now Sin wakes.

Vengeance. For Sin and for the dead that we have become. Give us this, scion.

Give us our vengeance.