Chapter 5

My Mother

(That time I first used magic...)

‘Ether flows through all things. It is ether which we cultivate and turn into mana, the magic that gives us strength beyond strength, power beyond power, and guides us to immortality.’

- Sect Leader Beshi, the City of Towers

My mom had transformed herself into a bear. Standing before me she dropped and growled. I stood in front of her, my little six year old heart racing. It was no wonder she had taken the two of us out here to be alone. Besides having to take her clothes off, her transformation was a terrifying sight. I was in tears. In awe.

Most of all I could feel the mana inside of me burning bright. Raging through my stomach, through my chest, my arms and veins, I felt like a volcano ready to erupt. In my past life I was without magic. This time around things couldn’t be more opposite.

“Momma?” I said staring at the giant bear in front of me. It stepped forward and I held my ground. There was no way I was going to risk looking scared, despite my instincts, my past instincts, telling me to run.

The bear growled. Not threatening, just loud.

I smiled as she bowed her head. I felt her inviting me to ride on top of her and with my little outstretched arms I grabbed hold of her fur and lifted myself up onto her back. When I was balanced she took off in a sprint, climbing up and over ruins as I grabbed hold of her fur.

The two of us continued to play together like this for hours until the sun began to set and she walked us back towards the center of the arena. She lowered her head once again and I slid down onto my feet.

This was every kid’s dream. Riding a bear around like it was a battle horse. The only thing that could have made it better would have been holding my wooden sword shouting ‘charge’.

When I hit the ground facing away from her I heard the a sound like a razor blade dragging against glass, turning around I saw my mother, in the same pose as the bear had been, smiling. She immediately got up and grabbed her clothes close by.

“That my son is our power,” she smiled.

“We’re bears!” I shouted.

“More than that, we are shape shifters, we can change our body into many different forms so long as we have the mana burning inside of us. A bear is just one of the easiest for us alongside wolves and deer,” she smiled.

“Why would I want to be a deer?” I frowned.

“Not every situation is going to require teeth and claws, sometimes being able to run gracefully is a blessing,” Moma-Mia explained.

“Can I try it?” I asked.

“Of course you can, it is why we are here,” she answered.

I stripped down to my boxers. I was still a young boy but I was too bashful to be naked in public.

“Right now your mana is dormant inside of you, it is a power waiting to be awakened,” she started to explain, pointing at her stomach.

I knew enough about magic from my old life that I felt ready for this. Concentrating as hard as I could until I felt my stomach rumble and… standing there in front of the ruins, my mother, and the sun setting in the sky above my stomach erupted.

As shit ran down my leg I began to cry. My mother, somehow prepared for this grabbed a washcloth from behind one of the stones and walked over, smiling, she began to clean up my mess.

“Don’t worry, you had the right idea,” she said, never letting her smile down as she helped me change. “Lets start with some smaller magic spells. How about Fire Bolt?” She asked. Now she was talking. Standing up and tossing the washcloth in the air she held out her palm and blasted it with a ball of fire, incinerating it entirely while it was in the air.

I gasped. I could feel the heat in the air around my mother even as I stepped backwards a few feet. I’d seen Fire Bolts before, but something about the way she did it without any effort was amazing.

“A long time ago our family was part of the Apostles of Fire, a guild dedicated to defeating the Dark Lord and his armies,” she sighed before continuing, “we use to number in the hundreds, even one of us was strong enough to stand against an army a thousands.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Like many old customs our numbers declined when fire became accessible to anyone. Our practices were replaced with Fire Arms, Rifles, and Pistols. Some hated us enough for our abilities that they hunted us and we ran, finding shelter in the woods, in the mountains. We had no idea that the Dark Lord was waiting, that humanity would doom itself. When we finally re-emerged to join the fight our guild gave it all they could but the alliances between man and demihuman had already degraded too much. We were too late to save them, too late to save ourselves.”

“But why didn’t everyone just work together?”

“That’s not a simple question to answer,” she continued to smile.

I knew the answer though. At some point after the demons returned it became every man, woman, and guild for themselves. There was no rising tide, no armies to fight back against the demons.

“Shattered, broken, and divided we are lucky we came together when we did to create places like our home here, like Haven.”

“Are there other safe places?” I asked. I hadn’t thought much about it before but it seemed obvious, this couldn’t be it. Haven only held a few hundred people, maybe a thousand at most. There had to be more.

“There are, there are also wanderers, wayfinders, and even kingdoms beyond our walls. Each protected by their own walls and weapons.”

“So we continue to stay divided,” I said.

“Yes, that is correct,” her smile turned to a frown.

“What if we united with others? Couldn’t we fight back against the Kudlak? The Demon Lord?” I asked. I felt naive. I knew the stakes, the cost of such a battle. Was it even worth the risk? So long as people lived safely behind walls what did the Demon Lord, the Kudlak matter to them?

“Many have tried. Your father, and I, and your other moms, we’ve been fighting against the Kudlak our entire lives. Since I was born, since the Kudlak killed your grandparents. Your father still hunts the monsters that nest outside our walls, our territory,” she began smiling again.

“Dad is a real hero,” I said stating the obvious.

“All of us are, our entire community is one of warriors, survivors, every single one of us have fought hard to survive in this world and live freely in this place.” She said ‘freely in this place’ but I knew that wasn’t the truth. I remembered the old ways, my old life, what it really meant to be free. To camp and go where you wanted, when you wanted. When hunting monsters was just an easy payday not something someone did to survive. If only I could have showed her how life was.

“One day I’m going to free our home, we won’t have to hide behind walls,” I declared, looking outward in the direction of the wall. I could see it rising above the trees. It was always there, a shadow shielding us from the horizon. It was meant to keep the bad things out but truth was it was a cage.

“Why don’t we practice some spells first?” Mother-Mia looked down at me and smiled. I could see a tear rolling down her eye.

I took a deep breath and focused my mana from my stomach into my hand, with a jerking motion I pushed my palm forward, igniting the air around it, around me in flames. A Fire Bolt three times the size of my mothers erupted forward and burned against one of the walls cracking it further.

My mother stood in awe as I took several heavy breathes. I felt myself level up from 1 to 2. I’d earned a new skill. Fire Bolt.

Staring at the burning debris in silence I noticed a small creature rolling across the ground out away from the crumbling wall.

The creature rolled right in front of me and unrolled, looking up I knew it was impossible but happening. Reaching down it hugged my arm and began climbing up towards my shoulder…

My Tenrec, my Gob. Alive and reincarnated by my side.