11: Lessons in Dying

The first thing she did when we got inside was rummage around in an old chest, grumbling and swearing as she did so. The inside of the cottage was nice and homey, although it was also incredibly cluttered. There was a kitchen nook off to the side, a seating area with a few big comfy chairs, and a huge study in its own little alcove.

Everything was made of a hard, dark wood, the walls being covered in shelves that held so many random things I wasn’t sure where to look first. It was like someone had taken a stereotypical witches hut, and then a stereotypical wizard’s tower and kinda smooshed them together.

Now that I was aware that I was speaking a different language, it was truly strange to hear words that I shouldn’t understand but could, as though I had always been speaking it. Standing there in the middle of her cottage, a thought occurred to me with a flash of panic. What if I couldn’t speak English anymore?

“I really hope I can speak English again,” I said in English, and hearing the familiar sounds and movements of the language immediately eased my worry.

“Most intriguing, was that your native tongue?” the grumpy woman asked, standing up and passing me a few articles of clothing.

I took a moment to sort out what she’d just dumped in my arms. A pair of underwear, a robe and… oh dear, a bra. Well, not a bra as I was used to it, but still. It extended down almost to my belly button and was tied up at the sides instead of clasping behind me. How the hell did I put this thing on?

“Uh yeah, I was just making sure I could still speak it,” I said sheepishly as I stepped into the underwear.

Somehow it seemed weirder to be getting dressed in front of her than it had been to just stand there naked in front of her. Still, I did my best to put everything on, the bra taking a moment as she gave me frustrated instructions. With her… help, I got it all on reasonably well, marvelling at how strange it felt to have clothing on. Had it always felt like this? I wasn’t a fan of the way the woolen robe scratched at my soft skin, that was for sure.

“Very interesting,” she mused, staring at me intently. “But now is not the time to discuss your culture, now is the time to eat and explain who and what you are now. Consider this your first lesson, so listen well.”

Whoa, lessons already? I was only just… well, born. I needed some time to process this, damn it woman. Also, what the hell was her name?

“Sure but uh, what’s your name?” I asked tentatively.

She gave a puzzled frown, then shrugged. “Did I not introduce myself? Well then, my name is Esra Rihm, previously the High Mage for the Duchy of Iverleik. Now of course, I am an angry hermit who never leaves her Grove. Just the way I like it personally, the outside world is far too complicated to deal with.”

“I get that sentiment, sometimes I just want to get away from it all, grab a family sized bag of doritos and eat it in bed while binge watching some braindead TV show,” I sighed, thinking wistfully of the sanctuary that had been my room back at home. I’d installed a lock on it when I turned fifteen, and that had been the best decision I ever made. Wait no, second best. First was picking the fruit that got me into this situation.

“Yes… well, regardless, onwards with the lesson,” she said, clearly glossing over the fact that she had no idea what I was talking about. “The first thing you should know, or rather that I should reiterate and expand upon, is that you are no longer human. You’re close to it, with a few clear differences. First, your hair and eyes are obviously inhuman, and I will need to teach you a spell to hide this fact later. You will also gain markings across your back that will correspond to the construction of your Grove, when you get to it.”

“And secondly,” she continued, pausing as if for dramatic effect before her skin turned a vivid, leaf-green colour. “There is this. You are now able to photosynthesize to gain energy, should you find the need to do so.”

“Whoa!” I breathed, staring at her in awe. “How do I do that?!”

“Go outside while I prepare our lunch. Stare at the sun, you will feel it then,” she said cryptically, shuffling off towards her kitchen nook.

“Right,” I muttered, wandering outside and onto the lawn. “Stare at the sun, just like the orange wrinkledick did. If he can do it, how hard can it be?”

I did as she’d told me, staring up at the oddly coloured sun and almost immediately looking away as light lanced through my eyes. Fuck, bad plan. Was she playing some kind of weird… magic prank on me?

Oh wait, wow, okay, no she wasn’t. I stared at my hands, then quickly pulled up the sleeves on my robe to get a better look at my skin. It was a dark green colour now, rich and deep, but throughout that green were thin swirling tendrils of bright violet colouring. I stood there, mesmerised as I watched the colour grow more saturated as it suffused my skin.

A smile broke out across my face and I turned to the sun again, making sure to close my eyes this time. The warmth was lovely, like that of a hot shower on a cold morning, and I stood and swayed with the breeze, basking in that lovely light. My breathing slowed too and I felt a sense of base contentment that pulsed lazily through my body.

“I see you have figured it out,” came Esra’s voice from behind me, and I turned lazily to smile and nod at her. “Interesting colouration again too, I do wonder why.”

“It feels wonderful,” I murmured, unsure if I could even get my voice to a higher volume while I felt so light and peaceful.

“That it does my dear, now come, it is time I begin to explain everything in greater detail. Over lunch of course,” she said, blocking my light in an attempt to get me to concentrate again.

So it was that my training as a mage began in earnest. No time to stop and rest, no time to come to grips with the situation. Straight into it, just like that.

She explained that mages were only actually capable of three things when they were newly made. They were able to channel their power to manipulate the world around them on a basic level, functionally it was just telekinesis with a little extra plant stuff going on. You had to reach through into the Nameless Garden with your mind, extending invisible vines out to grasp and move whatever it was you wished to move around. Mages could also use all of their senses to observe magic around them, from mage sight to mage smell. It all sounded a little weird.

These were by far the lesser of the three abilities though, the third and most important ability was being able to travel between the mundane realm and the Nameless Garden. Esra explained that when a mage entered the Garden they left a sort of mark. Invisible to normal human eyes, but visible to other mages. The mage who had entered the Garden could only exit to that point, although once they were back in the mundane realm they could move to a new spot and enter again, moving their mark.

“Never enter the Garden where others can see you, for there are many out in the mundane realm who would love nothing more than to lay in wait on the other side, ready to pounce when you returned,” she warned me sternly, her eyes hammering into me the need to remember this point. “One day, if you survive long enough, you may become powerful enough to be of use to me, and I to you. You need to survive that long however, and this is the fastest way to get yourself killed as a mage.”

“Right, got it,” I nodded, and then asked a question that had been bugging me since this whole conversation began. “Why do they call it the Nameless Garden?”

“Because the early mages could not agree on a name for the garden that they had just discovered, so they instead called it the Nameless Garden,” she explained, clearly not thinking much of the old mages.

“But… they kinda did give it a name. I mean, Nameless Garden is still a name right?” I asked, a little confused about how they could have missed that.

Esra gave an honest to god chuckle when I said that, her eyes moving skyward for a moment. “No one ever said the early mages were in the high end of the intelligence spectrum.”

“Right, the old mages were dumb,” I grinned, loving how that was a complete reversal from what I had been expecting.

“Their descendants however, quickly turned that on its head. It is said that a stupid mage does not live long, and it is wholly true. We are not so numerous or powerful that we can fight the common masses when they get it in their heads to hang us,” she warned, her tone turning from the previous amusement and into a sombre warning. “There are those out there who hunt us, there are those who fear us, and there are those who wish to capture and exploit us. Be wary, and do not reveal you are a mage unless you are confident that you can control the situation.”

“How though? Surely with magic we can fight them off?” I asked, suddenly worried for my ability to even get back to my friends at all.

“Ours is not the only path to arcane power, young Ryn. There are those who seek out magical artifacts and materials, crafting them into items of power. There are those who make deals with terrible and strange beings for a portion of their power, and many more paths besides,” she explained, her eyes clouding over with memory. “I was driven from my position within the duchy by those who claim that their demon is a god. Be wary of those ones. They are very rarely good news.”

“Well, that’s just a given usually, regardless of if they have arcane power or not,” I shrugged, thinking back to the conflicts of Earth’s past… and unfortunately its present too.

“Indeed.”

The lesson continued on after that, fast turning into a verbal conveyor belt of ways for me to die horribly to the people of the mundane realm. It was honestly a little terrifying, and I could see why Esra had elected to stay within her peaceful Grove rather than fight for her position outside. Shit, if I didn’t have my new family to get back to I might have considered the same after hearing all of that.

When the sun began to dip below the horizon, my new teacher called an end to the lecture, and showed me to an area that had somehow been added to her cottage while we’d been outside. It was a small nook of a room, but it had a comfy little bed in it with a bedside table to keep it company. It was cute, and after a small dinner of fruit and bread, we each went to bed.

It was while I lay awake, trying to convince my mind to stop spinning thoughts and go to sleep, that I began to really miss my friends. My mood plummeted and my gut churned. They probably thought I was dead by now, eaten by some terrible plant, never to be seen again. I hoped I could get back to them, I really did.