by Allen Snell
Garen glanced around the cozy cabin in confusion. The space seemed fine. Then he understood her disregard. “I’m not saying it for you. I’m saying I’ll miss this. It’s weird.”
Karna’s usual squint narrowed into even more of a glare.
“You know the difference,” Garen said. “Life is chaotic as a Spellsword. I like it. I’m ready to go back. But before this, I don’t think I appreciated the alternative. You just do what you want and live. I guess that’s what we’re fighting for. Making it so people can have a life like yours.”
“You’re sweet,” Karna said softly. “But you still see the world a little too black-and-white. Even a content old bat like me needs a purpose. A little chaos can be a good thing. They aren’t two ways of life. They’re extremes. We’re probably happiest in the middle.”
“Well then,” Garen said, raising his clay mug, “here’s hoping I find the balance someday.” He chugged the rest of his tea in giant gulps and swung it back down loudly.
“You have a long way to go after a disgrace like that,” Karna said, with a peaceful sip. “But I’m grateful your boundless nagging pulled me a little ways toward the center.”
Garen opened his eyes wide and smiled. “You are dangerously close to saying the words ‘thank you,’ and I’d rather we wrap things up before it changes our entire relationship.”
Karna laughed, and for possibly the first time, it wasn’t unsettling for him. She found joy in something other than his suffering, and he was happy to have caused it. “Fine. You’re not ready, but at least you’re less of an idiot than when you started. It’s time that you saw how I separated the spirits firsthand.”
“Remind me how old you are?” Garen asked, creating the intended glare. “Because I don’t know if we have time for me to search through all those years.”
“I’ll be guiding you. You just have to stay where I lead you.”
“Sure,” Garen smiled with a devious look in his eyes. “Does that mean there’s something I shouldn’t know?”
“In your shoes, I found it safest to assume every memory I didn’t know is something I shouldn’t. It’s not even about secrets. It’s about taking a gift instead of receiving one. You’ve lived the thieving life long enough to feel the difference.”
Garen nodded. “You might be a little more convincing if you weren’t using information you stole from my mind to make your point.”
“I’m not your role model. I’m just a tired source of wisdom. Do me a favor and learn from my mistakes, will you?” She stared at him with an honest pleading in her eyes. There was no trace of the playful sarcasm he’d grown accustomed to, and the sincerity was intimidating.
“Alright.”
“Then you’re ready for our final lesson. No matter how or which spirit you eject, you will need to spellshift to and from Drake’s soul to guide it to a new host. Watch my memory closely for that. You’ll also witness the Water Spirit force Therov out. Learn all you can so you can train your Spellsword to do the same.”
“You keep saying that. I still think once I see it I could train to do it.” Garen said.
Karna sighed, once again deep in thought. “Would you like to revisit that option? The warmth coming from the geonode between us is unnatural. I made it from nothing, and it doesn’t belong. Use the Gate of Choice to remove it.”
The topic was a sore subject. She knew it. The Gates of Truth and Persistence felt natural to him, but Garen hadn’t been able to draw deeper from the Gate of Choice at all. He couldn’t mimic any of the abilities Aethis possessed. Even simple spells felt impossible to reject. Garen stared back at her until she felt the rhetorical question had been answered.
“Better to teach someone strong to run than a cripple to walk,” Karna said.
Garen laughed in frustration. “Good thing I said all that nice stuff already. Otherwise, you’d get none.”
“As it should be. Now, get ready.”
She closed her eyes and leaned back. Garen was finally ready to attempt what he’d seen her do when they first met. Rather than use physical light to move in through her eyes, Garen closed his own and felt only one soul’s tether near him. It was close enough he could reach out and touch it, so he did.
“You’re learning all sorts of new tricks today.” The voice was vaguely Karna’s, but the words had a strange, crisp quality. There was no echo at all. He couldn’t tell where the source came from. The feeling was exactly like talking with the spirits. “As soon as I found the right starting point, I was planning to open my eyes and let you in the easy way. Accessing the mind through the soul is a bit trickier.”
“But it worked. I’m here.”
Not yet, Kallista said. You know where you are.
Garen had no physical form to express goosebumps, but he felt them anyway. He’d intruded into her soul without permission. That had to be much worse than reaching too far into her memories.
“You’re okay. But there’s nothing to see there. Follow my voice.”
Garen was relieved, but still anxious about the impossible instructions. There was no direction for sound to come from. It seemed to come from everywhere.
“Sorry, I guess you’re right,” Karna said. Garen was suddenly confused how she was responding to him. Could she hear his thoughts in her soul?
“I can. But that’s for another day. Don’t worry about what direction my voice is coming from. There’s no distance to travel. Just be there.”
Garen tried to take a deep breath, remembered that he couldn’t, and followed her absurd request exactly. Sight returned to him. He found himself standing on a stone path in her mind. Every direction was obscured by a gray fog.
“Not bad,” Karna’s voice surrounded him. “Now, tell me what you see.”
Garen looked for any distinct shapes in the mists. He saw none. “It’s about as depressing as I’d imagined. Nothing but cold fog and darkness.”
“That tells me more than I wanted to know. Right now, you’re imagining people’s minds as you see them. It’s not terribly useful, especially if you think of me as cold and unknowable. How do you think I see my mind?”
Garen sighed. “How would I know? I’d have to read your…” Garen stopped and thought about where he was. “I’m reading your mind already, aren’t I?”
“You must be some kind of prodigy.” Her dry sarcasm echoed while the world reformed around Garen. He stood at the entrance to a grand palace hall. Garen had visualized minds as cluttered, sparse, or tidily organized. He had never seen one this elaborately decorated. He had to stop and check his surroundings to make sure he wasn’t already in a memory. He still felt like a disembodied mind. At least in memories he felt like another person.
The doors leading out of the grand hall were too pristine to be real. Gold lattice and crystal chandeliers lined the space in perfect symmetry. If there were a hundred nobles mingling around, it would have seemed remarkably elegant. As a vacant hall, it gave him the creeps.
“It’s grand, right? It only took about ten years of judging the quality of other minds before I thought to improve my own.”
“It’s something alright. Do you host many parties up here?”
“Because there’s so much empty space, is that right?” Karna said, feigning humor.
“No, but I probably missed my chance at an ‘open mind’ joke, now that you mention it.”
“You did. The memory is straight ahead.”
Instead of traveling the passage as he was accustomed, the ground moved under him. The polished wood flooring and bright red tapestries all became a blur as door after door raced by. They eventually slowed, and the decorations came back into focus. Everything looked identical to the original hall.
“How many copies of that same painting did you hang in this place?”
“Garen, your mind is a cave. Dirt floors. Bare walls.”
“Just having a little fun. Let’s see how badly your memory is slipping at your age.”
Garen opened the heavy silver door
she’d stopped him in front of. He felt the shift into physical perception and saw the world through her eyes.
“Karna, you have to believe me. I’m fine!” Strong, tanned arms gripped her shoulders. A pleading smile stared back at her from a man in his late twenties. Their faces were much too close for Garen’s preference. The memory told him she didn’t mind.
“You know you’re not,” Karna responded. The youth in her voice was a shock to Garen. It was equally harsh but with none of the time-worn grit. “We have to do this now, before you go off like that again. Kelit doesn’t want to break his other arm knocking some sense into you. And I don’t want to see you like that ever again.”
Across the room, a man with an arm in a sling nodded solemnly. Garen had never seen him before, but through the lens of Karna’s memory, it was like visiting an old friend. Kelit had the build of a seasoned blacksmith and smelled like soot. He leaned with his back against a familiar stone wall. Garen realized they stood in his old training room in Vikar-Tola. He wanted to poke around and take in the sights on his own, but he was locked to Karna’s vision.
Nereus paced with nervous energy. He stopped and gave Karna a trusting smile. “We all took time getting used to our gifts. A second spirit is merely another challenge. I’ll get it under control.”
“Listen to yourself!” Karna shouted. “Even this, right now. It isn’t you. You’re the stoic source of caution. You’re the calm voice of reason when I’m chasing ghosts and Kelit is just being an ass.”
“She’s right,” Kelit added with a gruff smirk.
“So stop fighting this,” Karna said. “We’re going to save you, the real you. The only thing we’re getting rid of is this violent lust you’re slipping in and out of.”
Nereus breathed deeply and closed his eyes. Without his stare on her, Karna let herself smile.
“You loved him,” Garen thought to her.
“Unfortunately,” she responded, the gravel back in her voice. “But none of that matters now.”
Nereus opened his eyes and smiled. This one felt less desperate. He was at peace. “You’re right. I can’t do this on my own.”
Karna motioned to her left and Garen realized a fourth person shared the room. The straight, long hair and Ambersong crest would have clued Garen in if the memory hadn’t. Drake’s grandfather, a middle-aged Elic Ambersong, stepped toward them. The three took a seat on the stone floor. Karna glanced back at Kelit, but he simply shrugged and kept his distance.
Karna closed her eyes. Garen felt a familiar sensation. He was entirely used to memories composed of sights and sounds, maybe the occasional smell. This memory could hold none of those. He dove with Karna past the Gate of Truth. She graced the surface of the Spirit Realm with an incredible lightness and bounced off it. Compared to her poise, Garen felt like his transitions had been awkward tumbles. Karna stepped between worlds as easily as hopping a waist-high fence.
“Good, you’re still with me,” Karna said to Garen. “You’ll see in a moment why words wouldn’t have done it justice.”
In the memory, Karna was clearly traveling back up a different soul. All the defining attributes she focused on—compassion, cleverness, vanity beyond measure—meant nothing to him until he reached Nereus’ crowded soul.
Garen had no sense of sight inside the soul. But a deep, unfamiliar voice rang within it. “Like moths to a flame, I see.”
The next voice Garen recognized as Ampelis. “Oh gods, whoever you are, get Therov away from me.” He’d never heard the Water Spirit this full of terror.
“Not quite a god, but I’ll do for now,” Karna replied. “Therov, is it? We need to find you a better home. You’re not respecting your current one very well.”
“I’d rather stay,” Therov said. “This is my storm, and you are all my ships.”
Garen felt the young and brazen confidence of his grandmother, straddling worlds and wielding magic no one could dream of. All of that boldness wisped away like a warm breath in cold air.
If Karna had any way to collapse, she would have. An emotional pain that she had never known rushed through her. The flood of memories meant nothing to Garen, but he felt her soul writhe at the simultaneous experience of losing every friend and family she ever had. It tore the ground out from under her. Every painful change she had ever endured in life hit at once. The separation from family. The death of friends. Therov pulled trauma after trauma from the Gate of Rupture, and it broke her.
“You’re a monster,” Ampelis shouted out. Garen felt spirits collide. He heard the echoing cries of Ampelis. It sounded like he was lifting an item beyond his strength, if that were even possible in a space like this.
“Let go of me, perverse brute!” Therov shouted.
“No,” Ampelis spoke, voice still strained with exertion. “If you can torture us with your soul-stained gate, I’m going to see how goffing well you handle mine.”
“That saved me,” Karna’s aged voice intruded the memory, pausing the grunts and struggles of the spirits. “I’m not sure how much of Therov’s torture I could have endured. Even reliving it now makes my soul ache. The Gate of Rupture is a vital part of life, but too much of anything is a poison. That disgusting old creature Ampelis saved my life.
“Having met that ‘old creature,’ consider me shocked,” Garen said. “But how did he do it?”
“I’ve shown you all I know about how he used the Gate of Choice. Your Water Spellsword will have to figure it out. Now, it’s time to see your role.”
The sounds of struggle resumed. Exactly as Ampelis threatened, he forced Therov out of the cramped soul. Karna didn’t waste a moment to follow after him. She collided with Therov at the base of Nereus’ thread in the Spirit Realm. Garen felt no physical contact as they wrestled. They were two forces of will determined to control each other.
Karna’s grace and experience moving between worlds gave her the advantage. She fixed her mind on Elic’s soul. The characteristics Karna used to find him were much more impersonal. Dignified, intelligent, and bossy. With a graceless stumble more familiar to Garen’s method of spellshifting, she dragged Therov up the soul’s thread. The two of them landed in Elic Ambersong’s soul.
Therov tried to reorient himself with the Gate of Rupture and bring the same torturous weight back onto Karna here. She was gone before he had the chance. She touched off the base of the Spirit Realm again, an effortless swimmer among the spirits once more. She reformed next to Nereus.
Young Karna’s eyes opened. As her vision refocused, a shimmer caught Garen’s attention. Behind a smiling Nereus stood a glowing door attached to nothing.
“And that’s how I split them,” Karna spoke over the memory. “Not sure if it’s as exciting as you hoped, but carrying the spirit between hosts was intuitive for me. It should be for you, too. I just hope he doesn’t put you through…Garen? Where are you going?”
“Where’s this door leading to? It’s practically shouting my name.”
“Ignore that. It’s a similar memory, the way one thought tends to lead to another. But there’s nothing else that will help you. It’s time to step out.”
Garen paused to consider what kind of memory was connected to the transfer of souls. The secret of how Karna passed the Light Spirit to his mother could be right there. It was a reach and a turn of the handle away. If that sort of transfer was even possible, he needed to know. Drake needed to know, and maybe he could pass on the spirit himself. That seemed much easier. He tried to step into the memory and felt the air push against him. He wasn’t sure what kind of repressed emotions held it back, but he only needed a peek.
“Garen, where are you?” she called.
It was a relief that she couldn’t sense his thoughts while he was in her memories, the way she could in her soul. Unfortunately, a quick peek was proving more difficult than Garen planned. It took all his strength to cross the memory’s threshold. Everything was pitch-black on the other side. Each step was a blind venture into the darkness. He still fe
lt like he was walking against the wind. When the resistance gave way, he plunged forward into a pit of darkness.
Garen spun and flailed, trying to understand his surroundings. Voices shouted in every direction, some Karna’s, some masculine. They shouted overtop one another too fast to understand their meaning or for Garen to know how many memories were jumbled together.
“They’ll use you like a rag!”
“Karna, we can’t.”
“If she lives, everyone else dies!”
“And toss you when you’re useless.”
“I don’t care. I want you.”
“You want to get to her? You’ll have to go through me.”
Garen felt sick to his stomach as the spikes of pain, excitement, guilt, and compassion rushed through him. He tried to create light to see who the voices belonged to. He wasn’t in a space where that was possible. Two more shouts echoed distinctly by themselves.
“I love him, mom.”
“I won’t let them use you!”
Those final words repeated louder and faster until practically deafening. He felt his own lips in the memory shout them. On the floor in front of Karna was the youngest vision of his mother Garen had ever seen. Layna was twenty, if that. She looked up from her hands and knees. The one eye she could open was flooded with tears. Bruises swelled the other shut. Blood trickled from behind her ear and matted the brown hair against her neck.
Garen’s emotions intruded the memory and demanded to know who had beaten her senseless. Karna answered him with silent guilt. He could feel her own face equally swollen from the recent blows they’d traded. Karna pressed a hand against a seeping wound along her shoulder. Their spar had turned into something far more personal, and Karna’s temper pushed her too far. She’d beaten her daughter within an inch of her life. As the blinding rage calmed, it left shame in its wake. Karna looked away, sobbing as well now.
“I won’t,” Karna repeated, “I won’t let them use you. If you want to join the Spellswords that badly, there’s only one way I’ll allow it. One way that won’t get you killed the first time they need a fool’s errand.”