Resurrection

by Zed Amadeo

  “We often gather in regular festivals to share or sell our wares,” Alejandra explained, “And to celebrate our culture. Knowledge is as valuable as gold among our people. We have no standard tome of magic, so it is up to us to decide what to do with that knowledge.” I could only hope that the next festival I attended would be less terrifying than my past experience.

  My days of studying were broken up by moments of daily meditation. In between reading about mystical creatures and new spells, Alejandra would interrupt my studies to take me into another room in her palatial estate, plastered with colorful fabrics from one wall to the next, with a couple of pillows on the floor. I would sit cross-legged in front of her, resuming our position from our previous ritual, letting her take my hands into her own. During the first of our many obligatory daily meditations, I found it difficult to sit still and empty my mind when I was still so confused about so many things, although it became easier day after day.

  My nightly meal would often consist of a slightly more filling spread of breads and an assortment of jams while Alejandra quizzed me on whatever topic my lesson had been for that day. During one such occasion, the blue creature came back into the room, whispering something that I could not understand into Alejandra’s ear.

  “At this hour?” Alejandra asked. “Very well. Invite him in.” The creature left the room. Alejandra turned toward me.

  “Feel free to stay here or go back to your room,” she said before departing. I was already full and saw little reason to sit around for much longer, so I decided to go back up to my room, passing a closed door. I at first approached it only to grab my companion, but became drawn into the sound of conversation going on inside.

  “And his name?” Alejandra asked her unknown guest.

  “Greyson, I believe,” the visitor said. “He has been the worst pest. My customers are scared to approach me because they’re afraid they might be his next target. ”

  “Yes, I’ve heard talk of him before,” Alejandra said. “You are not the only one having problems with this warlock.”

  “The bodies just keep piling up, you know?” the visitor said. “How am I supposed to run my business with this nonsense?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Alejandra said. “I’ll have him taken care of at once. As long as you comply with the terms of our deal.”

  “Yes, of course,” the man said. “I would never think to break our terms. You’re the only resource I have left. You’ll have my services whenever you need – as soon as I can get my business up and running again.”

  “Excellent,” Alejandra said. “I’ll see to this soon.” I heard the rustle of movement. They must be getting up from their seats. I sprinted toward the staircase before Alejandra could notice me, or more importantly, my eavesdropping. I had almost made it back to my room without further incident when I bumped into Lisa in the hallway.

  I was too startled to say anything. For one long, frozen moment, we stood motionless before each other. She cast her eyes down, and without a word, shoved past me and headed in the direction that I had just come from. I practically sprinted the rest of the distance to my room.

  In my solitary silence, I allowed myself to doubt Alejandra for the first time. Yes, she had saved me and taught me a new and improved way to live, but did I really know who this woman was? The strange ambient sounds that came and went and the conversation that I had just overheard made me think otherwise. I considered leaving altogether, running through multiple possibilities of my next course of action. I opened the bedroom door to go to an unknown destination only to find Alejandra standing in my way.

  “Dina!” she said, looking pleased to see me again. “I came up to check on you. How are you feeling?” Before I could answer, she took several steps into the room and closed the door behind her. When we made eye contact again, I knew that she knew everything.

  “You heard my conversation, didn’t you?” she asked. I didn’t say anything.

  “You must understand that I am one of the most powerful members of this community,” she explained. “I help the magical folk here, and in exchange, they help me. You should have seen this place before. Witches and warlocks were fighting everywhere. They were on the brink of revealing our world. I have helped a lot of people here. Just like how I want to help you.” I had no proof that she was lying, and I felt too guilty to continue doubting her after everything that she had done for me.

  “Join me for dinner?” Alejandra asked. I nodded and followed her downstairs.

  While we were being served our evening meal, the bizarre sounds drifted in and out of audible range, which Alejandra continued to ignore. Feeling too uncomfortable to point them out or ask about them, I went along with the charade. Alejandra deflected my attention elsewhere when she pointed out a statue in the corner of that room that had not been there a day ago, a feminine figure permanently locked into a ballerina pose.

  “Where did this come from?” I asked.

  “It was a gift from a colleague,” she said. Maybe from a colleague like the warlock who had been having that mysterious conversation about “Greyson.”

  “I did him a favor,” Alejandra said. “And in return, he gave me that. When you do good for others of our kind, they will often return the favor.”

  “My purpose here is to build a community,” Alejandra said. “People come to me for help, and I assist them as best as I can. You too should have a purpose in your studies to guide you. I encourage you to think of one, but you should let the purpose come to you.”

  I thought about my purpose for days afterward, crowding out the numbing thoughts that had permanently latched themselves onto my brain and meditated on it whenever I got the chance. My answer finally arrived midway through training in spell casting, which left me feeling increasingly exhausted at the end of each day. After a time, the fatigue, the studying, and the meditation swirled together to provide me with a new state of mind. I experienced a clarity that helped me to weed out my destructive thought patterns.

  On the edge of sleep, I saw myself being beaten and violated all over again. And then I saw myself taking a backseat to everything else in my life, giving up on what few goals I used to have. All I had wanted to do was to lie in bed and retreat to a world where my daily pain did not exist. But why? Why had I become a bystander in my own life?

  I could place the blame on those two men: Joe and Nameless. The damage they had done to me was irreparable. Almost everything that I had done since had been in response to the fear that they had forced into me. But why should I let them have the final say with what I did with my life? Shouldn’t they be the ones suffering for that night? I would no longer be the helpless one. It would be they who would cower in fear. I knew that I had found my purpose. My eyes opened from pre-sleep.

  I was studying magic to become less helpless. The first step in that would be carrying out my own justice to those two men.

  Putting my purpose into a concrete statement made it possible for me to go through my training with a new sense of comfort. I had a specific goal that I wanted to work toward. Every action I performed and piece of knowledge I gained were stepping-stones to help me get there. The food felt less lacking, the meditation easier, and the studying more efficient when I put everything into this perspective. I was not only growing into a witch. I was becoming a stronger person.

  I did not have to tell Alejandra my purpose. I showed it to her, during one of our daily meditations. My purpose flowed effortlessly into my mind. I suddenly saw myself roaming through the world, casting whatever spell I pleased, finally the one in power as I imagined in so many of daydreams while in training. I had become a weapon of magic. A saldan, as they had been described, creatures with mottled yellow skin, long claws on every digit, wings to carry them from one destination to the next, and the darkest eyes that would strike fear into anyone they encountered. A saldan could take on the skin of other humans, use them as a disguise against their hideous exterior. As one of these crea
tures, nothing and no one could hold me back as I sought my violent revenge. My vision concluded with finally finding Joe and Nameless, and twisting their existence into worlds of pain. Alejandra suddenly breathed in sharply, destroying the calm we had created together and sending my vision floating into the ether.

  “Dina,” she said, after looking into my eyes for an extended, quiet moment, “You are even more determined than I thought.”

  From then on, my training from Alejandra became more defensive than instructive:

  Sarifa, to deflect a spell. It doesn’t always work on every spell, Alejandra explained, but it’s usually worth a try.

  Kafada, to slice into flesh.

  Alama, to cause a brief burst of pain.

  If I ever became too drained to continue that day, Alejandra reminded me to think of my vision. That always gave me enough energy to continue on with full force. We continued meditating together for longer periods of time. The more we meditated, the closer the messages between us grew, until the images she passed into me became as clear as a movie.

  During one of my final days of training, Alejandra began our meditation with a disclaimer.

  “Dina, I’ve decided that I want to show you something special today,” she said. “Something that I have not shown to anyone else. I want to show you because I want you to be a part of this. You have more raw power than any witch-in-training that I have met. I want you to think of this as the introduction for what is to come.” I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing until it matched the pace of Alejandra’s. Her vision became my own, although I could still feel the vision’s foreign quality at the edges of mind.

  Alejandra and I stood together, wearing magnificently colored robes. A feeling of accomplishment radiated out from my body. The two of us walked from one city to the next with impossible speed. No matter where we went, I was overwhelmed with an intense peace and calm as all of my previous fears melted away into insignificance. In each city, we were surrounded by our own kind. As we walked through the streets, other magical folk joined us, becoming our followers. I felt blissful. Tranquil. At home. I had finally found my place. The vision became a dream from which I never wanted to wake.

  “We didn’t have to hide ourselves,” I said, after the vision had ended and I looked into Alejandra’s comforting eyes.

  “Precisely,” she said. “Our kind has existed in a stalemate with the ordinary world for too long. We have this tradition of keeping ourselves hidden, but why should our kind shrink away from this ordinary, inferior world? I have found a way to raise our kind to a new level of existence. With this new freedom, we shall shape the world as we see fit. We will have the power at last. With your strength and the support of my network within this community, I know that we’ll be able to make this vision into reality. I know that you have your own reasons for undergoing your training to become a witch, and I fully support you in fulfilling your purpose. I only ask that after you’re finished training, and after you’ve sought your well-deserved revenge, that you never forget the greater goal that I have created for us. As soon as you return, we will be able to begin.”

  I couldn’t have said no to her even if I had wanted to. All I could do was nod and try to fight back the inexplicable tears the vision had created. I had never seen my life as part of anything grander than the ordinary.

  “This is amazing,” I said to Alejandra, an understatement of my true emotion. But that felt like a barely adequate response, so I followed up with something more.

  “I promise,” I told her. “To never lose sight of the great goal.”

  ***

  The revelation came to me toward the end of my training, found in the same book that Alejandra had given me with our creation myth:

  The secret that al-Jafru discovered formed basis of the most powerful kinds of magic in existence:

  Blood.

  What could be more symbolic of humanity’s unique energy than the blood that courses through our veins and gives our bodies sustenance? Giving blood creates an unbreakable bond, powers your magic in a way that nothing else can. Just as blood magic can have more potent effects than anything else, one must remember that its consequences can also be far more dire…

  All of this time, I had been trying to think of what I wanted to do with Joe and Nameless once I finally got a hold of them. I suddenly realized that I had no reason to waste my precious revenge solely on leaving them for dead. I could take their lives not only for vengeance, but a greater purpose. If it was true that there were no ingredients more powerful than the blood and the soul, it only made sense to make some use of theirs.

  I revealed my intentions to Alejandra via meditation.

  “Turning your revenge into a blood magic ritual to help you advance?” Alejandra said after I had shown her my intentions via meditation. “Superb. I’m sure you must be beating your mind trying to figure out a way to properly perform this ritual.” I nodded my head.

  “Excellent,” she said. “We have much to discuss. I’ve got to get you prepared if you want to do this ritual correctly.”

  ***

  On the morning of my final ritual, I allowed my thoughts to swirl around me while soaking in a tub of warm water, surrounded by incense and steam. Small red rivulets spiraled out from my torso into the surrounding bathwater from the incisions on my body I had made to mirror the scarred tissue that Joe and Nameless had left on me before. Drawing a new design for my own purpose. I had grimaced at first from the pain as Alejandra had helped me carve into my own flesh. Even sitting in water had made it throb. Now I relished the feeling. Old scar tissue that had been reinvigorated and made anew. All a part of my plan to create a more powerful version of myself. I ran my plan through my mind, eagerly awaiting the moment that I would be able to launch into action.

  I found the sacred basement much the same as it had been the first time that I had experienced its brilliance. Alejandra and I took our places in the same individual circles as before. She clasped her hands around mine as we had done so many days in meditation.

  “You will be granted the power to fulfill your intentions and beyond,” Alejandra said, speaking the sacred language of magic. “But you must remember the sacred bond between teacher and student, indebted to one another for life.”

  “You must show us your intentions for undertaking this journey,” Alejandra said. I painted a clear picture of my revenge in my mind until it filled every fiber of my being, reaffirming my confidence in what was to come.

  “State them aloud for the universe to hear,” she said. I transformed my thoughts into words. As I completed my statement, Alejandra grabbed the knife beside her and cut into her arm, spilling her blood into the circle. I then embraced the weapon and accepted the infliction of pain upon myself, seeing it as a small price to pay for my grander plan.

  Our voices as one, Alejandra and I chanted the incantation that would bring that powerful entity back into our world. My excitement, but not my fear, grew as that wind began to pick up and charge around me in every direction.

  I gained the courage to look past Alejandra’s head at the entity taking on an earthly form in its place in the circle. I could only see a dark expanding mass that didn’t seem to come from anywhere. It remained a fuzzy mass that struggled to exist, never taking on a true shape even after it had stopped expanding. Though I could see no features on the entity, I could feel an intense power pulsing from its mass, enough to force me to turn back to Alejandra’s face as it began to “breathe.” Together, we chanted another set of ancient words. With every inhalation, I could feel more power rushing from the entity and into me, so much power that I felt ready to scream.

  I watched in equal parts horror and excitement as a portion of the dark entity stretched out from its place in the corner and slithered toward my body, coating every inch of my body in its mysterious black mist. I looked into Alejandra’s eyes one last time for support before the darkness covered my face. I found my head pounding with
strange, foreign thoughts. I listened to them as the dark coating shrunk closer to my skin.

  The thoughts did not come in words, but images. The entity, whatever it was, was trying to show me what it was about to do to me next, foreshadowing the pain that I would soon experience. Before the pain began, it allowed me to see an image of the end result, granting me the strength to handle what was to come.

  The mist solidified and constricted me until I could barely breathe. It forced my mouth open and began to flow into me. Even knowing what was about to happen did not eliminate the excruciating sensations. My skin felt like it was being torn from the rest of my body, cell by cell, until I emerged from my old skin. I was vulnerable, yet strangely free.

  For just a moment, I felt a bit of pain as my body was exposed to the empty air around me. My body began to shift and change in reaction to its new exposure, my limbs growing or shrinking to new and unnatural proportions while I thrashed around on the floor, helpless against the transformations being performed on my body, until the pain came to an end.

  I looked at my old body from my new perspective. The old Dina was sprawled out on the floor, while I had become this strange, new creature. My new form was yellow and mottled, my fingers replaced with long claws, and wings sprouting from my back. I could only imagine that my eyes had become as dark as the creature we had summoned.

  A saldan.

  “Revenge,” the entity told me, suddenly shifting its form of communication from images to broken attempts at sentences. “Any…form. Free…no shell.” The sound of breathing slowly began to leave the room, and with it, the presence of the entity.

  “Khalas,” Alejandra said, signaling the end of my official initiation into magic.

  I had been granted a new and unexpected freedom. Free to be whatever I wanted. Do whatever I wanted.

  I didn’t want stay in that form for too long just yet. Despite all of the power that I had just been given, I wanted to be surrounded by the comfort blanket of a shell of skin. I scampered back over to my body, taking a good look at my old, hideous self, lifeless beneath me. In that moment, it became everything about me that I wanted to leave behind. It no longer defined who I was. I stood over my old shell and imagined myself taking on its exterior as my own, only a temporary vehicle for arriving at my final destination. Within moments, after only blinking, I was back within it. I pushed myself up, nearly hyperventilating from the experience, and wiped some of the sweat off of my brow. Alejandra was beaming at me with pride.