by T S Paul
She wore a ring on her left hand, one that he remembered putting there. He knew that ring was special and he remembered how proud he was when she accepted it. Glancing into her eyes, his memory supplied her name. Anika. The name of the beautiful, loving woman was Anika.
The disappearance of the memory slapped the man with the brutal force of an unexpected blow. His insubstantial arms reached out, and his hands clutched the formless fog in vain. The memory was gone.
A stinging, burning sensation bubbled up through him and grew in pressure like it would shoot out in every direction. The clinging, acidic burn made him want to curl up into a tiny ball and hide.
Sorrow. What he was feeling was sorrow.
Once more, he was confused. He didn’t know what to do with this pressure, the sorrow. It kept burning his center, clinging to him no matter which way he moved. Flailing around, he felt his grip on his awareness start to fade when another memory floated into his mind. It was an older memory, far older. It was a woman talking, someone that made him feel safe. There was an interesting cadence and tone pattern to her voice, something that reassured him at the same time that it made him stronger.
It was an old memory, but a clear one. He could hear her voice saying, “It will be all right, Oleg. Everything will work out, trust me, my rebenok, my child, it will be fine.” Then he knew, My name is Oleg.
He felt another surge of satisfaction, one even larger than the last. He had a name now to add to the other pieces of information that he held. With each fact, each part of himself recovered, he was stronger and more able to be present. He repeated the name in his own mind, Oleg, I am Oleg! As if the use of his name was a summoning ritual, another memory erupted.
This memory was huge, not fragmented or partial. It came with a complex mixture of those pesky feelings, the ones that made him burn or ache or fly, all without an understanding of how he got there. This memory was overwhelming, and all he could do was ride along with it.
… All of the people in the room were grim. Oleg knew that the chance of their survival was not high. He also knew its importance, more than his own life. He was committed to this path and had buried his regrets under decades of discipline. He was Volkhvy, one of those that led. The position had both privilege and obligation associated with it, and he had made an oath on his blood that he would fulfill those duties.
There were 13 of them gathered for the spell, one in the center of the circle and the remainder evenly spaced on the sigil line engraved into the polished stone floor. He could look up and see Pavel across from him, still with a faint smile on his face even in such a time of desperate danger. He took comfort in his friend’s presence knowing that he would not be alone when it came his time to die.
“It is time for us to begin,” a mellow female voice said.
The sound of her voice threatened to erode his control. He had argued unceasingly, incessantly, trying to convince her that she did not need to be part of this ritual. That she should stay apart to possibly live when those in the circle would most assuredly die. The sting of his failure was with him still. With the same stubborn grace that she greeted each morning, the woman had refused to try to save herself. Reminding him of their equal responsibility, she told him that she had also sworn oaths.
Spears of light appeared on each of the candles around the circle. Between each of the 12 witches stood a candle as tall as his shoulder, placed on heavily carved and ornate plates, affixed to the floor. The flames steadied, neither flickering nor sputtering. They cast an even light that reached each of the bordering witches and extended to intersect at the center and the figure standing there.
There was a woman in the center of the circle. Her dark red hair was threaded with silver, and there were smile lines at the corner of her eyes and mouth. His heart clenched to see her there…
The memory dissolved in a flash of pain that screamed danger to Oleg. The horrid ripping feeling of grief was overlaid with the fire of something he recognized as fury. There had been danger. Danger and loss, but he was unable to do anything about it. Reaching up into a huge wave of incoming emotion, Oleg’s consciousness dissolved back into the formless dissolution that it had emerged from just a little while before.
Chapter 2 - Identity
Oleg was awake again. He was aware and conscious, knowing both that he was a magic user and his name was Oleg. Opening his immaterial eyes, he saw that he was surrounded by a formless shifting environment of chaotic light and insubstantial clouds. The movement of his surroundings was unpatterned and sporadic. The monotony of the gray tones was only occasionally interrupted by a short-lived thread of glowing color.
For some reason, he thought those colors were important, but he couldn’t remember why. For now, he was content just to watch them move.
If he had not been watching his surroundings carefully, Oleg would not have noticed the shadow’s movement to his right. It looked like a darker cloud of gray moving through the insubstantial atmosphere around him. Trying to bring the shape of the darkness to better focus, Oleg felt his form move slightly forward.
An unexpected shriek of terror startled Oleg. The dark shadow coalesced into the shape of a man, hunched over and skeletal in appearance. Continuing to scream, the specter first tried to crouch down and then sprang up to flee in terror.
I know him! I know that person! He’s another witch, and his name is… I can’t remember his name!
Oleg attempted to run after the fleeing man, but his insubstantial body was not obeying him. It responded clumsily and only after delays. His need to stop the man had pushed him past another threshold, one in which he could actually move under conscious control. It was not efficient, and it was not quick, but his ability was growing. However, he had no hope of catching the receding shape of the shadow, but he stubbornly tried anyway.
Stumbling and weaving, wavering and with incomplete control of his movement, Oleg began to move in the direction that the shadow had fled. He knew that unless something stopped the panicked man, Oleg would not be able to catch him but he wanted to get closer and see if he could remember more. More about anything.
Abruptly, the formless gray clouds disappeared. Oleg found himself standing next to a line on the floor. He tried to look around, but it was if his sight was clouded. Details were there, but they were wispy and insubstantial. Not chaotic like where he had awakened, but different. Any attempt to focus in this area made him long to rub his eyes so that he could see better.
Oleg forced his insubstantial body to move forward another two steps. As his spectral heel came down on the floor for the second time, there was a jolt of power that blasted through his incorporeal form that made all of his senses ring.
He looked down. There was a mark on the floor, one that he knew very well. It was the one that he remembered in his memory. The place that he had stood when the dangerous and deadly spell of his memory had been cast.
Oleg fainted.
<<<>>>
The resonating tone of a bell wakened Oleg. He pulled himself erect because he knew that tone was important. It signaled time, time to do something. He just wished he knew what time it was.
Perhaps, it is time to wake up, Oleg thought. If it is time to open the store, I better feed…
Unwarned, Oleg was taken by surprise as a storm of grief and sorrow overwhelmed him. Unexpectedly, a memory of tiny claws prickling on his arms and a feeling of shared joy were skewered by a lance of fresh and burning loss. The emotion was overwhelming, crushing.
Perhaps if he had been expecting it, the pain would have been something he could have handled. But the surprising nature of the onslaught escaped his conscious control, and Oleg turned to flee.
Caught in the maelstrom of a total panic attack, Oleg tried to run to the center of the circle. His spectral body slammed into a wall that even he could not see. Mindlessly, he clambered to his feet and ran a different way only to run into the wall again.
There is no way out! Where can I go? There is danger everywh
ere! Run, run…
Falling down onto the floor and tucking his body into a tight curl, Oleg clutched his knees and sobbed uncontrollably. The cadence of his cries was jagged and his breathing erratic.
It might have been a few seconds or an eternity, but eventually, Oleg stopped sobbing. It was another unmeasurable period of time until his breathing slowed and his heart ceased to race.
For a while, Oleg just rested there, wallowing in the feeling of escape. Eventually, the disciplined nature of the man reasserted itself. It was time to get up and cope. Searching within himself, Oleg did not know why it was time to get up. The only clue that he found in that examination was a faint voice that said, “That is what I do.”
The man forced his insubstantial body to stand up. Shaking himself like a dog shedding water, Oleg began to investigate the invisible wall. Approaching where he remembered running into the restraining force, Oleg put his hand out and could feel a smooth, cool surface that rose from the line on the floor and stretched upward. Reaching as far as he could on either side, Oleg determined that it was a smooth wall that rode on top of the line on the floor.
Determined to check the entire perimeter for gaps, Oleg started to move around the circle. He was so focused on checking the wall that he was not watching what he was stepping on. When an object on the floor caught his foot and almost dumped him over, the witch flinched in surprise.
He had stumbled over an ornately printed and heavily filigreed book. The book was charred and broken looking. Oleg recognized the book. The sight of it filled him once more with overwhelming grief, but this time he had some warning. Stubbornly, he clung to his position and refused to be chased into panic once more. However, the attendant feeling of aloneness and the resonance of the grief along every expanse of his being was something that he could not afford to distract him. It was a weakness, and he had to defeat that vulnerability, or he risked going back into the formless abyss.
Closing his spectral eyes, Oleg pictured a wall being built around him. Made of fire-hardened brick and using mortar to close any possible holes, the witch constructed a wall that protected him from the rest of his world. Designed to keep distracting emotions out, he built it quickly and sturdily. As the wall closed, he felt his grief becoming more remote, less immediate. It was still there, and he could look at it, but it was not uppermost on his mind. This was better. This way he could function.
Feeling more settled and protected by his mental wall, Oleg continued his exploration. Walking around the entire circle, he had found no gaps, no way of going in and out. But somehow, he had gotten into the circle. How could that be if there was no break?
The answer to that was found at the position that Oleg knew was his. Even with the protective wall, the specter was conscious of a feeling of dread as he approached the last position in the circle. He remembered standing there. He remembered fear and grief. But his wall protected him, and he could think past those emotional memories.
Oleg had been walking along the circle running his right hand along the insubstantial ring wall. He must have been leaning a little bit too hard on the barrier because when it suddenly ceased to exist under his hand, he almost fell over. The witch had found the break in the wall. It was exactly behind where he had stood in the circle on that fateful day.
There was relief in knowing that he could get out of this confined area. That sense of comfort was uppermost in his mind as he turned one more time to look across the circle. Seeing nothing different in the area, he began to turn and noticed in passing that there was something on the floor by where he had stood for the spell. Drawn by curiosity, he bent forward to look more closely. His first impression was that it was a ball of dust that had clumped together. A slightly longer look shocked him to his core.
The mental bricks of his wall exploded in the violence and intensity of grief and regret that flooded his senses. Oleg had not descended into panic, but no wall that he was capable of building would keep out his feelings at this point.
Sobs ripped out of his chest and tortured his throat with the force of their passing. Reaching his spectral hands out, Oleg tried in vain to gather up the small skeleton that was still draped with the time-bedraggled golden fur of the half-grown familiar that had died at his feet.
Chapter 3 - The Pain of Existing
Strong emotional outbursts only last for a limited time. They burn out the power of the holder, leaving them in a numb state and with little motivation to move or act. For Oleg, he emerged from the crashing surf of his grief into a contemplative state.
The sorrow for his beloved familiar had in some ways been a gift. The witch now had more recovered memories and felt more solid to himself. He remembered many things. Drinks in the bar with friends, arguing over the finer points of spellcasting. The pride that he felt when he first opened his bookstore and the satisfaction that had grown as his reputation developed for finding rare and valuable tomes.
Those memories were comforting, and he clung to them. Others he avoided. He was too bruised to willingly call forth memories that might be intense. He felt like a bent stick, still unbroken but close to his limit. He would not willingly pass that threshold.
Somewhere, the bright ringing tone that he had heard before sounded again. Acting on reflex, Oleg stood up. It was time to do something. Touched with sadness, Oleg’s eyes glanced toward the lonely little skeleton on the floor. He would not be worried about feeding his familiar any longer. The witch knew that the ache would never go away. He had loved many familiars in his long life and still grieved for every one of them.
Resolutely wrenching his mind away from the sad topic, Oleg straightened up and glanced around the circle one more time. In a sense, he was saying goodbye, to what or to whom he was not sure. From another perspective, he was moving on. That was the viewpoint that he chose to focus on, the one that would allow him to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving.
If he had not have been in a reflective mood, Oleg might not have noticed another dark shadow outside the wall directly across from him. However, with his heightened sensitivity, Oleg noticed the slightly thicker and darker cloud that was pressed against the wall.
He stared at the shape of the darkness for a few moments. In fact, he stared so long that he found himself playing a game not indulged in since he was a child, that of “What shape do you see?”
Moving his spectral lips into an approximation of a smile, Oleg continued to try to match the shape to something recognizable. Finally, he had a connection and the amazing nature of that connection startled him into an involuntary exclamation.
“Pavel?! Is that you?”
The shadowy shape seemed to freeze for second and then rapidly withdraw. Oleg was cursing himself, thinking that he should have learned from the previous experience not to startle the dark specters. Apparently, he was not a single experience learner.
Disappointed in himself, Oleg once again prepared to leave. Promising to return later, Oleg slipped through the gap in the circle and started to move away. The formless expanse gave him very few landmarks. It was impossible to depend on navigation aids when the landscape was constantly changing. So the witch simply moved, drawn by intuition and curiosity.
Oleg had not traveled very far before he became aware that something was watching him. Spinning around and trying to peer through the chaos clouds, he was unable to see anything that could have been the source of his discomfort. Shrugging his shoulders, the witch turned back to continue on his chosen path when he noticed that a short distance from where he stood was the same shadow he had seen by the circle.
Could it really be Pavel? Or was this some other lost soul who had been wandering in the chaos flow. It had not attacked him, so he did not think that it was an enemy, but that did not mean it was not dangerous.
Advancing cautiously, Oleg moved closer to the shadowy figure. Stopping at arms reach, Oleg said aloud, “Pavel? Is that you? This is Oleg, your friend.”
The shadowed being appeared to trembl
e and drop to its knees. As Oleg watched in amazement, the surface of the shadow’s form became more solid, changing slowly into his friend Pavel. The man was dressed in the clothing that Oleg had last seen him wearing, standing in candlelight across the spell circle from him. Stretching his arms out and staring at his hands in wonder, Pavel turned a worn face up to Oleg.
A growing, shaky smile displayed itself on the man’s face as he answered in a rusty voice, “Thank you, thank you, my friend. I do not know how long I have wandered, not knowing who I was and lost in this chaotic soup of a dimension.”
Oleg could feel the prickle of hot tears in his own eyes at the emotion in his friend’s voice. Bruised and worn out from the strength of the emotional storm that he had already experienced, Oleg answered him calmly, “You are welcome. I am very glad to see you also.” Not content with leaving his comment at that, Oleg continued, interjecting some humor to lighten the intensity, “And it is about time you got off your lazy backside to help me figure out what we are going to do.”
Pavel laughed shakily but scrambled to his feet. “I have a suggestion, although you probably will not like it,” he said.
“Oh? What is this risky and dangerous suggestion?”
“How do you know it is risky and dangerous?”
“Well, it is one of yours!”
“One point to Oleg.”
“Seriously? You are going to start that scorekeeping all over again?”
“How else are we going to know who is winning?”
“All right, but you might as well just tell me your suggestion.”
Pavel’s expression turned serious, and he continued with his proposal, “I think we should see if we can rescue anyone else. Even in my fragmented state before, I knew that there were others of us, others of the Volkhvy, that are trapped in the space. I think we should see if we can rescue them.”
“How can we rescue them when we are not safe ourselves?”
“What would make you think that rescue must result in total safety?”
Oleg stared at his friend for a few seconds before answering, “Wishful thinking?”