An Uncomfortable Situation

The next few days were pure torture. Every moment I spent around her pulled my concentration in two. But by the end of it, I knew how to control my mage hand without it being so much strain on my mind and body. I could only manifest fully manifest it for about a minute. If it got more than thirty feet from me, it would vanish all together. And I could only get it to carry up to ten pounds. Sir FreeFord and Nyphiria kept assuring me that these things were completely normal, and most people were bound by the same restrictions. But apart of me felt like I should be able to achieve more.

This feeling of unmet expectations continued to plague me through the rest of Nyphiria’s visit. Not once did she come to me or request my time that didn’t involve training. And what made matters worse, the old man was always tagging along to “watch my progress”. He refused to step in and offer any advice, but he watched me steadily throughout the entirety of my training sessions.

At the end of a long, disappointing week, Nyphiria left. She never said goodbye or even mentioned that it was going to be our last day together.

I awoke the morning of her departure with a truly awful headache. The nightmare had rocked through me so violently that it left me weak and sore, rather then refreshed.

I walked out into the kitchen to find the old man by himself sipping a steaming cup of tea.

“Goodmorning master, is there anything I can fetch you for breakfast?” I asked politely while I messaged the nap of my neck, this bloody headache was getting worse. I winced as he cleared his throat.

“Ulfgar, sit down please.” He stated calmly.

Okay. That was weird. I sat down across from him and looked him dead center. I raised my eyebrow and waited for him to continue.

“Nyphiria had to leave on urgent business for the high council. She sends you her apologies that she couldn’t tell you herself, but she had no choice but to go. Her plan was to stay here for at least another week to help you with, a rather hard spell for me, but she felt that your improvement was sufficient enough to not warrant her further involvement.” He said with a sigh.

“Will she be coming back once her business is concluded?” I questioned quietly. A lump had started to rise in my throat at his words. I swallowed it down hard.

“No, she will be staying at the high council until her next sabbatical. If we have not managed to master this spell then we will enlist for her help again but I am confident that between the two of us we can figure it out.” He said with a smile. “After all we have a year to accomplish it. Now, lets head out to the meditation circle. It’s time to start teaching you how to connect with the dead.”

We met some time later at the meditation circle. A deeply set grove in the trees just past the fire pit. All the undergrowth had been recently cleared away. Soft moss was the only thing that blanketed the twenty-foot circle. As soon as I set foot on the moss, I felt the squish of moisture under my boots. The surrounding forest was relatively dry compared to this circle. I didn’t understand why it would be so wet. There were glowing runes surrounding the circle and it looked as though the circle itself rose into the air created a twenty-foot-tall cylinder. How peculiar.

“Sir FreeFord, what is this?” I asked curiously.

“It is a magical circle my boy. It took me all of a minute, a little bit of holy water, some iron and silver. It only lasts for a couple hours though so let’s get a move on.” He motioned impatiently at me to take my seat across from him.

I sat down and crossed my ankles beneath me, mimicking his posture as I had before.

“What is it for? I mean, why do we need it?” I asked again.

He gave an exasperated sigh. “I’m assigning you some reading Ulf. I can’t always be telling you every little magic thing just because your family wasn’t magickly inclined. But to put it simply. This circle is here to protect you and me from being frightened or possessed. We can’t very well commune with the spirits if we aren’t taking measures to protect ourselves. If it were just me or you commune this wouldn’t be necessary. But because I am guiding you through this unknow experience it is best to take the precaution. You have no skills as of yet to communicate with the dead or even know what the feeling of life and death is like.” He cocked his eyebrows at me. “Unless you’ve been keeping a near death experience from me. Then this all could be considered a bit unnecessary.” He stated flatly.

I shifted uncomfortably under his scrutiny. “I-uh, may have had such an experience.” I said quietly. “It’s not something I like to talk about.” I cleared my throat and began the arduous task of explaining this particularly disturbing story. I didn’t want to tell him the details, but he had to understand what happened to me.

“When I was twenty-two years of age. I was thrown off a bridge and into the river. It was wintertime so parts of the river were frozen over. I was swept down stream and trapped beneath large chunks of it. After fighting with everything I had to get out and stay above the surface, I failed, and I died.” I looked up into his eyes and hardened my expression. I didn’t like remembering coming back. It was an extremely painful experience. “A healer found me washed up on the stream bed. I was freshly dead. Or at least that’s what she tells me. She saved me. Nursed me back to health. And then smuggled me out of the city when she learned what happened to me.” I took a deep breath at the thought of Yana. I missed her terribly. She had wanted me to become her apprentice and learn to help people. But I was too interested in the dead for her to feel comfortable to allow me to continue my questions.

“Did you know who it was?” He asked. “The one who threw you?”

“Yes, I know who it was.” I stated flatly.

“Do you seek vengeance?”

I shifted uncomfortably again and sighed. “In a way. I do not seek to kill the man if that’s what you’re after. I just want what was mine by birth.”

“I see.” He sighed deeply. “Let us begin then. This spell is not one easily explained. What I am going to teach you, is how to shield yourself from the other forces that you seek. You have to create a barrier between your mind and the spirits you have to contact, communicate with, and if my assumption is correct, control one day. You must be careful. You will have to partition your mind. Not an easy thing to do boy. Many masters have not been able do such a thing. But if you have any hopes of becoming a necromancer you must have this skill.” He shifted his weight on his bony hips. Pulling his robes out from places they bunched uncomfortably. “Envision for me that you mind is a house, your lifespan makes up the different rooms of this house. Your experiences are the furnishing and the general ambience. I want you to find for me the room where your magical interests reside. Now inside that room, you need to make a closet, a strong closet set on the inner part of the room. But a thick door on it with a sturdy lock. Now listen to me carefully Ungart. Inside of this closet you are going to place your dignity, your pride, and your sense of self. Lock them inside and do not open this door when you deal with the dead. Give everything over to your cause but do not under any circumstance open this door. If you relinquish this control you will lose your will power and become someone else’s construct instead of them being yours. You will be the one controlled, manipulated and maneuvered into doing unspeakable things. You will become a puppet and watch you body and power being used without your consent. You have been thus warned Ulfgar. When you meddle in dark affairs, dark consequences are your just desert.” Frank FreeFord then snapped his fingers, and I immediately felt the greatest surge I have ever experienced bring me back into my body and awareness.

I found myself flat on my back with the clear star lit sky starring back at me. I felt weak and my head throbbed painfully as I sat up. I looked around to find Sir FreeFord sitting atop a log throne that hadn’t been there before.

“Took you long enough boy. How do you feel? Can you feel your legs? Do you feel any different” He questioned me briskly.

“I feel weak. My legs feel like wet noodles. And my chest has a sort of, hollow, feeling to it.” I answered with due measure. I felt like the earth warmed over. I was dripping in sweat despite the cool night. And my hands were shaking slightly.

“Tsk. Tsk. To be expected from one not from a magical line. But if I do say so myself, despite that little fact, you did amazingly well. I would have expected you not to be able to do it first try. To be on the safe side however we will wait the night and proceed next sunset with the journey to the undead.” He stood and the throne disappeared behind him into eerily green smoke. “But be warned boy. Tomorrow starts the part of your journey I am the most uncomfortable to teach. I do not delve into the dark arts for the very reason most don’t. I do not want the smut on my soul. I therefore will not be doing any of these spells with you. I will only be teaching you how to do them yourself. And you can decide if the smut is worth it to you.” He turned on his heal and began limping back towards the cottage. After ten feet or so he stopped and turned back to me. A look of concern crossing hos features.

“I had a vision while you were partitioning your mind. It seems that me teaching you this has changed the future and the great spirits felt the need to tell me.” He paused and weighed what he was going to say, clearly undecided with how to proceed. “The things they showed me are concerning. They harbored dark intentions and an evil spirit that leeched into the vision by the end. I felt suffocated by it. I felt you being trapped underneath of it.” He bore his eyes into my soul, beseeching me to understand. “Promise me boy, that you will never accept the dark spirits into your partitioned mind. It will be the ruin of not only you but of everything you will ever love in this life.”

He was serious. He saw this. He saw me. What the hell did it mean? Why was he seeing my future?

“I-I don’t understand.” I stammered unable to process what he was trying to tell me.

“You must never align yourself with a dark master. If you do Ulfgar, you will start a war that will take countless human and magical lives. I could not see who you would align yourself to but I could see that you will. You must change your mind, or I will break your apprenticeship with me. The things that I have seen, must never come to life. You must promise me now that you will stay a free agent.” He stated flatly and in a very clipped tone. He was deadly serious. And scary to boot.

“I promise master. I will never align myself with a dark master.” I stated as strong and clear as my voice could manage.

He sighed deeply, giving me a long, lasting stare before turning around again and leaving me to pick up the pieces of my life. So much had changed in what felt like very little time. I knew deep down it had been about four or five hours, but everything was so surreal. The revelation that I may one day become a dark master’s puppet was not a comforting feeling. I didn’t want to be bound to a dark master. It was one of the main reasons why I sought out Sir FreeFord. He was the only one willing to teach me what I wanted to know without demanding I become his eternal servant and magical vehicle. Most dark masters were typically very demanding in their price for the knowledge you would seek. If I couldn’t get Sir FreeFord to teach me I would end up having to learn all of this on my own. It would turn my three-year apprenticeship into a decade long search.

After what felt like an eternity, I finally felt my legs enough to be able to stand on my own. I began the small journey back to Sir FreeFord’s home. The night was dark but for the star light. Just enough for me to see the edge of the path but not enough for me to see much farther.

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and the exact moment I heard the snapping of branches to my immediate left. Instinctually, I hit the dirt and rolled into a nearby bush. A dull thud sounded right where my body had just previously been. And I heard an all to familiar chuckle sound from the dark.

“Oh come on Ulffy. That’s no fun. Come on out and give you wee brother a hug now.” A dark voice chuckled. I felt a small shiver whisper down my spine. It was Ultnar Ungart.