Vol 11 Patreon Special: A Brief Reprieve (Patreon)

ARTHUR LEYWIN

The suppressed memories of yet another drifting and uncertain life flooded through me, homogenizing with the many before it into a muddled cloud of half-experience.

As I floated in the afterbirth of that life, my mind haunting my own infant body like the ghost of an ancient, restless spirit, I acknowledged it for the first time: I was tired.

The keystone was punishing in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. Like a candle flickering against a strong headwind, I was in danger of burning out. I knew this, but there was nothing I could doabout it. There was no opportunity to back out, no option to simply give up. But with each life, the possibility of failure became more and more real.

Infant life rushed by as I languished in that post-death cloud. I let the memories of my decisions float untouched, not taking the time to dissect my most recent attempt at solving the keystone like I had with the previous rounds. There was a new collection of puzzle pieces that needed to fit somehow into the whole, but my very human consciousness was fatigued, and my small infant brain wanted to do nothing more than eat, sleep, and be clean.

Suddenly I was a toddler again. How many times now? I wondered, briefly trying but failing to align all the keystone lives in order, each version of me like a little toy man set on the shelf.

Already, the voracious young version of myself was consuming the library books in my parents’ study and beginning to gather mana toward my sternum. All I had to do was blink and the house would be blown apart in my awakening, and it would all start over again.

Sinking fully into my body, I took hold of myself and stopped. I couldn’t face it all again, not yet. I needed to rest. There was time…there had to be time.

Standing up on my chubby, slightly bowed toddler’s legs, I left behind meditation in favor of…playing with blocks in my room. They weren’t colorfully painted like the ones we’d had for the younger children in the orphanage, but they were expertly carved to have little brick patterns on them, and I quickly arranged them into a rough wall. I let myself sink down into the gray matter of my physical child form, and the instinct of a toddler took over. I began to play, effortless and carefree.

The day I should have formed my core and awakened came and went, and the worries of Arthur Leywin, Lance and regent of all Dicathen, were subsumed by the desires of a toddler who was quickly growing into a boy. I had uncomfortable echoes of memory sometimes, like on my fourth birthday when I thought suddenly with a jolt that we should have been moving to Xyrus, but they faded as quickly as they came. I couldn’t be sure, after a while, if they were real or just little half-remembered dreams.

I was nearing my thirteenth birthday when I mentioned these strange memories to my dad for the first time.

He paused in raking the rushes and gave me a thoughtful look. “Not many people believe this now, but some of the elders still talk about the old ways. People used to think that your spirit was reborn into a new body when you died. Reincarnation, I think they called it. One of the things they based the idea on is these kind of memories. You know, memories that don’t seem to be yours.” With a shrug, he started raking again, pulling the old rushes toward the door.

I pushed my own small pile of soiled rushes around the floor without really cleaning anything, my mind absolutely not on the task. “But sometimes I remember…magic.”

Dad froze. I was staring at him out of the corner of my eye, and his face flashed through several expressions one after the other. Surprise was quickly overshadowed by pain, which melted into disappointment before finally being covered up with a pained smile. “I don’t think that’s so strange, Art. All kids dream of doing magic.”

He sighed and leaned his rake against the wall. I did the same, then fell against him. He wrapped me in a gentle hug and held me.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled into the rough cloth of his shirt.

“What?” he asked, caught off guard. “What for?”

“I know you’re disappointed that I haven’t awakened.” I tried to keep my voice steady as I spoke, copying the tone he used when Mom and him were fighting but he didn’t want it to sound like they were.

He tensed, and the hug became awkward. Slowly, he released me, then placed a hand on each side of my head and forced me to look into his eyes. “Listen to me, Art. I am not disappointed in you. No,” he added quickly when I tried to look away, unable to believe him. “Listen. I’m sorry if I’ve ever given you that impression. I…” He trailed off and let me go, struggling for composure.

His jaw worked as he picked up his rake and began cleaning the floor again. Although I hesitated, I followed his example after a few seconds.

“You haven’t done anything wrong, Art,” he continued, the rasp in his voice easing. “If I’ve ever seemed disappointed, it’s not in you. I…I wanted you to be a mage so badly, and perhaps I’m disappointed with the situation, but never with you. I know you may not see the nuance right now, but it’s important you try. I don’t want you to grow up thinking that you’ve failed me. If anything…” He paused as he raked a large pile of rushes out the door and stood aside for me to do the same.

“If anything, I’m afraid it is me that has failed you,” he finished, watching me with watery eyes.

I wanted to tell him that he hadn’t failed me, that I loved him, and that it wasn’t his fault either. But I couldn’t quite seem to get the words out.

He cleared his throat. “Hey, what are we moping around for? Your mom and sister won’t be back from the market for a couple of hours. Why don’t we put down these rakes and go get the practice swords?” His face lit up, although whether it was with genuine excitement or just a good pretense, I couldn’t be sure. “We can finish the chores later.”

I didn’t really feel like it, but I nodded anyway, knowing he was only trying to help. Dad wrapped an arm around my shoulders in a side-hug, then gave me a nudge back through the front door. By the time I returned with the two practice blades in hand, I was already relaxing, dark thoughts of weird memories and magic left behind as I instead focused on the feel of the leather-wrapped grip in my hands. By the time I handed Dad his sword and we’d moved to the center of the yard to limber up, I’d almost forgotten about the entire exchange.

I wasn’t afraid to admit that I was good at a lot of things. Pretty much everything I tried, in fact. I might not have been able to form a core, but I took to just about everything else very naturally. Sword-fighting wasn’t the exception.

Dad had started training me early, and it had been so natural for me that I’d constantly surprised him with my technique—or so he loved to tell me. I didn’t remember everything from when I was as young as four to five, but I knew that I’d always felt really comfortable when we trained, especially with swords. It was like everything else just kind of faded into the background, and I could really just focus on what I was doing.

As I bent down into a deep side lunge to stretch, I caught Dad watching me thoughtfully, his brows creased in concentration. He glanced away as soon as I looked at him, and I realized he was still thinking about the conversation. I shouldn’t have brought it up, I thought, chastising myself. I knew Dad was prone to overthinking and becoming emotional. I needed to support him. I wasn’t a little kid anymore to go running for my parents whenever things seemed difficult. I was almost a man.

Standing straight, I twirled the light wooden sword. “You ready, old man?”

Dad laughed, surprised, and shifted his footing, bringing the tip of his sword around so it pointed at my face. “I’m always ready to give you a thrashing, kiddo.”

Grinning, I feigned a forward lunge leading into a thrust up under his guard. He shifted his hands slightly, bringing his blade into a better defensive position. Springing off my right foot, I moved sharply to the left and snapped out a quick strike toward his thigh instead. He reversed his footing, moving his right foot back to avoid the strike and bringing his own weapon down toward my shoulder.

I fell into a forward roll, quickly reversing my grip on the practice sword in order to tuck it more tightly against my body. Despite the speed of this maneuver, Dad had already turned and was pressing forward by the time I was on my feet again. I was younger and quicker than he was, but he had a lot more training and the benefit of mana enhancing his speed and strength.

“Experience trumps youth every time,” he said with a grin before unleashing a series of quick cuts.

I blocked each one until the last. Sensing the end of his flurry, I dipped beneath the final strike and thrust my blade at the ground between his feet. Misreading the direction of the attack as a shin-strike, he tried to step back only to trip over the blade. His eyes went wide, and he flailed hilariously as he lost balance and began to fall backwards.

I rushed forward to deliver the “killing” blow, but the ground moved, bucking beneath my feet. I went sprawling, my blade flying out of my hands as I reached for the ground to catch myself. “Cheater!” I shouted as I fell.

The soft grass broke my fall painlessly, but the following crack against my shoulder blades hurt like crazy. “Gah!” I rolled away from where Dad was now shaking with laughter on the ground, his training blade held limply in his grip. “No mana manipulation in training,” I complained, struggling to reach behind myself and rub my shoulders. I knew the blow was going to leave a painful welt.

“I had to answer that trip of yours somehow,” he said nonchalantly, rolling onto his side and propping his head up on one hand. “That was clever. Totally threw me.”

“Do you think I’m good enough to be an adventurer even without mana?” I asked off-handedly. “Or that I could be, someday? I heard from some of the other boys that the youngest members of the Adventurers Guild are my age, or even younger.”

Dad pushed himself up to his feet and offered me a hand. I took it, and he pulled me up after him. “It’s not unheard of. Non-mage adventurers, I mean. But it is pretty rare, and they never climb higher than the first rank or two. The thing is, mana beasts are a lot more dangerous than you might think. Going into a dungeon without mana enhancing your senses or creating a barrier around you is basically a death sentence.”

When my expression fell, Dad quickly added, “But mages only account for, what, a single percent or so of Sapin’s population. There just aren’t enough mages to fill every guard post or form an entire army. There are even tournaments for non-mage fighters. You’re good, Art.” He brushed dirt off his pants. “Too good, maybe,” he added with a grin. “But you’re also smart. A lot of the best scientists and inventors out there are non-mages. I have no doubt that, whatever you do, you’ll be the best in your field.”

I rubbed the back of my neck and tried to hide my smile. “Thanks, Dad, I—”

“If you keep working,” he said, speaking over me with a wink. “Now come on. Enough warming up. Let’s see what you’ve really got, Art.”

With matching grins, we fell back into our ready stances before exploding again in a series of rapid strikes, paries, dodges, and counter strikes. An hour or more melted away in a blur of intense focus. The spar only ended when my dad suddenly dropped his guard and went stiff mid-exchange, resulting in a sharp blow landing against his upper arm.

He winced, dropped his practice sword, and rubbed at the spot while simultaneously giving Mom a pained smile as she walked up the lane, her brows raised. “Uh, hi honey. Your trip to the market was quick today.”

She looked past him to the front door, where a pile of soiled rushes and two rakes could be clearly seen. “You say that every time, Reynolds.”

Beside Mom, Eleanor made a show of rolling her eyes. “Yeah, Dad. Every time!”

I hid a smile behind my hand as Dad hurried up to Mom, gave her a quick kiss, and took the large basket full of necessities that she was carrying. He made a point of stepping on the back of Ellie’s turnshoe, half pulling it off her foot, then shot me a wide-eyed, innocent look that made me chuckle in boyish embarrassment at his silliness.

“Nice form, Arthur,” Mom said as she continued past on her way to the house. “Your father will be begging for me to heal the bruise later, I promise.”

Ellie laughed loudly, turning and pointing at Dad.

“I will not!” Dad argued, looking affronted. “I’m an adventurer and a mage, not a baby who needs his boo-boos kissed.”

Ellie giggled. “I don’t know, Dad. Are you sure? Say ‘goo-goo gah-gah’ just to be sure.”

Mom smiled and winked at me, then stepped over the pile of dry, fibrous grass and into the house. Ellie hopped over it behind her, grabbed a rake, and began moving the rushes out of the doorway to let Dad through.

Silhouetted by the doorway, Mom turned around and looked at me, a small crease between her brows. “Are you coming in, Art?”

I realized I had been staring at Mom, Dad, and Ellie, all three huddles around the door to our house. A distant memory resurfaced, and I saw my father’s body lying on the ground, torn as if by some beast and covered in blood. Then it was Ellie, a red spear piercing her body. And finally Mom…my mother, staring at me with a look of shock that bled into angry disbelief.

“Brother?”

I gave my head a little shake, and the vision cleared. I again saw my parents and sister, all looking at me with familial worry. The sight left a lump in my throat, and I suddenly wondered if I’d been hit harder than I thought during my spar with Dad.

“I’m here. I just…” I had to pause to clear my throat. “I’m coming.”