Fallen Mage Regressor

In retrospect, Mal was starting to wonder why he’d never once suspected Nima. Well, he had, but then he’d gotten distracted with other things. Those other things were important... even though he couldn’t really remember what those other things were. Probably killing demons and trying not to make a fool out of himself in class.

Either way, Mal knew that he had to figure out what was going on.

The plan was simple. As soon as they’d gone to the dormitories, Mal slipped out through his window (he’d broken it with a hammer a while ago due to the fact that it wouldn’t open and close, and he wanted fresh air), then waited a distance away from the doors, hood drawn up and body crouched low.

After about an hour of waiting, one of the dormitory doors swung open.

Nima’s white hair poked out through the doorway and the boy drew up his hood.

A creeping dread worked up Mal’s spine. Despite what he’d planned, he hadn’t actually thought that Nima would be doing anything. Even if Mal was right, the odds of Mal catching Nima in the act on his first try was incomprehensibly low.

Mal didn’t move to follow. He waited until Nima was just out of sight, then trailed Nima from behind using his sense of smell. His passive mana signature was easy to follow. Mal had only once been inside of a glassblower workshop, but he would never forget the scent.

It was that same pungent scent that followed Nima like a phantom.

They came to the edge of the academy wall. Nima wrenched apart some vines and ivy, revealing a hole. He crawled through it, then put the ivy and vines back the way they were to hide his traces.

Mal walked over and went through the same hole.

I’ll need to tell them to patch that up, Mal thought. Wouldn’t be very good if someone malicious used it... like Nima.

He poked his head out the other side, revealing a sheer cliffside directly in front of him. If he’d taken one more step, he would have fallen directly down and rolled along the steep incline before hitting his head on a rock. Like Hypode.

From his position poking out, he could see Nima carefully scaling the wall one slow step at a time. Mal waited until Nima reached a stopping point. Nima then walked along a hidden path on the edge.

Mal stepped out and carefully maneuvered his body to try to take the same path. He tugged on the rocks to make sure he was secure, then slowly brought his foot out to the next rock. His grip nearly slipped and his foot flopped from where he’d missed the pull. There was no sound of boot scratching rock thanks to his air-grass shoes.

He tried again, then found a more secure foothold. Step by step, he worked his way over to the right until he finally reached the hidden path. He took a deep breath. The smell was still there, he could taste the sulfur on the tip of his tongue.

The path went down at a steep angle. Almost as steep as the cliffside. It was just at the edge of where if it were any sharper, he wouldn’t be able to walk normally. Eventually, it leveled out to a smoother path and winded into the base of the cliffside, where there was a small business district that had long since closed off for the night.

Mal caught a flicker of a hooded figure walking through one of the alleyways. The hooded figure stopped, then shifted to turn. Mal quickly pressed his back against the wall, behind a box. He waited for a full minute. When he peeked out, the hooded figure was gone. Mal walked off in the direction of the figure and took another sniff. He followed the trail through the alleyways until they reached the edge of the city.

A cemetery.

Nima walked through the gate and winded his way through the graves until he reached one at the very back. He lowered himself to his knees and clasped his hands, head bowed and lips moving under his hood.

Mal felt traces of confusion flicker up inside of him. Of all things, Mal hadn’t been expecting a graveside visit. What was he supposed to think of this, exactly?

Nima eventually stopped and walked back. Mal realized he was going to retrace his steps and go back in the same direction, which would mean he would see Mal if he didn’t hide himself immediately. Mal felt the vines behind him. Thick, a serious overgrowth. The bracelet on his wrist shifted and the overgrowth swallowed him whole. Leaves tickled him from every side.

He held his breath as he heard the footsteps echo against the brick walls.

They stopped in front of the overgrowth for a few seconds. Mal’s heart thumped in his chest. A relentless drum pounding in his ears, over and over and over. And then the footsteps began again.

Mal didn’t dare to take another breath until they were completely gone. Once vanished, Mal took a small gulp of air. His lungs screaming in relief. He unwrapped himself from the vines and glanced from left to right.

Nothing.

He walked over to the cemetery and passed through the same gate that Nima had used to enter in. He approached the grave with a small sense of tepidation in his heart.

Tera Blackthorn.

A beloved son and brother.

All at once, the suspicion that had been building inside of Mal’s chest fizzled out like a worn-out balloon.

Mal remembered that Savaly had mentioned something about Nima’s brother. For some reason, it hadn’t fully hit him—Nima had lost someone deeply important and close to him. And he’d gone out to grieve, to pay his respects, and Mal had followed him all the way here for what was essentially a hunch.

And yet even so... the suspicion wouldn’t go away entirely. A small, conspiratorial voice in his head whispered that this could be a trap. Nima might have known that Mal was following him, that it was strange that he’d taken such a roundabout way to go to a cemetery. Mal couldn’t let these suspicions go, but for tonight, there was no point in pursuing anything further.

After giving Nima plenty of time to get back to the dormitory on his own, Mal eventually got back and slipped in through his window. He went to bed that night, a knot in his stomach and eyes bloodshot and exhausted.

When Mal showed up for his weekly witchcraft lessons with Cassandra, they tended to follow a relatively simple routine. Cassandra would walk Mal through a relatively simple set of exercises, or spend an hour or two lecturing him on some concepts related to witchcraft.

She did not usually sit outside of her apartment with an egg, a candle, an ink and quill with some paper, and a dish. She’d surrounded herself with a bevy of plants. One from each basic element. Airgrass, Waterroses, and probably some kind of earth and fire plant based off of the brown and red colorings respectively.

Curious as to what she was doing, Mal stayed out of sight and watched.

She set the parchment on fire with the candle and set it in the dish. The paper was burned completely to ash and the fire died away with a whisper.

Minute after minute passed and the candle burned completely, same as the paper. She took both the egg and the dish of ashes, and scraped aside the dirt with her bare hands. Once that was done, she put the ashes and egg into the hole gently, almost with a reverence, then closed the hole back up. She clasped her hands and muttered something under her breath, then stood to her feet.

”Are you going to keep watching me?” she asked. ”Or are you gonna come out and say hello?”

Mal walked out from behind the corner of the building.

”What was that?” he asked.

She shook her head. ”I handed you a paper full of instructions. You were supposed to do this very ritual at the same time as me.”

Mal distantly recalled receiving those instructions a month or two ago, then promptly assuming that Cassandra had lost her mind.

Instead of saying that, he said, ”I didn’t have any of that fire plant or earth plant stuff, and it would take a while to cultivate.”

”Firelilies and Earthroots,” she corrected.

She turned around and went into her house, then popped back out with an egg and a piece of paper.

”Sit down,” she said.

There was something in her tone that gave Mal pause. He took up the same position that she had earlier. The odd kneeling pose. She set the items in front of him and stepped back. Her eyes flickered toward the candle and Mal realized what she was saying.

He picked it up and looked for a way to light it. He briefly considered using wizardry when he spotted a match just to the side that he’d missed. Using the match, he struck it against the side of a strange-looking stone and it lit up. He used that match to light the candle, then set the match to the side.

”Repeat after me,” Cassandra said. She shut her eyes and, almost as if in a trance, muttered the words just below Mal’s hearing limit. ”Mana, goddess of spring and life, bless this egg and fill it with your power.”

What exactly was Mal doing? What was happening?

Well, he was already here, he might as well.

”Mana, goddess of spring and life, bless this egg and fill it with your power.”

Nothing happened. If something was supposed to happen, it hadn’t happened.

”Set the egg next to the candle,” Cassandra said.

He did so, the egg landing next to the candle and rustling the grass.

”Take the parchment and write with the ink your sincerest wish. Once done, hold the paper and push your mana into it, tinge it with your gratefulness and your need.”

Gratefulness and need? Mal suppressed the urge to fire back a retort. He knew that witchcraft was weird, and he even knew that the weirdness worked, but this was pushing it a little too far. This was clearly a religious ritual, not mere practice.

He swallowed down any other answers and did as told. He picked up the quill and right when he was about to start writing, he stopped.

What was he supposed to ask for, exactly? And again, what was even the point?

He suppressed his thoughts, then decided to put down what he sincerely wished for aid in. Magic. Witchcraft, specifically. He needed more power. He needed to be able to protect Lusia, and help Philo, and Rolam, and Hemp.

Unconsciously, without him even intending to, mana flooded from inside of him and to the tips of his fingers, touching and ingesting into the parchment.

”Touch the corner of the paper to the flame.”

Mal did so. The flames crept up along the candle’s edge and for a second, Mal felt an overwhelming urge of sadness.

Whoa, where did that come from? he thought.

The candle lit up the flame, the paper. He set it in the dish as Cassandra had done. As the fire slowly killed the paper and turned it to ashes, a profound sense of loss washed over him, as if he’d given up something deeply important.

There has to be something in that candle.

Cassandra spoke, but Mal already knew what to do. He allowed the candle to burn down to the end of the wax. After several minutes, when it finally went out, he took his hands and dug a small hole using his bare fingers. He placed the egg in the hole and sprinkled the ashes of the paper on top of it. Once that was done, he buried it slowly and patted down the ground. He wasn’t sure what compelled him, maybe it was because he’d already come this far—but he clasped his hands together and whispered out his wish once more.

A jolt.

Shivers went down his spine. The sounds of the grass against his knee seemed to be right next to his ear. He could hear Cassandra’s heartbeat. Every shift of her movement was somehow directly in his hearing. He took a breath and the smell of the grass was enough to nearly make him faint. It was so strong that he felt a migraine coming up in response.

His eyes opened. It wasn’t just the mana lighting everything up. The world itself was more vibrant, more colorful than it had ever been prior to this moment.

He looked down. Something was tickling his legs. The grass had sprung up around him, and the ones closest to him had crept up his legs nearly to his chest, to his stomach. And then all at once, it was gone.

He blinked, and the world was normal, the sounds had disappeared, and the smell had returned. The grass seemed to wilt a little bit, almost as if it was saddened by this sudden change as well.

He blinked.

”What the hell?”