She sat perfectly still, cross legged in the air. I stood, at first, watching the serenity of her face. She was always calm, admittedly. After the first hour trickled by, I leaned against a rock, one of the tall ones making up the rough circle in which we waited. The sky, kissed with golden specks and burgeoning red gave way to dim clouds and rolling purple darkness and unfamiliar stars.
She was only adorned with a simple shirt and pants. My cloak rustled as I braced it against the encroaching chill. There was a howl from the woods. I whispered the words instinctively and then we were bathed in light. The circle of rocks, carefully chosen and carved with meanings lost to time, cast shadows into the surrounding area. I raised my hand, carrying the glowing orb with it. A shadow flickered, then another. We were not alone.
They were small and fast, many legged and toothy. Some kind of pack hunter. Their behaviour suggested they hated the light. And so, I sat, cross legged beneath her, channeling my magic into a single spell, bathing us in a solar glow. She didn't notice. She didn't care.
My cloak became a blanket, my shirt a pillow. I settled into the grass, it weaving its way around myself, pulling me into it. I was one with the world. Something nearby howled, enraged at my cowardice. I flicked a finger, a bright bolt zooming into the darkness, followed by a retreating whine.
Eventually, sleep took me and I had to trust that the spell would hold, that it would keep the monsters at bay.
I awoke to find it still dimly glittering, a lost orb sitting on the grassy floor. There was no sign of the aggressors of the night. Once again, the world was silent, us two the only creatures present. Aza remained unchanged, locked into meditation. Perhaps gathering strength for some impossible feat or another.
I stood and stretched my arms, taking the heat of the sun within me. It was time for my own meditations. Aza preferred to carefully control her body. I simply let myself go limp, expanding my consciousness, feeling the world, becoming one with it. I touched the rocks, one by one, running spiritual fingers over their impassioned surfaces. I could feel the ghosts of their crafters, their determination and fear. Watch the connections. Follow them.
They are connected, of course, a series of strings running through the soil itself. A ley line, a channel point. I touch it and I trace it, I see how it goes through the grass. But no, the grass is part of it too. All is connected. The rocks keep the forest at bay as they bolster it, the gap between the trees and the rocks not a forbiddance of life, but an abundance of it. No thing could take that power and not be destroyed, surely.
I see the records of time and space all flow together. I see Aza returning here, to this spot, countless times over countless millennia. I see the shadows of the others she has challenged the way she will challenge me. I don't see the horrible results, but I feel them in her faltering hesitation. She must know this record is here. Taking me here is perhaps the most vulnerable thing she's ever done.
I sneak a fragment of my consciousness into the leyline, and for a moment I am everywhere and everything. I am the ruined city, wartorn and abandoned. I am the deep forest, wild and cruel. I am the ocean, flowing unchanged by the petty failings of the world. I am the three moons, forever dancing in memorandum of their fourth sister. I am history. I am the future.
I feed on the power, harvesting it into myself. The planet has much to spare. It does not notice or mind. It ebbs and twists. Were I to have equipment, a lab, a storage medium, I could tap into something vaster. I could truly become one with the world. I consider that. There is magic here, yes. But there is no personality, no will. A human is magic and will combined. But our home doesn't have an access like this. What if I were to take the planet? What if I were to impose myself?
Aza would never allow it. And all this power was but a fraction of hers. I come up from my meditation, and glance upwards. I had been out for a few hours. My body is strong again. I will not need to eat or sleep for a while, consuming power to function. But power is plenty here. Perhaps sleep was an indulgence, one I should not have allowed myself.
I wait there at her feet for hours more. I review, mentally, the fundamentals of magic. Of the many essays I have read, which are important and which are drivel. I consider the other apprentices. I consider who might achieve greatness.
Aza, first and greatest of wizards, remained motionless for a week and a day. I waited faithfully for this time. She would speak when she was ready.
It was cold on the day she was ready, dull and cloudy and threatening rain. Today she was regal, tall and proud, all angles and danger.
"Seri", she said, in that calm voice of hers.
I sat before her. "Master".
"No longer. I have nothing left to teach you."
I'd guessed this was coming soon. I waited for her to continue.
"You are now among the most powerful wizards to ever walk our world. I am your master no longer. From this day forth, walk free and do as you wish."
"Master", I began, and then caught myself. "Aza, I'm not sure what I should do."
She laughed, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. "You could do anything. You could go forth, found a university, and teach the next generation. Your students would be the very best. You could build a kingdom, leave a legacy through the centuries. You could slay monsters, expose the continents, challenge the very gods themselves." She met my eyes. "Were you to turn to the dark arts, I myself would be forced to strike you down, for no other could."
I bowed my head slightly. "I shall never, I swear."
She nods. "Then come. Let us return triumphant."
Something was missing. "Wait", I said.
She held still. There was a tension in the air, in her body. Time was about to shift. We could both feel it.
"I don't...", I struggled to find the words. "It's not enough. I need more."
Her eyes narrow.
"I want the other option."
For a single moment, her face was ashen and crestfallen. But maybe I imagined it because she resumes speaking with impeccable diction, "Very well. Then listen up and listen close."
I still the motions of my body through force, stilling the tremble of my legs.
"You have one other option. You can, as I have before you, Ascend."
A chill went through my body. This was the first time she'd ever named the process.
"It is a dangerous and difficult road. You will turn your back on all joys of the world, all noble achievements. I could not aid you. You would be alone. Once you begin walking this road, you will either reach eternity or die."
"I understand."
"You do not!", she raises her voice slightly. "Ascending will take everything from you, even that which you did not know you had. You will be changed. You will not recognize yourself anymore. It will take many many years. It is not a decision to make lightly."
For a second my mind turned to the ghosts, all those other students who had been offered the same choice. How many had accepted. How many of those had survived? None, I imagine. I spoke slowly, "The world is already too full. I don't know what to do with myself. I need more. You say I must choose to begin this. I say I chose all those years ago, when I cast my first spell. You claim you are my master no longer, but your power and talent dwarfs my own. How can we be equals with such a gulf? There is more in this world for me. This, I know. I say to you that I am ready. I say to you that I have nothing to lose that I am not prepared to part with."
"Very well", she said. "It is your decision and I respect it. Then come, my student. Heed to your final lesson."
She descended to the ground, the grass tangling her feet, the leyline pulsing at her touch. Her fingers click, once, her voice whispering words familiar. Fire dances in her palm, orange and warm. Her eyes, lit from below with the flickering glow, meet mine. "Make fire", she commands.
I do.
We stand there, each holding an outstretched flame. Then her fingers close and hers is gone, snapped into oblivion. "Your lesson, the very first stone on the road to infinity, is this: what is a spell?"
I paused, waiting for her to answer the rhetorical question. After a moment, I realized that she wouldn't. I consider my options and try, "A spell is a force of change."
"Brannard and Callaugh. A pair of old fools who haven't descended from their high tower to touch real magic in decades. Poetic and meaningless. I expect better."
I wince slightly and try again, "A spell is a mechanism of imposing will and order upon the world, binding power to do thy will."
She snorts. "I didn't think you read Magalore. Meaningless. Again."
"I uh...", I faltered.
"Use your own words, student."
"Okay. A spell is a word in the language of the universe. It is how the plants talk to each other. It is how we talk to magic and how it talks back. It is a language."
Her eyes meet mine again, fierce and defiant. "Tell me, did you ever come across the Ponva people?
I shake my head.
Her tongue cracks, sharp and strange words filling the space, her hand jerking suddenly. I do not recognize this spell, but the energy flare, the pulse of her aura is familiar. Fire once again lights her hand. "Three hundred years ago, they dwelled in the place the Rama Kingdom now claims. If you had asked them to make fire, they would've done it like that."
I studied the fire in her hand. The outcome was the same, a perfect match for the spell I had learned as a child. But the words, the actions were different.
Hand shut, fire extinguished. "Eight hundred years prior, the wizard Archeas was determined to create his own theory of magic. His magnum opus was this." Her voice curves softly, a slight wiggle of the fingers. Fire, again. The same result, different words.
She cast her eyes downwards. "When I was a child, an elf came to my village and performed a show. We asked him to show us fire and he did it like this."
Her hand dances, at blinding speed, her voice silent. Her lips move but nothing emerges and then there is a fire, the strongest one yet. She closes her hand once, more, and I realize it has become dark. The light from my hand is the only thing illuminating our faces.
"Tell me. How can a spell be a language if there are so many ways to do one thing? What does that tell us about magic? Why do we only learn one way?"
"I don't know, master."
"One more, then. This one is mine."
She holds her hand outstretched, fingers curled upwards, her lips sealed, motionless. She is as a statue. No movement at all. she holds the position long enough for the significance to sink in, and then there is fire. No movement, no spell. And yet, the fire. Same as always. That was, by all accounts, impossible. It could not be.
We stood there, quiet and still, until the glorious light of the sun crested the trees and her soft words, as dew on a leaf, whispered in the space between us. "When you know what magic is, you will know you have found your path."
"Thank you, master."
"I can offer you but one other thing. A final demonstration to aid you."
"Please do."
She draws back, and faces me calmly. One hand reaches into space and then her staff is in hand as though it was always there, simply invisible to the eye. It's a bone dry stick, carved driftwood, echoing with the ghosts of a million years of service. Her knuckle squeezes it, tight, pale. "My student, always remember that you chose this path."
"Now", she said. "Defend yourself."
Fighting Aza was like fighting the world itself. She raised a hand and the light turned sharp and deadly, a hundred blades descending upon me. The sun itself roared, expanding and coming closer, closer. I threw my hands up, familiar spells already working through my practiced arms and tongues. The end of Maka's Shield overlaps with the opening to Revoir's Shadow Mastery, and so I stack them, one in each arm, the shield taking the brunt of the blows before I am elsewhere.
She stands imperiously, unmoved. The trees climb behind her, ascending to the heavens above, roots grappling, preparing to strike me down. I throw fire at her head. She makes no response. It simply breaks before her, splitting and scattering, like a swarm of moths. She raises a hand and the ground twists and bends around me and I fall into the sky itself, gravity rotating.
A flight spell stabilizes me and I turn in time to intercept the waves of energy approaching me. I work a turning and send them back, green pulses of violence. She raises a hand and they are green butterflies, scattering in the breeze. And then they are knives of emerald, streaking towards me, blood on their mind. I twist and dodge the bulk of the swarm, what few wounds carve from my flesh fixed with a quick application of magic.
She hovers before me, glowing with power. A mistake. I gather the shadows themselves, that which we both cast, the great darkness from within the deep woods, and throw them at her, a strike from all sides. She opens the light further, attempting to banish the darkness, but for once I'm a step ahead. A quick shot, a thrown stone bursts it, and then there is nothing but the clouds and darkness.
I got her. I actually got her for once, a single landed blow. No, wait. That never happened. Time shudders, spins in reverse, and I watch it again, with a vague deja vu.
The shadows rip towards her, descending in tendrils of might. My stone stops short, melting at her withering gaze and the shadows are destroyed, obliterated by the power of her light. Her hand moves, words on her lips, and my control slips. Reality fades.
I cannot breath. The rocky ground is hard on my knees, my hands, as I scrabble for grip. There is no air. I glance upwards, seeing the stars twinkling brightly. There is nothing but vacuum, my lungs and skin burning in protest and agony. Aza floats above me, her mouth carved into a grim line. I struggle to stand, feeling the low gravity, the lonely might of the cosmic boulder. There is magic here, slight and old and dangerous. I grip and hurl it at her and then we are somewhere else.
I'm on the deck of a ship. Rain lashes us, the roar of a beast below. Sailers scream and fight the pull of the ropes and sail, the wind threatening to pull us under. Aza stands on the prow, almost part of the ship. A cry goes up and the boat is in half, the terrible fangs of the monster shredding wood and hull. I feel the lightning in me and bring it down in a single motion, the entire storm condensed into a single attack, a massive lightning bolt aimed right for her.
Aza makes no movement and the bolt curves, incinerating the rampaging beast instead. I howl with defeat. How can I fight this? How can I stand against this impossibility? She makes no movement, no counter. I can draw upon nature, the people, the universe, but all of that is dwarfed by what is within her. She clicks her fingers and we are standing on a volcano.
The planet is rough, unready, primal. It bursts with power. I can see a dozen other volcanos from the peak of this one, all venting toxic gases and heat, essential for life once they settle. This world has yet to form. She stands there, waiting to see what I will do. I jump, feeling the air take me, my wings lifting in the heat, my breath stilled by force. I am to become one with the volcano. I need more. I will ride the world and I will turn it against her.
I am falling and then it is light, blinding, hot, burning. We stand on the surface of a star, dancing patterns in the sky. We are the solar wind, cruising the universe. I give chase but never catch. I cannot. She sets the terms of the duel and she makes sure she cannot lose. I cannot play her game.
We stand on a lost world, a dark place where no mortal has set foot in countless aeons. The dark god twists in the sky, a mass of scaled limbs and eyes. It focuses on us. I stare back, seeing, seeing the ghosts of this world, how they made this monster and how it took them within itself. This is how worlds end. I throw up a beacon, blanketing her in my energy and it works. The monster, that ungodly thing, descends upon her full of hunger and desire. She raises a single hand and then the monster is no more. And then we are gone.
We are in the fields around the tower. We are at the bottom of the ocean. We are in the village where I grew up. We are atop the peaks of a distant and ruined castle. We are in her library. We are battling, everything I have washing off her back like the water against the shore.
I strike powerfully, quickly, stealthily, in very possible way, and she always counters perfectly, without action. Her body is automatic, a tool in a greater machine, part of a larger pattern. She casts attacks on me, magic I have never before seen, bringing great things into being from nowhere. I work with the elements, but she works with nothing at all, only her imagination powering blows which would have destroyed any other. It is only her mercy that keeps me alive, her decision to only launch strikes I can handle. If she were to will it, I would die instantly. This, I know.
She throws me to the ground, an invisible force pinning me, forcing the air from my lungs. She hovers above me and I realize that I am spent. I have nothing left. I smile. A single tear rolls down her cheek.
I'm falling through the trees. A branch hits me, sending me spinning. My outstretched hands break the leaf, and I roll, tumbling, until finally I hit the dirt, feeling how it cradles me. This world tastes strange. It tastes of fear.
Aza hovers over me. I try to speak, but my body is too shattered. She gazes at me, her cloak waving in complex patterns, her staff hovering by her side. Something passes between our eyes. Her eyes are golden now, bright and full.
"My apprentice, you have begun the road to ascendence. You must now finish or perish."
I try to raise a hand to cast a spell, any spell. Nothing comes. I can't feel the world. I can't feel anything.
"I am truly sorry. If you ever return to my tower, I will ask you again. I will ask you what magic is."
There is no magic here. Has she severed my connection? No, she's brought me to a place without magic. That should not be possible. I don't understand.
"If you cannot answer me then, I will kill you where you stand."
I try to force air through my lungs, to say something, to say anything, to say I changed my mind, to say I wasn't ready. Please don't leave me, I want to beg, I want to cry.
"Remember you chose this. I am truly sorry."
She didn't move her hands, she didn't whisper magic words. She simply was not there anymore.
And I was alone.