I awoke to shouting.
"Wake up, recruits! Wake up, wake up!"
The owner of the voice, a female if I was correct, sounded ridiculously excited and loud. I heard shuffling around me.
I opened my eyes groggily, sat up, and looked around. Then I started panicking. I was rather sure I should have more than one eye open, but my right one flatly refused to do anything. I lifted my hand to my face and tried to touch around the eye, but I felt nothing in my face and my hand told me the texture of my skin was wrong. It felt... charred.
Shit shit shit shit...
I was distracted from the eternal mystery of my facial features by another realization.
I had no idea where I was. I was sitting in some sort of wooden carriage, tangled in a blanket. Through a gap I could see outside. We were in a narrow valley, the mountains on either side reaching so far into the sky that I couldn't see the top, the snowy mountain sides fading into a deep blue. It looked beautiful, but I had no memory whatsoever of falling asleep here. In front of the wagon I could see a middle-aged woman, presumably the one who woke me up. I think she was shouting something, but the combination of confusion and other noise kept me from noticing.
Then I had a realisation that horrified me more than my apparent lack of an eye. I couldn't remember anything at all from before I woke up. Now that I thought about it, I marvelled at how I hadn't noticed earlier. I obviously had certain memories left, or I wouldn't have known that I should have had two eyes, but where my mind should have been filled with memories of the past there was only a gaping void.
I opened my mouth to start shouting (a mix of questions and expletives), but was interrupted by the same voice I had heard earlier, having finally dropped her peppy tone.
"Everyone, calm down and SHUT UP!" The last two words hit me like a shockwave, leaving a heavy ringing in my ears afterward. The surrounding noise had completely stopped after her outburst. I realized it had probably been other people panicking too.
There's no way she could have made that kind of noise herself. Must have been magic, I thought. Wait, how had I known that? Before I could think more about it, the woman started speaking again in a more quiet voice, having taken back her excited tone.
"Hi, I'm the Caravan Driver! You can call me Driver! I know you're all confused, but I'll try to answer most of your questions. I'll be brief, but you can ask me more questions later. Is that okay?"
Without waiting for an answer, Driver continued.
"You are all citizens of the glorious province of Fruma. Our neighbors in the province of Wynn have been at war for centuries against a force called the Corruption, and you volunteered to be sent there to help! However, the mountains between our two provinces have an enchantment on them, making anyone who crosses them forget everything about their lives before crossing. This caravan is currently heading toward Wynn's capital city, Ragni, where you will join their army. Any questions?
The shouting started before she had finished speaking, descending into a cacophonous din within a few seconds.
"Stop talking." Driver didn't shout this time. She didn't need to. Pointing at me, she said: "You! You didn't start shouting! Ask me a question and I'll see if I can answer it."
I had a million questions, but I simply asked what was at the front of my mind.
"Who am I?" I noted my voice was a bit raspy.
She gave me a smile. "Sorry, I don't know that. But I do know someone who does! You! Or at least you did. But before you left Fruma, all of you left messages and gifts for yourselves! I'll go get them!" Driver walked over to the front carriage of the caravan and got out half a dozen sacks of various sizes before handing them out, one to each person, telling them their names as she went along.
"And this one is yours, Matt," she said as she gave me a sack I noted had been the smallest of the bunch.
Matt. So that was my name. I tried saying it out loud, but I didn't feel any recognition for it.
My curiosity took over and I opened the sack. Inside, to my dismay, was only a worn book and a length of wood about half a meter long. I looked inside the sack, even turning it inside-out, but there wasn't anything more to find in it. I saw that most of the others had letters, presumably from themselves and loved ones they had left behind. I was rather miffed, but didn't say anything.
The book was bound in leather and seemed to have been through a lot. I barely made out "Introduction to Magecraft" on the front. I started flicking through it, but paused. There was something written on the inside of the front cover. Unlike the rest of the text, it stood out clearly against the paper, like it had been added recently.
"The only thing I didn't want to forget."
I quickly leafed through the rest of the book for more messages, but there was nothing else except for a few notes written in the margins pertaining to the subject matter of the page.
I was starting to really not like the previous me. I was curious as to why half my face was burnt off, but I was apparently not getting any answers.
The other recruits were still looking through their things. I noted that each of them had gotten a weapon. The two girls sharing my carriage had a long spear and a bow, while the two guys in the other carriage had a bow and a dagger. I looked at the stick that had been included in my sack, turning it this way and that. It looked battered, probably as old as the book. A wand, most likely. The book must have described how it worked, but right now I didn't even know how to hold it properly. I guessed I had known until recently, which would also explain why I recognized use of magic when I saw it.
With nothing better to do, I decided to get started on the reading.
An hour later, I knew how to hold my wand and was ready to start practising. I tried to get up from my blankets, but stumbled. Driver saw me and came over.
"Slow down a little, kiddo! The Fruma mountains aren't nice at the best of times, much less after-" She stopped suddenly. "Right. Sorry, can't tell you that. Here, let me help you down." She took my hand and led me down from the carriage via some steps.
I must have lost my right eye soon before leaving for Ragni if I hadn't adjusted to the lack of depth perception yet. The hooded robe I was wearing didn't help.
"You don't talk much, do you?" Driver asked.
The question caught me by surprise.
"I don't think so." My voice was still raspy, but it was getting better. Driver laughed.
"Listen. Don't worry about all of this. I've brought dozens of groups over these mountains, and most of them have been just fine. You should get some practise on your magic before we get going again, by the way. You'll need it."
She let go of me and started walking away.
"Why do you remember?" I asked her. It had been bugging me for a while now. If the mountains took people's memories, how did she remember everything?
Driver stopped walking and gave me a sad smile. "Sorry, kiddo. Wish I could tell you." And then she left.
After what would have been the most unsatisfying answer in history if not for the rest of today, I turned around. More questions swirled in my head, but I needed to clear them out if I was going to be able to do this. I grasped my wand in my right hand. It was much lighter than it looked, which might have had something to do with the magic embedded in it. In any case, it was very easy to hold. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.
I closed my eyes and cleared my mind as Introduction to Magecraft had told me. It was easier than I thought it would be. Although the questions remained, there wasn't much else to take up space. With the distractions gone, I could feel the flow of mana inside me. With some effort, I directed it to my wand. While it was possible to shape it into certain forms, right now I needed to get the basics down. I opened my eyes, pointed my wand at a nearby boulder, and used it to channel a decent fraction of my mana as pure force.
I felt the force leave my wand. This wand was a horribly inefficient channeling tool, but the force was still visible in the air as a ripple of distorted light. When it struck the boulder, the boulder exploded with a huge bang.
Crap.
That wasn't meant to happen. The book told me that the amount of mana I had channeled, the boulder should have at most gotten a small hole in it! But the gravel raining from the sky said otherwise. I marveled at the almost tangible feeling of power. That felt good.
A gasp behind me told me I had an audience. I turned around to see the five other recruits gaping at me while Driver looked on with the same sad smile.
"Oops?" I said, with what I would later realize to be the stupidest grin of my life plastered on my face.