After Dan exchanges the gold sword for a reasonable sum of credits, we travel to The Cocoa Bean, a rather well-to-do teahouse in Bluesteel's theater district where Dan's brother tends to linger during his breaks.
The teahouse is busy but not crowded. Round, birch tables with wrought-iron legs are spaced neatly throughout the room. Most of the occupied tables seat people reading newspapers, but some tables are more formal, talkative, and businesslike. Plenty of natural light shines in from windows high on the walls.
We sit down in a corner of the room near the door. Dan has stored his robe away to hide his magi status. He now wears a finely tailored button shirt. I wear a newly-purchased hat and strategically sit in a chair facing away from the rest of the room.
Roughly an hour passes before Dan's brother, Cubit, comes strolling boldly through the door. He is wearing a long beige coat and many layers of thin, colorful scarves, not unlike what Dan used to wear back when Dan and I were both lads in our prime and still lived in this city. There is still a good amount of blond in Cubit's shaggy, greying hair, and his eyes shine a rare, brilliant orange. Cubit's eyes were always like this, as if he was predestined at spawn to wield fire magic.
Cubit requests a coffee from the ordering counter and sits across the table from us.
"Fancy seeing you here, my dear brother," Cubit remarks. He glances at me briefly as he sips from his mug. "And cousin Jonas."
"We came here for a reason," I point out, not in the mood to tolerate his excessive formality. I lower my voice beneath the teahouse din. "My friend Fristad is being controlled by a human demon which is using a book to ground itself in the physical world."
"Come again? A human demon?" Cubit remarks. He raises a brow, his attention now gained and his voice lowered appropriately. "I was not aware those existed."
"They certainly do," affirms Dan, likewise lowering his voice.
"Is that some sort of half-blood?" asks Cubit.
"No. Demons aren't really a species," clarifies Dan. "They are souls that have broken the rules of..."
"Let's just get on with it," I snap, reluctant to be reminded of my own past. "We need your help to stop the demon from controlling Fristad."
Discomfort flashes in Cubit's eyes at that moment.
"...It is protected by ender magic," I continue, "so Dan's void spells have no effect on it.
"So your void magic is useless against it. What's the matter with that?" counters Cubit to Dan with a sad smile. "I am sure plenty of combat-level spellbooks are within your ability. Or have you been slacking, my dear brother?"
I roll my eyes at Cubit's obvious attempt to evade responsibility.
Dan sighs. "That's beside the point. Destroying the demon's vessel is not enough to remove the demon from this world. I've encountered demons that have moved into new vessels when their old vessel was destroyed. That's why I usually use void magic to destroy the demon itself."
"That is a predicament..." Cubit muses, as he crosses his arms and leans back in his chair, "however, I fail to see how my expertise would be useful to you. I'm a performer, not an exorcist."
"But you do have access to the arcane library, do you not?" Dan points out, his growing frown echoing my own impatience.
"Vrendan, Vrendan..." Cubit shakes his head. "In your quest for knowledge about dark magic, you've made life so difficult for yourself. If only you had chosen a more pedestrian magical discipline, you would have access to the arcane library, a stable job, and everything else this city has to offer. But instead..."
Cubit leans forward again, his eyes squinted slightly, conveying seriousness with a level of authority that disgusts me.
"...you come to me. I have a reputation to uphold, Vrendan, as I'm sure you are aware, and my fellow magi are not exactly blind to my brother's questionable history."
"I am aware," responds Dan.
"Then what do you want?" asks Cubit.
"I need books on the transportation of souls," says Dan. "They should be found in the earth magic section under the category of necromancy, or perhaps in some other section labeled under metaphysics. If you could find a living expert on the subject who lives nearby, that would be ideal."
"I can't do that," Cubit states. "Necromancy is illegal. Forbidden texts of that nature are locked away in the deepest levels of the library, out of reach from all but the most esteemed magi."
"ENOUGH!" I shout, lifting myself out of my chair and pressing my hands against the table. "I am tired of your cowardice," I tell Cubit. "If you can't bring us the information we need, I'll warp into the library and get it myself!"
"I would advise against trying that, or you will atrophy into dust," warns Cubit. He stands up, drinks the rest of his mug, and sets the mug onto the table. "Gentlemen, I'm afraid I must excuse myself, as this meeting has become too ostentatious for my liking. Besides, I have a performance to attend, and I wouldn't want to disappoint my customers. Goodbye."
Cubit sprints out the door.
A wave of murmurs rises and falls through the teahouse. The name "Cubit Ti'Drannes" is uttered. "Enderman" is whispered. I realize with painful regret that my sudden outburst of rage has brought unnecessary attention to all three of us.
After Dan and I make our own swift departure from the teahouse, we head to a poorer part of the city, which will help us conserve our savings and avoid the attention of city guards. As we walk down one of the worn, eroding cobble roads of the inner city, we scout an inn with weathered red brick walls. Brick buildings like these are an artifact of an older era when clay was once prestigious and valued. Somehow, even though I never lived in that era, the sight of those red bricks feels oddly nostalgic.
Such is the power of the rosy glasses of history.
Dan and I tether our hogs to some blackened wooden posts of a small, public corral in front of the brick-walled inn. Dan lifts some bags while I untie the unconscious Fristad.
"Guard our hogs well, Sunshine," Dan says.
Sunshine the husky lets out a high-pitched, excited bark.
I feel my muscles unload their tiredness into the mattress of the inn bed.
Fristad's still form as he lays beside me is somewhat haunting. Was I wrong to cling to my suppression so badly? Was I wrong to want to be human like him?
...or is that entirely missing the point of why I stayed in Veridale in the first place?
Dan stands at the opened window, watching the streets below. It's dark enough that the monster curfew has begun.
"I forgot how much I missed the city..." Dan laments. "It's so fast and alive. It's a shame that people are convinced that void magi like me are evil."
"Void magi like me ruined it for everybody," I groan.
"It's not your fault, Jonas. Magi of all schools have made the mistakes that you've made."
"You're wrong," I say.
As I focus my vision upon the unconscious Fristad once more, I feel my self-hatred grow. My suppression never was a success. There was always one instinctual urge I could not avoid no matter how hard I tried: the creation of the ender pearls.
I should have smashed that one ender pearl when I created it. Instead, I kept it in a locked box. I was selfish. I thought that by talking to her, I could learn from her mistakes, so that I wouldn't again fall down the path of dark magic that led me to my sorry state.
"I know that look," says Dan, his brows furrowing in empathy. He walks away from the window and sits on the edge of my bed beside me. "You're thinking about the past. It's a dark part of your past, isn't it?"
"I don't want to talk about it," I say adamantly.
I should have just forgotten my past altogether.
Dan and I used to be fire magi, just like Cubit. We were students, studying at the academy at Sparrow's Bay in the early months of the year, and working in Bluesteel the rest of the year to pay our dues. We all equally aspired to follow in the footsteps of our grandmother and Arch-Mage of Fire, Chevron.
Nearly two decades into the program, Cubit cracked under the pressure. He fell behind in his studies, first in spell-writing and then in independent casting. He became consumed in his own negativity, unable to come to terms with the fact that he could never be as good of a mage as his brother Dan. Then he became cynical of academia altogether, dropping out of the academy to pursue show business.
A few years later, while Dan and I were living together, Grandmother Chevron knocked at our Bluesteel apartment door late at night, waking us from our sleep. She revealed to us that she was a void mage in secret, and admitted that she saw potential in us. She offered to share her power with us through the use of the Spark. It was an honor we accepted without question.
Dan and I continued through the program. For much of the time, Dan surpassed me effortlessly, but a few years after the Spark, I became the better mage between us.
My ambition drove me blindly forward. I was not content to surpass just Dan, but every fire mage in my class, while also secretly advancing my ability in the void just as Chevron had done. It became clear that my grand ambitions in fire and void were not sustainable. Something had to give, and my honor was the first thing to go. I squirreled away forbidden texts. I stole knowledge straight from the minds of my fellow magi. For a brief time, my strength grew faster than my ability to comprehend it.
I was foolish enough to delude myself into believing I would never be caught. I was wrong, naturally.
I read the letter of my expulsion in the entryway of my apartment. The news kindled the growing fire of evil within me. I let that fire fuel my anger... I let it control me. I killed countless neighbors and, in a grand miscalculation of my own power, ended my own life.
I opened a void rift so large and so close that I was pulled inside of it. Dan tried to save me. To this day, I still remember his brown apprentice robes, his colored scarves, and his comparatively youthful, pudgy face. I still remember the blinding silver light that shone from his panic-stricken eyes. I still remember the sound of the wind screaming past us as Dan gripped my arm tightly. I still remember the void burning the last of the air out of my lungs, filling my nostrils with the scent of iron, the heat creeping steadily up my throat as the faces of disfigured dead of my own creation flashed in my memory.
Dan could have lost his own soul, but instead he saved mine. It was a noble gesture.
I soon found my consciousness reawakened on the outer roads of the Red Aether, the land of the dead itself.
The threat of the end of my very existence should have convinced me of my folly. Instead, Dan saving my soul convinced me of my invincibility. I was not content with just my soul. I vowed to preserve my memories, even if that meant delaying my spawn for all eternity.
I shunned the lines of the awoken dead leading to the beckoning light of a fortified city, and instead wandered in the other direction. The road which I followed led to a forest, which was dark in the dim red light of that world. Roaming in that forest were animals that resembled those of the world of the living, except they were silent and always cast in dark shadow, even when their backs were exposed to the sky.
In that forest, I was ambushed by a group of sentient souls. It was there, while I was defending myself, that I discovered I could still control the void. This went against everything I thought I knew; magic as I knew it could not exist without a life force.
I soon discovered that these souls did not want to harm me. They knew why I had strayed from the path of the dead. They called themselves rebels, enemies of the bureaucracy of the afterlife. They offered for me to join them.
I asked if they knew of a means for me to respawn with my memories intact.
They said yes... for a price.
They brought me to an old wooden house. My initiation consisted of cutting off a sliver of my embodied soul to be stored in a box, and having a hot metal brand containing the rebel's insignia pressed into my back. It was strange to me that I should feel pain and fear in this world. I could have convinced myself that I was still alive, if it were not for the red haze, my utter lack of hunger or tiredness, and my permanent suspicion that I was dreaming.
However, the deeds I performed after that initiation were very much real. I altered documents recording the deeds of souls' past lives, erasing unbelievable crimes and good deeds alike. I stole ancient devices from the cities; strange contraptions of diamond, redstone, and glass; some which the rebels claimed to be involved in the process of spawning. With the aid of the void, I even destroyed souls, a long and painful process though it was, watching their forms fill with holes like swiftly burning paper, screaming with a fervor only ghosts could muster, until their voices faded into silence. The horror of my death seemed tame in comparison.
It was all in the name of the slim possibility that I could return to the land of the living intact.
Eventually, the moment truly came. A shoddy mechanical portal was erected, and I stepped inside.
The journey was rough and long. After a time, my form was surrounded with a cloud of white dust. The dreamy haze lifted, and... I could breathe again!
...but once I returned to civilization, I realized I was not the same Jonas that I was before. I had become a monster on the outside. People could now see me for the monster I truly was. When their eyes caught mine, my mind may have been filled with alien thoughts, but the bloodlust and hatred were my own, my violence no different than what I had made habitual in the other world.
But then, deprived of my pride and my agency, I could finally see my crimes for what they really were.