A few nights later, my strength recovered, I lay awake in bed, waiting for my mother and Rose to fall asleep. Then I slowly lean out of bed. I tiptoe across the room, and take a sword, sheath, satchel, and leather armor from the crates.
I equip myself slowly and quietly, and grip my sword tightly. I tiptoe to the bedroom door, and turn the knob. The hinge of the door creaks. I pause and look behind me. Mother and Rose are still asleep in bed.
I continue opening the door very slowly. I step across the large front room, unlock the front door, walk around to the eastern side of the building, and begin my exile.
As I walk through the stumps and into the forest, I see a familiar, grey-robed figure, leaning against a distant tree. His hood is down, his face illuminated by the moonlight, revealing a stern and concerned Kenneth Forthright.
I walk up to him. His presence so close to my house is an unsettling coincidence, but also a relief.
"Master, I did not expect to see you here."
"I was worried you wouldn't come out," Kenneth says. "Sarah was getting close to turning you into a skeleton. She was convinced you had given up your apprenticeship, and that somehow your soul was free for the taking like one of those animated corpses she fishes out of the earth, and had a necromancer bureaucracy to back her up. Ridiculous, I know."
He pushes himself upright from the tree.
"I'm sorry I couldn't just take you back. Standing and waiting was part of the bureaucratic agreement. You're lucky to be alive right now."
"I am sorry, master. I promise I will not run away again."
"Running away wasn't even the half of it," Kenneth argues. "That Silence spell you cast a few days ago was incredibly reckless. Not only were you sick, but the spell itself is forbidden and should never be cast."
"Why not? I just wanted some kids to shut up."
"That makes it even worse!" Kenneth sighs with disdain. "Look, I don't expect you to understand since you're still a young apprentice. Just promise me you will never cast it again."
"I promise."
"Good." Kenneth leans back against the tree, and says no more.
"Are you still going to take me back?" I ask.
Kenneth mocks me, "I don't know, Iris, am I?"
"I still want to be a void mage."
Kenneth stares down at me with cynicism. "Then prove it."
I can feel the pressure from my master's call to allegiance. I think back to my parents. My father is either dead or missing. My mother no longer trusts me. I was a fool to think she wanted me back. She distrusted me, even before I learned magic.
My master, on the other hand, has earned my trust. The knowledge he has given me has made me what I am. He respects me. His rules and punishments have gravity to them. They have shaped me and brought me closer to my ambitions. Thanks to him, I see the world now as it truly is: a world of mostly automatons, capable of intelligence, but missing an unspeakable truth. I understand now why I always felt like I did not belong.
I drop onto my knees and bow my head.
"Master, please take me back," I tell him. "I promise I will never run away from you again. I want to be your apprentice again. I want to become a void mage. I will even expose myself to the deep void, if that is what you think is best."
Kenneth kneels down and places his hand on my shoulder.
"Nothing would please me more," he says, "than for you to be my apprentice again. But with these wounds you have, it will take time before you are ready for the void again.
Kenneth lifts his hand from my shoulder with mercy. He offers his hand to me, and I use it to pull myself up.
We walk through the forest, until Sarah, dressed in her brown robe, stands before us.
"She wants to continue her apprenticeship," Kenneth says.
Sarah looks at me and smirks. "I thought so."
Sarah closes her eyes and furrows her brow in concentration. A moment later, she opens her eyes, nods to us, and holds out one hand to each of us.
I take Sarah's hand. Red sparks rise up from the ground and swarm around us in increasing numbers, until all I can see is red light. My body lightens, and then the red sparks dissipate. We are in front of Kenneth's house.
Sarah lets go of Kenneth's hand and says, "I need to talk to Iris alone for a bit. Bureaucracy: you know how it is. The undead army recruiters gotta have stuff on the record."
"Of course, I understand," Kenneth says.
Then, Sarah teleports me again with a swarm of red sparks.
I scream and throw the unfinished book against the shelf.
How could Iris be so stupid?
As the book falls to the floor, it disturbs a pile of pages into the air. One of the pages flies upward and sticks to my arm. I tear it off. I skim the page. It is from one of her study sessions. I throw it aside.
I mean, seriously, what kind of person becomes someone's apprentice, gets tortured because of it, and then COMES BACK FOR MORE?
The book lays backside-up on the ground, refusing to answer the question for me.
I get it. Iris wants knowledge and power. And Kenneth understands her better than anyone else.
But that's because he reads her mind, and then tells her exactly what she wants to hear. He convinces Iris that he's just like her. That the world is so corrupt and broken that she shouldn't feel bad about breaking its arbitrary rules. And that he, who, unlike anyone else, exists outside of this tyrannical world, knows how to make her dreams real.
It is a fantasy, an ideal so high that it can't be reached no matter how far you climb. A fantasy supported by a mountain of lies and false promises so high, that your mind becomes so twisted, that up becomes down, and evil becomes good, and you forget how to climb back down again.
No amount of magical power is worth sacrificing one's soul in this way.
Even if the anti-aging effects of magic have trapped you in the mind of a child, wouldn't you realize at this point that this whole ordeal is too good to be true?
I bend over and pick up the book I threw, and turn it upright. A few pages have stuck to its cover, presenting themselves to me.
I peel the first orphaned page off of the cover and begin to read it. Out of the corners of my eyes, I see the torn fragments at the edges of the page fuse together. The faded flint script beneath my eyes becomes thicker and darker, making it easier to read.
This is from Iris' conversation with Sarah after her return. It belongs next.
I peel off each page from the cover and read it. They are all from the same moment. Most of the words describe Iris recounting to Sarah her experience being away from Kenneth for the past few weeks, how surreal it was to return to her childhood home, yet painful to endure a life without magic. I skim it quickly. The details are already familiar to me.
Iris learned nothing from her experience. She was too deluded, too invested into her years of study. But I can't help but wonder if she could have learned something, if only she stayed with her family a little longer.
I just wish I could go back in time, far away across the other side of the Farland Rifts. I wish I could be in the room with her, like Sarah, and talk some sense into her.
As Iris recounts her story to Sarah, Sarah's guilt and worry can't help but spill out onto her face, in spite of her divine assignment. Sarah really does want Iris to be happy.
Maybe she feels powerless, just like I do. But she opens her mouth, figuring it's worth a try.
"I don't think you understand how lucky you are, to see your parents again," Sarah tells Iris. "My real parents were both killed by miners when I was very young. Then I was adopted by them. I was furious when I found out the truth. It's sort of the reason why I'm a necromancer."
Sarah pulls her head back, reflecting sentimentally. "I used to be a very different person, back then, when I was a Level 1. I was a cold-blooded killer that would do whatever I was told. My hatred for miners was fresh, and I was full of passion after learning the Word of Herobrine and his plans for the world.
"I've changed since then. Now, I think critically about the cause I am part of. Like, yea, there's a lot of death and destruction sometimes, but there's a lot more to it than that, like the dimensional research I'm doing with Kenneth and Miner, for example. And it's not for its own sake, it's because we're trying to preserve nature, and humanity has sinned and stuff.
"Which brings me back to you." Sarah looks down at Iris and smirks. "Up until recently, you have been an obedient apprentice of Mage Forthright, doing everything he has told you. But are you certain now that's the right thing?"
At this point, I can feel Iris considering Sarah's words for a moment, but then she rejects them, and doubles down on her delusions. I throw these pages onto the ground, leaving them to rot. I do not want to embody this darkness.