Part III: His First Lesson
Entire lifetimes can be defined by series after series of events or one single happenstance. After many millennia of consciousness, nobody seems to have ever figured out which one the cosmos prefers.
Oh, when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Yeah, I’d always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life.
-”Summer of ‘69” by Bryan Adams
Nero once again had found himself listlessly bored, sitting outside his parents’ teacher’s house, a remote cabin in some place called The Northern Wastes. He wasn’t able to bring drugs in his pocket or on his person at all, and being there really did feel like a waste.
His dad knew he did drugs but pretended like he didn’t: whenever they would travel, his dad would give just a few forced smirks when asking things like “Anything else you’d like to tell us, son, before we ship off?” or “I can check your bag for you, just to make sure you didn’t forget deodorizing sticks!” Nero would reply with some variant of “Nah, I’m good,” and off they’d go. But no matter what, Nero would always be slurping Snap or vaporizing Redroot the first chance he was able to get away for some alone time.
A few off-planet trips prior, Nero tinkered with one of his primary school bags to sort-of-be-able-to-hold an impossible amount of things. It turns out he started messing with void magics early, mostly as a kid to collect and keep interesting bugs he’d find in the woods around New Gampshire. His first few prototype bags would sometimes lose items or collapse upon themselves, but then again void spells are not easy to maintain. The sorcery at the root of chaotic magic was pretty unstable and required concentration. Nero’s drug habits made this particularly challenging.
Nero guided the elm-moss spider back into his bag; its emerald thorax shimmered as it disappeared into the void. He pulled out fidgeted with a few sprigs of Redroot before breaking the buds off and grinding them in his onyx vaporizer. “Shit,” he said, “Shit, damn, ugh.” Nero had crushed the perfect Redroot pile right up to the brim. But he had forgotten fire. Nero remembered his dad warning him that magic was restricted on Ishaan, so even conjuring a simple spark was out of the question.
“Here, allow me,” a gentle voice said from around the corner. The man was tall and lanky and wore a floor-length brown duster. From beneath the wide brim of his leather hat, a kind smile rested among some scratchy stubble and illuminated by a produced flame in the palm of his hand. He leaned down and gestured to light Nero’s vaporizer. “Uh, thanks,” Nero responded, “but my parents warned me about accepting fire from strangers.” The man laughed.
“Your parents hardly even noticed I’m out of the room, I’m sure,” the man replied. Nero was already drawing from his lit vaporizer and said, “Oh right, it’s you.” Professor Raith Thomasson sat down on the dusty stoop next to Nero. Through the window above, Nero’s parents and their friends were laughing and drinking up syrupy nostalgia together. Raith clicked a wooden ring on his right pointer finger, and the flame disappeared. Nero’s nerve endings stopped being loud as the Redroot numbed them.
“I thought magic was, like, illegal here or something.” Raith laughed again, “Well, from what I understand, you yourself know how to skirt around things when it comes to aether.” Nero inhaled deeply off his vaporizer and offered it to Raith. The professor politely refused.
“Such a rad name, wish we called it that on Canderra,” Nero said. He let out a thick, iridescent cloud. Mesmerized by the cloud, Raith said, “Looks like you’ve got plenty of beautiful things where you’re from. No plants here do that, for example.” Nero shrugged. “I guess.” He drew from the vaporizer again and let out an even more shimmery cloud.
“That’s impressive,” Raith said, “and so is that.” He was indicating Nero’s void-bag, “So you weren’t afraid of that being flagged and getting in trouble with your parents and authorities here?” Nero clicked his tongue.
“Ehh, I guess I didn’t think about that,” Nero said laughing, “whoops.” Raith gestured to hold the bag, and Nero passed it over.
“So modest,” Raith said, tracking the smooth lining and stitchwork, “Just like your dad.” Nero didn’t like compliments that much or didn’t know how to accept them, so he feigned interest and changed the subject. “What were they like back then?”
“Why don’t you ask me about the ring instead,” Raith said while investigating the seemingly empty inside of the bag, “You know, something you’re actually interested in?” Nero coughed on his latest draw, and big sparks snapped out of his mouth and up his nose. He coughed even more. “Shit,” Nero said, waving his hands around trying to disperse the sparkly residue.
“It’s all right, they’re not gonna hear you,” Raith said. He took the oaken ring off his finger and handed it over to Nero. This little ring was the first object that ever made the boy wizard disinterested in his vaporizer. It hit the concrete step with a clink, and Nero began fidgeting with the bauble. Its clicks were aesthetic–slightly hollow but also high-pitched. Little yellow symbols would flash in the air just above the ring with each click. Nero didn’t recognize the glyphs but knew they had to be magic and not just some parlor trick. “Know what those are?” Raith asked.
“I dunno, some kind of verbal component? Like I have to say these or something when they activate?” Nero guessed. “Close,” Raith said, impressed. “It’s actually both verbal and somatic. You use your thumb on it to rotate and catch the clicking wheel like a combination lock while you just think the glyph’s meaning.” Nero was already entranced and spinning the ring with some skill. “That way it’s subtle enough to get around aether restrictions here.” Raith opened his palm to ask for the ring back. Nero obliged.
“Here, watch.” Raith stood and gestured to a medium sized rock a few yards away. He clicked the ring back and forth a few times, and the yellow glyphs appeared and disappeared rapidly. After a second, the rock began to float off the ground seamlessly. “And now,” Raith began, “We’re just talking.” He sat back down, and the rock stayed slightly levitating. “Passers-by aren’t any the wiser. And when I feel like it–” Raith blinked, and the rock fell to the ground with a gentle thud. “Easy sleazy.” This made Nero laugh even more than it impressed him.
“Do your parents know you tinker?” Raith asked. Nero thought about making a dumb joke about the word “tinker” but resisted. “Uhh, they may know I dabble.” Raith chuckled and said, “I bet your dad does. He’s a world-class artificer you know.”
“Honestly,” Nero said, “I bet it’s my mom who knows what I’m up to. She never really stops me though; it’s like she lets my dad know, and he handles any, uh, disciplinary actions.”
“Your mother has always been fiercely independent, that’s for sure,” Raith answered, “And I’m sure she has a reason for allowing you to tinker as much as you do. And more importantly,” Raith paused to look up into the window, “I have no doubt she’d stop you if you were in any real danger.”
“She definitely wants me to be successful,” Nero said plainly. He considered drawing his vaporizer back out, as Redroot’s effects didn’t last as long anymore. It had been a particularly hazy summer for Nero. Raith stood up and started to walk away.
“No judgment,” Raith said, “but have you tried going clean and seeing how potent your abilities are?” Nero stared up at Raith for a second and shook his head. He was pretty sure Raith knew he was lying.
“Fire-whisky,” Raith said, “that’s what dulls the aether-ache for me. So again, no judgment.” He smiled, tipped his wide-brimmed leather hat and walked around the corner. Nero grabbed his void-bag and immediately began thinking the rune-words used in its creation. It began to glow purple. And that’s when he heard it for the first time, right there on his parents’ teacher’s dusty, concrete steps in the Northern Wastes on Ishaan.
Magic’s words sounded different in his head. Deeper. And much more powerful.