The Sprite had never been Horace Alvarem, of course. While it had been expedient to make the intruders think he was – and child’s play to reconstruct a younger version of the man they had called the Abbot out of the images stored in their memories – the time had come, at last, for his true nature to be revealed. Though he knew the intruders couldn’t harm him, it still wasn’t something he looked forward to revealing. The probability that their reactions would be negative was quite high – none of these three people liked being lied to, which was entirely as it should have been – and negative reactions, no matter what form they took, were never a pleasant thing when they came from people you had begun to grow fond of.
Some Sprites – particularly those birthed from the souls of dead Eltarans – had more free will than others, but the Sprite who watched over the three intruders as their minds were returned to their bodies was not one of those. Oh, he had enough free will to understand that, despite what the Masters had told him, the intruders weren’t really intruders, and had also been able to intuit on his own that this wasn’t the first time a Sprite had been given a duty similar to his. In fact, he suspected he was just the latest in a very long line, and hoped that, once his task was completed – a task he had no other choice but to complete – he would be given freedom. But what if he wasn’t? What if, as a part of him was beginning to suspect, there had never been any other Sprites who had been given this particular task, and that, each time, it had been him who’d carried it out, only to have his memories wiped afterwards so he could do it all over again? Again, though, given his nature as a Sprite, he had no other option but to do what the Masters told him to do, consequences be damned.
“You needn’t trouble yourself, young one,” a voice – the voice of one of the Masters, themselves – suddenly said. “This time will be the last.”
The Sprite looked at the Master who had spoken. It was the first time in a long time he had seen one of the Masters in person, and it took him a moment to realize that the person who had appeared beside him was not, despite his outward appearance, human. The Master smiled at him, then reached up to push the spectacles he wore back up his nose – a gesture so human that it made it even harder for the Sprite to remember how powerful of a being the Master actually was.
“Have I done this before, then, Master?” the Sprite asked.
“Many times, child,” the Master said, “and always well. We are sorry we had to erase your memories each time, but you would never have been able to fulfill your duty if we hadn’t. Your mind would have been too full of distracting questions and doubts, and you also would more than likely have chafed under the knowledge of how we had used you. That couldn’t have been allowed.”
“But why?” the Sprite asked. “I am a Sprite. I live to serve you. Any questions or doubts I may have had would never have stopped me from doing what needed to be done.”
The Master chuckled. “Don’t be so sure about that. You have as much free will as any Sprite. How could you be useful to us if you didn’t? We don’t want mindless slaves, after all. We had enough of that when we created the Dragonkin.”
“What happened to the Dragonkin, Master?” the Sprite asked.
“The same thing that happened to everything in this place. The Cataclysm was worse with them, though, and mainly because of how mindless we made them.” The Master was silent for a moment, his expression thoughtful. “We could have killed them, of course, instead of letting them roam the wasteland we left behind. In fact, we probably should have, given their propensity for being able to escape. They were our children, though, a part of us, and we couldn’t handle the pain of knowing we wiped them out.”
“What will happen to me once my task is complete?”
The Master looked at the Sprite. “You’ll be freed, of course. Back to becoming one with the power of this place. Never again will anyone conjure you, or anything like you, into existence. Your time will be over.”
“I’ll be dead, then?”
“Nothing ever truly dies, child. All energy is eternal, never being created, never being destroyed. In that way, you will still exist, just as everything does once it’s passed beyond the veil of perception. Now, will you be aware of all of that, living on as a spirit or ghost like people have told stories about almost since time began? I can’t say. You might. Personally, I’d like to hope that you do.”
“The magic Lady Zoe uses,” the Sprite said, “Life magic. It says that I will live on.”
“Indeed it does,” the Master said. “But that is also a reflection of her belief, which, for someone like her, is a powerful thing. In her world, the afterlife is a very real thing, and is even a place where people can be brought back from against their will. You, however, are not necessarily a part of her world. Her rules may not apply to you, to what will happen to you. They could, of course – her beliefs may be, in some form or another, the truth – but it’s equally likely that they don’t. Either way, though, once your task here is complete, you will be free.”
“I’m not sure I want the kind of freedom that makes me forget who I am,” the Sprite said after a few moments of silence.
“And who are you, then, child?” the Master asked. It wasn’t a spiteful question. There was genuine curiosity in it.
“I am me,” the Sprite said. Whatever that meant. “And I don’t want to be forgotten.”
The Master took his spectacles off for a moment, rubbing his eyes. Then he put them back on. “I’ll make sure you won’t be,” he said.
“Is that a promise?” the Sprite asked.
“It is. No matter what happens, once your duty has been fulfilled, I will make sure you are not forgotten.” The Master looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. “No other Sprite has ever asked for something like that before,” he finally said. “Are you sure you don’t have a name?”
“If I did, wouldn’t one of you have given it to me?”
“We never named any of our creations. Not even the ones we gave free will to. Only Eltaran Sprites had names, and there were never very many of them.”
“Then why would I have a name?”
“Because we didn’t make you. After the Cataclysm, we found you here. And you volunteered for the task that’s been yours ever since.”
“That’s impossible.” The Sprite tried to sound more sure of that than he felt. The Master’s words had disturbed him, and he could feel thoughts – memories – that couldn’t have been his own stirring at the edges of his consciousness.
“That’s what we thought, too.” The Master took his spectacles off and placed them in the breast pocket of the jacket he wore. Looking at him without the spectacles, the Sprite was struck by how familiar he seemed. By how much his face looked like that of someone he not only knew, but knew well. And then the Master smiled. “Tell me your name,” he said.
“Kevin,” the Sprite suddenly blurted, and knew that it was true. “I think my name is – was – Kevin.”
“I had a brother named Kevin, once,” the Master said. His smile turned sad, his gaze growing unfocused. “Or would have, had things turned out differently.” He refocused his gaze on the Sprite. “Goodbye, my friend,” the Master said, and then vanished.
“Were you just talking to someone?”
The Sprite looked at Thaddeus, who had just come up to stand by him. “What? Oh, no. Of course not.”
Thaddeus looked at the Sprite for a moment, the expression on his face saying that he wasn’t convinced. He didn’t say anything, though, and turned away as both Zoe and Aylander returned to consciousness. Though they all seemed to share the disorientation that came from waking from a deep and restful sleep – something that they still should have found unusual, given the nature of their magical abilities – none of the three seemed to be surprised that they were still in the ruined building they had fallen asleep in the night before. After a time, Aylander turned his attention to the Sprite and, with a thoughtful frown, said, “You’re different, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?” the Sprite asked, trying to feign innocence.
“What he means,” Thaddeus said, “is that you aren’t the same as you were before we went to sleep, last night. And there’s no point in denying it. Even I can see he’s right, and my abilities aren’t the same as his. What happened?”
The Sprite didn’t answer right away. What would they do when they found out the truth? I’ll never know until I tell them. “Very well,” the Sprite said, sighing. “First of all, I need to tell you that, even though I look like him, I am not, and never was, Horace Alvarem. I needed all of you to trust me without divulging my true intentions too early, so I created an approximation of how Father Alvarem looked as a young man from the impressions of him I read inside your memories. I hope you can forgive me for that.”
“That depends,” Thaddeus said. “What were your true intentions?”
“To bring you all back here, to this city,” the Sprite said. “We are very close to the Void, here – I know you all understand what I mean – and my Masters needed to be sure about you. And, since you’re all still here talking to me, it can be safely assumed that you passed their test.”
“So you were a lure,” Aylander said. It wasn’t a question. “Bait for a trap.”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“It would only have been a trap, though, if we’d failed,” Zoe said. “Am I right?”
“Yes, my Lady. I am very pleased to see that you all passed.”
“We haven’t necessarily passed, yet,” Thaddeus said. “We need to get back to our world before the Demon Lords amass too much power.”
“Their power has already grown in your absence,” the Sprite said. “I fear they’ve found someone to take Atraxos the Black’s place.”
“Another Necromancer?”
“Yes, and a powerful one, at that. Even now, the forces of the newly reforged Torvaran Empire march out to do battle with him, but, without the three of you, their fight will be for naught.”
The three of them shared a look. Zoe said, “We were told that we would know the way back and wouldn’t need any help. But I have no idea what we’re supposed to do.”
“Neither do I,” Thaddeus said.
“I might,” Aylander said. He addressed the Sprite. “You’re the way out, aren’t you?”
“As long as we’re here, in these ruins, I am,” the Sprite said.
“Whatever you have to do to get us back,” Zoe said. “You won’t survive it, will you?”
“No, my Lady. I was told, though, that I wouldn’t be forgotten.”
“If you can get us back,” Thaddeus said, “I promise you that you won’t be.”
“And I will ease your passage to the afterlife as much as I can,” Zoe said.
“Is there an afterlife for me, then?” the Sprite asked.
“My friend, if Lady Zoe says she can ease your passage to it, you can trust that there is,” Aylander said.
The Sprite looked at the three of them for a moment, then focused his attention on Zoe. Had he been in the presence of a Sorceress before? He was sure he had been, but, as Zoe suddenly smiled at him, he realized that, never before, had he been in the presence of someone like her. Zoe cared about protecting life above all else, which also meant shepherding it through the sometimes painful transition that was death. Her magic, which, as the Master had told the Sprite, was shaped partially by her beliefs in how it worked, told her that there was an afterlife for all creatures – even those that were not necessarily a part of her world. In order for Zoe to be able to help him, all the Sprite had to do was make a leap of faith and believe in her magic as she did. It shouldn’t have been easy for him. And yet, it was.
“Are you ready?” Zoe asked.
“Yes, my Lady,” the Sprite said.
“Then let’s go,” Thaddeus said, and drew his sword – the runes on its surface glowing blue – from its scabbard.
The Sprite looked at Thaddeus, looked at the sword – the Sign Universal was unmistakable – then nodded.
“Look at me,” Zoe said.
The Sprite looked at her. There was a flash of amber light, followed in quick succession by one of blue. And then Kevin was looking into the smiling faces of his parents, who reached out and gathered him into their arms. Thank you, Lady Zoe, Kevin thought, no longer even sure he remembered who it was he was thanking. Thank you.
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