I never imagined it going out of control.
I had taken a year off from being stuck in the offices of the Tome Society. Instead of drafting essays and books, I traveled far to an Ancient community, one under Anasot. It was up in the northeast, in Death’s Upper Everglades. They were the only ones to accept my request.
The Ancients were kind and hospitable. They provided me with food, my own tent, and most importantly, a job like every other Ancient.
Sometimes it would be gathering, and sometimes it would be teaching children about the common people and the common tongue. Sometimes I would be asked to mill leaves for ink, tend the flora, or prepare meals. Whatever I was told to do, I did with the utmost reverence for the people and their traditions.
Tradition, however, is a dangerous idea. It is not truth, it is not law; if you have not read my other volume on Ancient Tradition and its roots, in oversimplified terms, it is a set of rules decided upon by a group of people that have been passed down for generations. It is thrust into the hands of a younger generation that knows naught more than their keepers who worship the mere shadows of their ancestors.
It is with enormous veneration for the Ancient people that I pen these words. It is with a heavy, mournful heart that has committed more than just a singular sin, but many, many, others. And all in the name of tradition.
The ultimate question—asked over and over again, throughout every generation of humanity, in the oldest texts of Pannasa’t and even now—do you know what it is? Do you know its answer?
It was clear what it was to the Ancients. There was not one second of doubt in the elder’s eyes when I asked her for the first time.
What is the meaning of life?
To continue.
What does it mean, to continue?
To live, despite everything.
Everything? Even death?
Yes. Even death.
In the summer of ‘24, when my year at Anasot was over, I did not leave. I had been accustomed to their way of life: the silence, the darkness, the blinding illumination of the Souls of the Earth Mother. They had accepted me as part of their community, and I had no reason to return to my people. Notebooks overflowing with data and research crammed every surface of my living space, and yet I still believed there was room for more.
In the fall of ‘24, the Elder woke me just before dawn. Upon venturing outside, I discovered a silence far greater than any other I had felt before, a godless silence as if even the Earth Mother slumbered. The Elder, speaking only a single word, “Come,” led me deep into the forest. I knew not where I was going, but I had no reason to suspect that the Elder wished me harm.
When my guide finally came to a halt, it was at a clearing. Several other Ancients were there, standing in a circle around something I could not make out. The Elder, who was now behind me, urged me forward, and the Ancients in the circle noticed my presence. The two closest to us stepped back, opening the circle, revealing a small group of huddled figures in the middle.
The first thing I remember doing was stopping. The second was the feeling of the Elder’s hand against my back, propelling me forward until I stood in front of the figures.
They were Ancients. I knew them. I had spoken to them often. I had worked with one particular individual who had just barely reached adulthood; we were of a similar age. I had felt a bond with them that they could not reciprocate.
I should have known. They were an Ancient. They had tradition.
Hold out your hand.
Why? What is this?
Tradition.
How does that answer my question?
Repeat after me.
I—
I remember my right hand being lifted, palm facing out to the huddle. I remember the Elder whispering words into my ear. I remember hearing the words come out of my mouth, and the next thing I knew, one figure fell. I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins, the sweat beading up on my sticky skin, the clamorous pounding of my heart in the silent forest. Everyone around me was still. Unmoving.
What did I do?
You will help us live.
What happened to the one who fell?
They are with the Earth Mother now.
Did…did I kill them?
No. They live on in you. They live on for us.
In the spring of ‘25, having carried on ‘tradition’ at least ten times, I began to see them. The process had started.
The first few times, I felt nothing but adrenaline. I would return to my daily duties after it had been carried out, after I watched other members of the group do the same, one by one until all the members fell and slowly disintegrated into thin air.
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I first realized that I had obtained the gift one night, when we set out to carry out the ritual. The sun had not yet risen, and everyone was obscured by the darkness, but when I arrived at the clearing with the Elder once again, I could clearly see that there were five people.
I remember freezing when I stepped into the circle. It was so beautiful. One figure had just the smallest hint of red. Close to being purple. So pale, but so bright. I can still see it clearly in my mind—the first traces of color in what had always been a monochrome world.
And then I looked at my hands and almost jumped back. I was bathed in an even deeper red, so deep it reminded me of the life I had taken by simply raising my hand. It was the color of rust, like dried blood, like decay. I felt like I was decaying.
But once I raised my hand again, all my doubts vanished. The adrenaline returned—the feeling of life, the feeling of knowing that I was doing something right for the people I had dedicated my life to researching. They were the ones who told me to do it, after all. How could it be wrong?
I stole the beautiful red. It became mine. It mixed in with my rust, my decay, made it shine. I could see the colors a bit clearer. I was becoming one of them.
In the summer of ‘28, I started to feel sick.
Feeding upon more and more auras, month after month in a group, preying on older adults and the sickly because they were the most vulnerable, it no longer felt like devotion to tradition. It felt disgusting, watching my hand raise and gather auras at a far quicker pace than any other Ancient. The red rust of decay no longer looked the same as it did the first day. It did not brighten as I continued to feed on auras. No longer was I collecting the auras for their colors; I was being force-fed them despite my unanswered questions, the light turning into a dark gray mass once it touched me. Dirty. I felt so dirty.
What’s happening to me?
You will live on for us.
What do you mean?
You will prevent the Fate of the Ancients.
What is your fate?
Death, for disobeying Mother.
How could I understand, the lowly being I was in the presence of all their darknesses, mine a pitiful gray when theirs were pitch?
But what will I do when I leave?
Spread word of us—of magic, of miracles.
How will that change fate?
Such a conceited world will not allow us to die.
I won’t let you die.
Good boy.
The last few words that were spoken to me before I left, after all my questions had been answered, as I held my research books in my hand, what little belongings I had amassed in the years I had lived in the community, I have not been able to forget no matter how hard I try. She would not let me forget it. Steise. Her name still sends chills down my spine; I can still feel her pressing against my back. Coming back to the words again and again.
Dark feed Light, Land bear Moon
Sun temper Sky, Sea renew Life
Mercy bring Death, Love connect Strife
O false Mother, Fate we Impugn
The world felt different when I returned. In the dead of night, I could go nowhere but back home. To the Tome Society, where I had begun my journey, where I still had leagues to go. The roads looked different. The people looked different. Despite that, the old wooden building—with its weathered exterior and tinted glass windows, its collection of books, tomes, and scrolls that stretched several floors deep into the recesses of the earth, a passionate tribute to every bibliophile’s dream—hadn’t changed at all.
I walked inside without hesitation, found an open study desk, unceremoniously put down all my years of research, and then stood there wondering what the next volume of books would be, what these years of research would turn into.
Before I left on what was only supposed to be a year-long sabbatical, I had felt like I had owed the Ancients my life—upon returning, I felt like I owed them far more. Despite the feeling of death pervading me, despite the disgust I felt for myself every morning, the blackness of the cloud surrounding every inch of my flesh, I knew that I had been given life by taking others for a reason. I was just beginning my quest.
Though I did not feel the weight of those lives then, I would feel it years later. Bondless, having written countless texts on data I had accumulated during my years of stay, being heralded as the only researcher of my kind, awards heaped onto me, taking up the helm with others to create the first ever Magic Association, meeting with Ancients once a month as tradition—and then far more often—bringing them to our newly established headquarters near Syarktos, far away from my old Tome Society, which had I had outgrown—the knowledge I possessed was far too vast for them, and they wished to have nothing to do with my plans for the Ancients, who had become my beacon and my reason for existing.
Dark, Light, Land, Moon, Sun, Sky, Sea, Life, Mercy, Death, Love, Strife.
Every day, waking or asleep, I can feel the darkness creeping in on me. I can feel it following my every step, dissecting my every action. I can feel my flesh thinning, turning old, and yet…the fire inside me burns bright. The souls of those I’ve taken continue to burn on in me.
I have continued all these years hoping to create a world where the Ancients will be able to thrive. A world of Ancients. Never dying so long as they were needed, so long as there was greed, so long as conceit ran abundantly in the common blood. I would not let her die. I would not let myself die. I would not let tradition die.
Bondless, I pen these mismatched words in my ornate study, looking down at the sleeping figure of my student. Bondless also—picked up off the street, abandoned, covered in bloody rust, a pale red reminiscent of my own. I want to take it. I want to take his color. I want to take it, that beautiful red that used to be mine. I had forgotten what it looked like, how bright it was. How much I had loved it when I first saw it.
It had taken me a long time to figure it out, but I understand now why I loved that pale red. I had finally realized that, in a magical, miraculous world that was centered on the Ancients—those infinitely incomprehensible, awe-inspiring, mystical beings—we, too, were just as magical. We just could not see it. This magic, I now see in us. I see in him. I see in my Emrys.
Life may have been the Ancients’ ultimate answer, but I realize now, far too many years of research too late, far too many mistakes, books, and innocent lives too late, that mine may just be the child.