Breaking away from blood mages is far more difficult than I may have made it sound. The coven were familiar with my magic, so whenever I use it, I essentially broadcast my location to anyone looking for me. I learned this to my horror when members of the coven began to shadow my children, forcing us to move out of Palon and towards Gyanda, my namesake city. Fear for our family has led Bellarose to make some extreme, but reasonable demands regarding the use of my magic. She insisted that I learn a trade so that I could make a living for my family without endangering them. That is how I came to work for my father-in-law, Roderick Desmond.
He had the name of a great warrior, all the way down to his implied association with the great Desmond clan, but he was actually a tailor. Becoming his apprentice was something of a disappointment to my own family, but I could never have made them understand my decision to learn from a man my mother would happily call my lesser. We have always been a magical family, and have long enjoyed the privileges that Restan society offers practitioners of magic. I could not tell them why I renounced the use of my magic so, in my desperation to protect my wife and children, I had alienated my parents and siblings.
I spent a year as an apprentice tailor, putting exhaustive effort into mastering this skill like I have all of my others. But like the martial disciplines I struggled with in school, I was frustrated with my work. Over time, I began to rationalize the temptation I felt to resort to magic. I convinced myself that the coven would not truly dare to harm my family after Samson's encounter with Garanda. With that, I resumed the use of my magic in secret and my performance at work improved dramatically. After a month of this, my anxiety and guilt had subsided with the knowledge that the blood mages had not come.
The continued safety of my family did not stop Bellarose from becoming angry when she determined that I had been using my magic in secret. I do not blame her. Even if nothing had come of it, I had no right to take that risk with my family, especially without having talked to her first. Knowing that I could no longer be trusted to curb the temptation to turn to my magic, Bellarose took the kids as far away from me as she could. This was the first time in many years I had felt lost, but the feeling passed by far more quickly. I had convinced myself that I could live without attaining my lifelong dream, and convincing myself to get along without my family was far simpler for me.
With my marriage in shambles, and the looming specter of both my former coven and Garanda dominating my fears, I decided that there was nothing for me to do but work to solve my problems. My plans came down to two central points. I first needed to learn how to change my magical signature, so the coven could not find my simply by sensing the unique energy that I leave in my spells. I also needed to find a way to rid myself of Garanda once and for all, so I could live without fear of involuntarily harming people.
The problem was that my questions were not new, and their answers had eluded everyone who had asked them for many years. I had no use for people telling me that what I sought was not possible because I was in a position to see such impossibilities as a barrier between myself and my very life. So, I sought out one who could look at my impossible situation and tell me that the answers I needed were simply waiting to be found. That is why I chose to look up Richard Blackstone, the man we have all come to know as Broger. I was familiar with his work at developing a magical discipline that could be used by the undead. As a sai'mul, he had nothing left to work his magic but his very soul, and it was in this new craft that I found hope.
I found Broger on the Blackstone family's farm near Lake Whitetree. With the disappearance of his elder brother, The Champion of Crane, there was no one there to distract him from his relentless research into whatever caught his curiosity. He was a master soul mage one day, an alchemist on the next, and even an engineer on the very next. That all changed, however temporarily, with my arrival. He did not seem to be particularly interested in taking a student and was very stubborn with his time. There was but one arrangement that would allow me to learn what I had gone to that farm to learn.
Broger was a man who prided himself on the acquisition of knowledge in all of its forms. He would not agree to share his own with me until, while arguing my capability to grasp the complexity of soul magic, I revealed my own background in blood magic. He became very interested in knowing what I do then, and I agreed to a trade. He would teach me to use soul magic, which I hoped would allow me to change the nature of my spells entirely, in exchange for every bit of information I could give him about the coven's craft. I warned him that he would never be able to perform blood magic without a functioning circulatory system of his own, but he assured me that his interest was academic. So, we reached our accord.
Mastering soul magic may have been the most surreal experience of my life. Instead of immersing myself in magical theory, familiarizing myself with specific reagents, or practicing casting forms, I spent weeks acquainting myself with the mortal soul in its naked form. I learned of the many fragments that comprise one's personality, and learned more about myself by observing my own soul. Changing my magic proved to be as simple as making a change to my soul. By destroying one of my own soul fragments, I fundamentally altered my identity. In doing so, I had found the solution to the first of my problems.
The problem with Garanda proved to be far more difficult as he was an individual spirit with whom I could not make eye contact, which is critical to initiating any soul magic. To quell the Demon Knight once and for all was an impossible feat for myself in particular, so I had to trust Broger to do so for me. After many protests, I finally agreed to bleed myself as I had done to unleash Garanda in the past and allowed Broger to do his work.
When I returned to consciousness, it was with a lighter heart, as if the weight of Garanda had literally been lifted from my soul. When I asked Broger what happened, he told me that he had convinced Garanda to leave me permanently and return to the afterlife from which he came. I had my doubts that a curse of Maula could be broken so easily, but I was far too relieved with my newfound freedom to care.
I should have been more suspicious. The man had always struck me as odd and seemed to be, quite possibly, a clinical psychopath even then. In entrusting Garanda to him, I later learned that I had allowed him to seal the spirit into a physical vessel for his own use. When I confronted him with this knowledge, our once-cordial relationship dissolved in an instant and I was forced to resort to intimidation to question him. My efforts had turned up the revelation that he had created a vessel from a corpse to contain Garanda, but was powerless to stop the newly embodied Demon Knight from escaping his custody.
So, in freeing myself from my burden, I had unwittingly unleashed the most dangerous man in the world on the people of Comalan. This was no time to rest.
Continue to Part 9
Continue to Part 9
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