Sarah’s eyes were a bit red and puffy when she opened the door, and he realized she had probably been crying. “Is everything okay?” He asked, momentarily forgetting what he came to talk about.

She sniffed a bit, “Yes, I’m fine. Today just, hit me a little harder than I expected, I mean, I knew they would all move on with their lives, but actually seeing just how little they cared about me after years of friendship?” she trailed off. “So what did you want to talk about?” she crossed the room and sat on the edge of her bed.

Sebastian sat on a chair near the bed, and started explaining. He went through all of it without stopping, and was surprised at how much it eased his mind to say it out loud to someone. Sarah sat in silence while he talked. When he finally went silent she still didn’t say anything for a while.

Hesitantly, she asked, “So you are probably going to die if you continue using magic?” When he nodded, she shook her head, “But if it might kill you, how come the only way for you to live longer is to run? Shouldn’t the Guild take care of you, since you are a member?”

Sebastian looked her in the eyes, “They have tried, on several different occasions to enchant living beings, animals and people both. Not one of them has ever lived as long as I have with this,” he raised his arm, “In the eyes of the Guild, I am potentially the answer to a magical mystery they tried to solve for years. Pair that with the fact that some of the test subjects ended up… less than safe to be around… well, it effectively means that I am extremely dangerous to others until this is completed, one way or another.”

Sarah sniffled again, “But, I don’t want you to die.” She said quietly, “After what you did today, it just isn’t fair that you have to die, or worse.” She stood and pulled Sebastian into a hug, “Run away!” she whispered fiercely in his ear, “I would rather see my friend running than dead, or turned into a monster.”

Sebastian sighed, he had rather expected that answer from her, he pushed her gently to arms-length so he could look her in the eyes, “You realize of course that if I ran, you would probably never see me again right? I would never see any of you ever again, and that’s making the big assumption I manage to escape the people the Guild would send to find me once Owdel told them about me.”

She was starting to sound frustrated now, “It sounds like you already made up your mind. Why even come talk to me about it if you are going to run to your death no matter what I say?”

He let go of her, “I’m still not sure actually, but it doesn’t matter what I choose to do in the end, what was important was that I wanted you to hear it from me. Owdel probably wouldn’t have told you until I was gone, one way or the other. I… Honestly don’t know why it was so important to me that you knew, I’m not sure I care for this whole having-friends thing, too many emotions.” He gave her a wry grin. “Oh, and I also wanted to give you this.” He pulled the pendant out of his pocked and held it out to her, she looked at it and then touched it gently, before spinning around and moving her hair out of the way, clearly implying that he should put it on her.

He somewhat awkwardly got it around her neck, and when she turned to face him again, he gave her a smug grin before stretching out a finger to touch the stone and channeling a bit of mana into it. She gasped when it emitted a soft blue light and the air around her cooled, then slapped his hand away from it. “Don’t do that! You said using magic makes it worse!”

He rolled his eyes, “That little bit won’t hurt anything. I have to go now though. There is one other person I need to talk to about this and it’s better to not get there too late in the evening or I won’t be able to get a word in edgewise. Good night.” Her reflexive return of his ‘good night’ was nearly inaudible, but he nodded as he left the room to show he heard her.

This is probably going to go horribly. He left the tower and walked swiftly towards his mother’s house, trying not to think about what her reaction might be. When he got there, he took a moment to steel his nerves before knocking. He hadn’t really noticed how much he had missed seeing her until she opened the door. He couldn’t say anything at first, instead he just wrapped her in a hug. She was laughing when he let her go, and she waved him inside.

It was hard at first, trying to explain everything. She had made some tea, and they were sitting at the kitchen table sipping on it while he talked. It took longer to tell her than it had Sarah, since he also had to explain the threat they had found and what he had learned about his father’s death. When he reached that part he saw her jaw tighten and a flash of anger flickered across her expression. It was dark out by the time he finally finished and the room fell into silence.

She reached across the table and grabbed his hand, looking him directly in the eye and wearing a serious expression, “When will you do it? I am going to be there when you do.”

Sebastian started and pulled back, “What? No! I don’t want you to watch me die, or worse, put you in danger if something goes wrong! Besides I haven’t decided what path I will choose yet.”

She shook her head, “You are very much your father’s son. I didn’t push you to follow in his footsteps out of foolish pride, or to honor his memory. I did it because I saw his greatness in you, waiting to be unleashed. You may have found a different path, but you still have his sense of honor and duty. As if your mother wouldn’t be able to tell that you have made up your mind.” She snorted then continued softly, “When I lost your father, there was nothing I could do, since they couldn’t find any evidence that pointed towards his fate, there was always that glimmer of hope that he might walk out of those woods like he had so many times before. A wistful hope that died slowly over the years.

“Not this time!” She declared furiously, “No! I will bear witness to my son’s fate! For good or ill I will not let you face this alone!”

Sebastian was dumbfounded, she had hidden it so well when he was younger that he hadn’t even begun to think it had affected her that much. He tried to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat, his eyes threatening to tear up. He managed to nod his acceptance. “I’ll tell Owdel.”

She replied in a slightly less angry tone, “And when you finish surviving this supposedly un-survivable curse, we will see about these monsters that took my husband from me.”

He spent the night in his old room. The next morning he woke to the smell of breakfast, and made it from his bed to the kitchen in what was possibly record time for him. Sausage, fried potatoes, eggs, and toast, with a cup of tea. It was wonderful, perfectly seasoned and cooked, far better than any of the meals they bothered to throw together in the tower. He almost felt like he needed to go hibernate and digest it when he finally finished. “You know mom, I bet I could talk Owdel into letting you stay in the tower to cook for us.”

She snorted, “Nobody in your fancy tower full of smart people bothered to learn how to cook I take it? No books on cooking? Or are you all just too important to stoop to the level of us simple folks?”

Sebastian waved his hands at her, “I surrender! I am too full to fight a battle of wits right now, I just want to sit and digest for a minute.” They sat and talked about nothing for a while longer, trading lighthearted barbs back and forth, before Sebastian managed to force himself to leave. He gave her a hug and promised to send word when they made a decision, then headed back to the tower in a much better mood than he had left it in the night before.

He found Owdel in the library, and sat across from him. The old mage just looked at him expectantly. “So how do we do it? And where should we do it?”

Owdel nodded, “I don’t know for sure boy, I imagine since the thing has been feeding off of mana you use for spells that if you directly channeled your mana into it, it will probably grow much faster than it has, which should complete the process relatively quickly. As for where, outside the walls. Too risky to do it in the town. We will bring a contingent of guards, who will stand with me some distance away in case we have to, well, you know.”

Sebastian nodded grimly, “And my mother. She insisted on being there.”

Owdel looked at him blankly for a moment, “No. too dangerous.”

Sebastian grinned at him, “Okay, but I promised to tell her when we were going to do this, and that I wouldn’t try and stop her from watching. So if you don’t want her there you can go tell her she can’t come.”

Owdel had met his mother a couple times before, and knew that when she set her mind to something she was more akin to a force of nature, if she was set on coming, he would have to tie her down and set a contingent of guards to watch her if he wanted to stop her. “Fine.” He grumbled, probably wishing he could blast her. It wasn’t so much that he would get in trouble for abusing his power, since as master of the tower he was effectively answerable to himself, it was more that it was rather bad for the guild’s image if their members ran around blasting people without a bit more reason than ‘I didn’t want to deal with them.’

Owdel stood, “Well then, come on boy, no time like the present. Go collect your mother and meet me by the gate, I will collect some guards and my apprentice.”

Sebastian nodded and stood, and almost before he knew it they were all assembled by the gate. They walked out of town towards the forest in silence, looking rather solemn and determined. When they reached an area near where they had gone the first time, the guards, Sarah, Owdel and his mother all stopped, he turned to face them. He had brought all of his gear, since they were leaving the town, but he didn’t want to have it on him in case the worst happened and he went crazy. So he started taking it off and handing it to Owdel and Sarah, pausing only when he got his bow off his shoulder. He heard one of the guards saying something about a strong woman, and turned to see that it was the man who had punched him last time.

He walked over to stand in front of him and handed him his bow. The man took it hesitantly, then Sebastian grinned at him fiercely, spun and pointed at a tree, “Third one right of the oak halfway from base to first branch!” The guard grinned broadly and swiftly nocked, drew, and fired an arrow using Sebastian’s bow. It hit too high, and Sebastian turned back to face the man, whose grin hadn’t faded in the slightest.

“I missed. Calls a call, take your shot.” Sebastian grinned again and threw a brutal punch at the man’s face, feeling something crackle under his knuckles. The guard swore, then reached up and adjusted his nose with an audible crack.

“Good shot son, beginning to think maybe wizard was the wrong choice for you, shoulda joined the guard. Names George.” He held out a hand for Sebastian to shake, and as Sebastian returned the man’s greeting he continued, “Didn’t mean nothing by that earlier either, it takes a truly strong woman to come out here and watch their son do something dangerous.” He threw an admiring glance towards his mother, then spat some blood off to the side and winced.

Blegh! There was something wrong about watching a man admiring his mom like that, he just shook his head, “If this doesn’t end well for me, the bow is yours.” Then he turned away and started to walk towards the forest in order to gain a safe distance not stopping until he was about halfway between them and the forest. He pulled off his robes and tossed them to the side, then kicked off his shoes, standing there in nothing but a pair of simple shorts.

He took a deep breath, and threw a glance towards the group that was standing there expectantly watching him. Here goes nothing. For the first time he channeled mana directly to the lines on his skin, with the sole intent of letting them do what they were meant to do. He didn’t try to guide it, he hadn’t guided the process since it began and could only hope. The lines flared to life in brilliant blazes of light, and sent an iridescent shimmer into the air around him as they started to crawl further across his skin.

He felt the familiar heat of the mana flooding through him, and a cold tingle where the lines shifted and spun. Faster and faster they moved, his left arm had caught up quickly to his right, then the lines had flowed onto his chest and swirled into thick bands that wrapped around his stomach and curved in broad loops that overlapped and intersected each other down his legs. He marveled at it, the lines were mesmerizing, and the odd mix of warm and cold swirling across him was like nothing he had ever felt before.

It wasn’t long before the only places left without lines, were his head and the center of his chest. The lines stopped moving, then suddenly, they flowed in a spiral across the gap in his chest and it felt like he had thousands of needles driven into his heart and lungs all at once. He coughed, spitting out a mouthful of blood, then collapsed onto his hands and knees, letting out a bloodcurdling scream as he did so. He dimly felt the cold running up his neck near his ears, then a sudden spike of pain shot through his skull and he lost consciousness.