'You cannot find your totem, because you cannot let go of things,' explained Edyta for the hundredths of times. 'You are stressed, you are worrying and you are afraid to go back.'

'Of course I am afraid to go back, I nearly died there,' pointed out Robert.

'And that's exactly what makes you a perfect candidate to be a real shaman,' answered Edyta. 'Those who died and came back can connect to the other world.'

'I didn't die, I was in a coma,' shook his head Robert.

'It's a metaphor, you dimwit,' she said. 'What troubles you now? Still your brother?'

They were sitting in Edyta's rustic, yet somehow modern kitchen, over a cup of tea. Robert had no problem with learning potion ingredients and the theory of shamanism, but he couldn't perform the simplest shamanic spells. It was because he didn't have an animal spirit yet. He was supposed to go in some kind of meditation and call one, then wait until a spirit will answer his calling, but the meditation felt too much like that weird dark place he kind of remembered from his coma. Because of that the only time he tried he woke himself up in a panic after a minute, without any spirit animal.

'Partly, yes' nodded Robert. 'But I met Maxwell the other day, too.'

Edyta knew very well who Maxwell was. In order to get a totem, one needed to be perfectly clear about themselves, acknowledge every mistake, cheer every good thing. A self-respecting spirit won't get involved with a shaman who is lying to himself or chasing illusions. So Robert had to come in peace with his life, and Edyta, like a foul-mouthed therapist, helped him with that.

'Did you whoop his arse?' the woman asked.

'He almost killed me.'

'And yet, you still don't have a spirit animal even though you died again. Remarkable. Say, when they made you a professor, was that like, an act of pity or something?'

'I've forgotten more about magic than most people ever learned,' said Robert somewhat angrily.

'The problem is that you still think that carving a bunch of children-drawings into sticks is magic,' said Edyta. 'Sorcerers are so high and mighty, it never occurred to them that there is more to magic than their silly little party tricks.'

Robert swallowed his answer. Looked like to him that shamanism didn't have that much to offer, in fact, they were just different party tricks: instead of making light and noise, talking to animals and sending nightmares. Not much of a difference.

'So tell me about the magic you know,' said the man.

'A shaman has the power of the spirit world,' she answered. 'A sorcerer can splash around some water, a shaman can stop the flooding ocean. A sorcerer can read a man's thoughts, a shaman can see the truth hiding in the past. A sorcerer makes an umbrella out of magic, a shaman stops the thunder…'

'I did stop a thunder,' murmured Robert. 'With Runes.'

'Why?'

'What do you mean, why? It was dangerous. People would have died otherwise.'

'Did you want to help, or did you do it for the praising?'

Robert stopped to think that over.

'A little bit of both. I am not a vigilante. I don't wear a mask. I want to help people but I want them to know I was the one who helped.'

'Why is that?' asked Edyta.

'I want them to know I'm not my father,' he said. 'My brother said we look alike. But I'm nothing like him.'

Edyta smiled.

'You are ready,' she said.

'I'm not. I know who I don't want to be, but that's all,' objected Robert.

'It will have to do,' shrugged the woman. 'Until you don't have your totem, I cannot teach you anything more. So I put the potion of apparent death into your tea. Your heart will slow down and you will be back in that dark place you are afraid of, in like…' she checked her watch. 'Five minutes. Good luck.'

'You are bluffing,' said Robert.

Edyta got up and went to the sink to wash her mug.

'You can talk and talk and talk about what you are afraid of, but after a point you either face your fears or you will be stuck. I recommend to make peace with whatever is in your mind, you still must have about four and a half minutes. Know who you are. Know what you want. Be confident. You will be fine. Probably.'

'What do you mean, probably?' asked Robert.

'Not everyone can become a shaman, you know,' she said, turning towards Robert. 'Some of them just gets lost in between worlds forever. Some of them die. If I were you, I would concentrate very hard on whatever helped you come back for the first time.

Jenna. She read to him and her voice was the beacon that led him back. He didn't remember much of that dark place, but he knew that.

'By the way, if you would die, do you think the little Italian girl would be angry at me?' Edyta asked.

'She would hunt you down even if you were hiding at the end of the world, then she would kill you, very slowly, and she would enjoy every second' smiled Robert.

'Well, then, try not to die,' said the shaman. 'Also, don't trust spiders, they love to lie. They call it storytelling, furry little bastards. And stay away from the fox, he is a trickster. Do not eat anything, whoever offers it, especially not goat meat.'

Robert felt light-headed, dizzy. The kitchen seemed a little weird, a little unrealistic. Almost as if it was only a stage which behind the real world, the empty dark place was awaiting.

'What are you… How could I eat anything?'

'See you soon,' Edyta said. She was different now, not the middle-aged woman in knitted jumpers, but a fierce one dressed in leather, her face painted and her autumn-coloured hair flowing in the non-existing wind, holding a long staff carved with signs Robert never seen before. Then she was herself again, then she disappeared along with the kitchen, the house, and Robert was in the dark place all of the sudden.

It was almost the same, but not quiet. Even though everything was pitch black, the space around Robert wasn't empty or dead. Sounded like a forest, tiny animals rattled and the leaves shivered.

'Erm… Hello?' the man said. 'I'm looking for a spirit animal.'

No answer, but he wasn't expecting one. He played with the idea of taking a walk, but when he tried to make a little fire so he could see, the magic didn't work.

'This isn't a place for the Tall People's magic, mortal,' a voice giggled. 'That is for harnessing reality, but this place isn't real.'

Robert looked around but he still couldn't see anything.

'Who are you?' he asked.

'I could be a spirit,' came the answer. 'I could be the voice of your unconscious. It depends on you, really. What do you think, where are you?'

'In a forest.'

'And where is that forest?'

'In my mind,' replied Robert. 'I came here to look for an animal. So my mind imagined a forest.'

'Or you are a faithless idiot who will sooner believe the power of his own mind than real magic.'

'You see, that actually sounds like me,' noted Robert. The voice didn't answer.

Robert sat down. The ground was softer, like soil. There was no difference between keeping his eyes open or closing them, so he closed them.

'What are you doing?' the voice asked.

'Waiting,' he answered.

'For what?'

'For my spirit animal. I think,' said Robert.

'Do you know what it will be?'

'No. Do you?'

'You are an obnoxious prick, so I assume you would pair nicely with a peacock.'

Robert laughed.

'Maybe so,' he said.

'Why do you think a spirit would accept you, anyway?' asked the voice. 'you don't seek truth or knowledge, you just want power.'

'Knowledge is power,' said Robert. 'But you are right, I do want power. So I can protect my loved ones.'

'From what? There is no more danger. Your woman defeated the lord of the dead and the old lady while you were watching from the side uselessly…'

'There will always be a danger,' shrugged Robert, even though nobody could see his movements in the darkness. 'That's how we live.'

'That's how you choose to live,' corrected the voice. 'You don't have to be a hero. You don't have to try and protect everyone, always. You choose to.'

'Is that a bad thing?' asked Robert.

'It is the thing that almost killed you. Once you said to your woman that you want to leave, that you were tired. What happened to that?'

'I am tired,' said Robert. 'I do want to leave here, with her. I hope we will, one day. But wherever we go, there will be people in need. I can't let her fight alone.'

The voice giggled quietly.

'So you chose to die for strangers instead of live for what you love. What a pathetic, cowardly little hero.'

'I chose to be a man I don't hate to see in the mirror,' Robert said.

'You will always hate what you see in the mirror, little hero,' whispered the voice with almost perverted joy. 'You see what you are: just another Montgomery. A spite image of your father. You have his power, his face and his anger.'

'And nothing else,' said Robert. 'At least I hope so.'

The voice remained silent. Robert sat there and waited. After a while, he asked:

'Are you still there?'

'I am. I'm waiting with you.'

'Why?'

'I want to see what kind of self-loathing little spirit would choose you. There are not a lot of applicants so far. And the longer you stay here the bigger the chance you will never leave. You can feel it, right? Things from the real world already started to fade away from your memory. I wonder how long it will take while you forgot the name of your woman.'

Robert had to think about it, but then he said Jenna's name out loud. But he didn't know anymore what his brother or father was called. Where did Remy come from? What colour was his car?

'Maybe you should just wake up, like last time,' the voice said. 'Run while you can.'

'No,' shook his head Robert. 'I'm waiting.'

The voice laughed quietly again.

Minutes or hours went by, time lost its meaning down here. It was harder and harder to remember Jenna's face.

'You are stubborn,' noted the voice.

'You said I don't have faith. I'm proving you wrong.'

'Why do you care what I think? I'm just a voice in your head.'

'Even if you were,' Robert said, slowly climbing to his feet, 'I would still like to show you that you are wrong about me. But you are not my long lost conscience, are you?' He raised his arm, reached out. Wings swished and flapped and something hooked its little claws into Robert's hoodie on his forearm. Even though he couldn't see anything, somehow still knew that it was a raven.

'You are smarter than you look,' the bird said. 'There is one last test before I decide. Give me a worthy name.'

'Munnin,' said Robert after a few seconds of thinking.

'People thinks it only means memory,' the raven said. 'But it also means mind. Clever. I accept this name, mortal. Did you know that Odin was the first shaman?'

'Wasn't he a god?' asked Robert,

'Not until people started to believe in him,' said the bird. 'Now it's time for you to go back.'

Wings flapped, noise and light filled the world and Robert was awake. He was laying on the floor, in the kitchen of Edyta's house. The woman was drinking another cup of tea, sitting at the table, with a crossword-puzzle in front of her.

'Took you long enough,' she said. 'Oh, and how embarrassing: we have the same totem…'

Munnin was grabbing the edge of the headrest of a chair, his head tilted, looking at his chosen shaman with his bright little black eyes.