“Welcome back, Megan.”

Megan stood just outside the threshold to Samuel’s tower office, fist raised to knock on the door. Without warning, the door had opened before she could make herself known. She hesitated, then took a nervous step in.

“Good afternoon, Samuel.”

“Please, sit,” he said cheerfully, gesturing to the seat opposite his. “I think you’ll like today’s lesson.”

She obeyed, perching herself on the edge of the comfortable armchair, her eyes fixed on the Archmage as he sorted through papers. There was something familiar about them, she thought. Looking closer, she could see that they consisted of long lists of names. There was a sheet to the left that bore a crest. A familiar crest, she thought. Then the importance of the names came to her mind.

“Are you preparing for the Exchange?”

The Exchange was one the biggest events of the year, at least for the College. Originally proposed by Samuel Bragg when he became the High Magus, it was a highly competitive two-week-long tournament that featured the most promising students from Tyrman, Attos, Zaban, and Nihon-Ja. There were sometimes independent participants from Welsik, but it was rare. Seeing the papers for it now, she wondered if Samuel had included her name in the list of Tyrman’s student submissions. He was the final decision in who would represent their school, after all.

“The preparations are already complete,” he replied, catching her slightly nervous look. “And to answer your question, yes. You will be competing.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to respond verbally. Trying to keep her voice level, she asked, “Who else is representing us this year?”

“Oh, a few new names,” Samuel said with a wide smile. “And some you’ll recognize from last year. I’ve just gotten back from Knireth, where we settled on a location for this year’s games.”

The Exchange changed location every year, with each country taking a turn in hosting the events. This year was Tyrman’s turn, and now Megan caught herself wondering where it would be taking place. But the knowledge was generally kept a secret until a month before the event started. Samuel was a laidback figure of authority, but even she doubted that he’d reveal the location to her.

“Here you go,” He said, pulling a small folder from the stack of papers and handing it across the desk. “I want you to inform the participants by the week’s end.”

“Me?” She asked, startled. “Why?”

He looked across the desk at her with a patient sort of expectance. “You are my apprentice, are you not?”

“Of course, but-”

“Apprentices help their mentors with work, don’t they?”

Reluctantly, Megan took the folder and opened it. Several sheets were inside, and the foremost held a list of names. Hers was somewhere in the middle. “But wouldn’t you just use the same method you’ve always done?”

Last year, Samuel had notified the participants of the Exchange that they had been entered by sending scrolls through a spell. All scrolls had appeared at the same time, and she could still remember the commotion it had caused in the middle of their Alchemy lesson when the best student, Jason Silver, had received his scroll. Their teacher had congratulated him for being chosen, and the lesson had continued. Later that day, there had been a large, loud party for the chosen in their dorms. She shuddered at the thought of trying to confront each of them in person.

“How you choose to let them know is up to you,” Samuel said. “I did it my way because it was the easiest. This is a busy time of the year for me, so I don’t have time to visit each of them in turn.”

She nodded and tucked the folder into her storage space. She’d just learned the spell that day and felt it was a good casual way of showing Samuel how far she’d come in her studies. He noticed the action and gave her a silent nod of approval. As they’d talked, he’d continued to sort and sign the papers. He put his signature to the last sheet with a flourish and dismissed the quill. It, like every tool he used, disappeared into thin air.

“Good,” he said with a grin. “Paperwork is finished. I’m tired of signing papers.”

He stood up, and she copied him, the nervousness for her lesson coming back. “What’s the plan?”

“Excellent question,” he replied. “Follow me.”

He created another portal, and led her through. On the other side was a wide set of plains, with grass that had grown up to the knee. At least, it was up to Samuel’s knee. She was considerably shorter than the Archmage, so it nearly reached her hips. She looked around curiously, wondering what this place held that could be her lesson. Maybe she would finally learn how to fly, she thought with glee.

“Today you will begin learning another of my unique magicks,” he said. “Though calling it unique is a bit off, as there’s an entire race of people who use this magic.”

She frowned thoughtfully, her mind racing through a list of possible answers. The only race that Samuel was known to regularly communicate with was the Wild Mages of Zaban. “Is this Zaban, then?”

“No. This is the Gorteau Plain. We’re about three day’s ride to the south-west of Milagre, and the same distance to the northwest of Murgan.”

She took a moment to study the map of Tyrman she’d memorized, and placed them in the middle of one of the biggest uninhabited places of the continent. Few people ventured this far from a city, she knew. But of course, Samuel had journeyed across nearly every inch of the kingdom and knew it better than anyone. At least it wasn’t the desert, she thought. That landscape was full of dangerous monsters, everyone knew that.

“What’s out here for me to learn about?” She asked, studying the empty landscape.

“This location isn’t significant,” he said. “It’s just a good place to practice where we won’t affect other people. Today, you’re going to learn how to surf.”

For a second, she was sure she’d misheard him. “But we’re nowhere close to a body of water.”

“Not surfing on the water,” he said with a laugh. “I mean surfing the ethereal sea.”

“Oh,” it was all she could think to say. The Ethereal Plane wasn’t exactly the unknown frontier that it used to be, but it was still one of those things generally left to exceptional mages who’d spent years studying. It wasn’t something that a student could master. Come to think of it, she’d never heard of a student entering the Ethereal plane before.

“We’ll start small,” Samuel said. “You likely won’t start surfing today. I just want you to become familiar with the feeling of the energy that exists in the plane.”

She nodded, eyes wide, waiting. She knew that entry into the Ethereal Plane was accomplished via a spell. It was similar to teleporting, though instead of ending back in the material plane, the caster would anchor his soul and dive into the Chaotic Sea. Samuel was turning on the spot now, arms wide, extending his mana out from his body. Instead of expanding, she could see it disappearing from view and correctly assumed that it was reaching into the ethereal plane.

Samuel brought his arms together in one quick movement, and she heard a faint crackling sound as Samuel disappeared completely. In his place was a faintly shimmering line, almost like a tear in the air. It hung in one spot, marking the place where Samuel had crossed over. She was clearly meant to follow. Taking a deep breath, she reached one hand out and touched the spot. At once, she was yanked forward.

Samuel caught her as she was jetted out through the portal and held her in place. Her immediate first impression was of something crushing her from all angles, pinning her in place,and preventing her from moving. Then she felt her energy beginning to leech away. At first, it was only the dregs, but the drain increased as her mind began putting out more mana.

“Create a barrier around your body,” Samuel said. He spoke quickly but calmly, hovering beside her and ready to act in case of emergency.

She did as he instructed. It was much harder than usual. The usual method of creating a barrier consisted of surrounding the body in mana. But the Ethereal Plane was clearly eating away at her mana, making the process considerably slower. She’d never had to fight against the pull of her own mana before. But she quickly realized that she could limit what was fed to the air around her. If she just focused on feeding it what her mind naturally produced, she could use the excess stored in her focus to form the barrier.

“Good,” Samuel said, letting out a sigh of relief. “That’s really the best way to do it. In time, you’ll learn how to create a barrier faster, and eventually, you won’t even need it.”

She sighed as well. Now that the barrier was in place, she didn’t feel like she was being crushed. She was still aware of the constant drain on her resources, but it had been reduced to a weak trickle, almost unnoticeable. She let out another slow, shaky breath, and looked around her. The Chaotic Sea, the only part of the Ethereal Plane that she knew of, stretched out in front of her for what seemed like forever. Being here in person, she immediately knew why it was called a sea.

She felt as though she were on the very bottom of an ocean, held down by overwhelming pressure and unable to see the surface. The murky depths were all that existed to her eyes. She tried moving her arms and legs, and felt as though she were trying to force her way through thick mud. She looked at Samuel, even the small movement of her head constricted and slowed.

He nodded encouragingly at her. “You’re doing great so far. You won’t be able to move at first, because this is raw chaotic mana. The usual methods of controlling and shaping mana won’t work here. The energy here defies logic.”

You could say that again, she thought, watching Samuel jealously as he drifted around her without any obvious effort. “How do I move, then? I can’t stay stuck here forever, can I?”

“No,” he said, smiling once again now that he was sure she had control of her mana. “Movement is the basic skill you need here. The trick is to loosen up on the control of your own mana. As I said, you won’t likely surf today. For now, focus on the difference between your own mana and what surrounds you. Feel how the latter moves.”

Moves? The energy around her wasn’t moving at all. But as she closed her eyes and focused, she realized that wasn’t the truth at all. It was moving, and much faster than her own mana, but where her mana gently flowed in a circle around her body, this energy jumped around, circling, diving, and spinning in place. There was no set pattern to how it moved. It was as if each individual particle of energy had a mind of its own, simply bouncing around at its leisure and only changing direction when it bumped into another.

She heard Samuel make a comment, but his voice was drowned out. She was focusing as hard as she could on the energy around her, trying to sort it out. She tried to move a leg again and felt the energy move reluctantly out of her way. But the sea gave just as much resistance as she did, and the movement was incredibly slow. If she couldn’t brute-force her way through with her own mana, how could she move?

Then the answer came to her. If control of her own mana didn’t do her any good, then she should try to control the energy around her. Taking hold of the mana that surrounded her body was out of the question, of course, but maybe she could bully the energy around her into moving out of the way. She tried first by directing her own mana forward, intermingling it with what was in front of her, and shoving forward. She felt a surge of movement and opened her eyes with a grin. She’d done it. But then she noticed something that troubled her.

Samuel was nowhere to be seen. She was alone.