With a sigh, I plopped down on the roots. And pulled the cork out with a loud pop. The very same tree, that I maimed a lifetime ago, stood tall above my head. My mom and uncle were fast asleep, cuddled together to preserve the body heat. A common habit among the slaves, even if they were covered by a warm blanket.

I dared not to interrupt their rest. The early summer months were the most deadly at the farms, the food was low and stale and sickness was just around the corner. Looking for the weakest to consume. But it was over now — they had plenty of food, easy to digest, and all the rest that they would want.

The wine flowed into my mouth, strong and sweet. Albin had a great taste and managed to bring a few wineskins along with us.

For the celebration, no doubt.

The Mephistopheles in question was busy playing cards by the campfire. I smirked as I took another large sip, judging by his grimace and tugging of his horn he was losing badly once again.

My gaze shifted toward the lush of the forest. Just a dozen meters away, nor even reaching the river that I could hear splashing even from here, the remains of a shuttle lay half-buried.

The second reason for this trip.

I sipped on the wine, with Albin occupied I could easily walk downhill and inspect it to my heart’s content. And then I turned my gaze back and watched the flame some more.

I knew that I needed to get up, and so I drank.

I knew that I couldn’t stay here forever, we were travelling slow, but we only had so much food for the rest of the trip. I knew that I might not have an opportunity like that ever again.

And I had done nothing.

Who was ‘I’ anyway?

And could I call I Erf?

I didn’t know and so I drank.

XXX

Our reunion started with gasps and tears and quickly exploded into hugs, tears, and smiles.

Why wouldn’t it? After all their son and nephew was back. And he brought safety and food with him, with promises of even more in the future.

They noticed the differences almost immediately, it would have been impossible to hide them anyway. After all, it is easy to spot things they have never seen in my childhood. No matter how hard I tried it would have been impossible not to notice my new accent, the ‘fancy speak’ as they have called it.

Or the silver of my eyes, and the much healthier complexion of my body. For them, in a manner of months, I’ve grown from a kid into a man. I didn’t know what they had thought about my transition but cities were ‘full of magick’ and I told them about my ‘wermaje’ Domina who took a shine on a murk and gave me teachers and a cushy job.

And enough gold to free them.

Without even breaking my pelvis either, as uncle Tuk had desperately tried to make sure, quietly whispering so that Albin wouldn’t hear.

I had a feeling Albin heard it all anyway but he made sure not to show it, riding further away from us and acting all distant.

In the meantime my uncle patted my hips for fractures, just to be on the safe side.

I also didn’t tell them that it wasn’t the Domina but her daughter that I should be watching out for either. Or a particular cougar that it was too late to hide from. Just to be on the safe side. At least for now, all of that would come to light eventually anyway. But, right now, I wanted them to eat and rest.

As the emotions had quieted down, I made sure that they would be as comfortable as they could get on a cart without proper suspension. I filled their bowls with rich broth, nutritious and easy on stomachs that saw very little food prior to this. And we slowly started to talk among ourselves.

And then I fucked it all up.

It wasn’t what I told them — I had just started on my early days in the manor, slowly telling them how I reached the city proper and my luck for being sold to one of the Pillar Manors of all things. In my unbound relief I relaxed far too much and did something utterly unthinkable.

Somewhere during my tale, I started to bicker with Albin.

Nothing egregious by our standards, but it was enough. For me, Albin was the closest thing I could have for a friend. Especially with all he had done during this time. For them, he was something that transcended power. Chimgen Domina, someone who they considered as the pinnacle of strength, had spent the entire evening literally fawning over him. Including the time when she followed the travelling wermage to personally sell him two of her slaves.

I had a feeling that if he even gave her the slightest hint she would have spread her legs right there and then.

Most other slaves probably noticed that as well, including my own family. And now I dared to talk to him as if he was my equal.

By the time I looked back the damage was done.

Instead of happiness and content, perhaps some slight confusion, I saw fear. Instead of hugs, I felt them pull away. And call me ‘master’ instead of ‘son’.

I don’t think I would forget the face of my mother at that moment, no matter how much I could try. Even with nanites suppressed, the wine wasn’t working fast enough.

I rushed with explanations, frantically trying to fix the growing chasm between us, but quickly made it even worse instead. Now their whispers would exclude me as they did Albin. And just like him, I could hear them anyway.

I heard things like ‘taken by the Forest’ and ‘a fairy in his skin’ among them.

And now I drank because deep inside I knew that they were right.

How much of me was Erf? How much of their Erf remained under this skin? The skin that I couldn’t even call his anymore. Designed not just to shrug off diseases but cosmic rays as well. The flesh, that only stayed in this shape due to the lack of desire to look like something else. Or the muscles and bones that could do feats impossible to murks.

Only memories remained.

Memories that had been diluted by others.

By my other lives.

Navigators didn’t die from old age. Obviously, they could be killed, but most of the time they chose to die themselves. An absolute necessity in our otherwise unending lives. Throughout their lifespans, they would accumulate experiences and quite often see themselves entrenched in the old beliefs. While it mattered little if you weren’t making any decisions and simply lived a life somewhere in the stars. But if one was tasked with significant authority, they could not allow themselves to go stagnant.

They would ensure to have an open mind and continue to be able to adjust to any changes in society. Or they would retire. Either directly by giving up their position or transferring it to someone else or by undergoing a death and rebirth cycle. A cycle that would see their new self emerge with the previous knowledge, conveniently muted enough not to make the entire process moot but allowing a new persona to manifest yet still possess all crucial character traits as well.

Reincarnation. Made possible with science.

In the depths of space, Navigators had the ultimate authority. We were the human aspect of our ships, the desire that pushed the tree forward. Even in colonized regions of space, our connection made us stand out among our brethren due to the living Artificial Intelligence fused with our brains.

Apart from that, there was the unfortunate limitation of human flesh. We simply weren’t designed to live forever. Or even for a very significant time. The body could be made to last but it was the mind that suffered from the passage of centuries. Slowly growing more and more apathetic to the world around it. Drowned with the overabundance of experiences. After all, will you be as excited to hear about the birth of your fourteen-thousands-something-something many-grand-child as you were for your first? What about a new invention after centuries of similar innovations?

And so we died. Cautiously first, as the first few would pave the new road, and then eagerly as the technology became our culture. Like the Phoenixes of the myth, we would see ourselves burn only to step out from the smouldering ashes — reborn and full with newfound vigour.

A never-ending cycle of life, rewritten.

And I was simply the latest iteration.

Something that I was trying to ignore all this time. Something that I couldn’t get out of my mind after watching my own mother recoil away from me.

This wasn’t a standard procedure. Usually, a new organic scaffold would have been provided for me to grow into and to ensure a complete memory transfer to the last moment before death. Whatever reasons I had to choose a different method were likely lost with the final hours of my previous life. Even then the containment fruit was specifically designed to be attractive to many forms of large organic fauna. Large enough to be re-purposed for a new me.

Except for the first animal that found it was a young murk called Erf.

Was I trying to get a magical body, perhaps? I didn’t know. What I knew was that nanites had done their job to the best of their limited abilities. Choosing to merge us into one new whole rather than completely overwriting him with me.

Not a lot of good that did, it seemed.

The kid that called himself Erf was smothered, drowned in the ocean of memories that were mine. I remembered every year of his life yet I also remembered hundreds of other years, other lives. They were muted, but now his were too.

I remembered the constant hunger. The biting cold of the winter and the unrelenting heat of the summer. I remembered the back-breaking harvest seasons when we cut the wheat and shook the olive trees. Or the biting rope of a plough that I had to pull for days. Yet I also remembered the lush gardens among the stars. The cities of wood, metal, and plastic. And the never-ending cornucopia that could not contain my burning need to fly.

To explore.

I remembered the rough hands of my mother, wiping my tears and cradling me to sleep, just as I reminisced about the gentle caress by the dendrites of my own Tree. The darkness of Forest grew meek on the backdrop of Space.

I drank the wine as I thought what I could tell my mother where her son was gone.

Because I had no answer.

XXX

The leaves rustled as Albin sat on the ground near me.

“I had a friend once, a few of them actually,” He spoke watching the fire, “Good companions, sharp minds and easy to talk to. Up until they would learn how much power I was given. Worse if it happened when I was away. I had said goodbye to quite a few, when I would head out to battle, and came back only to see a different gaze looking back at me.”

I grunted and passed him the skin.

“Don’t try to seek the past,” He sighed as he took a swing himself, “Trust me, you will not find it. Don’t try to pour spilt water into a jar, plant a seed instead into the moist soil and let the future grow from it.”

I guess I looked like shit for him to start teaching me about life.

“There are three things you can watch forever,” I snarked back, “Fire burning, river flowing, and an idiot making a mistake. Easy for you to say these things, for all I know you got yet another fancy magic under your sleeves. Telling you about the best course of action no doubt. Let me guess it is that deck of cards isn’t it?”

He grinned and patted me on the back, “Some things don’t require magic, my dear friend. Just a few centuries of watching people is enough.”

“Watching people for centuries, are you out of your mind? Can`t you find a decent hobby instead?” I asked, incredulous, causing him to choke on wine and start laughing uproariously.

I hissed and pointed at the cart with two sleeping bodies, only to receive a knowing smile and a glimpse of the silence spell.

“You know, sometimes you sound exactly like my mother,” Albin couldn’t contain his mirth even while wiping his mouth.

“You shouldn’t be talking about your mother like that,” I grumbled and took the wine back. Only to sigh and drop my head down, “Mothers are precious you know. You need to treat them right. Daimon or not.”

“I don’t think being a daimon matters here,” He shook his head, “Most daimonas treat their families well, I mean, without trying to fight the entire Emanai in the process. And the very few that don’t? Well, there are just as many normal people that act in a similar manner.”

“And do their families accept them?”

Albin scoffed, “They establish yearly celebrations on the day they were born. Their mothers are almost immediately promoted to the rank of Domina, with many advisers begging to help her. And if she was a Domina already? Then the next position of a Matriarch will be likely hers.”

“Wermages, right.” I rolled my eyes.

“Wermages, yes. Because, until you came, there have been only wermage daimonas. As such they are only known among them. Look Erf, your family is frightened and that reaction is normal. They simply do not know, and what we don’t know quite often scares us instead. You probably had quite a few unreasonable fears over the years yourself.”

I couldn’t help but glance at the forest beside us.

“Exactly.” He crossed his hands, “What you need to do is give them time, Erf. Tell them, teach them. So that they could understand that there is that same Erf under all these new titles. Just a bit wiser.”

“Is he?” I leaned back on the tree, “Look at me Albin, a murk that had been possessed by the Navigator of the past is not that same murk anymore. You said it yourself, didn’t you? A mere husk that carries his face, replaced by a daimon of all things. How could I ever tell them that?”

Albin grimaced, “That is not what I meant. Yes, I do not see you as a murk, but you are still Erf. Replaced? Nonsense!"

The tail flexed, moving around as he sat more comfortably, “I have seen a few throughout my life and let me tell you of a theory I had devised. Don’t listen to the tall tales that speak about heroes of the past. Even if you call it an old soul in a young body it is not exactly true. It is your own soul and your own body, but it is your future soul. That is why wermage daimonas are born with the strongest Sparks - their souls already reached maturity even before they were born. This is why they appear wise beyond their years and full with new ideas.”

Albin poked me in the chest with his tail, “They simply borrow from their own ideas in the future.”

“Well, Albin.” I swiped his tail away, “Your idea is full of shit. The memories are definitely from the past.”

“I think you drank too much,” He nabbed the wine out of my hands and took a swig. “Can’t even tell the difference of what happened and what is ought to happen.”

“Re-eally?” I dragged the word out, “Like memories of where the ones and zeroes came from?”

Albin froze mid-gulp.

“All symbols carry a tale within them. How they were made and how they came into the shape that we know today. Tell me, oh self-proclaimed-historian, why do these artefacts of yours have them?”

“No one knows exactly where they came from, but they have been with us for millennia. Maybe you will discover their meaning in the future and that is where your knowledge came from? Perhaps you will find some ruins with a well-preserved codex?”

“Absolutely not.” I shook my head vehemently, my hand waving in the general direction of the sky above me, “Stars are not right. These civilizations had been dead for longer and they have been dead not here.”

“Fine! I give up.” Albin threw the empty wineskin away, only to have another one fly into his hand all the way from the cart. “Maybe murk daimonas truly are different. Or maybe that is just you. Honestly, that would only make this even more interesting!”

He savoured the wine, “Is that why you used that term ‘human’? An old name for a murk?”

“More like the name for the origin of all three.” I pried the sack from his fingers before Albin would drain it himself. He was a rich man he probably had hundreds of these back at his manor, “Interesting for you, maybe. While I am stuck here watching history repeat itself for no apparent reason. Thousands of years worth of progress simply gone.”

The sweet liquid washed my throat, the numb buzz of my mind blissfully clouding the hurt of my heart.

“Forcing me to wonder: why, why, why.” I couldn’t help but choke at my own words, “Stuck in the world I can barely call my own. And my only real connection is afraid of me. Worst of all, I can’t even truthfully tell myself that I am their real son!”

It looked like the unending stress of the previous days had finally caught up with me, or maybe that was the wine loosening my tongue. I wondered if that was the reason I couldn’t let Irje go. She was the first to truly welcome me in this world. I clung to her just as she did to me. While our reasons differed from one another, it gave us time to ignite that early spark of lust into something stronger.

“So fucking what?” Albin bluntly said, looking straight at me, “Listen to me: your emotions are valid. It doesn’t matter if you are fully their son or just a tenth of one. Or even none at all.”

The tail resumed the poking of my chest, “What really matters is what your heart knows. What it wants. So simply be him. To call yourself unable to ever reach that status is to spit on the name of all adopted children, who welcomed their parents. All these slaves that were absorbed into Manors out of familial love.”

“Perhaps,” I sagged down, feeling an unusual sense of relief from saying the things I dared not to think about out loud. Whether that was caused by me vocalizing them or Albin acting as a de facto counsellor. Probably both. “Thanks, Al for giving me things to think about.”

I couldn’t help but smirk one last time, “While being generally annoying to others, it is almost as if you actually care.”

He raised his eyebrow, “I do. I have invested way too much of my curiosity and resources only to see you make some stupid mistake at the end. Like renouncing your knowledge and trying to play murk slave make-believe. And you are a sloppy drunk too.”

“I am not drunk.” I stood up only to stumble into the embrace of the tree beside me.

“My point exactly,” Albin stood up as well. Smoothly. Bastard. “I believe it is a good time for a nap, both to let your heart settle and to sleep off the wine sickness. Unless you want me to fix it for you right now.”

His hand extended with a new gesture. Figures, they had a hangover spell too. Double bastards.

“No,” I shook my head, allowing my nanites to slowly start working on my intoxication, “I am not pissed drunk yet to need something like that. But I will definitely need to get some water. Sometimes the real magic is to get yourself hydrated enough that you won't even have a hangover, to begin with.”

“Will you make it to the river? Oh, the-not-drunk-one?”

I stopped at the edge of the forest, thinking quietly.

And then I nodded to myself.

“Come on, Al.” I said still facing the green of trees, “Walk with me and let me tell you a story. A story of a young murk that feared the Forest. Who desperately wanted strength and peace of mind. His wish was eventually granted, only he had to pay for it with his own life.”

I turned around and smiled somewhat crookedly, “Let me show you where I died.”

Snusmumriken

I am not sure how many of you noticed the pattern of the last few chapter titles but this is indeed the last chapter of Book 1, with the epilogue chapter coming in next week. I hope you have enjoyed the story so far, but all books deserve to have a proper ending. Dont fear i am not planning on stopping on writing this series yet but I will tell more about my future schedule next week (I am still deliberating)