I Died.
I knew I would be dead in the morning; but I needed to know. I took my brother and my father into the caves where I often hid from Emperor’s men. I showed my brother the hidden places and selected a few items I would need. I was never taught but the knowledge was somehow in my mind nonetheless. We returned to my father and a roaring fire in the largest room of the cave. We did not speak to one another afraid our words would carry across the wind to the Emperor’s ears and that his men would somehow find us in the cave before I had even begun. Once my father and brother settled down on the hard stone floor of the cave, I set to work placing stones in patterns around the fire that created a circle to encompass all three of us. When I was done placing them, I closed my eyes. I had never done this before, but a part of me knew what I was doing, knew it would work, and knew it all as if I had done it a thousand times before.
I lifted my hands and opened my eyes to see as the stones began to glow, drawing light from the fire that created a wall around us. The fire darkened as the light was pulled away, but you could still see it burning, but it cast shadows from the wall rather than from the fire. It tricked my father’s eyes and he held his hand above the floor investigating the shadow that did not fall where it should have. My brother, elder by several seasons and due to take a wife let out a squeak of uncertainty. I had never seen him frightened of anything; he did not even seem to fear the emperor’s men when they came through the area. But there was fear in his eyes now.
I took a step towards wall of light. When I raised my hand towards it my father grabbed my skirt to stop me. “What is it?”
I looked at the dancing colors that whirled and eddied, flowing upwards to the cave’s ceiling and coalescing into a central pond of light above our heads. I dug through memories and knowledge I had not acquired in my own lifetime and found the answers. Looking to my father I said, “I put up a barrier. It is protection from prying eyes and ears. A man standing on just the other side of this light, not two steps from me, could not see or hear me right now. The Emperor himself could stand there and not know we are here.”
My brother snapped out of his awe at the mention of the Emperor, “But it is magic. The Emperor knows all who practice and hunts them down. He will know this has been done and come for you.”
“I know. That is why you are here. I need both of you to see. I brought you here to show you what I know and it will take time. When we are done, I will be quick to meet the afterworld, but you will know. You will know and the Emperor will not.”
They both made to speak at the same time, but I silenced them by raising my hands. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the stones. The wall of light started changing colors and after a few moments, whirls, eddies, and shadows began to form into images. They sat watching the visions I had seen in my dreams for the last several nights. They sat and watched as I showed them my memories of times yet to come.
My father carried me back to our hovel in the woods sometime in the night. I had collapsed when the visions were complete and the protection wall disappeared. My brother hid the stones in the cave’s hiding places before following after our father. I had taken them before dusk and it was dawn when my father put me in bed. He sent my brother into the village to sell one of the goats and buy a remembrance candle. By the time my brother returned in the early afternoon, my father sat weeping in front of our home and I was ashes near the goat pen. The Emperor’s men had tied me to a stake and burned me before I ever came out of the exhausted stupor from performing magic.