The Eldritch Trials

Chapter 2: Happy Birthday (part 2)

Gale

I'm just so tired.
"Hey, time to get up birthday boy."
But I have to move and get out of bed and everyone is counting on me all the time. And I just want to sleep because that's the nice free trial of death I can handle right now. And I have no right to feel this way I'm not allowed to be sad I have the best life and parents ever. And I hate every minute of it. I let them down. I'm not good at anything. I'm not even a good warlock and I'm supposed to be the best in the world. And when I'm asleep all that doesn't have to be true.
"I'm up," I say, sitting up as my mother leans in the doorway. She smiles at me warmly.
"I love you, so much," she comes over to put a hand through my hair, she cups my face in her hands, "I can't believe it's already been sixteen years."
"I love you too, mom," I say, standing up and looking around for my clothes. My room is a mess. I'm aware I should straighten it. I find my favorite book lying by the bed and tuck it quickly into my bag. I'll need it if I'm to get through school. Maybe I can read through third period so I won't have to think.
"Now, I know your party isn't until tonight, but," she holds out a box. Yes, she just came in my room, to give me birthday presents, immediately after waking me up. And I'm a jerk and want to scream at her to leave me alone. "I made you cupcakes, you can have one for breakfast if you want. The chocolate ones you like."
"Thanks, mom," I force myself to smile though it feels plastic, "Wait—what's tonight? Oh gods in hell, dad invited people over didn't he?"
"Of course, mostly family, it's your birthday," she says.
I'm gonna jump off the roof. I'll go up there jump off the fucking roof it would be so easy. No, deep breaths, stop thinking about that, deep breaths, you can handle this.
"Can I ask friends at school?" I ask, weakly, while trying not to think about jumping off roofs.
"Of course, anyone you want," she hugs me again. I hug her back loosely.
"You're my precious boy, you know that? I'm so glad I have you," she says, pinching my cheek, "You're getting so handsome."
I'd like to be dead.
"Thanks for the breakfast—what's this?" I ask, I took the box and didn't open it.
"Open it at school, I packed you a special lunch too, I wanted to keep you home but your father overruled me, he said you'd be embarrassed," she says.
"I'd like to go back to sleep," I mutter, getting my school things.
"I know you've needed so much sleep lately, you must be growing. You're gonna be as tall as your dad one day."
"Yep," if I live that long gods I need to stop doing this to myself.
I get changed quickly and head out of the manor.
I absolutely hate this.
I hate everything, but I think I might hate everything less if the American High School experience weren't easily classified as a ring of hell. Yeah, most powerful warlock family in the nation, but witchcraft has been a secret since Salem happened, so I go to a high school just like any normal American. I mean, it's a private school but even so, to all these people, I am nobody. Now, there are warlocks and witches everywhere, so of course some people do recognize me, but as a general rule I'm just like anyone else.
As warlocks and witches in training, I'll attend public or private high school till about four in the afternoon, and then from four to seven I attend advanced magic training with the best warlocks in the nation. Warlocks focus on combat magic, witches healing and nature, to make a broad distinction. I'm of course expected to be a warlock because I have to save the world. Then I get to kill myself. Kidding. But possibly not. Anyway.
Naturally, I have tutors for this sort of thing, the best in the world, but the average warlock or witch might train with family or family friends. Usually we'll form small covens to train the kids and parents will take turns and the like.
Witchcraft is kind of fun, because it's nature magic so you draw the magic from nature and from within. It's very calming, lots of focus on herbs, some complex spells involving potions, that manner of thing. I'm not bad at it.
Warlocks are completely different. We learn combat magic, which is rapid spells using your own body as a source of power, which is as painful as it sounds. The easiest and most common use is your own blood, to cast even a simple attack even a pint of blood could be required. Certain amplifiers can be used to minimize the amount of toll on the body, the better the amplifier, the less toll taken.
Amplifiers can be anything, from jewelry to weapons, the famed Soren Amplifer, which I must wield to save the world maybe I can just kill myself using it, I don't know, anyway, it does amplify your magic to an extreme previously unknown. Even using the amplifiers requires a lot of power, but it softens the blow. That's why the Soren Amplifier must be used to keep the Seal of Fates closed, because my family created that some whatever I don't know it was a really long time ago. Anyway. The Seal of Fates keeps everything big bad and evil locked up all the horrid things that would eat the world. And for whatever reason the alchemist who made the amplifier thought it was a good idea to hand this power to a line of equally stupid sixteen year olds to seal back up. I don't know maybe he thought when we got older and smarter we'd quit doing it.
Anyway.
Two more forms of magic users that are important: Alchemists and Necromancers. Alchemists, basically the chemistry version of witches, they use metal primarily as power sources, and they make the amplifiers. Necromancers are basically super powered warlocks, who have unlocked the ability to literally drain themselves of magic and reanimate themselves so they stay alive, just slightly undead. They can bring other people back from the dead, in a highly illegal move called the Kiss of the Necromancers, but it's not easy and it's super illegal for obvious undead reasons and others I'm not clever enough to understand. To be clear, I am not smart, I'm not in this story because I'm smart.
Anyway, all that fantastic lore is irrelevant because I have to go and be a high schooler now, a normal one. Normal ish. It's a preppy enough school that the private car that drops me off isn't out of place among the giggling teenagers.
I avoid them, keeping my head down. I like nothing about this experience. I hate them staring at me I hate talking to people. I hate class. The homework stresses me out. Basically everything. I hate all of it. The only redeeming feature of this experience is—:
"Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen!" An arm wraps around my neck as my one and only friend immediately starts singing the song not particularly well while affectionately smothering me.
"You're so embarrassing!" I laugh, "Go away, Mac, stop it. I hate that song."
"Come on, I have to give you a hard time," he laughs, releasing me from the hug, though. He puts a hand through his black curls, coughing and wincing as he does. His white shirt is wrinkled and buttoned up wrong, and over it he wears a too large leather jacket. His pants are stained and look like the ones he wore yesterday and the day before. His bag, no doubt a hand me down, is leather but patched badly with dozens of environmental and band patches on it.
"And kill yourself while you're at it," I say, holding him up as he wheezes. He's handsome and smart and funny, and literally dying which is so ironic considering how much I wish I were dead, constantly. I don't know exactly what he has but apparently it's a miracle he's still alive, no doubt due to his mother's witchcraft. But despite the fact that he probably won't live another five years, he's always happy, and super nice to everyone, he could be the most popular person in school, but he actively chooses to be my friend and I don't get why but I'm grateful all the same. I'm sure there's a reason, like he's trying to do a good deed or something, but I try to push those negative thoughts aside and focus on the fact that he is willingly, my friend. Okay, he's also technically my cousin, our dad's are brothers but he's illegitimate, which is a big thing in our world because there's no birthright magic associated when you're illegitimate.
"Is Mac dying already?" Ozzie walks up, helping me hold Mac up as he coughs painfully. Ozzie is Mac's best friend; their mothers know each other. She's a year younger than us, cool, with currently blue dyed hair, and wearing intentionally unfashionable coveralls. Her amplifier is a leather checker necklace with a blue stone in the center. Her father is a decent warlock, so it's not a bad amplifier, a family heirloom. Mac has a ring which is fairly cheap, but I know for a fact his father has given him better ones that he just doesn't take to school and such because they probably aren't legal in this country.
"This is what he gets for torturing me on my birthday," I say, helping Mac sort for his inhaler.
"Worth it," Mac wheezes, grinning as he does. Always happy. He reminds me of his father, my uncle that way. My uncle is cool, and despite Mac's illegitimacy I think he and Mac get on. The main reason Mac and I know each other is because his dad's method of finding good schools to pay for him to go to amounted to this:
"Hey, Gale, where's your dad sending you to school in the fall?"
"Yeager Prep."
"Sweet."
Anyway, I get a friend out of it so I'm not complaining. And Mac is good at school he gets good grades and such. I'm lucky if I turn in my homework.
"There, better, you know you're going to die laughing one of these days," Ozzie says, still helping Mac to stand upright. Besides having the worst lungs on the planet, he also has a severe limp due to some muscular thing? I don't know. I'm stupid; it was explained to me, but I did not strictly understand it.
"Worth it," Mac pants, finally recovering himself.
"Are you two doing anything tonight?" I ask, shouldering my backpack as we walk inside, "Only, I sort of was intentionally forgetting my parents are having a party for me which means all their friends and I do not want to chat with their people for hours."
"Sorry, I'm helping my mom, it's shopping night, it's feed the twins ice cream and watch Incredibles on repeat, or do the shopping I'm picking option 1," Ozzie says, "Your thing sounds miserable though, good luck with that."
"I'll come," Mac says, swinging an arm over my shoulder.
"You sure? Your mother's not off?" I ask. His mother is a nurse, so when she does have a day off he'll usually spend it with her, as she works such long hours.
"She's working, it's fine, it's your birthday," Mac says, calmly.
"Thank you," I say, grateful. At least I'll have one friend, "Just ride home with me, it shouldn't be an issue my mom said I could invite anyone."
"Aren't you technically cousins? As in you're related?" Ozzie asks.
"We've completely not told my dad that—have we?" I ask.
"Absolutely not," Mac says.
"Why?" Ozzie asks.
"I don't talk to him that much if I can help it, and it's not my place, not if my Uncle Shane hasn't told him," I shrug.
"I'm a bastard. I don't care who he thinks I am, I don't get the family name or anything that comes with it, not like my dad hasn't trotted me around to the odd thing but he's not usually at the odd social function so it hasn't come up. He took me to a spell duel last summer but at that point it was generally assumed this kid he was leading about was a bastard," Mac scoffs. Not strictly uncommon to have illegitimate children in our world, but as we stated, they can't inherit family magical items or propensity from their father, as the marriage contract binds the father to the mother and gives her the right so she chooses, to use his magic when making the child. All a little weird, don't plan on getting married or having children, but anyway. In Mac's case, he got plenty of magic from his mother, doesn't super matter since his father is the third born son set to inherit few magical items anyway, most of that goes to me.
"At this point he assumes anyone under the age of twenty Uncle Shane is speaking to is his illegitimate kid," I say.
"He wouldn't —possibly— be wrong?" Mac says, making Ozzie snicker.
"You're mean to your dad," I say.
"And you're too kind to everyone, also it's my option to be cross with him about it, missing my birth," Mac says. Similar to the marriage contract, a father can endow some magic at birth through certain rituals, to sort of aid in the inheritance of his powers, useful if like in Mac's case he was conceived out of wedlock but the father did still want the child. Anyway, Mac's father was completely MIA for whatever period of time that was sufficiently long that he missed the pregnancy and birth. Doesn't mean he doesn't care. He's a nice guy I think he's a decent enough dad, for all of Mac's making fun of him.
"Looking forward to saving the world?" Ozzie asks me, "Do they do some secret ceremony or something?"
"I don't know, my dad wouldn't tell me said it would all be clear tonight—I was born in the evening, apparently," I say.
"Oh, I'm sure it will all be very—so clear, like I'm sure you'll get a really nice patient explanation with no sarcasm," Mac says, earnestly.
"Yeah, so I don't know. I have two years to complete the Eldritch trials and reseal the doors of Fate or whatever, look Mac, you're the smart one, why does some random sixteen year old have to do this again?"
"Not random; you're the heir, and because the dick who wrote the original spell, which is to say the alchemist who sealed the doors to begin with, made it so his descendants all at the age he was doing it, would recomplete the quest thing, he happened to be sixteen when he started eighteen when he died, and had fathered a son already by his child bride wife person because this was fuck-all BC and so he didn't think it was an issue in the eighteen seconds he had to come up with this plan," Mac says.
"See? I'd completely understand world history if it was explained like that, thank you," I say.
"Rumor has it his twin sister, who was the warlock sealing the doors of fate, took the kiss of the Necromancers and returned to life, and achieved total reincarnation linked to the Necromancer who preformed the kiss," Mac says.
"My mother loves that story," I say, offering Mac my chocolate cupcake, which he accepts.
"Why?" Ozzie asks.
"Old lovers, bound through time. The kiss of the Necromancers is nearly impossible to achieve, and total reincarnation is a myth. Story goes that the warlock and her Necromancer lover—that was forbidden even then—performed the kiss after she'd sacrificed her life to seal, and using the power of the seal achieved total reincarnation for them both, and that each lifetime they must find each other. Legend also has it that kelpies are benevolent spirts so, you know, choose what you want to believe," I say.
"Must be great coming from an old family you get all the awesome stories," Ozzie says.
"It's likely not true, most people who reincarnate only make it a few lifetimes, you have to take a life to reincarnate in another one and then usually the results are poor," Mac gestures to himself. His mother thinks this is a second or third life for him. "To reincarnate for thousands of years, you'd have to be a mass murderer."
"A thousand years, and yes it's not possible, I don't see why you'd want to," I sigh. I don't even like this life.
"Fun?" Ozzie asks.
"Yeah, but if you found your true love why roll the dice again? If you were actually happy wouldn't you call it good?"
"I don't know, I mean, given my life so far I think it's not surprising I made poor choices—," Mac says.
"Oh, we don't know you are reincarnated," I scoff, "You're probably cursed because of something your dad did."
"That's—actually probably completely true—oh ten o'fucking'clock people," Mac says, stopping us both in front of our lockers, "Do not look at once."
"What?" Ozzie and I look at once.
There's a girl standing by the lockers. She's wearing a near floor length deep purple coat, and her red and black hair is cut short and spiky around her head. She wears a thick black ring that shines with magic even from here, no doubt a powerful amplifier.
"Oh—thats Jade Caswell, she's from the Necromancer family that my dad is doing negotiations with they always show up for the trials apparently in case things go south and they get to laugh at us, she's going here for the rest of the semester," I say, dismissively. She spoke with my briefly but she was kind of stuck up.
"Dude, what is the policy? If you see something, say something," Mac says, slugging my arm.
"This is why they have those signs in airports, Gale, if you see something, say something," Ozzie says, hitting me as well.
"Ow—I thought that only applied to guys?" I wince.
"A looker is a looker," Ozzie says.
"No! I am an equal opportunity flirt," Mac says.
"Wow, mysterious how you and Uncle Shane are related—,"
"Don't compare me to that person—," clearly looking.
"He's your literal dad," I say.
"Ew, don't remind me, shh, she's coming this way act natural," Mac pushes me again.
"Aren't you going to introduce me to your friends, Gale Soren?" Jade walks up, heels clicking on the tile floor. She is a head shorter than all of us but her deep hazel eyes flit coolly over us with disdain.
"This is the better looking version of me, Mac Embry, my cousin, and this is Ozzie Stein, she's just always here," I say, quickly, because the thing is you don't want to be introduced to a Necromancer. This is the demographic that kills people to steal their lifespans to reincarnate. They are a very tight coven and train their children in magic from infancy, mythically disciplined with world class amplifiers and bloodlines they only come down from their mountains if they think that world war three, magic edition, is about to start. I mean they helped us with the Nazis that time and the Wesborogh Baptist Church that other time, but they generally aren't helpful people.
"You're his cousin?" She looks at Mac, "What happened to your lifespan?"
"Complicated, don't really know, got a few curses, probably due to my father he slays vampires for fun ow—,"
"Let me see, I'll bring him back," she says, towing Mac into the girl's bathroom.
"Huh, that was different. Good for him," Ozzie says.