Learning a New Life - 1. Chapter 1

He stood up and brushed himself off, even though there was nothing to remove. It was then he noticed he was wearing nothing. That should have surprised him, but his mind wasn't sure if it should be surprising or not. He began to walk towards the object he spied in the distance when he felt a sudden pressure on his stomach. He impulsively clutched his midsection but his hands went through nothing. He looked down in rapidly growing fear to see his legs, hips, and lower torso gone, and his chest and arms rapidly fading away in a barely visible steam-like smoke. The trail leading to his now disappearing neck was going up towards the top of the enclosure.

 

His final thoughts before everything disappeared were that he was dead.

 

Except he wasn't. In what seemed like only a moment, he was standing in a clearing outdoors, surrounded by tall, very old looking trees. He saw a young man - a "teenager" the term came to him - standing next to an older man. This older man was holding a pendant with a very large, clear diamond set on a platinum chain. He heard a faint rustling and perceived shapes of more people in the trees behind the two standing in front of him.

 

The older man looked at him and asked, "Do you know who you are?"

 

He thought hard, but other than the faintest of shadows tickling the far reaches of his mind, nothing came to the front. "No?"

 

The older man looked at the teenager and patted him on the shoulder. "Very, very impressive. Your guides must be very strong for such a total conversion." The teenager was smiling as he looked to the older man. Obviously the praise was welcomed. "Here is the stone. You must finish the binding to make the spell complete."

 

The teen grasped the pendant handed to him and draped the chain over his head to rest around his neck. The diamond rested squarely in the center of his lean chest. When it did, the man suddenly felt a complete sense of belonging, except, it was more than that. It was a sense of ownership. He closed his eyes and sighed as the teenager closed his own eyes and grasped the pendant with both hands and murmured several words while in deep concentration. To those rustles around the clearing and the old man, the diamond began to emit a bright light that crept through the teenager's fingers until it enveloped both him and the naked man. Several moments went by as the light increased in intensity until it should have blinded those present, had they been mortal humans. And then it disappeared.

 

"Master, your wish is my command." The words came unbidden from the man's mouth as he looked down on the teenager. «No, "teenager," "man," "boy," ... these were not the right terms. He is my master,» he thought. If he hadn't been so wrapped in trying to figure out the right term, or where the words had come from, he might have realized that he was now taller than his master when before he had been the same height; there were some other changes, as well.

 

The teen looked at the older man and asked, "Is he going to always call me that?"

 

The old man laughed, "Not if you tell him not to. But that's the default. You've read the myths, stories, and religious texts in the library as part of your training. Remember what you were taught: While the human world made up quite a bit and there's a lot of embellishment - and some outright fiction - there are grains of truth and knowledge that you must take to heart. The jinni must serve their master until set free or their container passes to a new master. Since you trapped the warlock in your spell and cast him into the smokeless fire, you are his master. Congratulations, Michael. Do with him as you see fit."

 

«Michael, my master's name is 'Michael,'» he thought.

 

"And he really won't remember *anything* about life before this?"

 

"In some conversions, they will remember their former lives, but of course they are still bound to their master and must obey them. Some teach that method as a way of punishment."

 

"But isn't being a bound jinni punishment enough? I know what he did before, and you know, and he still has to obey us."

 

The old man smiled faintly. "That is why we only practice complete conversions. It seems you have learned well."

 

"Only because you have been my teacher."

 

"If I'd been a good teacher, you would know that flattery will get you nowhere. You are at the time you must leave us and I am getting too old to have time for adulation. You're the only human we have ever taken in since the races were separated millennia ago. You've lived with us now for seventeen years, and now you must integrate yourself into society with your own kind."

 

"But, I thought--"

 

"No. Even now the Glen is closing and you will not be able to access it. It's time for you to go and help this world and make a life for yourself."

 

"But I can use the jinni--"

 

The old man laughed. "Michael, you can try it, but the jinni is young and not yet that powerful. You were prepared for this and you knew it was coming. Goodbye ..." As the man said his last words he began retreating back into the trees and, try as he would, Michael could not see him once he hit the tree line.

 

A tear ran down his face, and there was silence in the clearing. To an outside observer, there was a young boy, standing straight, looking to his side in sorrow. His feet were dressed in soft leather while he wore leggings made of cotton. An open tunic adorned his torso while around his neck was a silvery chain attached to a large diamond resting on his chest. An outside observer could see nothing else.