The ambient light shined through the windows of the log cabin when Fintan woke. He hadn’t dreamed, but he felt refreshed with a restored will. His grandfather was already awake.

  His grandfather moved from picture frame to picture frame. Every frame he touched became brighter as if a faint, nearly invisible white sheen disappeared. Fintan wouldn’t have noticed the difference if he wasn’t watching for the subtle change in hue. The white crust formed slowly, almost like rust or corrosion. It must take many days for the wood and metal to dissolve into the mist. Which begged the question, why?

  “Do you do that every day?” Fintan asked.

  “Not every day,” his grandfather said. He drew out the word ‘every’ as if Fintan was trying to avoid a chore. “Left alone, they would last months, but if I put a little effort in most days, I don’t have to recreate them from scratch. The metal would be an effort, but the pictures would be lost for good. These pictures are from your grandmother’s memories.”

  The thought of memories made Fintan wonder why he didn’t dream, but he also wondered how anyone could produce a pixel-perfect picture. His memory didn’t seem any better than it was in life, but he did have an image he didn’t want to forget in mind.

  He held up his hand and manifested the image of the lion as best he could remember. The picture formed with more detail than he could focus on as if a high-resolution camera had been right above him as he held that animal off with towering flames.

  “You went out into the night,” his grandfather said gravely. He saw the picture in Fintan’s hand. “Did it hurt you?”

  “No. It had a lot to say.” Fintan quickly relayed as much of the conversation as he could to his grandfather. The old man’s eyebrows sank lower as Fintan recalled the conversation.

  “Bad ideas can take shape in the night, but they stay away from the light,” his grandfather said. “I prefer to keep them far outside the house, but even an ordinary candle will stop most of them.”

  Fintan had manifested towering flames that lit the entire surroundings. The lion had gone from angry to cold.

  “Ideas like that can’t talk much. It requires focus to make a seeming and even more to have it move and talk.”

  “Like a robot?” Fintan asked.

  “Even more limited. If enough people believe in a bad idea, it can gain power but not intelligence,” the old man sighed. “I’m afraid you’ve caught the eye of the Adversary. If he’s measured you, he probably won’t let you go.”

  “I’ve only been here one day, and I’ve made an enemy,” Fintan said morosely.

  “He’s not an enemy. He’s a god, but not the kind of god you want looking over your shoulder. Fortunately for us, he’s not very powerful. With very little effort, you can ignore him.”

  “And if he smashes me out of existence?” Fintan asked, but his grandfather was already shaking his head.

  “He can’t do that, but it's time to get you trained. At least with the basics.”

  Abruptly, the old man was padded in heavy clothing and wooden armor. His armor was nothing like the armor the bandits wore. Their wooden slats were tied about their bodies with cheap hemp rope knots that fitted into slots. His grandfather’s wooden armor was polished, and each slat was tucked into a fitted slot. His sword, once hanging inside his lab coat, went to a wide leather belt around his waist. He held a buckler in his other hand.

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  Fintan tried to reproduce the outfit. His clothes changed into a single fabric, knitting his arms together as if he’d crawled into a giant sock, and the wood slats fell to the floor in front of him.

  “I said the basics, boy,” his grandfather said. “Just stay in your normal clothes.”

  Hastily, Fintan changed back. The wood poofed into mist, and his grandfather once again looked thoughtful.

  “We better do this outside, or you’re going to break something important.”

  Outside the log cabin, his grandfather huffed a steady walk until they were further away from the water. Yesterday, Fintan had noticed the pull of the water, especially when he got close. Today, that pull seemed normal.

  His grandfather turned and unsheathed his sword.

  “Should I manifest a sword?” Fintan asked.

  His grandfather considered.

  “I think we should just rip the bandage off,” his grandfather said. Then the old man lunged forward faster than Fintan thought possible and ran him through.

  Fintan staggered backward, attempting to avoid the blade, but it was already buried in his chest, and his effort ripped the handle away from his grandfather’s hands.

  “Hold still!” His grandfather was reaching for the handle, but Fintan staggered around in circles. He felt fluid filling his lungs, and he coughed up blood. He fell to his knees, gasping. The searing pain burned all the way through him. He fell over onto his back, and the blade bit into the ground, keeping him upright, impaled into the dirt.

  His grandfather grabbed the hilt and quickly drew out the sword. Fintan collapsed on the ground like a marionette without strings. He labored at breathing, coughing up thick blood. His grandfather took a seat beside him in the grass.

  “This is going to be harder than I thought,” the old man said. “You have quite the imagination. That’s what happens when you don’t study the hard sciences.”

  His grandfather always wanted him to spend more time in math and science. The old man thought of animal husbandry as one step above manual labor.

  Fintan choked on bile and blood. He’d been betrayed. He lost all control of his bodily fluids and then stopped fighting for air. He closed his eyes, waiting for death.

  But he didn’t die. Then he waited some more.

  “Are you finished yet?” his grandfather asked.

  “I can’t breathe.” Fintan choked out more blood and slick bile. He must have spit up at least a few gallons, but his body didn’t seem to have a reserve.

  “Try manifesting air in your lungs,” his grandfather said, “but truthfully, you don’t have lungs.”

  After one last gurgle, Fintan put forth the effort and breathed deeply. The deep breath banished the pain. He searched his chest, but there was no wound.

  “How?” Fintan asked.

  “You’re dead already,” his grandfather said. “You don’t have a body. When you stopped worrying about it, your wounds disappeared because you manifested all of them yourself. Belief is a powerful thing in the living world, but it’s life in the afterlife.”

  “We’re invincible,” The logic didn’t add up. His grandfather named his sword Burst. When he attacked the bandits, he exploded their organs. Fintan had seen the results himself. “But your sword...”

  Fintan trailed off, trying to reconcile the damage he’d seen that disappeared so quickly.

  “It’s a Skill I have,” his grandfather said. “Not one of my choosing, but the Skills we have in the afterlife relate to the skills we learned in life. The last one is lowercase. When I was a doctor, I tried to ease pain. Often, I had to perform surgery, and that gave me an intimate understanding of the body's internal organs. I’m not sure if we have organs in the afterlife or if we just think we do, but the results are the same. When I stab them with my sword, I can cause them to know the pain even if they haven’t experienced that kind of pain before.”

  “The sword doesn’t do it?”

  “It has nothing to do with the sword. I could use a fork, but the sword has earned a reputation, and if I call out the attack, it’s stronger.”

  “Because they believe it,” Fintan said. It made a perverse kind of sense. His grandfather was powerful and a little scary. “You made me feel like I was having a heart attack.”

  “No, that was entirely you. I stabbed you with the sword, but I didn’t use my Skill on you. You’re new here, and that makes you sensitive. When I use my Skill, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been here. Skills are like that. The strongest ones are undeniable.”