“What I am going to tell you, you’ve already known for a long, long time. You are becoming one of us, Walter. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories about sorcerers and witches. People have made up stories about us over the years, but they still don’t know the real truth. But I will tell you.”
He explained that magic is not given to anyone, and not everyone can use it to its fullest. He also told me that magic itself isn’t black and white, but it is divided by Sua – beings that possess and command it. Many thousands of years ago on earth there was only one race, human. The human race grew and occupied more and more territory. Under the influence of natural conditions and a new way of life, ordinary man was doomed to adapt or die, and so he started to mutate. That’s how Sua, dwarves, werewolves, vampires and many other creatures came into being. Once they were folklore, and now they are blockbuster stars. Many of them ceased to exist a long time ago, but the human, having no special abilities or outstanding physical strength, survived. Humans destroyed almost everyone who might be a threat. Everyone who differed, everyone who possessed greater abilities to theoretically achieve superiority. As a result, other beings went into hiding or vanished among people, and those who could not were gone forever.
“We’re living in a wonderful time, Walter”, the Mentor told me. “Now everyone can be anyone. The era of secret societies and ancient mysteries has sunk into oblivion. Now you can shout on every corner that you’re a wizard, or vampire, or wood elf. However, there will always be those who will believe you and not condemn you to a mental hospital. But no one will take you seriously. We are a part of history, and it’s not bad at all. We no longer have to hide. We can live among the people, and they think we are just friendly madmen, or freaks if you like. You choose whoever you will become to them.”
“There’s one more thing,” he said. “There is no absolute evil as well as no absolute good, at least to my knowledge. We choose a side. Some of us will always be stuck at the Crossroads, where there are no sides and all the creatures are equal.”
“Which side are we on?” I asked.
“Let me put it this way, Walter,” he said with a sly grin. “It is much more interesting to be a bad guy.”
Now, I would say that it’s easier to be a bad guy. But despite all the pain he inflicted on me later, and how he treated me and those who were dear to me, I still saw him as a kindred spirit. Knowing the truth about him, I still felt we had the same philosophy – and I still do.
The Mentor told me that our power has different manifestations, though we can all influence the material world and the minds of living beings, but in a different way and to a different degree. My path was to create illusions and the Mentor could control weather, which I witnessed first-hand a little bit later. “You should have a strong body as well as a strong spirit,” he told me.
He taught me to fence and hunt. I studied martial arts and philosophy, languages and history, physics and chemistry. What the Mentor told me differed from what I learned at school, but it was much more interesting. I was rediscovering a world that I always knew, and I realised that I didn’t know anything at all! I felt an irresistible desire to learn more, to know more. More, more, more!
