by Inelia Benz
“Mine,” she said, smiling like a Cheshire cat.
Rossini was dumbfounded. He couldn’t understand what had just happened. Not in all the history of the Council had someone simply walked up to the Staff Holder and taken the Staff from him, it was not possible.
She held the staff in front of her and the golden claw opened releasing the crystal. She took it in her hands and held it up, it shone, lighting up their faces gold as the sun.
The Shadow mages bowed down before it, before her, Stellar making Owen do the same. Then they stood and formed a circle around her.
“Welcome back Joitan. It has been a long time.”
Jennifer smiled at Stellar, “Stellar dearest one, soon, very soon.”
The voice was a man’s voice, not Jennifer’s, yet it came from her.
“Joitan? Joitan has taken the Staff from me? But he’s nothing more than a worm, a worthless, spineless coward. Where has he learned to Borrow so well that he can walk undetected in a woman’s shape? What manner of magic is this?”
“Keep out of this Rossini, if you want to keep your life,” it was Jennifer. It was Jennifer’s voice.
Rossini listened to the Staff Holder, he had to obey, had no choice but to obey.
A large sphere grew around the crystal, emanating from it.
A beam of light came from it to Jennifer’s head, then from her head to the other mages around her.
The clouds started moving back, the day began again, and the day before that, the plants became younger, the moon sped past every night.
Then they stopped. It was daytime, a young woman walked home, two streets up the road waited the man who would be her lover.
“NO!” Stellar shouted, reaching up to the sphere.
Jennifer looked at her and Stellar fell unconscious to the ground, dropping Owen beside her.
Jennifer reached for the young woman, searching for her heart.
In one moment she would be no longer, her mother would live, Owen and Sean’s lives would be normal.
“Jennifer, my love, don’t do it.”
The sphere flickered, Jennifer looked around in surprise.
“Mommy! I thought, you…”
The remaining Shadow mages tried to reach the Staff, she pushed them away, several meters away.
“Yes, I am not in this world, but look, I still live.”
Esther walked up to her daughter, there was a light emanating from her, it was bright, beautiful.
“It’s a trick,” said Jennifer, crying in pain, looking around at the remaining mages, Owen, Aeoife and Rossini, but there was no power coming from them, no evil intentions.
The only dark creature there was herself.
“No trick, use your heart Jennifer, your heart will recognize me.”
Jennifer felt for her mother and received all the love in the world. She fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face.
“Mommy, I’m so sorry for all this, it’s all my fault. I’m their Thirteenth Mage, I am evil Mom, I remembered my previous life, I did terrible things, terrible.”
“Killing my daughter won’t change that, the dark one will simply be reborn again.”
“I am not your daughter, I just used your womb.”
“Jennifer, listen to me, you are my daughter, if you do this Heather will never exist.”
“But you will live.”
“I have lived my life, I’ve been very happy, I’ve had you. She is a tiny little baby, her life hasn’t begun yet.”
“I can’t … I can’t live without you Mommy, I can’t have your death on my heart.”
“It is the natural order of things for mother’s to die before her children Jennifer. If you were to do this thing you would break my heart. Yes, I would live, but I would be the unhappiest person on the face of the earth. Don’t rob me of the happiness I have known with you and my little Heather.”
“It doesn’t matter what we have done in the past, we are the choices we make from now on,” it was Owen, his face was covered in tears. A golden light surrounded him, a bright, beautiful light. Aeoife shone with it too, and inside Rossini’s’ chest there was the same light flickering, growing slowly.
“Changing the past because you want to avoid pain will cause much more pain to those you love. Those who love you.”
Jennifer reached over and touched the light which surrounded Owen, her hand was instantly covered with it, pushing away the dark swirls which engulfed her from head to toe.
“What is it?”
“What’s what?”
“Can’t you see it?”
Owen looked at himself, but saw nothing.
“Unconditional love,” said Aeoife, smiling.
Jennifer touched Owen’s chest and let the light take her over.
Suddenly things become much clearer, suddenly she knew that what she thought was right was in fact the Shadow plan all along. They had made her learn her magic through anger, through pain, through fear, so that she would do this.
“I can see the future,” said Jennifer.
“What do you see?”
“It’s not clear, it’s muddy, all confused.”
“Once you make a decision the future can be written.”
Silence reigned over the small group of people around her. She had to decide, she had to make up her mind. Inside her Joitan struggled to survive, to stay intact, but the golden light was engulfing him too, he tried to kill Jennifer’s body, tried to disintegrate it. But it was too late, Jennifer was now truly the Thirteenth Mage, she had become too powerful for his will. He was, after all, nothing but a memory. The memory of a previous life.
Jennifer took the memory and put it where it belonged, in the past.
“I think it’s time to go back now,” she said and the clouds started to move forward again at an incredible speed, the sun began to set in the east once again, over and over , the moon flew past, the stars shot across them.
The Shadow and Owen stood in a circle around the Thirteenth Mage, sharing her power, sharing her new Light.
Darkness departed.
Jennifer pulled down the crystal, the sphere disappeared. She reached down to the sand and picked up the staff, placing the crystal back in its rightful place. She then walked over to Rossini and handed the staff back to him.
Rossini looked at it as though he had never seen the Staff before, he then looked at Owen.
“Keep it, I don’t need it,” Owen replied to the unspoken question. Owen’s original plan had come to the right conclusion, as he suspected Jennifer would turn into a witch mage and hand over the Staff to someone else, he had hoped that someone else would be him. Now it could be him, but he didn’t want it. Now he knew the power within him was greater than that of Rossini, he could take the Staff, but it was unnecessary. He had the world at his fingertips, anything he wanted to do he could do, master of two arts not yet, but with time and instruction he would be more powerful than any elder or witch. He would be both.
Jennifer looked around expectantly.
“She’s gone my love,” Aeoife said, “you Mommy has gone back to where she belongs for the time being.”
Jennifer wiped her eyes and looked somewhere no one else present could see.
“Time for a nice cup of tea I think,” said Aeoife, she had baked a cake in the morning for the occasion.
“We’ll come along in a little while, you go ahead,” Jennifer said, taking Owen’s hand and walking toward the stones Aeoife and Rossini had been sitting on just a few minutes earlier.
They sat and watched the small crowd depart. The mages walked away chatting as though they had never met before.
Owen and Jennifer looked at each other, there were so many unspoken words, so many thoughts in their minds. Jennifer would never be the same again, never be an innocent mortal again. She was mage, an old mage at that, one of the first. Her memories and skills went back thousands of years more than Owen or Rossini, she remembered Rossini’s Challenge, it had been good. The best.
Breaking away from the Staff voluntarily the first time and allowing Rossini to have it had been the hardest thing she had done in her entire existence. Now the Staff held no attraction, it was merely a toy.
“I’m not sure changing their natures was a good thing or an evil thing Owen.” Jennifer said, looking at the Shadow mages in the distance.
“This is just a small battle in the war between good and evil, I don’t think it is evil to give them Light, they can just as easily put it out if they so choose.”
He was right. She felt the sea, it was busy, it was large, and she felt her essence expand throughout the world. It was witch magic, Owen’s legacy.
They held hands and watched the sea.
“Come on, we have a life to get back to,” Owen said kissing her forehead.
“But Mommy is gone.”
“I don’t think she’s gone too far.”
“No, but that is a world I have no access to. I cannot go where she is. I cannot hold her or talk to her, never will.”
It was true, once a mage chose the immortal path they couldn’t enter the realm of the dead. He knew it was a space between lives, another dimension, but a dimension which was denied to them due to the way in which they kept their bodies integral.
“I told Harry that Heather was yours.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I wanted to make him happy, I didn’t think I’d see him again, Heather wouldn’t exist.”
Owen looked down at his feet. He picked up a pebble and threw it toward the sea.
“I like the idea you know, of Heather being yours,” she said and blushed from head to toe, “but now Sean is back and he might want to claim her. Where is Sean by the way?”
“Oh, I took him to my house in Brazil, he's decided to stay there a while. He needs to live on earth, learn to live here, and learn to become a mage. You could say he is my other foster child.”
They laughed.
Jennifer was happy. She was confused. She still loved Sean, always would do, but it was Owen who was her true love. He was the one she had seen in her mind’s eye as a child, not Sean.
“What do we do now Owen?”
“What do you see?”
“I see war and famine. I see destruction, devastation, pollution and suffering, great suffering. I also see joy and laughter, victories for the human race, peace agreements which are kept. I see technology which we can’t possibly imagine could exist. I see great people coming forth and empowering humanity. I see humans evolving beyond anything we can possibly conceive. I see the Old Ones making themselves known to humanity. I see beings from other planets coming to meet us, some in friendship, some not.”
“What about us? What will happen to us?”
Jennifer looked into his eyes and concentrated. She started blushing again, quickly she searched the world for a spell that would make the blush stop before it reached her face, but by the time she found one it was too late, she’s was red as a beetroot. Then she was glad, because the embarrassment she felt was not thousands of years old, it was Jennifer, it made her feel herself.
“Are you okay? You look a bit flushed, must be all the stress,” Owen offered Jennifer a hand up, “let’s go for that cup of tea Aeoife was talking about, it will make you feel better.”
She hid a smile, “yes, let’s.”
