“Barry, do you hear me?” the revenant says.
“I hear you,” I tell her simply, after I tap the transceiver.
“Listen to me,” the revenant says. “You need to take out your stat device, and to enter the secret code that boosts your hearing stat. Do you understand?”
“What?…” I say.
“There’s no time to explain!” the revenant says. “Just do it! Quick!”
She then closes the channel again, and there is no more way for me to contact her.
After taking a few seconds to consider her request, I eventually decide to take out my device, and to activate the secret code that Melindra taught me a few days ago, just like the revenant asked. Once I’m done, I put my device back in my pocket, and I continue to walk alongside the others.
“Was that the revenant again?” Daren asks, as he gets closer to me. “What did she want?”
“She wanted me to enter my secret code in the stat device, so I can boost my hearing,” I say. “I didn’t really see a reason why I shouldn’t do it, so I did what she said.”
“Huh…” Daren says. “Well, I sure hope that this isn’t a trap of some sort.”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “I mean, this code just boosts my hearing for a short while. I don’t really see what—”
As I was talking, I suddenly realized something that I hadn’t noticed before. According to Melindra, the secret code should have only improved my hearing for a few seconds, but for some reason, my hearing is still better than it was before I used the code. Did the revenant use some sort of trick?
“What’s the matter, Barry?” Daren says. “Why did you stop talking?
“The hearing stat…” I say. “It’s still being boosted. It was supposed to go back to its original level, after a few seconds, but for some reason, that didn’t happen.”
“Well, maybe your device is broken, or something,” Daren says.
“I don’t know…” I say. “I feel like that would be too big of a coincidence.”
Suddenly, I start to hear Illuna talking with Arraka, at the back of our group.
“Arraka, are there any mages in this area left, except for us?” Illuna says.
“Mages?” Arraka says. “No, not any mages…”
“What do you mean, not any mages?” Illuna asks her. “Are you saying that there’s someone else? Monsters? Animals?”
“Maybe,” Arraka says.
“You really are starting to get on my nerves, lately…” Illuna says.
Just as Illuna is done talking, I notice the fact that the wind hasn’t been blowing at all, for a while. I’m also not hearing any sounds, coming from outside of our group, and now that I look a little closer around me, I notice that there are a few insects, floating in mid-air, as if they’ve been frozen. Oh, boy… I think I’m starting to understand what’s going on, here.
Before I get to finish my train of thought, Hadrik is the one to hit the nail on the head, as he poses a question to all of us.
“So…” Hadrik says. “Is it just me, or is the time frozen for anyone else?…”
Chapter 11
“You’re right…” Daren tells Hadrik, after looking around himself for a few seconds. “The time really is frozen. Could it be Eiden’s doing?”
“It’s not Eiden,” Arraka says. “If Eiden were here, I would have told you about it, remember?”
“Then who is it?” Daren asks. “Who froze the time?”
“Why don’t you take a look and see for yourself?” Arraka says. “She is coming out of the woods and heading your way as we speak.”
“She?…” Daren says.
As we all take a look at the person who is now slowly approaching us, we recognize her immediately. Rose is currently walking very slowly towards us, while her eyes are shining with a bright yellow light. Her expression is completely blank, as she looks straight ahead of her, without acknowledging our presence.
“The revenant, again…” Daren says, with a cold look on his face. “Come on, let’s see what she wants.”
We all do as Daren says, and we head over to the revenant, until we are right in front of her. As soon as we reach her, the revenant stops in her tracks, and she continues to stare straight ahead, with the same blank expression on her face.
“Why did you come here, revenant?” Daren asks her. “And why did you freeze time?”
The revenant does not react to Daren’s words in any way. She doesn’t even seem to be aware of our presence. It’s as if she were in some sort of… trance.
“Are you listening to us?…” I say.
Seeing that the revenant is still not doing anything, I position myself right in front of her, and I begin to snap my fingers repeatedly, very close to her face.
“Come on!” I say. “Snap out of it!”
“Oh, no…” Melindra says. “I’ve seen something like this happen before. If it’s what I think it is, then you guys had better ready yourselves up. That sage fight from earlier is going to feel like a walk in the park, compared to what’s coming up next.”
“They’re going to be in for a treat, alright!” Arraka says, and then she laughs.
“What are you two talking about?” Hadrik says. “Ready ourselves up for what?”
“It’s starting…” Melindra says.
All of a sudden, the revenant disappears from before our eyes, and we can hear her voice coming from behind us. As we all turn around, we realize that it wasn’t only her voice, but the revenant herself who had switched positions, in a fraction of a second. The voice that is coming out of her mouth barely sounds like that of Rose, due to the high amount of reverberation in it.
“A prophecy, I have come to tell you…” the revenant says.
“Here we go,” Arraka says.
“A prophecy of things that may come to pass, but which have not yet been set in stone,” the revenant continues. “Listen carefully, to the events that will be foretold, and you may be able to prevent them from happening, before it is too late.”
The revenant then disappears again, and she reappears on our left side, preparing to speak again, as the echo in her voice gets more intense, in order to signify the beginning of the prophecy. After each line that she speaks, the revenant disappears and appears in a different place, making us all turn our heads in confusion.
“As two old enemies clash one final time,
A great disaster that has once been avoided
Can no longer be prevented in the same way.
An entire continent lies in ruins,
While a single laugh made up from different voices
Echoes loudly throughout the realm.”
As soon as the revenant is done delivering the prophecy, she stops moving, and once again, she begins to stare into space, with a blank expression on her face.
A prophecy about a great disaster… Two old enemies… Does this mean that we were right? The calamity that Eiden warned us about will happen when he clashes with Tyrath? But then again, the prophecy also mentioned a laugh made up from different voices. And I only know of one person who could fit this description…
“Arraka…” I say. “This prophecy was oddly specific about that single laugh made up from different voices thing. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this ‘great disaster’, would you?”
“Hey, I could make that prophecy happen in less than a day, if you want,” Arraka says. “That way, you wouldn’t have to waste any more time trying to figure it out. All you have to do is let me out of this amulet. What do you say?”
“I think I’d rather figure it out by myself, if you don’t mind,” I say.
“Your loss,” Arraka says.
“So, is this it?…” Daren says. “Is the prophecy over?”
“If you’re asking only about the prophecy, then yes, it is over,” Melindra says.
“You’re saying that we should be expecting something else, right after the prophecy?” Daren says.
“Only if everything happens i
n the same way that it did six hundred years ago,” Melindra says. “The last time I’ve had the honor of witnessing a time weaver’s prophecy, I didn’t have to wait long until—”
Melindra interrupts herself, because we can all suddenly feel an immense amount of pressure in the air, making it hard to breathe, while the sky looks like it’s trembling under the sheer force of the magical power that has flooded our entire area. As we slowly adapt to the pressure and begin to breathe more normally, the revenant is getting raised higher and higher into the air, while her eyes are still bright yellow, staring into nothingness.
“What the hell?!” Hadrik shouts. “What is with this crazy amount of magical power? Arraka is still in the amulet, isn’t she?”
“Ahahahahahaha!” Arraka laughs, from inside her amulet.
“This is not Arraka’s doing,” Melindra says, as she struggles to remain calm. “I already told you. That sage battle from earlier will seem like nothing, compared to what’s about to happen.”
She is right. I don’t think I’ve experienced such a feeling of dread, ever since I saw Arraka get out of her amulet. It’s like every single fiber of my being is telling me to run the hell away from here, as far as possible, and as fast as my feet can carry me. I can’t let this fear overcome me. Not now. I’m almost certain that even the smallest wrong decision made at this point could lead to my instant obliteration. Just who is it exactly, that we are facing, here?
“Greetings, mortals…” we hear several male voices, speaking in unison, all around us.
This speech pattern is very similar to the way in which Arraka speaks sometimes, when she loses control over her voice. A laugh made up from several different voices… Could this be tied to the prophecy as well?
“You have been blessed by the presence of a god,” the voices say, as they reverberate throughout the entire area. “Kneel before me, and I will then give you permission to gaze upon my magnificent form, in admiration.”
“And just who exactly—” Daren starts to say, but Melindra puts her hand over his mouth to silence him, with a panicked look on her face.
“This is the God of Time,” Melindra says. “Don’t ask him any questions. He has the power to end us all in a matter of seconds. Just… kneel…”
She then kneels before the God of Time, with her head bowed down, while she signals Daren to do the same.
An adversary that can make even someone as proud as Melindra act this way? I don’t like where this is going. Clearly, if I mess around here, I could end up getting everyone killed. But should I really kneel before this bastard?
While I was standing there, considering my options, the God of Time was slowly materializing into a more earthly form, although I’m not sure if I could really call it that. His body has the form and the size of a human, but it is made out of a sort of solid blue light, which is simply radiating magical energy. The man has no face, and no distinguishable features, aside from a few small blue flames that keep appearing and disappearing randomly throughout his body, at random short time intervals. He is currently floating in mid-air, next to the revenant, and he is looking straight at us, with his empty face.
“It is not wise to keep a god waiting…” the God of Time says. “I told you to kneel.”
“Don’t listen to what he says,” Arraka tells us. “He needs you alive for his plans to work. He can’t do anything to you. He’s just bluffing.”
“Arraka is right,” I say. “We shouldn’t have to kneel before anyone. Even if they are gods. No matter what happens, I am going to stand my ground.”
As soon as I am done talking, I suddenly feel a very intense pain in the left side of my chest, and when I look down, I see, to my horror, that my heart has been ripped straight out of me, and that I now have a huge, bloody hole in my chest, where my heart used to be.
“Barry!” Kate shouts, in desperation.
Everything is now getting much colder, and I can feel shivers all throughout my body. The light before my eyes is slowly starting to fade, while I am gradually losing my consciousness. Right before it all goes dark, however, I suddenly regain my senses, as I hear Kate shouting my name in reverse. Immediately afterwards, my heart gets put back into my chest, while my wound closes completely, with all the blood disappearing from my shirt almost instantly. As soon as the time reversal spell is over, I start to breathe very loudly and rapidly, while sweating all over, as if I’d just woken up from a terrible nightmare.
Arraka laughs, when she sees the look on my face.
“I guess I forgot that he can also reverse time, as long as he has control of the time weaver,” Arraka says. “My bad!”
“I will not repeat myself again,” the God of Time says. “Kneel.”
The others and I exchange a few hesitant looks, but neither of us seems to be in a hurry to follow the god’s orders, even after his previous display of power.
“Sorry,” Hadrik says, with half a grin, while trying to mimic his usual confident tone. “My doctor told me that kneeling is bad for my—”
“I said kneel!” the god shouts, and then an immense amount of pressure pushes us all to the ground, including Melindra, who was already kneeling.
We are now all being squashed against the rocky soil by an incredible force, and I can already feel the pain from my internal organs bleeding, as the enormous pressure above us just keeps getting more and more unbearable. In order to make sure that he doesn’t kill us, the God of Time keeps casting time reversal spells every ten seconds or so, thus healing our internal wounds, just so they can be reformed again and again, over the course of the next few minutes.
During this time, I can’t manage to pay attention to anything around me. Every ounce of my energy is being focused into withstanding the pain. I can no longer tell if the screams that I’m hearing are coming from me, or from my friends. It’s as if I’ve voluntarily entered some sort of trance, trying to become one with the pain. Trying to let it flow through me. No matter how hard I try, however, the pain keeps getting the better of me, and then I need to regain my focus all over again.
“Can you stop with the time reversals, already?” Arraka says, exasperated, after a while. “You’re making me dizzy!”
Upon hearing Arraka’s words, the God of Time casts one last time-reversal spell, and then he lowers the amount of pressure in the air above us, making sure that he is no longer hurting us, but still keeping us pressed against the ground.
“Thank you!” Arraka says, in the same exasperated tone.
“I see that living amongst these mortals has taught you some long-overdue basic etiquette, Arraka,” the God of Time says. “It is regrettable that you could not learn these manners before we were forced to banish you from our realm.”
“Forced?…” Arraka says. “Hah! You only did it because you were afraid of me. It’s funny, because while we were both living in the magical plane, I hadn’t pegged you as the cowardly type. And yet, twice, you ran away from me. Once with the banishment, and a second time six hundred years ago. What happened to that unfinished duel of ours, eh? Didn’t you say that we would settle our scores, eventually?”
“And we will,” the God of Time says. “As soon as we are both back to our peak conditions. You wouldn’t want to fight me from inside an amulet, would you?”
“Well, if you would just destroy this amulet for me, we could—” Arraka starts to say, but she is interrupted by the God of Time.
“You will receive no help from me,” the God of Time says. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the many spirits you’ve killed and absorbed, all those thousands of years ago. Some of them were my friends, you know.”
“Don’t be like that, Selkram,” Arraka says, with a mocking tone. “We’re friends too, aren’t we? After all, it’s thanks to me that you found out you could absorb other spirits. Don’t think that I didn’t figure out what you’ve been doing. You might have managed to hide this from all the other spirits in the magical plane, but I’m the one who invented the technique!
I know all about its side-effects. Your voice started to change right after we had our first battle, in the magical plane, and the same thing happened to Ulruk. Those different voices that you are using when you speak are from all the other spirits that you couldn’t absorb properly, aren’t they? The same thing happened to me, at first, but then I learned, and I adapted, unlike you idiots. Seriously, what did you and Ulruk think? That you could just copy my technique without any sort of training? Just how arrogant could you be, anyway? Do you have any idea how much time I spent perfecting that spell? But hey, I guess it was easier for you to assume that only female spirits from the civilized races could absorb other spirits correctly, and to convince everyone to banish us to the earthen plane, than to admit that the only reason for your failure was your outstanding ineptitude.”
“I will not stand here and listen to you mocking—” the God of Time starts to say, but Arraka cuts him off.
“You both should have listened to Memphir,” Arraka says. “He’s the only one with a brain out of all you ‘gods’. I bet he tried to stop you from absorbing the spirits, didn’t he? I never heard him using different voices when he spoke. How is Memphir, by the way? Isn’t the time limit for his own prophecy due at some point during this century?”
“The God of Fate and his prophecy are none of your busin—” the God of Time starts to say, but he gets cut off yet again.
“Yeah, it was this century, wasn’t it?…” Arraka says, as she is now ignoring the God of Time completely, while getting lost in her own thoughts. “And the prophecy was pretty specific about his death too. It said that he would get killed by a member of the civilized races from the earthen plane, who would originate from a region called Varathia. I remember how Memphir kept rechecking that prophecy again and again, in the hopes that something would change, even if he always got the exact same result. He was becoming completely obsessed with it… I bet he must have really freaked out when Eiden named this continent Varathia, huh? And now that the time limit is drawing closer, the so-called ‘God of Fate’ even went as far as forming a temporary alliance with the ‘God of Death’, saying that he’d help him with his indiscriminate murders, as long as they were being focused on Varathia! I honestly don’t get what’s going through Memphir’s head. If I were in his place, I’d just reduce this entire continent to a pile of ashes in one day, and be done with it!”
Magium Page 47
