Magium

by Chris Michael Wilson

  The God of Fate is aiming to destroy this continent too? Just how could this situation get any worse?…

  “Arraka, if you don’t keep quiet, I’m going to—” Selkram, the God of Time says.

  “You’re going to what?…” Arraka says, in a provocative tone. “Destroy my amulet?”

  “I could also throw you very far away from here, in the middle of an ocean, where nobody will ever find you again,” the god says.

  “I’d like to see you try,” Arraka says.

  “Don’t listen to her provocations!” Illuna says, as she is struggling to articulate her words, while she is still being pushed face-first against the ground. “If you throw her in an ocean, she will just escape from her amulet by herself, and then it will be the end for all of us!”

  “Oh?” the God of Time says. “So you must be her captor, then… Or maybe just her jailor. I suppose it is only fitting for a ‘banshee’ to be the one overseeing such a task, given how much your kind has had to suffer because of her arrogance.”

  “And because of yours!” Flower shouts, all of a sudden. “It’s your fault that Petal has to live like this! She never wanted this life. She never wanted to kill anyone. And neither did any of the other banshees. I will never forgive you for what you’ve done!”

  “You will never forgive me?…” the God of Time says, sounding genuinely puzzled. “You must have a very short memory, if you can afford to talk to me like this, after all that has happened. Allow me to refresh that short memory of yours, a little.”

  He then begins to increase the pressure that was pushing Flower against the ground, until she starts screaming in pain. After a few more seconds, the God of Time reverses time once again, to make sure that he doesn’t kill her by accident, and he continues to squash her, over and over again, like before.

  “Oh, no…” Arraka says. “Not the time reversals again… Just kill me and put me out of my misery!”

  After Selkram squashes Flower a few more times, Kate can no longer stand listening to the girl’s screams, and she raises her head from the ground, in order to address the God of Time.

  “Leave her alone!” Kate shouts. “Haven’t you hurt her enough?!”

  The god reverses the time again, in order to heal Flower, and then he floats all the way to Kate’s position, so he can get a better look at her. Or at least I think that’s what he’s trying to do, since he doesn’t really have a face.

  “Very strange…” the God of Time says. “With the tone you are using to address me, I would have expected you to at least have some decent amount of magical energy, to back up your threats. But when I look at you closely, I see that your power can barely even compare to the stillwater in your own group, let alone someone of my caliber. So, why is it that you are trying to defy me, I wonder?”

  “Who cares?” Arraka says. “She’s a weakling anyway.”

  “It’s not just her, who is surprisingly weak, however…” Selkram says, as he flies to a higher position, in order to have a better look at all of us. “Neither of the people in this group, except for the stillwater girl, can even begin to compare with the ones from six hundred years ago, in terms of magical power. Last time, there was the golden fox, there was that stillwater you were fused with, and there was also the really strong stillwater who was travelling with the fox. Eiden, I believe was his name? Compare that to what we have here, and it all seems like a cruel joke. Why even bother to send the time weaver to any of these people? They will probably just get killed off within the next couple of days, if they are lucky enough to even survive that long…”

  “What are you… Ngh… talking about?” I say, as I’m having a little trouble speaking properly, due to my face being constantly pushed in the dirt. “Aren’t you the one who sent the time weaver here?”

  “Hah!” Arraka says. “Selkram wishes he could just control time weavers whenever he wants! The Magium is the one who sent the time weaver here, not this sad excuse for a god.”

  “The Magium?…” I say, too shocked to be able to do anything other than repeat her words.

  “Mhm…” Arraka says. “It is somewhat of a tradition for the Magium to send a time weaver on the earthen plane, every time there is the potential for a great number of lives to be lost in a short period of time. Especially when it comes to this continent. When the time weaver’s powers finally awaken, the person who was gifted with these powers will enter some kind of trance, they will freeze time, and then they will walk patiently towards several groups of people, delivering the prophecy to them, one by one. That’s how it’s always been.”

  “But then… what does the God of Time have to do with all of this?” I ask.

  “Oh, Selkram is just hijacking the signal, so to speak,” Arraka says. “He found a way, long ago, to take advantage of a time weaver’s trance to temporarily link himself directly to the Magium, and he is using this connection to insert a ritual of his own into the mix. You know how the other gods get their power through large numbers of followers? Well, Selkram doesn’t have any followers. He’s going for quality over quantity. Basically, since the groups visited by time weavers have the potential to affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, he decided to channel all of his efforts into exploiting people like you, instead of begging for the adoration of a bunch of sheep, like all the other gods are doing.”

  “What… kind of ritual are you talking about?” I ask Arraka, a little apprehensively.

  “Well, I don’t really know all the details,” Arraka says, “since these rituals of his always change, but there should almost certainly be some time-travelling involved, in at least one of the stages. When’s the ritual starting, anyway?”

  “As soon as every preparation is in place,” the God of Time says. “But this does not mean that you should spend the remaining time holding conversations with these lowly creatures. Why do you bother answering every single one of their questions? I very much doubt that these people will even make it past the first stage of the ritual.”

  Arraka laughs.

  “I think you will be very surprised of their upcoming performance,” she says. “These aren’t the types to give up easily.”

  “We shall see about that soon enough…” the God of Time says.

  He then flies over to the revenant’s position, and he grabs her by her chin, turning her head left and right a few times, while bringing his face closer to hers.

  “Hmm…” the God of Time says. “I sense traces of the God of Death’s aura coming from this time weaver. A revenant, perhaps? Or maybe some other form of undead. Well, whatever she is, she just managed to earn an invitation to my ritual. Let me just pull her out of her trance.”

  After he stops talking, the God of Time releases the revenant from his grasp, and then he waves his hand in front of her face, which causes the bright light to fade from her eyes. After she regains her senses, the revenant looks around her, with her calm, emotionless gaze, and then she addresses the God of Time, directly.

  “I see that you’ve removed me from my trance,” the revenant says. “Should I take it that you’re going to force me to participate in your ritual?”

  “How very astute of you,” the God of Time says. “It seems that Ulruk has instructed you well.”

  “There was no need for him to instruct me,” the revenant says. “The spell that brought me into this world implanted a lot of the God of Death’s knowledge into my mind, including details about your rituals, and about your personality. Taking these factors into account, it wasn’t hard for me to predict that your first reaction when finding out about me would be to try and ‘punish’ the God of Death for meddling in your affairs. And what better way to punish him, than through me, his loyal follower?”

  “At long last, Ulruk has found himself a follower that can compensate for his lack of wits,” the God of Time says. “But let’s see how far your wits can carry you in the trials ahead. The ritual is about to begin. Prepare yourself.”

  After the god is done t
alking, a blinding white light fills our entire area, making it impossible to see any further than my own hands. I then get a strong dizziness sensation, while it feels as if my mind is being pulled straight out of my body. As soon as the light disappears and I can see around me again, I notice that I’m still lying on the ground, but everyone else is gone.

  Wait, no, that isn’t right… It’s not that everyone else is gone. It’s that I’ve been transported to an entirely different place. I am still in the middle of a forest, somewhere, but this forest seems awfully familiar. As if I’ve been here before, in my distant past.

  When I decide to get up and explore a bit, I am momentarily frozen in shock, as I realize that my height is now considerably lower than it was before. And it’s not only my height, that’s different, either. My arms are also much shorter, my hands are smaller, and I’m no longer wearing the same clothes.

  “—these rituals of his always change, but there should almost certainly be some time-travelling involved,” I hear Arraka’s voice in the back of my head, as I suddenly remember what she was saying to me earlier.

  Time-travelling, a smaller body, and a familiar-looking forest. I’m getting a bad feeling about this.

  I immediately check my pockets, to see if I still have any of my old items, but they are all gone, including my stat device. If this is really the forest I think it is, and if that strong, magical aura I’m feeling in the distance also belongs to whom I think it does, then the God of Time must have sent me back to when I was around thirteen years of age. But for what purpose?…

  I throw all those thoughts away, and I start running as fast as I can, towards the house that I once used to call my home. I say that I’m running towards my house, but truth be told, my home used to be more of a cabin, really. It was made almost entirely of wood, and it was somewhat isolated from the rest of the village, because my father liked the quiet. We had a river close to us, and we could get all the firewood we needed from this forest, so we were somewhat independent of the other town folk. We even had a small patch of land, that we were farming, and a barn, where we kept our hay. It’s funny how I can still remember all of these details so vividly, when I haven’t thought about this place in many years.

  As soon as I reach the edge of the forest, I take a look towards the old cabin, and my heart skips a beat, when I see my little sister in the middle of our front yard, just as the banshee within her is awakening, and preparing to take over her body. That powerful magical aura radiating from her is just as sinister as I remembered, and it’s sending shivers down my spine. Not only is my sister’s aura changing, but her body is also transforming into something that could no longer be called human. Her face looks like it’s melting, and her skin is turning purple, while the rest of her body is getting slowly deformed.

  As the donkey in front of our barn is making loud and scared noises, my parents and my little brother are just coming back to the house, and they’re rushing towards the yard, to see what is happening to my sister. They’re still alive… My parents are still alive. This time I didn’t arrive too late. I can still save them. I can make things right. I can— wait… what about that trial the God of Time was talking about? Is saving my parents part of the trial, or am I supposed to be doing something else?

  No… To hell with that trial! I’m being offered a once in a lifetime opportunity to fix my past mistakes. I’m not going to throw it away. This time, I won’t be too late. This time, I’m going to save them all.

  I quickly rush inside our barn, while the donkey is still hee-hawing, and I grab the pitchfork that was lying on the ground. Do I really want to kill the banshee, though? It’s not really her fault that she’s forced to kill other people, in order to continue living. Maybe if I try to reason with her… No, no, no, remember that laugh. Remember that sinister laughter that still sometimes haunts me in my dreams even after so many years have passed. This banshee killed my parents in cold blood, and she enjoyed it. She is not like Illuna. You can’t reason with her. It’s either kill, or be killed.

  As I am approaching the banshee, I see that my parents and my brother have already reached her, and they are trying to talk with her, as if she were still my sister.

  “Claire!” my mother says. “Dear gods, what happened to you?”

  “We need to call a doctor!” my father says, in a panicked voice. “Or… a magician. The kind that Barry is always talking about. A mage! That’s what they’re called. This looks like some sort of magical illness. If we can find a mage doctor, maybe we can still cure her. There has to be a mage in one of the neighboring villages. Barry, there you are. Come quick! Your sister is very ill! Do you know of any mage doctors in our area?”

  “There are no white mages in any of the villages around our area,” I tell him, as I slowly approach him with the pitchfork in my hand. “And even if there were, it would be too late for her.”

  “What are you saying?…” my father says. “And what are you doing with that pitchfork?”

  “Never mind the pitchfork,” I say. “Don’t take your eyes off Claire. In a matter of seconds, she’s going to turn into a monster, and she won’t hesitate to attack you.”

  “Claire? A monster?…” my father says, as he turns towards her, apprehensively. “No, that can’t be what’s really happening… You are joking, aren’t you, Barry?”

  “Don’t take your eyes off her,” I tell him again, with a serious tone in my voice. “If she tries to kill you, I won’t hold back against her.”

  Just as I was done talking, the banshee was already finished with her awakening, and she was preparing for her first strike. I quickly push my father out of the way with one hand, and with the other, I keep hold of my pitchfork. The banshee was trying to impale my father with her bare hand, but due to my intervention, she only managed to lightly wound me in the left side of my abdomen, instead.

  My mother gasps, as she sees the blood, dripping out of me.

  “Barry!” she shouts, with fear in her voice.

  I do not give the banshee the time to attack me again, and I run my pitchfork straight through her chest, while holding the weapon with both my hands. The banshee screams in a very loud and shrieky voice, but she doesn’t manage to muster the strength for another strike, and after a few more seconds, her screams and her squirming all come to an end, along with her life.

  As I drop the pitchfork from my hands, along with the banshee’s body, my mother comes to hug me tightly, and then she just holds me in her arms for a few seconds, without saying anything.

  “Thank you…” my mother says. “Thank you so much for saving him. I can’t even imagine how it would have been to lose both my daughter and my husband in the same day.”

  She then retracts all of a sudden, as she takes a look at my wound.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have been pressing on your wound like that. I’ll go get some bandages and some rubbing alcohol from the house. It looks like it’s only a surface-level wound, so it should be enough to clean it up a little. I’ll be right back!”

  She then rushes towards the house, as my father is still apparently in a state of shock from what happened, and my brother is crying in the background.

  I did it. I actually did it. I changed the past. Even if I have to live my life all over again until I reach the age of twenty-eight, it will still all have been worth it. Even with magic, I couldn’t have dared to dream that such a thing would be possible. Now, as long as I can figure out what the God of Time’s ritual is, and how to survive it, I should be able to—

  My thought process gets interrupted by an extreme dizziness, as the entire area gets flooded with a bright white light again. Just like before, I get the sensation that my consciousness is being ripped out of my body, and then the light fades away, as I find myself in the middle of a much too familiar forest.

  No… It can’t be…

  I quickly look down, to confirm that I am in the same, thirteen year old body, and then I start to run towards my hous
e, as fast as I can. I don’t know why I’m running. My magical sense is enough to give me all the information I need. The aura of the banshee possessing my sister is just as strong as it was the first time I was sent back in time. I can also sense that my parents and my little brother have not reached our house yet. I can sense it all. So why am I running?…

  As soon as I reach the edge of the forest, and look towards our house, I see my sister turning into a banshee, just like before. Everything I did was for nothing. It’s going to happen again. And I’m the only one who can stop it from happening.

  I run as fast as I can towards the barn, and I grab the pitchfork from the ground, just like the last time. Without even thinking, I make a sprint towards the banshee, and before my parents and brother can reach her, I impale her through the chest.

  This has to be it. I did everything perfectly this time around. I didn’t get wounded, I didn’t interact with either of my parents, and I killed the banshee before she even had the chance to complete her awakening. This has to be what the ritual wants from me, right? Otherwise, why would it have sent me here?

  “Barry…” my mother says, with tears in her eyes. “What have you done?”

  When I look at the ground, to see the corpse of the banshee I killed, I notice, to my shock, that her body has reverted to the original form that my sister had, before the awakening began. As my mother grabs the lifeless corpse of my sister tightly in her arms, my father is looking at me with nothing but contempt in his eyes, as a silent fury is slowly taking over him.

  “You killed her…” my father says. “You killed her in cold blood. You little bastard. Is this how you repay us for taking you in? For treating you as if you were our own son?”

  “Jonathan, that’s enough!” my mother says, with a sudden, panicked look in her eyes.