Magi Legend

by Andrew Dobell

  “Yasmin,” Amanda called out. “Stop this right…” The energy within the floating mist grew even more violent and an arc of blinding light whipped out. Forking, the light slammed into all four of them, sending them flying across the room with yelps and screams.

  Amanda hit the floor and rolled. Her Aegis held, but some of that energy had leaked through, hitting her and burning her skin.

  The pain was intense. For a moment, she remained crouched in order to catch her breath as she healed her wounds. She looked up in time to see bright green mist rise from the ground as Yasmin continued to mutter incantations.

  Energy leapt out and surged into Yasmin, The Nomad welcomed it, spreading her arms wide as the energy flowed into her, tearing at her shirt as it poured into her chest.

  As she watched, the green mist around Yasmin began glowing. It rose up around the dark cloud and seemed to grab hold of it. The cloud began to shudder, as a bolt of lightning lashed out, slamming into the floor and walls. Parts of the room caught fire and furniture was thrown around. The flow of energy into Yasmin increased in strength and speed, glowing brighter.

  Amanda picked herself up.

  “Stay down,” said a male voice.

  Amanda looked up to see Demitriov standing close by with Tatiana.

  “I don’t think so,” Amanda replied getting to her feet.

  “As you wish,” Demitriov answered and threw a blast of Magical energy at her. The strike washed over her Aegis and with a flick of her wrist, she blew it away into the ether with a smile.

  “It’s like that then, is it?” she asked and blasted the Nomads with an attack of her own, slamming them into the far wall with a crunch.

  “You stay down,” Amanda growled, before refocusing on Yasmin. As she watched, the cloud’s struggles grew more frantic. Finally, it emitted a blast wave of energy that pushed the green mist away. The cloud folded in on itself, disappearing down to nothing but a small flare of light as the green mist faded, revealing Yasmin sprawled on the floor.

  Walking over, Amanda glanced back at her friends who were picking themselves up and moving to follow her.

  Yasmin looked up. “You found me, then?”

  “Eventually,” Amanda answered. Glancing left, she saw Demitriov get to his feet to watch the conversation. Tatiana still lay on the floor beyond him, awake, but in pain.

  “Come to get this, did you?” Yasmin asked, holding up the rolled-up Lazarus Scroll.

  “Correct,” Amanda answered. “So, if you wouldn’t mind…”

  “Take it,” Yasmin said, tossing it to her. “I’m done with it, for now.”

  She caught it, and briefly examined it. Glancing back at the circle, she looked up at Yasmin again as a question occurred to her. “What was that thing?”

  “Do you think we’re friends or something?” Yasmin asked. “Do you really think I’m going to hold a friendly conversation with you about how my day has been?”

  “How has it been?”

  Yasmin laughed and lay back on the floor. “Fuck me.”

  “That good?”

  Yasmin Ported herself to her feet with a snap. “If that makes you happy,” Yasmin answered.

  “What are you doing? Kill her,” Demitriov yelled at Yasmin, sounding frustrated.

  “Really, is that any way to treat our guest?” Yasmin asked.

  “What? What are you talking about? She’s an Arcadian.”

  “What of it?”

  “What of it? What do you mean, ‘what of it?’ She came here to stop y…”

  “Oh, do shut up,” Yasmin replied. Magic lashed out and sent the man tumbling. He recovered quickly and pulled himself back up, looking at Yasmin, and then at Amanda and her friends with wild eyes, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

  “This is madness!” he said and stormed out the room.

  Amanda saw that Balor was about to follow him, but she waved him back down. “No, leave him.” Demitriov had to live. She’d encountered him a couple of times during her actions in this war, and her younger-self would meet him again in the years to come.

  “Is he as vital to your future as I am?” Yasmin asked.

  Amanda turned and looked at the raven-haired woman through narrowed eyes. “Possibly,” Amanda said, not wanting to give too much away.

  Yasmin nodded and gave her a knowing smile that seemed very smug.

  Amanda shook her head.

  “Well, this has been wonderful,” Yasmin exclaimed. “But I really must be on my way, so, if you don’t mind?”

  Amanda stared at the Nomad with gritted teeth, annoyed that there was little she could do to stop her. She would have preferred to destroy her right here and now, but she couldn’t. Yasmin was vital to her future, probably in more ways than she knew. She could theoretically capture Yasmin and hold her somewhere, but there was no telling if that would disrupt the timeline. Yasmin probably affected the timeline in many tiny ways that shaped Amanda’s past and future, and if she wasn’t free to do that, it could have devastating effects on her younger-self.

  Amanda reluctantly stepped back, cancelled the outer Aegis she had helped create and watched the Nomad nod her farewell before Porting away.

  “Her time will come,” Maria, who was standing beside her, said.

  “I know, but there are times when that day can’t come soon enough,” Amanda said. Yasmin had caused death and destruction on a scale that Amanda found sickening to even think of, and yet, there was little she could do to fight it other than try to frustrate her plans.

  The time was close though, and someday soon, Amanda would be able to finally fight back. She was looking forward to that day.

  1311 AD – Planet Urth

  Amanda and Lux stood over the body of Kade, the Nomad who had killed Cyrac.

  They were on Kade’s ship, which was located at the bottom of an undersea trench, having Ported here to confront him. He’d been unrepentant and attacked Lux and herself, but he was no match for them both.

  “I can’t believe he’s gone,” Lux admitted, referring to Cyrac. “He was more than just my apprentice, you know? He was my friend.”

  “I know,” Amanda sympathised, knowing there was little she could say to alleviate her pain.

  “I’m going to need some time. I might stay here, actually.”

  “What? You mean, on this planet?”

  “Why not? We’re far enough away from everyone else out here.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “I’ve had enough of these constant fights against the Nomads and of losing people I’m close to. I need to have some time away from all that.”

  Amanda nodded. She understood.

  “Tell Astrid, please?” Lux asked.

  “I will.”

  ***

  Over 600 years later.

  Moving through the murky insides of this crashed… Well, he wasn’t sure what it was, but it didn’t look like anything he’d seen before. It looked like some kind of alien ship that they’d found in a trench on the bottom of the sea. The scuba gear he wore was heavy, but it fed him the air he needed to survive and kept him warm.

  Moving between the strange consoles and apparatus, through corridors and into other rooms, he stepped up into a pocket of air, and up a sloping hallway to where a door blocked further progress.

  He tried it and the door opened easily, allowing him entry. It looked like a study with piles of ancient books everywhere. He picked one up and opened it. It was in perfect condition.

  “Hey, Cryptus, did you find that wizard’s books yet?” asked one of his idiot crew through the comm unit in his ear. They always used that silly nickname they’d come up with for him. All because he was cryptic about their mission.

  “I think I might have found Kade’s study. I’ll start bagging some of this stuff up.”

  Closing the Circle

  The 1990’s

  “So, it is true?” Gentle Water asked, looking between Amanda and the ominous, floating form of the Weaver. He
seemed more than a little worried.

  “All of it, everything I’ve told you is true. I am over a thousand years old, and yet, I have yet to be born… although, that time is fast approaching.”

  They were sitting inside Amanda’s room in the Red Monastery, deep in the Himalayas, and Gentle Water was looking a good deal younger than when she’d first met him. Seeing him here, in his early thirties, she was reminded that some Magi aged at a more normal human rate, and that Gentle Water was one of them.

  It made her a sad and yet, he’d never shown her any clue that it bothered him, now, or when she’d known him before travelling back in time.

  She’d been here, training him for several years now, but she felt the time of her birth was close, and he needed to know the truth. As sometimes happened when she was telling someone of her past and of the time jump, the Weaver had appeared to verify her story.

  It nearly always settled any questions they had or washed away any doubt they might harbour that she was telling the truth.

  “So, I will be your mentor? I teach you Magic and martial art?”

  “That’s right, just as I have taught you,” she said.

  “You taught me, so that I teach you.”

  Amanda nodded. “That’s basically it, to be sure, but I wouldn’t think about it too much, it’ll do ye head in, so it will.”

  “It already give me headache.”

  “Think how I feel,” she said and looked up at Gentle Water when he didn’t answer. She realised that she was outside of time again. Gentle Water sat motionless, like a statue. Everything else had frozen as well. Even the wind had stopped blowing outside her room.

  Looking up, the Weaver loomed a little nearer. “We have things to do,” it said.

  “But, what about,” she said, waving towards Gentle Water.

  “You shall be returned here following our mission, he will never know you were gone.”

  Amanda shrugged. She’d learned a long time ago that there wasn’t any arguing with the Weaver. If he wanted to do something, then it would be done, no matter what.

  “Sure, why not? Let’s go,” she said, waving her hands in the air.

  Essentia flared in a brief, but powerful show of Magical strength and suddenly they were standing on the edge of a very familiar beach.

  The air was hot and the palm trees swung lazily in the light, but welcome breeze.

  “The atoll?” Amanda asked, wanting to be sure that her instincts and Magic were right.

  “Correct,” the Weaver answered and started to float deeper into the island itself, through trees and bushes until they reached a huge rock that rose from the sandy ground. Amanda knew at once that this was where the Time Device had been, and yet, the door to it was missing. She frowned in slight confusion, but the Weaver just floated in place for a moment.

  Seconds later, Essentia surged and Temporal Magic flowed, coalescing inside the rock before her, flaring in a light show that made Amanda shield her eyes momentarily. As it faded, she looked back to see the familiar-looking door to the Time Device set into the rock, exactly where she remembered it.

  More Magic, this time from the Weaver, rushed around her and suddenly they were standing inside the device itself, which was active. The blue, glowing ball of Temporal energy rippled and sparked before them in the centre of the chrome room.

  “What’s going on?” Amanda asked.

  “Watch,” the Weaver said.

  Amanda shrugged to herself again. There was no talking to this creature sometimes, she thought. Looking around, Amanda noticed that she and the Weaver were suffused with Temporal energy. She wasn’t sure exactly why, but she’d learned to trust that the Weaver had her best interests at heart, and she was quite sure he wouldn’t attempt to harm her.

  Without warning, the glowing blue ball of energy flared and then shrank away to nothing as a figure dropped out of it onto the circular, raised section of floor in the middle of the room.

  Amanda recognised the man immediately. It was Mr Black. But again, just like when she’d seen him when she’d first travelled back in time, he was young. About twenty years old. He dropped to the floor gasping for breath.

  “I’ve… done it. I killed him, I think,” he said.

  After a few seconds, the young man looked up, confusion on his face. “Huh?” he grunted, looking around, his eyes wild and filled with questions. “Hey, anyone here?” he asked, turning in a circle. As he looked back around, he looked up and focused on the Weaver and fell backwards. “Whoa? What the! Who… Erm, what are you?”

  The Weaver floated closer to him, looming over Mr Black where he sat on the floor, looking increasingly scared. “I am the Weaver,” it said.

  “What…? Oh, the Weaver? You’re the… the thing that helped my family?”

  “I am,” it said.

  “But where are they? They were all here when I left.”

  “They never existed,” the Weaver replied.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “I aided your family. I answered their cries for help and gave them this device to allow them to free themselves from the bondage that Horlack held them in. But I warned them there would be consequences. Use of this device allowed you to change history and stop Horlack from ever meeting your ancestors, but it set your family on a different path. A path that led to them dying out during the Black Death. Your parents never existed, and neither did you. Until today.”

  “You mean, they’re dead?”

  “They were never alive.”

  “But… This is crazy… No, I don’t believe it! You can’t do this to us, bring them back!”

  “I did not cause this, your actions caused this. I warned them.”

  “Bring them back!”

  “I cannot.”

  “Then, I’ll do it. Make this thing work. Send me back, let me save them.”

  “I cannot, and it will not.”

  “This is outrageous!” Mr Black raved.

  “It is what must be, and so is this,” the Weaver said. Amanda watched as Magic flowed out of the Weaver and into Mr Black. He staggered as his eyes went wide with shock. He clutched his heart and fell to his knees.

  “What... are you... doing... to me?” he stammered.

  As Amanda watched, she saw the Temporal Magic take effect and age the twenty-year-old about fifty years. His skin grew thin and wrinkled as liver spots appeared on his face and hands. His hair fell out and he thinned down.

  Mr Black gasped for breath where he sat and lifted up a hand to look at it in horror.

  “What have you done?”

  “You broke cosmic law. You created a paradox that changed history. Think yourself lucky that you’re still alive. I have merely aged you fifty years as punishment.”

  “Fifty years?” Mr Black asked, incredulous. “This is insane. You can’t do this. Please, this… Look, I’ll do whatever you want me to, just, please, make me young again.”

  “What is done cannot be undone,” the Weaver said as Magic flared from him again. “You will not see me again,” the Weaver said.

  Mr Black seemed to lose sight of the Weaver, although Amanda could still see it. They were apparently invisible to him, or, given the Temporal energy that still played through her body, maybe they were slightly out of sync with the time stream?

  “Please, come back. Help me, you can’t leave me like this,” he called out.

  “That seemed harsh,” Amanda said to the Weaver.

  “I was lenient. He should have been erased from history for what he did, but I realise I had a part to play in this, so I bent the rules, as you say.”

  “Still seems harsh,” Amanda said.

  “Perhaps, but he will be fine,” the Weaver said, and Magic flared once more. They appeared on the beach of the atoll again and seemed to have jumped forward in time. Mr Black was out here now, walking down the beach towards the very expensive-looking yachts that were anchored just off the island. They had not been here when Amanda and the Weaver had first arrived moments ago.


  “I brought some of his family’s resources over to this new timeline with him,” the Weaver said.

  “So, is he from a separate timeline?”

  “An alternate timeline within the same universe,” the Weaver said.

  “So, not a separate universe, then?”

  “The multiverse is real Amanda, and there are infinite other universes out there, but within each universe, there is a single timeline which usually, cannot be branched. The future is not set, but history can, on rare occasions, be changed. If the change is big enough, it creates a paradox, which splits the timeline. This is dangerous and weakens the universe. It is my job to police this universe and its timelines, ensuring the actions of the few don’t bring an end to everything.”

  “Wow,” Amanda said, mostly to herself. This entity had just confirmed some pretty major theories that would likely baffle humanity for millennia to come, and yet, this thing had just come out and told her how the multiverse was structured and what its role in it was. The enormity of the information it had just given her was crazy.

  As she stood watching Mr Black struggling to pull one of the small dinghies on the beach into the water, Magic flared around her once more, and she found herself in her room in the Red Temple again, in exactly the same position she had been in when the Weaver had frozen time.

  A heartbeat later time reasserted itself.

  “I cannot imagine how you feel,” Gentle Water said. “It must not be easy to live with.”

  Amanda blinked at her apprentice, having lost her train of thought from their earlier conversation entirely. “Er, yeah,” she said.

  “Are you alright, Master?” Gentle Water asked, looking at her. He then turned to look into the room to where the Weaver had been moments before. “Ah, well, looks like our guest is gone.”

  Amanda glanced to her left. “Yeah, he never stays long,” she said with a smile.

  Seeing Mr Black’s arrival in this timeline seemed to bring things full circle. It had been the first thing she’d dealt with when the Weaver had sent her back in time, and now she’d seen what had happened when Mr Black had stepped back through the Portal.