“No, Helen,” my father says, with the same dark look on his face as before, while he is not letting me out of his sight. “The boy needs to know. I want him to know. Barry… I want you to remember what I’m about to tell you, for every single day that you’ll be spending rotting away in prison. You are not our son. You never were. Your real parents were a couple of outsiders who moved into our remote village less than a year before you were born. They were both murdered in broad daylight, a few years later, by some hooded thugs that somehow managed to then vanish without a trace, and since there was no one left to care for you, Helen and I decided to take you in. But we only did it out of pity, and because nobody else wanted you. Do you understand?! Nobody wanted you! Nobody wanted—”
The last words of my father’s sentence were completely drowned out by the sound of my mother slapping him very hard across the face.
“I said that’s enough!” my mother says, as she looks at him with a determined look on her face, while she wipes a tear from her eyes.
She then heads towards me, and she puts her hands on my shoulders, as she looks me straight in the eyes.
“Barry, I’m really sorry about what your father said…” my mother tells me, while she is still trying to hold back her tears from before. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to say all those terrible things. It must have been the shock of what happened, that made him lose his temper. It’s not true that we didn’t want you. We’ve always loved you, even if you weren’t our real son.”
She then pauses for a second, to wipe the tears forming in her eyes with her sleeve.
“And regarding your sister…” my mother continues. “I can’t bring myself to believe that you killed her without a reason. We all could feel the powerful and unnatural magical aura coming from your sister just minutes ago, and we could see from a distance what monstrous form she’d taken, before you killed her. I… don’t know anything about magic, and neither does your father. But you were always fascinated by it, and always took every opportunity you had to learn more about it. If that thing your sister was turning into was dangerous enough that you had to kill her, I am willing to trust your word on it, no matter how painful it would be for me to accept it. But you have to give me your word. You have to swear to me that there was no other way. Barry, can you swear this to me?”
“Yes, I swear!” I say. “There’s no way I would have—”
It’s no use. I can’t talk anymore. The dizziness has overwhelmed me yet again, and I can feel myself being pulled out of my body, while the bright light blinds me just like the last two times. Once the dizziness and the light are both gone, I find myself in the exact same spot that I am now all too familiar with, while my sister’s aura can be clearly felt beyond the edge of the forest, as strong as ever.
No… I can’t let it end like this. Not when I’m so close to saving them. Even after all that my father just said to me, I still can’t bring myself to hate him. He saw me brutally murder his little girl in front of his eyes, after all. And my mother was willing to trust me, even under these conditions. I can’t give up on them just like that. I’m going to find a way to save them, no matter what happens.
For the next hour or so, I spent my time trying to figure out what could be going wrong with what I was doing. I tried everything I could think of. I killed the banshee with different weapons, I killed her before and after my parents intervened, I tried to reason with the banshee before killing her, and I even got my father to kill her by himself one time.
All for nothing. Every single time when it seemed like it would finally work, I would just get sent back in time again, and I would have to start over from scratch. I almost died a few times as well. I’m not sure how this ritual would work if I died, but given how little interest the God of Time seemed to show for our lives, I would not be surprised if I would simply stay dead, without any sort of time reversal to save me.
As I stand there and try to decide upon my next course of action, a dark thought suddenly crosses my mind, regarding a scenario that I’ve completely avoided to take into consideration until this moment. What if this ritual isn’t about me saving my parents? What if the only reason why the God of Time sent me here was to force me to relive my past mistakes, and to show me how powerless I am to change them? Arraka did mention that these rituals are meant to exploit us for the god’s own benefit. And after all that the God of Time has done to us, it just wouldn’t make sense for him to help us change our past, out of the kindness of his heart.
The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It’s not like the ‘God of Time’ is an actual god. He didn’t create time. He doesn’t have any control over it. The only way to undo something that has already happened is through a time reversal spell. If my parents’ deaths have not been undone through magic, then my presence here is irrelevant. I will just be forced to repeat these same events, over and over, until I take the exact same actions that I took when I was thirteen years of age. There was never any other option. I was a fool to think otherwise.
I slowly begin to advance towards my old house, while I’m trying hard to maintain my calm. There is no other way. I only need to get through this one more time, and then it will be over.
As I walk through the forest, I make sure that I don’t arrive to the cabin too early, so that I’m not spotted by my parents or by the banshee. I need to do everything just like I did it fifteen years ago. I need to arrive late.
When I reach the edge of the forest, I can hear the screams of my parents, as they are being murdered, one by one, by my sister. There is nothing I can do to help them. I need to stay strong.
As soon as I stop hearing their voices, I rush out of the forest as fast as I can, and into the barn, to grab the pitchfork. My brother is now running away from the banshee, just like I remember he did, all those years ago. While she is busy chasing my brother, the banshee is an easy target. I quickly circle around her, and I run my pitchfork right through her stomach, from behind. The banshee tries to turn around, and to attack me, but she is too weakened, due to her awakening. Eventually, she stops moving, and she drops to the ground, as I let go of my pitchfork, so it can fall along with her.
As I look towards my parents’ corpses, lying close to the banshee, I cannot help but feel a sharp pain in my chest area, around my heart, although it passes soon afterwards. This is the second time I’ve failed to save them. No… I can’t think like this. My parents were already dead. This was no different from a dream. A terrible dream that is now finally over—
A bright white light suddenly engulfs me, as my consciousness is yet again being transferred to a different body. When the light and my dizziness fade away, I once more find myself in the same forest, while my sister’s aura can be felt very clearly, in the distance.
No… No! How can this be? I didn’t do anything different from fifteen years ago. I let both my parents die. I saved my brother. I used the same pitchfork. I even made sure to arrive too late, so that there wouldn’t be any doubt that I did… exactly…
No… That’s not right. That is not at all what happened… That’s just the story that I’ve been telling everyone for the past fifteen years. I’ve been telling it for so long, that I’ve even managed to fool myself into believing it was real. But the reality of these events was in fact far different from what I remembered. Now I understand what this ritual wants from me. Now I finally get what I need to do.
As the realization of what really happened all those years ago finally dawns upon me, I first experience a feeling of shock, then, a feeling of resignation, and finally, a feeling of hatred. A feeling of pure hatred towards the God of Time, which only keeps intensifying as I walk through the forest.
When I finally reach the edge of the woods, I go inside the barn to pick up the pitchfork, and then I head towards my parents, who were now trying in vain to talk with the being that was once my sister. I position myself at a safe distance from my parents, and I wait.
After a few more seconds, the bansh
ee finally awakens, and she tries to impale my father with her bare hand. Amazingly, my father manages to dodge her first attack, so the banshee attacks him a second time, by driving a sharp cone of rock through his leg, making him fall on the ground, as he screams in pain. The banshee is now screaming as well, seemingly because she is also in pain, as a result of straining herself so hard, immediately after her awakening. While the banshee is distracted, my father finally notices me, and he also sees the pitchfork that I am holding in my hands.
“Barry…” my father says. “Quick… Throw me the pitchfork!”
I say nothing to my father, and I continue to stare at him, while I keep cursing the God of Time in my mind, more and more, with each passing second.
“Barry!” my father says, this time in a more desperate tone. “There’s no time! You need to give me the pitchfork!”
Unfortunately for him, the banshee had already recovered, and she was preparing for a third, and final attack. My father could not do anything to escape, due to the large wound in his leg, and he was impaled once more, this time through his chest, which killed him almost instantly.
My mother screams in terror, as she sees my father die before her eyes. She is now much too scared to move, but before her dying moments, she manages to utter a few last words.
“Barry, please… save me…” she says.
Just like before, I do not move from my spot, I do not answer her, and the banshee kills her by slitting her throat, with a dagger made of sharpened rock. When the banshee sees me just standing there, looking at my parents’ corpses, she begins to laugh. The exact same sinister laughter that I remember clearly to this day. And now I finally know what she was laughing about. She wasn’t laughing because she enjoyed killing my parents. She was laughing at me.
It wasn’t that I arrived too late. That was never what happened. I was there when my parents were being attacked. I saw it all happen before my eyes. I had the pitchfork in my hands, ready to strike, but when I got closer to the banshee, and saw her monstrous figure staring at me with that vicious look in her eyes, I simply froze. I completely froze, in fear, and I couldn’t even hear my father and mother begging me to help them. It was only when my brother was almost about to get killed by the banshee as well, that I finally mustered up the courage to attack her. That is what really happened, fifteen years ago, and what I’ve completely blocked from my mind for more than half of my life.
This was the one and only time when I ever froze up from fear. In fact, if I come to think of it, what happened after this incident was that I developed an almost suicidal tendency to completely ignore danger, no matter how dire the situation was. It’s almost as if my desire for something like this to never happen again was so strong, that it fried my brain, and it eliminated my instinct of self-preservation. So many things are starting to make sense, now… I can’t believe that I’ve been keeping this memory repressed for so long. I suppose I have the God of Time to thank for this stunning revelation. I would shake his hand, but with the amount of rage that I am feeling towards him right now, I’m afraid that I might crush it by mistake.
The banshee is now starting to chase after my brother. I waste no time, and I dash towards her, impaling her through her back with my pitchfork, without giving her any chance to retaliate. As the banshee slowly dies before my eyes, a white light once again fills the area, and I get transported through time once more. This time, however, I am not worried. I already know that I have passed this stage of the ritual.
Just as I was expecting, as soon as the light fades, I find myself back in my twenty-eight year old body, surrounded by all my friends, as Arraka lets out one of her usual laughs.
“It looks like you are one of the first to pass this part of the ritual, Barry-boy,” Arraka says. “Come, have a seat, and let us enjoy ourselves, while we watch the rest of your friends suffering in their own trials!”
I take a quick glance around me to see what our current situation is. The God of Time is no longer anywhere to be seen, but it doesn’t seem like his departure affected the ritual in any way. Daren, Kate, Leila, Hadrik and the revenant appear to be in some form of trance, similar to the one in which the revenant was when she first arrived to this place. Their eyes are bright yellow, and they’re just staring in front of themselves, without being aware of our presence. All of them are standing in place right where I left them, except for the revenant, who now has her feet on the ground, instead of floating in mid-air like before. In the meantime, Melindra, Illuna, and presumably Flower are all out of their trances, and they’re looking at me attentively.
“What do you mean you want us to watch my friends during their trials?…” I ask Arraka, once I get a good grasp of our situation. “You have a way to see what’s happening in the past?”
“Sure,” Arraka says. “It’s not that hard. They’re all connected to the Magium, right now, so if you know how to link yourself up to their auras properly, you should be able to see what they are seeing.”
“The Magium…” I say, as I suddenly remember the discussion that Arraka had with the God of Time before he sent us back in time. “You were saying before that the Magium is the one that sent the revenant here to give us the prophecy. What did you mean by that? Are you saying that the Magium is a person?”
“Ahahahahaha!” Arraka laughs. “Illuna did you hear? He asked me if the Magium is a person!”
“I heard him…” Illuna says, in a dry tone, as Arraka continues to laugh in the background.
“Of course you wouldn’t answer my question…” I say, as I look towards Arraka’s amulet. “Never mind the Magium, then. What can you tell me about the others’ rituals?”
“Which ones are you talking about?” Arraka says. “The ones that already passed, or the ones still inside the trance?”
“Both, I guess?…” I say.
“Well,” Arraka says, “I didn’t get to see Melindra’s ritual, but Illuna was forced to reenact the whole ‘sacred woods massacre’ down to its very last detail. Her ritual wasn’t nearly as funny as yours, because she realized from the start what she needed to do, but I could still tell that she was pretty pissed off about it, even if she didn’t really show it. Flower, on the other hand, just kept trying to save her friends from the destruction of Olmnar over and over, even after failing dozens of times in a row. In the end, it was Illuna who convinced her to finally let them go, after she got out of her own ritual, and saw what the foolish girl was doing, from inside Flower's own mind.”
“What about the ones who are still inside their rituals?” I say.
“Hmm…” Arraka says. “I think it would be quicker to show you directly. Let’s start with the healer.”
In a single instant, the scenery around me changes completely, and everyone except for Flower and me disappears from before my eyes, as I now find myself standing in front of Rose’s house, in the city of Thilias. When I take a better look at the two of us, I notice that Flower and I have both become semi-transparent, and the same goes for Arraka’s amulet. On the other hand, I’m also seeing another Flower and another instance of me who are not transparent at all, and who are currently busy talking to Rose and her siblings, in the same yard where we are located. Hadrik, Kate and Daren are also here, apparently, and so is Ella.
“First, let me give you a bit of context!” Arraka says.
“What’s happening?” I say. “How did you bring us here?”
“Shh…” Arraka tells me.
“Rose,” I hear Daren saying. “Could you show me to my room? All I want right now is to lie down in a bed for a while.”
“Certainly!” Rose says. “Follow me, I’ll show you the way!”
“Okay, now the healer is heading towards his room, and he’s going to stay there for a while,” Arraka says. “Remember this part?”
“Yes,” I say. “This happened right after we reached Rose’s house for the first time. But why are you showing me this? Does this have anything to do with Daren’s ritual?”
“I told you,” Arraka says. “I’m trying to give you some context! It wouldn’t be any fun otherwise. Alright, next up, we’ll fast-forward to Daren’s room.”
Once again, the whole scenery around us changes in an instant, and we both find ourselves inside Daren’s room from Rose’s mansion, where Daren is currently sitting on the bed, with his torso leaning forward, and his elbows propped on his knees, while he is holding his head with both his hands. Just like before, he seems to be completely unaware of our presence.
“He can’t see or hear us, by the way,” Arraka tells me, as we are still in our semi-transparent form. “Just thought I’d make it clear, in case you didn’t figure it out by now.”
“She could have died…” I hear Daren’s voice reverberating from the walls, even though Daren’s mouth is still closed. “She could have died right before my eyes, and I would have been powerless to save her…”
“What was that?” I ask Arraka, as I look all around us, to try and find the source of the sound. “Were those… Daren’s thoughts?”
“Of course they were his thoughts,” Arraka says. “What else could they have been?”
“You have the ability to read people’s minds?” I say, starting to panic a little.
“No, you idiot!” Arraka says. “How many times do I need to tell you that your friends are connected to the Magium, right now? Reading their thoughts while they are in this state is easy if you have some decent knowledge of how auras work. Now shut up and pay attention! I didn’t bring you here for nothing.”
“No…” I hear Daren’s voice echoing throughout the room again. “It’s not that I was powerless. I could have gotten the power, if I wanted it. But would I have gotten it?… Would I have been able to do something as humiliating as asking Eiden for help, for the sake of saving that poor girl’s life? What would have happened if Barry hadn’t intervened? Would that girl have been dead because of me? Because I couldn’t let go of my ego? No! Eiden is evil. He couldn’t have just offered to help me without having an ulterior motive. But then, why didn’t he ask for anything in return? I saw him give Barry the power, and there were no tricks. He even gave the rest of us the power as a side-effect of his spell… So, then, why did he do it? What could have been his reason? Did he really give me that option just to humiliate me? What is Eiden thinking?…”
Magium Page 49