Magium

by Chris Michael Wilson

  We both disappear from the corridor with all the screaming, and we reappear in a dark, empty room where an eleven year old version of Kate seems to be talking with what I’m assuming is a twelve year old version of her friend, Diane. Kate is easy to recognize, because she just looks like a smaller version of her usual self, but Diane has long, blond hair, and a much more frail physique than she had, in her adult form, so it’s a bit more difficult for me to tell if it’s really her or not. They are both dressed in rags. The room we are in resembles my old holding cell from the arena, with one bed made out of stone, and a small window on top, so I’m guessing that they are most likely in Diane’s room, and Kate decided to pay her a visit, in order to tell her something that she knows from the future.

  “I didn’t manage to make her thoughts audible, so we’re going to have to work with what we have,” Arraka tells me. “Let’s see where this goes.”

  “I’m telling you, it’s not the test of loyalty!” Kate tells Diane, while whispering, in order to make sure that the guards outside don’t hear them. “I know that it’s hard to believe, but I’ve come from the future, and I know that the lessathi caretaker who is trying to help us escape will become Leila’s adoptive father later on. I know that he can be trusted!”

  “Leila?…” Diane whispers back. “You mean the lessathi girl who was thrown in here with us two years ago? Listen, even if that caretaker is really trying to help us escape, you are still forgetting one thing.”

  Diane then points towards her neck, which has a collar around it, similar to the ones that the golden fox used against us.

  “As long as Jason and I are still wearing these collars, we won’t be able to get out of here,” Diane says. “If we get too far away from this place, the collars will electrocute us, and that will be the end of our escape. But you don’t have a collar! You’re one of the rejects. If you really trust this man, then you could—”

  “No!” Kate says, as she almost shouts by mistake. “You always do that! You always try to put your friends’ needs before your own. I’m not going to let you do that now! We can all escape together. You, me, Leila, your brother—”

  “I’m not sure how much Jason would agree with this plan,” Diane says. “You know how he is. He never trusts anyone. Especially if they’re lessathi. He was like this even before we knew about the test of loyalty. He barely even exchanges any words with the high-ranked lessathi that we are sent to escort on a regular basis. The only one that he seems to get along with is that woman… Meridith. Their second in command. I don’t know what he sees in her. He always tells me how she’s different from the other high-ranked lessathi, but for me, they’re all the same. They all know what’s happening here. They’re not blind. They’re all to blame.”

  “Diane, listen to me!” Kate says. “That caretaker is very skilled at tinkering with magical devices. I’m sure that he could find a way to free you of your collars. I will talk to him about this with the first opportunity, but you need to find a way to convince your brother to come with us. Can you do that?”

  “You’re asking a lot of me, Kate…” Diane says. “If I tell Jason your story about how you came from the future, he’ll think I’m insane. I’m not even sure how much I believe what you’re saying. I mean… are you sure that it couldn’t have been a hallucination of some sort? They’ve been feeding us really poorly, lately, and—”

  “No!” Kate says. “It’s real! In a year from now, they’re going to shut down the Beacon, due to lack of funds, and then they’re going to throw all of us rejects in the jungle to fend for ourselves. I wasn’t able to save even one of them… I can’t let that happen again! I need to find a way to convince everyone. Just promise me that you’ll try to talk to your brother. You don’t need to tell him that I’m from the future. Just try to find a way to get through to him. Somehow…”

  “I’ll… try…” Diane says, hesitantly.

  “Thank you,” Kate says. “I will come to talk to you again, after speaking with the caretaker about the collars. I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out. See you soon!”

  “Alright,” Arraka says, as Kate walks out of the room. “I took a quick look through the following events, and I think it should be safe to skip the next part. I’ll just go ahead and—”

  “Wait,” I say. “What’s the next part about?”

  “Oh,” Arraka says, “it’s just some uninteresting stuff about her talking with the caretaker, and him confirming that it’s possible to take off the collars. It’s a waste of time.”

  “Could you show me Diane’s discussion with her brother, instead, then?” I say.

  “I suppose…” Arraka says. “I’m not exactly sure how relevant it’s going to be, but at least it shouldn’t be a complete waste of our time.”

  Instead of the scenery changing, this time, we remain in the same room, but Diane is no longer standing where she was before, and it seems that she has a new visitor. This person, who is currently talking with Diane, is a boy in his late teens, with short, blond hair, which I assume is her brother, Jason. His overall physique is not very impressive, but the look in his eyes is much more mature than one would expect from a boy of his age. He looks like the sort of guy who is very confident in his abilities and who knows exactly what he wants. Just like his sister, he is also wearing a collar around his neck, and he is dressed in rags.

  “Diane,” Jason says, “I’ve told you many times before that you should take everything Kate tells you with a grain of salt. I know that she is your best friend, but that girl is way too trusting for her own good. When you put so much trust into people, it hurts that much more when you inevitably get betrayed. Mark my words, one day, she will get betrayed so badly, that she will never want to trust anyone ever again, and when that happens, you won’t be able to tell me that I didn’t warn you…”

  “So, you’re saying, what… that she should be more like you?” Diane says. “Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve never trusted anyone other than yourself. How is that any better?”

  “Hey, don’t say things like that…” Jason says. “You know that I’ve always trusted you. Even if the whole world betrays us, you and I will still continue to stay true to each other, until the very end. That’s the promise we made, right before we were first assigned as elite bodyguards to the lessathi, three years ago. You still remember that promise, right?”

  “Of course I do!” Diane says. “But do you still remember it? I’ve been telling you for years that Meridith is bad news, and that you should keep your distance from her, but you never listen! Why is it that you are so willing to put your trust in her, when you’ve never trusted anyone in your life?”

  “I never said I trust her!” Jason says. “She’s just… a means to an end. That’s all there is to it. And besides, she’s not like the other lessathi. She has the potential to change things for the better. All she needs is a little push in the right direction. There are already many lessathi who support her. I’d even go as far as saying that there are more who currently support her, than the ones who support the great leader, Heksol. It’s not by coincidence, that she managed to become second in command. When she first started off, she was only a lowly secretary to Heksol, but she’s been climbing her way up the ranks for twenty years, and she’s made many friends during that time. I’m telling you, there will be a great change coming soon, in the lessathi world, and I want to be right at the heart of it, when it happens!”

  “You know I don’t like it when you talk like this…” Diane says. “I thought that our goal was to escape this place. Why would we care about the lessathi world, and how they change for the better? Let them rot, for all I care! I only want to be free of this nightmare, so we can live the rest of our lives in peace together. All three of us.”

  “And we will!” Jason says. “What I’m doing is for the sake of all of us. Kate included. You’ll understand when you’re older.”

  “You always say this!” Diane says. “What about Kate’s plan, re
garding the lessathi caretaker? Are you at least going to consider it?”

  “I’ll… think about it,” Jason says. “Anyway, I need to get going. If I stay too much here, the guards will start to think that we’re plotting something. Take care!”

  “Well that was, uh… interesting,” Arraka says. “Anyway, let’s get back to the stuff that’s actually somewhat relevant to this ritual.”

  As soon as Arraka stops talking, we get transported into a different room, where Kate is currently talking with a girl that has light brown hair, and who appears to be around fifteen years of age. Just like Kate and Diane, she is dressed in some old, tattered clothes, but her hair is less messy, and she seems to be taking much more care of her physical appearance than the other two girls. She also has a pleasant smile, and a charismatic way of talking, which makes me think that she is the type who easily gets along with other people.

  “Please,” Kate says. “You are the only one who can help me. The other orphans never listen to me, but I’m sure they’ll listen to you! You’ve always had a way with words, and everyone trusts your judgment. You’re almost like a leader, of sorts.”

  “You flatter me, Kate!” the girl says. “But this isn’t an easy task you are asking of me. Do you not remember what happened the last time when we decided to trust one of the caretakers? The lessathi chose to kill only one of us, back then, in order to set an example, but that could have been any one of us. They had no reason to choose Benjamin, out of all of us. He didn’t stand out in any way. He didn’t even say a word. But they simply kept beating him and beating him in front of us, and they just wouldn’t stop. Even after he was dead, they still wouldn’t stop. If we try to escape again, and they catch us, I don’t think that they will settle for killing only one person, anymore. This time, they’re going to kill all of us, and they’re not going to show us any mercy…”

  “They’re going to try to kill us anyway!” Kate says. “We’re both rejects. When they’ll finally be done experimenting on us, they’ll throw us in a jungle, and they’ll leave us for dead.”

  “We can’t stay rejects forever!” the girl says, although I can clearly see that she is lying to herself. “Maybe one day we’ll be like your friend, Diane, and her brother, and we’ll get to escort important lessathi around, instead of being experimented on, over and over. If we haven’t died from the experiments for such a long time, then there has to still be a chance!”

  “It’s not going to happen, Olivia,” Kate says. “We can’t just keep waiting for things to get better. We need to take matters into our own hands. Please, trust me on this! Following the caretaker’s plan is our only true chance of escaping this hellhole. He’s not going to betray us like the one before. We can still make it out of here alive, but I need your help!”

  Olivia starts to calm down, after she hears what Kate had to say, and all of a sudden, she gets a very determined look in her eyes.

  “I understand, Kate,” Olivia says. “You know that I’ve always been your friend. If you are willing to put so much trust into this man, then I will believe in you, and your judgment. I will try to convince as many people as I can, but I can’t promise you anything. I’ll tell you later how things went.”

  “Thank you so much!” Kate says, with a relieved look on her face. “I will also speak to Diane and tell her what you said. We’ll talk more when you have something new to tell me. See you later!”

  “Goodbye!” Olivia says, as she regains her pleasant smile from before, and then Kate goes to exit her room.

  “Okay, this next part’s going to be really good,” Arraka says. “Get ready!”

  The environment around us changes yet again, but this time, we find ourselves in a very large underground hallway, where about a hundred or so orphans are currently all lined up, and standing straight, while looking at a few men dressed in dark blue robes, in front of them. I’m assuming that the men in blue robes are the lessathi that run the place, but what’s strange is that all of them are standing up, except for one, who is currently on his knees, with his hood covering his face, and his head bowed down.

  The orphans are all dressed in the same type of gray rags, and most of them have very tired looks on their faces, as if this place has sucked the life right out of them. They also appear to be very malnourished, and some of them have bruises all over their bodies. The ages of the orphans seem to be no higher than nineteen, and no lower than four, but most of them are aged between six and fifteen years old. The only orphans who are not lined up with the others are Diane and her brother. They are instead standing near the lessathi, likely due to their bodyguard status.

  The lessathi are currently talking among themselves, but the orphans are all dead silent, and awaiting impatiently for the meeting to begin. From the looks of things, it seems that the lessathi are still waiting for one or two more of their colleagues to arrive, before announcing to everyone the reason why they called them here.

  “Really?…” I tell Arraka, after we wait for about ten more seconds. “You couldn’t have brought us any closer in time to the beginning of the meeting? How much longer are we supposed to wait, here?”

  “Stop complaining,” Arraka says. “I brought us here a bit earlier, because there is something that I’m trying to test. There is this theory I’ve had for a while about the lessathi and the reason why they are so good at making magical devices, and I want to see if it’s true or not. The main gist of it is that I think they have some sort of innate understanding of the Magium’s true nature, which gives them the ability to tamper with an object’s aura in a more precise fashion than most other tinkerers. But it’s more than simply knowing what the Magium’s nature is. Fyron knows its nature too, and he has a way to access it, but that staff of his cannot compare to the magical artifacts that the lessathi are able to invent. It’s almost as if they’ve developed some sort of natural affinity to the Magium, over the years, which is subtle enough that I can’t detect it when I study their auras. If that is really the case, then it might also explain why they have no magic in their auras whatsoever. If their auras resonate so strongly with the Magium, then their subconscious must be getting constantly bombarded with information, which would make it impossible for them to maintain any sort of connection to the magical plane.”

  “Well, at this moment, you are the one bombarding me with too much information!” I say. “What do you mean the lessathi have an aura that resonates strongly with the Magium? Am I not a lessathi too? Or a half-lessathi, whatever. Are you trying to tell me that I already had the Magium with me all along? Because it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it to me!”

  “Of course not,” Arraka says. “What kind of logic is that? Wasn’t the exact wording of the tournament organizers that they would give you ‘access’ to the Magium if you win? That has nothing to do with simply having an affinity towards it. Leaving aside the fact that you are probably getting far less information from the Magium than a regular lessathi, due to being half human, most of that information is completely useless to you, because you have no way to process it. On the other hand, if you have a way to access the Magium directly, from the earthen plane, then that natural affinity of yours will suddenly become a lot more useful. The lessathi on this continent already have direct access to the Magium. That’s why an affinity to it would be helpful for them. But again, this is all just a theory, until I make my test.”

  “Why would the lessathi have direct access to the Magium?” I say.

  “They are allied with the kings of Varathia, remember?” Arraka says. “They even helped with the organization of this tournament. If the kings have access to the Magium, then so do they.”

  “Oh, right, I forgot,” I say. “So… how do you think the lessathi might have gotten their affinity to the Magium?”

  “I have no idea,” Arraka says. “One thing I remember reading in the writings of the lessathi of old was that their race has had somewhat of an unhealthy obsession with the Magium for many thousands of years, so maybe
that could have been part of the reason. But if you’re asking me exactly how it happened, then your guess is as good as mine.”

  “I see…” I say.

  I then stay silent for about twenty more seconds, waiting for Arraka to do her thing, but it doesn’t really look like she’s making much progress.

  “Are you still doing that test of yours?” I say. “What is it that you’re trying to test for, exactly?”

  “I’m trying to see if any of the lessathi over there are able to sense our presence,” Arraka says. “I’ve been trying to reach them through a myriad of magical frequencies for the past few minutes, but I haven’t had any luck just yet. If my theory is correct, then the fact that we are linked to the Magium right now should make it possible for them to detect us, even if we don’t technically exist in their own world. Maybe I’m going about this in the wrong way, though. Let me try something else.”

  All of a sudden, three clowns appear out of nowhere, right between the lessathi and the row of orphans, and they start to dance in place, imitating the movement of gorillas, with big grins on their faces.

  “There we go,” Arraka says. “This should liven up the place a bit. But I still feel like there’s something missing. Hey, Flower, why don’t you go dance with those clowns for a bit? You’re already dressed for the part, so all you need to do is mimic their movements.”

  “I’m not wearing clown clothes!” Flower shouts, furiously. “How many times do I need to explain this to you? These are acrobat clothes! They’re the same type of clothes as what I used to wear back in Olmnar, when I was performing as a trapeze artist at the circus!”

  “Uh-huh,” Arraka says. “Sure they are. Now be a good girl and go dance with your brethren over there, so we can—”

  “Did you sense that?…” one of the lessathi asks one of his colleagues.

  “Sense what?” asks the other lessathi.

  “There was some sort of… strange presence coming from right in front of us, just now…” the first lessathi says. “It felt like it wasn’t even part of this world. As if it didn’t even exist! Do you understand what I mean?”