Snippet from a story I'm writing

[Aaron Lowe]

He was shown into the crumbling shack, which, had it been above ground, wouldn’t have lasted a single night out in the open. Inside the woman sat still with a red veil drawn over her face. The way she crouched made her look old.

She bid him to sit also. No introductions were offered or received.

They sat opposite each other for a while. Unsure what was expected of him he waited. He looked around, at the candle light flickering against broken ballasts feebly holding the straw roof down. Into the dark corners seeking movement. At that red veil to try and catch a breath, but there was none. He grew nervous.

Then it seemed that something was happening. He could hear a voice. The shadows changed direction as if they had broken free from their creators. The light began to detach from the air around it and splinter within itself.

He could hear the voice clearly now. It was male. Instinctively he thought it was the voice of Xanthia. How strange…

“…strange, worlds where people skid across great plains of ice, pushed only by the Claw.”

It seemed to start with the end of a sentence. He wondered what its beginnings had been. What was this claw?

“No doubt, you’re asking what the Claw is.”

Not for the first time he wondered if his thoughts were being read. Was this claw a literal description or a metaphor symbolising some force?

“Was it a divine wind pushing travellers across the ice on a boat with a sale? Nay, it was the Claw. Reaching out through the heavens about it to push vessels across plains like a child pushes a small toy.”

His mind stalled for a moment and waited for clarity.

“As if that wasn’t enough of a clue then I don’t know what is. Such a ridiculous reality that ye can only come to one conclusion, that either God was a child, or insane. Maybe t’was both.”

But instead of clarity he only had loose connections.

“A child teaches divine love, the insane pose the question: are you mad but cannot answer? Which God would you prefer?”

Did he have a choice. Did anyone?

“I know which one I chose, but the other possibility is never far from my mind. Eating away like a worm trying to find the core of an apple. Just a matter of time before it gets you too.”

He wondered how this applied to their current situation.

“The child divines love, as if Love could be somewhere. Yet the child sees the white twist time into itself. The prophecy of Divine Love.”

He’d never heard of this prophecy.

“Do you know it?”

No, and he should. He knew every prophecy that has been discovered for hundreds of years.

“It led to the discovery of a new world, far stranger than all the others put together. Where the God of Strange slept. Strange Love indeed.”

Oh, was it a prophecy from another realm? He’d never specialised in those. Never actually knew one existed.

“These people knew magic as we do, but only as parlour tricks. Yet somehow they went on to wield a magic far greater than you or I can conceive.”

The arch-mage scoffed at this slightly, not for himself, but for Xanthia, greatest of the known magic wielders to claim this was indeed, very strange.

“Yet there was a dark stain upon that world. As if the Devil’s hand had not itself reached up from Hell to drag all into the Abyss. Terrible diseases that would rip apart a person just as completely as one of their terrible weapons.”

A warrior race? Wielding magic beyond their comprehension that could rip apart a person. He was glad he’d never have to go there.

“It was as though their world was being gripped in an eternal battle between God and the Devil. Perhaps their God was a child after all, fighting over a ball with His dark brother.”

The image was just as farcical but he held onto the prophecy. He may never get another chance.

“In this realm, the God had complete control over all things and even power over the nothingness that kept them apart. But even this God could not control the heart of men since it was the same God’s decree that free will is now and always. That decree could never be broken.”

He wondered if that was wise, but Gods that saw all of eternity often made decisions that confounded logic.

“Which is exactly as it was meant to be. As it was designed to be. Still, it left open a back door in their world. A door in which everyone was facing away swept up by the brilliance and beauty of their world.”

“Through this door came temptation. Through this door came desire.”

“Can you imagine, your fate not free to roam where it needs to be? This world was a prison to fate. It held it down in terrifying machines made from the fear of millions. Twisted and turned into a dark reflection of hate from the world, beaming out like some terrible black beacon of Hell.”

He imagined this darkness beaming out across the map of creation, like an invitation.

“What did the people do? Did they see the encroaching danger?”

Erm…

“Yes, they saw it?”

Phew…

“Did they not see their undoing in that danger?”

Surely…

“Yes, some saw it and they told others?”

“Those that saw it, did they close that door in folly, or open into it with faith?”

Wait, that door was a door to Hell. To close it wouldn’t be folly.

“They attempted to close that door in folly and in doing so the Evil within quickly grew, like a deadly spider casting black thread around an apple. They thought to begin with that there was no danger but they were losing time. As they delayed those threads grew stronger to the point there was no way out.”

Closing this door to Hell brought forth the evil? The thought disturbed him.

“Remember we were all viewing this through the Prophecy. What the decisions were we could not know but we witnessed this terrible dance between light and dark, whose names do not do them justice. Darkness, so dark, that the darkest thing you can imagine is like a blazing sun besides. A darkness of the soul. From this terrible darkness was born Hope.”

Hope, he wondered. So she choose to show herself. He guessed it was because that was the moment she was needed the most.

“Light so bright that once and in the same moment, to be completely destroyed and remade in God’s image. In that moment to know that light is a love that penetrates all the way to the soul and beyond the eternal boundary.”

“We watched, in horror, in passion, in empathy and pain through it all, but far away from being able to do anything about it. It became such a pull on our souls that the Prophecy had to be secured away from the madness infecting the viewers.”

He’d heard of Prophecies like these. Some went on to become the Prophecies of Apocrypha, but he’d long dismissed their danger as only being in challenging the dominance of the Tribunal.

“Who could save them? It was terrible to watch, but we couldn’t rip ourselves away. It had us too though we hadn’t yet realised it.”

He wondered if he was being pulled in. No, such an idea was preposterous, stupid even.

“But then it ended. The bubble burst. The Prophecy was over.”

He felt disappointment. One moment preparing for danger then… nothing. No action?

“We came out of the gloom in shock. It took days for us to even take stock of where or who we were, such was the toll taken on our hearts.”

“Yet, it was not over. Not really.”

Not over?

“The portal had closed but left seeds behind. Those seeds drifted through the ether until they came to rest, entangled in our virgin minds yet unaware of themselves.”

Had they lost their minds and rebuilt them anew?

“We started dreaming. Dreams of the portal. Then those dreams became visions, moments stolen from time in which eternity lay in waiting.”

How was this possible? A prophecy wasn’t alive. It couldn’t effect anything once it ended. It shouldn’t be able to, anyway.

“We reopened the portal.”

Not possible! The portal was in the prophecy and was closed the moment the prophecy ended.

“Wraiths we were then, clinging to life, yet we reopened the portal to die in the bliss of that one moment.”

Well, they must have survived he thought, or I’d not be hearing this now.

“At first we did not know what had changed? Our time outside of the Connect had been but a few days, but in the Prophecy their world had changed considerably.”

That made sense. Time moved differently in different worlds. T’was common sense he thought.

“It was their magical birth. Such a beautiful thing to see. We had never imagined that magic could be ‘born’ and to witness this from a world where magic has always been was a most profound gift.”

He just couldn’t imagine Xanthia saying these things. It was like he was hearing Calam speak through Xanthia. This confused him, but he listened.

[Aaron Lowe]

“She was light and He was form, this angel. It strove forth spreading calm across the battlefield.”

“Her breath was like Creation, blowing life into the legions of dead. Her magic was a Spirit Warrior. But, there was another that knew that spell. It was the Devil’s least favourite.”

“Up strung a great demon, bigger than the rest, towering over the city. It leached forth a Spirit Warrior of its own.”

“He was half a dream lost in the darkness, reaching forth with dark embrace, to hold, and be Hel’d.”

“To be held is to be helled. That is Hell. There was no known defence for this attack. How would the angel respond?”

“She turned within. Ceasing to exist. Once the Devil’s hold was Hel’d no longer she existed again to poor light into his open heart.”

“T’was a Death’s Blow. The Devil screamed and staggered and, still clutching its chest fell like an earthquake. It was Bloody Incursion, the worst of the Blows."

An incursion? What’s that?

“An incursion is when a battle is fought within. The angel had taken the Devil into Hell, to end the battle there. The battle that would end the Eternal War.”

“So the prophets met. What was left of them, a machine, a young man, to meet the ghost of one of Lucifer’s agents.”

“Lucifer. T’was it you wanted?”

“Your surrender. This planet. All mine.”

“Tis not our planet, you will have to ask others.”

“We do not ask. We demand.”

Floating in the air between them was an angel. So small she swam between worlds that make up this world. Each with the own moons, free but slave to the whole.

Some of the light from below glinted in a spec of dust in the air. This glint caught the eye of the young man.

“Get out!” he shouted.

Lucifer’s ghost vanished.

“What are you doing?” asked Gozan. He possessed the body of a Rotate, suited to paddling through the atmosphere but not quite to gravity.

“We were intercepted,” he said, “It’s a trap!”

“Outside Chenwe floated. She pondered for a second. I white light stabbed down, and she was gone, falling away into the night.”

“Clouds parted. The birds flew in a spiral. Love’s angel had awoken from the spell. Now t’was time for her reply.”

He watched somehow, in wonder and horror, remembering what he saw so that he could pen write a spell.

“The angel spread forth a ball of light in which if one looked it imprisoned them in Heaven’s illusion of Ever.”

“She was really trying to banish the Devil from Hell.”

Banish only had one counterspell, he knew. What was it? Timestop. But how far would the banishment reach before the Devil’s Timestop triggered. Banishment was instant, but so was Timestop.

“The Illusion of Ever, made Creation. Creation folded into an ocean of chaos and became whole, spreading forth across the Abyss. Forever banishing it. But not Ever. Before Ever.”

She isn’t banishing the devil, he realised, she’s banishing darkness from this Devil's heart. That’s why he’s clutching at his chest.

“T’was a terrible roar. The Devil reached out His darkness but at the edges it turned to light. That light burned on the outskirts of Hell and raged inwards.”

What is in the Devil’s Timestop? Even another Timestop wouldn’t help.

“There was no counterspell to this spiritual burning that the Devil knew. Ne’r could he cast with time halted in its tracks, by his own spell no less. What treachery.”

“Pestilence turned him to flies. Flies without hearts. To escape that brilliant flame.”

One of his Timestop spells was Dominance, over one of his own. That’s genius.

“The angel could easily move without time. She didn’t even need space. She burnt the air.”

“The swarm turned and burrowed into the ground, to find Hells embrace there.”

The battle was over. But wasn’t the war? This was supposed to be the last battle. But the Devil still lived. What does that mean?

“It meant that the war was neither won nor lost. There was only one option left. A truce. The Great Truce. Between Heaven and Hell. And this world, this world, would become the last outpost to watch over them both.”

“Another angel appeared. With wings of pure light spreading out in every direction. To be in His presence was to fall in love.”

The demons didn’t love this angel, they feared Him. Feared him with a terrible love that invaded their hearts. They hated it and loved it at the same time. The Truce was reaching right down into their dark souls.”

What, demon’s don’t have souls. That’s what makes them demons!

“In His presence the demon’s will became an extension of His own. ‘Thy Will be done, on Earth, as it IS in Heaven.’”

He’s possessing the demons. That’s a high risk strategy. That doorway opens both ways.

“The Devil turned and stared at that far star. He willed it close and looked into it. It was a doorway he knew but cut off from his forces above he knew not to where. There were of course only two places it could now lead, Heaven and Creation.”

“He injected himself through that door appearing back in Creation. But this was an early creation, not yet formed. Nevertheless, it sufficed.”

“The Devils form coalesced from the void like rain in the night. He was back. The war wasn’t over yet.”

[Aaron Lowe]

He tried to pull himself from Prophecy. But it continued. He focussed on letting go. But it persisted. He was trapped and that realisation awoke with him. He had a Timestop of it’s own triggered to Dispel if he was incapacitated.

The Prophecy of Love could only be viewed outside of time. He had also needed to make sure it could be stopped before he went in.

He shook his head trying to shake the strange tale from his head. It didn’t work. He could feel a seed growing within him. His mind reeled. He fell down on his knees.

Xanthia laughed. The sound seared his soul. How had this thing followed him here?

Xanthia, one of the legion, that couldn’t be. That legion had only existed inside the Prophecy.

“Yess. Yessss. You ssee.”

His restorative training kicked in. Confusion. Counterspell. Now.

He cast Remove Curse, The confusion ended. A black bracelet of thorns wilted from his wrist and fell to the floor. His eyes darted for a moment searching for parchment but there was none up here.

Xanthia paused and cast Blindness, but before it could reach the arch-mage he’d responded with Light.

The Blindness impacted harmlessly on the wall.

Xanthia cancelled the gravity in the air. The arch-made began to float, ungracefully. He unleashed an offensive spell upon himself, Burden. Then cast the quickest spell he could, spraying Xanthia’s many eyes with balls of coloured light.

Of course he knew Xanthia was almost immune, but it gave him a chance to make a dart out of the cavern.

Xanthia cast a spire of ice at the arch-mage's head then exploded in a field of anti-magic, consuming the Colour Spray.

He had just enough time to glance back and trip to fall over and watch the light crystal impact on the exit, freezing it over. Destructive - figures, he thought. That's one school all dark wizards focus on first.

Xanthia laughed, “I’d forgotten how much fun this could be.”

The monster willed forward the anti magic shell filling the short cavern and encompassing them both.

The arch-mage stood, glancing back.

“Behold, you are but a man, yet I am still Beholden," Xanthia laughed.

He needed a priest, to exorcise this demon. Could Calam survive, he didn’t know. I have to die he thought. The only one that can save me how is Herza. She that haunts me from the temple. But no magic. Nothing that he could call on to die.

How was it, he thought, that Herza could be. Wasn’t she a Deity of pure Magic? Yet he felt her presence but did not know how to reach it. All that he could do was yearn for help, before it was too late.

Xanthia hovered still. That was also something that confused him. How was that possible? An innate ability immune to cancellation? He backed away slowly towards the exit.

“That won’t help you. This Shell extends beyond the door.”

Really? he thought as he turned and ran.

He reached the door. It was just a step past the Shell. That meant it remained frozen, but it gave the arch-mage some room to cast a little spell. He heated the handle behind him as he faced Xanthia coming closer.

“I know what you’re doing,” Xanthia snarled, “Did you really believe there was a way out?”

He didn’t stop. Way out or no he was opening that door. Its handle began to budge. He fell backward.

Onto a hard floor and the bottom of stone stairs reaching up to the surface. Quickly he placed a magical lock on the door. It wouldn’t delay Xanthia for no more than a moment but that was better than nothing.

He turned, slipped and fumbled forward onto the first step and began the climb to the top.

The Door blasted off of its hinges and the floor rumbled.

He looked back, something telling him that it was almost upon him. But it was too late. He had reached the top and whatever plans Xanthia had to kill him would have to wait.

[Aaron Lowe]

Oof, these are first draft and quite cheesy lol Need to spruce it up.
But fun to write.

So, here's a clue to cannon.
What you would see looking into that demon's eye. Notice how it changes every time.

[Aaron Lowe]

On the way back to the farming village the arge-mage stopped, half turning his head back to the gazebo atop the stair. He thought about the Velothi taint infecting the Imperial Fort. It made the land unstable. Perhaps it would bury Xanthia, he hoped. Perhaps it would free him, he shuddered.

The Fort, despite it’s precarious position had stood fast for nearly 80 years. That it would choose now to save them seemed too much like wishful thinking. He dismissed it as wanton fantasy and turned his mind, face and footsteps back to the spell. Parchment, he needed it. One of the merchants in the tower would have some. He was not in the mood for delay.

In the third tower he found the cleric. She flicked her tail at him. From their species this was a mild flirt, but unfortunately their mating ritual including eating their host, so maybe she was just hungry. He diverted the topic.

“Just some parchment,” he repeated trying not to sound in haste.

“Some empty parchmentsss,” she hissed, confirming his request. Initially she had tried to hawk off some cantrip.

He grabbed the paper and left the recess from the tower stair. Heading upward he went all the way to the top until he came to the stepladder leading to the trapdoor above. There he sat on the stair comfortable that his work would be unlikely to be interrupted from above or below, and even if someone did chance upon him he’d know long before they did. He was free to think.

The memory was fading fast after his encounter with Xanthia. He wanted to think about how that demon had got here but needed to focus on the spell. Yet, it divided a little of his attention as he shelved the memory for later.

He chose a school: Illusion. He already knew the name, Illusion of Ever. He trance scripted.

Days passed yet he moved not an inch. He was grateful that nobody passed that way but was becoming increasingly aware that his body was failing. He’d need to break the trance to cast some restorative spells.

Before he lost the spell he wrapped it up in a song. That pleased his sense of humour and seemed poetic to keep the Illusion of Ever within a lyric. Illusion was an art craft that many mages treated like a cudgel, missing out on its subtle beauty.

He had hoped to finish it there but eventually someone did come. One of the servants sent to fetch some bolts stored at the top of the stair. It jolted him from his deliberations. He’d become lost in the spell. Illusion, that seductress had her talons too. Before the servant could reach the top stair the arch-mage stepped into a shadow and Chameleoned himself into the brickwork.

He breathed within the lung, not out of his mouth. Even a human with an ear next to his mouth would not have heard anything but and Elf, they would have known he was there. The servant was neither. His fur was slightly unkempt. For a species obsessed with hygiene he was a little surprised.

This servant was taking too long. His lungs were struggling for air. Eventually the cat had the bolts he had been tasked for then took an excruciating amount of time nailing down the lid of the crate before skipping off down the stairs.

The arch-mage gasped. Almost killed by a cat he laughed, in his mind. His lungs had not yet equalised. He resisted the desire cough.

He cancelled his Fatigue but could not summon food or water. Instead he cast a weak ice spike against the wall then warmed it back to water. That would have to suffice for now.

He returned to the trance. It took some time for him to reorientate back to the point he’d left off. He discovered the song and laughed. An interesting choice to wrap the spell in a song. That would help realign him with the feelings he had before leaving the trance.

He shrugged off the memory of himself and entered the spell fully. The words crawled across the parchment. He didn’t need a pen any more. The ink flowed with his mind.

For any spell to be written the level above it must be understood. So, for example, to write a simple Light spell one would need to “know” about the method behind Night Eye. To put Night Eye to parchment one would need to “know” Blindness.

The arch-mage considered what he needed to know to pen this Illusion of Ever.

Consider that I am to understand this, he thought, that implies that at some time in the future I would have cause to cast it. If I did indeed cast it then I would have access to the past in a way memory cannot reach. Would I not be tempted to contact myself?

Assuming this happened, how would I do this, he wondered. How could he guess at his future self’s methods without being his future self? It was a dilemma, but his logic came back for another round.

Your future self has all the same memories you have now, yet it might have limits you might not yet understand. This isn’t as simple as passing a letter through a portal. We’re talking about bringing the past and the future into the same space. How, for example, could you keep your thoughts lucid when they are used to following cause and effect?

I’d have to think outside of time, he thought, before I cast the spell. I don’t need to succeed, just attempt it. That would be the bridge. If I don’t meet myself half way then I know it’s not possible.

As he walked this “bridge” senses came to him. He saw life as a ball of light outside of him. He saw his soul float around him. His mind panicked, but he was not with mind. He let it panic and proceeded along the bridge.

Around him floated stars shimmering. He knew it as The Connect. Not the stars themselves but the space between. He followed the bridge.

Now all of Creation was but a thought. He continued on, to the eternity within. He had the answer then, on how to finish the spell. Yet he knew this was pointless. Nothing that could be done in life or Creation mattered here. It would all come to the same end.

And then it happened. Time before time.

[Aaron Lowe]

His thoughts returned to the battle within the prophecy. Somehow he had been there.

He had been arguing with some woman and cast a Shout to drown her just as he tripped over a dead demon.

She had been carrying some artefact they needed to win the battle. The Shout had missed her and impacted upon the artefact shattering it to dust.

She rose in a cloud of rage and turned her back on him. He had levitated too to stop her from leaving.

She lashed out sending him tumbling backwards into a chaos machine. Or so he had thought. She was actually stopping to tell him she had been wrong.

She fought through the demons crowding round but it was too late. His dying words were that she had given him all he ever wanted. The machine turned his pain into fuel for the demons and the battle there was lost.

He didn't know what had happened to her.

Was a memory of regrets. His mind in league with his heart to pull him back into time.