Reflections

It is strange how, over the years, I have come to take magic for granted. Once, as a child, I treated magic as a toy and reveled in its power without thinking of its sacredness and the dangers it bore. I was a child then, disowned by my father for my magic, and an outcast even within the wallls of the tower of Ilxior. Then, I went too far, blind to the risks that would be all to obvious to someone who truly understood magic. But then again, there are always very few of those. The results were devastating. Something happened to me, something I am reluctant to discuss even with my wives. I lost a great deal, but gained so much more. My sight was gone, and I could no longer even pretend to be as a man among other men. I became Jarlath the Mad, Jarlath the Broken. But I gained a far greater gift, a gift that was also a curse. I could see around the corners of time.

For many years I bore this gift, this curse, this vocation. Since I gained my "second sight," I had seen shadows of a great war between light and darkness, a war at the center of which would be my own brother, now a servant of Hell--and one Andrea de Croix, a young woman who was very much like what I had once been, full of untapped potential and wilful foolishness. I sought to set her on the right path so that she could defeat the wyrm Minestus, who was secretly stealing the power of the much more powerful wyrm Deltuminos. I would lead my brother, his allies, and Andrea to a terrible yet necessary end. And then, my end would come. For I knew from the beginning how the battle would turn out. I was at one with destiny.

Yet destiny changed. I saw the coming of strange beings who seemed like nothing that could possibly exist in this world, and for the first time in a very long time felt bewilderment, anger, and fear. For I had not forseen these things. My sight had left me both powerless and powerful, for I could see the possible paths of fate but felt trapped by them. Now, I found myself truly blind. At the same time, there is a freedom to my new ignorance, yet I find it frightening. My father and mother, lost long ago, seemed to appear to me, and I clung to them like the child I had stopped being long ago. But then, my "father" turned into a monster and all seemed lost.

But then, a sound rang out, the sound of a bullet. One that, for the way it struck the fey down, could only have been made of dragonbane. And then, I felt the prescence of two beings of incredible power and benevolence, and I knew from that moment that all was safe. Soon after that, my sight returned, and I looked upon the world anew with grateful eyes. I was a man reborn.

The time after that was to me as my childhood had once been, before the flames of unleashed magic had destroyed the tower of Ilxior. I fought many battles, but they were not terrible burdens to me as my war with Minestus had once been, but exciting adventures. I found a real home for the first time in the world of Terra Prime, a world devastated by a cataclysm but which rebuilt itself stronger than ever, much as I would. I was fascinated by the strange new concepts I discovered there, and was delighted to find a place at which I was truly at home. Terra was a dimensional nexus of sorts, and the fact that so many strange beings lived here lent the peoples of Terra a much greater appreciation of diversity than my own world. Here, even a mage could be part of a family. For I had found a family in the Champions, and had learned to know people as friends rather than as pawns. And I even found love, with two women, no less. This was the happiest time of my life.

Things have begun to change, though. There is tension beginning to show between Astra and Annafrid. They handle it with an admirable civility, but I, their husband, can tell that both fear in their hearts that I am not giving all of myself to them, that I am favoring the other. I myself have started to doubt whether I could truly loved both. T'imma's Sending seemed to show me that this was the course to be taken, but it was not the truth we felt but our own emotions. Yet I could not bear to give up either one--I have known both, and love them each equally. But I wonder if I love either one of them wholly. Perhaps I could not truly love either of them--after all, I am a mage, and they are warriors, and this will always be a great gulf between us. There are many parts of myself that they cannot even begin to understand, and vice versa. But this is not the reason that I have been more distant from them of late, although they believe it to be.

For ever since I first heard of this "Shadow War," my second sight has begun to return.

It is not as it once was, consuming the whole of my existence. The visions now mainly come to me when I am alone, and once they are over they are as half-remembered nightmares, which trouble my spirit but lead to no clear course. And they are not clear visions of the future, but cloaked in metaphors and symbols. The vision I experienced on the night before we went on this mission, however, I remember with terrible clarity. I dreamed of nine stars descending from the sky into a dark valley. But from the darkness emerged a terrible black serpent with eyes red as hatred itself. The stars fought the serpent and killed it, but their light was dimmed, and one was extinguished forever.

Many things have made me uneasy about this mission. The fey elves, for one. While I know that they are surely good people if they have been made Champions, my experience with the fey has been none too pleasant. Far more serious, though, is this Belboz with whom we have been dealing. I am a mage, and understanding other mages is far easier for me than for the others, for I can pick up on subtle cues that others might miss. I can tell that he is concealing something, and that he is not a brother in spirit to the Belboz who had once aided the Astra of my world. I am also troubled by his prolonged silence and by the way he is staring so intently at Astra. Perhaps he is in league with the Dragon somehow. Yet surely even he, or the Minestus of this world, could not kill a Champion. Yet what else could my dream portend?

As I said, I have come to take magic for granted over the ten years I have been a Champion. I no longer view it as a toy, and know all too well the seriousness of abusing it. Yet I have come to see magic as merely a tool. I have placed demands on it, without knowing that it might one day once more place demands on me. I have not told anyone of my visions yet, not even my wives. I am ashamed to admit that this is because I am afraid.

1. I listen warily as Belboz speaks...

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