First Wizard

MY NAME IS ARSHES MEGANE AND I AM IMMORTAL. Before Arshes can save the future, she must first learn about the past. Travelling back further than ever before, she seeks a mythical figure, who disappeared around Year Zero. A great personal tragedy leads devoted young cleric, Mags, to question her devotion of faith, beginning a journey that will change her world forever. She meets a new friend with a joy of life and a fierce belief in the power of the individual, and though it’s against her Church’s teachings, Mags embraces that, but there’s more to do. Much more. If she continues to cling to any aspect of her past, then all will be lost. The future hinges on her complete and utter rejection of all she has ever been. Only then can she embrace who and what she will become: the first wizard. Only then can the world be saved. This is the story of The Salvation of Tempestria, as told by an immortal girl from the future using an Illegal Time Intervention to save the world…or possibly end it.

Chapter 1 Seeing history and understanding it are two different things. One of my teachers tried to tell me that, gentle reader, back when my true age matched my appearance – a teenager. For me, it has taken the best part of a thousand years for that lesson to sink in, so I suppose I can hardly blame the rest of the world for not realising its full importance. Before the void creature – the Monster that attacked last year – Tempestria was a world with Temporal magic like no other. Recreational observational Time travel had been available to all for decades. For centuries, there had been Three Guardians with access to Interactive Time travel. Then there was me, Arshes Megane, child of the Guardianship. Catriona Redfletching gave birth to me as she had previously given birth to the Guardianship itself. By my very nature, I have innate abilities beyond even the Guardians, yet despite all those advantages, people the world over have forgotten their history. Year Zero, we call it. The point, almost two thousand years ago, at which all knowledge of our world ceases. Strictly speaking, gentle reader, that’s not entirely accurate. We do have a somewhat confused geological record, but in terms of the living world, there is nothing. There are no records, no artefacts, no ancient, buried civilisations beyond two millennia. Not even so much as a fossil. It is as if, two thousand years ago, life on my world suddenly sprang into existence in its present form. These days, we are part of a multi-world organisation called the Commonwealth of Worlds. Or, as I affectionally like to call it, the COW. It consists of dozens of independent worlds. Worlds of magic and technology, both. Our most technologically advanced member is Lavos, one of our fellow founder worlds. Over the centuries, there have been many joint studies of Tempestria by technological and magical means. Using their techniques as well as our own. Those studies always confirmed that all the humans and Faery of Tempestria are native to this world. Everything that we are points to a long evolutionary process over millions of years, alongside all other lifeforms, here on this mortal world. Yet, there is no evidence of this process. Now, I can see how that may seem like an odd thing to focus on, gentle reader, given our situation. Our impending annihilation at the hands of the Monster, the increasingly violent void storms threatening to tear our world apart and my most immediate personal problem of being stuck inside my own pocket dimension. If you are thinking such a thing, however, I must once again remind you of the importance of understanding history. For that is where the answer lies. The answer to everything. It was, in essence, why I chose to conduct my Illegal Time Intervention to bring my father, Daelen StormTiger, here from a critical moment in Tempestria’s past. I sought to gain knowledge and learn his secrets. I needed to see history – his, mine, our world’s – and I needed to understand it. Mind you, when I came up with my ridiculous radical plan, I had no idea how far I would have to go for that understanding. Before I could open my eyes to either future or past, however, I first needed to open my eyes to the present. ***** I woke up feeling cold, stiff, and uncomfortable, which was hardly surprising, given my surroundings, lying on the cold hard stone floor in the Elvarian Crypt. Still, at least I was refreshed and recovered from my efforts against the Neverpeople. Picking myself up off the floor, I stretched out the kinks in my muscles and grabbed a change of clothes out of my pocket dimension. My father rose, then, and went through a similar routine, fishing a fresh combat suit out of a concealed compartment under the Regeneration Casket. I vaguely worried about the implications of him taking that outfit back into the past when he eventually returned. To my eyes, it appeared identical, but I thought it would probably be best if he changed back later, so I put his old outfit in my pocket dimension to keep it safe. Compared to the wider implications of my Illegal Time Intervention, gentle reader, this may seem like a minor detail, but in my experience, it’s always the little things that come back to bite you. “I’m starving,” Daelen remarked, without preamble. It was a fair point, and one which I hadn’t realised I agreed with until he said it. Getting food was normally such a simple, mundane task, but at that moment, it required careful consideration – as I say, it’s always the little things. There were two hostile Guardians out there, somewhere, and showing my face outside the walls of the Elvarian Crypt was likely to lead to a confrontation with either them or Commonwealth Security, or both. Thanks to my recent actions, aiding Tristan’s heroic self-sacrifice, I’d even somewhat burnt my bridges with Aunt Mandalee. Acting on a vague memory, I reached into my pocket dimension, once more, and pulled out a few sandwiches. Though they were about a week old, those sandwiches were perfectly fresh – pocket dimensions have a way of preserving food – but they wouldn’t do much to stave off our hunger. So, I put them back in case I might want them later…or earlier, depending on where and when my next move took me. That thought was the trigger. The obvious solution. “Pick a random number between one and a hundred.” “Forty-seven,” Daelen replied. “Why?” “Because that’s where I’m going to get us some food. Forty-seven years ago.” It was mostly a precaution. I didn’t think Fabian or Silvarnus knew me well enough to anticipate my actions, but there was always a chance that they might, if I simply made the choice myself. However, there was no way they could predict a random number chosen by my father. So, I stepped through the dimensions to a little place I knew at Kingsville Piers, before it got swept away like so much of our world, these days. A moment later, from my father’s perspective, I returned with a veritable feast. Absent a tablecloth, I spread a bedsheet on the floor and set everything out. If only all my life’s problems could be so easily solved. ***** At last, the moment had come. My one chance for a conversation with my father. My only opportunity to get the information I needed. I couldn’t do this again. “So,” I began after swallowing a mouthful of delicious Wirathian cheese imported from Lavos. “Falycia. Before we were rudely interrupted by invading Neverpeople, you were about to tell me about it.” My father nodded thoughtfully. “And you say Michael told you that name?” Daelen had so far shown remarkable restraint by not asking what had happened to him. From the haunted look in his eyes when he spoke his name, though, I suspected he had guessed the answer and didn’t want to hear verbal confirmation. “He said I need to find it,” I confirmed. Daelen frowned. “Find it?” he echoed. “What an odd thing to say.” “Why?” I asked. Seeing my father hesitate, I implored him, “Please, Dad. You promised to help.” “To help fight a monster, yes. So why can’t we go and do that, Arshes? After that business with the Neverpeople, he no longer has any place to hide, so why can’t we hunt him down, combine our powers and fight?” “Because, as my mum kept trying to tell you, back in the day, power isn’t everything. This is why I brought you here, Dad. Not to fight monsters with your power – although I appreciate your help with the Neverpeople – but to share your knowledge. That’s how we save the world.” My father smiled. “You are your mother’s daughter.” “Sometimes,” I allowed, flashing a smile in return, “but I’m also your daughter. Who else are you going to share your secrets with, if not family?” “Family,” he echoed, his eyes misting over. “It’s been a long time since I had one of those.” “You’ll see your mother again,” I pointed out. “You’ve read it in my books.” He nodded. “Shortly before I become a monster.” I had no answer to that as Daelen continued, “But she’s not who I was thinking of. That name, Falycia. It just brings it all back.” “Falycia, whatever it is, is important to you?” I surmised. “No…yes…well, sort of.” I tried hard not to let my frustration show. “Look, Dad, I know you’ve held onto your secrets for a long time, but if you don’t share them with me, the world ends. It’s as simple as that. I have no other ideas. This is it.” Still, he hesitated. “Come on, Dad! It’s a thousand years in the future. What do your secrets matter now?” “More than two thousand, actually,” he corrected, “and it matters because it’s about family. But, as you say, you’re family, too, and you deserve to know, though I can’t imagine how it will help.” “Let me worry about that. Just tell me. Michael told me to find Falycia. Why is that so strange?” With a sigh of resignation, my father answered, “Because it’s right here.” “Where?” I asked, looking around the room as though it might be labelled. “Everywhere. It’s everything. The whole world. Falycia is what your world used to be called before the void storms began.” My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. “The lost world!” I gasped. It really was labelled. Not here in this crypt, but in the ancient repository of knowledge under Quernhow. The inscription over the door had literally spelt it out for me: IN LOVING MEMORY OF FALYCIA THE LOST WORLD I looked up to see tears in my father’s eyes. “Yes,” he affirmed. “Falycia was lost and so was she. Two thousand years ago, now, I lost her.” “Lost who?” I wondered. “Someone I loved so very much. Someone I miss every single day.” Taking a wild guess, I tentatively asked, “Does this have something to do with Rose?” Rose was a mortal woman he had fallen in love with. She was really an avatar, a fully independent and sapient magical copy, sent from another universe. Sent by a version of my mother, Catriona, on that doomed world. The original Tempestria, ravaged by Heaven’s Surrender and infested with the chaotic power of IT, fully unleashed, unmaking everything. Rose was part of a ridiculous radical plan to create a copy of Tempestria. One that could survive through the actions of the Guardians. The plan was a success, as the presence of our facsimile world can attest. However, since that original Tempestria was unmade, it never existed. Therefore, the Original Three Guardians from our world had to travel back in Time to create a series of paradoxes. Those paradoxes would ensure that the events that led to saving the world at the Fall of Kullos would happen as they were supposed to. It was a brilliant strategy with just one tiny flaw. My mother died. Catriona Redfletching died giving birth to me before she could fully enact her part of the plan. She never sent her magical copy back in Time, so there never was a Rose. There couldn’t be. That should have unravelled Time, but somehow, the Timeline remained intact. Theories abound, filling whole books with speculation, but no-one has come up with a definitive answer to this riddle. Perhaps Time is more robust than we give it credit for. I sincerely hope so, given my Illegal Time Intervention. However, it turned out that my guess was way off target and my father shook his head. “This was long before Rose.” At least that was confirmation that Rose did somehow exist in this Timeline, but I quickly put that aside as another thought took its place. Once again, my recent activities, writing the history of our world and forming it into a narrative, paid dividends. “That’s what Sara said,” I recalled. When my mother and Aunt Mandalee had spent time in Daelen’s base on Earth, Sara had shared that little nugget of information. She said he had slipped up once and mentioned his lost loves. “Loves, plural.” I echoed my mother’s words a millennium ago. “You had a lover before Rose?” Daelen screwed up his face in disgust. “No!” Then, reconsidering, he revised his answer. “Well, yes, back in the shadow realm, I did have a…girlfriend, to put it in mortal terms. It was quite serious for a while. She was the first person to see my true inner light, but that relationship ended even before Kullos went off the rails.” I flushed bright red at that. My father was basically talking about the first person with whom he’d made love, and I was very keen for him to stop. Thankfully, he did. “The person I’m talking about meant far more to me than that.” “So, if not a lover, then what?” “There are different kinds of love, Arshes,” he replied pointedly. “Of course,” I realised. “Family.” He nodded. “My sister.” “You have a sister?” That meant I had another aunt that I knew nothing about. “Yes…well, I had a sister. Maybe I still do, in a way. I don’t know. It’s complicated. If she were still around, she would be exactly the person you need to talk to if you want to know how to defeat me in combat. She always did, growing up. I was more powerful in terms of brute force, but she always found a way around that.” He smiled. “I think your mother reminded me of her, in a way. Is that weird? That I fell for Catriona because she subconsciously reminded me of my sister?” Reaching out to clasp his hands in mine, I repeated his own words back to him. “There are different kinds of love, Dad, and I think my mum would have been flattered to know she made you think of someone who obviously meant so much to you.” At that point, I felt it was time for a father-daughter hug, which I broke after a moment to ask, “What was her name?” “Ah, well now, you already know that. Or at least your mother did. I don’t know if the name still survives in this age. I hope so.” “Tell me and I’ll let you know,” I suggested. “Alright, her name was Alycia. In your mother’s time, and for a thousand years before, people knew her as—” “—Blessed Alycia, Mother of Nature,” I interrupted. “So, she was a real person, after all. A shadow warrior.” Daelen shook his head. “She was Shadowkin and more besides, but she was never a warrior. Oh, she fought, don’t get me wrong, but she fought in her own way.” “Just like my mother,” I observed. “Just like your mother,” he echoed with a smile. “So, Alycia was with you on Falycia, in those days?” He nodded and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything more, a thought struck me. “Hang on. Alycia…Falycia. That’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?” Again, he nodded. “That’s why she chose this world. It’s what attracted her. Of all the countless worlds in the mortal plane, all the glittering jewels of the cosmos, yours alone almost bore her name. How was a girl supposed to resist?” “A pretty jewel?” I frowned, my mouth pulling into a thin line. “That’s how she thought of my world?” “At first, yes, but then she came here. Then she saw it…and she fell in love.” That didn’t make me feel any better about it, gentle reader. To me, it seemed like typical highhanded higher planar behaviour. Patronising and insulting.