Inner Discord

Chapter 19

It was not difficult to find Aphron. He was just sitting in the room were we had faced him some moments ago. When he saw I had woken up and was utterly confused, he smiled to me, like he knew perfectly what was going on. Moreover, as soon as I walked in, he told me this: 'Did you enjoy your dream? Or shall I say nightmare?'

Of course I immediately suspected him of having something to do with it.  So I answered: 'What can you tell me about that boy and girl? And why did you give me that dream?'

Aphron got up, sighing. 'It's a long story, you know... But since I was planning to tell you this morning anyway, I might as well do it now. Now, the first thing to make clear is that I did NOT give you that dream. I awoke it. I invaded your mind and activated a part that is a heritage of the boy you saw in that dream.'

I did not understand him. 'What do you mean?' I said, 'How come I had it then?'

Aphron clearly was irritated that his explanation had been interrupted. 'I'll get to that soon. Just listen. You have to know that you are the descendant of that boy and girl. They are your ancestors. We do not know much about them, but what we do know is that they are the source of all magic in this world.'

He let a pause fall. I reacted by giving him a nod. Aphron continued. 'After they had died, one or other way they revived themselves, having been given special powers no one else had. They are now known as magic. You have the basic magics and their respective anti magics that I already told you about, but what I did not tell you, is that as soon as you possess either all magics of a certain kind or at least six magics you will gain access to an ancient magic. They can take on all forms and are especially dangerous. Well, the boy and girl possessed all magics there are in all different forms and they had maxed out all of them. I think you know why that was dangerous?'

After thinking for a little bit, I understood it. 'The boy wanted all of mankind to disappear.'

'Indeed', Aphron answered. 'They started going on a rampage, murdering anyone on their path. But they did not have eternal lives. And they found it took too long to kill everyone this way. So they commenced a project: they prepared a machine, based on magic. It would cost them their consciousness. So as soon as the machine was ready, they fell unconscious, and they would not wake up till everyone was killed.

'All went smoothly, and the effects of the machine, nowadays known as the Black Death, started to mass murder everyone. They said it was a disease, but actually it was just magic. There was but one big problem: their machine required 3 rings to work, each of which symbolizes one of the three levels of basic magic. One person was smart enough to be able to remove them all, but he couldn't destroy them, so he spread them around the world, hoping that no one would ever find them again. And as an extra safety measure he set it so that only someone who possessed all magics of a certain kind could collect them again.

'But the boy and girl had foreseen this: they had one daughter and two sons, each of which could control all magics of a certain kind. They were destined to go and collect the rings back and put them in the machine. They didn't succeed, and their daughter and sons followed them up, and so on. It continued up to 2000, when they succeeded in finding all three rings. They even had a sect supporting them. But luckily, another sect, the resistance, could keep them from executing their evil plan. But the machine had already been activated for a bit. That's when the Great War broke out.

'The rings were put in safety again, but due to the magic that already was released, nearly everyone had died and there had even come new races into existence. Then something happened out of which mankind could make up that the descendants of the girl and boy were, apart from the only ones capable of finding the rings, the only ones who could destroy the rings. So if they were convinced that they had to destroy the rings as soon as they found them, mankind would be saved.

'But that did not succeed. But this time the rings were put away far better than previous time, and because no one was able to find them anyway, they fell into oblivion. However that was yet another thing the boy and girl had foreseen: if in 1500 years the rings weren't put back, they'd come back out of themselves. And it's nearly that time. So the rings need to be destroyed', Aphron finished.

I was confused. This was many information I received at once, and first I did not quite know what to do with it. So I asked a question: 'Am I one of these descendants then?'

'Yes,' Aphron answered.

'But then I still don't quite understand why I have these dreams.'

'Well, the boy and girl made sure that all of their descendants would know what their task was by putting a dream function in their brain, so that they would live their lives and be fully subjugated to them. But because of this, only true descendants know what exactly happened in their lives.'

'But why am I getting these dreams only now?'

'When you were still a baby, I blocked that part in your brain, to be activated yesterday again. It was necessary because you had to be ready for the task. And now I believe you're ready.'

'And what about that lightning after which I had received my powers?'

'Well, normally, you'd have had these powers since you were born, but I could not risk you getting killed for treason or something, so I sealed them in a way that only I could activate the again. The same goes for the other two descendants.'

'An who are those?'

'Well, you've already met them, or at least one of them. They are named Psyche and Seb. Seb already has got access to his powers, Psyche not yet.'

Now I understood. I wanted to let it subside, so I decided to go sleep again. Aphron agreed and told me to go see him again first thing in the morning.