Life, Death, and Time - A Books Of Beginning Collection

Oneshot: Thrones Of Magic

Background: Takes place during the canon events of the third book. It's during the time while Emma is being held prisoner at the Dire Magnus's stronghold.

Content: Kate x Rafe. Darkness and Evil. A look into Rafe/The Dire Magnus's head.

He had once known people who could see past, present, and future in the waters of a scrying bowl. His mother had been one of such people. But he hadn't inherited her gift, only tiny fragments that allowed him to look across space but not time. So he was forced to resort to imagining the future he craved and vowing to make it true. Just like everyone else.

It made him feel mortal, having to imagine, and that made him bitter. But he refused to let it get to him. Soon he would have something better than the ability to see through prisms of time. He would have the atlas. He would have mastery over not just time, but the universe.

Enemies and allies alike had speculated what would happen if he got his hands on all three books. Most came to the conclusion that it would be fire and blood and tyranny. They had no idea that his plans were far more complex then that.

He was indeed going to burn this universe, to rip it apart down to the atoms. But he wouldn't stop there, no, he was far more ambitious than just destruction. No, he would use the power of the books of beginning to create a new universe, his universe, just the way he envisioned it in his mind. And oh, did he have plans for it.

There would be no more humanity. Those fools that had been the center of his rage for so long would be wiped from existence. The race of humans would never have existed and never would, they would never get the chance to pollute the world, to force magic to cower. In his world, there would be only magic users who cowered before no one. Well, no one except him.

He smiled at the thought. He would lead his people to power, to glory. No more hiding in the shadows, no more fleeing from those mundane humans out of misplaced fear. It would be a golden age that never ended, and anyone who tried to get in its way would be destroyed.

Ah yes, now there was something to ponder. His enemies, and what fate they would meet when they came to face him and inevitably failed. He would kill those fools on the magical council of course, or perhaps have Rourke do it. They weren't worth his time directly, he just needed them out of the way so his power was uncontested. But there were some foes that he would have to face directly. He wanted to be ready when he did.

Old man Pym would meet his death, of course. There was no room for that meddling wizard and his ideas of a greater good in his world. The Dire Magnus scoffed. Pym went on and on about protecting magical-kinds and yet, he would have them live in humanity's shadow. Not to mention the fact that he was leading children to their deaths to defeat his own creation. What a hypocrite. At least the Dire Magnus admitted what he was.

Then there was the warrior, the guardian of the Wibberlys. Gabriel, he recalled. Rourke had been begging for the chance to kill that one for weeks. The Dire Magnus would probably let him, if just to get him to shut up. Rourke was an excellent enforcer, but he was brutal and unstable and very stubborn.

Perhaps I should change that, he thought, when I bend the world to my making. It'll certainly make life easier for me. 

What was truly making him think, were the Wibberlys themselves. The parents, he had to track down again before he could decide their fate, because of course his underlings couldn't do their damn job for once and let the prisoners escape. But in the end it would be of no consequence. Richard and Clare Wibberly were human, after all, and there was no place for humans in his universe.

It was the children that made him pause. He obviously needed them alive for now, to get the books of beginning, since that boy Michael still had the chronicle, and Emma had yet to lead him to the reckoning.