Reflections

The sign hanging outside the Eskeen family store and residence reads ‘closed’. Inside, an iron key slowly swings below the door’s engaged lock. Ozzob and Ingrlo sit across from each other in the downstairs common room; priced trinkets cover just about every bit of shelf space.

“I am trying to remember, it has been so long that everything just blurs together…”

“It is easy to let things go with time, to believe something… that it just not true.”

“You are talking about our relationship.” Ozzob leans forward a bit, straining to remember, “I am not your son… you are my son.” A slight smile spreads across the sorcerer’s lips, “I remember your mother.”

“That’s right, Elana. Do you remember where I was born?” questions the old man of the young man.

With a smirking smile, “It was in the castle Ungroth…” Ozzob thinks about his words for a moment, his recent visit was to a place long abandoned by humans.

“And do you remember when it was?”

“I remember that we had just finished the transporter, the night you were born we ran the first test and the pod broke down in the… It took us a week to get it out and fixed.”

Ingrlo pressed with one final question, “So that would mean that I am how old?”

Ozzob looks to the handmade calendar on the wall for a bit. Softly he whispers, “Nearly two hundred years…”

“In all these years you have not aged a day. You are an Immortal, perhaps… even a god.”

“And you?”

“I am your biological son. I do not have your special touch, just a sliver of your lifespan.”

“So that is the mystery to us, I can bring those memories back, but before that… My mind is just blank.”

“If you truly wanted those forgotten memories, you could get them back.”

#

I could recall, images… disjointed and broken apart. There was something special about this memory, it had always been there; I just never tried to get to it before.

I was in a room, a giant round chamber, the lights were dim… no, it was only candle lit. There were people around me… all looking at me. I was in the center of the room. The perspective was different from normal; I was lying down, but it was more than that. I was a child in the memory, a baby; this was my first memory--my first senses after birth.

A voice spoke in a magical language; the words were somehow familiar to me, even though I was newly born. Helpless I lay there, the speech of this person consumed my soul, it was effecting me, changing me… creating me.

I remember the lust filled eyes as this man stood over my body, chanting into my flesh. Then a fight, energy bolts of all sorts blasted around the room, the wizards that created me had a difference of opinion as to why. The entire sequence is blurred, but somehow the leader, the one that had been chanting, managed to grab me up and escape the destruction.

There were showers of magical explosions all around during our flight. I felt protected, safe. Some time later, as we set out free on the countryside, I remember that he called me ‘son’.

#

Ozzob sits in his study. He wistfully maintains a conversation with Serphyn while scribbling in his most recent journal booklet.

“So what was it that you remembered?”

“I think it was my first memory… a ritual that made me who I am.” Ozzob looks weakened by his strain.

Serphyn begins in a soothing tone, “In the early days of the world, a man learned magic on his own. He was the first wizard. In time, he trained others. There were thirteen of them and they did things that changed the face of this world.”

“Things like…”

“Crusades that annihilated entire species… they did not live harmoniously in the world, they stood atop it and made the paradise a wasteland.”

Ozzob begins to return to his work but Serphyn continues. “They even found a way to create life… to play god. The first wizard, he was your father… He conceived you in his mind, the ritual you remember; they created you… The perfect sorcerer, you did not have to learn magic, you are magic.”

Ozzob’s mind scours his memories, “What was his name?”

“You know his name. It is a name you have heard all too recently.” Serphyn directs an eye line to the journal Ozzob filled after they returned from the road--before the party.

Gasping, Ozzob says, “Rhulgar… he is my father…”

The sorcerer’s voice turned to stone, “I banished his spirit to purgatory.”

Ozzob’s final, mortal words lay eternally penned as the last page appended to his life journal. The text of the final page reads…

#

I am alone, ultimately alone. I am a unique creature. I have a hard time believing that I am a god… I just wish I could remember more about the past. I wish I could remember more about my father. He said something to me before, about my destiny. What dose he know? What is my destiny?

I have no specific memories of my, or his, transgressions, but one fact remains. He is my father, at least, my father’s spirit. Is he my blood? There are so many questions… I must find him, not only because he is my father--and family comes first--but because he has answers. Why dose the world need someone like me?

Purgatory; the place where dreams die… if I go in, I have a feeling that I may not come back out. For a long time now, I have lived as a mortal, among mortals. It is time to grab hold of my power, embrace my immortality. Whatever I did before, I want to remember it. Rhulgar is the key to filling this void that is my past.

#

There seems to be no will in him to move the pen beyond that point. Ozzob drops the writing instrument on the desk and lifts from his seat, unassisted. He wades to the window on the far side of the room; his body almost motionless. He opens the window; the shutters push out before his hands physically touch them.

The departing sorcerer climbs through the window and stands on the air as if it were substantial enough to hold him. With a mere look, he moves up and navigates to the pinnacle of his roof. Ozzob gives one last look down to the rooms below him, apparently acknowledging there contents. He closes his eyes and vanishes in a black pulse. Red bolts of energy remain for a moment then just some ashes–slowly floating down.

Watching the sorcerer’s disappearance from a distant ledge, Serphyn says, “It is dangerous in purgatory, even for him.”

#

“He is coming here…” echoed the voices of the afterlife.