The crystal bombards Draken with a mix of random thoughts and emotions, external and alien to his own.

“Don’t be afraid.” Tamrin says, putting the reassuring weight of her hand on his shoulder.

“That’s how the goddess says hello.”

With every step towards the crystal whispers drift in and out of his mind. Random images flash into his consciousness as strange feelings lightly touch his heart. It’s disorienting, a spinning sensation of new thoughts and emotions that causes his knees to shake as he approaches the huge chunk of magicyte.

“You must make an offering of your blood.” The witch says. “It will connect you to every member of the coven, past, present and future. The visions you’ll see are for you alone, be prepared to be washed away but don’t let yourself drown in the minds of others.”

The sudden sharp slice to his thumb is endurable. Veronica guides his hand to the hard-edged surface, smearing a trail of blood. The goddess is warm to the touch and alive with vibrations both physical and psychic. He feels the crystal react to his blood, the surge of voices and emotions flood his mind.

“Do you seek pleasure?”

He turns toward the voice but finds himself alone in a bedchamber. But then he’s not alone.

A nude woman stands before him, beautiful in a pale and intimidating sort of way. Her sparkling blue eyes are just a bit eerie set in the woman’s youthful yet hard-edged face. Something about her is weirdly familiar but he just can't place it.

“You’re not real.” He murmurs under his breath as she shifts on the bed giving him a clear view between her legs.

“I am real.” She says. “At least I was or will be depending on your point of view. I asked the goddess for a companion to pass the time and she gave me you.”

Her kiss feels real, so do her breasts. He wastes no time joining their waists and as he humps and thrusts he can only think that if this is an illusion it is a very detailed one. The pale woman beneath him changes to a darker skinned girl close to his own age, she shoves him off.

“Where the hell did you come from?” He asks, confused as he looks around to find himself in a totally different room.

“Too short.” The girl says dismissively and he finds himself standing in a field. The smell of smoke hangs heavy in the air. Thunderous sounds assault his ears and he is surrounded by a chorus of terrified and agonized screams. His eyes have trouble focussing on anything beyond the all consuming blanket of haze but there is one figure he can make out clearly. A tow-headed youth lays in the dirt bleeding profusely. There is a tremendous hole in his stomach and Draken almost throws up when he sees the lad’s exposed end trails.

He freezes to the bone when the dying boy’s eyes meet his own. In the stranger’s eyes Draken sees joy and recognition.

“It’s not your fault, Draken.” He rasps, pain clear on his face.

It’s startling to hear his own name come out of the mouth of a dying stranger. He kneels in a puddle of fresh blood and leans in for a closer look, thinking that perhaps he does know him.

The face is one he’s never seen before. Beyond the blood and the fear is someone totally unfamiliar.

“Who are you, how do you know me?”

The boy’s laughs turn into a hacking cough.

“I guess I’ve still got a lot to learn. Looks like I got you from before we ever met.”

Draken spots figures appearing and vanishing into the smoke.

“Help!” He shouts. “There’s a wounded man here!”

The young man laughs again.

“That won’t work,” he says. “Only I can see you. It must be early days indeed for you not to know that. You do look shorter than normal.”

Draken leans in close.

“Is there anything I can do?”

The boy tries to shake his head and cringes in pain.

“Just stay with me, so I don’t die alone.”

“Who are you?” Draken asks again.

The youth smiles bloodily.

“Jack Townsend, we’ve fought in the war together since late in your apprenticeship. Do you really not know me? ”

“What war?” Draken asks. “There’s no war and I just became an apprentice this week.”

This time Jack’s laughter is loud enough to draw attention.

“Anyone over here?” A man in a yellow and black uniform steps out of the swirling red smoke.

“An enemy eh, I’ll fix you!” He points an odd-looking dark metal shaft at Jack, aiming it as if it was a crossbow then hesitates. The man doesn’t see Draken as he approaches. His well placed knife blow does nothing, it’s as if the guy is made of air. The weapon is still pointed at Jack and Draken feels his heart sink. There really is not a single thing he can do. The soldier shakes his head.

“You’re half dead anyway, why waste ammo? Of course if you wants me to end it for ya I can?”

“Fuck your mother.” Jack spits.

The man runs back into the cloud of smoke.

“Bleed to death, then you damned mage.” Vanishing in the shadows of the battle the enemy soldier leaves the two together and alone.

“He really didn’t see me.” Draken says, shaken.

“Having trouble doing that myself.” Jack’s eyes are clouding over. His skin has gotten paler in this short time and he seems to be drifting off. Draken leans in closer to him.

“Tell me what happened, if this is the future I’ll try to change it.”

Jack smiles, not a smile of hope but the accepting grin of someone giving in to fate.

“Too late for that, can hardly speak.” His breathing is painfully labored. “Don’t blame yourself, it’s just war.” Jack’s head nods and hangs. Draken is in the arms of the first woman. He leaps back in alarm.

“What’s the matter?” She asks. “You left before we could finish, I bring you back and you act like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Jack, he was just ...” Draken stammers. “He died right in front of me and now … now ...”

“Calm down.” The woman grabs him by the shoulders. “Your acting like a first timer.”

He pulls out of he hands, bristling indignantly at the suggestion.

“I fucked plenty of broads!”

“Not that,” she says. “I mean linking through the goddess. You’re acting like you’ve never done it before.”

Draken shrugs. “So, what if i ain’t?”

“Oh, my goddess,” the woman groans. “This is your initiation. I thought something was off but never imagined anyone would respond to a sex summoning during their initiation. Why didn’t you stop me? ”

“Why would I?” Draken replies.

“Why would you? You should be looking for the goddess and seeking out her wisdom, not fucking strangers. ”

Draken feels annoyed. “You called me, not the other way around!”

She shakes her head. “I’ll be in so much trouble if anyone learns I distracted a new initiate. You can't be from the present since we haven’t taken on any apprentices in our coven yet and that rules out the past too. If you’re far enough ahead I just might get away with this, what’s your year?”

Draken stares, momentarily puzzled. The dots slowly connect in his mind and he begins to suspect he’s in a very strange situation.

“Last time I checked it was 650 A.L.”

“Holy smokes!” The woman shouts, leaping from the bed and backing away from Draken as if he’s the ghost. “That’s not possible, you can’t be telling the truth!”

“What’s the big deal?” Draken asks. The look in her eyes says ‘did you really just ask that?’ She sighs, slapping her face with the palm of her hand.

“Right, you’re just an apprentice, you don’t even know how it works. To be frank most witches even when boosted by a goddess can project ten or twenty years at best, a few decades if they’re very high level. But centuries, only in stories most of which were about dual mages, none of which could jump multiple centuries like you just did! What the hell are you?”

Draken stands frozen, his mind dumbly trying to process what he’s just heard.

“Centuries?” He asks, rushing to the window.

“Ye, gods!”

Spread out beneath the hills is a sparse seaside village. A rough-looking settlement hemmed in by undeveloped forests and rocky ranges. Unpaved dirt roads crisscross a landscape changed but undeniably familiar. The mountains to the north, still gloomy and ageless, masked in a shroud of mist. The swampy wetland to the west, still deep and uninviting. Most recognizable of all is Spirefort Island off the coast but weirdly missing is both the fort and the spire.

Draken feels a tingle at the back of his neck. His mouth is a little dry as he tries to swallow spit that isn’t there. He feels as if the world is very broken. His eyes focus on a construction project kicking up clouds of dust at the center of town. A large hexagonal stone foundation is being built up. The black obelisks in each corner confirm his suspicion beyond doubt.

“They’re building the High Wizard’s Tower!” He shouts. “But that’s not possible, It was built hundreds of years ago!”

The woman nods.

“My point exactly, we have something of a mystery on our hands. How could you respond to my sex summoning three hundred years in the future? ” She chuckles. “You wouldn’t happen to be a dual mage would you?”

Draken shrugs.

“Not exactly.” He holds out three fingers.

Her serious expression puts Draken on edge as she sits at the edge of her bed. Her pursed lips and calculating eyes tell him that this woman whose name hasn’t come up in conversation isn’t the good time girl he thought she was. Her authoritarian presence demands instant obedience.

By the look in her eyes one could almost take her for a master.

“It makes a kind of sense,” she says. “A man gifted in three disciplines might well have the kind of rapport and enough sensitivity with the magicyte to make such a leap. Still, we can’t assume your being here is a coincidence and as fun as our coupling was I can’t imagine it’s the reason that the goddess sent you to me. You mentioned a vision of the future, didn’t you? ”

Draken sucks his teeth, hesitating to nod.

“It was awful, I had to watch a friend die. A friend I haven’t even met but he knew me and in a way that was worse. I couldn’t do a damned thing to help him!” His eyes are full of a desperate need. Even thinking of the experience feels like digging his thumb in an open wound. How can this be happening again? How after Tobias can he fail another friend so completely?

“How do I change it?”

The chamber is silent for more than a heartbeat. The woman stares at him with her cold blue eyes long and hard before answering.

“Changing time has dire consequences.” She says. “It’s not an easy thing to do. Time is a force of nature, its flow doesn’t want to be altered and if you succeed in changing fate’s course only chaos can result. I’m warning you now not to fight what you’ve seen, it’s the future.”

The ground feels uneasy beneath Drakens feet and before he can respond everything is blanketed in a blinding white light. He’s still blinking the spots out of his eyes when he hears a voice behind him laughing. He finds himself in an empty formless void of grey nothing.

“What a strange creature I’ve discovered.”

The thing behind him is like nothing Draken’s mind could have conjured. A vaguely feminine form, it towers above him like a mountain filling him with dread. It’s entire body is like magic given form, swirling and shimmering yet somehow remaining solid.

“I’ve never encountered someone like you before.” The goddess says. “Your connection to the multiverse is stronger than any i’ve seen before.”

All of his questions catch in the back of his throat. Draken’s whole body trembles as he struggles not to panic. He can barely hold down the scream, barely hold down his lunch and is fighting a losing battle to hold back tears of utter terror.

A tendril of light slowly uncoils from the entity’s finger and swims through the air all too fast.

As it enters Draken’s brain he can no longer hold in his horrified shrieks. He is overcome by complete panic as he feels it making small, almost imperceptible changes in his mind.

“My mark is upon you.” The goddess says. “Now you truly belong to me.”

He feels her, a small presence hiding inside his brain. He wants her out!

The goddess laughs at his thoughts of rebellion.

“Come now, human male.” The goddess says. “You’ll find benefits to being my creature. So many tears, I think I know what your element should be. My gift to you is water, to command and control wherever you may find it.” The entire void is filled with mean laughter. Draken is mortified, his pride as a man shattered to dust. He feels like he is nothing.

“Be gone from my sight.”

The dismissal leaves him crumpled on the stone floor of the cave. The hunk of magicyte shimmers above him. He hears the vibrations without touching it now and in them he hears laughter.

“Are you alright?” Veronica asks.

“Get me the hell out of here!” Draken shouts. He wants to wash the entire experience from his memory but it lingers in his mind and refuses to be buried.

“You must have had a tough one.” Veronica says, helping him stand. “Our goddess isn’t known for her kindness.”

“Lets just go.” Draken replies.

As they leave the chamber the stone relief returns to its position and Draken is struck by a familiar face. Perhaps she’s a bit older but there’s no mistaking her identity.

“Who is she?” Draken asks.

“Tabetha Greenleaf, one of our coven’s five founding mothers. She died on this spot, protecting the goddess from a band of rogue mages.”

Draken’s heart sinks. In three hundred years, of course she’d be dead but he hoped she’d lived a long life. He looks at the stone face and can imagine her looking back at him. He also sees something else, an unbidden flash in his mind’s eye. A stone girl surrounded by a hellish snake-like hissing. Too quick to fully process, too random to understand. Perhaps another glimpse of the future driving home the visions he’s already seen.

“Fuck the future.”