Timesift
By Michelle Franklin
Let it be known that I have never been one for wizards. Nor am I one for soothsayers, witches, summoners, magicians, geomancers, alchemists, elementalists, scholars, necromancers, mages, druids, sorcerers, witch doctors, shamen, bards, clerics, or enchanters. However, the one thing I most certainly can appreciate is the manner in which warlocks become warlocks.
In order to become a warlock, one must break their oath and betray their coven by wanting to dabble in the magic of demons or wanting to walk the path of arcane darkness. Demon magic, as you know -or don't- is, of course, forbidden. The reason for this is that demons, or malevolently inclined spirits, can control and manipulate the forces of space and time. They can speed up, slow down, or completely halt the passage of the continuum and influence the pull of the stars and moon. They also have the power to grant immortality: the power to stop man from meeting the ever-famed friend, Death.
Ah, herein lies the warlock's temptation: the ability to cheat time, the power Fey and the Elves naturally possess, within man's grasp. And so, if a witch is tempted with immortality and is foolish enough to betray his entire coven, he must undergo a simple test of time. This is how the test is performed, for inquiring and simple minds: gain one of each of the following Fey: a faerie, brownie, goblin, faun, hobgoblin, gnome, gnoll, phuka, pixie, sylph, dryad and nymph. Then, gather one cutsbane and the blood of a troll under the influence of the blue moon. When the energies of the world are aligned under the sign of Aries, boil the blood of the troll in a cast iron pot and cook in the cutsbane root before it starts shrieking. Before drinking the mixture, the warlock must force the Fey into the boiling pot one by one. When all the Fey are good and melted into the creamy mixture, it is ready to be swallowed. Once the mixture takes effect, the warlock will begin his trial. The fabric of time and space will shred apart before the aspirant warlock’s eyes and he will be left to face his own mind. If he cannot face it, if the future of his fate is too grim and gruesome to bear, he will go mad and be lost to obscurity.
Pretty interesting affair, wouldn’t you say? I would, but, then again, I live for the adventure of the unknown. And, as if you hadn't guessed it, this is the tale of one such “curiositor”. A witch by the name of Midian had grown exceedingly tired of his coven’s stagnation. There were so many useless rites, he thought, so many waxing and waning moons, and all for the sake of a close-minded coven. It hardly seemed worth the trouble, really. They served no god, no deity, and rejected all forms of magic other than witchcraft. To escape the chores of his kinsmen, Midian would walk under the moon and ask her for guidance.
“Where are you going, boy?” asked the Elder Priest of the coven to Midian one night.
“Out for but a moment.”
“You cannot leave; the ceremonies for the full moon will begin at any moment,” said the Elder Priest with the gravest of urgency. The old man glared at the young witch. “Where are you really going?” he asked.
“Away,” said Midian.
“When will you return, boy?”
Midian narrowed his eyes in frustration. “When you address me by name.”
The absolute truth was that year after year, Midian had noticed that all the members of his coven had gotten into the nasty habit of dying or becoming very toad-like in appearance; whichever one of the two was worse, Midian could not decide. Since he had come to the conclusion that being ugly, old, or both at the same time, was an unpalatable fate, he fled to walk the path of darkness.
And so, by chance, Midian just so happened to collect all of the Fey needed for the ritual at hand, with the exception of the phuka, for phukas as you know –or don’t- are shape-shifting, conniving little creatures and are impossible to catch, for no one knows which form a phuka will take at any moment. Thinking that he could get away with one miniscule element missing, Midian performed the ritual and as he drank the last sip of the concoction, nothing happened. Rather unsurprising.
Midian stood from his place in the grass and looked about. The wind rose and fell over the blades of green grass, whipping the seeds from the nearby willow trees undecidedly through the air. As he was beginning to feel disappointed with his grand ritualistic failure, he stared up at the midnight moon.
“What for do I need a phuka?” the witch called out to the shimmering entity above. “Are twelve Fey not enough?”
“The phuka is the balance between six and six,” said an unfamiliar voice. Midian whirled himself around but could see no physical presence. Surely, it must have been a spirit speaking. “The ritual is meant to bring about the balance of opposites,” the voice went on, “while the other Fey are inherently evil or inherently good, the phuka is truly the only neutral creature for it can change itself into being whatever it desires.”
“And how would you know this, spirit of the wind?” Midian cried out. “Have you too performed this test and failed?”
And as Midian began to berate the keeper of the voice, the willow seeds that were swirling downward from the treetops above ceased in mid-air. In fact, everything around Midian had stopped: the blades of graze froze over with fear and the atmosphere stiffened to a dead halt. Midian moved around the seeds, eyeing them from each angle. He placed his fingers around a single seed and plucked it from its fixed position, attempting to examine the magic that might have held it in its place.
“To draw something out of time, good witch Midian, is not something easily done, for if it is not maintained, the object in question could cease to exist,” said the voice. And suddenly, the seed that rested between his fingers melted into ash and blew away. "Anything that is removed from time and space becomes fragile. You, now, are as delicate as a leaf on the wind and can be trampled at any moment."
"But since I am not in time at this moment, I do not exist, and therefore can only be destroyed by something that is here in this space with me," said Midian.
"Very good. You are beginning to understand the world of the Fey and the world of the Demon: the space between time, the void between the gap," echoed the voice.
"Are you trapped here with me?" Midian asked cautiously, still looking for the source of the voice.
"No, good witch. I am The Mistress of Time. I am the Keeper of the secrets of the Fey and Demons alike."
Midian was relieved. "I have made it, then. I have come to seek your permission to summon Demons and learn their magic. Please, tell me what I must do to pass this test."
"Now that you are here in the space between time, you must find your way back. To do so, you must only understand yourself," the Mistress said cryptically.
Midian thought for a moment. What could she possibly mean by only knowing myself, he thought. I know who I am which is why I abandoned my coven. "I do not understand, great Lady," he said to the feminine voice. "Surely, I know who I am, I know who I want to become. I want to know the secret of immortality. What else is there to understand?" Midian searched his mind for an answer and found none. Silly lad, if I may be so brash as to express how I feel.
“There is no secret to immortality,” boomed the Mistress.
“What?” Midian exclaimed in a most incredulous tone. “I am either born with it or I am not?”
The Mistress continued, "Perhaps your knowledge of warlocks and their power has a misunderstanding at its basis. Warlocks do not stop time, they simply move effortlessly through it. They do not conjure demons from nothing, for those creatures must exist first in order to be conjured. The demons that warlocks summon are only parts of themselves they do not wish others to see."
Suddenly, an apparition materialized in the shape of Midian, only the recently formed Midian seemed gently touched by the grace of years: his hair was frosted with feathers of white, his facial features more defined, necklaces of bone and shell draped across his neck, robes of rough fabric hung languidly from his waist, and anklets of teeth trailed from his feet. "This," said the voice "is you. However many years in your future this is even I cannot say, for the You that you are now and the You that you will be is one and the same to me. This you, the one I have pulled out of time to show to you, knows who he is." And then, the vision disappeared. The future Midian faded into a whiff of smoke and washed away into the universe.
Midian bowed his head in extreme confusion and mild perturbation. He felt the gentle touch of a woman’s supple hand grace his chin but when the witch lifted his eyes, there was no one to be seen.
“Time, Midian, as you understand it, is an illusion. Yes, the sun rises and falls but the units of years, hours and so on are all human construction. I will say again: there is no secret to immortality. Those that are immortal ignore the illusion.”
Midian looked down at the grass, stiff in between his toes. “Ignore the illusion,” he whispered to himself. He kept his gaze soft and back strong. One at a time, he lifted his legs from the still grass and crossed them, right leg over left, in the air. He was levitating, and quite comfortably at that.
He retreated into himself to ponder the Mistress's words. "Only know yourself" rang amid his mind countless times until the words folded over each other like a fine cloth folding over itself. The Mistress watched from her omnipresent place in the atmosphere as Midian hummed the words to himself.
"You mean," he began after what seemed like only moments of silence, "in this space, I am moving slower or faster than time?"
The Mistress responded in a more pleasant manner, "You are beginning to comprehend why many go mad rather than becoming the warlock they wish. They must learn the secrets of this space, my space, or become lost for eternity. In your case, I would be glad if such a handsome young witch were to be lost in my embraces."
The voice of the Mistress almost seemed to laugh, for what reason, I think you know- or don't- for as the Mistress almost managed some mirth, Midian raised his hand in front of him. He studied it carefully, the spots of the skin, the hue of the veins, for even though it was his own hand, he gazed at it as if he had never before seen it. As he fixed his gaze to a sharp glare, his hand suddenly began to vibrate. Back and forth, furiously leaving light trails behind it, faster and faster until his hand stopped abruptly and he said, "I think . . . I think I understand now: I do not want to control time; I cannot, only you can do this. I only want to control myself and my place within it."
The Mistress was indeed pleased. "Well done, Master Midian. Once you triumph at returning to the space between time, you then may begin to know yourself: controlling your own demons and summoning them at will. You may summon your anger, your sadness, your happiness, and so forth. They may take whatever shape you wish them to for the more you know yourself, the more parts of yourself you will be able to control. You will begin to sift through time: to drift on the currents of ages and go whenever it is you please."
"Great Lady, may I stay here a while?" asked Midian, raising his head to the skies.
"You may," was all she said.
And Midian the Warlock stayed in the company of the Mistress of Time, feeling her presence without being able to see her. At certain times, he felt a hand graze his arms, at others he felt the soft velvet of a woman’s lips browse his cheek. In his many meditations and mudras, he often swore he had seen a glimpse of a Fey in blue, moving in and out of the moonlight. He assumed it must be none other than her Eminence and smiled each time that he caught her image in his eye.
When he decided that he was bored of her Grace, he left the space between and reemerged into time only to find that his coven was long gone. The world had turned many times since. How long had he been in the space between time? Years? Centuries? Eons?
Midian looked down at the grass beneath his feet to find that it was no more, only the earth remained. Wishing to test his new-found power, Midian said one word, "Sift" and the world around him buzzed with movement: trees grew at light speed, the sun and moon rose and fell within seconds, travelers came and went in a blur of colour, and in a whirlwind a village appeared before him. "Stop," was all he needed to say for the world around him to resume at its usual pace. He watched as the people of the little village that had formed were all seemingly shocked at Midian's mysterious appearance.
"You nearly murdered me with fright, you did," said a beggar who was sitting beside him.
"Forgive me, I did not mean to startle you. Tell me, what village have I come to, friend?" asked Midian.
"This here be the village of Ferra, master sorcerer," grunted the beggar.
Midian smiled. "You mistake me for something I'm not, friend."
"What? You a magician? Don't like cruddy magicians, them with their illusions and what-not," grumbled the beggar as he looked up at Midian warily.
"No," said Midian calmly, "I am a warlock." Midian sighed cordially. He surveyed the land before him: small shops and huts lay about in a misconstruing mess, scattered in a happy arrangement like shards of glass displayed after a fall from on high. "How fitting now for me," he said to no one in particular. "This will do just fine."
The beggar looked at Midian with a shifty eye. "You ain't gonna live here, are you? I don't know about warlocks, then."
"For a short while. Do not worry, friend. You will barely notice I am here."
And that is how a warlock became a warlock. How do I know all of these many and secret things? Thieves, as you know- or don't- steal all sorts of wonderful things but out of all them, information is the most valuable. What did I do with this information, you may wonder? Killing time is one thing, but stealing it is entirely another.