The Arcanumn was an order of wizards which stretched throughout the Divine Continuum of Worlds. An order which was rooted in beliefs very few could grasp or understand. And even if they did understand, they may not have the correct bearing for it to take effect. Argyle was one such wizard with both the understanding and bearing. He could hear the Muses; he could will reality to bend, to warp. He was one of those that needed to be, at least that was what the Arcanumn stated.
He was born on the Desolate World, ‘Hour’, a world which was long lost to the Evil League of World Consumers. He had lived through its final stage, survived the following ages of several lost worlds just before the Cursed World, Mya. All because he was one of those that needed to be. One who the muses would sing to, who reality warped for. An Ancient being, a wizard of power, but, once upon a time, nothing but a lowly fisherman.
He found himself there, in a seaside city, brick buildings crowded around cobbled roads, the thoroughfare packed, people milling about going about their business, headed to the market, to their homes, maybe off to begin a day of work. The population, here, mostly male, was one of very few worlds that would consider Argyle short. One such male stood upon a soapbox, belting out propaganda the ancient could barely understand. This is the very man he had traveled here to witness. For this was Argyle of absolute eons past.
Argyle barely recognized himself. It was a younger version of himself. One that he surely never thought he would see again. It was a whole other life. Someone else’s; so many centuries, millenniums, entire worlds -and all their eras- had happened since. He could not recollect what he may have been doing standing on that soapbox. What might have been the message, the belief he was trying to spread?
Now, he was a Guardian of the Arcanumn; At times the only of the order to carry it forward to the next world in the continuum. This was before he was Godswept back to his home world; His starting place. The one place he actually belonged in the eyes of the Creator. But not to the crushed husk that surely existed in the time of the Cursed World, Mya, or the over-ripe world, Earth. Argyle was Godswept back to his earliest memories, through time itself. The Creator had surely chosen for him to die with this world. Maybe, in effect, this was the very thing reality needed him to do.
Truly, he could not remember much of the eons he had lived through. The fact that he could recognize himself at all, amazed him. He knew better than to speak to his younger self, or even to approach. Reality would not sustain such a thing, it would warp and set it right. Such an infraction could fry his grasp on the magics or clog the songs of the Muses… Hour was a world far removed from Earth.
At this point it seemed a strange name even to his native ears. An hour was not yet an hour here, as the Muses had not used it as such, just yet. An hour was not sixty minutes… Argyle was trying to remember what they called it here. A ‘wen’, he thought, but it was not sixty minutes, nor was a minute sixty seconds… Little changes like this, they happened slow for him over his long-life. Now, they were quick abrupt changes, a reversion to ideas and thoughts long lost.
Halloween, however, was one such thing old enough to exist, even here… on the desolate world, Hour. He knew, because this was, in fact, that very day– Halloween. The day the veil thinned, the Muses sang a bit clearer, and the spirits pressed a touch closer to the surface of reality.
The horns blared in the distance. The calls cried out from the docks. The sea-side city of Arihma… was under attack. The cobbled roads were suddenly full of fleeing pedestrians. The ancient Argyle ducked back, back into a doorwell, his face covered, his dark eyes hidden away.
He saw himself, the younger version, suddenly bellowing out loudly amongst the chaos declaring that he was right all along—and that, ‘This was that day, surely. The wen was nigh!’
Argyle could not remember what he was talking about. What could be the threat? Many worlds removed, entire eras had passed, it was too far gone for him to have an inkling… until he heard the name. The whispered threat, Olvaya. The witches… witches of old. No, they were called Matrons here. Staffbearers; The women of power, now a scourge… slavers.
The memories flooded in of the old woes on Hour. A Matriarchy had taken the east, long ago. Whittled away by war, the once great power shrank as they lost so many… they refused to crumble, to give power to the Patriarchy of Arihma. They raided the cities, took their men.
Truth was, women were more important to a civilization than men. For a man, one good night, his deed was done; they could go and die, en mass, the civilization would march on, unflinching. Not so for a woman, the womb needed time. This was the downfall of Matriarchs of old; this was the downfall of the Olvaya. Women marching to war, no matter how strong, desolated their civilization’s own ability to reproduce. Thus, the Patriarchy would rise, again and again.
This, he remembered, was where Young Argyle’s life went awry. Soon, his younger self would be taken to the eastern provinces, enslaved. He could not believe that he had forgotten so much of his own life.
The ships rolled in, not on the seas, but through the air. Magical air-ships, like those witnessed on every world rife with magic, yet unlike Earth, where magic was choked back as it marched into centuries no other world witnessed.
Dark objects ejected from the sides of these mystical vessels, high up in the skies, they arched out and plummeted. Iron Golems came down, raining down, from the airship’s decks — Powered by the will of Staffbearers long practiced in their crafting.
The ancient wizard knew he could not change his younger self’s fate without reality rising up against him. He searched for the songs singing in the distance, and enveloped himself in a shadow far deeper than that which already hid him.
The Iron Golems, ten meters tall, landed with thunderous thuds all over the city. Men were collected up, forcibly pulled into the massive construct’s mouth… to fill the hollow cavity therein.
The Iron Constructs, however, did not want to play along with the shadows enveloping him. in fact, the shadows did not hide him at all, to their magical gaze. No sooner had he stepped out of that shadowed doorway, than the massive mechanical hands gripped him and forced the old wizard down its gullet.
This was not how he had seen this day going, manhandled by some witch’s construct. Luckily, as mentioned earlier, he was reality warping wizard of the Arcanumn. Reality wavered and rumbled– clearly this was not how reality saw this going as well. The veil thinned, as it was wont to do on Halloween. More so, for Argyle had learned to pass through such barriers long ago. He stepped from the mobile cell of the iron golem, to find himself standing before a familiar home.
An old mansion, one he had never witnessed in any Spirit World before. The boy Goodwin stood on its porch waving. He beckoned the giant forward, and the old wizard, with little more than a glance back at what he’d left behind, was relieved to find this sanctuary standing tall, long before his younger self ever found his way to it.
