The Eternal

The night was still and dark. There was no moon and the stars were hidden behind scurrying black clouds. No breeze disturbed the silence and the sea along Alexandria was unusually calm, without even an occasional wave lapping into the harbor.

In particular, the island of Pharos in the middle of Alexandria’s harbor had a very hushed, mysterious air about it. A great fire burned unattended at the top of a stone building upon the tiny island, guiding ships safely into the harbor's waters. No ships, however, were anywhere near Egypt that night.

Suddenly, the guiding fire went out in total silence. A lone figure appeared before the building. Stealthily, the person entered and, with the wave of her hand, created a floating orb of dull, yellow light. A woman's face, weary but set with determination, was accented by the weak light. She was young, perhaps twenty to twenty-five years old, but her dark eyes had an ancient, weighted look to them. The woman was clearly Macedonian in origin, with a prominent nose and wider eyes than native Egyptians.

She wore a simple linen garment which bulged with the roundness of her pregnancy. There were no sandals on her feet and the only sign of her high status was the gold torque, outlined with turquoise stones, fastened around her neck.

The woman breathed heavily, wincing with pain every now and then. The kohl around her eyes was smeared, and her dark, fringed hair was in disarray. With trembling hands, she withdrew a crystal phial hung around her neck with a thin piece of twine from within her garment. Gasping with pain now, she quickly popped the lid off the phial and swallowed the contents. Her contractions eased, and she leaned heavily against one of the stone walls.

The woman labored long through the night, concealed in the dark shadows within the Lighthouse of Alexandria. This child would be the second of two; a child that must be kept secret from her lover, from her husband, and from her people. She had had the vision of this child the week preceding the birth of the first twin. It had been little more than a week between the births, but she had expected that; her dream had revealed all.

Finally, at dawn, a loud wail broke the near silence of Pharos. The woman was exhausted; her skin glistened with perspiration, and her dark eyes were weary, but she smiled faintly and held her newborn son in her arms.

"Damion Lysander,” she whispered. "My son; the true possessor of the ancient magic, my true heir. Your brother may inherit the throne, but you... you inherit the magic."

The babe quieted, as if knowing this was an important moment for his mother to speak. She smiled again, her lip trembling as she did, and the tears streamed freely down her cheeks.

"We are special, my child. You and I have a wonderful gift, the gift." Her voice was barely audible but she rambled on hoarsely. "But we must keep it secret. Your father would condemn us, my throne would be lost…The past has taught us that there are those who do not take to our kind. Those who are without the Gift; the baroses. They think magic is the performances of their priests during rites to their gods. But they are wrong. Those are simply acts, barose illusions. It is no real magic," she spat the last words, an angry gleam in her eyes. "They dare call our sorcery, the true magic, evil, supplied by the demons of Duat. They are fools!"

She paused and inhaled deeply, regaining her composure. After a few moments, in which Damion Lysander looked up at her with wide eyes without making a sound, she continued.

"The Ancient magic is in you. It is in your very blood, your flesh, and your bones. It will protect you as it has protected those who have discovered its worth before us and those after us who will gain greater power than we can imagine. The baroses, they are numerous and we are few. We are power, but we must conceal it or be destroyed by those who do not understand. You and I, we are the only ones left in this land. There are more of our kind, but they are secreted in the far West and the far East, in places beyond the borders of maps. They remain hidden in the secret realms, inconspicuous to the eye and mind of the common people.

"I must send you to such a place, for the sake of your own life. You must learn our ancient art and you will be great and powerful. Of that I am sure." She paused once more, choking back a shuddering sob. "I cannot come with you, but you shall be taken care of. My dreams assure me of such and they have never misguided me."

She abruptly stopped speaking and assumed a regal pose, her back straight and head held high. Holding her son in hands stretched toward the heavens, she murmured in a tongue unlike any heard in the land.

"Gnin reald nathgil fomla ereht oteri fyb e ehtog!"

A line of light blue flames shot through the air and remained suspended in midair in front of the woman and her child. She swiftly kneeled, the child still held before her. In one fluid motion she thrust the child into the flickering line of flames and drew back, empty-handed. There was a burst of blinding white light that filled the lighthouse and vanished. Nothing remained there now but the woman, still on her knees and crying softly.

"I love you, Damion," she said softly. A light wind picked up and blew through the lighthouse, carrying away the nearly soundless words.

The woman rose slowly, as though the effort of standing was too much. She walked out of the lighthouse, her bare soles smarting from the rough stone beneath her feet. The sun had risen but there was no one yet in the harbor to witness her. She gracefully waved her hands across each other in front of her chest and was gone.