The bright road pulses and stretches through the darkness to the end of the horizon. Pain shoots up my heel as I feel the skin of my feet stick to the light. I have walked across land and sea, pierced storms and deserts, crossed caves and mountains to fill the emptiness I could never understand. I let them bleed, walking to the other side of the world.

  No. “Feeling the pain” would imply that I do it as I once did. It would be better to say that I recognize its existence. I don't feel it when cacophony deafens me, when tactile paranoia makes worms crawl across my skin, when hallucinations show me memories I never had. Carried away by the stream of imagination, they disfigure themselves, as I have always done to ignore them.

  In this same stream of variables, the end of the road of light shows me a constant: lucid, clear and perfect, locked inside the Black Gate.

  I feel my core shaking. This state-

  No, I know exactly what it is.

  The pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, the information that was missing before comes together with each step on the road of light.

  This is the Unknown—or at least a fraction of it. A conquered part, which will disappear as fleetingly as this dream. This awakening is the consequence of my victory against Chaos in the forest.

  The transcendent epiphany I'm experiencing now won't last, but my dominion has already been consolidated. I've taken what I want, I've imposed order on the Chaos that has plagued me so much. I've locked the Gates, but I've allowed a crack to remain. With the key in my hands, I feel I can open it, but my chest burns whenever I consider the possibility. It doesn't matter. If the light behind it has a chance of blinding me, then I'd better stay locked up.

  But to regain control, I spat out the sweet taste of absolute power and all its instability. With it went the explosive power that a child's gnashing of teeth would provoke, and instead I gained the concentrated hatred of the adult.

  If the efficiency of magic is what I can use without letting mana—and Chaos—escape, then it has been improved. The two tenths that seemed so extraordinary to me are now commonplace: a prize I secured through experimenting with Chaos; the practical understanding that surpasses mere theory.

  But if rewarding me is all he wants, then I wouldn't be here.

  I can see in the spark that passes through the cracks in the black structure—part of the truth about everything around me being revealed. There is a greater reason for this walk. The same one for which I am called towards the Gate, even though I know the burning in my heart. More than mere secrets—more than I ever thought possible to know.

  As I get closer, this same knowledge solidifies the foundation of power. Mana is power. Magic is act. Spell is substance. Chaos superimposes itself on arcane magic from its beginning and alters it according to what exists at the deepest core of what 'Sieghart' is. If the above three statements are true, then they depend on a stable, primary motor.

  If those engines are gods, we have the answer of the Divine Authority that grants us the power of change. Hidden, mana reflects its function, and magic is separated by a blurred and uncertain line of the miraculous; the preternatural effect of the supernatural which, rather than a fixed definition, is more like a scale.

  This is too much and, at the same time, nothing. I go back to the principle of magic. Origin defines from where the power of a mage bloodline comes. Specialization is what he chooses to evolve, depending on his personal affinities. Manifestation is a representation of what he can do better than others. My eyes, for example, represent my ability to better perceive magic. Magic uses the mana, the power of change, to supernaturally manipulate the world. Metamagic, however, is not arcane, but divine. It operates miracles.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  If magic reflects the microcosm as the Unknown does, then Chaos would be the co-motor. Not because it acts as an entity, much less because it has helped the gods in some way; but because it is the ultimate principle of the power of change that has been granted to me.

  Now I understand why I couldn't control Chaos before. Being able to use the Metamagic of Chaos wouldn't be enough to make me have so much raw, uncontrolled power. No, It needed something else. It is so obvious that makes me ashamed of not being able to thought about it. Everything that is disorder, everything that is chaotic, every magic related to the concept of “chaos” has its effectiveness multiplied not only by the divine Metamagic that allows me to utilize paradoxes, but also by my Manifestation. A second Manifestion. But how?

  While other arcane magics are subject to the limitations of the world, this is a rare case where one concept is shared between the two and multiply each other, reverberating between themselves as many times as the stars in the sky.

  But if this is true, then what are my eyes? How I have two manifestations? Is that even possible?

  The barrier to my knowledge meets its final hurdle. Bringing me from so far away, the Gate presents me with one last question and its reason for bringing you closer. Then it opens before me: not to show me more knowledge, but, on the contrary, to punish me for crossing its threshold and seeing what eyes cannot.

  A child watches me. Sieghart.

  That is, me.

  His eyes have no eyelids. Wide-open and fixed, they stare out from behind my flesh to judge my soul and condemn it for betrayal. His gaze is death, as if his own spirit had been ripped out, and what is left of himself is nothing more than a corrupted husk.

  He smiles with large, pointed teeth that tear into his face and reach to his ears. Still fresh flesh falls from his mouth. Still warm blood falls from his clothes. Still-beating hearts spasm against his hands. White clothes that stain the surrounding light.

  I thought I had overcome this fear, but a mere moment of trust did not prepare me for the secrets that bar me from the light of hope.

  Far from being the number of stars in the sky, but still a force so great and alien to natural magic that enduring it is a miracle in itself. Such power that crossed the world, that circulated during the early days of my existence, in the hands of a child-

  How?

  No.

  Why?

  I open my eyes.

  The ringing in my ears bewilders me.

  Static mixes with whispers, screams and a hundred other annoyances that no longer bother me. Movement returns to the flesh, the morning breeze gently touches my skin, but my vision refuses to clear. On the contrary, it only gets worse as tears stream down my face.

  .… What?

  Two, three, four -- dozens. I look at the wet grass on the ground and see it soaked with the tears that fell while I was sleeping. I frown and shake my head, their flow slowly stopped as I use my arm to wipe them away. I spit out the snot stuck in my throat and feel the pain of a bad sob in my chest.

  I don't understand. I'm not sad. I don't appear to be, at least. What happened while you were asleep?

  Something has changed, and I know what it is. Still, I feel lost. Because I'm lost, I feel agitated. On the contrary, I feel sane because I'm lost, and calm because I'm agitated. The effects of Chaos are truly complex and, now that glasses have been placed over my eyes, so simple.

  I try to get up, but my stomach throbs with pain and forces me to keep lying down.

  Where am I?

  I wander around my surroundings. Fairy Lady Lake stretches out like the magnificent oasis it has always been. Surrounded by the trees of the natural clearing, by the tame animals, the crystal-clear water concentrates on the rocky platform in the center of the lake. Something makes my eyes widen -- something I already knew was there, but I had become so accustomed to its presence that I didn't notice the difference until it was too late.

  Above the platform, the statue of the fairy no longer watches me gently as it always has, but stretches out in a physical form of immeasurable beauty.

  The fairy carefully smoothes her voluminous golden hair with the water from the lake. Her back is bare, but still covered by a yellowish-white vulpine tail. My eyes hurt as I stare directly at her, but I can't look away. As if paying attention in a dream, the details of the texture of her form become blurred. The black dress falls from her legs and lap, all submerged and impressively dry. It shimmers across the lake—a soft, bluish light like sapphire mist that contrasts with the golden sunlight.

  “Who are you?”