It is said that he knows the present, past, and future. It was Merlin, the Chronomancer, who taught him all this. But unlike the latter, the Know-It-All did not have the talent for mastering acceleration. On the contrary, he could only increase his entropy. It was then that he discovered the power that dwells in his heart, and with his ocular manifestation, he can spy on what lies outside of creation. He could see beyond the confines of time and space, as if everything within the firmament were contained in the crystal balls that dwell in his eyes. Occasionally, it is said that he cries when he sees the misfortunes of the earth. Other times, it rejoices in seeing that there is a way out. It therefore points to the choices you want to make to get the results you want, acting beyond what causality can define but still limited to the process of action and consequence that underpins it as a creature. And yet, like us, it exists and suffers, laughs and cries. But the same ability that fate gave it was also the reason for its downfall. In the heart of the storm that absorbs the sea and manifests the terrors of sailors, inside a room where every outcome is present in a crystalline web of possibilities, it extends. A dark vacuum where we can still see ourselves even without light. After all, the knowledge that illuminates the eyes is not material.

  Knowledge. Not to save or destroy. Knowledge about how it works, so that he could then change it to his image.

  “This, yes, is the goal of Melindor de Ebraavel, the Illusionist,” he says after we land. He told his story through a play, with rag dolls formed from his images.

  The man is tall and hunchbacked, covering himself with a golden cloak and a brass crown. His eyes are, as he whispered in my mind, translucent spheres in place of organs. He is old, decaying, but still impressively strong, wearing heavy, gleaming silver armor. His face is wrinkled and almost deformed, maintaining a permanent smile at the corner of his mouth.

  “There you are,” he says in a hoarse voice. “The chosen ones to end all this. I have waited for you for a long time. Please, make yourselves comfortable.”

  “To the Rift,” I say. “I can hear you later.”

  He laughs. “Hasty. I fear, however, that it will not be possible. The Rift is beyond my control. It is this room—and my life—that keeps it active.”

  I stare at the floor and chant. “Firebolt,” I say, and yellow light explodes into flames. But when it subsides, the dark floor remains intact.

  “What is that?” Fergus, the Clown, says.

  “If you could stop the mechanism I created so easily, I would never have told you how it works in the first place, don't you think?” He inhales. “You young people are so hasty…”

  “… You can't make something indestructible just because you imagine it to be. Even with a powerful illusion, that's…” I frown. “So the Rift feeds itself? It's using the minds of those outside the Island to multiply… And this is the room that allows the mechanism to work.”

  “Fear is powerful, isn't it?” He massages his right shoulder. “Indeed. That's the secret. A cheap trick, but effective. Well, the way it's constructed doesn't matter much to me. I imagine the void is indestructible, so I configure the illusion to do what I need, use Chaos to make some rules go out of control within my imagination, and thus affect the outside. Simple, but time-consuming and impossible outside the Islands. There will be nothing left outside them later, so I don't care.”

  “I see. I have to kill you, then.”

  “Why? For making the world a better place?”

  I advance, but I never reach him. The world becomes a desert of ice, and from the skies, a meteor falls upon us. I channel and ionize the air, disintegrating the rock with a plasma beam that explodes the meteor. Second scenario, desert. A giant worm appears beneath my feet and tries to swallow us, but Fergus claps his hands and the scenario changes to an ocean.

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  Melindor has the same ability as Fergus, since her origin is the same. But I can't overcome her as I did before, so it's up to the Clown to fight against scenarios that are too dangerous. As long as he's by my side, I can fight the Illusionist properly. That said…

  I still have no idea how to defeat someone who can manifest everything they imagine.

  But if he feeds on other minds, then thinking that is wrong. I don't need to rationalize; I just need to believe that I can and keep trying beyond what logic allows me. Another leap of faith of the dozens I am tested to make, but it won't be enough without a plan of my own.

  “Don't you see?” The Illusionist says. “You can't win. Give up. I will create a new world, free from your need to fight me. Wouldn't a world like this be superior? A world where children don't have to fight old men for destiny?”

  “If you stopped, that destiny would not exist.”

  “If I stopped, another would arise in my place, and in yours too. The wheel would turn again, and another hero and another villain would rise from the depths of the archetypes that inevitably permeate the behavior of men.”

  “And what do you intend to do about it?”

  The Illusionist takes a deep breath. “A perfect world. A grand illusion made real. Heaven on earth, manifested from mind to matter.”

  “You want to put everyone in the world into a coma?”

  He spits out a laugh. “A coma. Yes, to you, that must be what it is. You could not comprehend the fate of a mortal whose chance for a response has been stolen. To lose your family to obey a calling you never wanted to hear but must because you were chosen for it. To accept is suffering, and to deny is a thousand times worse. You, king of demons, destined for suffering, have never possessed anything beyond what was taken from you thousands and thousands of years ago. How could you understand the pain of loss if you never had anything in the first place? You were spared the pain of normality to suffer as one chosen, and thus, you never understood the pains of the poor you claim to protect so much. A king who will change the world instead of a baker who endures suffering without even knowing why.”

  The Illusionist stands up. “I lost everything. My life. My family. The rain of destiny washed it away like nothing. I allowed it to do so. This is not a destiny worth choosing. I reject it. Therefore, I will make my own: a vivid dream. Even if they know it is an illusion, they will not be able to leave. It will be the new reality, touchable and palpable, but sustained. If we can all act accordingly, and it also exists materially, then isn't it the same as existing? We can remake it as many times as we need to. Everything else is trivial.”

  “A world without suffering,” I say. “Yes. I've heard that before. It's the feeling that leads you to make such an irrational decision. But I doubt that matters to you anymore.”

  “No. The goal is greater than any motivation that leads me to it. You will fight like the good sheep that you are because you need to, and you won't be yourself if you don't. I will fight, because to be or not to be no longer matters to me. It's that simple. And you, Fergus? What do you want?”

  The clown swallows hard. “I… I need to win to get out of here.”

  “You can't have both, Clown.” Melindor laughs. “I don't think you've learned yet. Do you think you'll be saved when you disappear? The apocalypse will come to you. Times of darkness and death are coming, and the reaper will walk the earth and wage war with himself for dominion over death. No one will be safe from the cataclysm, and you will deceive yourself again and again if you think you can rest in your next mission.”

  “They can protect me, and the apocalypse will be taken care of by others. Not all people will have the same fate!”

  “No. But you will. You would not have been born with this power otherwise. You will fight. You will die. So says the probability of what lies beyond time.”

  “Perhaps,” Fergus replies. “But I only have one path to try.”

  “Very well, then,” he says. His skin turns purple, his eyes pitch-black, and the spell hovers over the earth as the arena creates gates around him.

  The gates open, and beasts leap out. Lions and tigers advance with roars, empowered by magic. I manipulate the blood inside my body. I increase the density of my bones, the hypertrophy of my muscles, and the speed at which the liquid pulses until my skin turns red. I pull the Clown into my shadow and transport myself to another place, pressurize the blood, and launch it like supersonic arrows to pierce the beasts. Dozens of them circle us and act according to their master's will. I burn them one after another until I find a chance to attack.

  I propel myself upward and let the Clown turn the lions into stuffed animals. I heat the air and launch a fire cut that turns to dust upon contact with the Illusionist's skin. The scene changes, and I fall onto a theater stage; strings move my body and make me wield a blade. Melindor appears from behind the stage, and our blades clash. On one side, the clown uses an inflated balloon as a weapon. On the other, I press the Illusionist with fire and steel. He laughs.

  “Come forward, then. Fight.”