Chapter 03: The Stranger

“Magic,” Revelation began, gesturing at the empty field in front of him, “Is thought given form. The immaterial made real. It does not come from your mind, but your soul. When properly understood, it is capable of working miracles. That is your first test, Tim Hunter. Open your eyes to what lies beyond the veil. Reach for it with all your being. And pull.”

Tim nodded determinedly, not once questioning whether his words were true or false. Revelation was not the sort of man whose words could be denied – there was a sense of absolute certainty that clung to him. It made what he said more… real. Like they had a physical weight to them that couldn’t simply be shrugged off.

The green-eyed boy squeezed his eyes shut, brow furrowed as he attempted to get a feel for what Revelation called his ‘soul’. Personally, Tim just thought he looked constipated. Seconds turned to minutes until all he could feel was his muscles straining at being still for so long. Tim opened his eyes in defeat, grumbling as he saw Revelation’s amused gaze land on him.

“What?” Tim snapped, cringing back the moment he did. If anything, Revelation’s amusement only grew with his frustration. The man had never gotten angry, never displayed even the slightest hint of annoyance when he’d dealt with him. Tim… wasn’t used to being treated like that. Like a grown-up.

“Perhaps some inspiration is needed.”

Revelation’s eyes shone so bright the stars behind him seemed dim in comparison, a bronze hand rising into the air to reach at something only the older man could see. Space rippled, curving like water around his grasping palm, bending and twisting till Tim’s eyes hurt. From thin air, a sword glowing a radiant shade of blue bloomed into existence, its edge gleaming under the moonlight. The boy’s lips parted in awe – this- this was magic! Honest to God magic! Tim had known he was capable of it, but the instinctual joy that came with seeing it the first time around hadn’t faded.

Within seconds Revelation held a massive blade within his hand, twirling it around like it weighed nothing. Not for the first time, Tim wondered exactly who he was – what he was.

The man hadn’t explained much, but he hadn’t needed to. The warmth he exuded, the promise of glory and peace and safety that emanated from every iota of his being was almost addictive. His absence made his day that much duller. Bland and unfulfilling. Revelation had spoken to him of magic. Of his place as heir to a powerful soul – ancient, he had called it. Of the dangers that awaited him if he ignored his birthright. The warnings and promises of education – of a life beyond the banality of primary schooling had been enough to make him follow him. The following weeks saw him be schooled on a number of things – from the truth of the world and the supernatural to the dangers of practicing magic on his own.

And here they were, in an empty field that Revelation had magicked up – “separated from reality, held within a bubble of stilled time” – where he was meant to practice his powers safely.

“This,” Revelation rapped his knuckles on the blade once to regain Tim’s attention, “Is conjuration. The act of exerting your will upon the world to change what-is.”

“That… doesn’t help.”

Tim wasn’t stupid. He knew he was leagues ahead of his peers – he could devour texts that boys seven years his senior struggled with, speak fluently in at-least three languages, and understand things he really shouldn’t have. His father’s grief came to mind. Revelation smiled once more, an indulgent, patient look upon his face that Tim thought fathers would show to their children. He willed his bitterness down, focusing on what the man was saying.

“Close your eyes child, child. Imagine the blade in your mind’s eye. Think of its serrated edge and its gleam as it catches moonlight. Breathe.”

Tim did so.

There was but a moment where he thought he had failed when the blade sang to him, its outline shining brightly to his mind’s eye. If the rest of the world was painted in shades of swirling grey and black and white, the blade shone like gold, calling out to him. He answered, reaching out to it as Revelation had instructed. Time seemed to stop having an effect on the boy, the only things he was cognizant of his own breathing and the wavering form of the sword held within Revelation’s palm.

And then there was metal within his hands, cool to the touch and growing steadily. He could feel it shifting through the air, space warping to accommodate the existence of something that had existed only in his mind but an instant ago. “I did it!” Tim whooped, a wide smile stretched across his face as he continued to focus on the blade, imagining the details of the serrations along the edge, the patterns along its hilt. There was a distant crash, like a dam shattering wide open, an immense pressure flowing through his body as he lost control. Tim snapped his eyes open, panicking as he attempted to push the energy back. To reign the ocean in. He failed, the blade splintering in his grasp.

Revelation was at his side in an instant, palm glowing as bronze fingers curled around his shoulder. The pressure left him abruptly, falling to the wayside as the man corralled the immense energies pouring out of his body effortlessly. He didn’t deign to push back at it, simply commanding it to be still. To withdraw and let his charge be. The ocean that had burst through Tim’s soul met Revelation’s steely gaze and bowed.

Tim gasped, out of breath as if he had been drowning and just managed to break through the surface of the water. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead.

“What- what was that?”

His teacher frowned. “I miscalculated.”

“Miscalculated? I felt like I was going to die!”

The man’s palm squeezed his shoulder comfortingly. A golden halo settled around him, soothing his fears and driving his anxiety away. “Never, Tim. Such a thing shall never come to pass so long as I draw breath.”

For a moment, neither said anything, simply looking at the golden motes of light that were all that remained of the sword he’d conjured – attemptedto conjure, Tim corrected himself glumly. Perhaps he wasn’t cut out for this.

“I underestimated you,” Revelation said finally.

Tim’s head snapped towards his teacher. Revelation smiled reassuringly. Something warm settled in the boy’s heart. “I had thought, foolishly in hindsight, that the challenge would be to aid you in drawing your powers out. I was wrong. You have power in spades – more than I could have imagined earlier. The real barrier is not in drawing it out, but in controlling it. Bending it to your will so you and the world around you aren’t consumed within it.”

“I still failed, didn’t I?”

“On the contrary, you excelled at what little I have taught you. Whereas it would have taken months for even a talented practitioner to draw their powers into reality, you did so in mere moments. I have failed, little one, in misinterpreting your needs. I shall not do so again.”

Tim opened his mouth to reply when the ground beneath him shuddered, the air around the two glowing brightly. Revelation’s eyes narrowed, and for the first time, Tim saw a flicker of irritation in the older man’s eyes. If Tim closed his eyes, he could see the outline of a man standing at the edges of their ‘pocket dimension’ – tall and masked, a trench-coat billowing behind him.

“Timothy, you must leave,” Revelation said, voice flat as he swiped his hand at the air. Space twisted and contorted, a portal to his bedroom opening at the man’s gesture. Tim swallowed but obeyed all the same, scurrying into the portal. The last thing he saw before it closed was Revelation standing tall, lips pressed into a thin line, back straightened as if he could hold the world up by his lonesome. The blade he had summoned was buried into the ground, the circuitry engraved upon it gleaming like starlight. The air around his form shimmered as if the man’s mere presence set it alight. The sight was gone in but an instant, but the sheer wrongness of what he saw struck him deeply.

The man he knew, the man he had been learning under for the past three weeks was soft, kind. Warm to a fault and impossibly patient, even when it came to his bumbling father. This- this was the bearing of a warlord. A monarch who had humbled gods. A king whose footsteps echoed with victory and conquest. For a moment, he wondered which was real: the kind teacher, or the indomitable warrior.

xXx

The man intruding on his domain reeked of the supernatural. He had managed to shield himself from the Emperor’s sight and strolled up to the barrier with confidence, as if he knew that Revelation had no means of determining what manner of being demanded an audience. He was not wrong, but not entirely correct either. He was but one of many who Revelation had foreseen intervening in Timothy Hunter’s future. That he could detect no malice from him was the only reason he stayed his hand.

With a thought, he let the barrier around him fall, permitting the stranger to approach him.

The being did so warily, trenchcoat billowing in the air. A strip of cloth masked his eyes, fedora bending downwards till it touched his nose. A pendant that hung from his neck like a rope, a veil strong enough to ward off even his eyes placed upon it. It clinked and tinkled like a pouch of coins as he walked closer. Revelation stood still, clamping down on his powers so tightly, had the man not already known he possessed some measure of psychic power, he would have thought Revelation was an entirely ordinary, if unusually massive, man.

“The boy,” the stranger began. “He is not yours to groom, Outsider. Cease your interference.”

“Interference?” The Emperor asked slowly, dangerously. “You speak to me of interference when you plot beyond the eddies of time to shape the world in accordance with your vision?”

The stranger’s stance shifted almost imperceptibly, eyes narrowing as they saw the Emperor in a different light. “You know much for someone who didn’t exist a month ago.”

The Emperor smiled thinly, fingers curling around the blade. If the stranger noticed, he didn’t react, standing just as still as his counterpart. At the very least, Revelation could concede that the man had poise, even if his clothing was exceedingly monochrome.  “The Sea of Souls knows all, Stranger. Every lie uttered, every promise broken, every sin committed. Its toiling currents record all that was, all that is, all that shall be. Even you aren’t blind to its gaze.”

A bluff, but he did not know. In truth, the stranger was nearly blind to his gaze. That was no excuse to give up, however. Revelation called upon his Mantle and it answered readily, his eyes opened to the world as it once had been. Earth when humanity still lived in caves and relied upon fire to ward off the darkness. Earth when angels and demons roamed freely and consorted with the fledgling race. When Messiahs preached and died. Golgotha, a thousand souls whispered. In the darkest currents of history, Revelation saw the stranger’s rise and fall, his betrayal and the damnation that awaited. 

And yet, three other pasts remained just as distinct as the first. The second spoke of a farmer whose wife and child were murdered by a fearful king, his participation in the torture of the man he blamed leading to damnation. The third spoke of a shepherd whose life was spared of heavenly wrath, charged with thwarting evil through the ages. The fourth spoke of a scientist caught in a never-ending time loop. It was impossible to separate truth from falsehood. What manner of being had condemned this man's identity to oblivion? Who held such sway over the universe that even he, Master of Mankind, could not divine the stranger's origin?

“I find that a bit hard to believe,” the man said almost casually, gloved hand pointing upwards. “The knowledge of my existence was damned to oblivion long ago by the Hands of the Creator.”

“You assume,” the Emperor began, “That I must see through my own eyes alone. I am the Master of Mankind, child. I know all who have walked Earth just as I know you.”

The man stiffened, a dangerous expression crossing his face. “That’s a lofty title to claim,” he said softly, almost wistfully, as if he were remembering the words of another in a time long having passed.

“I can tell you mean no harm to the boy, and for that reason alone I have stayed my hand. Speak clearly. What is your interest in him? For what reason do you travel beyond time to reach my ward?”

The man breathed out. For a moment, time stilled and control of the bubble of reality was usurped from Revelation’s grasp. Bronze eyes widened as ancient magick surged, shattering the enclosed dimension like a rock through glass. “I have strode the waves of time for far longer than you can imagine, Lord of the Imperium. I have seen universes die, gods rise and fall and witnessed the end of time itself. My sight extends past what even you comprehend, for if mankind is your flock by virtue of might, mine is given by the Voice itself! I walk the path He sets. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

The Master of Mankind narrowed his eyes, adjusting his blade till its gleaming point levelled at the man’s throat. “Speak. Clearly.”

A sigh escaped the other’s lips.

“Timothy Hunter is but one part of the puzzle. Your focus is… too narrow. The considerations of mankind are my own, but you must widen your gaze to the universe beyond if you are to stand before the greatest of threats that shall assail Earth and its people. It is not my prerogative to strike you, but it is my duty to prevent you from carrying on with your misconceptions. Destiny told you much, but not nearly enough.”

The man straightened, and now Revelation saw that it was not a mask that hid his eyes, but an ever-persistent shadow that refused to withdraw even in the face of the light of his flames. “Work with me. Your goals are admirable, but your means are limited by your ignorance of the broader world. Of the monsters that lurk in the shadows. Of the beings that regard you with contempt already. Together, we might just bring order to this reality.”

The Emperor studied him silently, mind racing at scarcely comprehensible speeds as he attempted to determine the other's intentions. If the man became a threat later, he would do his best to deal with him. But... his words rang true. The single-mindedness with which he approached the world had caused him endless grief in his previous reality. How long had it been since someone had managed to challenge his ideals? How long had it been since external council had managed to sway him? No one had done so since Malcador. Perhaps...

"I am Revelation," he said finally.

The man smiled. "You may call me the Phantom Stranger."