Finally I came before the Wizard. "Ask, Neophyte," he commanded. "Wizard, I would to travel back in time to avert the evil I would do." "Explicate!" He demanded. "I left the village of my birth when I was one and twenty. My parents had been evil to me, yet I had stayed, afraid for my brother who is three years younger than I." "It has been thirty years since my departure, and circumstance has placed me a day's journey from that village. I wrote to my brother advising him of my intended arrival." I took a scroll from my pack. "This is what I received from him."
The Wizard took the scroll, unfurled it, began to read. My brother wrote many words in a small hand which cursed me for the abuse I had poured upon him during the years I had remained in the village. Line upon line of how I dominated and absorbed him, how I had ruined his life. Thirty years he had held this anger and hatred for me, which took me quite unawares. "Wizard", I say, "when I was but eleven years of age, I came across a cache of coins beneath the floor boards. My parents were often away, leaving me to look after my brother, and it was at one of those times I came across the horde, but did not touch it. Were I to go back, I would grab the coins and run away, thus preventing my brother from suffering the unspeakable torment at my hands."
The Wizard put down the scroll my brother had written, placed a plank of glass before me. Handing me a warm potion he advised I drink thereof then gaze into the glass until I saw that very moment I had found the coins. I did as he requested and shortly there I was, a lad of eleven kneeling before the cache. Quickly I gathered it, loaded it into a pouch, grabbed my garments and raced from the house, leaving my brother who was only eight, alone to gape after me. I saw myself leaping aboard a wine seller's cart, riding to town, then onto the docks.
I saw a life I didn't live play out before my eyes. There were mistakes of different yet similar nature and a circumstance which brought me, thirty years into the life I had not lived to this very Wizard. I saw myself speak to him and hand him a scroll. A scroll written by my brother. In small angry hand he berated me for abandoning him to the deprivations of our parents. He cursed me for leaving him to suffer their domination and enslavement. In that life I had not lived I beseeched the Wizard to send me back to that very day I had taken the coins. I wished to right the wrong I had done my brother desiring only to return and remain with him until I was twenty one. In shock I pulled my eyes from the glass and stared at the Wizard. From my eye corner I could see the me in the glass do what I did in this life; put the scroll in the fire.
