"Look around you. What do those who live in the world think of it? They think about everything, except what is most important."

Blaise Pascal.

The next day, the wizard sat in the woods, leaning against a tree thinking about the only clue he had and that was the strong probability that the solution was locked in his spirit. He didn't even need to have gone to plane XIV because the dragons had already told him, adding to that the fact that Mia's computer had informed him that, if he traveled in time in one direction, somehow he would have to be able to go back.

The first thing he did was to review his knowledge of Relativistic Physics, thinking about how to change the behavior of time.

He knew that, for anything that moved at the speed of light, time would pass more slowly, the slower the closer to c. However, only particles devoid of mass could reach that speed, otherwise the energy required would be greater than that which the particle could carry or generate. In other words, nothing could surpass the speed of light, nothing with mass, of course, and he was made of a lot of mass.

But all his powers called 'magical' followed the laws of Quantum Mechanics and were related to the subatomic particles that were shaped by thought at his will. In practice, it was the old maxim in which the observer interfered directly with the medium, like the famous story of Schrödinger's cat. Everything else was derived from the ability of thought to work these flows because thought is formed by waves and waves are particles. But, being time a thing of the fourth dimension and considering that the Universe was formed by eleven dimensions, then it would be enough to create a detour to bypass and manipulate time.

He concluded that he could, but the question was only to know at what depth and that would have to be on the basis of trial and error. The solution should be this: a portal of entangled beams that spanned a fifth dimension that would bypass time, just as a curve would between two points obstructed by an obstacle, altering the perspective of reality.

Igor got up with a cheerful air and saw Ailin leaning against the tree next to him, looking at him. She had a serene face, but a good dose of sadness was noticeable. When the friend approached, she asked:

"When do you intend to leave?"

"Tomorrow, because I want to be rested," he answered determined not to deceive her. "If it works, I will lose my powers for a while and I will be very weak."

"Then, today you will be only mine because, when you go, I will have to wait a long time to see you again. I will take good care of our daughter, don't worry."

Igor hugged her and kissed her. He felt sorry for her, but now he was happy because he had the chance to go back to Eduarda, the one he never forgot or would forget. However, he was sad to lose Ailin and that made the young man quite intrigued and confused.

― ☼ ―

It was still very early when Ailin woke up her companion with a tender kiss. She thought she would be sad, devastated, but now she felt a huge serenity and a great certainty of what Gwydion had confessed.

After breakfast, Igor said goodbye to all the friends he made in that period and went to the woods, accompanied by Ezequiel and Ailin, always followed by the Saci and Gwydion.

"If everything goes well, Ezequiel, we will see each other in the world of dragons soon... soon for me, of course." Igor turned to Ailin and hugged her sweetly, giving her a long kiss. "You will always be in my heart because a part of it will stay here. Teach our boy to be good and pure as you are."

"It's a girl, my love," she replied. "I love you and I'll wait for you there. You have to save me."

"Huh?"

"Go, my love, go. It's better not to drag out the farewells for too long."

Igor concentrated a lot and this time he used his hands to help. His limbs began to glow with intense brightness and he tore the planes in a way that never happened before. He even heard a metallic sound that reverberated for a few seconds while the portal stabilized slowly, unlike the normal that was instantaneous.

The image on the other side was blurry and wavy, as if there was a membrane of water enveloping it, but well defined. His scientist spirit tried to understand the reason why such a portal was so different from the usual standard, but he failed to reach any plausible conclusion. He shrugged, gave a last wave and, with the bird on his shoulder, crossed the passage.

― ☼ ―

The first thing he felt was a strange malaise and the impression that the trip was very slow. Then, the feeling of free fall and the painful reality that he was really falling as soon as he collided with the ground. Just like on the way to the past, he became very dizzy and unable to use his powers. He looked around and saw that he was in a dense forest. He paid a little more attention and concluded that it must be near Ezequiel's cabin. There were no dangerous animals there, so he let himself lie down, waiting to improve.

"How do you feel, Gwydion?" he asked in thought.

"As if a bunch of dragons had bumped into me. If this is the same as the so-called hangover that humans have, I don't even think about trying it."

"Oh, no, hangover is much worse. This here doesn't hurt your head or make you vomit." Igor gave a weak laugh. "And the hangover hurts a lot. Did we succeed?"

"I don't know" replied the bird. "I feel much worse than the first time, but it is a fact that we crossed back to the canyon. We just need to know when. I'm very worried."

"It's much worse, that's true." Igor sat down with some difficulty and shook his head. "At least I can sit now. What did you say to Ailin that she got a little weird?"

"Maybe one day I'll tell you, but not now because everything has its right time," replied the bird, laughing. He flapped his wings and raised his neck. "I can fly now. Do you want me to go see the cabin?"

"No. I prefer that we do this together." Igor got up slowly and staggered, as if he were drunk. "This floor doesn't stop moving!"

"No, it's not the floor, my dear." Gwydion's laughter echoed in his mind. "It's the effect of the shock caused by the portal."

"So it's really a half hangover," he tried a laugh, but the malaise didn't help. "Gwydion, I know you were aware that I would be thrown into the past, even though I received countless hints without realizing it. The question I ask you, is why you didn't warn me or stop me, on the contrary, you wanted it to happen."

"But isn't it more than obvious?" Gwydion laughed. "There is more than one important factor. Igor, you and Ezequiel are our saviors, and not only ours because it was certain that the world would have been destroyed if the warlocks had won. You are very loved by all of us, but we needed to know if you were yourself."

"That's why you took me to the council?"

"Exactly; and that's why I offered to be your friend and companion while your essence inhabits this body. I chose the risk and the adventure, of course, because I had faith in the savior and also knew that you would come back because Saci told me the farewell."

"Thank you for the friendship and trust, Gwydion. I'm very happy with your company," he said out loud.

The so disparate pair continued their walk, walking slowly through the trees of the Atlantic forest until they reached the cabin, a stretch in which they took nothing less than two hours because of the malaise.

"When we get there I'll sleep a whole day," Igor said, categorically. "I'm done."

But his hope of a peaceful rest was doomed to failure. What should have been Ezequiel's cabin was just a ruin taken over by the low brush.

"I knew this malaise so much stronger couldn't be normal," he said, discouraged. He let out a sigh and continued. "I need to rest. Tomorrow I'll see what to do."

He lay down on the ground, protected by one of the walls still intact and fell asleep immediately.

― ☼ ―

It was already late in the day when Igor awakened by small objects falling on his face. He opened his eyes and saw two little monkeys on top of a nearby tree throwing fruits at him and laughing at his way.

Smiling, the young man got up, feeling that he had fully restored his energies. He checked his powers and concluded that they were still somewhat weak, but good enough. When Gwydion opened his wings and took flight, the simians fled and it was Igor's turn to laugh.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," said the dragon. "Did you know that you slept thirty-six hours?"

"Really?" Igor, laughed. "That must be why I feel so good, but my powers are still weak. This was much worse than the first trip."

He opened the palm of his hand and a cup of coffee appeared out of nowhere. Calm, he sipped the hot liquid, while thinking. Gwydion landed on his shoulder and the wizard continued:

"I suspect we have advanced too much in time. The fact that this cabin is ruined is a very circumstantial proof. I believe that, if we find out how much we have advanced, I will be able to have a good accuracy in the next attempt."

"That makes sense," confirmed the bird. "And where will we get the information?"

"Let's go to Porto Alegre." Igor replied. "In a big city, we will go unnoticed in case of any problem. Stay on my shoulder."

Igor opened a portal that came out in the Farroupilha park and crossed. Scared, he looked around, commenting:

"There is something very wrong with this park." He breathed in the air hard once or twice. "This looks like a jungle and I feel that the atmosphere has some radiation. Little, but it has. The vegetation is too dense and there are no normal paths or noises of a big city. When in doubt, Gwydion, stay with me."

With difficulty, they advanced through the dense forest, until Igor grabbed the sword and, with its flaming blade, opened a path towards the supposed position of the formerly busy Oswaldo Aranha avenue without, however, finding the street and finding the silence more and more strange except for the birds and the wind. In compensation, the atmosphere was very pure, without traces of carbon monoxide that was to be expected in a city of about two million inhabitants on 21st century.

When Igor stumbled on something strange, he stopped to observe what it was and, at the moment, his blood froze and his hair standing on end, because that was the ruins of the foundations of a building.

"How long would it take for a four-story building to erosion desintegrate?" he asked, thinking to himself. Gwydion heard and replied:

"It depends a lot on several factors, but I believe it is a long, long time."

They returned, paying more attention to the ground until they found isolated traces of a broken asphalt. Igor pointed, showing it to his friend and continued walking without saying anything. A few hundred meters later, he stopped in a clearing on his right, seeing the ruins of the Clinics Hospital. More and more frightened, he transported himself to the Santa Tereza Hill and observed the city from there. It was all a ruin and only the downtown seemed less taken by nature.

"I think," said Gwydion, emphatic, "that not only did we advance too much but a great tragedy happened."

Igor did not answer. He looked for the place that would have been his house and, to his total surprise, it was all a big, very big crater. He noticed that the place had much more radiation than the rest, although it no longer posed a danger to health, much less to a wizard.

"This is the epicenter of an atomic explosion!" he stated.

"That's what will happen if we don't find our way back and stop that monster," concluded Gwydion. "We are in the middle of a great paradox. Human civilization was destroyed because the creature won and now it must be in another plane or even in this one, but in another world with intelligent beings. The question is: how will we obtain the time lapse with enough accuracy to return to the correct period?"

"By the low amount of radiation that I feel, this happened a long time ago, more than a thousand years, much more," explained the wizard, thoughtful. "All the records that existed must have turned to dust."

"We only have to return at random—"

"But of course not." Igor interrupted and laughed. "There are two places where we can get the information with total accuracy."

"Where?" he asked, amazed.

"In Draco or in the fourteenth plane," he replied. "As you can cause more paradoxes, even in the future, let's go to the fourteenth plane."

― ☼ ―

The portal opened and Igor appeared near the administrative building, accompanied by the dragon in his bird form. He advanced calmly, without fearing anything, until an old-looking man came to meet him.

"Greetings, Magnificent." Igor recognized Mog's voice right away. He stopped near him and smiled. "You have not changed at all after all these millennia, while I am nothing but an old man. I thought you lived less than us!"

"Hello, Mog, I have not changed because for me only a few days have passed. I really need your help to know precisely how much time in the Earth's count has passed because I advanced too much."

"This is a very simple problem to solve." The ruler made a sign. "Let's go to the control center. My wife will love to see you, but tell me what happened for you to have passed only a few days."

As they walked, Igor was telling in detail, explaining even what happened to the Earth.

"I hope you can defeat him, Igor," he opened the door to the center and continued. "Let's go in. Mia, look who's here."

"So you got married!" Igor laughed. "Congratulations, Mia, Mog—"

Igor had to tell the whole story again, but he didn't mind because he liked the scientist very much who was always the personification of sympathy. After obtaining the data of the Earth's translation, Mia easily solved the calculation, comparing the astronomical data with the date and time elapsed since the first visit. Like Mog, she was already somewhat old because the wizard and his companion had advanced seven thousand years beyond what they needed.

Igor said goodbye, promising to return before all that time and Mia managed to satisfy her curiosity to see her friend open a portal in front of her, but the wizard chose to make the passage in time within the Earth itself, where he said to Gwydion:

"We need to return exactly seven thousand years and we will go through a bad time again. I think I'll open the portal in the cabin and inside the clearing to get out there. The walk we did last time was too much for the fatigue of the jump."

"I think that's a great idea. If the jump of eight thousand and eight hundred years did all that damage to us, this one should be just a little smaller."

They made the necessary preparations and entered the portal of time. When they came out on the other side, the cabin appeared intact and he lay fallen on the ground, two meters from the entrance. With great difficulty, he got up and went inside, lying on the bed and falling asleep.

― ☼ ―

Two days later and already in the middle of the afternoon, Igor got up well and eager to know if he had succeeded.

"Things are just as we left them here," he stretched out his right hand and made a cascade of rays appear from his palm, testing the strength of his powers.

"Ten years later they would still be," Gwydion commented, as if he threw a cold shower. "But I'm also optimistic."

"Get out, doomster." Igor smiled. "I just know that I need to find her and destroy that thing from hell."

"How long did we stay in the past?" the dragon asked.

"Almost five long months, but time has never been so relative as now, "Igor explained. "We are going to transport ourselves to the North and try to get some information about today's date."

"How about we jump to your house?"

"And risk running into ourselves or worse, a stranger?" Igor laughed and shook his head. "Better not. Climb on my shoulder."

In the city of Belém do Pará, at the other end of the country, a young man accompanied by a hawk perched on his shoulder appeared out of nowhere in the Republic Square, right in the downtown. Luckily for them, only a drunk saw that, but all he did was take another sip of the drink and look at the bottle label, approving the content with a satisfied smile.

Igor walked at random, since he did not know the city, but soon found what he was looking for. He stopped at a newsstand and looked at the newspaper, reading the date. Laughing, he picked up the copy and showed it to the bird.

"Gwydion, we were really lucky," he exclaimed, using telepathy. "Only five months have passed. I think we can jump straight to my house."

"Then let's go. At least we already have one profit," the bird said. Igor folded the newspaper and paid the newsboy with a note he created out of nowhere. Then they went back home, disappearing in the air right in front of the poor man, who rubbed his eyes.

"Holy cow, dude!" he exclaimed to himself. "I'm messed up, I freaked out!"

― ☼ ―

c – mathematical symbol for the speed of light. A. N.

Proved by Einstein's famous equation: E = m. c2; energy (E) = mass (m) multiplied by the square of the speed of light (c) A. N.

Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger – Austrian physicist who made a very interesting hypothesis to explain certain things in Quantum Mechanics. A. N.

String theory and M Theory. There is a lot of fantasy in the text because not everything explained is correct. A. N.

Belém do Pará, or simply Belém, is the capital of the state of Pará, in the north of Brazil. A. N.

The original term is "Égua, mano" − Égua is a regional expression from the North of Brazil, meaning surprise or admiration. It literally means mare, a female horse. I translated as "Holly cow, dude!" A. N.

The original term is "Tô leso" − Leso is another regional expression from the North of Brazil, meaning crazy or stupid. It comes from the word lesado, which means injured or impaired. A. N.