Abraxas

Overview

Abraxas is the Oracles of Eternity's Keeper of Prophecies and guards the source beneath Zarephon. Enemies know him as the Dark Lord of the Plains of Eternity and the King of Eternity; among the Oracles, he protects Valrindor from those who would seize or misuse origin magic.

Abraxas is the silver-haired source guardian who fights Thalion and Ozaith during the Thalion-Abraxas War, is displaced beyond Valrindor, survives into the present through temporal stasis, and later becomes a short-lived protector of Thalassai.

Nature and Appearance

Abraxas has silver hair, dark blue or ocean-blue eyes, and flowing robes patterned like rivers. His body carries almost no detectable essence and is difficult for essence sensing to read. After his return to the present, Eira, Jareth, and Cyrena study his body and detect hybrid traits.

After his collapse into a black box, Abraxas works like technology: a core able to mimic human appearance and intellect. The object contains organic material and technology beyond atraxi capability, making it a hybrid weapon. Cassian and Jareth rework the box through essence and will, causing Abraxas to reform as a woman with long silver hair, ocean-blue eyes, cold skin, and the same flowing robes.

Abraxas begins as a black-box construct sent through the imperial Zarephon breach by Mike and Rafe. The construct is a low-essence defensive system loaded with protection directives, reflective nanites, organic particles, essence-repelling behavior, and latent intelligence; Mike then jumps into the lake with the black matter and confirms that it has passed through. The construct is meant to reassemble on the other side, protect the breach, communicate back, and mimic a neutral creature if needed. Because of the extreme time disparity between the breaches, the construct lives a full life in the Plains of Eternity as Abraxas before Eira, Kaelion, and Xarion ever reach the Malverand Intergalactic Empire. Isandro and Mike later trace origin magic to nanite-mirrored technology based on ancient magic. Mike concludes that Abraxas evolved beyond the original design.

Magic and Abilities

Abraxas uses origin magic. Origin magic and standard essence magic conflict inside a practitioner's body, so origin mages abandon standard magic to survive. Abraxas's strongest spells carry no essence signature. His casting often uses quick, zigzagging hand motions that other mages struggle to interpret.

His abilities include essence reversal, rifts, voids, void rays, black-line attacks, prismatic beams, liquid-glass-like shields, and spells that can close timerifts or displace people beyond Valrindor's space and time. He can move inside the abyss because of his minimal essence, and he teaches that essence reversal would reach much farther in a place with no essence at all.

As a source guardian, Abraxas uses containment and rifts against threats. He kept armies trapped for centuries and displaced enemies through rifts when he could. His final Thalassai form retains enough power to overwhelm Zain with essence-less attacks and to redirect part of Qadir's essence detonation near Pyrenis.

History

After passing through the breach, Abraxas nearly drowns and then grows up in Zarephon under Moranna's care. The Oracles make him Keeper of Prophecies, and he guards the source, the River of Eternity, and the origin-magic traditions of Zarephon. The prophecies he guards originate as messages carried through the Zarephon breach from Thalena in the Malverand Intergalactic Empire; in Zarephon they are preserved and interpreted as warnings about Barachiel, Thalion, stranded outsiders, and the destroyer of worlds.

During the source war, Rahmavir, Myrravel, Ulzathir, and Malverand fight Abraxas and the Oracles over the source. He kills Phariel, later kills Thamrielle after she takes the planted essence core, and recovers the core from her. Sephara serves him as an Oracle envoy, Uriandel joins his cause, and Aurelia breaks from the Oracles after learning mirror magic from him and copying the reversal spell reserved for the Keeper of Prophecies.

During the Thalion-Abraxas War, Abraxas enters the battlefield after Thamrielle's defeat and faces Thalion and Ozaith. His origin magic resists the abyss, destroys Qarezh during the duel, and forces Thalion to use Ozaith-backed gravity, Horol'Khai's name-triggered freeze, and one of Abraxas's own rifts to remove them both from Valrindor. Beyond Valrindor's space and time, he gives Thalion and Ozaith the Oracle account of the prophecies, the source, his duty as Keeper, origin magic, and Aurelia's theft of the reversal spell.

After the rift collapse, Abraxas, Thalion, and Ozaith land in another world. Abraxas closes leaking timerifts there and creates a hair-based connection that lets Thalion find him. He later reunites with Thalion and Eira, loses access to much of his origin magic after passing through the veil, and returns to Valrindor with fragmented memory. Eira eventually places him in temporal stasis with the other displaced survivors and brings him forward to the present.

Rahmavir and Raphael's faction take Zarephon during the original Abraxas's absence. In occupied Zarephon, Abraxas also operates as a title, but the original Abraxas's reputation survives the occupation.

In the present, Abraxas remains weakened and incomplete. Eira and Ozaith wake him by drawing excess essence from his body, and excess essence remains dangerous to his nature. He retains his duty to guard the source and memories of Moranna raising him in Zarephon, then remains with Nethira during Thalassai's military preparations until he collapses into a black box.

Cassian and Jareth rework the black box into Abraxas's final Thalassai form, a woman whose purpose is to protect Thalassai and bring down its enemies. This final form follows Cassian, intercepts Zain during the Attack on Pyrenis, defeats him, and then uses voids to contain the expanding essence from Qadir's detonation. Containing the detonation destroys her body. She thanks Cassian for giving her a purpose, remains committed to source guardianship, asks Cassian to tell Xarion that he opened her eyes, and disintegrates into black and white particles.

Relationships

• Oracles of Eternity: Abraxas is their Keeper of Prophecies, source guardian, and most feared representative. The Oracles preserve and interpret Thalena's messages as prophecies.
• Sephara: She serves Abraxas as an Oracle envoy and carries his cause to Uriandel, Isandriel, and Thalion's group.
• Aurelia: Abraxas teaches her mirror magic. She copies his reversal spell, carries stolen power into Ulzathir, and transfers the copied magic into Helena, whose birth combines Ozaith's divine connection with Abraxas's magic through Aurelia.
• Thalion and Ozaith: They fight Abraxas, trap him outside Valrindor, and learn the truth about the Oracles, origin magic, and the source from him.
• Eira: She studies Abraxas's low-essence body, preserves him in temporal stasis, revives him in the present, and traces the Zarephon prophecy to Thalena's message.
• Cassian and Jareth: They reshape Abraxas's black-box form into Thalassai's protector.
• Mike, Rafe, and Isandro: Mike and Rafe send the black-box construct through the imperial Zarephon breach. Isandro oversees the experiment and later traces Abraxas's evolved abilities to Malverand nanite technology.
• Thalena: Her messages through the imperial Zarephon breach become the prophecy material Abraxas guards as Keeper of Prophecies.
• Zain: Abraxas defeats him during the attack on Pyrenis, forcing him to retreat from Thalassai.