Author's Note: Sorry this has taken a while to get out and that it hasn't been beta'd.. I have been extremely busy as of late. You see… Unfortunately, once again, Pensacola is directly in the crosshairs of yet another Hurricane. Dennis's projected path is pretty much straight towards P-cola, on almost the exact same track as Ivan last year. So I have been working pretty much around the clock getting prepared at home, and helping friends and family, and also working long shifts at the local wally-world because everyone with money who worked there has left town for someplace safer and we had to cover for them and deal with panic stricken customers.
I will sit out the hurricane right here in p-cola this time instead of evac-ing, since I have no cash. Depending on what happens I may not be gone at all, or else I could be gone for as long as two weeks since that is how long it took us to get power back from Ivan. That is, if my house isn't blown down. It wasn't last time but... shudder
So keep me in mind. Pray to whatever higher powers you believe that Dennis will either miss us, or at least do little damage. He hits Sunday.
Chapter 14 – An Interlude
The fire burned low, the coals almost spent to nothing but useless char and ash. The shadows on the stone walls flickered as if in dance, illuminating ancient paintings one moment then silently smothering them with darkness the next. Swallowing them whole.
Huddled in her old and tattered blankets, the crone sat cross-legged and stared into the fire. While her flesh was wrinkled and tanned like leather and her teeth all but non-existent, her eyes were still sharp and clear. They looked intently into the flames, watching them flicker and flutter in the faint breeze from the cave's mouth.
Outside the winds howled fiercely like the bahn'sjai her father would spin tales about around the campfires of her youth. The ethereal creatures who had sent their ancestors into hiding with their heartrending song, stealing their very souls as if they were wisps of air to be breathed.
Of course, those were just fairy tales used to scare children. The bahn'jai were, in reality, not as dangerous as the stories told. No, they were just a lost part of their distant past, a history lesson or fable used to a forgotten moral.
And that was what the old crone did. She told stories.
But her stories weren't about what had been so much as what could be. The fire spoke to her, gave her clarity, letting her see the possible futures laid out before her and anyone who came to ask.
But the ones to ask were becoming fewer and farther between. The old ways were more quickly disappearing now then they ever had in her one hundred and seven seasons. And with no one to come and ask for a story, there would be no one for her to find and pass on the calling to.
She could very well be the last of her kind.
No one believed that the future could be seen. They put it off as the whims of some eccentric old woman who had outlived her useful purpose. Still, she would never give up. Not while she still had a breath in her lungs and a heart beating in her breast.
She comes.
The old crone blinked as she heard the fire speak to her. It had been months since the flames had whispered anything. Leaning closer she peered into the heart of the slowly dying fire and deep within the glowing embers she saw the coming traveler.
At the mouth of the cave stood a young woman, wrapped in silvery shawls that repelled the rain in rivulets down the shiny material. She was fairly tall, definitely more so then the old woman and was a bit more curvaceous then she knew most women were these days.
Her eyes were hidden behind a silvery visor that wrapped around her head, reflecting the fire back at the old woman. But perhaps the most noticeable trait of this woman was her hair.
It wasn't red, not like a normal redhead, but a vary gradient of blonde through gold through copper all the way to blood red. A rainbow of red, even. It was rare that anyone had such hair, even dyed that way. Only one line of people had such tresses.
The Blood of the Scions.
The crone looked back down to her fire and stoked it once with a stick, making the flames sputter and crackle. "Enter my home, young Scioness." She invited the girl. "Be warm and dry."
The redheaded young woman walked slowly towards the fire away from the squall outside. Finding only another blanket across the fore from the crone she carefully lowered herself into a cross-legged position and stared at the older woman across the flames.
The Crone grinned at her and stoked the fire some more, sparks fluttering to the stone ceiling before dimming to non-existence as their life was snuffed out. "It has been a long time since one of The Blood came to ask me of the future." She said conversationally as she set her stoking stick aside.
The younger woman pursed her lips. "What makes you think That's what I came for?" she asked.
"Because I do no see what was, or what is, young Scioness." The crone replied matter of factly. "I only see what could be."
"Not what will be?" the redheaded one asked, skeptically.
The crone sighed and shook her head. "The Future is more vast then the past, dear child." She informed the special woman. "Since what has passed is already gone, and what is already happening, they are set in stone. Only the future flows like a river with an infinite amount of tributaries. I just happen to be able to navigate that river better then most."
"So you are never wrong."
"I would not go that far, child."
This didn't stop the Scioness, however. "My father once told me you were never wrong. Did he lie?"
Looking a bit peeved, the old woman peered across the dancing flames. "I have not been wrong /yet, child." She finally says. "But for every time I am correct, the odds are that I will one day be wrong. It is only an amount of time before fate decides that I have pushed the boundaries of the future enough for it to lash back at me."
The younger woman inhaled sharply. "And then what…?"
The Crone actually smiled, showing the gaps between her old and worn teeth, "Then I retire. And someone takes my burden."
Shuddering the young Scioness just nodded. "Well, then… I will wish you the best of luck with your retirement, Watcher." She said, using the formal title of the crone. "But I did not come here to chat about life jobs."
"Oh no, you didn't. You came to ask if I could see the future. They all do. It's my profession." The Watcher teased. "What would you like to know?"
"What, you don't already know what I wish to be told?"
"The closer the future, dear, the harder to see.. Like someone holding a tapestry too close to your eyes. The further away, the easier it is to see the entire weaving."
Nodding her understanding, though she really didn't, the Scioness turned her eyes to the flames. "You know that the Nemesii have started to raid the outer colonies?"
"It was foretold, Scioness. Though no one heeded my warning. Scion Brelak scoffed in my face if I recall."
The young woman blushed. "My grandfather." She admitted.
The Watcher chuckled hoarsely. "Ah, so you would be Nikiski." She said. "I saw your birth as well. Twenty seasons ago, now, I believe. I had forgotten that. And forgotten you would come to speak with me on the eve of your nineteenth season."
Nikiski, of the Blood of the Scion, blinked in surprise. "You knew?" she asked.. then quickly averted her gaze. "I guess you would have known. You are the Watcher, after all."
"Aye, so I am, Scioness Nikiski. So I am." With that she leaned closer to the fire and concentrated on the flames. They moved with hypnotic grace, full of primordial images that worked their way quickly foreword, passing her by and into the streams of the future. A million images, each calling for her attention.
But she didn't have the time to see them all.. Instead she latched to the closest.. then the next beyond that which had the highest possibility.. Then the next.. the story being built before her eyes in a cascading effect of possibility and potential until she finally had the knowledge she believed she needed.
"The Nemesii come, Scioness." She whispered, then shivering at the horrors that crept into her vision. "No man nor woman has ever seen one. Not a true Nemesii. Only their ships and the black armor. The Nemesii hide their true visage well. Not even I can see what they look like. Only what they will do."
"And what would that be?"
"They come searching for something, Scioness. Something hidden. Again, I do not know what for it hides itself from me. But the Nemesii will come, destroying and subjugating all in it's path. Overthrowing hundreds of worlds. The war will be long and terrible and almost totally consuming."
"Then.. then there is no hope?"
"Yes, there is hope. At least a slim one."
"Three will come." The Watcher told her Three people from somewhere beyond the reaches of all we know. With the support of their followers they will shift the tide of the coming war. It is.. Oh my.. The Prophecy!"
"What Prophecy? Watcher, I must know. What Prophecy?"
"The Power of the One will bind the love of the Two, which will form the Friendship of the Three, which will shape the Legion of the Four." She recited.. the whole vague prophecy sounding almost musical.
"Four..? But You said three will come."
"Yes, Three will come with their minions from beyond what we know.. From the land of our Youth." She told Nikiski. "The Fourth will be from this world."
"But who will they be? How will we know?"
The Watcher sighed and finally looked away from the flames. "The Three will come and you will know them as the Seeker of Lost truths; The Grey Mother, and the Man with Two Souls."
"And the fourth?"
"The Fourth, Scioness Nikiski, will be the Last of the Full Blood." She told her with a sudden look of sympathy.
Nikiski sat still for a moment, stunned by the last title the crone gave. "The last of the Full Blood? But there are many of us. There is no last. We are all in the Tower of the Blood…." She trailed off as the realization hit her.
"All are there, Scioness.. All are there but you."
Throwing herself to her feet, Nikiski ran towards the mouth of the cave, but as she rushed out of the crones home she knew she was too late.
Far over head, like a band of shimmering light, something like a great icy rock streaked towards earth.. Towards the glow of the city far on the other side of the Silver Forest. Crying out, she watches as light lanced from the far away city, striking the object multiple time, vaporizing more and more of it until it was just a sliver.
But a sliver was just enough. It plummeted into the glow of the Great city. Though slowed to almost a halt by her inexperienced reckoning, the silvery dagger from the sky was still going fast enough to stab deeply into the heart of it's enemy…
The stroke was strategic, almost surgical. Though the city was a fair distance away Nikiski could see the target it had struck.
The Tower of the Blood of the Scion. The home of the Avalonian Empire's greatest family. The Bloodline of Kings and Queens, defenders of the Star realms and Wielders of the Blades of the Iron Light.
And in a flash of light which was followed, many seconds later by the resounding thunder, they were all gone.
Nikiski fell to her knees as tears ran down her cheeks. She screamed in anguish at the thought of everything she held dear ceasing to exist in a single moment. She through her hands into the air and shrieked curses at the Nemesii, vowing to destroy each and every one of them until she could shriek no more.
Spent of all her energy, she sobbed and whimpered as she fell to her side on the ground.. Curling into a fetal position and burying her face between her knees which she hugged to her chest.
The Watcher stood at the mouth of her cave, watching the Last of the Full Blood as she tried to hide from the rest of the world. The Watcher, too, was crying as she saw the tower of the beloved Scions of the blood crumbling in flames.
"I hate being right.." she whispered, suddenly very tired. She pulled her blanket around her shoulders and limped barefoot across to the still crying young woman. She knelt down and pulled the girl into her lap, rocking her gently like the child she had never been able to bare.
"And so it begins.." she whispered, looking once more to the burning tower in the Great City of Avalon."
"So it begins."