by Jim Galford
With a flick of her wrist, Kharali cast aside her glove and brought her clawed hand back in front of Dorralt’s face. She said nothing, but the reminder that she was deadly with or without her magic was clear. He immediately snapped his mouth shut and tried to avoid looking directly at her.
Three mortals already fighting while they wait, came a deep voice from the cave. It did not echo as it should have. You wonder why you cannot have peace without my help, yet a few mere moments alone leads to this. Do you really need my answer, oh great Emperor Turess?
Turess’s hands clenched and he had to force himself to calm, though Kharali did not even try. The dragon had been equally confrontational during their first visit a week earlier. “You know I hate that title, Nenophar,” he answered the dark cave, placing his hands on his thighs to keep them away from his staff. The weapon was of limited use against a dragon anyway, but he wanted the temptation far from him. “I am just a man, not one to claim titles, even if that is effectively what I am. If I could step aside and know the lands would be safe…”
I do not challenge you, human, the dragon replied, coming far enough into the light Turess could see his pale green scales glinting faintly. I did ask that your whole company return, did I not? There is one of those who came last time missing.
This time, Dorralt answered, though his eyes stayed on Kharali, who still kept herself close enough he was effectively pinned against the stones. “The orc betrayed us to Turess’s enemies,” the man said, trying to move around Kharali but failing when she stepped in his way. Like many wild animals, she would not relent until her point had been driven home and Dorralt had truly submitted. “He ran and has not been found yet. I will continue to hunt him, no matter how long it takes.”
The dragon adjusted his position to look down at Dorralt, then back to Turess. Find him and deal with him. I do not want visitors and he already knows where I live, the dragon said. You, Turess, I told of the risks of coming back, Nenophar said, lying down at the entrance to the cave and crossing his front legs as though having a polite conversation between friends. Seeing the pattern of the future as a mortal requires the brink of death. There is no way of knowing how dangerous this will be for you.
“I accept any risk for my people,” Turess answered, lowering his eyes so he could not see Kharali’s concerned stare or the nervous snap of her tail, side to side. “Do what you must.”
When I bring you to the edge of death’s door, Nenophar continued, there is no turning back. The visions may not come immediately, but death will claim you as soon as your body is too weak to go on, whether the visions have begun or not. No one can know whether you have an hour or a week to live, but once you are healed, there will never be another vision for you. Do you understand?
Again the nervous narrowing of Kharali’s eyes, this time with a quick baring of her fangs. She wanted to run or fight, not to let him risk himself. He knew she would go along if he insisted, as he had, but she wanted to disobey at any cost. Had he given the command, she would have fought the dragon by herself to save him.
“I understand, Nenophar. I am ready.”
The dragon turned to look at Kharali and Dorralt again. Which of them do you trust to watch you in your dying moments, enough that you believe they can save you? the dragon asked.
Turess looked at his two greatest allies and saw they both were watching him intently. His wife’s stare was one of concern, hoping he made the right choice all around, regardless of whom he put his trust in. Dorralt’s was one of demand, silently insisting Turess trust him with such a responsibility. Both were more than capable and had served him unfailingly for years. He trusted both with his life every day, but today he had to be sure he chose wisely. In days past, he would have deflected the choice by picking On’esquin, but given the rumors of the man’s betrayal, that option was gone.
“My wife will bear this responsibility,” he finally said, looking down at the staff he had picked up and was clutching tightly without realizing he had done so. “My brother will guard us both through this and remain at my side to ensure our safety.”
Nenophar gestured vaguely with one of his enormous fingers toward Kharali, and then nodded as though something happened Turess could not see. She has the tools needed to save you. We will begin immediately, stated Nenophar, raising his clawed hand toward Turess. This will hurt more than I will ever know. I hold you to our bargain though. If you cannot tell me of my own death with the onset of the visions, I will kill you myself, ending any further visions beyond that. My price is paid first, before you benefit from my gift.
“I agree.”
So much has happened since I began having this scribed, though it has only been a matter of days. With each breath bringing me closer to my end, the sights Nenophar promised me become clearer. I no longer fear death, but only fear closing my eyes forever before I can speak all I see coming to pass. Now, I worry what I hurry to say will be too vague or I will leave out what is most needed. A vision is truly something never meant to be put to words.
I see war. Not just the war that is erupting among the families as I was brought down from the mountains. They vie for control over our people with my inevitable death. No, I see a war that will ravage all the lands. This war will not be among the nations, but between life and death, between man and monster. Most importantly, it will be between our world and the magic binding it all together.
My heirs will believe they have protected themselves from all I have seen and written, but that will be their undoing. They will become complacent and fail to see the signs left for the council to act upon. They will allow the enemy into their midst, and all will fall in these cold lands. That will be the beginning of the end for my people, but my visions of this war tell me nothing more about the land I wish to know the most about in those times. I see nothing of the north and nothing of the time period in which I lived.
Instead, I find myself seeing the impossible will happen.
A scaled god will choose to cast aside the mantle of immortality and fly headlong into a sky ablaze, giving his life to preserve the child he owes nothing. Out of emotions his kind were not meant to feel, he will give everything to spare the child from misery. With his death, the great tear in the fabric of magic itself—created through my own mistakes—will finally come asunder, letting horror enter our world, while preventing far worse. I sought this prophecy specifically to prevent this, but the vision I am given says I have failed.
I see a betrayer seeking forgiveness already given. Had I never seen these visions, I would have demanded his death, but all is forgiven now. He will stand at the ready for signs he might never witness. I once bound his fate to death, but I now bind it to saving us all. These few days have brought him back to me and shown me his true intent. He will carry a burden beyond the others.
As I have already written, the time will be known by the betrayer when those whose deaths were already mandated come to him for help. The betrayer will be first met by a lost man, whose preferred color will always be red. The betrayer will be told about war that has come to all the world, and he will know it is time to seek out the fragments of what we thought was power and learned instead to be doom.
The doom we will all face is my own fault, and I have sought to undo my errors. I have scattered the tools to bring about this war in hopes they will never be found, but I am no fool. A vision of the results of them being found likely ensures I have already failed. Perhaps I have bought us time, of that I cannot even be sure.
In those days, the betrayer must safeguard the last of those we thought would cause our destruction and leave them to face those we knew nothing about. He will step back to a time already past or be himself destroyed trying. The betrayer will know he has finally arrived where he must confront the mistakes of his own life when he finds the sheep in wolf’s garb that truly wishes it was a wolf. Perhaps with great effort, the wolf will find its own path and be what it was always meant to be, but its own losses may well lead it astray in time.
There will be six, or there will be failure. The man shrouded in black and white will be a key to the others.
Redemption for what we have done wrong comes from the lowest of people, though in those times, some might not even consider them to be people. Through degradation, they become our saviors.
I will leave the crumbs of bread in the world for the betrayer to find. If those are found by another or never found at all, even the gods will die as the dragon already knows, whether he believes or not. None will be safe anywhere in this world or any other that touches it. Destruction will seek out every last creature across every realm in time, regardless of what they do if at least some of what I foresee is not acted upon.
There is a little more I see, but I need to rest. Guard what I have written, On’esquin. Guard it from everyone, including my brother. They will try to take it from you and call you a liar, but we both know that is one thing you never were. For all your faults, you are the only one who stayed with me this day of my death, even after I demanded your death before it all became clear.
Pray that my wife returns soon and prevents all I have seen from coming to pass by saving me. The dragon’s own understanding of her place in the fabric was that the simple act of healing my wounds was key to undoing my visions, but only if done by her hands. If she does not come back in time…I am the lucky one to have died before all of this began.
In dying, I will mourn for you. I will mourn for the world I leave behind and the nations that will suffer at the hands of those who believe they follow my wishes.
– The first chapter of the lost prophecies of Turess.