Third Power

by Robert Childs

  Amy.

  Steve stood bolt upright, bringing Vessla abruptly to her feet. “I’m sorry,” he said breathless.

  Vessla looked to him with confusion written clearly upon her face. “Why do you fight?” she demanded petulantly. “You and I were meant to be, and still you fight it. Why?”

  Steve struggled to find the words to explain himself—at the same time knowing he could not tell her the truth. “Vessla, believe me when I say it has nothing to do with you. It’s just—I’m from an entirely different world, and the way we do things is just different. Ever since I showed up here everyone has been saying I’ve got to do this, or I’m destined to do that, and all because of some prophecy you all say has been around for a thousand years but I’ve never even seen. And you, you’re a beautiful, intelligent woman, and I’m sure you would make a wonderful wife, but where I’m from you just don’t jump into marriages with someone you haven’t even known a day. You and your father are in such a rush to get all of this done and I feel like you are all just trying to sweep me along.”

  Vessla exhaled and blinked once slowly. She nodded then and said, “I think I am beginning to understand.”

  “You are?”

  “I suppose in the excitement of your arrival, we have forgotten how this would be difficult for someone to grasp who had not been raised with it from the time of their birth. Oh, Steven,” she said touching his cheek, “I understand how you feel but there is really nothing either of us can do.” She moved around behind and hugged him, her arms about his waist and her cheek resting against his back. “You and I are destined to be together. When I was just a little girl and my talent first manifested, my father knew it was a sign the Third Power would one day come for me. He knew we would be married as the prophecy foretold and together we would take back the world for the sake of all that is good. You will purge this realm of the black sickness, and together we shall become the new Emperor and Empress of Mithal.”

  Steve gently eased himself out of her embrace and turned to face her. “Princess, you talk more about a prophecy I know nothing about.”

  She smiled at him sweetly. “You are right. Come,” she said taking his hand.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m taking you to the library. There you will learn of our destiny as it was foretold a millennia ago.”

  They passed through a pair of great double doors and into the vast room beyond—no, not room; this was a stadium. Three stories of shelves lined the walls of this grand chamber and in multiple rows along the first floor, one right after another in domino fashion. Steve tried to count the number of upright shelves along one lane alone on the first floor but found he could not differentiate one shelf from another beyond seventy yards. More of the same glowing orbs he had seen in the great hall illuminated this other chamber from brackets set in the walls and at the ends of the upright shelves. Instead of a polished marble floor, however, they stood upon a short-cropped rug of light burgundy beneath their feet.

  “There must be a million books in here,” Steve said amazed.

  “I’m not sure, really,” Vessla replied. “But I do know they range from all over the empire—a great many from human monasteries scattered all about the land. Come on.” She led him directly down the center of the huge library, casting quick glances to the left and right as they passed each aisle. “I know he’s around here somewhere.”

  “Who?”

  “Dunkin. He has been the librarian here since before I was born, and he is like family to me. When I was a little girl I used to play games of hide-and-seek in here, and somehow he always managed to find me. He is such a dear, sweet old man, and he knows so much about the prophecy that you might consider him an expert. The original document was kept in the Imperial Palace, but that was before Azinon came so who knows if that even still exists. Fortunately, Duncan committed it to memory long before the war. Since then he has spent years studying the verses, trying to discover something that might reveal more clearly the future.”

  They walked deeper amongst the ancient tomes—immaculately kept, Steve noticed—and dusting off a ledger in a book-lined alcove they found the old librarian. He dressed simply in a brown habit over his fragile frame, with gray hair and silver feathers, and leathery skin lined with age. His face, however, put the young man at ease just gazing upon it, for it revealed a gentle kindness and wisdom of a man even beyond his advanced years.

  He placed the ledger back on its shelf when he spied the two young people heading his way. “How can I help – ah! My little princess!”

  Vessla hugged the kindly old man and said, “It’s always nice to see you, Dunkin.”

  “And you, my little princess. It seems you grow lovelier every day.”

  Vessla flushed slightly. “You flatter me too much. But, please, I have someone I would like you to meet. Dunkin, this is Steven, my fiancé and Third Power of Mithal.” She spoke the latter with beaming pride in her voice.

  Dunkin offered his hand saying, “It is indeed an honor for this old scholar to have lived long enough to meet you, lord wizard.”

  Steve shook hands with a smile, though he disliked Princess Vessla’s reference to him as her fiancé. “The pleasure is mine, sir. And may I say this is the grandest library I have ever seen. How do you manage it?”

  Dunkin chuckled and replied, “With a great deal of eager young scholars, all tagging at my heels like a pack of hungry pups. But come now, why is it you two are here with an old man rather than celebrating with our king?”

  “Steven wishes to know of the prophecy,” Vessla said. “He has heard of it many times now, but from those nowhere near as erudite as you, dear Dunkin.”

  The old librarian smiled. “Now it is you who flatter me, little princess.” Then to Steve he said, “How is it I might serve you, lord wizard?”

  “Please, it’s just Steven.” The old librarian seemed somewhat surprised by the request to address him in the familiar, but nodded assent. “I just need to know what is in this prophecy. Then I can decide whether or not to believe it.”

  “Oh, believe it,” Dunkin said simply. “The man who wrote the passages you seek is a mystery, but his gift in prophecy was remarkable beyond any before or since. He foresaw your coming, Steven, and not only that, he knew from where you would come. I know nothing of this other world from which you once lived, but I doubt their need for you is as great as that of Mithal.”

  “The plague,” Steve affirmed. “The one everyone calls the black death.”

  The old man nodded gravely, “Yes. It appeared as suddenly as the Dark One and his hellish legions, and only the Third Power of Mithal can purge the realm of its evil.”

  “I saw the effects of this disease in a town not far from here,” Steve said. “I was told it has a magical origin. Is that true?”

  “Very much so,” Dunkin agreed. “Even we, the Jisetra, as far remote as we are from the other races of Mithal, have not escaped its foul touch.” He looked to the side then and stared at nothing, but far away. Then he blinked and returned his attention with an apologetic grin to the young man. “Those of us who show the first signs of contamination are quarantined immediately and relocated to the lowest levels of the fortress; though many choose to end their lives before the worst of its strikes them down. I do not blame them. It is horrible way to meet one’s end.”

  Steve empathized with the old librarian’s pain, for he could only imagine how many friends and loved ones he had likely already lost.

  “But how am I supposed stop it?”

  The old man did not answer, lost as he was amid his own thoughts again. Vessla touched him gently on the arm and he returned from his sullen contemplation. “Oh, I’m sorry. Your question again?”

  “The black death,” Steve said. “How can I stop it?”

  Dunkin’s frail shoulders rose and fell. “I do not know. I am not the one chosen. You, Steven, as the Third Power, must find a way. You are ‘born of an alien world where the science of man has replaced th
e mystical ways.’” Steve could tell by the way Dunkin stressed the latter he quoted directly from the prophecy. “The savior of foreign birth shall come to our dying land gifted with the healing touch and render the Empire restored’. It does not say how you will heal the land, only that you shall.”

  Render the Empire restored. Steve mulled these words over in his head as another idea started to take shape. The simplest interpretation of that lone passage posits the Third Power will heal the land—an interpretation to which King Gorium and the rest of the Jisetra clearly subscribe—but his vision in the Memsherar made him believe otherwise.

  “With all due respect, Dunkin, I think there may be a possibility you’ve misinterpreted one of the verses.”

  “Oh?”

  “In the Memsherar I saw…” He stopped as he remembered his vision of the three courtiers who failed to see the Imperial Princess away from the castle. They had said she disappeared. Steve was silent as he also remembered the sorcerer’s words to him at The Oz, “The Emperor lives yet, in the dungeons beneath the palace.”

  “What is it, Steven?” Vessla asked.

  He was silent for a moment more and then said, “Just something I remember. Dunkin, how much do you know about the war?”

  “As much as can be known,” the old librarian replied.

  “All right then, whatever became of the Imperial Princess after she disappeared?”

  “No one knows, although she is presumed dead,” Dunkin shrugged. “To this day it is still a mystery. Why?”

  “Because I have a feeling she’s still alive. Azinon said he keeps the Emperor alive in the dungeons beneath the palace—and he said it in such fashion as to make me believe the monarch was some kind of war trophy. But I think maybe it’s more likely he’s using the Emperor to keep someone else on their best behavior.”

  Vessla gasped, “The Imperial Princess?”

  “Exactly,” Steve affirmed. “While I was in the Memsherar I had a vision, and there were three escorts who were to take the Princess away, but said they lost her to some magical being that stole her way. If that was Azinon, marrying her would legitimize his claim to her father’s throne. And what better way to keep her in line than to threaten her with her own father’s life?”

  Dunkin scratched at his chin with a finger. “I think, Steven, with this information of your vision, you have just opened up a door in the prophecy I had never before considered. If the adopted child of evil were deposed or otherwise killed, the Imperial Princess would take over as Empress of Mithal. You would have effectively ‘rendered the Empire restored’ by placing the Emperor’s descendent upon the throne. Well done, young man! This is an interesting possibility, to be sure.”

  “Oh, Steven!” Vessla exclaimed excited. “How can you doubt your destiny now?” She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him.

  “My little princess,” Dunkin said gently, “though very intriguing, what we have deduced here is only a possibility.”

  Vessla turned saying, “I know it is true! It all fits too well into place. Steven will vanquish the evil and good will return to the realm!”

  “Wait a second,” Steve said. “Dunkin, what about the whole marriage part of this prophecy? What does it say about that?”

  “It foretells your marriage unto a royal house of Mithal, but only to that individual who is possessed of magic in their soul.”

  “And I am she!” Vessla said happily. “I have the magical ability of post-cognition. I can discover things about people even they do not know themselves. And no other race on Mithal possesses magic within their royal house.”

  Steve suddenly found himself seriously considering what the princess had been telling him all along. “If I really am this Third Power—” he looked to Vessla—“then you and I really are supposed to get married.” He said this last dumbfounded.

  “Of course,” Vessla replied looking barely able to contain her excitement. “And I do not care if this new revelation means we are never the Emperor and Empress of the realm. When it is all over, we shall be the most heralded couple in the history of Mithal! Oh, Father will be so proud!”

  “I’m getting married?” Steve mumbled in disbelief.

  “It does tend to lean to that conclusion,” Dunkin remarked. “But what is wrong, lord wizard? You seem…out of sorts by this news.”

  “It’s just that I never quite realized the significance of all this until now. I mean… marriage… that’s no small thing.”

  Dunkin chuckled. “Indeed not. It shall be as it was foretold, and you both have my sincerest blessings.”

  “Oh, thank you, Dunkin,” Vessla said hugging him. She then turned and quickly led Steve away by the hand. “Come. Father will be overjoyed!”

  She led him swiftly through the passageways of her home unerringly until they stood before Steve’s chamber doors once more. King Gorium turned as the two young people appeared and he said, “Ah, there you are! I was beginning to wonder where the two of you had wandered off to.”

  “Father, we have wonderful news!” Vessla proclaimed. “Steven knows of his destiny. We are to be married!”

  King Gorium clapped his hands together once. “This is wonderful!” He crossed the room and then engulfed the both of them in a bear hug. “I knew from the moment I laid eyes upon him you two were meant for each other.”

  The king released them and Vessla continued, “But that is not all, Father.” She quickly explained what Steve and Dunkin had deduced together in the library only a short time before.

  “But of course!” King Gorium gasped. He paced the room for a full minute thinking to himself. “It all makes perfect sense. Why else would the Dark One preserve the Emperor’s life? Steven, you are brilliant!”

  He shrugged, feeling none of the ebullience his fiancée or her father expressed. “Well, it makes sense, anyway.”

  “Can you believe it, Vessla?” King Gorium asked rhetorically. “He has been here but a day and already he has clarified the prophecy. And I will soon have that very same man for a son-in-law! I am the proudest man in the entire Jisetrian kingdom.” He grabbed Steve in another bear hug, and then set him down again. “My grandchildren will not be able to help but be fine and strong.”

  There came a knock at the door and the three of them turned. A winged sentry stepped inside, clearly reluctant to intrude upon his monarch. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but there are visitors in the great hall. They have come seeking audience with you.”

  “Not now, man!” the king snapped. “We are discussing matters of state here. Tell them to wait and I shall see them in due time.”

  “But, Your Majesty, they—” The sentry fell sprawling to the floor as a massive white tiger barreled through the open doorway like he wasn’t even there.

  “Kayliss!” Steve declared in surprise.

  The King jumped in front of his daughter with his sword drawn, and then watched as the Third Power dropped to his knees and met the tiger in a hug.

  “Kayliss, you big beast! I’m so glad to see you!” To the king he said, “It’s okay, he’s with me.” The monstrous cat touched his coarse tongue to Steve’s cheek affectionately.

  “By the Third!” King Gorium declared. “You know this beast?”

  “Know him?” Steve laughed. “I—” His eyes grew wide as the significance of the tiger’s appearance hit him. Without a word, he dashed out of the room with Kayliss bounding at his heels.

  Princess Vessla rushed past her father. “Steve, wait!”

  With his cape flailing behind him, Steve backtracked down the passageways and past servants who hurriedly made way for him or dived into adjoining rooms when they spied the great tiger at his back. The two guards at the doors to the great hall snapped to attention, but Steve did not wait and rushed by them to throw open one of the doors. Haldorum, Haze, Lurin, Scott, and Sonya all stood at the edge of the polished marble floor, talking amongst themselves and waiting for King Gorium’s arrival.

  Steve jogged up to them all with a smi
le saying, “Haldorum, I never thought I’d ever be as glad to see you as I am now.”

  “Ah, Steven,” Haldorum greeted him. “I had a feeling you would be turning up shortly after the way Kayliss sprinted away.”

  He clasped the old wizard’s hand. “How did you know where to find us?”

  “Surely you didn’t think I would create a rift between worlds without knowing where it leads?” Haldorum chuckled. “I may be an old goat, but hardly a doddery one. If you would have only had a little patience I would have shown up in due time.”

  “I was waiting in the van,” Scott said, “but after you and Sonya disappeared Azinon gave him a little trouble.”

  Haldorum touched his shoulder gingerly and with a wan smile said, “Indeed. But aside from that, have you seen His Majesty around? That overbearing bird always has been a bit of a sly old rogue, and I would imagine he has been filling your head with all kinds of ideas while I’ve been away, am I right?”

  “Well… sort of, I guess,” Steve managed. “I know about the prophecy, and the plague, and getting married—”

  “Married!?” Sonya exclaimed in surprise. “To the princess?”

  Steve nodded. “Yeah, the prophecy says – wait a minute.” He realized Sonya just spoke in Mithalian and she had not touched him to do so. “How did you…”

  “I think I can explain,” Haldorum cut in. “I noticed her lack of the native tongue so I placed a spell of knowledge over her. It is the same spell that allows Scott to speak Mithalian as well, and ourselves to speak English. Quite simple, really. Now, you were about to tell us where the king has gotten to.”

  “Forget the king,” Sonya said. “What’s this about getting married?”

  King Gorium and Princess Vessla strode into the great Hall, the king bellowing, “What is the meaning of this?”

  Haldorum turned. “Ah, King Gorium, how nice of you to take the time for us. It seems we have stumbled upon quite the celebration—an engagement I’m told. I’ll say one thing for you, you crafty vulture, you certainly do not waste time.”

  “The First Power of Mithal knows the prophecy as well as any of us,” Gorium returned heatedly. “And the Third has accepted his destiny with honor.”