The Sand Prophets

The trumpet blared, the sound rolling around the bowl of the canyon. "The last prophet has fallen!" Jared cried between blasts from the trumpet. "The prophet has fallen!" Luset jerked his head back to glance towards the ridge where the banner men stood with the announcers and their trumpets. His long black hair clung to his face with sweat. He looked back, teeth ground together hard, the only white showing on his soiled face, in time to parry a blow from the sword aimed for his head. His blood that had been pumping hot with the fury of battle froze in his veins. The last prophet has fallen!

Luset fought his way towards the ridge with a renewed energy, the clanging of steel on steel, grunts, and cries from men accentuating his urgency to reach it before it was too late. He broke through to where the Elder prophet had been laid next to the banner men. The wounded and few dead that had been dragged by comrades to the safe place of battle surrounded the Elder.

He was rasping, the bolt sticking out from his chest, his clothing soaked with blood all around it. Luset fell to his knees and clasped the Elder's hands. "My prophet, we have failed you. The others are all gone now. You were the last hope. Forgive me."

The Elder tightened his grip around Luset's fingers. "The protectors have not failed us."

Luset shook his head. "How can you say that? Everyone's dead. Coming here was a fool's errand. We should never have-"

The old man pulled Luset closer and guided his hand to the scroll next to him. "You are the one that must take this to the water."

"What is it?"

"It is the last hope."

A volley of bolts loosed from arrows whistled through the air. Dark splinters against an already twilight sky. Jared cried, "They've lost all senses! They're attacking the safe place! By the rules of war, no one attacks-"

"Go, Boy!" The Elder cried. "Run!

"I cannot leave you. I-"

"Run! Protect our last hope! Go!" His words rattled in his throat as the blood rose up to choke him.

"By the bond of my oath and honor, it will be done. I swear it so." Luset kissed his knuckles and touched them to his chin. He then clenched the scroll in his hand and dove headlong into battle, slicing through the fighting that had now broke through the safe place. He'd left his mount by the banner men and now cursed his own lack of thought. He needed speed. Another volley of bolts whistled through the air.

No. The speed of his mount would make him a larger target. He needed stealth. He skirted around those killing and dying as best he could, becoming entangled only once in a skirmish where his assailant whipped the tip of his blade over Luset's cheek. The burn from his flesh being carved open on his face was enough to make Luset falter and give his assailant the advantage to move for another strike. Luset pivoted and the attackers sword sliced open the back of Luset's hand forcing him to drop the scroll. In horror he bent low, cut his attackers legs from under him and while driving his sword for the killing blow, retrieved the scroll. He finally made it to the fringe of forest that lined the canyon and faded into its foliage.

* * * *

Luset had traveled from the forest to the westward sea that bordered the mainland of An'Nahl. Crossing from Grenland to An'Nahl over the land bridge had been impossible. Though the battle had taken place in the canyon of Grenland twenty miles from where the land bridge was, Luset trusted no one. The enemy was still faceless. They were created in secret to slowly wipe out all the prophets and all those that protected them. Who they were and who controlled them was a mystery. The mystery of it made everyone suspect in Luset's eyes.

Since the land bridges were commonly crowded with travelers, Luset knew it likely that among those innocent and unknowing travelers would be spies as well. So he traveled by a small boat he had filched from a house that was right on the shores. He left the boat tied to the pier on the mainland, hoping the owner would locate it there and continued on his journey.

The scroll weighed heavy, tied to the inside lining of his plain brown cloak. He had rent his deep blue cloak that signed him a protector for the prophets to make bandaging for his wounded hand and to clean the blood off his face. Needing a new cloak to stave off the crystallized air, he made do with a woolen one he had found hanging on an untended laundry line. Thievery did not suit him normally, but he could not risk anyone knowing of who he was. Better the world believed him dead. He certainly felt dead.

Luset kicked at the black sand underneath his feet. Why? Why had the prophets told them such a battle could be fought and end with victory. The protectors didn't stand a chance in that valley. No one without the advantage of controlling the higher land could have hope to end victorious. They were lucky to have acquired the one ridge that made what little hope they did have run a little longer. But one ridge against a range of ridges. . .

Curse them all! The protectors had been promised that victory was theirs if would only trust and follow the plan. Now most of the protectors and all the prophets were dead. The few protectors that remained would gather. "But gather to what?" He wondered, groaning when a reason for gathering came to him, "They would gather to mourn."

The scroll. It was nothing more than a thin parchment of pressed wood and it weighed like a sack full of mud in his cloak. Luset could have cursed the scroll too. It meant nothing. It could not mean anything with everyone dead. The people had grown hard and unwilling to heed the counsel of the prophets. He blamed the apathy of the people for the ability of their unknown enemy to slay the prophets. If the people only knew what had happened; if they could only see past the day they were standing in, they would know they had surrendered up the most valuable facet of their lives to an unseen hand that would turn to wipe them off the land as soon as it was done with the prophets. They would know soon enough.

The salty air from the sea whipped his cloak about his knees sending an icy chill through where he had not tied his shirt strings. He tightened the cloak around him and hunched his shoulders against the wind. It whipped the top of the water into foam that crashed softly at the charcoal colored sand sending a spray of cold water at him as well. He wanted to stop and make a fire. His fingers had numbed to the point where they could barely hold his cloak closed against the elements.

The West beaches had been his favorite place on the mainland. He spent his boyhood trapping squallas into bamboo cages he and his father had made. His ma had been the most expert housemother to boil the squallas until the shells would pop from the meat and get them removed from the water before the salty flavored flesh became too sodden. He had spent years whiled away watching the sun melt into its watery bed and sifting the black sand through his hands while waiting for the traps to catch their prey. The meals were simple and fine. They were enough to fill the most insatiable appetite.

Luset was hungry now. Hungry and angry and cold. And that flaming scroll was his to take to the water. In his panic to flee the canyon, he had been confused as to what the water had meant, but after a few good shakes of his head, he was cleared to think rationally. There was only one water that the scroll would be made useful. In its current form, no one could read it. Even the High Seat's scholars would never be able to interpret the glyphic etched into the pressed wood.

Every scroll was made from the black Caspian sands heated until they were fine threads of gossamer then woven into pressed parchment made from the olandian trees. The writing thereon was a deep burgundy color, like dried blood. Rumor said it was blood from the prophets that scrawled over the parchment, but no one had ever witnessed a scroll being written except the prophets themselves, making the rumor exactly that: rumor. The texture and scent of blood were never present to Luset's senses as he carried scrolls for the prophets and he had seen enough blood to know. There were those protectors who argued that prophet's blood might be different from everyone else. Luset had scoffed such ideas before, but now he had proof. He had seen the blood on the Elder's cloak around the bolt and he knew the scent was as real and red as the blood from every other man.

The prophets were only human after all. Some said they were gods. Some said they were demons. But they were always exactly what they claimed to be: messengers from the Maker and nothing more. It didn't matter any longer. He would take the scroll to the water of Daven by his oath and honor and then it would all be over...

Luset stood in front of the stone fountain that was blacker than the sand it was ground from. The water was completely still in the fountain. Rumor said the water never rippled here, that it never moved. He honestly could not say if it did or didn't. He had never seen the water disturbed before and it seemed there never was a breeze in the square of Daven to send a ripple over the water. He exhaled deeply, feeling tired to his very bones. The journey had taken 4 days to walk from the cliffs of Grenland, the southern island of An'hal, to the western island Svartland where the city of Daven stood. He had stopped only to meal on dried meat and sleep under thick shrubs along the way. He pulled the scroll from the inside of his cloak.

His hands shook while he unrolled it. He pressed the scroll to his lips and then to his chin whispering, "By oath and honor," and tossed the scroll to the water.

Nothing happened.

Frowning, Luset waited a moment longer and as he reached in to retrieve the scroll and try again, bubbles rose and broke the surface. Luset 's hand froze barely inches above the water, his blue eyes fixed there. Ambient light glowed along the bottom of the fountain reflecting off of the smooth glossy black sides. The scroll flattened out over the water, bobbing gently over the bubbles. With a hiss, the burgundy letters started glowing, the light following the penned lettering until it broke through the parchment altogether and shone upwards above the water forming a pillar of fire projected from the parchment.

Luset fell back with alarm, scooting himself back further still from the heat radiating off the pillar. "What is this magic?" he breathed.

The pillar rotated and the voice of the Elder Prophet resonated from within its center. "The birth of the tyrant has passed. He dwells among us as one of us. With the passage of 58 years he will show himself the oppressor and with his rise, hope dies."

The pillar formed scenes. Luset watched in horror as villages burned and children cried. A woman with a sleek black dagger lifted her arm to slay someone Luset could not see only to find an arrow in her belly before her arm could fall to its task. Her form fell back to the fire. Wars rose up and died down in the flame as it spun faster. It seemed every new scene was darker and filled with more bloodshed than the one before it. Luset was on his knees, hands covering his face to stop the assault of images when the Prophet spoke again.

"But there is hope if counsel is taken." Luset quickly uncovered his eyes to see what hope there was. A crescent moon and a shimmering blue star appeared in the rotating pillar. "When the blue star hangs in the pocket of the crescent moon, the Triad will be born to a house holding seat in the sovereign. The female must stay with her mother. The two male must be hidden, from even their mother and raised separate, each under the watch of a protector. The triad will grow possessing gifts of the Maker. When the time comes for them to reunite they will seek each other out of their own accord, combining their gifts to rise up and choke out the oppressor."

The pillar formed into a triangle upon which each side a face flashed out of the flame. A woman and two men. The images seared into Luset's mind. "The smallest male must be sealed as ours," the voice boomed and a miniature flask shot out of the pillar. Without hesitating Luset snatched the flask from the air. "The oil must be placed on the crown of his head while still in infancy." The pillar stopped spinning abruptly. "If one fails, the triad fails, and all hope is lost forever." The pillar fell back into the water, the flames lashing to the edges of the fountain in torrents before hissing out.