The falcon demon’s amber eyes swept over the others seated in a semicircle with high-backed chairs and expensive-looking robes.
“Councilmen,” he said, “I have received news by raven that the Guardian of Light has died last night, her age finally catching up with her.”
Murmurs broke out in the chamber. The amber-eyed Councilman held up his hand to silence them. “I have also received some rather disturbing news regarding the power of Light.” He took a step back and revealed a mirror. The mirror showed an old woman with the feathers of a dove in her hair. The dove demon, the dead Guardian. And her neck was bare of the Guardian Stone.
A cry of shock rose from the Councilmen. “The Stone! It’s gone!”
The head Councilman, the falcon demon, made a noise of confirmation. “Yes, it is gone. Vanished with her dying breath. She has gone behind the backs of the Council and bestowed her power without our knowing. To whom, we do not know. We cannot track the Power down. It is vanished along with the Stone.”
An olive-colored woman slipped through the door into the Council chamber. With a sly smile on her face that deepened lines of age that were already plaguing her face, she spoke. “That is because, dear Councilmen, the child to whom she gave the Power is not yet born, and shan’t be for quite some time.”
Her raspy voice whisked the picture away from the face of the mirror as if it were scared of the woman. Her hair, like the Guardian’s, was streaked with feathers, but these the black of the crow’s, not of the peaceful dove.
“So, we wait around year after year without a Light Guardian so the Watchers can wreak havoc on us while we anticipate the birth of a child whose Power we haven’t completely agreed to give? That is madness, Prophet.” The head Councilman gained the agreement of the rest of the Council members, who murmured of the destruction the Infinity would endure if that were to be the case.
The raven Prophet smiled again, piercing the head Councilman with her black gaze. “Peace we shall have. The Watchers lay in remission like a disease waiting to return ever more harmful than before. They will not disturb the peace of the Realms until after the Guardian is born.”
The second-in-command to the head Councilman stood up; he had the ears of a grizzly bear and the temper to match. “And how do we know that Yveriet – may she rest in peace – has made the right decision in the choosing of the next Guardian of Light.”
The Prophet sat in a plain wooden chair, the chair she specifically asked the Council to give her when she gave a prophecy. She leaned slightly forward, her hands gripping the arms of the chair tightly. “I have been inside the mind of Yveriet. She has seen the future, much as I would have. This choice is correct. This new Guardian will be much like Yveriet. Kinder and more self-sacrificial.”
She convulsed, and her eyes flashed from pools of black to lakes of pure white. The Council leaned forward in their chairs to hear what the Prophet was about to say.
And, as always, she spoke in a riddle.
She said,
“Councilmen, hearken
Listen to her cries
Hear her musical voice
Her mother’s lullabies
A soul of the ocean
With a mind steady as rock
An oceanborn earthchild
Of much power is wrought
But prepare for the war
That ensues her Understanding
The Knower, the Quill
The Worlds could be ending.”
The secretary wrote down all he heard, scribbling in near-illegible handwriting.
The Prophet then slumped back in her chair, her eyes reverting to the solid wells of black.
And so the Time of Peace began. The time that the Worlds would wait with bated breath for the oceanborn earthchild that would be their next Guardian of Light.
YOU ARE READING
Penthos: The Guardian Sea
Fantasy***********WARNING!!!! Material includes graphic violence, rape, language, etc. IDEOLOGICALLY SENSITIVE. Read at your own discretion!************ In an ever-growing universe of constant change and infinite Realms, a universe populated by not only hu...
