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Tor had to move quickly. Everything must be in position before Silver-Eye and his men stormed the Sanctum. He slapped his hand to the central crystal, and felt the surface adhere to his hand, hungrily. His shadow sunk a tendril of energy into the crystal matrix, and the empty pillar throbbed slowly to life with a pulsing invisible light. It built to a powerful radiance, almost blinding to Tor’s shadow wrapped sight.

“Are you ready?”

“I have awaited this moment for centuries little prophet. I am ready.”

Tor wrenched his hand away from the crystal with a wet sucking sound. It left behind a dripping red haze on the surface, but it was absorbed quickly into the swirling void. More importantly, he felt the tendril of shadow separate from the rest of his demonic rider as he left some of his skin behind. But the shadow did not feel diminished for the loss. If anything it felt energized.

“At last, I return. So much time lost, and so much potential neglected, my jewel. But I will set that to rights.” The voice reverberated in his mind, sounding more like an echo than before.

“Are you still… with me?”

“I have rejoined the hub little prophet. But part of me will always be with you now, strengthening you as I swore to do. It is a gift; do not waste it.” As if to prove his worth, the shadow sent a surge of power through Tor’s limbs. The tightness in his shoulder loosened. Rolling his arm experimentally, he felt the joint reseat itself as pain released its grip.

Tor took a steadying breath. He strode back across the chamber, weaving confidently around crystal obstructions visible only to his shadow wrapped sight. He reached the portal that had admitted him to the Oracle’s Shadow Chamber. As he touched his hand to the control panel, he felt the shadow energize the crystal structure. The portal walls flowed closed behind him as he stepped inside. They opened on the far side to admit the harsh light of the Inner Sanctum into the hidden alcove. Tor released the shadow whispers that he had wrapped around his vision as he adjusted to the relative glare of the glow crystals. Dante had not discovered this alcove in his attacks, which gave Tor a few precious moments to ease away from the hidden entrance. He dared not delay. Silver-eye and his warriors would sweep into the Sanctum soon.

“Dante! You have violated the Inner Sanctum of the Oracle. You stand in defiance of the one true Voice of the Prophets.” Tor reached out with voice and mind to the fallen watcher. He let full mantle of the Oracle’s authority settle into his charge, blasting the message with all the power the shadow could feed him. The Oracle’s voice echoed across the consciousness of anyone with any shadow affinity, watchers, prophets, and shamans, alike.

“What! You can’t be… You’re not the one!” Dante reeled under the verbal and mental assault.

“I cast you out of the order of watchers now and forever.” Beneath the disorienting touch of Tor mind, the fallen watcher’s thoughts felt slippery, evasive. He had always been a rather weak watcher, which paradoxically made it easier for him to resist the Oracle’s power. Tor felt the reaction of watchers Ruben had summoned, gasping in awe as they felt his power for the first time. He also felt Silver-eye wordless approval, and surprisingly, subconscious echoes from Jorgen, Surya, Meena, and Drez.

Dante’s guards were rallying, recovering from the surprise of Tor’s dramatic reappearance. Dante was recovering as well. Good.

“I’ll destroy you, wanderer!” Dante pulled a handful of primed charges from the wall nearest him. He flung one toward Tor, but the prophet was already diving away from the wall where he had positioned himself before challenging Dante. He watched the glittering chunk of energized crystal sail over his back as he somersaulted away. It detonated on impact with the wall, showering the room with dust and fist sized fragments of stone.

Dante kept throwing charges. But Tor always dodged away at just the right moment, unharmed. The three guards abandoned their work at the narrow entrance to the Sanctum and ran to join the fray, which was exactly what Tor had been waiting for. He narrowly ducked under another exploding crystal fragment and then charged toward the fallen watcher. As he closed the gap on Dante, Tor saw a fractured image of Meena behind him, vaulting through the smoke that threatened to obscure the entrance. Silver-eye and Drez darted through right behind her, with Ruben close on their heels.

“The Hand rises Dante! You are defeated!” Tor heard a concussive thud followed by a sickening wet gurgle as Meena’s twirling shardspear brought down the hindmost of Dante’s men.

“No!”

Dante threw himself toward Tor, murder in his eyes and a glinting shardspear in his grasp. Tor dodged the watchers first clumsy attack. Dante rounded on him too quickly to counter, and soon his back was against the rough hewn cavern wall.

“Tor, no!” Meena charged under the attack of the second guard in an all out sprint to reach her prophet’s side. Tor knew she would not reach him in time. In his fractured vision, he saw Drez’s shardsling whirl into motion.

Silver-eye plunged in behind his daughter. As Meena passed him by, the guard swung his shardwand in a cutting blow intended to eviscerate the shaman. But the tip of the weapon exploded harmlessly on Silver-eye’s crystal shield as he swept the attack aside with one hand. With the other hand, the gray-maned warrior sank two spans of crystal edged blade under the man’s ribcage. He twisted it out in a gout of dark heart’s blood as the guard fell silently to the floor.

The final guard let Meena sprint past him unchallenged. He bolted to the side as Silver-eye turned toward him, flinging his shardwand toward the entrance, and the explosive charges staged there. At the same moment, Dante swung a vicious blow at the prophet’s neck with his shardwand. If the thrown shardwand hit its target, the Sanctum would be destroyed. If Dante’s hit his target, the explosive impact would take Tor’s head.

Time slowed to a crawl in Tor’s mind. The prophet felt Drez’s intent. It hung palpably on the air. He would take the watcher’s hand off with his first shot. And if there was time, he would pick the shardwand out of the air. But there would not be time. Tor reached out with his thoughts toward the subconscious echo he had felt from Drez earlier. Using a pulse of the shadow’s power, he pushed at that echoing spot in the young warrior’s thoughts. And the thread of Drez’s intent detached from Tor, latching instead onto the shardwand that sailed across the room.

The arc of the sling shifted from one instant to the next, and the bolt of crystal was loosed. It streaked across the chamber on a course to intercept the shardwand before it could set off the charges that would destroy the Inner Sanctum forever. Tor knew Drez had not missed even before the two projectiles collided. The diverted shardwand would set off only a few charges, resulting in the partial collapse of an armspan of cavern wall. An acceptable loss.

Time sped back up and Dante’s blow descended. It should have been Tor’s end. But the new Oracle pressed away from the cavern wall with his left hand as he laid his palm on the fallen watcher’s chest. He spoke a single word as the blow landed. “Now.”

The infinite strength of his shadow rider burst into him. He felt pulses of dark cloud boil out of his chest and sheath his upper body. The charged flake of crystal at the tip of the shardwand exploded in incandescent fire against this sheet of darkness. The cavern wall behind him softened and slumped as his rider shunted most of the power around his shadow clad body into the stone.

Tor flexed his palm against Dante’s chest and the fallen watcher was thrown across the cavern into a wall riddled with cracks. It collapsed, and Dante vanished under a cloud of smoke and rubble. Tor felt pain as if from some great distance. He knew that most of the skin and hair on one side of his head had been burnt away. The energy of the crystal matrix scrubbed the worst of the damage away. But he would bear disfiguring scars forever beneath this swirling mask of shadow. It would not be the last sacrifice that his destiny required of him, nor the worst.

As the smoke cleared, Tor stepped out of the crater he found himself in. He saw Silver-eye dispatch the final guard as he lay stunned near some fallen rubble. Meena rushed to Tor’s side, as Drez helped the dazed watchers return to their feet.

“Brother Tor! Are you… are you hurt?”

“Not beyond repair. But changed beyond return.”

“My prophet… what happened? Let me see your face…” The troubled storm chaser was struggling to keep the fear out of her voice.

“No longer a prophet, Meena. Something more.” Tor touched the girl gently on the arm, reassuring her without words. Then he drew his hood close around the swirling shadows that masked him. Ruben, at the head of his order, fell to his knees before Tor.

“My Oracle! Forgive me for allowing the Sanctum to be violated. I had no idea!”

“Your actions saved the Sanctum, watcher Ruben. Gather your order and convene the tribe in the entrance hall.”

“But the brotherhood could assemble in the Hall of Watchers much more quickly.”

Tor swiveled his head toward the watcher to Ruben’s left. He let the silence stretch out uncomfortably as the color drained from the man’s face.

“Do you question to Oracle, the one true Voice of the Prophets?”

“No… I didn’t mean… it’s just…” Tor heard the man struggle for breath as he searched for words.

“There is a disease festering at the heart of our Tribe, watcher. Dante was only a symptom of that blight. The Tribe of Prophets have gone too long without hearing the Voice of their Oracle. Convene every man woman and child at the foot of the Stones immediately.” The hapless watcher shrank before Tor with every word.

“Of course my Oracle. As you see, so shall it be.” Unlike his companion, Ruben was lit from within by the fierce glow of dedication to his Oracle. The four white robed tribesmen scuttled away like scarabs fleeing the sun. Silver-eye watched them go before turning to Tor.

“What of Dante, my Oracle?”

“His path has not yet reached its end.”

“He survived the collapse?”

“Yes.”

Drez was already picking through the rubble where Dante had disappeared. He quickly uncovered a warren of small tunnels that had been opened by the explosion, most barely large enough for a man to crawl through.

“I’ll show him to the end of his path!”

“No Drez. It’s a maze of dead ends and blind traps down there. You’ll never find him. Besides, he will come to us.”

All three of the storm chasers looked up at the eerie certainty that rang in Tor’s voice.

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