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“Tribespeople of the Prophets, hear me! The Brotherhood of Watchers is called to bear witness to both tragedy and triumph on this day.” Ruben’s voice rang out across the entrance hall. He stood on the shattered stump of crystal pillar that served as the tribe’s stage. The multifaceted walls and ceiling of the grand cavern carried his words like whispers to the hundreds his brethren had gathered here.

“I say tragedy, for one of our own has turned against us, and sabotaged his sacred duty. Through treachery and deceit he brought irreparable harm to the one true Voice of our people, our inspiration and guide, our Oracle.” The silence of the listening crowd was disrupted by murmurs at this news.

“By the Oracle’s decree, for dereliction of his duties a Watcher and desecration of the sacred inner sanctum, Dante is outcast from the Tribe. Let him be forsaken, and stripped of all rights and possessions from this day forward.” Tor listened from behind the arch of tumbled pillars. He heard a gasp and a sob of disbelief, quickly muffled. So the fallen watcher had allies. Tor would have to keep an eye on Dante’s relations for signs of treachery. That was why he had positioned Stephen Silver-eye and his storm chasers in the shadows behind the crystal platform, to watch the restless crowd.

“Alas, the dissident’s attack was too insidious to be stopped. The greatest tragedy of this dark day is that the Oracle has fallen.” Now the muttering in the crowd turned fearful. Tor saw fractured visions colored by panic. They hung suspend over a knife’s edge, dangling from the most insubstantial thread of intent. Dangerous as this path appeared, Tor knew it to be the only way through this darkness.

“But even on the darkest, the most tragic of days, there was triumph to be found. Drawn by destiny, Tor of the Order of Migrating Prophets returned home this fateful night. It was his sight that pierced the veil of Dante’s deceit. It was his wisdom that brought the perpetrators of this treachery to justice.” Tor felt the tide turning on Ruben’s words.

“And as the Oracle lay dying, he bestowed his mantle upon this Prophet, whose return has saved us all from darkness. People of the Tribe, join the Brotherhood of Watchers and bear witness this day, to his ascension!” The moment of Tor’s vision was upon him. He stepped out from the shelter of the Fallen Stones as a hush fell on the crowed cavern. His people stared up at him as Ruben left the crystal platform to rejoin his brethren in the first row of onlookers. Tor saw many things reflected in their stares. Hope for some, fear for others, even envy in a few upturned faces. They held their breath as one, awaiting the voice of their Oracle.

“Children of the sands, hear me! What has become of us? We have strayed from the path. Do I hear you cry out, no? Do you shout to the winds, but we have remained true?” Tor raked the audience with his dark gaze. Their eyes could not penetrate his swirling mask of shadow, but he laid bare their souls with a look. They were weak. He must forge their strength anew. They must be strong for what was to come.

“You turned away from the voice of destiny.” He wove the whispering crystalline echoes of prophecy into his words.

“You allowed this Dante, this petty schemer, to stand between you and your leader, your beacon, your Oracle.” He weighted his stare with the fractured images of probability, the mantle of his authority.

“And this weak tool of fate, unbalanced by his thirst for power, made bold by your complacence, nearly stole your birthright!” Tor could almost see the emotions hanging in the air. Anguish, shame, longing, he read them in the un-tethered threads of intent that surrounded each tribesperson in the room.

“Dark times descend upon us, and without the light which guides us, we wander blind.” Even though the weight of remorse seemed to press all the air from the cavern, Tor continued, remorseless.

“Our enemies in the east seek that which only the prophets are meant to find! Behold!” Tor flung out his hand and a shimmering crystalline cage rose up from the floor in the cavern. Sands spilled out of the enclosure, exposing the two mages who lay within. Their desiccated bodies looked drained of life. But Simon opened eyes that swirled with inky clouds of black, and the gawking onlookers gasped as they scrambled over each other to escape his eerily reptilian stare.

“Too long have we cowered beneath the White Sea in fear. Too long have we let our enemies walk the sands unopposed. But destiny has lifted me up, and shown me the way forward. The time of the Prophecy of Crystal Shadows is upon us. The Child of Prophecy walks the world. Our enemies brazenly seek him out. They must not be allowed to succeed. Only the Prophets can prepare him to fulfill his destiny and save humankind. To help us face this challenge and to prove the justness of our path, destiny has revealed to me the warriors that were foretold!” Every eye in the room raised to Tor’s shadow masked face now. Tor could feel the collectively indrawn breath as he lifted his arms up toward the ceiling of the cavern, as if beseeching the Fallen Stones themselves.

“Arise Shaman of the Storm! Arise and let the Hand of the Prophets stand revealed at last. Your Oracle commands it!” There were cries of wonder and dismay as Stephen Silver-eye and his storm chasers emerged from the shadows of the shattered crystalline pillars to stand with military precision between Tor and the first row of tribespeople. Ruben dropped reverently to his knees, and the rest of his order quickly followed suit. Row after row of tribespeople fell to the ground behind the watchers, abasing themselves before the dark Oracle and his appointed warriors. Invisible threads of intent, previously uprooted and unraveling were re-weaving themselves before Tor’s eyes, forging the Tribe’s new destiny. His destiny.

But reverence was not the only sentiment riding the air. A rising current of rage threatened to unravel the newly assembled threads. The moment of attack had come, as Tor knew it would.

“No!” A misshapen, huddled figure burst out of the ranks of bowing tribespeople. He savagely kicked aside two prone watchers as he grabbed a fistful of Ruben’s hair and dragged him across the cavern floor. Silver-eye and held their position at a whispered thought from Tor.

The hooded figure turned his face into the light and the tribespeople gasped in shock. Dante had been horribly injured in the tunnel collapse. His face was a mass of ragged cuts and livid purple bruises. One side of his chest was sunken, and he made a horrible wet gurgling noise when he spoke. Madness glared out of the one eye he could still open. Tor knew that madness; he heard the whisper of its demands on the fallen Watcher. That madness gave him inhuman strength in the face of such pain.

“False Prophet! Deceiver! Bringer of darkness!” The mad Watcher pressed Ruben’s face into the sand of the cavern floor with his left hand. He brandished a fragment of crystal charge in his right hand. Fractured as it was, it was unstable and deadly, much like Dante.

Tor stepped through his guardians and stood, facing the man and his prisoner. With his eyes, he directed Drez to take a position behind Dante’s back.

“Dante, your time is past. All your followers have abandoned you and returned to the true path. Your destiny is upon you. I told you that you wouldn’t like it. Release First Watcher Ruben.”

“First Watcher? This weakling?” Dante pulled Ruben upright and shook his head.

“This is your last chance to redeem yourself before you meet your fate, fallen one. Release my First Watcher.” Tor saw the light of devotion in Ruben’s eyes. He could have fanned it with the lightest touch of his mind, but he would not. Instead, he brushed his mind lightly across Drez’s thoughts. This time, there would be no mercy.

“Never! I’ll show…” Dante never had the chance to finish his threat. He brought the crystal fragment within his prisoner’s reach for the briefest of moments. But in that moment, Ruben willingly embraced his own destiny.

“Forsaken!” Ruben screamed in triumph. Dante was left holding a bloody hank of hair as the Watcher pulled his head free of Dante’s grasp. But instead of bolting for freedom, Ruben barreled into Dante, crushing him in a bearlike grip that trapped the damaged crystal fragment between their bodies. The unstable charge detonated at the impact with a hollow crump that made the cavern floor tremble.

Dante staggered backward from the explosion toward Drez. His jaw worked silently as he fell, and blood frothed at his lips. With a practiced twist of his shardsling and the visceral crunch of breaking bones, Drez made the end quick and clean.

Ruben was blasted into Tor’s waiting arms. The Dark Oracle gently lowered his friend to the sands, his chest a bloody mess of shredded tissue and exposed bone. His voice was a gurgling whisper that brought bright red blood. “Tor… will it… be… glorious… now?”

Tor looked into Ruben’s russet colored eyes, already wide with shock. He looked his dying friend in the eye and he lied.

“Yes my faithful one. We are in destiny’s hands again. It will be glorious now.”

The Dark Oracle eased Ruben’s passing with hopeful visions of probability, of a glorious future for his tribe and his people. That much at least, he could do.

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