Avarice Blacksteel

The Prophecy

‘The unending oceans shall continue to rise, until the first leaf of Nethrizil graces the earth. The unassailable shall witness another hue come to pass, and those beautiful, straight and true will be bowed in a mantle of white.’

He closed the heavy volume with a resounding thud in the large empty room, setting it back down on the expansive basalt table. He had read, and reread this passage many times, puzzling over its contents. The prophecy; what did it mean, what did it truly portend?

Xonereth sighed, his heart uncharacteristically heavy, immortal as he was he knew little care, but recently he had begun to feel much different. Were these feelings akin to how the humans could feel, the proud ruler fleetingly wondered? This seemed a traitorous thought. He was Regent here, power absolute. The humans with their meaningless and fragile lives should cause him little more concern than a crawling insect. He could not allow himself time to peruse this folly, and yet the past few days the humans and their doings had done nothing but fill his mind.

He rose exuding lithe flowing grace, departing the chamber, heavy robes trailing on the shining stone behind him. The vestibule was long and dark. Only the hard, shining stone to surround him, the hiss of midnight robes gliding over the polished stone. The winged watchers sat on high, stone or living things? Black as the basalt that housed their squatting forms, all claws and wings, evil, leering beasts. Only their gleaming eyes betrayed their supernatural reality. Xonereth did not heed them, nor turn as their wings rustled collectively as he passed by.

They were all assembled in the main chamber, the place where his scintillating and charismatic court would choose to gather, the lilting melodious laughter of the many Princesses, and the handsome conversation of the Princes to surround him. Beautiful though they were they parted in silent reverence as Xonereth entered and crossed the floor to alight his throne. Here he would come, not to hear petitioners for there were indeed very few of those, but to just watch the ebb and flow of his people. However this particular day he could find little solace in the beauty and joy of his court.

Since that day he and the beautiful Sheharizade had shared their messenger's forbidding news; as they stood on the colonnade beneath the palatial walls of his domain, Xonereth had been most troubled. He had not deigned to share his damning knowledge with his people at large, only confiding in his closest advisors.

Often he would make the pilgrimage alone to the great tree of Nethrizil, a relic as old if not older than his entire world. There it stood alone on the hilltop, great boughs of spreading black foliage garnering its twisted branches atop the behemoth trunk. Xonereth had stood here many times before this artifact of ageless mystery, in his own countless years of never ending immortality. Nethrizil a constant, in a constant world, it had always looked the same to him, and today it appeared no different. The haunting words of the prophecy ran over and over in his mind, he could find no meaning in them. For not one leaf of the great tree graced the ground below. The cornerstone of their world intact. Yet the oceans of his world had risen markedly so. The first line of the dreaded prophecy had been made truth.