Warnings of Oracles
Autumn on Aetheria...
Karstien felt paralyzed as he dreamed but he could also feel he wasn’t alone in this nightmare. Daisy was with him, yet they were both looking through the same eyes at the Lord of Shadows.
The large shadow had the ghostly outline of a guardian with three horns, one curled down and one curled upward on one side, and one curled down on the opposite side, the upward turned horn above it appeared to have been cut off. Its red eyes were burning from some internal flame. His form collapsed and rose up into a hooded figure in a face mask.
He/She was standing on the Dimensional Gate tower, the large being in a black cape, hovered before them. It was offering to spare all they love and make their dreams of a peaceful kingdom come true if He/She will give it His/Her body. They refused.
It promised to punish them if they resisted, but they weren’t afraid and denounced the threat.
When it attacked them and they ripped off its face cover, they were horrified by who was underneath. Each saw a familiar face, only with black hair and soulless black eyes. One that did not belong to the Darkness yet. He laughed at their horror.
“NO!” they both gasped, then a brilliant flash of white pulled them to safety. He/She was in the room of light with the Oracles of the House of Adamos.
<*><*><*><*>~
“No!” Repeating herself, Daisy gasped for breath as she sat up, the dream of the dust dimension and its dark ruler had seemed so real. But it couldn’t be, she wouldn’t let it be.
Speechless, Karstien was sitting next to her looking just as shaken. They were in a Room of Light that was not Daisy’s. The last high oracle Lady Yllumina of Yophriel was there surrounded by white opal walls carved with filigree and flowers.
“Was that real?” Daisy demanded. She could feel Karstien was just as freaked out.
“It is what might become real, my daughter.” The Oracle Yllumina helped Daisy to stand.
Karstien leapt to his feet, “Grandmother!”
Yllumina hugged him. “Karstien, my grandson.”
“How do I stop that from happening?” Daisy demanded, she had been surprised and terrified. She had expected it to be Damien, but when she ripped his facemask off, it wasn’t. The Lord of Shadows had worn Yuri’s body.
“We... how do we stop that?” Karstien demanded in agreement.
“It is a battle my eldest must fight on his own. You must protect and heal his soul but in the end it will be Yurieth’s choice. Only Yurieth can save himself.” Her amber eyes, so like Kaleth’s, shone with worry.
Daisy bowed, but declared almost defiantly, “I will do my best, my lady Oracle. I will stop that at any cost.”
Karstien agreed. “Yuri has suffered enough. We will lose no more of our house to the Darkness.”
“I know you will fight for him.” Yllumina hugged Daisy, “I do not envy the pain you will face, my dearest little flower, my beloved grandson, but sometime when we are alone and have lost an ally, a stronger one will come in their place. Do not let your grief overcome you as it did before.”
“I won’t.” Karstien and Daisy vowed at the same time.
Karstien nodded as Daisy teared up, she whispered, “I miss Ezra so much, but everyone is working so hard to finish his plans.”
“He is in the Light. You saw him there.” Yllumina pressed a kiss into her temple, “You know he will not be the last.”
“Yes, my lady. I know.” Daisy nodded, she didn’t want to speak more because she didn’t want to admit that she feared in her soul, that by the end of the war, only she and Karstien would be left.
Karstien’s jaw clenched. “Please, Grandmother... How can we win?”
“You must resist the temptation to tamper with time, Little flower. All that happens will happen as it should. Never stop fighting as hard as you can, but you must learn to accept your losses and move forward. Karstien, the battle lines of this war are not only in the soil of the worlds the kingdom holds, but in the very hearts and minds of those who fight,” Yllumina warned.
Yllumina’s golden eyes were sad as they and her voice faded. “Never give up hope, my precious ones.”
<*><*><*><*>
Yuri fell hard on the marble floors of the Temple of Oracles in the Celestial Veil, as he pushed himself up, he felt his father’s hand grip his arm to help him. He couldn’t seem to calm his horror.
“Are you alright, son?” Adamos asked, his silver eyes shined with concern.
“W-was th-that real? Was it... was it certain?” Yuri stammered, shaken.
Adamos held his gaze, “Nothing is certain. But you must not volunteer yourself in the place of your brother or his son. Sacrificing yourself to the Darkness will only bring the death and destruction of all you love, and corruption most foul. Pain will come, you cannot stop it. The battle lines of this war are not only in the soil of the worlds the kingdom holds, but in the very hearts and minds of those who fight. It will come for you because of your guilt and your shame. The Lord of Shadows prefers you over my grandson whom he corrupted.” Adamos voice was bitter. “My son because you have spilled innocent blood unforgiven, you cannot take Kaleth’s place. The Darkness will present you with love and then twist it into something terribly painful, you will blame yourself over and over again. But I beg you Yuri, let the War Oracle help you.”
“She is my brother’s wife. The feelings I have, the things I want from her, I can never have,” Yuri argued. “I have already lost part of my honor, I will not lose the rest. I have free will, I chose another!”
“Love a human if you wish but do not give up the most loyal friendship you could ever have for your imagined-tarnished honor. Would you take over the Lordship of the Darkness, to regain something you never truly lost? Yurieth, you suffer in ways that I see but do not understand because it is by your own choice. Only love and friendship can help you. Your family needs you as much as you need them, and the promises of the Darkness mean nothing, because once it has you, you will no longer care about them enough to protect them. No promise of power is worth your soul.” Adamos pled with his eldest in an exasperated tone his voice had held too many times in life when dealing with Yurieth.
“He will die, and she will never be mine to love now because she dies then. Odinus told me she was lost! Tell me the truth or leave me to do as I think I must, Father,” Yuri demanded harshly. He turned his back on his father when Adamos didn’t answer immediately.
“She doesn’t deserve it, not that pain, not again. She has already grieved him once,” Yuri yelled into the sky at the stars and floating curtain of the Celestials, then begged. “Please, just take me instead.”
“No.” Adamos words were firm, “It must be as it will be, as it was, Yurieth, or none shall survive.”
Yuri shuddered, he did not want to see his new family suffer and grieve further. “I don’t understand why we have to pay the price for your great-grandfather’s generation’s mistakes.”
“Yuri, our people have lost their way. All must begin to believe again, the strong being brought low, yet in rising up, they will give hope to the weak, so they do not falter. This war will be worse than the last one because the enemy are those we once called friends and family.” Adamos looked so sad but his truthful words made Yuri groan and he rubbed the spot above his left eye, wishing for his scars to remind him of who he was.
“Tell the War Oracle all this and: Do not tamper with time. She saw the same thing you did tonight, And so did Karstien.” Adamos words chilled Yuri’s soul. “She saw you as the Lord of the Dark Dust Land and has vowed to stop it at any cost. Our little flower will take the Darkness upon herself before she lets it have you as she did before. When he comes to you, you must resist and let what will be happen.”
“Do not send me back, Father. I will fail our house again... I do not have the fortitude for this,” Yuri begged uncharacteristically. He had never begged for anything after he found out he was not to be an oracle.
“Believe and you will find your way.” Adamos voice echoed as the room of light faded into darkness.
<*><*><*><*>
Kars found Daisy standing in front of one of the ancient stone tablets painted by the Mazoni Seer Milady after the second war against Damien.
“I always thought this was Damien.” His mouth made a thin line.
“It is!” Daisy snapped then she reached out and took his hand. “Sorry.”
“Did you tell Father?”
“No, I...”
“Tell me what?” Kaleth interrupted, Abe and Yuri were beside him.
The Huntsman stepped forward and touched the stone mural. “Last night the oracles showed us all the same dream... I had become the Lord of Shadows.”
“I want to make Yuri a sword, like the one I want to make for you, so he will always have my light with him to defend himself from the Darkness,” Daisy demanded.
Abe rubbed his beard, “You both could have died making Karstien’s Flame Sword and now you want to make two more.”
Kars looked between his Uncles and the ancient painting. “If the War Oracle says we make more swords, then we make them. Uncle Abe consult with Shadz about the possibility of using both magical fuel and the Flame.”
“Daisy... the risks...” Kaleth started patronizingly, but Daisy leveled the three warriors in front of her with a determined and defiant look.
“Don’t Daisy me. If it’s easier, then consider them research for my new project or would you rather I play with magic energy unsupervised and blow up another building?” She demanded hotly.
When none answered, she turned and walked out with Karstien. Kaleth looked at the image then Yuri. “Show us, brother.”
Closing his eyes, Yuri remembered the dream up to the flash of light that took him to his father. He did not want them to see his weakness or his shame.
Abe swore quietly in ancient Aetherian, as Yuri said, “I swear by the Light, brothers, I will not submit to the Darkness.”
Kaleth stood with his arms folded thoughtfully, “I never thought Daisy would succumb either and yet she was indwelled when caught alone. We are too few to always travel together and you work alone more than the rest of us. It would benefit you to have the protection of her light when she is not near.” Then he walked out after his son and wife.
“That wasn’t all of it,” Abe revealed softly.
“Please do not ask to see our father disparaging my weaknesses and failures again,” Yuri responded.
“We promised to never keep secrets from each other like our parents did,” Abe reminded.
Closing his eyes again, Yuri opened his mind to his twin. Afterward he whispered, “I do not need an infused weapon to access the light of the oracles, I can still feel it and the old enchantment.”
“You cannot change our brother’s destiny,” Abe replied and patted Yuri’s shoulder before leaving.
Standing alone in front of an image painted while he had existed only as a ghost of dark dust with a soul full of grief and regret, Yuri wondered if he could save himself as he planned to save others and the secrets of Oracles be damned.
Days later...
Yurieth sat up suddenly, light shined in his room’s large bay window. It was near mid-day at the Southern Castle. With a trembling hand, he wiped the sweat from his face. He was dreaming of war and death and the horrors of his youth had leaked into this time. He saw himself atop the Blood Temple fighting the Lord of Shadows only this time the demonic shadow offered him a trade for the lives of those he loved. Despair taunted him with the past and haunted his hopes for the future.
He was a Huntsman, the only one ever born in the house of Adamos. He had been trained since he was young to be a Master Huntsman, but both he and his twin had carried some of his parent’s magic too, he wondered if his youngest brother also carried the power of the oracles unrealized. Still recovering from his time in the Dust Dimension, he acted nonchalant about everything. In truth, Yuri was almost panicking. He had never felt so incapable, so out of control of his magic. He pushed himself harder than he ever had, he knew he must recover and soon. His Huntsman magic had returned, but was unpredictable, stopping or starting unexpectedly, or acting stronger than it ever had. He had mastered his Huntsman magic so many centuries ago, at a very early age, but now it was like the ocean tides the way it ebbed and flowed uncontrolled through his fingers. Yuri was frustrated to the point he raged.
Yuri also struggled nightly with dreams he had to claim he could not remember. To fight them, he had stopped sleeping, unless Asha made him sleep or he had taken a double strength sleeping potion. They were almost always worse after he spent time with his twin nieces, Betha and Jenna, whom he insisted on teaching to improve their bow skill. He would not have his young nieces defenseless as his own daughters had been when the war had come for them. The memory he was not supposed to have, was one he wished he himself could forget after it burst forth one morning.
He pretended amnesia, because he had too. But he didn’t think it was working, and the spells Serapha used to keep his, hers, and Abrieth’s memories hidden wasn’t as powerful as they needed to be to cloak his nightmares from an oracle or a healer. Everything was jumbled and confused when he slept so they were as confused as he pretended to be. He felt constant guilt at his deception, but his father had ordered it continued. The timeline must be preserved, and their knowledge of the next century must remain hidden least it affect the war and what came after.
The Blind Oracle had told he, Abe and Serapha that they would remember nothing once they woke in this time, it had been a false assurance. Yuri knew more of what to expect in this time since he had been sealed to the Blind Oracle, he had seen what she knew. He had also seen himself lying about remembering. Yet so much was not what he assumed, especially concerning his family, and his own future hope. Time had changed.
Yuri fell back onto his pillow and tried to go back to sleep, he wished Daisy would come sing to him, it helped but after the events a few months ago he was still afraid to have her near him when he slept. He reached out with his mind to confirm he was completely alone in the Southern Castle.
Eventually, Yuri gave up trying to go back to sleep and went to take a swim in the warm waters around the Southern Castle. The peaceful setting of the home his youngest brother had built for his beloved sealed one was one of the most beautiful and tranquil places Yuri had ever lived. As he swam out into the turquoise waters toward the sandbar shallows, he wondered how long he had with his whole family. He thought about his friend Davin who had already lost his brother-in-arms Ezra to a car bomb, and his wife Cierra and their unborn child to the Harvest of Terrearth.
As Yuri laid in the sand surrounded by waves and the gentle breeze, he grieved for his family and what was coming. He wept alone for what was lost and what would be lost. He silently cursed the ancient way of the oracles until he dozed off...
He dreamed of Fluer’s scarred face, the delicate swirls of white scars that turned black when she wielded the dark power, like a delicate lace stamped into her skin. He loved how the marks evil had left on her face and petite body only made her more beautiful, reflecting a spirit that could not be broken, a spirit he had rejected until almost too late. The first dual wielder in 40,000 years, she had sealed the magic which had saved him and his brother with her own soul. He still felt its power around him sometimes, protecting him, making his own magic more powerful. The thought of her dying alone, murdered, as war ravaged ancient Aetheria, while he and Abe were rescuing Serapha on Xelusia, haunted him. And one uncertainty taunted Yuri, Deamona hadn’t really murdered Fluer as she attempted, but would Fluer escape to return to him in the next century? He couldn’t quite remember and didn’t know. He was haunted by the answer of the Mage Odinus of Odini when they rescued Fianna from the Dark Dust Kingdom.
“Odinus, just tell me, did the... I mean... did she...” Yuri pleaded.
Odinus however seemed to understand what Yuri desired to know. “I cannot say, I was not there. Her plan worked, but the battle consumed the city faster than expected. I do not know if your Oracle escaped with those who were rescued after I died,” Odinus sounded saddened.
Yuri feared the worst, but he needed to know. “Please.”
Reluctantly, Odinus revealed, “I can tell you what Huntsman Regis told me before he was gone. Her heart was broken, empty, and she wished to have her final peace, but she feared she would not go into the light after she chose to pick up the mantle of the Dark Oracle to deceive the kings. She had decided to stay and fight, so others might be saved. But the City of the Kings fell, many were hurt, and most died, including myself. After that I do not know where she went. She was just gone and those within the Celestial Veil could not see her.”
Waking with a start, Yuri swam back to shore and decided to go to the woods to pray but Kaleth and Kars were sitting in the kitchen. His brother smiled at him, “Did you have a good swim?”
“Yes... How are you, nephew?” Yuri accepted the food and beverage his brother handed him.
Kars grinned, looking far younger than he was. “Shadz is done with the fuel for the magical forge. Abe and Colby figured out the method and we are going to start on your and father’s swords tonight.”
“I really don’t need...” Yuri started but Daisy cut him off.
“Yes, you do, and if we make them at the same time, then we don’t have to do it twice!” Then she turned and stomped out.
“There really is no changing her mind? I can’t exactly be stealthy if my sword glows like the moon.” Yuri lamented.
“Nope. But do not worry, brother, we found a scabbard that will hide its light until you pull the blade,” Abe promised as he walked in. “The forge is almost ready for the magical fuel or do you want to be first, nephew?”
Kars rubbed his hands and cracked his knuckles, “Let’s do it.”
