A Seer's Premonition

[Phellan]

The priest pushed past the wall peasantry that was mulling around the well, dozens of peasants looking to draw on the dirty water that sustained life in Osaliel.   Few paid the grey-robed man any attention, he walked heavily with a staff and his steps were drawn short.    He draw a staggered breath as he paused for a moment.    A push on his back knocked him forward and he fell harshly into the stonework, his head hit it hard.

He drew back, touching up to his forehead the old man could feel the stick sensation – the world blurred slightly for a moment as he brought his fingers down to examine them.   The red stain he expected was black – a black greasy smudge upon his fingers.    His eyes widened in shock he looked up at the skies about him and saw a darkness, heavy smoke amongst the air, the burning of buildings.   He drew back suddenly and bumped into someone – turning he saw a simple peasant.   

"Father, are you alright?" he heard, the voice echoed sullenly in his mind.    A distance between him and the speaker, no ash fell on them the sun shone down all around.   He looked back at his hand to see slight red, a smudging of blood.   He mumbled his thanks to the peasant and reassured them before moving on.

A lingering sense of the darkness, the smoke hounded him with every breath he took.  A horse started and he turned quickly to see a figure standing in the crowd – yet strangely isolated within it.   He chanced to look harder but the pain in his head forced him to blink.   When his eyes refocused the marketway was full once more.     

Why now – why that cursed black smoke and the greasey ash?   He knew why as he argued to himself.   Masahakon, Bataesor, Hadthes.   The centres of the Order had all burned, the smoke itself carried the flesh and stench of the dead and dying upon it.   

He turned the corner – the noble district was just a head and he had lodging there he knew, but each step was becoming harder.   His lungs drew the breaths short and quick now, but he began to cough and all he could taste was the oil upon his tongue.   The taste of the burning dead.    The old priest fell to his knees, coughing hard.   A presence fell over him – the ground his hands touched were thick with ash once more.   

A firm hand grasped his shoulder – the old man could feel the cold penetrate the thick robes, could feel the bone indentations upon his flesh where the hand touched him.    He was lifted to his feet almost as though he were a child.  He looked at the presence, the black robed figure.    The hood was darker than night itself, darker than the depths of the tunnels in Razrpot where the ancient temples lay.    But the cloaked figures stare burned into his soul.    He knew his goddess when he looked upon her.    The hand left his shoulder, he could see the bare bones on the hand as it withdrew.   Then a fleshed hand and the skeletal came and removed the hood – he breathed a sigh of inward relief.    The face that met him this night was of the maiden, the goddess was beautiful and fully formed – no sign of undeath touched her this night.

He looked past her briefly, a flare of light caught his eye, he knew now he was no longer in Osaliel.   The flash had been from siege engines, the dark soot that fell at his feet, it was the burning dead, the thirty thousand dead he had burned in Masahakon.    The dead whose ash, black and oily with fat that had tainted the marble city in a sea of blackened grey.    The smell roiled up in him and he staggered – but he could not collapse under the stare of a god.    This was his penance and she would not have him look away.

"Why. . . am I here again?" he questioned subconsciously.   He could not speak for the taste in his mouth and the breathe that burned his lungs with each painful gasp.    The goddess looked at him, an eyebrow raised slightly, impressing upon him to ask if he truly did not know.  "Change, change comes again.   Wars and death.   The unfaithful take the path to damnation and we have grown old and soft, afraid to meet them on the fields to save their souls . . ."

The goddess did not say anything she merely turned, the skyline wavered and he knew now the vision of Hadthes.   The dead in the streets as he had seen it when he arrived while Kindara and C'thonia struggled over its place.    The dead – warriors of Kindara, warriors of Cthonia, and the peasants all bore talismans of the Order, faithful dead.    He turned to look at her once more and saw the banners of foes – the Church of Echad, the Trinity, Sartan, and Adghardism swaying in the winds – the torn tatters of the Orders symbols lying about.    Hel walked slowly amongst the devestation, sadness overwhelmed him.

This was coming, the fall of C'thonia, Cathay, the spread of faiths unopposed by the Order and the failures of men to accept the Way.

Hel turned, she looked at him and smiled faintly then turned and continued onto the fields that had appeared – the souls of the fallen, those who had failed to embrace the way were dragged along with her as she walked and the depths of Hel itself, the vast void that was the Underworld, that was both a place and the goddess itself, opened up and consumed them all.   

He shuddered violently and staggered under the chill of his goddesses domain – he arose once more, the distance noise of Osaliel reaching him.   A guard stood over him, trying to help him to his feet.   The man had a five pointed star and circle, the Orders most basic symbol, hanging from his neck.   The old priest smiled at the guard, signalling for the man to walk with him.    It was time to begin anew . . . the goddess had shown him the winter of their time, and so he needed to ensure there were seeds to be sown in the spring that followed.