Finally, they reached the bottom of the stairwell which opened upon a large tomb. Within the large damp room were just over ten thick slabs of concrete. Each one contained the decayed body of an ancient king of this once great city. Upon each slab were engraved names and accomplishments in an ancient language that Timur couldn’t decipher. Abner circled the room, lighting several torches that protruded from the walls, wiping away dust and cobwebs to reveal multiple ancient hieroglyphs painted on them.
“These,” Abner paused in reverence, “are the prophecies of the ancients. You must understand your purpose before you can understand how to destroy this man called Allan.”
“My purpose?”
“Thou art a Seraph,” Abner explained. “A holy angel anointed by God.”
“I knew that already.”
“Ah, but thou dost not understand thine heritage.”
“Abner,” Timur chided. “I don’t have time to listen to a history lesson. I feel myself growing weaker with each passing minute. Just tell me how to destroy him.”
Abner’s face fell. “Then I shall give unto thee a brief version. The man thou didst kill five hundred years ago wast thine predecessor.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Timur spluttered. “You told me he was the King of this land.”
“Verily, he was.” Abner agreed. “Yea, ‘twas also the last known Seraph before thine Ascension. He also was born upon the other world you call Earth.”
Timur was stunned. He had no words to express.
“Thine ignorance dost cost thee precious time.”
“But that means…” Timur stammered. “I would have become King regardless of whether or not I overthrew him.”
“Verily, ‘tis so.”
“Then why was I locked up in that dungeon for all of those many years?!” Timur practically screamed.
“Alas, ‘twas because of the Great Prophecy.”
“The what?”
“Yea, it was foretold that the King’s successor should bring destruction unto both worlds. Many wanted to thwart that prophecy. When we didst finally find thee, thine powers had already manifested, but thine amulet had not yet been established. Thus, thou could not be killed. The Elders elected to lock thee away despite the protests of the King’s counselor. This counselor warned that such a decision would guarantee their destruction. They ignored his warnings, and not long afterward the counselor vanished.”
Timur had a pretty good idea who that counselor was. No doubt it was the old man who had been consistently overthrowing his plans until Timur locked him away in his own dungeon back on Earth.
“But that doesn’t make sense.” Timur whispered. “If the King truly was a Seraph as you suggest, how did I kill him? I thought you just said that a Seraph couldn’t be killed.”
“Alas, but I didst not say that.” Abner corrected. “Just before thou didst kill him, didst thou overturn his table?”
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
“Yes.” Timur was getting agitated. “But what does that have to do with anything?”
“Yea, it doth have great significance.” Abner smiled. “Upon that table sat a pair of balances, did they not?”
“I have no idea.”
“When thou didst overturn that table, the pair of balances fell and cracked. Unbeknownst to thee, this object was his Amulet. ’Twas the very supernatural object that focused his powers to allow him to travel between worlds. When thou didst break the Amulet, in that moment he became vulnerable as his powers had been shaken. It was then that thou didst stab him through the chest.”
“So what you’re telling me is that I need to break Allan’s Amulet, whatever it is?”
“Better yet, thou should destroy it.”
“But how will I find it?”
Abner walked over to one of the stone slabs. He instructed the four young priests to remove the cover. After many grunts and gasps, the cover slid slowly with a screeching sound as stone ground upon stone. Timur joined them, and he looked inside to find the skeleton of a man with a corroding gold breastplate upon his chest.
“Verily, this is the resting place of King Elijah, the very same Seraph of whom thine Bible from Earth hath described as the prophet who rode upon a chariot of fire and rose into the heavens in a whirlwind.”
Abner reached his hand behind the breastplate and pulled out two white stones.
“And these art seer stones.” He placed them gently in Timur’s palms. “They shall guide thee in thine quest to find this young Seraph’s Amulet.”
----------------------------------------
Back on Earth just past noon, Timur sat on a large decorated pillow in the traditional style of his ancestors, staring at the projected screen on the far wall as he typed away on his rollout keyboard. Pulling up his own public profile, he shaved off another five years from his date of birth. Though he had created CyberBolt Entertainment, he was unable to use most of the more advanced technologies his company had invented; each and every time his inner powers were manifested, the tech would fry. Because of this, he was limited to using more primitive removable technologies.
Time for another facelift.
Every few years he updated his profile to avoid suspicion. He chuckled to himself. If anyone learned that his actual birth year was 1336 A.D. they wouldn’t believe it. It wouldn’t be long before he reached his 700th birthday, though he didn’t look a year older than thirty.
Prior to Allan’s Ascension, he was led to the false presumption that he was the last of the Seraphim. The fact that Allan had recently Ascended was causing him a serious amount of anxiety. Months prior to his encounter this morning with Allan he could feel his powers weakening and he couldn’t figure out why.
I have to kill him to take back my powers.
Timur stepped out through the open glass door onto his balcony, a seer stone in each palm, and stared at them intently. He summoned the aura from his core and expected some type of reaction or vision. To his dismay, no such event occurred. The stones still lay there unfazed.
He tried holding them up to his eyes and peer through them as if they were a pair of binoculars. He still didn’t see anything significant.
I wish these things had come with instructions.
As the afternoon dragged on, Timur continued to fail every attempt at divination through the so-called ‘seer stones’ he had obtained. He even went so far as to draw a pentagram on the ground with chalk. He stood in the center, holding the stones high in the air as if summoning spirits from the underworld to guide him in his quest. Despite all his efforts, he couldn’t help but feel utterly ridiculous. It seemed as though he were trying to make conversation with a couple of shiny rocks.
Eventually he got impatient and began knocking the stones violently together as if he were attempting to ignite a spark from flint and steel.
And then, one of the stones unexpectedly shattered.
He let out a roar of inhuman rage, and chucked the remains of the stones off of his penthouse balcony.
I don’t need these shiny rocks! I’ll find that amulet if it’s the last thing I do.
Returning to his penthouse, he walked to the darkest corner of the adjacent room and stepped through the shadow. Darkness enveloped him as he spun through the shadow portal, and as desired he stepped through the other side into an unfamiliar room inside Allan’s home.
----------------------------------------
© Copyright 2022 R.M. Mulder. All rights reserved.