The Prophecy

by K H Blackmoore

were beautiful. Dannon almost forgot about the dire predictions of war as the days passed. He collected stories of Sunshine and Grey for the book he was working on. The villagers were more than willing to share stories of Sunshine's mother, every living soul of them talking about how beautiful and graceful she was. Almost like nobility. They were considerably less kind with the stories of Grey. But a few of the wiser ones always noted how he never hurt anyone, and despite his seeming lack of wits, truly cared for Sunshine and her mother. Dannon faithfully recorded all the stories, figuring they would provide valuable back ground for study later on.

  He was on his way to the stone of prophecy to take a rubbing of it for his book when he noticed the smoke. A thin cloud of it was gathered in the distance, covering much of the horizon. Worried about a forest or grass fire he started to run for the small hilltop where the stone rested. Out of breath he reached it and could do nothing more than lean up against a sapling and gasp for air. Once he recovered a bit he staggered up the hill and into a nightmare.

  Several miles away was an army encampment. The smoke he had seen was coming from the army’s camp fires. It was a massive camp, stretching out of sight into the distance. From as far away as he was standing there was no way to tell which country it belonged too. Not that the nationality of the army would matter much. Armies of any country were notorious for plundering the land they marched through. Usually at a great cost of life to the locals as the soldiers raped and pillaged whatever they wanted. As long as the army was this close the village was in grave danger.

  Movement about a mile away caught his attention and Dannon dropped into the long grass to hide. A scouting party had just left the tree line and the motion had alerted Dannon to their presence. Dannon could see five individuals, four of which seemed to be armed with the deadly long bows favored by scouts. They stood around the edge of the forest gossiping for all he could tell. He prayed fervently that the scouts would head back to the army camp, away from the village. Maybe the villagers would go unnoticed if they were extremely lucky. He didn’t know much about armies, but Dannon seemed to remember reading that keeping an army in one place for too long was difficult because off the resources it took to keep an army supplied.

  Dannon was watching the scouts and hoping they would head away from the village when he noticed Sunshine. She had just left the edge of the forest heading in his direction, about half way between Dannon and the scouting part. He glanced in horror back at the scouts. One of them had already pointed at the little girl. Dannon jumped to his feet and yelled at Sunshine.

  "Run!" He screamed, waving his arms at her to get her attention. But she couldn’t hear him as far away as she was so she just waved back at him. She couldn’t see the scouts, who were pointing at her and talking among themselves. He couldn’t tell for sure, but they seemed to be laughing about something. "Run!" He screamed again as she started to walking towards him after she finished waving. He looked back at the scouts in desperation.

  One of the scouts had his bow in his hands and was drawing an arrow. The other scouts were definitely pointing at Sunshine and laughing. Dannon screamed again in impotent rage, pointing at the scouts, trying to get Sunshine to notice. They were far out of range for him to use magic to interfere in the nightmare unfolding in front of him. But Sunshine finally noticed his frantic waving and looked behind her. She saw the armed men and started running towards Dannon. The scout pulled his arrow back and released the black feathered shaft in one swift motion.

  Time slowed down for him. The world narrowed in his vision and all Dannon could see was the little girl running in the wind, her beautiful long blond hair streaming behind her as the dark wings of the arrow arced almost lazily in its flight towards her. He might have screamed again, but he couldn’t tell. The world grew even more still as the arrow reached its peak and started its slow decent. Almost agonizingly slowly it dropped towards the little figure that seemed frozen in place. His heart beat once. Twice. And the wicked head of that hideous arrow pierced the little girl he loved as a daughter and pinned her tiny form to the ground.

  It felt like Dannon had been stabbed through the chest. He dropped to his knees. Emotions swirled through him like a storm. Feelings he couldn’t tell and had no name for washed his consciousness. Until one feeling triumphed. Full of rage he stood, wanting nothing so much as to wash this plain with the blood of the men responsible and the army they belonged too. Dannon would start by killing those foolish scouts who were even now were laughing and slapping their comrade on the back for shooting a little girl.

  Dannon tried to start walking towards the men. But his feet would not obey him. He seemed rooted to the ground. He glanced at his feet, only to have his shadow catch his attention. It was rotating around him, moving towards the sun, for all the world as if the laws of physics had been reversed. Dannon noticed that all the shadows were, from a single blade of grass to the still dark of the forest. He looked up, in the direction the shadows were now stretching towards, as if something was calling them.

  Grey stood over the body of Sunshine. As if he had just appeared out of nowhere. Gently, ever so slowly, Grey reached down and picked up the body of his daughter, the arrow still sticking out of her back. The shadows had reached him now, only they were no longer simple shadows but a great empty darkness beyond simple black. A darkness so black it could and would absorb all existence of the universe and leave nothing behind. This absence of existence was flowing into Grey's feet.

  Dannon tried to move again but his body would not respond. There were great patches of darkness seeping across the entire land now, all moving towards Grey. Dannon thought his head was spinning, until he noticed the clouds that had formed out of the thin morning air. They were slowly spinning, the epicenter located over Grey. And the clouds were growing. The darkness was also starting to swirl with the clouds, but its inky blackness continued to flow into Grey. As if in another world, Dannon's mind told him that he was seeing magic. Magic unlike anything any magician had ever seen.

  There was a pulse to the spiral now. A pulse that set Dannon's heart beat in tune with itself. He could not even try to do move more, just stand there held in the grasp of a power beyond his understanding. Watching spell bound as a storm of magic flowed into a man Dannon realized now that he knew nothing about. A man whom also held in his arms the still body of his daughter, his only reason to live.

  Dannon could see every detail of Grey and Sunshine as clearly as if he stood beside them. He couldn’t explain how he felt every slow agonized breath Grey drew. Could not explain how he felt every beat of Grey's heart in every fiber of his being. And certainly couldn’t explain the terribly cold hand that slowly squeezed his heart. But what he could see in crystal detail, despite the thousands of feet between them, was Grey's hair changing color. The very tips of his hair were black. Black hair, a color no one had seen before. And the blackness was spreading, ever so slowly up from the tips of his hair towards his head.

  Grey spoke. Whispered really, yet it was a sound that reverberated through every living soul.

  "I gave it all for them. I gave my power, my kingdom and even my mind. Gave it gladly so that I could live in peace with the woman I loved. And you took them from me."

  The world had grown completely dark now. All Dannon could see was Grey. As he watched Grey threw his head back and roared. A sound full of anguish and rage, primal and raw, a sound that captured every aspect of pain imaginable, ripped through Dannon. As Grey cried out a single tear rolled down his cheek and dropped. When the tear struck the ground Dannon finally lost consciousness.

  He woke up several hours later, or so he guessed from the position of the sun. It took several weeks to verify the extent of the damage caused by the magic storm Grey had unleashed. Not that there was any physical damage to the world, but every human being outside of the villagers had turned to dust. They were literally the last people for hundr
eds of miles in any direction. Dannon imagined they were the last people on the earth now. The cities, the buildings, the carts and animals, even cloths remained where they had been. But all that could be found of people were piles of gray dust that strongly resembled ash.

  Grey and Sunshine were still there. They had turned to a black stone the color of obsidian but stronger than any other mere rock. Every detail perfectly preserved, from the bloody drops rolling down the arrow that was still piercing Sunshine's small body; to the look of pain on Grey's face as he screamed at the cruel world. All the villagers had experienced the same things Dannon had, no matter where they had been. They had all experienced with Dannon the death of Sunshine and Grey’s reaction. To honor Grey and Sunshine the villagers moved the stone of prophecy to the feet of the statue that Grey and Sunshine had become. It was the only memorial to the man and his daughter that seemed fitting. Around the statue a beautiful new species of flower was also beginning to grow, almost like a natural memorial. The flowers had deep blue petals the color of Sunshine’s eyes while long golden hairs grew from beneath the