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The Necromancer Prophecy

Chapter 2, Oracles and Angels

"The four divines built the first four races, and worked in unison upon the mighty dragons. Life created the illithines, blessed with the ability to survive in even the harshest of environments. Fate created the humans, strong willed and inventive.
Time created the elves, allowed the longest presence upon this world of any species. Death created the orcs, spiritual and physically imposing. All were placed upon the holy realm.
The four divines are gods; they are capable of such creation because they are the closest beings to the wavelength. Their proximity allows them to access powers beyond mortal comprehension. Our arcane magic is the weakest of all the realms, so far from the wavelength are we, in the center of everything. And yet we pathetic mortals inhabit the most stable of all realms, the largest, the grandest, the equal favored of the four divine."

Sevio and Vivaion were walking up a dusty mountain trail. After long discussion, they concluded that they didn't understand how they knew which way to go- they just knew the direction of the Oracle. Simply by putting one foot in front of the other, they could head to the Oracle's cave if they wanted to.

It was cold, and nearing the end of autumn. The day was completely cloudless, but they sky seemed grey and blurred, without striking hews of blue or a golden sun. The landscape around them was no more interesting. The altitude was just so that nothing grew but hills and rocks while remaining uncovered by permanent snowfall.

In keeping with the mood of the earth around them, the pair walked in complete silence. Sevio had his cape pulled around him since they left the city. It was not difficult to pose a priest (Necromancy being illegal in Istaria if outside the mage tower) as long as he kept his cape, and its telltale magic eye, out of sight.

As they walked, Sevio found himself beginning to reflect on the course of events that had led him to necromancy. He could only assume it was his originally sheltered lifestyle. The son of a lesser noble, his mother and father had never told him about the bad things that happened outside of the house. No one had ever been cruel or harsh on him. The world had been perfect. Then he had ventured out on his own. He made friends, only to be betrayed. He learned of racism, war and disease. Unable to cope, he felt left with nothing but eternal pessimism and bitter cynicism for the world. Some years after, his talent for mage craft was discovered, at which point his parents decided to allow him to study at the mage tower in Istria. He took up the robes of the necromancer without ever telling them. Day and night he questioned his decision.

Turning around suddenly, Vivaion cried "Look! I think that cave is the oracle's." she pointed far up the mountainside. Sevio followed her finger and sure enough saw a small cave dotting the horizon.

"Looks steep." He commented. And so it was; the cave rested high on a cliff with a zigzagging stair case cut into the rock.

"Yes. Now come on, I want to know what Voque saw between us." She grabbed his wrist and started pulling him along.

After the climb, they stood at the entrance to the Oracle's Cave. It was large and unusually rounded. The cavern's sides seemed marble smooth and almost shined, but the roof still had ancient stalactites dripping with water and feeding into underground streams. Gusts of wind burst randomly from the corridor, and they were growing stronger.

When Sevio lifted his arm to block his face, he realized the source of the wind. A certain white robed mage with silver hair flew out of the cave. Ichor dispelled his wind orb and landed in front of the two.

"You came together? I thought Voque sent everyone individually."

Sevio and Vivaion looked at each other. "Well... he said we had to go together." Sevio explained.

"Oh." He snickered. "Anyways, don't expect her to make any sense. She seriously told me 'You future and true self are clear to me, but what you do with your future is the choice of those around you. Who will you aid? Who will you hurt? Your choices are truly your own and yet not. You play a part in this legend, silver one, but not are you the main show. You will help the one of undeath who falls.' So, any clue what that means?"

"Sorry, no." Sevio answered.

"I have heard no legends relating to friendly undead, so why would you help them?" Vivaion wondered.

"Precisely. I hope your answers make more sense."

"Thanks, but somehow I think they will make even less." Vivaion answered.

Ichor nodded and summoned his wind sphere again. "Alright, I'll see you back at the tower then." Then he flew off.

Sevio looked at Vivaion. "What makes you think our answers will be worse off than his?"

The wind picked back up again as Ichor flew back. "Could you tell me which direction the mage tower is in? I just got here following the magic guidance."

-*-*-

The cave turned out to be about as interesting as the land around it. Once one grew bored of looking at the walls, there wasn't much more to do than walk silently forwards.

"So, again, what makes you think our futures will be so difficult to read?" Sevio asked.

"Hmm? Well think about it, if Voque had that much trouble just identifying our fate, then how will the oracle cope? Our future might be harmful to people with premonition somehow." She hung her head a little. "What do you think he saw between us?" She stared hard at the wall.

"Umm..." a wave of emotion washed over him.

"Never mind we're here." She said rapidly.

In front of them was the strangest cave Sevio had ever seen. The two walked into the perfectly circular room. Their feet made no sound on the mosaic-like floor panels. Around them, water from the streams was collected into miniature channels. Used for irrigation, they fed into smaller canals which distributed the water to the various plants which grew over everything except the pathway. The magnificent, sacred garden was given light from some sort of sun-like disk on the ceiling, filling the cavern with light as surely as if it were day.

The strange disk of light began to glow more brightly. Lightning shot outwards, enveloping the room and crawling across the walls. After opening their eyes, the two mages saw to their fascination, the world had changed. The garden was still intact, but it was different. What had once been glorious, healthy trees were now dead, twisted ones. Crystalline water became unhealthy crimson. The disk shed an eerie red glow.

The sphere flared, and the scenery altered to an all new world. It seemed unable to run out of parallel dimensions to display. The only constant piece of the room was a golden gate of some sort. It was some sort of portal gate. Looking through it was like a blurry mirror, and figures could be seen roving around behind it. The portal hung from the top of the back wall.

The pair felt gloved hands clamp down on their shoulders. "Greeting you like cave yes?" A female voice said. It sounded strangely disembodied and carried an unusual accent.

The couple began to turn around, but the hands pushed them back. "No no, I not show until the elf promises not to stab me!"

Vivaion raised an eyebrow. "Why would I... yes, I promise not to stab you..."

The gloved hands shoved them roughly, and they stumbled onto rune covered circles and they saw the oracle.

"Remember you promised!" The dark elf said cheerfully, waving a finger in the air.

"Dark Elven!" Vivaion exclaimed, but managed to show surprisingly little prejudice otherwise.

The oracle was indeed a dark elf. With obsidian skin, pointed ears which turned down at their tip and bleached white hair, she stood confidently with one hand on her hip and a smirk on her face. She wore a dark blue headband over her eyes and an orange half-robe which looked like an old style garb for post war ceremonial generals. It was lavishly coated with various gems, each of which emitted a slight glow.

"Well, let us move past racism inherent and get with the future telling yes? Ah but I see a flaw! There are two when there should be one! What is this strange phenomenon?"

"Master Voque said we should go together." The two said in perfect union

The oracle began laughing "You two think alike do you not? If mister Voque says it is so then I suppose I can excuse thou two lovebirds from my formalities. Let us begin!" Before they could react and warn the oracle, she stepped deftly into the center and began the process. A golden glow outlined all the circles in the room and silver beams shot up from the oracle's circle and those of the two mages.

As the lights danced, the oracle was gently lifted up the beam of light. The head band she wore lit aglow, her eyes behind it glowing a powerful, radiant sky blue. The oracle trembled in her flight once.

The gold and silver light began to slash at each other. The different powers swarmed around the room, and the conduit of the energy, the oracle, was left helpless. As she screamed, the light in her eyes changed colors rapidly, swirling through hundreds of shades.

The oracle forced a hand up and tore off her head band. With a final terrific blast of noise and light, the sacred power chaotically tore itself apart.

The oracle collapsed, the headband clutched in a death grip while she trembled near the ground. Seeing the magic die, Sevio and Vivaion jumped forwards and caught her before she fell to the floor. They set her down gently and Sevio looked to Vivaion.

"Well," he said breathlessly "It looks like you were right." He stood up. She only nodded.

The oracle sat straight up lightning fast. "Gods above!" she swore.

"What?" Vivaion asked, having been startled by the oracle's sudden awakening. "What did you see?"

"I saw... two different realities. Two paths the future may take. Gods... Time and Fate... The gods Time and Fate disagree on what you future is, and only though their unison can I read your future. " The oracle's eyes seemed glassy, but they could still see. She looked long and hard at Sevio. "Fate believes that you, Sevio, will become the Death Knight and attempt to end all creation." She stood up and turned to Vivaion. "Time believes Vivaion will become the Death Knight, and likewise end existence." The oracle shook her head sadly. "All I know for sure is that in your future some cataclysmic event will happen, and it will defy one of the god's powers." She looked straight forwards, down the tunnel which exited the cave. "You will either travel through time or destroy your own destiny," She whispered, then collapsed into prayer as the pair of mages left.

As soon as they were gone, she stopped praying. "You may come out of hiding now." She said. With a swirl of wind, Ichor became visible on the edge of the room. "I'm sorry; I just sensed... something within them. Intuition, I guess. I had to find out."

"I know, Insephorus, I know." She said without looking in his direction. "I will make it so you will get back long before them."

Ichor looked down with a troubled face. "...thank you." He summoned his wind sphere and flew out of the tunnel.

-*-*-

The pair of mages walked the winding way back to the surface; Sevio had his hand sliding across the marble smooth side of the cavern, his head bowed as if to study the ground. Their slow walk echoed across the hall.

It came as a welcome reprieve from their thoughts when Sevio spoke up. "This is probably the least of our concerns, but I noticed that the oracle lost her accent and vagueness after the incident."

"...You're right. What do you think happened?"

"I think the oracle is annoying on purpose, and she forgot to be annoying after we blew up her future sight." He answered sarcastically.

Vivaion smiled and stifled a laugh with her left hand. "You might actually be right, though. Oracles must maintain the equal favor of Fate and Time to keep their powers. If she told the future outright, that could anger Time, or maybe Fate."

"Oh... But then why did she tell us to the best of her ability afterwards?"

"By that point, the gods could hardly blame her. Besides, we still didn't get a straight answer. Either one of us could be...." She realized where the conversation was heading and closed her mouth. Sevio went back to staring at the ground.

"We both hoped... we both want..." Sevio started to say. "Never mind...." He felt broken. Vivaion wasn't the perfect angel he had always imagined her to be. She was no better than him, feeling continual, suppressed anger directed to the rest of the world. If the oracle's unbelievable prediction was true, one of them would break and vent that anger, becoming a death knight and ending the world.

"It can't be true." Vivaion whispered, just loud enough for Sevio to hear. He knew her thoughts were much along the same line as his.

They reached the entrance to the cave, and Sevio's hand slid neatly off the wall as they stepped into the autumn twilight. Vivaion stopped at the edge of the cliff to watch the sunset.

The sunset? "Sev?" she said, testing out the nickname Ichor sometimes called him. "What time of day was it when we left for the oracle?"

"Midday, why... gods; is that the sunset?" Then something occurred to him. "This cataclysmic event in our future wouldn't be triggered by that time flux, would it?"

"No, no I don't think so. Many of Time's clerics are given the ability to alter his power slightly; it is understandable that the oracle would have access to such spells. To alter the course of events our future would take, we'd have to actually travel through time. I think the oracle's cave just slowed us down while we were inside." She sat down, with her legs dangling over the edge, admiring the hazy sunset which brought brilliant orange color to even the bleak and lifeless landscape below.

Sevio, who hadn't given half a thought to the sunset's grace, was at first confused as to why Vivaion had sat down. But then he saw her, sitting in the last rays of the sun, and returned to sit beside her.

"What about Ichor?" Sevio said on an insight.

"What about him?"

"He wasn't affected by the oracle's cave, or we wouldn't have seen him leave."

She looked up to the sky and leaned back. "Alright, I don't have an explanation for that one." With a smile, she said, "I guess the oracle is just being 'annoying' again."

He gave her a chuckle, and turned his face to the passionate sky as together they let the twilight take their darkest thoughts with it over the horizon.

A short time later, they walked through the night. Vivaion studied the clear night sky, tracing the known constellations and finding some of her own. When her eyes wandered over the moons, she saw the black spot of the large moon, the representation of her patron god, Death. The smaller moon which always orbited it, the representation of his rival god, Life, had disappeared behind it tonight. She wondered what Sevio must see when he looked at the moons, as a non-believer, or at least a non-follower.

She had to ask. "Sevio, when you look at the moons, what do you see?"

"I know what you want, but I can't give it to you. I see two pale white moons, one of which orbits the other. I have never seen the representations of any gods within them for as long as I can remember. I won't deny their existence anymore, Vivaion; but I still cannot bring myself to follow one. What do you see when you look at the moons?"

"I see..." She stopped. No elf worshipped Death. He was respected and revered, but never worshipped. Could she share this secret with Sevio? "Death. I see an empty black spot in the sky, circled by the golden moon of his rival." She told him. Barley wanting to see his reaction, she looked in his direction.

Amazingly, he seemed unsurprised, but she could only see his mouth underneath his hood by the way he was slouching. The biggest reaction she got was a simple raise of the head and a nod, both out of surprise and easy acceptance. In fact, Sevio actually seemed to be smiling.

She could hardly believe it. Someone who didn't even follow the gods just accepted her deity like that. She then looked at him sadly, for the necromancers were the forsaken of the gods. Maybe it was not he who didn't follow the gods, but the gods who had left him. He didn't deserve it, she mused. Sevio was by far one of the most kind and respectful people she had met, and she didn't deserve his friendship.

She felt like crying for one half an instant, then her resolve tightened, consequences be damned. She ran up to Sevio and slipped her hand into his. When her deity could not surprise him, this action did. Sevio straightened and looked at her in something close to wonder. His smile was one of hope and sadness as he wrapped his hand more tightly around hers. Together, hand in hand, they returned to the mage tower.

-*-*-

After a reluctant parting, Sevio wandered the empty nighttime halls back to his room. Many thoughts swirled through his mind, some of the romantic, but most of the cynic. As an elf, Vivaion would outlive him by hundreds of years. Any future union would be troubled at best.

As he reached for his door handle, he knew he had relayed this very thought in the back of his head, more than enough times. He stopped, just before his hand touched the door handle. Something felt wrong with his magic.

He looked around for any sort of disturbances. Focusing on the magic that burned through every mages blood, he searched. The source of power was unmistakably coming from his room.

Sevio pulled out a black raven's feather from a pouch of components around his belt. Deftly twirling the feather around between his fingers, he activated a silence spell. All around him quieted to an eerie absence of noise, even the comforting sound of his breath dulled and faded away.

He opened the door as he would normally, understanding that with his spell, it would make little difference if he attempted to sneak into his room.

The first thing he noticed was his undead. The one which he had placed by his door seemed unusual somehow. He noticed there seemed to be a slight grey glow emanating from the core of the skeleton.

He looked around his room and finally noticed the source of the oddities.

He was overwhelmed by the magic this being sent out. No spell had even been cast, but there was such intense power pouring from the translucent form that Sevio's mage sight was temporarily blinded. To his naked eye, the specter was built of the grey mist that infected his undead. It had a head shaped vaguely to that of a dragon's and strange, opaque orange liquid floated through his body like the veins of a living being. It was looking away from Sevio, arms crossed, and staring at the moon through the window which took up most of the outside wall.

Seemingly on a whim, it shot a hand backwards and disrupted his silence spell. Sevio jumped back and prepared one his few offensive spells, dark pulse. Looking again with his recovering mage sight, he knew he couldn't so much as scratch a being such as this.

"What are you, and what business do you have within my chamber?"

It teleported without a thought, and Sevio felt an incorporeal arm slide through the back of his head and jut out the front through his mouth. "Cast away your magic or I will make my arm become solid within your skull." It said with a terrifying voice that sounded like five different speakers, whispering the same words with a disturbing echo.

Sevio, with no desire to become beheaded, threw away his magic and looked at the entity. "What manner of creature are you?"

To Sevio's surprise, it responded. "I assure you, apprentice, I am no mere creature." Sevio saw the black pits where its eyes should be. It did not stand, but floated, the grey mist generating about its feat to the point where it obscured the ground.

"I am Xariox, Demigod of Undeath." He retracted his hand from Sevio's mind and floated back to the window, giving his spectral body an inner glow as the moonlight refracted of his inner mist. "And I have come to give you two gifts."

Sevio "Two gifts?" He said, barley believing in the whole experience. "Why have the divine taken interest in the ways of a forsaken necromancer?"

Xariox stared at him with his shadowy eyes for a great while, and minutes dragged by. Sevio didn't stop, didn't back down, but not out of bravery. The Demigod was the powerful here, and he knew it.

Xariox began to laugh. It was a haunting, echoing laughter, but it filled Sevio with a perverse sort of mirth, not unlike the necromantic spells which he commanded. "You truly think that the demigod of undeath is in any better standing with the four than his disciples? Ah but I see your questions as I read your thoughts. No, I need not be under the wing of some higher god, much as the church would have you believe that. And as for why I am here, rather than the lair of some powerful archmages, it is due to your recent... studies into our beautiful dark arts." To illustrate, the demigod lifted his hand and wickedly smiled as a sphere of darkness cogenerated above his palm.

"I intend to reward you, for all you have done. For attempting to search our art rather than using it for personal gain...." With a flick of his wrist, the dark energy in his hand instantaneously twisted into a scroll of shadows. It floated down to Sevio. Who grasped it eagerly, wondering what spell of power might be hidden within.

"For defying the divine plans lain out by Fate and Time, and defying the very edicts of the four by attempting to validate necromancy." Xariox paused and ginned. "I shall unlock the power of that cape upon your back."

Sevio looked up from the scroll, amazed. "You know what the-" Then magic encircled him, whipping around and flowing into his cape.

Something was happening to it, the eye glowed brighter. For a moment, he thought he saw something of a jaw within the eye, snarling furiously with violet teeth. Lines spread out from the eye, forming intricate patterns of right angles and boxes. The cape seemed to be attaching itself to him, hurtling around as if in a terrific breeze, when he felt a painful magical intrusion into his shoulder blade.

Screaming for all it was worth, he collapsed onto one knee, as if bowing before the power of the demigod. The cloak flapped once in the magic, and wings of purple energy burst forth from his back, the cloak gone.

Energy collected around Xariox, and he teleported with a display of sparks. As Sevio collapsed, the scroll rolled softly out of his hand. When the darkness began to claim him, the door broke open, allowing mages to run towards him....

Description
The Necromancer Prophecy

Chapter 2, Oracles and Angels

"The four divines built the first four races, and worked in unison upon the mighty dragons. Life created the illithines, blessed with the ability to survive in even the harshest of environments. Fate created the humans, strong willed and inventive.
Time created the elves, allowed the longest presence upon this world of any species. Death created the orcs, spiritual and physically imposing. All were placed upon the holy realm.
The four divines are gods; they are capable of such creation because they are the closest beings to the wavelength. Their proximity allows them to access powers beyond mortal comprehension. Our arcane magic is the weakest of all the realms, so far from the wavelength are we, in the center of everything. And yet we pathetic mortals inhabit the most stable of all realms, the largest, the grandest, the equal favored of the four divine."

Sevio and Vivaion were walking up a dusty mountain trail. After long discussion, they concluded that they didn't understand how they knew which way to go- they just knew the direction of the Oracle. Simply by putting one foot in front of the other, they could head to the Oracle's cave if they wanted to.

It was cold, and nearing the end of autumn. The day was completely cloudless, but they sky seemed grey and blurred, without striking hews of blue or a golden sun. The landscape around them was no more interesting. The altitude was just so that nothing grew but hills and rocks while remaining uncovered by permanent snowfall.

In keeping with the mood of the earth around them, the pair walked in complete silence. Sevio had his cape pulled around him since they left the city. It was not difficult to pose a priest (Necromancy being illegal in Istaria if outside the mage tower) as long as he kept his cape, and its telltale magic eye, out of sight.

As they walked, Sevio found himself beginning to reflect on the course of events that had led him to necromancy. He could only assume it was his originally sheltered lifestyle. The son of a lesser noble, his mother and father had never told him about the bad things that happened outside of the house. No one had ever been cruel or harsh on him. The world had been perfect. Then he had ventured out on his own. He made friends, only to be betrayed. He learned of racism, war and disease. Unable to cope, he felt left with nothing but eternal pessimism and bitter cynicism for the world. Some years after, his talent for mage craft was discovered, at which point his parents decided to allow him to study at the mage tower in Istria. He took up the robes of the necromancer without ever telling them. Day and night he questioned his decision.

Turning around suddenly, Vivaion cried "Look! I think that cave is the oracle's." she pointed far up the mountainside. Sevio followed her finger and sure enough saw a small cave dotting the horizon.

"Looks steep." He commented. And so it was; the cave rested high on a cliff with a zigzagging stair case cut into the rock.

"Yes. Now come on, I want to know what Voque saw between us." She grabbed his wrist and started pulling him along.

After the climb, they stood at the entrance to the Oracle's Cave. It was large and unusually rounded. The cavern's sides seemed marble smooth and almost shined, but the roof still had ancient stalactites dripping with water and feeding into underground streams. Gusts of wind burst randomly from the corridor, and they were growing stronger.

When Sevio lifted his arm to block his face, he realized the source of the wind. A certain white robed mage with silver hair flew out of the cave. Ichor dispelled his wind orb and landed in front of the two.

"You came together? I thought Voque sent everyone individually."

Sevio and Vivaion looked at each other. "Well... he said we had to go together." Sevio explained.

"Oh." He snickered. "Anyways, don't expect her to make any sense. She seriously told me 'You future and true self are clear to me, but what you do with your future is the choice of those around you. Who will you aid? Who will you hurt? Your choices are truly your own and yet not. You play a part in this legend, silver one, but not are you the main show. You will help the one of undeath who falls.' So, any clue what that means?"

"Sorry, no." Sevio answered.

"I have heard no legends relating to friendly undead, so why would you help them?" Vivaion wondered.

"Precisely. I hope your answers make more sense."

"Thanks, but somehow I think they will make even less." Vivaion answered.

Ichor nodded and summoned his wind sphere again. "Alright, I'll see you back at the tower then." Then he flew off.

Sevio looked at Vivaion. "What makes you think our answers will be worse off than his?"

The wind picked back up again as Ichor flew back. "Could you tell me which direction the mage tower is in? I just got here following the magic guidance."

-*-*-

The cave turned out to be about as interesting as the land around it. Once one grew bored of looking at the walls, there wasn't much more to do than walk silently forwards.

"So, again, what makes you think our futures will be so difficult to read?" Sevio asked.

"Hmm? Well think about it, if Voque had that much trouble just identifying our fate, then how will the oracle cope? Our future might be harmful to people with premonition somehow." She hung her head a little. "What do you think he saw between us?" She stared hard at the wall.

"Umm..." a wave of emotion washed over him.

"Never mind we're here." She said rapidly.

In front of them was the strangest cave Sevio had ever seen. The two walked into the perfectly circular room. Their feet made no sound on the mosaic-like floor panels. Around them, water from the streams was collected into miniature channels. Used for irrigation, they fed into smaller canals which distributed the water to the various plants which grew over everything except the pathway. The magnificent, sacred garden was given light from some sort of sun-like disk on the ceiling, filling the cavern with light as surely as if it were day.

The strange disk of light began to glow more brightly. Lightning shot outwards, enveloping the room and crawling across the walls. After opening their eyes, the two mages saw to their fascination, the world had changed. The garden was still intact, but it was different. What had once been glorious, healthy trees were now dead, twisted ones. Crystalline water became unhealthy crimson. The disk shed an eerie red glow.

The sphere flared, and the scenery altered to an all new world. It seemed unable to run out of parallel dimensions to display. The only constant piece of the room was a golden gate of some sort. It was some sort of portal gate. Looking through it was like a blurry mirror, and figures could be seen roving around behind it. The portal hung from the top of the back wall.

The pair felt gloved hands clamp down on their shoulders. "Greeting you like cave yes?" A female voice said. It sounded strangely disembodied and carried an unusual accent.

The couple began to turn around, but the hands pushed them back. "No no, I not show until the elf promises not to stab me!"

Vivaion raised an eyebrow. "Why would I... yes, I promise not to stab you..."

The gloved hands shoved them roughly, and they stumbled onto rune covered circles and they saw the oracle.

"Remember you promised!" The dark elf said cheerfully, waving a finger in the air.

"Dark Elven!" Vivaion exclaimed, but managed to show surprisingly little prejudice otherwise.

The oracle was indeed a dark elf. With obsidian skin, pointed ears which turned down at their tip and bleached white hair, she stood confidently with one hand on her hip and a smirk on her face. She wore a dark blue headband over her eyes and an orange half-robe which looked like an old style garb for post war ceremonial generals. It was lavishly coated with various gems, each of which emitted a slight glow.

"Well, let us move past racism inherent and get with the future telling yes? Ah but I see a flaw! There are two when there should be one! What is this strange phenomenon?"

"Master Voque said we should go together." The two said in perfect union

The oracle began laughing "You two think alike do you not? If mister Voque says it is so then I suppose I can excuse thou two lovebirds from my formalities. Let us begin!" Before they could react and warn the oracle, she stepped deftly into the center and began the process. A golden glow outlined all the circles in the room and silver beams shot up from the oracle's circle and those of the two mages.

As the lights danced, the oracle was gently lifted up the beam of light. The head band she wore lit aglow, her eyes behind it glowing a powerful, radiant sky blue. The oracle trembled in her flight once.

The gold and silver light began to slash at each other. The different powers swarmed around the room, and the conduit of the energy, the oracle, was left helpless. As she screamed, the light in her eyes changed colors rapidly, swirling through hundreds of shades.

The oracle forced a hand up and tore off her head band. With a final terrific blast of noise and light, the sacred power chaotically tore itself apart.

The oracle collapsed, the headband clutched in a death grip while she trembled near the ground. Seeing the magic die, Sevio and Vivaion jumped forwards and caught her before she fell to the floor. They set her down gently and Sevio looked to Vivaion.

"Well," he said breathlessly "It looks like you were right." He stood up. She only nodded.

The oracle sat straight up lightning fast. "Gods above!" she swore.

"What?" Vivaion asked, having been startled by the oracle's sudden awakening. "What did you see?"

"I saw... two different realities. Two paths the future may take. Gods... Time and Fate... The gods Time and Fate disagree on what you future is, and only though their unison can I read your future. " The oracle's eyes seemed glassy, but they could still see. She looked long and hard at Sevio. "Fate believes that you, Sevio, will become the Death Knight and attempt to end all creation." She stood up and turned to Vivaion. "Time believes Vivaion will become the Death Knight, and likewise end existence." The oracle shook her head sadly. "All I know for sure is that in your future some cataclysmic event will happen, and it will defy one of the god's powers." She looked straight forwards, down the tunnel which exited the cave. "You will either travel through time or destroy your own destiny," She whispered, then collapsed into prayer as the pair of mages left.

As soon as they were gone, she stopped praying. "You may come out of hiding now." She said. With a swirl of wind, Ichor became visible on the edge of the room. "I'm sorry; I just sensed... something within them. Intuition, I guess. I had to find out."

"I know, Insephorus, I know." She said without looking in his direction. "I will make it so you will get back long before them."

Ichor looked down with a troubled face. "...thank you." He summoned his wind sphere and flew out of the tunnel.

-*-*-

The pair of mages walked the winding way back to the surface; Sevio had his hand sliding across the marble smooth side of the cavern, his head bowed as if to study the ground. Their slow walk echoed across the hall.

It came as a welcome reprieve from their thoughts when Sevio spoke up. "This is probably the least of our concerns, but I noticed that the oracle lost her accent and vagueness after the incident."

"...You're right. What do you think happened?"

"I think the oracle is annoying on purpose, and she forgot to be annoying after we blew up her future sight." He answered sarcastically.

Vivaion smiled and stifled a laugh with her left hand. "You might actually be right, though. Oracles must maintain the equal favor of Fate and Time to keep their powers. If she told the future outright, that could anger Time, or maybe Fate."

"Oh... But then why did she tell us to the best of her ability afterwards?"

"By that point, the gods could hardly blame her. Besides, we still didn't get a straight answer. Either one of us could be...." She realized where the conversation was heading and closed her mouth. Sevio went back to staring at the ground.

"We both hoped... we both want..." Sevio started to say. "Never mind...." He felt broken. Vivaion wasn't the perfect angel he had always imagined her to be. She was no better than him, feeling continual, suppressed anger directed to the rest of the world. If the oracle's unbelievable prediction was true, one of them would break and vent that anger, becoming a death knight and ending the world.

"It can't be true." Vivaion whispered, just loud enough for Sevio to hear. He knew her thoughts were much along the same line as his.

They reached the entrance to the cave, and Sevio's hand slid neatly off the wall as they stepped into the autumn twilight. Vivaion stopped at the edge of the cliff to watch the sunset.

The sunset? "Sev?" she said, testing out the nickname Ichor sometimes called him. "What time of day was it when we left for the oracle?"

"Midday, why... gods; is that the sunset?" Then something occurred to him. "This cataclysmic event in our future wouldn't be triggered by that time flux, would it?"

"No, no I don't think so. Many of Time's clerics are given the ability to alter his power slightly; it is understandable that the oracle would have access to such spells. To alter the course of events our future would take, we'd have to actually travel through time. I think the oracle's cave just slowed us down while we were inside." She sat down, with her legs dangling over the edge, admiring the hazy sunset which brought brilliant orange color to even the bleak and lifeless landscape below.

Sevio, who hadn't given half a thought to the sunset's grace, was at first confused as to why Vivaion had sat down. But then he saw her, sitting in the last rays of the sun, and returned to sit beside her.

"What about Ichor?" Sevio said on an insight.

"What about him?"

"He wasn't affected by the oracle's cave, or we wouldn't have seen him leave."

She looked up to the sky and leaned back. "Alright, I don't have an explanation for that one." With a smile, she said, "I guess the oracle is just being 'annoying' again."

He gave her a chuckle, and turned his face to the passionate sky as together they let the twilight take their darkest thoughts with it over the horizon.

A short time later, they walked through the night. Vivaion studied the clear night sky, tracing the known constellations and finding some of her own. When her eyes wandered over the moons, she saw the black spot of the large moon, the representation of her patron god, Death. The smaller moon which always orbited it, the representation of his rival god, Life, had disappeared behind it tonight. She wondered what Sevio must see when he looked at the moons, as a non-believer, or at least a non-follower.

She had to ask. "Sevio, when you look at the moons, what do you see?"

"I know what you want, but I can't give it to you. I see two pale white moons, one of which orbits the other. I have never seen the representations of any gods within them for as long as I can remember. I won't deny their existence anymore, Vivaion; but I still cannot bring myself to follow one. What do you see when you look at the moons?"

"I see..." She stopped. No elf worshipped Death. He was respected and revered, but never worshipped. Could she share this secret with Sevio? "Death. I see an empty black spot in the sky, circled by the golden moon of his rival." She told him. Barley wanting to see his reaction, she looked in his direction.

Amazingly, he seemed unsurprised, but she could only see his mouth underneath his hood by the way he was slouching. The biggest reaction she got was a simple raise of the head and a nod, both out of surprise and easy acceptance. In fact, Sevio actually seemed to be smiling.

She could hardly believe it. Someone who didn't even follow the gods just accepted her deity like that. She then looked at him sadly, for the necromancers were the forsaken of the gods. Maybe it was not he who didn't follow the gods, but the gods who had left him. He didn't deserve it, she mused. Sevio was by far one of the most kind and respectful people she had met, and she didn't deserve his friendship.

She felt like crying for one half an instant, then her resolve tightened, consequences be damned. She ran up to Sevio and slipped her hand into his. When her deity could not surprise him, this action did. Sevio straightened and looked at her in something close to wonder. His smile was one of hope and sadness as he wrapped his hand more tightly around hers. Together, hand in hand, they returned to the mage tower.

-*-*-

After a reluctant parting, Sevio wandered the empty nighttime halls back to his room. Many thoughts swirled through his mind, some of the romantic, but most of the cynic. As an elf, Vivaion would outlive him by hundreds of years. Any future union would be troubled at best.

As he reached for his door handle, he knew he had relayed this very thought in the back of his head, more than enough times. He stopped, just before his hand touched the door handle. Something felt wrong with his magic.

He looked around for any sort of disturbances. Focusing on the magic that burned through every mages blood, he searched. The source of power was unmistakably coming from his room.

Sevio pulled out a black raven's feather from a pouch of components around his belt. Deftly twirling the feather around between his fingers, he activated a silence spell. All around him quieted to an eerie absence of noise, even the comforting sound of his breath dulled and faded away.

He opened the door as he would normally, understanding that with his spell, it would make little difference if he attempted to sneak into his room.

The first thing he noticed was his undead. The one which he had placed by his door seemed unusual somehow. He noticed there seemed to be a slight grey glow emanating from the core of the skeleton.

He looked around his room and finally noticed the source of the oddities.

He was overwhelmed by the magic this being sent out. No spell had even been cast, but there was such intense power pouring from the translucent form that Sevio's mage sight was temporarily blinded. To his naked eye, the specter was built of the grey mist that infected his undead. It had a head shaped vaguely to that of a dragon's and strange, opaque orange liquid floated through his body like the veins of a living being. It was looking away from Sevio, arms crossed, and staring at the moon through the window which took up most of the outside wall.

Seemingly on a whim, it shot a hand backwards and disrupted his silence spell. Sevio jumped back and prepared one his few offensive spells, dark pulse. Looking again with his recovering mage sight, he knew he couldn't so much as scratch a being such as this.

"What are you, and what business do you have within my chamber?"

It teleported without a thought, and Sevio felt an incorporeal arm slide through the back of his head and jut out the front through his mouth. "Cast away your magic or I will make my arm become solid within your skull." It said with a terrifying voice that sounded like five different speakers, whispering the same words with a disturbing echo.

Sevio, with no desire to become beheaded, threw away his magic and looked at the entity. "What manner of creature are you?"

To Sevio's surprise, it responded. "I assure you, apprentice, I am no mere creature." Sevio saw the black pits where its eyes should be. It did not stand, but floated, the grey mist generating about its feat to the point where it obscured the ground.

"I am Xariox, Demigod of Undeath." He retracted his hand from Sevio's mind and floated back to the window, giving his spectral body an inner glow as the moonlight refracted of his inner mist. "And I have come to give you two gifts."

Sevio "Two gifts?" He said, barley believing in the whole experience. "Why have the divine taken interest in the ways of a forsaken necromancer?"

Xariox stared at him with his shadowy eyes for a great while, and minutes dragged by. Sevio didn't stop, didn't back down, but not out of bravery. The Demigod was the powerful here, and he knew it.

Xariox began to laugh. It was a haunting, echoing laughter, but it filled Sevio with a perverse sort of mirth, not unlike the necromantic spells which he commanded. "You truly think that the demigod of undeath is in any better standing with the four than his disciples? Ah but I see your questions as I read your thoughts. No, I need not be under the wing of some higher god, much as the church would have you believe that. And as for why I am here, rather than the lair of some powerful archmages, it is due to your recent... studies into our beautiful dark arts." To illustrate, the demigod lifted his hand and wickedly smiled as a sphere of darkness cogenerated above his palm.

"I intend to reward you, for all you have done. For attempting to search our art rather than using it for personal gain...." With a flick of his wrist, the dark energy in his hand instantaneously twisted into a scroll of shadows. It floated down to Sevio. Who grasped it eagerly, wondering what spell of power might be hidden within.

"For defying the divine plans lain out by Fate and Time, and defying the very edicts of the four by attempting to validate necromancy." Xariox paused and ginned. "I shall unlock the power of that cape upon your back."

Sevio looked up from the scroll, amazed. "You know what the-" Then magic encircled him, whipping around and flowing into his cape.

Something was happening to it, the eye glowed brighter. For a moment, he thought he saw something of a jaw within the eye, snarling furiously with violet teeth. Lines spread out from the eye, forming intricate patterns of right angles and boxes. The cape seemed to be attaching itself to him, hurtling around as if in a terrific breeze, when he felt a painful magical intrusion into his shoulder blade.

Screaming for all it was worth, he collapsed onto one knee, as if bowing before the power of the demigod. The cloak flapped once in the magic, and wings of purple energy burst forth from his back, the cloak gone.

Energy collected around Xariox, and he teleported with a display of sparks. As Sevio collapsed, the scroll rolled softly out of his hand. When the darkness began to claim him, the door broke open, allowing mages to run towards him....