The End is Near

Chapter 28

18 July 2045 – Nightfall - Banff

It was time to scry for the answers and I was not really sure I was ready. The thought of all those eyes on me, waiting and watching was more than I could manage. It had been a day full of more ups than downs, but the potential doom hanging over our heads made everything seem to stand out more sharply. After a while I had left the others talking and returned to my room to try to take a nap. Instead, I had lain on the bed staring up at the ceiling. Now it was time.

"Are you ready?" Gwydd asked and I swung my feet over the bed. "Not really," I met his eyes, "but I can be ready later, when the fate of the world isn't hanging in the balance."

"Um – was that supposed to make sense?" he asked frowning. A part of me wished I could have more time to talk to him, knowing he would say the right thing - the thing that would put all of this into perspective.

Instead, I followed him back to the sitting room where the others were already gathered and where the sceptre and the device both lay on the table. "Have you all been here this entire time?"

"Here. At the food table. Here again." Shio stood slowly and rubbed his stomach. "I may have overeaten a bit."

Laila snorted, "I think we all did." She too rose slowly and ponderously.

"Maybe not all of us?" Mickael said. There was nothing to his stance and movements to indicate he was in the same plight as the others. Athena was doing some stretching exercises next to the door, so I wasn't sure what her story was. The stretching exercises were doing some very interesting things to her bare arms and legs and it was clear Mickael was looking and trying very hard not to be obvious about it.

These are my new clan. I have to do this to protect them too.

Then the Seventh was opening the doorway to the outside and moonlight spilled in so there was nothing left to say. I stepped out, bracing myself for the multitudes. However, there were only a few gathered – the seers and the rulers.

I must have looked confused, because Lord Lilon spoke at once, "The Seventh felt that this should be a smaller gathering and we could find no reason for a larger one." Then, although it was terribly inappropriate, I reached out and squeezed the Seventh's hand, hastily murmuring my thanks.

In the middle of the clearing, where there had not been one before, a small circle of water reflected the moon. It was clearer than any mirror and I walked over to kneel at its edge. The others stayed back until I motioned them all closer. "I think we should all see what the future has to offer, together. Just like in the Cave of Silence, there may be more than one message and I may not be the only one meant to see it."

The others circled the crystal surface, each kneeling but some with more creaking of bones or armour than others. I passed my hand over the water three times and called upon the Goddess for true sight. There was not a lot of ceremony required for scrying, not if you had the gift and did it right. It was far more important to have an open and receptive mind for the image flowed as much from the surface you were using as it did from the person viewing it.

The surface turned hazy and then into images that pulled me in to them.

I was in a room full of men in suits, but I could barely see their faces. One man glowed golden and from him sprouted slender gold threads that joined to all the others in the room. My view drew back and I saw the room from above, then the building and then what looked like a map view – yet those threads spiraled throughout the entire picture in a way that made no sense, except that they all somehow ran back to the one man I had seen at the start.

That scene was repeated multiple times, faces and maps changed – and I saw all different races and that in each scene there were threads of slender gold and they were all connected to one person in that scene.