Suti glanced in the direction of his companions, but they were already in full retreat, running before the pounding of the air. It was as if the very elements had risen up against them to defend the wounded honor of Ontear. Never before had Suti felt quite so vulnerable, so exposed. He knew that, at this point, survival was the primary consideration. Not vanity, not wounded pride … not even the lives of those already gone, because Suti had come to the realization that if he or Ontear died at this moment, that wouldn’t do a damned thing toward bringing back any of those who had already been killed.
“You weren’t wrong! I was … I was mistaken!” cried out Suti. “We need to seek shelter, Ontear! To get to the cave! To—”
“The cave will not serve as protection! I have foreseen that! I have foreseen all! Do you have any idea what it is like, Suti? Any idea what it is like to know? To be aware?” He pulled at his face as if he were seeking some way to tear the very skin from his bones. “It never stops, Suti! The knowledge never stops, no matter how much I desire it to! I am accursed, Suti! How can you have sought out my wisdom? I know everything and nothing! Everything and nothing!” He voice went to a higher and higher pitch, bubbling just short of total hysteria. “You want predictions? You want to know what to expect from the future? Look to the stars, Suti! All of you, look to the stars, for from there will come the Messiah! The bird of flame will signal his coming! He will bear a scar, and he will be a great leader! He will come from air and return to air! And he will be slain by the appointed one! Read the writings, Suti! Read of the appointed one and keep that knowledge secret, within the acolytes, for the appointed one must not know the destiny that awaits until the time of slaying! For in that slaying, the Messiah’s death will unite our planet! And if he does not die in the appointed way, then the final war will destroy all! All! All!”
“What writings?! What do you mean?” Suti called out desperately.
There was a crack of thunder from overhead, a blast so massive that all Suti could think of at that moment was his childhood. He would tremble upon hearing the sounds of storms, and his parents would spin him fanciful yarns of how the gods would be having sport with one another, and that there was nothing to fear. He would take comfort in that, nestle in his mother’s arms, no longer afraid.
He longed for those times now, for if there were indeed gods, they were furious about something.
Wind hammered Suti, stinging his eyes even though he tried desperately to shield them. He slammed shut his clear eyelids, and they afforded him some protection even as thousands, millions of infinitely small pebbles ripped up from the pathway, creating dust and dirt. Thunder doubled and redoubled, and lightning blasted from on high. The storm was everywhere, ripping down from the skies, and he felt as if the storm were within him. As if he had become a focal point for it somehow.
Through his eyelids, he saw Ontear.
And he saw something else. Something that filled him with undiluted terror.
Dropping down from on high, like a great black tongue, a blasting cyclone of air was descending and licking up everything with which it came into contact. The base of it was half a mile wide, and the howl of the air was so earsplitting that Suti was screaming at the top of his lungs and still couldn’t hear himself. And it was bearing down directly toward them.
Completely panicked, Suti scrambled backward, trying to get out of the way of the oncoming cone of black air. He managed to gain his feet, ran some yards, and then lost his footing once more. He slid on a trail of pebbles, ripping the skin off his forearms, and suddenly he was yanked to a halt. For one horrified moment he thought that the wind had him, but then he felt the sharpness of the ground and twisted his head around to look. His foot was trapped, wedged into a crevice in the mountain path. He yanked in terror, but it seemed as if all the effort he put into it simply caused his foot to become more solidly imprisoned.
The entire sky was illuminated once more, and Suti howled in fear and sent a prayer to whatever gods there might be, hoping and praying that they were listening and were intending to do something. The mass of black air bore down on him, he felt the rippling of his clothes, and knew that he was beyond hope, beyond prayer.
And Ontear, with his arms outstretched, appeared to be laughing. Suti couldn’t hear him, but his head was tossed back, his shoulders shaking with barely restrained amusement, and it was as if he were welcoming this mass of destruction that had erupted from the heavens like an inverted volcano. And the cyclone, which was driving straight toward Suti, suddenly veered off. Whether it was simply a shift in the air currents or—the more fanciful interpretation suggested—that Ontear was somehow actually summoning it, Suti would not presume to say. Perhaps it was even that this incredible destructive force had just noticed Ontear, and was abruptly realizing the reason for its presence.
Whatever the reason, amidst a blasting of rock, pebbles, and debris, the black air angled right at Ontear. It pulled at his robes as if inspecting him, trying to determine whether he was worthy of its attention. Ontear, for his part, was no longer laughing, nor was he showing any element of fear. Instead, he was serene, at peace with whatever his fate was going to be.
He did not have to wait long to determine what that fate was.
Suti saw air appearing between the bottoms of Ontear’s simple footwear and the rocky surface upon which he was standing. The outlandish sight made no sense to him at first, but then he realized what was happening. As incredible as it seemed, Ontear was being lifted into the air.
Ontear kept his body perfectly still and stiff as he began to rise higher and higher. He was so unafraid, so completely at peace. In some ways, it seemed as if he were going home.
Then the wind turned on him. As gently supporting as it had been, suddenly it became savage. Ontear was about ten feet off the ground when he was abruptly snapped from one side of the funnel to the other. For the first time, Suti saw confusion, even fear, in his eyes. As if he had been expecting this, and had prepared himself for it … but now, faced with the reality of it, panic was setting in. It was, however, too late for any such last minute considerations or doubt. Ontear was whipped away from Suti’s sight, caught up in the whirl of the destructive force, and now he was thrashing wildly, clearly trying to get away from the unstoppable force of nature that had yanked him away.
The dark air hesitated for a moment, as if choosing its course, and Suti’s mind was far too paralyzed to pray or hope or conceive of anything except possibly, just possibly, surviving to the next moment. Then the funnel angled completely away from him, plowing toward Ontear’s cave. Suti would have thought it impossible, but the mass of air ripped through the cave, blasting through solid rock. Shards and rubble flew everywhere, and Suti pulled himself into a fetal position, arms crisscrossed over his head to afford himself what protection he could. He felt his belly beginning to heave and he couldn’t control himself as he vomited up the entire contents of his stomach. Worst of all, he wasn’t even aware that he had done it.
Finally, however, he began to hear himself scream. It took a moment for him to realize that he was hearing his own voice, that the air mass was moving away. He continued to scream as if celebrating, with incredulity, his survival. He lifted his head and saw the funnel moving farther and farther away, apparently picking up speed. He could not make out any sign of Ontear, or what might have been left of him. For all he knew, the wind was of such intensity that it had simply ripped him apart.
Then the funnel suddenly began to retract into the sky. Its bottom dissipated, and then, with a final few crackles of thunder, the black column of air vanished as if it had never been there at all.
Suti’s breath was ragged in his chest, and he was unable to tear his horrified gaze away from the last place that he had seen the deadly air funnel. He felt as if, were he to look away, the destructive force might return with more power and intensity than before. But after long moments his breathing slowed down and he managed to compose himself to some degree. With the immediate terro
r of the moment gone, he was able to work with quiet calm on his foot and was surprised to discover that it took only a few seconds’ effort to extricate it from its entrapment. He stumbled to standing, wincing as he tried to put weight upon the injured foot. He took a few careful steps to try and shake it out and relieve himself of the pain.
Gradually he made his way over to where Ontear had been standing. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was supposed to feel upon standing at the last spot that he had seen his mentor, but the fact—the embarrassing, humiliating fact—was that he was simply glad that it had been Ontear who had been carried off rather than himself.
Then he looked over to the ruined remains of the cave, and remembered that his original instinct had been to seek refuge there. It had been Ontear who had stopped him. Fortunately, as it happened, for if he had tried to secure himself there, he would have been carried off by the winds. Ontear had saved his life. He had known. Somehow he had known.
He walked up to the cave, pushing aside the remaining rubble with the toe of his shoe. So many times had he come there to discover Ontear sitting in the exact same place: quiet, serene, confident Suti had sought to emulate it, sought to find the inner vision and peace that Ontear felt, even though there were critics who claimed that the serenity was nothing more than the self-confidence born of utter madness.
And then, when Suti stepped upon the spot that Ontear had occupied for so long … this time, he did feel something. At first he thought it was his imagination, but quickly realized that such was not the case. There was … there was something there. The ground felt different: harder, smoother, warmer. Was it a simple heating device? Something that Ontear used to help him subsist through the cold of the winter days?
No. No, Suti got a different sense of it altogether. He took a large step backward, and the moment he was away from the immediate area that had once been Ontear’s within the cave, the feeling ceased. That was when Suti realized that it was more than simply the sensation of warmth. It was something that somehow had burrowed deep within Suti’s soul, something that he felt permeating his very being. It was a sense of … of peace. Of knowledge and understanding. There were no particular facts floating through his head, but instead a simple and serene confidence that anything there was to know, he would eventually come to understand. It was addictive, like a drug. Without hesitation Suti stepped back upon the area and he felt it once more, this time stronger than ever. The ground was cluttered beneath his feet, but he kicked away the debris as quickly as he could and then dropped to his knees to inspect the ground. It was the same color as the rest of the area around him, but it was flat and smooth, and under his hands he could feel something that reminded him of a slow, steady pulse.
Then his fingers discovered an indentation, a tracing. He brushed aside the last of the dirt and dust to find a symbol etched in the ground. It was small, no larger than the palm of his hand, and it did not make sense to him at first. It appeared to be carved in the shape of a torch or flame. Why there was a small carving of a flame in the ground, Suti could not even begin to guess, yet something prompted him to extend one long finger and drag it across the intricate line carving.
He found, with interest, that it was one continuous line, and he traced it until his fingertip had reached the point from which it had begun. The moment it made that contact, it was as if a circuit had been completed. There was a soft rumbling from just beneath him, gears shifting, as if some sort of machinery had been set into motion. This time, however, he felt no immediate fear. No sense of panic as he had before. This time, for no reason that he could readily discern, it all felt … right somehow.
There was a loud, solid click and the flame symbol actually twisted in place, moving about ninety degrees and then slowly sliding upward, revealing a cylinder about the width of Suti’s hand and a foot tall. It was made of gleaming silver metal and sparkled in the daylight, the suns rays filtering down in the wake of the storm that had passed only moments ago. With reverence, Suti reached over and removed the cylinder, hefting it experimentally. He turned it over and over, looking for some sort of seam, some hint as to what it might be and what it might contain, if, indeed, it contained anything at all. Experimentally he twisted the top in the opposite direction from the bottom, and suddenly the top unscrewed in his hands. He blinked in surprise as he felt the unexpected give of the device in his hand, but then did not hesitate to unscrew it as quickly as he could. It made a harsh rasping sound, as if feeling the need to put up some sort of token resistance before yielding its secrets, whatever those might be.
He finished unscrewing the lid and then upended the cylinder. Thin sheaves of papers slid out and onto the ground, where they lay for a moment before unrolling by themselves, without Suti touching them at all. He was hesitant to pick them up at first, but finally he did, and scanned them quickly in an effort to discern exactly what it was they contained. There was line after line of writing upon them, and immediately he recognized the penmanship as that of Ontear himself. His eyes grew wide with excitement as he recognized them for what they were: predictions. Page after page of thoughts and concepts by the foremost seer in the history of Zondar. And they were ail in his hands.
He knew what he had to do, of course. He had to make these predictions public. He had to bring them to his people, let them know precisely what their future held. Ontear had been closed-minded, self-directed, and selfish, and the result had been an appalling civil war. Suti would not make that mistake.
He replaced the cylinder on the spot from which he had lifted it, and he saw it slide neatly back into place. The gentle vibrations, the feeling of power that he seemed to sense from beneath his feet were gone. It was as if the machinery beneath him, whatever it was, had gone silent. Perhaps he was imagining it, or perhaps it had somehow been keyed directly to Ontear himself. Was it possible that his foresight came not from within, but from without? That somehow this equipment had been responsible? If that was the case, then from where had the equipment come? Who had given it to Ontear, … and would they be back?
That, Suti realized, was clearly part of his destiny. He would wait. He would wait right there, for however long it took, to see if the potential providers of the answers would reveal themselves to him. In the meantime, however, he would use the information left behind by Ontear to continue the work and reunite the world. Information that he became more and more excited about as he read the material over.
Tentative voices called his name and he turned to see the other two acolytes who had accompanied him. They were a short distance away, walking carefully toward him, stepping delicately over the shifts in the path. “Are you all right, Suti?” they asked.
This was it. This was the moment to share the knowledge. To let them know all that was to befall the world, to produce the writings of Ontear. Why, with this concrete view of their world’s destiny before them, they could mold it and shape it, they could …
They could …
They could share the power.
Knowledge. Knowledge was power. That truism rang in Suti’s head as he read the writings in greater detail. Yes, that was the way of things, wasn’t it? Knowledge was power, and there was tremendous power to be had here. Suti’s mind raced: There were so many possibilities, so many things he could accomplish with this information … except that it would require that he kept it all to himself. Yes, that was the only reasonable possibility. After all, the world was already in disarray, civil war sweeping the different factions. If the information, the predictions, the last words and visions of Ontear were made public, different groups would endeavor to twist them to their own respective convenience. Everyone had their own intentions, after all, their own incentives. Everyone had an agenda, sometimes hidden and other times right out in the open.
There was information, knowledge here that many Zondarians simply couldn’t handle. That was another problem. Either they would be driven mad by the knowledge of what was to come, or else would labor to try and invalidate it as had ha
ppened with some of Ontear’s predictions. There were those who, once the future was revealed to them, felt compelled to do everything they could to change it out of some sort of sheer need for perversity and contrariness. As if once they were told, “This is how it will be,” felt the juvenile need to protest, “We’ll just see about that!” and labor mightily to change it all. And if that were the case, then one of two things would happen. Either Ontear’s predictions would become invalidated, and the legends of Zondar’s foremost seer would be challenged, diminished, and Ontear, who deserved reverence, would be lessened in the eyes of posterity. Or his predictions would remain true in the face of overwhelming odds, and what would be accomplished then? Fear, destruction, railing against the frustrating inevitability of fate. Nothing much else.
No, no indeed, what Zondar needed was one man. One good man, with a solid ethical foundation, who could use these predictions to lead the Zondarians into a new golden age. An age where the Unglza and the Eenza would be able to cooperate with one another and grow into two compassionate, cooperative groups. They were all Zondarians, after all, and it was simply madness that they were at war with one another.
And Suti was that man, of that he was quite sure. Ontear had been given power, but it had corrupted him. It had dragged him down even as he thought he was elevating himself, and he had completely lost touch with what was good for the people. That was something that Suti would never do. Not ever. And if fulfilling the destiny that awaited him meant keeping a few secrets, for the overall greater good, well, he was willing to make that sacrifice.
His back was still to the other acolytes as, without drawing any attention to it, he slid the rolled up papers into the inner folds of his robe. Then he turned to face the acolytes. He felt taller, more confident, as if the writings which he had secreted upon his person gave him an inner knowledge and strength.