The sorcerer didn’t remember how long he’d been dead, only that generations must have passed, with no more to show for his life than whispered tales amongst the living. His chosen haunt was a cave in the heart of the woods, rumored to hold a massive pillar of crystal, around which strange things occurred. More than a rumor, the pylon of glassy ore was real, as was its power. Around its base curled the desiccated corpse of the man who clung to the mysterious regolith in death as he had in life. In spite of his physical shortcomings, parts of his spirit remained. He communed as far as he was able with the voices of those who had come before; those vengeful ancestors, deader than he, who cursed his people not only with existence, but with awareness of a universe beyond their poor, motionless planet. All the riches of those other worlds, all the privilege that was denied them, the simple, suffering vessels of their creators’ fear, had burned a hole of malice and contempt in the sorcerer’s heart, even as the toxic, mystical mineral burned holes in many of his other organs. Whatever transcendent properties the crystal held were closely guarded by its physical properties. In truth, the expired visionary died before his time, believing the revelations gained were worth far more than the sickness and weakness that plagued him until the very end. If only there was a way to access its worth without risking death.
The ones who made his kind and forced the destructive awareness upon him were not without a plan. Their ruinous prophecy, centuries in the making, required many steps along the way to come to fruition, and the ghost was merely one of them. Long after his death, he was blessed with something he’d never had in life, an acolyte. This unseen apprentice was not one of his own kind, as they’d all believed him mad or cursed or non-existent. In fact, the exact mechanism of the prophecy required the mentee to be selected from somewhere else entirely. It was through the power of the crystal, planted in abundance throughout the galaxy by the ancestral powers while they still lived, that allowed the lone spirit to instruct his pupil, even from four hundred trillion miles away. The follower was a young man, still living, full of strength, and all too eager to accept the arcane teaching from across the void, as prophets among his own people were nigh unheard of.
As the student greedily lapped up his master’s teaching, using the crystals on his own world as the conduit, his power of persuasion grew, and soon enough he found fame and followers thrust upon him, an honor his mentor never dreamed of in his own life. But all bitterness aside, their mission remained true, promising to outlast them both, far beyond the hope and heartbreak of one lifetime. Just as well, because only a few short years into their partnership, the signs of decay began to show in the new seer as they had in the old. Though no physical illness resulted from prolonged contact with the mineral, what resulted instead was a form of madness, a creeping, insipid thing that threatened to make his mind as useless as his forebear’s body. Whichever form the damage took, it would soon cease to matter as the next phase of the plan was already in motion.
The ancient progenitors believed that every form of life with which they seeded the stars was incomplete and could not bring about the promised vengeance in their current limited states. Only in death could these misty ones grasp at the knowledge which so long eluded them. Their least fortunate children, the first and last created beings during their long reign, would be required to unite their disparate powers of strength and insight. This foretold convergence of new and old, cold and heat, scheme and sword would give rise to the prophecy’s fulfillment, the destruction of their greatest enemy.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
A plan this grand was not without a source of frustration or two. The dead sorcerer’s devotee, gifted though he was, couldn’t shake the fact that he hailed from a harsh world full of brutally practical people, himself no exception. The questions he plied his mentor with exhausted the distant spirit, who commanded the impetuous youth to simply listen and obey. Perhaps the largest point of contention lay in the mechanism of convergence itself. Why could they not bring about the vague event on their own? Why should a newer generation receive this honor? The wraith assured his pupil the ancestors he served were not perfect in life. How could he expect omniscience from them in death?
Short though they were, owing to the planet’s close orbit around its miniscule star, for the dead mage the years went slowly by. The ancients assured their quarry they would grant the power when the time was right, when the one selected appeared. If only he would hang on just a while longer. Before too long, the day finally came that a small child of just the right age and naivety came darting through the silent woods, already eager to unburden himself from regular life’s drab promises. The youth was believed by those in his nearby village to be cursed from the moment he drew breath, owing to the fact that his father died before his birth and his weary mother could barely keep him alive in his fragile infancy. Still, as the youngest of eight in a crowded hovel, he longed to run from the moment he could walk, and run he did.
On this, his last day for a long time on the planet of his birth, he tore through forest as usual, going further than he’d ever been before, always pushing the boundary, always testing the limits to see where they were. Snow crunched beneath the soles of his third-hand shoes and the brush tore at his equally worn clothing. He was too young to have heard the cautionary tales shared by the older children regarding the evil presence believed to still haunt these woods. A few of the oldest people in the village claimed to have seen the sorcerer once or twice while he was still alive, but all of this meaning was lost on the young rover, who sprinted and tumbled deeper and deeper into the heart of the trap laid for him. By the time he reached the small rise overlooking the cave’s opening, he could hear the faint shouts of whichever older brother had been assigned to watch him that day. It mattered not, as the otherworldly, soul-thrumming resonance emanating from the cavern was louder than any real sound. He followed its summons like a fly to rotting flesh, while the increasing glow from the crystals within drenched his brown eyes in blue light.
As he stood on the precipice of fate, unable to stop himself or even look away, the haggard face of the corpse clutching the base of the pillar nearly shook him from his stupor. The withered thing was covered in moth-eaten finery and tarnished jewelry, and it seemed to speak with a voice of its own. A haunting command from outside of time rushed through the hollow, unmoving jaw with the force of a hurricane, while the azure light swirled around the room in greater and brighter intensity until sparks shot forth from the crystals themselves. The small boy, wholly unable to process the scene or its implications, screamed even as his eyes remained open to the mounting terror. Not that protesting would have saved him now. His pursuer heard his youngest brother’s cry at the very instant of his disappearance. A flash of light filled the cave and glade beyond, vanishing as soon as it appeared and taking with it the selected child. Whatever fragments remained of the sorcerer’s spirit vanished too, clinging to the void-bound youth as he travelled instantly to parts unknown.
