Seriphyn Knight Chronicles 19 Chapter 19: The Zaldizko Prophecy

I was enthralled by the slenderness of his porcelain hands and his perfectly trimmed fingernails. His feet were smooth and beautifully shaped almost as if an artist had sculptured them. He was an epitome of divine handsomeness. My eyes wandered over his body, which was erect with perfect posture on the north joining point of the crown cakra floor symbol.

The room fell to an intense silence as he moved in a slow and elegant dance around the room, gracefully touching each joining point of the cakra symbol with the tips of his toes.

My heart pounded at the touch of the delicious breeze that stroked my skin, and the sweet scent of vanilla lazing about the air. The atmosphere became charged with a sensation akin to static.

Wilfred gestured for me to look to the ceiling. I was amazed at the glowing points of the stained-gla.s.s symbol where Saku's feet touched those points on the floor's version.

I returned my attention to Saku's dancing, which stirred more static to spark white light from the silver and bronze borders around the room.

The floor symbol glowed. Its light intensified as his dance increased in speed and complexity. Panels of subdued hard-light formed out of the border lines. They were pulled around the floor symbol's outline by his dance. He added some high, low and roundhouse kicks into his ch.o.r.eography, which caused the hard-light panels to reshape and resize about the floor. His dance collected the reshaped panels towards the pedestal. They eventuated into a box of hard-light, which formed a lid over the pedestal's dish.

He stopped his dancing and ceremoniously approached the glowing box. His arms moved with bold sweeps and controlled slashes around it, stirring a cloudy light to fill the inside until it was dense and burning bright.

His dance finished with a loud clap, keeping his hands together in a prayer. He stepped back to the East join of the cakra symbol, carefully lowered himself to the floor, without breaking his prayer hands, and into a crossed leg position. His eyes closed as he chanted a mystical script.

I peered at the pedestal's cloudy box, which was pulsating with burning white light.

An involuntary gasp escaped my mouth as light streamed out of the box in all directions to form pictures in the air. The entire circular room became saturated with colours, light and images to form a scene.

I was back in Gat s.h.i.+em, standing in the astronomy book section of the Library Tower, close to the spiral wrought iron stairway that led to the tower's observation deck of its observatory.

My nose picked up a familiar scent of woody incense lingering the air from where it burned in the room's shrine. I brushed the scrolls spread out on the benches before me. Tears brimmed my eyes when I felt a papery texture. The dry stuffiness, I used to complain about every time I trailed War on his stacking s.h.i.+fts, made my heart beat painfully.

_"It's not real. I'm not here."_ I keep chanting in my head. It didn't help that my whole body ached with the familiarity of being there.

_"Freend. We home?"_ Small Cap innocently asked. He had been in shock when he woke and poked his head out of the pouch to see himself in the Library Tower.

_"Freend! It home!"_

Small Cap scrambled out of the pouch excitedly, about to take a flying leap onto the bench with the scrolls. Leinard's sharp order made him recoil and scurry back into the pouch.

_"Colonel's right Small Cap; this isn't home. There's nowhere for you to land."_

_"It smells, feels like home."_ Small Cap's voice was almost pleading for it to be true.

Approaching conversations distracted our nostalgic thoughts and pulled our attention towards the two approaching men who were headed for the spiral stairway.

My eyes glistened with tears when I saw they were Shuso and War, having a leisurely conversation.

_"Can they see us?"_ I asked Leinard telepathically, not daring to utter a word with fears of breaking the image.

_"No. This is nothing but a replay of a past event captured within the nikiaku,"_ Leinard answered.

I cleared my mind by focusing on the event that was being played out before me.

---["Whydidyah want meh to dungeon crawl through the archive bas.e.m.e.nt to get dis ratty lookin' thing?" War waved a heavily stained and half torn leather-bound book that was almost falling apart at the seams.

"Because Ralwyn's health is not looking good, since Rawn hit her. I fear she won't exist for much longer," Shuso replied with a sorrowful sigh, folding his arms across his kimono of night blue.

War c.o.c.ked his head to the side with a quizzical expression on his face.

What the h.e.l.l was his batty old Shuso going on about this time? It would be nice if the old man gave it to him straight occasionally.]]

The scenery moved and changed at War and Shuso's pace. I soon found myself standing on the grilled observation deck, before a gigantic bronze telescope pointed upwards to the starry sky visible in the opened ceiling panel.

Shuso had frequently used this tool to keep track of the stars' movements.

Inside the silver lens dish, attached to the telescope's base stand, was a sparkling and spanking new marble.

My eyes followed the marble's journey from the dish, by Shuso's hand, to War's fleshy palm.

---["You must not let go of this ball for anyone or anything. It must never leave your body at any stage until it wants to," Shuso ordered as he coaxed War's fingers to close over the ball.

War stood with obvious shock on his face. It was the first time his Shuso had ever given him a straight order.

"Okay," he affirmed, not sure what was going on.

He sighed when Shuso had returned to his usual batty self upon his answer.

"Aah - that reminds me of a story long forgotten, about a time when Sol was not Sol, the Sacred Word was not the Sacred Word." Shuso began one of his many rambling tales.

War rolled his eyes , bracing himself for another boring earful, but what he heard made his heart beat with keen interest instead. Shuso's ramblings were tales from the legendary magis he idolised - The Great Magis Isaiah.]]

Shuso unfolded Isaiah's tale of four powers that held control over chaos and order in a world he referred as Not-Sol. They belonged to deities known as the Zaldizko.

The lesser creatures and people of Not-Sol knew and feared these deities for the consequences their power caused.

---["Famine claimed, War broke, Pestilence inflicted, Death negated. Tis the price of the power to uphold Chaos and Order," said Shuso.]]

I detected pain behind his ramblings of what would happen should the world go out of control.

---["Chaos and Order are like a married couple. If they split, this will bring about the wrath of their children. The evil in their children's hearts will continue to destroy until all becomes null." Shuso exhaled.]]

His voice became laboured as he continued the tale like he was spending every bit of his breath to reach the end.

---["How do we know the children are angry? It starts with the breaking of a star."]]

Shuso's papery voice dictated a prophecy called the Zaldizko as recorded by the previous Shuso four generations past.

---[The Great Magis Isaiah saw a star fall one night whilst writing in his book of sacred words. Upon the star's fall, he was visited by a dark angel who called himself Rawn.

Rawn spirited Isaiah's mind away, so he could see the world's future demise.

Isaiah saw his world burn and be destroyed into nothingness. It would come to null and there was nothing he could do about it.

Rawn showed Isaiah a pond with four lotus flowers in full bloom floating on still waters.

Isaiah learned that these flowers were the Hana of the World, which held great powers over chaos and order.

He learned of the seven sealed events that unlocked the end of times.

First Seal: the four Hana would bud in the Age of Apocalypse; one each not of each other, from the four corners of the world.

Second Seal: the unbreakable moon pillars will become breakable by the fire of ages.

Third Seal: the golden sickle will drive the Hana apart.

Fourth Seal: the Hana will break by their own hands until their hands cannot carry themselves any more.

Fifth Seal: the universe becomes one.

Sixth Seal: famine shall claim, War shall break, Pestilence shall inflict, Death shall negate.

Seventh Seal: the skies shall be black as sackcloth; the water will run dry and the beasts of the world are slain. The Zaldizko will ride forth on their steeds to bring about null.]]

The tale recounted from Shuso's own mouth was disturbing. I was far from being an expert on the Sacred Word, but even I was aware that Isaiah never recorded tales of Hana or Zaldizko in that book.

---["What are yah saying Shuso? Isaiah wrote no tale like this. I've never seen anythin' about Zaldizko or Hana in tome copies of the Sacred Word," War questioned Shuso. The angry tones of his deep voice rebounded off the observatory's walls.

"He did," Shuso calmly responded. His eyes pointed to the ratty book in War's hands.

War's hands shook as he held the book before his eyes. They were trembling so much that it fell into Shuso's steady hands.

Shuso carefully opened to pages of papyrus that had been cleverly pressed and treated to fit into the book. The yellowing pages held neatly written hieroglyphs from an era long gone; a language only trained magis knew to read.

War's Adam's apple ran up and down his throat with nervous gulps as he read the aged hieroglyphs with learned understanding.

It was all there. He saw the mentioning of Hana and the seals. He clenched the ball tightly in his hand when he saw his own name scrawled within those fatalistic pa.s.sages of prophecy.

Yah pullin' meh leg." War didn't want to believe it, but he knew his Shuso was serious.

Calamitous banging, shouting and thumping noises disturbed their moment.]]

...

The scene disappeared with white light. I blinked in the view of the theater.

I stared around for an explanation and saw that Saku was unconscious on the floor, his clothes clinging to his clammy body and his skin pale.

The doors of the theater room flung wide.

I braced myself for the intruding soldiers who rushed at us with swords unsheathed and guns raised.