The young man walked into the cave, hunched over and panting, sweat dripping from his forehead. Pyira looked at him and tutted. He must've done the whole climb in one go. The eager ones always do. Think they're too good to take a break at that campsite halfway up the mountain, 'only the weak and feeble need to pay some peasant for a tent for the night' they say to themselves as they march on by before collapsing of exhaustion two hours later.

The other seers saw him too.

Pyira sighed. "I got him."

She got up and walked towards the mouth of the cave, feeling the heat of the summer sun creep in through the entrance. Who the heck wants to climb a mountain in this heat?

The young man tried to catch his breath before sinking to one knee and bowing his head. "Prophet. I have completed your trial. I have climbed the mountain of Yawaog, traveled across the country to pick the herbs you demanded, and collected the blood of a pure-bred shark." They always added the pure-bred bit themselves, Pyira thought. What would a non-pure-bred shark even look like?

The man stood up and began walking towards her. "Ever since I was born, I've known I had a magnificent destiny. My family had ruled our town for many generations, we have used the man of our village to fight off countless invaders and cement our power. However, I know I have more to do. My father told me I have a greatness inside of me. Tell me. What is my destiny?"

Now he was closer Pyira could smell the sweat dripping from his skin. It soaked his clothes, polluting the cave with a foul odor. Her face instinctively squirmed, and she fought against the impulse. "Come, place the objects on the ground."

Nervously, the man opened his pack and took out the objects. He placed each one down with care, as though putting a child to sleep. Between each herb he looked up at Pyira, checking if the objects were in the right place. She nodded confirmation, wishing he'd hurry up and leave the cave quicker. Finally, he took out a small vial of blood and placed it by the herbs.

"Well done, traveler." Pyira said nodding, breathing through her mouth. "Now, do you have your donation?"

"Y- yes." The young man reached into his pocket and took out some coins, and reached out his hand.

She placed her hand beneath his and the coins dropped into her palm. As the copper hit, the visions came. Her head shot back, her eyes rolling into her head, as she saw every moment in the young man's history. His joy at his first horse, the time he and his brothers ransacked that neighboring village, the promises his dad made of his coming glory. And then she saw the future. What the young man wanted to know.

Pyira lowered her head.

"Did you see it?" the man said, standing. "What did you see? What is my destiny?"

Pyira thought for a moment, forming the sentences in her mind. "There is a great evil in this world, one that attacks people's souls, and turns their blood brown. This evil will come for you too. You will be a warrior against this evil."

The man nodded along, waiting for the next part. However, Pyira was silent. He waited for awkward second upon awkward second, his eyes nervously looking at the cave around him, trying to work out how to release the next part of the prophecy. "That's it?" he eventually blurted out.

"Yes."

"What evil?" the man asked.

"One not of human form."

"A dragon? A ghost?"

"The prophecy is what it is," Pyira said, waving her arm through the air with pretend symbolism.

"But. There must be more? Can you not tell me any more?"

"The prophecy is what it is." The same arm motion.

"Can you at least tell me when I have to face this foe?"

"Sooner than you may think," Pyira nodded.

"Soon?!" The man checked his sword was still by his side. "I will face this foe, I will defeat it and rid the world of this evil. What can I do to prepare?"

"The prophecy is what it is."

"But you saw my whole future. My destiny. Tell me what it is." There was a degree of anger in his voice that irritated Pyira.

"The prophecy is what it is."

"Come on. I climbed this whole mountain and now I have to rid the world of evil and you won't give me anything useful."

Pyira was growing weary with his moaning. "You must go now. The winds are changing." They are changing, Pyira thought, blowing more of your stink inside. "Your destiny awaits. Go. Onward to your destiny."

"But I need more information-"

"Quick. If you wait your destiny cannot be fulfilled. You must go."

That seemed to trigger something in the young man. His back shot upright, and he quickly grabbed his pack. "Yes. You're right. Thank you. Thank you."

Pyira stood with her hands clasped in front of her as the young man gathered himself and headed for the cave entrance.

She watched him leave and let out a long sigh, her body slumping, her stomach paunching out with the release of tension. The annoyance over, she turned back to the other seers in the back of the cave. "I dealt with the idiot, someone else can clean up that mess." She waved a hand over to the pile of herbs.

"We should add something," one of the others said. "Maybe the egg of an eagle and the claw of a lion? That sounds mystical but hard to get."

"Can we not just ask them to bring us a dog?" a younger seer whispered.

"No. No pets," an older woman barked. "Not again." She shook her head.

Pyira reached the group and took a seat around the fire.

"So what was his dessss-tiinnnnn-yyyyy" a woman chuckled. "He off to greatness?"

"He catches dysentery on the walk back down the mountain," Pyira said, placing the coins in a box. "Dies in a week."

More words at r/ArchipelagoFictions

Phyria trudged along the mountain path. Her walking stick splintered more and more with each step. The bottom had started breaking about halfway up the rocky terrain. She thought about how few people had to make it this far for the path to be so wild. Phyria heard thunderous hoofbeats behind her.

A group of warrior men rode up the road on their horses. They looked forward with steadfast gazes and determination. It was like they didn't see more than the destination.

Phyria ducked into the ditch next to the road. The men raced right past her. She was right. They would have run right into her to get what they wanted. They were after the same prize as Phyria, but for completely different reasons.

She thought about her younger sister, Daphne. Daphne was all of 17 years. She had a long life ahead of her, or at least she did. An unscrupulous man with ill intentions paid for a curse upon her when Daphne rejected his affections. He did not deserve her. His crude comments alone proved that. Phyria regretted failing to teach him a lesson that day. Now, Daphne had days to live unless the seers gave a remedy.

A cough came from a bush behind Phyria. She slowly approached the bush and pulled back the branches with caution.

An elderly woman lied on the ground in front of her.

"Oh, dear me. I didn't mean to disturb you," the old woman said.

"No, no. I'm glad I stopped. How long have you been here?"

"Oh, I don't know. A few hours. I felt weak and had to stop for a rest."

"Are you looking for the seers, too?"

"Yes. I want to know that my daughter and her children have a long happy life. She is my everything."

Phyria held out her hand.

"Well, this place is not very kind. How about we stick together."

The old woman took Pnyria's hand.

"I would enjoy that."

The two walked farther up the mountain.

​

Phyria and the old woman approached the top of the mountain. The warriors from earlier sat at the summit. The anger emanating off of them was palpable.

"Let me handle this," Phyria said.

She walked to the most decorated warrior of the group.

"Did you find the seer?"

"There is no seer. Look," The man said.

He pointed to an engraving on a stone.

Seek the truth through kindness. Seal your doom with blindness.

Phyria felt her heart fall out of her body. She had come so far for nothing. She turned back to the woman.

"What is it, dare?" She asked Phyria.

"There's nothing here. I need to get back to my sister now."

"Oh, no. I'm sorry you came all this way."

Phyria closed her eyes and shook her head. "I won't dwell on what could have been."

"Oh, Phyria, when you get back to Daphne, give her some cillianberries and lion's root in some warmed wine. It does wonders for an ailing body."

Phyria furrowed her forehead in surprise.

"How did you know her name?"

She opened her eyes and the old woman was gone. Phyria started to run back down the path.

Just after dawn, Nastaya walked up the hill outside Mirosk, where she'd been told the cottage of an old man named Fyodor could be found. Fyodor, people said, could give you answers to questions that no one else could, though he was not a scholar, nor a priest, nor a man of learning. Fyodor of Mirosk was an just an old fool.

But he was no ordinary old fool.

Fyodor was a holy fool, and Nastaya knew that people came from miles around to seek out his foolishness, which was of a particularly blessed variety. Of course, many also said that he was only a common fool, and that folks simply read their own meaning into his ramblings. But Nastaya had nowhere else to turn.

Not long ago her parents had perished in a fire that consumed their home and all that they'd owned, leaving her alone in the world. She was bereft, but beyond that she also had no prospects, no dowry, and scarcely a penny to her name.

Nastaya's was without a home, her heart was broken, and she did not know what to do. In her desperation, she was willing to see if perhaps this holy fool did know.

She crested the hill and came upon the cottage, a humble little house of thatch and stone. On low stone wall that ran about the small house, a young man sat, whittling a piece of wood with a knife.

That was not old Fyodor, she was certain, for he was ancient by all accounts. It was doubtless one of the caretakers who looked after the old man. The lad looked up from his whittling, and gave her a curt nod, but he said nothing, and went back to his quiet work. That was the way of things, she'd been told -- you did not speak, at the old fool's cottage. You waited for him to speak to you.

And wait she did for quite some time, standing before the old cottage, until her legs were wobbly from standing so long. She feared to move, or to sit like the young man, terrified that in doing she would break some taboo she hadn't been warned about, and offend Fyodor -- perhaps even offend God Himself, from whence the man's foolish wisdom was said to flow.

The sun was high in the sky, before Fyodor finally emerged from his cottage. The rumors had not lied -- the stooped old man looked as ancient as the Earth, with wrinkles like deep canyons across his gaunt face, and a wispy white beard that hung down to his waist. He hobbled out onto the green around his house with the aid of a gnarled oak branch, moving slowly and with great care.

Nastaya hardly dared to breathe, as she waited for him to speak. But to her dismay, he seemed not to notice her.

He puttered around on his little patch of lawn, humming softly to himself. He paused to regard a red tuft-eared squirrel in a tree,

"Invest wisely, young man -- wisely, now!" he admonished the little beast.

He then hobbled over to another tree, to poke with his stick at a cluster of toadstools among its roots.

"Good, good. Just like that! Keep up the good work," said to the mushrooms, approvingly.

Nastaya's heart began to sink as she watched this display, listening with growing trepidation to the old man's meaningless one-sided conversation with beasts, birds, and plants. A part of her began to see how desperate people might make too much of a poor old man in his dotage, who was only giving voice to half-faded memories as his wits were failing him.

Her hope returned somewhat, when suddenly he turned to her.

"Sorry!" the old man said, looking suddenly abashed, and hobbling quickly toward her.

She almost said it was alright, that she hadn't minded the long wait, but then she remembered the injunction she'd been given not to speak. Regardless, she soon discovered that had not been why he'd apologized.

He gestured with his branch to the ground at her feet, where a small clump of flowers grew. "I'm sorry about those, young lady. There was no other way to go about it, you see."

Nastaya blinked in bewilderment.

"It's the way of the world, I'm afraid." he said, shaking his head sadly. "I'd love to grow flowers from honey, truly, but it just won't happen, not this side of heaven, my dear. I had to use other things, foul things, to be sure. Ashes, and bones, and foul night soil -- all sorts of awfulness."

Then he stepped close to her, eyes suddenly wide and pleading. "But...but they are lovely aren't they? Aren't they?"

Not knowing what else to do, she nodded, and Fyodor smiled at her, seeming relieved. Then he blinked stupidly, and gave his head a shake. He looked at her as though seeing her for the first time, and he frowned.

"What?" he said, suddenly fixing her with a disapproving frown. "Young woman! This is unseemly, very unseemly! Your husband in the churchyard is beside himself!"

She opened her mouth to reply, then closed it, remembering the rules. She didn't understand. She had no husband -- she had no one at all.

Fyodor shook his branch at her vigorously, and continued his admonition. "Have you no care for your reputation, woman? For mine? Imagine, wandering about outside a handsome bachelor's cottage, when your own husband has need of you! Be gone!"

She danced back with a surprised squeak, avoiding a clumsy swing of Fyodor's branch. She looked at the young man seated on the wall, wide-eyed, but he only jerked his head toward the path down the hill, and then went back to his whittling.

Head bowed, she retreated, and trudged back down the hill. It seemed the people who said Fyodor was only a mad old man had been right. She supposed she did not blame him -- not really. He had surely not asked for his mind to fail him in his old age, and probably had no idea what he was doing, or why all these people were visiting him. But her heart, already leaden with grief, was now heavier still, her last faint hope expended on a fool's errand.

But then, as she passed, the old village church, she heard a sound.

It was a sound she knew too well, so familiar to her that she touched her throat, half-expecting to find that it was her own voice crying out. That sound had emerged from her lips and rung in her ears long into the night for many days, now. It was the sound of inconsolable sorrow, of utterly desolate grief.

Hesitantly, she followed it.

There, in the graveyard behind the old church, she found its source. A young man dressed in black, beside a fresh grave adorned with flowers. She could see there had lately been a funeral there, but when all others had departed, this man had stayed. Whoever had been with him could not tear him away from the graveside, and had finally left him alone with his grief.

As if in a trance, Nastaya walked to him then, slowly and haltingly, as though while dragging the weight of her own sorrow, a portion of this lone mourner's grief had begun to descend on her shoulders as well, until it almost drove her into the ground with its weight. And yet, she bore it, because when it had been her, wailing by the ashes of her parents' home, she had borne all that sorrow alone. She could not let this stranger do the same.

At last Nastaya reached the stranger, and quietly knelt by his side. Silently sobbing as he mourned aloud, she bravely bore his pain. In the days to come, he would bear hers as well, and by bearing each other's suffering they at last would emerge together from night into day once again. And just as they had shared each other's suffering, they would also thereafter share each other's joy, and love, and finally peace, until the very end of their days.

Far above them, on the hilltop, Fyodor smiled.

The young man entered the temple slowly and reverently. Taking a deep inhale and letting the smell of the incense fill and surround him. He bowed and continued forward, each step measured and careful. He halted before the holy waters and performed the sacred rites, stopped again at the shrine and made his offerings. He was focused, being sure to avoid any glance or sacrilegious eye contact with her holiness- though he knew she watched him. Finally, having completed the necessary steps to be deemed righteous, he approached her alcove. He lithely went down onto both knees, sat on his heels and leaned forward- arms outstretched. A perfectly executed genuflection - she knew he must have practiced it many times.

"Arise, son of God, and tell me what you seek." He rose his arms and chest from the floor, but remained in the meditative posture, sitting on his heels staring at his knees- never daring to look within even an arms length of her feet.

"Your holiness- I seek to know what you may tell me of my destiny. I am aware that it may be difficult for me to decipher what you share, but I pray to learn whatever you will grant me."

"Ah, yes, child. I will grant you this insight. Close your eyes, and do not open them."

He obediently closed his eyes and held so still, she was sure he was holding his breath. She reached out from her altar and placed her palm on his head, holding it for a few moments before removing it and returning to her seat. He exhaled in relief and kept his eyes closed, waiting in deferential silence.

"Your destiny is...that you will die." The young man slumped a little and fought to keep his eyes closed. He remained silent, waiting for more... waiting... waiting....

"Is...is that it?" He finally blurted, rocking slightly with discomfort.

"Yes."

To his credit his eyes stayed closed as he badgered on,

"Wha- what? But...but everyone dies! Is my death significant? Do I die in battle?"

When there was no reply, his eyes finally opened, staring angrily at the place in front of his knees, his hands no longer delicately layered in his lap but now clenched.

"I did everything right!" He argued, "I have lived my whole life to be worthy enough to receive a destiny and to be noble enough to perform the sacred tasks and come to the temple of promise and discover what it would be!"

"And now you have discovered, young man, your destiny is to die."

He did not take this well.

"No!" He yelled, jumping up to stand, his eyes daring to look at her feet in insolence. "There must be more, you must tell me more!"

"I have told you all there is to tell." Her voice was scolding now, filling the temple with its disapproving echo. "If you wish for more explanation, perhaps ask yourself what it has cost you to make yourself so noble? What arrogance have you suffered upon others in your quest for worthiness?"

The young man blanched and reddened, and defied to raise his eyes to her knees. His once careful breath now huffing with ruined pride.

"I... I... " he stammered.

"And now you dare to gaze upon my holy person with blatant hubris?" Her voice boomed over his stuttering protests. When he did not apologize and prostrate himself on the floor in shame she spoke again, this time very softly.

"Look at me." He moved to back away and found he could not move his legs. From the knees down he was frozen in place. He knew suddenly that if he looked up at her the rest of his body would stiffen in suit.

"P-please!" He begged. It was too late. She reached out and grabbed his chin and forced his head to lift and his eyes to meet hers. His body petrified and he was still- shock and horror forever etched on his face. She pushed his chin away from her and his body teetered and fell- smashing into dust on the temple floor.

"I told him it was his destiny." She said to herself, clapping the dust from her hands, and turning to go see what he had left on the shrine for her.

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