Something was wrong.

Waters which had been still for over a century had begun to drift into motion. Low bluffs which shouldn’t have existed lapped, rolled, and plunked together, licking the cliffsides like animals scratching a door. Fog which had never set in before now did from the southeast, smothering the cause of the disturbance. Though the fog was thick and the waters averse, the cause yet inched forward, demanding its tenets known.

A fisherman and his son sat at the pier staring with their mouths agape at the scene. The thing in the fog’s lower part became tapered. Its upper widened. It acquired an aged wooden hull, a blocky iron bow, and a mast with worn sails. Prickly objects arrayed by the dozens appeared out of its sides. It grew until a hundred stories couldn’t cover its height, nor dozens more its width.

It was a ship. Titanic; lined with war cannons. The fisherman stood and his son did the same. Their rods lay forgotten in the water.

“Impossible,” the fisherman said in a near whisper. “The Lord of the Shore should have spotted that. No?” he asked his son. “Yes,” he replied to himself. “He should have. At the very least, he...”

His words trailed off. His eyes widened. His son followed his gaze to the base of the ship, then copied the look. Humanoid shapes—dozens, hundreds, an army of them—had appeared in front of the vessel. Both observers recognized them from the pages of old bedtime fables.

They strode forward with their shoulders slouched and their arms hanging limp at their sides. As ordained in the myths, the waves became flat where they stepped. Dark battle skirts torn at the hem billowed around their ankles, while bandages coated them everywhere else. The bandages may have been white once. Now they were deep crimson, the kind that dripped.

Their blood-curdling breaths gradually replaced the hissing of the froth. In a panic the boy took a few steps backward, stumbled and fell. One of the creatures lunged forward as if to catch him from that distance, then ceased the motion just as abruptly. The boy was neither ready nor required for slaughter. The Bereft only targeted those who were.

The fisherman swiveled around to face his son. The boy looked up and found sheer determination beaming down at him. “Run to the castle,” his father said with a voice of stone. “Fly if you must. Tell the king, tell the queen: a red threat is come. Say your father sent you. They will listen. Now go. Go!”

The boy scrambled to his feet at the last word. He ran up the harbor into the darkness of another fog and out of sight. The fisherman turned to confront the giant ship and its army. His stony expression became steel.

“Beware, demons,” he bellowed. “You are in Gilta Nnea!”

He spawned fire in his hands and slid into a battle stance.

Beyond the pier, under the glare of a high white sun, desert sands ripped in a straight line. They chased the shadow of the fisherman’s son as he coursed through the air, aiming north and west. Roads, towns, and cities blurred past him. People from various nations and religions came and went in the blink of an eye. Pearlescent spheres in the sky—night skies, wherever the spheres were—bowled over his head.

A giant mountain pulled into view. A gleaming castle stood on its threshold, another giant pearl which turned day into night on its crown. The boy swooped past is gates and guards and headed straight for the castle entrance.

Through a window on the highest, westernmost tower, nearly two dozen men and women sat around a long table in a grand conference room. Each wore royal clothing bearing colors representing nations from the First Sky to the present, the Fifth. They sat on riches and spoke with noble airs. Their topics spanned the wars to the north, the growing underground resistances to the south, and each side’s shrinking resources. The king of the Fifth Sky occupied one end of the table, the queen the other, both silent except when they had to moderate the conversation.

“And on whose authority do you intend to invade the Mu Vessa?” the king cut in.

As the man he addressed began fumbling for words, the great double doors at the room’s entrance burst open. The noblefolk swiftly rose to their feet. From the shadows sprang desert-clothed archers to the nobles’ sides and swordsmen between them and the doors.

Armored knights jogged in, clad in the castle’s colors of purple and gold, the same as the king and queen’s robes. They ground to a halt when they confronted the desert-clothed guards. The apparent commander of the knights made a motion with his hand, then they all went down on one knee.

“Apologies, my liege,” the commander said. “We tried to stop them, but—”

“Quiet,” said the queen. “What is the meaning of this?”

She directed her question not at the commander, but at the boy and the lone knight standing in front of the commander, staring down the end of a desert swordsman’s blade.

The boy, with his hands held high in surrender, discarded his look of surprise and equipped courage instead. “I am the son of councilman Jerelai,” he said loudly. “I am here on my father’s orders.”

“And I am Lord of the Shore,” the lone knight said beside him, “here to send her Majesty a message from the Coast Watch.”

“What orders, baba? What message, garde?” the queen demanded.

The boy and the knight exchanged looks, swallowed, then gave the queen their answer together.

“A red threat is coming!”

Murmurs danced around the room. A red threat? What was that? Was that code for something? For someone?

The king took his place at the queen’s shoulder; the two intruders swallowed their unease at the sight of both of them standing together. “Explain,” growled the king, while the queen folded her arms.

The pair did explain. The Lord of the Shore told of his legion’s, the Coast Watch, encounter before this sun’s rise with “an ark-ship the size of a deepe.” When he spoke of the Coast Watch’s deaths at the hands of the red-bandaged creatures, the boy exclaimed that he had seen the army of Bereft with his own two eyes, walking atop the waves, courting the giant ship along. “Isn’t that amazing?” he intoned. “They might be sorcerers!”

Tension siphoned from the countenances of the nobles as the pair spoke, slowly being replaced by either amusement or fury. At the boy’s last note, raucous laughter erupted around the room. The king and queen bowed their heads, the queen hiding her face in her palm. Those who didn’t laugh eyed those who did angrily, or else began making preparations with their serfs to leave.

One lady gathered the hem of her gown and began walking swiftly toward the open doors. “I thought you above these tactics Rula,” she said to the queen in passing. “We studied at the Academies together. Did you forget who—”

BOOM!

The floor tremored. The lady stopped in her tracks; the rest of the room’s occupants froze. Dust rained from the ceiling, drawing some stares up there, and the fires in the lamps and chandeliers flickered, causing a few to cower. The castle knights had already stood and placed their hands on their weapons. The desert knights backed away from them, aiming their swords in arbitrary directions.

BOOM!

A second shiver. This time, the lamps and lights went out. The room’s occupants shrieked, whimpered, or swore loudly while ducking under the table to shield themselves from rivers of plummeting gravel. A few bolted toward the double-doors and the doors slammed in their faces. Panic built to a crescendo as the room shook a second then a third time, and the news that the doors were locked spread.

The queen glanced at the wide-open balcony situated behind the king, through which lay the faux vista of a starlit sky. Only the space near there was still illuminated since it caught the white fingers of night. She walked towards it, ignoring the falling dust and wild shouts of the flustered nobles. The king saw her, joined. Those who sensed the significance of what was happening joined. The entire conference room marched toward the open balcony like a sea of creatures in trance.

The balcony’s glass doors quietly slammed shut. Everyone gathered around them and peered through to see what was happening outside, and their jaws promptly landed on the speckled floor.

Below them, surrounding the castle, was a sprawling desert town. Glas Toa, the denizens called it. An elevated band of lavish houses and manses lay closest to the castle, while a wider ring of mostly shops, markets, and derelict sheds lay further out, enveloped by high walls built into the mountain for defense. The closer band, the Garden Ring, previously had been overrun with lush blue foliage and glowing fauna of various brilliant colors, as well as had fountains and cobblestone streets and parlors for music and revelry. The Sand Ring’s only feature had been its wide dirt roads and perpetually-lit lamps on the surface of every edifice. The features of each ring had described the denizens living within.

Now the entire town had gone up in flames.

Embers danced from building to building. Acrid pillars of smoke writhed and winded into the air. In the Garden Ring, the fountains had been shattered and their water now flowed freely in all directions. The assortment of fauna curled into ashes as wayward cinders leaped onto them. Citizens ran. Citizens screamed or cried to their gods. Shadowy monsters with scarlet eyes pounced on them at every turn. For those who evaded, heavy buildings collapsed in glorious displays, shaking the earth and shattering their bodies.

The nobles hardly took notice. The moment they’d looked through the glass doors, their eyes had been drawn to the cause of the destruction hailing down from the heavens.

Clouded by flaming meteors each the size of mansions was the gargantuan ship the Lord of the Shore and Councilman Jerelai’s son had described. It hovered over the mountain wall, the tip of its mast ripping through clouds. The blood-bandaged humanoid creatures occupied its deck the entire span across; three regal ladies clad in torn black leather with capes fanning behind them stood at the helm. At its front, on the very edge of the ship’s bow, wearing a flowing red robe, battle scars, and cables of wiry muscle; at the front, perched like a prisoner walking the plank, tall, broad, crimson-haired and golden-eyed; at the front, bearing malice, his desire to conquer the lands and slaughter every man, woman, and child who opposed him writ plain—

At the front of the ark stood a Red Threat, orchestrating the meteor shower.

“Is this the end of the world?” a noble asked.

“Is this the end of time?” another inquired.

“It is a sorcerer. A mage!” the others bellowed.

“We bear witness to ruin,” whispered the rest.

While they cowered in fear or banged against the glass, and the king and queen pressed their foreheads together in woe, red-eyed devils slunk out of the darkness, baring their fangs to feast.


The man known to all of Gilta Nnea as the Red Threat was restless and couldn’t sleep.

It was the dead of night. Moonlight poured through the windows of the chamber where the South Council first learned of his arrival. Wicked, metallic, ebony furniture populated it; gone were the warm and cozy. He sat in the king’s chair lost in thought. Ghostly winds fanned ghostly curtains and eased the flow of his cunning.

It had been nine years now since he claimed the space. In that time, his ideals had been made plain to all who wondered. Fealty. Riches. Their deaths, if he felt it. The people of this meager land had given him what he wanted with little quarrel, down to the last maiden, heirloom, weapon or recruit. Those who did quarrel? He supposed they were still around here somewhere, melted into the furniture.

And yet every year, on the same damn night, he was restless and couldn't sleep.

The door to the room came ajar. A man in a black hood entered, followed by a short, stout old man wearing scarlet and gold robes. The shorter man appeared jolly despite the atmosphere of the place. His eyes wandered crazily, feeding a pursed grin.

He nearly bumped into his escort when the man stopped in front of the table. He seemed to notice the Red Threat for the first time, at which point his expression morphed into open, shimmering awe.

“Master Glas,” said the black-robed man, “presenting the Prophet of Nine.”

He bowed his head with his fists pressed together in front of him, then turned and left the room. The door clanged shut behind him. The old man, the Prophet, looked around at it, then returned to watching the Red Threat stupidly. They were still for a while.

The Red Threat peered at another piece of the table. He might not have known anyone just entered his abode. When he spoke, it was to the table, as if he was presenting the contents of a day’s Council meeting to the empty seats. The Prophet became curious, interested.

The Red Threat said, “‘On the night of a full moon, to six beats of a drum and the crash of a giant wave, a child with blue hair will be born on Moon Hill. Then, in two successive nights, she will end the world.’ So goes the prophecy of the Moon-Child.”

He looked at the Prophet. The older man smiled as if proud.

“I’ve been thinking over those words all night,” the Red Threat continued. “I've wondered whether they are lies. Whether they could ever be anything but.”

“Oh?” said the Prophet.

“I know the Moon-Child. Well, knew. She’s dead now. But no prophecy was fulfilled before her passing. No ‘world’ destroyed. Not even a figurative one.” The Red Threat leaned forward. “She died more fool than fiend.”

“There. Definitive evidence that prophecies are always wrong,” the Prophet said. “Is that what you will say next?”

The two men eyed each other, the older smilingly, the younger coldly. Darkly.

“Hrmph. Time will tell if the Moon-Child destroyed the world, Master Glas,” the Prophet said. “But the prophecy I have for you is...not something to sit on.” He continued grinning, but his eyes suddenly lost all humor. “The last of your nine assassins has been reborn.”

The sound of a chair scraping backwards resounded throughout the room. The Red Threat had risen to his feet. The Prophet’s cheer flickered with caution.

“Reborn?” the Red Threat muttered.

“Reborn,” the Prophet repeated.

“Do you lie?”

“My words are the words of the elements. As you know, element is law. Let me spare you the rest of your questions. I do not know who your murderers are. They may not even know themselves. The only thing certain is that they are nine in number, aged zero to eight at this moment, and they will kill you. One way or another. All nine, all at once. How, where, when, why—” he waved a hand, “—irrelevant.”

The Red Threat stared him down, but the Prophet did not waver. His decorum was practiced.

“What will you do?” the Prophet eventually asked.

“What can I?” said the Red Threat.

“Hrmph. Such a dilemma. Hoho, such indeed. But beyond my predictions, I am afraid.”

The Red Threat found the table again. “I must recruit children. The strong ones. Find and capture groups of nine elemancers wherever they appear. Somehow, I must unravel the spell. It is likely a rebirth signature. Water element. The witches of the Ninth Sky must know it.”

“But it may be years before the nine come together,” the Prophet interjected. “They may start off as weak children floating out of sight. And as you have already assumed in your speculations—correct me if you didn’t—killing them, or influencing their deaths, will very likely only delay the inevitable; they may be reborn again to find you. Over and over again—”

“Uh? You’re still here? Thank you, Prophet of Nine. That will be all.”

Without warning, the Prophet became engulfed in fire. He screamed, clawed at his robes, ran amok. The Red Threat reclaimed his seat and again discovered the empty space in front of him. Nothing out of the ordinary unfolded at the other end of the table.

It all matters not, he thought to himself. If I find one of these nine fools, then I will be able to find the others. Kill them? No. I am not so foolish or weak. I can turn back time and rewrite history for the worse. A full three years if I must.

Enough nuisances. I have worlds to conquer, elements to unravel, eras to shape. If these prophesied children truly exist, then I will ensure this life be their last.