Book One – Chapter 12

“THERE IS KNOWLEDGE that is forever inscribed into the consciousness of man. There is knowledge that forever eludes his grasp. And then there is knowledge that is found and lost time and time again. Magic harbours many such secrets.”

Faroah offered his prophecies not to those who sought them, but to those who needed to hear them. Often, those who needed to hear them were not where he was, though. Sometimes, he pursued and paid them a visit, which was generally a great pain in the ass because he hated travelling, and sometimes he simply uttered his prophecies to the world at large.

It mattered little whether people understood him or not, for the world always listened. And, in his experience, the world was kind enough to work out a way to translate and pass on the message, be it through elaborate signs of fate, through subtle tricks of the light, or in more modest terms, such as a chance encounter with a passage in a random book.

Prophecies were not bound to a specific place, nor were they confined by time. You would be surprised how often Faroah prophesised something that had already happened. These kind of prophecies were just as important as those that concerned the future, because how else would the world know that these things had been meant to happen?

Ah, someone was here. A young witch stepped into the sacred space, her silhouette cast against the weathered stone walls by the shafts of sunlight that pierced through the gaps in the roof above. She hesitated at the threshold, her unease palpable in her skittish movements as her eyes darted from the speckles of light dancing around her feet to the figure of Faroah before her. The light at this altitude possessed a rare clarity, the fragments spanning wide, unblemished nets. It streamed through the broken roof section, revealing the intricate patterns of dust stirred by the witch’s arrival. Beneath the layers of dust, the stone floor bore witness to the craftsmanship, dedication, and grandeur of dwarven stonemasonry.