Potenkiah, the deathgiver

“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”

Jean de la Fontaine.

Original title: Potenkiah, la piedra de la muerte

Copyright © 2009 Andrea Saga

Translation to english: Maricela Tarín Contreras © 2014

 

Prologue

 

The Sacred Stones were the beginning and the end of all. Their impact on the surface of Eloah caused a radioactive blast that ended life upon thousands of square miles. The nuclear winter that followed extinguished countless species and the survivors experienced an unavoidable mutation. Thus was the birth of the Eloahns, which in the language of the ancients means “fly-men”.

Aeviniah, the Lifegiver, extended the lives of those who lived near it indefinitely, while Potenkiah, the Deathgiver, ended it mercilessly with an energy discharge. Together they were the most coveted treasure in the planet, the maximum symbol of power, the reason for war and treason, oppression and iniquity.

They changed hands countless times, until they fell in the hands of those that would use them as basis for the dominant religion, and later as the heart of their vast empire: the Elohin, Priests of the Sacred Stones.

They were separated when, in an attempt to end the oppression of the empire, a group of rebels led by Erol, the Wise, took the temple that housed them by assault.

Aeviniah, the Lifegiver, disappeared without a trace, possibly stolen during the battle. Potenkiah would be set on the hilt of a sword before being sealed in an underground vault.

However, something unexpected happened. Potenkiah, without her mate, became unstable, unpredictable, untameable, more deadly than ever before. A delicate balance that no one had been aware of until then had been broken, and it made itself known the moment the gem was set on the hilt: a massive energy discharge split the blade in two, deformed it, and twisted it upon itself.

Through the next one-thousand and three-hundred beltas it became impossible to touch it without receiving a streak of light in return; if death was not instantaneous, she left her victims with a slim chance of survival.

Except once. The day Potenkiah chose her bearer, the day the Prophecy was written.