The Witch Woman's Prophecy

60 | A Speck in the Blackness |

Darkness surrounded me and I had no idea where I was. I saw a speck in the blackness, and I was falling towards it at an unimaginable speed. The speck grew into a ball, and, as I got closer to it, more details emerged. There were areas of blue and green, with white fluffy layers above them. I drew ever closer and I realised I was falling down towards a world. I should have been filled with fear, but the wonder of the vision filled me so completely that I had no capacity to feel anything but awe.

My descent slowed and I saw huge, black metal shapes hovering like carrion birds above the world. Bright blades of crimson light came from them and speared downwards. Great explosions happened where the blades struck. These carrion birds were destroying the world beneath them.

I felt Basata's sadness, her despair as she watched it with me.

A silver speck shot up like an arrow from the white covered top of the world and three of the carrion birds chased it, blades of ruby light arcing across the blackness towards it. The speck became larger as it drew closer to me, it was another metal shape. It came past me at an incredible speed and then disappeared. The carrion birds returned to the world below and carried on slicing it up with their red blades.

The star-speckled blackness spun around me and another world came into view. It looked very much like the first world, but there were differences in the shape of the land and this one seemed to have more blue areas than the first. I saw a small silver ball in the sky above it and realised this was the moon. The metal shape from the first world dropped to the surface and I went with it.

A door opened in the side of the relic and Basata and the other Amphion walked out into the daylight. They blinked and held up their hands as though praising the light. Basata's face was unlined and the crest on the top of her head was a gleaming turquoise. This was many years ago, when she was young, before the colour of her crest had faded over the times she had been awake. To live alone for so long while your people slept was a terrible thing.

They stood in an area of grassland, I could see the beginning of a mighty forest nearby. The air was warm and birds flew overhead. The Amphion clasped their hands, embraced each other and tears fell from their eyes. I was witnessing their happiness at arriving here on my own world.

I saw glimpses of what happened over a long period of time, relics drew soil from the ground, turned it into huge stones and constructed the walls, the Council Hall and the Ustelin. The metal vessel that had brought them to this world was part-buried in the ground and only the top part of it was left visible as the great crystal dome beneath the sky. The pool came into being and I saw the pipe that drew water from the river. I saw the relics stop working one by one. I saw the arrival of humans, they bowed before the Amphion and were lifted up, given food and taught many things.

But then the vision changed; the rains did not fall and the forest surrounding Polemmy died and the river shrank.The Amphion emerged from the Temple wearing skins over their bodies and heads to stop them from becoming dry.

They began to construct the parts of the Remedy and placed them into the metal buildings I had encountered on the farm, in the desert and in Polemmy. I was astounded when I saw the buildings flying through the air towards the mountain. They didn't slide along the ground as I had imagined, they flew!

A great storm blew up before they returned, the sky darkened and clouds thickened and swirled. The three flying buildings left the mountain and were tossed like leaves in the huge winds. Bright streaks of lightning forked their way down to the ground. One by one the flying buildings crashed to the ground.

The Amphion retreated to the Temple and down into the deepest parts of the relic that had brought them from their own world. Basata put each of them into a crystal topped bed. As she closed the lid on each, a blade of blue light ran from the top to the bottom of the one enclosed in the bed and the form inside grew still as stone. A metal lid slid up and over the glass one and hid the occupant from view.

Basata was the last to lie in her metal bed, the blade of light passed over her and she too became stone.

The vision ended and I fell away from Basata's eyes. I was left standing looking at her with my mouth open.

'Was that a true thing?' I asked her, aware that I sounded a little like Tasmi.

She nodded. Thoughts were swirling in my head. The Amphion had tried so hard to make a home for themselves here. They had nowhere else to go. Their relics were all damaged or exhausted. Their only option was to go back to sleep and wait for somebody else who could hear Basata's thoughts. I shuddered at the thought of their long incarceration.

'I will ask you for the last time. Will you stay and speak for us? There is so much our peoples can do for each other. We have medicines, knowledge that we could share, we can teach you much about your world that it would take you an impossibly long time to discover by yourselves. We could take away illness, show you how to farm in ways that will produce all the food your people will need. We can control the weather so you will not have to starve though drought and suffer long, cold winters.'

Was I being selfish? If I turned down the offer she was making, then people I had never met, children who weren't even born yet, were going to die. But if I made the bargain, could I could trust her? What if she went back on her word and the Amphion enslaved us with my help? Did I have the right to make a decision that would affect all humans?

I was confused. Neither decision seemed right. What should I do?

'I need to think about this,' I told Basaata.

She nodded. 'Stay inside the Temple, and we will provide for you. The people are afraid and they might not wait to hear your words before they act. Come to me when you have made your decision.'

***

Thamet has to make the most difficult decision of his life. What would you do?

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Anni X