There are gods above and ghouls below,

  but not even wise men know what seeds either truly sow.

  It was one of the daughters of Kali who first saw the vision. Those priestesses are often predisposed to

  being warriors but occasionally some display other gifts. Thus Rahab Kali , seer and prophetess, would

  stumble back from her crystal ball shrieking and wailing as her eyes bled. Twilight was upon the world, a

  herald of the old mother had been born, one who spelled and odious end for their order.

  This pronouncement was met with utter bewilderment and once Kali’s chosen had ascertained that their

  best seer had been struck blind by the things she had seen, fear.

  In the coming weeks and months, others would see a similar version of this future. Dreamers woke up

  screaming and epileptic, entrail readers peered at remains in shock, second guessing themselves;

  doomspeakers gauged out their own eyes so that they would no longer see the overwhelming omens.

  With such universal gloom spreading through the hearts of their devout, the gods and ghouls took

  notice.

  Illuvitar, the gloam eyed sunderer, took mortal form and sought out Rahab Kali. Overwhelming her mind

  he ripped out the memory of her vision and so beheld the threat that loomed over them all. As a ghoul

  of the seventh circle there were few things he feared but in the face of this, even he trembled.

  Angered by this weakness in himself he slew the seer, daring Kali to challenge him for it, and with a

  shriek launched himself back into his foul domicile.

  Kali would not notice this desecration of one of hers until months had passed. Many hallowed men and

  women would cry out to their gods for guidance and revelation to no avail. The gods and goddeses were

  otherwise occupied. For great things were afoot in the firmament above. And time passes differently for

  those beings than it does for us.

  Breaking tradition the gods and goddeses of different pantheons had gathered to contemplate the fates.

  Arrogance and petty feuds were set aside and these aspects sought a solution to the turmoil in the

  world. But first all must be made clear. The prophecies and visons must be pieced together into one

  whole an explanation given to those who knew little of such things.

  So rose Lotos the Announcer, solemn and true, a worthy bearer of such grave tidings.

  “We need humanity. We need their faith, their sacrifices and offerings. Without them we would dwindle

  and fade, mere aspects of the aether. They are the only true confluence of spirit and flesh. We

  discovered long ago that this gives them unique natures that are better left unknown. This is one of those we judged useful and cultivate in a few of our chosen. Great events like terrible wars

  or life changing moments have a psychic echo that bounces both forward and backwards in time. Some

  humans, those we invest and open up, can hear this echoes.

  This is how this vision of doom has come to us. If you consider what I have told you here you will find

  cause for concern, but I urge calm. There are those of us who hold that the future is never truly set in

  stone. Perhaps we may use these echoes as guiding stones to sail through the coming storm.

  I now call on Ansi the weaver, that she may give form to this echo. We will view it in its fullest form and

  thus discern the danger and a means by which we might avert it.’

  Ansi came forward in the form that a stout dark skinned woman balancing a basket on her head. A

  golden stool appearing just as she gracefully sat down. She pulled something from the bag, a clothe that

  faintly shimmered, and began knitting eyes averted as she hummed to herself.

  As one, they saw.

  A mother screaming in pain midwives desperately attending to her. Two babies are born amidst a wash

  of blood and sweat. A boy and a girl indistinguishable from any of the other newborn save their pupils

  are a deep crimson – the color of spilt blood.

  For some reason every spirit shies away from that hateful gaze. It transforms what should be an

  innocent sight into something they all want to destroy. It is instinctual; a shrieking housewife squashing

  a creepy crawly with the flat end of her broom.

  The children are given into their father’s care, a mere farmer, and he weeps openly, mourning his wife’s

  passing.

  They see them in the care of a governess, sweat streaking down their faces as they race across a field in

  some childish.

  The boy has grown into a young man with a serious face who struggles up a bleak slope of some

  mountain, striving against wind and storm on some unknown quest. The girl is fire incarnate, eyes lit

  with mischief as she kisses a raven haired man in terran clothing.

  The two twin stand beside a burning fire, sober eyed and watch the screaming faces within it. The boy

  turn his face away as though unable to bear it and the girl smacks him forcing his eyes back to the wall

  of flame.

  And then blackness, and unnatural void, swallows everything. In it they see that the children have

  reached adulthood; have blossomed into a deadly beauty. Three companions stand in their shadow. A

  disfigured woman bent with age, a Karati man with white hair and a cruel smile and a young woman

  with writhing snakes for hair.

  With dispassion they pull down temples, put priests to death and tear out the tongues of priestesses,

  deny the gods of the worship they rely on. Wars are waged and won, large swathes of the world disappear from the gods gaze as though veiled in some way. They see mankind grasp its full potential,

  leaping beyond the simple trinkets they had allowed them – mirrors and silver, silk and swords to

  gunpowder, buildings that reach higher than babel ever did, they see great metallic ships that sail across

  the skies, see mages draw arcane symbols that affect magics that have always been acts of gods.

  They see their holiest places reduced to barren husks. Sand sifts through broken columns and once

  proud statues of their visages. They have been forgotten.

  In their place the world reveres the crimson eyed descendants of this unlikely pair – the heralds of such

  novel ideas as empire and science.

  The vision ended.

  A strange feeling was rising within each viewer. The assembled divinity watched as Ansi, trembling, put

  away the cloth and left with her basket, shoving through the assembled. As though this act was the

  crucial spark of understanding they all recognised the feeling for what it is. Fear. For the first time the

  gods knew fear.

  ‘You have seen the echo’ a grave uttering of the announcer’s. “Our doom is spelled out. What are we to

  do?’

  What a strange concept for the divine to contemplate. For millennia they had watched mortals weep

  and wail when death snatched away their loved ones. They had extolled the gods for some version of

  eternity, for some meaning to their spent lives. Had made up myths and stories of afterlife, heavens and

  hells to be sought or avoided. Never had the gods considered that they too might one day be consigned

  to a similar fate.

  Now they beheld this stark possibility and their fear multiplied and multiplies. Who would weep for

  them?

  Some drowned in melancholy. If this vision had been seen by so many, then it was likely to come true.

  Things would play out as they were meant to and they… they would suffer their fate. A few even wept

  for all the wasted time, thousands of years of existence and what did they have to show for it?

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  Others, the more violent aspects, raged. They swore to avert it by any means. Storming from the

  gathering place they lashed out against humanity, slaying indiscriminately with lightning and thunder,

  with raging waters and scouring heat. How dare these fleshlings forget their natural place? How dare

  they forget their capricious masters? They would never be given the chance.

  Others considered the years of faith and trust that mankind had given them and wondered whether

  they had dealt fairly with it. They saw how much they had taken advantage of Eva’s children. No wonder

  the she, the old mother, had moved against them. Maybe they deserved this.

  The more capricious ones thought to wonder what the ghouls were doing about this. Surely those crafty

  tricksters would not readily let slip their hold on the world. They sought passage to the world below and there made common cause with those maleficent beings. They ghouls had their own plans and were

  working to forestall the prophecy by launching a pogrom on any new born children they could get their

  hands on.

  The world then knew chaos such as it had never known before. The gods grew more distant from man

  and even fasts and bodily purges drew no answers from them. A host of natural disasters tormented

  them; drought and famine so extreme that many the world must surely end. The talents once bestowed

  upon humanity by the gods were withdrawn.

  A deep nascent fear lurked in every heart for they remembered the doom that had been forewarned by

  that long dead daughter of Kali.

  Rumors of dark doings raged across the land. Desperate sacrifices were being offered up to the ghouls,

  mother plunging blades into their own children’s hearts in Molech’s name exchanging their unblemished

  souls for tokens of favor. Priests drew lots and flayed the unlucky fellow in hopes that it would soften

  their gods’ hearts.

  It was a bleak time.

  ***

  In a far off corner of the world on a remote island ringed by tall volcanic mountains a large boulder

  rolled aside to reveal the entrance of a cave. Moments later a party of people leading pack equine

  stepped out. They blinked in the sunlight and walked into the nearby forest canopy.

  “So this is the place?” asked a weather beaten man in brown homespun clothing. He was the farmer in

  the vision Ansi had spun for the gods. Life for him had taken an unexpected turn. Mabel’s death had hit

  him hard and then the world had gone mad. People of his village had begun attacking his farm

  threatening to kill him if he did not give up his ‘demon’ children. They spoke of dreams and ghouls, of

  quests set to them by the gods themselves. ‘Every newborn child must die!’ so they proclaimed, leading

  by example.

  Bundling up his meager belongings and wealth he had stolen away in the night with his household.

  Mabel’s sister, Isobel had been taking care of the children and had begged to come along. “Mabel’s

  dead, Eyk. There’s nothing left for me here. Besides, you need me.” And so they had left their maddened

  village hoping to find a saner place to settle down.

  But the whole world had gone mad. Town after town had tried to kill them. Soon they were being

  pursued by hordes of raving lunatics and monsters. It made no sense. They would have been slain long

  ago had it not been for the mysterious helpers who kept coming to their aid. “ come with me or you will

  die.”

  “Here. Take these supplies; you will need them in a little while.”

  “Hide here. There’s a group of soldiers looking for you. I’ll let you know when they pass.” “You’re the farmer right? I’ve been waiting for you. Give your horses to my friend here. You’ll have fresh

  one’s waiting on the other side of the Goshen sea”

  His pleas for an explanation had been met with diversions until finally one a captain whose soldiers

  where escorting them across war torn Skaldia had told him to be patient. All would be explained once

  they had reached safely. “For now, just know that the whole world is out to kill you and that my mistress

  is your only hope of safety.”

  And so their journey continued. They crossed the whole continent of Kelb, stole away on large chiin ship

  and spent months crossing an oddly calm ocean. At the end of this journey they came to a strange land

  with odd people sporting colorful feather headdresses. To their surprise they found that they could

  understand the local language and were met by yet another guide who took them through jungles with

  trees so large they defied reason. None of them should have survived the journey or the many

  encounters with strange beasts (Of which large tusked lions and boars that carried their young in

  pouches were the least surprising) were it not for the man’s expertise and gift in what he called the

  arcane.

  Eventually, they reached a place with floating cities and large boulders that slowly drifted across the sky.

  Large vines tethered these together and made ladders one could take to reach the top where the people

  dwelt safe from most predators. Their last guide met them at the base of one such marvel , a black

  young man in flowing red robe and flinty eyes who took them west to the coast. Entering a hidden cave

  with glittering walls they had descended into the ground. Al shaza, their latest companion, could create

  flames that lit their way and scared the shuffling creatures living in there.

  Now at last they had came to their final destination, apparently having had traversed tunnels running

  beneath yet another ocean. Truly, Eyk’s life had taken a strange turn.

  “Yes. Here you will find rest. Mother tells me no human has ever trod upon it. You do not know how

  much honor she does you by giving you sanctuary here.” Al Shaza answered in his lilting tongue.

  Eyk bows his head in obeisance. “We are grateful.”

  “Let us set up camp here and rest. Tomorrow I will explain everything as the old mother has bid me.”

  Eyk watched as Isobel wrangled his rambunctious one year old twins. She had been right, he would

  never have managed them on his own. “After all this time in ignorance, it doesn’t seem so urgent any

  more.’ He answered wryly. “ But your mistress has been more than generous to me and mine. I will hear

  you.’

  Al Shaza nodded soberly also watching the children. “You told me that amongst your people it is

  customary to wait a year before bestowing a name upon your progeny. Is this not so?”

  “It is so”

  “Have you determined what names you will give them?” “I have”

  They had talked it over with Mabel many times, enraptured with the life growing within her. Asha if it

  turned out to be a girl and Solon if the babe was a boy. Both were heroes out of folktales that Mabel had

  loved hearing again and again. Solon a charming miscreant who used his razor wit to surmount all

  manner of challenges and Asha a renowned hunter who had found and tracked a white hart to a

  meadow full of golden apples that could heal any illness.

  Asha and Solon, bourn by these mere farmer’s whelps, those names would forever be associated with

  the unravelling of the worlds and their reshaping.

  There are still gods above and ghouls below,

  But here on earth lords are all we know.

  Afterword: This has been an original story by Blaise Fathom. Thanks for reading. For this and other

  curiosities please check out whatever links you find attached below. I have a bajillion ideas pinging

  around my mind. It’s a great relief to finally