The Three shall come, leaving early, arriving late,
The lifestages of all men:
Child of Blood, Child of Earth, Child of the Sky.
Each man, formed in blood and born in it, Walks the Earth and sustained by it, Reaching to thesky, and sheltered beneath it, He ascends there only in his ending, becoming part of the stars.
Blood gives new beginning, Earth gives sustenance, The Sky gives dreams in life—eternity indeath. Thus shall the Three be, one to the other.
THE PROPHECY OF THE UNINVITED GUEST
Among the last to leave, among the first to come,
Seeking a new host, uninvited, in a new place.
The power gained being the first,
Was lost in being the last.
Hosts shall nurture it, unknowing,
Like the guest wreathed in smiles
While secretly poisoning the larder.
Jealously guarded of its own power,
Ne’er has, nor ever shall its host bear or sire children,Yet ever it seeks to procreate.
He modified the miniature bristle. Finally satisfied, he meticulously dabbed the liquid onto the eyes of the boy in the now-frozen image and waited to see that the solution had spread across the sapphire-blue irises to the corners of each canthus. The window of opportunity would be small and final; it was important that the boy be given every chance to see things clearly and quickly. When he was done he recorked the phial and set it back on the gleaming disk.
