Children of the Oxcairn

Without a doubt, the most enviable of all the powers displayed by children of the Oxcairn was that of prophecy. The discovery of the powers had come about late in the 35th century, and for nearly three hundred years the Oxcairn people had refined their methods, exposed new powers, and used their gifted children to prosper and expand their influence in the empire. Their few, disparate villages had developed into a thriving capital in the central valley of an encircling mountain range. Streets were paved, improved sanitation methods greatly increased life expectancy, and generally the culture thrived where civilizations typically do when they no longer struggle for subsistence. By 3514, a pseudo-religion had emerged and a hieratic succession was codified to administer the development and capitalization of the Oxcairn powers. Many of the various powers exhibited by Oxcairn children were incredibly useful, even instrumental in advancing Oxcairn society, for example, the formidable Temple of Trials would never have been constructed without the earth shifters. It was prophecy, however, that was far more critical to the Oxcairn’s rise to power. Their relatively modest military maintained a history of victories against numerically and technologically superior foes; the trade agreements with their allies always heavily favored the Oxcairn; and they had been effectively immune from any natural disaster, drought, famine, or plague for the entirety of their 800 year history. It is all the more surprising, then, that their sudden and catastrophic end was prophesied by one of their own, and the Oxcairn people might have been saved, had she told anyone.

Voranna was on watch again tonight. It had been years since she had been ordered to stand the night watch, but she had been volunteering as of late since it gave her troubled mind time to deliberate. And to avoid the priest councils during the day. Her animosity for the priests was rooted elsewhere, yet she hated that the priests had little to contribute to military strategy, and they always seemed to need to exert their influence wherever they deemed necessary. It was a cold night in the valley, and Voranna shivered, but she knew the chill in her blood wasn’t coming from the weather. She shared the tower tonight with a young archer named Zedette who had started The Trials some years after Voranna had finally left the Temple compound. Zedette’s unique ability to influence air currents made her already dangerous abilities with a bow and arrow frighteningly lethal at nearly any range.

“How far will they get this time?” Zedette asked.

“A small contingent of scouts will breach the outer perimeter on the northwest side, but they’ll be hindered by the ditches until sunrise, then they’ll retreat back to the tree line,” Voranna replied matter-of-factly.

“What’s the point? This is the third time in the past six months that they’ve tried to breach the city and they get nowhere.”

“The Temple of Trials has been a target for centuries,” Voranna muttered coldly. “They want our secret.”

What would someone do if they ever did breach the city and discover the truth about the Oxcairn children’s powers? Both Voranna and Zedette couldn’t help but think of the possibility, and it stirred in them the painful memories of their own time in the Temple.

Zedette stared into the night, silent and thoughtful. She, like all other Oxcairn, knew of Voranna’s powers, but unlike others’ jealousy, Zedette was afraid, fearful of what it had taken to reveal Voranna’s gift. Zedette could only imagine based on her own experience in the Temple Trials.

Entering the Temple at age 11, Zedette had endured four months of trials before her power had been revealed. Her trials had started with exposure to various creatures’ bites and stings, the purpose of which was twofold. First, for some, the initial stress of the venoms can trigger some lesser powers, but for most others, it serves to begin building their pain tolerance for later trials. After this, Zedette was subjected to varying durations and severities of heat, cold, darkness, and isolation. Beginning around the fourth month, the priests begin a systematic approach to breaking and resetting various bones in the body. Despite the previous attempts to build a subject’s pain tolerance, the excruciating nature of this phase of the trials triggers many participants’ powers, as it did Zedette’s. The actual injuries are non-permanent, as there are those with the power to heal that work closely with the priests to ensure no lasting damage, to the body at least, and eventually. What happens to those whose powers take longer to reveal, Zedette tried not to imagine.

The night lingered on, and Voranna and Zedette remained silent and steadfast. Shortly before dawn, the sounds of firewood chopping and cook pots clanging could be heard both from within the city walls, and distantly from the invaders’ camp. Zedette hoped they’d just give up and leave today. Voranna knew otherwise, and remained resolved. The sun finally crested the eastern peaks, and the heat felt unseasonably warm, and particularly pleasant.

“Stay close,” Voranna said, barely audible, glancing up and panning around to survey the snow-capped mountains surrounding them.

“Close to what? What do you mean?” Zedette asked.

“Stay close to me. And don’t let go. We’ll make it out if you don’t let go” Voranna said, with resolution in her eyes and without taking her gaze off the snow above.

Voranna reached over to grasp Zedette’s hand just as the distant rumbling began. The tower began to tremble slightly, then more as the rumbling got louder.

“What is this?” Zedette asked Voranna with hesitation.

Voranna gestured resolutely with a nod of her head to the peaks to the west.

The cloud of snow was gathering, thrusting to the sky as great sheets of ice and snow came hurtling down the western slopes. As they progressed, more connecting slopes began to slide, and the cascade continued to build. The two of them watched from the tower as the sheer faces slipped down the slopes and began to collide with the city walls. The screams of the Oxcairn citizens were barely audible over the thunderous power of the avalanche, and eventually the crashing and crunching was deafening. The snow kept coming, what walls had stayed standing were quickly being buried. Higher up in the city, even the Temple was slowly disappearing under and blanket of snow, ice, and whatever trees and boulders got carried along from the mountainside.

When Zedette could no longer see any remaining tops of buildings in the city, that’s when the snow finally hit them in the tower. The force of the shock knocked her out, and all she could think of as she blacked out was Voranna’s hand in hers.

She awoke to Voranna shaking her. Zedette sat up, and as her eyes adjusted to the blinding white blanket all around them, she could see there was nothing left of Oxcairn.

She looked to Voranna and say only resolution. There would be no more Oxcairn, no more trials, no more priests, and no more powers.