* Author : Avi Burton * Narrator : Sarah Griffin * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh * Discuss on Forums PodCastle 716: Tadpole Prophecy is a PodCastle original. Rated PG-13 Tadpole Prophecy Avi Burton It is cold, twilight on the cusp of true night, and they have sent you down to kill a monster. The uncut gems of frost crunch underneath your feet. The dark lord’s castle is onyx and steel, and it is beautiful. It is a fortress that lurches out over the cliff face like a three-fingered hand jutting into the sky. It resonates and sings to you, drawing you forward. The windows are frosted glass and obscure what lurks behind. There are guards by the jagged portcullis, but they step aside as we pass. They know the duty we have been sent here to do. They cannot change the prophecy. You grip my handle tighter and wonder what the guards fear more — you, or your destiny. I, linked to your thoughts by the bond we share, suggest that they are one and the same. If I wasn’t me, you ask silently, do you think the guards would try and fight for their monster? Do you think that they would die for him? People always die for dark lords, willingly or not, I say. That is their purpose. We have ours. Purpose. Destiny. You shake your head and stride in to meet yours. When we first met, you were fourteen and drowning. Down past the grit of the marshes there was a place where the water ran clean, and the river contorted itself into a waterfall. The village children liked to cluster by the edge in a misshapen constellation, then dare each other to leap to the bottom. Yet none of them ever had the courage to do so — until you. You plunged into the rushing and twisting water, the bitter cold a shock to your skin. Gravity wrapped its arms around you and pulled you close. It was not a loving embrace, but a hungry one, as the water pressed in all around you and you screamed and screamed and screamed. No one on the surface heard you. Your hair, black and long, smothered itself around you like grasping tendrils of seaweed. The world around you was dark, like it is now, and you reached out your desperate hand for salvation and found me. I had been lost there in the sand for many years. They will tell you I was placed there deliberately, the high mages of the honored council. They will say that it was a challenge, a test for the next chosen one. But I was there when it happened, and I know better. You grabbed at the shape in the water and pulled me free from the weeds and mud. There was no divine light like the bards claim, nor did the far-off dark lord suddenly fear for his iron throne. We did not even form our bond that day. All that happened was that your hand met my hilt, and we both stopped drowning. The shield is heavy in your hands as you climb the spired stairs. You have been training for close to a year, but you have still never quite gotten used to the weight of it. The air here smells like pond water, heavy and stagnant. He is a monster, you are sure of it. The dark lord killed many innocents, you were told. His people fear him and hate him, and the good king and his mages have sent you to save them. You have not asked the people if they want to be delivered, but they know your purpose here and haven’t stopped you yet. Tacit permission. It lets people get away with killing kings.