Twilight of the Stone-Ciphers

THE INFANT SCREAMED in agony, his pudgy limbs jerking violently, his tiny fists clamped into tight little balls as the old man painstakingly tattooed the series of small runic symbols across his damp forehead.

The child's mother stood some distance away biting her lip to keep from crying out or killing the old man and his apprentices who held her baby down to the moss covered stone. But she could not kill him for he was the High Elder Priest and to do so would ensure her death and her childs as well.

It was an age old ritual of their lineage, performed only three days after the birth of all the male Stone-Ciphers.

The Priest struggled momentarily as his hands were gnarled with the rheumy knots of age and his precision was not what it used to be, but it had to be done. It was so very important.

A pure infusion of power must be accompanied by blood. The pure and innocent blood of an infant and not more than three days born.

Blood from the runic tattoo of Horeg in full view of the gods.

The child drew in a deep ragged breath, belting out a wail which echoed throughout the craggy cliffs where they had hastily erected a High Place acceptable and as if in answer to the mother's last breaking nerve, a clap of thunder rolled across the gray skies above them.

The priest fell away in terror shielding his face from the certain wrath to come.

The mother rushed forward ready to end her baby's torment but was stopped short by one of the apprentices. He held her at bay as his kinsman helped the Elder to his feet. Together the two of them seized the naked child and motioned the remaining apprentice to follow. He thrust the woman to the ground with a threat and hurried to join the couple at the altar, a large smooth stone, cold and wet with the night dew.

The child uttered a shivering wail.

If the gods accepted the child, he would live, regardless of all other things including themselves but if not, if the runic symbols were not perfect--- well, the child would die, as many others had before him.

The Stone-Ciphers were a dwindling civilization and for that reason the Elder held his breath. Once he was gone, there would be no others to read the runes, much less find Horeg's bones, as those had been lost to antiquity and to this very day the god's had not revealed their whereabouts. This boy child was truly their last hope.

______

Dedication
To my darling grandsons, Bryce and Atticus. May you always be up for a grand adventure!