WARNING: This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. Contains M/M scenes, graphic language, graphic gay sex, light bondage, reluctance, and anal sex, all of which may be considered offensive by some readers.
All sexually active characters in this work are at least 18 years of age.
This book is copyright © Dirk Hessian 2010
Published by BarbarianSpy in 2010 at Smashwords.
Cover design © S Bush 2010
Cover Photo © Phototimes... | Dreamstime.com
ISBN Ebook 978-1-921879-05-0
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Prophecy of Noto
Dirk Hessian
Chapter One: The Watchman
The Oracle at Noto had prophesized the future glory of united kingdoms on the island of Li’ under the High Kings arising from Aram on the nearby land of the endless desert. The Watchman himself had made the journey to the oracle and returned to tell old King Cresum the news before, even in his moment of joy, the old warrior gave up his own soul to the gods. A direct male progeny of Cresum would rule the lands as no other monarch of Aram had and would also unify the volatile island of Li’ under one ruler as it had been in the time of the ancients. This would make it strong enough to withstand the coming of the northern giants from dark lands hulking over the island beyond the Sea of Calm and Storms. This prophecy gave the old king the peace he sought before he died. For he had had doubts of his only son, Cletar.
Such a beleaguered nation as Aram on the land of the endless desert required constant and clever care by a strong man, wise in governing. The young prince had shown no interest in the kingship—even now, when his ascension as warrior king was necessary as never before. Instead, he had frittered his youth away with pleasure and debauchery. And even here he had been no use to the line of Cresum, as he was drawn to catamites rather than the king’s harem, any woman of which King Cresum would gladly have yielded over to his son—if only his son would provide him with a grandson.
Thus, on the brink not only of the old king’s death but also of the advance on the last stronghold of the defending Arameans by the forces of the island king Zara, monarch of Akamantis on the island of Li’, the news from the Oracle at Noto brought through enemy lines, thanks to his protecting cloak of the ancients, by the Watchman, was a voice of salvation.
Only the old king had believed, though. His son, Cletar, had not cared. And the king’s own close advisers, the Lord of Sorso and the Lord of Jerzu, as well as the carrion cousins who had gathered around Cresum, ostensibly to give him aid against the Akamantises, but, in reality to be in on the pickings on the king’s demise, did not believe. What they believed rather was that the Watchman, the only adviser who retained loyalty to the old man to the end, had conjured up the oracle’s prophecy, as he conjured up so much else, to soothe the dying man. The strongest of the cousins, Severmist, also known, with much justification as the Prince of Madness, was the most grasping and dangerous, as the size of the sliver of a state he claimed kingship over, Kerastis, did not match the size of his self-esteem and overweaning ambition. Nearly equal to him in treachery, was the other cousin in attendance upon King Cresum’s death rattle, King Kleemus of Tharsis, the city state that shared the island of Li’ with the kingdom of Akamantis.
For the Watchman’s part, he did not care what these vultures thought. He knew the oracle had spoken and that he had reported faithfully what it had spoken. And when it had spoken, it gave him strength and assurance—but only to the point of what the oracle added to the prophecy. As he had turned to leave the grotto, he heard a low laugh and the added phrase, “But only if you make it so.”