Chapter 18

"Xenyssa, I'm sorry." Uriel wanted to say more but didn't know what to say.

She turned to him and shook her head sadly, dark eyes showing understanding and sympathy. "Do not concern yourself with it." She stood there facing him for a moment. It was if she, too, wanted to say something further. But she quickly turned away, leaving the candlelit library as quietly as she had entered it.

Uriel sat himself at a nearby table and absently flipped through the index until the word 'Wizards' caught his eye. He looked up a few passages regarding them but came away none the wiser. Of course, he wasn't searching for anything in particular, either. But it did lead him to wonder why there were so few of the witches counterparts.

He pulled out three histories before finding any reference as to the reasons for the short supply of male magic users. What Uriel uncovered led him back to several pages in the Scrolls and what he in turn found there was unsettling. For it seemed that when it came right down to the heart of the matter, he was the reason.

The Scrolls talked of the appearance of one who would cause great upheaval. The Destroyer. The Destroyer would be a male, a powerful magic user, one descended from Thaum. Or perhaps Thaum, himself, in another form. This personage would usher in a dramatic change in the spiritual fabric and consciousness of Khaballe. It was generally interpreted to mean that the success of the Destroyer would result in demonic worship and control.

While the Scrolls were followed reverently, the doctrine concerning the coming of the Destroyer was very obscure. It was not researched or zealously followed until after the Great Mystical Wars, when it became all too apparent what could happen if a power that great was left unchecked. Many at the time likened that occurrence to the description provided by the Scrolls, but numerous things had been left unanswered and the results exacted were more on a physical plane than a spiritual one.