aucion stood atop the balcony of his tower, observing the chaos storm that welled above, his mind compelled to count the seconds that elapsed between each lightning strike and thunderbolt, but there was also another thing on his mind.

"My son," the Oracle approached him, "you seem troubled."

"As if I need to tell you," Raucion shook his head, "you are an oracle, you know everything that happened, is happening, and will happen."

"Even then some things remain uncertain, for the future is but a wave of probability."

Raucion peered out into the great reds beyond, "I know you aided your kindred back at Alledoria. Didn't you, former king? Didn't you rig the arcane storms which warped the army right up to the doors of the Silver City?"

"I did," he replied, "because that is what I should have done, it was all for the greater good of elvenkind."

"But if you are so generous as to aid your old comrades, why not do it directly?"

"And . . . in what way do you propose I help them?"

"Go before them, let everyone know King Eldärion still lives, let them know you did not die in the hands of the enemy. Let them-"

"Who said King Eldärion is still alive? He is dead: a faint memory of a bygone era."

"Father," Raucion sighed in despair, "Vil and Mey need your aid, your kinsmen need your aid . . . otherwise they'll have no chance, they'll fall in the most miserable manner against Morthaur's forces."

The former king smiled to his statement, "tell me something: do you think it is possible to defeat Morthaur?"

Raucion was puzzled. "Father, didn't you defeat him once before?"

The Oracle smiled, "I did not, I merely set him back a few centuries, even then he technically won the war, since he killed King Eldärion, changing the course of the future for ever."

Raucion nodded, "but father, can Vil not repeat the very thing you did?"

"He can, but it's pointless, and he knows it. The meaning of Morthaur is much deeper than most world religions make him out to be. Yes, it is true that Morthaur as an entity is subject to worldly pains and thus can be defeated, but Morthaur as a concept: not so much."

The wind blew hard against their hair, causing Raucion to shiver in the cold and walk into the tower with his father, but he could not tell if it was the cold or the eeriness of the realisation.

"Long before our universe existed, he did," his father continued, "and long after it collapses, he will remain. He is a demon, ergo: a malign force of nature. He cannot attain salvation because he is it, he is the truth: nothing in this world is permanent, and everything is a result of change and disorder. No matter how cherished something is, sooner or later it will fade away. The Morthaur you face now is but an avatar of the real Morthaur, who lives at the mouth of Kaal, and is the sower and ender of aeons: a force of the very nature you and I are."

...

Raucion struggled to swallow his spit, the realisation was horrific, yet the wisest thing he had ever heard. "So you're telling me it is fruitless to go up against him, and that we should let him destroy us?"

"No, I didn't say that," his father nodded, "just that in the long run, he can never be defeated."

"So what is the point of existence? If we are born to die, then what is the point of living?"

And to that the Oracle smiled, "my son, that is the question the wisest of elves and dwarves and drykul and dragons ask. What do you do when life seems pointless to you? Give up? Maybe. Realise life's a laugh and death's a joke, and keep laughing as the drama that the world and its people are? Maybe. Realise you are the universe's way of experiencing itself, and be thankful for your existence? Maybe."

And Raucion remained silent, letting the sound of wind and acid rains lull them to dreariness. "So is this the question you know the answer not to?"

"No indeed, nobody knows the answer to this question, nobody but those who now exist no longer, albeit I do not know if that is so or not. I'll be honest with you: I do not know what happens after death. Yes, we elves were taught in school how our spirits go through cycles of death and rebirth until we attain salvation and leave the world, but how do they even know?"

"But there must be something, right? The world cannot be as bleak as you present it to be."

"When did I say the world was bleak?"

"Did you not, at least indirectly? If not for the gods, if not for life, then what gives? Why do I exist? Why are we fighting a losing war if it will have no outcome? Why are you tugging the strings behind our backs, all the while pretending not to be involved in the politics of Alledoria?"

Once again the Oracle smiled, "to be fair, I do not know. But I still love Vilyánur as much as I love you, you both are my sons, and I consider neither the better of the two."

"So desire? Is that what it does? Are you, despite pretending to not be a cog in the grand scheme of things, playing behind as a sinister shadow of change?"

"Perhaps, as you know, sometimes the incomprehensible vastness of the universe can meddle with the mind: a world so complex, it is impossible to describe with our limited vocabulary, impossible to imagine with our limited thinking."

"Now you're speaking in riddles, I just need to know why I was born. And more importantly, who am I? What will happen once I die? Will I enter the Halls of Kaal along the rest of elvenkind, or will I be doomed to dwell the Fields of Ngaath like my daemonic brethren? Or will I have something else in store for me entirely?"

"That I do not know," the Oracle sighed and walked away, "but since my love for you is boundless, and your life like all mortals is only limited, I tell you now: you will know the answer to all your questions, sooner or later."