The Search for Terror (ONC 2021)

Prologue

      "The child is coming," Malika panted, patting her husband on the back to signal him to stop. 

      Sultan's eyes shone with a deep excitement, overlaid with the sadness that they would not be making it to the hospital and the worry that he would be delivering their child himself. She lay down in the grass and brought her bag up behind her to lean on, clutching her husband's hand as he attempted to ignore the numbing of his fingers.

      When it was over, and they were holding their new-born daughter in her father's jumper, Malika smiled up at her husband with a mix of joy and pride. She could see her expression reflected in his own. Head on his shoulder, she gazed down at her little girl with such a strong feeling of love that, for a moment, it overwhelmed her. 

      Until three figures stepped out from the trees, dark cloaks sweeping the floor and faces drawn tight. Too scared to stand, the new parents huddled closer together on the ground. The strangers spoke with one voice, "Look up, King and Queen, and see that your daughter has been born beneath the Star of Fate. Tonight, it has come again to tell that your daughter shall end a reign of terror!" Once their words had been spoken, they moved backwards, fading back into the shadows.  

      The following silence was deafening. 

      "We should speak to the Middle Man about this," Sultan decided. Malika agreed readily, knowing that it was better to have this absurd prediction either confirmed or denied officially. The Middle Man was the royal family's personal future-reader. He did not hear great destinies from otherworldly forces as the fates did, but he could check the future for what would follow, flicking through a library of years rather than books. Every royal family had their own middle man, and only the royal families were allowed them, though the lowlifes often made dealings with their own. It was considered a great privilege to have access to the future, and too powerful a thing to share with the world. There were just too many middle men to keep track of. 

      Back in the palace, they sat on the edge of their bed as the Middle Man stood before them, ready and waiting to carry his attention between that moment and one yet to come. 

      Queen Malika spoke softly, "This child is destined to end a reign of terror, yet we do not believe our reign to be terrible."

      The Middle Man nodded once in acknowledgement and a second in confirmation, "I agree that your reign has been a good one for your people. It may not be your reign she is to end."

      That was a huge comfort to them. There was nothing to say they would grow older to rule with harder hearts and stronger fists, only that their daughter would save people from a time of immense hardship. How was such pride possible, when the child was barely an hour old? "And she will definitely end this terror?" King Sultan asked, pride evident in his voice as well. 

      "If you tell her that she is to end a reign of terror, then she will," the Middle Man confirmed, leaving them with twin smiles a baby they would soon name Amaia.