The Prophecy of Three

Son, I am not from these lands or times...I do not remember the Yellow Emperor nor any united lands, as these strange events had not happened while I was alive.  How have I lost so many years?  How can I still be alive?

I cannot answer these, save through this tayle that not even I believe nor understand...

It begins with me as a younger man while I was traveling in those lands of windswept sands and gleaming bones that I stumbled, son, upon a stone tablet written in the burning words of some ancient race whose eerie presence still linger on in the machines of the jungle and the words of spells.  Lying upon the that stone tablet was a bone-thin man with black ragged hair and gaunt features.  He was fast asleep, but awoke with a start when I stood over him.

"Why did you shout so loud!?" he cried at me, rubbing his eyes and yawning, "It's hard enough to sleep around here with all those civilizations rising and crumbling."

I apologized and offered him some of the water in my leather bottle that I had stolen from a fallen cannibal in the Jungles.  He looked at it for a moment, looked at me, and then shook his head.

"I don't drink that," he said with a chuckle and stood up producing a dark green bottle that I know realized matched his eyes, "This is water taken from the stream that feeds the roots of the World Tree and distilled with honey from the Land Beyond the Ocean and allowed to age in nostalgic emotions of an immortal that wishes he could die.  Would you like a sip?"

All I could was take the bottle--which was surprisingly heavy, almost like it held more than it should--and take a sip: the liquid inside the bottle was just water.  Cold, plain water.

"Come now...sip-sip and pass," the gaunt green-eyed man chortled and took the bottle back from me for a long swig, "why not sit here a while speak of your wanderings..."

So, suddenly feeling very agreeable I consented and sat there for hours speaking of the lands I had walked and the people I had met, the things I had seen and the things I had done...and passing that strange green-bottle back and forth (it never seemed to run out of water, which seems odd now...but never occurred to me at that point!) for what seemed hours or days.

All the time the gaunt man was quietly listening and when I was finished he thanked me for the tayles and promised to record them all for others to remember, as this was only the beginning of the Cycle and soon another civilization would arise under the leadership of a chosen being.  At this point he paused, cupped his hand to his ear and looked like he was straining to hear something: "Aaah, the Yellow Emperor has just been born...aahh, he's just grown up and killed his first man and claimed his birthright.  The Imperial Kingdom is about to be built.  Let me tell you one single tayle..."

And, without waiting for my response, the gaunt man began to speak of lands, people, events, and times that I had no knowledge of nor had I ever heard of them before.  All this time I held and sipped from that strange green bottle, its cool waters tasting better and better (I can still remember that I could almost hear the roar of the Blood Ocean, the incantations spoken over its contents and the ringing of swords on ancient battlefields that brought this bottle and this gaunt man to this place...almost).

Suddenly he stopped and took back his green bottle, "How did you have that so long?  You shouldn't be drinking that...!  Who gave you that?" All I could do was laugh, everything was so funny and in that moment I could time melting away from the sands and lands, all things changing through the years in mere seconds...everything was in flux, save for that gaunt man.

"Enough of tayles, you have drunk of waters forbidden to mortal men of this world and that has consequences.  Ask you a question and if you cannot answer it correctly then you shall perform a task for me," he did not wait for me to agree or even respond before continuing in a voice that was slowly drowning out the entire world for me, "A wander monk once met a young man and asked him if he would like to share some tayles with an old man.  The young man agreed and they spoke of many things that time would forget and the winds would blow away, until they reached the end.  At the end the monk asked the old man a question.  What was the point of this question?"

Time stood still and I answer the question, but I was wrong and--maybe at the end of time one day or upon my death bed--I will still find out the correct answer.

"So, for failing this test you will be part of the Prophecy of Three," smiled the gaunt man with a face that no longer looked quite so friendly, "there is always a beginning, a middle, and an end.  There is also always a child, a man, and an elder.  There is also always a demon, a mortal, and a god.  There is always a right answer, a wrong answer, and a question without either of these.  You are now part of all of these and more and your task will be to write this of this in a tayle upon a website far in the past, the present, and in the future."

And then he was gone and I awoke poor and hungry as a beggar upon these cursed streets in this ugly City of Aur.  My name is now inscribed in that ancient tablet far away in demonic writing and hundreds of years had come and gone and the world was as the world is today.

What a barstard! He had tricked me!

I am now forced to beg until I can tell of our meeting, which is why I am telling it to you (and for my troubles I would appreciate some work, maybe some food, or even just one gold...?).

Tell others and never stop telling the Tayle of the Prophecy of Three and the Barstard that tricked me from my life into this cursed beggars clothing.