bihn’shokil am provicithuhn
The Prophet of Landfall
e has come down from the mountains, the chitin of his belly segments freshly painted in Faith.
²The suns shine overhead, each uttering his name in their way.
³The barrens before him distort in the blur of their heat as he climbs the last hill, but his vision is clear. It always has been. ⁴His fifth and second arms encircle his staff as his mandibles click out a small prayer. ⁵Beyond the barrens lay the Crescent of the Eighty and One Thrones, and all the villages that hang from it like a jeweled belt.
⁶They do not know it yet, those millions that work, rule, and commit their countless sins out there in the cradle of all written history, but he will save them. ⁷In ones and twos, then in droves, and then their own priests and their own kings will throw down their false idols and take up the New Faith.
⁸He would permit himself some pride if that emotion occurred to him; ⁹instead, he tests his locust wings on the wind, permitting himself to glide into the first steps of Salvation.