CHAPTER 2
"Do you think I am lying to you?" his eyes drift across the wind from the singing pipe "I do not lie! I am the piper, and as I sing all the wind obeys, and it does tell, of truth, destiny and prophecy!" his cheeks balloon red.
"I will tell you, giant! That you are a mortuary slave, aye, a slave to death, for your destiny is to lay with it, but never die. Aye! I tell you, that your path will end with you sleeping at the red silken bed of death! But right now, you will have no say in it, you must only obey the 'path', never diverge, only follow it closely; but ware, for thieves, scoundrels and betrayers will knock you down, steal at you, maim you, but you must never waver! A thousand death you will die, but you will never 'die', never, not until you kiss the beautiful, cold lips of Mother Death!"
"Then I cannot change my path? Is that a prophecy, that I will die a cruel death in Her abode?"
"Nay! You will die, but you will live in such a way that you will never truly die! More so, you will never truly live either, not until you find 'it'!"
"It?"
"The end of the path, of course! Isn't that why you are the luckiest man alive? Well...That is the fate given to you..."
"What of me? You think of me a betrayer? You think I will kill him?" retorts the iceman
"No..." he guffaws "You will never amount to such a thing..."
"What?"
"You will do your job, but unwittingly, you will kill him...but he will not die."
"Then?"
"You will die instead. It is prophecy!"
"What a thing to say to a man! You admit my position in this prophecy is that of an ignorant layabout? Say, prophet, what is the time of my death?"
"Ah, that *is* a thing to say to a man, indeed! Listen...you will die at the final hour, but not at the culmination. Yes, you will die at the Battle of Montague upon Red, the one that mounts upon the cliffs of damnation and the one that drinks from the bowels of Erebus! singing upon the past evils, shook again! Aye, the Wheel of Time will sing, and you, Paladin of the Heart of Ice, servant of the Lich Undying, aye, and servant of the King upon circled lands: you will die there, at the end of the world, and at the end of time!"
"You speak nonsense, piper. No such battle will happen. We will thwart this horde, and wrest the destiny of mankind for ourselves, wear it like a crown of our making"