For that which makes the blood impure.
Turn and turn and turn again.
You see the what but not the when.
Remedy and wrong entwine,
And so they form a single vine.
Gnawer, human, set aside
The hatreds that reside inside.
If the flames of war are fanned,
All warmbloods lose the Underland.
Turn and turn and turn again.
You see the what but not the when.
Remedy and wrong entwine,
And so they form a single vine.
Gregor had survived two other prophecies by the man who had written this one. Bartholomew of Sandwich. It was Sandwich who had led the Underlanders far beneath what was now New York City and founded the human city of Regalia. When he died he had left behind a stone room whose walls were entirely carved with prophecies, his visions of the future. And not just the humans but all the creatures in the Underland believed Sandwich had been able to see what was to come.
Gregor went back and forth on how he felt about Sandwich's predictions. Sometimes he hated them. Sometimes he was grateful for their guidance, although the prophecies were so cryptic they seemed to mean a lot of things at once. But within the loaded lines you could usually get the general idea of what awaited you. Like in this one...
Warmblood now a bloodborne death
Will rob your body of its breath,
Mark your skin, and seal your fate.
The Underland becomes a plate.
Gregor had figured out it was about some kind of disease, a deadly one, and a lot of people were going to get it. Not just people, but anything that was warmblooded. Any mammal. Down in the Underland, that could include the bats and rats...he really didn't know how many other creatures could be affected. And what was that scary line about a "plate" supposed to mean? That everybody got eaten up?
Bring the warrior from above
If yet his heart is swayed by love.
Bring the princess or despair,
Nocrawlers care without her there.
The warrior was Gregor, no use trying to kid himself about that. He didn't want to be the warrior. He hated fighting, hated that he was so good at it. But after having successfully fulfilled two prophecies as the warrior, he had stopped believing they had gotten the wrong guy.
Then, there was the princess....He was holding out hope that it wasn't Boots. The crawlers — that was the Underlander name for the cockroaches — called her the princess, but she wasn't a real one. Maybe the crawlers had a princess of their own to bring.
Other stanzas seemed to suggest that the humans and the gnawers — the rats — were going to have to band together to find the cure for the disease. Boy, they were going to love that! They'd only spent centuries trying to kill one another. And then there was Sandwich's usual prediction that if things didn't work out, there would be total destruction and everybody would end up dead.
Gregor had to wonder if Sandwich had ever written a cheerful prophecy. Something about peace and joy, with a big old happy ending. Probably not.
The thing that drove him craziest about "The Prophecy of Blood" was the one stanza that appeared four times. It was like Sandwich was trying to drum it into his brain.
Turn and turn and turn again.