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Bartholomew was born to a family of stonemasons. His father, his older brothers, his uncles and cousins were all renowned for their work in their village, and though no one outside of the family knew it, several of the carvings they sold were completed by the women in their family. They were often commissioned across the country, and their relative fame meant Bartholomew grew up comfortably in their town of Sandwich.
When he turned four, the dreams began. At first, they were very simple, just brief scenes of day-to-day happenings that he would witness a week later. No harm done other than a staggering sense of deja vu. At age six, the dreams got more complicated. He dreamed of their neighbor falling off a ladder, only for their neighbor to slip off a ladder and break his leg a month later. Soon after, the fainting spells followed.
He began to tell his parents about what he’d see when he was unconscious. “Alice from down the road is going to become ill. She’s going to die!” He’d cry to them, distraught, and they’d hush him. “Just bad dreams,” they’d say as soothingly as they could, and behind closed doors they’d discuss what might be ailing their son.
But then, right on track, Alice from down the road died, and his parents began to listen.
When he would have his spells, his father would have Bartholomew describe his dreams in detail so his father could write them down and warn people accordingly. Of course, many people in Sandwich viewed Bartholomew’s stories as hogwash at the least and sacrilege at the least. But the family of masons was so well-respected that no one dared make any public accusations against them, so criticism was relegated to word on the street and whispers in the pub.
Sometimes the warnings worked, but sometimes Bartholomew’s predictions just came true in convoluted circumstances. Sometimes he did not issue warnings at all, but rather good news, like when he envisioned a chest of buried jewelry in a farmer’s backyard, and lo and behold, that farmer found himself suddenly wealthy. In any case, people came more and more faithful in the son of the stonemasons.
Bartholomew, despite his fainting spells, grew up mostly healthy and happy. He learned to read and write, and he proved to be as much of a natural with stone as the rest of his family.
Then, when he was fourteen, he dreamt of a church in Sandwich going up in a flame, killing everyone inside. He went around the village, begging people not to go to service that Sunday, but he had crossed a line. The self-proclaimed prophet, begging people to turn their back on the house of the Lord? Surely something nefarious was afoot. The townspeople, save Bartholomew’s family, went to church on Sunday.
And nothing happened. The candles were lit and extinguished without issue. No lightning struck from on high. The people sang their hymnals and prayed in peace.
The stonemasons’ kid was dismissed as a sensationalist, a plant sent to ensure the town’s reliance on his family. Bartholomew’s mother was eager to clear his son’s name, and he searched the town’s archive until she found what she was looking for. “There was a fire, two hundred years ago to the day, in that very church! Dozens of people died!” she would tell anyone who listened, but it did not do her son many favors. Maybe he had seen a vision of the past, but who cared? The past didn’t do them much good.
It was a rough few years for Bartholomew. Not only was he ridiculed by the other people in the town, but he could tell some of his family members were beginning to doubt him, too. His father encouraged him to focus on masonry. So he focused on masonry and kept his premonitions under his hat, shaken by his failure.
When he fainted dead away at dinner one night when he was twenty-three and saw a flood, no one really believed him. It didn’t stop him from walking through his town, telling the bartender, the cobbler, the tailor, the farmers, anyone he could catch, that he had seen the river swelling and claiming crops and buildings and lives. His vision had been particularly complete in its survey of the damage; he was sure the places he saw affected were current, that he hadn’t flopped back in time again. “We do not have much time,” he begged them.
That winter, he dreamt of the New World. He had heard the stories of the colonists who set out to settle in what they called America, but for the first time, he caught glimpses of them on the shores. The land was beautiful, and there were other people there that he didn’t recognize, too, that he surmised were from the new land.
That spring, he dreamt of the stone city. Perfectly carved buildings that grew in spires from the ground, a stone ceiling stretched far above them all. And then, in flashes: leathery wings, beady eyes, mandibles, and a jagged tunnel leading into the earth from above ground.
That summer, the rain came. It overcame the old seawalls that the monks had built hundreds of years ago. The river swelled and it claimed crops and buildings and lives and suddenly people wanted to listen to the stonemasons’ kid again.
And oh, did it feel good.
People constantly came to Bartholomew with questions. Was the worst of it over? Could they survive the winter with the summer’s crops wiped out? How should they rebuild? Bartholomew was benevolent and reassuring and almost charming when he told them, “There’s no point in rebuilding your home here. Your future lies in the New World.”
It was hard to convince people at first, but luckily, his audience had lost everything. Within the year, Bartholomew was departing Sandwich with a few hundred people who had become devoted to his vision. Meanwhile, his dreams became more disturbing. He saw flashes of teeth and steel, of torch flames reflected in pools of blood. But they had to keep going. He couldn’t let all these people think he had led them astray, certainly. No, that could never happen again.
One day, he slumped unconscious over his horse’s neck from his saddle and saw a vortex of debris, a massive wave crushing buildings of a strange architecture, and a plume of fire shaped vaguely like a mushroom, and woke up convicted that life on the surface of the earth would end.
As they traveled over the land west towards the sea, he stopped in every city he could so his followers could share their testimonials on how Bartholomew had foreseen their futures, and so he could try to convince anyone they came across to join their quest to the New World. He had visions of the places he visited, sometimes: snippets of past, present, or, most commonly, future. When he was certain he could identify which was which, he shared them with his hosts, wowing them with his uncanny ability. Then he’d frighten them with his visions of destruction but assuage them with the promise they’d be safe in a beautiful stone city far underground.
By the time they reached the western coast, there were several hundred people following Bartholomew of Sandwich to the promised land.
They built a small settlement on the coast, and Bartholomew found he was correct that there were people here before the settlers. He did his best to foster a positive relationship with the Lenape they met. When he asked them about the land underground, they told him; when he asked if he could live there, they laughed in his face and told him he was welcome to try.
So Bartholomew and his people ventured underground. They made friends among certain species and remained respectfully distant from others. And then they found a beautiful, wide cavern with small mesas and massive stalagmites. Many of Bartholomew’s followers were concerned with the fact that it was already inhabited, but he assured them that he had foreseen them winning this land in battle. Well, when battling went south, he had a solution for that, too. After all, he reminded them, he had foreseen this city, which meant that the city would be realized.
When that mess was settled, and all the other creatures of the Underland were too shocked and horrified to try to stop them, they began to carve their city.
Sandwich oversaw the construction and prepared the colonists who had been living in their settlement on the coast as best as he could. He predicted storms and births and new discoveries underground and kept his people confident in him. He wouldn’t be that lonely boy stuck alone with his thoughts ever again, he promised himself. But privately his dreams became more troubling. He saw more and more of the Underland, but none of the figures were familiar. Sometimes even the humans he saw were unrecognizable, with skin like marble and hair like corn silk. He wasn’t sure how to make these confusing visions sound certain to his people. He could hardly describe what he was seeing, so how was he to sell it to them? Poetry , he decided. Poems could hold a hundred different truths.
As their fortress was carved out, he chose a room to record his poems. Some he felt depicted inevitability, others he felt would depend on whether or not certain events would come to pass. One such poem of the latter sort he called the “Prophecy of Gray.” He felt certain of the beginning events of the prophecy, but he could not see how it ended. He saw two boys running towards a chasm, one of them leaping and the other falling as the ground collapsed. One rose again on the back of a bat. One did not. But Bartholomew could not for the life of him tell which was which.
As the years went on and they continued building their city, his visions lasted longer and longer. He saw one of the two boys again and again, a window into the world where that bat had chosen him. That was the good world, the world where they had a shot at making it.
When the gates were being sealed, Sandwich carved one last prophecy with trembling hands. He had had a disturbing vision the day before, one that had left him exhausted for the rest of the day. He saw a girl in a crown standing in a pitted field. He had seen her before, had watched her become an orphan, even, but he had never paid her much individual attention. He didn’t really after the vision, either. He paid more mind to the figure dragging himself up to the young queen. He’d seen this rat before, too, and felt that he knew enough of his past for the puzzle pieces to click into place.
So this is the one who decides everything has to change.
That particular prophecy is short and vague, and not because Bartholomew’s hands were old and tired. It doesn’t mention the role of the queen, it doesn’t mention the circumstances that lead to the brokerage, and it certainly doesn’t mention the peacemaker’s species. He doesn’t mention that it will be a rat. No, that’s a scandal he doesn’t want to handle. And what if the gnawers found out? They certainly couldn’t be trusted with that sort of information.
When he completed the prophecy, he sat back and smiled. Some of his prophecies had already come to pass, or so his people thought. It didn’t really matter to Sandwich what he thought, so long as his people were satisfied. He had given them their promised city, and their faith in him was unwavering. By being vague as possible, he was sure they’d be able to turn to his words for guidance and to explain the things that happened to them, no matter what the future truly held. He couldn't be wrong. His people would ensure that he was right, that he'd be listened to even long after he was gone.
What more could a stonemason from Sandwich ask for?