Oracle

by David Dickie

  For my muse, Alison, and my daughter Brie, both of who worked their way through early versions of the book and improved it tremendously

  Prologue

  The man looked at the woman, hate in his eyes. The dagger in his hand was a combat knife, heavy and sharp, and ironically of Elvish manufacture. The woman wondered where he’d gotten it.

  She was tall and lithe, with the flawless skin, crystal-blue eyes, high cheekbones and golden hair that indicated her Elvish heritage. She looked to be twenty years of age, but the man knew elves aged very slowly. She could be three times that. She had a sword belted to her waist, with a hand on the hilt, but there was no sign she intended to draw it.

  She said, “You know that I am in possession of a variety of artificer’s items. I can end your life with any number of them before you could touch me.”

  The man hesitated, then nodded, but the knife stayed in his hand, pointed at her, and the hatred still burned behind his eyes.

  “Good. Then we have an understanding. If it makes you feel better, you may hold onto the dagger, but I think it would be more comfortable for both of us if you were to sheath it.”

  There was another second of hesitation, then the man put the knife back in its sheath on his belt and stood up straighter. He grimaced and said, “What do you want? You could have dropped me already if you wanted me dead.”

  The young woman looked thoughtful. “I could kill you. I may. It depends on where this conversation takes us. I sincerely hope it takes us somewhere fruitful for all involved. You have broken contract. I want to know how, and I want to know why.”

  The man, face ruddy with anger, said harshly, “And I tell you and you kill me. You elves, you arrogant snots, you think you own me. You think you’re standing over humans like we’re bugs, like we’re dirt you can walk over. Well, let me tell you something, bugs eat corpses, and that’s what’s going to happen to you and your kind. Humans are going to feed on your dying race until there’s nothing left but bleached bones.”

  The woman cocked her head. “If you are attempting to sway me into letting you live, I suggest you try an alternate strategy. This one is not working. How did you break the geas?” The man was silent. “You have a family. We know where they live. If you do not cooperate, they will pay the price.”

  The man closed his eyes. “You’d do that, wouldn’t you?” He opened them again. The hate behind them was drowning in despair now.

  For the first time, the woman broke eye contact with him and looked down. “It… is not my decision. I am here to extract information. If I do not, the consequences of that failure are out of my hands.” She looked back up and sighed. “If you wish, I can instead use a mind probe. That requires you to travel with me for some distance. You will have to give me your word you will come peacefully, and even so, I will have to bind your hands. But you know that mind probes, particularly with a subject who is resisting, leave permanent mental damage. I ask you to reconsider, to answer my questions fully and truthfully.” The man’s hand was twitching. The woman noted it and said, “Attacking me would be pointless. You know you will not succeed, and if you are looking for death… well, you would find it, but it would not save your family.”

  “You bitch,” said the man, but his hand wasn’t reaching for the dagger, and he seemed to shrink into himself a little bit, to be diminished somehow.

  “How did you break the geas?” the woman asked again.

  “I didn’t. I bent it. The Sambahl temple,” answered the man, his voice flat and defeated. “They work with geases themselves, strong ones, and there are times when they need to be lifted enough to give the clergy some room to maneuver. I had them modify the need to report weekly to a need to report weakly.” The woman stared at him, not comprehending. “Weakly. W-e-a-k-l-y. A play on words.”

  “I see,” said the woman. “And what drove you to this?”

  The man reached into a pocket and took out a medallion. It was copper and had the symbol of a crossed oar and spyglass engraved on it. “I’m Kethem Naval Intelligence. I should never have taken your gold, your geas in the first place. I’m betraying my race.”

  The woman thought about that. The human had been b’attaire, and the process for acquiring them was fairly standard. Ask for a few things, nothing too immoral or illegal. Pay handsomely for it. Up the ante a little, just little. Then dangle more money in front of them and tell them they needed to take a geas, one that prohibited them from telling anyone that they had an Elvish handler. Add a clause that they had to speak to the handler on a regular basis to prevent runners. Once the geas was in place, ratchet up what was asked for more and more, with more money to boot… and remind them that they were already in deep. Most eventually did whatever was asked, took the coin and learned to live with it. This man hadn’t. She respected that.

  She said, “My understanding was that it was nothing serious. Old military documents from Pranan that ended up in Kethem, documents from when the first empire collapsed. What did you think you were betraying, a civilization that ended generations ago?”

  The man snorted. “I read them. I don’t know that anyone else has since they ended up in the archives. The staff that controls the polychromatic fire. Hidden in a secret area beneath the Harbolat Storm Bull temple along the ring road. That’s what was in those documents. I know what ‘polychromatic fire’ means. I know what you’re after. And I couldn’t even tell anyone. An Elvish mission, the geas, even the Sambhal temple couldn’t bend that part. I can only tell it to you or one of your kind.”

  The woman froze, her eyes wide. “A staff that…” She stood silent for a moment, then she said harshly, “If it was in a secret area, it could have survived the ohulhug. What did you do with these documents?”

  “I burned them, burned them before I could read anything else. I knew you would come for me. I couldn’t leave it, couldn’t tell anyone, but I could keep you from knowing any more than that.”

  The woman’s eyes had gone icy. “We will see. The mind remembers more than you may consciously be aware of, and what you speak of… it is a prize. Something that must be acquired. I need it.” And that last sentence was said with a forcefulness and intensity that bordered on obsession.

  The man looked at her, grimacing, and said, “So, mind probe it is? I think not.” He pulled his dagger and lunged. The woman didn’t even move. An artificer’s item triggered by weapon proximity and an intent to use it kicked in automatically, and there was suddenly a wall of white light between the two of them. The man hit it, and where he touched it, flames sprang up. Rather than falling back, the man forced himself forward, screaming as his entire body was wreathed in flame. Then he was hurled back by the force of the spell.

  “No!” cried the woman, looking for something to put out the flames. When she saw what was left of the man’s face, burned beyond recognition, she knew it was too late. He was dead.

  She stood for a while, eyes closed, with her hand on her sword. Then she turned and walked some distance from the still-smoldering corpse. She sank gracefully to the ground, cross-legged. She had a small pouch, and out of it she pulled three small sticks bound together in the middle so they could be spread out as a small stand, followed by a crystal ball. She set up the stand on the ground in front of her and dropped the crystal ball in the cup made by the top of the sticks. She said, “Keyword contact Hotherial.”

  After a few seconds, the area over the crystal ball shimmered, and the worn face of an elf well over his two-hundredth year appeared. “I’m here.”

  “He is dead,” said the woman.

  The old elf took that in stride. “Well, to be expected. What did you find out before you killed him?”

  The woman shook her head. “It was a suicide. He attacked me, knowing what would happen.”

&nbs
p; Now the old elf frowned. “That is… unfortunate. We will have to try a different route to getting those documents.”

  “He said he destroyed them.”

  “That is very unfortunate. Did he tell you anything about what was in them?”

  The woman paused. “Why were you trying to acquire them in the first place? Five-century-old documents of an empire that no longer exists. You don’t have many Kethem Naval Intelligence personnel that you have converted into b’attaire. Why take the risk of exposing one?”

  “The old human empire had capabilities we didn’t know about at the time. You know that. Even five centuries later, we are still sifting through the rubble, trying to determine how far they had gone. They were doing powerful things. Dangerous things. When we find a source of information on what was happening back then, we do what we can to procure it.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she seemed to accept the old elf’s explanation. “He did not say much before he attacked me. I think he intended to protect his family by dying.”

  The old elf shrugged. “A pointless gesture. They have already been taken care of.”

  The woman drew back a bit. “What? How?”

  “The D’shar.”

  “The night squad?” said the woman, shocked. “You assassinated his family? Why? He could not have told them anything.”

  “He broke the geas. We do not know what he did, what he was capable of. Even if he had not broken the geas, he could have said something before the geas was in place. He could have unconsciously left clues with his wife or children that someone might pick up on. You know the first rule of our interaction with the humans.”

  The woman said, a little bitterly, “Do not let them know we are manipulating them.”

  The old elf nodded. “Yes. And if a b’attaire goes rogue, we have to make sure to cover any possible tracks that could lead back to us. It’s standard policy.”

  “Well,” said the woman, still with an edge to her voice, “You do not need to worry too much in this case. He could not override the command to prevent talking about his business with us. It is why he destroyed the documents, because he was unable to tell anyone that we were interested in them.”

  “Standard policy,” said the old elf again.

  “Do you not think that a member of the human military disappearing and his wife and children dying under mysterious circumstances might raise questions?”

  “The D’shar are discreet. It looked like a fire in their apartment building. A body was substituted for the man, magicked up so any post-mortem spells will indicate it is the missing human.”

  “A body. And where, pray tell, did you acquire that?” Then the woman paused. “A fire in an apartment building? Constrained to their apartment?”

  The old elf shook his head. “No, but the D’shar did what they could to minimize collateral damage.”

  The woman laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “Collateral damage. How much collateral damage was there? How many died?”

  “It is immaterial,” said the old elf. “It had to be done. Now, tell me, did he say anything else about what was in those documents?”

  The woman made an obvious effort to get herself under control. “He mentioned an old Storm Bull temple along the ring road in Pranan. Harbolat, he said.”

  The old elf looked disappointed. “In Pranan. An old human temple. The ohulhug would have razed it during the wars, pulled it apart stone by stone. There will be nothing there for us. He said nothing else?”

  The woman shook her head slowly. “Nothing. But it seems like we should explore this, even if the possibility of finding something is slim. I can take a teleportal to Struford. Find transport there.”

  The old elf looked at her quizzically. “Why you? We can have other b’attaire go. Pranan is uncivilized, at least outside the walled cities like Struford. It wouldn’t be safe.”

  The woman shrugged. “I will go with a caravan, or I will hire guards. Fas thinks it is important.”

  The old elf was quiet for a moment. “Did Fas read him?”

  The woman said, “As much as Fas could. It seemed important to him. To the human. I think it is worth checking out.”

  Finally the old elf nodded. “Very well. I will have funds waiting for you at the teleportal. What’s the timing on this?”

  The woman frowned. “I am a week away from Kuseme. There’s a teleportal there. A week to set up transport when I reach Struford. Two weeks, plus or minus a few days.”

  The old elf said, “I want you to brief me on how you plan on travelling in Pranan. I know you think Fas can save you from anything the world can throw at you, but his powers have limits. I need you to be careful.”

  “Always,” replied the woman. “I will contact you when I’m in Struford.”

  The old elf nodded, and she pulled the crystal ball off its stand. The image disappeared. The woman sat there for a long time, thinking. Then she packed the stand and crystal ball back in her pouch, stood, and left.

  Chapter One

  Grimalkin, a compact shadow among deeper shadows, moved slowly through the bedroom’s gloom. His excellent night vision could not help him this evening, with the moons hidden behind thick clouds. He didn’t need it. Two earlier visits to the apartment while it was empty, combined with Grim’s near-photographic memory, made dimness no obstacle for the small thief.

  He could hear the slow, deep breathing of two people asleep to his right, the direction of the bed. One was Varleri, the owner, the other Filin, her lover.

  Grim’s soft-soled boots came down slowly, quietly, letting him feel the floor before he put his weight down, gently teasing out any creaks, anything that might have been left lying on the floor, anything that might make a noise. He had practiced the route many times during his prior visits and avoided the floorboards that were loose enough to make a sound, but he knew from experience that things in a room could be different during the evening than during the day.

  Grim kept his breath slow and quiet as he made his way to the dresser. It was the obvious place to leave anything you were removing in preparation for a night of passion, and it was only a few feet from the bed. His foot came down on something soft, and he stopped, balancing on the other foot. He moved his boot back and forth until he was sure it was discarded clothing, then put his weight down and moved close enough to reach the dresser top with his hands. He stopped for a moment, listening to the low whistle of the sleepers’ breaths. Then, with the same delicate precision as his footsteps, he brought his hands down from above, stopping when he touched something. It was a man’s purse, heavy with coin. Grim hesitated a moment; he was a man who hated leaving money on the table. But there was a small chance the coins could clink together, and a smaller chance it might wake one of the two sleepers, and he was a professional. A small chance for a few hundred rimmi wasn’t worth the risk.

  He moved his hands outward, found a sheathed dagger, then finally a thin chain. He let his fingers trace the chain to the heavy pendant attached to it, the stone in the setting smooth and slightly cool under his fingers.

  Grim carefully picked it up and slid it into a velvet-lined pocket, turned and backtracked to the balcony, slipping through the partially open door without touching it. Outside, the street was faintly lit by glow disks at infrequent intervals. The one closest to the building was out, courtesy of a mana draining device he had used earlier in the evening. Grim took a couple of moments to make sure no one was near the building, then went over the railing and slid off the balcony onto a trellis that ran up the wall. He used exactly the same hand- and foot-holds he’d used on the way up, ones he’d tested to make sure they would support his weight. He dropped the last couple of feet onto the street, the soft boots making not a whisper, and then walked off unhurriedly. Half an hour later, he was in his own room.

  Grim pulled the amulet out and looked at it curiously. The chain was fine and probably gold. The stone was embedded in a clasp that hung off the chain. The clasp was gol
d as well, but there wasn’t enough of it to be especially valuable. The stone was dull and gray, slightly transparent, but not in any sense attractive. Grim frowned. Probably some artificer’s item, the value in the spells added by some enchanter who could keep the cantrips in his head long enough to burn it into the stone. The contract had been fairly explicit that the item did not involve magic, but that would have been magic preventing its theft, not the amulet itself.

  Grim concentrated. He only knew two spells, and these he had to practice regularly to be able to run through the cantrips without faltering. Detecting magic was one of the two, a must-have for any thief to ferret out any defensive spells meant to prevent exactly what he had just accomplished. He felt the spell go off, but the amulet didn’t glitter with the tell of magic.

  Grim was a little baffled. The contract was for fifty thousand rimmi, a tidy sum, much more than the apparent value of the object. Not that it was his business. The nice thing about working on contract was no middleman, no need to know anything about the value of the object, just whether the time and effort to steal it was worth the money. This contract was well in Grim’s favor, even though the mark hadn’t been an easy target. Filin was a mercenary, leader of a crew of fighters and enchanters who hired out when an expedition to Tawhiem, Pranan, or more dangerous places needed muscle, a man comfortable that he had what he needed to deal with any direct threat. In this case, Filin’s confidence played in Grim’s favor. Grim’s style was a little subtler than that.