Oracle

by David Dickie

  “How would I know?” said Fallow, glancing anxiously around. “Fan out. Find him. Remember, I just want the amulet. He’s worth more to me dead than alive.”

  The man with the artificer’s weapon went left, Fallow and one of the men went straight, and the third man went right. When Grim was sure they were looking away from the mouth of the alley, he dodged across and went up to the next side street, where the man with the artificer’s weapon would come out. He sprinted down the side street about halfway to the entrance to the alleyways, then turned back and started walking slowly the way he’d come.

  Moments later, he heard rapid footsteps behind him. He didn’t have to turn. The man with the artificer’s weapon would have to make a choice, go back and get Fallow and the other two men, or come after Grim on his own. With a weapon in hand and a turned back, it was an easy choice to make. Grim pulled his daggers from his cloak and turned quickly when he judged the man was only a dozen feet away.

  The man slowed and then stopped. He looked like standard street muscle, large, strong, and not too smart or clean. He grinned, showing a line of crooked teeth with gaps where some were missing. “Hey you,” he said.

  “Hey you too,” said Grim, and charged him.

  The man was startled, mostly because Grim was committing suicide running directly at someone with a magicked weapon in his hand, but pure reflex made him raise the round stone he was holding and kick off the spell. A jagged bolt of lightning arced from the stone to Grim… then it dissipated, just fizzled out of existence as it reached him. The man had just enough time to look down at his weapon in disbelief before Grim was on him. A dagger went in just below his rib cage, low enough to miss bone, high enough to avoid the kidney. You got stabbed in the kidney, shock could kill you almost instantly, and Grim wanted some answers.

  The man grunted and pulled back, dropping the artificer’s weapon. He was reaching for something more conventional, a dagger or dirk, when Grim put his second dagger through the man’s hand. To give the man some credit, he grunted again rather than screaming. He tried to punch Grim with his second hand, but he was already going into shock, making it an ineffectual blow. Then he sagged against Grim. Grim lowered him to the ground, then propped him up with his back against the building wall. Grim hunched down until the man was staring directly into Grim’s eyes.

  “I don’t have much time,” said Grim. “Someone’s going to have seen that spell, or your friends are going to come back, and frankly, neither a night in Yelfin’s cells or trying to fight off three guys at the same time appeal to me. So I’m going to ask questions. You will answer them quickly and truthfully. If you do, I will leave you alive for Fallow to patch up. Otherwise, I stick a dagger in your eye and hightail it. We clear?”

  The man nodded.

  “Why does Fallow want the amulet so badly?”

  “I don’t know.” Grim considered twisting the knife in the guy’s hand, but maybe his lack of patience showed, because the man continued quickly, “He recognized it, something the Emperor of the north wore, the gaze stone.”

  Grim thought about that. “What does it do?” Grim thought he already knew, wouldn’t have charged the man if he wasn’t confident that it would stop the spell from an artificer’s weapon, but there might be details he was unaware of.

  “I swear, I don’t know. I’m just a street soldier, muscle for hire, nothing else.”

  Grim pulled the dagger out of the man’s hand and wiped it clean of blood on the man’s shirt, then slid it into the sewn-in sheath in the cloak. He picked up the artificer’s weapon from where the man had dropped it on the ground. “Street soldiers don’t carry this kind of magic where I’m from.”

  “I’m the leader, Garrent’s Guards. I’m Garrent.”

  Grim looked at the man’s eyes. There was no indication of evasion. Finally, he nodded. “Tell Fallow I want to see him at the inn. Tell him if there’s trouble, Yelfin will hear about it and where it came from.” Grim stood up and put the artificer’s weapon in his pocket. “Tell him he owes you a new artificer’s weapon.” Grim wiped his second dagger clean on the man’s shirt, then put it away as well. “Sorry about the shirt.”

  The man tried to shrug but stopped with a wince. “Kind of ruined anyway, given the hole in my side.”

  Grim nodded. “Not so sorry about that.” Then he turned and walked away.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Grim was sitting at one of the tables in Targo’s Inn when Fallow entered. Grim was nursing a beer. Fallow took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dark interior, looked around, and spotted Grim. He walked over and sat down without saying anything. Grim waved for one of the barmaids. “A beer. Nothing expensive.” He suspected he was buying.

  Fallow waited until the waitress came back with a beer and left again. “So,” he said.

  “So,” said Grim.

  “Surprised you’re meeting me,” said Fallow.

  Grim shrugged. “You’ve got a reputation you need to be careful about. Market makers no one trusts… no money in that.”

  “No money in that,” Fallow repeated

  “Which means I have something you want very badly. You going to tell me what’s so special about this gaze stone that you’d take that kind of risk?”

  Fallow blinked rapidly. “Oh, no. Gate stone. It’s a gate stone.”

  Grim sat still. “What exactly does that mean?”

  Fallow shook his head. “Not sure, but its part of the old empire, before the fall. The twelve swords, you know the story?”

  Grim nodded carefully. “I do.”

  “They were called Great Swords, but some of the old books called them by another name, Gate Swords.”

  “Interesting,” said Grim.

  Fallow nodded. “There is a story, an old story, about this artifact that’s more powerful than the most powerful artificer’s creation, sitting here in Eleyford when the ohulhug overran the place. The story goes that way back during the first empire, the Emperor had some sort of gate thing, the thing that created the Great Swords. It seems like it doesn’t have to be a sword, though. So it’s said that he created this amulet the same way. He gave to the Empress, meaning it wasn’t on the island with the swords and him when the island blew. He didn’t have a chance to tell her that it was anything special, and she didn’t think it was attractive enough, so she didn’t wear it and eventually gave it to one of her ladies in waiting, a baroness from Eleyford. By the time word did make it to the palace, the empire had split in two, and the war of the two houses was underway, and it was forgotten in the conflict. No one believes the story any more, you know.”

  Grim said thoughtfully, “But you do.”

  Fallow shook his head. “Not really. But then some Kethemers showed up, and they’re asking questions, and it becomes pretty clear that they are looking for this legendary artifact, and so suddenly everyone believes in it.”

  Grim raised his eyebrows. “Did the Kethemers find this thing?”

  “You’re wearing it, aren’t you?”

  Grim laughed. “Seriously? Look at me. I’m barely making ends meet, man servant to a Kethem researcher, not even a Holder. How would I end up with something like that? And if I did, I’d sell it in a heartbeat. Must be worth a fortune.”

  Fallow leaned back. “Really. Garrent told me you stopped a shot from his artificer’s weapon like it was spit, like nothing he’s ever seen before.”

  “I have standard protection against spells. Nothing special.”

  Fallow laughed. “That stops spells dead? I’ve heard of shields, I’ve heard of absorption. Nothing allows you to take a blast like that and not have a mark on you.”

  “It’s a particularly good shield.”

  Fallow leaned forward. “So, then, if this amulet’s nothing special, why don’t you sell it to me? Name a price.”

  Grim laughed. “You’d be wasting your money.”

  Fallow shrugged. “Mine to waste. A hundred thousand rimmi.”

  Grim stopped laughing.
“Not enough.”

  “Five hundred thousand.”

  Grim paused. That was what he might make in five years, if he took some risks. That was retirement money if he lived modestly. That was get-out-of-the-business money. “No,” he said.

  “One million rimmi. Final offer.”

  Grim froze. The amulet had saved him now many times. With that kind of money, he could make sure he was never in a position to need saving again. He could have a vineyard in the Kethem countryside, find a wife, maybe have some kids, maybe not. Anything he wanted to do. It was a ticket out of the game. It was tempting. Very tempting.

  There was the sudden noise of two chairs being pulled out. Aurora and Tyrgo sat down at the table. “Grim,” said Tyrgo, nodding to him. He looked at Fallow. “And from what Grim has said, you must be Fallow.”

  Fallow looked at Tyrgo with an annoyed expression. “We’re having a private conversation here, if you don’t mind.”

  Aurora flexed her fingers and her hands were suddenly holding daggers. “We kind of do.” The room had gone quiet, a ripple of suspended conversations as people saw weapons had been drawn. Aurora flexed her fingers again and the daggers were gone. It took a few seconds, but the background hum of conversation started again, albeit at a much lower level.

  Grim looked at Tyrgo, then at Aurora, then back again. “You want to clue me in to what it is you think you’re doing?”

  Tyrgo said, “Sure. Saving you from a terrible mistake. Which we will talk about when our friend leaves, which should be, I think, right about now.”

  Fallow looked like he was about to shout. He grunted instead, looking down at his lap. Grim noticed one of Aurora’s arms was under the table. “Probably a good time to leave, don’t you think?” said Aurora.

  Fallow nodded vigorously and stood up quickly. He looked at Grim. “You want to sell, you know where to find me.” Then he turned and left the inn.

  Grim sighed. This trip had been one odd thing after another. “I’m going to ask questions, and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like the answers I get.”

  Tyrgo cocked his head. “You won’t know unless you ask.”

  Grim nodded. “So, how about we don’t play the guessing game and you just tell me what’s going on. I’m tired of guessing.”

  Aurora laughed. “Poor Grim. Life’s just so complicated, isn’t it?”

  Grim looked at her. “You seem pretty straightforward.”

  Aurora stopped laughing. “Nothing is straightforward, Grim. Take my word for it.”

  Grim turned to Tyrgo. “And here we are with the mysterious, ambiguous answers again. You want to try your luck?”

  Tyrgo nodded seriously. “This is simple, and it’s not. Simple in that I can tell you what I know. Not simple because what I know isn’t going to make a lot of sense to you. It doesn’t to me.”

  Grim said, “Try me.”

  Tyrgo sat back. “You know we are on a quest, a task given to us by our god.”

  Grim said, “Sure, plus the freaky twins part of it, plus the born by a man touched by your god, yadda.”

  Tyrgo nodded. “Aurora and I are more… attuned, let us say, to Kydaos than most of our brethren. Our quest is, as a result, clearer than is typical. It doesn’t mean we understand precisely why, nor do we have all the details on exactly how. It just means we know what we need to do in the moment.”

  Aurora said, “And what we are supposed to do is protect ‘the short one.’ There are certain aspects of it that are clear, some that are not. But one thing we do know is that you and the amulet are not to part ways.”

  Grim snorted. “The short one. Awesome. How did you decide the short one was me? Besides the fact that I’m short, I mean.”

  Aurora said, “We knew we would meet you on that caravan ride. We know that we need to escort you upriver from Eleyford. We know…” She stopped.

  Grim raised an eyebrow. “Time to finish that sentence, or you aren’t going to escort this short one anywhere.”

  “We know the price that will need to be paid,” she said quietly.

  “Which is? Nothing metaphysical, please. I assume this is a real price, some serious coin?”

  Aurora and Tyrgo exchanged glances. Finally, Tyrgo set his shoulders. “Her life. Aurora is going to die protecting you.”

  Grim glanced at Aurora. For once, the half sneer, half grin wasn’t on her face. She shrugged. “Is what it is. At least I know, can have some fun on the way there.”

  Grim turned back to Tyrgo. “The hell. No one is dying for me. Why would you even think about that? I’m nothing special. I’m not even a good guy. I left my friends to hang for themselves and turned tail and ran when things got difficult. I… I’m a damn coward.” And Grim realized he was close to tears.

  Tyrgo and Aurora were both looking at him now, stunned. Tyrgo shook his head. “Grim, I don’t know what’s in your past. I know a little about what’s in your future. But I can say, right now, this instant, and having nothing to do with our quest, you are not a coward. I’ve seen you fight. I don’t know what happened on that temple run with the elf, but I know you saved her. I could see it in the way she treated you after that.”

  “That was different. I didn’t have a choice.”

  Tyrgo laughed. “Grim, we all have choices, all the time. The ones you’ve been making are not the ones of someone who only cares about his own skin.”

  Grim took a shuddering breath and tried to get his emotions under control. “Fine,” he said, “so what is this future event that makes a god so interested in me that he’s sent me a couple of bodyguards?”

  “No idea. You get to save the world, something along those lines. It will be after Aurora and I are done.”

  “Ok, why Kydaos? Why a god of war? I’m not going to become a great general or anything like that. I don’t know squat about tactics. Why would he even care? I thought Kydaos’s idea of an ideal ending was a field full of dead soldiers.”

  “That’s just people trying to fit complex things into nice little boxes. Kydaos… is not a god of war—or at least, that is only the most obvious of his attributes.”

  “So then what is he the god of? I love the decorative theme in the temples, you know, the weapons, the paintings of famous battles, people getting heads lopped off, all that kind of thing. What rhymes with that other than war?”

  Tyrgo looked at him thoughtfully. “You know why Kydaos clergy are called Uncle Wolf?”

  Grim paused, thinking. “No. I know the entrances to the temple are designed to be stylized wolf heads. Always feels like you’re getting swallowed whole when you enter. Which makes the answer still pretty much no. Maybe because they can bring down something a lot bigger than they are? Fierce or something?”

  “A wolf pack is a social group. They care for each other, make sure the weak are fed. They let the older wolves lead when the pack is moving, let them set the pace to make sure they don’t get worn out. They care for the young, the sick, and the injured.”

  Grim frowned. “If this is leading to something, I’m totally missing it.”

  Tyrgo said, “Haven’t finished yet. So, a social group, but there is a hierarchy, an alpha male on top. The natural order of things is that he stays that way until a younger wolf gets big and bad enough to win a fight and take over. But even then, it’s not to the death, it’s not even until one wolf is so torn up they can’t fight any more. That would diminish the pack. So clawing for the top is part of how things are, part of what makes the wolf pack work, makes it effective, but so is doing it in a way that doesn’t harm the group.”

  Grim raised an eyebrow. “You’re telling me Kydaos is a war god because war benefits the human race as a whole? That he’s just looking out for everyone’s best interests?”

  Tyrgo smiled wryly. “Perhaps not that altruistic. Kydaos recognizes that conflict is part of the natural order of things, but that it must be tempered by fair play, level playing fields, and ultimately care for those who are impacted. Otherwise, it leads to dysfunc
tion and, ultimately, the end of a civilization’s ability to work. Kydaos is a god of checks and balances.”

  Grim said, stunned, “That’s why you folks do all the charity stuff, the soup kitchens and things like that.”

  Tyrgo nodded. Aurora said, “Then there are those of us that just think kicking ass is worth it for its own sake.”