Oracle

by David Dickie

  Tyrgo rolled his eyes. “And another intellectual discussion spirals into the ground. Thanks, sis.”

  Aurora shrugged. “You were getting all misty-eyed and serious. Let’s live in the moment. No one’s going to die today. Let’s have some fun.”

  Tyrgo sighed. “So, if that’s enough of an answer, we’d like to go with you when you head up river.”

  Grim said, “And if I say no?”

  Tyrgo said, “You won’t. We’ve seen it. We go with you.”

  Grim closed his eyes. “Gods move in ways unfathomable by common men.” He opened his eyes. “And I suppose crossing one is not the best idea.”

  “That would be a yes, then,” said Aurora. “Let’s drink to that. You’re not my type, but get me drunk enough, you might get lucky.”

  They did drink. Grim didn’t get Aurora drunk enough, which was probably a good thing. She ended up heading upstairs with one the of Struford soldiers. But this time, Grim was watching more carefully. He saw it was more an act of desperation than desire. Aurora believed she was going to die, and soon. She was trying to blot it out with fighting, sex, and drinking.

  She believed she was going to die for him. That was one thing, god ordained or not, he was not willing to live with. And if he had to cross a god to prevent it, so be it.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  They were on the barges the next morning at sunrise. Grim and Alan were on one barge at Alan’s insistence. Lug had been furious that he was on a different barge for reasons Grim couldn’t understand. Given Alan’s tendency for long-winded conversations and Lug’s propensity to treat sentences like every word spoken was a gold coin, Grim would have thought both would be happy spending some time apart.

  There wasn’t much to do other than watch the cylinders spin under the force of the Storm Bull’s breeze, and that got old pretty quickly.

  “Why doesn’t someone just… I don’t know, make the cylinders spin magically?” Grim asked Alan.

  Alan said, “Power. Enchanters use mana that leeches through the weave of order over chaos, but you can’t store much and you can’t pull much.”

  Grim pointed to the Storm Bull clerics. “They don’t seem to have much of a problem keeping a wind up all day long.”

  Alan nodded. “Different principle. The gods are the weave of order over chaos, and they have built in some leeway for themselves, ways to convert underlying chaos to power without chaos actually entering this plane. It’s not mana at all, chaos converted directly to power.”

  “Huh,” said Grim.

  “Indeed,” said Alan. “May I ask you a question?”

  Grim hesitated. Sometimes a question started Alan off on an unending stream of follow on questions that could last for hours. Finally, he nodded. “Let’s try to keep it to no more than half a dozen, ok?”

  Alan nodded seriously. “Most of the people I speak with like to talk about their past. Even things they believe in retrospect were mistakes. It seems to be a fundamental need for people to share experiences. But you do not.”

  “Nice weather we’re having,” said Grim.

  Alan looked up, then back at Grim. “I am not asking about your past. I’m just asking why you don’t want to talk about your past.”

  Grim shrugged, uncomfortable. “Not much to talk about. Nothing I’ve done is something I want to brag about.”

  Alan stayed silent for a moment, then said, “I find that hard to believe. I know something happened with the elf at that temple. Everyone does. She treated you differently after that, sought you out on her own. You did something for her, something she admires.”

  Grim looked away. “Wrong place at the right time, that’s all.”

  Alan looked out over the water. “You seem uncomfortable whenever someone suggests you have redeeming qualities.”

  Grim sighed. “Alan, leave it alone. I’ve got way too many people trying to tell me something I’m not. I’m a thief, pure and simple. I steal things for a living. You hired me for that. It’s what I do.”

  “It’s what you do, not who you are.”

  Grim closed his eyes. “I’m going to try to get some shut eye. I have the first shift on the night watch. You have the second. You should probably do the same.”

  Alan nodded. Grim went into the small enclosure on the equally small deck of the barge. As he’d been told, there were four bunks stacked on top of each other. Each one had just enough room for a person to squeeze into it. There were cabinets to the sides, so you had to curl up to get in, then stick your head and feet into the small enclosures created by the walls and the cabinet. If felt like you were climbing into a coffin. Grim crawled in and lay flat and thought. Despite what he’d said to Alan, he was wide awake, and sleep wasn’t going to come any time soon.

  He closed his eyes and thought into the void as hard as he could, “You want to talk?” There was nothing. “I know you’re there. I know what you are.” Silence. “When they put people’s souls in artifacts, do they put the smart ones in swords and the dumb ones in amulets?”

  “No,” said the amulet. It was a word, not something he’d heard with his ears, but with his mind.

  “Better,” he thought. “So you can talk. I wondered if the human gate-forged soul artifacts were different from the Elvish ones.”

  This time Grim sensed curiosity. “You know about my kind?”

  “I met someone who has one while we were travelling to Eleyford, an elf with a soul sword named Ziwa. She says it’s like a father to her, like she has a personal relationship with it, and it’s clear she communicates with it. It’s become pretty obvious what you are, even if Fallow hadn’t talked about the gate-forged amulet. You have the ability to stop the most powerful spells. You make decisions about what spells to let through and which ones to stop. That’s not just power, that’s intelligence. It seemed like you must be a soul artifact, just not in the form of a sword. What’s your story?”

  “My story?”

  “Who were you? Why did you decide to let someone stick you in that tiny rock? Why aren’t you giving me all these special abilities Ziwa talked about her sword having, like who to trust and seeing through walls? That kind of thing.”

  There was silence for a moment. Then it said “Most of what happened before I… became this, let us say, is unclear to me. I think I was terminally ill, that this offered a way to survive in some form. But either I wasn’t fully committed or the illness itself interfered in the process to merge my soul with chaos. I know I am defective, somehow. I wasn’t as powerful as they expected, nothing like the Great Swords, at least. I was put aside. Without memories of my time before I became what I am now, or any way to sense the outer world, I have little to say. I have my function, to protect my wearer from spells, and it is enough for me. I do not need conversation.”

  Grim said, “You must have some sense of the outer world. You know what spells to stop and what spells to let through.”

  It said, “I can tell from the spell. There’s a flavor to them, something that differentiates the ones that harm from the ones that help.”

  Grim said, “So you don’t let on that you exist? Why? People need contact with one another.”

  “I am not a person. I am a device. I have my function. It is all I need.”

  Grim thought about that and decided it wasn’t true, or at least not completely true. Devices did not get defensive when you asked if they were stupid. But it didn’t seem like an argument he was going to win, so he moved on. “Any idea why you and I are tied together so tightly the gods seem to know about it?”

  There was silence. Then it said, “No.”

  Grim, sensing that it would be pointless to ask more questions, let the conversation lapse. He thought about the things that had happened on this trip so far. Talking to an intelligent amulet was par for the course. A job that made no sense by an individual who seemed strange on so many levels. Gods, World Gates, Ziwa, Great Swords. It made the entire expedition to Tawhiem pale in comparison.

  For the fi
rst time in a long time, he let his thoughts drift to Tawhiem, Daesal, Stegar, and the rest of the crew who had been trapped with him in those savage lands along with the elf Beldaer. Daesal was a Holder, a group members of the shadow guild avoided, didn’t trust under any circumstances. Stegar had been a Holder until whatever personal disaster had forced him out of that life. Hantlin the Kydaos priest, and Gyeong, the Stangri warrior. Nhi Nyjha. And Beldaer, the elf. Mostly Beldaer, who had sacrificed his freedom rather than betray them.

  On the journey home, they had found the fabled birthplace of transcendence, home of the Great Trolls. More, they’d found the Great Trolls had not died out in the aftermath of the fall of the old human empire, but were hiding in a rift in time, a place where a second passed in the same time hours did in the normal world. That one of the gate-forged human swords, Morpangler, survived and was in that rift with them. And they had learned from Beldaer that humans had made those swords with unwilling hosts, combined angry, damaged souls and raw chaos to create sentient, evil artifacts with enormous power and a desire to destroy everything around them.

  They had all fought together, travelled together, been trapped together, and escaped together. They had each other’s backs, a group that wasn’t the loose coalition of petty criminals in the shadow guild who you could trust not because they cared about you, but because they knew that what went around came around. And that trust wasn’t the personal kind. Grim would steal from another thief without a second thought. You could count on things people knew in the shadow guild staying inside those walls. No intervention by outside authorities. You were slighted, you were hurt, you lost money, you made it personal or you let it go. You went outside the guild, you might win the battle but you lost the war, because at some point you’d go to bed and wouldn’t wake up the next morning. You could trust the shadow guild to live by their own rules, and that was it.

  Daesal, Stegar, Hantlin, Gyeong, Nyjha and Beldaer had been something else.

  He’d left Daesal and the rest when Kethem Naval Intelligence had picked them up, slid out the open window of the carriage that was carrying them to what he suspected would be interrogation cells, out and away. Slippery as an eel, not even the trained eyes of the guards driving the coach had seen him. Gyeong and Hantlin had been in the carriage, but they had his back even as he betrayed them, just watched him go.

  It was the smart thing to do. People like him didn’t mix with Holders, didn’t mix with the military, particularly the military that could… no, were encouraged to lean on anyone who wasn’t a Holder, lean hard enough for them to break, physically and mentally. And he had secrets, had a past that would put him in a labor camp for some Hold, lower than the indentured servants who worked their farms. They at least had some chance of escaping that life. He’d be doing back-breaking labor until he died.

  It was the smart thing to do. But he still thought about them, wondered if they felt betrayed, wondered if they still considered him a friend.

  He doubted they would call him that now.

  This new crew was kind of like that, and thinking on it, Grim suddenly realized that it terrified him, that he might end up friends with these people. Just more black marks on his conscience, more people he was going to let down. Alan and Lug, maybe not. There was something there, something they were hiding from him, and it put a comfortable barrier between him and them. Fayyaad, a bit, because he could be a pain in the ass at times. Rotan had gone from a puffed-up Holder to someone you could actually like. Tyrgo and Aurora, they were a new wrinkle. He liked them, but this entire man-and-woman-on-a-mission thing was gnawing at him. But add it all together, and it felt like the same kind of mixed group, the kind that could fall into a rhythm, something that could lead to depending on each other.

  At least Ziwa had left before something like that could develop. Grim felt a little pang thinking about her, and his eyes popped open. No, no, no. There was no way he was heading down that path. She deserved better than him, with her spirit, her drive, her skill and knowledge. And not human to boot. He shut his eyes firmly and pushed thoughts of Ziwa out of his mind.

  Grim sighed. Five days to where the river divided, then a day to this Enclave of Karak that Alan wanted to visit. Maybe he’d split with Alan there, go with Rotan. He’d be breaking contract, but it was clear Alan hadn’t been up front with him, and from Grim’s standpoint, that made any agreement null and void. If he left Alan and Lug there, it would be a couple of days to get to Nyquet, and maybe twice that overland to Tendut, and he’d have money in his pocket and options available to him.

  With that hazy plan set in his head, Grim tried to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Grim helped tie off the mooring lines of what was affectionately known as Barge Three. Barge One and Two were already moored. It had actually been seven days since they left Eleyford. Grim hadn’t factored in the gap in the barges heading up and down river, and they didn’t run into a set of barges heading toward Nyquet until almost a day after the river divided, then had to backtrack downriver. During that week, he’d come to despise the barges. There was the malfunctioning heat rune that always seemed to turn the simple stew that was the staple of the two meals a day on board into something charred, lumpy, and barely recognizable as meat, potatoes and carrots. There were the biting insects that inhabited the length of the river. And there was the midwatch, standing guard while the boat was moored to a pole in the river, tedious beyond words. It had been an uncomfortable, primitive, and altogether boring seven days. So when the crew of the barge let him know that not only would they be stopping at the Enclave of Karak, but staying the evening because of the renowned hospitality the place offered, he was more than happy to hear it.

  Pulling in made it look even better. The docks were solid and well maintained, and the buildings, with wooden plank walls and purlin, double-layered roofs, looked equally clean and tidy in the afternoon sun. Things were looking up, Grim decided.

  Everyone not actively helping with docking the barges had already clustered around two individuals in the long, white, formal robes of Idophyb worshipers, one with three stripes of different colors on his sleeves, one with two, both blue. Grim was close enough to hear them introduce themselves and explain that they were here to help any newcomers to the enclave orient themselves.

  He finished tying off his line and joined just as they started to describe things in more detail. “The Enclave of Karak is a place of contemplation and study. The current headmaster, Brandin Wiess, is a cultured and articulate man who is worth listening to, and many come here for nothing other than his inspirational speeches. His next sermon is beginning shortly. There will be no offense if you do not take the opportunity to listen to him, but I would highly recommend you attend. That’s at the main temple. There are some areas that are off limits. The first is the Garden of Solitude, a large, walled area near the river. Only acolytes of the enclave are allowed there.”

  “Acolytes of what god?” asked Tyrgo.

  “Of many. The enclave is non-denominational and accepts any clergy into their group, regardless of the god they worship. You can distinguish the acolytes by the powder-blue robes they wear. The second area that is off limits is Master Brandin’s residence, for obvious personal reasons, and the third is the Library, unless you have explicit permission to be there.”

  “The library is off limits?” asked Alan, looking shocked.

  The man, whose name was Roel, smiled in a way that said he’d answered that question many times in the past. “For casual use, yes. It has some of the oldest known documents in human history. Some are a millennia old. If you have permission, which usually requires some kind of academic credentials, and you pay the fee, a thousand rimmi an hour or the equivalent in any City-State currency, you can go in and research the books with the help of the enclave acolytes. Some of them are Idophyb clerics—they are quite good. I’ll warn you, there’s a requirement to wear an amulet around your neck that stops your heart if you try to cast a spell inside t
he building. They take preservation of those books seriously.”

  “A thousand rimmi an hour,” sputtered Grim, more shocked than Alan. “Damn, I’m in the wrong line of business.”

  Roel continued “There’s a dormitory with clean beds you are welcome to use, two to a room. if you’re staying longer, more private accommodations can be arranged, but they cost a modest sum. There’s also a meal room with free breakfast, lunch and dinner that you may attend during open hours. And, finally, if you have any other questions, I’m happy to answer them.”

  Grim said, “You’re not wearing powder blue. Why are you the official greeters?”

  “The enclave is financially self-sustaining, and part of that is through prudent spending practices. Visitors can reduce the cost of visiting by taking on the more mundane duties associated with the enclave’s upkeep. I am one such, here to use the library, minimizing costs through service.” Roel looked around. “Any other questions? No? Let’s go, then.”