Oracle

by David Dickie

  The fury slowly faded. Grim breathed deeply, once, twice, willed his body to relax. When he had a handle on his emotions, he gave Brandin a short nod. “Nice. You’ve bought into this vision thing, that I am protected by Kydaos for a reason, that I’m supposed to go save the world or something. You’re trying to use Aurora as a cattle prod to make me jump in that direction. A little too blatant, I’m afraid. And I’m not a hero. You can count me out of any world-saving events unless it involves a lot of cash and very little risk.” Grim wondered how many times he’d have to say that before people finally got it.

  Stegar looked confused, Daesal looked sad, and Brandin looked thoughtful. “Almost right.” He sat back. “Yes, the Kydaos clergy also told me something along those lines, but I’m not trying to make you do anything other than be true to yourself. You see yourself as someone weak, corrupted, someone lower than other men. My impression is quite the opposite, and it would seem the gods think so as well. I am not trying to push you in any direction, because I feel confident you will do the right thing.”

  Grim glanced between Brandin and Daesal and wondered. But if Brandin had any of Daesal’s unique gifts for reading people, Daesal was keeping mum about it, and Grim wasn’t going to bring up her capabilities in front of Brandin. “You figured all that out from all the time we’ve spent chumming around, have you? The entire fifteen minutes of it?”

  Brandin shrugged. “I have had many, many years of learning how to read people, how to judge the character of individuals and groups. We all have our skills, our callings, and that is mine.”

  “Well, this time, you’re…” and Grim stopped. He closed his eyes. Took two more deep breaths. He opened his eyes again and said calmly, “Sorry. I’m being a terrible guest, and I am grateful for everything you’ve done. I will repay you when I can.”

  Brandin shrugged. “No need. Helping others is what we are here for.”

  Grim nodded. “So the legatee, your heir apparent, told me.”

  Brandin again had that small start, that flash of almost panic he’d shown back when Grim had asked him about Pellen Barso. He stared sharply at Grim. “When did you meet the legatee?”

  Grim said, “Wandering around. We only spoke for a few minutes.”

  Brandin nodded, but he didn’t seem relaxed or stoic any longer. He stood abruptly. “My apologies, there is much to be done to repair the damages from yesterday’s attack. Please take your time, and I hope we will be able to spend more time together later.” He turned and left the room. Daesal watched him go, frowning.

  “A strange man,” she said.

  Grim said, “In what way? Is he lying to us?”

  Daesal shook her head. “No, not at all. He seems sincere in everything he says. But he smells… strange. Old. Many… many conflicting scents. Like a room full of people instead of one.”

  That brought Grim up short. “Is he human?”

  “Yes, completely. Just…” and Daesal shook her head. “I don’t know. He is sincere in his beliefs and his desire to help. He was trying to help you.”

  Grim looked at the door Brandin had left through. “Maybe, but I don’t trust him.”

  Stegar said with a smile, “I thought you didn’t trust anyone.”

  Grim nodded. “True, but some I don’t trust more than others. Fayyaad, he’s at the top of that list. Time for a visit.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  There was an acolyte outside the door of the room Fayyaad was in. She bowed when Grim, Daesal, and Stegar arrived.

  “How is he?” asked Grim.

  The acolyte shook their head. “He remains suicidal and is restrained. He will not eat, drink, or speak, although he shouts angrily and incoherently at times. We are holding him here until the infirmary has space for him.”

  Grim considered a moment. He needed to question Fayyaad, and it might require techniques that he doubted the acolyte would approve of. He could let the acolyte know Fayyaad had betrayed the enclave, was working with the ohulhug, but he wasn’t sure they would believe him or agree with his methods if they did. It would be easier to leave that topic for another time.

  Grim said, “I know him. We’ve been travelling together. I think I might be able to help. Let me talk to him alone.” He turned to Daesal and Stegar. “Why don’t you wait here? Fayyaad might be more open if it’s just me.”

  The acolyte opened the door and escorted Grim in. Fayyaad was tied to a chair, arms bound by thick straps made from people’s belts, legs wrapped to the chair legs in sheets that had been wrapped around and around until you couldn’t distinguish between his legs and the chair’s. His skin looked gray, his eyes dull. Grim had seen it before, shadow guild members at the bottom of their arc, with no way to climb back out of the pit. No hope, no future, no interest in living.

  Grim waved to the acolyte to leave. This room was in one of the auxiliary buildings off the library, a building that was intended to store the myriad things the enclave needed, from wheelbarrows to food. This room was used to store lumber, with planks and poles and beams in various sizes in neat stacks. Some had been pushed to the side to create enough space for Fayyaad.

  The acolyte shut the door.

  Fayyaad’s dull eyes slowly tracked to Grim, but Fayyaad didn’t speak.

  “Thanks for trying to keep the ohulhug from killing me,” said Grim. Fayyaad just stared through him. “Of course, that’s counterbalanced by sending those first two after me.” Fayyaad didn’t respond. “Talk to me, Fayyaad. Tell me why you’re working with the ohulhug. Maybe I can help.” Nothing. Grim was silent a moment. He needed answers, and he needed them quickly. There wasn’t much of a chance of saving Rotan, but if there was, it was dwindling by the second. Finally, Grim walked over and said, “I can give you what you want.”

  There was a spark of interest in Fayyaad’s eyes. Grim pulled out a dagger and jammed it into the wood of the chair’s arm point first. It stuck where Fayyaad could push the leather belts around one of his arms against it. It would take a while, but he’d be able to saw through the belt, and with the dagger in one free hand, the rest would follow quickly.

  “Freedom. Or death. Either work for me. You just need to talk to me.” The spark of interested guttered and died. Grim was on the wrong track, but that spark meant there was a right one. Grim just had to find it.

  Grim pulled the dagger out and put it back in his cloak. “What is it you want, Fayyaad? To get us captured by the ohulhug, I see that, but why? They have someone you care about?” Grim was going to poke at the hostage concept a bit more, but an inner voice was telling him no. Fayyaad wasn’t the type to care enough for anyone else to risk his skin the way he had. Grim looked a little closer, saw beads of sweat dripping down Fayyaad’s face from his scalp. It wasn’t that hot in the room. Grim stepped back. Fayyaad looked sick more than anything else. Diseased, or… suffering withdrawal symptoms. Grim felt a jolt of excitement. During the fight, Fayyaad had mentioned a name to the two ohulhug that had attacked Grim and killed Aurora. An ohulhug name. Grim searched his memory, which served it up. Dulaguk.

  Dulaguk had organized these attacks, had to be the one that commanded the black ship. And he had Fayyaad in his pocket. Not because of a hostage, but he had something Fayyaad wanted desperately. He didn’t know what it was, but maybe he could get Fayyaad to reveal it.

  Grim said, “I know what Dulaguk has, you know. I can get it for you.”

  Fayyaad’s head shot up and his eyes focused. “You can?”

  Grim shrugged. “I’m a thief. It’s what I do. You tell me where Dulaguk is, I’ll get it for you.” If only Grim knew what it was. Drugs seemed like the best bet, but what drug could the ohulhug have that Fayyaad couldn’t find easier on the streets of a Pranan City-State?

  Fayyaad was panting like he’d run a mile. “Off the black ship? You’d get a sword off the black ship? You can do that?”

  A sword? Fayyaad was addicted… to a sword? A switch flicked in Grim’s head. What kind of sword acted like a drug, became
impossible for the user to be apart from it, bent someone so badly they would sell their own soul to possess it? “I can do it. I have the money from Rotan. I can buy what I’d need to do the job. And I have this.” Grim pulled out the amulet from under his shirt.

  Fayyaad looked at it in confusion. “What is that?”

  “It’s a gate-forged soul artifact,” said Grim.

  Fayyaad’s eyes went wide. “Then you know, the call. Oracle, I can still feel her in my hand, I can still feel her in my mind.”

  Grim was still for a moment. Oracle was one of the human Great Swords that had been destroyed in the explosion that ended the first empire, a brother, or sister, to Morpangler.

  “I know the call,” said Grim. “How did you come to hold Oracle?”

  Fayyaad strained at the straps holding him to the chair. “Let me touch it, please, let me hold it. It’s been so long. So long. Dulaguk promised me I could touch her again if I helped him.”

  Grim nodded. “You answer my questions, I will let you touch the amulet.” Fayyaad nodded quickly, eyes glued to the amulet. “How did you come to hold Oracle?”

  “I was a Commander on Kuseme’s Spear, the first Kethem Frigate taken by the black ship. Dulaguk, he needs humans. Oracle uses people up, uses them up fast, in a week, in a few days. She works better with humans than low ohulhug, and the high ohulhug won’t touch her for fear of dying. Dulaguk made do until he built the black ship. With that, he took merchants and warships alike, and he used the humans he captured.”

  “Used you to feed Oracle?”

  “Used us to use Oracle, to let her do what she was created to do.”

  “I thought all the Great Swords had these awesome abilities to protect the bearer. Why didn’t you just turn on him when you held it… her?”

  Fayyaad grimaced. “It’s locked, in a frame of steel. You can’t get her out, and she may protect you from spells, but she doesn’t protect you from getting your face smashed in. All you can do is wrap your hand around the hilt.”

  Grim said, “And what power does Oracle have? Future-telling?”

  Fayyaad was laughing and weeping at the same time. “She can cross dimensions, universes, pull things out of people’s heads on the other side and make them yours. When you hold her, you’re… you’re a god, you know what it feels like to have power beyond imagining.”

  Grim was trying to follow Fayyaad, but the dots weren’t connecting. Grim decided to try a different tack. “Why did Dulaguk want Rotan so badly?”

  Fayyaad said, “The military knew the black ship had taken merchants, that’s why we were out there. The meeting with Rotan and the Pranan City-States took a while to set up. Originally he was going to travel with us. I think that changed when we were captured. But I knew a little about it. And Oracle… Oracle likes what is happening, likes that the ohulhug will have what they need to decimate the humans, the elves, the trolls. Or maybe she just wants to see the fighting. I don’t know, but she made me tell him. So Dulaguk set me to find Rotan and to help him capture the man so he could find out everything. If I did that, I could hold her again.”

  “And die in a week,” said Grim.

  “You know it’s worth it. You know there’s nothing like touching her. The rest of my life will be empty, meaningless. I don’t want it anymore. Not without her. I could hang on if there was a chance to join with her again. Now I have… nothing.” And Fayyaad began to weep quietly.

  Grim shook his head. “Buck up. We’ll get her back. Why was Dulaguk so worried about this agreement? He has the black ship already. What good are Pranan ground troops going to do against that?”

  Fayyaad sniffled a bit and said, “The black ship is a prototype, an early version. These devices, they can be much more powerful, much more accurate, unstoppable. Kill a man at a mile. Kill dozens of men in one strike. I’ve seen things that can kill cities from thousands of miles away, things that ride tails of fire into the sky and rain destruction down from above. Dulaguk is building his next ship. The black ship is powerful. The next one will be unstoppable. He cannot allow the shipyard to be destroyed before the new ship is built and seaworthy.”

  Grim was reeling at this point. “No. There’s no spell that can do that. Not even a god power that can do that. What magic the black ship has is different, but conceivable. What you are talking about is impossible.”

  Fayyaad laughed. “You don’t know, not the half of it. The black ship doesn’t use magic. Everything it does is with mechanical devices, things with no mana at all. That’s why it’s so unstoppable. No battle mages, no mana limitations, no spell shields, no protection. You don’t need to be smart to use it. You point these things in the right direction, they do the rest.”

  Fayyaad was talking crazy, but he didn’t seem crazy. Other than the wish to hold something that would kill him in a few days. Grim was trying to wrap his head around it. The fire tubes on the black ship, they hadn’t looked magical. They hadn’t looked like anything he’d seen before. A new thought intruded. “What was the small ship that attacked this place?” he asked.

  Fayyaad said, “It’s a boat with something called a steam engine. It’s a… there’s no term for it here, it’s called a scale model, a smaller version of what is going to be built next. Dulaguk builds his next ship, it’s going to have larger versions of those engines. I knew exactly how to make them, how they worked, when I held Oracle. Now, it’s fuzzy. But it will come clear again, and this… technology, it builds on itself. You build a tool to build a better tool, and that makes a better tool still. The next ship will be metal, with steam engines, auto-cannons, the crew armed with small arms that can kill at a range a hundred times what you can do with a spell. Nothing on the seas will be able to touch it, not even the elves.”

  Grim thought for a moment. “From what people said about the battle at the docks, the steam boat wasn’t that big. Can it navigate the sea as well as the river?”

  Fayyaad shook his head. “Yes, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that they are going to run out of coal. They’ll run out of water before then, but they can refill that at the Nyquet docks. But no one is mining coal except for Dulaguk, so they have to get back to the black ship or they will run out of steam.”

  Grim frowned. “What’s coal?”

  Fayyaad said “A mineral that can burn, burn hot. It’s used to boil the water, produce the steam, you see?”

  Grim didn’t see at all, but it didn’t matter. “So where are they going?”

  “The black ship. It will be carrying coal for them, get them back to the shipyard. The Black ship must be somewhere near the mouth of the river. That’s about as far as they can go.”

  Grim nodded thoughtfully. “Good. Good. There’s a chance, then. And you’re sure Oracle is on the black ship?”

  Fayyaad nodded. ”Dulaguk… the high ohulhug barely trust members of their own family, actively distrust members of their own clan, and outright hate other clans. Dulaguk has some of his own clan at the shipyard, but even there he has not shared much knowledge with them. The secrets from Oracle are kept on the black ship and will be until Dulaguk returns with enough notes from captured humans holding her that he can start on the next generation of his armada.”

  “Good enough,” said Grim.

  “I told you what you want to know. Let me touch the amulet. Please,” said Fayyaad.

  Grim said, “About that. Not exactly the same kind of soul artifact as Oracle. I don’t think you’d be happy even if I did let you touch it. But you tell me where Oracle is on the black ship, tell me about the lock on this steel frame, and we’ll see if we can put the real thing in your hands.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Grim was sitting with Daesal and Stegar. Daesal was shaking her head. “Morpangler, now Oracle. How many of the swords survived?”

  Stegar was deep in thought. He said, “If what Fayyaad said is true, it could be a game changer. The ohulhug almost overran humans once. If they have this capability, nothing will stop them this t
ime.”

  Grim was thinking along slightly different lines. “Why now? Morpangler, I get. Trapped in an alternate universe by the great trolls. But if Oracle has been around all this time, why is this the first time the ohulhug are using it? Why didn’t they have this… technology stuff, back during the first war?”

  Daesal shook her head. “I do not know, but they have it now. I think we need to inform the Kethem Military about this. They will be able to find someone beside this negotiator, Rotan, who can deal with the Pranan City-States. With this news, the City-States will be falling over one another to lend support. The cuts from the ohulhug-human wars run deep in this land.”

  Grim replied, “No. For one thing, it will take time, and if Dulaguk is willing to go to these lengths to delay things, he must be close to having the information from Oracle he needs to build the new metal ship. That, and the root cause of this mess is Oracle. Even if Kethem takes the shipyard, the black ship will be out there. Dulaguk is a high ohulhug, which means he’s merciless but not stupid. He’ll go to ground until he can rebuild someplace else. We eliminate Oracle, then all he has is one badass ship, but it’s not so badass it can’t be destroyed.