Oracle's Fire

by Mary Victoria

  And with that thought, Wick found himself unable to sleep properly for the rest of the night. For now, he knew, he would have to fear for his life at the hands of Gowron.

  10

  Tymon followed the ghostly figure down the passage, his pain and doubt forgotten. He felt instinctively that the vision of Samiha was showing him the way out of the mine. He only desired one thing: to approach her, to see her, to speak with her again. A voice in his head warned him that that was more than one thing; in fact it was three. He ignored it. He hurried after his love, hoping against hope that she would wait for him.

  But she did not. No matter how quickly he stumbled along on the uneven floor of the tunnel, she was always too fast for him. Over and over again, he thought he had almost reached her, only to find that she had walked swiftly into the gloom ahead. At last her form dwindled to a white speck and winked out. He struggled on in the dark, stubborn, desperate, until a sound penetrated his dulled ears. Zero gasped from far behind that they needed to rest at some point, and that Dawn was awake, asking for him.

  It was hard for Tymon to delay the pursuit even for a short while, though he felt ashamed at having ignored the others’ needs in his haste. He reluctantly agreed to a halt, and felt his way back along the narrow passage, down the line of travellers, until he came to Dawn’s bier. He had to bend down close to hear her talk: her voice had grown extremely weak.

  ‘Is Ama with you?’ she whispered.

  Her words caused him to wonder gloomily how his teacher was faring. He could not offer Dawn the comfort of speaking with the Oracle, now.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I haven’t heard from her in a while.’

  ‘No matter.’ Dawn sighed. ‘I worry for you, mostly. Do you know where you are going, Syon?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ he answered. ‘We’re getting out of here, all of us. I had another vision.’

  ‘I believe,’ she murmured. ‘I believe you will take Saffid to safety. But I worry for you. Where are you going?’

  Tymon winced in the gloom, aware that the sick woman was fading fast; she was beginning to repeat herself, her faculties waning. She would not last much longer, it was clear. A dangerously sweet smell, the forerunner of decay, arose from her body.

  ‘We’re all going together,’ he replied gently. ‘We’re getting out, like I said.’

  ‘No,’ she insisted. ‘No, you cannot get out. You’re cold, too cold.’

  He said no more, but took her icy hands in his and chafed them, full of pity, until she slipped away again into sleep. Then he returned to the head of the procession, restlessly awaiting the moment of departure. After a while, he could bear it no longer and begged his companions to rise, to make one final effort. He had become obsessed with the notion that they must find a way out of the mine before evening, though he could not tell whether the sensation was due to the vision of Samiha or some other, separate intuition. He seemed to hear a call, pulling him onwards. The workers did not argue with him, but bestirred themselves at his insistence. Though tired, they were still willing to accept his judgment. He could not help speculating as to how long it would last — how many hours of weary stumbling would eventually cause their faith in their ‘Lord’ to falter.

  The by-way Samiha had taken was nothing like the tunnels Tymon had glimpsed at the start of their journey, lacking the smooth and serviceable layout of the passages at the core-mining level. This was an older tunnel by far, perhaps a natural, or semi-natural fissure in the Tree. The walls were rough and the floor given to sudden descents like oversized steps. The fugitives were obliged to creep forward at a snail’s pace to avoid colliding with each other in the pitch dark. The Saffid began to sing again, softly, as if to alert each other to the distance between them. Despite his earlier impatience, Tymon was grateful for his companions’ presence, especially since the vision of Samiha did not revisit him, leaving him forlorn in the darkness. His notion of time was reduced to the interval between the singers’ breaths. He had no way of knowing how long they had been walking, only that the breaths had become numberless.

  When the change came, he could hardly believe it, blinking as the gloom of the tunnel turned first to grey, then red. Only when the Saffid broke off their crooning song and called hoarsely to each other did he realise this was no further vision, but reality. The tunnel was coming to an end. The glowing reddish point of light remained static and docile as they approached, and the air was sweet against their faces. The passage widened, its roof opening out into a chimney, and the exit revealed a slit of glowing sky.

  The evening seemed as bright as a conflagration to the exhausted people emerging from the mine. An awed hush fell over the members of the group as they walked out of the tunnel; they found themselves standing on a broad ledge extending out of a wall of bark. They had reached the main trunk, after all. It was backwards-leaning and broken at this point, scored with innumerable shelves and outcroppings like wandering roads. Before them lay a vast well of cloud, possibly an arm of the Eastern Gap itself. Long ribbons of mist trailed in thin wisps up the trunk-face and between outflung limbs of the Tree, beneath which the travellers could dimly make out layers of increasing density and blankets of ever thicker cloud. They were barely fifty feet above the topmost layers of the Storm, and must have been facing southeast, for the sun was setting behind them and to the right, the sky a riot of crimson and purple.

  Tymon sank down to his knees on the ledge, the burst of energy that had sustained him thus far dissipating. Instead of the moment of triumph, of relief and gratitude he had expected to feel when they escaped the mine, he was utterly depleted and oddly discontented. The wide expanse of empty sky lay boundless before him, but he sensed himself to be imprisoned by that limitless horizon. He also felt dangerously exposed on the ledge, and shivered in the misty air. But the sensation that troubled him most, the thought he could not articulate to any of the others, was that by stepping out of the tunnels he had given up the chance of Seeing Samiha again. He felt instinctively that he was unlikely to witness the vision here, in the wide-open, outside world. He could not even fully admit to himself that he regretted leaving the mine for this reason — that he would have continued walking, stumbling through the darkness, just for the sake of that glimmering possibility ahead.

  ‘She’s gone, Lord,’ observed Zero, squatting down beside him on the ledge. ‘Dawn didn’t make it.’

  The words shook Tymon out of his reverie. In spite of his yearning for the vision, he knew where his current duty lay, felt keenly his responsibility to the Saffid. He glanced over his shoulder at the body of the woman on the bier. He did not weep over Dawn’s loss, for the moment: he was too tired, too anxious about where he would lead his charges in the trackless wilds of the canopy. The mineworkers did not loudly mourn their kinswoman, either, but sat beside her in silence, with their heads bowed. They had placed Dawn’s body outside the tunnel, a little ways along the ledge, as if to give the corpse one last taste of sunlight and fresh air before she faced her funeral rites and plunged below the clouds — down, down, down. Somehow, Samiha had survived that same fall, Tymon thought distractedly. And now she had appeared to him, saved him from the mine. What did it all mean?

  ‘She died happy,’ Zero declared, as Tymon stared dismally at the bier. The Marak lad was optimistic even in the face of oblivion. ‘Dawn always knew you’d get us out, Lord. Your spirits are powerful.’

  Tymon found nothing to say to this. His aches and pains had returned tenfold since leaving the tunnels, and he shifted his shoulders uncomfortably under his coat. ‘I suppose we ought to … I suppose we should find a place to camp …’ he mumbled, squinting at the ledge that wandered down the Tree-face.

  It looked navigable enough, eventually joining a projection as wide as a road in the trunk. But it was clear everyone needed a rest after their ordeals: they would travel no further that night.

  Just as he spoke to Zero, however, another sound caused them both to glance up — first at th
e jumbled, broken wall of the trunk behind them, then again at the blood-red clouds. It was a noise that caused Tymon’s pulse to quicken, a sound like the beating of a thousand hammers. His searching eyes spotted a black speck on the eastern horizon, gliding low over a rack of cloud. For an instant, he panicked. The dark shape conjured up the spectre of the Envoy’s birds. What if the accursed flock had returned to plague him, now that he was in the open air? How would he be able to combat them in his present state of exhaustion? But the din that accompanied the approaching speck was familiar, and most welcome. It was the chop of an air-chariot’s propellers.

  ‘What is it?’ breathed Zero, shrinking back against the trunk-face. ‘What bird makes a sound like that? Is it evil?’

  Tymon smiled at the Marak boy, his heart suddenly warmed. ‘The priests in Argos always said so,’ he replied. ‘But it’s only a sort of dirigible. These are my friends I told you about, who have created mechanical birds to help them travel fast.’

  There was indeed something bird-like about the machine flying towards them. This air-chariot, evidently one of those newly built in Farhang, was different from the others Tymon had known, equipped with rigid wings that extended from its body and a propeller mounted on its nose. The Nurians must have journeyed through the night in order to reach him at this vital juncture. The coincidence was not lost on Tymon: Noni would be with the rescue mission, he knew, tracking him through the Grafting. But as he squinted at the bulbously avian shape of the air-chariot, his dismay returned. There was only one machine, after all. Had Oren not been able to send more, as he had promised? He stared at the lone transport, speechless with disappointment.

  It was Zero who grasped the urgency of their predicament. ‘Come on, everyone!’ he called to the mineworkers, as they stood peering warily up at the noisy mechanical bird. ‘It’s the Freeholders! We have to signal them!’

  He was right, Tymon realised. If they did not draw the attention of those in the air-chariot, it might fly over and miss them in the failing light, despite all of Noni’s insights. Something in Zero’s voice, a note of giddy hope perhaps, roused the refugees to one final effort. They stood up and spread out in single file along the ledge, shouting and waving their arms at the machine. Some took off their dusty slaves’ tunics — a pale, pilgrim grey beneath the reddish wood dust — and flourished them in the air like ragged flags. There was a moment of anxiety as the air-chariot passed over, and disappeared above the leaf-forests. Then, the hammering grew louder and it reappeared, circling to the south. The fugitives cheered madly and waved their arms as the machine descended.

  It bounced to a halt on the road-like plateau about forty feet below them, at the very brink of the Storm. As the propellers slowed and stopped, two figures jumped out of the hatch to salute the escapees from the mine. Tymon recognised Noni as she unwound the long travel garment covering her from head to foot. His companions lost no time in slipping and stumbling down the upper ledge to the point where it joined the plateau; Tymon followed more slowly, unable to walk without Zero’s assistance. Behind him, the last two Saffid bore Dawn on her bier.

  Noni caught up with Tymon before he stepped off the ledge, embracing him tightly. He could not remain unhappy for long in the face of that reunion: he found himself overcome by a delayed rush of emotion, wanting to weep because of Dawn, and Nightside, and everything that had happened, and simultaneously overcome with relief. Noni’s gaze immediately took in his exhaustion, the blood seeping through the cloth of his tunic and the dead woman on the bier behind him. She relieved Zero of his duties, supporting Tymon as he hobbled towards the air-chariot. Her associate, a Farhang soldier Tymon did not know, was already distributing food and blankets to the rest of the party. The Freeholders had come well prepared.

  ‘Don’t worry that there’s only one machine, for now,’ Noni told Tymon as she helped him sit down just inside the air-chariot’s hatch. ‘We have three more scouting the surrounding area. I had a vision of your escape, but wasn’t sure exactly where you’d come out. The other pilots will find us over the next day or so. We should head north, towards the Spur of Sails — that’s the meeting point. I’m willing to bet this big ledge we’re on will take us right there. Anyone who’s wounded can travel on the Dev.’ She scrutinised him, worried. ‘Maybe you should,’ she suggested.

  Tymon nodded again, grateful that she had guessed his concerns and laid them to rest without him having to articulate a word. ‘It was a disaster back at the mine,’ he said. ‘We were the lucky ones. According to my friend Zero — the grinning fellow over there — we lost maybe five of the Cherk group in total. Dawn and Nightside among them. A few others joined us who aren’t Saffid. That’s all we were able to get out, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I think you’ve done tremendously.’ She was looking at him with frank admiration. ‘In my last Reading I Saw you battle the Envoy’s curses. We should have warned you better — we were distracted by other matters. You’ve done remarkably well, all the same.’

  ‘I did something else which you may not be so happy about.’ He took a deep breath; there was no way he could avoid telling Noni about his vision. ‘I Saw the Kion again, Noni, in the mine,’ he said. ‘She helped me. She led us all on the right path. Without her, we wouldn’t be here.’

  The Nurian girl’s smile faded. She did not respond immediately, but rose and busied herself about the air-chariot, fetching him a blanket and a spare packet of food.

  ‘I’m not going to pretend I’m happy about this,’ she answered at length, when she had wrapped the covering about his shoulders. ‘But you are here, it’s true. We’ll talk about how and why tomorrow. You should eat now, and get some sleep.’

  He pushed away the piece of cheese and flatbread she offered him. ‘You can’t just dismiss this, Noni,’ he objected. ‘It’s important. I think I understand, now. Samiha’s out there, somewhere, still alive. Why else would she communicate with me? It’s a Sending — it must be. She’s probably hurt, and calling out to me in a trance.’

  He spoke loudly, ignoring the people sitting on the bark close by, who glanced at him curiously.

  ‘Hush,’ murmured Noni. ‘It’s a Sending, yes. I promise we’ll go into this in more depth tomorrow. Please don’t mention the subject in public, Tymon. No one knows about the Kion but you and the Focals, and it should stay that way.’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ he said.

  But he allowed Noni to bully him into eating the bread and fruit, and accepted lying on a blanket on the floor of the air-chariot while she eased off the blood-encrusted tunic. She bit off a cry of outrage when she saw the wounds inflicted by the flogging, and the newer damage from his altercation with the mine-guards. For a long while, all she would utter was a venomous diatribe against tyrants and slavers from all Four Canopies, as she dressed his injuries with the familiar Nurian healing salve. When she had finished, she made Tymon sit up and wrapped him about the middle in a long bandage. At that point, he took the opportunity to broach the subject of Samiha again.

  ‘When I had that vision of the Kion, I felt that I could do anything,’ he said. ‘I forgot I was hurt.’ He fixed Noni with an earnest stare. ‘It was as though I were the one who had died and been brought to life again. I have to know what’s happened to her and why she’s trying to reach me. I have to, Noni.’

  She pushed him firmly down on the blanket, pulling another cover over him. ‘I understand,’ she answered carefully. ‘You love her.’ But her gaze was troubled as she bent over him.

  He could not long resist his fatigue, however hard he tried, and although he attempted to focus on Noni, her form grew blurred. ‘Samiha’s out there, somewhere,’ he whispered. ‘And I’m going to find her.’

  And with that, he promptly lost consciousness, slipping into a much-needed slumber.

  It was the dreamless sleep of healing, deep and complete. But just as he was beginning to resurface from the necessary oblivion, swimming towards the morning light like a tadpole in a Tree-pool, a brief visio
n came to him of the Oracle. He Saw his teacher as she had been in his Readings long ago, a mature woman dressed in robes of starry black. She was standing in a dark place, surrounded by a nimbus of light, and she was under attack: the shadows about her spawned monsters, clawed and feathered horrors that harried and raked her with their talons. Tymon was reminded not only of his own experiences with the Envoy’s curses but also of Jedda’s, glimpsed briefly in his last vision with the Focals. The shadows that attacked the Oracle were larger than the Envoy’s constructs, made of voluminous shadow rather than decaying matter, but just as vicious. They harassed the Oracle relentlessly, bursting out of the darkness to swoop down on her face. She fought them off with a beam of searing light she wielded in her right hand, cutting them down again and again, though there were always more. Her left hand she held behind her, as if she hid something from the creatures.

  The dream ended as Tymon blinked awake in his cocoon-like blankets. He had no doubt the vision was real and important, though there was something refractive about it, like a vista glimpsed through rain. He knew enough about the Sight now to realise that all visions were not equal. Some, especially those in his dreams, spoke to him obliquely, in symbols and metaphors. Not everything was as it seemed in the vision, though the basic fact that his teacher was under attack was in no doubt. He made up his mind to discuss the matter again with Noni, as soon as he arose.

  Despite the sense of urgency in the dream, however, he lay an instant cradled in the grateful warmth that follows deep slumber, unwilling to rise. The sun was already high in the sky and streamed through the air-chariot’s open hatch. Then a shudder passed through the floor of the machine, and the propellers began to thud.