Oracle's Fire

by Mary Victoria

  The word was like a physical blow to Noni, knocking all joy out of her. Even the triumph of retrieving the Kion’s testament drained away. To be truly Eaten was no glorious martyr’s fate, as the priests in Argos liked to claim. The victim lost his mind, driven mad by the parasitic attacks of the rogue Born. The worst of it, thought Noni grimly, was her own lack of surprise at the conclusion. Now that Oren had articulated the idea, she realised she had half-suspected it herself. She had dreaded that Tymon was being lured into the tunnels by a creature more deadly than the Envoy himself, and tried to forget that the possibility existed.

  ‘There was a moment, talking to him, when I think I guessed it …’ Her admission trailed off miserably before she started again. ‘He described how he felt with this — Samiha. It seemed odd. I didn’t let myself think. I hoped for the best.’

  ‘You couldn’t have known for sure,’ Oren told her.

  But Noni felt she might have known, should have known, had known, if she had only listened to her own instincts. She was devastated by her wilful blindness, berating herself bitterly for it.

  ‘So, what do we do?’ she asked in a small voice, as they caught up with the straggling line of evacuees.

  ‘What we said we’d do,’ said Oren. ‘Take care of the others, then go after him. But we won’t find him when we get there. We’ll find a raving shell.’

  Noni walked in wordless misery after that, not even managing to greet their companions when they rejoined the line. Ara and Mata immediately picked up on their fellow Grafters’ mood, growing subdued when Oren and Noni arrived; they reacted to Oren’s whispered report of the conversation with Galliano, and his fears for Tymon, with deep distress. The journey went on in dismal silence. They covered a little over five miles that day with the slow-moving train, winding up and down branches and through the twig-thickets east of the Freehold to reach their camp site for the night. The judges had decided to use a clump of thick, serried twigs as a hideout, a cave-like enclosure formed where the tops of several branches met and intermingled. If the Argosians wished to find them there, they would have to come on foot and in single file, picking their way between the close-growing shafts.

  The refugees set up camp in a sloping clearing, hardly more than a wider path or furrow between the twigs. No one spoke much, everyone feeling either tired or downhearted. Noni carried out the mechanical tasks of unpacking canvas and hammocks in an anxious daze. But even in her preoccupied state, it occurred to her to wonder, after a while, why the Farhang Freeholders were bothering to establish two separate sleeping areas in the clearing. There was the main one in the highest and widest part of the furrow, where it ought to be, but also another at the far end, where the growth underfoot was rough and uncomfortable. It doubled the work of building shelters and created a very inferior second camp. At last, she took her courage in hand and questioned Adhama Sing, the pillar of grey strength who had led the evacuation, as to the reason for the choice.

  ‘Separate sleep for cursed ones,’ replied Adhama in her clipped, guttural Nurian. She indicated the Saffid sitting in a quiet knot on the far side of the clearing with a flip of her fingers. ‘Don’t want ’em infecting others. Feel sorry for ’em and all, but won’t have ’em round babies.’

  ‘But they’re not infectious,’ protested Noni, taken aback. ‘Everyone knows that. It’s not really the Slow Death — it affects them, and no one else.’

  ‘Decided while walking,’ declared the woman, fixing her with eyes as flat and grey as the folds of her cloak. ‘Whiteskins are sick. Told ’em already. Everyone’s choice: fine with you.’

  ‘No, it’s not fine with me,’ said Noni, growing hot in the face. ‘I never made that choice. I don’t think it’s right to make the Saffid feel unwelcome, for no reason. They’ve come a long way looking for a better life.’

  ‘Everyone’s choice,’ repeated Adhama, slowly and clearly, as if to a child. ‘Fine with you.’

  It would have to be fine with her whether she liked it or not, Noni realised, staring in consternation as Adhama gave her a curt nod, and moved away to oversee the cooking area. This decision was doubtless what most of the northerners, perhaps even the people of Sheb wanted. They had accepted her and Oren without question, but drew the line at the Saffid. Maybe that was also what was meant by the ‘fine with you’: Adhama was telling Noni, in a veiled threat, that she must toe the line, or face being labelled a pariah, too.

  It was all too much for the Grafter girl, after a day of self-recrimination over Tymon. She stamped off to the corner of the main camp where the Focals were hanging their hammocks between twigs, and picked up her own pack, red-faced and trembling. The others gazed after her in surprise as she turned and marched without a word to the narrow and uncomfortable corner where the Saffid had gathered. Placing her belongings by theirs, she sat pointedly down beside them.

  14

  ‘Open the keg, you scum!’ roared a voice on the deck above Bolas, thickened by Treesap wine.

  Bolas recognised it immediately. He also recognised his corporal’s stamping tread on the deck-boards. A tremendous thump sent a plume of wood-dust down to settle on his head as he crouched miserably on the floor of the hold, sharpening hardwood spears in the dirigible’s barracks. His fellow soldiers were all above deck, enjoying their night off in Marak before embarking on the journey north the next day, and the real start of the crusade. He had been singled out by his corporal to remain below, given a heap of spears to polish while his fellows celebrated under the stars. The weather continued to oblige them, remaining as cold and dry as on their journey through the Upper Fringes, and later across the Gap. It seemed the Tree had blessed the Saint’s war, keeping its winter storms at bay while the fleet gathered in Marak. The soldiers were warming themselves with wine, egged on by their superior officer.

  The corporal did not think much of Bolas. The young architect did not, according to his bellowing superior, sing patriotic ballads with sufficient fervour, which is why he had been left out of the party. Everyone else was anticipating the upcoming battle with sickening enthusiasm. All the other youths like himself, who had been confined to the ship on the journey from Argos city, were now permitted to drink their fill to make up for not receiving passes to the town. They were due to set sail for their first Freehold target tomorrow morning. But for now, the Argosian soldiers were singing their hearts out, thumping their boots off, as well as drinking a great deal, with all the consequences that entailed. The first cask of Treesap wine must have been drained already, if the corporal was braying for a second to be opened.

  As far as Bolas was concerned, there was little reason to celebrate the prospect of wiping out the ‘Nurry problem’. Since Admiral Greenly could not subdue every last louse with his newfangled blast-cannons, that singular pleasure had been reserved for the young soldiers. They would erupt from the dirigible in three days’ time, at a signal from the corporal, and crush everything that moved in the woodwork. They were under strict orders to give no quarter when they attacked the Freehold. This time, there would be no prisoners taken or exchanged by the Argosian infantry, no opportunity for the damn Nurries and their traitor allies to pull any tricks. The surrounding canopy would be wiped clean of survivors — man, woman or child — and Farhang pummelled to ash.

  Bolas anticipated the coming battle with the numb patience of a creature snatched up by a bird of prey, unable to avoid his fate. He sighed as another loud thump on deck shed dust all over him, and spat half-heartedly on the point of the lance he was polishing. The name of the Freehold target was not lost on him. He remembered the honest face of the Nurian scout named Pallas, and the tale Tymon had told of his adopted home. He thought of the people who had helped his old friend, and how they were no better or worse than his own people. All those lives, doomed in advance by the sharpened spearheads in his lap, the pile of gleaming crossbow bolts by his side. He was in half a mind to blunt the blades, except he knew that would merely increase the suffering of those struck down. The
rough whetting tool made of pulped fibre rubbed his palms raw as he worked in rhythm to the thump of feet and the roar of the merrymakers overhead.

  ‘Come on, open it up!’ bellowed the corporal, to the sound of general laughter.

  The barracks where Bolas was confined for the night were a long, low-ceilinged room at the aft of the dirigible, equipped with hammocks and little else. The windows, he had already ascertained, were too small to fit through, even if he had had the heart to dream of escape. The only glimpse of Marak city afforded by the portholes was the far right-hand corner of the ruined Governor’s palace, brooding over the town. He inspected the shining blade in his lap, considering that falcons, despite their cruel and sharp talons, were as helpless as the creatures they preyed on. He was as bound to his fate as the innocent people he would be required to kill. Except that the greater disaster was theirs.

  There was naturally no one to confide his woes to on the crusader ship. Overhead, his comrades-in-arms had begun to sing again: the Four Canopies would bloom, they chanted, watered by the blood of martyrs. The Lawgiver’s rule would bring eternal peace, but first his faithful servants must wipe their enemies from the face of the Tree. The Nurians, bastard spawn of wayward tribes and demons from the Storm, had had their chance at repentance, and would now be obliterated. Praise be the Tree, sang the soldiers in the barracks ship, for any man who died in this holy struggle would go straight to Paradise, to be waited on by the willing maids of Heaven. The fact that the soldiers were more like boys than men themselves, and that most had never touched a maid of any sort, heavenly or not, seemed only to fuel their eagerness. They had been drilled by their roaring corporal to anticipate death, primed for the inevitable day when they would be disgorged from the ship with the name of the Saint on their lips.

  Bolas listened to the carousing of his drunken comrades, a hundred desperate resolutions forming in his mind. He would desert at the first opportunity, he thought, setting the gnarled fibre to the spear’s edge and wincing as it seared his skin yet again. He would raise his bow, he decided, but not fire. He would fire high. He would fire low. When he finally wondered, with a sore heart as well as bleeding hands, whether he should kill himself rather than harm Tymon’s friends, he was honest enough to discount that option quickly. He did not want to die by any means. He wanted to live, and hold Nell in his arms once more.

  ‘Why can’t you open the damn thing?’ belched the corporal from up above. ‘It’s only a cask of Treesap, not a bloody virgin! Come on!’

  Bolas shuddered as he finished sharpening the blade. He must be a terrible person, he told himself, to have ended up in this situation. He must be paying the price for going to the Green Rites, for allowing an innocent man to be put to death without lifting a finger to help. For it was the events of that terrible day, less than a year ago, which haunted him now, on the eve of war. And to think he had been so eager to participate! The solemn rite he had been led to expect had turned out to be a travesty. He knew, now, that the Rites were for appearance only, for the crowd on the quays. Once they were inside, the Divine Mouth had proved to be a disappointingly shallow cavern, the black crack at its heart deep enough for murder, but not Sacrifice. There had been no willing surrender at the last — only hesitation, a dawning doubt on the part of the poor, befuddled pilgrim. The Nurian had been as confused as those burping fools on the deck tonight, prepared for glory and martyrdom on the morrow.

  The priests had not waited for the pilgrim to change his mind. Bolas had seen the brutal deed with his own eyes. At a word from the Dean, a guard had stepped up and stabbed the Nurian in the back as he teetered at the edge of the hole, pushing the man into the shaft without further ceremony. Standing nearby with the other stunned Green Year students, Bolas had turned aside from the abrupt execution, doubled over with nausea. When he vomited on the floor of the Tree-cave, a probable blasphemy, no one had bothered to make him clean it up. For most of those present at the Rites, the horror they had witnessed simply brought them closer together, reminding them of a shared responsibility. But for Bolas, it had been a wake-up call. Never again, he had sworn to himself, kneeling on the soiled bark. Never again would he allow the priests to dupe him.

  And yet here he was, obliged to serve the murderers once more. No amount of swearing on his part could save him now. None of his oaths would stand between him and the coming crusade.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, you damned fools, get out of the way and give me that crowbar!’ roared the corporal. ‘I’ll show you how to deal with this!’

  What happened next was hard for Bolas to remember. He sensed, rather than saw, a blinding flash as he was thrown backwards by a tremendous force, and dashed against the side of the hold. The flash was followed by red-tinged darkness and searing pain, mixed with the hot, scorched smell of cooked flesh. He sat where he had been thrown with the memory of bright light dancing in his eyes, unable to move his legs, pinned by some heavy object to the floor. It was a long while before the pain caused him to pass out, and forgiving blackness enveloped him.

  The wine cask, he learned later, had been tampered with by Nurian rebels, filled with blast-poison as part of a ploy to undermine the Saint’s success. It had exploded, killing most of the ship’s company and leaving a hole twenty feet wide in the hull. Bolas escaped with his life, but sustained injuries to both his legs, crushed by a beam from the collapsing ceiling. But in his fevered recollections, it was the head of the corporal that fell on top of him, pinning him down. It lay in his lap for a considerable length of time, staring up at him with bloodshot eyes, still roaring and braying out orders to kill those Nurries, damn them, kill, kill, kill.

  The Envoy sat in silence in his garret room at the seminary, feeling the College humming with energy beneath him, purring with accumulated power. He was at the hub of the world and the centre of the web: all the Saint’s busy plots and plans, the sticky strands of domination, poured forth from here to capture their unwary prey. That day, Fallow had received encouraging reports from spies in Lantria maintaining that the southern offensive was a success, their enemies in retreat. There were, moreover, rumours of the destruction of a Tree-mine key to the war effort, apparently in a natural disaster. Lace was unsurprised, having long foreseen the structural weakness of the South Canopy. The Tree, it seemed, smiled on the Saint’s endeavours, to the extent of self-destruction. Tomorrow, the offensive against the Nurian Freeholds would finally begin. The orah-clock predicted success after success, a string of military triumphs.

  Lace, however, sat brooding on his narrow bed, as if all these evidences of manifest destiny were not enough for him. He did not doubt the outcome of the Saint’s crusade, heralding a spate of victories that would bring the Four Canopies under the Lawgiver’s sway. But something else troubled him, pricking at the back of his mind even as he prepared himself to play his own part in that grand offensive. His Masters had been silent for days. They had not yanked on his leash since he sent the acolytes on their mission, refraining from calling him to the Veil for further reports, though he had information that might influence their plans in the World Below. Wick and Gowron, as he had observed to his annoyance in his last session with the orah-clock, had picked up an additional passenger, one they should by rights have left behind.

  It was not that the girl, Jedda, could prevent the Oracle’s death. The SAP-measure was clear about that. Her presence would only exacerbate the existing rivalry between the Envoy’s two acolytes, a rivalry inevitably resulting in the death of the weaker one. This was all as it should be, if he might indulge in the phrase. But Jedda meant something else to Lace, something he was loath to admit even to himself. She reminded him starkly of his own failure. She had resisted him to the last, ridding herself of the addictive orah and escaping the curses he sent after her. Her strength of mind was galling. He doubted she could stymie his plans alone and unaided, but would have liked to report her presence all the same. And yet his Masters had given him strict instructions, at the end of their last int
erview, not to return until he was called. They had informed him that they would be engaged in delicate work over the next few days, work that required all their powers of concentration. They did not wish to be disturbed. He had been told that they had no time left for his whining; they had kicked him away like a begging cur.

  He snorted softly to himself in derision, lying down on the mattress. So be it. His Masters could take care of themselves. He would win the Saint’s little war for him, dust up the Freeholds and keep an eye on his errant acolytes, when and where he could. He had already taken leave of his seminary colleagues, ostensibly to depart at dawn on one of his private retreats; it would take a fair amount of time, a week perhaps, to ensure the smooth operation of the Saint’s will beyond the coercive sphere of the orah-clock. And then he would be free to make the World Key his.

  On this occasion, Eblas did not quit his false body to enter the Veil. He allowed the construct of Father Lace to lose cohesion, sighing apart on the bed so that he could channel the few molecules of real matter it contained to other uses. The sands of him melted and dispersed into separate clumps, a seething heap that spawned new forms like heavy smoke, spilling and tumbling off the mattress onto the floor. The smaller constructs were vaguely bird-or bat-shaped, but wispy and tenuous, lacking the physical presence of the curses produced by Wick. They rose up in a ghostly, flapping swarm and flew out of the open window of the room, darkening the moonlight outside by their passage. If any of the Fathers had glanced out of the College windows at that moment, they would have assumed a flock of bats had been disturbed from their roosts behind the seminary bell tower, flying eastwards into the canopy.

  The swarm wheeled over Argos city then streamed away, rising in a grey cloud up the face of the trunk. They were speedy and tireless, fearing neither cold nor hunger. In this shape, he knew, the Envoy would be able to reach the Eastern Canopy within days.