Oracle's Fire

by Mary Victoria

  15

  The silence at the heart of the Tree was not complete, nor was it devoid of life. What seemed, at first glance, to be acres of dry bark and fathoms of dead wood, proved on closer inspection to be teeming with tiny communities: bugs and beetles, patient spiders and stalwart woodlice that scattered in panic at the approach of a torch. These busy denizens were of course the first signs of apocalypse — the secret, ticking clockwork of decay. The covert agents of destruction acted without any regard for the wars or ambitions of humanity, bringing to an inevitable close the millennia-long lifespan of the Tree. Woodworms had been chewing holes beneath the priests’ feet for centuries, and termites had colonised the dry sap-conduits, leaving heaps of red dust on the floors of the tunnels through which Tymon and Zero passed. Where the hollow shafts were more accessible to the outer strata of the Tree, moths had bored their way through the bark, laid their eggs in the walls and left generations of pupae to chew tiny channels into the wood grain. The sides of the dry sap-well with its evenly cut ramp were riddled with these reminders of mortality. Zero ran his left hand lightly over the wandering script of wormholes as he walked after Tymon, his fingers deciphering the language of endings.

  The busy work of deconstruction only grew more pronounced as they reached the end of the ramp, and entered the large hollow spaces at the base of the Tree. Before Zero’s last torch was consumed they were already travelling through a series of caverns opening one into another, a rotting honeycomb of wood. The walls in this labyrinth were moist and clammy, blooming with lichen and fungus, the air filled with the whispering echo of running water. When the final shred of torch-rope fizzled out in his hand, Zero blinked away the memory of flame to find that he could still see.

  Some of the fields of fungus produced a phosphorescent light as strong as the lodes of corewood in the upper passages, and he was able to pick his way over the spongy growth in pursuit of his companion. The ramp had disappeared, or was buried under the mounds of mildew; it had been colonised by crops of mushrooms that quivered on stalks like the twig-forests of the upper canopies. But if Zero ever doubted his path, he had only to glance up at Tymon. The young Argosian walked through the fungus forest and across the fields of bubbling decay as if they did not exist. He never once hesitated, though he stumbled with fatigue. His expression was set and distant, and he walked with his gaze trained on his invisible guide.

  Zero ached with concern as he watched his friend march on. Tymon seemed to slip farther from him with every hour they journeyed into the depths of the Tree: the Syon’s eyes were glazed over and heavy lidded, his skin glistening with sweat in the cool tunnels. He had spoken little to Zero after his comment about love, unable or unwilling to reply to his companion’s questions. But his lips moved in whispered answer to a voice Zero could not hear, and he would occasionally blurt out a word or phrase, laughing aloud. He walked fast for all his dazed state, unmindful of any danger in the dimly lit caverns. If he lost his footing on the slippery fungus and fell, scraping the skin of his palms on the wet bark, he simply rose again and carried on, as if he felt no pain. Zero was hard put to keep up with him.

  Still the Marak lad struggled on, clinging to a faint hope. Tymon’s madness was not complete; there were moments of lucidity, brief episodes during which he would behave normally for a few minutes, before lapsing into non-communication again. Even in his current state, he must not have entirely forgotten Zero, for after each long march he halted and waited for his companion to catch up. When Zero trudged wearily over to where he sat on his haunches, staring blankly ahead, Tymon registered his presence as though waking from a dream. He would jump up and ask Zero whether he was tired; he was very kind on these occasions, before the distant daze set in again. Once or twice he even humbly asked Zero’s forgiveness, berating himself for leaving his friend behind. But after a brief exchange, he usually sank into his thoughts once more and became oblivious, mumbling to himself in the green-tinged darkness.

  And so it carried on, hour after hour, day after day, until Zero despaired of ever seeing the light again, either at the end of the tunnel or in Tymon’s eyes. They had spent one full day descending the ramp in the sap-well, according to the Marak lad’s calculations, and two more traversing the lower caverns. On the fifth morning after leaving Noni and the mineworkers, they glimpsed a bright gleam in the darkness ahead, paler than any corewood or fungal phosphorescence. The glowing lichen had petered out by this time, and they were obliged to grope their way blindly towards the sliver of light, emerging at last onto a ledge about halfway up the wall of another massive cavern. This final hollow — a great, gutted hall of rot, hundreds of feet wide and high — culminated in an open archway, filled with filtered afternoon sunlight. The glow from the outside was as bright as noon to the travellers, though the mouth of the hollow was still about a quarter of a mile distant.

  Zero could not help wondering, as he stared at that radiance, if the Argosian priests had been right about Hell being at the foot of the Tree. He had grown intensely suspicious of Tymon’s invisible guide during their journey, convinced that the hungry ghost was leading them both to their death, which he now suspected would be a watery one. For fifteen yards below the ledge a black river flowed, the sum of countless rainwater channels running down and through the Tree to wash out again into the sunlit world. The mysterious ramp they had followed into the sap-well had reappeared, cut into the bark wall on their right. The path here was scored with fissures and blocked by debris, but Zero could see it led in a gentle slope all the way down to that infernal river. And as he scrambled after Tymon over lumps of fallen bark and yards of trailing moss, he became increasingly convinced that the spirit road was taking them where no mortal man could survive. But there was no way he could let his friend know they were on the wrong path.

  The denizens of the rotted Tree-hall turned out to be suitable guardians for a passage to Hell. Before long, the travellers’ progress disturbed a huge flock of bats nesting in the cavern ceiling. Even Tymon had to halt and press himself against the wall, as myriad black shapes rose in an outraged cloud to swoop by their ears; Zero flung his arms over his head in superstitious dread, though the bats deftly circumnavigated him, never once brushing his skin with their wings. Like the river, which was wider than any Zero had seen gushing through the canopies, the flock was gigantic. The whirring cloud seemed to take forever to pass. At last, the bats wheeled in a vast arc and streamed out of the hollow, shrieking faintly into Hell.

  ‘Better them than the Envoy’s curses, any day,’ remarked a quiet voice beside Zero, as the flock disappeared.

  Zero lowered his arms in surprise to see Tymon smiling tiredly at him. The Syon was exhausted, haggard-looking and streaked with dirt in the unforgiving daylight, but clearly himself again.

  ‘You’re better, Syon!’ exclaimed the Marak boy in relief.

  ‘I wasn’t sick.’ Tymon shrugged his pack off onto the ramp before opening up the bag. ‘But I’m incredibly hungry, for some reason. Let’s stop and rest, if you don’t mind.’

  Zero was delighted with the prospect and began to rummage inside his own pack for rations. Oh, if only this could last, he thought, glancing surreptitiously at his gaunt-faced friend. No food had passed Tymon’s lips for two days. Although their rations were low, perhaps only enough to last them another week, Zero was happy to see his friend consume two full packets from the stores. The Syon’s appetite had come to symbolise their shared survival.

  ‘Is the spirit gone?’ he enquired cautiously, as he sat down on the tumbledown ramp beside Tymon. He restricted himself to a bare minimum of food, grateful to see his companion still chewing.

  ‘Just for a while,’ mumbled Tymon through a dried-fruit roll. ‘The connection lasts longer down here than it did in the mine, but I suppose she’s as tired as we are. She’ll be back, never fear.’

  ‘It’s the coming back I fear,’ said Zero, grasping at this opportunity for communication. ‘When she’s with you, Syon, you don’t act
right.’

  Tymon peered at him in amused surprise. ‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘Of course it’s a bit odd, me talking to thin air and all. That’s to be expected.’

  ‘It’s more than that,’ insisted Zero. ‘You don’t eat — you don’t sleep. She uses up your evil. It’s very worrying.’

  Tymon stared at him a moment, then burst out laughing as he wiped the crumbs from his knees. ‘Why would I waste time sleeping all day, while we have a job to do?’ he said.

  ‘But you can’t go on like this,’ protested Zero. ‘It’ll kill you. She’ll kill you.’

  A shadow passed across Tymon’s face. ‘I’m surprised at you, Zero,’ he admonished. ‘Does it really kill you to go a few hours without a rest stop?’

  ‘A few hours?’ asked the Nurian, aghast. ‘Is that how long you think we’ve been travelling?’

  ‘A day and a night. Why? How long do you think it’s been?’

  ‘Five days, Syon. We’ve been walking for five days.’

  This response seemed to confound Tymon. He frowned, passing a hand across his eyes. ‘But we’re almost there,’ he muttered, more to himself than to Zero. ‘We’re close to the body now — she told me. It’s just outside. We can’t give up now.’

  ‘I thought she didn’t know where the body was,’ said Zero unhappily. ‘What’s outside, anyway?’ he added, desperate to hold on to this brief instant of lucidity. ‘Where are we going? Is it Hell?’

  But Tymon did not hear him, or did not want to hear him. To Zero’s dismay, he was already rising to his feet on the ramp, heaving up his backpack. ‘I can See her,’ he called over his shoulder, his eyes bright with excitement. ‘She’s waiting for us at the mouth of the cavern, where the ramp ends. I told you she’d be back soon.’

  ‘No!’ cried Zero. ‘Don’t follow, Syon!’

  It was too late. Tymon was running down the ramp, almost tripping over himself in his eagerness, as he waded through the mouldy bark and mossy debris. Zero picked up his own bag and trailed reluctantly after him down to the riverbank. By the time he caught up with his friend by the shallows, the Syon was lost to him once more, his lips moving silently and his face full of exultation as he greeted whoever, or whatever, it was he saw. He followed his guide without a second glance at Zero, striding into the vast empty spaces of Hell.

  ‘Long ago,’ said Samiha, ‘long ago, my love, we were one. There was no division between the Born and their creations, no line between Gods and men.’

  Tymon was aware that he must be hearing her in his mind, as he had the Oracle, although his recollection of what his teacher had told him when they were together had grown vague. Indeed, all his recent memories had grown peculiarly distant, as if the experiences might or might not have been his own. The events after Samiha’s execution — the battle with Wick and the journey on the South Road, his trials and triumphs in Chal, even the flogging at Hayman’s Point — had taken on the quality of a dream. He still saw the old scars on his body when he looked for them, a mute testament to the reality of pain, but they were disconnected from him, unimportant. Pain no longer existed in Samiha’s presence. He did not remember the brightness of the Sap filling him when he fought off the Envoy’s curses, or the sensation of the Oracle’s power when she spoke through him in the trance.

  Irresistibly exhilarating, the connection to Samiha had erased all else. Her presence left no room for doubt, personal recall, even a sense of responsibility. He shook off the thought of Zero dragging at his heels in order to concentrate wholly on his love. She was all he had and all he needed, he told himself, following her as loyally as the Tree-hounds had followed Lord Dayan. Even so, he was not entirely blind to the changes that had taken place since he first glimpsed Samiha in the mine.

  In the darkness of the tunnels, her figure had shone like a gentle, guiding light. Then, she had seemed unsure of where they were going, needing him as much as he needed her. Now all that had changed. Though still dear and familiar, her form had become tinged with a strange electric blue that was a little disconcerting, and she walked with single-minded purpose along the bark banks of the river flowing out of the hollow. This Samiha was all-knowing in a way that astounded him. She could read his thoughts and answer any question he cared to ask about the Born.

  ‘In ancient times,’ she was telling him, her blue form drifting lightly over the bark just a few steps ahead, ‘we Born did not seek to manipulate humans from the realm of the Sap. We stayed here with you, our children, in this universe, sharing in your everyday lives and loves.’

  They were walking through a bark gully, flanked on either side by sheer cliffs and surmounted by a strip of lowering, cloudy sky. They could see no more of their surroundings, apart from a rising hillock of grey bark ahead. It occurred to Tymon, dimly, that they had emerged beneath the Storm, but the astonishing fact of reaching the World Below was also swallowed up by Samiha’s all-engrossing presence. He registered that the Tree was not sheer at its base, but scored with gorges miles deep, a labyrinth of gnarled cliffs and bark buttresses. Its exposed roots rose dramatically in rift valleys near the trunk-wall, before dwindling into undulating hills and hummocks. Samiha led him on without hesitation through these winding gullies of bark. All the time, as she spoke and they walked, his heart leapt towards her, even as his body struggled to keep up with her light pace. He tried to banish the warning whisper of contrition in his mind, telling him that Zero was lagging further and further behind in this alien country.

  ‘We constructed a garden of delights for you,’ Samiha was saying. ‘A perfect society. War, disease and oppression were unknown. People died, of course, but after many centuries, and in peace. It was a paradise, the one true heaven, and it existed right here at the base of the Tree.’

  They had quit the banks of the cavern-river now, climbing out of the gully onto the slope of the bark hillock above. It was steep and, even before they had reached the halfway point, Tymon was breathing with difficulty. The air of the World Below felt heavier than in the canopies above, muggy and laden with moisture.

  ‘Were you there?’ he called to Samiha hoarsely, as she floated ahead. ‘I mean, here? You sound as if you knew it well …’

  ‘I was,’ Samiha answered, glancing back at him, ‘but in another form. The Born always return to this universe. It’s our workshop: long ago you called us Gods, because we built you. We built everything — the Tree and its flora and fauna, including humans. We made you to be our friends and companions.’

  Tymon felt a sudden stab of guilt at her words, as he stopped a moment to catch his breath. His own friend must be far in the rear by now. He turned and searched for Zero in the gully behind him, and after a few minutes of anxiety saw the Marak lad’s matted red head appearing around a corner by the riverbank. If only he would hurry up, Tymon thought impatiently. He ought to wait for the boy, he realised, but could not risk losing sight of Samiha. Her voice was growing fainter now, whipped away by the persistent wind. Turning his face uphill again, Tymon willed himself to press on. If Zero could not keep up, it was his problem.

  ‘The Born ruled in the old days, certainly,’ Samiha continued, as he struggled up the slope after her. ‘But we did so in the open, with justice and mercy. None of this fiddling around with prophecies, while supposedly endorsing free will. Humanity obeyed us out of love and we gave it unending bliss. The civilisation of the Old Ones was the brightest and best this world has ever known. And it was all here, in front of you.’

  Her last comment was accompanied by a dramatic gesture, as he rejoined her at the top of the hillock, breathless. Her arm swept in a wide arc, taking in the immensity before them.

  ‘Here?’ Tymon gasped at the scene before him. ‘Where …?’

  The view from the summit snatched the question from his lips, for the vast spaces opening up before his eyes were another world indeed. The trunk spread its skirts for miles around, surmounted by the rolling grey ceiling of the Storm. Beyond the last outflung roots lay a shimmering plain of
water, stretching to the horizon.

  The World Below was drowned in a gleaming deluge. The waters seemed to go on forever, a flat mirror beneath the cloud-cover, reflecting the Storm’s shadow. It reminded Tymon of the Veil, except that instead of being plunged in darkness the watery plain glinted in the hazy light of an overcast afternoon. The upside-down Storm covered all the points where the Tree was not, lapping right up against the foot of the hillock where they stood. Tymon’s heart beat wildly in his chest at the unexpected vastness of the world. The Tree was great, but the un-Tree was far greater. There was silence about them, the smell of loam and water on the wind; he suddenly felt very small.

  ‘How could such a civilisation disappear completely?’ he asked Samiha.

  ‘There was a war,’ she sighed. ‘A great conflict that levelled everything — all the cities, all the beauty. It’s something I regret, especially now that I have almost died myself, and had a chance to think things through. But the old world didn’t completely disappear. Not if you know where to look.’

  She pointed to his right, drawing his attention to an area near the base of one of the outflung roots. He saw that the watery plain beside it was not continuous after all, but broken in the distance by curious mounds and protuberances. He assumed this archipelago of grey atolls was more of the Tree’s exposed root system.

  ‘There lies one of the old cities, or what’s left of it,’ Samiha continued. ‘I shall not speak its name, for it grieves me to remember what once was. Even so, that is where we are bound.’ And with these words, growing faint as she turned from him, she proceeded down the side of the bark escarpment towards the waters. Tymon stared after her departing form with its nimbus of blue.

  ‘Wait!’ he cried. ‘How do we get over the water?’

  ‘We’ll walk,’ she said, as if this were self-evident. He was suddenly conscious that she had no shadow, walking down the bare bark in the hazy sunshine.