Oracle's Fire

by Mary Victoria

  ‘This is it.’ Samiha’s husky whisper seemed loud in the darkness. ‘This is the place.’

  She pointed towards a ring of five rocks standing at the foot of a low cliff, leaning into each other as if sharing a secret. Fifteen feet or so above, the flattened summit of the slope was a bare tabletop of the same cracked grey rock, gleaming in the moonlight. A spring gushed from the base of the cliff, the waters collecting in a pool between the five whispering sentinels, before gurgling off in a little stream to Tymon’s left.

  ‘The place for what, Samiha?’ he asked as she tugged him into the ring. In one respect, she had not changed at all: she was as driven and determined as ever, in spite of her body’s frailty.

  ‘The place to rest,’ she answered.

  He was glad to hear her say it, though why she could not have stopped an hour ago at the foot of the slope was beyond him. He helped her find a comfortable spot to lie down under one of the rocks, a nest of grassy tussocks beside the pool, wishing he had more to put over her in the way of a blanket. She wore only his tattered coat wrapped tightly about her to fend off the night air, her calves and bony wrists poking out from under the garment; he longed to gather her up and hold her close, lending her his own warmth, but did not know how to approach her, overcome with awkwardness. She was still his wife in one sense, and yet she was infinitely more.

  ‘Shall I bring some more grass to put on top of you?’ he asked. ‘I don’t think I can manage a fire without tinder, I’m afraid, I’ve never been good at doing that … Maybe Jedda will be able to help when she gets here.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Tymon, I feel just fine,’ she said, smiling up at him. ‘But I would like a bit of water. Would you mind bringing me a drink from the spring?’

  He nodded and moved to where the water trickled down the cliff. The rock was like Tree-bark in many ways, he thought as he washed his hands and face under the spring. It was riven by furrows and striated like the Tree, though colder to the touch. He glimpsed moss growing in the crevices. When his hands were clean, he cupped them together and filled them with the clear water, for he had no other container. He heard another slight sound from behind him then, and thought it was Samiha moving in her bed of grass. He turned carefully around to bear her the water without spilling it.

  ‘I’m sorry there’s no cup …’ he began.

  The words died on his lips, for kneeling on the grass beside Samiha, holding her up and pressing the gleaming blade of the orah-knife against her throat, was a smugly smiling Wick.

  Tymon stood frozen with shock, staring at his enemy. There was something wrong with the acolyte’s face in the moonlight, he thought idiotically. For to think of anything else at that moment was unbearable. He grasped slowly that Wick was wearing a mask, so closely fitted to the contours of his face as to reproduce his exact features in a milky white veneer. Tymon did not remember seeing him wear it in the Oracle’s chamber. It created a rigid, though naturalistic, expression on the acolyte’s face, a permanent leer of gloating satisfaction. Samiha stared up at Tymon from where she sat trapped in the crook of Wick’s knife-arm, almost as white-faced as her captor. The water dripped through Tymon’s fingers and drained away.

  ‘You tricked me.’ Wick’s voice seethed with anger through a gap in the improbably smiling mouth. ‘You knew about the World Key: you knew this one was empty.’

  With his free hand, he withdrew the two halves of the Oracle’s egg from the pocket of his cloak, and threw them with a clatter onto the ground by the pool. They lay dully shining in the moonlight, a hollow shell of orah.

  ‘You know where the real one is,’ Wick continued, his eyes a mad flash behind the mask-holes as he gripped Samiha. His breath was wheezing and difficult, his voice slightly hysterical. His chest heaved as he spoke. ‘You’re going to tell me. Now. Otherwise she gets it.’

  He had no idea, thought Tymon, almost with pity. Wick would never guess in a thousand years that the Kion was the World Key. Even Tymon was unsure of what that really meant: the mystery of Samiha was still complete. He knew, however, that her life depended on him telling Wick some half-truth that would satisfy him.

  ‘We have it,’ he assured the acolyte. ‘We’ll give it to you. Just let her be.’

  He took a step forward, but Wick scrambled to his feet, holding Samiha against him, his voice a gasp behind the rigid smile. ‘Not another step!’ he said. ‘Give it — now! Then she goes free.’

  ‘I have to go over there.’ Tymon had seen Jedda circling in the shadows to the rear of Wick, and Zero’s silhouette with its large ears poking out from behind a tall tussock; he only had to buy a little more time for his friends. He indicated the far side of the pool to Wick. ‘There. Far away from you. I put it down.’

  ‘Go on, then. Hurry.’ Wick watched him with glittering eyes as he began to skirt the pool, still pressing the knife to Samiha’s throat. The Kion herself said no word: she gazed at Tymon steadily, silently, willing him on.

  ‘Where’s Gowron?’ asked Tymon, in order to distract the acolyte and keep him from noticing Jedda.

  ‘He won’t be joining us.’

  The way Wick said it, the distinct note of gratification in his voice, caused a shiver to pass down Tymon’s spine. He had no doubt, then, that the younger acolyte had killed his associate. The mask seemed to proclaim it: there, stamped permanently over Wick’s features for all to see, was the cold self-satisfaction of an accomplished murderer. Taking care not to look in Jedda’s direction, Tymon reached the opposite side of the pool and bent over the grass, making a show of rummaging behind a tussock.

  ‘It’s just over here,’ he said.

  At that instant, Zero rose up from the grass to grab Wick’s ankles. Jedda leapt simultaneously on the acolyte from behind, grasping his knife-hand and jerking him away from Samiha. Tymon turned and splashed back hurriedly through the pool. In the short scuffle that followed, Wick rolled with Jedda on top of him down into the shallows. They struggled briefly while Zero hovered nearby, seeking an opening in which to pin down Wick; Jedda, engaged in fending off the arm with the orah-knife, was unable to bear down on her enemy with all her strength. But by that time, Tymon had raised his hand high to summon up the righteous power of the Sap.

  To his shock and dismay, nothing happened. No cleansing flame leapt up in response to his need: no searing heat enveloped him as it had done when faced with the Masters and the Envoy’s curses. As Tymon frowned over his empty and scarred right palm, Wick raised his weapon and slashed it across Jedda’s cheek, causing her to utter a cry and pull back.

  Zero was on top of Wick an instant later, as he struggled to rise. Tymon was beside him almost as quickly, determined to use the power of his back and muscles, even if the Sap had deserted him. Wick had a lunatic’s tenacious strength, fending them both off with grim vigour. But after a panting struggle, Tymon was able to twist his adversary’s right wrist behind his back and wrench the knife out of his hand. It dropped with a clatter into the pool. Gasping with pain and pressing one palm to her bleeding cheek, Jedda stepped forward, ripping the mask off Wick’s face as he knelt by the pool.

  The acolyte’s shriek reverberated through the night air, a howl of pain and humiliation that caused the hairs on the back of Tymon’s neck to prickle. The mask burst into pieces in Jedda’s hand with a resounding crack, the gleaming orah in its interior going dark. She dropped it hurriedly to the ground, as if it burned, while Wick sobbed in pain, raising his hands to his face but unable to touch the raw flesh. The topmost layer of skin had been ripped off with the mask, and all that was left was a mass of reopened wounds. Wick’s eyes were white and staring, his mouth a grimace of agony. Tymon let go of him, gazing at his former schoolmate in horror and pity.

  ‘Damn you,’ croaked the wounded acolyte, half-weeping and half-enraged. ‘I hope you all rot in this Hell. I hope you regret the day you were born.’

  Then, in one swift motion, dodging away from Tymon, he snatched up the knife glinting in the shallows and leapt
towards Samiha. Before Tymon could prevent it, before Jedda or Zero could make a move, he had plunged the orah-knife deep between the Kion’s ribs. He gave it a final, savage twist and pulled it out.

  ‘Not so proud of yourselves now, are you?’ he sneered, as Tymon stumbled forward with a cry, catching Samiha’s body when it slumped to the ground. ‘Not so damned righteous! Well, you can eat me, my pretties: life’s a Tree-bitch.’

  Tymon hardly heard him, bent in anguish over Samiha. Wick jumped back neatly and sidestepped Jedda as she lunged towards him, dancing around the opposite side of the pool with by now lunatic glee, waving the knife.

  ‘Eat me!’ he cried, breaking into hysterical, croaking laughter. ‘Eat me if you can!’

  He turned and fled into the darkness, an echo of mad laughter between the rocks. Jedda leapt after him with a shout, pursued by the shambling Zero. Tymon knelt with Samiha’s crumpled form in his arms, rocking backwards and forwards in his grief.

  ‘No, no, no.’

  He did not realise that he was the one saying it: the repetitive murmur seemed to come from somewhere else, outside him. He tore a section from his linen shirt and did his best to staunch the blood flowing from Samiha’s side. She was no weight at all now in his lap, her face luminous in the moonlight and dangerously free of pain. She struggled to speak, her expression too exultant to give him cause for joy. He tried to make her rest, but she insisted on uttering the usual fervent words he had come to expect from her.

  ‘Don’t be sad, Tymon,’ she said. ‘We’re moving through the Letter of Union, when all things return to what they should be. The old world is dead. The new one will be born. It’s my job to bring the prophecies to fruition.’

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ he told her, despairing. ‘I don’t care about prophecies! I only care about you. Don’t you dare leave me again!’

  ‘You wanted me to be free,’ she whispered, collapsing back on his knees as her strength gave out. ‘This is the only way.’

  He glanced away from her, his throat painfully tight. ‘Then the way is too hard,’ he said. ‘Too hard, Samiha.’

  She did not answer. Her eyes drifted shut and her breathing was rapid and shallow. The linen bandage was wet through; he used the thicker folds of the coat to staunch the bleeding, but her life was flowing away, draining through his fingers like the water he had never given her from the spring. When she spoke again, the words were so faint that he almost brushed against her lips when he bent to listen.

  ‘You must bring them down,’ she said. ‘The people of the Tree. All of them. It’s time, the cycle is complete. Will you do that, Tymon?’

  ‘I will,’ he promised her. ‘I will.’

  He was willing to promise her anything, if only she would not leave him for good. Here she was, dying, and all she could talk about was time-cycles and prophecies. The words of a Born, he thought bitterly. She had probably known Wick would ambush them on the mountain, and had embraced her end without a qualm. He could not bear it.

  ‘Do you know why the Born come to this world?’ she murmured.

  The night was still except for the wind sighing through the grass, all sounds of pursuit having faded away. The moon shone down through the wisps of scudding cloud.

  ‘Why?’ he asked hoarsely, little caring for the answer in his misery.

  ‘Because you call us. We left, but you call us back. Every cry for justice or freedom, every life ended too soon — it calls out to us. The ones who have been silenced and have no voices of their own …’ She paused, struggling to form the words. ‘They cry out in the Tree of Being, life after life, Leaf after Leaf. They grow us. You make the prophecies, Tymon. How could we not come, when you petition us, generation after generation? You asked for justice: here I am. You asked for a better world. Here I am.’

  But you’re going, he cried out in silence. How can it be better without you?

  She did not say more. After a few moments, her body grew still on his knees, and the breath ceased rising in her chest. She was gone. Immortal she may have been, in other worlds, but in this one she was gone. And Tymon knew that whatever her true nature was, he would never again see her as she had been here, as the girl from Sheb, the girl he loved.

  A furious despair took hold of him. No tears came: he could not weep. But after he laid Samiha’s body down, he staggered about the rock ring and the pool, kicking the patient ground in his grief, cursing the stars above and the earth below. Most of all, he cursed his own inability to summon up the Sap-fire to combat Wick. He beat the uncaring faces of the rocks with his fists until his palms grew raw, until his breath came in gasps and the mood passed, replaced by an aching emptiness. Then he returned to kneel over Samiha’s thin body, while the wind tugged at the grass and the immovable rocks looked on.

  So Jedda found him, when she walked slowly back up the slope, accompanied by Zero. A glance at his face told them all, and a glimpse of their dispirited ones showed Tymon they had not caught up with Wick. For a while, they all stood beside Samiha’s body with their heads bowed, the others weeping while Tymon remained grimly silent.

  Despite their grief and weariness, he would not let them rest for long. It seemed to his friends that with this final incomprehensible loss, a mood of bleak determination had come over Tymon. He announced that since Wick was on the loose, he intended to protect Samiha’s body from any further indignities. He insisted, with a stubborn resolve the others dared not oppose, on interring the Kion’s corpse as he had heard some ancient tribes used to do with their dead, entombing them in the Tree to protect them from carrion birds. Instead of a carved tomb of wood, they would place Samiha in a grave of loam, fulfilling the Oracle’s instructions in some sense at least. They would bury one of them on the mountain.

  With the aid of sharp rocks they found scattered in the field, they set about digging as deep a hole by the pool as they had the strength to make at that late hour. Tymon urged his companions on ceaselessly when they flagged; he could not bear the thought of a lunatic Wick scratching up Samiha’s corpse with his nails. After a while, Zero fell asleep, leaning against a tussock where he had only meant to take a short rest. Tymon and Jedda continued to dig until the moon had crossed half the sky and they were both reeling with exhaustion. Finally, when the depth of the hole was satisfactory to Tymon, they lifted Samiha’s body into it, still dressed in the houseboy’s coat. They laid the two halves of the false World Key and the shards of Wick’s mask at her side, for they could think of no safer place to put the artefacts, and had no desire to keep them.

  Then they filled the grave up with loam and painstakingly dragged two large, flat rocks on top of it. After that last task was done, they threw themselves down on the grass and slept, no longer caring if the blood-mad Wick should return to find them.

  22

  Bolas could only see one of his legs as he lay supine in his hammock. He had been dosed to the gills with Treesap wine in the dim hours after the terrible explosion, and had not been entirely himself when the ship’s surgeon cut the other one off at the knees. His other leg. He had even giggled at the sight of the poor crushed thing with a foot dangling incongruously from the end. What was his foot doing lying there in a bloody basket, with various other chopped-off limbs and members belonging to the rest of the crew?

  ‘Hey, that’s my foot!’ he wanted to shout, with dawning recognition, as the surgeon pulled it out of sight, but his tongue was not his own at that moment. Too much Treesap, he thought vaguely. Had he been at a party?

  It was with difficulty that he remembered how he came to lose it. His leg, that was. Bolas gazed with disbelief at the stump below his left thigh, drenched in unguents, wrapped in yards of fine leaf-gauze spun by the deft fingers of Argosian maids and housewives. Lovely girls sewing on the stoops of their homes. Pretty girls, like Nell, he thought, a lump rising in his throat, who would have been scandalised to know to what bloody ends their lace was being spun. Nell would scold him dreadfully when she learned that he had lost a leg in Marak.


  ‘How careless can you be!’ she would say. Bolas fought back his tears as he turned away from the distressing absence to gaze through the portholes.

  There were six of them spanning the right side of the ship. Six whole portholes, Bolas thought in amazement; this cabin was larger than any he had occupied since leaving Argos. He could not figure out where he was, but he did dimly register that he could now see more of a large building at the summit of this tawdry town that rose in three tiers between the bare twig-thickets. Marak, he remembered. He was in Marak. He had only glimpsed a broken wall of the palace before. Last night, during the party.

  ‘Oh, mother, let me go!’ moaned a voice beside him, light as a feather.

  Bolas struggled to find a comfortable position that did not involve increasing pain. His hammock was stretched between two thick rafters, and he entertained himself for a few moments with the possibility that one of them was actually his leg. It would be difficult to walk around with a tree below his knees, he thought, but perhaps no worse than drifting along as he had been doing, with his head in the clouds, since being drugged for the operation. The operation. He was in a hospice dirigible, he suddenly realised, tethered in Marak air-harbour and awaiting instructions to proceed back to Argos with the war wounded. But what war, he wondered in bewilderment, staring through the portholes at the ridiculously ugly Governor’s palace. As far as he could remember, there had only been a party.

  ‘Why did this have to happen to me?’ wailed the fragile voice beside him plaintively. ‘Why me, mother? Tell me why?’

  ‘Shut up, you stupid nut-head,’ mumbled a deeper voice on Bolas’ left. ‘At least you’re still talking.’

  The bright sunlight, the airy cabin, and the comfort of the hammock might have been positively luxurious had he been able to enjoy them in the company of his own right leg rather than the wounded soldiers. As Bolas resurfaced to full consciousness, he began to make out the other hammocks slung down the length of the cabin in rows on each side of him. There were grumbling and groaning bodies rolled up in these cocoons, in various positions and varying states of cleanliness. All these soldiers had been immobilised, just like him, by wounds sustained last night, during the party.