The Light of the Oracle

  “ You look lovely, Dawn. This is Lance, my husband. I'm sorry to be unwell, but I really must go home.” Each word was an effort.

  “Is it far?” Dawn asked. “I can take you to the inn where we're staying. It's close by.”

  “No, thank you, no. I just want to go home.” Selid groped for Dawn's hand, not sure, when she found it, if she was pleased or sorry to find that it was real. “Please promise you won't report seeing me.”

  Dawn squeezed her fingers softly. “I'm not part of the Temple anymore. Even if I were, I'd never tell the Master Priest where you are. I've worried about you ever since you disappeared.”

  Selid could feel the truth in Dawn's words. “Thank you.”

  “But you must visit me when you're better.” Dawn told them where the Gilgamell Troupe would be staying. “I'm with them,” she said, smiling. “I've married Avrohom. The troupe has to be terribly careful to hide where they're housed, or they'd get no peace. Adoration has its price, you know. But I trust you, Selid. Come and find me.”

  Selid blinked, not sure she had understood what Dawn said. More light poured from the tall young woman's face, so bright it blurred her features.

  “Thank you,” Lance said. “We'll find you, or, if you're careful, you can come to us.” He gave Dawn quick directions and then they parted.

  As they walked home, Selid's head pounded and sparks of sharp light jabbed her eyes so fiercely she was unable to see where she was going. Lance kept his arm around her waist.

  Selid went to bed. There, encroaching visions beset her. She poured sweat, using everything she knew to prevent herself from being taken over by prophecy. When she finally slipped into sleep, she dreamed again of the Master Priest. He thrust the keltice ring close to her eyes; sharp and burning, it cut through her sight, her mind, her soul. She tried to look away but couldn't. All the worst moments of her life rushed upon her at once; she couldn't fight off the memories. Then Bolivar appeared, menacing her with a long, killing blade.

  Selid tried to cry out, to call for Lance, but her throat closed uselessly.

  When the new day arrived, she concealed her exhaustion, telling Lance she was well, she didn't know what had come over her, he needn't worry about her. And had she really heard Dawn say she was married to Avrohom, the famous singer?

  Lance assured her it was true. He kissed her and left for the job he had with the carpenters' guild, finishing cabinets and banisters in Lord Evensol's new mansion.

  Selid decided not to go to the Little Best, although Sir Chance expected her. He and his patrons would have to do without her; she wasn't fit for company. Restlessly, she fed the chickens and cared for her horse. The cardinal swooped close as soon as she stepped out of the house, nor would it leave her as she completed her chores. Finally, she darted into her workroom, shutting out the persistent bird.

  There she paced the morning away, fighting the Oracle's light until her strength was gone.

  She wrapped her shawl close. Sunlight played over the ripples of the wooden mosaic as she sank, defeated, onto the couch Lance had put there for her comfort. She closed her eyes.

  This time, when the prophecy came, she let it take her.

  Borne upon beams of dazzling light, Selid found herself standing in an alcove built into a massive stone pillar, one of dozens of pillars supporting a domed hall. If an eagle had flown to the ceiling within this dome, the bird would have appeared as a speck high above. Along the marble floor stood crowds of lords and ladies.

  Twenty feet away sat Queen Alessandra on a throne. She wore her crown, though it seemed heavy for her slender neck and stooped shoulders. Her eyes, deep-circled and sad, shone with dignity and command. Near her stood soldiers in green doublets, swords at their belts.

  Upon a smaller throne, a painfully thin young woman watched the proceedings. An opal tiara sparkled in her black hair; her purple gown was decked with opals, but it was her face that caught Selid's attention. Her skin was translucent, delicate blue veins visible just beneath the surface. Intelligent eyes, far too large in their pale sockets, were glassy with tears that did not fall.

  The voice of the Oracle knelled in Selid's mind: Princess Zorienne, near death, poisoned by the hand of Mednonifer, queen's physician. Not by food or drink, but by the air she breathes while sleeping.

  Then Selid glimpsed her former mentor, the Master Priest, writing a prophecy addressed to Queen Alessandra.

  False prophecy, the Oracle said.

  A few days later, Kiran tramped the familiar path next to the pasture at night, Jack by his side. He stopped at the fence where he'd often seen Bryn sitting untouched by the wind. Starlight cast a silver gleam over the ground, lighting the old fence-posts dimly.

  Kiran leaned against a post. “How wrong I've been,” he said. “Mistake after mistake.”

  Jack perked up his ears.

  Kiran lifted his face to the quiet sky. “I should never have paired with Clea.” Earlier that day, Renchald had asked, once again, for news of Selid. This time Kiran and Clea had seen her. Writing a prophecy.

  Kiran had severed the pairing immediately, but not soon enough.

  The ink in the Master Priest's quill, as he inscribed what Clea remembered, ran like blood.

  “I haven't helped Bryn,” Kiran told Jack. “I've helped the ones I despise instead.”

  And now the Master Priest wanted to begin pairing him with Bryn.

  “I won't,” Kiran said to the sky. “Renchald can leave me in the desert or throw me back in the gutter.” He looked into Jack's mismatched eyes. “And I swear by Ellerth that I won't pair with Clea anymore.”

  The next day, Velday, Bryn watched wind dance over the pond, creating ripples across the water. A breeze swished through the fresh grass until it reached the little knoll where she sat alone. There, the air became blank and still. She told herself she should be used to the stillness. But she wasn't.

  She heard Jack's bark and saw Kiran coming toward her around the pond with Jack at his side. Her emotions scudded and eddied and stormed as he got nearer, walking with his long stride.

  The constraint between them, begun after the solstice dance, had continued. Though they still did chores together, Kiran acted as if what he wanted most was to be left alone. Sometimes he'd pause in his work, looking at nothing. Once Bryn had ventured to ask what was bothering him, but he'd only shrugged his shoulders heavily.

  What if it's me? she thought.

  Yesterday the Master Priest had told her she was ready for paired prophecy and that Kiran would be her partner: With his help, you'll see clearer, broader visions. He had not asked for her agreement, and something in his tone frightened her when he said, “Those who are gifted in prophecy owe the Temple their service.”

  Bryn felt a nervousness bordering on panic when she imagined linking with Kiran's mind in prophecy. And yet, it was also something she wanted. She longed to be near him, truly near, not just doing chores side by side with neither of them disclosing anything.

  Jack ran up, knocking Bryn backward with playful paws. Kiran, however, didn't stop, though he waved to her before heading off along the path to the woods.

  “I should go catch up with him,” Bryn whispered to herself. “Tell him I'm sorry. Get it done with.”

  She started after him, but soon her steps slowed. Wasn't it plain he wished to be by himself? If he'd wanted her company he would have stopped to talk with her.

  Bryn veered off the path into the trees. Among them, she felt comforted. She pushed through tangled undergrowth to a broad boulder that jutted from the ground. Climbing it, she settled herself into a hollow in the rock to think. How she missed the sound of breezes soughing in the branches and stirring against the leafy buds. Clea had taken that sound away.

  Images of Kiran paraded through her mind: If a curse can be cast, it can be lifted…. The gods would not withdraw from you forever after one mistake…. Do you trust me enough to let me link with your mind?

  And now she would link with him, formally, an
d in the presence of the Master Priest.

  She remembered what Kiran had said about looking for Clea's curse: … It would be different from the rest of your inner landscape…. The curse might try to appear as if it belonged there, but it would be out of place.

  “Inner landscape” was a phrase the Master Priest used while teaching the concepts needed for paired prophecy; concepts such as the “abanya” and “dream body.” Bryn wondered how long he'd been training Kiran.

  “I should use what Renchald has taught me to search for the curse myself,” she said softly. “Now, before Kiran and I must pair together.”

  Yes, that was what she would do. She shut her eyes, remembering how the Master Priest had helped to direct her into her dream body: Recollect a place you've been where you felt peaceful. Bryn would remember the fields of Uste and the bright thistledown she had seen the day she left for the Temple.

  On that peaceful thought, Bryn moved into her dream body. She felt the now-familiar sense of light becoming more solid, the peculiar tingle as she switched her awareness out of normal existence and into etheric life.

  She entered her inner landscape.

  When she'd visited this place under Renchald's direction, he never allowed time for exploration. But now, alone and undisturbed, she would see all she could.

  The feet of Bryn's dream body felt light and delicate on the ground of this place, a ground similar to earthly terrain and yet different. The sky here wasn't the same as normal sky. Instead of blue, it was a deep golden color. Flowered fields glowed with jewel-like hues. Rainbow fish swam in a brook. A grove of trees shimmered in the golden light.

  Bryn had been taught that everything in this landscape reflected a part of her own spirit. She remembered to look for anything that didn't seem to belong. Now and again she bent to examine a rock or a bramble, but everything seemed to be as it should.

  She came to a well in the center of a meadow. She scrutinized the stones that lined it, stones that looked as if they'd been hewn from the quarry of her childhood, rough-cut but fitting well together. A windlass held a bucket over the water.

  Certainty burst upon Bryn. I use this well to bring up prophecies.

  Both the bucket and the chain attaching it looked new, with a steely sheen that nothing else in the landscape possessed. The bucket threw shadows into the waters of the well and along the ground.

  A stalk brushed Bryn's hand. She kneeled to see the plant it grew from. It was dark beside the well, darker than it should be, and chilly. She peered closely at the cluster of plants.

  Thistles.

  They looked very sickly. Close to the roots, small patches of green hid inside clumps of limp brown stems. The plants had once thrived, for their stalks rose as high as the edge of the well, but now they smelled of decay. The damp ground had been overwatered.

  Using the bucket.

  Bryn put her arms around the thistle plants as if she could revive them. Here beside her inner spring, the thistles that could guide her were meant to grow. Instead of growing, they were dying.

  Every time I drew upon the waters of prophecy, the bucket tainted the water and killed a little more of what could have saved me.

  Curse.

  Bryn stood. She gazed at the bucket, at the cold gleam of its metal and the hard links of its chain. She had no doubt she was seeing Clea's curse upon her.

  How was she to get rid of it?

  “Solz and Ellerth help me,” she prayed.

  Then a sharp sound from outside pierced the quiet.

  Bryn left her inner landscape in a rush, and opened her eyes. She heard careless footsteps in the woods. Squinting through branches, she glimpsed Clea, walking purposefully along the path a little way off.

  The blood drained from Bryn's head. How had Clea known? What would she do now?

  If she adds another curse, I'll surely die.

  But Clea didn't seem to see her huddled on the boulder, shivering in despair. Instead, she called hello to someone else who was coming along the path in the opposite direction.

  It was Kiran, on his way back from wherever he had walked.

  Neither of them saw her, and Bryn didn't want to be found. Jack wasn't with Kiran, and she hoped the dog had found something interesting to pursue elsewhere. If he caught her scent he was sure to come bounding to greet her, and she couldn't speak to him in her mind the way Kiran did.

  Weak and trembling, Bryn crept to the boulder's edge and jumped behind it to the ground. A bed of leaves caught her, but the sound as she landed seemed louder than a gong.

  Clea and Kiran paid no attention. Bryn hunched behind the boulder, listening to them.

  “Kiran,” Clea said. “I knew you'd be outdoors on such a fine day.”

  Bryn waited for Kiran to answer, but he didn't.

  “Why so silent?” Clea spoke sweetly. “Why not greet your pairing partner?”

  Pairing partner! Bryn nearly gasped aloud. Had the Master Priest been training Clea also? Naturally. She's first in the prophecy class.

  But paired with Kiran? He would never endure such a thing. Or would he?

  She heard him clear his throat. “I'm not your partner,” he said grimly.

  She laughed seductively. “There's no one about, Kiran. No need to deny that you're my partner.”

  “I won't be. Not anymore.”

  “What are you saying? The Master Priest would have no reason to exchange you. Brock is the only other prophet he might train, and I'd never consent to pair with him.”

  Silence.

  “Hasn't Renchald told you how well we're getting on?” she asked.

  “We are not getting on well,” Kiran answered, gruff and cold.

  “Of course we are. You should be thankful to be improving your prophetic skills.” Her voice sharpened. “Don't you want to see more visions?”

  “Not with you.”

  “With whom, then?”

  “We have different aims, Clea,” he said, sidestepping her question. “Our pairing was a mistake.”

  “Don't be a fool. Together, we will become the most noted voice of the Oracle.”

  “Being noted is not what I live for.”

  “What do you live for? The animals? Or is it your dirty little peasant friends?”

  Kiran gave a whistle that would tell Jack to find him. When he spoke, his voice was tight with anger. “As I said, we have different aims.”

  “I could change your aims, make you serve the Oracle as you should. The gods have gifted me, gifted you, too, and then brought us together. Our visions belong to the Temple, not to you.”

  “From now on, your visions have nothing to do with me.” Bryn could hear him walking away, and she heard Jack's bark, much too close.

  “I could change you,” Clea said, voice rising. “I could change you with a wave of my feather.”

  Please, Ellerth, don't let Jack come snuffling around the side of this boulder. Don't let Clea find me here. Bryn waited, every muscle tensed, listening for Jack.

  When his bark came again, it was farther away.

  Faint with relief, Bryn rested her back against the rock while Clea's retreating footsteps faded.

  When Clea claimed they met together secretly, she wasn't lying.

  And now? Clea was angry enough to do something against Kiran.

  Oh, Kiran, please be careful. Don't let her curse you.

  Bryn's thoughts returned to the bucket hanging at her inner well, the steely poisonous metal of Clea's curse, the thistle plants nearly dead.

  She was more determined than ever to lift that curse, stop the spread of poison, and give the thistle plants a chance to revive.

  She quieted herself by breathing slowly and deeply. When she was calm enough, she sent her dream body into the abanya and entered her inner landscape once again.

  She rushed to the well. Kneeling beside the thistle plants, she called upon the whole pantheon of gods. Solz and Ellerth, Winjessen and Monzapel, Ayel and Vernelda. She paused before adding, And Keldes. Lend me yo
ur wisdom.

  Then she waited.

  Warmth and heat began covering the plants, burning away blight. Healthy life replaced brown rot. New stems reached upward.

  Now for the bucket.

  Bryn leaned on the edge of the well. She reached for the bucket. The metal handle was so cold! She un-fastened the bucket from the chain that attached it to the windlass. She set the bucket on the ground.

  Pulling the chain, she unwound it. The end was fastened with a large hook that bit into the wood of the windlass. Bryn wrestled with the hook until it came free. She threw it and the lengths of chain into the bucket.

  Shivering, she considered what to do next.

  Somehow, Clea must have transported the curse through the abanya to hang it on Bryn's windlass. Bryn thought she could carry the bucket beyond her own barriers, but she didn't want to leave it anywhere in the abanya. What if someone else stumbled upon it in a dream? What if it made things go terribly wrong throughout the inner lands?

  I'll have to take it with me when I leave the abanya if I can.

  Screwing up her courage, Bryn lifted the heavy bucket. It weighed on her frightfully and felt as if it could freeze through her soul.

  She mustn't stop now. She headed for the borders of her inner landscape. It wasn't far to the edge of her barriers, but the bucket grew heavier and colder with every step. Weary and freezing, she dragged the bucket out of her landscape.

  She made herself hold on to it as she sent her dream body back to the boulder in the woods.

  As she left the abanya, an overwhelming brightness touched her head. An invisible hand took the bucket.

  Nineteen

  The following day Kiran woke filled with foreboding. He went through the motions of washing and dressing and eating, paying so little attention to what he did that Brock began laughing at him during breakfast.

  “If you butter that piece of bread much longer, Mox, you'll wear down the knife.”