The Light of the Oracle

  A tempest raced ahead of Obsidian. It blew arrows awry and knocked guards to the ground. Men flailed powerlessly as the gates snapped open. Obsidian leaped over the guards, through the gates.

  From the side, a streak of black and white fur skimmed the ground. Jack. The dog dashed into the road. Kiran smiled through the bruising pain that increased with each breath he took.

  North. Run north without stopping.

  Bryn would remember that ride always. When the Temple was miles behind them, she threw off her student robe; the robe would mark her to anyone they passed who happened to notice. Obsidian was also likely to draw attention just because he was so magnificent, but there was nothing to be done about that.

  Kiran wrapped his arms around her, pressing her to his chest. She could feel the beating of his heart as they stormed down the road on Obsidian's back, and she'd never forget the warmth of his arms. She didn't know which was dearer to her—the wind at her back, or Kiran.

  He whispered into her ear, saying it was all he could do to stay on the horse; that she would have to guide Obsidian. It was a long way to Tunise. The sun would sink, and they'd need to keep going through the dark. Tomorrow they'd be crossing the Lyden without water.

  Two nights later, Selid kissed Lance before going out to her workroom. Some of her grief showed in her face and he noticed it.

  “What's troubling you?” he asked tenderly. “ You've been skittish ever since the concert on the green.”

  “Tomorrow,” she promised him. “I'll tell you then. Now, I have work to complete.” She turned from him quickly, unable to bear the trust and kindness in his face. What would he do when she was dead?

  Resigned to the Oracle's power, she sat alone in her workroom, bathed in candlelight, putting the finishing touches to her final prophecy.

  The prophecy was for the Queen of Sorana. Selid's quill glided over her smoothest parchment. For this, Monzapel, you preserved my life.

  The candles guttered suddenly, all at once. Selid looked up. There, wavering in the air beside her, transparent as flame, an apparition stared. A girl. The face was familiar. Selid had first seen those golden-brown eyes in the desert, looking at her in horrified innocence.

  Now, here she was watching, having a vision of her own.

  “ You lived?” she whispered to Selid.

  Nodding, Selid heard the cardinal's call outside. Knowledge swept over her: the etheric cloak she had surrounded herself with had somehow parted, giving this young prophetess a glimpse of what she meant to do.

  Prophecy of a prophecy.

  If the girl was within the Temple of the Oracle, her vision would reach the ears of the Master Priest.

  By receiving the Oracle's light again, Selid knew she was making it easier for the Lord of Death to find her. But if the queen never read her prophecy, Keldes would win more than Selid's life.

  “Don't tell him,” she cried to the watching apparition. “She'll never read my words.”

  The visitant took a step forward, and then vanished.

  Hours later, Selid read over the finished prophecy. While she read, she listened with half an ear for hoof-beats that would turn off the north-south highway onto the narrow road where she and Lance lived.

  The prophecy was everything it should be. Renchald himself would swear he had written it.

  Then she heard the horse she'd been listening for, clopping wearily, coming closer. She bowed her head. Her heart hammered. My vision was all too true, then. Selid blinked back the tears that wanted to fall. She must not allow her sorrow over her own fate to ruin the queen's prophecy; no tears must smudge the words she'd worked so hard to write.

  And though they arrive at midnight like harbingers of death, the friends who approach now are not the cause of my sadness.

  Selid poured two glasses of water and went out to the gate. She waited for a knock. When it fell, she spoke. “Give your name.” But she knew who it was.

  “Kiran,” said a low, hoarse voice from the other side of the boards.

  She lifted the bar and opened the gate. How well she remembered the tall freckled acolyte. Others in the Temple hadn't known what to make of him, but Selid had thought him special. She had seen him calm a frenzied horse with nothing but a quiet word and had suspected he was hiding unusual intelligence behind his rough bearing.

  He staggered through the gate. Livid bruises marked his face. Selid handed him one of her glasses of water. “Drink slowly,” she urged.

  A dog slunk in behind him, limping slightly. Selid bent to look in the dog's eyes. Mismatched. “Hello, Jack,” she said. She pointed to a bowl of water close to the gate. Jack shot her a grateful look before he began lapping.

  Kiran's hands shook badly as he took a drink. He gestured behind him. “Bryn,” he said. “And we brought a horse.”

  Selid turned. The young woman who had appeared in her workroom only hours earlier leaned on the gatepost. Seeing her again, this time in the flesh, Selid couldn't keep the tears from springing to her eyes. “It's you,” she whispered, holding out the other glass of water.

  Bryn lifted the glass to her lips. And behind her nosed the most splendid black horse ever born.

  * * *

  Kiran and Bryn both refused food, insisting that Selid feed and water Obsidian first. Kiran collapsed onto a couch near the hearth. He fell asleep instantly. Bryn was having trouble speaking; she could talk only of the horse. It wasn't until Selid promised to care for the stallion that Bryn agreed to being shown to the couch in the workroom.

  Lifting the candle high, Selid watched her visitor's exhausted eyes travel over the wooden mosaic and the writing desk. “I didn't tell,” said Bryn. “No one but Kiran.”

  Selid heaved a long sigh. “I hoped it would be so,” she answered softly. “Thank you.” She faced Bryn. “And thank you for saving me from death in the desert.”

  Bryn crumpled onto the couch. Her murmured gratitude was lost in the blanket, covered in sleep.

  Selid latched the workroom door behind her. Time to attend to the horse. As she fed and watered him and brushed his dusty hide, the red cardinal alighted on her shoulder. Moonlight shone like a silver blessing over the stall. How peaceful the world seemed: in that moment Selid found it difficult to comprehend that cruelty or treachery or any of the horrors the Oracle had made plain could be real.

  And yet, these visitors bore out the beginning of the prophecies she had been given. The rest would follow. She knew it, but wished such truth had never come to her.

  Please, Monzapel, I beg you, keep Lance safe.

  When she went inside, Selid sat on the edge of the bed, rocking herself. Lance stirred. He sat up. He moved next to her, and put a warm arm around her shoulders.

  “Tomorrow has come?” he asked.

  “So it has.” Selid poured out her story: what she had seen, and what she feared. When she finished, she said, “That is why, my darling, you must leave me now, why you must forget me.”

  Lance shook his head. “ You believe I would leave you? Forget you because you're afraid?” His brown eyes, which always reminded her of the wood he worked with, looked into hers unflinchingly.

  “It's more than fear, Lance. I know Keldes will come for me.”

  “He came for you before, and yet you lived.”

  “Monzapel spared me.”

  “She'll spare you again.” The gentle carpenter looked fierce. “Don't ask me to leave you. I won't defend my life with cowardice. Our lives are joined. If Keldes hunts you, so be it. I stand ready to flee again, today, if need be.”

  “We can't leave until the Gilgamell Troupe answers my message.”

  “Then we'll wait for them. Afterward, together, we'll be on our way.”

  The next day, in the Temple, Renchald and Clea entered into paired prophecy together, breaking an ironclad tradition that prohibited Master Priests from pairing with students.

  To find the insolent traitors who had stolen the most valuable horse in the Temple, Renchald would try anything. If
Kiran and Bryn were allowed to roam free in Sorana, they could cause untold damage to the Temple. He had to prevent it. Without knowing where they had gone, how was he to stop them?

  Pairing with Clea was the only choice. Their quest for visions was enormously successful. His exalted skills combined with her prophetic talents not only revealed the whereabouts of the wayward students, but also showed Selid's plans.

  At last, thought the Master Priest, I've found a prophetess worthy of me. Clea shall become a priestess without further delay.

  When he thought of Selid and the message she had penned to the queen, he twisted the keltice ring on his finger. The past two years of Selid's life have not kept step with the rightful march of eternity. Now, it was high time Renchald acted for Keldes, to whom the renegade prophetess belonged.

  As for Bryn, she would discover that a curse sanctioned by a Master Priest was truly unbreakable.

  Late that night, Ilona rapped on the door of the Master Priest's sanctum. He answered at once. “Come in, and thank you for responding quickly. I apologize for the hour.” He shut the door after her.

  They bowed. He confessed to her that he had paired with Clea.

  Almost dumbfounded, Ilona listened. “But the laws of the Temple forbid you to lend your power to a student,” she said. “Particularly a vulture-chosen student.”

  His face remained calm. “Let me remind you, Ilona: a wind-chosen prophetess and a black swan prophet have defied my authority and betrayed the Temple. They have stolen a horse I've promised to Lord Errington—and injured more than a score of guards.”

  “And how,” she asked, “will pairing with a student remedy those events?”

  “Clea and I have found where they have gone,” he answered. “Moreover, we received a clear vision of Selid, a vision of utmost importance.”

  “Selid?”

  “Shall I tell you what threatens the Temple? Selid has penned a false prophecy for the Queen of Sorana. She plans to pass off her forgery as written by the Master Priest.”

  Ilona stared uncomprehendingly. “False prophecy? But how—?”

  “Her chosen messengers to deliver this forgery to the queen are none other than the Gilgamell Troupe.”

  Her tongue refused to work.

  He nodded. “The situation is dire. I regret that in my quest to preserve the Temple, I broke one of our laws. When these menaces are vanquished, I will perform every penance.”

  She looked at him doubtfully.

  “I've scarcely slept for three days,” Renchald told her. “Among other important tasks, I held a private ceremony so that Clea could be visited by her choosing bird. She has another feather.” His robes shone crimson in the candlelight. “Tomorrow morning at first light, you and I and Clea leave for Tunise.”

  Ilona called back her whirling thoughts. “Tunise?”

  “We have determined that Kiran, Bryn, and Selid are in Tunise. The Gilgamell Troupe will soon be on their way to the queen, bearing the false prophecy. You, Ilona, will continue on from Tunise to Zornowel with Clea to deliver a true prophecy that will take the place of Selid's forgery.”

  “ You're sending me to the queen?” Her voice sounded thin. “But—why not you?”

  “I expect Lord Errington here. I cannot be absent from the Temple when he arrives.”

  He strode to the door. Opening it, he motioned her out. Moving in a daze, she went past him, not looking at his face.

  Twenty-one

  Bryn stood in the carpenter's spare stall, rubbing Obsidian with a teasel brush. The stallion stomped restlessly. “I know you don't like being confined,” she said soothingly. “But if I showed you in daylight, the Master Priest would be sure to hear of it. In a few hours, when it's dark, I'll take you for a run.”

  They'd been staying with Selid and Lance for two days. Kiran was still too weak and sore to do much beyond lie on the couch. Gruesome bruises colored his face beneath the freckles. It hurt him badly to breathe. He refused to hear of being seen by a healer. He shook his head stubbornly at Selid when she mentioned it. “Too much risk to you,” he said. “I'll mend.”

  He wouldn't tell them what had happened to cause his injuries. “I fought too many guards at once” was all he would say. The expression in his eyes haunted Bryn—he seemed to be wounded in a way she couldn't see, a hurt that went deeper than bruises. Whatever it was, he kept it to himself.

  A breeze kissed Bryn's nose, lifted her hair, fluttered the sleeves of her gown, brushed through Obsidian's mane. The wind was always with her now, sometimes light as a downy seed, sometimes a gusty roar.

  Obsidian gave a loud whinny just as Jack scampered past the stall, barking importantly.

  Bryn followed Jack as he ran to the wooden gate and began jumping against it, whining excitedly. She reached the gate just as Selid drew the bar.

  Dawn burst through. She threw her arms around Bryn. “Stars and luminaries, it's good to see you.” Dawn turned to Selid. “We would have been here sooner, but had to ready ourselves for the trip to Zornowel, not to mention finagling so as to leave the inn without drawing notice.”

  Behind her, four men in nondescript cloaks held the halters of horses. Bryn saw Avrohom's elfin grin peeking around Dawn's shoulder. He winked. “Incognito or we'd never escape those who adore our music.”

  Selid motioned the men and horses through the gate into the carpenter's yard. Bryn could hear Obsidian protesting his separation from the five mares that had come with the Troupe. She hoped he wouldn't smash through the stall as he had done at the Temple stables.

  Dawn barraged Bryn with questions. “What happened after I left? Brock got my message? Are you all right?”

  Bryn held tightly to Dawn but answered none of her questions. Selid took everyone inside, where Kiran tottered up from the couch. He waved off Dawn's exclamations of pity when she saw his face. He shook hands with the troubadours, then sank back onto the pillows.

  Avrohom's fiery hair and vivid blue eyes lit the room as he introduced the other members of the troupe. The lyre player, Negasi, smiled broadly beneath his enormous mustache, his bald head shining. Jeffrey, whose fingers could work such magic upon his lute, resembled a ripe apple with his red cheeks and round stomach. The drummer, Zeb, seemed to take up room for two men as he threw off his cloak, revealing muscled brown arms.

  When all the troubadours had said hello, Avrohom turned to Selid. “We're here because your message spoke of utmost urgency.”

  “Thank you for coming,” Selid answered. “I'll make tea before we discuss why.” She was already moving toward the kettle on the hob. Bryn helped set out mugs.

  When everyone was served, Selid held up a scroll tied with red ribbon. “A message for Queen Alessandra,” she said. “It must get to her safely. None better to deliver it than the Gilgamell Troupe.”

  Frowning, Avrohom shook back his hair. “We are troubadours. Why not send your scroll by messenger?”

  “The queen herself, not her servants, must read this. It is a prophecy.”

  “Prophecy?” Dawn looked askance at Selid. “But—”

  “Unknown to Her Majesty, Princess Zorienne is being poisoned by Mednonifer, queen's physician,” Selid announced. She spoke quietly, but something in her voice reminded Bryn of the way she'd shrieked at the Master Priest as she kneeled in the desert sand. Ellerth will bury you, Renchald. I have seen it.

  “How is that possible?” cried Dawn.

  “I received the vision only recently,” Selid told them. “I fear the Oracle has wished me to see it for some time. I only hope I'm not too late. Peril surrounds Zorienne. Unless the poison is stopped, she cannot live much longer.”

  They stared.

  A long-ago memory took hold of Bryn, of the first time she had heard the Oracle's voice: Beware his sleeping death. And she had been pointing at Princess Zorienne!

  Dawn stepped forward. “But why must you give this prophecy? If the princess is being poisoned, why wouldn't the Master Priest send a warning?”

  Seli
d waved the scroll. “So he will.”

  Bewildered, they waited for her to explain.

  “I know how Renchald pens a prophecy. I watched him often enough.” Selid held out the scroll. “This is written and worded as though it comes from him.”

  Kiran rose up from where he lay. “No,” he said. “If he ever learned of it, he would summon Keldes from the underworld to find you and see you dead.”

  Selid shook her head at him. “This prophecy is more important than fear of the Master Priest. Without it, Raynor Errington will rule Sorana.”

  Bryn's thoughts spun sickeningly. She thought of Lord Errington standing beside the Master Priest at the Solstice Festival. Her stomach twisted. “It's Lord Errington behind the poisoning, isn't it?” Beware his sleeping death.

  Selid nodded.

  “And no warning has been sent by the Temple,” Bryn said.

  Selid nodded again, more emphatically.

  Kiran swayed on his feet. “Why is Renchald to have the credit for such a vital prophecy?”

  Selid gestured at the homey furnishings around the room. “Because if Alessandra knew it came from a simple scribe, she might never read it. It must appear to come straight from the Oracle.”

  Dawn waved her hands nervously. “Isn't it a crime to pretend it comes from the Oracle when it comes from you?”

  Selid's lips tightened. “For centuries, those who received the light of the Oracle were revered whether they chose to be part of the Temple or not. Renchald has appointed himself guardian of the Oracle's word—” Her voice cracked. “He isn't. The Oracle's light followed me, even after the Master Priest took my feather and consecrated me to the Lord of Death.” She clasped the scroll, lifting her chin. “When I was dying of thirst, Bryn gave me her water. Now I give Sorana my ink.”

  As she extended the scroll toward Avrohom, a breeze flapped against it and Bryn heard a bell-like voice echo in her head: I give Sorana my blood.