Oracle's Fire

by Mary Victoria

  The journey was a slow torture of starvation for him. The soldiers driving the cart had decided he did not need even the dry hunks of bread that had been his fare in the city jail, and gave him nothing to eat at all. He would have died of thirst had he not been able to painstakingly collect snowflakes through the bars in his cupped hands, licking the melted liquid from his palms. By the third day he was too weak and dispirited to move, slumped on the right-hand side of the shuddering cage with his weary eyes fixed on the fog of the West Chasm. He seemed at every moment to see the figure of Samiha etched against that blank whiteness, as he had last seen her on the execution dock. He imagined again and again that appalling moment he had turned away from, as she stepped into the empty air to tumble headlong into the space below. How long had it taken her to fall to her death? What had passed through her mind from that first horrid moment to the last? According to legend, a person’s lungs burst on entry into the Storm; people died in the falling, so they said, the rush of air being too fast to breathe.

  But despite reliving that moment in his memory time and again, he found himself unable to believe that Samiha was really gone. She had been too alive, too intensely present in his life to depart from it now. Her flame had burned the brightest of anyone he had known and could not be so easily snuffed out. She was not like his companion in the cart. For Verlain, it seemed, had finally given up on his muddled and vaporous existence, sputtering out like a spent candle. The body of Tymon’s former employer lay sprawled on the floor of the cage, its skin gradually turning a livid greenish-yellow as the days went by. The soldiers turned a deaf ear to the young man’s pleas, leaving him to travel in the company of the corpse. By the time they reached their destination, a military outpost fifty miles south of Argos city, the priest’s stink had acquired the final sweetness of death.

  The camp at Hayman’s Point consisted of no more than a cluster of dingy buildings huddled at the bottom of a tear-shaped crevice in the trunk, the remains of an old bark tumour two hundred feet high and as many deep. But the cleft was less than half that distance across, the gully narrowing to a claustrophobic slit at the top. In past years the outpost had all but closed down during the winter months, the troops either deployed elsewhere or confined for a cheerless time in the drab huts on the floor of the gully. Now, however, the place crawled with newfound activity.

  Tymon, already exhausted by the voyage in the cart, found his relief at reaching journey’s end replaced by a quick-growing dismay. The road winding down the side of the cleft offered a good view of the camp in the watery evening sunlight, and he could see that recent constructions had multiplied in the gully like fungus. Enclosed corrals like those for livestock extended alongside the soldiers’ huts. His heart sank when he realised that the pens were occupied by people: small figures sat huddled on the straw floor of the enclosures. They wore grey tunics, but the Argosians had not bothered to manacle them. There was nowhere for the Nurians to go.

  ‘You can see when a civilisation has reached the point of putrefaction. It begins to prey on others to keep itself going.’ The voice in Tymon’s head jerked him awake from his half-starved stupor. ‘The priests of Argos speak of signs and portents of the End Times, as if they were part of some great cosmic plan,’ continued the familiar tones of the Oracle, dryly. ‘The truth is, they’re already dead.’

  ‘They’re copying the Lantrians,’ muttered Tymon, gazing out in horror at the vision reminiscent of the slave pens in Cherk Harbour. ‘I didn’t realise there were so many. Pilgrims, I mean. They’ve brought so many!’

  Indeed, there were far more people at Hayman’s Point than could be warranted by a single tithe-ship arriving in spring. The Saint had increased his revenue from the colonies, though he obviously felt no need to transport the pilgrims to the capital more than once a year. It was enough to bring the usual number to the Sacrifice, a dozen or so; the rest, the scores that now sat in the pens at Hayman’s Point, would simply be shipped off to plantations in the west and south.

  The Nurians in the nearest enclosure glanced up warily as the prison vehicle halted by the door. Tymon estimated the number of people inside this one pen as thirty or forty, perhaps more. They were mostly youths his age or even younger. The two drivers of the cart opened the door of his cage and thrust him unceremoniously out of one prison and into another. The gate of the pilgrims’ enclosure slammed on his heels and the vehicle rolled away, carrying its corpse. Tymon stood unmoving in the mixture of straw and dirty slush on the floor of the pen, for he was too weak to walk. He swayed on his feet before the group of Nurians. He wondered how they would react to an Argosian in their midst.

  ‘The Sap help me,’ he breathed.

  ‘Don’t worry. It will,’ replied the Oracle gently.

  Grey figures detached themselves from the group and approached him even as he fell. One caught him about the waist and guided him to the far side of the enclosure where there was a rudimentary shelter, a hut with a thatched roof. He was eased onto the bare floorboards. A rough bowl of rainwater was placed in his hands and he was given a piece of dry bread to suck on. He felt as though he had never tasted anything so good in his life. His hosts, two youths about a year younger than himself, spoke to him in Nurian and asked him his name. He responded haltingly. His efforts provoked wry comments and laughter, and he realised that they had taken him for a dark-skinned tribesman from the north fringes of the Eastern Canopy, one who spoke his own dialect, as they did in Farhang. He did not disabuse them.

  He learned from the Nurians that most of the members of this particular group had been brought a week ago to the base, though some had been there longer. His two benefactors were brothers named Aidon and Aybram. They did not know their final destination, only that they would probably be separated when the overseers of various major plantations arrived to inspect them. They had sold their freedom in order to help their aging parents, a sacrifice they mentioned in passing, modestly, as if it were a small thing. They both hoped to work in vine-fields and not in a hardwood mine.

  The next inspection at which workers would be chosen by the various overseers was due to occur in a day or two. Until then, Tymon was advised to rest, for obviously weak or sickening pilgrims were sent straight to the south mines, where they would not survive for long. Aidon and Aybram were under no illusion as to the characters of their Argosian masters. They warned Tymon not to rely on his native looks and clothes in order to escape. The soldiers at the base considered any fugitive fair game; he would be hunted down and slaughtered as sport. The tithe-pilgrims were under legal contract, their services paid for. The soldiers took this as a licence to kill, maim and dispose of them as they saw fit.

  Tymon, in any case, was incapable of attempting a getaway that evening. He was still weak from the effects of starvation and his ankle was only just beginning to mend. Although the strange burns he had suffered to his arm and back in the fight with Wick had healed to a degree, the muscles were still stiff on that side and difficult to move. The brush with the Veil had left the skin on his right palm a dull red colour like a birthmark. He told his fellow pilgrims that he had been transferred to the base from another farm, for he doubted they would react well to knowing his true origins.

  Night was rapidly approaching and the snow had started to fall with redoubled force, quenching the brief evening light. Tymon took the brothers’ advice and curled up in a corner of the crowded, smelly hut, pressed against the back of another man for warmth. He was simply glad to be out of the wind and under a proper roof again. He closed his eyes.

  ‘Oracle,’ he whispered under his breath.

  ‘I am here.’

  ‘I don’t see how we’re supposed to get out of this one.’

  ‘My advice is to sit tight,’ she replied. ‘The immediate future is vague. It could go in several different directions. Never fear: every path arrives at the desired goal. In terms of the Tree of Being, you’re moving into the Letter of Union. All roads lead home.’

  He knew he
would regain his freedom, and soon: she had promised him that much, during their journey in the cart. He was destined to play a vital role in combating the Envoy. Tymon was grateful for his teacher’s reassurances, for he might have lost hope completely without them. But for the moment the Oracle’s help was more inspirational than practical. She could not tell him how exactly he was to escape the life of a slave. He stifled a sigh.

  ‘It’s frustrating,’ he said. ‘I want to contact Oren. I want to know what Pallas and the Jays are doing, and See all these things for myself.’

  Before she could answer, the man lying behind him groaned out a curse, telling him to be quiet if he didn’t want a blacker eye than he already had. Tymon waited a few moments before speaking to the Oracle again.

  ‘Are you sure we can’t do a Reading yet?’ he muttered.

  ‘Be patient,’ she said. ‘We’re not far enough from Argos city. The Envoy is watching you. He will draw you into the Veil if you attempt a trance, just as Wick drew you in that day on the dock. As you well know your encounter with the acolyte almost ended in disaster. Do not take on the master. You’ve had two lucky escapes from Eblas so far. Remember that his power is now reinforced a hundredfold, for he has the use of the orah-clock.’

  It was the priests’ dalliance with the ancient artefact, the Oracle had explained to Tymon, that drew the Sap, and therefore disproportionate power and influence to Argos. This was the vortex of life and light he had Seen hovering above the town like a cloud of flame, on the day of Samiha’s execution. The general heightening of the Grafter’s power in Argos city was so great that it had caused him to perceive his connection to Jedda with his naked eyes. The whole affair was no more than fodder for the Envoy, as the Oracle had noted. Lace bathed in the glut of energy produced by the orah-clock, sucking it off his associates. They had no clue that they would pay sooner or later for their greed, for there were limits to human power, checks and balances that would inevitably be redressed. One nation, one people, could not prevail forever, at the expense of all others.

  ‘There is no one to stop him now,’ the Oracle continued softly.

  Tymon fell silent in the darkened hut, thinking of his experiences in Argos city. He remembered the flaming figure on the execution dock, so bright that he had imagined she would melt the very snow at her feet, so beautiful that he could hardly bear to tear his eyes away —

  ‘No.’ The Oracle’s voice interrupted his thoughts, answering his unspoken desire before he could articulate it. ‘You want to find a ghost with the help of the Reading.’ Her tone was sharp. ‘You want to contact Samiha in the world beyond death. The answer is no.’

  Tymon shifted his tired limbs; the man behind him had mercifully fallen asleep and was snoring. ‘Why not, Ama?’ he asked. He had not really expected his desires to meet with the Oracle’s approval, but wished to know why such comfort was to be denied. ‘Isn’t that one of the things Grafters do? Speak with the dead?’

  ‘That’s a myth. Grafters don’t speak to the dead. Or at least, only very rarely. It’s forbidden. The reason is simple. If we Saw our loved ones, truly Saw where they are and how they are, we’d forget our task in this world and want to be with them.’

  ‘What about Ash?’ he objected. ‘I’ve talked to him without forgetting anything.’

  ‘You talked to one of the Born who wished to help you. He took the form of someone you respected and would listen to, the fifth Focal of Marak. It is the Born who are the gardeners of this world of being. They speak to us and guide us. His own form would have shocked you unnecessarily: he found one easier for you to See.’

  Tymon absorbed this belated revelation. ‘So Grafters only talk to the Born.’

  ‘Yes. And to each other, obviously.’

  ‘And I’ll never — see her again,’ he breathed after a moment, with dull resignation. He could not pronounce Samiha’s name.

  The Oracle’s tone was warm, comforting. ‘Of course you will,’ she replied. ‘We’re always reunited with those who love us, in the world hereafter. For now you must be strong and patient. If you are, you will achieve a great victory. You must think of the requirements of the living, not of the dead.’

  Tymon frowned in the darkness, feeling his sleeping companion snore and twitch at his back. He had no guarantee, other than the Oracle’s promises, of any ‘world hereafter’. He had not Seen ghosts after all: he had Seen creatures from the world of the Sap, Beings whose power he could only begin to guess at and whose motivations were equally obscure. He did not doubt the Oracle’s good intentions but knew well enough that her ‘hereafter’ might mean any number of things unpalatable to him — some vague conjoining of energies in the Sap, a bloodless, faceless substitute for love. He had to admit that her explanations made sense, however. Why would he have Seen the spirit of Ash, but not those of Solis, Laska or Lai? Why would he not have Seen Samiha? He had begun to suspect that many of the things he had taken for granted about the Grafting were untrue, or true in a different way from what he had expected. He did not like the thought of powerful Beings manipulating him from another world.

  ‘What do they want?’ he murmured. ‘The Born, I mean? Why do they garden?’

  ‘Because that’s their function. That’s what the Born are born to do, if you like. They tend the fields of eternity. But they don’t manipulate humans, even so. You’re free to make your own choices.’

  ‘How much of what I’m thinking do you actually hear?’ he asked, raising his voice, somewhat piqued. ‘Is there anything private at all?’

  A snort interrupted the snores of Tymon’s bedfellow, who turned around abruptly to punch him in the back. ‘I give you private!’ snapped the awakened Nurian. ‘Y maza Sav! If you continue to hiss snake-tongue in my ear, you can freeze through night alone, nordi! Mi-putar!’

  The pilgrim’s grumbling deteriorated into a string of curses. The Oracle’s soft laughter echoed in Tymon’s ears.

  ‘I hear most of it because you don’t know how to hide it from me. But I do withdraw from time to time, as you may have noticed. I’m not interested in listening to your unchecked thoughts all night and day. It’s like standing in a crowded marketplace with five different fruit-sellers bawling out their wares — deafening.’

  He did not talk more to her after that, succumbing to deep weariness. But just as he was drifting off to sleep he remembered Jedda’s claims in Argos city, that the Born cultivated human beings. He thought of the rolling expanse of grass outside the Tree of Being which he had witnessed briefly during his Reading with the Oracle, and the other tangled plants he had glimpsed from afar, stretching between loam and sky. Other Trees. Other universes. The fields of eternity.

  Was there some truth mixed in with the Envoy’s lies? he wondered. Nurture could have a selfish motive. Were all the millions who lived and died some form of fodder or crop for the Born? His teacher did not appear to subscribe to such a view, but Tymon could not help a niggling twist of doubt. He trusted the Oracle, but was she herself duped? If his mental visitor could hear these ruminations even as she heard his other thoughts, however, she made no comment. He drifted off to sleep, puzzling over his vision of Samiha in that strange world beyond time and space, the sight of her at one with the Tree of Being. No other trance-form he had encountered had resembled it. The Oracle had told him that Samiha’s fate was linked to the fate of all. And now she was gone; he would no longer find her there, among the branches of the Tree. Perhaps he would never find her anywhere again.

  The next day Tymon awoke to the harsh sound of a horn-blast, and limped out of the hut to join the other Nurians near the gate of the enclosure. His fellow inmates were throwing themselves eagerly upon a heap of food the guards had dumped over the fence. Surprisingly, there was enough to go around, and not all of it was bad: some barley-bread only a day or two old, whole vine-fruits and even dried strips of what might have been shillee’s meat, as hard as leather. The Argosians did not want their chattel to starve. But the Nurians were obliged to squabb
le with each other over the pile and rummage underfoot for scraps like beasts. It was a demeaning sight that caused Tymon to grind his teeth in anger, though he found himself sifting through the straw like everyone else, to satisfy his hunger. Aidon told him this was the one meal provided by the soldiers, and that he should take enough to last him for the rest of the day. Tymon recognised this form of treatment and knew its underlying purpose. He remembered the Bread-Giving in Argos city, the rituals of so-called charity designed to underscore the difference between those who had and those who had not. The pilgrims were considered less than human, and the Argosians were not about to let them forget it.

  ‘Be careful,’ cautioned the Oracle as he bent down to retrieve his portion of the food from the floor of the enclosure. ‘You are starting to think of your countrymen as irredeemable monsters.’

  ‘They are,’ he muttered. ‘They murder what’s right and true, and reward cruelty. They’re as bad as the Envoy. They deserve him. Soulless brutes.’

  ‘What about Bolas? And Masha, and Nell, and all the other good people you’ve met in your home town?’

  ‘It’s not my home town any more,’ blurted Tymon, sitting down on the straw with a thump.

  ‘Where is not home town?’ asked Aidon, from nearby. He stared curiously at Tymon but there was distrust in his eyes.

  ‘Farhang,’ gabbled Tymon, cursing himself for speaking to the Oracle aloud. ‘I thought of going there once to ask for asylum. But I went to Marak instead and kept less than quality company, I’m afraid. I woke up one morning on a tithe-ship. I don’t remember signing anything,’ he added, as doubt flickered across the face of his companion.