Oracle's Fire

by Mary Victoria

  The dogs crouched before him on the carpet, their jaws open and slavering, blue eyes shot with bloody hate.

  ‘Good grief, not again. Ablash. Gaw. Heel, boys.’

  Dayan’s command, spoken in Argosian, rang out from the doorway. The aristocrat often addressed Tymon in his own tongue; the dogs, for their part, did not seem to mind the difference. They stopped growling as the Lord ambled into the room, his hands thrust into the pockets of his soft grey trousers, the picture of easy elegance. Dayan wore his greying hair cut long, in defiance of Lantrian convention. At a whistle from him, the dogs trotted over to sniff his boots, transformed into panting sycophants.

  ‘What do you do to them?’ he asked Tymon with a light laugh. ‘I’ve never seen them object to anyone else like this.’ He bent down to pat the heads of his furred sentries.

  Tymon remained where he stood and bowed stiffly to his employer, reluctant to approach the dogs. The Lord spoke to him with polite camaraderie, as if he were a friend and equal; it made Tymon unspeakably uncomfortable. ‘Careful,’ cautioned the Oracle, a soft breath in his ear. ‘Don’t let him see your dislike. It’s bad enough that the dogs do.’

  ‘I swear I didn’t do anything, sir,’ said Tymon. He decided on an attempt at humour to disguise his unease. ‘Maybe they hate me for leaving the seminary,’ he joked. ‘They say animals can smell out a traitor.’

  Just then, the Lord’s companion, whom Tymon had heard speaking in the hall, entered the conservatory. A tall, muscular man, the newcomer had his scalp clean-shaven in the Lantrian style and sported the sleeveless leather jerkin of a sailor. He did not in any way resemble the fussy, collared merchants who had visited Dayan on previous occasions. His eyes, when he returned Tymon’s astonished gaze, were edged with ferocious-looking black ash. The joke about traitors fell completely flat in the silence that followed.

  ‘Aha, the resettler,’ murmured the Oracle. ‘I was wondering when he’d appear on the scene. He’s the Company’s man in Cherk Harbour, Tymon. Let’s hope he doesn’t make the connection between the young foreigner he was hunting there, and the young foreigner standing in front of him here.’

  ‘So, traitor,’ remarked the visitor at last, in his drawling brand of Argosian, as he considered Tymon from head to foot. ‘You were a seminary lad. How interesting.’

  Tymon tried to smile, failed, and buried his discomfort in another bow. Dayan flung himself into his office chair with his usual carelessness, while the dogs padded under the table to flop at his feet.

  ‘Captain Tahu here has recently returned from Cherk Harbour,’ the Lord threw out, with a yawn. ‘You may stay with us, Tymon, and take notes when I ask you to. Tahu, do make yourself comfortable, my old man.’

  Dayan affected broad-mindedness by referring to his servants by their personal names. In the present circumstances, Tymon would rather he had been addressed by his number, or by the belittling term ‘boy’, as he had been at the seminary, for he would have liked to remain unnamed. When his employer indicated that he should bring his stool to the right side of the desk — his deaf post — his unease only deepened. Tahu’s rough garb belied his importance, then; Dayan did not wish Tymon to hear their discussion. The young man silently cursed his disability, for he suspected that the information he would be missing might have served the Focals.

  ‘Not really,’ said the Oracle, responding to his thoughts. ‘They’ll talk about deliveries to Caro, I suspect. There’s something else going on here, however, something important … I haven’t quite put my finger on it yet …’

  Her voice trailed off. Tahu’s ash-edged scrutiny did not leave Tymon, but he did as he was bidden by Dayan, and sat down on one of the divans, his leather-clad bulk incongruous on the embroidered upholstery. ‘Tymon,’ he repeated, rolling the name over his tongue, as if testing its flavour. ‘Tell me, Tymon. Have you ever travelled to the Eastern Canopy?’

  The question sent a shiver down Tymon’s spine. ‘He suspects now,’ warned the Oracle. ‘He does not know. Be circumspect, but do not lie: this one is a hound himself, sniffing out falsehood.’

  ‘Yes.’ Tymon hovered on the right side of the desk, but remained standing to answer Tahu, in a show of respect. He would not in any case have heard what the other was saying, had he sat down with his face turned to the window. ‘I was sent to do my indenture in Marak. I ran away and tried to get home again, but they caught me.’

  He had given the most abridged answer he could think of while keeping to the truth. ‘Well done,’ murmured the Oracle. ‘Enough and not too much. But we still have a problem. If only I could figure out what it was!’

  ‘We should get to work,’ put in Dayan impatiently. ‘Sit, Tymon. I’ll ask you to help in a minute.’

  Tahu was evidently dissatisfied with Tymon’s answer, but felt obliged to comply with his Lord’s wishes. He remained silent, his lips pursed and his eyes lingering on the young man as he lowered himself onto his stool. Tymon could not help speculating how much the Company man had seen of the debacle in Cherk Harbour, and whether he had been personally involved in Laska’s arrest. It was all he could do to avoid returning the resettler’s gaze with gloomy hatred. He half-faced the window, as Dayan required, turning his deaf ear to his companions. When the Lord resumed speaking, Tymon could tell that the conversation was in Lantrian, but his position plunged the rest of the dialogue into a ringing confusion.

  Left to himself in the void of deafness, he stared through the orange panes at Dayan’s garden terraces, brooding over the irony of Nurian rebels having ties with the slavers. How could Caro sleep at night, after indulging in so much bloody pragmatism? As the Lord and his thug continued to talk, Tymon’s thoughts wandered from his old Nurian opponent back to Laska again, remembering how much the Freeholders had loved their brusque but fair-minded captain. Only Gardan was left now, he thought, to keep that spirit of leadership alive. After a while, as the conversation in Lantrian dragged on, he noticed distractedly that another storm was brewing outside. He gazed up in distaste at the oddly coloured clouds churning in the spaces between the leaves, giving an involuntary shudder as the carefully tended flowers and neatly clipped shrubs on the terraces began to toss and heave in the rising wind. Although the South Canopy with its low altitudes had milder weather than either Argos or Nur, he found the wet, windy Lantrian winter distinctly unpleasant.

  ‘I don’t like it either,’ said the Oracle, through the muffled echo of the Lord’s voice. ‘This weather is tricky. Everything changes in the blink of an eye … It’s all illusion, no substance.’

  Even Tymon’s deaf ear registered the grinding sound of the divan’s legs at that moment, scraping on the floor as the meeting drew to a close. He turned around to see Tahu rising from his seat.

  ‘It will be done, Lord,’ the resettler declared. ‘You can rely on me.’

  ‘I know,’ smiled Dayan. ‘That’s why I chose you for this job, my friend. You have your instructions. Good speed on your return to Cherk.’

  Tahu bowed, his ashen gaze sliding towards Tymon one last time. Then he turned and strode from the room. When he was gone, Dayan beckoned the young man back to the other side of the desk. The dogs stirred and snuffled as Tymon wearily repositioned his stool again. Their master leaned back in his chair, his expression thoughtful as he scrutinised his secretary.

  ‘I suppose you’re wondering what all that was about,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ admitted Tymon.

  ‘I have a few business deals in the Eastern Canopy that I do not wish to publicise. But I’m glad you met Tahu. This brings me round to a subject I have been wanting to broach with you for some time.’

  ‘Oho,’ muttered the Oracle. ‘It’s coming. This one is hatching a plan.’

  The Lord stretched out even farther in his chair, as lanky and languid as his lolling dogs. ‘Why did your masters really banish you from the seminary, Tymon?’ he asked, drawling out the question.

  ‘Like I say, sir, I ran away from my indenture,’ answer
ed Tymon warily. ‘I had some contact with Nurian Freeholders. They declared me a traitor.’

  Dayan shrugged. ‘Yes, yes, all very interesting, I’m sure. But not quite enough to justify the punishment you received … they had a special reason to hate you, did they not? To send you to the harshest pilgrim camp in the Central Canopy, where the soldiers in charge would do things like that to you.’ He indicated Tymon’s shredded ear.

  Tymon was at a loss as to how to answer. ‘A devious little scheme from a devious little mind,’ noted the Oracle from the background, somewhat unhelpfully.

  At last the Lord spoke again. ‘Undo your shirt collar,’ he said.

  Although various swift objections to this request passed through Tymon’s mind, he did not need the Oracle’s warning to put them aside this time. His experience at Hayman’s Point had taught him not to value outward dignity above the inner kind. He kept his face neutral and undid the buttons at his neck. As he did so, Samiha’s pendant, lying for so long next to his skin, slipped over his shirtfront, next to the slave’s identification plaque.

  ‘So,’ murmured the Lord triumphantly.

  He leaned forward and brought his face close to Tymon’s, taking hold of the little pendant. He obviously considered his houseboy to be a passive object, to touch or not as he pleased. He inspected the orah greedily, rubbing a thumb and forefinger over the bright inlay.

  ‘It’s true then,’ he breathed. ‘You are an acolyte of the Old Order.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the Oracle, her voice full of relief. ‘The Lord knows about the Grafting. Don’t worry, Tymon, we’ll be able to use this to our advantage.’

  ‘The Old Order?’ echoed Tymon, feeling far happier as his employer withdrew his hand and settled back in his chair again.

  ‘You have another name for it,’ answered Dayan. ‘But occult Lantrian scripture is formal on the subject. Those who wear ashk — the “substance of shining tears”, to translate literally — are seers who can predict the future. Your masters in Argos could not have borne any opposition from an acolyte initiated into their deepest secrets. Does that about cover what happened to you?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Tymon. Despite the Oracle’s assurances, Dayan’s interest in the Grafting struck him as positively disturbing.

  ‘Oh, you know very well it does,’ smiled the aristocrat. ‘We both know that the prophets were not merely pious teachers concerned with promoting a system of ethics. They were powerful practitioners of an art still extant in the world — an art that is the secret of the seminary’s power. Am I not right, Tymon the Grafter?’

  The young man stared at him apprehensively. ‘And if you are?’ he asked. ‘What happens then?’

  ‘Then,’ replied the Lord, his smile becoming unctuous, ‘you and I may enter into an agreement.’

  He did not immediately elaborate on what such an agreement might entail, however, and creaked back in his seat, pressing the ends of his fingers together and contemplating Tymon.

  ‘That’s not anywhere near the whole of it, though,’ mused the Oracle, her tone preoccupied. ‘There’s something else going on, something besides the Lord’s little plan … If I could only See …’

  ‘Do you know why we bring Nurians to work in the mines?’ Dayan asked abruptly.

  Tymon’s back stiffened. ‘No, sir,’ he mumbled.

  ‘For the same reason as Argosians bring them to their plantations,’ said the aristocrat, without missing a beat. ‘The Nurries aren’t like us, of course. They can’t take care of themselves: they need someone to organise them, to put them to work properly. It could, and should, be a mutually beneficial arrangement. The Eastern Canopy was in a shocking state before the Argosians went in, you know. I personally deplore the war between our two great nations.’ He rapped his finger decisively on the desk. ‘But you, Tymon, are different from the other slaves. You have a soul. That’s why I am willing to enter into an agreement with you. You will use your powers to answer a question for me. In return, I’ll free you as an act of mercy. You’ll be given passage to Lant city. Thereafter you may do as you like.’

  Another gust of wind shook the window. The dogs at Dayan’s feet stirred and pricked up their ears. Tymon was torn between hope and disgust at the Lord’s insinuations. He would have appreciated the Oracle’s input at that moment, but she seemed suddenly preoccupied by the weather.

  ‘I’ll be damned if I can See in these shadows,’ she sighed, as sun and cloud conducted a swift contest in the sky above the terraced gardens.

  Tymon ignored her grumblings. He was prepared to hear the mine-owner out; the hope that had taken hold of him was not for himself.

  ‘I might be able to help you,’ he said cautiously. ‘But not in exchange for my own freedom. I’d like to ask for something else, sir.’

  ‘And what would that be?’

  ‘There are a few people in your mine I call friends. That’s another reason the priests hated me: I have Nurian friends. Free them instead of me.’

  One of the dogs — Tymon guessed it was Gaw — began to emit a high-pitched whine, raising its head to stare through the window at the tossing leaf-tips. Dayan raised a well-mannered eyebrow at his request.

  ‘I see that you genuinely care for these pathetic creatures,’ he said. ‘Such indulgence is foolish. Be that as it may, I might be disposed to agree to your demands. But an act of mercy that covers several individuals is difficult to justify. I would have to have sufficient motivation for my actions, especially if we’re talking about mineworkers.’ He rose from his chair and strolled to the window, peering up at the slivers of overcast sky visible through the leaves. ‘I need an excuse I can sell to my personnel managers, out there in the real world.’

  ‘I hate being blind,’ complained the Oracle, in the depths of Tymon’s mind. ‘It’s always a bad sign for what comes next.’

  She did not seem to be following the conversation with Dayan at all. Tymon felt a twinge of annoyance. He was on his own in his negotiations. He cast about for some cold, business-like logic the Lantrian might accept.

  ‘My friends are mostly too sick to work, or too young to be really productive,’ he said. ‘All but one are members of the Saffid tribe. They suffer from an accelerated version of the Slow Death. You’ll only get a few years out of them anyway.’

  The dogs had evidently seen something they considered a threat in the garden. Both of the animals were now sitting up beneath the desk, growling at the faraway clouds. Tymon squinted in the same direction, at the leaf-tossed, orange-tinted sky. He glimpsed a flock of birds circling high above the mansion. There was definitely a thunderstorm coming, he thought.

  Dayan shrugged again. ‘The average life of a slave is two years in the mine,’ he said, without turning from the window. ‘I’m sorry to say that even the Slow Death makes no difference to productivity.’

  ‘Did you just see birds outside?’ asked the Oracle, with sudden interest. But Tymon was too keen to argue with Dayan to answer.

  ‘Then do it as an investment in your future,’ he persisted to the Lord. ‘I’ll stay here and help you as long as you like.’ He meant it, too: he would have been willing to forgo the Freeholders’ rescue himself, if Dawn, Zero and the others were able to leave the mine without harassment. ‘I’ll be your resident Grafter,’ he said.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ gasped the Oracle.

  The distress in her voice gave Tymon pause at last. What’s the matter? he asked her silently. He glanced about him, but everything in the room seemed normal, apart from the dogs. They were still emitting their foolish noises, staring at the far-off circling specks. Is it the birds? he enquired.

  But his teacher did not respond. Dayan’s blue eyes glinted with cold satisfaction as he finally turned around to face Tymon.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ he said. ‘You’re learning how to survive here, I see. You just might have garnered yourself a deal, my good fellow.’

  He rubbed his fingers together languidly. Tymon was reminded of the Sap
-siphoning Doctor, Jocaste’s dead father; Dayan was a parasite of a different sort. It was the kind of correlation he would have expected the Oracle to make, but she gave no further sign. In fact, she appeared to have exited his consciousness, once again. Tymon was left with the hollow sense of having failed her.

  He was about to rise from the stool in deference to his employer, preoccupied by the Oracle’s disappearance, when the Lord waved him down.

  ‘You can have the rest of the evening off,’ he announced. ‘You must conduct a holy trance to answer my question, no? Well, my demand is simple. I wish to know how a certain person is plotting to kill me. Not if, because I know he will, but how. You have just met the person in question.’

  ‘Tahu?’ asked Tymon, taken aback.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Lord calmly. ‘My death would put him in a prime position in our Company. I want you to find out precisely how and when he will strike. That is the price of your friends’ freedom. Conduct the trance right here, if you like: I will give instructions to the staff to leave this room undisturbed tonight. Ablash, Gaw.’

  He whistled through his teeth, causing the Tree-dogs to scramble out from under the desk, panting. They no longer seemed in any way concerned by the window. When Tymon glanced at the sky again, he saw that the birds had gone.

  ‘We leave you to your mysteries,’ said Dayan. ‘Depending on how I like your answer, I will free some or all of your friends. I hope for your sake — and theirs — that I like it well.’ Without waiting for a reply, he marched out of the room, followed by the obedient shadows of his hounds. The panelled doors clicked shut behind him.

  ‘Ama?’ Tymon whispered, as soon as he was on his own. But the space at the back of his mind remained disturbingly empty.

  The whole episode left him feeling ill at ease. The Oracle’s last words were particularly troubling, and he berated himself for being so involved with the Lord’s proposition that he had ignored her at that critical moment. What would she have advised him to do? How would she have counselled him to respond to Dayan?