Oracle's Fire

by Mary Victoria

  He sat down cross-legged on the floor with a grunt of disgust, even as Oren knelt beside him, already lost in perusal of the papers. The young Grafter did not answer his visitor; the others, too, appeared almost to have forgotten Halas, gathering in a semicircle about Oren to see what he was reading. Noni hastily rose and lit a basket lamp, before peering curiously over her brother’s shoulder.

  ‘I only found out about it when I returned to Marak,’ the agent resumed, when no one responded to his introductions. His expression was ironic, but kind, as he surveyed the young people engrossed in the papers. ‘Even the colonial cities haven’t escaped the Saint’s wrath, you know. He’s put Marak under military rule. The Governor answers to Admiral Greenly. The whole city’s in an uproar about it —’

  ‘Do you realise what this is?’ exclaimed Oren, interrupting the messenger as if he had not listened to a word of his speech.

  ‘Where did you find these papers?’ asked Noni, immediately afterwards.

  ‘I’m getting to that,’ protested Halas mildly. ‘Anyway, part of my mission in Marak was to keep an eye on Caro’s kafa-heads, as well as the other groups out and about. The Freehold judges like to know what sort of shenanigans they’re going to be blamed for next. The newest lot we’ve seen agitating for reform, religious this time, are the so-called “Kion’s Disciples”.’

  ‘Tanata,’ said Oren. ‘But she never wrote this. Not these verses.’

  ‘I didn’t say so.’

  ‘Well, who did?’ prompted Mata, as their guest hesitated.

  ‘I paid a visit to the Disciples,’ resumed Halas, apparently determined to tell his story in his own way, and in his own time, ‘because I had reports they were consorting with Argosian missionaries. I knew Tanata was full of tales of brotherly love and so on, but this just struck me as impossible. So I went to talk to them, and found the stories were half-true. They’d been in contact with travelling Argosian performers — Jays. They’re an Impure caste, and never cross the Gap, in normal circumstances. Colonials hate them, as you probably know.’

  He paused to let the implications of his tale sink in, scrutinising each of the Grafters in turn. ‘These Jays came all the way from Argos city,’ he continued, seeing with some satisfaction the quick succession of emotions — hope, excitement, disbelief — crossing their faces. ‘They brought with them something they considered very important: the last testament of the Kion of Nur, smuggled out before her death.’

  The bold declaration seemed to strike the Focals dumb. They crouched on the floor of the tent in a tight knot about Oren, gaping first at the bundle of paper in his hands, then at the calmly smiling messenger. The Oracle had told them of the testament when they spoke in Chal, but they had all thought it beyond their reach, in the Central Canopy. To be given this unexpected insight into the Kion’s final hours filled them with unspeakable emotions; it brought tears to their eyes. But it also left them in a state of shock.

  ‘Impossible!’ said Noni, in a choked voice.

  ‘It isn’t even in Samiha’s handwriting!’ muttered Oren.

  ‘No, it’s a copy,’ said Halas. ‘The original was lost.’

  ‘How do we know it’s authentic?’ asked Ara.

  ‘How can we be sure the copy was faithful?’ said Mata, almost at the same time.

  ‘We can’t be, entirely,’ replied the Freehold agent. ‘But there are certain indicators that lead me to suppose the Jays were telling the truth. They knew a friend of yours, a young man named Tymon. He’s the one who obtained the testament, according to Tanata. She’s convinced their story is genuine, by the way, and I had a hard time persuading her to let me bring the papers here. She only agreed to it after she’d had her own people take down a copy for themselves. She says it’s holy writ. They all do, even the Jays.’ He chuckled as the Grafters drank in his words; he had their entire attention now. ‘But it was what happened afterwards that actually convinced me. I wasn’t going to take Tanata’s word for it. Who knows what games the Saint will play? I went down to the docks myself that day, making enquiries. It was the day the last ships of the admiral’s fleet arrived, ready for the start of the crusade. I found the Jay dirigibles. But before I reached them, just as I was walking down the quays, in fact, I saw everyone on board those vessels arrested. I saw the Jays marched out of the air-harbour to the city jail, and I don’t think they got a hero’s welcome there. The Argosian soldiers turned their barges upside down. They were looking for something. I believe you have what they want.’

  ‘Our only hope,’ muttered Oren, relief dawning on his face.

  ‘A gap over Marak!’ breathed Ara and Mata together.

  ‘The Witness’ gift,’ said Noni. ‘Ah, Tymon.’

  She rubbed her hand over her eyes, weeping freely. About her, her fellow Focals sat with their heads bowed. She knew they felt the same turmoil in their hearts — a mixture of gratitude towards Tymon for stubbornly insisting on the trip to Argos city, of shame that they had ever considered replacing him, and of acute distress that he might not see the fruits of his labours.

  Halas declined their belated offers of yosha and hospitality, apparently content to have made his delivery. Soon afterwards he left, returning to the tent that had been assigned to him to wash and prepare for the evening meal. The Focals themselves decided to skip supper in the dining hall, remaining together to do the only thing that seemed important to them at that moment. They read and discussed the Kion’s testament far into the night, by the light of the basket lantern. When Ara and Mata finally stumbled back to their own tent to snatch an hour of sleep, the moon was setting behind the western twig-thickets and the first traces of dawn were in the sky. The coming day, the day of the evacuation from the Freehold, would not permit any study at all.

  The young Grafters met again later that morning, carrying their scanty belongings and exchanging nods of greeting as they joined the noisy, slightly chaotic assemblage on the path that ran through the centre of the camp. Gardan and two other judges passed up and down the line of evacuees, speaking with the heads of households and exchanging notes with the expedition leader — a tall, formidable-looking Farhang woman, wrapped in grey cloth up to her eyes, like a human pillar. Children shrieked with excitement and ran to and fro, unaware of the gravity of their situation. Those from Sheb were generally quieter than their companions from Farhang; they had seen two previous evacuations, and were becoming practised nomads, patient with upheaval. A few of the refugees had only just arrived the day before, to hear that they would be leaving again. Noni glimpsed the Saffid workers sitting on their haunches in a group near the back of the line. She smiled and waved to them. A few slowly raised their hands in response.

  The Focals did not say much to each other as they stood in the queue. They were still brimful of Samiha’s words, unable to speak any of their own. The testament lay safe in Oren’s backpack, practically the only thing he had bothered to take with him apart from the rations doled out to every evacuee. The four Focals no longer doubted the authenticity of the papers, for they had recognised the Kion’s inimitable voice in the lines, precious and familiar, giving them hope. They yearned to share their discovery with others, but knew the time was not right.

  A short while later, the line began moving sluggishly forward as the refugees filed down the path that led out of the camp, one by one. But Noni walked with a light and buoyant step, the Kion’s words reverberating through her whole being. She felt the verses rising up in her throat, pushing against her palate, clamouring to be heard. I rely on you, Tymon, to tell my story as it was, without embellishment. The testament was written in the traditional style of a mystic love-poem, supposedly intimate but actually addressed to all. Even so, the epistolary style did give Noni some hope for Tymon’s survival. Perhaps he would read and tell that story for himself, one day. The testament, she knew, was primarily a public declaration — holy writ to some, but also a frank and open challenge to the Argosian priests and busy warmongers everywhere. No wonder the Saint had
given orders to suppress it! It was meant to be shared widely, its intimacy taken symbolically, something no literal-minded priest would ever understand. Preoccupied by these thoughts, Noni did not immediately hear the thin voice crying out behind her. She only stopped in her tracks when Oren grabbed her arm.

  ‘Look!’ he said, as she glanced over her shoulder to see the familiar form of Galliano stumbling at the rear of the queue.

  They had been told that the scientist would remain in the camp with a few of the judges, leaving just before the attack, in an air-chariot. Noni had been secretly relieved not to meet him the day before in the dining hall, dreading the old man’s reaction to Tymon’s absence. But Galliano had caught up with them, now. He was almost falling over on the path in his haste to catch up with them, waving his cane in the air. The people at the end of the line cried out in warning as he bumped into them, caught his elbow as he half-collided with a nearby twig-stump and staggered on.

  ‘Noni? Oren?’ he called to the air about him, in Argosian. ‘Are you there?’

  ‘We are, syor,’ Oren replied in the foreign tongue. He pushed past those in the queue behind him, and hurried back to the blind scientist with Noni close on his heels. ‘What can we do for you? We thought you stay in Farhang!’

  ‘I’m staying,’ gasped Galliano, wheezing for breath. ‘And so should you. I’ll explain why in a moment. Come close, so I can feel I’m speaking to your faces. It’s difficult, talking to a void.’

  He reached out his gnarled, trembling hands to grasp their shoulders as he spoke. ‘I understand,’ he continued, as they glanced at one another anxiously, ‘I understand that you left my boy behind in the South Canopy. I won’t ask what possessed you to do it, because I know him. He insisted on staying. He always does exactly as he pleases.’

  ‘We’re so sorry, syor,’ said Noni regretfully. ‘We know Tymon was like a son to you.’

  ‘Believe me, I’m used to it,’ snorted Galliano. ‘That scamp will think of everything farthest away from him before he thinks of home. That’s how his mind works — he draws a wide arc before returning to the beginning. No, no. Something else troubles me. I also suspect — correct me if I’m wrong — that you’re unable to See him in your Grafting visions. Is that right?’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Oren. ‘But you do not believe in those, I think, syor?’

  ‘I don’t pronounce any judgment on the Grafting. It’s not my area of expertise. But I do know one thing. What you two believe will affect how you react to my boy’s disappearance. It’s as if he’s dead, am I right?’ There was a note of distress in the old man’s voice; his fingers gripped their shoulders with unconscious anxiety.

  ‘Alas, syor,’ answered Noni, ‘when another Grafter, especially one as deeply connected to us as Tymon was, is no longer visible in the world of the trance, it can mean only two things. Either he’s dead, or he has been engulfed in our enemies’ power. If that’s the case, then he might as well be dead. He’s lost to us for now —’

  ‘Nonsense!’ interrupted Galliano. ‘No one’s ever lost! Not really. You don’t give up on people who matter, after only two days! You try to reach them, and try again. When that’s over, you try once more. You won’t wash your hands of Tymon while I’m around!’

  ‘That’s not what we’re doing,’ said Noni, her pale face flushing in embarrassment. ‘We’re not washing our hands of him. Please don’t think that.’

  The long line of refugees continued to walk by them, swelling and dividing into two rivulets on the path before closing ranks to trickle out of the camp. Some glanced back curiously to watch the altercation taking place behind them. Last in line, the Saffid group trudged by, whispering to each other as the old scientist harangued the young Grafters, his beard fairly bristling with outrage. Although Galliano kept a tight grip on Oren’s shoulder with one hand, he let go of Noni with the other in order to gesticulate impatiently in the air.

  ‘Then do something about it!’ he harrumphed. ‘Why don’t you go after him? Why don’t you even think to talk it through with me? I might be able to help, you know.’

  Oren and Noni glanced at each other again, full of pity for the old man. Noni began to wonder whether the scientist had not begun to go senile. His love for Tymon was blinding him still further. ‘Did it ever occur to you,’ he was spluttering now, ‘not to rely on all your mystic wisdom for once, but ask for a practical man’s advice?’

  ‘What do you suggest, syor?’ asked Oren. ‘Do you wish to go after him, into tunnels, into mines? We wish also, but this is impossible task. How do we know where he goes if we cannot Read him?’

  ‘Not the mine,’ said Galliano. ‘I know where he’s gone, and I know another way of getting there. I have plans in my tent I could show you — ah, I wish you’d come and seen me before! If he’s determined to go into the Tree, as I hear from your Saffid workers, he’ll reach the rhizome layer, one way or another. The centre of the Tree is hollow, riddled with gaps and old sap-conduits. They all lead to the same place.’

  This time, the look the Grafters exchanged was one of astonishment. ‘How do you know this, syor?’ Oren enquired.

  ‘I’m a professor in applied Treeology,’ answered the scientist, with a degree of weariness. ‘What do you think we studied at the seminary? The priests aren’t only about killing heretics and preaching to the wayward, you know. They have plenty of perfectly good scientific and historical knowledge in their library, which they sit on like a flock of brooding buzzards. Oh yes, the Council knew about Lacuna.’

  Galliano was perfectly fine, thought Noni suddenly. It was they who had been blind, yet again: there was something important here, something to what the old man was saying. She felt it instinctively; sensed Oren’s shiver of shock as he stood by her, on hearing the legendary name given to the World Below.

  ‘A century ago, they sent Explorers under the Storm, to verify the stories,’ Galliano continued, his voice dropping low, though the last of the refugees had passed them by and disappeared through a tunnel of twigs at the borders of the camp. ‘Contrary to what was reported, those people didn’t travel through the clouds in a ship — not on their most successful journeys, anyway. They used a natural shaft near Argos city to descend. What they found was so troubling that it was kept a secret by the Council, the tunnel sealed and all further travel below the Storm banned. They throw a poor pilgrim into the remains of the shaft each year, as you know. A cynical exercise to keep a cynical secret. Of course, secrets work only when people have forgotten what was common knowledge to begin with. I believe Nurian Grafters remember the civilisations that once flourished at the base of the Tree …’

  Noni could feel her brother’s unease radiating out of him. ‘Those cities were filled with bad people, syor,’ he told Galliano. ‘Perhaps it is best Argosians forget them.’

  ‘That’s what the Council decided,’ replied the scientist. ‘They decided to bury the truth. I personally think they were wrong. Be that as it may, if Tymon has gone into a mine in search of Samiha, there’s every chance he’ll end up in the sap-conduits, because that’s where the Lantrians dig for their blessed corewood. Luckily, we don’t need to follow him there. The Tree has lost integrity at its base because of its age, and many of the shafts merge together to form big hollow spaces at the foot of the trunk. Tymon will end up in one of those chambers, mark my words. He’s going to walk out of the Tree and find himself in the World Below.’

  ‘And so you wish to meet him there,’ burst out Noni, her heartbeat quickening. ‘Now I understand. Yes, syor! It’s worth a try.’

  But Oren did not echo her joy. He stood silent and troubled beside her. She wondered why he was so reticent: this was a chance to help Tymon. Wasn’t it?

  ‘We could cross the clouds, and do a sweep of the whole area underneath the mine,’ said Galliano eagerly. ‘The judges have already agreed to a voyage below the Storm, on principle —’

  ‘Wait,’ interrupted Oren, holding up his hands. ‘Wait, both of you. We for
get what is most important, in seeking what is important. We must think of all, not one. Right now we must help Freeholders. First survive attack, then go on rescue mission, syor.’

  Although all was peaceful and sunlit around them, the twig-thickets emptied of the refugees’ noise and clamour, Noni noticed that her brother’s face had lost its colour. His hand was trembling on her shoulder as he promised Galliano that the trip to the World Below would take precedence over all else, after the Argosian attack. She realised with dismay that something had frightened him deeply. But he said nothing more about it, taking the old scientist into his arms and embracing him in a fond and wordless farewell. Galliano refused to let them conduct him back to his tent, remaining poised like a bent twig on the borders of the empty camp as they left, his arm raised in farewell.

  Oren’s unease did not diminish after they had set off down the path in the wake of the other refugees. Noni watched him covertly as they walked, wondering when he would confess to what preoccupied him. Whatever her brother had to say, she guessed it would not be pleasant.

  ‘You realise what this means,’ he muttered to her at last, in their own language, after they had lost sight of Galliano among the twigs.

  ‘I thought it might be good news,’ she answered, wistful. ‘Some hope for our friend.’

  ‘It’s terrible news,’ said Oren flatly. ‘It means Tymon has definitely Seen a shadow-form sent by the Masters. Who else would know the paths into the Old Places? Who else would be interested in luring him there? They’ve been working on him ever since he began having those accursed visions. They chased away the Oracle to get to him. Now, they’re leading him to Lacuna. Think, Noni. What do they do to Grafters? He’ll be lost to us by the time we reach him — Eaten.’