Oracle's Fire

by Mary Victoria

  It gave him quite a turn, though he told himself there was no reason a Sending should look like a normal object in daylight. How long had it been since they left the hollow Tree-hall? he wondered, sensing a chill in the air. He searched the sky in an attempt to guess the time. As far as he could judge from the vague white point of the sun in the Storm clouds, the trunk-wall behind him ran from east to west, falling slightly away to the north in the barest indication of a curve. It was perhaps late morning in the canopies above, though he felt now as if he had been walking for far longer than a few hours. He recalled what Zero had told him when they stopped to eat. Had their journey really lasted five days?

  With that memory came belated concern for his friend. But just as he turned to search behind him for Zero, he heard a gasp of astonishment. His faithful companion had caught up with him already, and was crouched on top of the slope, a few feet away. The hulking red-haired lad clung to the bark as if he were afraid he might fall, his simple face blanched with terror as he stared out over the shining waters. And although Tymon had been gazing for the past few minutes at the expanse, he saw it again through Zero’s eyes, as it would seem to someone who had barely witnessed the Gap, let alone stranger worlds like the Veil. He could just imagine what the poor fellow must be feeling. How could such an immense body of water exist? How could the universe be so endlessly flat and huge? It went against all experience for a Tree-dweller.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he told Zero kindly, feeling ashamed that he had abandoned his friend at such a time. For some reason — the shock of seeing the World Below, perhaps — he had half-convinced himself, in the past few minutes, that he was travelling alone with Samiha. He shrugged off the sensation, telling himself that he must be tired, and offered Zero his hand, helping him rise.

  ‘Just follow me,’ he urged, as the lad clung desperately to him. ‘I’ll show you where to go. You won’t fall if you stay close to me.’

  ‘Why don’t you stop worrying about him?’ Samiha called from some distance down the slope. ‘He can take care of himself.’

  She had turned to wait, her expression marked by annoyance. The disapproval in her voice caused a shiver to pass down Tymon’s spine.

  ‘He’s shocked by all this flat space,’ he tried to explain, shaking Zero off as gently as he could, and letting go of the other lad’s hand. ‘He’s never seen anything like this, not even the Veil.’

  He began to hurry down the slope after Samiha, in spite of Zero’s faint cry behind him. The vision of his love frowned as he drew near.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t call it the Veil,’ she said with some severity. ‘That’s misleading, as if one could just step in and out at whim. Call it what it is: the Prison.’

  ‘Of course. The Prison,’ said Tymon, abashed, as they continued on. He glanced back only once, surreptitiously so as not to make Samiha angry, to be sure that Zero was following.

  After one last steep section of the escarpment, where Tymon almost lost his balance as he slithered down the bark, the hillock levelled off, bordered by a wide strip of loam before the waters. Up close, the vast lake at the foot of the Tree was a muddy grey, losing its reflective sheen. The waters seemed mournful-looking, rippled by the now stiffening wind. Before they reached the water’s edge, however, Tymon stopped and squatted down, his interest caught by a tuft of green sprouting out of the loam. He tore up a handful of grass, scrutinising the blades.

  ‘Just ordinary grass,’ he said in astonishment.

  ‘What did you expect?’ asked Samiha. ‘What else would grow here?’

  ‘I wasn’t aware anything at all grew here,’ replied Tymon mildly.

  But he did not follow her when she walked out over the waters, her blue-bright figure hovering just above the surface of the lake. ‘Why don’t you come?’ she called to him, surprised, as he continued to squat by the lakeshore.

  ‘I’m not a Sending,’ he reminded her. ‘Nor a Saint unburdened by the weight of sin, much as I hate to admit it. I’ll sink, Samiha. It looks too wide to swim.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ she said. ‘It’s not deep, up to your knees at most. The ground rises under the city. We’ll be on dry earth soon.’

  ‘Earth,’ he repeated, trying out the unfamiliar word. It lay thick on his tongue. ‘Is that the same as loam?’ he asked. ‘That’s what it looks like, from here.’

  He peered doubtfully at the sediment that had gathered in the shallows of the pool, sprouting more plants of the kind he had pulled up, tough hardy bog-grass he had seen growing in the loamy troughs and hollows of the Central Canopy. All at once, his mind was overtaken by another image, a fleeting memory of the rolling expanse of grass and loam beyond the Tree of Being, as endless as the Veil, but smelling of home.

  ‘The world beyond the world!’ he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. ‘You know, Samiha, that’s what this place reminds me of, not the V — I mean, Prison. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. When I stepped outside the Tree of Being —’

  ‘Are you coming, or not?’ she interrupted peevishly. ‘Or are you going to talk Sap-talk until the sun goes down, and my body expires?’

  Her tone was so jarring, the reaction so unexpected, that he stood blinking at her in confusion. He remembered, then, in a disconnected rush of remorse, that he had not contacted the Grafters in the trance for five whole days, if Zero could be believed, and that they would be deeply worried about him. And what had possessed him to leave his young Nurian friend behind again? He turned to see the red-headed boy inching his way down the difficult section of the slope. Despite his fear, Zero was doing his best to follow him.

  ‘My love,’ cried Samiha from behind him. There was a note of panic in her voice, a new urgency that made Tymon spin guiltily round. ‘Hurry,’ she entreated. ‘I grow weak. I don’t know what they’re doing to me.’

  He saw that her trance-form had faded, now no more than a wavering blue candle over the surface of the lake. ‘No!’ he exclaimed, splashing into the water after her, the wetness penetrating his clothes and boots in a cold rush. ‘Wait, Samiha! I’m coming!’

  The sight of Tymon stepping into the Storm below the Storm filled Zero with instinctive panic. When he had peered over the top of the high escarpment after toiling up the bark for what felt like a good half-hour, and seen that vastness of rolling grey on the other side, a cry had escaped his lips, half-croak, half-exclamation, all shock. He had been unable to restrain it. But when Tymon went on to actually step into the dreadful immensity, wading through the clouds, Zero’s shout of warning died in his throat. He stared from where he sat on the slope, frozen and dry-lipped, as his friend walked to his death.

  He expected to see Tymon disappear within seconds. That was what normally happened when people fell into the Storm, or were flung into it as a punishment, or were thrown as corpses, over the edge. You saw them for a few seconds and that was it: they hurtled down and disappeared forever. And so he expected Tymon to disappear too, swallowed by this last, gaping void that would surely plunge him into the farthest reaches of Hell. Or perhaps it was worse. Perhaps this Hell was bottomless. For what if each time you stepped into the Storm, you hurtled down and fell into another world, where there was another Storm which sent you headlong into yet another world, in which you fell into another Storm, then world and Storm over and over again — forever? Zero stared in horror at the distant figure splashing through the shallows, knowing that the surface beneath the Syon’s feet could not hold. Any minute now, his friend would tumble forward — any second, and he would disappear into the emptiness.

  And yet, somehow, he did not. Tymon kept moving, step after step into the clouds. First his ankles vanished. Then his calves went under. Then the Storm rose right up to his knees. And as he walked into it, Zero saw with amazement that dark, swirling eddies were spreading in his friend’s wake. Tymon’s passage was stirring up black sediment from below. That was when the Marak boy finally understood that the second Storm did not consist of cloud at a
ll, but water. There was a bottom to this Hell, and it was made of loam and water.

  And there was also something more than cloud above him. When Zero saw the first flash, he thought it was lightning. It seemed to burst out of the heavens, a stab of blue. But there was no accompanying thunder and the light, arcing over Tymon’s head, lasted only an instant. Strange, thought Zero, looking up in expectation of rain; in spite of all this water down below, storms under the Storm seem drier than the ones above. And then he saw it again. Another crackle of light shot over Tymon’s head, closer this time, circling over him in a flash only to vanish seconds later. Zero thought again, anxiously, of the fire-demons the Argosian missionaries had warned him about. It was as though the spirits of this underworld were using the Syon for target practice, or the hungry ghost had decided to play bowls with him. Another such throw and he would be knocked over. Then, Zero was sure, he would disappear beneath the waves.

  He waited no longer. Though he trembled with trepidation at what he might find below, he slid down on his rump over the last outcrop of bark and slithered to the foot of the escarpment. By the time he reached the bottom of the slope, his trousers were torn and his fingers and knees grazed. But he was there, standing on the loam shore at the edge of the water, with Tymon far ahead of him now, wading out into the endless lake.

  ‘Be strong!’ He heard the words as though they were addressed to him. But it was Tymon’s voice, Tymon who was unaware of the spirits flashing above his head, Tymon who was speaking to the hungry ghost that lured him into the depths.

  Zero paused to take a deep breath before stepping gingerly into the muddy shallows.

  Samiha held her hands out to Tymon. ‘I’ve been short with you because I’m afraid,’ she whispered anxiously as he drew close. ‘Time is running out.’

  He brushed her flickering fingers with his own, and shivered as the touch of her sent the familiar shock of pleasure through him. She seemed to glow a little brighter.

  ‘Why don’t you rest yourself?’ Although he forced himself to say the words, he only wished for her to stay with him. ‘Stop the Sending, and come back when you feel better. I’ll use the opportunity to contact the Focals. They’ll be wondering where I am.’

  ‘Hush,’ she said, pressing a burry finger against his lips. ‘There’s no time for that. They’ll See you in their Readings, anyway. This is our last chance. If we don’t find my body today, I’ll be gone.’

  Tymon waded further into the lake after the blue haze of her form, pressing on without too much difficulty. The water was cold but not deep, and it was not long before the lake bed rose, just as Samiha had said it would. By the time they skirted the outflung root to reach the area she had pointed out to him from above, the lake was no more than a squelching few inches about his boots. The atolls he had glimpsed were all about him now, towering columns and lumps of grey matter jutting up from the water, larger than he had thought they would be. He realised, with a jolt of shock, that the islands were in fact the remains of a city, crumbling remnants of buildings. The hard stuff the columns were made of was like no material he had ever seen. He laid the palm of his hand against one of the blocks, a roughly rectangular slab about the size of a small dirigible; it was as cold as orah, pocked and eroded by a thousand tiny marks.

  The bases of the columns were colonised by lichen, but Tymon saw no other plants growing among the jungle of grey pillars. The place was bleak and silent, devoid of birdsong. The last animals he had seen in the World Below were the bats in the Tree-cave, and the last ordinary human sound had been Zero’s cry, asking him to wait. He winced at the thought of the lad trudging faithfully behind him, and resisted the urge to turn around. Samiha was watching him.

  ‘What could destroy buildings this big?’ he asked her.

  ‘The Born used weapons of unimaginable strength,’ she said, beckoning him on between the columns. ‘Blast-poison is only a shadow of that power.’

  ‘It seems like such a waste,’ he muttered. When she did not answer but walked ahead, he left the pockmarked block and splashed in her wake. ‘Where are we going in exactly?’ he called to her. ‘Do you know where your body is?’

  She nodded. ‘Everything’s clear to me now. It’s kept in a certain building at the heart of the city. That’s the only one of the Ancients’ constructions that would have survived: it was built after the end of the war, and built to last.’

  ‘Why? What was it?’ he asked.

  Again she did not reply, walking swiftly over the last puddles of water. He bit his lip and followed, aware that she probably thought he was wasting precious time with questions. They soon left the lake behind and were walking on dry loam, winding between the silent ruins. Tymon felt the prick of rain on his face, and glanced anxiously at the Storm clouds. As he did so, he caught a brief flash, a prickling brightness like lightning leaping between the tops of two of the towers. He squinted at the space between the columns in perplexity. Again, there was a fork of blue light, unmistakable this time.

  ‘Tymon.’ Samiha waited ahead of him again, her flickering form bright against the grey ruins.

  ‘There’s something up there,’ he answered. ‘I see a light …’

  At that moment someone grabbed his arm, stopping him in his tracks. Zero was beside him.

  ‘No further, Syon!’ gasped the red-haired lad, clinging to the tattered sleeve of Tymon’s jacket. Zero’s eyes were wild, the pupils dilated; he was panting with the exertion of trying to catch up with Tymon. ‘Go no further!’

  Zero was breathing so noisily and babbling so quickly that Tymon could hardly follow what he was saying, though he saw that his friend was clearly exhausted, terrified out of his wits. He squinted at Zero, feeling the spongy loam ooze under his feet, and tried to shake off the lethargy that plagued him lately with regards to the Marak lad. He wished he could say something to reassure him.

  ‘Hold up,’ he replied, to Zero’s babble. ‘Start again. Why no further?’

  ‘It’s a hungry ghost, Syon,’ said the Nurian boy in a loud whisper, his eyes rolling with terror. ‘It calls down lightning! It’s trying to kill you!’

  Samiha had halted on a set of crumbling steps, and was looking back at them both. ‘This fellow has done all he can for us,’ she said coldly to Tymon. ‘His ignorance is becoming a real hindrance.’

  ‘There’s no reason to be afraid,’ protested Tymon. ‘The Kion won’t hurt me.’

  He was speaking to Zero, but he suddenly realised he was reassuring himself, too. The mention of lightning made him uncomfortable. He did not dare look up at Samiha, afraid she would insist he leave his hapless companion behind.

  ‘You’re going to have to make a choice,’ she said, giving voice to the very sentiment he feared. ‘Either you help me, or you stay with him. You can’t do both.’

  When Tymon whirled around to face her, intending to plead for her patience with Zero, he found that she had not waited for an answer. She was already walking up the steps, disappearing over the top. The sight of her leaving caused his throat to tighten in panic. He tried to stumble after her, but was hindered by Zero.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Tymon cried in annoyance, attempting to free his arm of Zero’s tight grasp. ‘She isn’t a ghost, and she can’t control lightning. She’s just using a Grafter’s Sending. I keep telling you that.’

  But Zero clung doggedly to him, apparently intending to stop him from following Samiha by sheer force. He wrapped both of his hulking arms about Tymon and held on with all his considerable strength, digging his heels into the mud. This misguided attempt to separate Tymon from, as he saw it, his love, was infuriating to the young man.

  ‘Let me go, you fool!’ he shouted. ‘If you stop me, she’ll die!’

  Summoning up all the strength that remained to him, he fought against Zero more violently than he would have done in any other circumstance. But each time he wrested himself away from the Marak lad, Zero simply blundered towards him again, determined not to let go. Tymon was
beside himself, desperate to catch up with Samiha.

  ‘Leave me alone, you idiot!’ he yelled at last. And raising his fist, he punched Zero in the mouth, drawing blood.

  The hurt in his friend’s eyes was hard for Tymon to bear, an emotional blow far worse than a split lip. He backed away, unable to look at the reproach in Zero’s open, trusting face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said as the other lad stood stock-still, staring after him. ‘You don’t understand. I have to do this. I can’t waste any more time.’

  With that he hurried away, stumbling up the cracked steps after Samiha. He did not know how he found her again, in the lifeless maze of the old city; it was as though he sensed her passage on the crumbling pavements, drawn after her like a fly to honey. Or perhaps he saw the trace of her blue shadow under the broken arches. Her smile when he caught up with her, in any case, was gratifying, though it did not banish the galling memory of what he had just done to Zero.

  ‘You had to defend yourself,’ she told him, as they walked on together. ‘He shouldn’t have attacked you. You can apologise later — you can make it alright again.’

  If there is a later, thought Tymon, fighting off a rush of shame. ‘Let’s get this over with,’ he said with a shudder. ‘I want to take you away from here.’

  ‘You’re a very kind person,’ she remarked, gazing at him with grave compassion. ‘Your Marak friend will see that in the end. They all will — all those who never listened, or believed in you when you said you’d find me.’

  They were just the words he yearned to hear at that moment. His shame over Zero and the underlying nagging worry about not contacting the Focals ebbed away as he listened to that smooth voice of reassurance. It was true, he thought with a pang of self-pity. No one had supported him in his quest to find Samiha. No one ever listened to him. Now even Zero had turned against him, he told himself gloomily, staring up at the massive walls on either side. The towers had grown taller as they marched towards the centre of the city, the hulking remains of what must once have been monumental constructions. Tymon remembered the light he had seen.