Oracle's Fire

by Mary Victoria

  ‘There are worlds above and worlds below,’ she said. ‘Worlds in Trees, and worlds in loam. And also floating up among the stars, apparently.’

  ‘People from the stars?’ asked Tymon curiously, remembering the frieze on the first column in the ancient hall. ‘But how would they get all the way here?’

  Jedda shook her head. ‘He never told me. He always acted as if the Born were the only beings that mattered in the universe. Maybe nothing he said was true.’

  ‘Oh, Syon.’ Zero jumped up from where he had been sitting in the air-chariot’s hatchway, half-listening to the Grafters’ conversation, and rummaged in the pocket of his dusty slave’s uniform lying abandoned on the floor. ‘I forgot,’ he said. ‘I found this when you dropped it in the mine. It shone like a star in the darkness, too.’

  He drew out the little pendant Samiha had given to Tymon long ago, marked with the Kion’s rune. Tymon accepted it back with mingled joy and sadness, for he had not even realised in the chaos that it was gone. He did not put it on again immediately, however, staring down at the carved pendant on its cord. It seemed to symbolise a part of him that was gone forever. Oren and Noni exchanged a glance at his hesitation.

  ‘I’m no longer the Kion’s defender,’ Tymon said to them, after a moment. ‘Do you know if there will ever be a new king or queen of Nur?’

  ‘No one knows,’ replied Noni. ‘Samiha did have some distant cousins, but they all gave up ties to the Freeholds when the seminary paid them off. We haven’t heard from them in years.’

  ‘Well,’ sighed Tymon, ‘be that as it may, this should go to the new defender, if there is one.’

  He tried to give the pendant back to Oren, but the young Grafter would not accept it. ‘Not mine to give,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You know right person.’

  And then, quite simply, Tymon did. He rose and stepped up to where Jedda was sitting, and slipped the pendant about her neck before she could object.

  ‘You’re the perfect person to have this,’ he said to her, forestalling her protests. And to her deep embarrassment and surprise, he bent down and kissed her solemnly on the forehead.

  Just then, Gardan poked her head through the air-chariot’s hatchway. She raised a wry eyebrow when she saw Tymon embracing Jedda, but did not comment on it.

  ‘It’s time,’ she said to the young people. ‘We’d like to pay our respects now — Tymon, we’d appreciate it if you might lead the way up to the Kion’s grave.’

  The procession bound for Samiha’s resting place wound up the grassy slope at a far more leisurely pace than Tymon had descended it that morning, and far more slowly than he would have liked. Apart from the judges, Galliano had joined the company at the last moment, leaning on Gardan’s arm. The scientist’s shrill tones reached Tymon at the head of the line, claiming that a high place like this was perfect, just perfect, and they should establish the colony right here, where the sunlight was strongest. Galliano stopped every few minutes to wave his arms left and right with blind propriety.

  Tymon chafed at the delay. He wanted to run full tilt up to the field of rocks, for he was suddenly impatient to be by the graveside again. It was almost as if the spot by the spring called to him. He longed to be watching over it; he half-fancied he could hear a faint voice summoning him to the top of the slope, an intoxicating melody just on the edge of perception. But the judges saw no reason to run, and he was obliged to trudge up the slope at their stately, crawling pace.

  Preoccupied by his desire to reach the top, he did not say much to his friends, leaving them to talk quietly among themselves, or sing snatches of Samiha’s poetry. Noni and Oren had learned much of the Kion’s testament off by heart, as had Jedda, and they exchanged different renditions of the verses as they walked, Jedda sharing the version sung by the Jays while the Focals gave their own chant a distinctly Eastern twist. Their song reminded Tymon of Samiha’s call from the temple roof in Marak. To his surprise, the recollection did not sadden him. It echoed the voice — imagined? real? — that throbbed frustratingly just on the edge of his hearing, from the top of the slope.

  ‘Be the wind, be the flame,’ hummed Zero, trudging beside him. ‘It’s pretty, isn’t it, Syon? Spirit words have power.’

  Tymon nodded, distracted by the peculiar sense of excitement that had taken hold of him. He did not know why, but he could barely breathe for it. As they crested the slope and entered the field of rocks, Oren, Noni and Jedda stopped singing, walking in respectful silence. The judges and Galliano had by this time fallen some distance behind them. Although Tymon peered eagerly about him at the grassy slope, searching for any sign of change, he could see nothing unusual, no reason to be anxious. The serenity of Samiha’s grave seemed unbroken as they approached the ring of sentinels, the two flat rocks lying undisturbed on the ground.

  But even as he laid eyes on them, Tymon gave a gasp of surprise, and ran the last few feet to the graveside, dropping to his knees on the loam. He heard Jedda’s sharp intake of breath behind him. There, where they had buried the body of Samiha — where there had been nothing but loam and grass the night before — a tall green shoot was pushing through the soil of the grave, poking out between the flat rocks. Its straight stem was robust and elegant, and two delicate green leaves had already unfurled at its crown.

  For a long time no one said a word, staring speechless at the young plant. Then Zero clapped his hands. ‘Syon,’ he cried. ‘It’s a new Tree!’

  And then Tymon did weep, the sharp lump of grief breaking apart in his heart to release a flood. He bowed his head, his shoulders shaking. Oren and Noni drew back to give him space, and Jedda urged Zero away. The judges now arriving in twos and threes at the ring of rocks stopped short, arrested by the sight of the green shoot pushing through the loam. They stared in wonder at the sapling growing with mysterious speed from Samiha’s grave.

  The bells of Argos seminary were silent in the days following the collapse of the Divine Mouth, though the city teemed with anxious activity. Despite the fact that these were neither designated days of rest nor a holy festival, the markets remained closed. People from all walks of life, fat burghers and seminary students, peasants and moneylenders, hurried like so many ants through the streets, crying that the End was nigh. The weather appeared to agree with them, for since the Tree-quake the Central Canopy had been darkened under an almost perpetual cloud. Signs and omens were noted in the heavens: the moon rose red three nights in a row, and flocks of birds travelled north unseasonably, filling the skies with their mournful cries. Witnesses started up their bloody rituals again, and housewives went out in their nightclothes with their hair pulled down to their shoulders, waving sheets on which they had scrawled messages of doom.

  ‘The Tree is falling!’ they wailed. ‘Save us, Saint Loa, give us your grace!’

  Alone atop the bell tower, on the third overcast morning after the Tree-quake, the Envoy contemplated the scurrying humans below with disgust. He had been too late to catch Tymon and Jedda in the Veil, and had been obliged to return to Argos city the long way round, in physical space, for he could not simply step into the prison dimension in one spot and step out again in another. Such facilities were denied him by his jailors. Three nights and days it had taken him, therefore, flying nonstop in his bat-forms back to his base of operations in Argos, only to find this scene of chaos flowering in his absence. His lips curled in disdain at the sight of the foolish placards of the townsfolk, their silly banners. He paced the space beneath the silent bells, round and round, from side to side, seeing the same panic, the same brainless hysteria everywhere.

  His acolytes had succeeded almost too well in their task, he thought grimly. Of course, he knew that the quakes due to the Oracle’s death would not undermine the whole Tree, but that was hardly what the good people of Argos were capable of imagining. The celestial omens, of course, were simply an effect of the dust raised by the South Canopy’s fall and the homeless birds another sign of that disaster. He knew that the last of t
he living Born had entwined her body to the Tree-roots many eons ago, and that the area where she was entombed would be the worst affected. Even a scientist as blind as Galliano might have understood that, thought Lace, biting his lip at the annoying reminder of the latter’s escape. But from the way these fools were running around, anyone would think the Four Canopies were experiencing their final demise.

  Never mind, he told himself as he passed the ladder leading down to the room below the bells, for the third time. This was the moment to gather his resources, to contemplate past victories and measure triumphs to come. He would be able to use these so-called omens to his advantage; he could sway the superstitious, and regain Fallow’s allegiance, perhaps, which had been badly shaken by the losses in Farhang. But most importantly, as soon as the World Key was his, he would find favour again with his Masters. Even their minor humiliation at the hands of Tymon, which he felt pressing on him, a bubbling echo from the Veil, caused him no serious anxiety. On the contrary, he was pleased to imagine the bird-kings temporarily humbled by a mere human being, and nursing their outrage.

  They needed a reminder every century or so, he sneered to himself, of why they had been imprisoned in the first place; a reminder of just how much they had lost when they refused to be written into the Tree of Being, and born as one of the mortal scum, like Samiha and her ilk. He, Eblas, had chosen to remain pure and strong, sharing his Masters’ fate. They would be his to influence again, now, if only through the efforts of this irritating young Grafter — and through Jedda’s, the Envoy thought, with a stab of annoyance.

  For his former student had been the one to free Tymon, wandering into the Veil with impunity and singing the Kion’s hard, bright verses in Eblas’ dark kennel. It made him want to throw back his head and howl at the closed Mouth in the trunk-wall opposite. How the humans infuriated him. Despite all their failings, they still somehow managed to escape his influence. How could something so weak be so stubborn?

  Not for the first time did Lace feel remorse at having failed to capture the smoky allegiance of Tymon and Jedda. He had almost had them both, at different moments, almost caught them in the mesh of their own pride and fear. By now, they would have made acolytes worthy of the name, infinitely stronger than Wick, infinitely more intelligent than Gowron. Tymon would not have failed in his missions; Jedda would have lent her master her indomitable strength, without always begging for treats in return. How unlike his own acolytes, who were so ready to assume all rewards in advance, though they had as yet achieved nothing.

  In fact, there was just one thing that nagged him about this whole apocalyptic scenario orchestrated by Gowron and Wick. Where in the Hell under the Tree were his acolytes now? Surely they had not been crushed beneath the canopy’s fall, for he had warned them of the possibility, told them to exit the Oracle’s tomb after her death and seek shelter elsewhere, preferably on higher ground. But if they had reached the air-chariot or escaped by other means, he could not sense it. He had lost touch with them for over twelve hours: he could no longer See them under the Storm. The cloud he had sent to blind the Focals seemed to have descended over his eyes. When would the fools bring him the World Key? Or had they — and the thought gave him pause as he paced beneath the bells — had the idiots actually sought to keep it for themselves? Lace stopped walking and closed his eyes, uttering a soft oath. Of course they had.

  It would not help them. He would have it back in a trice, and have their guts too, while he was at it, to dangle from the bells. They did not have the first idea how to work an artefact of the Born. The World Key was an item even the Masters did not possess the secret to, for it could, and did, change form over the centuries. The accounts of it in ancient times would be of no use to him now. Lace would have to study the Key in person. He would get it back from whichever of his imbecile acolytes had it now — for they would be sure to quarrel over it — and inspect it thoroughly and warily, before attempting to use it.

  He had taken a step back towards the ladder leading to the room where Samiha had once been kept, determined to seek out and punish his errant servants, when the Envoy had the shock of his life. There on the roof before him, as plain as day, stood the Kion herself. But her form was bleeding light, almost too bright to contemplate.

  ‘Eblas,’ she said, in ringing tones. ‘Enough.’

  Lace felt faint at the sight of her, his construct-body suddenly lacking solidity. He swallowed, eyeing the bright Being on the roof before him.

  ‘My world is weary of your intrigues,’ she told him.

  Although her words caused the substance of his borrowed flesh to wither, she was beautiful when she spoke. The Envoy quailed. What was this? Why did Samiha’s shade radiate such damnable majesty, making him cower before her? And then, he understood. She was free. Her seed-form must have finally expired; it was bound to happen, eventually.

  ‘You have no right to be here,’ he barked. ‘You’re dead.’ The memory of uttering those same words to Matrya when she had saved Tymon from the Veil returned, disconcerting him slightly. He pushed the thought away.

  ‘Is that so?’ asked Samiha, unmoved.

  Her serenity was appalling to him. ‘According to your own confounded rules,’ he growled, ‘if your seed-form dies, you have no right to act in this world directly. You must be content to leave the action to others, just like Matrya did.’

  Samiha only smiled. ‘You’re greatly mistaken in thinking me dead, or Matrya gone. Both of us,’ and she began to laugh, ‘are very much here.’

  The Envoy shuddered at her laughter. It swept like a sudden gust around him, buffeting him in its breeze, tickling his wraith-like substance apart. He had to rub his arms in order to reassure himself they still existed.

  ‘And you, Eblas.’ She did not stop smiling, her gaze too bright and clear to meet. ‘Do you know where your World Key is?’

  ‘Certainly!’ retorted the Envoy, edging towards the ladder and safety. ‘My acolytes have it. They are bringing it to me!’

  But Samiha’s laughter only increased. She raised her right hand, pointing to the sunlight peeping through the leaf-forests above, a ray of relief after days of grey gloom. The gesture, like a wind, thrust the Envoy backwards and away from the ladder. He was pushed step by step towards the opposite side of the roof alcove, step by inexorable step, until he let out a cry of horror. For there was nothing he could do to stop the wind from pushing him off the tower.

  ‘You have no right!’ he shouted to Samiha. ‘You can’t meddle with humanity directly!’

  ‘Oh, Eblas,’ she said, laughing all the more and shaking her head. ‘I am not meddling with humanity at all. As far as I can see, I’m meddling with you — and did you not fight for the right to remain “pure of blood”, unmixed with the “human taint”, as you called it? You refused to live as one of them, shorn of your precious power and influence.’ She paused a moment, looking him up and down, as if reconsidering the question. ‘No,’ she continued, still smiling. ‘You are not human. Not even a little bit. Not at all.’

  Back, back, and back again the Envoy was thrust. He screamed as he teetered on the edge of the bell tower, pushed by the inexorable force of Samiha’s mirth — howled once, in terror and disbelief, then tumbled over the edge.

  He fell to his ruin in the quadrangle before the shocked gaze of Fallow and his coterie of priests, just as they were exiting the Library building. Before the Envoy’s false body even hit the ground, its component parts were blown to shreds, leaving only a few shards of bone and tufts of hair rolling on the bark at Fallow’s feet. And when the priests cast their eyes up to the top of the tower, searching for whoever, or whatever, had caused their Envoy’s demise, all they could see were shafts of sunlight breaking through the clouds to strike the alcove beneath the bells.

  EPILOGUE

  Tymon did not move from the side of the sapling for three days and nights. He watered it carefully from the pool, shifting the flat rocks apart on the grave so that the tender plant might have ro
om to grow, and watched over it with jealous care. The others did not ask for his reasons or question his choice, at least to begin with. No one mentioned Wick, either, but they all sensed Tymon’s concern to protect the young Tree from the threat that had helped destroy the old one. They knew he wanted to ensure no harm touched the sapling, no mischief came to it. On the first night, Jedda took it in turns with him to guard it, allowing him to snatch a few hours of rest huddled in blankets by the grave.

  On the second morning, however, she was drawn away to help Galliano conduct a survey of the surrounding area in one of the air-chariots, and Tymon was left on his own with the young Tree. Thereafter, the Nurian girl spent increasing amounts of time with the scientist, apparently happy to act as Galliano’s surrogate eyes. He, for his part, was grateful for her help, and praised her enquiring mind. Zero in the meantime attached himself rather touchingly to Noni, claiming that she also had ‘strong spirit-friends’. The young Grafters, used to collecting waifs and strays in their travels, accepted this additional member of their family without a qualm.

  The judges and the rest of the Freeholders spent those three days carrying out multiple scouting expeditions in the air-chariots, searching for the best possible location for their base in the World Below. Tymon’s companions would sometimes climb up to the grave to visit him, bringing him news of the scouts’ latest discoveries, or fresh provisions. On these occasions, they invariably found him kneeling over the sapling, murmuring to the new leaves that sprouted thick and fast from its crown. He would stop talking to the Tree when the others arrived, but they began to suspect there might be another reason for his refusal to leave it, a reason that went over and above any concerns for its safety. Tymon’s only personal request was that they bring him the Kion’s testament to study. Apart from that, he seemed content to be close to the sapling, and required little else. His friends had the sense that he would have forgotten to eat had they not brought him the food, and placed it on his lap.