Eye of the Oracle oof-1

by Bryan Davis

  The pair ignored her. They both looked around wide-eyed, as if they were lost or dumbstruck.

  Sapphira jumped out of the way again and followed them, scratching her head. Elam joined her. “Maybe they speak another language,” he offered.

  “I could try another language, but they act like I’m not even here, like they can’t see me at all.” She sidled up to the man and tapped him on the shoulder, raising her voice. “Hello! Do you understand what I’m saying?” No response. Not even a glance. Sapphira pulled on his elbow. Again, no response. Finally, she leaped in front of him and held up both hands, but he bumped into her, knocking her flat on her back, and stepped right on her stomach. He paused for a moment, said something inaudible to the woman, then kept going.

  Elam jumped to her side and helped her sit upright. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Sapphira laid a hand on her stomach. “I don’t get it. He didn’t weigh much at all.”

  Elam pulled her to her feet. “Think they’re ghosts?”

  “I doubt it. I felt his elbow when I pulled on it, and he knocked me over.” She picked up her torch and stared at the strolling pair. With all the crazy pits and portals in this place, maybe they were in another dimension. She pressed her lips together and hummed, “I wonder. .”

  “Wonder what?”

  Twirling the torch in her palm, she watched the couple round a bend and disappear from sight. “I wonder if there’s another way to communicate with them, maybe in a different place.”

  “A different place? But they’re right here.”

  She looped her arm around his elbow. “Come on. I’ll show you.” With Elam hustling to keep up, she ran back to the rise where the tower had stood and marched straight toward the center. As she looked out over the city with her enhanced vision, she could see the couple back at the kilns, now with more detail than before. Worry lines etched the woman’s brow and cheeks, making her look older somehow, much older. The man pointed at various objects, as though he were explaining them to the woman. His face seemed friendly and wise, but his cheeks were also etched with a criss-crossing pattern that looked more like scales than skin.

  As she stood in the midst of the portal, the image of the fiery chasm flashed in her mind, this time with Paili’s body falling into the magma river.

  She clenched her teeth and yanked Elam close to her side. “No!” she shouted. “Not Paili!”

  “Where?” Elam swiveled his head. “What’s wrong with Paili?”

  Sapphira gripped his shoulders. “She’s in trouble! I’ve been gone too long, and Morgan’s getting rid of her.”

  “How can you possibly know what Morgan’s doing?”

  “Never mind!” She raised her torch. “Flames! Now!” Instantly, a crackling flame burst forth at its tip.

  Elam jumped back. “How did you do that?”

  She grabbed his arm and pulled him close again. “No time to explain. Just brace yourself.” She draped her arm around his shoulders and gripped him tightly. “Stay close, or you’ll be in big trouble.”

  Moving her torch hand in a smooth orbit, Sapphira drew a blazing circle in the air. “I don’t know where this portal will take us,” she said, her body trembling, “but I have to try to get home.” As she widened the circle, the fire began to slide down around them, creating a cocoon of flames that swirled around their heads and hissed in their ears. The heat massaged her skin, warm enough to break a sweat.

  Beads of perspiration appeared on Elam’s face, reflecting the torch’s flickering orange flame. A gaping smile broke through as he whispered, “Amazing!”

  “Okay,” she said, “don’t let it scare you, but this is where it really gets weird.”

  Suddenly, the flaming wall collapsed inward around their feet, but instead of incinerating them, the fire began transforming their bodies into particles of light, inching its way up their legs and then their torsos. The process created a loud buzzing that drowned out the hissing flames.

  “When it gets to our heads,” Sapphira called, “you can keep your eyes open. It won’t hurt.”

  As the flames crawled over their faces, Elam shouted, “I love it!” Seconds later, the entire cocoon exploded into millions of pieces and scattered into nothingness. As the sparks died away, new heat stung her back, as though hundreds of tiny needles pricked her skin.

  Elam spoke, his voice now quiet and steady. “Any idea where we are?”

  Standing in a yellow column of light, Sapphira surveyed her surroundings. A cliff of granite stood in front of her, too sheer to climb. It rose to more than a hundred feet overhead and stretched out in a wide ledge at the top that overlooked the chasm below. The portal’s swirling exit column, so pale it was barely visible, seemed to dissipate as it reached toward the ceiling high above.

  As she turned to face the source of heat, a bright glow blinded her eyes. The dazzling river of magma flowed a mere dozen paces away. She backed up against the cliff and clutched her chest. “We’re at the bottom of the chasm!”

  Elam stepped closer to the river, raising his hands to block the heat, but as he approached the edge, he lowered them again. “It’s not really that hot.” He inched his finger toward the surface. “In fact, I think it’s ”

  “Aaaaiiieee!”

  The cry echoed throughout the chasm. A small, girlish body fell from the ledge, her ratty dress flapping around her legs as she dropped. Sapphira tried to scream, “Paili!” but the word barely squeaked through her cramping throat.

  Paili’s body splashed into the magma river and disappeared from sight in the slow-moving stream. At the top of the cliff, Morgan brushed her hands together, and she and Mardon walked away from the ledge.

  Makaidos blinked at the dim light. “What a bad dream!” he said out loud. He tried to turn on his eyebeams, but they didn’t seem to work. “Hmmm. Apparently I need more time in the sun.” He yawned and smacked his lips. “Or maybe in a regeneracy dome.”

  As his mind cleared, he stretched his wings, but they felt strange. His foreleg touched something at his side, most likely his mate, but the sensation was different, softer somehow, more tactile. Turning his head slowly, he brought the form next to him into view.

  He gasped. A human! A female human! He jerked his wing away and rolled to his haunches, but they weren’t haunches, they were feet and legs! Human ones! And his wing was a human arm, clothed in a soft sleeve.

  He patted his body all over, feeling his human chest, waist, and legs. What was going on? Had he awakened from a bad dream only to fall into a nightmare? Using his newly found finger and thumb, he pinched the soft flesh on his cheek. Pain. Real pain. Surely he was wide awake, but how could he possibly be human?

  Keeping his hand in front of his face, he examined his new fingers. A gold ring with a mounted red jewel was fastened around his index finger. As the gem pulsed between two shades of red, he stared at it in wonder. “My rubellite is mounted in a ring, and it blinks!”

  Gazing all around, he studied the strange landscape, a ruined city with broken monuments and fountains and debris scattered everywhere.

  Suddenly a stream of memories flooded his mind Goliath’s mocking voice, Devin’s flashing sword, Roxil’s cry as she slowly passed away at his side.

  Makaidos gulped. “Roxil!” He jumped to the woman and shook her body. “Roxil!” he shouted, his voice trembling. “Wake up!”

  Roxil groaned. “It is too early to rise, Father, even for a warrior.”

  He shook her again. “Roxil! You must wake up. This is an emergency!”

  Roxil blinked and gazed at Makaidos, then jerked away and shouted, “Who are you, human? Speak now, or I will torch you where you stand!”

  “Roxil! Look at yourself! Look at your hands and arms!”

  “Hands and arms?” Roxil lifted her hand toward her face. “What!?” she screamed. “What happened to me?”

  “I have no idea. I am confused, too.” Makaidos lowered himself to his knees and gazed into her eyes. “You know who I am,
don’t you?”

  Her eyes locked onto his and widened as she whispered, “Father?”

  He took his daughter’s hands and pulled her to her feet. His thumb rubbed over a rubellite ring that matched his own. “Somehow we were transformed into humans.” He released her and patted his body again. “We have human chests, human arms, human legs. It’s amazing!”

  Her body wavered back and forth, and Makaidos steadied her. “Amazing was not the first word that came to my mind.”

  “Do you remember what happened in the cave?” he asked.

  She squinted at him, and, as her eyes widened again, they flashed. “Swords,” she said softly, “and humans thrusting them into us.”

  “Yes! I recognized Sir Devin. He and someone else wielded swords, and I think. .” He grasped her hand more tightly. “I think they killed us.”

  “Killed us? But we are alive.” She pulled her hand away and wiggled her fingers. “We are as ugly as sin itself, but we are alive.”

  Makaidos stooped and picked up a broken brick. “It seems that we have been transported to a new environment, a shattered world of some kind.” He rose and cast the brick into an empty fountain. “I expected to find a better place to rest when I died.”

  Roxil scanned the toppled buildings and debris-strewn roads. “This city seems familiar to me.”

  “It seems familiar to me, as well.” Makaidos brushed dirt from his hand and extended the other toward Roxil. “Shall we look around?”

  “Do I have any choice?” she asked, slipping her hand into his.

  He smiled and pulled gently. “No, you do not.”

  As the sky brightened, they strolled along the road. Makaidos pointed at a rise in the ground in front of them. “This place in particular seems oddly familiar.” He waved his finger to one side of the rise. “If I reconstruct that broken fountain in my mind and raise those two toppled idols, it starts to look like ”

  Roxil pulled away and ran to the slope. “Shinar!” She beat her arms against her sides. “Ohhh!” she groaned. “If only I could fly! I could see everything so much better!”

  “And Nimrod’s tower is gone,” Makaidos noted, “so there is no place to climb to get a good view.” He joined Roxil and spun in a slow circle, his arms spread out. “This is absolutely amazing!”

  Roxil grabbed his sleeve. “How can you possibly be happy about this? We are human now! We are disgusting, hateful, lust-filled, wine-guzzling bipeds!”

  Makaidos rubbed the material on his sleeve. “How about that? God gave me a fine-looking human garment!” He stepped back and gazed at Roxil from head to toe, admiring her long cream-colored dress. “And look at you! What a lovely outfit!”

  Roxil set her fists on her hips. “Father! You are impossible! We have degenerated into the worst of all the species, and just like the vainest of the lot, you are already obsessing over clothing!”

  “I am not obsessing. I am marveling.” Makaidos laid a hand on her back and leaned close. “Listen to me. Obviously we have entered into some sort of afterlife. God has given us a new opportunity. Maybe we can make the human condition a better one, perhaps build a city that reflects the opposite of the corruption that Nimrod foisted upon the world.”

  Roxil folded her arms over her chest. “What can we possibly do with this city? It is in ruins.”

  “The symbolism is perfect.” Makaidos clasped his hands together. “As we rebuild the corrupted city, we reshape the human culture.”

  “But how can just two people create a culture?”

  “If this is a place where dragons go when they die, perhaps new ones will join us, and other dragons are likely here already. Some perished in the great flood and others died in battles with the Watchers before the flood.”

  “How many?”

  “Fifteen or so. We did not procreate quickly back then, so our numbers were few.”

  Roxil spread out her arms. “Then where are they?”

  Makaidos shrugged his shoulders. “The logical approach would be to look for them.”

  “Logical, yes, but we are humans now. Logic never seemed to be a primary behavioral motivation for them whenever I was watching.”

  “True enough for many of them.” He nudged her ribs. “But I also observed some dragons who ignored logic on many occasions.”

  She looped her arm around his elbow. “If that means, ‘I told you so,’ then I guess I deserve it.”

  “It was a gentle rebuke, my love.” He caressed her cheek with his hand, letting his knuckles linger. “This enhanced sense of touch is quite pleasant, is it not?”

  She nodded and rested her head against his shoulder. “It is. I cannot deny it.”

  “So, shall we explore this strange world and experience a new adventure?”

  “I suppose so.” She walked at his side, then stopped and playfully poked his arm. “But I am going to keep my eye on you. I still lack trust in the human species, and now you are one of them.”

  Makaidos shrugged his shoulders again. “Fair enough.” As the two strolled hand in hand along the path, he smiled. He wanted to look at his daughter’s facial expression, but sneaking a peek might tip the delicate balance of her emotions. He knew exactly what her dragon face would have looked like right now, a blend of skepticism and excitement. Although she despised humanity, she had to be relishing the adventure of living in a completely new world. Her human face probably bore a similar expression, perhaps mixed with a touch of fear. He regripped her cold, trembling hand. Maybe his confidence could cast out her fears.

  They walked slowly toward the ruins of the city’s brick kilns. Shinar seemed much larger than before, and somehow closer, more intimate, even in its devastated condition. Marble fragments from broken statues littered the dirt path, and a dried-out tar pit sank away to one side. Makaidos pointed at one of the broken ovens. “We can make that area into a bakery, and the tar pits can be farmland.”

  Roxil winced at the dark depressions in the earth. “Can you grow crops in tar?”

  “I have no idea, but we will soon learn.” He stopped suddenly. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  He shook his head and continued walking. “Just an impression, an image in my mind. A girl begging me to speak to her.”

  “What did she look like?”

  Makaidos gazed upward. “It was fleeting, but I did see bright blue eyes and hair as white as wool.”

  “Okay, Father, you are scaring me. First, you enjoy being human, now you are getting drunk without ever touching a wineskin.”

  Makaidos smirked. “Shall I keep my visions to myself, then?”

  “No, no. Go ahead and tell me. I have to monitor your sanity and keep you in line.”

  After several minutes of exploring the ruins, Makaidos stopped again and squeezed Roxil’s hand. “Am I insane now?” He pointed at a pomegranate tree near a collapsed portico. “Or do I see a girl hiding behind that tree?”

  Roxil whispered. “I see her, too. I cannot see her eyes, but her hair is brown, not white.”

  “True. She is not the girl I saw in my mind.”

  “Could she be one of the dragons who died in the flood? She is quite young.”

  “It is possible,” Makaidos replied. “My sister Zera was a youngling when she died.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” Roxil ran forward, waving. “Zera, is that you?”

  Chapter 5

  Baptism of Fire

  Driving her trembling legs forward, Sapphira shuffled toward the river. She thrust her hand into her pocket and jerked out the Ovulum. “Elohim!” she cried, her entire body quaking. “Help me! I don’t know what to do!”

  Elam dove into the magma. Sapphira gasped and trudged to the edge. She breathed a quick prayer and pushed the Ovulum back into her pocket. Scanning the magma’s bubbling surface, she searched for any sign of life.

  A head bobbed in the current. There he was! Swimming back to the side! When he neared the shore, he waded up to dry land. A thick coat of mag
ma dripped down his tunic and instantly hardened to a crusty coat of ash, blackening his frame from head to toe. At least he was safe, but he was alone.

  Sapphira dropped to her knees and cried. “She’s gone! My poor Paili is gone forever!”

  “Gone, yes.” Elam began brushing the ash from his sleeve. “But maybe not forever.”

  Sapphira lifted her head, barely able to breathe. “What. . what do you mean?”

  “It was the strangest thing. I could open my eyes under there, and I could see everything clearly. Paili was sinking into a whirlpool, and I dove down to grab her, but before I could reach her hand, she suddenly disappeared. If I could survive this stuff, maybe she did, too. That whirlpool has to lead somewhere.”

  Sapphira pushed up to her wobbly legs and helped Elam brush the ash from his chest. “Did she look scared?”

  “I think so, but it was hard to tell.”

  Stooping next to the river, Sapphira dipped her hand into the current and raised a sample of the magma to her eyes. It was certainly warm, but not the superheated, blistering sensation she expected. As she continued to examine it, the tiniest bubbles became clear. Each one carried microscopic bits of ash through the thick suspension. Staring at the magma seemed to raise the familiar feeling of sadness; Acacia’s face, then Paili’s, scorched her mind’s eye.

  She let the magma trickle to the ground. Each drop sizzled on the granite as it struck the floor. “It’s a portal,” she whispered.

  “A portal?” Elam brushed both hands through his hair, breaking chunks of black crust and letting them fall to the ground.

  Sapphira’s legs strengthened, and her voice steadied. “The whirlpool in the river must be another portal, just like the one we used to get here. Maybe Paili went through it, and she’s alive on the other side.”

  “You mean it’s a door to somewhere else?”

  “Yes, to yet another place or dimension. That last portal brought us back to the lower realms, but there’s no way to tell where the whirlpool leads.”