Oracle--Sunken Earth

by C. W. Trisef

  Ret approached the door, which looked carved by hand and lined with gold. On the large, bronze doorknob was etched the symbol of the hook and triangle. With his right hand, Ret reached to turn the knob, but before he could even touch it, he felt something like a spark, as if he was shocked by the handle. Then he heard the knob unlock, saw it turn itself, and watched as the door slowly swung open on its own.

  Ret stepped inside.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE GUARDIAN

  On account of the torrential seawater pouring through the ceiling and rushing down the mountain, Ret couldn’t tell if the door creaked as it swung open. He made sure to close it only halfway, partly to let in some light yet shut out some noise but mostly to eliminate any obstructions for a quick getaway if it came to that. With caution, he quietly stepped further into the entryway, which, like a corridor, stretched long and thin with little indication of what was to be found at its end. The walls, bare and cavernous, had been carved out of the mountain, judging by the electricity with which they surged. Ret marveled as the depressions caused by each of his footsteps sprang back, as if he were walking on some sort of living, breathing foam.

  At length, Ret arrived at the end of the corridor, the slanted beam of light shining through the front door having been rendered useless many steps ago. Ret halted to analyze his surroundings. He was standing on the edge of a circular room, whose conical layout made it clear that it was located well inside the peak of the mountain. The ceiling rose upward like a cone, the top of which featured a small hole, similar to a skylight, directly under the center of the vortex. In no particular pattern, similar holes and gaps dotted the rounded walls of the room like glassless windows. Besides granting access to humid air and streams of light, these cracks and fissures in the roof and walls were the means by which the spray from the waterfalls accumulated and dripped inside the room, creating small pools of salt water along its circumference.

  The obvious focal point sat at the dead center of the room. Each individual ray of light had been purposely configured to shine on it, and the skylight in the rooftop created a sort of brilliant, vertical conduit to enclose it, as would a display case at a museum. Amidst so much concentrated light, Ret could see a small, dark object hovering a few feet in the air. But, whatever it was, it was so little that Ret had to advance closer in order to clearly identify it. When he had done so, he was somewhat thrown off balance when he realized that the object was situated above a seemingly bottomless shaft, whose mouth stretched just a few feet in diameter. With the light from the skylight pouring directly into it, the pit appeared to extend into the earth’s core.

  When Ret had regained his surefootedness, he returned his attention to the curious object floating in the air, which turned out to be something he had not been expecting.

  A dirt clod.

  But it was the most extraordinary clod of dirt that Ret had ever beheld. It looked so fresh, so unspoiled; free of sand and silt and certainly any kind of unwanted impurities. Far from clay yet much richer than loam, it was bright and chaste, untainted by rock or any kind of decaying matter. The closest thing that Ret could compare it to was pure manure—“hopefully without the smell,” he chuckled to himself. The more he seemed to analyze it, however, the more it seemed to analyze him. He could sense its raw power emanating freely from it, which caused Ret to quite involuntarily feel a bit inferior. How odd, he thought, that such a small thing could exert such a mighty influence.

  It would have been an altogether disappointing discovery had it not been for the shape in which the clod was formed. With perfect curvature, it was a rounded wedge, exactly like one sliver of a peeled and sectioned orange. Ret knew, then and there, that he had found the first of the six elements to be housed in the Oracle.

  Ret reached inside his pocket to retrieve the Oracle, but when his fingers had scarcely touched it, he was startled by an unknown voice.

  “What have you got there?” Ret looked up and around, searching from whence the voice sprang, poised in defense. From across the room, he saw a moving figure disrupting the shadows. Slowly and methodically, the silhouette moved closer to Ret until, stepping into the light, Ret could get a clear look.

  He was not a small man, but neither was he intimidating or imposing. Rather, he seemed gentle and easy to be entreated, somewhat like a grandfather. Beyond middle-age, his wrinkled face bore a pleasant smile, which seemed so natural that Ret was sure it had been frequently used over his lifetime. His clean-shaven face matched his balding head for hair, and he seemed to exude an aura of quiet confidence. He was clothed from neck to foot in a simple, unassuming robe whose long, droopy sleeves hung low as he held his hands together in front of his abdomen. As the unnamed man continued his unhurried advance toward the center of the room, Ret hadn’t so much as a hint of fear, as there was no reason to be alarmed.

  “I see you bear the scars,” the man observed, vaguely pointing at Ret’s hands. His voice was deep and a bit hoarse, as a grandfather’s voice should sound, but it was not unpleasant to listen to. “I’ve been waiting a long time for one of you to come.”

  “One of me?” Ret asked, wondering if there were more of him in the world.

  “One from your line, yes,” the man clarified, “the line that bears the scars.”

  “You mean there are others like me?” Ret questioned with great intrigue. “With scars?”

  “Well of course there are,” he answered mildly, raising a perplexed eyebrow at Ret’s question, as if it pertained to very basic and common information. “Now, go ahead and acquire the element while you still can.”

  “Acquire the element?” Ret questioned again.

  “You know, slip it inside the Oracle—”

  “Slip it inside?”

  “Slip, cram, shove…just get it inside the sphere!” the old man insisted, on the verge of losing his patience. “How do you not know this, boy? Didn’t they teach you what to do?”

  “I don’t know who you’re referring to, sir,” Ret confessed, “but no one has told me anything about any of this.”

  “What?” the man gasped in disbelief. “Did someone hit you over the head or what?”

  “Something like that,” Ret shrugged in innocent defense. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Ah,” said the man calmly, sensing Ret’s sincerity, “I see.” He looked down, still bearing his perpetual smile. “Might as well get comfortable then,” he sighed, though secretly elated to have someone to talk to. “No sense in standing when we can sit.” He waved his hand and created from the earthen floor a stool for each of them to sit on. Though stunned to have found someone else with power over the earth, Ret gladly took a load off and was all ears.

  “I am the Guardian of the earth element,” the man began, introducing himself. “Many centuries ago, I was appointed by your First Father to watch and preside over the element of earth.”

  “My First Father?” Ret questioned, brimming with curiosity.

  “How hard did you get hit, son?” the Guardian laughed. “Yes, your First Father. He was the protector of the Oracle. All seven of the other ancient Fathers agreed that, since he was of the most virtuous disposition, he and his line would be defenders of the Oracle through all generations of time, and, should the power prove to corrupt him, the remaining seven would act as a buffer to quell any sort of rebellion.”

  “So, this Oracle,” Ret interrupted, trying to get a handle on things. “What is it, exactly? What’s its purpose?”

  “The Oracle, which you hold in your hand,” the Guardian pointed out with awed emphasis, “is as old as the foundations of this earth. It maintains balance among all the elements and, as such, contains untold power. At the time when your line became stewards over it, the Oracle housed the earth’s six fundamental elements. They were pure and undefiled—the sources from which all other elements and compounds on this planet trace their origin. So, quite literally, whoever possesses the Oracle also holds all nature in his control.”

 
; “That’s a lot of responsibility,” Ret remarked.

  “A credit to the integrity of your First Father, to be sure,” replied the Guardian. “And so, with the Oracle in honest hands, peace reigned on the face of the earth. People were happy, and so was nature. There were no wars or contentions, not even any natural disasters. We lived in harmony with each other and the earth.”

  “We?” Ret asked. “So you were…”

  “Yes, I was alive then,” answered the Guardian. “I was one of the eight original ancient Fathers. But those days were never to be repeated, for we had a betrayer among us.”

  “Lye,” Ret predicted.

  “Yes,” confirmed the Guardian, “another one of the original eight. It was his desire to have been selected as the possessor of the Oracle, but it was the very reason that he wanted it that he couldn’t have it. You see, the Oracle—and the scars and elements and such—has a mind and will of its own, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now.” Ret nodded in agreement. “Lye may have pledged allegiance to our peaceful ideals—he may have sworn our vows to never use the Oracle for evil—but they were lies, all lies. It was his intention from the beginning to take control and claim the power for himself.”

  “Sounds familiar,” Ret mumbled inaudibly, not wanting to interrupt.

  “With his followers, Lye incited an uprising against us,” the Guardian explained with remembered disappointment in his gentle eyes. “His revolt was squashed, his gang banished, but his ambition never died. No, the sores from his wounded pride festered; his embarrassing loss only caused his thirst for power to multiply. With his charisma and flattery, he led away many to join his cause, promising them wealth and honor. And since that time, our world has never known peace. No one could escape the havoc that Lye and his forces wrought upon the land—wars and bloodshed, thievery and trickery, secret murders and untraceable terror.”

  “All for this, huh?” Ret surmised, holding up the empty Oracle.

  “That is no ordinary trinket you hold there,” the Guardian informed with great soberness. “That’s no collector’s item—no forgotten antique. It is the Oracle—the force that bears all nature up, the object that keeps our world in balance, the source on which our peace depends. For it to fall into evil hands would spell utter ruin.”

  “Then why not just destroy it?” Ret wondered.

  “Preposterous!” the Guardian stated. “The Oracle cannot be destroyed—it is indestructible. But it can be emptied, which, fortunately, was something that your First Father understood.”

  Ret was listening with rapt attention.

  “With darkness sweeping over the earth, and the numbers of the faithful dwindling due to either assassination or disillusionment, your First Father determined that it would be better to scatter the elements than to let them fall into wicked hands. In a secret assembly, he met with the six ancient Fathers (who had remained loyal) and explained his intentions to release the six elements and hide them throughout the earth. He knew that physically separating the elements might result in periodic calamites—that even the land itself might pull apart amid such strife and discord—but we all agreed that such risks had to be taken and endured or else evil would prevail. He assigned each of us to guard one of the six elements, and, thus, we became the Guardians of the Elements.”

  The Guardian’s retelling of the past flowed into Ret’s mind like pure knowledge.

  “Well aware that the release of the elements would unleash awesome power,” the Guardian retold, “your First Father decided to sail far into the Great Sea to do the deed, hoping that by so doing he not only could survive it himself but also spare the land of any mayhem that would likely follow. But, somehow, Lye had been informed and headed him off. And so, while he was yet on land, your First Father had no choice but to strike the Oracle with his staff and scatter the elements.”

  “Did he die?” Ret asked painfully.

  “No one knows for certain,” the Guardian said. “Since he insisted on dispersing the elements alone so as not to endanger anyone else, no one was with him at the time. The only person even close to the scene was the one who was chasing him: Lye. Ever since then, Lye has always been seen carrying your First Father’s white, spirally twisted staff, so everyone immediately assumed that Lye had killed him. But once it became clear that Lye had also gained possession of the Oracle—and that it was empty—we knew that your First Father had successfully scattered the elements. So, content not to give any credit to Lye for the death of your First Father, the legend considers his disappearance as a self sacrifice. No living thing—not even he—could have outlived such a cataclysmic event at its epicenter. Elsewhere, the land was thrown into upheaval. The earth shook; rocks broke; mountains were leveled; valleys became hills; cities collapsed; fires raged; the sea was troubled. The whole world was in commotion. The face of the earth became deformed.”

  “That sounds awful,” Ret mourned.

  “The worst of it,” said the Guardian, “was how it affected the people. Over time, the population, which once lived in harmony and enjoyed a tightly-knit sort of interconnectedness, gradually and literally drifted apart, in every way possible. Granted, civilizations were now divided by newfound seas and rivers and mountain ranges, but the changes in geography also led to drastic changes in anthropology. New languages and customs; differing religions and beliefs; foreign foods and currencies—whereas we had once been many people but one in unity, every tribe and nation was now but one of many, each very different from the next.”

  “It’s not so bad,” Ret observed of the present-day world.

  “That’s because you don’t know what it used to be,” the Guardian countered. “Lye may not have achieved possession of the Oracle with its contents, but most of his other aspirations have come true, simply by the scattering of the elements. I haven’t seen anything beyond this room for a long, long time, but I assume the world has only gotten worse since I came to dwell here.”

  “I think you’d be surprised,” Ret insisted, slightly perturbed by the Guardian’s negative outlook.

  “You share your First Father’s optimism,” the Guardian grinned. “The last thing he ever told us was his belief that, at some future date, once the threat of Lye and his followers had died off, a brave soul—one of his own descendents—would rise up to gather the elements and restore peace and equality to our world. He didn’t say who that person would be. Nor did he say when it would happen, though we all hoped it would be very soon—but it wasn’t.” He looked down in defeat. “Fortunately, soon after the scattering of the elements, the members of your family line began to notice six marks slowly growing on their hands—three on each palm—like brandings. With each successive generation, however, they became fainter and obscurer until most people believed they were nothing but ugly birthmarks.” Ret instinctively looked down at his hands.

  “But, with those as my only clues,” the Guardian carried on, “I was able to find the resting place of my element after decades of searching. Hopefully the others were equally successful.” His eyes glistened at the mention of old friends. “Maybe your First Father spoke of you—maybe he didn’t. Perhaps it was just an old man’s wishful thinking, born of false hope. But one thing remains certain: your First Father’s ingenuity, coupled with the six elements’ very desire not to be found, continues to keep Lye at bay to this day.”

  “But how do you know Lye is still alive?” Ret asked, wondering how a hermit such as the Guardian could know of Lye’s continued existence if he hadn’t left his post in the mountain peak of Sunken Earth for so long.

  “Because I’m still alive!” the Guardian responded. “As long as Lye is on the loose and my element remains uncollected, I cannot die.”

  “So how is Lye still alive then?” Ret wondered, testing the Guardian’s reasoning.

  “Well, how should I know?” the Guardian admitted. “Tell you what,” he said with a sarcastic tone, “I haven’t seen Lye in hundreds of years, but the next time I run into him, I’ll ask him.”


  “Well, you know, he is just down the mountain,” Ret said casually, knowing he would catch the Guardian off guard. “I could go and ask him real quick…”

  “Nictitating nebulae!” the Guardian shrieked. “Are you pulling my leg, boy, because that’s a dirty, rotten trick to pull on an old-timer like me…”

  “Well, I haven’t seen him personally,” Ret went on, “but Lionel said—”

  “This is outrageous!” the Guardian continued to rant, not listening to Ret. “Right under my nose! Fortunately, because I am the current possessor of the element, I am entitled to its powers, but the moment you return the element to the Oracle, you become the bearer and can wield its power in full strength—of course, that also means I will die…”

  “Die?” Ret interjected. “You can’t die. I have so many things I want to ask you.” Ret tried to reassure himself by his own words. “You can stay close to the element—I’ll let you hold the Oracle. When we’re done here, you can come back with us. I’ll show you what the world is like today—how it’s not as terrible as you think…”

  “No, no,” the Guardian replied with a gentle smile, “this is the end for me.” Ret’s jaw dropped in protest. “The element has given me unnaturally long life. The moment you return it to the Oracle is the moment I go the way of all the earth.”

  “No!” Ret objected, devastated by the prospect of losing someone who possessed so much knowledge. “You—but you—you can’t! I…” The Guardian put up his hand to silence Ret’s woes.

  “Yes,” he spoke softly. “I need a rest.”

  “But you have so much more to teach me,” Ret continued to complain. “I need you to help me to find the—”