by K J Taylor
The demon stirred, and Ambit could see the faint cloud of steam around him. It took him a moment to realise why and, when he did, he shuddered. The tub the demon had been chained up in was full of water. He could see the wear marks on the demon’s wrists where he had struggled to escape, but the chains attached were set deep into the stone and the creature was trapped, unable to stand up.
Ambit quietly closed the door behind him, and went closer. ‘Hey,’ he said softly.
The demon’s head jerked toward him, but almost immediately he tried to pull away from him, mumbling something.
‘Hey,’ Ambit said again, ‘demon, can you hear me?’
The demon shook his head vaguely, and Ambit could see the craters where his eyes had been. ‘Leave me alone,’ the demon growled. ‘I don’t know anything else. I won’t help you.’
Ambit went closer. ‘You’re the Oracle, aren’t you? You’re the one who told them about the Chosen One.’
The demon’s head drooped. ‘Yes,’ he said weakly. ‘I shouldn’t have, but the water . . .’
‘I know. How long have they been keeping you here like this?’
‘Long time,’ said the Oracle. ‘Long, long time.’ His head jerked toward Ambit again, and he said, ‘Who are you? What . . .?’
‘I’m Ambit,’ he answered. ‘I’ve been told you know the prophecy.’
‘I do,’ said the demon. ‘I saw it, long ago. So they kept me here and made me tell them, and now I’m here waiting for him to come so I can tell him, and then they can let me die.’
‘That’s not much of an ambition,’ said Ambit. ‘Listen – if I get you out of here, will you tell me the prophecy?’
The demon went still. ‘Liar,’ he growled. ‘You won’t help me.’
‘Yes, I will,’ said Ambit. ‘In fact, I’ll do it for nothing. You just have to be quiet while we’re on our way out, all right?’
‘Liar!’ the demon shouted.
‘I lie all the time,’ Ambit admitted, ‘but not this time. Now hold still and I’ll get those chains off you.’
The demon might have tried to attack him anyway, but he couldn’t have even if he still had his sharp bits. He sat there helplessly while Ambit came over and started to try and open the manacles on his wrists. They were held in place by thick steel pins which had rusted in place, but he hammered at them with the spear-butt until they loosened and he pulled them out and threw them away. The manacles ground open, shedding rust flakes, and the Oracle pulled his arms free.
Ambit backed off immediately, and waited.
The demon rubbed at his wrists, while his craggy face had a look as if he couldn’t remember the last time he had been able to raise his arms. The manacles had left deep pits behind in his rocky flesh. For a moment, it looked as if the Oracle wasn’t going to do anything but sit there in bewilderment, but then he made a sudden motion, lurching backward so hard he fell out of the tub. Steaming water splashed over Ambit’s face, and he hastily went and opened the door to check the coast was still clear. It was, and when he turned around to look back the demon was frantically trying to stand up. But his legs had hardened in place after years of sitting in a vat of water.
‘It’ll take you some time to limber up again,’ said Ambit. ‘Listen – I’ll go and get my stuff while you sort it out, all right?’
The Oracle didn’t seem to hear him. Ambit left him there and nearly ran back up the corridor to the trapdoor. When he pushed that open he found the library had gone dark. Someone had been in and snuffed out the lanterns, but they apparently hadn’t noticed the rug. His luck was still holding out.
Ambit went back to his room without encountering anyone, grabbed his backpack, and then went to the laundry to find his clothes. They were there, still hanging up, and he put them on and tossed the robe aside. He’d run much better in trousers.
Confidence soaring, he jogged back to the library and arrived just in time to see the trapdoor burst open as the Oracle started to try and climb through it.
Ambit grimaced, but didn’t try and interfere. He stayed by the library door and kept a lookout while the demon thrashed and snarled, struggling with the slightly-too-small entrance. After a short, dangerously loud interlude, the frame around the trapdoor broke and the Oracle climbed out into the library. Here in the open the demon looked a little smaller, but he was still formidable even without his horns. The gemstone set into his forehead was greyish-blue, and it shone in the lamplight as the demon turned to stare blindly at Ambit.
‘Are you there, human?’
‘Yeah, it’s me,’ said Ambit. ‘Glad to see you got your legs working again – now let’s beat it, before someone finds us. If someone didn’t hear that racket, the whole monastery must be deaf.’
The Oracle started to growl. ‘I will kill them if they try to stop me.’
‘Just stick close to me,’ said Ambit. ‘Can you hear me all right?’
‘Yes,’ said the Oracle, ‘show me the way out.’
‘Can do.’ Ambit opened the library door and looked out just in time to see Soward come running.
‘Ambit!’ the pink-eyed monk exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here? What was all that noise?’
Ambit made a show of looking sheepish. ‘Sorry. I came to get a book and fell over a table.’
‘I thought I heard something breaking,’ Soward persisted.
‘Just my pride,’ said Ambit. ‘Don’t worry, it’s all fine.’
‘Well . . . all right, but you shouldn’t really be wandering around at night by yourself,’ said Soward. ‘You could get hurt.’
‘I did,’ said Ambit. ‘Goodnight, Soward.’
Then, thankfully, the monk left without apparently having noticed Ambit’s backpack.
‘That was too close,’ Ambit said once he’d gone, turning back to look at the Oracle, who had had the sense to keep quiet. ‘Now let’s go.’
The Oracle followed Ambit out of the library, keeping close as he led the demon along the shortest route he could come up with, back toward the training room where he had first come in. It was harder than it sounded; the Oracle was blind and his legs were still stiff and clumsy, and though he did his best to keep quiet he kept blundering into walls and, more than once, into Ambit, on one occasion knocking him flat on his face.
‘This is getting ridiculous,’ Ambit said as he got up. ‘To hell with being quiet – let’s go for fast instead. Here, just reach out and grab my backpack.’
The Oracle fumbled around and found it, clumsily gripping one of the straps with his maimed fingers. Ambit could feel the heat radiating off the demon, but he was used to that thanks to Snarl. Once he was sure the Oracle had a proper hold, he broke into a half-run and the demon shambled along after him.
They were almost at the training room when they were finally spotted. A sleepy-looking novice came wandering up the corridor toward them, took one look at Ambit and the demon bearing down on him, and ran away with a yell.
‘Fuck,’ Ambit swore. ‘Come on!’
He barrelled on as shouts of alarm started to fill the corridor on either side and monks came running to see what was happening. In a moment they’d be back with weapons, and then there would be real trouble.
Ambit reached the door to the training room and kicked it open, but as he dragged the Oracle toward the monastery entrance a gang of monks came bursting in through the door on the other side of the room. They froze for a horrified instant, and then ran to the weapon racks.
The Oracle had heard them. He let go of Ambit’s backpack and hunched over, growling and trying to bare his missing fangs.
Ambit kicked him in the leg. ‘Go on, the door’s right behind you. Run!’
The demon backed off toward it, but didn’t run. Ambit went after him, backward as well, holding his spear ready to defend himself. ‘Listen, I’m out of here and he’s coming with me,’ he warned the advancing monks. ‘That’s all there is to it.’
The monks hesitated for just a moment, but at that point the third door
to the training room opened and the abbot came running in. He stopped in horror, and then pointed at Ambit and shouted: ‘Stop him! That’s the Oracle! He’s taking the Oracle! Kill him! We need that demon alive!’
‘Aw, fuck,’ Ambit muttered. ‘Oracle, can you kick the door down? We’re going to have to leave in a hurry.’
The Oracle turned and started to ram the doors with his head, leaving Ambit to face the monks. There were six of them: three with swords, two with staffs, and one with a bow. Ambit made a quick assessment of the situation and decided the bow would be the biggest problem. The monk holding it kept his distance, leaving his friends to attack Ambit as a group. Very unfair of them, he thought.
He backed off a little further and flipped the spear around, holding it with the point backward. He thrust the butt at the nearest monk, catching him in the stomach. The monk fell backward, and his sword-wielding friend struck at the spear haft, apparently hoping to cut through it. The sword blade went straight through the leather wrapping, hit the metal underneath, and shattered.
Ambit didn’t waste time enjoying the monk’s shocked expression. He swung the spear-haft around in a wide semicircle and hit him in the side of the head.
Behind him, a deafening crash signalled the end of the doors. Ambit immediately did the most sensible thing: he knocked a third monk back and then dodged around the Oracle, using him as a shield as the demon made his escape. They didn’t want to kill the Oracle, and demon’s backs were too well-armoured for most weapons to make any sort of impression.
Ambit could hear the abbot shouting as he and the Oracle ran for it, and he smirked to himself. ‘Tough luck!’ he shouted back over his shoulder.
‘You bastard!’ the abbot yelled back from the monastery door. ‘You’ve betrayed your own kind! We need that demon!’
‘You need to have the shit kicked out of you,’ Ambit yelled back, ducking out from behind the Oracle’s huge body to throw the taunt directly to the abbot’s face.
The instant he left his cover, an arrow hit him in the stomach, just above the hip. Ambit yelped and dodged away to run in front of the Oracle, who had caught the smell of the mountains and broken into a rough charge.
Wincing with pain, Ambit ran ahead to the hollow. ‘Snarl!’ he shouted. ‘C’mon, we’re out of here! Snarl!’
The small demon appeared, glowing faintly in the dark, and stared in amazement. ‘Ambit, what –?’
‘Just run!’ Ambit yelled as he went past her.
Snarl took the hint and ran. ‘Where are we running to?’ she asked.
‘Away,’ Ambit gasped back, ‘we’re running away.’
‘Back to demon country?’ said Snarl. ‘Forget it. Follow me, I’ve found a good place.’
‘Gotcha.’ Ambit let her go ahead, hopping slightly thanks to his wound, and she bounded off through the canyon for a short while before suddenly taking a turn into a side passage. Ambit followed her into it, calling to the Oracle and helping him to follow. The monks weren’t far behind now.
The side passage had been made by a small stream which flowed into the river, and Snarl showed them the way up it, around corners and over ledges and to the place where the stream began: a pool fed by a waterfall. There was an overhang behind it, and she dived through and into it, yelping at the touch of the water. With some coaxing the Oracle followed and Ambit slumped down by the two demons and tried not to cough up his own heart.
‘Now we just have to lie low until they’ve gone,’ Snarl whispered.
The three of them huddled back into the deepest part of the overhang and waited in tense silence, but the monks didn’t find them. Now and then Ambit caught the sound of faint voices, and once the sound of falling rocks, but their pursuers didn’t find the waterfall, and before long they were gone.
‘We should be safe now,’ Snarl said eventually, ‘but we shouldn’t stay here too long. Ambit, who is this?’
Ambit half-lay at the back of the overhang, propped up by his pack. ‘Oracle, Snarl. Snarl, Oracle.’
‘You’re the Oracle?’ said Snarl, peering at the other demon.
‘I am,’ he growled back. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Snarl,’ she said. ‘From the first of the Nine Mountains. And this is my friend, Ambit Afterman.’
‘A human and a demon?’ said the Oracle.
Ambit sat up and started to work the arrow out of his hip. ‘We’re the original odd couple all right,’ he said, stifling a groan. The arrow came free and he tossed it aside, then pulled his pack over and rummaged in it for some bandages and ointment. ‘Anyway, I got you out of there so, you know, you’re welcome.’
‘The monks did all that to you, didn’t they?’ said Snarl, observing the Oracle grimly.
‘Of course they did,’ he said. ‘They hate us.’
‘We’ve got a few excuses for that,’ Ambit muttered while he treated his injury. ‘But let’s see, I think I’ve got something here you might like . . .’ He groped for his moneybag and opened it, sorting through the contents until he found what he was after. ‘Here, I think these should be the right size,’ he said, putting a pair of demon eyes into the Oracle’s hand.
The Oracle felt the pair of red gemstones, fumbling with them before he managed to grip one between the stumps of his claws and push it into the hole where his right eye had been. The new eye resisted for a moment, but he gave it a shove and it clicked into place. Quickly, eager now, he pushed the second eye into the other socket and then rubbed his face, blinking in confusion.
‘Do they work?’ Ambit asked.
The Oracle stared at him in the dull dawn light. ‘I see,’ he said in disbelief. ‘I see . . .’
‘There goes my beer money,’ Ambit sighed.
The Oracle was still staring at him, his shocked expression unchanged. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I see you.’
‘Yes, that’s because you’re not blind anymore,’ said Ambit. ‘I wish us humans could do that.’
The Oracle stood up, nearly bashing his head on the roof of their shelter, and pointed at Ambit. ‘You,’ he said, softly for a demon, ‘I know you. I’ve seen you before.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ Ambit asked resignedly.
‘Yes,’ said the Oracle. ‘You . . . you are the one I waited for. You are the Chosen One.’
‘Well . . . shit,’ said Ambit.
Three
The silence lasted a long time before the Oracle spoke again.
‘You already knew who you are,’ he said.
‘My granddad always said I was the Chosen One,’ said Ambit. ‘I wasn’t totally sure until just now, though.’
‘Then why are you here?’ the Oracle demanded. ‘Why are you with one of us? Why did you set me free?’
‘I came to the monastery because I wanted to hear this prophecy of yours,’ said Ambit. ‘And now I’ve saved your arse, will you go ahead and tell me already? I’ve been waiting way too long.’
The Oracle glared at him, but then heaved a sigh that sounded like a rush of steam. ‘I would never tell you, human,’ he said, ‘except I know I have to.’
Ambit sat cross-legged, spear resting across his lap, and leaned forward. ‘Go on, then,’ he said, ‘we’re all ears. Or I am. Snarl doesn’t technically have ears.’
The Oracle looked at Snarl. ‘Not in front of her,’ he said. ‘The prophecy is for your ears only, Chosen One.’
Snarl started to protest, but Ambit interrupted. ‘She’s staying,’ he said. ‘Start talking.’
‘This is only for you to hear,’ said the Oracle.
‘Ambit don’t give a shit,’ said Ambit. ‘Just tell us. Can’t be that special.’
The Oracle shrugged and lowered his huge head. The slate-coloured stone on his forehead shone faintly, and he closed his eyes and began to recite the prophecy in a rumbling murmur.
‘The Chosen One will be born in an ordinary place to ordinary parents, but his palm will be marked with the silver bellflower. The weapon with the power to slay demons will be passed on to hi
m, and only he may use it. Betrayal will destroy his home, and he will travel to the monastery to hear the prophecy and be trained by the monks. When the day comes that he is ready, he will leave the monastery . . .’
‘And go where?’ Ambit asked.
‘. . . and go to the capital, to meet the king,’ the Oracle went on. ‘A great battle will be fought, and love will be found, and with that love to strengthen his heart the Chosen One will travel to each of the Nine Mountains, where he will slay the nine demon lords and take their power to strengthen the sacred weapon. A band of friends will travel by his side, but the closest of all will betray him and reopen old wounds. Once the Chosen One has gathered the nine powers and the weapon is ready, he will go to the greatest mountain of all. There he will challenge the demon king, and if he can defeat him, the Land of Flowers will finally be cleansed, and peace will come.’
Silence followed. Snarl shifted uneasily.
‘Is that it?’ said Ambit.
The Oracle’s eyes opened. ‘That is everything I saw. I am the last oracle my kind ever produced, and this is the last great prophecy demons will ever know. I saw you do these things, Chosen One. It will happen.’
‘Bullshit,’ said Ambit.
The Oracle stared at him. ‘What?’
‘You heard me,’ said Ambit, ‘but thanks. That’s good to know. I didn’t know you’d be so specific, but that’s really handy. He stood up, leaning on the spear. ‘I got what I came for, so we’re square,’ he said. ‘Snarl and I will help you get back to demon country if you like. It should be on our way.’
‘There is no demon country between here and the human capital,’ the Oracle pointed out.
‘Yes, that’s because we’re going in the opposite direction,’ said Ambit, ‘and we really should get going, if you’re up to it.’
The Oracle only looked bewildered. ‘But you were meant to go . . .’
‘Like Snarl said, Ambit don’t give a shit,’ he answered. ‘Now c’mon already. We should get out of these mountains before those monks find us.’