Chapter 30: The Oracle of the Everfall Curtains, her smile

The quivering bard-king, who moments before had been playing with their lives, led them down a deep dark stairway, Olice lost all sense of time, and her small legs grew weary, she had to rest upon Gander’s back. Even then, she was upon his back a long time.

Then, they broke out of the dark and spreading out all around them was that mysterious lake they had first seen when they first came to the Everfall Curtains. Still black as pitch with the odd star-like shine, still it was still with that belligerent peace.

Below them was what could barely be called a stair. It led down, close to the surface of the lake. This limb of crystal was a jagged strand, the end of which was a circular platform. This platform was not crystal. No, this was sandy stone, overgrown with flowers the colour of twilight, scattered among countless rusty leaves. The flowers were in shape, a bit like a rose, and a bit like a tulip, but they were fleshier petals than most flowers of those families usually are.

It wasn’t clear if it was one plant, or many, no more than that, it disturbingly looked like both. Each flower possessing a bitter loneliness that drew Olice’s mind to home and her teacher, yet all the flowers were together unified.

As if sensing Olice and the spirits’ presences, the flowers whispered to each other, as only they can, but while Olice could normally understand the tongue of plants, what these ones were saying eluded her. Nobody could put a name or identity to these flowers, but what none of them noticed, was how forcefully the idea of picking a flower never came into their minds.

There was nothing else apart from these secretive flowers.

Naturally, Gander turned on the bard of fortune.

“Where isss the oracle? There isss nobody here! Ssspeak! Before I losssse my patience and devour you, inssssolent fabrication!” Gander hissed, taking the powerlessness he had felt when Olice had been cursed out on the spirit.

It was a strange sight, seeing that sculpted muscled form of the bard of fortune shake before Gander. It could not even speak, but wordlessly tried to point at the vast lake.

“Do you take me for a fool? You think we’ll jussst tosssss ourssselves in?” Gander snarled, putting his pointed teeth right up next to the bard’s core-head.

Olice decided to finally tell Gander what she knew from Ka’s memories.

“Gander, the lake is the oracle. It isn’t a lake” Olice said.

Gander looked dubiously at that ‘lake’.

“If it issssn’t a lake, what issss it?” Gander wondered aloud.

Olice considered explaining, but then supposed this was something that a familiar was good for.

“Explain Susasov” Olice commanded smugly.

-In the first place, if it was a lake, what kind of lake is that? Nevermind that actually. This oracle was already old when I was around, it might be around as old as Pros-Iangiang, Rivertears. In short, nobody knows what it is, other than it being powerful, perhaps more powerful than an Aryaith, but it seems to be trapped in place. Not once has she spoken her name- Susasov explained.

“Ssso, how do we get her to ssshow herssself? Fisssshing?” Gander asked, sweeping up the bard of fortune with the tip of his tail, ready to demonstrate.

The spirit of fortune wailed piteously.

Olice slid off Gander, Ka brushing off and adjusting her dress for her, they had arrived at the platform.

“Call” Ka said.

Olice nodded, and tried to prepare herself. She took a deep breath, and then slowly let it out.

She stepped into the centre of the platform.

“O great oracle, heed my request! I come bearing an object from another world!”

Olice thought to Gander, getting him to retrieve one of Toro’s explosive eggs.

He plopped it into Olice’s hands casually.

As one might expect, at first, nothing happened. A hand formed on the surface of the ‘lake’. It was quite the same as the rest of the lake, apart from being in the shape of a hand. This hand was follow by another, then another, and so on. Each of these hands turned, as if in supplication, and then formed another hand in the palm of the previous, this repeated, forming a pillar of delicate hands, though it was more like a pillar of hands forming the image of a flower, like the flowers of those unknown plants.

However, this flower of hands was closed, but, with a liquid motion, it unfurled. As it did, four oily paws, each as thick and long as Olice was tall came to rest on the edge of the platform. The power of this being robbed Olice, her familiars and the bard of all action, of words. They could only bear witness.

The obscured form of a beast pushed forward its shoulders, displaying a neck that ended in another flower, this one made of serpents, not hands. They serpents were utterly still, eyes closed as if they slept. This flower did not blossom fully, only revealing a large mouth with full lips.

A mere two of the serpents awoke, gazing at Olice and her familiars with eyes like the tears of a star.

“Hmm, yes, you are not those detestable fabrications, you are far from home, twice far. Unfortunate child, or perhaps blessed, blessed far more than many. Some would consider a blessing a misfortune itself. But I do not truly wish to speak of fortunes, I have had my fill of that chatter. No, give to me your offering”

Gander, was afraid. Truthfully, he was one of those people that would never trust an oracle. Gander’s position was not really that unreasonable. A oracle could lie, no oracle can truly see the future, so on and so forth. There was countless cases of oracles bringing ruin to those who misunderstood their words, or drew their wrath, or sometimes, some oracles would bring disaster simply because they found interesting. The power of an oracle was not all knowledge, but a little knowledge is more than enough to warp lives.

No, Gander didn’t even believe that the oracle would settle for such an offering for her services. The infamy of oracles was greater than that.

Olice carefully held out her hands, the crimson egg between them.

A snake reached out from the oracle, stopping once the tip of its tongue could reach the egg. It then drew back, and the egg followed.

She hovered the device before her.

“Such a curious and desperate construction, are the ways of destruction endless?” She murmured.

The egg twisted before her, Olice and her familiars fell backwards, but the explosion did not come, or more accurately, it was contained.

The oracle passed it before her snakes, as a seamstress might an attractive piece of cloth.

“It broke away, but they toil still. Nothing changes” She said.

The explosion went back into the egg and the egg twisted back, then her mouth opened, and in one go, she swallowed it.

“I will tell you what it is that you seek, but, in return, rid me of the fortune spirits, they have long outstayed their welcome. When that child, the sorcerer of spaces separated this realm, I finally had peace, but those fortune spirits. Again and again they pester me! Rid me of them, or wander forever!” She said to Olice.

Olice thought about it, the bard of fortune had gone deathly silent.

Gander did not spend a thought on it, he tossed the bard of fortune into the larger mass of the oracle’s form.

The bard screamed, but hands arose and gently enclosed it. As soon as one of those soft hands touched it, the spirit of fortune went silent.

“That takesss care of their ssssovereign, and we took care of the ironbird king already” Gander informed the Oracle.

The oracle laughed joyously.

“How cold, serpent of loving shadows, where is your caring heart?” the oracle goaded.

“The price issss paid, I care nothing for anyone other than my charge” Gander said, feeling himself suffocated by the oracle.

“Ah, I suppose it is paid” the oracle said flatly, quite disinterested.

The oracle moved closer to Olice. To the small child’s credit, she did not look away, though perhaps it would have been better if she had.

“It worries you child, you don’t know, do you? How many will have their lives spent for you before the end? Such a big worry for such a young child. You should know, that everyone lives on the deaths of others, if they wish it or not, it happens. Ahhh the burdens of greatness, you intend to travel that path, born to it, raised to it, how could you not. With your birth, it would be an insult to those struggling in the dirt to not try and make something of yourself. Will you stay yourself though or lose yourself?” the oracle rambled.

Olice, in what was probably one of her bravest moments, responded.

“I can’t lose myself, if I thought that, if it looked like that, it’d be a lie”

The oracle smiled, and Olice felt no malice in this smile.

“If truth exists, I would say that isn’t a bad one, so I shall tell you what you want to know, who knows how far you will go with that?”

The oracle paused a moment.

“You know that this place has been connected, not to all red crystal artefacts, but to many, and each of these adds land to this realm. One is an eye, a crimson eye. Such power in eyes, isn’t there? If you make your way to this eye, they you will surely escape this place”

Olice curtsied.

“Thank you, O oracle”

The few awake snakes twisted oddly.

“Hmm, I suppose, it would not do much harm, a bit of kindness does one good now and then, and I in a good mood, since I’ll soon have peace from those fabrications”

One of the snakes shot out, wrapping around Olice’s neck.

“Don’t be afraid girl, or at least try to move past your fear. Hold out your hand below my eyes” the oracle commanded.

Olice shaking barely able to remain standing held her hand out beneath the the snake. Its eyes fell out like tears normally do. The eyes were like little gems, except disturbingly softer.

“One of those is for you child, the other, well, you’ll know who to give it to when the time comes”

The oracle smiled.

“It doesn’t do anything like showing the truth or visions or anything like that, but if you look through it, you should see things a little differently”

The oracle, satisfied with her interaction, collapsed, becoming a tranquil ‘lake’ again.

Now Olice and her familiars just had to find this eye.