Jack Vance: Big Planet

They climbed a flight of curving stairs. From above came the sound of footsteps descending. Koromutin bowed with vast obsequiousness.

“Bow!” hissed Nymaster. “The Prefect Superior!”

Glystra bowed low. He saw the hem of priestly robes, exceedingly rich. The white was a silky floss; the red, a fur soft as the pelt of a mole; the black, a heavier fur. A peevish voice said, “Where are you, Koromutin? An oraculation will shortly be in progress, and where is the wisdom? You are remiss.”

Koromutin spoke resonant apologies. The Prefect Superior returned upstairs. Koromutin trotted back to his cubicle, where he donned a high-collared garment of stiff white brocade embroidered with scarlet spiders and a tall white conical hat with ear flaps and cheek guards which almost hid his face.

“Why the delay?” hissed Glystra.

Nymaster shrugged. “Old Koromutin holds the post of Inculcator, and that is his ceremonial regalia. We will be delayed.”

Glystra said fretfully, “We have no time for it; let’s get about our business.”

Nymaster shook his head. “Not possible. Koromutin is bound to the oraculation. In any event, I wish to witness the rite; never have I watched an oracle at his revelations.”

Glystra growled threats but Nymaster could not be moved. “Wait till Koromutin leads us to the woman. She is not in the pens, you saw as much yourself.”

Glystra, fuming and disquieted, was forced to be content.

Koromutin continued his preparations. From a locked cabinet he brought a jar of a murky yellow fluid, from which he filled a rude hypodermic.

“What’s that stuff?” demanded Glystra contemptuously.

“That is wisdom.” Koromutin spoke with unctuous complacency. “The head glands of four men go into each charge; the material is concentrated sagacity.”

Hormones, pineal fluid, thought Glystra; God only knew what nastiness.

Koromutin replaced the jar of fluid in the cabinet, clamped the hypodermic to the front of his hat like a holy emblem. “Now—to the Veridicarium.”

He led Nymaster and Glystra down the corridor, up the stairs, along a wide passage to the central hall under the dome—a large twelve-sided room panelled with mother-of-pearl and swimming with pale gray color. In the center rose a dais of black wood holding a single chair.

There were only two dozen priests in the hall, arranged in a semi-circle, chanting a litany of monosyllabic gibberish unintelligible to Glystra, and, he suspected, equally meaningless to the priests.

“Only a score,” muttered Koromutin. “The Lord Voiv-ode will not be pleased. He bases the value of the oracle’s wisdom by the number of priests in the hall… I must wait here, in the alcove.” His voice came muffled as if from under the robes. “By custom, I follow the oracle.” He glanced around the hall. “You two had best go by the Boreal Wall, lest some stripling novice peer under your hood and raise an outcry.”

Nymaster and Glystra took inconspicuous positions against a great carved screen. A moment later an egg-shaped palanquin curtained with peach satin and fringed with blue tassels was borne into the hall. Four black men in red breeches served as porters; two girls followed with a chair of withe and clever pink bladder cushions.

The porters set down the equipage; a red-faced little man hopped out from between the curtains, seated himself in the chair which was hurriedly thrust under him.

He beckoned furiously, to no one in particular, to the world at large. “Haste, haste!” he wheezed. “Life is running out! The light leaves my eyes while I sit here!”

The Prefect Superior approached him, bowed his head with nicely calculated respect. “Perhaps the Lord Voivode would care to refresh himself during the preliminary rites.”

“Devil take the preliminaries!” bawled the Voivode. “In any event I note but a niggardly score of priests here to honor my presence; such makeshift preliminaries I can well spare. Let us to the oraculating; this time let him be a stalwart in his prime—a Rebbir, a Bode, a Juillard. No more like that senile Delta-man who died two minutes after the spasms left him.”

The prefect bowed. “We will seek to oblige you, Voivode.” He looked up at a sound. “The oracle comes.”

Two priests entered the room supporting between them a black-haired man in a white smock. He stared back and forth like a trapped animal, digging his heels into the floor.

The Lord Voivode roared in contempt. “Is this the creature who is to advise me? Faugh! He appears unable to do more than empty his bowels in fear!”

The prefect spoke with imperturbable suavity. “Let your misgivings vanish, Lord Voivode. He speaks with the wisdom of four men.”

The wretch in the white smock was hoisted to the chair on the dais, where he sat trembling.

The Lord Voivode watched in ill-concealed disgust. “I believe I can tell him more than he can tell me, even with his wisdom quadrupled; all he knows is fear. And once again the precious instants of my life are wasted futilely; where will I find just treatment?”

The prefect shrugged. “The world is wide; perhaps somewhere oracles exist superior to ours here at Myrtlesee Fountain. The Lord Voivode might with advantage put his questions to one of those other omniscients.”

The Voivode spluttered, abruptly lapsed into silence.

Now appeared Koromutin, stately and ceremonious in his stiff gown. He climbed the dais, lifted the hypodermic down from his hat, plunged it home in the oracle’s neck. The oracle tensed, arched his back like a bow, flung his elbows out, thrust his chin hard into the air. For a moment he sat rigid, then slumped, limp as seaweed into the chair. He put his head into his hand, rubbing his forehead.

There was dead silence in the chamber. The oracle rubbed his forehead.

His foot jerked. His head bobbed. Sounds came from his mouth. He raised his head in bewilderment. His shoulders quivered, his feet jerked again, his nose twitched. A swift babble poured from his mouth, rising in pitch. He yelled, in a hoarse bawling voice. His body quivered, jerked—faster, faster. He was vibrating as if the dais were rocking.

Glystra watched with fascinated eyes. “Is that the wisdom? I find no sense in this screaming.”

“Quiet.”

The man was in wildest agony. Moisture dripped from his mouth, his face muscles were knotted into ropes, his eyes glared like lamps.

The Lord Voivode leaned forward, smiling and nodding. He turned to the prefect who bent respectfully, put a query inaudible over the yammer of the oracle. The prefect nodded calmly, straightened, teetered back and forth on his heels, hands behind his back.

The oracle sprang to his feet. His back arched, the breath rattled past lips which were pulled back from teeth… Then he settled limply into the chair. He sat still, calm and serene, as if agony had purged away all the dross in his soul and left him with a vast meditative coolness.

In the silence the prefect’s murmur to the Voivode was clearly distinguishable: “He’s now on the settle. You have perhaps five minutes of wisdom before he dies.”

The Voivode hitched himself forward. “Oracle, answer well, how long have I to live?”

The oracle smiled wearily. “You ask triviality—and I shall answer. Why not? So—from the position of your body, from your gait, from certain mental considerations, it is evident that you are eaten by an internal canker. Your breath reeks of decay. I judge your life at a year, no more.”

The Voivode turned a contorted face to the prefect. “Take him away; he is a liar! I pay good slaves and then he tells me lies”

The prefect held up a calm hand. “Never come to Myrtlesee Fountain for flattery or bolus, Voivode; you will hear only truth.”