Lynn Flewelling - The Oracle's Queen

“Brother,” she whispered. “Please?”

She pressed her ear to the door, listening for any sign of him. The wood was cold, much colder than it should have been on a summer night, even here.

Another memory stirred. She’d stood here before, imagining the bloody, angry ghost of her mother just on the other side, in a rising tide of blood. She looked down, but nothing crept out from beneath it but a big grey spider. She flinched as it scuttled across her bare foot.

“Tamír?”

She nearly dropped her lamp as she whirled around. Arkoniel caught it and placed it safely in a niche beside the door.

“Bilairy’s balls! You scared the piss out of me!” she gasped.

“Sorry. I knew you’d come and thought you might need some help with that lock. And you’ll need this, too.”

He opened his left hand and light spilled out between his fingers from the small pebble glowing there.

She took the lightstone. It was cool as moonlight in her hand. “Less chance of me setting the place on fire with this, I guess.”

“I should go with you.”

“No. The Oracle said it’s my burden. Stay here. I’ll call out if I need you.”

He pressed a palm to the door beside the lock and Tamír heard the wards grind and fall. She lifted the latch and pushed the door open with a squeal of rusty hinges. Cold air rushed out, smelling of dust and mice and the forest beyond the river.

They stepped into the little open space between the door and the base of the tower stairs and Arkoniel pushed the door to, leaving it open just a crack.

She climbed the stairs slowly, holding the lightstone up and steadying herself with one hand against the wall. The scabrous feel of lichen and bird droppings brought back more memories. She felt like a little child again, following her mother up these stairs for the first time.

I’m like these swallows, with my nest high above the keep .

The door at the top of the stairs stood wide, a gaping mouth of darkness. She could hear the breeze sighing in the room beyond, and the skitter of mice. It took all her courage to climb those last few stairs.

She paused in the doorway, clinging to the jamb as she searched the deeper shadows beyond. “Mother, are you here? I’ve come home.”

Ki had guessed what Tamír intended to do the moment they’d turned aside for the keep. During supper he’d seen how often her gaze strayed to the stairs. When she turned down his offer to stay with her that night, he knew for certain she meant to go to the tower alone.

Lying in bed beside Lynx, he listened until his ears rang, and heard the sound of her door quietly opening and the soft pad of bare feet passing his door.

She’d have asked me to come if she’d wanted me along. Tamír had always been close-mouthed about the ghosts who haunted this place, even with him. So he wrestled with himself, and tried to sleep, but every instinct said to follow her.

He’d lain down in his shirt and breeches. It was a simple matter to ease out of bed and step carefully around the squires on their pallets. He thought the others were all asleep, but as he opened the door to creep out, he glanced back and saw Lynx watching him.

Ki put a finger to his lips and closed the door softly behind him, wondering what his friend thought he was off to do. There was no help for that now.

There was no sign of Tamír. He crept up the stairs and paused, stealing a quick look down this corridor just in time to see Arkoniel slipping through the tower door.

That gave him pause. She’d left him behind, but asked the wizard to help? Ki shrugged off the hurt and stole down the corridor to the tower door. It was slightly ajar and he pushed it open.

Arkoniel was sitting on the bottom step, fidgeting with his wand. A lightstone glowed on the next step up.

Arkoniel gave a start when he saw Ki, then shook his head. “I might have known you’d show up,” he whispered. “She insisted on going alone, but I don’t like it. Stay here with me. She’ll call if she needs me.”

Ki joined him on the step. “Is her mother really up there?”

“Oh yes. Whether or not she chooses to show herself—”

He broke off, and they both looked up as they heard the faint sound of Tamír’s voice. Ki broke out in goose-flesh, knowing what it meant. Tamír was talking with the dead.

“Mother?”

There was no reply.

The room was just as Tamír remembered. Broken furniture, rotting bolts of cloth, and mice-chewed bales of stuffing wool still lay where Brother had thrown them. A table had been righted under the east window and the last of her mother’s mouthless dolls sat there in a row, leaning awkwardly against each other like drunken men. Arkoniel had found her doll among them; she could see a gap where it had been.

She went to the table and picked one up. It was mildewed and discolored, but her mother’s small, careful stitches were still visible in the seams. She held it up to her light, looking at the blank face. This one was still plump with wool, its limbs even and loose. It surprised her, how tempting it was to carry it away with her. In a way, she missed the misshapen doll she’d hidden for so long, though it had been a burden at the time. But it had also been a tie to her mother, and her past. She clutched this doll impulsively to her heart. How she’d wanted her mother to make one for her! Tears stung her eyes and she let them fall, mourning the childhood she’d been denied.

A soft sigh made the hair on her neck stand up. She turned and searched the room, clutching the doll and the lightstone.

The sigh came again, louder this time. Tamír squinted into the shadows by the western window—the window her mother had leaped from, that winter day. The one she’d tried to push Tamír out of.

Brother’s not here to save me this time .

“Mother?” Tamír whispered again.

She heard the rustle of skirts, and another sigh, full of pain. Then, in the faintest of whispers, a ghostly voice murmured, my child—

Hope made the breath catch in Tamír’s throat. She took a step closer. “Yes, it’s me!”

Where is my child? Where? Where—

The brief stab of hope died, just as it always had. “Mother?”

Where is my son?

It was just like it had been on her mother’s worst days. She wasn’t even aware of Tamír, longing instead for the child she’d lost.

Tamír started to speak again, but a sharp crack startled her so badly she nearly dropped the lightstone. The shutters on the western window shook as if they’d been struck, then creaked slowly open, pushed by unseen hands.

Tamír clenched the doll and stood her ground, watching in mounting horror as a dark figure resolved from the shadows and lurched with slow, jerking steps to the window. Its face was turned away, as if watching the river below the window.

The ghostly woman wore a dark gown and was clutching something to her breast. She was of a height with Tamír and her shining black hair fell in loose disarray to her waist. Strands of it stirred around her, coiling lazily on the air. Framed against the night sky, she seemed as solid as a living person.

“Mo—mother? Look at me, Mother. I’m here. I’ve come to see you.”

Where is my child? The whisper was more of a hiss this time.

Where is your mother? The Oracle’s voice goaded her. “I’m your daughter. I’m called Tamír. I was Tobin, but I’m Tamír now. Mother, look at me. Hear me!”

Daughter? The ghost turned slowly, still with that unnatural, jerking hesitation, as if she’d forgotten how a body moved. She was holding her old misshapen doll, or at least its ghost. Tamír held her breath as she caught sight of a pale cheek, a familiar profile. Then her mother was facing her, and the sight of her was like an eerie mirror.