Bryan Davis - Eye of the Oracle

Paili pointed at the closer trench.

Mara groaned. “Oh, Paili! What am I going to do with you? It’s a good thing Nabal didn’t see you.” She glanced around the cavern. “Where is he, anyway?”

Paili stomped once on the ground. “Brick room. He. . back soon.”

Mara fished in Paili’s pocket and jerked out her coif. “He’s going to catch you someday, and you’ll be chiseling out growth chambers until you wrinkle up and die!” She tied the coif back on Paili’s head and gestured toward the trench. “Come on. Let’s dig up some magnetite.”

She slid down the short slope and grabbed up the dirty, wrinkled tunic. When Paili joined her, Mara pushed the girl’s outer garment over her head and tried to smooth it out, but her hand touched a sticky spot on Paili’s collar. She drew her fingers close to her eyes. “Blood?” She spun Paili around, pulled her collar away from her neck, and peeked down her back. She gritted her teeth and growled. “Did Nabal do this? Did he whip you?”

Paili nodded, whimpering.

“And he told you to wash the blood to hide it, right?”

Paili nodded again.

Mara released Paili’s collar and kissed her cheek. Tightening both her fists, she hissed, “Someday I’m going to kill that stupid dung-eater.” She snatched up a nearby bucket and glanced at the few small pebbles covering the bottom. “Was he mad because you’re behind on your quota?”

“No. . find,” Paili said, turning up her palms. “All gone.”

Mara dug through Paili’s pocket. “Where’s your locater?”

Paili tucked her hair under her coif. “It. . not work.”

“Here it is.” Mara pulled out a glass disk and laid it in her palm, gently swirling the metal filings inside. “It seems all right to me.” She took Paili’s hand. “Come on. Let’s find the biggest strike ever. Maybe Naamah will give us a fig cake with dinner.”

Paili grinned. “Fig cakes!”

Mara eyed the disk while slogging along the trench. As they passed by a trio of laborers digging into the slope, her leg brushed against a kneeling girl and knocked her into a pile of soot. “Oops!” Mara reached down to help the girl up. “I’m sorry!”

The other girl straightened and slapped Mara’s cheek. “You are bad!” she said, pushing her finger into Mara’s chest. “Acacia was good!”

Rage boiled, sending a surge of stinging heat through Mara’s wounded cheek. “Qadar!” she growled, raising a fist, but when Qadar covered her face with trembling hands, Mara let her arm flop to the side. She turned and strode farther down the trench. “Come on, Paili. Let’s go to the new dig area. I doubt anyone’s gone there yet.”

As she marched on, Paili’s gentle hum lilting behind her, the trench sank into a darker region of the cavern. The air grew cold, and the light faded, almost too dim to continue, but as they rounded a curve, new light poured through tiny holes in the floor up ahead. She stooped and signaled for Paili to join her.

The little girl huddled against her side. “Cold!”

“Stay close to me.” Mara hugged Paili and pointed at the holes. “I thought the light meant that the magma river flowed right under us. I guess it doesn’t, or it’d be a lot warmer in here.” She tapped on the rocks and listened. “Sounds solid enough.”

Paili wrapped both arms around Mara’s waist. “Go back. . I scared.”

“It’s okay.” Mara pushed on the ground with her free hand. The rocky layer bent downward, and small cracks etched jagged streaks in every direction. “Hmmm. . Maybe it’s not so solid after all.” Grunting under the Paili-sized load, Mara pivoted on her knees and headed back. “I think we’d better ”

Suddenly the floor crumbled away. “Whoooaaa!” Mara slid into a gaping hole with Paili still latched to her waist. Mara clawed at the sloping sides until her fingers snagged something solid, keeping her from sliding any farther. Pain rifled through her arms as she and Paili dangled over a seemingly bottomless pit.

“Paili!” she screamed. “Hang on!”

Paili’s arms tightened around Mara’s waist, nearly squeezing her breath away. Grunting and pulling, Mara inched higher. Ignoring her throbbing shoulder, she lunged upward, and her fingers groped for a new handhold until they finally found a sturdy ridge. As she dragged their bodies higher, streams of light flowed past her eyes like windblown fog, filtering into the slope and disappearing. Sounds of snapping arose from below, like hungry crocodiles vaulting to catch hold of her feet. Mara lunged again and caught the upper lip of the pit with one hand, then the other.

“Paili! Climb out!”

Paili clambered up Mara’s back and jumped from her shoulders to solid ground. Dropping to her knees, she grabbed Mara behind her upper arms and pulled much harder than seemed possible for a little girl. Mara dug her feet into the slope and scrambled to safety, then rolled to the ground, puffing.

Paili laid a hand on Mara’s cheek. “You okay?”

Mara rubbed her aching shoulder. “I think I’m okay.” She sat up and looked her in the eye. “What about you?”

“I. . bleeding again.”

Mara scanned her body. “Where?”

Paili showed her a cut on her elbow. “Here.”

Mara eyed it closely. “It’s not too bad.” She looked over Paili’s shoulder at the pit a mere two steps away. She pushed Paili gently to the side and crawled slowly to the edge.

The ground near the pit seemed sturdy now, so she inched close and peered into the hole. Streams of light rose and fell as if something down below inhaled and exhaled radiant energy. With each rhythmic pulse, some of the light disappeared into spots on the wall, sucked in by some kind of mysterious force.

Mara slid her fingers down the side and touched one of the spots. It felt smooth and hard, like a polished stone. While probing the surface, she caught the edge, and the stone shifted. Another stream of light flowed up, weaved between her fingers, and disappeared into the stone. She pried it loose and laid it in her palm. Fitting snugly between the heel of her hand and the base of her fingers, a multifaceted jewel glittered at her, a faint beam of light emanating from one side.

Paili touched it with her fingertip. “Pretty!”

Mara closed her fist. “Yes, but what is it?”

Paili shrugged her shoulders. As Mara rose to her feet, a low moan drifted up from the pit. Both girls jumped back, clutching each other. A new chill ran across Mara’s skin, and she inched farther away.

Paili hung on to her elbow, shivering, while Mara stroked her hair. “I think we’ll look for magnetite somewhere else, okay?”

“Far. . away.”

After several more steps backwards, Mara turned and held Paili’s hand. “If we tell Morgan about the pit and the gem, maybe we won’t have to make quota today.”

“Fig cakes?” Paili asked.

Mara strode forward, peering through the dimness. “Let’s not push it. I’m just hoping we don’t get whipped.”

Mara and Paili slid into the warm spring, each girl finding a place to sit so that the soothing water covered her dirty, scraped shoulders.

With a flickering lantern at her feet, Morgan sat on a rocky ledge next to the pool, holding the gem in her fingers and examining it carefully. “A deep pit, you say? How deep?”

Mara reached for her outer tunic and pulled it into the bath with her. “I couldn’t see the bottom.” She scrubbed her tunic in the bubbling water. “It was strange,” she said, looking up at Morgan. “Light streamed up and down, and some of it got sucked into that gem.”

“Very interesting.” Morgan drew the gem up to her eyes. “Did you notice anything else?”