Bryan Davis - Eye of the Oracle

Paili just sighed and pulled her leg up to her bed.

Sapphira winced. “Oh. Sorry. Yes or no questions.” She kicked one of the morsels toward her hand and swept it into her fingers. “Do we have enough dried fruits and vegetables for another week?”

“No.”

“Another day?”

“Yes.”

“Is Naamah still bringing fruit from the bad tree for you to cook?”

“Yes.”

“Has she said anything about when Morgan might come back?”

“Yes. Tomorrow.”

Sapphira pulled her knees up to her chest. “That means tonight’s my last chance to search her castle. Whenever I’m anywhere near the portal, she doesn’t let me out of her sight.”

Paili grabbed Sapphira’s arm and pulled. “No! Don’t!”

“Paili!” Sapphira jerked her arm away. “I have to find Elam.”

“He is dead!” Paili moaned.

“Maybe not. Just because we don’t need bricks anymore doesn’t mean they killed him.”

Paili spread out three fingers. “Taalah is dead. Qadar is dead. . Elam is dead.”

“No!” Sapphira said, wrapping her hand around Paili’s fingers. “We didn’t see Elam get hauled off to the chasm like all the girls.”

Paili scowled. “You. . never see Elam.”

Sapphira drooped her head and sighed. “I know.” With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the bread back at the hole. Then, reaching under Paili’s bunk, she withdrew a blossom and caressed one of its seven petals, as white and supple as the day she found her living gift centuries ago. “Elam’s not an underborn,” she said, laying the blossom on her bed, “so he probably died of old age a long time ago.”

“Yes. So you. . stay here tonight.”

“No.” Sapphira rose to her feet and smacked her palm with her fist. “I haven’t looked everywhere, and I can’t ignore the feeling that someone’s being held prisoner in Morgan’s house. Even if it’s not him, I have to keep looking.”

Paili grabbed her forearm. “No!” she cried, squeezing tightly. “If you die. . I am alone.”

Sapphira jerked free. “I won’t die!”

The lantern’s dim light reflected in Paili’s tears, two long streams running down her cheeks. Sapphira sighed and sat next to her, stroking her hair again. “Paili, everything will be okay. Elohim hasn’t brought me this far to let me die now. Why would he give me my power if he just wanted me to die down here?”

Paili pulled in her bottom lip and frowned.

“This will be the last time. I promise.” Sapphira picked up her lantern and headed for the hovel’s exit, whispering to the flame. “A bit lower, please.”

As the lantern’s glow diminished, she checked for the Ovulum in her pocket and climbed out into the corridor, tiptoeing in front of her own stalking silhouette. So far, so good. Morgan lurked somewhere in the overworld, Naamah was probably sleeping by now, but where might Mardon be? Since he never wanted her to leave the hovel at night, it seemed that he was hiding some terrible secret. Who could tell how late he might be working in the control room. . or watching from the surrounding shadows?

As she approached the control room, the door swung open, and Mardon bustled out, studying a page of parchment as he strode toward her. She flattened herself against a wall and snuffed her flame with a quick wave. As he passed by, the light from Mardon’s lantern brushed across her eyes, but he never looked up from his work. She waited a few seconds, then continued on, not bothering to summon her fire again. After several centuries, the winding, upward path was all too familiar, even in total darkness.

After hurrying through the old green portal chamber, she felt for the entry to the next corridor and crept through, helped by the glow in the distance from the guard’s lantern and the swirling eddies emanating from the newer portal’s blue column. As she neared the chamber, she tiptoed and called out her usual warning, having learned that it’s never wise to startle a guardian giant. “Anak? It’s Sapphira.”

Just as she stepped into the chamber, the giant’s deep voice echoed off the distant walls and ceiling. “More night reading, daughter of the earth?”

Sapphira cringed. No matter how many times he taunted her with that name, it never failed to sting. Firming her chin, she strode into the towering giant’s shadow and crossed her arms over her chest. “At least I can read, son of putrefaction.”

Anak roared with laughter, making his muscular torso quiver. “A new insult from the queen of glib tongues.” He reached down and patted her on the head. “Morgan must keep you around for entertainment. I would have fed your carcass to the birds by now.”

Sapphira kept a stony face under the giant’s condescending hand. “She keeps me around, because I was smart enough not to teach Mardon everything I learned while he was gone. Without me, her garden of giants would produce nothing but fools like Anak and his sons.” She moved her hands to her hips. “If I remember the story Morgan told me, one of your sons lost his head at the hands of a shepherd boy.”

“Acid-tongued wench!” Anak wrapped his huge, six-fingered hand around her face and shoved her backwards, making her flop down on her buttocks. “David and his sons rot in their tombs while I live on.”

Sapphira climbed slowly to her feet and pulled out her coif. “Only by Morgan’s black arts.” As she spoke, she crept nearer, tying on her covering and keeping her eyes locked on Anak’s. “What would happen if you passed through the portal back to the land of the living?” She began tucking her hair into her coif, slowly making a circle around the portal. Anak’s gaze followed her, his body turning with his head. “If you went there, you would be a rotting corpse, because you died in that dimension, just like Mardon, and you’re stuck here because Morgan uses her arts to keep you from passing on to your eternal reward.”

Anak glared at her. “What do you know about eternal rewards? You’re stuck in this hellhole with me.”

With slow, furtive steps, she passed by him and eased closer to the swirling column of pale blue light. “I can’t argue with that. But at least I have hope. I have never died.” She withdrew the Ovulum from her pocket and laid it in her palm, pausing for a moment to make sure the giant moved his gaze to the egg’s mirror-like surface as it reflected the portal’s dancing light.

The moment he looked down, Sapphira leaped for the portal, but with a lightning fast sweep of his arm, Anak snatched her right out of the air and threw her to the ground. She tumbled head over heels and slid to a stop, scraping her elbow.

Anak extended his long arm and pointed at her. “Devious vixen! Get your scrolls and be gone!”

Sapphira rose slowly and brushed herself off, taking a second to examine the trickle of blood oozing down her forearm. It stung pretty badly, but at least she had managed to cling to her Ovulum. She slid it carefully back into her pocket and headed toward the tower, making a wide circle around the scowling Anak. As she passed through the broken doors, she clenched her fists. She had gotten so close! Just a few more inches, and she would have been on her way back to the upper realms, to the land of the living!

Keeping well away from the tree in the center and its twelve saluting statues, Sapphira shuffled to the outer wall and grasped the sides of one of the tall ladders that lined the stacks of shelves. Putting one foot on the first step, she paused and looked back at the portal’s bluish glow. What if she had made it into the column? Would it really have led to the upper world? Morgan had expressed her doubts long ago, and she was usually right about things like that. Still, it might be worth exploring if she could ever get past Anak, but would she be able to find her way home? And if she got lost in another dimension, what would Morgan do to Paili?