Bryan Davis - Eye of the Oracle

Since the curved ceiling began its upward arch near the wall, she had to crawl along the beam to stay beneath the dome, but as she slid out toward the center of the room, she was able to straighten and eventually rise to her feet. Inching toward the intersection, she spread her arms to keep her balance. A sense of sadness crept into her mind, darkness and loneliness, the second clue that had helped her find the portal that lay ahead.

The feeling of sadness grew, pure despair invading her mind, images of Acacia plummeting into the chasm, Nimrod’s hand swinging toward her unguarded cheek, and Morgan’s twisted face as she cried, “Freak of nature!”

Finally reaching the intersection, she withdrew a stick from her pocket and looked straight up, holding it high. She whispered, “Flames, come to my firebrand.” Instantly, a lively flame ignited the end of the stick. Curling her toes around the edge of the beam, she swung the torch in a slow circle and closed her eyes, imagining a swirl of warmth enveloping her as it did on that night long ago when she danced with Elohim.

As soon as the sensation of heat sank to her fingers, she opened her eyes again and watched the flame expand as it fell around her body and spun into a cone. Within seconds, the cocoon of fire enveloped her, and sparks of light flashed all around. Then, as she slowed her torch, she lowered it, allowing the flames to dissolve. Now, instead of the high reaches of an ancient tower, a castle stood at the top of a steep hill. Apple trees and gardenias grew all around, and their fragrance wafted past on a gentle breeze. Off to the right, the sun settled low on the horizon, casting her long thin shadow across the grass. She sprinted to the closest apple tree and ducked behind the trunk, away from the view of the castle, and, she hoped, away from Morgan’s piercing eyes.

She laid her stick at the base of the tree and glanced at the swamp behind her, shivering at the thought of the horrible serpents lurking beneath the deceptively peaceful surface. During a previous visit, stopping to wash her face in the shallows had almost proved fatal. If not for her proximity to the portal and resulting sharp vision, she would have been a wiggling belly lump at the bottom of the swamp.

As she skittered up the hill toward the castle, she pulled her veil down and bent low. Several flat terraces interrupted the slope, like a giant’s grassy stair steps. As she approached the dark building at the hill’s apex, she slowed her pace. Sneaking past a pair of turrets, she imagined a watchful guard peering out of one of the tiny windows. After circling around to the back of the castle, she stopped at a heavy wooden door, painted black and speckled with mildew splotches.

The door was locked, as usual, but a barred window up above allowed a breeze to flap the inner draperies. A thick vine grew along the side of the door, leading past the window on its meandering climb over mossy stones.

The short steeple in the center of the castle’s roof cast a long shadow over her, providing some cover for her familiar climb. She grasped the vine and began scaling the wall, poking her toes into the tiny cracks between the stones as she pulled her way up the slippery surface.

After swinging herself to the window’s ledge, she pushed her head between the bars, then grunted softly as she forced her torso into the elaborate bedchamber.

Sapphira pushed her veil up and tiptoed into the corridor. The waning sunrays streamed through a stained glass window on one end, red and blue panes filtering the orange light and casting eerie colors across her path. She glanced both ways and leaned against a railing that overlooked the lower floor. No one was in sight. She had seen Morgan twice during her other visits here, and Naamah once, but she had managed to avoid them. . barely. Getting caught meant certain death for her and probably for Paili as well.

Sidestepping the creaky boards, Sapphira scooted down the stairs, then hurried along a maze of corridors until she found a thick wooden door slightly ajar, as usual. Picking up an unlit torch from a nearby basket, she nudged the door open wide enough to squeeze through. She descended the stone steps, and the tiny sliver of light from the doorway above faded.

Gripping the torch more tightly, she whispered, “Grant me fire to light my way.” The top of the torch flickered, then blazed with light. Sapphira grimaced and whispered again. “Not so much!” The fire died down, giving just enough light to illuminate each step as she continued the deep plunge.

When Sapphira reached the bottom, she padded quietly across the hard dirt floor, following a glow of wavering lights in the distance. Twenty lanterns, some lit and some unlit, hung on each side of a pair of iron gates that blocked a rectangular entryway through a solid wall. The gaps between the black bars were too narrow even for her to squeeze through. The first time she had tried, her head had become wedged, and she spent nearly an hour freeing herself. Finding no way to get in that night, she finally gave up and went home. Since then, however, she had figured out how to pass. It had taken years of thought, but she finally deciphered the code and had since made it through the gate many times. The secret was in remembering Mardon’s control room combination.

Waving her arm across the field of lanterns, she whispered, “Sleep!” and every wick fell dark. Then, pointing at the first lantern on the left, she said, “Awake!” and it flashed to life. After repeating the command to the next five lanterns, Sapphira leaned her head toward the gate’s locking mechanism. A faint click sounded. She waved her hand at the lanterns again. “Sleep!” They all darkened.

She sidestepped toward the lanterns on the right and pointed at the first nine in order, commanding them to awaken. Then, after listening for the lock to click, she waved them back to darkness. Finally, moving to the left again, she lit thirteen lanterns. The lock clicked more loudly and the iron frame swung open a few inches.

Sapphira quickly restored the lanterns to their original condition and entered the gate, closing it behind her, careful not to let the lock reengage. Still carrying her torch, she padded into the dungeon’s anteroom, a huge chamber with rocky walls all around and a high ceiling, reminding her of the caverns in the lower world. Except for the gate behind her, three wooden doors, much like the one at the top of the stairs, stood as the only way out.

It was at this point that Morgan’s sorcery and Mardon’s scientific wizardry always baffled her. Every time she came, the doors led to something different a pit that plunged into darkness; a winding path through a dismal, uninhabited tropical forest; an endless meadow with deep hoofprints as the only sign that anyone ever journeyed through the grassy expanse; and a deserted, rocky wasteland with a gorge that carried a flaming river at the bottom. Since her vision cleared as she approached a door, and sadness shrouded her mind, she knew the doors were portals to other dimensions that somehow stayed open for anyone to stumble through, perhaps to be lost forever.

Sapphira regripped her torch. It was time to choose a door, maybe for the last time. But why should the portal reveal anything new? Exploring the strange lands over and over had never turned up a soul, living or dead. Still, there was one place she hadn’t searched, the dark pit. Sapphira shivered. Falling into the unknown took more courage than she had to offer.

She reached for the door on the left and opened it, revealing the huge meadow. She sighed. Nothing new there, just dried horse dung fertilizing a million acres of grass. After closing that door, she strode ten paces to the right and opened the second. A rocky ledge overlooked a deep chasm and a lava river, much like the one in her cavern back home, but this one was outside under the sun and sky in a land that held nothing more than lava pots and squealing lizards, a place an imprisoned boy could never survive. Finally, she pulled open the third door, revealing a dark hole, the pit she had never dared to explore.