Bryan Davis - Eye of the Oracle

Elam smacked a heavy scroll against a shelf. “No sign of Morgan anywhere. She’s probably in her castle or in the true upper realms.”

“The true upper realms?” Acacia asked.

Elam jerked his thumb upward. “The dimension where I come from, the land of the living. I guess since I was her prisoner, Morgan didn’t mind telling me what’s going on. You see, she’s really dead. . well. . sort of dead, so she has to stay in what she calls the circles of seven, a place my father called Sheol. We’re underneath one of the circles, but we still can’t go from here to there without some kind of portal, because there’s no tunnel all the way to the top.”

Acacia looked up in wonder. “Then can we block her from coming back somehow?”

Elam pointed the scroll at Sapphira. “You’re the portal maker. What do you think?”

Sapphira tapped a finger on her chin. “I suppose if we could somehow move the portal she uses, she couldn’t get in here. At least then we’d be safe.”

Paili shivered. “Not with Mardon and giants here!”

“She’s right,” Elam said. “We would still have to deal with them.”

“I’d rather face a hundred giants than one Morgan.” With the others following, Sapphira exited the tower’s museum and crept toward the shining blue column, perhaps the only remaining portal Morgan could use to enter the lower realms. “Morgan can find portals when she’s down here, because most of them are lit up, but they’re not visible up above. I can just sort of feel them when I’m up there.”

“Then how does Morgan find them?” Elam asked.

“I think she just remembers where she appears in the land above.” Sapphira gazed at the swirling blue light. “Morgan comes here through this portal, so if I move the spot where it comes out up above, she won’t be able to get here, because she probably doesn’t know about the portal on her island that leads to the top of the museum.” Sapphira touched the edge of the column of light, making it sparkle at the tip of her finger. “But it’s pretty risky, because I’m not sure where this one leads, and I don’t know if I can create a firestorm big enough to move it. I watched the dragons make one, and that was more fire than I’ve ever seen in my life!”

“A firestorm?” Acacia took Sapphira’s hand. “If we’re both oracles of fire, maybe you can teach me how to make fire, and we can try to do it together.”

Sapphira let out a long sigh. “Anything to keep Morgan away from these girls.” She squeezed Acacia’s hand and pulled her toward the column. “Let’s go before I change my mind.”

“We’ll wait here.” Elam picked up another scroll and clacked them together. “I can probably take on Mardon, but the giants are a different story. I learned that from fighting Nabal for my dinner.”

Sapphira and Acacia stepped into the portal together and hugged each other close. Sapphira raised a hand and reached for a fistful of blue light, catching it like a rope and pulling down. In a blinding flash, the museum chamber crumbled away, and, seconds later, a million pieces of multicolored light flew together and bonded seamlessly into a new mosaic, a dim sky framing the dark turrets of Morgan’s castle. An orange hue on one side signaled the breaking of dawn.

Sapphira set a hand on her hip and whispered, “I thought we might come out in the land of the living where the tower fell, but this is pretty close to the portal we used to go home just a little while ago. I guess this one really did move from Shinar, like Morgan guessed.”

“How did the firestorm move the portal here?” Acacia whispered back.

“I don’t know. The dragons moved it to the tower from another place first, but Morgan told me that everything shifted around after that, so I guess it moved again.” Sapphira nodded toward the swamp behind them. “She keeps snakes back there and a big dog inside the castle, so we have to be extra quiet.”

Acacia pointed at a nearby apple tree. “She probably recognizes the portal site by landmarks like this tree, so we have to move it to a place where she would never find it.”

“Right, but if an entire first floor of a tower can sink into a new portal, we’ll probably take some stuff with us, too. We don’t want to do it where she’s likely to miss something that gets swept up in the storm.”

“Good point,” Acacia said. “We can’t leave any evidence.”

“But where could we possibly go?”

Acacia turned toward the swamp. “Are you afraid of snakes?”

“Well, take away the fact that some can squeeze you to death and swallow you whole, and the fact that some can inject venom that will eat your flesh or shrivel you into a prune. . no, not really.”

“Same here.” Acacia tiptoed into the swamp.

Sapphira tugged on the back of Acacia’s dress. “I was kidding. We can’t go in there.” The sun’s dawning rays illuminated the dark water. A mere two arm lengths away, a long, slender body broke the surface, its scales reflecting the sunlight. It quickly disappeared again, and the water stilled.

Acacia backed up a step. “Do you have a better place? Somewhere Morgan won’t notice?”

“No, but even if we don’t get eaten, do you want to take a bunch of swamp water and deadly snakes down where the other girls are?”

“What are you afraid of? We can make fire, can’t we? We can burn them to a crisp.”

Sapphira pointed at herself. “I can make fire, but I haven’t taught you how yet.”

A dog barked in the distance, then howled loud and long.

“You’d better start teaching me. That dog’s bound to alert someone.”

Sapphira picked up two sticks at the base of the apple tree and handed one to Acacia. “You just kind of think fire onto the wood, but you also have to speak to it to make it happen.” Sapphira stared at her stick and said, “Ignite!” A small flame immediately erupted on the end.

Furrowing her brow, Acacia focused her eyes on her stick and whispered through tight lips, “Ignite!” Nothing happened.

The dog howled again, this time louder.

“Concentrate!” Sapphira urged. “Give it everything you’ve got.”

Acacia gripped the stick so tightly, it trembled in her hands. “Ignite!” Again, nothing happened. She lowered the stick and frowned. “What am I doing wrong?”

Sapphira felt a familiar warmth on her thigh. The Ovulum was signaling for her attention. “You’re supposed to get your power from Elohim, the God of Noah. You haven’t danced with him yet, so I guess he hasn’t given it to you.”

“Danced? You have to dance with someone to get power?”

Sapphira withdrew the Ovulum and showed it to Acacia. It glowed red and warm in her palm. “Well, the first time I did it, the Eye of the Oracle told me to command the fire to appear, but I never really felt the power was my own until I danced with Elohim. He’s the one who speaks through the man in the Ovulum.”

Acacia laid a hand on top of her head. “Okay, you’re making my head hurt. You danced with a god, and there’s a man in that egg?”

“Yes.” She handed the Ovulum to Acacia. “Just look inside and see if you can find ”

The dog howled once more and bounded into sight, a huge, long-legged beast with a multicolored coat that shimmered in the glow of the rising sun. His shining eyes locked onto them, and he loped their way, closing the gap quickly.

Sapphira spun and held out her stick, shouting, “Blaze!” A bright flame shot up, and she waved it at the dog. “Get back!”

The dog halted and growled, baring its long, sharp teeth.

Acacia gazed into the Ovulum. “I see him! He’s my teacher!”

Sapphira thrust the firebrand toward the dog, making it back away a step. She twisted her neck toward Acacia. “Is he saying anything?”