Bryan Davis - Eye of the Oracle

She rocked back and forth on her knees, her hands folded tightly in her lap. Maybe, just maybe, that blossom would root and grow. Who could tell? If dragons could become humans, maybe a freak of nature could become something beautiful, something that could be loved, not just used for a while and cast back into the darkness, but loved and treasured forever.

Sapphira lifted her head and gazed at Lazarus’s cross, nailed to the wall next to the shelf where she kept Enoch’s scroll. The dark-grained wood, burnished by the flames that spun her back to the lower realms, sparkled from afar, reflecting a lantern hanging near the museum door. The dazzling gloss seemed to flicker in rhythmic flashes, reminding her of the Ovulum’s pulsing cadence, yet radiating white light rather than red.

Bowing her head again, she raised her clasped hands under her chin. “Elohim,” she whispered. “I hope you’ll give me another chance. I. . I guess there’s still something I don’t understand, or maybe I did something wrong, and that’s why I have to stay down here. . but that’s okay. I know Acacia and the other girls need me right now.”

She tucked her lips in, trying not to cry. “I didn’t really mean what I said about wanting you to leave me alone. I was tired and scared, and losing Elam and the Ovulum made me feel awful. It was like I died inside, twice in the same day.” She looked up at the cross and blinked at its dancing glitters. As the sparkles rode the grain from top to bottom and side to side, it seemed to laugh with joy. She fixed her gaze on the dazzling display and sighed deeply. “I hope you’ll come back someday and show me how to dance with you again.”

Circa AD 1924

Crouching low, Sapphira peeked into the open trapdoor. With her flaming cross in one hand and a coiled rope draped over her thighs, she shook her head and whispered to Acacia behind her, “I can’t see a thing.” She grimaced at her own voice. The secret tunnel above the spawns’ mobility room always seemed to be a sanctuary of quiet, but now even a shushed tone sounded like a rushing torrent.

“I found a thick stalagmite,” Acacia whispered back.

Sapphira tossed one end of the rope to her. “Make sure it doesn’t rub on anything sharp. I don’t want it to snap on my way down.” As the rope tightened, she reeled out another loop.

“It’s secure.” Acacia crawled toward her along the stony floor but bumped her head on the ceiling. “Ow!”

“Shhh!” Sapphira warned.

Acacia rubbed her scalp. “I don’t think anyone’s down there to hear us. It’s been quiet for months.”

“Silence worries me.” Sapphira unwound the remaining coils into the open hatch and breathed on her cross. “Lights out for now.” When the flames died away, she pushed the cross behind her belt buckle and grasped the rope. “I’ll see you at the bottom.”

As she slid through the cold pocket of darkness, a chorus of sounds arose from below the familiar hum of magneto bricks; a persistent tick, tick, tick from an unseen source; and the rapid thrumming of her own heart. She clenched the rope more tightly. The silence above now seemed a lot friendlier than the noises of the forbidden room.

The long slide stung her hands. The fibers were coarser than those on the rope in the elevation shaft, but this had been the only one she could find in the land of the living. Ever since she finally opened the portal in the mining shaft and began foraging for supplies in garbage heaps, she had to make do with whatever people had thrown away or would give her out of pity. This rope wasn’t the best, but it would hold. . she hoped.

When her toes finally reached the rocky bottom, she breathed a sigh of relief, and, pulling out her cross, she whispered for its light. “Just a little for now.” Low flames crawled along the wood like bright orange worms. Though set on fire hundreds of times over the years, not a grain was ever consumed or even scorched.

She raised the torch high, signaling her safe arrival. Waving it slowly back and forth, she tried to imagine what lay in the shadows beyond her light’s reach. Could the giants be sleeping somewhere? Might a sudden noise awaken them? And where was Mardon?

Acacia finally came into view, first her bare feet, then the skirt of her tunic, soiled and wrinkled from the crawl space above. When she settled to the floor, she pulled a scroll from her belt and whispered, “Give me light,” and a gentle flame sprouted at the top.

With their torches casting a flickering glow, Sapphira and Acacia tiptoed side by side. The rocky floor smoothed out into a flat, almost glass-like surface, and the hum of magneto bricks grew to a crescendo, like a million locusts buzzing their afternoon chants. As the shadows on the walls sharpened, the sisters slowed to a halt. Acacia’s mouth dropped open. “These growth chambers are enormous!”

Sapphira reached her torch close to the chamber’s inhabitant and shone the light in his gruesome face. “It’s a giant. I think he’s asleep.”

Acacia skulked alongside the wall, raising her voice as she called back. “They’re all over the place! Napping like little babies!”

Sapphira moved her light to the next giant and grimaced. “Like big, hairy, monkey-faced babies. I doubt if even a mother could love these freaks of ” She stopped and bit her lip hard.

“What did you say?” Acacia asked.

Sapphira slinked to Acacia’s side and kept pace with her. “Just that they don’t remind me of any babies I’d like to snuggle.” She joined her light with her sister’s, trying to see the face on each bowed head. “Yereq must be around here somewhere.”

“Do you think you’ll recognize him? They all look pretty much alike.”

“They do.” Sapphira firmed her chin. “But I’ll recognize him.”

Creeping past each chamber and peering at each hideous expression took several minutes, but Sapphira finally stopped and studied one face more carefully, a much more pleasant face. The giant’s brow arched over his closed eyes, and his firm, square jaws supported a smooth, rounded chin. His thin lips carried the delicate smile of a contented sleeper.

Sapphira pointed at the giant with her cross. “This is Yereq. I’m sure of it.”

Acacia propped a hand on her hip and gazed at the sleeping giant. “Okay. Now that we’ve found him, what do we do?”

“Figure out what’s going on.” Sapphira pivoted and reached her light toward the center of the chamber. “If I know Mardon, he has a worktable around here and probably a scroll for recording what he’s been up to.”

Sapphira ventured ahead, slower now as she passed over a rougher part of the floor. A shadow loomed in front of her, and as the cross’s glow shifted toward it, the dark form sloughed its shroud, revealing a high, square table. Sapphira laid her hand on the smooth surface. There were no glass jars with struggling embryos, only a large scroll perched at one corner.

She swung her head around. “I found it!”

“I’ll be right there.”