Mickey Reichert: Godslayer

The oracle's lips framed a smug smile which disappeared as she addressed Silme. "Have no fear, sorceress. Your quest is sanctioned. But quickly now; time runs short."

Silme looked around Larson with newfound energy, as if suddenly freed of some grave responsibility. "Thank you, lady. Your efforts may have saved our world from Chaos. May Odin continue to grace you with his favor. "

"And Vidarr, you." The oracle returned the compliment in kind.

Irony made Silme wince. She turned, strode across the chamber, and passed through the shimmering curtain with Gaelinar at her heels. Larson retreated with more caution, gaze locked mistrustfully on the oracle whose lips pursed in antagonizing confidence. Wired, and eager to desert the red-haired seer who had become so abruptly lethal in his nightmare, Larson scrambled through the cloth slit. He jostled against Gaelinar in his haste.

The Kensei rolled his eyes with fading indulgence, and followed Silme around the milling acolytes. His glares grew less tolerant when Larson twice trod on his heels in his rush to vacate the temple to Odin. Once they stepped from the grayed interior of the building to the pleasure of afternoon, Larson loosed a shuddering sigh of relief. Even the biting winds seemed preferable to another moment of emotional agitation, especially to an elf impervious to winter's chill.

Larson and his companions mounted their horses. Ten minutes into their journey back toward the river Sylg, Larson shed the last of his apprehension and muttered to himself in triumph, "The half-breed ain't as all powerful as he thought."

Silme caught his arm. "Did you say something?"

Larson shook his head in denial. Then, seeing no reason to hide the truth from Silme any longer, he explained. "Bramin came to me in a dream and promised violence if we contacted the oracle. Idle threats, I'm certain, but just scary enough that I:" He broke off as Silme reined with an abruptness which sent her horse into a startled half rear.

"I thought I sensed his presence." Silme shaped her words with a self-accusatory anger. "But I blamed it on paranoia and weakness. Quickly now.

The oracle may be endangered." She turned her steed and kicked it to a gallop back toward Odin's temple.

Gaelinar whipped his horse about and reined after Silme. More accustomed to cars than horses, Larson clung to saddle and mane as his mount wheeled and followed its fellows at a run. They covered lost ground in minutes. Stopping only to tether the horses, Silme rushed to the dooryard, her companions close behind. Without troubling to knock, she pushed open the temple door. Priests looked up in alarm, but the sorceress paid them no heed. At a trot, she led Gaelinar and Larson through the slit in the silver-threaded curtain.

The oracle's chamber was as Larson remembered it from both dream and reality. Its dim, dank interior supported a marble block on which the eye-like crystal lay balanced on an edge. Gray cloth drapes covered the room's three walls. Conspicuously absent was the oracle of Hargatyr.

Larson waited by the slitted entrance, prepared for violence. Gaelinar stood in the center of the chamber, and his eyes followed Silme's anxious path. The sorceress peered behind the marble, paused a moment in confusion, then trotted to a far corner. She peeled aside a corner of the curtain which hid the back wall. Matched, gold-tasseled cords fell into her hand. When she pulled one, the cloth parted. Beyond, Larson and his companions saw a smaller chamber.

Gaelinar strode around Silme and entered the room first. Larson crossed the scrying chamber in time to step around the curtain with Silme. Behind a writing desk and before a simple cot, a pallid body sprawled, face downward, on the floor.

Red hair spread about the narrow shoulders and waist in a mass of tangles.

"No," said Silme softly.

Gaelinar eased the corpse to its back. The oracle's single eye was closed tight beside the massively scarred empty socket. Her breasts, thighs, and torso were violet with pooled blood. Though more familiar with rapid decomposition in the heat of Vietnam, Larson knew the oracle had been dead for several hours at least. The thought left him with a head-pounding certainty. The woman who had answered Silme's question and sanctioned their quest was not the oracle of Hargatyr.

Gaelinar ushered his grieving companions back into the scrying room and pulled the curtain closed, leaving the oracle what little decency remained in death. Silme pressed her back to the marble table, laid her staff at her feet, and buried her face in her palms. Exhaustion from wasted enchantments and frustration preyed heavily on her remaining strength. She looked as vulnerable as a child.

Larson lowered himself beside Silme and rested his arm across her sagging shoulders. "What now?"

Silme sighed. "All I dare believe of the false oracle's prophecy is the value of time. We still don't know how to free Vidarr. I'm certain only that we mustn't surrender him to the Helspring." She fell silent and still. Just as Larson convinced himself she had fallen asleep, she rallied internal energy and leaped to her feet.

Silme knocked Larson aside and paced with the steady tred of a caged tiger. "If Fates or gods know the method of breaking Loki's spell, the answer lies in the stone of Hargatyr." She indicated the crystal. "Anyone who understands its enchantments can tap its knowledge."

"And you?" asked Larson hopefully.

Silme paused, hands against the marble. She shook her head. "Dragonrank magic taps its caster's life energy. That's what makes it so powerful and desirable, and also dangerous. Devices like the gemstone are of no more use to me than crossbow bolts to a longbowman . I have the basic knowledge, but too many gaps exist to correctly glean information."

"Try, at least." Larson rose.

Silme caught his hands. Her palms left sweaty prints on the edge of the marble table. "I can do better than try. Another in this room may have some of the knowledge I need. Allerum, did Vidarr tell you why he can communicate only with you?"

Larson tried to recall. "He said people from my world lack mind barriers."

Silme dropped his hands, eyes widening incredulously. "None?"

Larson shrugged. "I suppose. I don't even know what it means."

"For now, it means a way to link myself with Vidarr." Silme's gaze dropped to the sword at Larson's hip. "Together, we may fathom the workings of the oracle's stone." Her cheeks colored slightly, but she continued eagerly. " Allerum, can you hold your mind blank?"

"My mind? Blank? No!" He flinched back as the sorceress' request became clear. The thought that Silme might access his memories of murder made him light-headed. "My mind runs and lapses without my control. From moment to moment, I don't know if I'll find myself here or home, whether I'm experiencing reality, memory, or the inspired illusions of trapped gods and vicious warlocks. For me, Silme, blank is not a state of mind."

Larson had quite forgotten Gaelinar stood behind him. The Kensei's husky voice made him jump. "It is now, hero. Would you have us damn the world for your reluctance?"

Silme finished the appeal more gently. "I require only that you keep people and places from your consciousness. Concentrate on naming foods or counting twigs, anything repetitive which requires channeling thought. Will you try it?"

"I've no choice." Larson swallowed around a lump which grew in his throat. "What do I have to do?"

"Sit." Silme waved him to the floor.

Larson sat, knees pressed to his chest. His hands trembled as he watched Silme reach for the crystal of Hargatyr. "Wait!"

Silme paused.

"How do you know Bramin hasn't tampered with the stone or replaced it with something evil?"

Silme seized the eye-like gem with an impatient toss of her head. "This is Odin's temple. The oracle's scrying stone must be warded by Law. A simple touch would maim or even kill Bramin. It would reflect his destructive magics. Any other attempt to remove it from the temple would require him to work it past a room full of priests." Silme lowered herself to the floor before Larson and placed the stone between them. "Lay the sword across your legs."