Michelle Sagara - Cast in Chaos

The guards didn’t meet the carriage itself; they waited until it disgorged its occupants. Said occupants walked—in much less heavy armor—to the wide, very closed, doors that led to the grounds. To Kaylin’s surprise, the guards didn’t demand her name or her business. Then again, the first thing she did was hand them the paper that Sanabalis had handed her.

A lot of clanking later, the doors opened.

“Master Sabrai is waiting,” one of the men told her. “He will meet you when you enter.”

The rules that governed visitors to the Oracular Halls were pretty simple: Don’t speak to anyone. Don’t touch anyone. Don’t react if someone screams and runs away at the sight of you.

The first time Kaylin had come up against these rules they had been confusing right up until the moment she’d entered the building. She understood them better now, and wasn’t surprised when she entered the Halls and saw a young girl teetering precariously on the winding steps that punctuated the foyer, singing to herself in a language that almost sounded like Elantran if you weren’t trying to make any sense of it.

Master Sabrai was, as the guard had suggested, waiting to greet them. Kaylin tendered him a bow; Severn tendered him a perfect bow. He nodded to each in turn, and Kaylin remembered, belatedly, that all visitors to these Halls were called supplicants.

Master Sabrai looked every inch the noble. His hair was iron-gray, and his beard was so perfectly tended it might as well have been chiseled. He wore expensive clothing, and if his hands weren’t entirely bejeweled, the two rings he did wear were very heavy gold with gems that suited that size. He had the bearing and posture of a man who was used to being obeyed.

Once that would have bothered Kaylin. In truth, in another man, it would have set her teeth on edge now.

“Private Neya,” Master Sabrai said. “Your companion?”

“Corporal Handred, also of the Hawks.”

“You have apprised him of the rules for visitors?”

“I have.” She grimaced, and added, “He’s better at following rules than I generally am. He’ll cause no trouble here.”

“Good. I am afraid that your visit here was not unexpected, and it is for that reason that I am here. Sigrenne is at the moment attempting to quiet two of the children, one of whom you met on a previous visit.”

“Everly? But he doesn’t talk—”

“No. He doesn’t. I was speaking of a young girl.”

Kaylin remembered the child, although she couldn’t remember the name. “She’s the one who saw—” She stopped. “She’s upset?”

“She had planted herself firmly in the door and would only be moved by force. She was not notably upset until her removal. I believe she was looking forward to reading you. Those were her exact words. She also,” he added, glancing at the covered mirrors that adorned part of the foyer, “attempted to decorate. She seemed to be afraid of the mirrors, which is not, with that child, at all the usual case. Come, please. Let us go to the Supplicant room.”

Sigrenne, still large and still intimidatingly matronly in exactly the same way as Marrin of the Foundling Hall—but without the attendant fur, fangs, and claws—was waiting for Master Sabrai in the Supplicant room. She was not on guard duty, so she didn’t resemble an armor-plated warrior, unless you actually paid attention to her expression.

That expression softened—slightly—when she caught sight of Kaylin. “You’re the Supplicant?” she asked.

“Well, sort of. One of the Supplicants, at any rate.”

“How is Marrin?”

“Doing really well. I swear, someone rich left all their money to the Foundling Halls. I’ve never heard so few complaints from her.”

“It’s probably the new kit.”

“You heard about him?”

“I saw him.” Sigrenne’s face creased in a smile that made her look, momentarily, friendly. “She brought him here when she came for her usual suspicious flyby.”

Some of the orphans left on the steps of the Foundling Halls ended up with the Oracles. Marrin, as territorial as any Leontine, still considered them her responsibility in some ways, so she made sure they were eating, dressing, and behaving as well as one could expect in the Oracular Halls.

Master Sabrai raised a brow at Sigrenne, and then threw his hands in the air, a gesture entirely at odds with both his dress and his generally reserved manner.

Sigrenne took this as permission to speak about matters that concerned the Oracles more directly. “You’re the only Supplicant we’re entertaining today. And that would mean you’re here by Imperial Dictate.” The last two words were spoken with very chilly and suspicious capitals.

Kaylin stiffened. “The other Supplicants?”

“Meetings have been postponed.”

“For how long?”

“Indefinitely. You can imagine how popular this has made Master Sabrai.”

If the Oracles did, indeed, see into the future—or the past—they often spoke in a way that made no bloody sense to anyone who couldn’t also see what they were seeing. Some of the Oracles didn’t speak at all, although that was rarer. But since the Emperor himself consulted with the Oracular Halls from time to time—and funded them—many powerful men and women thought they could gain some advantage by visits to the Oracles.

Those visits weren’t free, and they weren’t cheap. Kaylin, who sneered at the charlatans in Elani on a weekly basis, found the so-called real thing just as troubling, but for different reasons. She was mostly certain that the Supplicants who came with their questions couldn’t make heads or tails of the answers they actually got, and she couldn’t figure out why they’d spend the money at all.

But people with that much money could be really, really difficult if disappointed. She glanced at Sabrai. “Why have the Halls been closed to visitors?” she asked, in the no-nonsense tone she’d adopted while on formal Hawk business.

“I would imagine,” he replied, “that you have some suspicion, or Lord Sanabalis wouldn’t have sent you.”

“Is it like the last time?”

“No. Or at least, not yet.”

She waited.

So did he. And since he was used to dealing with people who could forget a conversation before they’d even finished a sentence, he won. “What do you mean when you say not yet?”

“There were a number of disturbing incidents today.”

“Were there any visual Oracles offered?”

“There were. They are not…unified, but there is a similarity of theme in some of them. It is not the visual that is of concern, and until we isolate the possible cause, we would prefer not to deal with the more trivial questions that cross this threshold. Why did the Emperor send you?”

“There were marked unusual disturbances in parts of the city today.”

“Unusual?”

“You could call them miraculous, given that we were on Elani.”

“How?”

“Some of the daily garbage that passes for magic on Elani actually seemed to work,” she replied.

He was silent for a few moments, staring just to the left of Kaylin’s shoulder.

“Master Sabrai,” Sigrenne said firmly.

He blinked, and shook his head. “My pardon, Sigrenne. I was…thinking.” His gaze became more focused, and his expression sharper. “And did incidents of this nature occur elsewhere?”

“Yes. I’m wondering, at this point, if they occurred here.”

“No. Or at least not in a fashion that would appear unusual to either myself or the caretakers. What question do you have for us?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute,” she replied, with a confidence she didn’t feel, because she didn’t actually have a question she wanted to hand to the Oracles. “Can you describe the unusual verbal incidents you’ve been experiencing?”