The Oracle Speaker

"This is definitely why the children are so ill. Probably why Mika's new lambs died as well." Lexi's stomach rolled as she lifted a hand to help block the stench coming up out of the ground. A shudder tore through her as the memory of the field of tiny fleece-covered corpses she witnessed so few moments ago flooded her mind. "How could this have gone unnoticed long enough for Illyana's little boy to be sitting at death's feet?"

"Perhaps the cisterns just need clearing." The old man reached for the rake lying on the ground.

"It won't do any good. The system has been corrupted too heavily." Lexi jabbed a finger down towards the hole. "Look at the fish. They've all died but for a few. You'll have to get someone to drag the dead and dying ones out of there before they add to the problem."

"We cannot. The Oracle pronounced that the fish should be kept in the cisterns. We cannot remove them without the Oracle telling us that it is so." The old man glared at her. "Be careful to keep heresy from your thoughts, apprentice Oracle-speaker."

Lexi bit back an angry retort, instead following the small stream of mixed clean water and sewage back to its source at one of the encampment's artesian wells. Where once only clean water flowed into the cistern, waste now backed up so far that it swirled around the base of the well.

"We've just dumped so much waste that it will take years for nature to recover. We are going to have to move the camp at least a hundred miles, and we will have to start tomorrow," she said, bracing herself for her companion's reply.

"We haven't moved this settlement in five years," he replied. "It will take an enormous effort."

Lexi laid a hand on his shoulder, reminding him subtly who controlled more power between them. "Well, then an enormous effort will have to be made, or our sick children will soon be replaced by dead ones, Chief Elder."

The old man muttered under his breath for a moment, then shook his head. "We couldn't possibly move the camp without a pronouncement from the Oracle-speaker. It would be folly to take an action so rash without the Oracle's wisdom to guide us."

Lexi rolled her shoulders and forced a smile onto her lips. "Can you not see the need, Chief Elder? It is here, oozing across the land into our fresh water supply as we watch."

"The Oracle will tell us the best course of action. It has always done so. Find Listra. If she makes a pronouncement, the camp will move."

Choking back a frustrated growl, Lexi gave him a shallow bow. "Consider it pronounced, Chief Elder. Listra is in the mountains consulting the Oracle. She will pronounce when she returns. Tell the people to begin preparations to move."

"But..."

Lexi pointed down at the huge, dead fish floating pale and rotting on the surface of the water below. "That allows for no buts, Chief Elder, just action."

The old man nodded and walked away.

Long moments passed as Lexi stared down into the murky water. The fish dead or dying at the surface constituted a more grim pronouncement than anything the Oracle could ever utter. Still, she knew that the Chief Elder spoke the truth. If the Oracle-speaker did not make a pronouncement for the move, not a single soul would stir.

She looked up, searching for the mountain peaks she knew stood hidden by the thick canopy. Somewhere up in those peaks, Listra sat waiting for the Oracle to speak to her -- sat waiting to bring back the only word that the people ever listened to.

Lexi sighed and set out at a run. If Listra couldn't come to her, she would have to go to Listra. She shuddered as the weight of the mountains pressed down on her, taunting her with their vast faces of stone. For a moment, she imagined she could hear their jibes. How could she hope to find one old woman amidst all that rock?

"I'll manage," she growled softly under her breath and sped up. "Somehow, I always manage."

"There's a wicked storm coming, Lexi!"

Startled, Lexi slid to a halt and spun towards the sound of the voice. One hand pressed over her pounding heart, she stared at the tall, dark-skinned man who met her gaze over the back of a big chestnut mare. "Michael! You scared me out of three years of life."

The big man blushed and looked down. "I'm sorry, Apprentice Oracle-speaker, I didn't mean to startle you, but there is a strong storm coming."

Lexi took in a deep breath through her nose as if trying to sniff out the storm and looked up into the clear sky. "When is it going to hit?"

"Middle of the night tonight." He laid a hand between the horse's nostrils in a calming action as if already trying to overcome the storm's effect. "We could lose half the horses if they panic."

"Yes, I know." Lexi sighed. If they lost even a few horses, the camp wouldn't be able to move on until they were retrieved. That could mean days or even a week, and the cisterns wouldn't last that long.

"What would the Oracle have us do?"

"You are a Horse-reader, Michael, surely if anyone in this camp should know what to do about panicking horses, it would be you." She stopped when only a blank expression greeted her words.

"Come, Michael what should be done?" After waiting another moment, she swallowed a hard lump of fury. "Very well. Find the elders and tell them that we need the wagons set up into at least a hundred solid paddocks -- no more than twenty horses per paddock. No one is to picket tonight. Make sure that there are older horses in each to help keep the others calm. We need this camp on the move in no more than a couple of days." Lexi nodded to the Horse-reader and turned away.

"But the Oracle-speaker . . ."

Lexi smiled at the protest. "Consider it pronounced, Michael. Do as I ask, please."

Avoiding as many people as she could and quickly brushing aside those she couldn't, Lexi hurried through the maze-like settlement to her wagon.

"Apprentice Oracle-speaker," a deep voiced called out, "the metal workers need a pronouncement before settling on the amount of ore to mine this season."

Lexi spun around and grinned at the tall, bearded man. "Well, you know what I say to that, don't you, William?"

The man gave her a rakish grin. "Consider it pronounced." He laughed and bent to kiss her. "Where have you been all morning? I woke up and found myself without a wife."

"Mika called me from our bed before sunrise when he found all of his new lambs lying dead in the field. I awoke the Chief Elder to check the water supply, and we discovered why the children are sick." Lexi took his hand and pulled him up the stairs into their wagon. "I have to go out and find Listra. As much as they know that the land can't sustain us any longer, the elders won't budge without word from the Oracle."

Lexi tossed a tunic and pair of trousers into a pack, some dried beef, fruit and a water skin following them.

"Lexi, Illyana's son died during the night. Her father came to tell you while you were out with the Chief Elder."

Lexi looked up into her huaband's face, her heart clenched in a combination of sorrow and panic. "This makes moving even more urgent; many of the other children are nearly as ill as he was. William, while I am gone, tell everyone to spread the word that the Oracle has pronounced they need to boil their water before using it for anything."

He scowled. "That would be a lie, wouldn't it? Listra hasn't been seen for nearly a week. Do you know where she is?" William asked, passing her a sweater.

"No, but I will have to trust the Oracle to lead me to her. The waste is backing up around the fountains, and soon people will start dying." Lexi grumbled under her breath. "The Oracle has not pronounced that the water should be boiled, but if this small lie saves even one child how can it be a bad thing?" She stood in front of him and laid her hands on his chest. "Please William. I know that I have been Listra's apprentice for more than ten years now, but . . ."

"You have less patience for the Oracle now than you had ten years ago," her husband finished for her. He shook his head and pulled her into his thick arms. "Lexi, the Long-ago Elders placed their wisdom into the Oracle in the days before the great cities fell. That wisdom has guided our people ever since. How can you speak out against that?"

"No heresy in this home, eh?" She kissed him and pulled away. "Don't worry. I will find our Oracle-speaker and bring her back to tell everyone what they already know." She kissed him again, and hurried from the trailer.

She slipped a bridle onto their chunky bay gelding's head, and stepped into William's offered hand for a boost onto the horse's wide back.

"I should come with you," William said. "I know the mountains better than you do."

"You are not initiated into the mysteries, thus not allowed to see the Oracle." Lexi touched his cheek. "Don't worry; I will be home before nightfall. Please tell the others about boiling the water." She nudged her horse in the ribs and set out towards the wall of mountains rising miles beyond the edge of the forest.

Her gelding's quick trot took Lexi to the foot of the nearest mountain by high sun. Under the pretext of stopping to eat, she dismounted and walked south, hoping that the Oracle would guide her towards Listra's hidden location. She paused before a small game trail, the meandering path into the rock seeming almost brighter, as if the sun's rays fell directly upon it.

"Could this be it?" she asked the horse. "Should we pray to the Oracle to tell us if this sign is actually guidance or just my heretical mind?"

The gelding snorted and rubbed his face on her arm to rid it of flies.

"Hmmm, you seem to have a mind predisposed to heresy as well." She led him up beside a fallen tree and used it as a mounting block. Settled on his broad back once more, she guided him onto the path up the side of the mountain.

Two hours later the path narrowed and became too steep for her horse, so Lexi tied him under the shelter of an outcropping where he could browse and hoisted her pack to continue on foot.

She climbed as the sun fell towards the horizon, each step she took seeming to anger the wind. What started as a gentle breeze when she set out became a gale that threatened to tear her from the mountain's face by the time the sun set.

"Guess I won't be home by nightfall," she hissed between chattering teeth. She pressed herself against the rock and pulled her water skin from her pack. When she tilted her head back to drink, she noticed a heavy bank of black clouds building up around the peak of the mountain.

"Looks like Michael's storm is going to catch me out here as well." She stowed the water skin and set out along the path once more.

A half hour further up the mountain, Lexi stopped and turned her back to the wind, gasping for breath. Before she could breathe it in, the gale tore it from before her face. No matter what direction she turned, it blew directly into her face almost as if it worked against her, trying to stop her from finding Listra.

Surely no one could fight such a wind. She collapsed against the wall of rock at her back and stared back down the path towards the encampment. The way back seemed lighter, as if calling to her. Even as she allowed the thought of home to tempt her, Mika's dead lambs forced their way into her mind, slowly transmuting into a field of dead children. Choking back a sob, she buried her face in the collar of her sweater and shoved herself back out onto the path. "I must keep going."

The sky darkened a little more with each step, and the path disappeared before her until only her sense of the Oracle guided her. She stumbled over the rocky ground, testing every step by shuffling her toe forward before committing to it.

"Do you understand the nature of the Oracle?" a voice called out of the darkness.

Lexi let out a little scream and stopped, groping for the rock she knew should be just beyond the length of her left arm. Her fingers found nothing. Suddenly she felt as though she stood upon a sharp pinnacle, nothing but air below her on all sides. Sobbing, she sank to her knees, her fingers digging into the gravel and earth beneath her, clinging as if they kept her from falling to her death.

"Do you understand the nature of the Oracle?" the voice called out again.

"Listra?" Even as Lexi called out, she knew the voice did not belong to the Oracle-speaker. Perhaps it meant to stop her as well. Where the wind and darkness failed, fear might succeed. She slid one hand forward, dug her fingers into the dirt, and pulled herself along the path a few inches at a time. She had to find Listra and the Oracle, or her people would continue to drink poisoned water.

"How can you attempt to find something you do not understand?" The voice sounded male and not at all menacing.

"The Oracle is my people's direction," she whispered, but did not pause. "It guides our actions."

"Wrong." The pronouncement broke over her like thunder, a heavy wall of rain following swiftly behind its echo.

Lexi braced herself as she heard its approach -- the sound of a stampeding herd. Still, when the deluge hit her, it slammed her belly-down on the earth, pinning her there.

"What is the nature of the Oracle?"

Lexi looked up, searching the sodden darkness. "I don't understand the question. I have been trained to speak for the Oracle, to bring its words to my people."

"And by doing this you serve your people?"

Lexi shook her head. "I don't know. I hope so." She shoved herself back up onto all fours and continued crawling, feeling her way along the path up the side of the mountain.

She crawled for what could have been days or moments. Her sense of time leeched out of her along with her body heat until the chattering of her teeth drowned out the sound of the storm. The cold also sucked the pain from her hands so that even when she scrabbled at the rock, knowing she left skin and nail behind, she felt nothing -- a small blessing, but a welcome one.

Flopping down on the muddy ground, Lexi closed her eyes and concentrated only on breathing. A stream of water flowed around her head, racing past her slack lips. She no longer shivered, and her mind grasped at thoughts, but could not catch them.

"I can't do it," she whispered. "I can't go any further. Oracle help me, I am not strong enough." Heavy sobs broke from her throat, wracking her whole body as defeat settled over her. She needed only to find one old woman and a crystal, yet that task proved too much. Less than a day from home she would die sprawled on a mountain path, and not even her husband would know what happened to her.

"William . . ." she sighed. His face flashed before her. He at least would fight, refusing to allow the encampment to die without a struggle. His strength might overcome her failure.

An image of the settlement appeared behind her eyelids. Sunlight drifted in lazy shafts between the trees, dappling all it touched. The inhabitants went about their work, talking and laughing without care. A beautiful picture. Home.

"A lie."

Lexi's tears stopped suddenly. She opened her eyes and lifted her head, searching for the speaker. She saw the path under her and could even make out the shapes of the rocks around her. The sun! The entire night passed while she crept up the mountainside.

"What is the nature of the Oracle?" the voice demanded.

Lexi heaved herself up an inch at a time until she sat in the middle of the stream. Gasping for breath, exhausted, she allowed her chin to settle onto her chest. "It is the wisdom of the Long-ago Elders, passed through the generations to guide us."

"A lie."

Lifting her head, Lexi searched the dim light. "Who are you? Where are you?" The voice did not answer.

She lifted her bloodied hands before her eyes and surveyed the damage, but they remained dead and pain free. "I have always been told that the Oracle is the magic that saved our race from dying out. It is the wisdom that guides and protects us."

"But what do you know?"

That question ran through Lexi like a steel rod, and she scrambled up onto her numb feet. Still focused on the question, she stumbled off the path towards a semi-flat boulder and sat. Even as she sat, the tenuous grasp on understanding that she had begun to form in the mud broke. "I know that I need to find Listra and take her home. If the Oracle does not make a pronouncement, my people will never move the encampment, not even if every single one of them dies." Lexi scowled, a thought forming in her mind. Even though her people would die if they stayed, they would never move without the word of the Oracle.

"What is the nature of the Oracle?" she whispered. Without even quite registering the question, she answered it herself. "It is an excuse."

"You are close."

Before the words echoed into silence, the rain stopped. Lexi nodded. She could continue. She needed to continue. In a single movement, she shrugged her pack from her shoulders, then tugged open the stays with her teeth and looked inside. Her extra clothes had been spared the worst of the soaking. She stripped out of the sodden rags that covered her and left them in the mud.

After taking time to warm her feet and wrap them in strips torn from the hem of her dry tunic, Lexi set out, climbing for hours in a silence punctuated only by the sound of her breathing. Not a single bird or animal or insect sound reached her ears. It seemed as though life stopped somewhere further back down the mountain. Trying to ignore the eerie absence of life, she pressed on. Surely Listra could not have made it much further up the mountain.

She stumbled constantly while her limbs remained cold and numb, but as the day warmed and her feet and hands began to thaw, the pain grew so intense that flashes of red streaked across her vision every time her feet hit the ground. Still, the knowledge that a day behind her, people could be dying spurred her on one shuffling step at a time.

Although the clouds hung dank and grey across the sky, Lexi judged the time to be nearly high sun when she limped up to a gateway in the rock. On the other side she could see a large fire, and beside it Listra's sleeping form. Still, she halted before passing through the arch.

"Why do you hesitate?" the voice asked.

"I . . ." Lexi took another step forward, trying to see if Listra still breathed.

"Are you afraid to become the next Oracle-speaker for your people?"

Another step. "You said that it was a lie. I don't want to lie to them."

"Then do not."

"If I pass through this arch and Listra is dead, I will become the Oracle-speaker, and I will have no choice but to lie to them. If I do not tell them that the Oracle commands actions, they will never happen. Nothing will get done."

She edged a little closer. "I can't see her breathing," Lexi whispered. "Is she alive?"

"There is another way," the voice whispered. "Every Oracle-speaker has come to this place. Every Oracle-speaker has faced a decision. Will they become the same creature as the one who came before, or will they choose another path? Step through the arch and choose."

Lexi hesitated for another moment, but the silent voices of the children back at the encampment stilled her fears. Surely she could find the courage if only for her people.

She hobbled through the arch.

Listra's body vanished, stopping Lexi in her tracks. Had it been only an illusion, or had the old woman really been there? Was she dead? The fire stilled her questions as it roared to life, soaring ten feet into the air. Above her, the sky turned dark. Lexi looked up. No trace of cloud remained. Instead a dark shadow hung before the sun, blocking all but a thin corona of light.

"Now you must choose."

She turned towards the voice and saw, on a pedestal of pale marble, a large crystal orb.

"The Oracle," she whispered and stepped towards it. She held out a hand, running her broken and blood encrusted fingers over the smooth surface. She looked down into the crystal. Inside a man dressed in furs held out a key.

"What is the nature of the Oracle?" the little man asked.

"Are you the Oracle?"

In a blinding flash of light, the mountains around her vanished, and she found herself standing in a forest. The trees surrounding her rang with the calls of birds, and from behind her, she could hear the musical sounds a stream.

"Where am I?" she asked, turning in a circle until she saw the man in the furs.

"You are the Oracle," he replied.

Lexi shook her head. "No, I am only an apprentice Oracle-speaker."

"An Oracle is merely a voice of authority. Do you not possess such a voice?" He smiled and held out the key. "Are you willing to take it?"

Lexi frowned and reached out but then withdrew her hand. "What is it? What does this key open?"

"The future. It has been offered to every one of your predecessors."

"And did any of them accept it?" Lexi scrutinized the key as if she could discover its nature if she just looked close enough.

"It remains here, does it not?" The man laughed and held it out. "Do you have enough courage to accept the future?"

"If I do not?" she whispered.

"Then you shall return to take your place as Oracle-speaker for your people as have the hundreds who came before." The man offered her the key.

* * * * *

"Thank the Oracle!" William's cry rang throughout the forest, reaching Lexi's ears even before she could see him.

She smiled and jumped down off the gelding's back, immediately sorry that she had done so when her battered feet slammed into the earth. Then her husband's arms swept her from the ground, and the pain disappeared.

"I have been out searching all night," William whispered into her ear between kisses. "I tried to get the others to help, but they refused. They said that if you were lost looking for Listra that it must be the Oracle's will." He set her down, held her at arm's length, and looked her over. "What happened to you?"

Lexi smiled wearily and held up the sack in her hand. "I will tell you the whole story once the camp is moving, but for now, please tell the Elders and as many people as you can find to meet at the center of camp. I have a pronouncement."

William lifted her into his arms and carried her towards their wagon, leaving the placid gelding to follow them on its own. "I will do as you ask as soon as you are resting."

The moment William laid her down on their bed, Lexi curled up around the sack she had brought down off the mountain and fell into an exhausted sleep. She did not stir until her husband returned to wake her.

"The people are assembled and waiting." Once again, William lifted Lexi and her burden into his arms.

A huge crowd stood around the main fire pits when Lexi arrived. She smiled at the people who called out to her, but did not reply. She pointed to one of the tables at the main fire. "Set me up there, William, so that they may all see me."

As soon as she stood atop the table, the crowd became silent, expectant. Lexi held up the sack and pulled out the crystal ball.

"In the mountains, I discovered that Listra has been taken to the bosom of the Long-ago Elders. May she rest assured of all the good she has done for her people." She paused to allow for the wave of grief she knew would follow her words. For the first time since witnessing Listra's disappearance, Lexi allowed herself to feel a little of her own sorrow. Listra taught her everything she knew -- had been a mother to her -- but no longer. Lexi pushed the emotion aside. She would take time for her grief after spurring her people into action.

She cleared her throat to pull the crowd's attention back to her. "As I climbed through the pass to find the Oracle, I kept hearing a question. 'What is the nature of the Oracle?' I didn't have the answer even though I believe I have known it my entire life -- just as all of you have known it the length of your lives.'

"The Oracle is a thief!" She smiled in the face of the gasps and cries of outrage. "Silence!" She held up the crystal ball, and quiet fell over the crowd once more.

"The Oracle was never meant to control our lives, merely offer counsel and wisdom. Instead, over the many years since the fall of the cities, this piece of crystal has robbed us of our ability to think for ourselves."

Lexi raised the orb over her head. "No more." She slammed into down onto the ring of rocks that surrounded the fire pit, shattering it into a million pieces. A flash of light and belch of concussive thunder roared over the crowd, knocking them off their feet. When it passed, the people stayed where they had fallen, their expressions transitioning between horror and elation.

"From now on," Lexi called out, scrambling to her feet, "we will decide what is best for our people. We will listen to our own wisdom, take our own counsel." She held up a large key. "We shall carry our future and the survival of our people onto our own shoulders."

Lexi smiled. "Now, let's get this camp moving. Our future no longer lies here."