Chapter 6: The Oracle of Rama-gil

In the plush retiring room of the Tower of Grenwilde, the great toad squatted under the weight of his responsibility, his throat pulsing and his mind probing for ways. Beside him, the glass doors leading to the balcony, stood open. His eyes flitted between those doors and the ceiling. This was the fortieth day, and he had conspicuously failed; yet today he must - report.

Targa Gamarad was no longer gloating. He was angry and - somewhere in the depths of his hideous being - frightened. Fear was not something that sat well with him. He made others afraid. Consider the desigarg troublemaker he had eaten an hour ago, now he had been deliciously filled with fear. Fear, the toad had found, made still living flesh tingle with juices that could never be duplicated by mere cookery. He always made sure his supper - when uncooked - was fully aware of its final predicament. Best raw: screaming and kicking.

Now Targa was discovering that fear within did not taste nearly so savoury. He found it, in reality, quite unpalatable. He knew he had failed and his time was about to run out. He did not know if Lord Nihilos would give him another chance. Servants of the Dark One never knew.

It had not taken two minutes, the great toad realised, for the humans to see through the Order of Registration. No one, Gamarad had known from the start, would believe that he had a concern for human children. So he had hoped to make the order seem plausible by spreading a rumour of a terrible sickness, contracted by his soldiers, through contact with small human children. It had been a mistake. He was not sure whether or not the people had disbelieved him, but he now felt certain that they had fervently hoped he was telling the truth. He did know that not one child had been voluntarily brought to his headquarters for 'safe and painless treatment', and scouring the homes of the revolting human vermin searching for their brats, had - after the second day - been equally fruitless. Where did they hide them? Gamarad wondered. Why were they willing to die rather than give them up?

It was not just that the toad had a passion for infant flesh - which he did - but that one child had to be destroyed. Daily he had felt the pressure of that necessity making his brain boil. The Demiurge was not patient.

He scanned the ceiling, as though looking for an answer written on its mahogany panels. Something had happened that very day, in the morning hours. He had woken with the knowledge of the blood of his prey upon his lips. Oh, so sweet a knowledge: a waking dream! What had it meant? He knew that the mind-link allowed him to sense Nagara Diserac's emotions. However, if Diserac had tasted the blood of the True King, where was Diserac now? If the king of the accursed humans was dead, why had the dreaded pressure not lessened on his brain? The knowledge of that blood burned his brain like acid!

Such horrid creatures, these humans! Why would they not simply hand the True King over to him? Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that the humans were remarkably stubborn. He, himself, would have had no difficulty at all in handing over his offspring for a reasonable price and would have offered them on his own initiative to save his life. Why were humans so hard to understand?

Gamarad _

's eyes were suddenly attracted by a shadow that passed his window. Could it be? No, he thought, not yet! But even as his eyes turned, the great black winged creature lit on the balcony. He had only a moment to cower before the creature sailed into the room, and with one swift peck, pulled his brain out of his skull.

After that, it would be inaccurate to speak of Targa Gamarad knowing anything at all.

Some minutes later, Gamarad's aide-de-camp opened the door carefully and peeked in. Just as he suspected, the general was asleep again. There was no other reason he would miss a meal. Very softly, he closed the door.

~ ~ ~

"Chion Bindaved," said Yason, solemnly staring down at his sleeping son, "you look exactly like a prune."

"Yason, he does not!" Regine chided, cradling him protectively - as if to shield him from his father's pretended scorn.

"No, that he doesn't, Mistress. Finest baby've ever seed under my roof, no lie," sniffed Caleb, his honest bulldog face smiling broadly. He gently put his finger, which resembled a gnarled carrot, under the infant's chin.

"He's a beautiful baby," added Jarnice, "and I think Chion's a fine name."

"I'm glad someone appreciates him," Regine said looking at Yason in mock reproof. Yason, she knew, was so proud that he had to tease her just to let the air out of himself. He stood bursting with smiles.

"Chion is Runish, isn't it?" Jarnice asked.

Regine nodded, and smiled at the affable landlady. How wonderful is the friendship of honest people, Regine thought. The young mother genuinely liked Jarnice and Caleb. They were just like grandparents.

"It was my father's name," Regine said softly.

"A good, strong name," said Caleb straightening up. "Well, Master," continued Caleb, "What will yer' be doin' now?"

"Honouring your memory, my friend."

Caleb put his hands up and spread his powerful, stubby fingers, "No need, Master, but yer' know that there's no safety to be had in Rama-gil."

"Yes," Yason breathed.

"Where then?"

"My father's," said Yason nodding minutely. "He took to the Western Wilds after the fall of the Tower, but we agreed on a sign that he would use to mark his trail."

"Good. Now, Jarnice'll pack up such things as you'll need and put them in a small cart. We'll put a wee basket inside with the babe bundled up like a little parcel, see? Then you walk down the road, bold as brass."

"What about him?" Yason jerked his head in the direction of the tavern.

"Ahh, deaf as a post to begin with. Stupid, too, even fer a desigarg. Master, I'd never've letcha risk hav'n the precious little one in here if I thought for a minute he'd find ya' out. Don't fret yer'slf, I'll pickle'm up proper all day. By tonight he'll be seein' double of everything and nothin' in particular."

"Good," Yason said sincerely, "and the Creator bless you and yours always."

~ ~ ~

The attack came just after dawn on the fortieth day following the Battle of the Great Wall. Telliam had not bothered to ride down and meet with the desigarg captain, but had instead shouted that they would answer his ultimatum with the edges of their swords. It will be admitted that Nagara Diserac did not seem disappointed. The desigarg had waited only long enough for their captain to return before launching their attack.

From the outset, Telliam realised two things: first, that this was not at all like the other battles, for up until today the desigarg had attacked in small numbers and in a chaotic fashion; today, as they rose from their hiding places, their numbers were at least ten times greater than his own command and their advance was methodical. The second thing Telliam realised was that the humans couldn't possibly win this battle.

Telliam immediately sent Lieutenant Adran with urgent instructions to rouse the king and let him know that the desigarg had come up against them in force.

Indeed, the field seemed to be sprouting desigarg, all swarming towards their fortified position on the hill. Bravely his men rained down arrows, but as thickly as they fell, the enemy came more thickly still. The humans fought gallantly, but it was utterly hopeless. Soon every human soldier was engaging at least two of the enemy.

Seeing that he must die, Telliam coolly decided to sell his life as dearly as he could. Leaping onto his horse, he hurtled over the barricade and plunged into the living maelstrom of battle. His blade was a thing unreal. He was determined to pay the desigarg in steel for what they had done to his home, his land, his family. He punctuated every thought with a swing of his sword. The enemy fell about him like wheat at harvest, and for a moment, some ten of them took to their heals in retreat. But at the very instant that they did so, an enormous battle-axe, hurtled through the air and lodged in the captain's horse, sending the screaming animal to the ground, master and all.

Deftly, Telliam rolled out from beneath his falling horse, and in doing so avoided being crushed. He bounced to his feet, prepared to die but obstinate to kill, and found himself staring at the enormous grinning face of Nagara Diserac. The monster had just retrieved his battle-axe from Telliam's dying horse.

"Here's a bonus for my tally!" taunted Telliam.

"Your tally ends here, tiny human," gargled Diserac, and at the same moment he lunged - just as Telliam had hoped he would.

Agilely stepping aside, Telliam brought a short stroke of his blade up into the giant's rib cage. Diserac screamed in pain and rage, then lashing out with his arm, he knocked Telliam backwards. Telliam found himself slipping on the blood soaked ground and going head over heels. Diserac, wearing a look of naked rage, leapt to his feet before Telliam could recover, and pulling a dagger from his belt, threw himself at his enemy. Again, the captain - seeing him coming - was too quick for the blow but the crushing weight of the monster crashed down on his right leg like an avalanche. The dagger was jarred out of Diserac's hand by the impact, so that in the next moment man and desigarg were wrestling hand-to-hand: no weapon, only their fists, teeth and mutual hate.

In such a contest, all the odds were against Telliam, for the desigarg had three times his strength, and Telliam's breath had been knocked right out of his body. Then a very strange thing happened:

At some juncture in the battle, Telliam did not know whether it was during their personal combat or earlier, he had been cut on the right arm. As they rolled on the ground, Diserac's mouth came in contact with this cut. That was very much to Captain Diserac's liking - he would gladly improve on the cut. Yet as he was beginning to sink his fangs into Telliam's arm, the human's blood touched Diserac's lips.

What happened next was uncanny. Diserac screamed and his whole body convulsed wildly, convulsed in waves like a flag on a rough day or a snake going quickly over grass. Telliam was thrown aside - which was perfectly fine with him - while the giant writhed like a worm struck by lightning.

There was no time for bewilderment. Seizing the advantage Telliam quickly looked for a weapon and spied his own sword. It took him less than three seconds to get it, but in that critical time Nagara Diserac had also laid hold of a weapon, this being a bludgeon.

The two stood facing each other, and although the battle was riding, falling and screaming by them in every direction, they each had eyes for only one quarry.

"Your blood!" hissed Diserac, like a snake.

Telliam shrugged, and held the end of the sword before his face, "Your blood!" he answered, and pointed to the bloodied tip of his sword.

Now the sudden look, which swept across Diserac's face, froze Telliam entirely, sending a cold shiver down his spine. From deep within the desigarg, somewhere - perhaps - where his soul should have been, a terrifying scream surged up and ripped itself from his lips:

"YOUR BLOOOOD!" Then, with alarming speed and terrifying energy, the giant hurled his whole fighting force against Telliam. Blow after relentless blow poured down on and around him, while Telliam parried, dodged and retreated. There was no time at all to think of returning a stroke. The attack suggested Diserac had suddenly been possessed by a thousand demons, all bent on Telliam's destruction.

One great jolt knocked Captain Bindaved's sword to the ground, and there and then he certainly would have died, but that on the instant a riderless horse came careering across the field separating the two combatants. Reacting on pure instinct, Telliam threw himself at the horse, catching it by the saddle in full-gallop.

The next moment he was posting away with Nagara Diserac screaming meaningless syllables after him.

~ ~ ~

The north of Grenwilde has always been austerely beautiful: remote, clean, snow-covered and wind-swept. If there was a real Great Wall in Grenwilde, this was it - and it had nothing to do with human industry. For although it is the home of beautiful valleys and exquisite lakes, these are too small, isolated and scattered to admit to human habitation. The Northern Land's harsh climate, plentiful snow, mountainous terrain and scant topsoil were a permanent barrier to civilization. They were almost entirely deserted.

Almost, but not quite. For one thing, the great mountain arlor live there. The arlor of the mountains are very different from their southern cousins. For one thing, they are six times the size, reaching weights of up to five hundred pounds. All arlor rear up on their hind legs when threatened, but specimens of the northern variety have been known to stand nine feet high when they do so! Yet despite their great size, these creatures are gentle - when not alarmed. They have one other characteristic that distinguishes them from arlors of the south; this is their song.

In the evenings a resonant mirthful sound, one that might make you believe the mountains were haunted by choirs of kindly ghosts, swells on the alpine air. The sound dies out with a gentle, falling grace that echoes along the valleys and peaks. The sounds stop abruptly once the sun is set. It is truly uncanny to hear these sounds, for something in the timbre of the notes always cries home.

On one evening, forty days after the Battle of the Great Wall, along the side of one of these remote, forgotten northern mountains, a flash of remarkably bright light interrupted the evening hymn of the arlor. Viewed from the ground, it might have been the sun glinting off metal. Yet a prolonged viewing showed that this was not possible, unless metal could grow by the moment. The sudden emergence of a glorious white bird, winging its way up from the portal into the evening sky, decided the matter: it was, in fact, a light portal of the Loridan Knights.

Taril stepped once again into Grenwilde, and mortality. His sudden arrival completed the break-up of the arlor choir, local chapter. Three perplexed and ponderous beasts growled indignantly and then padded off to their dens in - what was for them - a fearful hurry. Taril laughed gently at their comical gate and then looked around to take his bearings. What he saw cut short his mirth immediately. The Northern Land was certainly rugged - and high! The ledge he was on couldn't have been more than five feet in width.

"Too bad you don't have wings, old fellow," Taril remarked absently to his horse. "Why here, Joy?" he asked quietly. Looking cautiously over the edge, Taril estimated that he must be seven hundred feet above the ground, on what was nearly a precipice.

Sky cocked his ears and then nibbled on Taril's. "Ouch!" muttered the knight. "All right, I won't find fault with you if you can get me down off this ledge! There's no water around here, so I can't portal down."

The knight gingerly mounted up and Sky, sure-footed as a mountain goat, started down the rocky bluff. The journey was no joke, Taril knew, for in Grenwilde - and in any fallen world, other than the home of his mortal birth - Taril could die. If Sky should slip, then die he surely would. However, Taril didn't believe the Spirit had brought him here to die, at least not like this.

Sky made his skilful way down the side of the mountain almost casually. In several places, Sky launched himself across small chasms that no man would have dared attempt. What a superb animal he is, Taril thought. Within a quarter hour of his arrival in northern Grenwilde, Taril was kneeling beside a beautiful blue lake, in the valley. Taril and Sky drank their fill of the water and then rested on the edge.

"Well, Sky," said Taril aloud, "this would be the lake Melchizedek visited and told us of. It certainly looks like a Mirror of Visions." But why was I deposited on the sides of the cliff? Taril wondered silently. The Spirit did not answer immediately, but there was a reason, Taril knew, and that was good enough for now. In fact, he did not have to wait long to discover the reason.

The valley was nearly black when Taril arrived at its base, so with the speed born of long practice he laid and lit a fire. It was cold and so Taril made certain the fire was large and that he had plenty of fuel. While Taril worked Sky stood enjoying the fire. Well, turn about was fair play. Sky had done all the work earlier. Fortunately, the lower part of the valley had many pine-trees with dead branches in easy reach. On his way back to the fire with his fifth reserve armload, he heard Sky whinny.

Now such was the sympathy between this man and his horse, that Taril was able to read in Sky's tone, a note of surprise but not alarm. Still, he quickened his pace and - stepping into the fire's circle of light - saw a beautiful woman bending over Sky, stroking his nose and talking softly to him. When she noticed Taril, the woman stood, and extended a graceful hand towards the knight.

"I saw your horse, coming down my mountain. I just had to pat him." She spoke as though mentioning an every day occurrence of the most ordinary sort.

Somewhat clumsily, Taril dropped the wood and advanced to within a yard of his visitor. As he studied her face a look of startled recognition broke across his own.

Dropping hastily to one knee, he took her hand and kissed it.

"Great Lady!" he humbly intoned.

"Rise, gentle Knight," she replied.

~ ~ ~

On a night so dark a cat could not see its paw before its face, so wild that the lightning seemed to rip the skies to shreds, so fearful that brave men might hide in abject dread, a figure darker, wilder and more fearful than all the night could hide, winged its ragged flight across the southern sky. In the strokes of lightning which seemed to crack open the sky, admitting for one moment a light unwelcome in this dark land, a great vulgrath could be seen beating its heavy way towards the lair of Nihilos the Demiurge.

In the gullet of the creature the brain of Targa Gamarad bounced about, while trapped within that discorporate organ the great toad suffered a nightmare only slightly less revolting than his actual surroundings. He was in his own cooking pot, trying to swim away from a giant clawed hand that was probing after him.

The creature dove down from the skies, and in one unerring motion, swept through the stone aperture of its lord's chamber. At last it came to rest before the dias of Lord Nihilos, and lay prostrate, its gigantic wings spread across the cobbled floor like a rancid black rug.

Casually and easily, massive arms ending in great, clawed hands, reached down and lifted the vulgrath by its two wings. Then, as effortlessly as we would tear open a letter, the Lord of Oblivion pulled the creature apart, so that it ripped open from head to anus. Immediately the body incinerated, collapsing into a momentary cloud of dense acrid smoke. As the smoke cleared the brain of Targa Gamarad lay gently rocking on the floor.

Nihilos scooped up the organ and laid it on the table by his throne - for a moment he seemed to be thinking, his attention elsewhere. Then he reached and pinched the brain between two of his talons, and lifted it slightly from the table. After squeezing it for a second or two, he laid it on top of - what appeared to be - a small metal plate. He then touched the plate with his finger. On the instant, Targa Gamarad's dream was interrupted: the hand in his cooking pot had caught him and now he was experiencing one, long, continuous searing pain, with no prospect of unconsciousness. General Targa Gamarad was making his report.

~ ~ ~

Jessef sat staring at the sun, just beginning to rise above the eastern hills. In a moment he would wake Marichael and Jaomin, but not yet. How often had he told himself to stop thinking about her? Yet he could not, for as often as he did so she would come back to him. Oh, that she would! Creator, oh, that she would. He pulled the small ornament out from beneath his shirt, and carefully lifted it over his head. Holding it in the palm of his hand he looked down at it.

He remembered the day - it was twenty-five years ago this past Lanten Eve - when he had met his future wife. He had been in Cair Galinal getting seed for his father. As he turned to leave the store with his purchase -- a large bag of grain -- flung over his shoulder, suddenly, there she was. She was lovelier than anything he'd ever seen or dreamt about, and he had stood there like a great fool watching her struggling with the door - a load of groceries in her pretty hands. Finally, putting his bag of seed on the floor, Jessef had pulled the door open for her. She had looked up at him with a smile he could never describe and his world was undone on the spot. She had said, "Thank you," he supposed, but he was so fuddled he couldn't be certain.

Why she had wanted to have anything to do with a farmer-soldier like him was the greatest - and happiest - mystery of his life. He always felt as awkward as a bear or a gundlebeast around her. She seemed to float like a bird, while he lumbered about ploughing into furniture, her, anything and everything. When he had proposed to her - he blushed to think of it - he had taken her to a stream up in the Western Hills. He said he wanted to take her crab catching, but it was a pretext and he knew that she saw through it. They were wading in the stream, and he had picked her up suddenly by the waist and put her graceful frame down on a tree limb that over-hung the stream. He smiled uncertainly up at her and said she couldn't come down until she promised to marry him. She laughed - oh! where is that laugh now? Jessef wondered - and said, of course she would, and why had he taken so long in the asking?

Two weeks later they were married. Every day and night he thanked the Creator for her. He knew she was wildly beyond his deserving; always he had felt that to be true. She had borne him seven sons, and she was as wise and gentle with her children as she was kind and virtuous with her husband. Did not everyone love and admire sweet, gracious Nalitha?

Then one terrible day, when Jaomin was three years old, she had disappeared. There was no note, no missing clothing and no trail to follow. It was as if she had never been there. Where had she gone? Jessef searched for three months, but finally had to give up. There were simply no leads of any kind. No one knew where she had gone, just as no one had known where she had come from. If it had not been for his children, he might have thought she had been one long, sweet dream. If not for the children and the curious ornament he held in his hand. He studied it again, as he had time without number. Did it carry a clue that would tell him where to find her?

She had never taken it off, day or night. Yet on the day she had disappeared, he had found it lying on her vacant pillow. It was precious to her, and so now it was precious to Jessef. How simple it was! Just a leather thong holding a crude wooden ornament - a small disk, with an engraved crosspiece, a crown, a sword and two hands. She had told him once that it stood for a story sacred in the land of her birth. When he asked where that was, she had smiled and touched his nose with her finger. "Far away, Jessef; very far away."

He put the thong back around his neck and tucked the small ornament into his shirt. There were acres to plough, and Jessef believed that the very best of things couldn't be kept forever.

~ ~ ~

The morning was glorious, clean and pure; it shone like the first day. Taril and the woman were kneeling before the Mirror of Visions, on the forty-first day after the Battle of the Great Wall. Taril gazed down into the waters, seeing the lovely countenance of a comely boy, ruddy in complexion with the eyes of a king.

"David," said Taril evenly.

"Of course," said the woman, "how could it be otherwise? It is the Oracle of the Lake and the Mountain, Taril," remarked the woman quietly, "It is part of the Creator's intricate weaving in the depths of this world. But our Redeemer has begun a new Oracle; it is the Oracle of Rama-gil."

Taril looked up into the wise, beautiful, face, "I don't understand," he said.

She smiled, "Then look at your sword, Knight of Loridan."

Taril looked, his heart leapt, to his great surprise and joy, the hilt glowed like a gem on fire.

~ ~ ~

As dawn began to break over Rama-gil, a man leading a donkey and cart walked slowly down the main street of the town, away from the Crown and Sword Inn and towards the open country. A young woman sat on the cart surrounded by piles of clothing and provisions, just another couple of refugees heading west. However, beneath one blanket, concealed from sight, a small baby slept soundly in a little basket. In his tiny soul, had you but the skill to hear, the Lute-trees of Loridan played softly.