Thinking of Papa made him happy and sad at the same time. He reached for Browny again, stroked the dog. Elden had lived more than one hundred years, but he felt that things were changing. Not so many people came to see him anymore. Maybe the darkness kept them away. Or maybe he’d cast what light he was to cast.
He replayed his father’s voice in his head.
I love you very much.
He smiled and tears filled his eyes.
Everyone in the abbey considered Papa a kind of saint. Elden did not know for sure what the word “saint” meant, but that was all right. He knew it meant they liked Papa. Everyone liked Papa. Their voice dropped when they spoke of him. But to Elden, Papa was just Papa-a tall man of kind smiles and soft words.
The pain of losing Papa still hurt, even after a hundred years. Elden missed him more than ever.
I’ll be waiting for you.
Sensing Elden’s sadness, Browny stood, whined, and nuzzled his hand. Elden rubbed the dog’s big head, his muzzle. The dog sighed contentedly.
Elden sensed changes but did not know what to do with the feeling.
“Me need to see Papa, Bownie,” he said.
The dog stood, stretched. Elden closed his eyes for a moment, willed his inner eyes to see, and entered a seeing trance.
Images swept through the Oracle’s head-the growing menace of the Shadovar, two shade brothers in the center of events, both pained with loss but each alone. A second pair of brothers appeared to him, not shades but Plaguechanged, and behind them lurked the shadow of an archdevil. He saw the hole in the center of Sembia where Ordulin once had stood. He saw Vasen, his image bisected down the middle, half of him in shadow, half of him in light, such bright light. He saw a tattooed deva surrounded by shadow, standing at Vasen’s side. And he saw the one-eyed man, now a god, who had given him the juggler’s toys so many years ago-Drasek Riven. All of the images he saw whirled past his inner eye, a swirl of shadows and light and violence. He did not try to interpret what he saw. He had not entered a trance to see. He had entered the trance to speak.
“The shrine, Browny,” he said, and put his hand on the back of the large blink dog. The dog triggered its power, and in an instant the Oracle and Browny stood in the Saint’s Shrine. Two elaborately carved, magically preserved wooden biers sat in the center of the large, round room, ringed by a candelabra-lined processional the pilgrims used to view the shrine. Dried roses and other small offerings covered the biers, the floor around them. A soft glow from a ceiling-mounted glowglobe suffused the chamber. The light was never allowed to die in the shrine.
The lids of the biers featured carved images of the Oracle’s father, Abelar Corrinthal, and Jiriis Naeve, sculpted in lifelike relief. After Abelar’s death, Jiriis had sworn to serve and protect the Oracle for as long as she lived, just as Vasen did now. She’d loved Abelar and had insisted that she be laid to rest beside him. Jiriis had been the first to hold the title of First Blade. Vasen Cale, the Oracle knew, would be the last.
With Browny at his hip, he walked to his father’s resting place. Spells and subtle use of wood chisels had carved a perfect image of his father from the wood. His shield, inscribed with a rose, rested on his feet. He held his blade at his waist. The image showed not armor but burial robes, and his father’s strong-jawed, bearded face looked at peace.
Inscribed under his father’s feet, the words:
ABELAR CORRINTHAL, SERVANT OF THE LIGHT, WHO RODE A DRAGON OF SHADOW INTO BATTLE AGAINST THE DARKNESS AND FELL IN GLORY.
Beside him lay Jiriis, her fine features and high cheekbones as delicate as the Oracle remembered them in life. The sculpted image, however, did not capture the loveliness of her red hair.
Browny curled up on the floor near Abelar’s bier.
“I did what you asked, Papa. We were a light for a long time. But now darkness encroaches. Erevis Cale’s son stands in the center of it, and I cannot foresee the direction of his life. I gave him your holy symbol, the rose you loved. I think you would have wanted that. I will give him something more when the time comes.”
He ran his fingertips over his father’s face, over Jiriis’s. Tears pooled in his eyes, ran down his cheeks.
“I miss you both. I wish we could have spoken this way when you were still alive.” He thought about his words for a moment, then chuckled. “Then again, maybe we spoke to one another in the ways that matter. Love doesn’t require perfect words, does it?”
He took a look around the chamber, at the ribbons of warm color that decorated the walls, at the high windows in the round, a symbol of hope that light would one day return. Perhaps it would.
Browny stood, sensing that it was time to depart.
“I love you, Papa, and I will be home soon.”
He placed his hand on Browny’s back. The dog had been his companion, guide, and bodyguard for more than a decade, and there had been another before him, and another before that.
“The pass, Browny,” the Oracle said, and the dog looked up, a question in his dark eyes. “The debt is nearly paid. I must release them.”
The Oracle pulled his cloak tight about him as the dog again activated his power and in an instant moved the two of them from the abbey to the spirit-guarded mountain pass that shielded the vale from unwanted incursion.
The wind pawed at the Oracle’s robe but he did not feel the chill. Browny stood close, hackles raised, sniffing the air. The fog swirled, thick and gray. The Oracle felt the spirits’ awareness focus on him. Their sentience coalesced the fog into forms discernibly human. The outlines of men, women, and children stood all around him, dozens, their eyes like empty wells, their outlines shifting in the wind. He saw the anticipation in their expressions, the hope. He would leave neither unanswered.
With the aid of Abelar, Regg, and the servants of Lathander, the spirits had helped slay Kesson Rel the Godthief during the Battle of Sakkors. The Oracle spoke above the whisper of the wind, above the whisper of the spirits.
“Kesson Rel cursed Elgrin Fau, the City of Silver, your city, to perpetual darkness in the Shadowfell. But shadow and light came together on the field of battle, in the shadow of Sakkors, and there combined to kill the Godthief.”
One of the spirits glided forward, a thin, aged man in robes.
“Avnon Des,” the Oracle said.
The spirit inclined his head in acknowledgment. “You come to free us, Oracle, yet we don’t wish release. We vowed to serve the Order in gratitude for the Order’s role in destroying Kesson Rel. We will hold true to that vow until the darkness is lifted.”
The other spirits nodded agreement, even the children.
The Oracle held up a hand. “Your oath is fulfilled and your service to me has ended. The world is changing, Avnon Des. The Spellplague was but a symptom of it. The war of light and shadow against the darkness of this world is no longer mine or yours to fight. It falls to others now. Shar’s cycle will run its course, or it will not. I cannot foresee its end.”
The spirits rustled in agitation.
“You’ve kept the vale and abbey safe for a century,” the Oracle continued. “But the time is past. I have only one more favor to ask. Return to the Shadowfell, but not Elgrin Fau. Go to the master of the Citadel of Shadows. You serve him now. Tell him I still enjoy juggling. Tell him I said. . I know the burden he carries.”
They looked at one another, back at the Oracle, and nodded.
“The light is in you, Avnon Des,” the Oracle said.
Avnon Des, the First Demarch of the Conclave of Shadows, smiled in return. “And there is shadow in you, Oracle. Farewell.”
Avnon turned to face the others, and their collective whispering sounded like wind through leaves. As one, they faded from view, returning to the Shadowfell. The Oracle stood his ground until they were gone. With them went the mist. The pass was exposed, unguarded for the first time in more than a century. The Oracle put his hand on Browny.