I was somewhere else. I must have walked there, but had no recollection of having moved, no memory of time passing. Vortexdamn the conniving vixen, I thought, as a semblance of rationality seeped back. The blindfold must have been soaked with something. She drugged me. There was an irony in that, of course; we of the Brotherhood were not unfamiliar with such tricks, but I was not in the mood to appreciate the parallels. Goddess, I thought, if they expose everyone who comes here to an elixir like that, no wonder there's never been a coherent description of the Oracle.
I was assailed by more pungent smells, a mix of odours of the kind that might drift from an alchemist's shop along the Marketwalk. I looked around. I was in an underground cavern. Light came only from flames burning in a bronze container – a bowl as wide as I was tall – set in the stone of the floor. 'The Eternal Flame,' Antonia murmured in my ear, 'lit by the Goddess herself at the founding of Tyr and never extinguished since. It burns without fuel.' She believed it, too. I nodded, but wondered if it weren't fuelled from below, subterranean gases, perhaps. I always was a sceptical bitch.
She waved a hand at the wall of the cavern directly in front of us. 'That is the Oracle.' She gestured again, this time at a pale young woman seated in front of the wall. 'The words of the Oracle will be interpreted for you by Esme, the Selected of the Oracle.'
Esme, as beautiful as a caryatid and almost as lifeless, did not look at me. Her eyes were wide and expressionless; her body swayed slightly. Behind her
something crouched and murmured, but whether it was a living creature or just a strange rock formation, I was not certain. The drug had left my mind fuddled and my senses blurred. My head was beginning to ache, irritated by the vapours. My eyes watered. The flickering of the Eternal Flame made shadows dance and writhe. The natural indents of the rough stone of the cavern wall behind Esme appeared to ripple. I saw in them a figure, huge, forbidding, lion-like, maned – yet with a man's features centred in the otherwise feline head. Eyes and nostrils and mouth were depthless slits boring back into the rock, to viscera beyond. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. Vapours wafted through the creature's orifices, smelling of brimstone and pitch, the breath of Acheron, from the netherworld beyond the Vortex, surely. And the being – if such it was – muttered. No language I had ever heard before issued from its throat.
I stared at Esme. She was young, though her skin had the unhealthy pallor of the chronically ill, and her eyes remained unfocused. Her voice, when she started to speak, was a monotone, but it oozed truth. She believed all she said.
I assumed she was supposed to be interpreting the mumble of the Oracle behind her as she intoned:
'Ligea will travel by land and sea and beast
To places new and far,
She will hunt the fierce hunter to the east
Who seeks our world to mar
And kills our noble emperor's time of peace.'
I blinked. One part of me hoped – with sardonic scepticism – that the Oracle's poetry was better than Esme's translation. The rest of me was appalled by the
content of her lines. How could she know what I had only just learned myself? I moved, attempting to obtain a better view of the Oracle, but Antonia had a firm grip on my arm and jerked me back.
Undeterred by my grunt of exasperation, Esme continued:
'With powers to see behind the face,
With ears to hear a lie,
Ligea shall bring victory to this chase,
And deal death to traitors sly.
All power in her wide embrace,
None will again deny
Ligea Gayed her rightful place.'
I was aghast. How could she – or the Oracle – possibly know of my talents? Acheron's mists, the Oracle couldn't really be percipient, could it?
Legend said so. History gave us records of prophetic verses, written in far more memorable poetry than this. The religious maintained that the Oracle was our conduit to the advice of the gods.
I felt sick. Damn it, Antonia was listening as my secrets were spilled from this silly girl's lips in infantile rhymes…
She droned on, the poetry even more execrable.
'A Legata shall journey back to Tyr, To lay tribute at her ruler's feet; Wreath'd, feted, granted gifts of gold, Honoured at her nation's desire, Her tale by poets shall be retold.'
Fortunately, that seemed to be all. Esme stared blankly at the opposite wall in silence. The Oracle's
murmuring continued, but there was no more translation.
Antonia shook my arm. 'That must be all that is for your ears,' she said. 'Allow me to blindfold you again -'
I jerked my arm away and snapped at her. 'No. No more dulling of my senses. Show me the way out.'
Her eyes flashed, anger roiling with unexpected intensity. 'The Brotherhood has no power here that we do not freely concede,' she hissed. 'All who come before the Oracle are blindfolded. This cavern is part of die Sacred Way, not a path for the undedicated to know.'
"Very welclass="underline" ' I freed the end of my wrap from my waist and wound it around my head to cover my eyes. 'Now lead me out.'
She was silent for a moment, then grabbed my elbow and pulled me after her. I stumbled blindly in her wake for what felt like an age, but was probably no more than five minutes. As far as I could tell, we traversed the cavern of the Eternal Flame to some kind of tunnel which ended in steps. We ascended these, then I heard the scraping sound once more and we were back in the room behind the sanctum.
I unwound the end of my wrap. Antonia stood before me, glaring. 'With the Brotherhood behind you, you think you are untouchable. But before the Goddess, you are no more than each intake of mortal breath. All you are is easily snatched away, Compeer Ligea.' Her use of my title confirmed her knowledge of my Brotherhood status, something I preferred to hide from Tyr's highborn. She added, 'Don't mock the Goddess, or you will live to regret it.'
T wouldn't dream of it,' I replied, schooling my tone to a careful neutrality. There was no point in upsetting the Temple High Priestess if it were avoidable. 'Nor would I mock the Oracle. It has given me, er, food for
thought.' In truth, it had been worryingly accurate, but I wasn't going to tell her that. 'I trust that what you and Esme learned today remains unsaid to others.'
'We are servants of the Goddess. We keep many secrets.'
Not quite the promise I hoped for, but obviously all I was going to get. I nodded to her and left the temple.
Outside, I had to narrow my eyes against the glare of midday light. My mind seethed with all I had seen as I descended the stairs to the Forum Publicum. The crowd there was thinning now that the heat was so intense. Most of the well-to-do had headed home, leaving the streets to the slaves and the poor, but I had something I needed to do.
Noting the fineness of my clothing, litter carriers hurried up to offer their services, but I waved them away and started to walk. I wanted to be alone while I digested all that had happened. I slipped into the labyrinth of streets and alleys leading to the poorer sections of the central city, the area called the Snarls. The change from wide, well-kept public spaces to the closed-in squalor of poverty was rapid; the stink of open drains and rotting rubbish cloyed as the crowds disappeared. Beneath my feet, the smoothness of well-swept pavements gave way to the hard-packed earth of potholed lanes. No marble facades here, no creeper-shaded courtyards. The buildings were of crumbling rough-hewn stone, the rooms cramped, the windows and doorways narrow and mean, the occupants lean and tough. This was the other, more regrettable face of Tyr; but then, I supposed any centre as great as this city had to attract the scavengers as well as the cultured. Most who eked out an inadequate living in the Snarls were not citizens, but a mix of nationalities attracted to the capital of the Exaltarchy, thinking they
would make their fortunes. Some of them were even right.