“You didn’t know my mother,” I said.
“All mothers are the same,” she replied. I opened my mouth to retort, but Rick intervened.
“Enough chatter.” He slapped my shoulder and stood. “Time to meet The Oracle.”
The path continued to wind up and around the mountain, steeper and steeper. Annabel didn’t complain, though I did. She walked in the middle, and I huffed along behind, too out of breath to say too much. I just watched Annabel’s lower back, swaying side to side in front of me, an enticing, if untouchable carrot.
And then she stopped abruptly, and my face met her spine for a split second. It wasn’t the kind of kiss I would have liked to have given her.
I looked over her shoulder and saw the reason for our stop.
The path had ended.
But not quite at our destination.
Four feet ahead, it picked up again, and I could see the dark shadow of a dwelling at its end.
But where we stood, barely able to lean away from the side of the cliff for fear of tumbling off the far side, the path ended in a jagged cut of rubble.
Rick tapped his toe on the edge of a spiky looking rock, and the ground beneath it slipped away like sand. We all craned our heads to watch that rock fall, and it seemed like it would never touch the ground. I lost sight of it long before it hit the earth, and if it made a sound, the noise was lost in the distance.
“Anyone do well at the long jump in high school?” Rick asked.
Nobody replied.
The cliff’s face was sheer and offered no handholds. The only way across was going to be a jump. It wasn’t that it was a long gap—it was that there was precious little room for error.
Rick pointed at me, “You first. Then Annabel, then me.”
“Um, I think maybe….” Was all I got out before Rick flashed his Bowie in my direction.
“No arguments,” he growled. “The strongest person needs to be on this side to make sure our little package makes it across.”
He put his back to the cliff and slid along the wall to get behind me.
“It’s not far,” he coaxed. “Even a lardass like you ought to be able to do it in one try.”
“One try’s all you get,” I noted.
“Well, then I’d suggest making it a good one.”
Annabel slid behind me then, without a word, and I stood alone, looking at the deadliest pothole I’d seen on this trip.
“Ah fuck,” I swore, backed up three steps and took a running leap across the gap.
I made it without incident, though I nearly lost my bladder in the split second my feet were both in the air. Then I was down on the other side, and falling forward, coming to rest on my hands and knees.
“Graceful as always,” Rick taunted from across the gap. He put his knife to Annabel’s throat, and whispered in her ear.
“She’s coming over,” he announced. “Get ready to catch her; it’d really suck if she fell over the edge ‘cuz she lost her balance because you broke her fuckin’ arm.”
“I
broke?” I complained, but shut up quickly. Annabel was already backing up to make her run.
It was over in a heartbeat, but for me, it seemed as if she came to the edge in slow motion. I could see every muscle on her face tighten, her eyes open wider as she kicked off at the edge, sending loose gravel to litter the ground a mile below. I could see the concentration carving her brow as she hurtled towards me, one arm bound tight to her chest, the other waving above and behind her in the air as she flew.
And then she was crashing into me, and I grabbed hold of her with both arms, dragging her back and down, pushing us both towards the rocky face of the cliff and away from the edge. My head cracked hard against the rock and stars rimmed my vision, but still I held onto her as she fell into the cliff face herself, ramming her injured arm hard.
That stumble broke Annabel’s silence, as she let out a tight scream of pain, but before I could pull her up and away from the wall, Rick was there with us. He grabbed her under both arms and lifted her up and away from me, dragging her with him to where the path finally began widening out again; the final approach to the citadel of The Oracle, The Char-Lee.
I walked up behind Rick and Annabel, whose face was still wet, and followed their gaze to the dark entrance just a few hundred yards away. It was little more than a black doorway carved into the mountainside, but it was hard to imagine what else it could be. A door to the knowledge that transcended. A door to what had been before, and could be someday.
A door to The Oracle.
“Do you think that’s it, then?” I asked.
“Who else would live on the top of a mountain in the middle of a realm of death?” Rick answered, not looking at me.
“You a freakin’ poet now?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, but shrugged off his backpack and knelt to rifle through it. Annabel turned to me and nodded.
“Thanks for catching me,” she said.
I felt my face flushing and couldn’t think of what to say.
“Take her hand, Romeo,” Rick said.
I didn’t move, and he repeated the command.
“Grab her arm, man. We don’t need her starting to run now.”
I reached out and took her arm, though still a little tentatively. It occurred to me suddenly that Rick might want me to sacrifice her myself, and as I looked at those cool grey eyes, and quiet profile, that I might not be up to the task.
“Stand still kids,” he grinned, and slapped the silver clasp of a handcuff around Annabel’s wrist. The other half, he cracked across mine.
“Hey,” I complained.
“You make a good anchor,” he said. “You’re slow and heavy.”
“Yeah, and I’d kick your egotistical ass in a heartbeat.”
“Later studboy. Let’s go get us some oracling, first.”
He struck out in the lead, and I looked in apology at Annabel, and began to follow. Her lips pursed into a tight line, and then she held back, locking her feet.
“If he doesn’t do me, it’ll be you,” she said. “You know that.”
Rick was already 10 steps ahead and I shook my head at her.
“We’re pals,” I said.
“You’re meat,” she hissed. “And this is a game about power. Pals don’t mean a thing.”
“Let’s GO!” Rick bellowed from ahead, and I yanked Annabel forward. But something in my belly quailed at her warning.
The door was farther away than it had looked, mainly because it was so large.
When we finally stood in front of it, I realized it stretched the height of two tall men, and was nearly as wide. It was fashioned of a dark hard wood, unpainted. I could see the deep old veins of its character, yet its hue was so black it appeared to have been burnt in a flash fire.
“Do we knock?” I joked as we stood at the giant door, looking up.
“I suppose that would be the polite thing,” Rick laughed, and raised a fist to pound on the door.
“And on the fourth day of the expurgation, they learned the black lesson of recant,” Annabel whispered. I looked at her, but she only stared back, without explanation.
We waited then, and I shivered as the wind whistled by, its kiss barren and cold. I hadn’t felt it as much when we were climbing, but now that we stood still, I realized that the air was bitter here. Cool and dry.
The chilly kiss of death.
Rick reached out and grabbed the huge metal handle on the door, a metal drawbar burnished almost as dark with neglect as the door itself. It twisted down with a squeal under his strength, and then the door itself opened outwards with a shriek as he pulled.
“The welcome mat is an unlocked door,” he said, and stepped inside. Annabel and I followed, and as the door clanked shut behind us, Rick asked, “Did anybody think to bring a light?”
“You packed,” I reminded him, but it didn’t matter. We didn’t need a light. As our eyes adjusted, the room revealed its own natural luminescence. Pale green strips shone along the walls, and I soon saw we were standing in a narrow vestibule, that led into a single hallway ahead. You either went in, or you went out. Rick chose in.
The walls were rough, hewn with little artistry into the bone of the mountain, but at some point, the lack of craft had been covered with ornate displays. The remains of a tapestry hung like a burlap sack on one wall, the colors of its ornamentation hidden beneath the thick webs of countless spiders. And along the same wall I could see a series of broken spikes and hooks, as well as the remains of a torch holder.
It had been some time since dances were held here by the light of sconce fires, I thought.
Our steps echoed overloud, like small gongs to my ears as we walked down the dim, eerie corridor. Rick pushed me ahead of him as soon as the entry foyer was behind us.
“I want to keep her in view at all times,” he growled, but I knew better. He wanted a guinea pig ahead of him in case things got suddenly dangerous. Annabel didn’t say a thing, but I didn’t miss the long sidelong glance she gave me.
I pulled on her arm and led our little party deeper into the mountain. Ahead of us, I could see the night grow lighter, and hurried our pace.
At last the corridor ended, and we stepped out into the source of the brighter glow I’d seen.
“Wow,” Annabel said.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Now that’s a fuckin’ throne room,” Rick announced.
The dark, decaying rock hall had opened onto a vast round room that was the antithesis of everything we’d seen since entering the mountain. The floors had been carved seamlessly in smooth pink quartz, and the brilliant white stone walls reached high and smooth, and were lit by dozens of flaming torches pinned just above eye level. Before us were several burgundy couches and sitting chairs, with a clear path between them leading to a dais cut and raised from the quartz.
On the dais, backed by brilliantly woven purple and gold tapestries painted or stitched with the likenesses of hundreds of open-mouthed, tortured, bloody victims, was a lone chair.
Throne rather.
Its back rose six feet tall, and from the rich dark wood of its taloned feet to the caricature of a skull carved into the peak of its head, this cruel seat was clearly a one-of-a-kind work of art. Etched into its wood were screaming faces, bulging eyes and grasping fingers. This intertwined cacophony of pain and terror culminated in a series of grasping armbones that wound and twisted to razor edged fingernails. These were what supported the gruesome gaping eyed skull at the top of the throne.
And that throne was filled.
“Welcome,” a voice said. It was soft, but seemed to come from all around us. “Welcome to the center of the abyss. You’ve seen the suppurating cancers that call themselves men, stalking the pure like deadly syphilitics in those few cities that yet live. You’ve braved the barren lands of death and climbed the corkscrew of heaven to be here in my chamber. Approach now, and tell me why.”
Rick’s fist prodded me in the back and I led Annabel forward, studying the woman and her ghastly throne as we walked.
Long white slender fingers curled around the wooden skulls carved into the armrests of the throne; fingernails blackened and sharp tapped gently against the devil’s wood. Gauzy black lace hid her arms all the way up her shoulders to curve outward to kiss the jut of her chin. Except for the cool ivory of her hands and face, she was hidden behind filmy, shifting ebon. A slight smile peaked the corner of her pale lips; so caught up was I in staring at this legend that I stumbled over my own feet, nearly dragging both Annabel and myself to the floor. A spark lit the dark pools of her eyes for a moment and then was gone, leaving only the faint flush that marked her cheeks as a sign of life.
As we reached the final step to wait at the foot of her dais, I finally gathered the courage to speak.
“Are you really…her?” I mumbled.
Silvery laughter echoed through the cavernous room, as the woman shifted, ripples of starlight glinting and fading in the cloud of her long death dress.
“Most certainly I am her,” she answered. “But which
her
do you seek? If it is the her called Oracle by some, keeper of vision, then yes, I am she. But I am also the Char-Lee, if it is she you seek, font of power, fire and desolation. Be warned, sometimes what you seek brings more, and less, than what you hoped to find.”
A palm slapped against the back of my head and Rick said “Duh.”
He stepped around us and bowed before the dark lady, the frayed tail of his shirt hanging nearly to the floor, a bum’s train.
“I am Rick Lyons,” he said, straightening. His voice sounded hollowly formal. “And these are my companions.” He didn’t bother to name us. Instead, he launched into a speech I knew he had been practicing in his head for weeks. “I have studied the passages of Elysian, and the sigils of Cedar. I have named an apprentice and set out across the wastelands to seek—”
The Oracle held up a hand.
“You have traveled far, I have no doubt,” she said. “I receive so few visitors. I cannot offer much, but please accept my hospitality.”
A razor thin fingernail cut the air to her right, and something seemed to shift in the shadows at the edge of the cavern.