From the pocket of his robe, he withdrew a thick silver chain from which hung an exquisitely made charm of a rose. Age had left the silver black with tarnish.
“This was my father’s. .”
Vasen held up his hands. “Oracle, I cannot-”
“Abelar Corrinthal, the Dawnlord of the Abbey, my father, would be pleased for you to have it. This I know.”
Vasen felt himself flush. He could not refuse the Oracle. He bowed his head to allow the charm around his neck. The touch of the symbol, once worn by Dawnlord Abelar, made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. “It is tarnished,” the Oracle said. “But scratch away the tarnish and there is silver and light beneath. Many things are that way.”
Vasen took the Oracle’s point. “I understand.”
“The darkness in you is not born of Erevis Cale.”
Vasen stiffened. “Who, then?”
“You separate yourself from everyone, from everything except your duty because you think yourself bound by the past to a future you cannot change.
And you intend to face that future alone.”
Vasen’s anger kindled in the heat of the truth. Shadows swirled from his skin.
“Is that not true? Isn’t that what you see for me?”
The Oracle shook his head. “No, I see hard choices before you, but I don’t see what you will choose. They’re to be your choices. Remember that. Nothing is foreordained. Nothing is written.”
Write me a story.
“And listen to me carefully,” the Oracle said, continuing. “You do not need to face them alone. You should not face them alone.”
Vasen’s anger dissolved in the face of the Oracle’s concerned tone. He bowed his head again. “I apologize for my outburst. Thank you for your words, Oracle.”
The Oracle smiled softly. “It’s nothing. And you may regret your gratitude someday.”
“Never.”
“Listen to me, Vasen. The light is in you, and burns brighter than the rest of us because it fights the darkness of your blood. Will you remember that?” “I will.”
Smiling, the Oracle said, “Very good. Then be well, Vasen son of Derreg and Erevis and Varra.”
“Wait! Is that. . all?”
But it was too late. The Oracle’s face slackened and the glow left his skin.
The orange light of Amaunator fled his eyes and they returned to the filmy, bleary eyes of an old man. He sagged, his aged body unable to so suddenly bear his weight. Vasen caught him to prevent a fall. He felt like a bundle of sticks under his robes.
“It’s Vasen, Oracle.”
“Vazn,” said the Oracle in his slow, awkward way. “Where Bownie?”
“You sent Browny away,” Vasen said. “I’m sure he’s nearby, though.”
“Bownie!” the Oracle called, alarm in his expression. “Bownie!”
Vasen found it difficult to reconcile the sure, powerful voice of the Oracle when he was in a trance with the childlike voice of the mentally infirm Oracle when he was not.
A soft pop and flash of light announced Browny’s return to the Oracle’s side. The dog nuzzled the Oracle’s hand.
“Bownie came!” the Oracle said, grinning.
“I’ll escort you back to your sanctum, Oracle,” Vasen said.
The Oracle shook his head. “No, Vazn. When the bell calls, have pilgrims sent to me for a seeing. I speak to them, then all leave this day. All. You take them.”
The latest group of pilgrims-the first in months-had arrived less than a tenday earlier, dodging Sembian troops along the way. They would be disappointed to leave so soon.
“They only just arrived, Oracle. And the Dales are wracked by war. We’ll have to take them north through the foothills toward Highmoon. Even that way may be closing. Sembian troops are massed all along the borders of the Dales.”
“I know. But they go, Vazn.”
Vasen knew better than to dispute with the Oracle. “Very well.” The Oracle smiled at him. “Farewell, Vazn.”
“The light keep and warm you, Oracle.”
He watched the Oracle, one hand on Browny, totter off down the corridor.
Vasen closed the door, mind racing. First the dream, then a personal visit and seeing from the Oracle. What did it all mean?
He took the rose holy symbol from his neck. Thin threads of shadow spiraled from his fingertips, around the rose. He imagined Saint Abelar using the symbol to channel the power of Amaunator while facing the nightwalker at the Battle of Sakkors.
He studied its petals, the stem, the two thorns. It was so finely crafted it could have been an actual rose magically transformed into metal, not unlike the rose gardens around the abbey that the Spellplague had petrified. With his thumbnail, he scratched at the tarnish of one petal to reveal a line of shining silver, light under the darkness.
Smiling, he returned it to his neck. He would try to be worthy of it. His eyes fell on the dusty, locked chest he kept in one corner of his chamber and he lost his smile. The chest held the dark, magical blade once borne by Erevis Cale: Weaveshear. Vasen had held its cool, slippery hilt only once, when, as a boy, Derreg had first given it to him. Shadows from the blade had mingled with the shadows of his flesh. The weapon had felt an extension of him, but the familiarity had frightened him and he had never touched it again. And he would not touch it today. Today was a day for light and hope, not shadow and somber remembrances.
Mindful of the Oracle’s words, he donned his padded shirt and mail, his breastplate, slung his shield over his back, strapped his weapon belt with its ordinary sword around his hips, and headed out.
As was his habit, he would commune with Amaunator at highsun, walk the vale, and see his mother’s grave before he took the pilgrims back out into the dark.
Rain fell in straight lines from the dark Sembian sky, beating the whipgrass into a flat, twisted mat. The sky cleared its throat with thunder. The stink of decay suffused the air, as if the entire world were slowly decomposing.
“Quickly!” Zeeahd said, his voice as coarse as a blade drawn over a whetstone. “Quickly! It will come soon, Sayeed.”
Sayeed swallowed, nodded, and kept pace with his brother’s hurried, shambling steps. He would have offered Zeeahd a reassuring touch, an arm to steady him, but Sayeed disliked the way his brother’s flesh squirmed under his hand.
They walked-walked because horses would bear neither of them-under a bleak sky and over sodden, spongy earth. They moved cross country because Sembian soldiers and wagon trains had become too common on the roads.
Sayeed’s rain-soaked cloak hung from his shoulders like a hundredweight, like the burden of the fourteen decades he’d lived.
Beside him Zeeahd sagged under the weight of his own burdens. He wheezed above the hiss of the rain, and the hump of his back was more pronounced than usual. Zeeahd’s wet robes hugged his form, and their grip hinted at the shape of the warped body beneath, the flesh polluted by the wild magic of the Spellplague.
Around them thronged the pack of mongrel cats his brother had summoned when they crossed into Sembia’s shadow-shrouded borders.
“Feral cats?” Sayeed had asked.
“Feral, yes,” his brother had answered, staring at the creatures with his glassy eyes. “But not cats.”
Sayeed counted thirteen of the felines, although the numbers seemed to change slightly from time to time. They held their tails low and the rain pressed their mangy fur to their bodies, showing with each stride the workings of bones and muscles. Their heads looked overlarge on their thin necks, their legs disproportionately long. They seemed composed entirely of black eyes, thick sinew, and sharp teeth.
Dark clouds stretched across the sky, blotting out the sun. It was midday but was as dark as dusk in winter. Sayeed and Zeeahd had been walking through perpetual night for many tendays, avoiding airborne Shadovar patrols and Sembian foot soldiers as they traced a winding path across the ruined Sembian countryside. Rumors spoke of pitched battles in the Dalelands, as Sembia moved against its northern neighbors.