‘How do you survive on this dead world?’
‘We trade. Our race has perished, but others, such as yourselves, seek us out. We abide.’ He pointed to the cowering girl. ‘She is our wealth. Ask what you will.’
‘And the price?’ inquired Pug.
The hooded man repeated himself. ‘Ask what you will. The oracle answers as she chooses, when she chooses. She will name a price. She may ask for a sweet, a fruit, or your still-beating heart to eat. She may ask for a bauble with which to play.’ He indicated a pile of odd devices, cast off in the corner. ‘She may ask for a hundred sheep, or a hundredweight of grain or gold. You must decide if the knowledge you seek is worth the price asked. She sometimes answers without a price. And ofttimes she will not answer, no matter what is offered. Her nature is capricious.’
Pug stepped up to the cowering girl. She stared at him a long moment, then smiled, absently playing with her stringy hair. Pug said, ‘We seek to learn the future.’
The girl’s eyes narrowed and suddenly there was no hint of madness within. It was as if another person instantly inhabited her. In a calm voice she answered, ‘To learn this, then, will you give me my price?’
‘Name your price.’
‘Save me.’
Tomas looked at the guide. From deep within the hood the dry voice said, ‘We do not truly understand what she means. She is trapped within her own mind. It is that madness which grants her the gift of oracularity. Free her of that madness and she no longer will be the oracle. So she must have another meaning.’
Pug said, ‘Save you from what?’
The girl laughed, then the calm voice returned. ‘If you do not understand, you cannot save me.’
The figure in robes seemed to shrug. Pug considered, then said, ‘I think I do understand.’ He reached out, seizing the girl’s head between his hands. She stiffened, as if about to scream, but Pug sent a comforting mental message. What he was about to attempt was something formerly thought to be solely the province of clerics, but his time with the eldar at Elvardein had taught him that the only real limits to magic were those of the practitioner.
Pug closed his eyes and entered madness.
Pug stood in a landscape of shifting walls, a maze of maddening colours and shapes. The horizon changed with each step and perspective was nonexistent. He looked down at his hands and watched them suddenly grow larger, until they were the size of melons, then just as rapidly shrink, until they were smaller than a child’s. He looked up and could see the walls of the maze receding and approaching, seemingly at random, while their colour and pattern flashed through a dozen changes. Even the ground beneath his feet was a red and white chessboard one moment, a pattern of black and grey lines the next, then large blue and green spots on red. Angry, flashing lights sought to blind him.
Pug took hold of his own perceptions. He knew he was still within the cavern and this illusion was an extension of his own need for a physical analogue in dealing with the girl’s madness. First he stabilized himself so the strange shifting of limbs halted. To act rashly at any point could destroy the girl’s brittle mind, and he had no way to judge what that would do to him, given his present contact with that mind. He might somehow be trapped in her madness, an unpleasant prospect. Over the last year Pug had learned a great deal about controlling his arts, but he had also learned their limits and he knew what he did carried some risk.
Next he stabilized the immediate area around him, changing the shifting, vibrating walls and dazzling lights. Realizing that any direction was as valid as another, he set out. Walking was also illusory, he knew, but the illusion of movement was required for him to reach the seat of her consciousness. Like any problem, this one required a frame of reference, and it would be one the girl would provide. Pug could only react to whatever her demented mind dreamed up for him.
Abruptly he was plunged into darkness, so silent that only death could match that stillness. Then a single, odd sound came to him. A moment later, another came, from a different direction. Then a faint pulse in the air. With more rapidity, the darkness was punctuated with movement in the air and odd sounds. At last the blackness was full of pulsing noises and fetid odours. Strange breezes blew across his face and odd feathery things brushed against him, moving away too quickly for him to seize. He created light and discovered himself in a large cavern, much like the real one in which he and Tomas now stood. Nothing else stirred. Within the illusion he called out. No answer.
The landscape shuddered and shifted, and he stood upon a beautiful greensward, lined by graceful trees, too perfect to exist in reality. They formed boundaries that pointed toward an impossibly lovely palace of white marble adorned with gold and turquoise, amber and jade, opal and chalcedony, a place so startlingly wonderful that Pug could only stand in mute appreciation. The image was emotionally laden with the feeling that this was the most perfect place in the universe, a sanctuary where no trouble intruded, where one could wait out eternity in absolute contentment.
Again the landscape shifted, and he stood within the halls of a palace. From the white marble floors flecked with gold to pillars of ebony, it was the most lavish image of wealth he had ever perceived, surpassing even the palace of the Warlord in Kentosani. The ceiling was carved quartz, admitting sunlight with a rosy glow, and the walls were bedecked with rich tapestries, woven with gold and silver threads. Ebony doors with ivory trim and studdings of precious stones were common to every portal, and wherever Pug looked, he saw gold. In the centre of this splendour a white circle of light illuminated a dais, upon which stood two figures, a woman and a girl.
He stepped toward them. Suddenly warriors erupted from the floor like plants springing from the ground. Each was a powerful creature of terrible aspect. One looked like a boar made human, another like a giant mantis. A third seemed a lion’s head upon a man, a fourth wore the face of an elephant. Each was armed and armoured in rich metals and jewels, and they bellowed fearsomely. Pug stood quietly.
The warriors attacked and Pug remained motionless. As each nightmare creature struck, its weapon passed through Pug, and the creatures vanished. When they were gone, Pug stepped toward the dais upon which the two figures stood.
The dais began to move away, as if upon tiny wheels or legs, picking up speed. Pug walked directly toward it, willing himself to overtake it. Soon the landscape about him was a blur in passing, and he judged the illusion of the palace must be miles in subjective size. Pug knew he could halt the fleeing dais with its two passengers, but to do so might be harmful to the girl. Any overt act of violence, even one as minor as commanding the pair of fugitives to halt, could permanently scar her.
Now the dais began a careening, banging passage through an obstacle course of rooms, and Pug was forced to dodge and move to avoid objects hurled into his path. He could also have destroyed anything that blocked his way, but the effect would have been as harmful as if he had ordered the pair to halt. No, he thought, when you enter another’s reality, you observe her rules.
Then the dais halted and Pug overtook the pair. The woman stood silently, studying the approaching magician, while the girl sat at her feet. Unlike her real appearance, here the girl was beautifully clothed in a gown of soft, translucent silk. Her hair was gathered atop her head in a magnificent fashion, held by pins of silver and gold, each bearing a jewel. While it was impossible to judge how the girl looked in truth beneath the dirt, here she was a young woman of astonishing beauty.
Then the beautiful girl stood and grew, changing before his eyes to a horror of gigantic proportions. Large hairy arms sprouted from soft shoulders, while her head became that of an enraged eagle. Lightning cascaded from her ruby eyes as claws came crashing down upon Pug.
He stood motionless. The claws passed harmlessly through him, for he refused to take part in this reality. Suddenly the monster vanished and the girl was as he had seen her in the cave, nude, filthy, and mad.
Looking at the woman, Pug said, ‘You