He tries to remember his name. It is no use. He tries to remember his age—he is young, he knows that, even if hehas lost count of the years of his life. Is he fifteen? Twenty? Maybe more. He doesn’t remember, and the more he tries, the more he forgets.
Now he sees there is a man looming over him, standing at the head of the altar. The man turns and now the boy cannot see him, but he can hear him—the rustle of his cloak, the pad of his feet.
And then another sound, the shrik of metal on metal. The man returns, a black shadow filling his vision. The shadow moves and something flashes in the boy’s vision, something held by the man high above his head. It is bright and bronze. The sudden blaze of unexpected color terrifies the boy.
It is a knife with two long, parallel blades that shine, reflecting a light that seems to be from elsewhere. A light that is bright and white and then orange and red, as though the knife is being turned slowly in front of a great fire even as it is held perfectly still by the cloaked man.
The others gathered around the altar and down the steps remain silent, their cowled heads turned up toward the sacrifice.
The man with the Twin-bladed Knife murmurs something but the boy cannot hear it, his head now filled with the sound of a keening wind. The fear that fills him suddenly expands, and he feels like he has been dropped down a deep, dark well. His stomach rolls, his throat is filled with bitter bile, and he finds the strength to pull at the ropes again, one last time, as though it would make any difference at all.
It does not. The ropes hold firm, as do the hands that grasp his head, forcing his chin up, his face now tilted back so he can see the face of the man holding the knife.
The face of his executioner.
There is a flash like lightning, although it is accompaniedby no thunder, and when the boy blinks the tears from his eyes the flashing continues, and the boy doesn’t know if it is the Void or his mind or the impossible light shining from the knife.
The boy screams.
The blade sweeps to the side, held high in the air, and the man murmurs again.
The blade sweeps across, low, opening the boy’s neck. His scream is cut short, replaced by a whistling gurgle. His limbs twitch, his fingernails scraping the hard surface of the altar, as it quickly becomes slick with blood.
And then the boy is still. He stares at the nothingness above him as his life slips away.
He dies.
And something terrible is born.
CHAPEL OF THE SISTERS OF THE ORACULAR ORDER, BALETON, GRISTOL
14th Day, Month of Songs, 1851
“Much has been said about the blind Sisters of the Oracular Order. In truth, their eyes function just as well as yours or mine. However, they do endeavor to become blind to distractions and frivolities. They will, if necessity bids them, walk among us, wearing richly hued blindfolds or otherwise covering their eyes. In this way they remain ‘at all times ready to see things clearly’.”
—ON THE ORACULAR ORDER
Douglas Hardwick, Historian
The Cloister of Prophecy was a large, circular chamber situated in the very center of the Chapel of the Sisters of the Oracular Order, the hub from which the seven wings of the chapel proper radiated. The bright white stone from which it was built had been expertly shaped to form a mathematically perfect room, and the high vaulted ceiling gave the illusion that the Cloister was somehow open to the air.
Arranged around a central dais were six rectangular slabs of black marble, each curved to match the arc of the Cloister wall. In front of five of the slabs five Sisters knelt on black cushions, their high-collared, silver-and-white tunics immaculate. Although their eyes were hidden behind red ceremonial blindfolds, the thin veils were merely a traditional, symbolic part of their uniform, rather than serving the purpose for which they were, perhaps historically, designed. As such, each Sister was able to focus their attention, unimpeded, on the member of their order who knelt on a red cushion on the central dais.
By the sixth slab knelt a Sister unlike the others, dressed in a long black-and-red tunic. This was the High Oracle herself, Pelagia Themis, and for her to be attending the Ceremony of Prophecy in person was a rare eventindeed. But she was here for a specific purpose—the Sisters had been in position for hours now, the Ceremony well underway and proceeding exactly as the High Oracle had planned.
Which was… badly.
Sister Kara frowned as she knelt on the central red cushion. She swayed on her knees, her lips moving soundlessly, as though she was reading something inside her head.
“Sister Kara.”
She jerked back at the interruption, nearly sliding off her cushion, and turned toward the voice of the High Oracle. Then she adjusted herself on the cushion, her knees burning in agony after so many hours trying—and failing—to read the Prophecy.
“Yes, High Oracle?”
“The gift of the Prophecy of the Sisters of the Oracular Order is a precious one, Kara,” said Pelagia. “We bear the Prophecy not just as a power, but as a responsibility, a gift that cannot be wasted. Much rides on the information we report to our brother, the High Overseer.”
Sister Kara bowed her head. “Yes, High Oracle.”
Pelagia nodded, then glanced to her left. “Ready again, Sister Beatris?”
Beatris lifted herself off her cushion and leaned over the device on the floor next to her; a small, compact contraption of metal and wood, a long copper listening horn, pointed toward the dais and Sister Kara—an audiograph recorder. She tore the last section of punch card out of the slot on the side, then pulled a fresh section carefully out from the roll inside the machine and aligned the edge with the recording pins. Satisfied, she sat back down on the
