The woman shoved herself away from the table fast, went over backward, tumbled through the door, and came up on her knees.
From deeper within the little building, an old woman’s voice called out, “Pil, I’m ready. Send in the next soul.”
Panting, Pil stood up and jerked her head toward the doorway, the knife still in her hand. “You go first. There might be spiders.”
I laughed at her. “Go first? You may as well ask me to cut off my own head.”
Pil sighed and walked down the hallway in front of me. After a left turn and then another, we walked into a small, dim room about six paces square.
The old woman sitting behind the table wasn’t so much shriveled as she was collapsed. Her back curved so far forward it pushed her head toward the table so that she had to look nearly straight up to see me. Considering her infirm back, her face wasn’t half so wrinkled as I thought it might be. Her blouse was blue or maybe purple, and she gazed at me with loving eyes.
Without breaking eye contact with me, she said, “Back to the door, sweetheart.”
Pil didn’t move.
“I know everything about this sorcerer,” the oracle said. “You go back to the door.”
Pil left the room as if she were dragging a weight.
“You’re here about an enemy,” the oracle said in not much more than a mumble.
I had met a lot of soothsayers, and considering Pil’s prelude, this one didn’t impress me. “If you say I am, I guess I am.”
“A powerful enemy. You bring with you your companion from the farthest east.”
That was a true statement. Halla’s people lived in the easternmost part of the continent. “Go on.”
“I can see your enemy. He’s very powerful but can be killed.”
“Just about everybody can be killed.” I started tapping my foot to see if it would make her nervous.
“And he can too, but it won’t be easy. Your companion—” She coughed. “Companions will fight loyally beside you.” The oracle nodded. Her neck was so bent, I thought her head might pop off.
“Sure, they’re the most loyal, bravest, and sweetest-smelling comrades in the world.”
The oracle chuckled but glanced at my tapping foot.
“None but you can defeat this enemy, Bib the sorcerer. I will help you if you honor the gods with some gold. He rides fast to the northeast, away from you, toward Cliffmeet and the Northern Stretch. You must rush if you wish to overtake him!”
“Rush, huh? Well, that makes sense. I’ve never overtaken a single foe by failing to rush.” I shook my head and bellowed, “Halla! Come on in here and meet the oracle.”
The oracle didn’t show even a tiny sign of discomfort. “I foretold that you would distrust me, as you distrust the God of Death—”
That was enough for me. She was just another scoundrel who stole poor people’s money and gave them hope that wasn’t worth a damn. “You are full of seven kinds of dog shit and your mother’s shit besides!” I took a step toward her, and she flinched.
A scream came from the hallway, and then a geyser of profanity from what sounded like Pil. A few seconds later, Halla strode into the room carrying her spear in one hand and Pil under her other arm like a flailing, foulmouthed sack of corn.
“Now,” I said, “who wants to tell us what’s going on here? Keep in mind that people who don’t tell us what’s going on here are going to be killed.”
The oracle sat straight up, her back and neck not bent in the least, and pointed at Pil. “It’s her fault!”
Pil stopped beating Halla’s leg and stared at the oracle, mouth open.
I raised my eyebrows at Halla and pointed at the oracle. “Whack her until she says something I like.”
Halla dropped Pil on the ground, cracked her knuckles, and gave the oracle a little nod.
While the oracle was turning pale, Pil jumped up and rushed toward the old woman, raising an open hand.
The juggler in the red mask leaped out from a hidden side room and tackled Pil.
The oracle pulled a knife as long as her forearm out from under the table and stood up.
“Stop!” Halla screamed. Dust drifted from between the wooden wall slats. Everybody stopped.
I cleared my throat. “Should we expect anybody else? The short, fat man who almost ran us down this morning? One of those damned lions?”
The juggler eased himself to his feet, hands raised. He pulled off his mask, and I recognized his lean, hard face.
“Dixon?” I said. “Why aren’t you crushed flat?”
The sorcerer Dixon, whom I hadn’t seen since I killed him twelve years ago, shrugged and gave me a crooked grin. “You missed. You were probably drunk. Are you drunk now? Would you like to get a drink? I’m buying.”
I nodded. “If I kill you and take all your money, technically you’d be buying.”
Dixon grimaced. “To hell with you, then. You crushed my horse.”
“I am sorry about that.”
Halla said, “Wait.”
I never found out what we were supposed to wait for. The oracle gagged and then bleated a short scream. Five small objects shot out of her abdomen, leaving five ragged holes in the skin. One of them whizzed past my head. Another knocked Halla’s spear out of her hand, clattering to the dirt floor. Yet another smacked Dixon in the back of the neck and exited through a plum-size hole in his throat. It continued without slowing down.
All five objects punched holes in the wooden wall behind me and in the wall behind it, if the splintering sounds meant anything.
The oracle flopped forward onto the table and lay still, blood seeping out from under her body. Dixon lay on his side, his eyes open and glassy.
Halla looked at me, and I shrugged. We both stared at Pil. I said, “Well, sorcerer?”
Pil scowled. “It wasn’t me. I’d have killed both of you.” She knelt beside Dixon, held his hand, and brushed his hair back out of his eyes.
SIX
I