“I wanted to thank you, my dear, for disposing of the pig. Monstrous great thing. I can’t imagine what they were thinking of. Daggerhawk, I mean. They’ve never been known for sensitivity, but releasing a thing of that magnitude into a closed system—and I’m sure you’d be the first to agree that Chimmerdong has been most dreadfully closed of late—simply begs for disaster.”
“I think that was their intention,” I said, mouth going on where wits were absent. “They seemed determined upon destruction.”
“No! You don’t say so. Well, Porvius Bloster was a nasty little boy who always picked his nose at parties, but I didn’t think he’d grow up to be like that. His sister, of course, we used to call—behind her back, I do assure you, my dear, she’d have been livid—the Lizard Duchess because of her cold, reptilian nature (one duplicated, so I understand, in her daughter), but I did think Porvius had a hint of warmth to him.”
The person fanned itself for a moment, looking off into the distance with a smile in which satisfaction and a certain cynicism were blended. Then it turned to me with its false, painted smile.
“Oh, my dear, I’m forgetting my manners entirely. Just see what a little stress will do to normally well-behaved people. Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Oracle. Not only am, but have been for the remembered past.” It gestured toward the door. “Please. Do come in. You must be very tired after all that road trotting, and I have some soup warming on the fire.”
I had already smelled it. It was the one thing that could have tempted me into the house. I told myself a rogue and devil might mimic good humor and kindliness, and most of them do, but surely no one could connive the smell of good soup. For a moment the smell lifted my depression, taking me back to the good smells of kitchens when I was a child. We went in, bunwit, tree rat, and I, and the Oracle seemed not unkindly disposed toward any of us.
That person was now standing against a wall of its room, taking bowls from a cupboard and wiping them on a corner of its fantastic robe. This was made up of straps in bright colors, purple and blue and gold, all depending from ornamental strips that went from wrist to shoulder, across over the ears and head, and down the other side. Except for the long, pale hands, the creature was totally covered with fabric or paint. “I haven’t met an Oracle before,” I said, struggling to be polite, to make conversation. Even this minor effort was almost beyond me, and I silently cursed the dangerous extent of my debilitation. I had a brief, petulant vision of myself reduced to permanent catalepsy, unable to move at all.
“Well, my dear young person, I should think not,” it said in astonishment. “I may be the only one at all. In fact, that is entirely likely. It is certain there is no Oracle in the Index. I’ve had the matter looked into. That has been, in fact, part of the problem. They have their Seers by the dozens, all with the pretty little mothwinged masks, available on any street corner. Why should they seek an Oracle! Hmm! I ask you. And, of course, I’ll answer you, too, my child. Because the Oracle really knows. That’s why. Tell them that, and what do they say? They snort, or mock. So. I’ve given up talking to them at all. I know. That’s all. Let them fumble.” It declaimed this last, waving the soup spoon with sufficient force to throw droplets around the room. One landed on my lips, and I licked it up. It was, indeed, very flavorful soup.
“Do you really know?” The endless whirl within me spun into silence. Oh, to have answers, to have the realities. To hold in one’s hands the keys, the cure! “Everything? And could you tell me?”
“Well, of course I could. Will I? That depends, doesn’t it. On whether you have the price. No freebies. Doesn’t do to dispense freebies. Persons of consequence don’t respect you. High prices mean high respect. Would your bunwit like some soup as well?”
I mumbled something about the bunwit liking anything leafy, or one of the fruits I could see on the table. It took a proffered vegetable, munching away watchfully while the Oracle gave me soup and bread with soft yellow cheese.
“You see,” I said at last, driven to it by the silence and the desperate need to fasten upon some subject, some perception of actuality. “I’ve been asked to rescue the forest. And I really have very little idea how to be successful at it ...”
“Well, of course you will do it, my dear. Quite unmistakably. You’re the heroine type. A survivor. When it comes to matters like that, one always wants a heroine type.”
“Well, this heroine type doesn’t know how to proceed,” I gritted between my teeth, wanting only to be away from there, curled on my leafy bed in the ruin. Not thinking of anything. I bit my lip until the blood came, ashamed to show this incredible weakness. “How come you stay in the forest, here, by the way? You can’t get much company.”
It shrugged, blinking its diamond-painted eyes so they squinched into four-pointed stars, then opened again. “At one time there were quite enough. That was before Bloster’s forebears decided to cut the forest off, of course. Stupid men. I don’t know what
