“You don’t?” I asked. “An Oracle should know, shouldn’t one?”
It waved a spoon at me in mock chastisement. “Silly girl. I don’t mean I don’t mean I don’t know, I mean to make conversation. I mean, conversationally, that it seems ridiculous for them to have done so. Doesn’t it?”
“Not from what I know about Bloster and his kin, no,” I replied, struggling to set words together. Whatever the creature was before me—and a good cook was certainly part of it—it was no giggling schoolgirl, much though it talked like one. “It seems entirely in keeping with knavery and lying and bad Gamesmanship. Bloster took me captive when I was a student, not even Gameable. Then he switched Game to me when I evaded him. Then he sent his thalan, a Basilisk named Dedrina-Lucir, to kill me, a task which she failed, in Xammer, a Schooltown which had been held free from Game by every Referee ever. Exactly the kind of man who would kill off a forest for the sheer joy of it.” My words dwindled away into silence, the spoon falling from my hand.
“Oh, my dear child, how you have suffered,” it said, seeming to push its top lip down under its lower teeth in that expression of sympathy which I detest. “Such a brave little girl.”
“Nothing of the kind,” I whispered. Though I had been thinking exactly that. Some deep, sad vein had been opened to bleed exactly such suffering thoughts. I was choking on them. I could not admit it. “Annoyed little girl. Increasingly angry little girl, if you like.”
“Well, yes,” agreed the Oracle with irrepressible gaiety. “That, too.” It offered me more bread and cheese, which I refused. “I wonder if you could come up with my fee. It might be worth it to you, considering the way you’re feeling.”
“How much?” I murmured. “How much, Oracle? In what coin?”
“Well, it would depend on how many questions, wouldn’t it. How many do you think you have?”
I sighed. All my gut turned and tumbled in that sigh, nausea moving with it, sickness rising like a tide. I sat very still, tasting the bitterness of bile, willing it away. “One,” I said, beginning the enumeration, “why did my mother love me so little that she cared not whether I died? Two: Why did my brother Mendost share this dislike of me? Three: Why am I here, alone, faced with some task I do not understand? Four: How may that task be accomplished?
“Five: Who is it directs Porvius Bloster to Game against me to the death? Six: How could I be sure to make someone love me without using potion or spell?”
Question six had not been one of those I had thought to ask, though it had obsessed me since the killing of the pig.
“Seven,” said the Oracle, “is there only this one task for you to do, or are there other things, greater and more? I will answer that one for you. There is much more, Jinian. Much more indeed.” It giggled, a high, humorless sound rasping like a file.
My throat was full of tears. The thought of more of anything made me weep.
Oracle gave me an arch look. “Interesting questions, those,” it said. “Very interesting.” It hummed, did a little dance, turning around and around like a wheeling moth. “Have more bread, dear child. See, the bunwit likes it very much. I made the cheese myself. Would you credit it? With these very own soft, white fingers. Not at all what one was brought up to do, but then times change, times change.”
“Thank you.” I nodded, unable to move. We sat in muffled silence, the very air around me heavy with my own malady. The Oracle had fed me well, though it had eaten nothing itself. I did not wonder about that, being too busy wondering whether the Oracle was going to set me a price or not. Perhaps it was thinking about it. I began wondering whether the creature was male or female, and it gave me such a look!
“I thought better of you, dear child. Really I did.”
“I was just ...” I made an equivocal gesture. I didn’t care, really.
“Well! Whatever, whichever, no one cares but me and mine. Keep your mind decent and the rest of you will follow, so my Great-Grandma Acquackabby is said to have said.”
“Was she an Oracle, too?”
“No doubt,” it said, mouth twisted in amusement. “No doubt. Well. I’ve decided. I’m going to give you an answer. Not a freebie. You can owe me for it. I’ll think of a price later on when our heads are clearer. I’ve decided to answer question number six. That’s the one you care most about, child, and we both know it. Six is a lovely number. I have a passion for easily divisible numbers. So nice to deal with. Besides, it has been my experience that petitioners often know the answers to most questions before they ask, so I’ll answer the one question you can’t answer and trust you for payment. If I may say so, my dear, you do seem trustworthy.
“How can you assure that someone will love you without potion or spell? Well, you do that by letting him save your life a time or two. There is a problem with it, of course. It would be better to be sure you don’t get killed in the process. I see something nasty by way of groles or Ghouls in your future, perhaps both. Saving you will require a risk, and it might happen both of you will be lost. Or, it could happen”—and it looked at me here with that terrible sidelong glance which seemed to say things no ears should hear—“it might be he would be killed and you would be quite safe.”
It let me think about that, let the picture of it penetrate my disordered brain, let me begin to shudder at the thought. Even through the fog of depression, the thought of his death brought
