The Oracle was sitting on a bench, facing the glorious sweep of glass that looked out on the stunning vista. It really was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. I'd looked into the eye of more than one storm, and seen the complex, mathematical beauty of it; I'd seen most of the most savage, gorgeous, violent faces of nature.
But this was different. Deep and slow and silent. There was no math to it, no science. Only spirit.
Unlike the other Oracles, this one looked... normal. A woman, with generous curves and a lived-in face, with lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She was wearing a dress the color of the rocks outside of the window, brick red, with a subtle patterning to it, like the creases and shadows and textures of the sandstone. It had flowing sleeves and a loose drape, and it pooled around her feet, into shadow.
She was no race I could identify--coffee-and-cream skin, with a faint golden glow underneath; slightly upturned eyes, but not enough to make her distinctly Asian. Full lips. Beautiful bone structure under a soft mask of flesh. Her hair was dark, shot through with wide swathes of gray, and her eyes reflected back the light from the chapel's windows so strongly, I couldn't tell what color they were, at least not from a side-on view.
She was sitting with her hands neatly folded in her lap. Rough, scarred hands. Hands that had seen a lot of work, and little gentleness. She looked tired, poised on the knife-edge between middle age and growing old.
Her head slowly turned, and then she was looking at me. Seeing me. I can't describe what that felt like, except to say that it was beyond terrifying. As if the stars had come alive in the sky and were weighing me, judging me, finding me wanting. I felt small and dirty and ridiculous, a clumsy freak of nature with no business here, no business at all. The Oracles barely recognized the Djinn. Humans were beneath contempt.
And yet, she was looking at me. I got to my knees. I did it instantly, without thinking, because I knew I was very close to something greater than the furious energy of the Fire Oracle, or the menace of the Air Oracle.
The Earth Oracle was closest of all to the Mother.
She tilted her head slowly to one side, considering me like a particularly interesting piece of abstract art.
"Please," I said. The sound washed over us both, meaningless in this place. Talking wasn't going to get me anywhere. The Earth didn't use words. It spoke in the whisper of leaves, the hiss of grass, the groaning of rocks buried deep. Communication was something very different here, and I was completely unprepared, completely unworthy to try it. Not even an Earth Warden, which at least would have been something, some connection, however slight and fragile.
I was just dirt on the floor in this place. No, less than that. She'd at least understand dirt.
Her gaze slowly shifted away, toward the altar, the flickering banks of candles on either side in their red glass holders, and the astonishingly beautiful vista stretching out before us.
She wanted something from me, and I had no idea what it was, or how to provide it.
I felt the gradual withdrawal of her presence from me.
I was being dismissed.
"No!" I said, and held up my hands. "Please! Please listen to me, I need you to understand--"
No answer. She didn't even blink. It was as if I didn't even exist to her anymore. Maybe I didn't. Time was different in her world. Geologic. Human lives came and went faster than the ticks on a clock.
"Please!" This time, I shouted it, and I did something that was either very, very brave or abysmally stupid: I reached out to her, and took her hand. It felt warm and rough, more like sandstone than flesh. "Please listen."
Not a flicker. Not a tremor. I'd come so far, fought so hard, run so fast... and she was ignoring me. Unlike Rahel, this wasn't someone I could give a hard right cross to the chin to get her attention. There was a strong sense of deep holiness here. Respect was required.
Respect was demanded.
Outside of the glass windows, I saw the sky... change. It had been getting darker, but now it curdled, like ink dropped in clear water--a sense of something wrong, something desperately and fatally wrong. I felt it happen inside of myself, too. I felt the deathclock we all carried, all mortal things, speed up.
Oh God. Was she going to just wipe everything clean? All life? Destroy it all and wait that long eternity for things to grow again? Or would the Djinn step back into their place as firstborn, best loved?
I went up into the aetheric, and there I saw it for what it was. A storm coming. A storm that showed bloodred, full of fury and power. I felt a tethering tug, and looked down at my aetheric form to see that there was a line, a thin, unbreakable line stretching from the center of my being up into that storm.
It was connected to me, and as I looked around, I saw hundreds of lines. Thousands. Millions. Like solid raindrops, each leading down to a human life. A human who'd just felt an instant of shadow, of doubt in his or her own immortality.
Who'd had the sensation of someone walking over their graves. Six billion graves, and only one entity walking, but it only took the one.
It was starting.
"Please," I said. "Please don't do this. We don't deserve this. We can't deserve this! Dammit! What do you want me to say?"
The Oracle trembled, a sudden all-over shake, and I felt the Earth itself groan in response. What the hell--?
Her eyes closed, and the hand I was holding suddenly turned and took hold of me. Hard, hot, unyielding. I felt the tremors continue, both through my knees and where she was clutching my fingers. Something was wrong. Terrifyingly wrong.
Oh no.
I took an aching breath and reached forward to move the neck of the Oracle's robes aside, and there, battened on her like a black nest of worms, was the Demon Mark. The skin around it was drained white, leached of life, and I could see the black writhing tentacles bulging under the skin. It was burrowing.
I was too late. It already had a firm grip on her.
I reached out and put both hands on the Demon Mark, willing it to come to me. It ignored me, burrowing for the rich, burning source of power that was the Oracle. I was insignificant. There was no way I had enough power to make it come to me.
There was something coming toward us, digging through stone and concrete. Something dark and terrible. The adult Demon was on its way here, following me or drawn to the immense outpouring of power that was going on--no telling. But we didn't have long.
None of us did. I could feel the terrible pull inside of my life being dragged away.
The Oracle's power was compromised as it tried to fight the infection of the Demon Mark, but even so, it was channeling the intention of the Mother to wipe humanity out of her way.
I couldn't stop it. I couldn't even heal the Oracle, which was the only way I could even begin to make things right.
"Take my hand." A rusty, exhausted voice. I looked aside and saw Rahel, holding out a trembling, blood-stained hand on which the claws had raggedly broken. When I took it, it felt cold.
She extended her hand to Alice--Venna--who was equally damaged. The line stretched on. Djinn after Djinn after Djinn. And with them, humans. I recognized a few Wardens. A few members of the Ma'at.
A chain of hands, joined one to the other, building a circuit of power that, while it couldn't possible be as huge as the potential of the Oracle, was a much easier target.
Come on, I begged the Demon Mark. Come on, you sick little freak. Take us. You know you want it .
It wasn't coming. I hissed in frustration, grabbed hold of it, and pulled with all the fury and grief and rage in me. Felt it spiral through the circuit of hands, rebound, and come back again, stronger. Stronger still.
They poured their power into me, and the Demon Mark moved in my hand, turned, and struck. It was enraged, and my skin was nothing like the barrier of the Oracle's; it tore into me with full force, already bloated to twice its original size, and ripped toward my heart.
I let go of Rahel's hand just as the adult Demon erupted from the stone beneath my feet, scattering razor-edged shards like thrown knives. I felt the hot cuts of the debris, and hit the floor, panting, gagging on the sensation of the Demon Mark.
I don't know why I thought it might work. Don't know why it did work, except that I knew that two Demon Marks couldn't touch without fighting. Destroying each other. I knew that because having two of them inside me had killed me, once.
I turned and threw myself directly on the Demon, wrapping my arms around it.
It didn't feel like I'd expected it to feel. I'd thought it would be cold, ice-cold, and sharp to the touch, but it was lukewarm, and its flesh--if that was flesh--was only semisolid, sickeningly fragile. I felt its talons dig into my shoulders to push me away, but I pressed harder against it, driving my hand into its chest.
And I felt the Demon Mark stop its burrowing, stir, and turn. It raced down my trembling, bloody arm, distending the skin as it went, sliding like a bundle of worms.
It didn't care what kind of damage it did, and it felt like being set on fire from the inside. Like having every muscle ruptured, every bone shattered on the way. I screamed, but I didn't let myself pull away.
The Demon Mark erupted out of the palm of my hand, the one bearing the mark of the Wardens, and slammed into the center of the adult Demon.
I looked up at it, but there was no face, no sense of any sort of humanity to it. I couldn't tell if it felt pain, or fear, or even disappointment.
And then it screamed, a high thin metal sound, and plunged back through the hole and into the dark.
Gone.
Maybe dead, maybe not, but it was in trouble.
I collapsed to my knees, bleeding, whimpering, exhausted. The death clock inside of me was ticking slowly, inexorably down.
"Please," I whispered. "We saved you. Please stop this."
The Oracle hadn't moved from where she sat on the bench, but now, her head turned. I don't know what she saw, because her eyes were white. Pure white, with a tiny dot of black for pupil. Eerie and totally inhuman.
She said nothing. Did nothing else. But at least I had her attention.
"We're not invaders," I gasped. "Maybe we're greedy, and selfish, and stupid, but that's our nature. That's all nature. Weeds strangle wheat. Bees go to war against each other. Humans are just... better at it."
Nothing. But she didn't turn away, either. I felt tears break free, and I didn't try to stop them. So much to cry for, right now.
"Please," I whispered, out of strength. I leaned forward and rested my forehead on her lap. Soft fabric rustled around me as she shifted, and her scarred right hand slowly moved to rest on top of my hair. I felt something tug inside and heard my deathclock tick faster. Faster. Years running out of me with every exhaled, terrified breath. It was going to end quietly after all. Not in blood and fire and storm, but in silence.
When there was nothing left, I collapsed in a heap at her feet, on top of the pooled brick-red fabric of her dress. It wasn't fabric. It felt like sun-warmed stone. It smelled like the empty, quiet places, and clean wind, and for a few seconds, it didn't seem to matter so much, that everything would be gone that I knew. That I loved.
She was offering me peace.
The hell with that. Peace was overrated.
I reached out with one flailing hand, grabbed hold of the bench beside me, and pulled myself into an awkward sitting position. Staring up at her. "No," I said. "Hear me. Hear me. Listen. We're a part of you. Hear us!"
Millions of voices, talking. Babbling.
--scared, honey, there's nothing to be afraid of--
--Ayudame, padre--
--Jag inte den sa goda k�nself�rnimmelsen--
A storm of languages, of voices. Merging into one sound.
Into a jagged, discordant human chorus, six billion strong.
The Oracle slowly tilted her head, listening. I clapped my hands over my ears, but it wasn't enough; the din was enough to beat right through the barrier, billions of voices shouting in my ears. Howling. Scared.
And one of them said--Listen.
I knew that voice. That low, calm voice, with its blur of warmth and assurance.
Lewis was speaking, too. Lewis, who was like Jonathan had been, who had the keys to power. Once I'd opened up the line, it was like creating a network, and all he had to do was tap in.
I felt him, as if he was actually in the room with me.
Maybe he was, in a sense. I saw the Oracle's blind stare go away from me, to some empty spot in the chapel.
The Oracle's head turned back toward me. One of her hands raised in a graceful, slow motion, and the babble of voices ceased.
And I heard a voice speak, a single voice, and it was vast and huge and unknowable.
Something broke with a sharp tug in my chest, and for a second I thought, This is it, we're all dying, but then I felt--heard?--the clock that had been speeding along inside slow down.
Then wind backward.
Now that was a weird sensation. I gasped and held on to the bench for dear life, gulping down nausea, and then, with a subtle and whispered pulse, everything just...
... went back to normal.
All over the world, human beings stopped feeling bad, paused in the act of dialing 911 or their local equivalents. Stopped clinging to each other in fear. Felt vaguely embarrassed by that sense of sheer terror that had gripped them for thirty long seconds of eternity.
The Mother had stopped in midhousecleaning.
The Oracle considered me, and then extended a single pointing finger.
I felt something stir inside, and then grow. Waves of heat and sensation coursing through me, beating like wings. Each one more intense than the last, shaking me free of the flesh. Hot golden pressure bursting through my mind, dissolving me in showers and waves and pulses of ecstasy. I let go and floated on wave after wave of incandescent glory.
The Oracle smiled, and dropped her hand back to her side, and I slowly drifted back into my body.
When it was over, there was something left behind. A slow, rich, deep pulse of power. Connection. Rhythms that I'd never felt before, or had any idea existed within my own body.
The Oracle turned away and took her seat again, contemplating the bright red rocks outside, the washed blue sky, the molten sun.
She looked peaceful. So peaceful.
I turned to go back out into the world.
Ashan was standing in the chapel. Staring at me with murderous, bloody fury. I backed up a step and shot a look at the Oracle, but she was sealed in that silent contemplation again. Might as well have been a thousand miles away from the confrontation going on three feet from her.
"It's over," I said. "Back off, Ashan."
"No," he growled. He was far from the polished, self-contained Djinn I'd come to know and fear--this one was primal, reduced to his most basic instincts to inflict pain and terror. "Not you. I won't be your slave!"
I'm not asking you to...
I would have said it, but he didn't give me the chance. He lunged forward, exactly as he'd lunged at Imara, and I was glad to see him come for me, glad, because I wanted this monster dead more than I'd ever wanted anyone dead in my life.
I reached for power, intending to finish this once and for all, but I wasn't fast enough. He grabbed my head and held it between his hands, and I knew I was one millisecond from a broken neck, dead like my child, oh God, Imara...
Instead, he held me still and stared into my eyes, and I felt something happening. I fought to get free, but he was too strong, and whatever it was, he was doing it up on the aetheric levels, too--
Something in me ripped away, something vital and irreplaceable, and I felt a liquid heat race through my head, burning, erasing, taking me away from the world... No.
The Oracle moved. Impossible, that something so composed of stillness could move so fast, but Ashan was in her hands and being pulled back and down, still snarling and fighting.
Whatever he'd done to me, it was still happening. I swayed, gasping, and grabbed for a bench. Missed. Thumped hard to my hands and knees.
Ashan was on the floor, too, and something was happening to him, something bad... the woman, the thing, she was bending over him and there was a pure white light and screaming, so much screaming...
... and when it was over, she was sitting on a bench, staring straight ahead as if she'd never moved. Never would.
The gray-haired man with the pale, young face rolled over on his side, still screaming. Something different about him now. He was weeping, gagging on every breath.
Not a Djinn at all now. Just a man. Human.
Cast out from the angels.
... what was a Djinn?
I'd known his name once, hadn't I? And this place, I knew it, too... there was a haunting feeling of d�j� vu, but I couldn't remember...
Couldn't remember.
There was a popping sound, like thin glass dropped on stone, and without any more warning than that a naked man was lying on the floor near the altar. Golden skin, auburn hair. When his eyes opened, they were the color of melting brass, fierce and hot and inhuman.
I flinched and scrambled out of his way. Toward the other man, who was at least human.
"No--" The metallic one reached out, trying to grab hold of me, and I pulled away. "Jo, what's happened to--?"
I had no idea who he was, but he frightened me. Scenes flickered in front of my eyes, people I didn't know, a life I'd never lived. Terrifyingly vivid, but they had nothing to do with me, did they? I didn't know these people, these places. I didn't know... it was all so confusing...
The gray-haired man screamed and charged up from the floor, hands outstretched for my throat.
The woman on the bench turned her head toward me and made the tiniest gesture, the smallest little lift of a finger, and I was spinning into the darkness.
My last sight was of the auburn-haired man lunging for me, trying to hold on. There was torment on his face, and for a second... for a second I thought I knew him.
Then I was gone.