The Unmaking (The Last Days of Tian Di, #2)(22)

By measuring it out in paces, she found the centre of the octagonal room and sat down cross-legged there. She stared into the darkness, thinking about the ravens and what she would ask the Oracle. Her concentration was occasionally interrupted by unwanted thoughts, such as what might be looking at her now in the dark or how outraged Charlie had been at the idea of her marrying Obrad. She tried to shut that memory out, as it just confused her. She was the Shang Sorceress, not a schoolgirl. She had more important things to think about, she told herself scoldingly.

As it turned out, she had a great deal of time to think. When she began to be terribly hungry, the flagstone above was lifted quietly and a dark package sailed down, landing at her feet with a thud. Then the opening was closed up again. She undid the package. There was bread, cheese, dry fruit and a flask of water inside it. When she was tired, she stretched herself out on the earthen floor and slept.

Calculating by her meals and the times she slept, three days passed in silence and darkness. The difference between sleeping and waking began to close. She sat upright in a sort of half-dream for hours at a time. Her body ached with stillness. She had almost forgotten what she was doing there when on the third day a blaze of light startled her, the walls groaned, and there before her was the Oracle of the Ancients.

“Oh,” said the Oracle, recognition dawning in her cold crystal eyes. “It’s you.”

~~~

Foss had not slept in three nights when it happened. A few days earlier, he had shown the Emmisariae and Kyreth his replicas of the barriers. Foss had hoped that the Supreme Mancer or the powerful Emmisariae would be able to see clearly the answer that eluded him but they were as baffled as he was. Whatever reservations the other Mancers had about him, no one doubted that he had the sharpest mind regarding Deep Mathematics. Kyreth pardoned him from the work in the Inner Sanctum and asked that he focus entirely on solving the riddle posed by the Xia Sorceress’s holes. He had spent the past three days and three nights on the brink of understanding and yet it never quite came together. There was a pattern, but it was a pattern that simply didn’t make sense. She had understood their pattern, the orbits and rotations of the barriers, that much was clear. She had solved the puzzle and so she knew there was no way out. She continued making the holes in an elaborate pattern of her own and yet the pattern revealed nothing. Foss paced and racked his brain and did not sleep. No solution presented itself.

And then one morning she struck.

It was a great blow to the barriers. Every Mancer in the Citadel rocketed from their sleep. The gong sounded twice, summoning them to the Inner Sanctum. Only Foss did not obey. Shaking, he breathed out a replica of the barriers as they were now.

Some terrible force had radiated out from within the prison, striking the barriers in nine places. The barriers were far too strong and complex for any amount of force to break them all. But she struck now with nine blows so powerful and so precise that they altered the motion of the barriers. Orbits changed. Rotations reversed. Another nine blows came and he felt it like a violent kick to his heart.

The Mancers ran to the Inner Sanctum. Kyreth stood in the centre of the main hall, shouting out commands with his Emmisariae around him. They bent all their concentration to the barriers. But there was no time. Mancer Magic was slow and whatever was happening now, it was happening very quickly.

Foss, in the Library, knew it was too late. Another nine blows struck and they all felt it. Everything was changing position. For a brief moment, as he watched his replica, his horror was surpassed by a profound delight. This was miraculous. It was beautiful. It was pure genius and he would never have imagined it possible. As the barriers spun and shifted, her pattern came clear. It was simply unstoppable. Foss strode across the Library, threw open the window, and called a small bright bird to him. It sat alertly in his palm and he spoke to it briefly in the Language of First Days. Then it swooped off in the direction of the dark wood in the northwest corner of the grounds. Time was short. He turned to watch it happen. He could not resist. The barriers spun, and for a mere few seconds all of the holes came into line, creating a circular passage, six feet in diameter, out of her prison and into the world.

~~~

The Oracle came towards Eliza on her eight golden spider’s legs, her upper body tattooed with the elaborate characters of the Language of First Days, her crystal eyes severe.

“I have questions,” said Eliza, forcing herself to meet the Oracle’s eyes.

“Ask them,” replied the Oracle. Her tone was light and mocking.

Eliza held up her right palm, with the tattoo of the dagger pointing down.

“What does the dagger signify?”

The Oracle tilted her head back as if listening to something.

“Struggle,” she said after a pause. “Violence.”

“Why does it point towards me?”

The Oracle’s eyes were alert with interest. “Sacrifice,” she said, as if it pleased her. “Victory will only come at a price for you.”

She couldn’t help herself. She asked, “What price?”

The Oracle waited for a moment and then bared her tiny pointed teeth in a chilling smile. “You will cut out your own heart.”

Eliza stared at the Oracle, radiant and haughty, moving to and fro slightly on her golden-furred legs. A deep shudder took hold of her. The Oracle was watching her hungrily, as if eager for her tears. Eliza knew that once a question had been answered, there was no point asking for clarification. She should not have asked such a thing in the first place. She forced her spine straight, drove her chin up, pushed aside all the new questions that clamoured within her, the panicked chorus of when and why and spare me, to ask the question she had come here to ask.