“You don’t know?” When she threw up her hands, Damien grit his teeth, but he didn’t really want to stop her.
“Hey, I’m an oracle, not a philosopher. Maybe people just like thinking they have control. All I know is, the gods didn’t like having omniscience, so they focused it into just one of them, Denonfy, and then that god got sick of it too, so one day I woke up with almost all of the god of fortune and destiny’s sight. I thought I was supposed to tell people the future, but then Denonfy came to me and said I was being too clear, but it was too late, word had spread, so I had to come up here, and well,”—he took a puff of his pipe—“here we are.”
Damien wasn’t entirely sure he understood. If prophecy were prophecy and if everything the oracle saw was destined to occur, one couldn’t reasonably change anything, big or little. But then he looked at Amma once again, the pout to her lips, her indignation at the oracle’s refusal to help, the soft curve of her neck as she tipped her head and her hair fell away, and he did understand, at least a little bit, how possible change could be.
“So, you.” The oracle pointed to Amma and snapped her out of the deep thought she was having. “You have a question for me?”
Amma nodded and gestured to Damien.
He pulled out the pendant but hesitated. “Perhaps, instead, I should ask about this since my question cannot be answered.”
She shook her head. “You’ll come up with something else.”
“But, Amma, this is a once-in-a-lifetime—”
“Twice.”
“Maybe, but I think—”
“My mind’s made up,” she said flexing her fingers.
“She wins,” said the oracle and took another puff. Whether they were judging the conversation or divining the future, he wasn’t sure, but Damien handed over the pendant.
Amma raised it up so the broken gem swung from its chain, shifting up onto her knees and looking very serious. “This is The Dreadcouncil’s Fermentable Pendant of Approximated Bogholes and Noninfectious Corsets—”
“That’s somehow wronger than the last time,” Damien mumbled.
Amma pursed her lips. “The Dreadcouncil’s Formidable Pendant?”
“One would think, but no.”
“Forgettable?”
Damien chuckled. “Apparently.”
The oracle put up a hand. “I know what it’s called.”
“Right, of course you do.” Amma set her face stony again. “It was given to Damien by the Grand Order of Dread to be thrown into a pit that’s actually an entity that we’re pretty sure is called E’nloc. What will happen when it’s thrown in?”
The oracle’s long features fell slack, head tipping as they gazed at the pendant. “Misery personified shall descend upon a winged beast to unknowingly rescue her own undoing, but when the pieces are reforged, the downfall of the hallowed son, the chosen, and the heartless mother is inevitable.”
Amma waited to be sure they were done, then brought thependant close to her face again, whispering. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Good.” The oracle broke into laughter.
Damien felt the world go out from under him. The hallowed son, the one who would cause the realm to rot and bring about the harbinger of destruction—that was him.
Amma carefully turned back to Damien, but he feared he might destroy the pendant if he took it back. “Why don’t you hold on to that for a little while?”
She nodded reluctantly, tucking it into her own pouch.
The Denonfy Oracle squinted upward through an opening at the top of the tent then picked up a small linen, shaking it out and pocketing it in their robe. “You’ll need more time. Val’tiel and Geoff can keep The Eclipse of Destruction and The Wrong Kaz company, and you can come with me.”
Based on how they gestured, Damien was meant to go along with the oracle. Their words had been loaded, but they stood and began to lumber off, so all Damien and Amma had time for was a quick trading of glances before he had to follow through the hazy wall of smoke.
There was a flap at the back of the tent opening up onto steps built into the stone wall that wound in a tight spiral and led to a final plateau. The mountain’s peak was a small, flat space that fell off steeply to every side, the whole of existence laid out below, both inescapable and isolate. Above, the sky spread out in deepening greys as the light leeched away behind gathering clouds. A bird circled, its silhouette odd with a long tail, and feathers red in the sun’s last rays.
“Take a load off.” The oracle dropped down and splayed out, hands folded behind their head.
