Chapter 18
Nojan wasn’t sure how to react to what he was hearing. Could Mayra have unwittingly led them to her own mother? And if so, what did this reunion have to do with their mission?
Perhaps it was more likely that the woman was a charlatan, that she was working some angle that would end with them departing with much fewer rubbals than when they’d arrived. Although actual oracles existed, they were exceedingly rare, rare enough that Nojan had never had the pleasure of meeting one in his long lifespan.
He assumed a real oracle wouldn’t bother to tell the future out of a ratty old tent on the lunar colonies. She’d be ensconced in some palace somewhere, at the beck and call of a ruler who needed sage advice. She wouldn’t be hustling tourists for tarot readings, would she?
“My mother?” Mayra’s face was pale, her lips quivering. He could see tears welling in her beautiful eyes. It caused a pain to invade his chest.
Nolan moved close to her, putting an arm around her and pulling her in protectively. “What game are you playing, woman?”
“No game,” she replied. “Believe me, I’m as shocked as you are.” She peered into Mayra’s face, a hand rising as if to touch that face but stopping before she could. “You look so much like your father when he was your age. But you have my eyes.”
Mayra’s face hardened. “I don’t believe you,” she hissed. “You’re a fake, a fraud. Why would I ever think you’d be my mother?”
The old woman recoiled, then shrugged. “That’s as may be. I won’t deny it. But perhaps I should be asking you how you found this old fraud. Or am I to believe that you just showed up on your mother’s doorstep with a paper-thin story?”
Nojan could see the flush that spread over Mayra’s skin and knew she was barely holding on to her anger. “Look, before we fling accusations at one another, let me just ask how you recognized your long-lost daughter?”
The old woman sniffed. “The charm around her neck. It used to sit around mine.” The woman reached into her sizable bosoms and pulled out an old chain. “Now I wear this. Guess I got used to the weight of something around my neck.”
What she wore was a locket, and Nojan leaned in to examine it. She hit a button and the locket sprang open, revealing a small holo-picture inside. It was of a young man with ginger hair and a lopsided grin. Nojan had to admit, the man bore a strong resemblance to Mayra.
“Your father was only nineteen when he seduced me. I was much older, but not much wiser. I’d lived a sheltered life on Territh, the last of an old guard whose wealth and notoriety was fading fast. Your father was one of our few remaining servants, and he took a liking to me.”
The woman looked down, her eyes filling but her voice strong. “When my parents discovered the pregnancy, they fired him and threatened to have him shipped off-world. Instead, he came to me that night and begged me to run away with him. That’s how I ended up here, in the lunar colonies.”
It was with a heavy sigh that she continued. “This wasn’t to be our final destination. Hell, no one thinks they’ll wind up on the moon permanently. Your father signed up for a high-risk mining job on the dark side, figuring that one big payoff would be enough to get us passage to another colony, maybe Venus, maybe even Centauri. He died in a mining accident his first week on the job.”
Nojan couldn’t help but feel compassion for the woman. Either she was the world’s most accomplished actress, or life had dealt her a shitty hand. “So you stayed here, alone?”
The old woman shrugged. “What choice did I have? My family wouldn’t take me back, not in the state I was in. Even if they would have, they would have made my life even more unbearable than it previously was. There was a little insurance money after your father’s death, and I was frugal with it. I decided to go back into the old family business here in the colonies, and it’s provided enough of a living for me to be comfortable.”
“The old family business?” Mayra shook her head. “You mean telling fake fortunes?”
Laughing, the old woman nodded. “They weren’t always fake, but yes. That charm, the one you called a bauble, it’s called the Eye of Tomorrow. It was a gift to our family from a goddess, if you believe the legends. It once graced the neck of the Kings of Arth who were beloved of the goddess and protected by her. It was said that she even granted them gifts, among them, the gift of foresight.”
The woman gestured toward the charm. “I don’t know if any of the legends are true, but my family comprised the last descendants of the Arth line. Over time, our fortunes fell, and the only way to get by was to trade on our name and our supposed goddess-given gifts. The family took up fortunetelling, figuring it was an easy enough way to make a buck. Children of the line were raised on antiquated methods from old Territh, tea leaves, Tarot, star charts. We were once again invited into the finest households, the most prominent among us taking the title of ‘the Great Oracle of Territh,’ and we were able to pull ourselves back from the brink.”
Her eyes were far away. “I was to be the next Great Oracle. At least that’s what my own mother intended. She kept me shut up in the library for most of my life, studying, preparing to use the ‘ancient arts’ to do my part to rebuild our fortunes. Your father would sneak behind the shelves to watch me.” She gave them a wistful smile.
Nojan’s brow furrowed. He was beginning to sense a connection between his mission and the story that was unfolding. “Do you believe any of it? The goddess giving your family gifts?”
The woman’s face was sincere. “Oh, yes. I might not have believed it when I was a child, but now I know it is true.”
“How?” Mayra asked, her voice little more than a whisper.
“She came to me. The Goddess of Light. She told me that I was carrying a girl child in my belly. A girl child with a special power.” The old woman swallowed hard, her eyes growing sad. “And she warned me that danger was coming.”
Nojan’s ears pricked up. “What kind of danger?”
He realized the next part was hard to tell because the woman seemed to stare off into the distance, her voice becoming quiet, the words tumbling out as if she couldn’t stop them. “She was so beautiful, the Goddess. She said that we really were blessed by her presence, and that she had watched over our family for eons.”
A tear made its way down her wrinkled cheek. “I asked her, if she was watching over us, then how had so many difficult things happened to our family. Why had she let your father die? What good was her protection? I could see that my questions made her sad, but she was strong, so strong, and she bore my anger well.”
“She said, ‘I know that your line has experienced your share of challenges, and I could not assist with them all. Know this: there are things that must happen because future events depend on them. It is never easy to accept that, and I share your pain, but when it is time for the Battle of the End, we must be ready.’”
“The Battle of the End,” Nojan mumbled, remembering veiled references to an apocalyptic battle pitting good against evil in a final showdown.
