The Shattered Oracle

3 - As Oracles are Wont to Do (Revised)

"Are you sure that Mom isn't dead? I'm pretty sure she's dead."

Serranos crossed his arms in defiance while staring across the room at his father. He lifted one of his hands, giving it a shake to break free of the loose-fitting sweater that he wore. He lifted one of his knobby fingers up to the bridge of his glasses to push them higher on his face.

"For the last time. Your mother isn't dead. I already told you this."

Thraya stood at the other end of her father's working area, nearby the window, taking in the conversation between Serranos and their father. Her brother wasn't listening and her father had pulled away from his desk — still sitting in his chair — almost pleading with Serranos to drop his insistance on this subject.

"I know what I saw. Mom even told me; ghulgs are the shades of those that have died."

"I don't know what we saw that night, but it wasn't a shade or a revenant. I got a letter from your mother this morning. She says she's fine and she's going to look into what happened."

"I don't believe you."

Thraya's father lifted a crumpled set of parchments from his desk and offered them to Serranos. His eyebrows lifted up while his eyes went from the set of documents to his son. He shook the pages a moment before Serranos finally snatched them up greedily.

"She says it might have been a dream we all shared. Or some kind of psychic omen. I don't know all of this oracle mumbo-jumbo. Thraya, do you know the name of it? When people can subconsciously manifest entities from their dreams..."

Her father turned to look at her, he leaned on the back of his wooden chair. Serranos had already made his way across the room, finding a comfortable section of floor to sit on and sift through the letters from his mother. He adjusted his glasses several times and exaggerated his scholarliness at dissecting the words before him.

"Nethengheist." Thraya blurted out absent-mindedly. "I don't think it's that, though. Usually, that's a projection of a single person's powers of Haeth. It can manifest as a trickster entity, a demon-like entity, or just a whirlwind of energy. It usually only happens to young people who haven't yet realized their potential for magickal energy. Those people who can't adequately tap the aethyr."

Thraya took a few steps further into the room, walking to her father in a sort of haze. She detoured sharply to make her way over to her brother. She had decided that his time with the papers was up. She wanted to read what her mother had said. She gave Serranos a hard kick with the toe of her left foot to his thigh.

Serranos belted out a whine and glared beneath his glasses at his older sister. He lifted up the papers and held them against his chest. His tongue came out in yet another act of defiance.

"Stop it, you two. I think it might be a 'whatever-geist.'"

"Nethengeist."

"Thank you, but mind your elders, Thraya. Like you said, it's caused by untapped powers of Haeth. The gods old and young, your mother gave all of you that kind of capability." Thraya's father mused and turned back to his desk for a moment. He tapped his fingers on the edge of the large wooden desk. "Who knows what all four of you are capable of. All it took was one of you to blow out the side of the damned house."

"I already apologized for that." Thraya turned from her brother to stomp a foot and stare at her father's back, as he idly rummaged through some papers on his desk. "It's bad enough I had to give up my room to the two gremlins until the work crew is finished. For the sake of Tolesh, I was just trying to save everyone."

"Hmmph. I know. But, I still lost a month's wages to fix that, dear. Surely there are better ways to slay monsters than almost killing our entire family by leveling our house over our heads." Thraya's father swiveled in his chair to face her directly. "Like I was saying, untapped potential for Haeth. You've got it. Gods know the twins have it. Serranos probably has it."

"We aren't 'untapped', father." Thraya gave a long sigh and relaxed her posture. "I've been studying at the Collegium since I was six. I should have graduated last year if it wasn't for Serranos being so damned slow..."

"Lay off your brother. He's young. He's already head of his class. Your mother told you about this before she left."

"Whatever-" Thraya scrunched up her freckled nose. "But, like I was saying. I'm trained in Haeth. Serranos is studying for the Guardians; he's already learned the beginnings of the elemental disciplines. The twins, although strange have already realized their abilities with Haeth."

The door to the workroom opened with a slight creak. Both twins stood in the doorway as if summoned due to some geas, by their mere mention. The two entered the room, shutting the door behind them. In unison, they marched over to Serranos and sat behind him. Each of them took a moment to glance at their older brother and then back to the other as if they were talking to each other without words about what they found inside their older brother's skull. They were letting him read the documents — doing all the work — then they were picking the thoughts right from his mind.

"Like I was saying-" Thraya walked over to the twins and began to scold them with her thoughts. They picked up these chidings and stared blankly back at her. "I don't think it was us that created the entity with our powers. It distinctly felt like the entity was trying to enhance, corrupt, or even drain our abilities when it was here."

"Maybe Old Ollianes did it."

Serranos blurted the words out while still being lost in the letter pages on his lap. He gave a moment, hearing everyone else's silence, to let the thought sink in. Behind him, the twins looked at him then to each other and then cocked their heads to stare at Thraya. They picked up the thoughts that were forming in their sister's mind, looked back to each other, and then shook their heads in unison.

"No, Serranos. I don't think Master Ollianes would do that. He would have the abilities to do it. But, why would mother's old mentor want to disturb us like that? He's old, he's creepy, and I certainly don't trust him, but what motivation might he have for such a thing?"

"Now you're going on a witch-hunt after some old man?"

Thraya's father's voice started before he had fully turned around in his chair. He gave a stern look back to Thraya and then held it upon Serranos until the boy looked up. Thraya's father had never liked Master Ollianes and often would complain loudly at Thraya's mother about how she spent more time with that 'old coot' than with her own family. The old oracle of the Sharr-vhult was a point of resentment in their relationship.

"Yeah, it doesn't make much sense. Master Ollianes wants Mom to spend more time at the Ullthosian Sanctum. He's all into Mom being a part of that damned ritual in eight months. He'd know by attacking us with a nethengheist like that, it would only make Mom want to come home faster. Or abandon the ritual altogether."

Thraya stood behind her brother with her arms crossed and her head down in severe contemplation. She lifted her right hand up to rub at her temples. She kept fighting against the situation, trying to make sense of it. There had to be a rational explanation.

"What if it's some kind of twisted test? Ollianes did it to make mother choose between us and him? You know how he always acted towards us during meals and fests when Mom invited him here. He always looked down his nose at us." Serranos took a minute to look over his shoulder at the twins. "And you remember how he always kept being really creepy about the two gremlins. He kept trying to touch Jhulessi's head when she was still a baby."

The twins stopped and looked at each other with a startled expression. Jhulessi lifted her hair up so that Nesbinet could rub her head in pantomime with the memory coming out of their brother's mind. Jhulessi shook her head and Nesbinet stopped. She leaned forward and began to massage his head as well. Nesbinet gave a queer look.

"You've been listening to your mother's and my arguments too much. Stop it. Don't make any more allegations about that senile old fool."

Thraya's father turned back to his work in a huff and his voice was getting cross. Something about pinning the event on the old oracle didn't feel right to Thraya. He was creepy, and he was capable of just about anything in her mind, but the presence she felt in her sibling's room that night didn't mesh with that accusation. The feeling felt like her very mother in the room; a dark, twisted, and unholy reflection of her mother, but very much like her.

"It could be a different kind of omen."

The voice was quiet like a whisper. At first, Thraya didn't understand if it was spoken or was some errant telepathic thought occurring to her mind. It was when she saw her father turn to look over at the twins that she realized it was from Jhulessi.

"We've felt that kind of thing before. We call them 'ripples.' Sometimes the energies don't move just right. Sometimes they flow upstream."

Thraya's father's eyes went wide, both at the shock of hearing his youngest children's voices, but also at the complex and bewildering thoughts that such young minds could produce. Thraya leaned forward, putting her hands on her knees and knelt down into a stoop beside the twins. Serranos remained oblivious and focused on the letter.

"Stream of thoughts? Of energy?"

Thraya let her voice run with her thoughts. The twins were always vague when they spoke, being more adept with thoughts and complex concepts rather than with verbal communication. It was their strength and their weakness.

"No. Time."

Jhulessi looked over to Nesbinet, waiting for him to take over. A crackle of subtle energies moved between them. The next mouth to begin speaking words would be Nesbinet's.

"All of you think of time as a river that only flows downhill. Once you've passed a point in the river, you never see it again. You have a memory of it; an echo. That is all."

Nesbinet stopped and allowed Jhulessi to eagerly pick up where he left off.

"This is a flawed way of seeing. Time is too complex for that. The ripples we see can move through time into the past. With enough energy, all things can be. No matter how many limitations you think exist between you and it."

"You're losing me. I got that ripples can flow backward in time. I've learned about that at the Collegium. This is the ultimate source of divination. This is the crux of the Haeth arts. I, understand that. Are you trying to say that Mom, will die? That her shade could travel back in time to haunt us? Maybe she is warning us?"

Thraya took a seat in front of the twins on the floor. She was startled by how many words they had bothered to speak in such a short frame of time. Her father was equally as awestruck as it seemed his jaw was about to hit the floor from his perch on his chair.

"Hmm." Nesbinet mused for a moment while letting his hand move toward and then clutch his twin sister's. "Not a haunting. Not something as basic as what you said. More..." He trailed off.

"More like an echo from the possibility of what could be. It is not foreseen by us, or by Mother if she is to die. She could die. In one of many worlds like this, she will die. This is the ripple from the..." Jhulessi turned to look at her brother for the proper word.

"The Many; the One; the All; time and reality is like an onion that gets more complex with each layer you enter. You never know if you're going out or in if you break away from the layers and float above the streams. So many layers and so many times. So many choices of what could be, what is, what was, and what will never be."

The room went silent for a moment. Thraya leaned forward and extended her energy out to the twins so that they could transfer the complex thoughts and images in their minds to her directly. The thought of an infinitely complex onion of time was more than she could handle.

"What in Gehemol are you two on about? Time? Onions? Ripples?"

Their father's voice was filled with bewilderment, concern, and a bit of anger at the confusion that was happening. Ideas of Haeth had always been beyond him. He usually just referred to how strange his wife's lifestyle was, and thought of it almost as a disease or strange predilection that she passed on to her children. He always felt removed whenever magickal topics came up.

"So, we were a conduit in a way. This ripple in time and reality came after us, because of our powers. This was an omen, then. Perhaps Mom is right in her letter."

Thraya took the twin's hands in her own. Her father continued to lean his chin over the wooden back of his chair. He lifted his head for a moment to give it a furious shake, trying to get the nonsensical thoughts out of his mind. Serranos continued to be enthralled with the parchments being strewn on the ground in front of him as he finished reading them.

"It's the Ullthosian Temple. I think that is what is causing the ripples."

Serranos' voice was curt and monotone as he spoke. He didn't lift his head from the papers. He had two across his lap while he let his index fingers of both hands run across the parallel lines of both papers.

"The reason Mom said she would be gone for two years is because of the ritual she has to do to prepare for the Ullthosian Temple. Do you remember what she said to me before she left? She said she had to make a prophecy for some future King or Queen to save the world. Like Boulka had in the old Morthavi legends."

The rest of the children remained silent and focused on their brother's words. Thraya's father had returned to muttering under his breath as he sorted papers on his desk.

"'Two years to prepare.' That's what Mom said. She mentions here in her letter how worried she is about going to the Ullthosian Temple. Few have gone and fewer have returned from that place. Apparently, it's a place of power. Where the tapestry of time frays and the barriers between worlds are weak."

"Serranos, are you saying she's going to die there, or that the whole thing is a mistake in time?"

Thraya scrunched up her nose as she spoke. This whole situation was more than she had learned about at the Collegium. Matters of divination, magick, the gods, and the celestial realms were all very complex but this wasn't an academic quandary, this was personal. Her attachment to the situation made everything muddy, uncertain, and very frustrating.

"Mom could die. Or she might not. Like the two gremlins said, it could just be an echo of what could be. An echo of what happened in another world based off of something that Mom did or didn't do. We won't know for certain until she does it."

"So what are we supposed to do then? How are we supposed to fix this? How are we supposed to understand what happened? Should we go to the Sanctum and stop her?"

Thraya cut into her brother's words as her nerves were beginning to wear. She never liked things that were confusing. She never liked being in situations she had no control over.

"We aren't. We won't."

The words came from her father at his desk. He didn't look up. His hands continued to shuffle paper, sorting them into neat piles for his written responses later.

"We trust in your mother's ability to do what she is in this world to do. She's the most powerful oracle known to our people. She can handle whatever is thrown her way. I don't care what happened in another version of reality. I don't care about the possibility of the matter. I don't care about phantoms in the night. Your mother will come back to us. Your mother will be fine. Your mother will accomplish what she set out to do."

Thraya's father cocked his head slightly to the side, stopping his sorting as he did so. He stared at the children from the side of his vision. The emotions cascading from him were those of raw determination and true faith in his wife's abilities.

"Go quandary about other matters. Go play like normal children, for the god's sakes. Know as I know, right now, that your mother will be fine. Stop giving power to shades and nightmares. Put your faith where it belongs, with our blood, with your Mom."

Thraya's father turned his gaze back to his work. He picked up a writing stick with his right hand and began to scratch away at a few papers in front of him.

"Don't mention it again. I'm not going to threaten a punishment. I shouldn't have to. You know as do I. Keep faith in your mother and don't mention it, again."

The children all looked to their father. Thraya got up to her feet. The twins sat motionlessly and then slowly got up into a slouch. Serranos had tucked the papers under his arm and got up as well. All of the children gave a nod towards their father's wishes and left the room quietly. Maybe some things were best left unknown — Thraya began to ponder in her mind — and some things simply can't be solved.

***

The first bodily sensation that Maenthrai could feel as her consciousness erupted into her body once more, was that of her lungs filling up with air as she prepared to scream. Her eyes tore open at once, taking in all of the whirling light from the city around her. Those familiar shades of reds, blues, and purples danced around the edges of her sight like taunting spectres. At the center of her sight was a great black chasm that seemed to gnaw away at the central part of her vision. The vertigo she earlier felt was intensified as she felt herself falling forward into that shadowy emptiness before her. The same darkness that slowly came into focus with more and more details within its abyssal form.

As her eyes adjusted to their mortal limitations with the speed that only the adrenaline shock of a deadly threat could provide, she could make out the silhouette of a railing as well as some rock debris being swallowed into the shadows ahead of her. Within a mere moment, a sound like rolling thunder made its way toward her ears as the first pieces of debris struck the darkened cobblestones far ahead.

The sensations of touch she felt were erratic, making her feel nauseous. Her arms were at her sides, held up and grasping at nothing. The chill wind that blew through the streets ahead and upward at her began to assault her face. Her bare feet from when she had been inside writing, were losing their purchase on the cold and rocky surface that was rising up behind her. With a start, her full faculties returned and she realized the balcony she had been standing upon had given way; she was now falling towards her end.

The last of her panicked inhalations filled her lungs as she prepared to give one long, last scream of mortal fear. She could feel the tensed muscles of her throat and her chest as they might burst at any moment. Moments began to slow down as the final shots of adrenaline coursing through her arteries heightened very one of her mortal senses to a fine razor's edge.

It was in this moment of deadly fear, right before giving into the nihilism of abandoning her life, that she felt two large hands grab the back of her robes. One seized around her shoulders, the other dug in around her thighs. These mighty hands gave a hard yank on the fabric around her body and on the captured flesh they dug into. She soon felt herself being pulled away from the precipice before her.

Her attempts at a last scream — more instinct-driven than a desire — were robbed from her as the breath in her lungs came out of her throat in a single hard aspiration rather than a final, shrill cry. Her stomach felt like it would erupt from her mouth right after the air from her lungs. She had been stopped in mid-air, hanging over what was left of the shattered bits of balcony strewn across the streets below. The same hard tug which seized her yanked her further back toward the balcony doors behind her.

As she flew through the air — half-stunned and entirely bewildered — her mind began to calm down almost immediately. Her senses were still flared up with animalistic focus, yet her cognitive senses began to return to her from her primordial state. Her mind switched into an emotional sense of anger and embarrassment with herself. Soon, a savage gravity took hold over her body as she saw a frightened face of a young woman pass by her, off to her right. Her faculties, still returning but not coherent enough to recall the finer details of the young woman's name. Despite this, a section of Maenthrai's mind wanted to give out a breathy chuckle at how dumb-founded the poor, young woman looked.

Maenthrai felt her left leg hit the stone of the balcony by the doorway, soon followed by her right foot and her buttocks. The impact was hard, but the merciful tides of adrenaline in her system drowned the pain out into a hollow echo.

As she impacted, her head got knocked upward. This allowed her to see the strained face of the bearded man who had yanked her free from the maw of the abyss a moment earlier. In this dilated sense of time, Maenthrai was able to take in all the details of this man's face and form. His eyes were closed, his teeth gritted together with immense strain. Beads of sweat ran down from his dark hair-line, being collected in his wispy brown-and-gray brow. The hulking arms and broad shoulders of his frame were barely constrained beneath a series of leather straps and buckles. Large molten-metal plates were attached to many of those leather straps. The salt-and-pepper hair on his head ended in a loosely braided ponytail, the end of which was held together with metal molten right into the collected ends of his hair. Unlike the young woman she had passed by, she had no mirth concerning this person, she knew he had just saved her from a most dire fate.

With the last impact of her head against the crystalline glass of the metal door, her senses returned fully to their normal focus and speed. Tremendous pain erupted up from her body and the smell of her own blood filled her nose. The last impact on her head was still a hollow one, but that only lasted for the briefest of seconds, before the pain tore through her entire skull. She was back in the mortal world — such as it was — completely now.

"She-" A female voice stammered for a moment. "She almost died!" The voice changed in pitch as the woman ran towards Maenthrai who was now sprawled against the doorway. "What in Gehemol?!"

The large man let go of Maenthrai's robes, slowly. His knuckles were white with strain and his fingers seemed to quiver. "What in-" His voice broke from lack of breath, yet he continued after he took in another. "Hoelv, were you-" Another deep breath. "Thinking?!"

Maenthrai raised her right hand up to the impact point on her head. She let her fingers run through her long, fine, blood-colored hair until she felt her scalp. She continued to train down over the most painful parts of her skull — noticing a bump that was beginning to form — until she felt satisfied enough to pull her fingers up to her face. Rivulets of her blood-colored hair fell away from her hand, slowly exposing the remnant blood spots on her flesh. There wasn't much, which was a mercy. She knew from many personal experiences just how badly most head wounds could get. Thankfully, it was mostly just an impact rather than gash.

The large man leaned forward, putting his rough and meaty hands on his knees. He gave a few puffs of air while the look on his face turned from one of strain to one of confusion. "Surely, you weren't trying to end it all, were you?" His eyebrows peaked and scrunched together. He raised his left hand from his knee, offering it outward to Maenthrai. She leaned forward and took his hand. With a burst of strength, he managed to raise both of them up to their feet.

"Hyah! Ha!" The young woman on the other side of the collapsing balcony clapped her hands together and stomped one of her feet. It was a moment of unbridled, youthful emotion which she immediately regretted once she heard some crumbling from the balcony beneath. She froze for a second, spreading her feet out and looking over to the large man who still held Maenthrai's hand. The young woman's green eyes went wide and she immediately pushed by Maenthrai into the metal doors. "Maybe we should get off this thing and get back inside, neigh?"

"A good idea if ever I heard one." The large man let Maenthrai's hand fall and he began to softly push her towards the door with his revealed — broad and hairy — forearms. "We were able to save you once, we might not be able to do so twice."

Maenthrai followed his directions and squeezed through the rusted doors after the incessant pushing and scrabbling by the young woman ahead of her. As she stepped over the threshold and took her first step into the warm and sedate confines of her room, she looked over her shoulder to see the large man lift his forehead up one more time at her. It was less a look of confusion and more one of childish fear mixed with impatience.

"Heh! Here we are, Hildger, in some forgotten ruin; we've been on the run for years from some immortal horror; we're delving into forbidden magicks we have no business bringing up; all for this here, oracle, right?" The young woman spun on her leather-covered feet in the middle of Maenthrai's room. She stopped on her toes to look Maenthrai straight in the eye as the oracle let her other foot take hold on the stone floor. "We've suffered much and are just about to let her know that all our efforts and sacrifices are bearing fruit." She stopped and lowered her eyes at Maenthrai. Her feet and lower legs arched outward as she did so while she pivoted on the balls of her feet. "Finally." She looked back up and swung her arms in loops at her sides. "...And here she goes, wants to jump off a damned balcony!"

Maenthrai caught herself glaring at the young woman for a moment, still somewhat groggy and slow in her mental reactions. She hadn't realized that she cut the man behind her off at the doorway. He managed to push by her, sliding from her left into the room. She took a few steps closer to her writing desk. His eyes were still panicked at the prospect of being trapped outside on the crumbling balcony, yet his mouth was pursed to scold the young woman inside the room. Maenthrai took one more step forward, giving the large man even more room to get in and decided to save him the trouble of articulating his words.

"I wasn't trying to kill myself." Maenthrai's words were curt and seemed to scrape out of her throat. She hadn't realized how tense up she had been in her mortal terror. She cleared her throat and took a few steps closer to her chair. "I was lost in visions." She sat down in the chair, lifting her arms up to hug at her chest.

"Well-" The large man named Hildger interjected as he finally had both feet on secure stone. "That is what oracles do, right?" He squinted his eyes and gave a scathing sideways glance to the young woman who continued to stand defiantly in the middle of the room.

The young woman lifted a finger-less, leather-gloved hand up to her face and placed her index finger on her cheek. She still stood bow-legged on the balls of her feet to accentuate her almost-juvenile dismissiveness. "Yes-" She feigned introspection for a moment and then lunged forward a few steps. "That is what they like to do. Being all mystical and stuff." She lifted both of her arms up and moved them in waves to emphasize her last few words. She pursed her thin lips into a round shape as if she would begin to make an "Ooooo!" sound, yet remained silent.

Hildger reached out with one of his large hands and grasped the young woman directly by the head. His blackened and calloused fingers seemed to seize the woman's entire skull with a single palm. The mighty hand seemed to dwarf out all of the young woman's features. The back of his hands were covered in a few leather belt-straps he most likely used in holding his forging equipment. His fingers clasped down tighter, with the woman's brown and blond hair sticking up jaggedly between each. Her voice rang out beneath his hand but was muffled heavily. He gave her a push, backward, causing her to land on the side of the bed.

"If you really must know. I was projecting. I felt homesick." Maenthrai closed her eyes and turned away from the two for a moment. She let her arm fall to the wooden top of the table. Her fingers splayed out over the wood, flexing and moving around like tendrils. She clasped her fingers downward, feeling the wood give in under her fingernails as she idly began to scratch at it. She could feel the rage burning up from within her. Her energies were slowly coming back from the exhaustion her earlier astral projection had caused. The rage wasn't directed at her saviors, nor at the presence, she felt while she was in the astral world; the rage was directed — completely — at herself.

"You sent your spirit back to that accursed place?" Hildger's eyes grew wide and he let his hand fall away from the young woman's face limply. He further let his shoulders slump forward and he took two thunderous steps toward Maenthrai at her desk. "You told all of us how dangerous that place is. That the thaekkuz witch still lives there and stalks you and your brother. I remember Thaellon explaining to us just how murderous that witch is." He took a laborious and wheezing breath before he let a tiny question escape his lips. "Why?"

Maenthrai lost control over her rage. She felt her fingers clench tightly at the wood of the desk. The wood itself screamed under the assault of her nails, splaying up ancient splinters and weathered lacquer. Once her fingers were clenched, she hit the table hard, causing it to jump a few inches from the floor. A gust of wind blew in through the open balcony doors and tore several books from a nearby shelf. Each of the books went flying to the floor at the other end of the room. With the bang and supernatural events, both the large man and young woman jumped. Hildger's eyes went wide for a moment, while the young woman lifted her arms to shield her face.

Once the outburst had ceased, the young woman lowered her arms. Her earlier youthful behavior had dropped to a look of concern. She took a step backward and clutched at the fabric of Maenthrai's bed-covers while half-standing against the bed.

"It was a moment of stupidity." Maenthrai got up to her feet. Her robes seemed to billow and flow around her on a wind with no discernible source. The energies were crackling around her, but much more subdued than before. Her anger at herself was bleeding heavily into reality, using her powers as a conduit into the material world. Both of the metal doors slammed shut with a loud groan followed by a thunderous impact. "It was a moment of weakness!"

"Well, you're here now, neigh? It was just a spirit journey, you said." The young woman gave a half-hearted grin. She lifted one of her hands from the bed and offering it outward. Her palm was upturned as if she were balancing an invisible object in her grip. "You got lost in your head. As oracles are wont to do, and you almost fell off a balcony like a clumsy sod." Her eyes closed as she chuckled at the thought; it was more nervousness coming out of her than mirth. "We save you. No big deal, neigh? Don't say 'thank you' or anything."

"No." Hildger's voice was low and rumbling when he let the word slip out of his mouth. "It's not that easy, Wynnol." He let his broad shoulders slump some more until looked like he was half-crouched forward in defeat. "Maenthrai betrayed us."

Maenthrai stopped to stare at the large man with the corner of her eyes. She wanted to direct some of her building rage at him for his words. She could feel sparks of telekinetic energy rippling out from her like tendrils. Each of the tendrils — imperceptible to anyone other than a well-trained oracle — reached out, snapping like whips in the air. All it took was for one of those conduits of aethyric energy to make contact with his body and she might toss him across the room like a rag doll. It didn't matter his size or how far her will might throw him. She held her powers in check, however, letting the tendrils dissipate or return to her. She knew he was right. His words were honest. Her emotional weakness, her bad choices, and her carelessness had betrayed them all.

"I don't understand." Wynnol kept her hand aloft and turned her large, green eyes toward Hildger. She scrunched up her nose for a moment, causing the freckles on her youthful cheeks to bounce up and down. "She projected, saw her home, had an accident. The balcony really wasn't that big a deal. Like I said, nothing to say 'thank you' for." She stopped and set those green eyes like daggers at Maenthrai. "It's only an eighteen story drop, or so." She softened her eyes and let a morbid chuckle out.

"I take it, when you traveled to Oerstav Caelii, something there let you know the Mad Hag felt your presence?" Hildger turned his attentions back to Maenthrai and ignored the ramblings of Wynnol. "Mileana explained some of how projection works to me." He turned his eyes towards Wynnol with these words. His brow arched severely and his jaw was set at an angle. He was using his body and tone to tell the young woman to pay attention to what he would now say. Obviously, these two must have a history together. "You weren't able to disperse your energies by taking a long way back to your body, right? When you were falling, the mortal shock drove your spirit to you directly." Hildger took a deep breath. "Mileana told me a similar thing happened to her when she was training under you. She was projecting as part of an exercise and fell into a stream. The shock sent her snapping back to her body immediately." He lowered his gaze and took a moment of contemplation. "So, whatever spooked you — well, we know it was the Mad Hag — at that horrible place, will be able to follow your soul-trail to this place."

"Sounds like a lot of gobbly-gook." Wynnol crossed her arms over her chest, giving a long sigh and rolling her vibrant eyes in tiny circles. She gave a puff of air to blow a few errant hairs from her low bangs out of her view. "She floats to her old home. Evil witch feels her out. Boo! Scary! Now follows her here, just because she started to fall?"

"Essentially, and ineloquently, yes." Maenthrai let the words escape her without any effort. Her previous rage was still simmering inside of her, but she felt more self-conscious now that two other people were dissecting her actions right in front of her. They were discussing her folly like she was some specimen in a botanist's lab. "For all the work we've done in securing this place, my selfishness has now doomed us all." She lifted her hands to her face and bent forward. "...And so close to finishing what we came here to do."

"She's your mother, neigh?" Wynnol interjected, oblivious to Maenthrai's emotions. "Mothers can be killed. She comes here, we drop the Great Forger's Hammer on her head." The young woman smiled and clapped her hands together for effect. She held the smile for a moment while looking at Maenthrai, moving her eyebrows up and down hoping to get Maenthrai's attention and some sort of affirmation towards her statement. Maenthrai kept her face in her hands while ignoring her. Wynnol, now feeling spurned by Maenthrai's in-attention looked over the Hildger, seeing him standing there shaking his head at her while glaring softly with his brown eyes.

"Come on!" Wynnol blurted and crossed her arms over her chest. She pouted her lips out slightly. "I don't mean to be insensitive. I know I wouldn't want to have to kill my own mother-" She lifted her left hand up and let it fall out at the wrist as if she were balancing something only she could see and touch within it. "But — honestly, here — if it comes to us or her-" A large grin spread across her face, again. Her baby-like cheeks lifted up as her mouth stretched to its limits. Her white teeth revealed themselves, with feline-like incisors peeking over her bottom lip. The grin gave her face a wicked sort of look. "I choose us. The hag can die."

"I'm sure if it truly is as easy as you say, the Guardian Knights of Morrthault would have dispatched her the minute she started tearing up Neshran." Hildger shook his head and turned his face away from the younger woman. He lifted his right hand up to tug on the end of his beard, both as a form of contemplation and to pull some errant strands from beneath his metal neck-brace. "This isn't some mindless thaekkuz come back from the dead, Wynnol. I've heard of Merithault's-" Hildger stopped in mid-breath. Maenthrai quickly lifted her head up from her hands to stare hard at Hildger for speaking that name. "Erm — the Mad Hag's — power. She isn't to be trifled with." He gave a long sigh and turned his eyes from Maenthrai over to Wynnol who seemed to be rolling her own eyes at him as he spoke. "They say she was imbued with dark powers, maybe even possessed by the Dark Master Ullthos himself. She can kill with a thought; she doesn't tire; she doesn't die. There is no humanity left in that creature."

"If you saw what I saw and felt what I felt when I returned to that place-" Maenthrai got up to her feet again and tried to remain resolute despite the swirling emotions tugging at her once again. "You'd know just how dire our situation is. Especially, as of right now." She clenched the muscles in her arms and hands, curling her long fingers into fists at her sides. "Enough of this! Tell me what you came here to tell me! You said the great project is only bearing 'fruit?'"

Wynnol shook her head as if trying to exorcise the emotion in the room like a dog might shake moisture from its fur. She took a few steps toward Maenthrai, happy now to do what she came here to do. She saw that Hildger was about to open his mouth and answer Maenthrai's question, but she held up her right hand to cut him off. "More than just 'fruit.'" She gave a chuckle, once more. "We've already finished!"

Hildger gave a grumble and stepped closer as well. He was frustrated at not getting to share the important news first. "The young lass is correct, Maenthrai. Our work is completed. We came to summon you back to the Hestumarch to see the spheres for yourself. Serranos is already there waiting. So is Thaellon." He lifted up his left hand, palm up-turned towards Maenthrai like a gentleman might ask for a lady's hand. He then moved is hand away slyly, moving it to point in the direction of the doorway. "We can wait for you to prepare yourself if you need to. I think with the latest development which now hangs over our heads, all expediency might be best. If you pardon my directness."

Maenthrai arched one of her auburn eyebrows quizzically and then gave an exaggerated nod towards Hildger; willing to play along with his request. "You're right. Thank you." She took a few steps forward, passing right to the side of Wynnol who still leaned on the side of her bed. Maenthrai placed her left hand on the young woman's shoulder. Her action was more as a gesture to move out of her way than anything kind or supportive.

Wynnol looked up at her with a puzzled look, then down at the hand that still held her shoulder. She reached up one of her hands to quietly push Maenthrai's hand away. She didn't understand the gesture and scrunched up her face at the unsolicited physical contact.

"We must anticipate that my mother is already on her way here. I don't know how much time we have exactly. It could be days, or it could be a matter of hours. I don't know how powerful she has become over the last few decades." Maenthrai gave a long sigh and looked over to the book that Jephrin had tossed on her bed. "The last time Thaellon and I ran into my mother, just a few years ago, we almost didn't survive the experience." Maenthrai looked back to Wynnol and she could feel her nostrils flare with subdued anger. She was tired of trying to be subtle with the girl. She leaned over her bed, grabbing up the book that Jephrin had tossed near the middle of it.

As she leaned forward she gave a hard push with her hip against the body of Wynnol, dislodging her from leaning on the bed and shuffling her slightly into the middle of the room. Maenthrai placed the worn book on the nightstand nearby the bed and began to smooth out the wrinkles on the bed-covers. She gave a slight glance over her shoulder at the young woman, giving a glare of territoriality at her. Once finished trying to remove the young woman's disruption from the bed, she looked over towards the large man to her left. "I will rush my rituals and ceremonies, but given that these artifacts will force me into visions beyond time, I must purify and prepare myself. I shouldn't be more than four or five hours. I'll meet you-"

"You don't need to." Wynnol interrupted Maenthrai's words with a very flat tone. Maenthrai moved to gaze back over at the short woman whose arms were crossed high on her chest. Her chin was held up in the air as she spoke. Hildger took a step forward and pressed in right behind the young woman.

"Of course I-" Maenthrai began to start a rebuttal. She tried to keep her tone civil but the behavior of the brash and far-too-young Azhemyra was beginning to wear on her nerves. She felt her earlier rage begin to rise up. She didn't have the time to explain these matters of being an oracle to someone so young and impetuous. Oracles always had to perform rituals of purification before undertaking such deep and intense visions into time, lest the impurities of mind and body taint the divinations they must interpret.

"No — actually — you don't." Wynnol continued. She wasn't budging one bit on this; both with her behavior and her words. Maenthrai decided to stop smoothing her bed and idly preening nearing her sleeping area to stand up straight and face Wynnol directly. She proceeded to stare daggers at the headstrong artificer. Wynnol's chin seemed to tip further upward at this.

Hildger reached one of his large and brawny arms over his head. His hand maneuvered between metal plates and leather straps to scratch at his back. He lifted his ponytail up, shortly after this, to reset it over his shoulder. "I think what the young lass is getting at, Haethrex-" He was using Maenthrai's formal title as an oracle. He was obviously nervous about her reaction. "We've, uh-" He began to tug at his beard now while pursing his lips for the briefest of moments while thinking up his next words. "We've taken the liberty of solving that problem, so to speak."

"We perfected your flawed design for the artifacts." Wynnol cut in dryly. She took a step toward Maenthrai defiantly and looked directly up at her. The young woman wasn't more than chest-high to Maenthrai, yet the glimmer in her eyes showed startling resolve. "You don't have to do any of that mystical crap, anymore." Wynnol remained standing a few inches from Maenthrai but deigned to break eye contact for a moment to look over her shoulder at Hildger. She held that position for a moment and returned back to Maenthrai. A look of pride and large smile was on her face. She was showing how proud she was of her and Hildger's work. "Anyone can now use the artifacts to pierce into time or to transfer their memories into the spheres."

"How is this possible?" Maenthrai crossed her arms. The smugness on Wynnol's face was beginning to anger her, as well as the fact that the Azhemyra might have sabotaged all of her efforts just to show off their proficiency. "I only asked that you create enchanted artifacts out of the materials from the old Ullthosian Temple." Maenthrai could feel tendrils of aethyric energy coalescing around her. The energy wasn't more than a slight static in the air, but with every passing moment, she wanted to harness it to slap the look off of Wynnol's face.

"Yes, I stated I would be using them to look back into time, and I hoped they could be used to transfer oracle's knowledge for future use." Maenthrai squinted her ice-blue eyes and lowered her crimson brow. Her full lips began to curl into a snarl, but she did what she could to hold it back. She could not stand to look at Wynnol further, lest she tempt the darkness inside of her to command her abilities, instead she focused her attention on Hildger; the more polite one. "How can divination be possible without the ritual observances of the oracles? These rituals have been passed down since the time of the first Sharr-vhult. These aren't easy tasks; to pierce time, to control thought, and to harness the power of memory."

"Hah!" Wynnol blurted out and took a step back. Her head careened back while her arms still rested high on her chest. "You oracles are so stuck in your old ways! You haven't even bothered to change or alter those rituals..." She trailed off. "Probably since the time the first Morthavi left from Hoelv, neigh?" She dropped her arms and that same left wrist of hers lifted up to go limp, as if she was holding something invisible in it, yet again.

"You stated how important it was that we make the spheres able to store and capture memories, knowledge, and visions. Well, so, that future generations might use them." Hildger scrunched up his face as he spoke. He took a moment to let his lips dance on his face, pursing them from one side to the other. "We did as you asked. But, given that we are Azhemyra and the philosophies we abide-" He trailed off into thought again. He enjoyed choosing his words carefully, even if he talked very slowly. On one hand, Maenthrai commended him for his tact, while on the other his habits were getting annoying. "We to the initiative to, uh-" He lifted his left arm out and began to drum the fingers of his right against the metal gauntlet over his wrist. "I guess, 'stream-line' the process."

"It makes it so that anyone with even the most rudimentary understanding of aethyric energies can use the spheres properly. Latent ability or perfected, it really doesn't matter." Wynnol crossed the room towards the foot of the bed, turning from it and looking back. "The spheres don't just need the Haethrupex arts to work. Like you said when you first convinced Thaellon to come with you here, a few years back. The oracles are being killed off. You and your students are the last, neigh?" She smiled and sat on the foot of Maenthrai's bed. She lifted up one of her legs, bare from the knee down, to slowly cross over her other. "You said the spheres were for future generations. Well, who knows if there are any oracles in the future, let alone anyone proficient in magickal arts."

"I can see that point, but-" Maenthrai couldn't finish her thought before the young Azhemyra cut in.

"You oracles all think you're so special." Wynnol was getting cockier by the moment. "Well, now the 'non-special' people can use the spheres just as well as anyone else. Even a rural hedge witch can use these artifacts just as well as you could. Gehemol! Even a bumpkin farmer could at least use them to call out the basic memories trapped inside. You said the world is ending, after all. The first thing to go when the piss hits the fire is higher knowledge."

"We took the dependency of aethyric energies out of the activation properties of the spheres. We realized that being a part of the Ullthosian Temple for so long, being exposed to all that energy, and thus having that energy contained inside of it-" Hildger stumbled over his words for a moment. "Well, why not use the innate energies and get rid of the activation, all together. Now a common person can at least use them. Maybe not to the depth an oracle or other disciplined mage might-" Hildger let his eyes drop for a moment as his voice tried to catch up with his thoughts.

Hildger wasn't that skilled at articulation, obviously, but Maenthrai could see and feel his mind churning feverishly with thoughts he could barely contain. He was a very proficient artificer, after all. "I mean not to offend. It still takes a lot of skill with the Haethrupex Arts to be able to record and store memories and information into the spheres. We consulted with your oracles for help with that. We just-" He stopped for another moment and caught up with his thoughts, again.

Suddenly, Hildger stormed forward with a burst of nervous energy, grabbing Wynnol by the back of her tunic, almost lifting her from the ground. He moved towards the doorway with her in tow. "We wanted to be on the safe side. Not show off. Just-" He opened the door now. "Who knows what the future has in store for all of us, you know?" Wynnol feigned to fight him as he moved her out the door. He managed to slide her out as if she were nothing more than a rag doll, or a small misbehaving dog. "Let's just go, okay? We'll show you when we get there. Thaellon and Serranos can explain it better than I can."

"I'll take your word for it." Maenthrai followed after the panicked man. In fluid motions she moved towards the door, passing by the foot of her bed to quickly sweep away the ruffles that Wynnol had caused. She snatched up her long-coat that hung from a metal outcropping from the stone wall nearby the doorway.

With an elegant flourish and a stretch of her arms, her coat was over her body. She stopped for a moment in the doorway to look back at the chair that Jephrin had been sitting in for most of the morning. She felt alone without him here to protect and guide her. The loneliness only grew with the dread that began to gnaw at her mind concerning her mother. That inhuman monster making her way with every passing moment closer towards the ruined city. Every thought in her mother's mind — if it could still be called such — was no doubt focused on murder and destruction.

"No rituals! Just hurry up! Thaellon is waiting." Wynnol's voice echoed through the darkened stone hallways outside the room. Her calls were soon followed by her voice making a loud exhalation like she had been impacted in the side. There was a momentary scuffle echoing throughout the walls near the stairwell. "Oh come on, you giant lug!" The voice got softer and more distant. "What in Gehemol was that, 'pardon my directness,' crap? Since when do you kiss people's arses?"

Footsteps resounded as the two made their way down another flight of stone stairs, getting even more distant. "Oh, I see now. You're all gushy because you're worried that stuffy old oracle might look into your mind. See you have a thing for her, neigh?" Another hard impact and scuffle.

Maenthrai lifted her right hand up to pinch at the bridge of her nose. Apparently, these were the most skilled artisans she could find. The last of the Azhemyra artificers of legend. The students she had brought with her were the last of the oracles she could find, and these artificers were the last of Thaellon's students. She had to trust in their abilities, despite some of their lacking personalities. She just hoped the spheres would work as she had originally planned. She needed to find out why her mother became a monster. She and her students needed to use the spheres to store the last bits of wisdom and knowledge they had for future generations to use.

The gods old and new help them all. She let her hand drop from her face, giving a long sigh and then she shut the door behind her. Bereft of her love, separated from her family, removed from her shoanvyr, orphaned from her family, and now hunted by her inhuman mother; Maenthrai felt very much alone.