Frostfell_ The Wizards - Mark Sehestedt [68]
As the woman walked to the stone pedestal and stood behind it, her eyes held Amira's. They were set deep beneath hairless brows, and they seemed to deny the blood red light of the cavern and shone back a pale, dusty white-the color of the waxing moon on a cloudless winter night.
You bring the gift to fulfill the covenant. As sworn. Name yourself.
"I-" Amira's voice came out a croak. She swallowed and tried again. "Amira of House Hiloar of Cormyr. You are the… the oracle?"
The woman raised her right arm and pointed to the bisected deer carcass. In life, we walk in death. In death, life. Come.
"Come?"
To me. Now.
Amira took a deep breath and began to walk around the bloody remains of the deer.
Stop! said the figure, though in her head Amira heard the roar of an animal. A predator.
"What-?"
Through death you will walk, or to death you will go.
The woman lifted her head back and took in a deep breath, her nostrils flaring. Though the stench of blood and death filled the cavern, Amira knew the oracle was smelling her, and she knew her promise of death was true.
Amira closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again and walked between the halves of the deer. The blood was warm-almost hot-beneath the soles of her feet. She winced but did not look down as she almost slipped on the entrails. The stench was overwhelming, and tears flowed down Amira's cheeks.
Amira stood before the table, and the tall figure looked down upon her.
I smell winter upon you.
"I… I have come to seek your aid," said Amira. "Something has my son. Something too powerful for me to defeat. I need your help."
The oracle smiled, and it sent a shiver down Amira's back. There was no warmth in it, no pleasure, no human emotion at all. It was merely muscles drawing the lips back over teeth, and the teeth were sharp. The oracle placed her hands on the edge of the table, then bent over and buried her face in the pool of blood and drank, lapping at the blood like an animal. Amira wanted to look away, but she stood frozen.
The oracle straightened, fresh blood smeared over her face and running down her neck and breasts. With her right hand, she seized the still-beating heart, brought it to her open mouth and tore into it. Amira heard the tough muscle snap between the powerful jaws. The oracle put the heart back on the pedestal. Still it beat with a steady, if weaker rhythm.
The oracle chewed and swallowed.
Now, you.
"What?"
Eat. Drink.
"What? I… I can't! The belkagen said noth-"
Again a predator's growl cut her off, and this time Amira heard it in her ears as well as her mind. Her own heart skipped a beat, then set to hammering like a bird's. Looking up into the eyes of the oracle, Amira knew beyond doubt that her life now hung by the barest thread.
Eat the flesh. Drink the blood.
Amira placed her hands on the pedestal as the oracle had done. The stone was warm, and Amira almost thought she felt a pulse beating within it. Before her sense and thirty years of ingrained Cormyrean propriety could talk her out of it, Amira plunged her face into the blood. She felt her hair fall around her, soaking up the blood, and she drank. Not just a sip, for at the first taste a thirst she had never known opened in her innermost being, and the blood down her throat seemed both to slake it and make her even more aware of the need to be slaked. Amira drank until her body cried out for air, then pushed herself up.
The oracle looked down on her, eyes still shining, but now Amira thought she could almost see her own reflection in those pale depths.
Now eat and fulfill the pact.
Amira reached out. Her hand was trembling, but not from fear or weakness. Amira could feel the blood coursing through her, filling her spirit with a strength and warmth she had never known. Her skin burned with sensation, feeling even the tiniest stirring of air. Scents overwhelmed her-raw flesh, warm blood, stone older than Cormyr itself, the