Death After Death

“Sanctuary,” he answered. It was true, but hardly complete. Still, he didn’t want to say, Servants of a competing religion, both because that would have made them even more wary, and because it wasn’t quite true. The Oracle might be a god, or perhaps something adjacent, but she didn’t seem to worship the divine. If anything, she was hostile to it. Still, these women had spent most of their lives being taught to be wary of mystics, and the followers of the Oracle were definitely that.

“At the peak of Mount Elian is Hepollyon; it’s a place… a city,” he explained. “Honestly, it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. The people that live there lead simple lives, and reject magic as much as the Unspoken do, in their own way.”

Simon explained how anyone who followed him to the peak would never be allowed to leave, though he was quick to clarify that the rule was Hepollyon’s, not his. He counterbalanced that point, though, by pointing out that it was the only place that the Unspoken would never find them.

“Why come all this way if you’re just going to move us from one prison to another?” several women complained, which was fair.

“If you would rather be free but a stranger in these lands, you’re welcome to leave in any city we happen to find,” Simon answered. “If you’d prefer to take your chances with your former brothers, I can take whoever wants to go back to Ionar with me once everyone else is free, but I assure you there is no nicer prison than the Oracle’s city at the top of the world.”

Most of the women were not won over right away, but that was okay. They had time. Along the way, Simon told them all a little about clarity and how that’s what the people in Hepollyon were cultivating. This went over better; many of the Whisperers and sisters had experienced moments of true sight before they’d been recruited by the Whitecloaks; that was the reason they’d been of interest in the first place, so when he told the women that the experience was real, and it might be possible to regain it, many went from doubtful to enthusiastic about their destination.

It was well known that the brothers of the Unspoken could see into the hearts of people. That was in the scriptures and the teachings. The women had been taught that their power was something else, though, something wicked, and when it was gone, it was a sign of purity, so the more Simon explained how the two were one, the angrier they got. They didn’t want to believe it, but Simon answered every challenge with rock-solid rebuttals, and soon, at least on this point, when he was finished, there were still a few doubters, but they had no other options.

Some of the older women, like Sister Annilese, had always harbored such suspicions, but there was a difference between suspecting and knowing. The revelations made for some very quiet days, but as bad as Simon felt, he was glad for the silence. As they approached the mountain, the only distractions were the occasional patrols that stopped them and demanded to see the Queen’s writ until they finally reached the edge of civilization.

They couldn’t bring their wagons any further. They even left most of the horses behind, distributing them to the monastery at the base of the mountain where Simon had stayed on previous treks. While grateful for the unexpected bounty, they looked on in wonder at the procession as it left them behind and ascended.

“Any animal we bring to the top will have to be butchered,” Simon explained. There was little in the way of forage at the peak, and though the residents of Hepollyon would be glad for something besides goat, he saw no reason to kill more animals than were strictly necessary to get their oldest women to the top. Everyone else would have to climb.

Then, they were past all of that and ascending the Path of Kings. The women with Simon hadn’t been able to see the path until he physically guided them to it, which added more mystery to the strange mountain road, but he didn’t have time to think about that just now. It took almost four days because they had to wait out an unseasonal storm in the wake of some cliffs. It was a miserable half-week. He hadn’t climbed a mountain in a long time, but he hadn’t done it with anyone who was unwilling before, let alone several dozen of them. Every day was filled with complaints, and each night he shut his eyes, he thought they might finally mutiny and kill him in his sleep.

He didn’t really care. If they decided that was the preferable answer, well, he’d done his best, hadn’t he?

Still, each morning, he woke up cold and stiff to endure another day up the mountain. Many of the women slept together out of the need for sheer warmth, but he slept alone. He wanted no misunderstandings.

When they were finally close, he raced ahead to be the first one to the door, but that did little good, for the gates were closed to him. Simon knocked once, with the giant brass knocker, and then sat in a meditative posture and waited. He lacked a white robe, or even an off-white one, but he wrapped his white cloak around himself just the same.

By the time the first women began to arrive several minutes later, the door cracked open, and he saw Diara. She was the woman who’d greeted him on his first visit to this place, and the girl who’d grown up as he’d lived here on his longest stays.

She obviously recognized him, but moved past him to greet the other women and ask them the reason for their visit. Unfortunately, the group spoke only Brinnish, and the white-robed guard of the gate spoke only Ionian. Simon didn’t try to help, not right away; instead, he waited to be asked for help, which he dutifully provided.

“We don't usually get foreigners here,” the woman admitted with an uncertain smile.

“Usually,” Simon agreed, before going on to translate for the next sister.

He was a dutiful translator, and only bent what the women were saying slightly to put it in the best possible light, and not just because he knew that Diara would likely be able to read his intent. It was because later he’d have to explain himself to the Oracle.

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For the next couple of hours, that process repeated dozens of times. Simon knew for a fact that so many people hadn’t shown up at once in centuries. With the exception of royal ascents like the one Elthena had done in another life, groups almost never arrived together. There weren’t enough people willing to brave the normally rugged climb, and those who had urgent enough questions to ask were invariably alone.

Still, today Simon taxed every rule of hospitality that they had, and he was sure there would be a price to pay for that, in this and future lives. While no one was promised that they’d be allowed to stay forever, each woman was invited inside for food and rest, and by the time the sun set, only Simon was still outside the gates.

He didn’t even bother to ask when he’d be allowed in. He knew that answer. He’d be allowed in when she said so, and since he almost never saw the oracle while the sun was up, he knew it would be a bit.

As he settled into his waiting game, he noted how much harder it was to hold the now-unfamiliar meditative posture than it had been several years before, when he sat like that for hours without complaint. It was enough to make his old bones creak as he reminded himself that he wasn’t that old yet.

Still, he got used to it, and sometime after he’d mastered his shivering, he started to fall into the old meditative groove. Hours melted by then, and he existed in a sort of fugue state, searching for stars that came and went through the cloud cover.

There were no auras to be found in the heavens, even when his vision was sharpest. Still, in the right mindset, he sometimes thought that if he stared hard enough at the constellations, he could see fate written in the stars.

Tonight, there were no constellations. No whole ones anyway. The best he could do was pick out a shape or two, and that continued until the doors opened to reveal the cloaked figure of the oracle, along with her honor guard.

In the centered state that he was in, Simon’s sight was just strong enough to make her glow like a beacon, and he thought about how she might have looked had he been able to truly appreciate her. It would be enough to blind me all on its own, he mused as she moved toward him in a measured way.

She sat across from him on the cold stone silently and made no move to speak until one of her assistants had poured two cups of tea. Then she said, “I knew you’d return soon, Simon. I knew it; Zoa did too, if you’re interested.”

“I hope she’s well,” Simon answered, not reaching for the tea despite his thirst. He’d hoped that the guardian of the gate would have brought him a meal, or at least a skin of goat's milk, but she hadn’t, which was fair. He’d strained Hepollyon’s hospitality as much as anyone ever had before.

“Tell her, not me,” the Oracle chastised him. “If you still care about her, that is. For her, you’ve only been gone a few years, but for you? How long has it been, Simon? A decade?”

“Longer,” he admitted. “I’ve been gone a long time.”

He didn’t bother to defend himself. He just took the abuse as he took a sip of his tea. Scalding his tongue was worth it to ease his thirst, even a little, which said something about his life as a whole in that moment.

She didn’t ask him about the time he’d been gone any longer than that. From the way she seemed to look at him through her veil, she probably didn’t need to. Instead, they sat in amiable silence, drinking their tea while the wind howled.

When she was done, she finally asked. “Why should I accept the women you’ve tried to saddle me with? We are a refuge for a very specific kind of person.”

“You took me in,” Simon answered. “Several times.”

“Well, you are a very, very particular kind of person,” she agreed. “You are, of course, welcome to stay once more, if only for Zoa’s sake, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Because they, more than anyone else, need your teachings,” Simon said smoothly. “In a way, they are ideal students.”

“Explain,” she answered curtly. “An ideal student would be able to speak our language.”

“And they’ll learn,” Simon agreed, before explaining exactly how the Unspoken chose talented, sighted women to work for their order, and how they blinded them with a word and used up their whole lives in a handful of years.

While he was sure that a woman who could see the future knew all of this already, it still deeply affected her. Even with her veil, he could hear it in her voice as she asked follow-up questions, and see it in the single tear that trailed down her pale skin and dried on her cheek.

In the end, getting her to agree that they should stay and renew their clarity was child's play, but then, Simon had always known that. They drank a second round of tea once that business was done, and once their palates were cleansed of that unpleasantness, she used the opportunity to lighten the mood by poking fun at him and hinting at her knowledge of his antics.

“I can see you from here,” she said, “wherever you are. Swirls of chaos follow in your wake from the other side of the world.”

“I’m saving lives and making the world a better place,” he argued. “You’re not saying I should stop, are you? Just because it changes the pattern on your tapestry?”

“Of course not,” she clarified with a shake of her head that gave him a glimpse of her full lips. “They were very dark threads, but you pluck enough of them, and eventually the whole thing starts to unravel. Between this and what you did with the Murani, well, it’s going to take some time for the new weave of the world to clarify, won’t it?”

“I’d love to see it,” Simon answered.

“You will,” she answered, after a short silence, “but probably not this life.”

“I can still see,” Simon answered, more vociferous this time. “I didn’t speak a word, or even use a gesture. It was just a wand. Clarity is months away, not years, so…”

His words trailed off as he realized the implications of what she’d just said. He wasn’t speaking to someone who was guessing. He was speaking to someone who knew the future, at least this future, until he changed it with another unexpected life on another level.

“You’re saying I don’t have as long as I think, aren’t you?” he asked, trying and failing to read something into her sphinx-like smile, which was the only part of her face he could see. However windblown his white cape was, her veil stayed almost perfectly still. “Is it… Do I leave immediately, or…”

“You know I won’t answer that, Simon,” she answered, rising. He moved to rise with her, and she motioned for him to stay there.

“Morning,” she answered. “I should make you stay out here until you’re too weak to sit upright, but making you wait until sunrise so you can be born anew makes my point well enough. Consider it penance for this lovely surprise you’ve brought to my doorstep.”

Simon didn’t argue. Instead, he bowed low to the stone in genuine gratitude. She didn’t have to help him, the whisperers, or even the Sisters of Silence. That she did said more about her character than anything on his previous visits. As she walked back into the city, and the doors slammed shut behind her, he spent far more time thinking about that than the idea of his own impending demise. How he died this life didn’t really matter; he’d already won.