Eye of the Oracle oof-1 Read online

  Mardon eyed the plant from top to bottom. The face on the pod turned the edges of its thin lips upward. “I think so. The two lower stalks are thick and sturdy, the torso stalk supports the pod quite well, and the new hybridization seems to have made it more alert than the others.”

  “Good!” Mara rubbed her hands on her smock and scooted closer.

  Mardon turned the pot over and let the ball of dirt slide out into his hand. Then, carefully extracting each root from the dirt, he painstakingly cleaned them with a cotton cloth. The pod’s eyelets widened with each soft rub, and its lips spread wider.

  Grasping the stalk again in one hand and supporting the roots with the other, Mardon suspended the plant in the middle of the alcove. “Turn on the magnets.”

  Mara jumped up and slid the lever at the base, reawakening the humming choir. The colored lights began flashing on again one by one, first violet, then indigo, then blue. Within seconds, all seven magnets had lit up, each one radiating a color of the rainbow and sending a wide beam at the new spawn.

  Mardon slowly released the plant. Mara barely held back a giggle when her new baby stayed suspended in midair. She clapped her hands. It worked! Her growth chamber really worked! And she had built this one without any help!

  Mardon looked back at her and nodded. “Well done, Mara. Maybe this spawn won’t have to go to the control room.”

  Mara flinched at the sound of the words. The control room except for Morgan’s quarters, it was the most forbidden zone in all of the lower reaches, the place where the weaker spawns were taken, and they never returned.

  Mardon folded his cloth and tucked it into his pocket. “If I’m reading your expression correctly, you really want to know how everything works, don’t you?” As he rubbed the scroll against his palm, his gaze wandered around the cavern. “Most of the laborers haven’t even bothered to learn the language. A grunt is the best I can get out of some of them.”

  “They can talk a little bit, but Morgan punishes us if we talk too much. The smarter ones always seem to get thrown into the chasm, so why try to learn?”

  He pointed the scroll at her. “You’re the smartest girl here, and the oldest surviving female, yet you’ve avoided the chasm. She must fancy you.”

  Mara rubbed her shoulder and smirked. “Could’ve fooled me!”

  Mardon stroked his chin, speaking so softly Mara could barely hear him. “You may be exactly what I need.”

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  Mardon tapped her on the head with the scroll. “I think it’s time you learned the process. I could use a personal assistant.”

  Mara sat down on the floor cross-legged and spread her tattered outer tunic over her knees. “I’m ready to learn!” She folded her hands in her lap and gazed up at him.

  “No, not here. It would be better if no one else knew.” He extended his hand toward her. “I’ll show you the control room. That will make everything clear.”

  Mara allowed him to pull her to her feet. He picked up a lantern on the worktable, and as he marched into a passage tunnel on the other side of the chamber, she trailed close behind, drinking in his every word as his voice bounced gently off the walls.

  “You’ve probably read stories about the world above, haven’t you?”

  “Yessir.” She tried to keep pace, but with her shorter legs, she had to step quickly. “But I don’t see how they can be true. How can a light hang in the middle of an endless sky? And is there really such a thing as a dragon? I heard Morgan talking about them. They sound awful.”

  “They are quite terrible.” Mardon stopped at a wooden door embedded in a stone wall, but there was no latch handle, just a large wheel protruding from the center. “The stories in my scrolls are true, but not everything Morgan says is true.” He grasped the rim of the wheel and turned it. “Count the clicks.”

  The turning wheel clicked, and Mara extended one finger for each sound.

  When he stopped the wheel, he swiveled his head toward her. “How many?”

  “Six,” she replied.

  “Good. Now count again.” He turned the wheel in the opposite direction, and she counted another series of clicks.

  When he stopped, she spoke up without being asked. “Nine.”

  “You’ll need to use your toes for the last turn.”

  Again the clicks sounded. When they stopped, Mara sang out, “Thirteen!”

  Mardon pushed the door open, releasing the familiar hum of magneto bricks from inside. “Remember that combination of numbers and tell no one.” He entered and directed Mara to follow. As they walked across a smooth, stone floor, she could barely take in all the sights. At least a dozen growth alcoves, smaller than hers, had been excavated in the wall on one side. A spawn hovered in each chamber, fragile and sickly looking plants, but alive and wiggling in their suspended states. On the other wall, stacks of scrolls lay haphazardly on row after row of shelves, not as many as in the library, but they still seemed to call for her to roll them out and absorb their knowledge.

  “Back to the stories,” Mardon said, as he approached a large worktable at the far end of the room. “There is a sun that shines brighter than the most brilliant lantern, and it is suspended in an endless blue sky” he nodded toward one of the spawns, who seemed to be sleeping amidst a spectral bath “much like he hangs in his growth chamber. And thousands of people work together in peace, advancing technology at a remarkable pace.”

  “You mean like using a sharpened chisel instead of a hammer to dig an alcove? And carrying lanterns in the tunnels instead of glow worms?”

  Mardon pointed at her. “Exactly.”

  “Yessir. A lot has changed just since I’ve been here.”

  Mardon laughed. “As if you’ve ever been anywhere else.” He sighed and gazed at her, his eyes seeming to blur. “Do you know how long you’ve been here, Mara? Do you know how old you are?”

  Mara shrugged her shoulders. “Naamah says I look about fourteen years old, but I never could figure out what the stories meant when they talked about years.”

  “Naamah is right, and it’s no wonder you don’t understand time. A hundred years ago, Morgan planted you in an older-style growth chamber, much like I just did to your spawn, and I uprooted you in your current form almost twenty years ago. But since time passage is skewed here, and you don’t age as the overworlders do, it’s useless to teach you about time, that is, until you visit the land above.”

  Mara shivered. Her throat squeezed so tight, she could barely speak. “May. . may I?”

  “If your training goes well, I should be able to arrange it.”

  Mara straightened her shoulders. “I’ll train well. Don’t worry about that.”

  Mardon stared at her again, this time with narrowed eyes, as if trying to penetrate her mind. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

  Mara clutched the edge of her smock. Why was he looking at her with that strange expression? But she had enough to think about just concentrating on what she needed to learn. This was her one chance to see the upper world.

  Mardon waved his arm over the worktable. “Here is where it all begins.”

  A collection of small glass jars covered the wooden surface, each one filled with clear liquid. She leaned over and peered into one of the jars. Suspended in the midst of the liquid, an eyeball-sized egg stared back at her. The eggshell’s outer membrane was semitransparent, and a tiny creature floated at the center, acting like it was trying to swim. It looked sort of like her spawn, except much smaller and without eyelets or lips.

  “This is where we plant the garden, Mara. I experiment with different combinations of eggs and seeds to find which ones make the strongest embryos. I sometimes even combine two seeds into one to make them stronger.”

  Mara kept her gaze fixed on the embryo. “Where do you get the seeds and eggs?”

  “That lesson can wait until later. For now, I want you to see the beginning and the end.”

  She looked up at him. “The end?”

  He pic
ked up a jar near the middle of the table and held it close to her eyes. “Do you see anything unusual about this one?”

  She squinted at the tiny spawn. “It’s smaller, and it’s not swimming as hard as the others.”

  “Exactly.” Mardon walked the jar to a door on his right. When he opened it, flames shot up from within, and a hot blast of air swept into the room. He dumped the embryo into the fire and slammed the door shut.

  Mara pressed her hand against her chest and stifled a gasp. Nausea boiled in her stomach again.

  “No use wasting time and space with that one,” Mardon said. He pointed at the spawns in the growth chambers she had seen when she came in. “These aren’t thriving, so I transported them in here to extract some genetic material. Maybe I can learn what we did wrong.”

  “Then you’ll. .” She gulped, nodding toward the fiery room.

  “Yes. They’ll go into the furnace.” He counted the jars on the table. “I’m not sure yet, but it looks like five out of the twenty are female. When their gender becomes clear, I’ll keep one as a laborer to replace you.”

  “Replace me? But. . but. .” She couldn’t even breathe.

  Mardon laughed. “I didn’t mean you’re going to be eliminated! You’ll become my assistant. Someone has to do your old job.”

  Mara exhaled slowly, but her relief quickly vanished. She pinched herself on the arm. How dare she feel relieved? She wasn’t going into the furnace, but what about all these poor spawns? Her lips trembled, yet she managed to talk without squeaking. “Will I have to do both the beginning and the end?”

  Mardon tapped one of the jars with his fingertip. “You’re really worried about these spawns, aren’t you?”

  “Shouldn’t I be?”

  “They’re just embryos, not living, breathing, hard workers like you and your friends. But don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you to dispose of any. I’ll do that.” He picked up a fat scroll from the corner of the table and rolled it open. “I’ll teach you to keep track of the genetic combinations and note the characteristics of the embryos and the growing spawns. You’ll also learn to move the embryos to pots when they’re ready to root in soil.”

  Mara tried to read the last line on the scroll, but it appeared to be just a bunch of indecipherable numbers. “Can I take care of the spawn I have now?”

  “You may keep that responsibility along with your new duties.” Mardon rolled up the scroll. “He seems to be a good specimen, so you can perform the daily maintenance.”

  “I’ve done feedings plenty of times.”

  He patted her on the head. “Why don’t you feed him now? After you’re done, you can consider your banishment terminated and go back to your normal labors for the rest of the day. You may tell the other girls about your new position in the control room, if you wish, but they may not join you here. You know the penalty for anyone who enters this room without permission.”

  Mara firmed her chin. She didn’t want to utter the words. Acacia had haunted her dreams for too many nights, and she didn’t want anyone else to suffer like that.

  Mardon nodded toward the door. “After the feeding, go back to the quarry level. I’ll see you here in the morning.”

  Mara walked out without a word. With the image of Acacia’s terrified face searing her mind, she knew a round of nightmares would torment her again tonight.

  The light from the control room guided her to the lantern shelf. She picked up a lantern and mechanically struck two flint stones together to light it, listening to the sound of the control room door snapping shut and the lock wheel clicking as it spun around. Plodding in a daze toward her growth chamber, she remembered to pick up a jar of plant food from the spawns’ pantry as she passed by.

  Her stomach grumbled. “Quiet,” she scolded. “There’s nothing in there for you to eat, unless you’re hungry for ground-up worm guts.” Her stomach churned again. “Yeah, I know. Our dinner won’t be much better.”

  When she arrived at the growth chamber, her spawn grinned. Mara jumped up to the hearth. “Are you happy to see me?” She opened the jar and angled it toward the plant. “I have something new for you. I’m going to teach you to eat through your mouth!” She dipped her finger into the wet, loamy goop and smeared a dab across the spawn’s tiny lips. The little plant moved his mouth, allowing a narrow slit to open, and Mara pushed a morsel of food in. The spawn’s thin smile widened as it smacked its lips together.

  Mara laughed. “This is going to be easy! You have to be the smartest spawn ever!”

  When she finished the feeding, she caressed his green cheek. “Good night,” she whispered. The spawn’s lips stretched into a yawn, his eyelets fluttered, and he seemed to drift into sleep.

  Mara kissed the top of his pod, then dashed out of the growth chamber. She bolted through the corridor and into the elevation shaft, grabbing a cudgel from the shaft’s platform floor. After rapping on a metal plate that hung from the wall, she shouted into a tube that ran down the shaft. “Chazaq! It’s Mara. I need to go down three levels.”

  The platform eased downward. As the descent paused intermittently, Mara imagined the huge giant at the bottom letting the rope slide through his massive hands, grabbing it every few seconds to keep her from plummeting all the way to the brick-making kilns, a forbidden zone for all the girls.

  Sulfur fumes assaulted her nose, intensifying by the second. When she reached the third quarry level, she jumped out and swiveled her head. A glow from the nearby magma river illuminated the enormous cavern, but it flowed behind a granite wall, safely away from her sensitive eyes.

  “Paili!” she called. “Are you down here?” Three girls walked by, each carrying a bucket of wet rocks, but only one turned to look at Mara. With her glazed eyes and dirty chin and sweat dripping from her stringy hair, she seemed more dead than alive.

  Mara pulled her coif from her pocket and mopped her brow. The heat was more oppressive than usual. “Paili!” she called again, tying her coif and stuffing her hair underneath. “Has anyone seen Paili?”

  One girl poked her reddish head out from behind a stone column. “Washing.” She formed her words carefully. “Paili. . is. . washing.”

  Mara knelt and untied a cloth from the girl’s ankle. “Taalah, hold still while I have a look at that cut.” The girl’s leg trembled, but Mara held it firm as she eyed a finger-length gash. “It’s still oozing blood, but I think it’s healing.” She reconfigured the cloth to place a clean spot on the wound and tied it securely. “Make sure you soak your ankle in the sulfur springs tonight and wash out the bandage.”

  Taalah nodded and pointed. “Paili. . come. . now.”

  Mara rose to her feet. Down in the quarry, a little girl skipped along a stony path that ran between a pair of shallow trenches, clutching the sides of her too-long inner shirt as she bounced toward them.

  Mara waved at her. “Paili!”

  The little girl glanced up and spread out her arms. “Mara!” She ran across a narrow rock bridge that spanned the closer trench and lunged into Mara’s arms. “You back!” she cried, nuzzling Mara’s waist.

  Mara laid a hand on Paili’s dark wet hair. “Were you playing in the water?”

  Paili shook her head, but when Mara glared at her, her head’s back and forth motion slowly changed to up and down.

  “Where’s your over-tunic?”

  Paili pointed at the closer trench.

  Mara groaned. “Oh, Paili! What am I going to do with you? It’s a good thing Nabal didn’t see you.” She glanced around the cavern. “Where is he, anyway?”

  Paili stomped once on the ground. “Brick room. He. . back soon.”

  Mara fished in Paili’s pocket and jerked out her coif. “He’s going to catch you someday, and you’ll be chiseling out growth chambers until you wrinkle up and die!” She tied the coif back on Paili’s head and gestured toward the trench. “Come on. Let’s dig up some magnetite.”

  She slid down the short slope and grabbed up the dirty, wrinkled tunic.
When Paili joined her, Mara pushed the girl’s outer garment over her head and tried to smooth it out, but her hand touched a sticky spot on Paili’s collar. She drew her fingers close to her eyes. “Blood?” She spun Paili around, pulled her collar away from her neck, and peeked down her back. She gritted her teeth and growled. “Did Nabal do this? Did he whip you?”

  Paili nodded, whimpering.

  “And he told you to wash the blood to hide it, right?”

  Paili nodded again.

  Mara released Paili’s collar and kissed her cheek. Tightening both her fists, she hissed, “Someday I’m going to kill that stupid dung-eater.” She snatched up a nearby bucket and glanced at the few small pebbles covering the bottom. “Was he mad because you’re behind on your quota?”

  “No. . find,” Paili said, turning up her palms. “All gone.”

  Mara dug through Paili’s pocket. “Where’s your locater?”

  Paili tucked her hair under her coif. “It. . not work.”

  “Here it is.” Mara pulled out a glass disk and laid it in her palm, gently swirling the metal filings inside. “It seems all right to me.” She took Paili’s hand. “Come on. Let’s find the biggest strike ever. Maybe Naamah will give us a fig cake with dinner.”

  Paili grinned. “Fig cakes!”

  Mara eyed the disk while slogging along the trench. As they passed by a trio of laborers digging into the slope, her leg brushed against a kneeling girl and knocked her into a pile of soot. “Oops!” Mara reached down to help the girl up. “I’m sorry!”

  The other girl straightened and slapped Mara’s cheek. “You are bad!” she said, pushing her finger into Mara’s chest. “Acacia was good!”

  Rage boiled, sending a surge of stinging heat through Mara’s wounded cheek. “Qadar!” she growled, raising a fist, but when Qadar covered her face with trembling hands, Mara let her arm flop to the side. She turned and strode farther down the trench. “Come on, Paili. Let’s go to the new dig area. I doubt anyone’s gone there yet.”