Northern Oracle

Her feet moved without conscious orders from her brain, carrying her up the stairs into the passage beyond. An overwhelming compulsion to find the source of the chant had seized her. The light from the brazier faded behind her, until the stone tunnel transfigured itself into a bed of flickering shadows. Varia clutched the icicle tightly, her only defense against the unknown.

A shadow coalesced ahead of her and loomed large in the passage. Two flashing yellow eyes shone in the darkness, and a low growl rolled through the stone hallway. For a moment she thought the reaver-king himself stood in her path. Then the shape took a step forward, and she realized that it was not a human at all, but a beast coated in thick gray fur, standing twice her height on the pads of two clawed feet. The creature's long, lupine muzzle hung ajar, exposing two rows of sharp, slavering teeth which glimmered in the half-light. Its pointed ears flicked in agitation, and it flexed two hands tipped by razor talons. The beast seemed furious that its lair had been violated, and with an angry howl it charged.

Blood throbbed in Varia's brain, adrenaline coursing like liquid heat through her flesh, and she moved without thinking, instinct taking over as she forced her over-taxed body to roll away from the lethal swipe aimed at her head. The creature attacked with such agility that even Norden seemed slow by comparison. Varia threw caution to the wind and lunged, putting all of her effort into a single suicidal attack. She gripped her icicle in both hands, driving it deep into the wolf-thing's shoulder even as its jaws closed tight around her own, biting through flesh until they scraped against bone.

The monster recoiled suddenly, yelping in pain, and a hiss of steam escaped from the wound where Varia's sliver of ice had pierced it. Varia stood dumbfounded, amazed at the caustic effect her makeshift weapon had on her enemy. As she stood gaping, shoulder leaking blood and throbbing with pain, the beast lashed out with one paw, too blindingly fast to see, and smacked Varia square in the ribs, sending her careening into the cavern wall. Her right leg struck the stone at an odd angle, and she heard a terrible crack as the bone splintered.

Varia screamed in pain as she crumpled to the ground, realizing that this was the end for her. Yet the expected deathblow never came. She craned her head and saw the wolf-thing loping off down the passage the way it had come, still mewling pathetically and leaving a trail of dark blood in its wake. Disbelieving, she lay half-stunned on the rock watching the thing retreat.

A Soulkin, she thought, dazed and hazy memories bubbling up from a sea of pain and confusion. Her father's books had been full of stories of creatures from the Other Place that slipped across the boundary into the real world, bringing wonder and chaos in equal measure. Northern Oracle. Soulkin. All nonsense. I must be dead.

But she hurt too much to be dead. Her first attempt at standing was met with blinding pain from her broken limb. Varia tumbled over again in frustration, blood seeping from her shoulder and chest. She began to feel lightheaded. I'm finished, she thought. It could have had the decency to end me quickly. Now I don't even have a weapon.

As she lay slowly dying in the passage, a sudden rush of hot air buffeted her prone form. She closed her eyes against the sudden heat, a thermal wall that made the brazier from the antechamber seem barely an ember. Breathing deeply, Varia felt the warmth suffuse her lungs, and the pain screaming through her flesh ebbed somewhat.

The song began again, louder now, both voices harmonizing around a single triumphal note. The force of their voices shook the passage, and the sound and heat combined to crash over Varia like a wave. Gradually the noise died away to a gentle echo, and as it faded she felt an uncanny sense of meaning in the wordless sound. An invitation, she thought, half-delirious.

She struggled again to stand, this time rising to shaky feet by leaning hard against the wall. With the solid stone supporting her, Varia limped down the passage, favoring her left leg over the damaged right. Behind her was snow and ice and death; ahead lay heat and song and the unknown. She pressed onward, feeling the roiling warmth's embrace grow stronger the further she went.

The trail of the creature's inky blood ended abruptly at a pocket of stone in the deepest reaches of the cavern. A yawning, circular hole carved into the chamber's center belched hot air upwards from some source far below. Murky light filtered up from the depths, bathing Varia in an eerie luminescence that billowed and swam as if deep underwater. The pit was large enough to swallow a dozen men at once, and around its circumference were carved Elder Glyphs, none so prominent as the runes for Northern Oracle which lay twice as large as the rest. Varia leaned forward over the vertiginous hollow and felt a blast of steam spew upwards, coating her face in a sweat-like sheen. A scent like earth and smoke coiled up from below.

Is this where that thing went? she thought. But even as she stood wondering, a dizziness settled over her, the blood she'd lost taking its heavy toll. Gazing into the pit she felt an odd tugging sensation, as though gravity's force had doubled its pull.

All at once her strength failed. Varia's broken leg crumpled like paper and she pitched forward, tumbling end over end into the steaming void. Waves of heat surrounded her, pulling her down towards a bright light far below. A pulsing liquid threshold rushed upwards to meet her and she crashed through it, sinking far into its depths, where tendrils of molten light took hold of her and banished conscious thought.

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Awareness fizzed like bubbles rising. Varia drifted, carried by a current that felt somehow safe and familiar, knees pulled to her chest and clasped by her arms. Nothingness surrounded her, and with eyes shut tight it seemed nothing could disturb this peace. She reveled in the solitude, twisting gently through silent space forever.

Or what felt like forever. Presently a niggling urge appeared in the back of her brain. She turned her mind's eye from the intrusive thought, but the more she ignored it, the larger it grew. At last it sprang unbidden to her mind: a frozen image of Erabus, his gentle face contorted in shock and regret, and Norden, his predator's eyes triumphant, axe buried in the mercenary captain's chest. It filled her vision and she screamed silently into the void.

Another overweening urge came over her, one she had forgotten: the need to breathe. Suddenly it crashed over her, and Varia unfolded her body, opened her eyes, and swam towards the surface, desperate for air.

With a terrific splash she emerged, flinging streams of water from her soaked hair and sucking in huge gasps of air. For a few long moments she relished the way her lungs stretched past full, the way her heart thudded vigorously.

She was in an enormous rectangular pool of water, so hot that steam rose from its surface. The pool lay in the center of an immense hall, flanked on either side by long colonnades supporting a high arched ceiling. The pillars and the roof were all carved from a stone as white and pure as newly-fallen snow. A soft, even light filled the room, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere despite the lack of windows or torches. Her toes could not touch the bottom, so she tread in place, suspended for the moment.

The realization came to her that she was naked. Somehow all of her armor had fallen away, leaving her bare as when she was born. Her hair had escaped its tight bun and now hung loose about her shoulders in a wavy ebon cascade. Rivulets of water rolled down her face, dripping from her chin and ears to rain down over her shoulders and breasts.

Then a second realization struck her: she was treading water with her broken leg and gashed arm, their pain having shrunk to nothing more than a dull ache. She grabbed hold of her left breast and moved it aside. Sure enough, the hole the icicle had made in her chest had closed, leaving only a white oval of scar tissue in its place.

Part of her mind, the intelligent, cynical part, knew that it was impossible for her clothing to simply disappear, for her wounds to miraculously heal. But that part of her felt sleepy and unwilling to voice any complaints. After what I've been through today, she thought, why should anything feel strange anymore?

At the far end of the pool, through the thin vapor that hung in the air, Varia could make out a man reclined against the edge. He was dark of hair, his expression inscrutable, but with a gaze firmly fixed on herself.

"Who are you?" she called. "Where is this?"

The man raised one hand to beckon her over. "Come closer," he said, his deep basso voice booming over the water. "Let us see you."

Her instincts, shoved back someplace in a forgotten part of her mind, urged caution. An aura of power seemed to radiate from the stranger like the heat over the water, but the force seemed restrained, at rest. She could not explain the feeling, but she had the sense that there was more to him than flesh and blood. And what does he mean by 'us?' she thought. They were simply more items to add to the pile of mysteries. At this point, speculation seemed useless.

She leaned into the water and swam over to the man. As she grew closer the curtains of steam parted, revealing his features in clear definition. He was young - certainly no older than her - with short, jet hair and a penetrating yellow gaze. The stranger was nude as well, and leaning against the side of the pool with perfect nonchalance, a curious smile on his black-bearded face, features balanced and solid as if sculpted from marble. A white, oval-shaped scar lay just below his left shoulder, nearly the twin of her own, but his skin was otherwise unmarred.

"Who are you?" she repeated as she neared the man, her feet now able to stand flat on the bottom of the pool. She stayed just out of his reach, apprehensive by instinct but unable to resist the oddly compelling power of this place and the stranger within it.

"You may call me Uralis," he answered.

He gave her an appraising look, eyes taking in her face before straying downward to her breasts. She felt no pang of shame, no urge to cover herself. Somehow it seemed only natural that he should size her up the same way she had done to him. Varia knew she was no great beauty. She was proud of her slender, aquiline nose and full, ruddy lips, yet she was never quite satisfied with a forehead a bit too high, eyebrows a bit too severe, breasts a bit too small. Varia's tan, athletic figure, earned from years of marching in the sun and fighting in the dirt, stood in stark contrast to the soft, pale bodies of refined ladies and expensive whores. Yet she'd had taken her fair share of lovers to bed and envied not the easy life of a civilian.

Looking at the handsome stranger, feeling his gaze upon her bare chest, she could not help a bolt of arousal striking her core.

"You are called Varia, are you not?" inquired a new voice, a pleasing baritone from somewhere on her left.

She swiveled her head to find another man standing beside the pool, clad in only a loose white towel girding his waist. The newcomer had appeared seemingly from no place at all. The drowsy part of Varia's brain wondered if he had been hiding behind a column, waiting for a chance to surprise her. He was tall and broad-shouldered, powerfully muscled, a match for Uralis in every way. They seemed twins, except that his his skin was a shade lighter than the other man's, and his hair was a golden blond that hung in unkempt waves to his shoulders. As he walked on bare feet around the pool to join them he continued speaking.

"I am Aeolis," he said, smiling gently. "You have met my brother. We are happy you could join us. It gets quite lonely here."

"How did you know my name?" Varia demanded, the cynic in her taking control for a moment.

A low chuckled rumbled from Uralis' mouth. "She is spirited," he said, turning to his brother. "Impressively so."

"Don't mock me," snapped Varia, their words echoing Norden's appraisal of her.

Aeolis raised a hand in a mollifying gesture. By now he had reached them and stood at the water's edge, gazing down at Varia serenely.

"He meant it as a compliment," explained Aeolis. "My brother is unused to polite conversation. As to your question: we are an oracle, and a great many things are clear to us, your name among them."

"An oracle," she said quietly, rolling the word around on her tongue. Her father's stories swam up in memory, joining with the Elder Glyphs she had seen so far and the bizarre space she had entered. A fairy tale, she told herself. But how much else today would have seemed a fairy tale yesterday? Why start doubting now? "The Northern Oracle?" she asked aloud.

Aeolis nodded. "So humans have called us. Once we were Elders of Fal'Angrael. Now it is our lot to dwell in this cavern, awaiting those who might earn our prophecy. Uralis has tested you, and found you worthy."

Varia looked to the black-haired man, who grinned at her wolfishly, a predatory glint in his eye. The creature from before, she thought. It was him. The look he was giving her seemed hungry, and she felt her arousal growing. This isn't the time to be lusting for creatures from the Other Place, she chided herself. Handsome creatures, but all the same.

"My apologies if I was hard on you," said Uralis. "But you acquitted yourself admirably. I was not expecting the icicle." He hesitated, frowning slightly, and rubbed the oval-shaped scar on his chest. "We do not care for ice."

"Now then," said Aeolis. "Our augur is yours, if you wish it. What would you have of us?"

Words cascaded out of Varia's mouth before she could stop them, revealing the warm knot of vengeance in her subconscious. "I want Norden's head. Show me where he makes camp. Tell me when he's most vulnerable so I can carve him up like a pig."

Increasingly vivid descriptions of how she would kill the reaver-king queued at her lips, but Aeolis shook his head, halting them.

"You misunderstand," he said. "Our prophecy is not so elective. Your choice is not in what we augur, but if you desire augury at all."

She furrowed her brow, confused. "I don't get it. Why would I refuse after coming this far?"

"Let me explain as best I can," answered Uralis. He pushed off from the wall of the pool and walked slowly over to her, clefting a wedge through the water, until his face was inches from her own. "We possess an Elder's Soul, and oracular sight is our gift. If you wish to share our gift, then you must share our Soul. Our essences will become intertwined, like two wines poured in the same glass. Do you understand?" He raised one dripping hand from the bath and stroked her cheek.

Varia swallowed. Her eyes went from brother to brother, examining their finely honed physiques, their exquisitely muscled chests, the perfect lines of their jaws. A crimson flush had bloomed over her skin in the heat of the bath, but now a different warmth came over her, starting between her legs and growing outward.

"I think so," she replied at last. She thought the logical part of her brain should have some objection, but she was having trouble finding it at the moment. "You want to... couple with me."

"She understands," growled Uralis with a smile.

"But... why?" stammered Varia. "Isn't there another way?"

Aeolis shrugged. "Other ways are slower. Cruder. Essence may be lost in the transfer." He bent his legs and leaned down, bringing his bearded face closer to them. "The best way, we have found, is the direct transfer of Soul from one vessel to another." He touched his own hard chest as he pronounced the word "vessel," and then gently indented the top of Varia's breast with his pointer finger as he said "another." Hard to miss his meaning when he puts it like that.

Uralis moved in closer, and then his lips were on her shoulder blade, kissing softly along the bone towards her neck. The barest gasp passed her lips, and her nipples hardened to points in the humid air.

"The experience can be... intense," growled the dark-haired brother. "It will change you. After we start, there is no going back."

"What is your answer?" asked Aeolis, a note of imploring desire beneath his placid tones.

Varia thought of Norden's cruel gaze, of her men dying in the snow, of Erabus' cracked lips, of the axe in his chest as he expired. If there's any chance they can show me my future, if there's any chance they can give me justice for him and all the rest, I can't refuse them. Uralis' lips had found her throat now, and one of his rough hands had made its way through the water to cup her backside, the other stroking her flank. Her mind began to swim, from the heat and the sensation and the unreality of it all. Fuck the gods, who could say no?

"Yes," she whispered.

Uralis growled with desire. He lifted her bodily and she wrapped her legs tight around him as he pulled her in for a fierce kiss, his hot mouth tasting like earth after a storm. Uralis' tongue pressed its way between her lips, and she allowed it inside, caressing it with her own. He carried to the edge of the pool, depositing her on the edge, legs dangling in the water. His hungry mouth kissed down her flushed neck and chest, across the heaving swell of her breast, to latch onto one of her long, erect nipples. He bit down, drawing a yelp of pain from her.

"Easy," cautioned Aeolis from nearby.

"It's fine," moaned Varia, reveling in the intense sensation. "I'm tough."

She felt another satisfied growl rumble through her breast. Uralis' hand found her sex, already wet and open for him, and he cupped her mound, earning a low moan. Two of his fingers slipped inside her while his thumb found her pearl, rubbing in fast, insistent circles. The sharp pleasure formed a volatile mixture with the pain from her nipple.

Suddenly his teeth relented, his fingers withdrawing at the same instant. Before Varia could voice a protest, Uralis's head had dropped between her legs, his tongue darting out to taste her, his nose buried in the dark thatch of hair above it. She cried out softly, tensing up as he rubbed the flat part of his tongue over her jewel, up and down in fast, relentless strokes. Her pleasure built swiftly under his able ministrations, like the tide coming in. She was almost afraid of how good it felt, of how swiftly he carried her towards the precipice. Cresting suddenly in a crashing wave, she clamped her thighs around his head, her entire body shivering, her hands finding his scalp and bunching up two handfuls of his raven hair, desperately holding on. Then it became too much, her jewel painfully sensitive, and she pushed his head away. He grinned predatorily back up at her from between her legs, his lips, nose, and cheeks wet.

Panting and leaning back on her elbows for support, Aeolis appeared beside her and leaned in for a gentle kiss, contrasting his brother's ferocious intensity.

"Come with me," he said as their lips parted.

Aeolis pulled her up on shaky legs and led her away from the pool towards a set of elegant furniture she had not noticed before: a low table, two high-backed chairs, a padded footstool, a cushioned divan. The blond brother gestured for her to sit, and she deposited herself on the edge of the divan, instinctively closing her legs despite the recent acquaintance between Uralis' mouth and her sex. Varia's heart still pounded in her chest, her brain hazy, as she watched Aeolis disrobe, doffing the towel to reveal himself fully to her.