Beneath the oracle

Brae's meteorite

Dearest reader,

Many weeks have passed since Renn last opened up to us about his journey with Brae. In returning to his diary this week, I found only a few loose sheaves lodged between the previous entry and the next. Renn’s words here are brief (little work was needed in translation), perhaps due to a certain melancholy and reticence in the retelling of this part of his tale.

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The influx of new readers continues to amaze me. If this is your first time then I understand you may read the above with some trepidation and bafflement. To aid your bearings, my recommendation is to slip into Renn’s story at the very start, which is right here:

Introducing: Brae's meteorite

There’s also a table of contents:

Brae's meteorite | Table of contents

I’d so read this. A page from Thane’s book, as imagined by Midjourney.

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Desuen, 17-on-Rye, 568

What did I know of oracles?

Brae asked me this as we sat beneath that hill, haunted by time.

What did I know?

Had we been sat in The Owl beside the warm flicker of fire, resembling the couple I so desired, a couple who whittled away the evening in private smiles, Brae’s voice little more than secret whisper beneath the pop and crackle of burning logs … had that been the circumstance in which she had posed her question instead of under watchful starlight and the shifting glimmer of something cruel, of a being that told of all that was or has yet to be … had that been the manner of her asking, then perhaps my mind would have recalled.

For there was something I knew of oracles. It was scant information, the merest mention within Thane’s fabled Lore of Land, words read from my father’s own copy, a battered old book purchased from a roaming merchant before I was born. Toör is no place of books, of course, but father’s shelves held many—ones acquired over the years from his own travels or those of others—and Thane’s words winked down upon my young self, drawing willing fingers to pull and peer within. Many times I leafed through its pages, staring at sketches and descriptions, those of creatures, of nightmares and nightfolk, dangers and abominations. All the things that conjured the imagination come dark.

My father looked upon such with curious amusement, a stoic man whose role as an elder meant the fears he dealt with were those born of season and crop, not myth and fancy. Though not all felt that way. Farmers spoke of livestock lost or slaughtered, swearing not of wolves but silent beasts crept from the deepwood, Dusk’s Weald; travellers—those rarest of folk—brought with them tales of peril that would hold The Owl silent in the thrall of their retelling; and even Brae had been known to return from ranging having caught sight of that which moves unseen, darkened shadows soon lost to all but memory.

My own views, back then at least, became a mix of all. An indecision of curiosity and desire and hope.

And so on that night, if I had remembered what was said within those pages, would it have mattered? Would it have made any difference to Brae?

Because of oracles, Thane said little. There were no drawings, no lengthy descriptions. Questioning their existence, he ventured naught but this:

Their presence was fleeting. Their presence was dangerous.

It turns out, in both of these he was right.

*

“What do you know”, I asked?

Brae’s hand went to her hair and she toyed with a strand of copper, twisting it around her finger. Then her hand dropped and found itself upon the folded map tucked so neatly in her belt. She made to remove it, hesitated, then stood, wiping the soil and grass from her knees.

“This is what I have to find out,” she said.

An unease crept into me and I found myself standing, too. The wind picked up and carried with it another shrill cry. In that moment, Brae made to move.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, catching her arm.

She turned and looked at me, her eyes amber sorrow and rimmed with tears.

“Going up that hill,” she said, shaking free of my grip and taking several steps forward. Then, with a final glance back she added, “Alone.”

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And that is where this entry ends. I have read ahead a little. I was almost tempted to write out what he retells next right here in this post. But no, I shall wait. I think that is necessary, don’t you?