My Oracle Comes from Within

Isidore, carrying the Soul-Calling Banner, struggled along the rugged ridge of Iron Peak Mountain. Through the Mask of the Departed, he witnessed countless bloody battles raging around the mountain.

A person with only half a face suddenly thrust out a hand missing two fingers. It clawed out of the mud and seized Isidore by the ankle.

"#ααγ!"

The incomprehensible words brimmed with hatred. Countless pairs of eyes stared at the outsider who intended to bring wandering souls back to the mortal world through a soul-summoning ritual.

Swords, spears, and axes were aimed at every part of Isidore except his mask.

He raised the Golden-Branch Giant Antlered Deer banner, painted in blood, and rebuked the spirits trying to disrupt the ritual in a voice so imposing even he had never expected to hear from himself.

"Back!"

The dead spirits feared what the banner represented. Aside from a few whose bodies were made of dense ash and bloodfire, the spirits trying to drive out the outsider all shrank back into the earth.

Isidore was afraid, but he kept moving forward. He knew this was a dangerous path, and that wearing the mask could have a horrific outcome.

But there was nothing he could do... Die now or die later? He chose to die later.

He walked through the iron-sand haze, swinging the Soul-Calling Banner. The wind caught its coarse fabric and made it billow with a howl the wandering souls could hear, while a long, sorrowful chant spilled from his lips.

"My stag, who walked beside me all my life, proud seed, sorrowful child.

As I sing of the suffering you endured, come closer.

Return, O soul! Zagwell warriors who chased love across the Forgotten Grassland.

The veiled Lady of Death, her gaze calm, promises you eternal peace.

She brings tranquility to mortals and made a valley where the suffering could find shelter.

You carried the will to fight for the suffering and asked the Lady of Death for an oracle...

Yet my blood kin, my soul, Kas, you once found glory in being alive. You wore the Oak Ring to defend courage, and bore the sorrow of it—yet now you sing in death's key.

Come closer, come closer, come closer. Leave the valley steeped in the fragrance of the Withered Rose, and return to me..."

It was a soul-summoning poem Isidore had improvised based on Morse's description. Thinking of the fate that awaited him filled him with endless sorrow.

As he chanted, his desolate, lilting voice seemed to color everything around him. The restless spirits slowed their steps and listened to the sorrowful poem.

"Will he succeed..." Morse shook his head. A shaman who followed the path of spirits had to preside over the soul-summoning ritual. The one wearing the Mask of the Departed had to find a lost wandering soul among countless spirits.

The process was dangerous. Many who had tried to perform the ritual on their own and set foot in the Yellow Springs had ended up lost in death alongside their blood kin.

Some malicious spirits would attack them deliberately, and as far as Morse knew... plenty of people from the Black Ember Tribe had died at the hands of the Zagwell Clan.

The Soul-Calling Banner was merely a protective charm. Its crude craftsmanship could keep weaker spirits away from Isidore, but it could not guide him to the wandering soul.

Isidore could only attract the soul's attention by chanting the poem and soothe the malicious spirits.

Seneya gave no response. She found a log, her claws flying as they sent wood chips scattering, and carved the plank into a curved mask.

Blood dripped again, staining the mask red. Holding it in her hand, she stared at Isidore as he struggled along Iron Peak Mountain, the red glow in her eyes growing ever stronger.

"Don't be foolish. We still have a chance... You know exactly what will happen if you put on the Mask of the Departed!" Morse warned in a low voice. He glanced at the still-unconscious Kas and sighed inwardly.

Damn it, how had I been blind enough to fall for this werewolf?

The red glow in her eyes wasn't a beastly response to stress. It meant another consciousness, another personality, had taken control of her body. That personality had even split off from the sweet, silly Seneya and become a separate soul.

What a manipulative bitch. She'd pretended to be weak and helpless and conned me...

Ancestor gazed at the red-eyed werewolf and began considering how to undo the curse. He had to make sure his descendant could set foot on that sacred path.

Atop the mountain, where the fragrance of the Withered Rose lingered, Kas was bound by thorny vines. His lowered eyelids slowly lifted as he witnessed a dream he had experienced firsthand.

The perspective was so bizarre he could hardly adjust to it. He was both watching in the third person and acting in the first, experiencing the warm family life of Her Tribe ten years in the future.

Dreaming meant he still believed dreams were a function of the brain, which unconsciously linked memories based on experience to create a coherent scene.

Watching a dream, on the other hand, was the Rishiman People's way of seeing things: it meant something was happening in another world.

"You certainly gave me an unforgettable experience, Lady of Death." Kas drew a deep breath. He understood now what had caused Tina's death.

In the throes of a multifaceted madness, she'd resolutely chosen to kill herself.

"And what will you choose, Kas... You now know the source of Blackheart's daughters' tragic fate. Their deaths have nothing to do with you."

"Yes. They believed that even eternal suffering was full of glory. They saw the dream and thought it had already come to pass, and discerned the oracle you revealed in it... But I still can't accept their fate."

Lagrey walked across the lifeless earth, her voice gentle as a mother's comfort. "You are searching for a reason from me, and I must search for one from you...

"You deny the world after death, yet you worry that they might suffer eternal punishment for failing, just as honor killings claim.

"You don't know them, and have never learned anything about them beyond their names. What is it that makes you willing to offend the gods for the sake of two unrelated, foolish girls?"

Kas was silent for a long time. Morally, socially, and practically... by every measure, he knew his actions were unnecessary.

And yet he had done it anyway.

He gave a scornful smile and answered the Lady of Death with her own words:

"Yes... My honor, my dream, my oracle—all tell me I must do this."

"Where does your oracle come from?" the Lady of Death asked calmly. But when she heard Kas's steady, resolute answer, her body paused for a moment.

"From the moral law in my heart. It comes not from a god, nor from anything abstract that can't be seen or touched. It comes from the standards I set for myself, and my compassion—I can't bear to see two innocent girls suffer such a cruel fate!"

"Heh..." The Lady of Death chuckled and caressed Kas's face. Death covered his body like amniotic fluid, and soon he seemed destined to drown in this tranquil nothingness.

Lagrey's veil brushed his cheek. She raised her head and left a cold, damp kiss on him.

"For the Rishiman People, there is no such thing as an illusion, a dream, or an oracle. They are all fundamentally the same: you believe what you see, and you see what you believe.

"I will forgive your offense for now, Kas, son of Malik Axe-Breaker."

The suffocating feeling of a giant serpent coiled around him gradually faded. Knowing the illusion was about to end, Kas reached out to the Lady of Death.

"What about Tina and Delin's souls? And Isidore—he put on the Mask of the Departed..."

The smiling Lady of Death gracefully rested her hands over her abdomen and walked into the unchanging darkness, vanishing into the silence from which she had come.

Kas shook his head sharply and realized he was standing atop Iron Peak Mountain. Isidore, wearing the Mask of the Departed and holding the Soul-Calling Banner, stared at him with a flicker in his eyes.

Kas's wandering soul was still outside his body. To return to it, he had to follow, step by step, the Path of Soul-Summoning Isidore had taken.

As he crossed the dust-filled air, the Barbarian patted Isidore's trembling shoulder. "You did well... Not everyone has the courage to face a sacred world."