Chapter 66: Only Fog and Mist

With no time to wonder how his cousin had learned to play the string game, Herrwn rushed off. After passing through the entrance to the oracle’s tower, he took the stairs two at a time and got to the top just as the door was opening—and all but collided with Ossiam as the oracle swept out.

“Is there a problem?” In the shadow of the stairwell, with the light from the room behind him and steamy fumes shrouding him, Herrwn—who had to catch his breath—felt, just for a moment, that it was not Ossiam but the oracle’s long-dead father who spoke.

Feeling like a pupil caught unprepared for his lessons, Herrwn stammered, “Yes … ah … No … That is to say, there was, but it is resolved for the best … You see …”

After recovering himself enough to speak with reasonable clarity and succinctness, he explained Benyon’s discovery of the missing goat and how they’d found a substitute, concluding, “So all should go well.”

Ossiam’s answer was to raise his staff and sweep down the stairs, leaving Herrwn to fall into line behind him.

Later, Ossiam would contend that the higher spirits to whom he called had indeed been offended by the meagerness of their sacrifice. There was certainly nothing Herrwn could see in the rigor with which the oracle carried out his incantations or the intensity with which he stared into the tangle of bowels—for what seemed like an eternity of time—that would account for his raising up his head at last and sighing, “There is only fog and mist! I cannot see through it!”

Herrwn’s heart sank.

The day was bright and warm. Except for a few wispy clouds near the horizon, there was no hint of fog, at least not in the mortal world. What was there to think but that Ossiam did not see an ordinary mist but the veil separating the living world from the next? Did this mean that Caelym had crossed to the other side?

From the unhappy murmuring around him, Herrwn guessed his fears were shared by the other priests and priestesses, all of whom, like Herrwn, waited just long enough for Ossiam to finish his closing chants before leaving the grove, their heads bowed in despair.