Dearest Reader,
Read these words and read them well, for they will be my last.
Poison carries in my blood, worming ever closer to my heart. My fingers seize and cramp, and my body quakes with the violence of an earth tremor. Through my shaking, I shall pen down what I know. If I do not, the information I have shall be lost with my death.
I never wanted to know such deadly things. You may scoff at my proclamation, for is it not an Oracle’s purpose to know the unknown? I have spent my life learning futures, weaving them from whispers of thread in the minds of those I touch. The work I do is beautiful, but it is not what it once was.
Long ago, our kind was revered. We spoke futures at the right hand of kings and queens, but now we are but a party trick. Now we must sell our foretellings as if they are wares at a market. We defile the sacred practice of our ancestors by speaking falsely to our customers about the tapestries we weave. I see a man facing death at the hands of starvation, but I tell him that if he changes his job, he may change his fate. I tell him to return to me in due time to see if it worked, and so he does, with hope in his heart and a copper between his fingers.
But I know the future cannot be changed. There is no amending fate. The tapestry cannot be rewoven, despite what we Oracles may tell you. Our foretelling is a trade we must sell if only to keep ourselves alive. I separate myself from the plight of men, and I do not allow myself to worry over their futures. I do not design the tapestries; I only read them. I find no obligation to be honest to those I read for.
I had much the same attitude when the king came to town.
He travelled with a retinue bathed in majesty and grandeur, off to visit some far-off duke none in our town had ever heard of. His younger brother sat stoically at his side while King Torvin smiled and bid us good fortune. Their procession stopped with us for a meal and to rest their horses, and the king himself wandered about our town as one hadn’t in centuries.
He regaled the townsfolk with colourful stories of his journey, delighting a barman by drinking his ale and a baker by eating her bread. Perhaps some drunkard had proffered my name to the king, or perhaps the king had ears attuned to the town gossip. I do not know. But an hour after his arrival, he came to me, a gold coin in hand, asking to know his future.
Men from his retinue bundled around him, his brother included, laughing sceptically to each other at the woman garbed in blue, sitting in a dark room lit only by candles. The king’s smile was lax, his posture dismissive. He knew as well as I did that what I said was not always cohesive with what I saw. But I did not miss the severe glint in his eye nor the way he pressed the gold coin deep into my palm. It was as if he were trying to remind me how much he paid. He was paying for my honesty.
And so I removed my gloves, and I took his hands. They tremored with nervousness in my grip, imperceptible to those who did not touch him. With a borrowed nervousness of my own, I drifted my eyes closed and allowed myself access to his mind.
The seeds of his present spread themselves out before me like a field after planting. I saw the way he embraced his people, the way he revelled in their company as he travelled. I saw the stress he felt at facing the wayward duke at the end of his journey, but also his determination to bring a peaceful resolution to the issue. I saw his kind spirit, his grief at the loss of his parents, the way he fought with his brother, and his loneliness.
I took the threads of his life, and I began to weave. I would die for what I saw.
I saw a castle full of corpses slaughtered at the hands of those they trusted. A rebellion. An insurrection. The usurpation of the throne. I saw the king, a sword in his chest. There was blood gurgling from his mouth and pouring down his chin. I saw his brother standing over him, a savage smile on his face.
“You are a fool, Torvin,” he would say. “Your naivety befalls you. You trust they whom should not be trusted. You give to those below us as if they deserve the riches we have earnt. You walk the knife’s edge of diplomacy when you should be marching us to war! I will give the duke the reckoning you have denied us. Enjoy oblivion, brother, and know that none shall mourn you when you are in your grave.”
I was thrown from the king’s mind then, severed from his future. That was the moment he would die. My own body shook. I was rattled by the future I saw, more so than I ever had been. I could still taste the king’s blood bubbling through my throat; I could still see the malicious glint of the king’s brother’s teeth as he smiled. Words eluded me. I looked upon the king and his men like a wild animal, eyes darting about them uncontrollably.
I could not help it. My eyes found the king’s brother’s, and they lingered there. I could not keep the fear from my gaze; I could not keep my knowledge from showing on my face.
“What did you see?” the king asked me, dread lining his features. In my peripheral, the king’s brother disappeared, slipping through the crowd of men behind him.
I opened my mouth to speak my vision true. “I saw—I saw your death. You were—”
Before more words could find me, the king’s brother was back, kneeling at my side with a canteen of water in his hands. “You seem startled, Oracle. You must drink some water.”
“Yes, you must,” the king agreed, and he took the water from his brother and offered it to me, a hint of shame in his eyes that he had not thought to offer it himself.
You must understand I was riven with shock and panic, plagued by the echoes of memory at seeing the king’s death. My throat was dry, and I was still trembling with my fear. All logic had been driven from my mind. The canteen of water before me was just water, and it was held to me with such sincerity at the hands of my king.
I drank it.
I did not think for a second that it might have been poisoned. For all my foretelling of the future, I did not possess the foresight to know I had given my knowledge away to the king’s brother and that he would kill me for it. Even through all the visions I had seen in my life, I did not understand the true malevolence of men and their ambitions.
I did not realise this until after the water had trickled down my throat and the poison had settled into my bloodstream. I did not realise this until my tongue became heavy in my mouth, and my limbs began to twitch. The change was immediate, and I was helpless to stop it.
Those around me believed I was having a fit brought upon me by my visions. They did not know much about Oracles; they did not know this was not a symptom of my gift. Very quickly, they sought to give me comfort. Strong hands brought me to my bed in the back room of my property and laid a blanket over me as I shivered. I tried to speak around my swollen mouth, but the king bid me to be quiet, telling me to rest and to share my tidings with him when I felt better.
His dread wafted from him like perfume, but in the end, he was just too kind. He would rather I rest and recover than learn what it was I had to say. He left me there alone, promising he would return soon, and I could only respond with a strangled squeak.
I know my death makes sense. The tapestry cannot be changed; I cannot live to tell of what I saw. I am not ready to die, but I must. The telling of my knowledge will bar the path to the future. It is a future I saw, so it must come to pass.
I do not know why I picked up the pen and paper beside my bed. I do not know why I wrote this letter. Perhaps, after all this time, I do not believe the tapestry is beyond changing. Perhaps it can be tweaked if only someone is willing to work the thread. I will be dead when the king returns, but my letter will be here.
My King, good luck.
Signed, the Oracle