Death After Death

He didn’t have to wonder long because even as the men that escorted him here retreated, she turned around and gave him a smile instead of an expression that made him fear the worst. He relaxed visibly then; it might have been a ruse, but it would have been hard to fake the curiosity that sparkled in her eyes.

“So we meet again, Simon,” she said, stepping toward him and taking both of his hands in both of hers. “At least, I’m told that is the case.”

“I kind of thought you’d remember me, actually,” he said, not sure how to respond.

“And I might, in time,” she agreed confusingly. “But with you, the waters are always muddy, aren’t they.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he sighed, eventually forced to turn away from her bottomless gaze uncomfortably to gaze out over the caldera. “But I guess you’re used to that sort of thing here.”

“On the contrary,” she smiled as she looked around for something. “You haven’t gotten a close look at our lake, or you’d never say that. The waters are usually quite clear.”

Simon walked to the edge of the slick promontory and took a look for himself and was surprised to see he could see the bottom, several feet down, even by the thin light of a half moon. The mists that covered it made it look murky, especially from a distance, but if you looked between them or fanned them away, he could see the craggy bottom sloping away from him down to several feet. He wondered idly how far he’d be able to see down in the daylight if he used a word of disperse wind to sweep away a whole portion of the mist.

Before he could go too far down that road, though, the Oracle thrust a palm-sized rock into his hand and said, “Visitors are rare enough, but repeat visitors to this place are almost unheard of.”

“Because it’s forbidden, right?” Simon asked.

Simon tried to picture that and found the image quite amusing, with whole lines of people going all the way up the giant mountain waiting their turn for some imagined enlightenment. Rather than crack that joke, though, Simon asked, “I assume that doesn’t apply to people who haven’t visited you before in this life, does it?”

“You and your kind are a bit of a gray area,” she agreed. “But you are obviously weighed down by many things, so this time, at least, I will help you.”

“With a stone?” he asked.

“The stone’s only purpose is to be thrown by you into the water,” she said with a smile. “Be careful not to burn yourself.”

The caution gave Simon pause, and after a moment, he decided to throw it a few feet further in the water than he’d originally intended. It landed with a terrific splash. That much he’d been expecting, the glowing maelstrom of aqua and teal light was more unexpected.

He’d known about the bioluminescence, of course, but seeing it feet away with all its chaos and nuance was a lot different than viewing it from a balcony hundreds of feet away. They stood there together in silence, watching the swirling, hypnotic patterns, and it was only when they began to muddle and fade that he said, “So I’m the stone? Causing chaos wherever I go? Is that what I’m supposed to get out of this?”

“That would be a fine answer, too. Though, despite the darkness that surrounds you, you don’t seem to be sinking to me,” the Oracle smiled. “No, you are the water. You cause change and leave glowing trails through history in your wake, but even when they fade, you leave murky water behind and make it difficult to see exactly what it is you’ve accomplished.”

That was true metaphorically, of course. He was more surprised that it was true literally. The water was clouded with sediments now, and he could no longer see any details between the gaps in the mist. It was nothing but a muddy, uniform midnight blue for a dozen feet in any direction.

“I see,” he nodded. “Things take time to settle. That's why you brought me down here.”

Simon was surprised that she’d cut so quickly to the core of the issue, but he supposed that he shouldn’t have been. She’d done pretty well the last time, too. The Oracle was more than she seemed, and even if she wasn’t a Goddess, she was something close to it.

“Down here?” she asked. “Oh, did we meet on the terrace before? That would probably be the right thing to do for some version of you. I’m afraid I can’t take you there right now. You have too much darkness in your soul. You’d have to come back more unburdened in another life if you wanted another glimpse of the things that may yet be.”

“Well, truthfully, I didn’t find whatever that was nearly as useful as the conversation I had with you, but—” he started.

“Then you didn’t think about them enough,” the Oracle interrupted. “Those vapors are… powerful. They should be; they are not of this world.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Be that as it may,” Simon said, continuing the point. “I just… I could do anything. I could be doing anything right now, but I’m not sure what I should be doing and… I don’t know. I came here looking for perspective.”

“That is a dilemma that every man and woman faces for their whole life,” she nodded sagely. “But in time, most find something they have a talent for and use that to help others.”

“That’s just it, though,” Simon insisted. “I have many talents. I could fight a war or overthrow a kingdom, but how do I know that it would do more good than harm in the long run.”

“Each time you muddy the waters, it is difficult to say what the results will be when they clear,” she agreed. “You could, perhaps, try not killing or overthrowing anyone at all.”

She laughed at that, and he joined her for a moment. “Building things would likely muddy the waters of the future as much as breaking them,” Simon said after a moment.

“Sometimes,” she agreed, “But they take place in a slow, predictable way. They unfold over time without splashing the waters too much. In much the same way that fish swim without leaving a trace.”

“Isn’t it a waste for a hero that could save a people or win a war to spend their time baking bread or building houses?” Simon asked. “It feels selfish to me.”

“Perhaps to the people that were not saved,” she agreed, picking up a small flat stone. “But to the people that live in those houses and eat your bread, you will always be remembered well. You, like everyone else, can be whatever you want, but you cannot be everywhere at once any more than this stone can.”

As she spoke, she took her stone and threw it in a side arm grip, making it skip across the water. Simon lost it in the mist immediately, but each place it struck the water it left behind a burst of aqua light before it leaped into the air again. With each small splash, it left glowing rings behind that widened even as they faded, leaving a complex pattern beneath the patchy mist before it faded to darkness.

He had nothing to say to that as he struggled to understand what meaning she was trying to give him. Finally, as if she’d sensed his confusion, she said, “Perhaps it is merely that you do not see things as you should. You wear quite a funeral shroud this visit, but I do not think that is what is blinding you.”

“Blinding me?” he asked, confused. “I can see just fine. What’s unclear is—”

“That’s exactly what I’d expect a half-blind man to say,” she said before continuing to study him silently for almost a minute.

“You have a fairly mature soul,” she said finally. “Such things should not be beyond you, and yet… Is this something she did to you?”

“Who Hela—” Simon asked before the Oracle brought her finger to his lips.

“I would appreciate it if you did not say her name here,” she said. “Did she give you any gifts or boons?”

“I mean…” Simon hesitated. “She gave me a little help with the language and, of course, the mirror, but…”

“Ah, the mirror, that’s right,” the Oracle said as if remembering something. “I recall that. Could you call it, please?”

The request made Simon feel weird, but not as weird as the idea of actually fulfilling it. He’d never summoned the mirror when anyone else could see or hear it. No one had told him he had to keep it a secret or anything, but some part of him felt like he did.

Still, because she already seemed to know about it, he considered it. “Have you met other heroes in the Pit then?” he asked.

“Do you think that you are the only one of her chosen ever to find this place?” she asked, amused. “In the same way that other me’s have met other yous, in other lives, where you are someone else entirely, I have met and guided them too, though not as well as I would like to.”

“I see,” Simon said, turning toward the water. “Other mes and other yous, huh? Well, mirror, why don’t you join the conversation, too. Make it a real party.”

‘Hello Simon,’ the glowing blue writing appeared on the water in a cyan that was only a few shades brighter than the bioluminescence that swirled there earlier. In places where the fog covered it, the writing appeared blurred, but the words were still legible.

“Hello, Mirror,” the Oracle chimed in. “It is nice to see you again.”

‘Hello, Oracle,’ the mirror responded. ‘’You are looking well.’

“I am well,” she agreed. “Could you please show Simon the current state of his aura?”

“My aura?” he asked. Before she responded, his reflection changed. It was hard to make out all the details on the misty water, but as he watched, a darkness wrapped around him like a cloud of smoke. The Oracle changed, too, but she only continued to brighten as she stepped away so that her reflection would not distract him.

Once her light was gone, though, he was left as only a man-shaped shadow. He couldn’t even make out the robes he was wearing, and though he was sure that if he looked in a mirror in a room with better lighting, he’d see more, it was still disturbing.

“Okay, mirror, you can stop now,” he told it. The image began to fade, but he didn’t watch that. Instead, he turned to the Oracle in surprise. “How did you know to do that?”

“Simon, I can see the world like that without your little toys and tricks; I just happened to know that’s one of the ways it worked. What do you use it for if not to see into yourself or others?” she asked.

“Uhmmm, mostly for stats and experience,” he admitted, feeling a little weird about sharing that. “It's sort of my personal library, too. I record things in it so I can look them up later.”

“Well, that’s clever,” she said with genuine enthusiasm. “I’ve never met someone that does that before.”

“Could we get back to the part about you seeing auras?” he asked. “That’s something I’ve wondered about for a long time. I’ve known and even been killed by other people who could see them, but I’ve never understood them. Are they connected to using magic, or…”

“So, at last, we stumble together toward your question,” she beamed. “It turns out that all we had to do was wait for things to settle so the truth could be revealed.”

“I suppose we did,” he agreed halfheartedly.

Simon’s mind still hadn’t quite resolved the dilemma of what he should be doing and why building might not be as impactful as destroying, but he could ponder all that another day. If the Oracle was going to give him even a sliver of insight into the nature of magic, then that was worth pursuing.