The Oracle Trilogy Book One Ohm's Node

A Fable Is a Bridge

part 1

chapter 5

act 2

There was an undercurrent of voices, more like a musical wave that rose and fell in soft splashes of odd colors. A slowly clarifying image of her in an elaborately carved stone bed chamber with few things in it other than a bureau and mirror, a small wooden table and vines growing helter-skelter around the enormous round windows and round door leading out to a balcony.

She stretched, enwrapped herself in a light plain blue robe and walked from the bedroom to the outer stone balcony and raised her arms to a new dawn. Below her a crescent valley stretched outward to a low smudge of green mountains she knew intimately from walking them with her father as a little girl. Once when she was a little girl, she had counted and named the rivers and streams and rivulets and ponds and the strange flowers that began to color the meadows below.. She had placed delicious fantastical characters doing unimaginable things down there, living and hiding in secret chambers beneath the giant roots of imaginary trees that split the clouds and in their mighty limbs of her pretend named tree friends. Often, as they traveled on their paths through the immensity of the landscape, her father would mention little things that prepared her to be queen one day.

'You'll meet all kinds of people whose lives are as different the colors of a rainbow. They will tell you fantastical tales of the things that you know about in your books. If you are so lucky my little princess, it will come here for the great mountains of the north will not hold it back for long. It is fortuitous for you that you will witness first hand the tide of life moving across the land that sweetens the air with a redolence that conjured the saved master pieces of lore that our world has as reminder.'

She never wanted to hear any of it, being so self-absorbed in the present. Youth, she sighed, how fleeting.

The bell chiming followed by the usual three knocks on the door disturbed her reverie. Here we go, she whispered to her little girl, what would today bring. She kept a written log of all visitors, guests and dignitaries along with her uninhibited opinions and thoughts. A small adjoining room held all the gifts they brought in hopes of softening her up for any manner of favor. She of course had her favorites, mostly those who were articulate and painted word pictures of distant lands. The world seemed to be getting larger every year with hearsay and anecdotal stories that kept stretching the maps and anyone in power or not with a juicy story could gain access for any number of reasons, recently for her hand in matrimony.

Turning around to meet her first, she noticed a murmuration of Jacks alighting on a turret to her left, all glistening to the new sun. Were there nests up there? She couldn't remember. And they were silent. Did that mean anything?

'Miss, may I introduce a wayward wanderer who is said to have traveled far and has the most amazing accounts of things quite foreign to us, my lady. We have determined as usual of his benign nature and therefore not a threat but as is always the case will post a guard nearby.'

'No need, I'll enjoy the company of this young wayfarer without disturbance, thank you.'

She could read him to a point. He had left behind a wealthy family and a beautiful woman who loved him all for knowledge. Adventure with many became a hollow quest for the next shiny thing but she could sense a strong thirst to understand with this one. Still young and green around the edges, highly inquisitive and he had just walked the bridge! Something she had wanted to do all her awaking life.

'You've just walked the bridge.'

'Yes, my lady.'

'Well, let's sit. There, and I here. Would you like food or drink?"