Ephemeral and Fleeting

Mara tucked her hair behind her ear, then proceeded to tell her friends all about her travels with Dixon after she’d lost her memory and insisted on returning to her childhood home.

“The strangest times were when some trinket seemed to propel me to travel magically to the twins,” she said. “First it was a grut tooth, then the oracle—”

“The oracle?” Basha asked. “Really?”

“Yes, it just said ‘Go,’ the same as it always has. At least I now know why that was.”

“Oh? What do you mean?” Velia asked.

“Well, Effie and Fleet explained it all to me. You see, when I first took the oracle from the cave all those years ago, the flits were released. But they couldn’t communicate directly with us until the twins found Ehyeh’s favor. In the meantime, they could get Ehyeh’s intended messages to us only through their use of the oracle.”

Basha reached for the flask from Velia, and then took a drink. “How did they do that?”

“From what I’ve gathered—although truthfully, they didn’t say much—it literally took their blood. That is, one of them was sacrificed each time, just to get the message to us.”

“That’s awful!” Velia cried.

“I agree. But it seems they believed the messages were sufficiently important, such that the sacrifices they made were worth it. In any case, had I not correctly deciphered what it was that I was to ‘go’ for each time, or had I not taken heed of the messages with sufficient haste, the flits’ sacrifices would have been in vain. And, you know, that almost happened . . .”

Pausing, she shook her head. “When the twins were infants, after I’d sent you, Basha,” she nodded her way, “and some of the others of our group ahead to the compound with the great scepter, the oracle had been telling me to ‘go.’ I knew it meant that I was to leave the City of Light. But I thought that Dixon and I should first meet with Edmond at sanctuary there. So I waited.