Chapter 61: Volume 1 - Epilogue
Far away, in distant Aaru, the Tower Lord Anruelu Savat, a rather rotund elf, waited. He was reclined on a couch, dressed in the finest of silks, and waited on by a host of serving women.
Behind his couch, a male angel and a female demon - both full-blooded - stood with hands before them, as if they were a matched but opposite set. While they faced the Tower Lord’s back, they never let each other out of their peripheral sight.
As he dined on heaven berries, peeling off the blue of their skins to get at the glowing flesh beneath, the massive doors of his tower suite opened, and a woman entered. She wore a featureless mask of some grey material, with a habit of understated ochre shrouding the rest of her form. Only the slight curves at her chest and hips gave any indication that there was a woman under there at all, not that Anralu had any desire to discover any more than that.
No, this woman was useful for other reasons, but she had her own motivations, as he was increasingly discovering.
"Oracle, so good of you to take time away from the future to see me," he gestured to a divan that was in front of him, just out of the way enough not to occlude the door. "Come, eat, if you are so inclined," he said, his tone inviting, not that he’d ever seen her eat, either. He was always ready for a surprise though.
"I appreciate the spirit of your offer," the Oracle replied.
"Do you know why I called for you?" he asked.
"I know the current, not every flow," she replied flatly, holding so completely, utterly still, he thought she might be a doll.
"In other words, ’No’," Anruelu translated for himself. "Your foresight seems remarkably inconvenient when it suits you... something I’ve noticed has been happening more often lately."
She remained silent. It wasn’t a new observation he’d made. Over the last year, her predictions had grown more confused. Random-seeming. Uncertain.
He was wondering if her gift had finally maddened her like she warned, or if there was some other agenda at play. He had a dynasty to maintain, as the fourth Savat Tower Lord of Aaru - the longest any single family had ruled this isolated but valuable city. He would not risk-