Bitter Herb

Morris scrabbled for purchase as he climbed up the mountainside, smooth with age and lichen. The fingers of his left hand slipped off of a minute crevice and he dangled from the other, gazing down over the distant mist-shrouded lands he had traversed, the foul and unnatural swamp that bubbled at Staxal's base, the safer, easier parts of the earthen monstrosity that rested hundreds of yards below. He saw the brown canvas of his tent and the majority of his possessions on a rock shelf. Morris only carried on his person the things which the soothsayer desired as payment.

He wrenched with his right arm, hauling his body up by that lone extremity, desperate to regain a handhold. His fingers felt icy cold and then flushed with warmth as the blood flowed, but he managed to regain purchase and, using his fear-fueled sudden burst of strength, hauled his entire body over the last rise to flop on the cold stone.

He lay there for some time, breathing the thin air, recovering his strength and composure. The cuts in his hand, perfect moon-shaped incisions, a valiant final attempt by the mountain to thwart him, throbbed as blood trickled out in thin rivulets. He staggered to his feet and looked at the cave mouth up ahead. It yawned open like the mouth of a giant infant beast, smooth and clear of any clutter.

Morris stepped inside, out of the sunlight. The cave's interior was cold, far colder than it should have been, and a cloying aroma filled it, something pungent and sweet, a scent that brushed at the very edges of Morris's memory, teasing and taunting him with its almost-familiarity.

"Issif! Wise oracle, speaker of the truth! I, Morris Tage, seek your guidance in matters dear to my heart!" He spoke the words loudly, enunciating precisely, as he has been told to do by the Homeopath in Telmana...or had it been Keelage? He practiced the words every night of the journey to Staxal.

For a moment, he feared that he had made a mistake, that the resident of this cave would ignore him and that everything had been for nothing. Then a dry, rasping voice echoed from out of the deeper parts of the cavern, "This is Issif, who once was. Morris Tage, you seek knowledge of things outside your mortal ken?"

The Homeopath had prepared him for this question as well. "I do, and I come with the payment you require." Morris reached down and untied the small bag from its place at the left side of his hip. Its contents bulged out grotesquely. He undid the thong which held it shut and flipped it open. The severed heads of three children, two boys and a girl, rolled out and deep into the cave.

Issif made a strangled gasping sound, equal parts delight and agony. "Ask, Morris Tage, what you would have Issif answer."

Morris lifted his chin and straightened his shoulders, every inch of the soldier he had been. "How can I have back the things which I have lost?"

Issif chuckled. The sound was like dried snakeskins being crushed into dust. "You must take them."

This, too, was part of the game the Homeopath warned Morris about. The oracle's answers would be vague no matter how specific the question that was asked. No, what Issif wanted of visitors was evidence that they truly desired what was being offered. "I ask a different question, then." Morris reached down for the bag hanging from his right hip. This one bulged, too, but was not nearly as full. He upended it and the head of Ludah, the guide he had hired to take him to this place, spilled out at his feet. He kicked it inward. This head, unlike those of the children, was fresh, having been harvested just this morning. "What can be done to reclaim the things which one cannot grasp in one's hands nor load onto a cart or ship?"

Issif hissed. "You speak of love, Morris Tage? Many who come here want knowledge of such...carnal things." The soothsayer crooned the word, something akin to emotion entering its voice for the first time.

Morris shook his head. "I ask of all intangibles. Do not attempt to shortchange me by answering only with regard to one emotion."

"I would never imagine such a thing. Look, you, into the deep of the cave."

Morris squinted and saw the first hint of the oracle, a pair of faint green eyes that smoldered in the darkness. The eyes grew and blurred, as though they drew close to Morris's face, but faded away as two forms emerged from the shadows, somehow darker than the sunless depths. A man and a woman. They seemed to be arguing, though about what Morris could not say...or could he? The shadow-people lacked color and definition, but the man-shape seemed to resemble him to some degree. Or was he only imagining the similarities, letting his mind fill in the details which the soothsayer's magics could not?

The dispute between the two shadow-people intensified. They gesticulated wildly, mouths opening and closing rapidly, simultaneously, arguing over each other. Then the woman lashed out and struck the shadow-man on the right cheek. Morris flinched as though he had been the victim and raised his hand to his own cheek. Something warm and sticky clung to it. Blood from the wounds on his fingers? Or more?

Morris blinked rapidly and turned his head away. "That does not answer anything, oracle."

Issif purred, "Oh, but it does, Morris Tage. You see what it is that you want to see, what answers you already have."

Morris snapped an arm outward and yelled, "That is not why I came here! Tell me, how can I regain meaning and happiness in my life!"

Issif's hellish green eyes flared in the darkness. "You must find it for yourself."

Morris took a deep, frustrated breath through his mouth, though it did little to lessen the charnal atmosphere of this foul place. He recited the words which the Homeopath had told him to say when he had finished with Issif. "I take my leave of you, soothsayer, to put your words into practice. May I never come to this place again."

Morris turned to leave and had just taken his first step in the direction of the bright, clean outside when Issif's voice, powerful and vibrant, came out of the darkness. "Are now you content in your life, Morris Tage?"

Morris considered for a moment. "I...I am content in the answers you have given to me."

"It should bring you comfort, then, that you are content in your life at this moment, Morris Tage. I yet require payment for the last answer I have given."

Morris stopped in his tracks. A cold sweat broke out under his shoulders, over his back, everywhere but on the patches of scalding flesh on his cheek and hand.

Morris's unwilling body turned and marched into the depths of the cave.

Pretend

"I don't want to play this farce anymore."
The assistant sighed. The prince's petulance grated on his nerves. "You must, Highness. It is the role expected of you."
The dashing young man, seated on a bed, crossed his arms and pouted. "I'm the prince. You can't make me."

The prince did not appear at the ceremony later that evening. The adviser explained that the prince was not feeling well this evening but that he should be back in the public eye the following day. He was, but no one saw fit to comment on his new appearance.
By the following month the people didn't care anymore.

Floorspaces

Larry settled back into the recliner, balancing the deep styrofoam plate in one hand and keeping firm hold of a bottle of beer in the other. He set the plate of chili and nachos on his lap and fished around for the remote, which had of course fallen into one of the easy chair's nooks. Now that he was back from the kitchen, he turned down the volume from ear-shattering to merely loud.
The announcers were doing a slo-mo replay of the touchdown pass he'd just missed. Larry took a sip from his beer and heaped thick, red chili onto one of the chips before shoving it into his mouth. Pete's recipe was the greatest, just the right amount of heat to it.

"Hey Pete!" Larry yelled over the television. "You're missing some awesome shit!" Pissing didn't normally take this long. Where was he?

As if on cue, Pete said, "Larry, I think I fell through the floor."

Larry twisted around in the chair to look over his shoulder. The chili sloshed against one side of the plate and only the barrier of tortilla chips kept it from spilling all over Larry's pants. "What now?"

"I think I fell through the floor," Pete said again. His voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere behind Larry, but he couldn't see Pete anywhere.

"What do you mean you fell through the floor?" Larry asked, shifting back into his seat and turning down the game's volume by two notches.

"I was going to the bathroom and I took a step and then I ended up falling through."

Larry bit down on a chili-covered tortilla chip. It crunched. "So you're in the basement? Fuck, Pete, you know we gotta pay for repairs like that."

"No, I'm not in the basement. I'm not sure where I am."

"But you're sure you're under the floor?"

"That's where I went, but not where I am. I think."

Larry tapped the side of his beer bottle with a finger. "Not making any sense, bro."

"Call Steve, see if he knows what's going on."

Larry took a swig of beer and snorted."I'm not calling that nerd."

"He knows about black holes and Star Wars and shit, don't he? Maybe I went through a black hole."

Larry didn't pay much attention in the astronomy course he'd been forced to take sophomore year (he passed it with a C, only after Coach Hamilton and the provost had a friendly sit-down with the prof), but something about what Pete said sounded wrong. "They're bigger than that, dipshit."

"Dude, if I'm not in a black hole then why's it so dark?"

Larry didn't have a good answer to that, so he ate another chip and changed the subject to something he knew better. "Rumblers got another TD. Kickass play, put it on replay. You want me to just tell you all the highlights while you figure out how to get out of there?"

"Dude, I can't see anything. Fuck the game!"

"Chill, bro. We'll solve this."

"Whoa hang on," Pete said. "I think I see something."

"See? You're not in a black hole."

"Naw, man, there's somebody else up ahead. He's facing away from me. It's weird, he wasn't there a second ago. He keeps getting closer."

"Well, go talk to him," Larry said around another mouthful of chili. He didn't want to put up with any more of Pete's bitching. This game was a big deal. The Rumblers' season depended on it.

"I am! He's getting pretty close. Hey! Hey guy!" Pete yelled. He was louder than the game when he did that. Larry punched the volume button on the remote to drown Pete out.

"He's ignoring me," Pete said. Despite the volume being near max, to the point that the empty beer bottles on shelves lining the living room rattled, Larry could still hear him fine. "Christ, he needs to do something with his hair. When was the last time he showered? And those highlights look like shit. Hey wait a second I'm--HOLY SHIT LARRY SOMETHING'S PUSHING ME FROM BE--"

Pete cut off in a banshee's scream that drowned out everything else. Larry pitched forward, clasping his ears even though it did nothing to stop the icy spikes of pain boring into his head. Chili splattered all over the chair, the carpet, Larry's crotch. His bottle of beer lay on its side next to the overturned plate, its contents leaking from the neck at a slow trickle.

Larry lay like that for a few minutes, his head reverberating as the din slowly subsided. He felt something warm and sticky oozing down the left side of his face. He didn't think it was chili. "P-Pete?" he ventured once the jangling in his brain was reduced to a buzzing white noise and he could hear the game again. He was dimly aware that the Rumblers had just scored a field goal.

Pete didn't answer.

Larry stood up on shaky legs, wobbling from side to side. He was dimly aware this is how he reeled when he got really drunk, but this was much less fun than any party he'd ever attended. The carpet was a mess, and he was pissed that he wasted a good half-bottle of beer, and those stains would be hell to get out. Hopefully he could clean it enough that the landlord wouldn't find a reason to withhold the deposit when the lease was up.

As Larry stumbled into the kitchen to fetch a roll of paper towels, he decided that he would call up Steve after all. It could wait until after the game, though.