"Why would the Oracle fear mortals?"

I stared at him, trying to determine for myself if he was mad or not.

He said, "Because of their god."

I said, "But the cults just worship myths… their gods aren't real."

He turned his gaze back to the fire. "I thought that too once. It makes sense in its own way. Bunch of half-tamed crazies running around in the wilds making offerings to things none of us can see. Most rational thing in the world is to assume there's nothing at the other end of their chanting and praying. But the Children at least talk to something that talks back."

I said, "How can you know?"

"The little freaks we picked up and put the screws on, they blabbed eventually. They told us their dirty little god had given them a present. The relic they were going to use to bring the Tower down. They were low on the pecking order, so they were short on details, but the gist was that they had their relic in the tunnels under our Tower. And once it was ready, they could use it to bring our Tower down, and then all the other Towers with it. That's what the Oracle was afraid of. That's why it sent the Storm. Oracle wouldn't have wanted to tear down a Tower, but the only way to get to the little creeps was to rip the earth apart and scoop them out. And that's what it did. Killed maybe a million people to make it happen. I don't blame the fucking thing, it was fighting for its own survival, but it doesn't stop me from hating it all the same."

I shifted uncomfortably. I wasn't raised to think or speak of the Oracle in this way. I was also intensely aware that Enki, purportedly part of the Oracle, might be watching and listening through my eyes and ears at that very moment.

Arnie said, "I sifted through the rubble afterwards. I wasn't well in the wake of the disaster. Not many of us were, probably. We'd lost our homes, our city, friends and family. Fiends spawned by the Storm were making the rubble of our city their home. But I couldn't let it lie. It preyed on me that the stories the little shits had been telling had led to it. What were the fucking odds? What were the odds that they'd spin their tale about trying to tear down the whole fucking Griid, only to have a Storm of that terrible power appear to rip them out of the ground?"

He stared into the fire. I said nothing. Lightsbane was poking at the pages on the table. She was disinterested. She knew this story. I thought maybe she had brought me here to entertain the old man, not the other way around.

His eyes grew faint and distant as he stared into the fire. I watched him intently, held by the reflections of the little flames in the glassy orbs of his stare.

Eventually he said, "That's when I lost my hand."

He waved the hooked claw at me. He was bitter.

He said, "The Wildknight took it from me."

I pricked up. "The Wildknight?"

He nodded. "I found their lair. It wasn't underground anymore. The whole earth had been torn away. What I found was a crater. Bodies everywhere. Robed little fucks, children. Most of the bodies had been twisted and pulped by the Storm. Some of them were deformed, like abortions of Fiends, their bodies distorted and changed like huge tumors. But they were all dead. Only two of them survived. The Wildknight, I suppose because of all his fucking relics, and the Griidlord."

I felt my heart thumming in my chest. A Wildknight and a Griidlord. Joel and Danefer.

He said, "They were fighting. They were fighting over the remains of that terrible machine they'd wanted to use to tear the Tower down. The machine that drew the wrath of the Oracle. I was standing up on the lip of the crater, looking down at them. It was as frightening a sight as the Storm had been. That Wildknight was powerful. More powerful than anyone outside a suit has a right to be. I reckon he could have put down many a Griidlord if he'd been put against them. But the suit he was fighting was something else. I couldn't see his colors. He was wearing a cloak over his armor. He might have been from Miami, or Tennessee. There was blue there, but it was dark. Fuck, but he was powerful. I've wondered a long time over who he could have been. Maybe it was the Western Empress, Yvina, or the Sword from Miami, Ma-at Ra. But it would hardly make sense for a suit of that power and renown to be fighting a Wildknight in the ruins of the Storm. Whoever it was, they were strong."

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I said, "Why were they fighting?"

He leaned closer to me. "That's the question, isn't it? One of the pieces that's needed to make sense of the whole thing. Why were they fighting? Well, on the surface it's easy enough. They were fighting over the relic, the machine. So I suppose the question is really why were they fighting over it? If the thing's only good for tearing down the Griid, then you'd suppose one either wants to use it or destroy it. If one of them had wanted to destroy it, then they had plenty of chances during the fight. No, they were fighting over who was going to possess it. If they both wanted to use it, there'd be no reason to be quarrelling. So that implies it has more uses than just Armageddon, doesn't it?"

I said, "Maybe to use it as leverage against the Oracle?"

He paused. "That's a funny thing for a young lad like you to say. What makes you think you can have something like leverage against a god?"

I said, "I'm just supposing…

He watched me, that penetrating suspicion examining me. He spoke, a little slowly at first, "Well… anyhow, it was clearly playing out in favor of the Griidlord. The knight was powerful beyond all reason, but the Griidlord was something else, and he had a fucking suit. I was standing there, a young fella myself at the time, now, you have to understand. My city was a heap of smoking rubble. I could only assume most everyone I'd known and loved was dead and lost to me. And… I felt responsible. I'd been a lead on the investigation, I'd let it go this far. I was standing there, looking down on the infernal machine and the two monsters fighting over it, putting the pieces together and knowing, just knowing, that I had let all of this happen. If I'd moved on them sooner, then it could have been avoided."

I said, "So you charged."

A surprised glance from the old man. He said, "You got a temper yourself?"

I shrugged. "I can be stupidly impulsive."

He said, "A curse of youth. You'll get over it or you'll die. Or you'll lose a limb. Ha! Aye, lad, I did charge. I wasn't thinking. It was all the hate and confusion boiling up in me and I just needed to do something. I charged the closest one, the knight, thrust at him with my spear. What I expected to happen I don't know. I just needed to stab something. Someone. You can see how it worked out."

He held the hook up in front of me. It was a fine piece of work, expensive craftsmanship, but dirty and ill cared for.

He said, "I didn't track what happened next so well. I was busy, screaming on the ground trying to stick my forearm back on. Didn't take, wouldn't ya know. Eventually the knight fucked off. He was beat and he knew it. The Griidlord picked up the relic. It was a big machine, must have weighed a half-tonne, maybe more. But the bastard just threw it on his shoulder like a little hay bale and left."

I said, "Did they say anything? Did you catch anything that passed between them?"

He wobbled his head on his old neck. "Sort of, but not really. I got the sense that they knew each other well. It's all a bit mixed up, you need to understand, I was a little distracted by the severed hand. But I caught bits of it. One of them thought the other wanted to go too far. The other that they hadn't gone far enough."

I said, "And you've kept investigating?"

He nodded. "I have. But in the years since, I haven't gotten much further."

I said, "How do you live, Arnie?"

He said, "Drunk."

I said, "I mean, what do you live on? A pension?"

He jerked his head toward Lightsbane, his expression disparaging. "She won't let me starve to death and be at peace."

She spoke. "I was a little girl in the ruins of a city. My parents were dead. My brothers and sisters were dead. A little fiend had me cornered and I wasn't even sure if I didn't just want it to kill me and have it over with. Then a man with a bandaged stump for an arm came out of the smoke and killed the fiend and saved me. It's a little thing to pay his rent and make sure his bottles are full when he wants them. I'd put him in a finer place, but he doesn't care to go."

Arnie spat. "I don't deserve nothing better. I don't deserve this. Cleveland would still be alive if I had done different. Your parents too, Ravyn."

She shook her head, exhausted, and turned back to the table.

I chose my words carefully. "So… you're not occupied with employment?"

"I am not."

I said, "And you're obsessed with the mystery of what happened to destroy the city?"

He laughed bitterly. "That I am."

I said, "Then I have a proposition for you…"

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