Stuck With The Devil

A Forbidden Oracle

"Halt! There are footprints over there," Ida pointed to her left-hand side where there were about fifteen footprints in two columns leading to a small pavilion.

The horse had been running for about twenty minutes as Ida kept on declaring that some guards or people were still trailing them. Though Cole saw no one or spot any sign that they were being chased, he never stopped riding. They were further getting closer to the dangerous place where every denizen of Venesia had been warned to not pass through. Only the guards and some renowned fighters were authorised because it was a place where the dragons lived. It was one of the reasons the denizens of Venesia appeared to be chained in Venesia.

Since he had no choice but to heed whatever she said, he kept riding. It would not be a good experience if whatever she was saying turned out to be the truth and he had been against it.

They would have had to fight with about twenty well-trained guards which might end up their life and the worse of it was Ida would spend three hundred and sixty-five hours in a day mocking him or explaining to him how she saved him, because of course, she was a witch and it might be easy to overcome them. But since witches were banned, Ida might find herself in another unsolved problem that would certainly lead to her death. It was preferable to be safe, even though they had no combat skills, their option was to run or escape. They just had to run away.

Even when every man in Venesia had different combat skills, Cole had none. He was cursed by a witch the exact day he had come to the world. Then, very few people of the denizens of Venesia knew about witches existing, so there was no proof that he had truly been cursed but now that he had come of age, he knew the curse had made him useless in the society. He was like a Muggle, someone who had no skills nor anything to render to people.

So most of the time, he hated Ida just for that reason. He needed not to be reminded that he was more like a barren. A man who would be cursed forever. The witch in question was dead and since witches were immediately killed except Ida, there was no one to break the spell.

He walked Goldie to the pavilion and tied it around a long tree not so far from the pavilion. He stared at Ida who was busy staring hard at the footprints. "Witch, are we no longer chased?" He paused but when she was about to reply to him he continued, "Or why were we?"

"The guards are in some certain way from Zuddata. They are more than two and they had come to the castle for different purposes but had trailed us when they noticed that we were following the two men who came to inform us," she lied. Even though it did not sound well in her ears she knew Cole would believe it. As a witch, she sometimes knew the exact way to manipulate humans. She just couldn't let him know why she came here. "But now, we are safe, at least."

Pretending to agree to whatever she said, he walked into the Pavilion while Ida followed him.

Cole knew there were some people in the pavilion, even though it looked quite old and unkempt. He had seen from the corner of his eyes two white horses some metres from where he had tied Goldie to.

He watched as the little witch neared him, "Cole, I did not tell us to enter here, did I?"

"And I did not tell you that you are hungry, did I?" He questioned.

"Oh..." Her eyes widened trying to tell him that she understood what he meant, they needed to rest and eat. She was still starving because the exact time the guards from Zuddata came to them in the dungeon, was the same time she requested they followed them. "Are you heavy?"

"Why?" He asked, a bit taken aback.

"Do you have some money with you? Don't expect me to have a single dime."

He smiled a bit as the both of them gently sat down on a chair located in the right corner, three seats away from the door they just entered.

There were just seven people in the room who seemed to be busy with their food. Cole had never expected someone to be here. Had they forgotten that it was against the rules to be around here? Of course, there were trespassers and he was even among them, so there was no reason why there wouldn't be trespassers. Sinners always existed but he did not seem to be happy about it. What was he even saying? Some people dwelled here and created a restaurant. He watched how the man who was serving others food behaved as if he had lived there for a very long time.

He shifted his gaze to his left and watched two young men sitting quietly as they drank their brandy. They looked a bit out of the norms as they both were seen looking around, when his eyes caught one of the men's eyes, he furrowed his eyebrows and tilted his head away to Ida. "Of course, there is no to a little difference between a slave and a church rat." He tried so much to be offensive but Ida seemed to be concerned about something else. He watched her stare at the two men his eyes just left, "Is anything wrong?"

"Yes." He had never seen her whisper so low, "Look at the sack beside the man on pink, it is..."

"Nothing more than swords hmmm pumpkins and..." He was cut short by Ida's thick glare that was impossible to be sliced off with a sword, "Okay...no idea but in there is a sword."

Ida stared at the two men who by now pretended to be drunk before she stared at Cole, her eyes reflecting a pinch of disdain, "You are so close to being dumb-"

"W..."

"Those sacks are-" she leaned closer to him, her lips almost touching his shoulder while sitting, "that is the forbidden Oracle."

"What?" He exclaimed as his back hit his chair with a force that earned him some crazy glances, "do you mean?" His voice sounded low but it was still an octave higher than the little witch's statement.

"That is not possible. What... how did they..."

"It's one proof of what Zuddata can do. His armies have grown over the years." She painfully whispered the remaining words threatening to come out from her trembling limbs, "It...they are set free. The demons from the realms. How?" Before she was able to move her gaze to the sack lying beside the men who seemed to be out of their seats now, Cole's eyes fluttered close and he fell to the table. "Cole?" She called.

That was when it dawned on her that they had been drugged. Not that they had eaten, they had perceived what they ought not to have.