Oracle (Book I)

Rock

Their next stop was the Lake of Fineas's warm and sunny waterfront. With no lessons today, most of the students gathered on the bank or swam the waters; in the distance, some even wheeled their arms around, raising waves that they rode on boards. Around the side of the colorful cascading basins, as Caprice set up her cauldron, she thought she saw the sails of a big ship bobbing among the clouds. With a poke from her finger, a gentle, yellow flame licked to life underneath the cauldron and she collected a flask of sunlit water from the shore.

Nezzle and Po peered curiously inside the cauldron as she worked.

"What're you making?" Nezzle inquired lightly.

"It's a surprise, nosy," Caprice said with a secretive smile.

One of Nezzle's eyebrows rose and her mouth twitched.

"Fair enough."

"What sort of flame is that?" Po asked.

"Touch it if you want. It's not meant to burn right away. It will warm the cauldron at first but not boil it." Po, too, asked what she was making, but Caprice merely pressed a finger to her lips.

When she was finished preparing the first potion in her plans, she stared thoughtfully into the brew then looked around.

"I don't think anyone will bother it...or knock it over...I think."

"I can help with that." Nezzle raised her hand. In a faint flash, a set of yellow and purple velvet ropes appeared into her hand. She held them out to Caprice. "Here, these are enchanted cordons. There are some potions that need to be outside and or in certain environments. Your teacher will give you your own soon. Until then, borrow mine."

Accepting them, Caprice asked, "What do they do?"

"They're supposed to prevent 'scholarly dishonesty'. Cheating. Sabotage. That sort of thing."

"Sans wand and sans incantatem? Both of you." Po pouted. "If only I was blessed with more talent."

Caprice lay the ropes on the ground around the cauldron. As she did, they rose, light as air, encircling the area marked inside them and locking ends.

"I'm just a beginner myself at that," Caprice said. "Up until school here, I wasn't allowed to use magic at all."

Gasping in shock, Po said, "But why? You're a witch!"

Caprice and Nezzle shared a look. A look that said everything without a word.

"It has something to do with what Karrigan Whitehare did last night, doesn't it."

"Yes but I'll tell you about some other time. It's a lovely day, isn't it? Where were you planning to go for your map?"

With barely a pause though with a worried frown full of curiosity, Po gracefully accepted the change of topic.

"This way."

Leaving her cauldron to itself in the velvet ropes' protective enclosure, they went into the tunnel alongside the lake. A familiar cool dimness and quiet enveloped her.

"Have you already done this place?" Caprice asked.

Po nodded. "The Aquarian Passage. Might have been one of my firsts."

They walked along the gallery window illuminated by its cold, blue light. On the other side a naked woman swam the deep waters in spirals and circles, propelled by her arms and tail fin. The brown skin of her torso faded seamlessly into the iridescent scales of the long dancing fin composing the lower half of her body. The curls clouding her face glinted as she danced in the water as if it was air.

"Professor Tisna. A darling—kind of like a mermaid. She deals mostly with the aqua kids," Nezzle explained. She and Tisna swept each other cordial, graceful bows from their respective sides of the window.

"I've heard of darlings before, but I've never seen or met one. I saw Professor Tisna at the ceremony. She can—"

"Walk on land? Yeah, she gets her legs under her every now and again."

Caprice stared, as the professor's beauty and dance-like swimming in the depths was enough to bespell anyone who saw her.

"You're smiling," Po said.

"Oh it's... This is where I met Nezzle. The first day."

"It was an odd day," Nezzle said. "Like when you get an itch on the bottom of your foot or in your wisdom teeth. I sort of ended up here. Then I met you."

"I met Bossa that day, too. I met her first."

"Interesting. How we all met like that. Destiny," Nezzle said. Then she seemed so lost in thought that she didn't turn the page of her book until sometime after they reached their destination.

Near the end of the tunnel, they passed the door that led back into the Main Hall. Dappled sunlight and shady forest surrounded a small, oblong, slightly overgrown field on the side of the castle. Here, they could still hear the waters splashing and the students on the lake in distant echoes of mirth. Closer to the edge of the trees lay the entrance to the catacombs, a dim, rocky hole in the grass that led down into the earth.

Goosebumps rose on Caprice's skin and she shivered. She didn't think of her trips to Professors Gleddy and Starstaff's schoolroom inside. She thought of her earlier dream as they walked down the earthen incline and entered the mouth of the catacombs.

Po stopped and faced them, twiddling her fingers all sheepish-looking.

"It isn't too dreary, is it? It really is a fine day not to be in a shady, underground hole. You don't have to come if you don't want to. Wouldn't mind the company though."

"I don't mind," Nezzle said.

"Me either," Caprice said.

Po beamed. "All right! And don't worry: It's kind of a ways in, but I know the way out."

As far as shady, underground holes went, there had to be worse. After a short dimness, the catacombs' bespelled tunnels hewn out of sand-colored stone lit themselves from the inside with a soft complimenting light.

Caprice's looming, faceless anxiety coiled tight in her stomach as they passed all the corridors and caverns that led to schoolrooms and went deeper into the cool catacombs. So without a word from Po, she already knew where they were. Just like in her dream, the largest cavern bore a sandy floor and dozens of statues, some of which were carved out of the walls. Caprice gazed up at the largest statue that was situated on the back wall and into the face of Rock, the statue that had spoken to her in the dream.

"Isn't it magnificent," Po said as she pulled out her map. She stuck the length of parchment in the air in front of her and, with a prod from her wand and a choice word, it stayed there as if it were pinned down. "Oracle has a lot of statues but this one is the largest I've ever seen. I always get shooed off by some teacher when I try to map between lessons so I haven't been able to finish this place. The spell in the parchment is especially slow in here. Wouldn't it be great to find out its because there's a hundred secret passageways in here!"

While the map etched itself with the chamber's tiniest details and Po's excited ramblings (mostly to herself) faded behind her, Caprice walked over to Rock.

There was something here...something so still, still as the statues. Yet alive.

"I've never been here before," she pointed up at Rock, "but I've seen this before. In a dream."

Nezzle hopped onto the statue's big toenail and sat with her legs folded under her.

"The campus air is full of magic. I wouldn't be surprised if some of it gets into your dreams. I used to dream about this place all the time." She pointed her thumb over her shoulder. "Her, too."

"Who is she?"

"Honored student? Founder? Religious icon? Historical figure?" Nezzle shrugged. "If I could get a hold of Oracle, An Unabridged History I'd tell you." She pointed down. A single word was carved into the rectangular stone nestled close to the statue, maybe having been part of it once. "Name sign just says 'Rock'. I'm not even sure if it is a name sign."