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Ahriman: The Dead Oracle
    Ahriman:
The Dead Oracle

    John French
    ‘To leave is to arrive.
To arrive is to leave.’
    – words inscribed within the Temple of the Corvidae
    These words are not written to be read. They are written so that something will remain, so that I may still remember something of my life when memory fades and flesh becomes dust. It has not been a kind life. I do not say that from resentment – the universe is a cruel cradle. Kindness, happiness, contentment, these are the lies that we wrap ourselves into as we stagger through the hungering night. We are nothing but candles burning down to darkness. This is the truth. To believe anything else is to be blind.
    I lived, though. I cut a path through existence, one breath, and one heartbeat, at a time. When I look back from the gate of oblivion, I would see the road behind me. I would know how I lived. And so I write that I may remember.
    I was not born on Prospero. I was not born on Terra. My name is not the name I was first given. The soul I have is not the one I was born with. I was many things that I am no longer. I was a warrior. I was a scholar. I was a loyal son of a loyal son.
    What am I now?
    I am the universe’s spite poured into a vessel for its own amusement. I am a servant of many masters, a summoner and binder of creatures that neither live nor die. I am an old demi-god, withered by knowing, and weighed down by living. I am this tale’s teller. I am Ctesias, and this road that these words walk was mine.
    There are many ways that I might start this journey, but I will begin with a return. I will begin with the Dead Oracle.
    The daemon rose through the night before me.
    I knew I was dreaming. I could feel the unreal substance of it around me, as light as warm wind, as cold as deep oceans. I knew that anything I saw, or heard, was not real, and that kindled something close to fear in me.
    Perhaps that surprises you, but dreams are not what you think. They are not your mind scrabbling through the detritus of experience. They are not the universe babbling meaning to you as you slumber. They are the point at which your soul meets all the truths you cannot see. A dream is the most dangerous place that you can go, and you go ignorant and unarmed.
    I am not ignorant, and in the land of the mind I am far from unarmed.
    But as I looked at the daemon I knew that something was wrong. Very wrong.
    I have not dreamed for a thousand years. It is not something I can risk. It is not something I thought I was capable of anymore. And this was not simply a dream. It was a manifestation.
    The daemon’s shape formed as it moved, smudging depth and substance from smoke. Its body resembled a feathered lizard. Nine short legs broke its flattened bulk, each toe tipped with a mouth and tongue. Its head was a cluster of snapping jaws, and slitted, yellow eyes. I could hear voices, laughter and pleading just on the edge of hearing. 
    I knew the daemon. It had been my hand that had unleashed this creature upon the Silvered Host at Cvenis, and seeded its soul parasite into Taragrth Sune. It had many names amongst mortals – Chel’thek, The Dragon of the Hundredth Gate, The Speaker of Infinity – but only I knew its true name, and so only I held its chain of slavery. Given that, and where my body lay, its presence was more than just a problem. It was a sign.
    ‘You,’ I said, my voice heavy with false authority, ‘are not supposed to be here.’
    The daemon’s mouths clacked open and shut.
    ‘But I am, little mage,’ it breathed. ‘I am here.’
    ‘I have your name,’ I said. ‘Your passing is at my sufferance. You rise into being at my will.’
    It laughed with the sound of cracking cartilage.
    ‘Command me then, half-mortal. Bid me back to the dark. The chains rust, and fire pours upon the days as yet unborn. The chiming of the broken bells calls this doom. The Three will defy your exodus. They will drag you apart from within, and eat your carcasses as they