white stones, dripping from my nose and mouth.
I swallowed hard, and then Imara was in front of me, eyes wide, grabbing for my elbow. She looked a little worse for wear--clothes torn, a few cuts and bruises. Her eyes were terrified.
"I'm fine," I said. My voice seemed to come faint and from a long distance out. "Are you okay?"
"We have to go, now. The Djinn are angry--"
Except that apparently the Djinn were so angry that they'd... left. No sign of the two that Imara had been going toe-to-toe with, which was odd. Just us, the mausoleum, the trees, the headstones.
"Not yet," I said. "I'm not finished."
"Mom, no!"
"Stay here." I climbed back to my feet, swaying, bracing myself on her shoulder for a long moment before turning back to the mausoleum.
There was a Djinn standing in front of it. Not really a Djinn, though--more. Other. He was... beautiful. All Djinn are made of fire, at some level, but he was fire personified, fire eternal. His body could barely contain the heat and the fury, and it rippled in patterns right under his translucent skin.
His eyes were flame. His hair was smoldering red.
He was the most gorgeously wild thing I'd ever seen. Terrifying and utterly sensual. He didn't say a word to me, just stared, and after a moment, he extended his burning hand toward me. I stayed still, aware that my heart was beating like a gong, that I was dripping with sweat and terror. Aware that if he touched me, I'd probably burn like oil left on a hot engine.
I'd healed the Oracle, or at least freed him from his prison. There was still a discolored black stain on his chest, just where his heart would have been in a human, but he seemed... better.
He didn't touch me. He just cocked his head to one side, watching.
I heard a rustle of clothing. Imara was down on the ground, abased, hiding her face. I suspected that the Oracle wasn't someone who got out much, and when he did, he caused quite a stir.
I was too giddy to be impressed.
"Favor for a favor," I said. "I need to get a message to the Mother. Can you help me?" He didn't make a sound. If I hadn't heard that tremendously awful shrieking earlier, I'd have thought he was mute.
He continued to hold out his hand. It shimmered and flickered with heat, like the surface of the sun.
"Don't," Imara whispered. She'd raised her head, watching, but flinched again and hid her eyes when the Oracle turned his attention toward her. "Please, don't!"
I slowly extended my hand and touched his.
Glory rolled through me, and I exploded into flame.
I heard Imara scream, and I wanted to tell her it was all right, but words were useless. Meaningless. What I became in that moment was... transcendent, and for an instant, an instant, I could feel everything. Everyone. I could feel the long, slow, sleeping pulse of the Mother. I could taste the metallic chill of her nightmares.
It flooded into me in images rather than words. Forests burning. Rivers contaminated with greasy pollution. Skies roiling with black filth. Oil-covered birds. Dead, floating fish. Butchered whales. Clubbed dolphins. Death, and death, and death. Cows screaming in slaughterhouses. Pesticides poisoning everything for miles, from the smallest insect to the largest predatory birds.
Humans, a stinking flood on the Earth, unregulated by her natural defenses. Arrogant. Untouchable as a species by any but the greatest of predators... Earth herself.
A furious desire to bring us to heel.
No. No, we're not like that!
I tried sending a countermessage, but the poison had filtered into me, too; what could I say about that? It was true. All true. We were a plague upon the Earth, and we deserved what we got...
No!
I struggled to fight it back. Images of people working together. Of groups on beaches, pouring salt water over stranded whales, struggling to keep them alive until tides could come to the rescue. Environmental specialists restoring oceans and waters, reclaiming them from pollution. We care. We know. We try. Laws to protect endangered species. Jane Goodall, living with her primates. National parks, carefully tended. Children nursing injured animals back to health. We're not monsters. We're not your enemy.
It wasn't enough. I felt it swept away in the black tide of fury coming from the other side, and then something batted at me, vast and languid, and sent me flying.
The contact between my fingers and the Oracle's broke, and I staggered backward, moaning. My clothes were smoking.
The