Chapter 624 - The Third Harvest Moon Ⅳ (2/2)
Halting at the edge of the cave entrance, Marcellus lowers his hood feeling the fierce rain drizzling down his hair and face. ”May a weary traveler enter and seek the wisdom of a soothsayer?” He carefully asked and waited for a response all the while gripping his wand.
”Enter traveler,” at last a hoarse voice rasped, ”but enter at your own peril. You have been duly warned.”
Marcellus wipes his wet face dry as best as he can with his sleeve, and cautiously enters the soothsayer's lair. The walls are painted with runes that are dyed with rust-like paint, blood. An awful metallic stench fills the air as the bones of small creatures and not so small are laid to waste at the side of the walls. Something suddenly skids and he pauses down to glance and sees a human femur bone glittering in the flickering firelight.
Clenching his wand that much tighter, Marcellus moves forward showing no trace of his unease. Hunched over a boiling pot is an ancient soothsayer with stark white, wild untamed hair that has feathers and bones intertwined as decorations. The gnarled soothsayer lifts her head to reveal a craggy face with a bird-like nose. Two painted eyes in charcoal can be seen on her forehead, and every time she blinks to reveal two painted eyes on her the back of her eyelids.
The soothsayer does not speak as she grips the ladle with her talon-like nails and stirs the boiling pot. The soothsayer opens her mouth to reveal a gap filled mouth with aged yellow teeth. ”Wizard, you have come a long way,” she croaked. ”Across the sea to the lands of the Gaul's. What wisdom do you seek and require from an old soothsayer such as I?”
A drop drips from Marcellus's damp hair and down the back of his neck causing a shiver to rush down his spine. Ignoring the shiver, he firmly replies, ”I seek the wisdom that only Deliyuh, the Soothsayer can provide.”
The grimy, wooden ladle abruptly ceases to turn causing the contents within the pot to slosh around, before settling back down. The Soothsayer narrows her yellow-like eyes as she vigilantly says, ”Very few know that name, and even fewer still live to tell the tale. And so, wizard let us cease with these flatteries and speak truthfully. Just what is it that which you so desperately seek?”
”I seek information regarding the abomination,” Marcellus solemnly answered causing the Soothsayer to pull back and bare her teeth at him.
The Soothsayer begins to chant as the bones within the cave begin to rustle and move to creep forward. ”I bear you no ill will, soothsayer!” Marcellus cried out. ”However, the abomination seeks to destroy all that which I care for, and it will not rest until its task is complete.”
The bones cease to move as the Soothsayer cease to chant and warily regards him through narrowed eyes. ”Drink,” she ordered, before reaching into the folds of her thick wool robes. Removing a stopper, she sips at it first, before handing it over for him to drink.
Marcellus takes a sip and almost gags at the taste of blood but still does as he is told. The weathered Soothsayer studies him through narrowed eyes before snatching the vial back and placing it within the folds of her clothes. ”You are not possessed, wizard,” she muttered as she licked her mouth clean that is darkened by blood, but her aged teeth are still tainted by a reddish color.