Chapter 5

The man sat with his back to the large window. It was night, now, and the garden wasn't so interesting at night. There were the stars, of course, and the moon – quarter moon tonight – but he had work to do. It seemed that his work was never finished.

As he was going over the reports, there was a knock at his door. "Come," he said loudly, loud enough for the sound of his voice to penetrate the door.

"You asked to see me, sir," Siobhan greeted him as she walked to his desk.

"Ah, yes," he replied, looking up at the short, delicate blonde. He sat back in his chair and looked at her, placing his hands casually on the arms of his chair. From this distance, Siobhan could see his face. It was a handsome face, strong, with a firm nose and a strong, cleft chin. It was his eyes that drew her attention, though, just as they drew everyone's attention who met the man. His eyes were a stark, light blue; so blue that they seemed to have their own illumination. "Siobhan. So sorry to bother you this late at night but I'm a bit confused. You see, when we spoke last you said that the traitor was going to die; I believe you said that there were no futures you could see where she lived. I remember being quite broken up about it because I was worried about yet another dark stain on my soul."

"I remember, sir," Siobhan replied, her face guarded with a faint tinge of curiosity. "I remember because it was so unusual to see an event that spanned all of the futures I could see. I even went to the other Vatae and all futures were the same. The traitor had to die that the demon could live."

"Interesting," the man said, interlocking his fingers in front of him. "So how is it that I have reports here that the traitor is not only alive but she is well on her way to making a full recovery?"

"That ... that is ... impossible, sir," she breathed. "She ... she was dead ... in every future, across all visions she was ... dead."

Siobhan's eyes turned glassy as she stared at the man's desk; her hand sought out a lock of her hair and started twisting it around. His head tilted sideways and his eyes narrowed as he waited. Minutes passed before Siobhan's eyes finally returned to the present.

"I ... I do not understand, sir," she said in awe. "I see her, see her in the future. She ... it is ... it is..."

"Yes?" He asked as her voice trailed off.

"He must have saved her," she said, her voice trembling. Her fingers were tying knots at the ends of her long, blonde hair now. "I'm not sure how but he must have saved her."

"And why didn't your visions see that potential outcome?" The man asked.

"I ... that is we ... we couldn't have, sir," Siobhan replied anxiously.

"You couldn't have?" The man asked, flabbergasted. "You are the Vatae, the Oracles. How could you not see?"

"I tried to explain it to you before but..." Siobhan shook her head. "The ... the demon ... he blurs the future. He casts a cloud over it." She shook her head, looking at the wall for words to explain. "We ... the Vatae ... we do not see what is to occur. Instead, we see all the possibilities of what is to come. Thousands and thousands of threads of potential. We sift through them, letting our minds compel them into an order of what is more likely and what is less. A weighted view. We look into that future time and we make of it as we can. Some of the Vatae weight the futures well and others more poorly. I have been one of the best – though if that is because of my ... my... time ... with Doctor Braun or not I cannot tell. He ... he did something to my mind to help me but I'm not sure what ... I'm not sure what was done..."

"That is immaterial," Siobhan said, shaking her head. She was getting more and more worked up, her fingers twisting her hair faster and faster. "We see the future ... we see the time to come ... but the demon ... the demon can somehow control time. It makes him ... infinitely more difficult to predict. Maybe even impossible. It also makes the areas in his purview difficult to predict. The closer he is to an event or an outcome, the more difficult it will be to determine what is to come. That is why the final outcome of our work is so difficult to determine. Why it is completely balanced into three possible outcomes. We win if he fights with us. We lose if he fights against us. It is pure chance if he doesn't fight at all."