The Oracle That Answered Every Question: I. The Question Nobody Asked

The oracle stood at the edge of the market.

Nobody knew who had built it. It had been there longer than the oldest merchant could remember, beneath a stone archway where the road divided.

It had no face.

A narrow opening in the stone allowed questions to be spoken. Beyond it, something answered.

For many years, nobody paid much attention.

People asked where lost things had gone, whether distant relatives were well, when the river would rise, and whether the harvest would be good.

The answers were sometimes useful.

Sometimes they were not.

One morning, a woman came to the oracle carrying a small wooden box.

"My husband has been missing for three days," she said. "Where is he?"

The oracle answered.

"He is beneath the western bridge."

The woman hurried away.

By evening, she returned.

Her husband had been found beneath the bridge, where a wagon had overturned. He was alive.

The woman left a loaf of bread beside the oracle.

The following day, someone asked whether the eastern road was safe.

The oracle answered.

The road was not safe.

A merchant who had intended to travel that way chose another route. Later, word came that the eastern road had been washed away.

People began to gather.

They asked about weather, illness, journeys, marriages, disputes, and the whereabouts of things they had lost.

The oracle answered every question.

Soon, the market was crowded each morning.

Some people came with questions.

Others came simply to listen.

A man asked whether his son would return from the sea.

The oracle said yes.

A farmer asked whether his fields would yield enough grain.

The oracle said no.

A girl asked whether she would ever leave the town.

The oracle said nothing.

She waited.

Then she asked again.

The oracle remained silent.

The girl went home.

That evening, her father asked what the oracle had said.

"It didn't answer."

He frowned.

"Perhaps you asked the wrong question."

She thought about this.

Then she said:

"Perhaps."

The next morning, she returned to the market.

The oracle stood beneath the archway.

The opening was dark.

She looked at it for a long time.

Then she asked:

"What is beyond the western mountains?"

The oracle answered.

"Another town."

The girl smiled.

She had never been beyond the mountains.

For the first time, she wondered whether the oracle knew everything.

Or whether there were things it had never been asked.

She stood beneath the archway until the market began to empty.

Then she turned towards the western road.

And walked.