Bun and Cao Nyut looked at May, then exchanged a glance.

“Did you say you were an oracle?” Bun said.

“Indeed I did, little one,” said May. Behind her, the floating head bobbed around in the darkness.

“What is an oracle?” said Bun.

“An oracle is someone who can divine potentiality.”

“Potentiality?” Bun said. “What is that?”

“Potentiality is that which is yet to be, but may come to pass,” said May, ever grinning with her sickly greenish-white teeth.

“You mean you can tell the future?” Bun said.

“I can see what may yet come to pass,” said May.

Bun clapped his hands. “Where are we,” he said excitedly.

“Shandapidoor,” said May, “but you don’t need an oracle to tell you that. The present is already decided. Case in point: here you are, in Shandapidoor. Living proof. My, how boring.”

“What is Shandapidoor?” said Bun, licking his lips.

“Now, Bun,” Cao Nyut chided, “I think you are missing the point.” He cleared his throat, put his hand on Bun’s slim shoulder, and stepped forward. “Oracle May,” he said, addressing the skeletal figure.

“Just May,” said the oracle, “please.” The lone head, bobbing up in the darkness behind her, giggled to itself as if she had just said something funny.

“Fine, May,” said Cao Nyut. “Perhaps you can help us. We are looking for a creature who escaped my master’s laboratory in the Citadel of Sot. She is Thermock, a no-good troublemaker. We have been on her trail for many months, and now we have finally tracker her down to Shandapidoor, this dark place at the core of Cannesia. I have read about Shandapidoor in books, but I had never thought to step foot here.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“What help do you need?” asked May, rolling her neck so that it cracked. Bun, who did not understand what was going on, shoved his hands in his pockets, put his head down, and started walking around in circles.

“I need to know if you have seen Thermock,” said Cao Nyut.

“I divine possibility,” said May. “Possibility lies in the future, not in the past. Like the present, the past is already decided.” May yawned. “How boring.”

“Yet you may know her,” Cao Nyut went on, “she is small and yellow, or, er, sometimes she takes different forms. Actually, she could have looked like anything.”

“For all we know, she could be you,” said May. Bun heard her and stopped pacing. He looked up at Cao Nyut. May turned to the boy and said, “Now there is an intriguing possibility.”

Bun glanced at Cao Nyut with a look that was half bewilderment, half anxiety. In response, Cao Nyut only flared his double trunk in annoyance. “Now look here, you witch,” he said, pointing, “I will not have you poison this boy with lies.”

“But how do we know it’s not you?” May replied. “How do we know you’re not Thermock?” At that, the floating head reared back and honked with sudden laughter as if it had just heard a very funny joke.

“If you will not answer, we will be on our way,” said Cao Nyut. “Come along, Bun.”

But Bun stayed. “Are you Thermock?” he said.

“Oh dimwitted one,” said Cao Nyut, sighing, “you are fast, and dextrous, and brave, but you are not very smart. Of course, I am Cao Nyut, your traveling companion. I have been the very same Cao Nyut ever since we started traveling together all those months ago. I have not left your side since then. So please, do not ask me such questions.”

“What about when you walked away to bathe, or to go to the toilet?”

“Bun,” said Cao Nyut, still tenderly.

“Or maybe you were Thermock the whole time, ever since we met, conspiring to bring us down here to this dark place, to the pits of Cannesia, to this hell, where you can kill me and feed me to that witch–” The floating head was laughing, now, hysterically, shrieking, gasping, sloppily, in a fit, as if it had just heard the most hilarious joke of its life.

“What are you talking about, Bun? What madness has come over you?”

May looked on serenely. Meanwhile, the Mute Ones inched silently in, closing a ring around the playground, encircling them.