Not fully trusting the pink lipped cats, as they were unreliable with even the most basic facts, William asked the elephants if they knew anything of these French people the cats were going on about. The tightlipped elephants were even less illuminating than the cats, and the Prince next went to consult the wisest of the peninsula’s fortune tellers and seers.
Sokoun the Oracle inhabited a stone statue at a nearby shrine and could only be woken from his meditation by a very specific ritual. A watercress, freshly picked and still dewy from the shores of the mighty Mekong river, was to be rubbed on the figure’s forehead. Awakened, Sokoun said he was expecting William’s query, and told him of the French marching through the Indochine mountains, intent on capturing the treasures they thought to be buried under the temples of Luang Prabang.