by Ethan Spears
Tabir softened as well. “Yeah. She’s dead. But don’t ask me how, not yet. We’ve got some things to discuss before that.”
Mergau returned to her seat. Aoden could see her eyes were moist. She must have been holding on to some small shred of hope.
Tabir kicked his cloak into a corner and took his seat again. “The events leading to today go a ways back. Nearly twenty years, in fact. That’s when Ezma claims she began seeing the end of this world.”
“What do you mean, ‘this world’?” Aoden said skeptically, leaned forward. “You mean Aden?” Tabir nodded. “And ‘end’ as in…?”
“Destroy it.”
Aoden scoffed. “Yeah, alright. And what sort of thing can destroy the world?”
“If Ezma knew, she told no one. But twenty years ago—”
“Hold on,” interrupted Aoden. “How can seers see twenty years in the future, but events like wars and Kenta’s Fury can still occur? They should be easily thwarted.”
“First off, most seers can’t see that far into the future,” said Tabir impatiently. “Far seeing is usually limited to one to five years, depending on the seer. Twenty years is a number that’s unheard of outside of one ancient exception.”
“Brendulf?” said Aoden.
“Exactly.”
“Who?” asked Mergau.
“Brendulf was a human seer who lived millennia ago,” said Aoden. “He foresaw events hundreds of years ahead of his time and wrote them down in a famous book. Most of the book was gibberish so it wasn’t until after the predictions came to pass that any sense could be made of the writing. Some still say he was mad and that those studying his works are interpreting them selectively.”
“He wasn’t mad and it wasn’t gibberish,” said Tabir hotly. “Seeing is difficult magic, hard to control and often fickle. The further one looks, the harder it becomes to make sense of what you’re seeing. Look far enough and you won’t be able to see anything at all. Brendulf had power beyond anything we’ve ever known and pushed his sight further than any before or since. Try as he might, however, he was still a mortal, incapable of making sense of many of the distant visions he had, especially the strange technologies, languages, and places. At twenty years of foresight, Ezma has been the most powerful seer since.”
Mergau made a noise of astonishment and a hint of pride leaked into her features. “I had no idea my mistress was so amazing. How far into the future can you see?”
“That’s not important,” he said too quickly.
“What, are you embarrassed?” said Aoden, a half-smile forming. “There’s no reason to be if you don’t compare to the world’s greatest, is there?”
“That’s not the point. Ezma and I have two completely different types of sight.”
“How so?” asked Mergau. Tabir might have found the question mocking if her hunger for knowledge wasn’t written plain on her face.
“Ezma is what is known as a ‘far seer,’ while I’m a ‘near seer.’ They’re the same in theory but far different in practice. Both let the seer view events that have yet to occur but not the same way.”
“You sound like you’d much rather be a far seer,” Aoden observed.
“Well, if I had to choose between near and far sight, I’d prefer the latter. Near sight isn’t nearly as useful for altering future events.”
“Why, though?”
“Ezma could see twenty years hence, but most other far seers can usually see at least a year, year-and-a-half. The furthest a near seer has ever peered is closer to…” he paused and grimaced, leaning forward and finishing in a low voice, “three weeks.”
“Three weeks? That’s hardly”—Mergau was stopped by a look from Aoden—“that is to say… well, how far can you see, then?”
Tabir’s grimace intensified and he looked almost apologetic as he mumbled, “Four days. Five if I push it.”
Mergau made an understanding noise but couldn’t think of how to respond to that information; one week was disappointing compared to twenty years, but at least she understood his reticence to mention the number.
“How do I ask this…” said Aoden slowly, clasping his hands in front of his face.
“If we can’t see as far, then what’s the point of near seers?” offered Tabir.
Aoden nodded. “Yes, that.”
“Far seers can obviously see farther,” said Tabir hastily, trying to justify his existence, “but near seers typically have clearer, more accurate visions. Looking forward a few hours or days, I could describe to you every action you take, every word you say, with perfect accuracy, but push it beyond those five days and, just like a far seer, everything becomes vague and blurry. It’s a trade-off: A far seer can’t see with the same accuracy as a near seer like myself, but a near seer can’t look as far.
“So when a far seer sees some future event, they’re not always clear on what they see, much less what to do about it. Far seer visions tend to be vague feelings, scattered pictures, shallow impressions; for a far seer to change the future, they need the ability to understand what they’re seeing and know what actions to take. To answer your question about why they don’t stop events like the Fury, the reason is simple: do they even have enough or the right kind of knowledge to make sense of the event? And if they do, is there any clear way to stop it? If you saw the coming of the Fury, would you have any idea how to stop it? Would you even know how to stop it with the knowledge you have today?”
Aoden understood why that would be a tall order. Everyone knew by now what caused the humans to lose favor with the gods, as those gods had made the facts clear. The gods had whispered their anger and dismay to their Mouths—those priests and clerics blessed with the privilege of hearing their words—who relayed the concerns of the gods to their people, but the commands of the gods went unheeded. Before the orcs crossed Doddin’s Line, every statue and temple in the cities of man had collapsed upon itself, their adherents fleeing from the ill omen. There was no confusing their reasons or intentions.
Even knowing that and the clarity of hindsight, Aoden could think of no clear course of action. If even the gods’ own messengers couldn’t bring people back to the path of righteousness, what could he have done differently? He could imagine himself standing on a street corner shouting at passersby to repent to the gods and ask for their mercy lest the world end.
“What did the mistress do when she saw this premonition of destruction twenty years ago?” asked Mergau.
“What any good seer would do: she checked again. Then she waited, clearing her memory of the event, and checked once more. The visions were always the same, if difficult to decipher. She decided to go out and spread word of this disaster, but many orders, including my own, turned her away.”
“They ignored her warning?” said Aoden disbelieving. “An order of seers ignoring a fellow seer?”
Tabir waved away the comment. “You have to understand, we get crazies all the time screaming that they’ve seen some end of the world or other, and when our own seers can’t confirm it through visions, we ignore them. And need I remind you that, besides Ezma, our most skilled seer can only see about five years hence? A young, unknown orc seeress comes out of nowhere and claims to have visions of twenty years in the future? And right after the Fury had subsided, no less? We rightfully dismissed it as nonsense.
“It wasn’t until fifteen years later that other seers began having the same visions. We were set to seek Ezma to find what she had learned over the many years she had doubtless been studying this event, but she reappeared of her own volition. She’d been waiting for the day when we came to our senses and heard her out.”
“Why haven’t I heard of this before?” said Aoden indignantly. “Surely the elven nation—”
“You’ve hit the nail on the head right there,” said Tabir. “The elven nation is the reason. The humans, the halflings, even those idiot dwarves are willing to listen to the advice and guidance of seers, but the elves are a whole different story. Have you ever even h
eard of an elven seer?”
“I suppose not,” Aoden answered.
“Exactly. The halflings have listened to our order, taken our advice, but they’re still a small and weak people, having only recently grown in population and power by feeding off the remains of the human kingdoms. They wouldn’t stand a chance against the orcs alone, nor would the elves. They’ve made gestures of goodwill towards the elves and requests for cooperation, but they’ve all been rebuffed.”
Aoden nodded, remembering the many such visits he’d been party to as translator. “Would some sort of military alliance thwart this disaster?”
“It would certainly be a start.”
“And the various orders are working to stop this disaster?” asked Mergau.
“Orders?” said Tabir bitterly. “No, it’s just ours.”
“What? Why?”
“Honestly, no small part of it is blind bigotry: a lot of old men and women don’t want to believe that an orc is more powerful than they are, so they pretend she doesn’t exist, just sift her out of their worldview, because even to the greatest minds of our time, ignorance can be bliss. It’s also partially due to what I said before, about how future events are difficult, nearly impossible, to change, even when you know what will happen. Many orders have accepted this fate of destruction as inevitable and given up, while others, being filled with hard-headed old men, refuse to believe it’s going to happen at all, choosing to mistrust their own visions instead. Ezma came to us, knowing we would be the only order that could help her, and we’ve been working for nearly five years to avert this disaster.”
“But you just said it’s nearly impossible to avert,” interjected Aoden. “The destruction of the world must be nearly as difficult to thwart as the Fury would’ve been. What do you hope to accomplish?”
“Ah, now that brings us back to Ezma,” Tabir said with a hint of pride. “Ezma was not only a seer who could view deep into the river of time, but she had another ability that set her apart from her peers.” He let a silence follow, watching the impatient faces of the two listeners. When it looked like they could bear the silence no longer, he continued slowly. “She had the unique ability to see what changes bring.”
He paused, looking as if he had revealed some great truth, but Aoden and Mergau only stared blankly.
“That means,” he explained impatiently, “that she could actually view the different branches of time itself! She could picture in her mind an event happening and follow that branch of time to see where it led. It was like asking hypothetical questions to reality. ‘What would happen if I were to burn down this village?’ and follow that twenty years down the line to see how it affected the world.”
“So Ezma could stop such an event!” Mergau said excitedly.
“Well, that’s where we run into a bit of a snag,” said Tabir. “See, Ezma couldn’t teach her ability to many people. The only ones who could pick it up were near seers—including me, as a matter of fact. As it stands, no far seer holds her power and, when she died, so died the full breadth of her plan.
“It’s not all gloom,” he added as the two faces before him fell. “Ezma claims that she found the people she needed to avert disaster around ten years ago, then spent those years finding out how they would do so and how to guide them because they weren’t going to do it on their own. The events were set in motion long ago and, according to Ezma, once she died, everything would snowball into canceling out of this apocalyptic future.”
Tabir fell silent for a long moment, during which he became intensely fixated on his hands as they wriggled and fidgeted in his lap. The other two could tell that he had more to say and waited for him to speak.
“I was so confident in Ezma’s predictions,” he continued somberly, “that I didn’t think twice that she might be mistaken in some part of her plan. Why would I doubt her? She had proven her ability to change small future events over and over, as well as her commitment to a better future. We went along with her and prepared everything she said needed to be done, even engineering events that would lead to unavoidable death and despair, so convinced were we of her power.” He fell to brooding silence once again.
“But something shook your faith in her?” plied Mergau. Tabir nodded. “What happened?”
“It was the night she died,” said Tabir, his voice husky. He took a breath and continued. “I was there—I was the only one there, at her request. She said she couldn’t kill herself, but she had to die for her plans to come together.” Tears began to fall freely from his eyes. “So I went to her home…” He tried to continue but had to bite his knuckles to keep his voice under control.
“And you killed her.”
It wasn’t a question. Mergau was on her feet, staring coldly at Tabir. Aoden, who had been engrossed in the story, belatedly realized where it was going. Tabir was barely able to nod.
“They blamed me for that!” she stomped her foot, sparks leaping upwards. “They sent someone to kill me for murdering my mistress, and it was you? You son of a bitch!”
“Hold on, now,” said Aoden, taking to his feet as well. “She died willingly, right? It was all for the fulfillment of this prophecy, right?”
“I don’t care about that! Do I need to remind you that I took a knife through the lung for her murder?!”
“And so what?!” shouted Tabir, jumping up. “What would’ve happened that day had you been left to your own devices, huh? I’ll tell you what: you would’ve killed Aoden and destroyed all our hard work!”
Mergau’s stomach felt as if it had been filled with lead, her face prickling as the color drained from it. She felt a chill on the back of her neck where no doubt Aoden’s eyes had swiveled a moment prior.
Aoden, meanwhile, was unsure which piece of information warranted his full attention at the moment. His death would ruin their work? She was going to kill him?
“What—”
“Shut up,” she said through clenched teeth. “Not a word out of you. And the next thing you say better be exceptional, seer.”
Tabir roared. “You think you’re the only one who is upset over Ezma’s death? You think I don’t care? Let me ask you this: if Ezma asked you to kill her, would you be able to cradle her body as the life drained from it, or would you run away from her home like you did the first time, you selfish little coward?”
Mergau’s arm whipped out and flung a blinding blue bolt of energy at Tabir. Without flinching, he struck it aside with one hand, sending it into an end table which burst into flames. With his free hand, he reached towards Mergau, squeezing it into a fist. The flames from the table turned into ropes of shimmering light that spun through the air and wrapped themselves around her torso, pinned her arms to her side, and lifted her up to the ceiling, causing her to cry out.
Aoden pulled out his sword and leveled it at Tabir.
“Put her down,” he said.
“I’m not going to harm her—”
“Put her down, now!”
“Even after you just heard that she would’ve killed you, you would still save her life?”
“It’s becoming a habit,” Aoden said without humor. He advanced a step.
“Aoden, you need to relax. It’s important that I explain everything. To both of you.”
“You can explain it once you put her down.”
“Then I apologize for this in advance,” he said. He squeezed his hand tightly. Mergau screamed, but the ropes were soon so tight, she couldn’t make a sound. Aoden dashed forward, lashing out with his sword. It was clearly a feint, but Tabir reacted sharply.
Tabir moved like a jungle cat. With one hand, he caught Aoden’s arm by the elbow, and with the other he struck Aoden’s wrist, forcing his hand open and sending the sword sailing across the room. Tabir pointed downwards as Aoden stepped back and, finding his feet glued to the ground, the elf toppled backward, crashing into the table and sending it and the chairs skidding into the walls. Before he could recover, he found one hand pinned to his chest by Tabir’s knee,
and the other pinned to the ground by his foot. He could barely wriggle, much less muster the strength to throw Tabir off him.
Then Tabir was standing again, letting Mergau fall to the ground with a careless swipe of his hand. Aoden found his feet free and picked himself up. Mergau landed in a heap.
“I apologize again. Mergau needed something to calm her down and fear seemed to be the only thing that would work.”
Aoden massaged his wrist. “I thought you were just a seer.”
“That’s what happens when you take Ezma’s talent and combine it with my near-seeing: I know exactly what you’re going to do and how to most effectively counter it. I mean no harm to either of you, but you must understand this: though I absolutely will not kill you, I could neutralize you both in an instant and it would be effortless.” Tabir kicked Aoden’s sword back over to him. “I suggest leaving that at your side for the remainder of this conversation.”
Mergau pushed herself up and rested against the wall as Aoden knelt for his blade. He didn’t argue further as he stowed it back in its scabbard.
“So, you won’t kill us, and my dying would’ve ruined everything. That must mean we’re the ones this Ezma meant when she said she found those who would avert the end of the world,” said Aoden. He shook his head. “I feel crazy just saying that aloud.”
Tabir nodded “I won’t argue how it sounds, but it’s true. The problem was getting you two together; an orc and a half-elf, homes separated by hundreds of stretches and cultures which regard the other as the enemy, were the ones supposedly destined to fix this whole damned mess.”
Tabir realized his face was still wet and wiped the tears away. He continued as if the two parties had not just attacked one another. “So Ezma had everything planned out, but it started falling apart almost immediately. First was the mirror of Brendulf, an artifact she promised to pass to me after her death that worked as an amplifying focus for seer powers. I was supposed to use it to guide you two along after her death but, during the chaotic moments before she died, the mirror ended up shattered. With the mirror broken, I couldn’t aid you in any way. The real problem, however, was that the mirror was broken in the first place. How could such a vital piece of her plan, a lynchpin item, how could she not foresee its destruction? Everything was so carefully planned and executed, but at the moment of her death, the moment she could no longer guide our efforts, the plan was damaged beyond recovery. It was only after many weeks that I happened to have a prophetic dream about your deaths. With the recent rains flooding all the roads and slowing my travels to a crawl, it’s a miracle I was able to find you in time.