The Seer's Curse

by J. J. Faulks

  The Seer’s Curse

  J.J. Faulks

  Copyright © 2018 J.J. Faulks

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

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  For the person I will prove right, to the people we will prove wrong.

  Contents

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Part Two

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Part Four

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Epilogue

  Part One

  Chapter One

  There was too much blood. The metallic tang stung in Ormoss’s nostrils as he watched the linen beneath Alea flood red. The stain spread like the swelling of the river after heavy rainfall. Alea slumped back, her hand limp between Ormoss’s palms.

  “Alea?” Ormoss rubbed his wife’s hand, but it remained clammy. The action reminded him of when his father had taught him to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together, and how damp wood never yielded a spark. “What’s wrong with her?”

  The old woman, a midwife from a neighbouring village, laid her hand against Alea’s pale cheek. Winds swept the meadow of her eyes as she pressed her forehead to Alea’s and searched the blown pupils for a spark of soul. Her cracked lips moved, though no words passed between them. It was a language of silence. The old woman drew back and eased Alea’s eyelids shut.

  Ormoss looked down the bed to where the other women were gathered, his eyes passing over the empty billow of Alea’s belly. Nestled between her feet was the baby girl. She bore the same strawberry curls as her mother, and she was just as fluent in her silence.

  The old woman left Alea’s side. “Cut the cord,” she instructed, and her assistant obeyed. She held her arms out to receive the baby and she hugged the girl to her chest. Swinging the baby back and forth, she started to hum.

  The sweetness of the tune carried Ormoss back to his own childhood. It brought him such comfort that the old woman could have been his own mother, though she had followed his father to the Afterworld many summers ago. The sound of mewing pierced through the song and broke the bonds of his reverie. Ormoss opened his eyes to see his daughter flushed with life, her fist balling at the old woman’s chest.

  “She needs milk,” the old woman said. “Are there any nursing mothers in the village?”

  One of the local women, a girl called Terla who had visited Alea often during the pregnancy as she did with all the expectant mothers, spoke up, “There was another birth just a few weeks ago. Out at the farms. Shall I fetch the mother?”

  The old woman nodded. “Please. And be quick.”

  The baby’s crying grew harsher, more demanding. The old woman bounced her up and down with a whisper of hushing sounds. She looked to Ormoss and asked, “Would you like to hold her?”

  Ormoss tightened his grip on Alea’s hand. “No,” he said, but the word caught in his mouth. He cleared his throat and repeated, “No.” He would not let go of Alea.

  *

  The Seer shoved the bowl of water aside, its contents slopping over the edge. He had seen enough. He clenched his jaw, his teeth aching as they ground together. The scene of the birthing room had faded from the water, but the images stained the Seer’s mind. It wasn’t meant to happen that way. Not only was the girl in the wrong place, but she no longer had her mother to guide her. Nevertheless, right or wrong, her birth marked the beginning.

  He turned over the hourglass. The sand filtered through the neck and pooled at the base. The countdown had begun.

  “ORLEIGH”

  The Seer scratched the name onto the parchment and set down his quill. He paused. Other than her name, Orleigh’s page was empty, the script of her future unwritten unless she could find her way back to her past. He thumbed backwards through the book, taking in the names of the others that he had sought. The tome was dense with memories.

  He snapped the book shut and placed it back on the dusty shelf. Staring at the girl’s name, as if it had secrets entombed within it, would not help him to complete his task. He looked at his map of the world, the Land of Gods and the Land of Mortals were laid out on the stone plinth before him. His eyes found the Sanctuary, a sacred place buried at the heart of the Land of Gods. He tapped at the location with one finger. That was where he would stand before the final grain of sand fell.

  Chapter Two

  Before there were gods and before there were men, before the golden sun first warmed the sky and cast its brilliance upon this world, there was only the Creator.

  With no materials from which to build the world, the Creator unravelled herself to form fine threads. The threads were infinitely long and they shimmered with the colours of a million rainbows. She wove these threads together to form the world.

  Threads of brown and green swooped down to form the mat of soil sown thickly with plumes of grass. They were joined by threads of deep blue that formed the waters of the seas and that bathed the contours of the earth. Lighter blue threads soared up to make the sky where they mingled with wispy strands of white, and they balanced atop the coarse grey peaks of the mountaintops.

  When land and sky were complete, the Creator adorned the world with plants and animals, reserving her finest threads f
or the silken petals of flowers and the downy fur of nurselings and hatchlings alike.

  Next the Creator made the Great Forest that divides our world into two mighty lands. The trees stretched higher than any others, their broad branches forming an impenetrable veil. One half of the world she called the Land of Gods, and she filled it with immortal beings who she blessed with special powers so that they might protect the world and its inhabitants. The other half she called the Land of Mortals, and she filled it with mortals like you and me.

  When every last thread was woven into place, the Creator looked at the world and she saw that it was perfect. However, her creation was just an image. It hung still and lifeless. Only one part of the Creator had not been infused into the world, and that was her breath.

  The Creator took threads of silver and gold and wove them into the Key of Life, the most sacred of objects without which no plant would grow and no man would live. She filled the Key of Life with her final breath, and with this breath the world was born.

  The world flourished into chaos, its wild beauty tamed only by the will of the Creator as laid down in the Script. The gods received the Script, passed down through the Sanctuary that housed the Key of Life, and through the gods, the Creator’s will was done.

  “That is how our world came to be made from the threads of the Creator,” Meila said, brushing her thumb over her baby boy’s cheek. “No matter where you are, the Creator is always with you and within you.”

  She raised the cradle of her arms, tilting Piprin’s head where it rested against the crook of her elbow. As she pressed her lips to his forehead she drew in a deep breath, inhaling his newborn scent. It washed over her like the rolling tide and it smelt like coming home.

  The door creaked open behind her. She craned her neck to look over her shoulder, maintaining the soothing rhythm as she rocked back and forth in the chair. It was Terla. Her face was flushed, her breathing heavy.

  Meila frowned and tightened her hold on Piprin. “Terla, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s Alea,” Terla panted. Her hand rested against the top of her stomach, emphasising each short, sharp breath. “She…We couldn’t help her.”

  A numbness radiated through Meila, starting as a tingle in her fingers and ending as a chill in her chest. “And the baby?” she asked.

  “Alive—thank Nestra!” Terla said. “But she needs nursing.”

  Meila looked down at Piprin. His brow was pinched, as if he were frowning. A drop of her milk still clung to the corner of his lips. “Will you stay here with Piprin?”

  “Of course,” Terla said. She held out her arms, waiting to receive the sleeping bundle.

  Meila eased herself up out of the chair. Her eyes fixed on Piprin, watching for any sign of wakening.

  “Don’t worry,” Terla said. She took a step closer, her arms still outstretched. “The gods could be warring and it wouldn’t wake him. He won’t even notice that you’ve gone.”

  The sound of crying grew louder as Meila approached Ormoss’s home. A dampness spread across her chest as her milk leaked in readiness, and she shivered in the cool night’s air. She reached for the front door, but hesitated. She turned back, seeking her home through the darkness. The candles she had lit still burned, warming the farmhouse with their glow.

  “Meila?”

  The voice hauled her back to the gloom that hung over Ormoss’s house. The old woman’s face was familiar but forgettable, her skin as loose as the ill-fitting masks worn by theatre players and as easily changeable. Recognition teetered in Meila’s mind before collapsing. Even if she had met the old woman before she could not remember. But the baby in her arms bore a face that she would never forget.

  “Alea,” Meila breathed. “She looks just like Alea.”

  The baby’s fiery hair kinked with the promise of the soft curls to come and her voice captured the passion with which her mother had always spoken. It was a stubborn cry that dared anyone to defy it.

  “She’s a hungry little thing,” the old woman said as she led Meila inside. “A fighter too.”

  Meila settled into the seat and welcomed the baby girl into her arms. The girl latched on immediately and as she began to feed the buds of her eyes opened. They were as blue as ice and just as sharp.

  “Hello there, little one,” Meila smiled. “Were you hungry?” She stroked the girl’s cheek and chatted away to her just as she did when feeding Piprin. The girl stared up at her in reply as her frantic gulps settled to a more leisurely pace.

  With her tummy filled, the baby girl’s eyes would slip shut only to jolt open moments later with a drowsy stare as she resisted sleep. Meila hummed a tune passed down through the mothers of the village until finally the girl drifted off.

  When Meila looked up in search of the old woman, she found that she was alone. The house was quiet, as if death had spread through the walls like the creeping of mould. She ventured down the hallway, cradling the baby girl as she snuffled in her sleep. The light of dying candles escaped the far room. Meila approached the door and nudged it open just enough to see inside but not so much as to cause disturbance.

  “Ormoss?” she called, her voice soft enough that Ormoss could choose to ignore it.

  Ormoss was hunched by Alea’s side, his forehead pressed against their intertwined hands. His only movement was with the ragged rise and fall of his breath. Meila was about to leave when he murmured, “She shouldn’t have died.”

  Meila stepped into the room but lingered by the door. At a distance, and with the candlelight offering her skin a warmth denied by death, it looked as though Alea was merely resting.

  “She shouldn’t have died,” Ormoss repeated.

  Meila nodded. The tightness in her throat trapped her words like fish in a net. “It must have been in the Script.”

  Ormoss’s head snapped up. “Why?” he hissed. “Why would it be in the Script? What did she ever do to deserve this?”

  Meila flinched, her back finding the cold bite of the wall. Her gaze sought refuge in the soft features of the little girl. With the slightest tug of her lips, it looked as though the girl was smiling. It was the smallest of smiles, but it brought a glow of warmth to Meila. The glow blossomed in her chest, lifting her, reminding her to stand strong.

  “She was a good person,” Ormoss said. His voice crumpled. “She didn’t deserve this.”

  “We can’t always understand the will of the Creator,” Meila said. “All we can do is learn to accept it.”

  “And what if I don’t want to accept it? What if I can’t accept it?”

  “You need to accept it,” she said and she stepped closer so that Ormoss could see his daughter. “If not for your own sake then for the sake of your daughter. She’s already lost her mother, don’t take her father away from her too.”

  Ormoss’s eyes flitted up to the child. He stared hard for a moment, as if awakened to the potential of the life that he had created, but then he frowned. He returned his attention to Alea, his hands still holding hers. “You should go home to your son,” he said.

  Meila’s heart sank. “And your daughter?” she asked.

  “She’ll need feeding,” Ormoss replied. “You’d best take her with you.”

  Meila pursed her lips. She gave a curt nod. “Very well.” She made to leave, but paused in the doorway. “Does she have a name yet?”

  “Orleigh,” he said, as if the name no longer mattered now that all the dreams tied to it had been cut loose. “Alea was going to call her ‘Orleigh’.”

  Chapter Three

  The brushing of knuckles against the door roused Meila from her nap. She pinched the bridge of her nose and failed to stifle a yawn. Her eyes went straight to the crib. Both babies were sound asleep. Piprin was sucking his thumb, his other hand clasping the twine doll that she had made in the last months of her pregnancy.

  She opened the door and welcomed T
erla inside.

  Terla hovered over the crib, smiling down at Orleigh. “Isn’t she beautiful?” she cooed.

  “She is,” Meila agreed. If the words spoken were a rose, the words unspoken were its thorns. Orleigh was beautiful and Piprin was Piprin.

  “Everyone’s gathering for the naming ceremony.”

  “Already?” Meila frowned.

  “It’s nearly noon.”

  Meila looked out of the window. The sun was nearing its peak, and a semicircle of people buzzed at the edge of the village, with more and more joining the throng.

  As they approached the crowd, Terla tilted her head in the direction of the village hall. Scorlan, Ormoss’s self-styled advisor, disappeared inside. From the size of the crowd he must have been the only person in the village not present for the naming ceremony.

  “What’s he up to now?” Terla sent Scorlan a disapproving look.

  “I don’t know,” Meila said. “But Pityr mentioned something about plans to build a second grain store.” Her husband had complained at length about the waste of resources and farmland. We need more men working the land, not building on it. He should take his ideas and go back to wherever he came from.

  “Where’s he going to put that?” Terla gestured to the surrounding land. “Always on about building this and building that but there’s only so much space in the village.”

  “Next to the first one, apparently.” Her eyes found the store that stood at the far side of the village, on the bank of the river that bordered the farmland.

  “Hasn’t he taken up enough space already? There’ll be nowhere left for the children to play.”

  “I think the grain stores are the least of his plans.” Meila’s arms were starting to ache from carrying the babies.

  “Who is he to come here and—”