Unless you journey north and find the one from the East then personal and general disaster will fall.
After getting this, she had tried asking the same question in different ways, but the answer always came back more or less the same. The only difference was that in the more detailed readings is the feelings of great evil and potential doom that she gained were emphasised.
~~~
After spending a full night thinking about the answers that she had received she returned from her rooms to her home on another island to consult someone she trusted. “Grandmother,” she said respectfully, “I need your help. You are by far the best seer in our family. I have looked at my future myself and I am unsure what I should do next.”
Usha, her grandmother, was old and had shrunken a little with age, but she was still sprightly and sound of mind and Rani could see that her eyes twinkled at her granddaughter’s discomfiture.
“You have to come to cast some doubt on your own abilities and your skills? I am glad to hear that, for that in itself is a hopeful first. Now, what would you have me do about it?”
“I want you to look into my future. I foolishly asked what I should do with my future and the answer troubles me.”
Her grandmother gave her a long look before saying anything else. “Come here and sit down. Concentrate on your question while I prepare.”
Rani sat quietly while her grandmother went through her familiar, and comforting, preparations. Black silk, embroidered with designs of significance, was spread over a table in front of Rani. A stand was brought out and placed in the centre. From its box of inlaid and polished timber an unblemished crystal sphere over a hand-span across was brought out and placed on it. Cones of incense were placed on small plates, lit and placed on the corners of the design and finally her grandmother sat and stared at the ball. The smell of potent incense began to tickle the nose. So many cones had been lit that Rani had to try hard not to sneeze as they all hit her senses at once.
Her grandmother looked sternly at her. “Concentrate on your question and cast your mind’s eye into the ball,” she said. They sat before the ball for some time. To Rani the glass had gone opaque and that was all. Her grandmother peered at things in it, her face frowned in concentration.
It was some time before her grandmother, with a concerned expression on her face, said worriedly, “There is something that is fighting my gaze. It is something that I have not met or heard of before. I had many glimpses of things, of people, and of places, but I am not sure if all of them were real. All I can be positive about is that your life, love, and future are bound to the golden eyes. That much is clear to me. As well I know that you will find them to the north. I also have a vague feeling of great evil that you must fight. As a prediction, I know that this is not very precise. Indeed, it is almost as bad as you would get on the streets, but does it tally with what you found?”
“Yes, grandmother, it is similar enough,” said Rani.
“In that case I am sending you to the Temple of Ganesh. I wish them to try and see something. Perhaps they can lift the fog from your path, as they will look differently forward to the way I do. I want you to give them a note from me. Do not read it.”
“Of course not, grandmother,” Rani said obediently. Her grand-mother was sending her to the Temple? Usually she was scathing about the men who worked there on behalf of the God. She must be worried, thought Rani.
While Rani was thinking this, her grandmother got out paper and a pen-case and, after sharpening a bamboo pen, began writing, pausing to think on what to say. Eventually, after waving it in the air to dry the ink, she folded the paper and gave it to Rani.
“Go now child. I will tell your parents that you will be leaving us. My son may raise objections, but he will listen to me far better than he will listen to you.”
Rani put on a formal sari, chains and decoration and renewed her makeup, outlining her eyes and making herself more formally presentable. She gathered some flowers from the garden and took some money to put with them as offerings and placed them in a basket with the letter and set out for the temple. Although she would normally have just hailed a passing waterman and his boat, she felt that, with her letter to the priests, her grandmother had made this occasion more important so she roused her father’s watermen to get the small boat ready. So, with a boatman sculling behind and a servant sitting behind her with an umbrella of rank she sat under the shade as she was propelled through the waterways and canals of Pavitra Phāṭaka, over the channels of the Rhastaputra River from her parent’s home on Hāthī Dvīpa or Elephant Island to the Temple of Ganesh on Mandira Dvīpa, or Temple Island.
Rani had the boat wait until the servant was ready with his umbrella and, with this mark of status over her head, and the servant carrying the basket she strode into the temple. She looked around. There was a full courtyard waiting. The air was redolent with incense, noisy with the rattle of cast sticks and dice and other tokens. She sailed in past the other waiting supplicants, avoiding passing near those of too low a caste. She ignored the minor priests seated in a row behind tables covered in the apparatus of their preferred method of divination, each with a client in front of them already. She went straight to the highest ranked priest that she could see, one who was standing aside and alone, watching over the activities of the others. Without a word she nodded to the servant who offered the basket to the priest and handed him the letter.
To her eyes the priest took the note with quite some reluctance. He was obviously not used to such a direct approach to the priests of knowledge and wisdom. He still opened it and read the words on it, glancing up a few times at Rani.
“Do you know what is in this?” he asked.
“I know what it concerns, but my grandmother,” and she stressed this word, “did not tell me the details of what she wrote,” replied Rani.
The priest waved and summoned a junior over to him. “Take this lady to the temple garden,” he said, “and make sure that she is comfortable and looked after. I must see the Chief Priest.”
As Rani left she could hear him reorganising what was happening, calling another priest over and designating him to take his place in charge of what was happening with the more normal querants before he hurried off.
Rani was taken to an enclosed square with shade trees keeping the heat of the day out of it. In the centre was a rectangular pergola made of ash and carved with a mural that featured horses dancing around images of Ganesh as he rode his mount, a mouse. She was offered a seat under a tree and a servant soon appeared to offer her a chilled mango sherbet. She graciously accepted this and sat patiently to wait and see what would happen next.
Eventually the Chief Priest approached her. His long mundu of orange hempen cloth, its end brought over his shoulder and down again, seemed hardly able to contain his girth, an attribute which was unusual in a priest, but he had the benevolent and gentle smile of a man who was happy in his choices and with his fate.
“Welcome to our temple,” he said jovially. “It is very unusual to see one of your family come here to ask a question. We have the greatest respect for your grandmother’s skill and find what she says profoundly disturbing. Come with me child.” The priest pointed for her servant to wait there while he took Rani to the pergola where they sat upon cushions in the meditation position. The priest took some berries, which Rani presumed were spearleaf and sat for some time, going into a trance. Rani was used to this and used the opportunity to reflect upon what she had learnt so far as she waited in a breeze made fragrant by the profusion of flowers in the garden around her. She thought that it looked as if she might see battles after all, but not in the way she had expected. She started thinking about what she should take and how she would travel and to wonder what her destination would be.
Eventually she could see that the priest was returning to his body. His face looked more worried than her grandmother’s had. He spoke in an oracular tone, and the pupils of his eyes took up most of his iris. It was obvious that
the drug was still not fully out of his body.
“Your future lies to the North and it is possible that you may never see your home again once you leave here. You will find unexpected completion with another. I can also tell you that you are crucial to something of great importance to us in Haven. It is vital to everyone and there is a great threat that hangs over us all somehow, but I know little else.”
His voice changed slightly and he continued looking more at her now instead of through her. “Your grandmother is right about the fog and imprecision, and this is a worry to us. Our work concerns futures and knowledge, and anything that interferes with our work is a problem. I have not encountered it’s like before.
“Now you must leave without delay. I have a feeling of urgency. I know that you must be in place somewhere and that the time for this is very, very, short. You will be just in time for it if you leave now, right now.” She was surprised at the urgency in his voice. It was rare to see that level of emotion in a person just coming out of the effects of a drug of prophecy.
~~~
Rani thanked the High Priest respectfully and, gathering her servant, returned to her boat. There were things that she would need at her rooms at the university so instead of going home she directed the boat to land on Vidvānōṁ Dvīpa or the Scholar’s Isle. Along the way the significance of what had been said sank home for her. Her casual enquiry somehow had great significance for Haven? She might never see her home again? In that case she must send her things home from the university as well, and tell them that she was going. At least it was midyear and there were none of her trivial classes to teach.
Upon docking at Scholar’s Isle she told the boatman to return home and bring the larger and less formal boat and many boxes and chests and more servants and went to her rooms. She found all of the wands and other items that she wished to take with her and put them aside. In particular she made sure that she had all the items she used to aid her in her casting, especially the rolled up canvas with the embroidered pentagram.
“The rest must be packed up and taken home,” she told the servant. “I will return here later to see how work progresses.” She then went to see the Recorder, who was in charge of all the staff and students at the university.
She thought that she must have looked very determined, as she had hardly told the babu that she needed to see the Recorder when she was ushered into his presence. He did not even wait for her to speak before he started.
“We have received word that you have just hurried here from the Temple of Ganesh and have started packing as if going away. Is this true? Are you going away?” he asked with a note of concern.
“Yes, Your Eminence,” replied a puzzled Rani.
How had he known this? Did the university have her watched? If it did, why did it? Had the Chief Priest sent word? Was her destiny that important?
“We have waited for this time since you started with us,” the Recorder continued after a pause. He sounded both nervous and concerned. “You have probably wondered why we did not give you more responsibility within the university. You probably felt that you were wasting your time here.”
Rani found it hard to stop nodding as he waved her to a seat.
“It is because we knew you would be leaving us at some time and quickly. We just did not know when. It took far longer than we expected, but obviously the time is now. I must tell you that, since you have been here any suitors for you in marriage have also been discouraged. We knew that you had to have no fixed ties.”
They played with my life this much?
As he talked he withdrew a small key from his pouch and opened a little inlaid box on his desk. From this he removed another, larger, key and went to a cupboard on the wall, a pace high and wide, one that Rani had never noticed before. She had not even felt something there. It must have a very competent spell of misdirection on it, she thought. When it was opened it was obvious that it was also lined with a metal to make it harder to physically break into. Inside were a large number of small books. The Recorder carefully selected and removed one, relocking the cupboard and replacing the keys.
He then turned to Rani and started talking, hardly glancing at the book open before him. “As a matter of course all staff at the university have a complete and detailed horoscope cast for them when they are about to start with us. It is a system that has proven itself useful in the past. I can tell you now some of your prediction. The rest you are best to discover for yourself. We have long known that you have a destiny to the north. You must go there and gather together a group of strangers. Some might already know of this destiny. Others do not. You will meet several trials that will prepare you for your life’s task. This will be to fight a great threat. The nature of this is not explicit to us, but will gradually become clear to you. I can tell you that along the way you will find love and many surprises. We cannot tell you any more at this time, as it may influence you wrongly, but when you leave here you will have as much assistance as we, that is the Kingdom of Haven, can give you.” He felt inside the cover of the book and removed a small sheet of vellum from a pocket. “Take this and use it wisely as you need.”
He handed the sheet to Rani and she unfolded it and looked at it curiously. It was dated eight years previously, when she had just started teaching at the university. After a preamble it stated, ‘The bearer of this note, Rani Rai, acts on my behalf. Whatever she asks, she asks for me. All Havenites shall take her words as direct orders from me. I will reimburse any money or goods she asks for. Through my servants, my eye is on her. Hinder her at your peril’. It was signed ‘His Most Illustrious Highness Shri Sudacanth Rajnavamurthi, Maharajah’.
Rani nearly fainted. With a degree of shock and curiosity apparent on her face she looked up at the Recorder. He was waiting.
“You are a battle mage of Haven. You are to report to the Royal Armouries to be equipped as you choose. You will leave tomorrow at dawn from the messenger station. You will travel by chariot to Garthang Keep and from there be escorted to Evilhalt. We have thought long about this and believe that this is where you will be needed to start what you must do. I will send off now to make the arrangements for that. Unfortunately we know that we cannot send anyone with you all of the way beyond there, but His Highness believes that the note he has given you may be of some use. You must use whom you find or who finds you and no, I cannot tell you anymore.
“This is important and if I say too much it might well interfere with the workings of fate. Go now and may the Lord Krishna smile upon you and favour you with his blessing.”
Upon leaving the Recorder’s office, still stunned, Rani returned to her rooms. A university porter followed behind her. When she indicated what she wished brought along he put it in a basket. When she was finished she found herself led to the university docks. A university boat waited to take her to the dock of the main armoury on the north end of Hāthī Dvīpa. Her own family’s craft could organise the transfer of her property.
~~~
The next island was where the main military bases were located, as well as the home of many of the senior Kshatya on its downstream end. Rani realised that someone must be sending messages ahead of her as people were waiting for her when she arrived. She was led into a special section of the armoury, a cross between a museum and a weapons store, by a senior officer whom she vaguely knew. He led her through a selection of weapons, armour and other items that might suit her. It seemed that she had a completely open choice. No one forced any selection on her and she had to choose items as she felt fit. No one said no to anything she asked to look at. Although she already had some magical weaponry of her own, what she was shown was of so much higher workmanship that she could not resist. In particular a wootz broadsword and a near matching main-gauche caught her eye.
Rani regarded most mage’s refusal to learn how to use a sword as both stupid and overconfident. In a real battle you would eventually run out of mana and devices and you might still have enemies to fight. A mage who could not
defend themselves physically was a dead mage. She may not have the best sword arm in the army, but at least she could use a sword. She had never learnt how to use a shield, regarding them as getting in her way as a mage, but she had made sure that she learnt how to use a parrying weapon.
This pair seemed to suit her and she picked them up and went through some moves. It was only after she had decided on them that she asked about any magic attached to them, she could feel it there, but of course did not know what it was. It seemed that they were equally enhanced to help them both hit a target and to hurt it more. In addition the main-gauche was charmed to protect its user. These were expensive weapons, as a matched pair worth well beyond what even her family could casually afford. She also selected a new long bow of minor virtue, but good quality, and two quivers of highly enchanted explosive arrows to go with it as well as some plain ones. She would make more explosive ones herself later when she needed to, but she had none at hand. She looked at the available daggers, but decided to keep her own.
Rani looked at the room full of armour and was about to turn away when something told her to look in a large cupboard at the side. Opening it the smell of camphor was released into the room and revealed a selection of tailored padded female garments—all done in silk. After chasing away the men she tried on several, most being too short for her frame, or designed for more muscular women. However a dark green pair of loose trousers and a matching knee length coat fitted her perfectly. Their cut was old, but they were well tailored and suited her well. She felt the material. It was still smooth and beautiful to the eye.
Whoever the woman had been that they were made for had the same tall and shapely figure. The coat even had four long pockets for individual wands sewn into it. Rani sensed the magic sewn into the garment, but had no idea what it was, nor was there anything in the way of an explanation in the box. She was putting the other garments back when a green padded cap fell out. It seemed to match what she had chosen and was wearing, so she took that as well.
Intimations of Evil (Warriors of Vhast Book 1) Page 23