The Seer - eARC

by Sonia Lyris

  Birdsong and squirrel complaints accompanied a distant hum of flies and bees contentedly going about their summer business. Her bare feet fell comfortably against the packed dirt of the road, calloused from months of barefoot walking made more attractive by her turnshoes having grown tight this last year as she got older.

  A glance up to where pine and oak and maple met thickly overhead told her it was nearly noon, which meant plenty of day left to work the fields or help wherever Enana needed. And to share the rest of the bread roll.

  Around her the underbrush was thick with ferns and flowers. Having learned their names and what they were good for, she was tempted to stay awhile and pick red and white bleeding hearts or blue sour tangle. Even stinging nettles, now that she knew how to harvest them without getting stung. More likely, Enana would appreciate getting the bag of groceries sooner.

  What a change, this life of such pleasurable choices. Living with Enana and her family, she nearly felt she had a home. Indeed, she was now willing to admit, in the privacy of her own heart, Enana reminded her a little of her own mother, so many years gone.

  And all this gladness because she had silenced her visions. It had taken work, but in a way it was also easy: if she didn’t ask herself any questions—not even half-questions or sort-of questions—the visions would not try to answer her.

  Which meant her life was her own. Foreseeing a possible future seemed to draw her onto that path, making her a part of it, no matter what she wanted or intended.

  Two squirrels furiously and noisily chased each other up a tree, over a branch, and leapt across to another trunk. There, she thought; just so: knowing which branch they would take would make no difference. It did not make her bag of groceries lighter. It did not make Enana’s stew taste better.

  The only thing her years of foreseeing had done was cause her and those she loved pain, put their lives in danger. That part of her life was over. Now she was like everyone else. Now she saw only what was in front of her.

  For a brief moment, memory of a dark figure on a horse at the edge of a river.

  No, that was the past. She pushed it away.

  It brushed her, then, the barest chill of vision, like a sharp winter breeze stabbing through this thick, hot summer day. Images tried to form in her mind.

  “No,” she said fiercely, waving her hands as if to brush away flies.

  A deep breath. She inhaled the smells of grass and earth around her, felt the light breeze that brushed her skin.

  She thought of Pas. He would smile when she got back home, dash over to her, reached up to be lifted. She imagined his small fingers. Imagined, not foresaw.

  No visions.

  A nagging feeling came over her. The road before her curved around a blind rise.

  Vision was trying to tell her something. She pushed it away.

  After supper she would play games with Pas. She would teach him new words. Maybe Enana would tell them a story.

  Her steps slowed.

  He couldn’t have tracked them here, not after so long. Could he?

  She stopped, holding her breath. The future was struggling to unfold itself, like a map. She could not stop it from its motion any more than she could stop the moments from coming toward her. But she could decide not to look.

  Resolutely she walked forward. Whatever it was, she would be surprised. Like anyone else.

  Rounding the rise, heart speeding, she expected a dark figure. He would jump out. He would have a bow. An arrow in her chest.

  Instead, shafts of sunlight cut through tall trees, patches of light finding their way to fallen piles of leaves. Bird calls echoed through branches. A high breeze made the treetops sigh.

  There was no one there.

  In the distance she could make out the strand of trees past which was the road that would take her to the farmhouse. She exhaled relief, laughed a little to find that she was not anything more than a girl returning home from market. She shifted the bag to her other shoulder and hurried forward.

  A squirrel poked its head around a tree trunk and stared at her, body and head frozen. Then it twisted, scampered up the tree, and was gone.

  Behind her came the sounds of footsteps.

  Vision came upon her like a huge stove fire: close, heavy, hot. Too strong to press away.

  It shouted at her to drop, and she obeyed, bending her knees as instructed, barely missing the arm that swept over her head.

  Again, vision barked direction and she thrust the bag that had come off her shoulders in the last motion behind, pushing hard. The bag pressed into leather-clad legs, slowed them only slightly. She struggled to her feet, turned.

  For a moment she took him in: dark hair, hands open, empty, a pack and a bow slung across his shoulder.

  He stepped lightly over the spilled bag at his feet and toward her. She turned and ran.

  “Amarta,” he called.

  With part of her mind she realized that it was the first time she had heard his voice. She half remembered hearing it before. Vision or dream?

  The tone was friendly, somewhere between a greeting and bemusement that she was running away. At this she herself might have been confused enough to pause, but vision was not. It told her to run, so she did, and his steps were hard on the dirt behind her.

  The arm came across her face again, and she bit it, or tried to; it was covered in hard leather and pulled her tight against him, wrapping tightly around her head.

  Strange, really, that she had time to think about the taste of leather, that it must be awfully hot to wear that much leather over your arms and legs, here in late summer. Serious, quite serious. About what he was doing. Which was—

  She screamed, howled her rage and resistance. His wrap tightened, burying her face in the leather arm, muffling the cry. Not that it would matter—there was no one nearby to hear.

  Then the arm was gone. Before she could blink, a wad of cloth was stuffed in her mouth, soaked in something sticky and bitter. She began to inhale; then realized vision was saying spit. She did, but even so the stink of it burned her lungs and made her eyes water. Her next cry came out as a croak. It hurt to breathe.

  Now he had her arms and was pulling her off the path into the brush. She struggled, kicking fruitlessly. He twisted one arm behind her back, another around her neck. Pain shot up her shoulder as he yanked her backwards, stumbling across the uneven underbrush. She was slammed to the ground on her back, he on top, pinning her arms with his legs, a hand on her neck.

  Above her, dark hair and face was framed by a thick green and golden canopy of leaves. In the air between them she could smell leather and the sticky stuff that still made her eyes water.

  While she gasped for breath, they looked at each other.

  Light brown eyes. Her hunter had light brown eyes.

  She struggled, and he held her without any seeming effort, expression nearly blank. With his free hand he reached into his sleeve and pulled out a knife, put the tip at her face. A pinpoint of pain on the underside of her eye stopped her moving.

  “You are Amarta al Botaros,” he said. “The seer.” There was no hint of question now, no pretense of friendliness.

  How could he have found them, after all this time? They had hidden, changed their names, pretended to be other than they were. She hadn’t foreseen for anyone, not since they had left Botaros. Not once.

  “Answer,” he said.

  Vision had warned her, despite that she had pushed it away for so long; it had come when she needed it. If only she had listened sooner . . . But no, she had thought to be like everyone else.

  Fear washed over her, pushed away reason.

  “Please,” she heard herself croak. “Please don’t hurt me . . .” Once started, she could not seem to stop. “I’ll do anything. Please don’t hurt me.”

  “You’ve no cause to fear,” he said gently, pulling the knife back a bit. “I know who you are. I just want to hear you say it.”

  If she lied and gave him the false name she had be
en using—if she said it as though she meant it—would he believe it? Would he let her go?

  An answer tried to form within. From determined practice these last months she pushed it away, then struggled to pull it back. Sluggishly, like an atrophied muscle, it began to unfold.

  Slowly. Too slowly.

  With a quick, fluid flip of the blade, his knife went blunt-side along his forearm and he leaned forward, the sharp edge now up under her chin. The move was so fast that it spoke of skill far beyond anything she had ever seen.

  Vision gave her an answer: he would know a lie, but the truth would not serve better; the future promised capture, pain, blood, and darkness.

  The blade would cut her throat. She would struggle. He would keep her pinned, gaze locked on hers as she lost consciousness.

  It was near, that future, very near.

  And would that be so bad? If she were gone, if he sent her to the Beyond, Dirina and Pas might finally be safe from the hunter and the ill-fortune that seemed to follow her.

  Sounds and flashes, nothing certain. The future shifted like spray from a spun waterbag. She could not follow the drops, nor tell one from the next.

  He tightened his grip on her throat, shook her a little. Her head swam.

  “I only want to ask you some questions.” His tone was soft, reluctant, as if to say that he hated to be this hard on her, that if she answered him he would certainly let her go. The grip on her neck loosened a little. The pounding in her head eased. “Who have you spoken to about your visions since you left Botaros?”

  She thought the tone a lie. She searched her visions, frustrated at the fog-filled traces that led out of this moment. She should never have stopped practicing. A bit late for that understanding.

  For all the half-seen flashes and muttering voices the future revealed now that she had opened the door again, as she peered along the dim paths that led forward, she saw only darkness.

  There must be a way, a thread that led through the next handful of heartbeats, that would take her past the approaching wall.

  She struggled harder. A cacophony of sounds grew, each crowing about what might yet be, a tumbling and turning, a thousand voices muttering, talking, screaming. Then a pinpoint of light. She hurled herself forward toward it, fear propelling her. She overshot her destination, went far distant.

  A familiar scent of breath. A smile on a face that didn’t smile.

  She opened her eyes. He stared down at her.

  “You are foreseeing,” he said, watching her.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me what.”

  Relief flooded her, pouring over the many layers of vision, the myriad of noisy futures.

  This—his curiosity—was the thread she had been searching for. She held tight to it while she opened herself to the dictates of foresight. Under his grip and weight she went limp, not fighting, letting herself sink into this moment and the very next.

  The way he watched her, somehow he could tell her plans.

  No plans. No thought.

  On the ground beside her, fallen leaves brushed her the skin of her pinned arms. The breeze filled the air with the scent of pine and bark, of grasses and rotting leaves.

  It was quiet now. No wind, no bird calls. No squirrels.

  “Amarta. Tell me what you foresaw.”

  Before the reason and terror made her reconsider, obedient to vision, she lifted and turned her head, pressing her neck into the edge of the knife he held at her throat. His eyes flickered, and he pulled the knife away, a little, shifting his balance. Not much, but enough.

  Twist hard, vision said, and she did, all at once rolling to follow his slight movement, hard and fast.

  The weight change took both of them into a half roll onto the dirt where he came off her. She kept twisting as vision demanded, hands now under her, pushing against the ground to keep herself rolling.

  Now he was on his feet, knife in hand, stepping toward her where she sat on the ground looking up at him. She groped for the next move, pushing away panic, surrendering to the guiding whispers.

  Move thus, they said, so she did. She tensed, twisted, and kicked from where she lay prone, at what was empty air, just as he stepped onto the spot. Not hard enough to hurt him, of course, but enough to force him to step to the side instead of forward, giving her another heartbeat of time. In that heartbeat she leapt to her feet and started to run.

  He was right behind her. Vision gave her a particular feel as a hand reached for her hair. She shook her head sharply. The hand missed. When it came again she ducked and it grabbed empty air.

  Deep in a flickering foresight, she saw him move, right before he did. She sidestepped. He lunged. She stopped suddenly, and turned in place. He stumbled past.

  He froze where he stood, looking at her. He understood now, she could see from his expression. As he was considering what to do next, vision told her to go, and she did, turning to run, glancing back as she stumbled ahead on the road.

  He took the bow off his back. A moment later she felt a pressure, a craving to stop, to step to the right, to brush a particular tree trunk as she passed, so she did. An arrow hissed by her ear, sinking into the ground beyond.

  She launched away from the tree, a sprint forward, dodging bushes, running as fast as she could.

  An arrow through the air, a finger width from her neck.

  Suddenly she felt light-headed, giddy. The future knew where he would aim better than he did, and the future was hers. She sprinted past trees, bushes, mind jumping between now and a heartbeat ahead.

  He was following, but he had to slow to put an arrow to his bow, take aim, and shoot, and he fell behind as she ran.

  The pressure again. She stepped to the left, heard the arrow sink into a nearby tree.

  Then something shifted. The next moment narrowed to a pinpoint, and the dark wall returned. Two options unfolded: an arrow through her ribs, or a fall to the ground.

  She let herself fall, realizing as she went down that she had misstepped, ankle twisting painfully under her as she went down. Something bit through her shoulder, and she landed heavily on the dirt and leaves, pain shooting through her leg.

  The pain broke her concentration. Fear came flooding back. Vision became blurry, indecipherable. She rolled over onto her back, reached for her aching shoulder, momentarily confused by the red wetness on her fingers. His last arrow had sliced through her shirt and skin like a knife.

  Above her leaves flickered in the breeze like small blades. A crow called.

  He stood over her now, bow in hand, arrow notched and pointed at her chest. She groped inwardly, searching for the map that had guided her thus far, but her mind was clear of anything but pain and terror. She gasped a sob, forced herself to stare up at him through her watering eyes.

  “Where are your visions now, Amarta?”

  Not a mocking tone. He was truly curious.

  “Gone,” she whispered, feeling all at once weak. “All gone. Before you kill me, tell me why. Please.”

  He was silent. Could he be undecided? He lowered the bow the smallest bit. “If I let you live, will you promise me you won’t try to escape?”

  Amarta tried to think, swallowed. Somehow he could discern a lie. But she would say anything to live. “Yes,” she said.

  He laid the bow on the ground behind him, knelt just out of her reach. “Don’t give me reason to reconsider.”

  “I won’t,” she said, meaning the words as she said them.

  He pulled away the loose cloth of her shirt, and she tensed against the pain, whimpered. He took out a strip of cloth from his pack and pressed where she’d been sliced.

  “It will heal. This will stop the bleeding.”

  “Then you won’t kill me?”

  “I still have the option, Seer.”

  “Why are you chasing me?”

  He reached into another sleeve, drew out a small leather case and from that a thin piece of metal. “There’s tincture on this dart,” he said. “Enough to m
ake you sleep, not to harm you. I think this may stop your visions for a time. What do you think?”

  What should she say? She nodded.

  “We’ll see,” he said. “You understand me, girl? You’ll cooperate?”

  “Yes.”

  He put one hand on her leg to hold it steady. His other hand, the one with the dart, was already moving toward her leg when vision came upon her again, strong and urgent.

  She moved suddenly, a sharp twitch. Instead of going into her leg, the dart went deep into his hand.

  Then she twisted in the other direction, escaping his hold, and scrabbled back and away on the ground. He pulled the dart out of his hand, tossed it away, and put his hand to his mouth, sucking and spitting onto the ground.

  What had she done? She cringed, backing farther away.

  From his sleeve he snapped out his knife and stood. A step toward her, and he swayed slightly. His hand opened, the knife fell to the dirt.

  He dropped to his knees and hands, hands flat on the ground, still watching her.

  “Your visions come back?” His voice was slow, slurred.

  She nodded uncertainly. Was he really this drugged, this fast? Could it be a trick?

  She sought guidance from her visions, but they were again silent.

  “Why are you after me?” she asked.

  He lowered himself to the ground, still watching her.

  “Why?”

  He blinked twice, then his eyes closed.

  Ignoring the agonizing pain in her ankle and the ache in her shoulder, she struggled to her feet. She looked back at him where he lay now motionless on the ground. Then she turned and limped home to the farmhouse.

  She and Dirina stuffed what they could into their bags. Amarta looked around their small room, trying to keep the weight off her throbbing foot. What more could they carry?

  “What do we tell Enana?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Just go.”

  “Where we go?” Pas asked, grabbing a shirt at random and offering it to Amarta.

  “Without even saying good-bye?”