The Seer - eARC

by Sonia Lyris

  In a strange state brought on by pain and exhaustion, not awake and not asleep, she became lost in images and memories and visions, unsure what was in the past or the future. Horses and fire. The Lord Commander angry again. Someone laughing. Someone screaming.

  Or perhaps she was the one screaming and laughing. She was no longer sure.

  She could not quite remember when it ended, though it seemed to her there were more people in the room, the Lord Commander among them, that she was inspected, spoken of, and wrapped in blankets, carried to her room, laid down in the soft bed.

  She hugged the bed and wept. Nothing, it seemed, in the brief moments before she lost awareness, had ever felt so good.

  How long she had slept, she did not know. But now, in the light of day, her body a mass of aches and bruises, ointments and bandages, she recalled the various things she had foreseen under Tayre’s questioning and wondered what, if anything, had changed.

  When she next started awake it was from a dream. His hands were in front of her face, holding sharp metal tools with glinting points and edges that flickered in the lamplight. Then they were his empty hands, which somehow could also make so much of her hurt so astonishingly.

  The red and white room settled around her, quiet, bright. She was still so very tired. A heat burned across her body and through her head, each heartbeat bringing a dull ache, joined by many other points of pain. For a time she simply lay there, dozing.

  She woke again when the lock clicked and the door opened. In walked the Lord Commander with a tray of food and a cylinder of tea. He put it on the table by her bed, brought a chair close and sat at her side.

  She struggled to sit up. Silently he helped her, then offered a bite of bread. She shook her head.

  “This, then,” he said, offering a cup of tea. She took it, but her hand shook enough that he took it back, holding it to her lips while she drank. He set the cup down and took her chin in his hand, turning her head each way, examining her face.

  He nodded. “You’ll heal.”

  She looked up at him, this man who had hired so many people to capture her, to threaten her life, to question her. He had, she suddenly realized, spent a lot of coin on her across many years. She had not, until this very moment, quite understood that, and what it might mean.

  “Your questioner has relayed to me the visions you revealed to him. He assures me you now know how to give me better answers, answers I need, and it won’t be necessary for us to do this again. Is this so?”

  Do this again? She swallowed, wincing at the pain that followed.

  So many days of struggling to give him the answers he demanded. But that was wrong, she now understood.

  Fear is a shadow. Only the wolf bites.

  “Well?”

  She searched his eyes. Then, as sore as she was, inside and out, she searched his future.

  A fist clenching around something sharp. A hand coming away from a shoulder, bloody, shaking. A bone die, turning over and over, coming to rest sun-side up.

  “I think so, Lord Commander.”

  “I am pleased to hear it.” He stood, gave an abrupt nod. “You will rest. Tomorrow and the next day. Then we resume.”

  What was he, wolf or shadow, this man who had hunted her and bought her as one might buy an animal or a slave?

  “I don’t think so, ser,” she said.

  He turned back, eyes narrowed, expression hardening, but she could see behind his quick temper a touch of uncertainty. Had that been there before? Had her own fear blinded her?

  Tayre was right: fear made you bite yourself.

  “Explain,” he said brusquely.

  She struggled to sit up straighter, inhaling as pain shot through her. “I think you will be busy, ser.”

  “What do you see?”

  A swirl of colors, of brown and beige, blue and green, orange and gray. A spark of gold. A puddle of blood.

  But what did he need to know? To do?

  “Horses. Wagons. Soldiers. I think you are assembling an army.”

  “In three days?” He did not believe her. Again. She chuckled a little.

  Now he was annoyed. “What amuses you, Seer?”

  She shook her head, sinking back into the bed and blankets, exhaustion coming over her again.

  Something was coming for Innel sev Cern esse Arunkel, some set of forces that had been in motion for some time. But what, exactly, she could not tell, not yet.

  As she began to drift off to sleep, she heard the door close and the lock click.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  After a few hours, the shrieking and howling had put Innel into a rather testy mood.

  Standing these many hours beside and a bit behind the queen, he had time to reflect on the vast difference between the howl of pain of a freshly orphaned child and the lamentations of a House ingénue determined to be remembered for a display of grief.

  Around him was a small crowd of those royals who happened to be in-city at the king’s sudden demise. Together they watched the trail of aristos slowly feed into the Great Hall, winding around like a sluggish sewer.

  Their first stop was the queen, each one to offer obeisance and demonstration of fealty with a full formal bow. It seemed a good time for it, with the king finally and truly dead. Some, once on hands and knees, needed help to rise before they continued in the slow line toward the king’s body.

  The king was laid out grandly amidst plush reds and deep blacks on a platform carefully constructed in appropriate proportions of metal, wood, stone, amardide and so on—every substance created and overseen by Houses, Greater and Lesser, so that no one might be insulted at the lack of their product being part of the king’s last foundation.

  There the displays of anguish reached greatest intensity as clumps of aristos, with a look at the king’s face, keened cries of shock as though they had not, until this very moment, realized the truth of what they had been told. Rending of clothes seemed to be the current practice at this point, but it had been added onto with a stumble off the single-step platform, then a crumpling to the marble floor beyond, as if so overcome with sorrow that they could not stay standing another moment. There they lay, wailing until one of the properly solemn retainers attempted to help them rise. Some refused, still howling inconsolably into the marble.

  This did nothing to speed the line.

  The queen sat on a great high-backed chair, a neutral look on her face that Innel knew she was working hard to maintain. He stood among those who were, by virtue of birth, at least his equal in influence. Small, polite smiles told him that they did not think of him similarly.

  But the most interesting displays were at the Table of Memory, the final stop of the shuffling, twisting line. Here the empire’s most powerful families fussed among the king’s belongings as if haggling at market, their artfully composed expressions of bereavement and studiously scratched faces giving way to avarice, even building toward outrage, making for something resembling an unguarded moment. Soft but urgent discussions had surrounded the Table of Memory since the very first person—Eparch of House Etallan—had stepped up to choose her memory gift.

  During the rushed planning of this event, the queen’s seneschal had pointed out to Innel that oversight at this table was regrettably needed, or every glove, candlestick, chalice, and comb would quickly be taken. “I will do it, ser,” the seneschal had said sourly. “I did it the last time.”

  Memory gifts were said to focus the prayers and thoughts of the living to help guide the departed’s spirit to the Beyond. And, of course, to be kept after, when the dead spirit had presumably found its way toward wherever it was going.

  Another loud screech cut through Innel’s contemplations. It seemed a number of people were determined to find out if volume could be a substitute for the appearance of sincerity.

  While many had come in with faces already artfully scratched to show the depth of their sorrow, now, having little else to do, some had taken to such self-mutilation while standing in lin
e. Most of the line was currently House Sartor, a strange and severe bunch even at the cheeriest of times. The youngers of the House were using something sharp to mark their bare arms, most likely a needle, given the produce of the House. Their red marks were bright enough to constitute a noticeable color tribute to the crown, and quite visually striking when combined with the austere gray and black House colors. A not-very-subtle show of loyalty. Clever, Innel thought.

  Was one of them actually dripping blood? She was. Innel was curious to see if the House following would make a point of stepping around the drops of blood or into them.

  At last the Great Houses had finally wound past the Table of Memory and out the other end of the large chamber to the next hall, where small delicacies were being served until everyone was through the procession and the formal speeches could begin. Then the feast.

  The Great Houses would bow and give homage, wail and rend, wait their turn to own something of the old king’s, and listen to long talks about the might of the Empire, but afterwards they would expect to be fed.

  The Great Hall’s balconies were draped with dark flowers woven through mesh and chain, the many tapestries depicting Restarn’s great exploits lining the walls, the decorations as lavish as they had been for the coronation.

  “You will want it so,” the seneschal had told him with a humorless smile, “because they will compare the two, and further compare this funeral to the Grandmother Queen’s—those who were there. Best they find this compares favorably to the extravagances of memory.”

  The extravagances of memory. In death the old king’s reputation had been polished to a brilliant, impossible sheen. The dead could not be held to account.

  As the Lesser Houses now bowed to the queen, then made their slow way to the king’s body, Innel noticed that the red lines of scratched faces were accompanied by welts on arms and necks, allowing yet more fabric to be rent and torn to reveal this additional grief-induced suffering.

  At the king’s body, the gray-haired Eparch of Chandler raised the stakes of how much clothing one could tear off in grief, his welted torso showing bare as he took off his tunic and threw it on the ground, then tore his shirt to shreds, howling in grief, his deep, loud cry cutting across the huge room, catching the eye of the queen—no doubt his intention—who Innel could see was nothing like pleased.

  But there was no mistaking any of these screams for true pain. Nothing like what he’d heard yesterday outside the dungeon room door, at the end of the first day of the seer’s questioning. He found it reassuring that despite the long stretches of silence coming from the room, something was going on in there besides talk.

  He judged that enough time had passed that he could now briefly step away from his place by the queen’s side. He spoke softly in her ear for permission and she nodded slightly. He retreated off the dais, Sachare and Srel both converging on him as he tried for the back exit.

  Sachare arrived first.

  “When this is all over,” she whispered to him, “she will not be in a good mood.”

  “Wine, twunta, sweets. Me,” Innel replied. Srel joined their small huddle.

  Sachare turned to Srel. “Can we get her aside, before the feast, for a few minutes?”

  “Certainly,” Srel said.

  “Good. I’ll get one of the pups for her to hold in the antechamber.” To Innel she gave a half smile and apologetic shrug. “It’ll help. Trust me. Then—you and the rest.”

  Innel swallowed the start of indignation. “I defer to you, Cohort sister.”

  A quick touch on his shoulder to come closer, and he did. “You must talk to Mulack,” she said.

  “Must I,” he said, letting some of his tension show. Then Srel drew him away and out into the corridor, where the Minister of Coin waited, looking dour.

  “Minister. What is it?”

  She waited for a bevy of servants with platters of food to press by.

  “That matter we discussed some months ago,” she said softly.

  The souver forgeries.

  “Yes?”

  She cleared her throat, looked again around to be sure they were not overheard. Srel stepped back a few feet into the hallway, subtly describing an area around the two of them that no one would intrude upon.

  “They are coming in greater measure, from many directions.”

  “What?”

  “Taxes, merchants. We re-mint them all, of course, but the fact remains: they are in circulation. Prices are rising in the markets. Contracts are being broken, held up for renegotiation.”

  “But the treasury is—”

  “Healthy, yes.” She pressed her lips together, and the edges curled down. “So the minister keeps telling us. But that is not enough. To be on the safe side, ser, we might want to buy up some Perripin aldas—”

  “What?” he hissed at her, outraged. “Never. Arunkel coin is steady—”

  “Value, Lord Commander,” she whispered back, “is not the same as numbers. If this keeps up, we are going to have a problem. Or rather, the queen is going to have a problem.”

  Separating herself from the monarchy. Openly.

  “You cross the line, Minister,” Innel said sharply.

  From beyond the door to the Great Hall came the barely muffled sound of another piercing shriek, accompanied by a deep-throated howl. Yet he could hear the Minister of Coin breathing hard.

  “My apologies, Lord Commander,” she said, looking down.

  “You might by such comments affect the very coin you are sworn to protect. Your words have power. Keep them to yourself.”

  “Yes, ser. Of course, ser. You can rely on me, ser.”

  “That had best be the case.”

  “It is done.”

  Keyretura sat down across the desk from Innel, looking at ease and as rested as if he had spent the last twenty-four days at the palace rather than riding the monarch’s fastest horses across the span of the empire.

  “Done? So very quickly? The woman and boy in hand?”

  “Yes, that is what ‘done’ means. Shall I repeat myself?”

  Innel decided it was best to ignore the reprimand. “And are they well? Are they safe?”

  “They are both. The woman was not reluctant to give earnest and frequent voice to her objections, but that is not particularly surprising. The boy was more capable of finding pleasure in the journey. They are now at the residence you provided, where I made it clear to the chamberlain that they are to be shown every possible comfort within the walls of the manor. You look shocked, Commander.”

  “No, High One.” But it was true, he was. “I am simply not used to such efficiency.” To put it mildly.

  “You have little exposure to my kind, Commander. Marisel is young. Inexperienced.”

  At least by comparison, Innel thought, a little dazed by the realization that he actually had the seer’s sister and nephew in his possession.

  Keyretura spoke again. “You will keep the seer’s family safe and secure in your custody, under the terms of the contract I witnessed. An inconvenience for me, if I must enforce that contract; I promise you would find that quite unpleasant. What have I missed here during my little detour?”

  Innel digested this threat and nodded his understanding. “I had the seer questioned.”

  “And?”

  Innel had met with Tayre after and found that the man had been entirely correct at their first meeting to say that seeing him would not convince Innel of his ability. Visually the man was entirely unremarkable. But he had gotten useful answers out of her.

  “She suggests I look to the Rift.”

  “All five hundred miles of it?” Keyretura asked, openly amused.

  He knew the mage’s opinion of her ability and had idly wondered if traveling with her family might change it. Apparently not. “She didn’t say.”

  “Of course she didn’t. Vague answers are far harder to test. Planning a trip, then, are you, Commander?”

  He ignored the mocking tone. “No.”

 
; Not yet, in any case. If she were right, that he would be planning a campaign in a mere matter of days, with no hint of it now, much would need to happen and soon. It was as good a test of her predictions as any.

  The Dalgo Rift stretched in a straight line from the northern ocean to the southern Mundaran Sea. The continent continued eastward past the line, but there was no crossing the Rift.

  Innel had seen the Rift when he’d been younger, along with the rest of the Cohort, on one of the extended forced marches they’d made under Lason’s sadistic education. They were instantly stunned into silence by the mile-wide chasm that descended so far the bottom faded into black, sheer obsidian walls on both sides as slick as ice. Stories of those who had tried to cross were grist to frighten children.

  Now he looked around the room, searching the walls for a map that showed that straight, dark line. His gaze caught on the painted shaota figurine and he remembered that day in Arteni, the noise and smoke and screams. The Teva and their strange laughing horses. The man handing him up this very figurine, which he had decided to keep rather than give to the old king.

  Following his gaze, Keyretura spoke. “Ah yes, the shaota toys. I’ve seen them in Kelerre. Popular among the governors’ households and the patrician’s brats.”

  Innel stood and walked to the painted metal horse with its brown, black, and tan lines, from eyes to tail. He hefted it in one hand, carrying it to the map. With a finger he traced Otevan’s roughly oblong shape, flat side against the edge of the Rift. A bite out of the empire of Arunkel. He looked southward on the map, nearly to the floor, and thought about roads and distances.

  “Does it not strike you as odd,” Innel said, staring at the map, “to transport such merchandise so very far?”