Oba stared at her, not knowing if he believed her. She was sweating profusely—a sure sign of something. She was sure to be terrified in the presence of the man powerful enough to do away with her sorceress sister. Maybe she was trying to distract him, hoping to make a run for it as soon as he turned his back.
Althea took her skirt between forefingers and thumbs and lifted the hem in a dainty manner, allowing him to see her knees and a little higher. He leaned over for a look. Her legs were mangled and withered. They looked like they had died ages ago and not been buried. Oba found the sight fascinating.
Althea lifted an eyebrow. “Crippled, as I said.”
“How?”
“Your father’s work.”
Well, wasn’t that just something.
For the first time, Oba felt a very tangible connection to his father.
He had had a difficult and trying morning and was entitled to a leisurely cup of tea. In fact, he found the notion provocative. What he had in mind for her would be thirsty work. Oba crossed the room and retrieved the biggest cup from among the collection he found on a shelf. When he set the cup down, she poured it full of a dark thick tea.
“Special tea,” she explained when she noticed the frown on his face. “It can be terribly uncomfortable here in the swamp, what with the heat and humidity. This helps clear the head, too, after the onus of a morning’s difficult tasks. Among other things, it will sweat the weariness from tired muscles—such as from a long walk.”
His head was pounding after his tough morning. Although his clothes were finally dry after his swim, and the blood had all been washed off, he wondered if she could somehow sense the difficult time he’d had. There was no telling what this woman could do, but he wasn’t worried. He was invincible, as Lathea’s end had proved.
“Your tea will help all that?”
“Oh yes. It’s a very powerful tonic. It will cure many problems. You’ll see for yourself.”
Oba saw that she was drinking the same thick tea. She was sweating, sure, so he figured she was right about that. She downed the rest of her cupful and poured herself another.
She held her cup up in toast. “To sweet life, while we have it.”
Oba thought it an odd toast. It sounded almost as if she was admitting that she knew she was about to die.
“To life,” Oba said, lifting his cup to tap against hers. “While we have it.”
Oba took a gulp of the dark tea. He grimaced at recognizing the taste. It was what the symbol on the board represented—the mountain fever rose. He had learned to identify the bitter taste from the times when Lathea crushed one and added it to his cure.
“Drink up,” his companion said. Her breathing seemed labored. She took a few long swallows. “As I said, it will solve a lot of problems.” She drained the rest in her cup.
He knew that Lathea, despite her mean streak, sometimes mixed up cures to help sick people. While he’d waited on her to make cures for him and his mother, he had seen her crush up a mountain fever rose in many a concoction she mixed for others. Now, Althea was downing it by the cupful, so she obviously had faith in the distasteful herb, too. Such heavy humidity always gave Oba a headache. Despite the bitter taste, he took another sip, hoping it would help his sore muscles in addition to clearing his head.
“I have some questions.”
“You mentioned that,” Althea said, peering at him from over the rim of her cup. “And you expect me to provide answers.”
“That’s right.”
Oba took another swallow of the heavy tea. He grimaced again. He didn’t know why the woman called it “tea.” There was no “tea” about it. It was just ground dried mountain fever rose in a little hot water. Her dark-eyed gaze followed as he set the big cup on the table.
The wind had picked up, beating the rain in against the window. Oba guessed he’d made it to her house just in time. Foul swamp. He turned his attention back to the sorceress.
“I want to know what a hole in the world is. Your sister said that you could see holes in the world.”
“Did she now? I don’t know why she would say such a thing.”
“Oh, I had to convince her,” Oba said. “Am I going to have to convince you, too?”
He hoped so. He tingled with the anticipation of getting to the bladework. But he was in no rush. He had time. He enjoyed playing games with the living. It helped him understand how they thought, so that when the time came and he looked into their eyes, he was better able to imagine what they were thinking as death hovered close.
Althea tilted her head in gesture to the table between them. “The tea won’t help if you don’t have enough. Drink up.”
Oba waved off her concern and leaned closer on an elbow. “I’ve traveled a long way. Answer my question.”
Althea finally looked away from his glare and used her arms to lower her weight from her chair down onto the floor. It was quite a struggle. Oba didn’t offer to help. It fascinated him to watch people struggle. The sorceress pulled herself to the red and gold pillow, dragging her useless legs behind. She worked herself into a sitting position and folded her dead legs up before herself. It was difficult, but she managed with precise and efficient moves that looked well practiced.
All the effort puzzled him. “Why don’t you use your magic?”
She peered up at him with those big dark eyes so filled with silent condemnation. “Your father did the same to my magic as he did to my legs.”
Oba was stunned. He wondered if his father had been invincible, too. Perhaps Oba had always been meant to be his father’s true heir. Perhaps fate had finally stepped in and rescued Oba for better things.
“You mean, you’re a sorceress, but you can’t do magic?”
As distant thunder rumbled through the swamp, she gestured to a place on the floor. While Oba sat down before her, she dragged over the board with the gilded symbol and placed it between them.
“I was left with only a partial ability to foretell things,” she said. “Nothing else. If you wished to, you could strangle me with one hand while finishing your tea with the other. I could do nothing to stop you.”
Oba thought that might take some of the fun out of it. Struggle was part of any genuinely satisfying encounter. How much could a crippled old woman struggle? At least there was still the terror, the agony, and witnessing death’s arrival to look forward to.
“But, you can still do prophecy? That was how you knew I was coming?”
“In a way.” She sighed heavily, as if the effort of pulling herself to her red and gold pillow had left her exhausted. As she turned her attention to the board before her, she seemed to shrug off her weariness.
“I want to show you something.” She was speaking now like a confidant. “It may finally explain some things for you.”
He leaned forward expectantly, pleased that she had at last wisely decided to reveal secrets. Oba liked to learn new things.
He watched as she sorted through her little pile of stones. She inspected several carefully before she found the one she wanted. She set the others to the side, apparently in some order she understood, though he thought they all looked the same.
She turned back to him and lifted the single stone up before his eyes. “You,” she said.
“Me? What do you mean?”
“This stone represents you.”
“Why?”
“It chose to.”
“You mean that you decided it would represent me.”
“No. I mean that the stone decided to represent you—or, rather, that which controls the stones decided.”
“What controls the stones?”
He was surprised to see a smile spread on Althea’s face. It grew to a dangerous grin. Not even Lathea had ever managed a look as chillingly malevolent.
“Magic decides,” she hissed.
Oba had to remind himself that he was invincible. He gestured, trying to look unconcerned.
“What about the others? Who are they, then?”
Oba glared at her private smile. “I guess not.”
She rattled the single stone in her loose fist. Without looking away from his eyes, she cast the stone down at the board. Lightning flickered. The stone tumbled across the board, rolling to a stop out beyond the outer gilded circle. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
“So,” he asked, “what does it mean?”
Rather than answer, and without looking down, she scooped up the stone. Her gaze didn’t move off his face as she rattled his stone again. Again, and without a word, she cast it at the board. Lightning flashed. Amazingly, the stone came to rest in the same place as it had the first time—not just close to the same place, but in the exact same place. Rain drummed against the roof as a stutter of thunder crackled through the swamp.
Althea quickly swept up the stone and cast it a third time, again accompanied by a flash of lightning, only this time the lightning was closer. Oba licked his lips as he waited for the fall of the stone that represented him.
Goose bumps ran up his arms as he saw the dark little stone roll to a stop in the same place on the board as it had the two previous times. The instant it had halted, thunder boomed.
Oba put his hands on his knees and leaned back. “Some trick.”
“Not a trick,” she said. “Magic.”
“I thought you couldn’t do magic.”
“I can’t.”
“Then how are you doing that?”
“I told you, I’m not doing it. The stones are doing it themselves.”
“Well, then, what’s it supposed to mean about me when it stops, there, in that place?”
He realized that somewhere during the stone-rolling, her smile had gone away. One graceful finger, lit by the firelight, pointed down to where his stone lay.
“That place represents the underworld,” she said in a grim voice. “The world of the dead.”
Oba tried to look only mildly interested. “What does that have to do with me?”
Her big dark eyes wouldn’t stop boring into his soul. “That’s where the voice comes from, Oba.”
Goose bumps flitted up his arms. “How do you know my name?”
She cocked her head, casting half her face in deep shadow. “I made a mistake, once, long ago.”
“What mistake?”
“I helped save your life. Helped your mother get you away from the palace before Darken Rahl could find out that you existed and kill you.”
“Liar!” Oba snatched up the stone from the board. “I’m his son! Why would he want to kill me!”
She hadn’t taken her penetrating gaze from him. “Maybe because he knew you would listen to the voices, Oba.”
Oba wanted to cut out her terrible eyes. He would cut them out. He thought it best, though, if he found out more, first, if he gathered his courage, first.
“You were a friend of my mother?”
“No. I didn’t really know her. Lathea knew her better. Your mother was but one young woman among several who were in trouble and a great deal of danger. I helped them, that’s all. For that, Darken Rahl crippled me. If you choose not to believe the truth about his intentions toward you, then I leave it to you to please yourself with a different answer of your own devising.”
Oba considered her words, checking them for any connection they might have to anything on his lists. He didn’t find any links right off.
“You and Lathea helped the children of Darken Rahl?”
“My sister Lathea and I were at one time very close. We were both committed, each in our own way, to helping those in need. But she came to resent those like you, offspring of Lord Rahl, because of the agony it caused me to have tried to help. She could not bring herself to witness my punishment and pain. She left.
“It was a weakness on her part, but I knew she could not help having such feelings. I loved her, so I would not beg her to visit me, here, like this, despite how terribly I missed her. I never saw her again. It was the only kindness I could do her—let her run away. I would imagine she did not look kindly upon you. She had her reasons, even if they were misdirected.”
Oba was not about to be talked into any sympathy for that hateful woman. He inspected the dark stone for a time and then gave it back to Althea.
“Those three were just luck. Do it again.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I did it a hundred times.” She handed the stone back. “You do it. Cast it yourself.”
Oba defiantly rattled the stone in his loose fist, as he had seen her do. She leaned back against her chair as she watched him. Her eyes were getting droopy.
Oba threw the stone down at the board with enough force to be certain that it would roll well beyond the board and prove her wrong. As the stone left his hand, lightning flashed so hard that he flinched and looked up, fearing it was blasting through the roof. Thunder crashed on its heels, shaking the house. The strike felt like it rattled his bones. But then it was over and the only sound was the rain drumming against the undamaged roof and windows.
Oba grinned in relief and looked down, only to see the cursed stone sitting in the exact same place it had come to rest the three times before.
He jumped up as if he’d been bitten by a snake. He rubbed his sweating palms against his thighs.
“A trick,” he said. “It’s just a trick. You’re a sorceress and you’re just doing magic tricks.”
“You are the one who has done the trick, Oba. You are the one who invited his darkness into your soul.”
“And what if I have!”
She smiled at his admission. “You may listen to the voice, Oba, but you are not the one. You are merely his servant, no more. He must choose another if he is to bring darkness upon the world.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Oh, but I do. You may be a hole in the world, but you are missing a necessary ingredient.”
“And what would that be?”
“Grushdeva.”
Oba felt the hair at the back of his neck stiffen. While he didn’t recognize the specific word, the source was indisputable. The idiosyncratic nature of the word belonged solely to the voice.
“A senseless word. It means nothing.”
She regarded him for a time with a look that he feared because it seemed to hold a world of forbidden knowledge. By the cast of iron resolve in her eyes, he knew that no mere blade would gain that knowledge for him.
“A long time ago, in a faraway place,” she said in her quiet voice, “another sorceress revealed to me a bit of the Keeper’s tongue. That is one of his words, in his primordial language. You would not have heard it unless you were the right one. Grushdeva. It means ‘vengeance.’ You are not the one he has chosen.”
Oba thought she might be taunting him. “You don’t know what words I’ve heard or anything about it. I’m the son of Darken Rahl. A rightful heir. You don’t know anything about what I hear. I will have power you can only imagine.”
“Free will is forfeit when dealing with the Keeper. You have sold what is yours alone and priceless . . . for nothing but ashes.
“You have sold yourself into the worst kind of slavery, Oba, in return for nothing more than the illusion of self-worth. You have no say in what is to be. You are not the one. It is another.” She wiped the sweat from her brow. “And, that much of it is yet to be decided.”
“Now you presume to think you can alter the course of what I have wrought? Dictate what shall be?” Oba’s own words surprised him. They’d seemed to come out before he thought to say them.
“Such things are not amenable to the likes of me,” she admitted. “I learned at the Palace of the Prophets not to meddle in that which is above me and ungovernable. The grand scheme of life and death are the rightful province of the Creator and the Keeper.” She seemed contented behind a sly ex
pression. “But I am not above exercising my free will.”
He’d heard enough. She was only trying to stall, to confuse him. For some reason, he couldn’t make his racing heart slow.
“What are holes in the world?”
“They are the end of the likes of me,” she said. “They are the end of everything I know.”
It was just like a sorceress to answer with a senseless riddle. “Who are the other stones?” he demanded.
At last, she turned her formidable eyes from him to look down at the other stones. Her movements seemed oddly jerky. Her slender fingers selected one of the stones. As she lifted it, she paused to put her other hand across her middle. Oba realized that she was in pain. She was trying her best to cover it, but she couldn’t cover it now. The sweat beading her brow was from pain. The agony came out in a low moan. Oba watched with fascination.
Then, it seemed to ebb some. With great effort she straightened her posture and returned her attention to what she had been doing. She held out her hand, palm up, with the stone sitting in the center.
“This one,” she said, her breathing labored, now, “is me.”
“You? That stone is you?”
She nodded as she cast it at the board without even looking. The stone tumbled to a stop, this time, without the accompaniment of lightning and thunder. Oba felt relieved, even a little foolish, that he had been so rattled by that before. He smiled, now. It was just a silly board game, and he was invincible.
The stone had come to rest at one corner of the square that lay within the two circles.
He gestured. “So, what does that mean?”
“Protector,” she managed through a shallow pant.
Her trembling fingers gathered up the stone. She lifted her hand up before him and opened her slender fingers. The stone, her stone, rested in the center of her palm. Her eyes were fixed on his.
As Oba watched, the stone crumbled to ash in her palm.
“Why did it do that?” he whispered, his eyes going wide.
Althea didn’t answer. Instead, she slumped and then toppled over. Her arms sprawled out before her, her legs to the side. The ash that had been a stone scattered in a dark smear across the floor.
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