Voyage of the Fox Rider

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “Is it difficult to learn to be a seer?”

  Aylis shrugged. “Not for me. Of course, each person has a natural bent. Mine was to be a seer. Perhaps just as yours was to be the captain of a fleet ship and ply the waters of the world.”

  “I had never seen an ocean until I came to Mithgar.”

  “Tell me of it, love.”

  Aravan’s thoughts returned to a day long past. “When I rode out of the dawn and into Mithgar, I came into the youth and wildness of this new world, leaving behind the stately grace and beauty of ancient Adonar. I found myself in a misty swale, the grassy crowns of mounded hills all about. I was not surprised by the cast of the terrain, for as thou knowest, crossings between are fair matched to one another. Unexpectedly, though, there came unto mine ears the distant sound of shsshing booms. Curious, I turned my horse toward the rolling roar, riding southerly among the diminishing downs. Upward my path took me, up a long, shallow slope, the sounds increasing, the wind in my face, a salt tang on the air. I found myself on a high, chalk cliff, the white bluff falling sheer. Out before me, as far as mine eye could see, stretched deep blue waters, reaching to the horizon and beyond. It was an ocean, the Avagon Sea, its azure waves booming below, high-tossed spray glittering like diamonds cast upward in the morning Sun. My heart sang at such a sight and mine eyes brimmed with tears, and in that moment something slipped comfortably into my soul. And although I had not before come unto this world, I felt as if I were home at last.”

  Aravan fell silent, and after a moment Aylis bent down and kissed him.

  Aravan looked up at her. “It was the same when I first saw, thee, chieran. When thou clambered up out of thy gig and over the side of the Eroean, my heart sang with the wonder of thee. It does each time I see thy face and form, it does each time I drown in thy gold-flecked green gaze. I am drunk with thee, Aylis, and always will I be so.”

  Aravan pulled Aylis to him, their kiss long and lingering, passion kindling. “No, wait,” whispered Aylis, “I have something to show you.”

  She scrambled over the top of him, and padded across the floor, her flesh glowing ivory in the shining starlight. Rummaging through a drawer where she had stowed some of her things—“Aha”—she came back to the bed, once again climbing over Aravan and settling at his side.

  “I was just a girl among many when I first entered the college at Kairn. Almost as soon as they are able, many who are seers do a casting upon a silver mirror, a casting to see their true love. In public I scoffed at those who had done so, thereby demonstrating my superiority over those who practiced such childish rituals. But in private, when I had the ability, I did my own casting upon my own silver mirror.”

  “And what didst thou see?”

  Aylis held up a small disk of polished silver. “Look deep within and tell me what you see.”

  Aravan steadied the mirror in the starlight and peered within. “I see nought but mine own face,” he said at last.

  Aylis looked down into his deep blue eyes and said, “Exactly so.”

  Two more days and nights passed, and still the northern lights did not shine. But against the stars of the third clear night the spectral flare of the aurora shimmered, the eerie display writhing high in the winter sky, pastel hues shifting among the colors of the spectrum.

  Jinnarin and Alamar, Aravan and Aylis, Jatu and Frizian and Bokar, and nearly all the crew—Men and Dwarves alike—stood watch upon the decks…but no plumes did they see.

  “Storm takes eagle,” crowed Alamar, snapping up the piece.

  Jinnarin looked up. “Oh,” she said, her attention once again on the board. “I didn’t see it coming.”

  Alamar glowered at her. “I don’t even know why we are playing, Pysk. You haven’t been here all evening.”

  Jinnarin reached out and turned her throne on its side, signifying resignation. “You’re right, Alamar. My mind isn’t on the game.”

  “What then?”

  “Oh, I’ve been thinking about Gyphon and Black Mages and the nature of evil.”

  “Back on that, eh? Well, have you come to any conclusions?”

  Jinnarin leaned against the book she used as a backrest. “Not much more than before. Just a few observations, that’s all.”

  “Such as…?”

  Jinnarin took a deep breath. “Such as, well, I started with the premise of someone trying to control, to dominate another. That led me to thinking about acts of evil.” Jinnarin looked up at the Mage. “You know, I don’t even like to think about this, Alamar. It does nothing but drag my spirit down.”

  “Then why do it?”

  “Because I can’t get it out of my mind!” snapped Jinnarin, leaping to her feet. “You started it, Alamar, and I can’t seem to stop it.”

  “Oh no, Pysk. It was your curiosity that—”

  “Oh, stop it,” demanded Jinnarin. “It really doesn’t matter who started it. It’s just that I can’t seem to turn loose of it. And it makes me feel bad.”

  Alamar stroked his white beard. “What that usually means, Pysk, is that you’re still working on a problem. In this case, you are still trying to understand the nature of evil. Look, sometimes talking to others helps clarify the thoughts and clear the mind. So I suggest that you sit down and tell me what you’ve come up with.”

  With a sigh, Jinnarin resumed her seat. Alamar got the teakettle from the stove and replenished their cups. As the Mage settled down again, Jinnarin began:

  “I have thought that one cannot be directly controlled by another without deliberate submission. This can come about in several ways, among which are: the person wants to be controlled, has no will of their own, or is driven by fear of the consequences.

  “This led me to believe that purveyors of evil use coercion, intimidation, and force to control others.

  “And that, Alamar, is as far as my thinking got.”

  The eld Mage nodded. “Perhaps that is enough, Jinnarin, though I would add to your list manipulation—be it overt, covert, subtle, or blatant. Given our previous discussions as well as this one, perhaps you now have enough of a foundation to see acts for what they are: good or evil, fair or foul. Can you name me some evil acts?”

  Again Jinnarin took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Murder for gain. Murder of innocents. Thralldom. Whippings and beatings to force people to do as you will. Threats. Rape. Pillage. Wanton destruction.…Oh, Alamar, I don’t wish to think of it any longer.”

  Alamar gazed down at her. “You will turn loose of it when you are ready, Jinnarin,” he said, gently. “Until then I would have you consider the following: you have named several of the great evils; but can you name some of the small ones? Those which seem on the surface to be nothing more than, say, callous or even thoughtless acts, but which are evil at their core? I speak here not of the big things, like, say, torture, but instead of the smaller things.”

  “You mean like the hunting of foxes for sport?”

  Alamar smiled. “Perhaps.”

  “Well, that’s a rather big thing with me, Alamar.”

  “Yes, Jinnarin, I know.”

  More days passed and winter deepened, the lines and masts and spars of the Eroean lading up with ice, crews clambering in the shrouds to break the pulleys free and to shake the ice from the silken ropes and loosen it from the outer layer of the fully reefed sails, keeping the ship at the ready, for who knew when they would be called to raise sail and get underway to chase a streamer, to chase a will-o’-the-wisp? But night after night came the boreal lights, night after night…yet no plumes did they see.

  “Argh,” spat Alamar after a week of such, “nothing at all. Oh well, at least we are anchored for the moment where I will see the occultation.”

  “Occultation?” asked Jinnarin.

  “Didn’t I just say that, Pysk?”

  Jinnarin bridled, but said nothing.

  Aravan looked down at Jinnarin. “Mage Alamar is right. Here in these latitudes the Moon will eat the Sun late next month, two days befo
re Year’s Long Night.”

  Alamar nodded in confirmation, then sighed. “Would that I had the Elves’ gift, Aravan. The Sun, Moon, and stars are my passion, yet I must cipher what will be their patterns, whereas you and your Kind simply know.”

  “Do all Folk have a gift?” asked Jinnarin. “I mean, Mages can control the astral fire; Elves know where stands the heavens; my Kind can gather shadow. What gift have the Dwarves?”

  “They cannot lose their footsteps,” replied Aravan. “No matter where they travel on land, they can always unerringly retrace their paths.”

  “How about at sea?”

  “Nay. Neither, I deem, through the air. Only on land, and then only when they are in good health—not, say, when they are delirious with fever…or so Drimma have told me. Time and again have I seen Drimma make use of this gift of theirs.”

  Alamar cleared his throat. “I understand that they can retrace their steps blindfolded.”

  “So, too, do I understand, though I have never seen it,” replied Aravan.

  “Tell me,” asked Jinnarin, “what is the gift of Man?”

  Alamar looked at Aravan and then replied, “Fecundity.”

  Aylis removed the blindfold and examined the cards laid out before her, some of them faceup, others facedown. She sat at the table in the lounge. To the left sat Aravan, Jinnarin to the right. Across the table opposite sat Alamar. None said aught while she studied the layout of the arcanely scribed flats, and yellow lantern light cast slowly shifting shadows as the Elvenship rode at anchor upon the gentle swells.

  “Arr,” growled Aylis, frustrated, slapping her hand down upon the cards, “this makes no sense at all!”

  “What?” asked Jinnarin, leaning forward as if to better see. “What doesn’t make sense?”

  “None of it. None of it at all,” replied Aylis. She reached out and turned over one of the cards and sharply drew in her breath. “No wonder,” she muttered, her finger stabbing down. “See this?”—she pointed at the newly revealed picture, someone in a dark robe—“It is the Mage, and he sits in the strait, blocking all.”

  “The strait?”

  “Yes.” Aylis gestured at the layout—four cards in a row across the top, three cards in the next row, then two, then one, followed by two, then three, then four. “See, we have a pyramid tapering down, then flaring back out. The strait is the narrowest part. It represents the key, the critical juncture. And the Hidden Mage Reversed blocks all.” The picture of the person in the dark robe sat alone at the key.

  Jinnarin stood and walked over to the spread. “Reversed?”

  “Aye,” answered Aylis. “With respect to the Delver, a card takes on six positions: Open, Obverse, Upright, Reversed, Leftward, Rightward. Open means faceup, the picture showing, a factor not hidden. Obverse means just the opposite, the card facedown, a hidden factor. Upright means that the picture is rightside up to me, the Delver, whereas Reversed means it is upside down to me. Upright aids; Reversed opposes.”

  Jinnarin cocked her head. “What about Left and Right?”

  “Leftward is sinister; Rightward is beneficent.”

  Alamar glared at the card in the strait, the cloaked figure upside down to Aylis. “So this confirms we are opposed by a hidden Mage, eh?”

  “Didn’t we already know this?” asked Jinnarin. “I mean, Aylis’s other attempts—with the black water, and the card showing the shattered tower, and all—revealed that we were being blocked.”

  Aylis inclined her head in agreement. “Blocked, yes. But if the cards show true, they now tell us that it is indeed a Mage and not a god or demon.”

  Aravan’s voice came softly. “Then the spread is not entirely without use. What else say the cards?”

  Aylis again peered at the dual pyramid. At last she said, “It seems to be entirely at random, as if the cards were selected haphazardly with no purpose at all. Except for the Obverse, Reversed Mage, I would say that chance alone governed the layout.”

  Jinnarin looked up at Aylis. “Well isn’t it true? Doesn’t chance alone determine what befalls the cards?”

  Alamar snorted. “In hands less skilled than those of my daughter, Pysk, you are right. But in Aylis’s hands, or those of other seers, random chance plays little or no part.”

  “Unless blocked, Father,” murmured Aylis, placing a finger on the card in the strait. “Unless blocked by a higher power.”

  Aravan reached out and laid a hand on Aylis’s. “If thou canst see nought of the mission, then mayhap individual readings will reveal what a general reading will not.”

  Aylis sighed. “I tried to do so when I was in Tugal, but I found only danger in the cards.”

  “You didn’t know us then,” suggested Jinnarin.

  “I knew my father,” replied Aylis, “and still I discovered but a meager bit: only that he was in jeopardy and on the Eroean, which would soon pass through the Straits of Kistan.”

  Alamar stood and went to the porthole and peered out.

  Aravan leaned back. “But now that we are known to thee, chieran, mayhap a reading on one of us will reveal something new.”

  Aylis turned up her hands. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. I can but try.” She turned to the Pysk and gestured opposite. “Be seated, Jinnarin. I will start with you.”

  Somewhat timorously, Jinnarin sat atop the table across from Aylis.

  Aylis replaced the black blindfold about her own eyes, and reached out and began spreading and swirling and mingling the cards, blindly turning some over and then others while whispering under her breath. At last she drew them all together into a single pack. “Jinnarin, close your eyes and then divide the cards into three separate stacks, first one to my left, then one to my right, but leave the final one in the center. Try to keep your mind clear as you do so, for we strive to find how outside events impinge upon your life.”

  “Do you mean blank? Keep my mind a blank?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know if I can think of absolutely nothing whatsoever.”

  In the shadows Alamar growled but said nought.

  Jinnarin stood and stepped to the cards. She drew in a sharp breath, for staring up at her was a picture of a skeleton. Kneeling down and closing her eyes, she divided the deck as Aylis had said. “It is done,” she said. “Can I open my eyes now?”

  “Yes.”

  Jinnarin opened her eyes, and backed away as Aylis reached out and blindly reassembled the three, stacks into one—left on the right, with the center turned completely over and placed on top—and then she cut the cards once and then once more. The seeress then began dealing out the cards. In the first row, she placed four straight-up cards side by side. In the second row, she placed three cards: the left one sideways, the center one straight up, and the right one sideways. In the third row she placed two sideways cards. In the fourth row went a single card, straight up. Then she arranged four straight-up cards in a column to the right of all. She laid the remainder aside and then reached up to remove the silken blindfold as Jinnarin studied the layout: some of the cards were faceup, Open, their pictures showing; others were facedown, hidden, Obverse. Jinnarin could also see that some were Reversed and others Upright as well as both Left and Right.

  “Tell me what the arrangement means, Aylis.”

  Aylis frowned at the cards, then said, “This inverted pyramid of ten cards is called the Spread. The top row of four represents significant events you will face, for good if Upright, for ill if Reversed. The second row of three depicts other factors involved, opposing or aiding if Left or Right, the middle card for good or ill. The third row of two shows Fortune’s hand, aiding or opposing or both. And the single card on the final row represents the critical factor, the strait. The four cards to the right represent the Cycle of Time, and from top to bottom they demarcate the past, the present, the future, and a key moment. If a card is faceup, it represents something that was, or is, or will be in the open, whereas a facedown card is something that is hidden.”

  “All rig
ht. Then how do you read them, Aylis?”

  “Initially I will read the Spread in general. Then we will examine it through the Cycle of Time: first, as it is affected by the past; then in light of the present; then with an eye to the future; and finally we will see where the key moment fits in.”

  Aylis studied the layout. “Exactly half the cards are Open, half Obverse. Not a rarity, yet a bit unusual.”

  She began turning up the Obverse cards, setting them somewhat lower in their rows so that they could easily be identified later. As she turned them, a frown came over her features. “This makes little or no sense,” she muttered. When all the cards were faceup, she shook her head. “Random, all but one.”

  From his position by the porthole, Alamar said, “Let me guess: the Mage is in the strait, neh?”

  Aylis turned and looked at her sire. “Yes, Father. And he is Reversed.”

  Alamar stalked to the table and leaned forward on his hands. “Then, Daughter, I suggest that it is not random at all.”

  Aylis nodded. “Blocked again.”

  Aravan asked, “Is there nothing thou canst see within the Spread—past, present, future, or e’en the key moment?”

  Aylis turned up the facedown cards in the Cycle of Time and studied the whole for long moments. After a while she looked up at Aravan and shook her head.

  Aravan moved to the chair across the table from Aylis. “Then try me, chieran.”

  Again Aylis tied the black silk across her eyes then blindly stirred and mingled the cards, turning them over and over at random, all the while chanting under her breath. At last Aravan divided them in three stacks, and Aylis reassembled the deck and cut it twice. Then she dealt out the Spread—again five were Open, five Obverse. And she dealt out the Cycle of Time—two were facedown, two faceup.

  Aylis removed the blindfold. As she turned up the Obverse cards in the Spread, Jinnarin, Alamar, and Aravan looked on intently. Jinnarin drew in a sharp breath as the straight was revealed—the Mage Reversed. After a long moment of study, Aylis looked up at Aravan and shook her head.