by Brian Thomas
Zanwen squinted across at the old woman, his nose for trade twitching at her concern for the sleeping youth and the prospect to profit from it. “Why? Why will I take him with me Leckey?”
Old Leckey chuckled as she straightened from her pot. “You will do it because I ask you to, for this meal I have prepared for you and as a favour for old time’s sake. Otherwise, I will have to trade you for his passage.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him and her tone grew cold as she added. “It would not be one of your better trades, Zanwen.” Lifting the pot to the table she added in a lighter tone. “Better to retain your reputation as a shrewd trader. Now, wake him so that we can eat, I am hungry.”
Relieved to escape her penetrating gaze Zanwen casually reached out a boot to shove the young man, irritated that he would probably end up doing what Old Leckey wanted, despite his own reservations. Before the boot made contact his ankle was seized in a vice-like grip and he was looking directly into the now open eyes of the young man. Their cold, merciless touch was even more unsettling than Old Leckey’s and for a moment he felt the icy fingers of death brush his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. He remained absolutely still, just as he would if surprising a viper that stared back at him and had not yet decided whether to strike, his instinct telling him the danger was no less great while he held his breath.
The youth broke off his glare dismissing Zanwen as a threat and looked around to take in his surroundings, settling on Old Leckey visible through her doorway.
Old Leckey didn’t look up but said. “Your meal is ready, as promised. You would do us all a favour though if you used the well and washed before you sat and eat with us.” Old Leckey cackled at her own wit.
Li Chin watched her, as carefully as he would a pickpocket he suspected of having lifted his purse. He could feel the pain of his strained muscles and the fog of exhaustion in his mind. But he could also feel the dissipating fog of something else, possibly a charm. As he watched her words penetrated and he became aware of his own stench.
Disgust prompted Li Chin to release the man’s foot and sensing no immediate danger beyond imminent starvation, made for the well. Drawing up a bucket of cool water he used it to wash his body clean. Li Chin had bathed the morning he had met the old woman but realised it must have been some days since he had last bathed. His hunger was palpable, he felt light-headed from both too little food and the remnants of exhaustion he recognised to have come from a prolonged hard labour.
Looking around Li Chin dismissed the men preparing their camp, noticing the more arid countryside and complete absence of woodland similar to that where he had first met the old woman, only yesterday? Li Chin’s jaw set as he doubted whether it could have been so recent. Beside the house was an enormous pile of freshly sawn logs and branches for firewood. The pile reminded him of his strained muscles and a momentary concern that his waking mind had possibly shaken off the remnants of a charm. Li Chin clenched his jaw angrily as he decided he had lost some time between meeting the old woman and being woken beside her house.
Rather than enter the house with his judgement clouded by anger and with stiff muscles which might slow him, Li Chin spent ten minutes performing some aerobic exercises. Eventually, the smell of food became irresistible and feeling better he strode over to the open doorway. The inside was larger and far more inviting than he would have expected from the run down exterior, it looked homely and comfortable. He entered to join the two occupants sitting at a large table helping themselves from a number of steaming bowls heaped with freshly cooked vegetables. He felt no sense of immediate danger and his earlier anger had largely been replaced by curiosity, whilst his need to eat had become an overriding imperative.
Old Leckey began spooning a generous portion into a bowl and gestured for Li Chin to eat up. Watching them both eat heartily, Li Chin gave a nod of thanks before he also began eating. It had been a while since he had last eaten and he had expected to devour the bowl’s contents in seconds but the first taste was so mouth wateringly satisfying that he instead chewed it slowly, savouring the moment before slowly swallowing and taking another slow appreciative mouthful.
The others had finished, Zanwen pushing his bowl back self-consciously and obviously uncomfortable between the two of them, no doubt wishing he were elsewhere. Li Chin was surprised to find he could only eat half the bowl’s contents, his stomach feeling full after only a small portion. He narrowed his eyes as he looked at the old woman; his stomach had shrunk from not eating, providing further evidence if he needed it that somehow he had lost some time.
The old woman returned his baleful stare with an innocent, gap toothed smile. “Zanwen has agreed to let you accompany him on his caravan.”
Zanwen nervously cleared his throat and added gruffly. “I take no passengers. You can come as one of my men working for your passage.”
Li Chin didn’t take his eyes off the old woman as he asked. “How much work and how far?”
Old Leckey rocked back on her chair before tipping forward again to slap her knees and cackle out a laugh at some great joke, which eluded Zanwen and left the young man in front of him expressionless. Zanwen replied awkwardly. “I go to the North Western border. As my man your work will be the same as for all of my men; whatever I tell you. If my men have an illness or an injury you will use your skills to heal them if you can.”
Li Chin turned his attention to Zanwen. “I am no one’s man and why should I accompany anyone who would wake me with his boot?”
Zanwen looked confused. Did the youth want the passage or not but Old Leckey laughed out loud again before answering for Zanwen. “Because he speaks the barbarian tongue that will help you on your quest and because he could have left you to sleep and you would still be hungry.”
Li Chin stiffened and his hand instinctively reached for his sword, which was not there. “Quest?”
Old Leckey suddenly lost her smile, her tone growing waspish. “They send a man with no foreign languages to seek a barbarian who barely speaks ours. If you keep this up I will also assume they sent a half-wit to match their own shortcomings!” Standing, Old Leckey began snatching bowls and chopsticks from the table, muttering angrily under her breath. Li Chin just catching a reference to the only thing worse than a young foolish man was an old foolish man.
Li Chin was shocked that she obviously knew of the prophecy relating to him and his finding the barbarian never-King. Li Chin had virtually given up on ever being able to make anything of the prophecy but maybe the old woman could help him achieve an otherwise impossible task, especially as she seemed to be offering him aid. Another thought occurred to him. “Are you the other guide?”
Old Leckey smiled at him. “Ah. Signs of intelligence at last but no, that was not I.” Returning to sit facing him at the table she frowned. “That was strange, something I have not seen before.”
Li Chin was pleased she knew of what he asked but was also unsettled she had also been at the Tree of Futures without his knowledge. If she knew, who else might know of his task and seek to obstruct him. “But you were there?”
Old Leckey looked surprised at the question. “No. But I see what happens and what might happen. I looked upon it as a future event many years ago and knew it had come to pass when we met upon the road.” Zanwen was looking confused by the conversation and increasingly uncomfortable at Old Leckey’s admission of her powers. He made to move away but she stopped him. “Stay. Whether you like it or not, your futures are twinned and there are things that you should both hear.”
Li Chin glanced curiously at Zanwen, asking Old Leckey. “Then what was strange, what was it you saw you had not seen before?”
Now it was Old Leckey who looked uncomfortable, gathering her gown more closely about her before answering. “I saw the old fool watching you, biding his time for the right moment. I saw him take you...guide you on your journey and then bring you back to the pool. You know of what I say?” Li Chin nodded, assuming she was referring to Si Li and the pool of light that
formed the base of the Tree of Futures and was being circumspect due to Zanwen. “Well, the other returned another way, the opposite way.” she concluded, her tone full of implied meaning.
Li Chin frowned, the opposite way, toward the futures? He looked keenly at Old Leckey as comprehension of what she implied dawned. “My teaching is that this cannot be done, that it is a basic precept which safeguards against all of the,” he glanced at Zanwen, “the stories from unravelling. You cannot go back and amend the beginning of a tale you are already in to bring about a preferred ending.”
Old Leckey looked irritable as she fussed with her gown. “Old fools. What do any of us actually know? We believe we know, we think we understand but we are less than ants to the Great Spirits who rule the universe.” Calming a little she added. “I have thought on this much since I saw it and believe that if a story required the intervention to happen, then the story could not happen without the intervention. For this particular story the intervention did occur and it was essential that it did happen. Think back to what your second guide told you and you will see he is not changing his story but ensuring that it gets written in the first place. Without his intervention there would be no story from which your guide could have come.”
Li Chin sat back as he thought about what Old Leckey had said, it certainly matched his memory of what the second guide had said. His first guide had been Si Li, this much he had worked out himself. If Old Leckey were right the second guide had come from the future to ensure its branch on the Tree of Life actually happened.
Li Chin felt a familiar irritation at being manipulated by others again for their own purposes. But could he blame someone for trying to ensure that their existence came into being? Perhaps, if that person required he live a life he would not have chosen. But this was the life he had chosen and he would continue to make those choices; if others benefited from those choices, then so be it. Even if in this case he had been manipulated Li Chin harboured no regrets about his actions, so far.
He frowned thinking how destructive it was to look back. How could he know how the other alternatives may have turned out? He would focus on the now as he had previously determined to do and instinctively felt this to be the best possible approach.
Zanwen glanced from one to the other as Old Leckey closely watched while Li Chin frowned in thought. “You think it important I understand any of this, yet you purposely speak in riddles to exclude me.” Zanwen stated, unable to completely keep the irritation from his voice.
Li Chin and Old Leckey both looked at him, his comment reminding them he was there. Old Leckey said roughly. “Be pleased that there is much you do not understand, mortals are not meant to know everything and knowledge can be dangerous.” Relenting slightly she added. “We mean no discourtesy but seek only to protect you from that which can be very dangerous to the ignorant.”
“Ignorant only because those with knowledge choose to keep me so but for what purpose?” Zanwen asked, bridling at the old woman.
Old Leckey made to respond hotly but Li Chin touched her arm to intervene. “She speaks the truth Zanwen. Know that I asked for knowledge and in receiving it was affected greatly. Once given, it cannot be taken back and one has to live with the consequences. Sometimes it is better not to know what lies ahead; this is the ignorance she refers to.”
Zanwen shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. “I know you talk of the future. What man would not want to know his future, what the throw of the next dice would be, where he would meet the true love of his life, how to avoid the thief who murders him by chance.” Zanwen looked from one to the other. “Where is the harm in me knowing these things?”
Old Leckey threw up her hands. “Bah! The harm is in the knowing, foolish man. If the Spirits wished us all to know our futures then they would tell us, wouldn’t they. The fact they don’t tells us that they do not wish you to know.”
“And yet they tell you.” Zanwen retorted bluntly.
Old Leckey muttered angry curses under her breath before she clutched her gown closed and tried again. “The Spirits do not tell me the future; it is not as simple as that. To know all of the future, to see everything, to see everyone’s future would take so long I would have no time to live my life in the now and I would be completely swamped with the knowledge. What I see are glimpses of how things might be. Future crossroads, if you like; where a person’s actions can lead one way to one future, or another way to a different future. But this is the danger in the seeing. Because I know the crossroad exists I am able to influence the outcome and in doing so may inadvertently change what had been the intended path for all of our futures. The more people who can see and thus change the future, the more unstable the future becomes. The sight becomes unreliable.”
Old Leckey was obviously uncomfortable with revealing knowledge of her gift to them and looked Zanwen in the eye fiercely as she finished testily. “If I did not know that it was important I would not be telling you this. I do not know why it is important, only that it is.”
Emboldened by the answers he was receiving to his questions Zanwen asked. “I am a simple man, poor and unimportant in the great scheme of things. How will knowledge that might save my life or make my fortune make any difference to the wider future?”
Old Leckey shook her head. “We do not live our lives in isolation, each of us has an impact on the others around us and upon many others you do not even know. The knowledge you treat so lightly, which could provide you with your fortune, may deprive a great person from what would otherwise have been theirs, preventing him from achieving his greatness to the detriment of many. The murderer you evade to save your own life takes another’s instead, where had this other person lived they would perhaps have sired a great leader for our people. It is one thing to have the knowledge and live with it and something very different to use that knowledge seen with the gift to change the future.”
Zanwen looked unconvinced though with no great expectation now of benefiting from a telling. “Yet you intervene anyway when it suits you.” he accused.
Old Leckey’s patience was wearing thin. This was a subject she felt uncomfortable even discussing and her eyes turned hard as she regarded Zanwen. “The sight was given to me, I was chosen and it is my gift. With it comes great responsibility and great hardship, for me, not you or anyone else. If I choose to use the gift I will but it will not be for wealth, not when I can get more satisfaction from seeing an arrogant puppy being pulled from his pedestal, or a good man receive a just reward at the expense of a bad one. Be careful, Zanwen, lest I decide I made a mistake and find you are not the good man that I earlier believed you to be.”
Zanwen sat back in his chair as far as he could his enthusiasm for the conversation disappearing, along with the colour in his face. Li Chin had been listening with interest. “I choose to think of it a different way Zanwen. More that knowledge of the future not giving you something of value but the reverse. Foreknowledge takes something from you. I have decided it will be I who decides what I will do in the future and I will not allow my decisions to be influenced by what others expect or dictate to me. My free will determines my future for better or worse but it will be my free choice, rather than someone else’s choice for how I live my life. As a result the life I live may not be as good had I made a different decision based on knowledge of the future but I will know that it is the life I made for myself, based on my own decisions.”
Zanwen frowned as he shifted his attention to Li Chin despite his caution of Old Leckey, still unconvinced. “And so this lesser life you chose for yourself is better than the one you may have been foretold because?”
Li Chin wrinkled his brow as he considered. “Think on this then. You are on a trail, a narrow mountain trail. There is a bend in the trail and what is on the other side is masked by the mountain. You turn a corner and walk into a foretelling of your future. You see a great bear attacking a party which had been travelling towards you on the same narrow trail. The foretelling warns that if you try to ass
ist the party under attack the bear will attack you instead and you will have no chance to defend yourself; that it will sweep you off the trail and over the edge of the precipice.” Li Chin paused expectantly.
Zanwen raised both hands. “Then I would be a fool not to heed the foretelling. I would flee from the bear before he reached me and I fell to my death. Even the others would be no worse off as it kills me anyway and is free to return to them.”
Li Chin leaned forward, his prey hooked. “As foretold, the bear was attacking a group coming from the other direction, fighting the guard of a beautiful princess, pinning them down and ready to drive them all over the edge to their deaths. Not knowing the foretelling you can choose to turn and flee or choose to aid the beleaguered party, even in the knowledge that such an attempt would most likely result in your own death. Seeing the beauty of the princess you,” Li Chin raised an eyebrow, “uncharacteristically, choose an honourable option and at great personal risk attack the bear. It is startled and turns to defend itself against this new threat you pose. You were ready to run, save your own life but, made courageous by the need to save the princess you decide in that moment to stay and fight a hopeless battle against the bear. In turning to attack you the bear gave the embattled guard time to recover. Meanwhile, you are overcome by the bear and are forced over the edge of the precipice, as foretold. But the guard are able to take the bear from behind, forcing it over the edge and to its death. When the guards look over the precipice, they see you cling precariously to a narrow ledge and are able to pull you to safety.”
Li Chin leaned back as he concluded. “The foretelling was proven true but not as expected. As a result of your courage you win the hand of the princess, great wealth from her dowry and prestige for your selfless act of courage.” Li Chin sat back in his chair. “Foreknowledge would have robbed you of this opportunity to achieve what you would otherwise have known to be impossible and closed your mind to all other possibilities before you even arrived at the event. This is why I do not want to know the future, so that I do not also know what cannot be achieved lest it might come to be.”