As the Crow Flies: An Epic Fantasy Adventure

by Robin Lythgoe

  By “tending,” I had no doubt he meant “saddling and loading.” A wise idea, I supposed. We could ill afford to linger and soak up the sun. A fat lot of good sunshine would do me if I didn’t have the cursed dragon’s egg fetched and promptly delivered to his supreme lordship on time. “I should go help,” I said, and went instead to get a chair and settle myself across from the old man just as he put the last of some small gray-brown disks with pictures carved on them into a leather bag worked with curious, much-faded characters. “What are those?”

  “Your future.”

  He held the bag out to me and I took it, looking at him askance.

  “Shake them out onto the table,” he invited, palm up.

  “You are a fortune teller?” Retired, no doubt. I couldn’t imagine much in the way of traffic out here.

  “No, I just read the bones.”

  That was a good way to get me to drop the silly things all willy-nilly. Two of them skidded off the table to the ground.

  “Try again, but with a little more composure.” Humor glinted in those dark, dark eyes of his.

  “They’re bones.” I did not like dead things, I truly did not. Except dead rats and dead enemies, and I was perfectly happy to let someone else do the murdering and clean up the inevitable messes.

  “Cross sections of sheep horns, actually.”

  “Oh, well that makes a difference. Why didn’t you say so?” I asked drily, and with some trepidation picked up the disks to put back in the bag and shake again. This time they all stayed on the table, though one landed quite near the edge. Jelal leaned over to scrutinize it critically.

  “This is one of those that fell the first time,” he said, tapping it with a knobby finger. “It is your life. You are on a perilous journey.”

  “I’d have never guessed.” I had to admire my utterly deadpan delivery.

  “Then it is lucky for you the bones have spoken. You might otherwise have been doomed.”

  Did I perceive a twinkle in his eyes? What did he think he knew? “You said they were sheep horns.”

  He poured over the rest of the disks intently and put a finger on one. “Details are important to you.”

  “You can tell that by looking at a piece of horn with a little picture scratched on it?”

  “No, I can tell from watching and listening. This,” he tapped another disk, which bore a circle with lines coming out of it, sun-like, “is the light and knowledge that will drive away darkness and ignorance.”

  Very handy. I wondered if he’d mind if I took it with me.

  “It can represent either friendship or the light of inspiration.”

  Inspiration came to me frequently—courtesy of the gods—which he would know if he was truly a seer. Was the old charlatan trying to trick me?

  “You are lost,” he murmured in his rusty voice, rocking back and forth a little. He’d said the same last night, and it brought a frown to my brow. Intense curiosity slowly replaced his look of humor.

  “I know exactly where I’m going,” I contended.

  “Do you.” Not a question at all.

  My frown deepened. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  He was quiet for long enough to make me want to wriggle in my chair, but I forced myself to meet his gaze and tried to conjure a way to break the standoff. Flip the disks, using one to make the other jump? Pretend to catch a fly (nonexistent at this time of year, but perhaps worth the effort)?

  “You have been touched,” he said at last.

  The sudden breaking of the silence startled me. I sat back in my chair and pretended nonchalance, one arm hooked up over the back and one ankle across the opposite knee. “Hardly an uncommon occurrence,” I pointed out.

  “You do not know what to make of it, or what to do with it,” he went on, and as he did he picked up another disk, this one with two narrow rectangles, parallel, and another across one of the open ends. Lines like rays came from the open side. “You will be given the means to understand.”

  Under his intelligent, knowing gaze I could not resort to flippancy, which put me at a serious disadvantage. Normally, I would resent that, but I suspected that Old Jelal had answers I could use to my advantage. “How?”

  “Curiosity.” He mused over his answer, then nodded. “I strongly recommend caution, but such advice tends to go in one ear and out the other with you young people.”

  I bit my tongue on a childish temptation to protest that I was not a child. “I’ll take it under consideration, then. Thank you.”

  He gave me another look, and I wished I could tell what was going through his head, but he just smiled and nodded. The next disk was face down, leaning against another, and Jelal turned it over to reveal a zigzagging line. “This is important, very important. The Sword of Enshan, but overturned. The swift beginning or ending of a conflict through the use of force, though it may be a loss or a victory reversed. One cannot control the storm.

  “And this,” he said, indicating the disk the Sword half hid, “represents those gathered about you, friends or family. In this arrangement, either the conflict will ruin them or they will stand with you to shoulder the burden. Here,” he went on, turning over another upside-down-disk, and I had to lean closer to hear his soft voice, “is Opposition. A lack of harmony with others, either because you do not accept society or society does not accept you. And this one, this is the critical piece of your future.”

  The carving on the new disk looked like bubbles to me. “What is it?”

  “Riches.”

  “Does that mean success?”

  “It is not absolute. It could mean success, or perhaps lack of restraint and self-control. A selfish action that brings about destruction. You must decide if the deaths of many are an acceptable exchange for your own desires.”

  “I don’t kill people.” None of this fortune-telling struck me as particularly promising.

  Old Jelal shrugged.

  As I pondered his words, doubt crept into my mind. Should I take this bone-reading as a gift of the gods or a farce? If the former, then the warnings could be critical. If the latter, but I took them seriously, I could fatally cripple myself. I had to be sure. “How do I know your interpretation is true?”

  He smiled a canny little smile and nodded approvingly. “Do you know what this one is?” he inquired, pointing out another disk.

  “It looks like a—a tree?”

  “Yes. The Golden Tree. The symbol of fertility and creation and family.” An insult against my manhood loomed here as well as a criticism about my oat-sowing habits. “Turned sideways like this suggests an estrangement, and sitting right here next to the Spear—see how the Spear points away?—I can tell that you are an orphan.”

  No one knew that. Gooseflesh crept over my skin and it took everything I had to remain still and quiet and outwardly unruffled. Inwardly, my heart thudded like mad. A charlatan could not divine such a thing, though a wizard perhaps might, or the unpredictable gods. They often delivered their messages in mysterious ways. I reached out to pick up the Golden Tree and turned it over in my fingers. Years of handling and banging about in the pouch with its mates had polished it smooth. “What else can you see in these things?”

  Jelal regarded me silently for another too-long time. “You have been recently betrayed.”

  “Betrayal is an unfortunate consequence of my line of work,” I countered. Jelal was not welcome to pick my sorry love life as a topic.

  He picked up the Riches symbol and set it atop a nearby disk with a picture resembling a barrel with legs and a head. A horse, perhaps. “Thievery.”

  Well, that was disconcerting. “Transportation of goods.”

  “Embroidering your hat does not change the function.”

  It was a quirky and unexpected thing for him to say, and I couldn’t contain a bark of laughter. “Do your bones have anything else to say on the matter?”

  “Certainly, and on many other aspects of your life, as we have already discovered.”

  I c
ould use all the help I could get, and I found myself liking the little man. “Tell me more. What’s this one?” I picked out a satiny smooth depiction of a curling horn.

  “Is this game going to take long?” Tanris asked. He stood at the end of the stable wall with his arms folded and a predictably disapproving look on his face.

  “Friend Tanris! I am just getting some advice from Old Jelal about our upcoming business.”

  Displeasure segued to irritation. “Did he suggest to you that the day is not getting any younger?”

  “Not yet, but I’m sure he was about to.”

  “Would you like me to read the bones for you, Tanris?” Old Jelal asked, gathering them up and slipping them into their bag.

  No! Those were my future! My advice from the gods! What was he doing? “Wait!” I exclaimed. “We weren’t done!”

  “Now we are,” the old man said, unruffled. “Tanris?”

  “No,” he said shortly, and then tacked on a slightly more polite, “thank you. Crow, we need to go.”

  “Not yet,” I said, astonishing both of us. Jelal remained placid and curious as I pulled the waxed tube from my pack and uncapped it. Tanris reached for it, but I avoided his grasp. The Ancestors pushed and pulled at him, though not hard enough to be useful. At that, Jelal leaned a little further, studied a little more intently.

  A shiver went right through my middle. While I had allegedly spoken with the Ancestors and credited them for things I felt and unexpectedly knew, I had never consciously witnessed a physical manifestation. It might have been the wind, but I knew differently, and so did the old man.

  Hurriedly, I separated some of the papers from the stack. “Master Jelal, can you tell me what you make of these?”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Tanris insisted, meaning that he didn’t trust the old man as far as he could throw him.

  “We don’t have the luxury of neglecting possible resources.”

  Old Jelal chuckled and laid the documents out on the rickety table, one at a time to conquer their perpetual curl. “Do you see? Already the Bones are proven. Light and knowledge.”

  A smile tugged one side of my mouth. “I’m a quick learner.”

  “Also cocksure.” Tanris smacked the back of my head. I didn’t give him the pleasure of a reaction.

  Jelal pored over the papers, marking his passage with a gnarled forefinger, pausing now and then to reread occasional phrases. His lips moved, but I could not make out any words. Tanris glanced impatiently toward the horses. Girl joined us, clearly puzzled but wonderfully silent. The cat appeared, and Tanris drew some comfort from it, holding the smelly creature in his arms and scratching its ears. It purred thunderously.

  Eventually, the old man sat back in his chair.

  “Can you read them?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “How unfortunate, thank you for your time, we’ll be on our way now,” Tanris said, all in one breath.

  “Most of the script is written in the language of wizards,” the old man went on as soon as Tanris ran out of words. “I did not pursue my studies of it, but I do recognize some of the symbols. Those, together with some of the phrases I can understand, lead me to certain conclusions.”

  I smiled benignly at Tanris. “Please, whatever help you can give us would be most appreciated.”

  He nodded. One of the faces in his felt hat winked at me. I stared.

  “The author disparages the use of charts graphed by Saint Cafel, but does not give a reason beyond abysmal stupidity. Apparently he did not like the person he was writing to. The recipient sketched out some calculations and projections. I assume the actual work appears elsewhere, for these are shorthand and incomplete.”

  “Who is Saint Cafel?” Tanris approached to look, though we both knew perfectly well that neither the script nor the symbols meant anything to him.

  “A famous diviner, dead these two centuries.” The old man heaved a sigh. “He has a reputation for being perfectly right or embarrassingly wrong. He also has the questionable honor of having a rabid cult named after him. The Cafelites. Perhaps you’ve heard of them?”

  “The ones that tattoo their destinies on their scalps, and twirl around until they’re so dizzy they can’t stand up, then claim they’re inspired by visions?”

  “The very same.”

  “You ever see our mutual friend twirling?” I asked Tanris.

  “No, thank all the gods.”

  “Indeed.” Duzayan was still rabid, but bitten by another dog entirely. “What are they trying to predict?”

  “Mmm…” Jelal rubbed his chin and stared at the drawings in the margin of the topmost letter. “A favorable time.”

  “For?”

  “Why, a new endeavor, I suppose. Something involving birth, or perhaps rebirth.”

  “Like an egg?”

  Tanris’s forefinger was sharper than it looked. I know. He stabbed me in the neck and my arm went numb for several minutes. I tried to control a gasp of shock. Jelal looked at us askance, but neither of us offered an explanation. No need to involve him in our ongoing feud.

  “It could be an egg,” Jelal allowed, our interaction provoking a knowing smile in his eyes. “Spring has come. Eggs are laid. Eggs hatch. Life is renewed.”

  “Does any of this mention what sort of egg?” I rubbed my arm, but it just dangled from my shoulder like an awkward log.

  “No.”

  “How about a date?” Tanris asked.

  “The spring equinox, though it has passed already.” He squinted at the letter again, then shook his head. “There is the suggestion of an alignment of power and a pathway. I’m sorry, but I cannot tell you more. I do not recognize the configuration. I might be able to understand better if I had the rest of the notes and calculations.”

  “Is it—dangerous?” I asked.

  Jelal rolled the papers and handed them back to me. “Power often breeds abuse.”

  Tanris snorted. Maybe he’d do that so often his brain would explode from his nostrils. One could hope.

  The old seer offered to read the bones again, and although my recent experience encouraged my willingness, Tanris would have none of that superstitious claptrap. Luckily, he was polite enough not to say that in front of Jelal, but the next thing I knew, we were on the horses and heading away from the cozy little cottage while Tanris grumbled about superstitious old coots and gullible halfwits.

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  “This is it?” I had to ask. Hasiq jum’a Sahefal looked nothing like I’d imagined, though the sun’s slanting afternoon rays gave it a sweet, pastoral appearance. A convergence of several barely-distinguishable tracks led into one side of the village, and no road at all, just as Tanris had warned. The paths straggled along only one side because a mountain completely occupied the other, and the mountain came right down from the heights to create a towering cliff against the base of which stood, presumably, the Temple of Nadimesh from which Magister Mell-something had written. The main building was of a fair size, with an ornately tiled roof, and two arms extended to either side, encompassing a garden courtyard complete with surrounding wall. I made out a fountain inside, some sizable statues, and several picturesque trees. From this distance it appeared to boast all the amenities of any well-to-do temple located in any of the great cities of the glorious Bahsyr Empire—and next to the humble buildings surrounding it, it looked completely, astonishingly out of place. Such civilized elegance on the outside made me wonder what treasures it might house on the inside.

  As if he was reading my mind, Tanris cuffed the back of my head, knocking my hat down over my eyes.

  “Ow! What was that for?” I shoved the headgear back into place and glared at him.

  “You’re not here to rob the brothers.”

  As stupid things to say went, that one topped most of the lists. “You’re right, I forgot. I have slogged miles and miles through constant, freezing rain with a completely insufferable companion who doesn’t
even try to hide the fact that he loathes me. I’ve had exactly two pleasant nights and no pleasant days in the last two months. I’ve been subjected to horrendous food right along with your bad temper and your refusal to ever be pleased by anything I do,” I railed, my voice going up an octave and several decibels. I got some good arm-waving going, too. “Maybe, just maybe, I can take tea with the devout brethren, and tour their famous gardens. Do you think they’d mind? Is this one of the places with healing baths? I forgot to check the legend on the map. Perhaps I could prevail upon the good and pious brethren to let me take a dip so I might be miraculously cured of the poison eating away my very life, and then I wouldn’t need to steal anything, which wouldn’t help you a great deal, now would it?”

  Tanris’s face contorted in anger. He balled one huge fist and drew his arm back.

  I leveled a warning finger at him and narrowed my eyes, every bit as angry as he. “Don’t. Don’t you dare hit me. It’s bad enough you said something so abysmally stupid, but if you hit me and you break me who is going to be your cat’s paw?”

  His eyes didn’t leave mine, but he lowered his fist and turned his head to spit into the dead grass at our feet.

  Folding my arms to stem a sudden fit of trembling before it could get out of control, I studied the scene below, jaw set, teeth clenched. The layout hadn’t changed; it was still an extravagant temple in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a scattering of extremely modest houses and barns. To the east beyond a hedge of trees was a large paddock filled with sheep, and a good many tracks leading to it from the fields and hills beyond. Besides the obvious dichotomy in architecture and affluence, something about the scene didn’t sit right. “You’re sure this is the place?”

  “I’m sure.” He did a bang-up job of looking and sounding sullen.

  “Let me see the map.” I held my hand out and waggled my fingers, gesturing for him to pass it over.

  “There’s nothing to see,” he growled. “This is it.”

  “I believe you. Give me the map.”

  “Why? It isn’t going to change anything.”

  I forced myself to patience I didn’t feel. “Because I want to find out if there’s something on it we missed, some clue about the–item.” I still couldn’t call it an egg, it was just too ridiculous. “Duzayan wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble to throw us together and send us all the way to the edge of the world to collect something infinitely valuable for him without providing a way for us to even recognize it. Something he said or wrote must give us a clue.”