Prophecy

by Sharon Green

“It’s really too bad that Meerk isn’t here to see this,” Lorand said, his gaze moving around the milling crowds. “He would have appreciated the justice of—”

  “See here, you people, this is absolutely intolerable!” a high-pitched voice interrupted as the closest group of nobles—about six or seven in number—began to stride toward us. “As you seem to be in charge, you may now tell these—these—ruffianly bullies to step back from their betters and allow us to leave!”

  The man wasn’t very old, but from the extra weight he carried and his imperious manner, he must have been somewhat important. Or at least he must have been important at one time…

  “You’reright, we are in charge,” Lorand told him, faint annoyance in his voice over having been interrupted. “We’rethe ones who defeated that marvelous noble Blending you fools had Seated—through the usual trickery. But you mentioned something about people who are better… Surely you can’t be referring to yourselves?”

  “Of course he means us, you peasant fool!” the woman beside the man snapped, her nose so high in the air it was a good thing for her that it wasn’t raining. “We are important people of quality, and once the proper authorities hear about this, all you criminals will be sent to the mines where you belong! You will release us at once, and then we may say a few words in your defense at your trial. We’ll require carriages or coaches, of course, and—Oh!”

  Some of the scattered guardsmen had come over, and the group was abruptly shoved to a stop about six feet away from us. They were all outraged at being treated like that, of course, but Lorand let them know how the rest of us felt about it.

  “Since you’ve obviously missed the point, let me spell it out for you,” he said, addressing the two people who had spoken. “Your sort has never been anything but poor quality, and as far as importance goes you’ll never be thought of—or treated that way—again. We and our followers are the new proper authorities in the empire, so you may take it as official that you and your precious group are now about to pay for every criminal act and outrage you’ve ever committed. Your worst failure, of course, is being stupid, but where you’re going that won’t matter. You won’t have to give any orders, just take them, which is really all you’regood for. A lot fewer lives would have been wasted if you and your ilk had been stopped sooner.”

  “Wait!” one of the other men in the group protested as the guardsmen began to prod them back toward the place they’d come from. “I don’t know what you mean to do with us, but it can’t possibly be fair! I didn’t do anything to hurt you or the rest of the commoners, so why do I have to suffer along with everyone else? You have to believe that I didn’t do anything!”

  “Oh, we do believe it,” Jovvi said, her tone rather dry. “You and quite a lot of your equals never did do anything, which is another point you’ve obviously missed. If you had done something you might have made the situation better, but you chose not to get involved. That’s almost as bad as what your friends did by actively participating, so you can’t complain about having to pay right along with the rest of them. From now on you will do something, but you’ve lost the right to have it be by your own decision.”

  That brought out more sputtering and protests, but none of us was interested in listening any longer. We all turned away and walked into the house, then headed for the sitting room where we might have some tea while we talked.

  “The Astindans have already started the first group of converted nobles on their way back to Astinda,” Lorand said as we approached the sitting room. “One of their Blendings along with their link groups is in charge, and we arranged a few provision wagons to go along with them. They’remaking the nobles walk, of course, so they’ll be in decent shape for hard work by the time they get to where they’regoing.”

  “And we’ve sent our own Blendings along with theirs to search the rest of the empire,” Jovvi added. “Too many of the most prominent nobles—meaning the ones really responsible for what was done—left Gan Garee before all this started, and it would hardly be fair if they weren’t found and sent after their class equals. It would also be foolish on our part to leave them wherever they happen to be, giving them the chance to make trouble once most of the confusion is over and the last of the Astindans has gone home.”

  “And now we have to decide what we’re going to do,” Rion said as we began to enter the sitting room. “Master Mohr keeps asking when we expect to move into the palace, as do all the other people he’s brought along with him. They really think we’re—”

  Rion’s words broke off abruptly, and with good reason. Five people stood waiting in the sitting room, four of them grouped behind a jolly-looking man of middle years, and of those we were able to see, not one of them was someone we’d met before.

  “Who are you people, and what are you doin’ in here?” Vallant demanded as we all came to an abrupt halt, his tone a growl. “And while I’m askin’ questions, how did you get in here?”

  “Getting in here wasn’t very difficult, Dom Ro,” the man replied, his smile making him look even friendlier and more … lacking in danger, might be the best way to put it. A frolicking puppy gives you no sense of personal danger even if you don’t like dogs, and that’s very close to the impression the man gave off.

  “Unless you’ve been brought by someone we know, you shouldn’t be anywhere near this house,” Lorand said, standing shoulder to shoulder with Vallant and Rion. “We aren’t quite up to accepting strangers as friends yet, so you’d better tell us who got you through all the guards and the rest of our people.”

  “The answer to that is what’s known as a long story,” the man said, his tone and manner now apologetic. “We really do understand the reasons for your disquiet, but we aren’t here to cause harm. It just happens to be time to answer some of the other questions you’ve undoubtedly been asking, so we’ve come to do it. The process will be quite painless, I assure you.”

  He beamed around at us as though he were our teacher and we his prized honor students. I joined the others in exchanging perplexed glances, but still didn’t relax my guard. Naran’s expression said she had no idea what was going on, which made things even stranger. Jovvi wore a frown, and after a moment she stirred.

  “He believes he’s telling the complete truth,” she said with a small headshake. “The feelings of the others support that, but I can’t imagine what he’s telling the truth about.”

  “Oh, certainly you can, Dama Hafford,” he chided gently, but in a humorous way. “For instance, I’m sure you’d like to know how it came to be that your Blending knew about that mistaken attack just before it was launched against the Astindans. By then, Dama Whist should have been too exhausted to function properly.”

  That time all of our mouths must have fallen open, judging by what happened to mine. It wasn’t possible for the man to have known about that, not unless … what?

  “Please do sit down with us now,” the man coaxed, his amusement gone, with gentle patience and understanding replacing it. “I’m Ristor Ardanis, and to prove you really can trust us, we’ve brought along someone you all ought to know.”

  The one person we hadn’t been able to see clearly until then, caused by her standing behind others of the group, stepped forward, and I couldn’t hold back a gasp.

  “Warla!” I exclaimed, staring at the girl who had been my companion for so long. “I had no idea where you’d gone … or if you were all right…”

  I added that last because of the way she looked, which was subtly different from what I’d grown used to seeing in her face and manner. She was definitely the same person, but the usual … nervousness and uncertainty were gone.

  “I’m perfectly all right, Tamrissa,” she said with a warm, supporting smile, and even her voice had lost its usual hesitance. “Actually I’m more than just all right, now that I don’t have to play that part any longer. Won’t all of you please sit down and talk to these people? They really do know things you need to know.”

  We exchanged glanc
es again, but short of asking Jovvi to put them under control, we had little choice. If we wanted to know what was going on, we’d have to sit down and listen.

  “Thank you,” Ristor Ardanis said as we wordlessly began to take our places on chairs and couches. “And I believe that this confirms my opinion in the matter?”

  He’d looked to one of the men with him as he’d said that, his brow raised in faintly amused questioning. The man nodded wryly and grudgingly, and Ardanis chuckled as he took his own seat.

  “Why don’t you begin by explaining that very odd exchange,” Jovvi suggested from where she sat beside Lorand. “What confirms your opinion on what matter? I’d like to know why that man was more nervous than he is now.”

  “I suppose we might as well start with that,” Ardanis agreed with a nod, his expression still amused. “It should do well with introducing the main topic. My friend was nervous to begin with because he believed that you would give in to temptation and put us all under control in order to find out what you want to know. I, on the other hand, firmly believed that you would not do such a thing unless you felt yourself and your groupmates to be in danger. You might say that my sight was a deal clearer than his in this instance.”

  “Your sight,” Jovvi echoed, looking at him with her head to one side. “That word has special significance for you, so I’m going to make an educated guess: Naran was strong enough to warn us during the last of the confrontation because she finally had tandem link groups of her own to draw strength from. Am I wrong?”

  “No, you’reperfectly correct,” Ardanis agreed with a chuckle for the way some of us gasped—especially Naran. “We are indeed just like her, and are overjoyed that we can finally admit it. We’ve waited centuries for the opportunity, knowing it would come, but not precisely when.”

  “Then you must be the ones responsible for the Prophecies!” I blurted, visited by sudden inspiration. “No one ever said where they came from, but it stands to reason… What I don’t understand is why there’s so much secrecy involved here. If your people went so far as to make Prophecies, why didn’t they come completely forward into the world?”

  “They did, right after the Prophecies were made,” Ardanis said, and this time it was heavy sadness which replaced his amusement. “Too many of our brothers and sisters of that time were sure we would be fully accepted, and in a manner of speaking we were. The new ruling Five greeted us warmly and offered us their protection until people … grew used to those with Sight magic, was the way they put it. And at first they were perfectly serious in their intentions, otherwise our people would never have been taken in. But then they began to think about the benefits in knowing about what was to happen, and realized how truly beneficial it would be if they were the only ones who knew.”

  “Oh, dear,” Jovvi said, an understatement if ever I’d heard one. “They must have had in mind any plots against them, just as they’d plotted against the Four. So what did they do to your people?”

  “They enslaved them, and hid them away from the knowledge of the rest of the world,” Ardanis replied with a shrug that seemed full of horror rather than indifference. “Happily, the strongest of our people hadn’t joined the others in coming forward, and by the time a search was made for them they were long gone. The Five tried to use some of their enslaved Sight magic users to find them, but those who had escaped had a stronger talent and were able to avoid being found.”

  “But if the first Five knew about you, why didn’t the next, or their nobility?” Lorand asked. “I’m assuming that they didn’t, of course, but it makes sense that way. If the nobility had known, the present generation of them would never have been surprised the way they were.”

  “The first Five held the secret very close, intending to make their reign a good deal longer than twenty-five years,” Ardanis said with a sigh. “They were very ambitious people, and knowing what the future holds tends to … change even those who aren’t that ambitious to begin with. They intended to rule for the rest of their lives, and would have made the Four’s despotic rule look like a pleasant family picnic. They thought it was their destiny to accomplish that, not realizing that those of us who had escaped were really High talents.”

  “So they … clouded the future for those who were enslaved,” Naran said suddenly, surprising me. “I’ve wondered for some time if that was possible, and now I know it has to be. It made the Five rely on a false picture of what was coming to be, so they must have failed. What happened to them?”

  “They were maneuvered to a place where they were exposed to Fire Fever,” Ardanis replied, the look in his eyes grim. “As I’m sure most of you know, Fire Fever killed hundreds and thousands of people before High practitioners in Earth magic finally found a cure for it. Once the Five came down with it nothing could be done for them, and their secret died with them. Our people were rescued, and then they went about hiding their presence in a much more thorough way. They’d learned a hard lesson about how people would view their talent, and had no intentions of repeating the episode.”

  “So they hid out in homes for the ‘talentless,’ those who were called nulls,” Vallant said from next to me, his expression as disturbed as mine probably was. “No one likes talkin’ about that subject, and undoubtedly likes bein’ near the homes even less. Instead of havin’ to search out those who were born with your talent, your people just sat back and waited until those poor, talentless children were brought to them. Does that mean no one is born talentless?”

  “I wish it did,” Ardanis said with another sigh. “I grew up in one of those homes, just as all of us here did, and being talentless doesn’t also make someone other than human. I felt delighted when I was told I had a talent after all, but it was rather painful when it became clear that not all of my friends were in the same position. Our people helped those ‘useless’ children to grow up with the least amount of bitterness possible, and many of them were able to rejoin the society which had rejected them—without anyone being the wiser. After all, some people’s talent is so weak they might as well not have it. Those who didn’t care about the outside world stayed at the homes, helping out with the constant new arrivals.”

  “And some of them married, and had children of their own,” Warla put in, her smile gentle and her expression calm. “Only a few of those children shared their parents’ affliction, the rest being perfectly normal in their respective aspects. It was possible for a High talent to tell which of those children would never want to join our secret community, so those children were given up for adoption in the outside world. The rest were raised with love and a full awareness of what the community was all about, and some even established themselves in the outside world in order to keep the home community fully informed. Or to do special jobs that needed doing.”

  “Like being a companion to someone like me?” I asked with all the confusion I felt. “And not just an ordinary companion, but one who was frightened of her own shadow? What possible good did any of that do for anyone at all?”

  “Before Warla answers that question, you need to hear a few more facts first,” Ardanis interrupted apologetically. “Those first Prophecies which were made so long ago weren’t real, legitimate prophecies, but were a collection of common sense warnings which our people had learned to notice. History has shown us that when a new social system is established, it thrives for about a hundred and fifty years and then begins to slide downhill. After two hundred years many people are dissatisfied with the system, but it continues on because no one is dissatisfied enough to try changing it. At the end of two hundred and fifty years things are really in a mess, and somewhere around the three hundred year mark the old system falls apart by itself or is pulled down by those who no longer find it possible to live under it. The first Five ennobled their supporters and put all power and property into their hands, and that action alone immediately indicated disaster at some future time.”

  “Is that what multiple shadows around a particular event means?” Naran interrupt
ed to ask. “That the action will cause disaster at some time in the future?”

  “Sometimes, but not always,” Ardanis replied with a warm, caring smile for Naran. “Don’t worry, my dear, you’ll learn everything you need to, and in just a little while. In the interim, I have to finish my explanations. Is that all right?”

  Naran nodded with a sigh, obviously knowing there wasn’t much else she could do, and Ardanis smiled his thanks.

  “I’ll try to be as brief as possible,” he said after taking a deep breath. “After our experience with the first Five we kept our existence a secret, but we also kept a close watch on the world about us. After all, we had to live in the same world as everyone else, and the better the world, the better off we were. Quite a lot of time passed with things growing worse and worse, but when we reached a particular time our High talents told us that we could no longer just stand by and watch what happened. We had to become actively involved, otherwise our communities would go down right along with the rest of the empire. That time was a little more than twenty years ago.”

  He paused at that point to look around at us, and I doubt whether any of us missed the significance of what he’d said. They’d decided to take a more active role in the world just about the time that the members of our group were being born.

  “Yes, it was your births which triggered the need for our activity,” he agreed, showing a smile again. “Even then our people were able to tell that a devastating crisis was in the making, but not like the crises spoken of in the original Prophecies. Those crises were described in the most general terms, so that they would match whatever general crisis arose during the reign of each of the Seated Fives. And of course more than one crisis arose in each twenty-five year period, something that was only natural and to be expected. It was hoped by the people who circulated the original Prophecies that those in power would hesitate a long while before trying to control the selection process for the Five, and for quite some time the ploy worked. But it had stopped working approximately seventy-five years earlier, and now a real crisis loomed in our future which only the strongest of the strong would be able to face and best.”