Rise of the Seer

by Brandon Barr

  She put her foot on the dead terrapin and pushed it down into the muck until the silt swallowed it from sight, then waited for him to come to her. She noted the unruly beard, the matted hair, long and uncut. The lack of limp, no favoring of an arm as he carried a cumbersome pack with ease on wide shoulders. Above each eye was one Quahi: tarnished silver spikes protruding from his skull that ranked a Shadowman among his brethren. One more than he had at their winter meeting. Two more and he would outrank her. But while he wore his in plain sight, she was a spy, and hers could only be affixed to her brow if her duties came to an end.

  She met him on the bank.

  “Do you like standing in mud?” said Orum.

  Savarah wriggled her toes. “Where’s your grunt?”

  “A day behind. They gave me a weakling. Skinny as a desert hare. You could snap him like a stick.”

  She pretended to smile. “What news from home?”

  “Two more went through the portal since we last met. Our influence widens within the Guardians. The tunneling continues, as does the training of your type.” He adjusted his pack. “What news from the Hold? Is the Luminary’s daughter still set on being a peacemaker?”

  “Yes. And growing more radical with every book she studies in the Scriptorium.”

  “Damn. What does Osiiun make of this?”

  “Osiiun would tell Isolaug to rest his reptilian head. Trigon’s sickness has weakened his mind in our favor. He will not be Luminar for much longer, and Valcere is already in position to replace Meluscia as next in line to the throne. Osiiun has been working amongst Trigon’s closest men. All of them but Rivdon have counseled the Luminar to choose a more military-minded leader. Trigon’s fear and hatred of King Feaor have turned him against his daughter. Meluscia will not be Luminary.”

  “That is good news,” said Orum. “But nevertheless, Isolaug wants her dead. She could stir up trouble, even if she is not leading the Hold.”

  “Once Trigon is dead, killing her will be as easy as squatting a piss in the woods. Come. I made camp for us.”

  Orum made his bed in his usual place. A clump of tall grass not far from her tree. They ate in silence for a while, until Orum stood to pee on an anthill. “So, tell me, Savarah, is the Luminary of the Mountain still under the belief that it was King Feaor who poisoned him and his wife?”

  “Trigon has gone beyond suspicions,” said Savarah. “The nearness of death has made him all but certain.”

  Orum grinned. “King Feaor believes the farm massacre at Tilmar was the work of Trigon, and not our master’s Nightmares.”

  Savarah glanced out into the tall grasses swaying in the distance. She had thought she heard something. “As long as Meluscia does not take the throne, the stalemate will eventually erupt into war.”

  “The only thing that concerns our master is the boy diviner of the Verdlands. He is a Tongue for the Makers. Our attempts to end his life have failed. Isolaug warns that the Makers are protecting him.”

  “Why him,” asked Savarah. “The other diviners—Tongues, Eyes, Healers—they were easy enough to kill, I am told. Why were they not protected?”

  “That, I think, is partly what concerns our master. We haven’t had any Diviners in more than fifty years, and now one appears that we cannot kill. Isolaug fears the boy might not be the only one. There is rumor that a Healer exists. A girl.”

  “How is this boy protected?” asked Savarah. “What does it look like?”

  “Two of the Verdlands spies have tried to take his life. Llani said, as she approached the bed where he slept, a wall of fire appeared. The wooden house was not consumed by the flames, but the inferno felt real enough to her. She tried to throw herself through the flames to reach the boy inside. But when she did, a fiery gust blew her back, consuming the clothes on her body and marring her face and arms horribly.

  “When Oevah gave her attempt, she said ten Aeraphim loyal to the Makers stood around the boy where he played in the dirt outside his home. Each, she said, was as tall as two men. Oevah watched them from afar, and when the boy went back inside his home, the ten Aeraphim surrounded the house. She didn’t think the boy saw them, for when he entered the house, he passed right through them without a glance or a pause.”

  Savarah stared at Orum. The accounts did not sit well with her. She’d thought those Aeraphim who were submissive to the Makers had left the worlds in the first age. The gods themselves had only been distant enemies to her, and to all of Isolaug’s forces. She had been taught about them by her master. The Makers were the strangest beings of all—designing weakness and frailty into the universe they created. They were like parents purposely bringing forth a deformed child.

  Were they in some way cruel allies? Could the gods fit into her picture of vengeance? The thought left her uneasy. Best to avoid them. The power Orum described was disturbing.

  “What can one lone voice do?” said Orum.

  “You should know,” said Savarah. “Even a stable boy can shape history if he’s under our master’s teaching. Look at Harcor, the woodcutter. He’s stirred up Trigon’s anger and brought the Hold and the Verdlands to the gates of war.”

  Orum pulled dried meat from his bag and reclined on his pack. “I wish I had been chosen. It’d be much more exciting to live your life than mine, what with all this sneaking back and forth and gathering reports.”

  She stared at him, her annoyance barely contained on a razor’s edge.

  Fool, she thought.

  He did not grasp what she’d undergone. The training required under the master’s presence. No one knew but those on the inside. How many fellow children had she killed before she was declared sufficiently worthy? She’d stopped counting after fifty. She’d been stabbed countless times. Sliced, pierced, flayed like an animal. Gaping, mortal wounds had been opened on her legs and chest. Her face slashed, twice her right eye gouged out. She’d kept her guts from spilling onto the floor, holding them in with a forearm as she’d run her sword through an opponent’s heart.

  Despite the many mortal wounds, she never died before her opponent. Once she had them down, she would hack until they were a quivering mound of flesh, or until she lost consciousness. The quicker they died, the sooner her master would use his power to heal her, and the agonizing pain would end.

  The master had made her a heartless weapon. She could deliver convincing performances in the master’s theater, feign heartfelt love and joy on stage, while ruthlessly taking lives in the battle sessions. Her emotions were a tool just as deadly as a weapon in her hands. Every word from her mouth could cut like a knife, or heal like a kiss. Controlled. Calculated. Convincing.

  In learning to feel nothing, she became capable of anything.

  An envious light blazed in Orum’s eyes as he stared at her. It was then she caught the minute smell of dusty fur and ketvell pollens. Her skin crawled and every muscle in her wanted to spring for the bow and quiver lying next to her, but she maintained her composure.

  “The wastelands eat away at the forests,” said Savarah, glancing windward. “I fear the encroaching sands may be a catalyst for foes to become friends.”

  A tall blind of grass swayed gently in the breeze. The wind shifted slightly, and Savarah searched the rocks to the right of the blind.

  “There is nothing we can do to stop it. The timber is needed for the tunneling, and the land. It will require more work on the part of your fellow—”

  The sound came from her right, a soft padding of feet. The sound of her plan turning to shit. She stood, swiveled, released three arrows, then her hand jumped to her long knife as the creature hit her full-force.

  Her back slammed against the ground, emptying her lungs of breath. Her mind teetered on the edge of darkness, Orum’s cursing fading in and out. She fought to remain conscious, concentrating her energy on her knife hand. A mouth full of teeth came at her and she brought her head up, just under the incoming jaws, pushing her skull up into the animal’s muscular neck. And then her knife hand found an
opening past the powerful limbs, stabbing deep, ripping. The creature’s neck opened in a gush of blood. She hugged it, wrapping her legs around the huge hindquarters, keeping free of the powerful claws as the animal fought to repay death for death.

  When the powerful limbs began to quiver, she pushed the remains off her and rose trembling to her feet.

  In all that time, Orum had only managed to draw his sword and was standing lamely, mouth gaping, looking at her as if she were a beast herself.

  Her left shoulder screamed in agony, but she bit back the pain. She had to finish this. A glance revealed a ragged puncture where a claw had pierced her. She knew without fingering her shoulder that the claw had pierced her back. Examining her attacker, she noted that her three arrows had found their mark. One arrow sagged from the black whiskered cheek. Another had merely caught the meat at the bottom of the tiger’s ear. The third was buried in the chest, a few inches from the tiger’s heart.

  “Come here, Orum.”

  He swore reverently before moving timidly beside her, sword in hand.

  “What in the stars is that?”

  “Kneel down. You’ll never see sharper claws.”

  “You sure it’s dead?”

  “Yes.”

  He knelt, setting his sword down.

  She squatted beside him and hefted the huge paw, digging her finger in between a pad, pushing out a claw the length of a dagger.

  “Do you see the serration?”

  Orum bent closer.

  With her remaining strength, she grabbed the back of Orum’s head and thrust the paw up, driving the claw through his ocular cavity and into his brain.

  Orum screamed, lashing the air with his hands, but her grip on his hair held him in place. His screams turned to sputtering breaths, and his arms soon hung limp at his side.

  Once Orum lay still, she dropped him to the ground beside the tiger and used the claws to pepper his body with slashes and pierce his chest and arms. Orum’s grunt would arrive eventually. Her story would be simple, the evidence lying in plain sight. The boy would go back home with her report and she would be sent a new contact, one who did not have the experience or knowledge or history that Orum had with her.

  A fresh start. She breathed deep and looked toward the marsh with a desire to continue her terrapin massacre, but the sun was dipping low and the rush of her second kill was wearing off. She had to attend to her shoulder. Blood enough had been spilt for now.

  LOAM

  Your last letter stank of mockery, belying your ignorance on these matters. Do not question the very real, and very dangerous, power of the Makers and their Oracles. If you wish to remain Magnus Empyrean, you will do exactly as you are told. That threat is not mine, but Sentinel Cosimo’s.

  Within your tiny corner of our galaxy exists three worlds of the highest significance. They are close in proximity to one another and form a near perfect equilateral triangle—the arrowhead of the Huntress constellation as seen from the planet, Seedling Four.

  You know two of the worlds I speak of, Loam and Hearth. The third world is yet unvisited, but we know where it lies.

  Here are your instructions, of which, any deviation or failure will cost you your position: first, appoint an Empyrean to Loam who isn’t aware of my kind’s existence within the Guardians. Second, watch for an Oracle to arise out of Loam. The prophesied Contagion. This person must be found.

  If a portal convergence of the three worlds within The Triangle should ever occur, a rift between our galaxy and another will be opened.

  Do you have any concept of what might lay on the other side?

  As of yet, neither do we.

  -Sanctuss Exenia, (Archived transmission to Higelion, Magnus Empyrean of Sector 54)

  …continue meting out justice however you see fit. But don’t forget that will soon come to an end.

  Curse Damien and the third quorum!

  You have twelve years to get your farmlands aligned with the forthcoming laws of the Guardians. Once the Guardian charter completes its first forty years, you, and all of us, will have to bow the knee to their laws. Let us hope the Opposition Movement finds a foothold in the quorums before then.

  Your affectionate sister

  -Queen Taia

  (letter to her brother, Baron Rhaudius)

  Chapter Eleven

  WINTER

  Please come…reassure me…hold me again…

  Winter’s prayers flowed silently from within as she stepped carefully through a tangle of pink flowering bushes, her bare feet sinking into the spongy forest floor. She scanned the undergrowth beneath the bulge oaks and pines and breathed in the smell of freshly drenched woods.

  Whisper clung to her chin, a favorite spot to stretch its blue wings. The storm had passed in the night, and the morning light was struggling to break through the lingering clouds.

  Tucked in a pocket sewn on the inside of Winter’s cloak was a summons from the Baron. She fingered it nervously, her prayers faltering as she did so. The summons had come that morning, bringing with it a renewal of the grief and fear born of that dark night six months ago. The grief she’d experienced since then was terrible, but it paled next to the weight of the guilt and remorse that twisted like worms in her heart. The thought that she’d been sitting idly in her room as her parents burned tore at her. She’d spent countless hours since then questioning her own part in the disaster. She felt certain she could have saved them, not just her family, but Harvest’s family. Instead, she’d done nothing. Nor had she let Aven do anything, insisting that they could not act since they did not know the Makers’ plans.

  Only after her parents were dead had she realized how wrong she’d been. Her visions were given to her for a reason. It was her task to act on them, to be the instrument the Makers worked through on this world.

  After that night, she started looking for others who felt like she did, farmers who wanted to make the Baron pay for his tyranny. It wasn’t long before she found others who were trying to fight back.

  Joining them in their fight for freedom had given her a way to deal with the crushing weight of her guilt. Through it, she found the possibility of hope, a way to make up for her failure. Slowly, over time, she’d come to glimpse a larger destiny for herself that went far beyond the fields and homes of her land. Cruelty and injustice were everywhere, but the Makers had given her a way to strike back. The next time she intended to use it.

  It wasn’t just the Baron’s summons that brought her out into the woods this morning. She was out here because of two visions she’d had overnight, her first visions since the death of her parents.

  In the first vision, she saw Aven’s face framed against the sky, as if she were lying down and he was bending over her. His features were twisted with anguish, and he was speaking to her, but she couldn’t hear his words. The pain he was in struck deeply, but when she tried to reach out to comfort him, she could not move.

  The second vision came as she dressed herself that morning. It was much more trivial, but still dark. A bird had landed beside an old fallen tree that was green with moss. The bird was young, maybe a month out of the nest. Its red-speckled gray wings fluttered as it hopped lightly across the undergrowth in search of food. Beside a grayish rock, a grasshopper crawled out from under the leaves. The bird’s head cocked to the side, eyeing the insect, then it spread its wings and leaped. Before it could snatch the insect, the rock moved. Something pink and long snapped out and struck the bird’s chest. The bird was yanked from the air and sucked into a mouth that had opened on the rock. Its tail feathers and feet shuddered against the rim of the mouth. The mouth worked, and the bird disappeared. The rock was no rock at all, but an enormous toad.

  The second vision might mean nothing at all. But she meant to try and stop it, anyway. She needed to know that there were things she could do that would make a difference, that she could use the gift the Makers had given her. Next time, she would save lives instead of doing nothing. Next time, she would act, no matter h
ow scared she was.

  Winter paused, the hum of flying insects disrupting the quiet of the forest. She kicked a stone beneath her, frustrated she had not come upon the scene in her vision even though she’d been searching since sunrise. Where was the bird in peril?

  Winter glanced up through the canopy of branches. Beams of sunlight broke through in columns of ethereal light. She mouthed silent words into the heavy air.

  How can I save others? How do I use this gift?

  The sky above was the same one she looked up into as a young girl, the same colors, the same tree tops, but it no longer brought solace to the battles raging inside her.

  The warmth of the blue canopy above had grown hard and sterile. So, too, the trees and rocks and all of nature. Blemished in some way. Everywhere she glimpsed beauty and loveliness, she also saw cracks and rot. The woods surrounding her, though magnificent and full of power, were full of death and decay, and only ever her naivete and ignorance had allowed her to think otherwise.

  Aven was part of that brokenness. Where she had grown more determined to battle—to never cower in fear again—Aven had lost his will to fight. He knew nothing of her efforts to help the farmers who were fighting back against the Baron. Nor would she tell him. She had always shared everything with her twin, but she would no longer share her visions.

  Winter crawled atop a boulder, surveying the woods for fallen logs where moss grew in shaded glens or beneath copses of trees.

  Where are you, little bird?

  The blue wings on her chin folded up then opened again. Slowly, the butterfly moved to her cheek, then stopped. Opening, folding…

  Everyone she knew disliked the Makers. In stories, they were characterized as cruel and malevolent, or sometimes as blithe, powerful beings unconcerned about the happiness of the creatures they created. She’d heard that even the Guardians of the portal, that great and powerful people who knew the cultures of a thousand worlds and had ships that sailed the stars, even they believed the Makers had abandoned the stars they created. The Guardians had taken it upon themselves to act as peacemakers among the derelict worlds of a godforsaken universe. To safeguard the weak and hold accountable the strong. They were there to fill a void, a silent, mysterious nothingness that was starving to be filled.