A Hero Born

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Focusing on all 1 had to deal with in studying the

  Chaos model, I came around a corner and slammed full on into a woman, knocking her down. I immediately bent down to help her back up and found I knew her. “Xoayya, this is a surprise.”

  She let me pull her to her feet. “It was at that.”

  1 smiled. “You mean you didn’t see us meeting here?”

  “Oh, I did, but I did not see far enough to see our collision.” She let the green velvet cloak close around her, then lifted the fur-trimmed hood up to hide her coppery hair. “I have to speak with you. 1 have to ask you something.”

  “Ask away.”

  She looked up at me with an intensity to her stare that almost made me recoil. “You must take me with you into Chaos.”

  “What?” Her demand stunned me. 1 couldn’t even begin to guess how she could have heard of the expedition—I didn’t see her as someone frequenting the Umbra, or associating with those who did. Beyond that, I couldn’t see her surviving for a moment in Chaos. “Not possible, Xoayya.”

  “Don’t say that, Locke.” She reached out and clutched my right arm with both hands. “I have to go. It is my destiny.”

  Her grip hurt. “I can’t take you with me. The party is set—all of the Imperial Medallions have been given out.”

  Xoayya shook her head. “I know that, Locke. I have seen you give them out. Roarke and Eirene will go, as well as Nagrendra and Tyrchon and this Sunbird Bishop. The medallion you gave them only entitles them to draw provisions and equipment from Imperial stores. I will pay for my own passage.”

  “This will be a combat mission, Xoayya, not a garden tour.” I tore my arm from her grasp to show her how weak she really was. “We will be fighting for our lives.”

  “I know.”

  “Then you know you have no place there with us.”

  Her blue eyes slitted. “What I know, Locke, is that you will have need of me. No, I cannot fight like a soldier, but I am not without other uses. I know some healing magicks, and if you are fighting, I think you will find those skills useful.”

  I shook my head. “The trade-off comes from the need to protect you from attack. You can’t go with us.”

  She glanced down, and the tone of her voice shifted from demanding to a plea. “But I must go. It is my destiny.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You have seen yourself with us?”

  She hesitated, and I sensed a battle within her as to whether to lie to me or not. “No, I have not seen it, but it has been seen. Visions about myself, about important things, are always slow in coming, or woven in analogy so I cannot figure them out clearly.”

  “But you knew we would meet here.”

  She shook her head. “No, I knew you would be passing through the area around the palace, and this is the most direct route from the Temple of the Sunbird.”

  “So you don’t know that going to Chaos or meeting me here is really part of your destiny, do you?”

  “It is, Locke, it truly is.”

  “You say that, but you’re not convincing me of it.”

  She again grabbed my arm, but more gently this time. “I can prove it to you.”

  “How?”

  “Come with me to my grandmother’s house.” Xoayya’s face brightened as confidence filled her voice. “She first recognized my talent and has been my mentor. She is the one who has seen me in Chaos, along with you and Kit. She will convince you that 1 must go with you.”

  I wanted to say no and continue to reject her request, in her mind, because she believed in the immutable veracity of visions, the fact that she had been seen in Chaos meant she had to be allowed to go along, i had no such belief in visions, so for me what she and her grandmother had seen could have been nothing more than dreams born of rumors. The fact I hat she knew about Bishop Osane long enough before I did to be waiting for me did add weight to the truth of at least some of her visions, but that weight was truly underwhelming.

  What tipped my decision in favor of meeting her grandmother was my hope that I could reason with the old woman and use her influence to keep Xoayya in the Empire. It didn’t take any talent to see that our expedition would be hard on Xoayya and could very easily kill her. While I did feel responsible for everyone going on the expedition, and didn’t want to see any of them injured or killed, the fact was that they had all made informed decisions about their travel into Chaos. Xoayya was basing hers on visions that could have been the product of indigestion, which is not a good reason to go out and put your life in jeopardy.

  1 nodded. “Lead on.”

  Xoayya took my hand in hers and conducted me through Herakopolis. We left the Palace hill district and traveled away from where my grandmother lived. We skirted the open market, cutting around to the north to remain in the more affluent areas of the city. Once in Eastern hill district, we climbed up a steep street to a narrow home crowded between others of a similar design. They probably had as much square footage as tour.” 1 tore my arm from her grasp to show her how weak she really was. “We will be fighting for our lives.”

  “I know.”

  “Then you know you have no place there with us.”

  Her blue eyes slitted. “What I know, Locke, is that you will have need of me. No, I cannot fight like a soldier, but 1 am not without other uses. I know some healing magicks, and if you are fighting, 1 think you will find those skills useful.”

  I shook my head. “The trade-off comes from the need to protect you from attack. You can’t go with us.”

  She glanced down, and the tone of her voice shifted from demanding to a plea. “But I must go. It is my destiny.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You have seen yourself with us?”

  She hesitated, and I sensed a battle within her as to whether to lie to me or not. “No, I have not seen it, but it has been seen. Visions about myself, about important things, are always slow in coming, or woven in analogy so I cannot figure them out clearly.”

  “But you knew we would meet here.”

  She shook her head. “No, 1 knew you would be passing through the area around the palace, and this is the most direct route from the Temple of the Sunbird.”

  “So you don’t know that going to Chaos or meeting me here is really part of your destiny, do you?”

  “It is, Locke, it truly is.”

  “You say that, but you’re not convincing me of it.”

  She again grabbed my arm, but more gently this time. “I can prove it to you.”

  “How?”

  “Come with me to my grandmother’s house.” Xoayya’s face brightened as confidence filled her voice. “She first recognized my talent and has been my mentor. She is the one who has seen me in Chaos, along with you and Kit. She will convince you that I must go with you.”

  I wanted to say no and continue to reject her request. In her mind, because she believed in the immutable veracity of visions, the fact that she had been seen in Chaos meant she had to be allowed to go along. I had no such belief in visions, so for me what she and her grandmother had seen could have been nothing more than dreams born of rumors. The fact (hat she knew about Bishop Osane long enough before I did to be waiting for me did add weight to the truth of at least some of her visions, but that weight was truly underwhelming.

  What tipped my decision in favor of meeting her grandmother was my hope that 1 could reason with the old woman and use her influence to keep Xoayya in the Empire. It didn’t take any talent to see that our expedition would be hard on Xoayya and could very easily kill her. While I did feel responsible for everyone going on the expedition, and didn’t want to see any of them injured or killed, the fact was that they had all made informed decisions about their t ravel into Chaos. Xoayya was basing hers on visions that could have been the product of indigestion, which is not a good reason to go out and put your life in jeopardy.

  I nodded. “Lead on.”

  Xoayya took my hand in hers and conducted me through Herakopolis. We left the Palace hill district and tra
veled away from where my grandmother lived. We skirted the open market, cutting around to the north to remain in the more affluent areas of the city. Once in Eastern hill district, we climbed up a steep street to a narrow home crowded between others of a similar design. They probably had as much square footage as my grandmother’s house, but they got it out of adding additional stories.

  Xoayya let me in through the cast-iron gate, then around to a set of steps leading down to a basement. The steps cut beneath the wide stairs leading to the building’s main entrance. In most houses she would have been bringing me to the servants quarters, but what little I knew of her grandmother left me no doubt she owned the entire building.

  As Xoayya led me into the dim, musty basement 1 was struck by the similarity to the suite of rooms I used at my grandmother’s house. At first glance the resemblance was difficult to see, but I went more by feel than any objective evidence. In some ways the basement was the antithesis of my father’s room. It was cluttered and unorganized, dark and smelling of mildew and dust. Like my father’s rooms, I doubted this place had changed much in the past two decades, though time had managed to decay everything in it.

  What struck me as similar to my father’s rooms was the vast collection of artifacts and specimens that could have come from no place other than Chaos. The snarling faces of Chapanthers—some with full racks of stag antlers—haunted darker corners of the rooms, while their pelts carpeted the floor. More than one Chaos creature had been stuffed and mounted as if in mid-attack. The displays were impressive enough to provide a foundation for the fear I had earlier ignored.

  They also strengthened my resolve that Xoayya should not be allowed to travel with us to Chaos. A rearing skunk-bear held its white paws wide, ready to crush and rend Xoayya, while a flare-hawk in mid-stoop flashed talons toward her. The innocent dropping of her hood and unfastening of her cloak while at the center of this disastrous tableau reinforced her unsuitability for our expedition.

  Moving further into the room, past a sable lion that looked enough like a Bfiarasfiadi to scare me, I saw Xoayya’s grandmother seated at a table. She wore a robe of white and had gathered her white hair into a tight coil at the back of her head. That added to the severe aspect of her visage—an effect heightened since all the light on her face came from the melon-sized crystal ball resting in the center of the table.

  I vaguely recalled having met her at my grandmother’s home. I bowed in her direction. “Greetings, Madam Jasra.”

  “And to you, Lachlan.” She beckoned me forward. “I know why you have come.”

  “Good.” I could not suppress a smile. “Perhaps you know how our discussion will end as well.”

  “Oh, I think I do indeed, and that ending begins with you draining the mocking tone from your voice.”

  That stung. “I apologize. I did not intend to mock you.”

  The old woman smiled ever so slightly. “If you choose to believe that, so be it.” She looked over at Xoayya. “Though our discussions will concern you, you are not to be part of them. Go prepare our guest some tea and biscuits. I will let you know when it is time to serve them.”

  “Yes, Grandmother.” Xoayya bowed her head and wandered off toward a doorway I assumed led to stairs.

  Jasra turned her attention back to me. “Before we begin, I wish to thank you for suggesting to Xoayya that she could use music to discipline her thoughts. You have done what I and others could not do. What you have done will be of great benefit to her and to you “

  I nodded and sat across from her. “I am glad I was able to help her. She is very special, and seeing her in pain is not something I want.”

  “Which is why you do not want her to accompany you into Chaos.”

  “No good will come of her joining us.”

  lasra stared at me intently, her chaos-filled eyes dark and narrowed. “You are correct: no good will come from her travel into Chaos with you, but that does not obviate the need for her to go.”

  My jaw dropped. “You agree that she will come to harm there, and you still want her to go? What kind of grandmother are you?”

  “One who will not stand in the way of destiny.” Her chin came up. “The same sort of grandmother as Evadne is, since she will gainsay neither of her grandsons their expedition into Chaos.”

  “No, no, there is a world of difference between Kit and I going and Xoayya joining us. Kit and I are trained in combat, which will help guarantee our ability to deal with Chaos. Physically we’re stronger, too. This journey will be hard even before we reach Chaos. I traveled with Xoayya from the City of Sorcerers to Herakopolis, and she’s not ready for this sort of journey.”

  With her elbows resting on the table, Jasra brought her hands together, fingertip to fingertip. This cast lines of shadow across her face, deepening the darkness around her eyes. “I know, she knows, this will be an arduous journey, full of privation and danger. She also knows, as do I, that she must make this journey.”

  “Not with me.”

  “Ah, but she does, Locke.” Jasra tapped the crystal ball with her forefingers. “I have seen it; therefore, I already know she will be there. I know you will acquiesce.”

  I pressed my hands flat against the table. “No. I don’t believe that just because you have seen something it necessarily must be true. 1 believe we each make decisions that affect our futures. If that is not true, if life is all a set piece just unscrolling itself through time, then there is no purpose to life.”

  “Perhaps life is just a grand entertainment for the gods.”

  “If it is, then the gods would be bored by it.” I recalled Roarke’s earlier remark about the gods and built on it. “I don’t believe they would find a story they knew the ending of very entertaining.”

  “Ah, so a ballad heard for the second or third time has no value to you?”

  “That’s not an argument that is on point here. Listening to the same ballad over and over again allows one a sense of familiarity and to recall memories of other times that ballad was heard.” I tapped the table with a finger. “Moreover, your suggestion that all events are governed by destiny means the gods would be locked into their actions as well. If they are not, then I hey could do things to reshape the destiny of others. And if the gods can do that, it is impossible to say others cannot do the same.”

  “An interesting argument. One I have heard before, of course, but interesting nonetheless.” She held her left hand out to me. “Give me your hand.”

  I started to, then hesitated. “Why?”

  “I thought I would tell you something of your own destiny.”

  1 withdrew my hand. “No thanks.”

  She arched an eyebrow at me. “You are about to mount a dangerous expedition into Chaos, and you’d not like a hint of what will happen to you?”

  “To what purpose? If you see disaster, and your predestination argument is true, then I can do nothing but ride into it despite your warning.” I shook my head. “If, on the other hand, 1 can do something to change the future, and I do change it, your foretelling will be invalid. This means that I can never trust your vision, so knowing what you think will happen and my search to find correspondences between it and what I see in Chaos will distract me. Distractions I don’t need.”

  lasra slowly nodded. “Let us follow your reasoning to its logical conclusion, then. If your argument is true, there should be multiple futures for each one of us out there. The future we end up living through is determined by a myriad of choices, some major and some minor. Visions I have, visions Xoayya has, would be picking and choosing from among those futures. Depending upon what you do, our visions will be proved true or false.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And you would concede, I suspect, many of those futures only differ in minor details. The difference between your wearing a red shirt and a blue shirt, for example, would be minor within the scope of your whole expedition.”

  I sensed a trap there, but the logic of her comment was fairly clear. “You are suggesti
ng that events and futures may vary, but tend to be channeled in general directions, along specific courses?”

  “And those courses are selected by major or significant decisions, yes.” Jasra again steepled her fingers. “You would concede this point?”

  “If you concede that there are multiple futures, certainly.”

  “And I, as a seer, should be able to see scenes from those multiple futures.”

  I nodded slowly. “And Xoayya’s accompanying me into Chaos is just one of a multitude of futures for her.”

  The intensity of jasra’s expression softened somewhat—not with joy at having gotten her point across, liul by a wave of regret or pain that washed away some of her expression’s power. “This is what concerns me, Lachlan, and something i have not told Xoayya. Though your argument is interesting—and despite my not finding it compelling—it is something to which 1 cling at times like this. I would love to believe there are multiple futures for all of us, and 1 would even admit, at times, i have caught glimpses of alternate futures for people. They are dim and distant, as if their probability < >r lack thereof determines the strength of vision they project.”

  She glanced down at her hands, then folded them together and pressed them over her heart. “For Xoayya I see only one future. I see her in Chaos, and I know she is seeking you out. Aside from that, there is nothing.”

  Her voice broke on the last word. “Nothing?” I felt a chill run through me. “You’re telling me that Xoayya has no other future than to go into Chaos? If she doesn’t go, she will die?”

  “How would you interpret a lack of any other future?”

  I glanced down at the crystal ball and sought inspiration in its depths. Somehow it had been possible for me to accept the fact that the expedition might result in the deaths of myself and my companions. There seemed a justice there in that we were risking much, but the reward was great, and we would be the masters of our own fate. What we did on the expedition would shape our future. That sense of control suggested that we could win, and that suggestion was enough to make t he problem manageable.