Far-Seer

by Robert J. Sawyer

  Afsan sat there and thought. About the dead egglings. About the harshness of existence. And, longest and most of all, about his own seven long-dead brothers and sisters, whom he had never known.

  In the middle of the night, Afsan woke with a start. As every learned person knew, Land was divided into eight provinces: Capital, Kev’toolar, Chu’toolar, Mar’toolar, Edz’toolar, Arj’toolar, Jam’toolar, and Fra’toolar. Beside being head of state for all of Land, the Emperor or Empress was also governor of Capital province. But the governors of the other seven were always fiercely loyal to whoever lay on the throne of Capital City. It had hit Afsan that the other governors, from Len-Quelban in distant Fra’toolar to Len-Haktood in Carno’s own province of Arj’toolar, all of whom he’d seen at processions in Capital City, were about the same height, and therefore the same age, as the late Len-Lends, Dybo’s mother. It was all so obvious. Of course these seven governors had been loyal to the Empress. They were her siblings, her — Afsan ran down the list of governors — her five sisters and two brothers.

  Imperial hatchlings weren’t gobbled by bloodpriests. Rather, the fastest was selected to become Emperor or Empress, and the other seven would become provincial governors. Their loyalty was assured, since they owed their lives to the institution of the monarchy. Without it, without the special dispensation for imperial hatchlings, they would have been swallowed whole.

  Lends’s brothers and sisters now ran the seven outlying provinces. Dybo’s seven siblings would have been spirited away shortly after hatching, and they would become provincial governors when their — Afsan had to search for the words, they were so rarely used — their aunts and uncles passed on.

  The descendants of Larsk ran the entire world.

  Perhaps this, too, was common knowledge. Perhaps Afsan had, indeed, spent too long removed from the concerns of real life. But he understood now, and maybe this was the greatest rite of passage of all: the movements of celestial bodies were simple and predictable, but the machinations of politics were more complex and more subtle than anything to be found in nature.

  Afsan lay on his belly in the dark, but never managed to get back to sleep.

  *26*

  It was time, Afsan knew, to return to Capital City. For one thing, Saleed would doubtless be angry that he had taken any time off at all. For another, Dybo was now Emperor — and that would be something to see!

  When Afsan had first made the journey from Carno to Capital City, it was via hornface caravan, a slow way to travel. But each Pack had to send a tribute to the new Emperor, and so a group from Carno was heading out on the fastest running beasts to make the journey. After liberally mentioning his friendship with Dybo, Afsan was invited to join the party. He was delighted: this would cut his travel time by two-thirds.

  The runners were similar to those used by Kaden’s hunting pack: round bodies; stiff tails; legs built for great strides; long necks; tiny heads; giant eyes. But these were the inland variety, an unattractive pinkish beige, with eyes that were green rather than golden, and beaks of shiny black.

  Afsan climbed atop his mount and settled into the saddle, his own flexible tail wrapping around the runner’s stiff one. Afsan could steer the beast simply by moving his tail to indicate the direction he wanted to go, and the interlocking of their tails would help Afsan stay on the creature’s back even at the fastest speeds.

  Three others were in the riding party: Tar-Dordool, leader of Pack Carno; Det-Zamar, one of Carno’s senior priests; and

  Pahs-Drawo, the individual Afsan idly speculated might be his father. Drawo was one of the most skilled hunters in Carno, and he would be responsible for seeing to it that the group ate well on the trip.

  With cries of “Latark!” they left at first light. Afsan snapped his tail to spur his runner into motion. The horizon jumped up and down as the runner’s two long legs came into their stride, and Afsan, who had survived the voyage aboard the Dasheter without feeling sick, realized that if it were not for the cooling wind created by the beast’s great velocity, he would be nauseous from the bouncing. He placed his arms around the base of the creature’s long neck to steady himself, taking care not to unsheathe his claws even though they wanted to pop out in fright, lest he dig into the runner’s flesh.

  By noon that day, Afsan’s stomach had quelled. Priest Zamar, whose beast was running alongside Afsan’s own, taught him the trick of matching his own breathing to the beast’s stride: sucking air in as it lifted its left foot, pushing it out as the right one kicked into the dirt. Eventually the rhythm of the beast became transparent to Afsan, and when they dismounted to let the runners rest, he found himself feeling as though his body was still rushing through the air.

  They continued through the day without eating, and slept under the stars that night. Afsan looked up at the great sky river, wondering what it really was, and watched the moons go through their motions. His mind raced, still trying to comprehend all the secrets of the sky, but at last he grew tired, and simply drank in the beauty of the night until he fell into a dreamless, pleasant sleep.

  The runners, voracious beasts, had been turned loose to hunt. With their swiftness, there was no doubt that the four of them, operating as a pack, would bring down something large enough to satisfy themselves.

  No time was wasted in the morning. The mounts had indeed eaten well, judging by their torpor, but after a few false starts they were goaded back into action.

  The party followed the Kreeb River for days. It meandered a lot and Afsan marveled at how he’d ever believed that the great body of water that covered the moon he lived on was simply a giant river, how anybody had ever believed that.

  Eventually they left Arj’toolar for the plains of Mar’toolar.

  After several days, Pahs-Drawo announced that he wanted to catch something special for dinner: a fangjaw.

  Afsan had openly clicked his teeth. “A fangjaw? No Quintaglio can catch one of those. They’re much too fast.”

  “Ah,” said Drawo, “but the runners can catch them.”

  Afsan’s stomach churned. Eat an animal killed by another animal? Drawo must have read the revulsion on Afsan’s face. He clicked his teeth, and Afsan noticed that the way he did that, a loud click then a soft, was much like his own laughter. “Don’t worry, eggling. We will do the killing, but we’ll give chase upon the backs of the runners.”

  And so they did. A fangjaw was one of the few four-footed carnivores in all of Land. It hunted in the tall grasses, bringing down thunderbeasts and shovelmouths, running silently on padded feet. Its narrow face had two long curving teeth growing upward from the lower jaw. Afsan had heard their meat was sweet: he’d now find out for himself.

  Zamar and Dordool declined to participate. Drawo picked up the trail of a fangjaw in short order, and he and Afsan mounted their bipedal racing animals and set off in the direction the fangjaw must have gone.

  It took the better part of the morning to track the creature, but at last they caught sight of it, scaly brown shoulders rising and falling behind the grass. Drawo used the hunters’ sign language to indicate it was time to charge, and their mounts rushed toward the fangjaw. Their quarry looked up, let out a sticky hiss, and bolted into the distance.

  The fangjaw was a natural predator for the running beast, and Drawo said it had taken much training to get them to chase fangjaws instead of galloping away. But chase they did! Afsan’s mount surged beneath him, and he held on for dear life, wrapping his tail tightly around the runner’s. The wind in his face was incredible.

  The fangjaw was low in the grass, its passage mostly visible only by ripples through the blades.

  They were closing.

  The fangjaw made a sharp turn. Afsan didn’t know why it had done so, but he trusted its instincts. With a yank of his tail, he commanded his runner to copy the fangjaw’s maneuver. As he passed the spot where the carnivore had turned, Afsan saw a crevice in the ground. If he hadn’t changed direction, his runner would have stumbled into it, probably br
eaking both legs.

  Drawo’s runner moved off at an angle, so that he was approaching the fangjaw on the left, while Afsan barreled in from the right. Suddenly Drawo leapt from his mount. Afsan did the same, the ground rushing by beneath him at a dizzying rate. His claws sprang out. He landed on the fangjaw’s shoulders. Drawo missed, smashing into the dirt. Afsan was alone on the creature’s back.

  It was twice Afsan’s body-length, but his weight was slowing it down. He felt the thing’s muscles ripple as it moved its shoulders, trying to buck him.

  Afsan dug in.

  One bite should do it…

  The fangjaw arched its neck, trying again to throw Afsan. Afsan brought his jaws together with a crunching sound where the fangjaw’s head joined its body. He twisted, cracking the quadruped’s vertebrae.

  In mid-stride, the fangjaw stopped moving of its own volition. But momentum carried it forward, smashing it into the ground. Afsan bounced, but did not fall off his kill. Drawo, brushing dirt from his body, ran over to where Afsan and the fangjaw lay.

  “Such skill from an eggling!” shouted Drawo, apparently genuinely pleased, and not disappointed to have been left out of the kill himself. “I’ve never seen the like.”

  He stared at Afsan for a moment, as if wondering something, then made a strange gesture with his left hand: claws exposed on the second and third fingers, the fourth and fifth fingers spread, thumb pressed against his palm.

  Afsan recognized the gesture. It was the same one he’d seen on his Dasheter cabin door and elsewhere. But the double impacts, first into the fangjaw’s hide, then as the beast had slammed into the ground, had left him slightly dazed. Not sure quite what he was doing, he made a halfhearted stab at duplicating the sign, still wondering what the silly thing meant.

  Drawo looked delighted. “I’ll summon the others,” he said, bowing deeply.

  Afsan saw no reason to wait for the rest of the party. He tore a large chunk off the beast’s flank. The meat was very sweet indeed…

  The rest of the journey was uneventful. Afsan slept under the stars when the sky was clear; in one of the tents Det-Zamar had brought on those nights it rained. Finally they made it through the pass between the two largest of the Ch’mar volcanoes, and spreading out before them were the stone and adobe structures of Capital City.

  Home at last, thought Afsan. Then he clicked his teeth, realizing how he’d changed. As much as he’d enjoyed his visit to Carno, it was no longer his home. The Capital was, and he was glad to be back. But he wondered if he’d still be glad after he’d seen his master, chief palace astrologer Tak-Saleed.

  *27*

  Afsan descended the spiral ramp to the basement of the palace office building. He knew he’d have to endure Saleed’s wrath: anger that he was late in returning from his pilgrimage and fury that Afsan had the temerity to question his teachings. In no hurry to face this, he tarried to look at the Tapestries of the Prophet, peering at them through the reflections of lamp iimes dancing on their thin glass covering. There had been tiny parts of these images he’d not understood the last time he’d seen them, 372 days ago. But now everything was plain. That strange bucket atop the mast of Larsk’s sailing ship: that was the lookout’s perch, just like the one aboard the Dasheter. Those black spots on the Face of God — “God eyes” — were the shadows of moons. Afsan was surprised to see them scattered all over the Face here, instead of just concentrated along widest part, but then he realized that the artist — the famed Hel-Vleetnav — simply hadn’t been a skilled observer of such things, or had made the painting from fallible memory long after her own pilgrimage. Indeed, she’d depicted the Face fully illuminated even though the sun was also visible in the picture, an impossible arrangement.

  Around the edges of the tapestry were the twisted, loathsome demons, those who supposedly told lies about the Prophet in the light of day. Afsan had always been horrified at their appearance, but now he looked at them differently.

  Surely they hadn’t been monsters, hadn’t been demons masquerading as Quintaglios.

  And Larsk himself, the prophet. Had Vleetnav ever met Larsk? Did she really know what he had looked like? She had painted him with a serene expression, eyes half closed. Afsan clicked his teeth. That was exactly right.

  After looking his fill, Afsan continued slowly down the corridor to the keetaja-wood door that led into Saleed’s office. Steeling his strength, Afsan drummed on the copper plate in the doorjamb and called out, “Permission to enter your territory?” He heard a tremulous note in his voice.

  He waited for a gruff and low hahat dan, but no sound came from within. After several beats, Afsan called out again. When there was still no answer, he pressed his palm against the fluted bar, and the door swung wide.

  There was no one in Saleed’s office. Afsan crossed the room to the old astrologer’s workbench. There were many papers and sheets of leather on it, arranged in neat stacks, but they were covered with dust.

  Scanning the room, Afsan noticed that a few of Saleed’s favorite things were missing: his great porcelain drinking bowl, always half filled with scented water; his metal drawing tools, used to make star charts; his leather-bound copy of the book of mathematical tables; his guvdok stone, the torus inscribed with the astrologer’s many awards for scholarship.

  Afsan left the room and continued down the corridor to the office of Irb-Falpom, the palace land surveyor. Again, Afsan called out for permission to enter. Falpom replied, and Afsan pushed open the door.

  Falpom, much younger than Saleed, but still many kilodays Afsan’s senior, was bent over a table, adjusting an intricate metal device that had several calibrated wheels attached to it. “Adkab?” she said. “By the prophet’s claws, is that you?”

  Adkab had been two apprentice astrologers before Afsan. Falpom often accidentally called Afsan by that name, and Afsan tried to keep a good humor about it. After all, she was one of the few palace officials who even attempted to remember the names of any of the underlings, and keeping Saleed’s parade of apprentices straight was probably no easy task.

  Afsan bowed low. “Hello, Falpom. It’s good to see you again.”

  “And you! My, how you’ve grown!”

  Afsan realized that, yes, in the time he’d been gone, he probably had increased in size noticeably. “Thank you,” he said vaguely. “Falpom, I’m looking for Saleed.”

  The surveyor pushed off the dayslab and leaned back on her itick tail. “Haven’t you heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  Falpom dipped her head. “Saleed took ill not too long after you left. He’s been resting at home.”

  ’What’s wrong with him?”

  The surveyor clicked her teeth once, a rueful sound. “He’s old, Afsan.” Falpom looked at the ground. “I’m frankly surprised that he’s lasted this long.”

  Afsan’s tail swished back and forth. “I will go see him at once.” He took a step back toward the door, then a thought crossed his mind. “Has a successor been appointed?”

  “Not yet. What with the loss of Empress Lends — you did hear about that at least, I hope — and the delay before the succession of Dybo, nothing much has been done. I think Dybo is reluctant to name a replacement. He doesn’t want Saleed to think that he’s given up hope of him recovering, but, really, there’s no chance of that.”

  “I’ll go see Saleed,” said Afsan.

  Falpom nodded. “He’ll like that. Give him my good wishes.”

  Saleed lived in a small building a few hundred paces from ie palace. It was an adobe structure, the commonest kind, easy to repair or replace after a landquake. The reddish-beige exterior was covered with a thin layer of glaze for waterproofing. Afsan had stopped by his own tiny quarters before heading to Saleed’s. The slight detour had done nothing to help clear his mind. Saleed had been around forever. As much as the oldster terrified Afsan, he also inspired him. It was impossible to imagine the palace without Saleed.

  The adobe structure was free-form in shape, having no ri
ght angles. But windows, although at first glance appearing equally free-form, had in fact been meticulously carved as immature duplicates of the building’s own melted profile. This unit contained the homes of several palace officials. Saleed’s apartment was on the ground floor. Afsan had always known where it was, but he had never visited it before.

  He made his way down the main hallway, lamps spluttering along its walls. He found Saleed’s cartouche carved into a door at the end of the corridor, a rendition different from the one that appeared on his office door. With a start, Afsan recognized by the way certain characters were drawn that Saleed had made this cartouche himself. It wasn’t a bad rendering, really, although clearly an amateur effort. Saleed a hobbyist woodcarver? thought Afsan. What else don’t I know about him?

  He clicked claws against the copper plate by the door, then called out for permission. He thought he heard a sound from within, but it was so low he couldn’t be sure.

  He opened the door. Inside was Saleed’s living room, like its owner, stern and hard-edged. There were four ornate day-slabs, one in each corner of the room; shelves of books; an intricate lastoontal board with playing pieces made of gold and silver distributed across it, a game half finished. Afsan hurried through into the sleeping chamber. There, prone on a stone pallet, was Saleed. He looked old and weary, the skin hanging loosely on his face, the black orbs of his eyes shot with red. There were soft leather sheets piled on the sleeping pallet, and a blanket of what looked like thunderbeast hide covered most of his body. The room was dim, no lamp lit, the windows covered by curtains.