The Seer King: Book One of the Seer King Trilogy

by Chris Bunch

  “In its proper time, though, it shall be heard throughout our entire kingdom!” His eyes flamed as they had when first we met.

  “My beliefs are simple,” he said. “Our country has held too long in the comfortable furrows of the past, like a farmer’s ox pulling the plow every season through the same field. Umar the Creator is not paying attention to this world now. We must turn away from Irisu the Preserver, who we’ve followed too long, and instead follow the Supreme Spirit’s third manifestation, Saionji. It is time to destroy, and then we shall be able to see clearly how to rebuild!

  “Numantia has been too long without a king!”

  This was more than just radicalism, but very close to high treason. I should have told him, as an officer of the army, granted my sash by the Rule of Ten, that he must say no more, or I would be forced to take appropriate action, and then spurred my horse away.

  Instead, I listened on because, in truth, his words were no stronger than I’d heard my father and others say.

  Numantia had been built by royalty, and ruled by several dynasties over the centuries, sometimes changing rulers by violence, sometimes by intermarriage, occasionally when a line died out. Although this is not how history was taught, about 200 years before I was born the king had died in battle, his only son far too young to take the throne. As is common, a regency was appointed. But uncommonly, it was not one man, but a group of ten of the king’s most trusted counselors.

  Three years later, the heir also died, and the kingdom faced disaster, since there was no one left in direct descent. Whether there were other septs of the family, and whether they had acceptable candidates for the throne, our writings are silent, although years later I had scholars search the archives to satisfy my curiosity, and they said the records had been thoroughly cleansed of any reference to other kinfolk.

  In any event, these counselors, who called themselves the Rule of Ten, took charge, and ruled in the beginning with at least as much wisdom and consideration as many kings. The problem arose — and you must remember I knew none of this at the time — when they did not formalize their position, but insisted on the fiction that they were merely caretakers for Numantia until a proper ruler was found. As time passed the counselors grew old, and appointed successors, and so it had gone until the present, never legitimized by law, but limping onward, improvising, through the years. Since the Rule of Ten were always going on about the need for a king, custom did not make their rule familiar, and Numantians were always reminded of their supposedly temporary authority.

  Numantia still existed as a country, but barely. Dara, the biggest state, and also the seat of the Rule of Ten in Nicias, was the flagship, although of late our neighboring state of Kallio had stirred awake, led by a firebrand of a prime minister named Chardin Sher.

  “Numantia cannot continue as it has,” Tenedos said. “Without a firm hand controlling the kingdom, it is inevitable that states will fall away, and eventually come to regard themselves as independent kingdoms. Then we’ll see what properly would be called civil war, but that term will be false, since Numantia will be no more than a legal fiction by then.

  “Some say,” he added grimly, “it’s not much more than that now. If the situation is not turned around soon, it shall decline into war, and then anarchy. All Nature agrees: There is either order, or the chaos of the maelstrom!”

  I was a bit skeptical. “You paint a dark picture, Seer. But I’ve heard doom-criers before, and Numantia has managed to stumble on for quite a few years without catastrophe.”

  “The past, my good fellow, has almost nothing to do with the present or future,” Tenedos said. “I can feel the unrest of Nicias, in Dara, in all my travels throughout Numantia. The people are without leaders, without direction, and they know it!

  “It takes no use whatever of my powers to see a small incident in the city suddenly striking sparks, and the mob ravening through the streets. Would the Rule of Ten be able to handle a catastrophe such as that? Would Nicias’s own council? I have grave doubts. Even if they called for order, what of the troops I saw stationed around the city? I mean no offense to the army you serve in, the real army, but I thought most of the soldiers I saw in Nicias tittle but perfumed puppets who think their armor serves to hang decorations on.”

  That had been pretty much my opinion as well, but I said nothing. Families do not take their quarrels or opinions out of the home.

  “Poor Numantia,” Tenedos went on. “Enemies within, enemies without, and yet we do nothing.

  “Consider Kallio. Chardin Sher may be only prime minister, but he rules the country like it was his own. What would happen if he decided to overthrow the weaklings of the Rule of Ten? Would Dara rise in their support? Would the other states? And then would Numantia be swallowed up in civil war?

  “What of Maisir? What moots it if we’ve been at peace for centuries? King Bairan is young, having no more than three or four years on either of us. Youth is the time of hunger, of looking for more. What would happen if he decided to annex the Border States tomorrow?

  “That is why I hope my theory that the Rule of Ten plans to exercise more control in Kait is correct, although my neck litile loves the manner they possibly planned to institute it.

  “But suppose I’m wrong. Suppose the situation continues with nothing being done to settle the Border States? Suppose Maisir does move into Kait? The Border States have always been a buffer between our kingdoms. But what if this ends? Maisir also lays claim to Urey.

  “If they sent armies through Sulem Pass, with the intent of occupying Urey, would we be able to stop them? More importantly, since none of us seem to think of ourselves as Numantians these days, but as Kallians, Darans, Palmarans, Cimabuans, would we have the will to stand against ?airan?

  “What do you think, Damastes á Cimabue?”

  I considered what I would say carefully. Tenedos had said much, but one thing he had not told me is who he thought might reign in Numantia. But then, as I thought on, he did not need to.

  I finally thought I had the right words.

  “I think I’ve heard too many ‘if’s,’ ” I said nervously. “And I’m afraid of running into trouble if I start thinking that far ahead, and will be like a man who lets his midday meal be poached by his cat while he’s worried about whether his dog might steal the steak he has planned for dinner.”

  Tenedos looked at me silently for a very long time, then suddenly and unexpectedly burst into laughter.

  “Legate,” he said, “if anyone ever says to me that Cimabuans are not subtle, but blockheads who can speak only the truth, I shall laugh them out of my presence.

  “That was the best nonanswer to a question I have ever heard outside the court of the Rule of Ten.

  “You will do very well, Damastes. Very well indeed. So let’s start thinking about our midday meal, which is a violent little province called Kait, and how we can keep most of its inhabitants from killing each other and also Numantians, as well as keeping our own heads fairly well connected to our shoulders.”

  The next day, we rode into Sayana, capital of the Border States.

  FOUR

  THE TIGER AT NIGHT

  It hardly seems fifteen years ago, as I look back on that young legate, riding beside a master magician whose life I’d saved, my still-bloodied saber in its sheath, looking down from the roadway at those ominous spires of Sayana in the distance, and tasting adventure in the soft breeze.

  Who was I? From where had I come?

  In spite of the turns of fortune, I consider myself the least remarkable of men. I never thought of myself as having been gifted by the gods, as some others have claimed about themselves.

  I am taller than most, it is true, nearly a head taller than six feet. Some have said my features are well made, but I have never been able to prate about how handsome I am. In truth, in the pier glass I think myself rather plain.

  My hair is blond, and I wear it long, even now when it is sadly thinning on top. I have always preferred to
be clean-shaven, finding a beard not only a collector of strange debris, but also something an enemy can use as a deadly handhold in battle. I shall add, since I intend to be as honest as I know in this memoir, that there’s a bit of vanity in this, since my face hair grows like a bramblebush, in knots and tangles. When bearded, I look less an imposing leader than a wandering mendicant, a roadside holy man who’s chosen the wrong byways to carry his begging bowl down.

  I am, as is obvious from my name, from the jungled province of Cimabue. There may be those who do not know the reputation my people have, or the many jokes that are told about our laziness, our unreliability, our dullness and general shiftlessness. Let but one jape suffice: The Cimabuan who sat up until dawn on his wedding night, because the seer who performed the marriage ceremony told him this would be the most wonderful night of his life.

  Those tales are not, by the way, told in the presence of Cimabuans more than once, since we also have the not undeserved reputation for being frequently short-tempered and implacable in our wrath. I myself spent many hours stable-cleaning as punishment detail at the lycee for having repaid such “jokes” with my fist.

  My family has always been soldiers, serving either our own state or, more often, Numantia, always remembering the days when the country was a country, with a king, no matter how evil, instead of a collection of states, each ruling itself badly and seeking any opportunity to do harm to its neighbor.

  We were land rich, our estate covering many leagues of hilly forest. The land was worked by freeholders, long beholden to my family, since Cimabue has few slaves. It is not that we are opposed to slavery, since all men who are not fools know that when the Wheel turns a slave may be reborn as a master, so one lifetime spent under the lash matters little, and may serve to teach the soul what errors he committed to be so punished.

  Our villa was less a house than a run-down fortress, having been built generations earlier by the first of our family to use his sword and army pension to carve holdings from the jungle, defending it against the savage tribes that have now retreated far into the mountains where no man dares disturb them further, since they are armed not only with savage cunning, but also with dark magic pulled from the earth and blessed by Jacini herself.

  Even with little money in the coffers my family lived comfortably, since we grew all that could be desired for the table and had enough herd animals, mostly zebra, cattle, and half-tame gaur used for hauling and plowing that only children and the beasts’ drovers could safely approach. A caravan would come through our lands twice a year, and we could trade for the other items — cloth, steel, spices, iron — we could not pull from our own land.

  I was the youngest child, following three sisters. I was, they say, a very pretty babe, and so, in a normal household, would have most likely grown up cosseted, frail, and gentle.

  My father, Cadalso, would have none of that, however. In the army, he’d seen many battles on the Frontiers, in the Border States, and, in spite of not having any friends in high places, what soldiers call a “priest,” was able to reach the rank of captain before losing his leg, and hence being forced to retire, at the famous battle of Tiepolo, ironically a battle fought not against a foreign enemy, but between Darans and our fellow Numantians, the Kallions.

  He insisted I be raised as a soldier. That meant mostly outdoors, in all weathers, from the brain-baking Time of Heat to nearly drowning in the typhoons of the Time of Rains. When I was but five, I was taken to one of the estate’s outbuildings, a small structure with only two rooms: bedroom and ablution chamber. This was my sanctuary, and no one would be allowed to enter without my permission. I would have no servants, and was expected to turn the vine- and filth-covered building that I suspected had once been a cowshed into living quarters proper for a soldier, and an officer to boot.

  I started to protest, looked once into my father’s eyes, fierce behind the great prematurely white beard that covered his face, and knew there was no use. Cursing, perhaps crying, I set to work, sweeping and scrubbing. Then I had to take the few coppers he gave me and bargain for my furniture — a cot, a small chest, and an open wardrobe. Father gave me a table of great age that took two men to carry into my rooms.

  I was never permitted to slack off. Father inspected my rooms daily, and on the results depended what I would be allowed to do that day.

  This, I realize, makes him sound like several species of tyrant, but he was not. I can never remember him raising a hand to me, to my sisters, or to my mother, Serao.

  He explained his actions: “You are my son, my only son, and you must learn strength. I sense there are trials ahead for you, and while these will build your thews, you must also have power within. Even the smallest wolf cub must learn to snap before his pack will welcome him and teach him to hunt.”

  I did not realize until later, when I found real love myself, how close he and my mother were. She had been the daughter of a district seer, a man with a small reputation for honest spells and refusing to work magic that would harm any person, no matter how evil. I know my father could have done better — in our province a soldier is well thought of, and many landowners are proud to give their daughter to a man of arms, particularly if he hails from the area and also owns property. But my father said that when he first saw Serao, assisting her father as he blessed the seeds in the Time of Dews, he knew there could be no other.

  She was a quiet, gentle woman, and when they married she struck a pact with Cadalso: All that happened outside the household was his responsibility, all within was hers. This bargain was held to, although I can remember times when a particularly incompetent cook or drunken groom would bring a flush to either’s cheeks, and they would be forced to bite hard on the words that wished to come out.

  I loved them both very much, and hope the turning of the Wheel has taken them to the heights they deserve.

  As for my sisters, not much need be said. We fought each other and loved each other. In time, they made good marriages — one to a village subchief, one to a fairly wealthy landowner, and the third to a soldier in our state militia, who the last I heard had risen to the rank of color-sergeant, and now manages the family estates. All have been blessed with children. I shall say no more about them, for their lives have been fortunate by not being touched by history. The gods let me send gold when I was rich and powerful, and granted them safe and comfortable obscurity when Emperor Tenedos and I met our downfall.

  I am told most boys go through a time when they want to be this, be that, be the other thing, from wizard to elephant leader to goldsmith to who knows what. My mind never spun such skeins for me. All that I ever wanted to be was as my father had dreamed: a soldier.

  On my name day, I was taken to a sorcerer my father particularly respected, who was asked to cast the bones for my future. The sorcerer cast once, cast thrice, and then told my parents my fate was cloudy. He could see I would be a fighter, a mighty fighter, and I would see lands and do deeds unimagined in our sleeping district That was enough for my father, and enough for me when I was told later.

  Just before her death a few years ago my mother said the wizard had finished his predictions with a quiet warning. She remembered clearly what he said: “The boy will ride the tiger for a time, and then the tiger will turn on him and savage him. I see great pain, great sorrow, but I also see the thread of his life goes on. But for how much farther, I cannot tell, since mists drop around my mind when it reaches beyond that moment.”

  That worried my mother, but not my father. “Soldiers serve, soldiers die,” he said with a shrug. “If that is my son’s lot, so be it It is unchangeable, and one might as well sacrifice to Umar the Creator and convince him to return to this world, take Irisu and Saionji to hand, and concern himself with our sorrows.” That was great wisdom, she knew, and so put the matter aside.

  Somehow I knew as a boy what skills I must learn, and what talents would be meaningless. I learned to fight, to challenge boys from the village older and stronger than I, because that wa
s how a reputation was made. I was always the first to climb to the highest branch or leap from the tallest ledge into a pool or run the closest past a gaur as he snorted in his pen.

  I listened hard when the hunters taught me archery, when my father gave me lessons of the sword, when stablemen taught me how to ride and care for a horse.

  One of the most important things I learned from my father, although he never advised me of this directly, was that the best weapon for a soldier was the simplest and the most universal. He taught me to avoid such spectacular devices as the morningstar or battle-ax for a plain sword, its hilt of the hardest wood without device, faced with soft, dull-colored metal that might serve to hold an enemy’s edge for a vital instant, its grip of roughened leather, preferably sharkskin, and its pommel equally simple. Its blade should be straight, edged on both sides. It should be made of the finest steel I could afford, even if it meant borrowing a sum from the regimental lender. The blade should not be forged with sillinesses like blood runnels, since those do not work and only weaken a weapon’s strength, nor should it be elaborately engraved or set with gold. My father said he knew of men who’d been slain just for the beauty of their sword — an entirely ridiculous reason to die.

  It should be neither too long nor short; since I became taller than most men when fully grown, I prefer a blade length of three inches short of a yard, and the weapon to weigh a bit over two pounds.

  He added that if I were to become a cavalryman, I’d likely be given a saber. Most likely I’d have to carry it until I achieved some rank or battle experience, but then to consider well before I kept the weapon. It was his experience that a saber was very well and good for wild swinging in a melee, or for cutting down fleeing soldiery, but afoot or in a man-to-man contest, he’d rather have a bow and fifty feet between him and his opponent than the most romantic saber. This was but one of the quiet lessons I absorbed from him, one of those that kept me alive when all too many lay dead around me.