by C. R. Grey
She walked over to the table with a small metal tray balanced on her hands. Three mismatched porcelain cups wobbled on it, filled with steaming tea. Ama set the tray down on the wooden table and gestured for the girls to take their pick. Dazed, Gwen gingerly picked a mug with an etched design of gold and yellow flowers. It was fine porcelain except for a chip in the handle. She wondered if the cups had come from the palace. A gift, maybe, from a long-dead king.
“You said we were expected,” said Phi. “You knew that Gwen was coming to see you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Ama. The light from the suspended lantern reflected in her milky eyes.
“Maybe you can tell me about the Instrument of Change,” Gwen said, feeling her trust toward Ama growing. “The Elder—maybe you knew him—told me that I would find it here.”
Ama nodded, and raised an eyebrow in recognition.
“The Elder, yes. He was a friend to the Seers. I was sorry to learn of his passing,” she murmured. “And the Instrument of Change is here.”
Gwen felt her heart jump.
“Please,” she said, “tell me what I need to do. Tremelo—the king—he needs it, and I’m the one who has to bring it to him.”
Ama leaned forward and pointed, unseeing, to Gwen’s pack.
“Your Glass is calling to you, my dear,” she said. “It’s almost singing with joy, just for you to answer.”
“What?” said Gwen. She brought her pack around to her front and dug in it for the fur-bound Glass. Carefully, she unfolded it and set it on the table in front of Ama. In the dimness of the cave, the stone still retained a soft glow, but it didn’t emit a sound.
“I don’t understand. Does it have something to do with the Instrument?” she asked.
Ama nodded.
“You can feel it beckoning to you, can’t you?” she asked Gwen.
“It’s glowing,” Gwen admitted. “It has been for days. What does it mean? Is it—is it yours?”
Ama passed her hand over the Glass, but did not touch it.
“This does not belong to me,” she said. She reached into her silvery spun dress, and took out a Glass identical to Gwen’s. “Every Seer has their own. Your Glass belongs to you, just as this Glass belongs to me.”
She set hers down on the table next to Gwen’s.
“Every Seer has an instrument, Gwendolyn—that of true sight. You cannot change what you are. You are a Seer, like me. How you use the instrument given to you is your choice. You have my guidance, if you want it. The Elder wished it so.”
Gwen tried to take a deep breath, but found that she couldn’t. The air seemed very thin. She turned to Phi.
“Are you all right?” Phi asked.
“I don’t understand,” said Gwen. “The Elder…”
“He saw the light in you years ago,” Ama said. Gwen felt her heart fill will bittersweet joy. “He said that you would not believe him if he told you what you are. But he knew you would find me if he asked. He knew your love for him. Do not doubt that he treasured it.”
Gwen felt a tear slide down her cheek. She looked down at the Glass, which pulsated a greenish-purple light. She felt dizzy.
“Gwen!” breathed Phi. “You’re a Seer!”
Ama reached out and grabbed Gwen’s hand. The Seer’s fingers were dry and cool, and felt so delicate that Gwen was afraid of breaking them.
“The light grows, daughter,” Ama whispered. Her white hair spilled over her face, obscuring one cloudy eye. “Don’t be afraid.”
And indeed, Gwen did see a growing light. At first, she thought that the Glass was becoming brighter, but it was filling her entire vision—almost too bright to bear. She wanted to hold her arm in front of her eyes.
“Don’t be afraid,” whispered the blind woman once more.
Her voice sounded very far away. The brightness took hold, and shapes began to form in the light.
The first image that Gwen saw was the tiny owl who had saved her life on the mountainside by showing her the poisoned berries. Melem. The owl’s name manifested on her tongue as if the owl itself had placed it there.
Then came the screams.
Gwen stood in the middle of a crowd. All around her, animals lunged at their human kin with teeth, claws, and talons. The humans were confused and panicked, and began fighting back.
Suddenly, her vision was only Melem, her yellow eyes wide and steely, her talons aimed at Gwen’s face. Gwen put up her arms to protect herself, all the while sending her intentions out into the air: Don’t hurt me; I am part of you. But she felt no connection. Her chest ached with a feeling of being torn in two. Her bond was bending and wrenching itself into something terrible. Melem screeched, and bit at Gwen’s hair and ears.
Then Gwen felt her bow secure in her hands; an arrow was firmly nocked against the string. She aimed the arrow’s tip at Melem’s feathered chest, and she shot. The owl shrieked and shuddered in front of her, falling from the sky to the muddy ground, where it lay staring at her with unseeing eyes. Gwen heard a pounding, like the ticking of a huge, awful clock. She covered her ears—it was so loud—and fell into darkness.
When she awoke, Phi knelt over her. Ama still sat in her chair with her back against the rock.
“It’s all right,” said Phi. “You’re all right.”
She’d fallen to the floor, and lay with her head propped on Phi’s knapsack. At her feet lay her own rucksack, as well as the bow and quiver of arrows. She shuddered at the sight of them.
“Was that real?” she asked Ama of the nightmare she’d experienced. “Was that the future?”
Ama did not answer.
Gwen sat up, taking Phi’s offered arm.
“What did you see?” Phi asked.
“It was terrible,” said Gwen. “I was in the city, and there were so many people. They were all in pain. Everyone was gathered together, and the animals…they were attacking. It was Dominance, but stronger than I’ve ever seen it.”
“The Fair,” Phi whispered. “Viviana’s Reckoning.”
“Can I stop this?” Gwen looked to Ama. “It was only a vision, but the future can be changed, can’t it?”
Ama stirred in her seat.
“‘True sight is a light that grows—your sight is strengthened and made clear by true bonds. You see what lives unseen in the heart,’” Ama recited. Gwen felt calmed by those familiar words—though the Elder’s note hadn’t included the last line.
“What lives unseen in the heart…” repeated Gwen. “So, then, that wasn’t the future, but what Viviana wants in her heart to happen?”
Ama reached for Gwen’s hand. “It is a terrible thing to see the future,” she said, clutching a chipped cup of pale orange tea in one hand, and Gwen’s fingers in the other. “But altering it is not your task.”
“But can it be done? Can I change it?” asked Gwen.
“I cannot stop you from trying,” said Ama.
“I will change this,” said Gwen. “I can’t let it happen. If I reach the Gray in time and find Tremelo, we can stop her. We can destroy the machine. Can’t you tell me how?”
Ama gazed at her sadly.
“The Elder spoke of your bravery,” she said. “The Instrument of Change, that is the name that he called you. But you cannot change everything, daughter. Some grief will come to pass, no matter your choice. I tried to tell the Elder this.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Gwen. Her heart had filled with longing at Ama’s mention of the Elder. He had led her here so that she could discover something remarkable, unbelievable, about herself—only to see that the way ahead would be just as hard, and full of doubt. “I have to change it. I have to try, or the Elder’s death meant nothing.”
Ama nodded.
The Glass’s light had ebbed where it sat on Ama’s table. Gwen picked it up, half expecting it to be hot to the touch. She still had so many questions.
“Will I…” She bit her tongue. Ama tilted her head, listening for the end of a question that, perhaps, she had already gu
essed.
“Will I become blind like you? Is it only by choice that you live here?” Gwen didn’t think she could do it. She couldn’t abandon the ones she loved.
Ama was quiet for a moment. Her fragile fingers wrapped themselves around her nearly empty cup of tea.
“The Instrument of Change. A new Seer, for a new time,” she said. “Where you abide is your choice to make. Though you may find, once others know of your gift, that solitude is welcome. As for your worldly sight…” She pursed her lips in thought. “Take care of your eyes, when you can. The light takes its toll. Perhaps you’ll find you need to look into your Glass less and less. For most of us, the temptation to look is too great, and we pay the price.”
“When the Elder came last fall, it was you who told him that Viviana was coming, wasn’t it?” Gwen said, the thought just occurring to her. “So you do try to change the future—through others.”
Ama smiled again. “Each in her own way, I suppose. Now, if your intention is to reach the Gray before the Reckoning, then you cannot linger.”
“I don’t want to go,” said Gwen. “I want to help my friends, but I have so many questions for you!”
“You would find my answers disappointing, child,” said Ama. “You have everything you need to answer your own questions. You always have. Now, go. I must rest.”
Gwen edged away from the table, shouldering her pack and her bow.
“Thank you for the tea,” she said, though this seemed like a silly thing to say to someone like Ama. “Thank you for everything.” Then she nodded at Phi, and started toward the dark uphill tunnel.
“Wait,” said Ama, still sitting. She held her hand out to Phi, her white palm open. “Your secrets are safe here, Sophia Castling. We Seers never forget the dead.”
Phi seemed to understand right away what Ama was asking of her. She unpinned Sucrette’s brooch from the inside lapel of her coat, and placed it in Ama’s bony hand.
“You dream of another form, Nature’s child,” Ama continued, as matter-of-factly as if she were reading a story out loud. “Your wings are possible. You will find them soon.”
Ama stood, drawing her bent self up to her full height. She seemed much taller now to Gwen than when they had first seen her at the mouth of the cave.
“And when you do, Sophia, take care. You may give up too much, when you turn away from your true self.”
The girls said good-bye and left the cavern, climbing the steep, pebble-laden path side by side.
“What was she talking about, turning away from your true self?” Gwen asked.
Phi shrugged. “Not sure…” she said, but her eyes were far away again.
The rest of the way through the cave was spent in silence. Gwen’s hands still trembled at the thought of her vision. The screams, the terror—it was too much for her heart to bear. And that awful pounding sound that had echoed throughout the nightmare, like blood pumping through veins…It wouldn’t leave her ears.
“How are we going to get all the way back to the city in such a short time?” asked Phi, finally.
Gwen remained silent, her thoughts turned inward. She was a Seer. She was the Instrument of Change. But what was she supposed to do to make change happen?
As they reached the mouth of the cave, she began to feel uneasy. The owls traveling with them were now swooping around the peak, excited by a new presence.
“Wait here,” she said to Phi, gesturing for her to stay back. She edged along the cave wall to the entrance. Even before she peered around the rock, she could hear the sounds of animals breathing and pawing the ground.
“Hello?” called a voice from the clearing outside the cave. It was familiar.
With her arrow tight on the bowstring, Gwen emerged from the shadow of the cave. Before her was no Dominae spy at all, but the tall, fur-clad warrior, Eneas Fourclaw. On either side of him stood the snowy wolves who had menaced them earlier. Now they looked calm, almost docile. Behind Eneas were at least thirty Velyn men and women with their kin. They were laden with packs and cook pots, spears and bows and arrows and swords. They looked as though they had been traveling as long as she had—or for many years longer.
“The wolves tell us you’re in need of an escort across the Peaks,” Eneas said. “We would not let you travel alone.”
VIVIANA WATCHED AS HER chief tinkerer made a final inspection of the improved white tiger automaton. She stood in the doorframe of what had once been Parliament’s assembly room. It made a rather spacious tinkering lab.
Viviana’s mind churned—only a fortnight until the Fair, and none of her various traps had yet caught their prey. Just when her efforts at tracking Sophia Castling had begun, the girl’s trail had gone cold. She had not, it seemed, been headed for the Dust Plains at all—and Viviana’s contact at the school had either been too stupid or too slow to realize it. Viviana’s hands clenched, as though to tighten themselves around a throat, whenever she thought of this failure; her spy would have much to answer for at the Fair. But even more distressing, and more immediate: she felt she could no longer trust the earnest efforts of the thin, long-faced man polishing the metal tiger in front of her very eyes.
“You have a son, Clarke?” Viviana asked, although she was already well aware of this fact.
“I do. His name is Lyle.”
“A good student, I’m sure,” she said. “Eager to learn from his father.”
“I’d like to think so,” answered Clarke. He stood back from the automaton. “There we are, completely reassembled. The tiger is ready for the Fair. Would you care for a demonstration, my lady?”
“Please,” murmured Viviana, stepping forward into the room.
Clarke turned to fetch a small controller with a red-jeweled handle from his worktable. He handed the controller to Viviana, and, before he could even move his hand away, Viviana pressed a button.
The mechanical tiger’s eyes lit up—a manufactured, glowing red. It growled, and turned its heavy metal head toward Clarke. Clarke went pale and backed up against the wall.
“My lady?” he asked, frightened.
Viviana’s mind was a swarm of buzzing bees. The automaton crouched, then raised itself up on its hind legs.
It swiped at Clarke before he could duck. Clarke screamed as the tiger’s steel claws left three deep slashes across his face. As the tiger backed away, Viviana stepped forward.
Clarke held his bleeding face in his palms.
“You’ve let some prototypes of the Catalyst go astray,” Viviana said. “Sending them to a nest of children as though they were toys! You risk exposing us!”
She pushed Clarke’s hands aside. The tiger had narrowly missed his left eye. Clarke whimpered in anguish as Viviana took his chin in her hand and forced him to look at her straight on.
“You’re an arrogant man, Clarke,” said Viviana. “And you need a reminder of whom you serve.”
Clarke groaned; it sounded almost like an apology under layers of anguish. She let go of his hands, which he pressed against his face.
“It was just a test model, my lady—I didn’t think any harm…I’m sorry.…” he whimpered.
“You will live out the rest of your days with caution. No more prototypes sent to places where they can be found by meddling children. Your life, and that of your son, will last only until I decide you are no longer useful. Until then, you will be a shadow. Reckon, Inc. is under my command now.”
TREMELO SAT ON A stone bench outside the Fairmount library, smoking a pipeful of tobacco. To any passing student, he appeared to be enjoying the crisp March air. But in actuality, he kept a close watch on the entrance to the Mathematics and Medicine building. Viviana’s Reckoning would take place in a little over one week, and he and Tori were about to add the last necessary piece to the Halcyon—if they could get their hands on it.
The bells in the Fairmount clock tower struck three. He rose from the bench and strode through the imposing marble archways of the building.
Students exiting their cl
assrooms streamed past him as he climbed a set of large marble stairs to the second floor. Hal and Bailey were still missing, but the attitude of the Fairmount student body at large had shifted from fear to annoyance. Students whined openly about curfew, and more than one teacher had lately shirked their chaperone duties in favor of an early supper or warm fire. As he neared the large windows that looked out from the hall to the clock tower, Tremelo saw Tori standing in a recessed nook with a slim, black-haired boy—Lyle Clarke. Tremelo approached slowly, careful not to confront them too soon.
“Can I hold it?” he heard Tori ask. Lyle looked up to survey the hallway, and Tremelo quickly pretended to be reading a metal plaque on the wall next to him marking a room number.
“Just be quick,” the boy said, so quietly that Tremelo barely heard him at all over the din of students.
When he turned, Tori cupped a metal, egglike orb in her hands. It appeared to be constructed of silver, with a seam through its middle that suggested another layer inside. Tremelo walked quickly over to the pair.
“And what’s this, Miss Colubride?” he said loudly, employing his most authoritative, professorial tone. “You two aren’t supposed to be on your own. And what’s that?”
“It’s for an experiment, Mr. Tremelo,” Tori said. Lyle’s eyes darted from Tremelo to the orb, but Tori was relishing her part in this little piece of theater. “For…Mr. Millstone’s class.” She looked at Lyle, who nodded fervently.
“Yes, for a class,” he agreed.
Tremelo held out his hand for the orb.
“I happen to know that Millstone is only covering acids and bases in his Chemistry course this week,” he said. “And I don’t appreciate being lied to.”
Tori’s eyes met Tremelo’s as she handed him the orb. This was going smoother than either of them could have hoped. Pretending to be sheepish, Tori folded her head and looked down at the floor. But Lyle stepped forward brashly.
“You can’t take it,” he said. “My father sent it to me, and he’s very important.…”
