The Seer - eARC

by Sonia Lyris

  The answer, when it came, sent a wave of relief through her, followed in equal measure by shame. She gulped air.

  No. Her death would not prevent the invasion. It would happen anyway.

  She would not have to die.

  But—Kusan. She had brought disaster to the city. Could she somehow prevent it?

  Putting the lamp on the ground beside her at the edge of the cavern she thought of Jolon, his map in the dirt. With her fingers began to draw. She would not, she promised herself, leave here, not until she had a plan to keep safe the many Emendi who had sheltered them when they needed it most. For hours she sat there, making sketches.

  By the time she climbed back up the stairs, she was hungrier than she had been in some time, but it felt good. It felt right.

  She went to the kitchens.

  Then she went to Dirina.

  “No,” Dirina said.

  “We must collect food, all this month and next. Hide it for the trip. Then, before the night of the following full moon—”

  “No!”

  “—when everyone is asleep—I think I will know the time when it comes. I hope so. Then we—”

  “Be silent. Your words are wrong.” Dirina said, and Amarta could hear the pain and fear twisted through her anger. “We are safe here. This is Kusan. Secure for a thousand years. It will not fall.”

  “He tracks us here, even now.”

  “You can’t know that. Nothing can be seen from outside Kusan. There are more protections and precautions here than you know. This time you are wrong.”

  “Diri, he will find the city. He will come with an army.”

  “An army! What grand things you foresee,” Dirina said harshly. “How is he to afford such a thing, this army?”

  “The wealth of slaves,” Amarta breathed, hating the words she was saying.

  “What a child you are to imagine such things.”

  Amarta dropped her gaze to her feet. Her turnshoes were uneven where she had resewn them to make them a little larger for her growing feet.

  Growing feet did not mean adulthood, did not mean understanding. If her own sister doubted her, the one person who understood her, who knew what she was, then maybe she really was wrong. “Diri, I—”

  Dirina’s eyes narrowed. “You are not privy to all the elder’s plans, Amarta. Even if there is an attack, Kusan knows how to withstand such things. We go deep. We seal and lock the tunnels. In centuries past, Kusan has repelled armies. You are wrong.”

  Amarta could barely whisper her reply. “He will find where the water comes in to Kusan and do something to turn it dark. It will sicken us. Some Emendi will say it is better to live in bondage than die in thirst. They will fight the others to leave and surrender. When enough Emendi have died from fighting or drinking black water, the rest will open the doors above.”

  “How can you say such wretched things?”

  She could not bear Dirina’s look, so she stared at her shoes.

  Some of the pieces of the future were clear, but many were not. Some had yet to form. Many were still moving. Her head ached, trying to fit them together. She had been drawing in the dirt a great deal. “I think we still have time, Diri, but we must do certain things. Soon, if we are to—”

  “No more. You will not speak of this again.”

  Amarta considered leaving Dirina and Pas here while she took the hunter’s attention away. That would be best for everyone. But in her visions, the only futures in which Emendi stayed in Kusan included the ones in which the three of them left together. Somehow that mattered.

  “If you stay,” she stuttered, “I think you and Pas—Diri, you might die with the others.”

  “Then I will die with the others!”

  At last Amarta’s resolve broke. She began to sob. If she could not even convince her sister, she was done with the attempt. She, too, would stay and die. At least now they wouldn’t have to leave Kusan.

  Maybe the Emendi really did have a plan that would save them. Maybe she really was wrong.

  “No, no, no.” Dirina said, taking Amarta in her arms, hugging her so tightly she could barely breathe. Then softly in her ear: “Of course we must go, Ama. Forgive my selfishness and foolishness. There are too many here who have lives yet to live, who have given us so much. If we must go to save Kusan, then of course we must go. Tell me what to do.”

  It was not hard to smuggle food from meals, from the kitchen, and hide it in their blankets and packs.

  More difficult by far was to pretend nothing was amiss.

  With Nidem, who knew her better than anyone, she could pretend to still be sorrowing for Darad. Nidem, so elated to have been chosen for the next out-trip, was herself distracted.

  When Amarta saw Dirina sitting with Kosal, laughing, touching the young man’s face, she was furious. How dare her sister engage thus, knowing they were leaving? How dare she be happy while Amarta suffered?

  Then she realized that Dirina, too, was pretending. Acting as if nothing had changed. Better than Amarta had. Convincingly enough to fool her. Dirina must hurt, as well.

  Amarta’s resentment melted.

  At night she would go up to the gardens to see the summer stars and moon and track the days. She could not afford to make a mistake about when they were to leave, which she now knew must, for some reason, follow the next Emendi out-trip, yet come before the full moon. Somewhere in that handful of days they would leave.

  She relied on vision to tell her when, but on her own eyes to know the day in which it might say so.

  So many pieces. Often they made no sense. She might, if she were lucky, know the what, but rarely the why.

  They must, for example, include in their packs scraps of yarn of certain colors, which she smuggled out of the mending room. She must give away her cloak, the one with scraps of her mother’s blue dress sewn into the hem. They must leave at exactly the right hour, and take the right set of stairs.

  Whatever they had to do, they would do. She and Dirina were agreed: more important than anything was to keep Kusan whole.

  Nidem laughed at her reaction. “You didn’t know me, did you?”

  With the dark hair and tinted eyebrows, Amarta had walked right past Nidem before the girl had snickered and grabbed her shoulder, pulling her around.

  “I look Arunkin, now, don’t I?”

  So very, Amarta signed. No Emendi here.

  We hide in the walls.

  Like the ferrets.

  “I’ve never been out past the gardens before.” Nidem was vibrating with eagerness.

  A flash of vision: Horse pulling wagon, a winding road on limestone turning to grassland.

  “We’re going farther this time,” Nidem said. “To a larger market. So many things there, they say. Tools, ink, spices—”

  Amarta felt the present shift and the future follow; a puzzle piece was only now forming, just falling into place.

  A body on the ground wore her cloak. By the blue trim was a dark, spreading stain.

  Nidem saw her face change. “Listen to me, going on and on. I didn’t mean to brag, Ama. Do you wish you could come, too? We could ask.”

  Amarta’s stomach turned over. Her response stuck in her throat as if the words were spiked. She forced a smile anyway.

  Nidem. It was Nidem.

  She swallowed hard, pretending as fiercely as she could, pretending joy for her friend.

  Kusan, she reminded herself.

  “I’m only worried about you.”

  Nidem hugged her. “I want to go. Be happy for me instead.”

  At this Amarta managed a nod, her stomach going leaden as she forced herself to say the words that made her feel sick, the words she knew she had to say.

  “I have something for you, for your trip. A gift.”

  The three of them made their way quietly from their sleeping room. This staircase, Amarta insisted, gesturing, not the other.

  Even Pas was quiet. Young he might be, Amarta realized, but they had been leaving places for all
his life, and he knew when to be silent.

  They climbed stairs, walked corridors, and stepped into the chamber that led to the outside door.

  “I knew you would do this. Sneak off in the night like cowards.”

  Darad stood in front of the door that was their exit.

  How had she not foreseen this? She had seen what she had to, in order to save the city. She could not see everything.

  “We must,” she said. “It’s . . .” Her explanation shriveled at the revulsion on Darad face.

  “For everyone’s benefit,” Dirina finished for her, holding Pas’s hand tight. Pas wanted to run to Darad, as he always had. He pressed his small lips together in sorrow, somehow understanding.

  “Without even saying good-bye,” Darad spat. “After all my people have done for you.”

  “You didn’t seem to care very much what I said,” Amarta shot back, finding her own anger painfully aflame again.

  “Why should I care? I knew you were only going to leave.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” Amarta felt a new idea cut through her anger. Could Darad share her ability to see into the future? For a dizzying moment she realized she should have confided in him long ago. They could have shared everything, and whatever it was that had torn them apart could have been overcome. If he saw the future, too—

  “Because I heard. At the market. Who you are.”

  “What?” Amarta said, confused.

  “What did you hear about us?” Dirina demanded.

  “A man offered me coin for information about a girl, a woman, and a small boy. You three,” he pointed, his finger trembling. “Runaways from one of the Great Houses, he said, on some grand adventure. They want you home, you know. Offering a reward for your return.”

  “No!” Amarta said, outraged. “That’s not true. We’ve never even been to Yarpin. We have no House. We have nothing.”

  “So you’ve said, again and again,” he responded with an ugly smile.

  “It’s true,” Dirina insisted.

  He sneered. “Don’t worry. I’ve told no one your precious little secret, despite how tempted I was to make some good coin on you.”

  “It’s easy to tell lies about people,” Amarta said hotly.

  “I agree with you there,” he said. “So easy to lie. You ought to know.”

  “I never lied, never. I—”

  “Hush,” Dirina warned at the increasing volume between them.

  In a way he was right: she had lied. To him, to everyone. About what she was. About why they had come to Kusan. About the danger she brought with her.

  But not this accusation. This wretched story.

  “You don’t know,” Amarta said. “There’s so much you don’t know.”

  “I know plenty.”

  “Ama,” Dirina again, urgently. “The time.”

  He stood aside from the exit, gave a mocking, inviting gesture to the opening. “Have your fun little adventure, you wretched slavers.”

  “What an awful thing to say. We were friends to you. We—”

  “We must go,” Dirina said sharply.

  “You were never one of us, Amarta al Arunkel. I am filled with joy to see you leave.”

  Amarta shook off Dirina’s warning touch, facing him, wanting to say more, one last thing, something cutting and witty, or even sweet, something he would never forget, that one day he would think back on and somehow understand what had really happened here and how wrong he had been.

  But no words came. Instead she simply stared, and he stared back, his smile carved as if from stone.

  Dirina took Amarta’s arm and squeezed until it hurt, finally breaking through her anguish and fury. “Ama,” she said. “The moon. If we don’t go now, none of this will matter.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tayre was impressed with the residents of the hidden enclave and the lengths they went through to hide their existence here in the deadlands. But was the Botaros girl still there?

  Judging by the many places he had been that she was not, he was fairly certain she had come this way, down the Great Road, into the deadland flats, and had not emerged. He had circled the area a good number of times, all sixty and some miles of it, watching riders and wagons come and go, noting tracks, keeping count. Almost all the wagons, riders, and those on foot who had entered the deadlands also exited the other side.

  Almost.

  One wagon had clearly originated in the deadland expanse itself without having come from elsewhere, and had headed east to the markets in the small towns, returning days later, and failing to emerge elsewhere.

  He was becoming fairly certain he had stumbled onto the fabled hidden city of Kusan, an excellent place to hide. If half the rumors about it were true, also uncommonly well-defended. He could not simply ride in and start asking questions.

  So he scouted the area, looking for clues as to the people who lived in this, it turned out, not-mythical underground city. He made a methodical survey of the area, avoiding the deadlands themselves, staying well out of sight.

  The Kusani, it turned out, were clever enough not to keep a schedule. Wagons left sometime during the waxing or full moon, when the skies were clear enough at night to light their way, so he expected another wagon to emerge from the deadlands soon, at which point he would have someone to question.

  Such a community would be keenly aware of newcomers. If she were there, they would know. If he got his hands on any of them, he would also know.

  Which he would shortly.

  The wagons came eastward from the deadlands via a windswept rocky shelf of land, clearly intending to avoid the kind of tracking he was now doing. As careful as they were at hiding their location and travel, every human alive needed food and water. They could only do so much to hide from someone observant and patient.

  So he waited.

  When it came, the small covered wagon rolled slowly toward him, one cart horse, two people sitting at the front, he would guess another two inside. They would pass directly under where he now stood, on a hillside in brush and trees.

  Then he would ride down from his vantage point and have a conversation. With a bit of care, he could not only find out that the girl was there in the warrens below, but also induce them to bring her out to him. Willingly.

  He could think of a number of compelling stories that might make the underground residents grateful to him for taking her off their hands, and he had enough coin to back any such story. This would be the tidiest of solutions: fast, direct, with least risk. He might even be able to take her alive.

  But if he could not command Kusani cooperation, he would take them off the road into the woods where he could ask questions at length and see what other solutions presented themselves. Then, at least, he would know the girl was there.

  As he watched the wagon roll closer he performed his usual checks: saddle, pack bindings secure, knives in place, close-in bow ready, arrows likewise.

  Once he knew the girl was here, if his ideal solution of Kusani cooperation was not obtainable, he would go back to the capital and convince the Lord Commander to give him a small army. With enough soldiers he could surround and overwhelm the underground warrens, blocking every exit she might take, then thoroughly search every inch of tunnel. With sufficient eyes and hands and weapons, he felt sure her foresight could be overwhelmed.

  Rumor said that Kusan was impregnable. That was not reason enough to take it, but it did make it intriguing.

  And no one lived underground without reason. They were hiding something, or hiding from someone. Whatever that was would likely be valuable and further inducement to the Lord Commander to give Tayre the forces necessary. Another thing he would find out from the Kusani.

  He swung himself up on his horse, eyes still on the approaching wagon, checking and double-checking that everything on himself and his horse was where he expected it to be.

  He heard sounds from the hill west, another vantage point he had considered and dismissed as both too open and
likely noisy, which it was now, as two horses came crashing down through the brush, half-sliding down the steep hillside on a fast approach to the wagon, which they now circled, the two riders shouting orders to those inside, to stop, to get out.

  Tayre was already riding down the hill as fast as his horse would take him, watching as the two Kusani sitting up front dropped the reins to put their hands up in surrender, facing the first attacker as he let fly an arrow that sank into the chest of the first wagoner. The wagoner clutched at his chest, gasping and slipping off the wagon to the ground. Another shot and the second wagoner, a woman, screamed, and crumpled.

  Tayre urged his horse to speed.

  At the back of the wagon the second attacker was yelling at those inside to come out, to get onto their knees, which they did rather more quickly than Tayre had hoped. The attacker then pulled a short sword and clumsily but effectively ran it through the first of those. The figure went prone.

  The other figure, a girl, lurched to her feet and began to run. The attacker’s arrow caught her in the calf. She stumbled to the ground.

  A girl about the age the seer would be now, wearing a cloak with blue trim.

  Tayre’s horse was on the road proper, forward at a full gallop, but in the seconds it took him to arrive, the other attacker had put a bolt into the girl’s back. She went flat.

  If it were indeed the seer, they had saved him a good deal of trouble. Somehow he doubted it would be that easy.

  As he rode up, the two attackers turned to face him, the points of their notched arrows aimed at him. One seemed ready to speak, the one he had judged as the more competent of the two, when Tayre shot him through the stomach with his crossbow. He crumpled. The other man’s attempt to shoot Tayre went far wide as he sacrificed accuracy for speed, which was what Tayre had expected him to do, providing plenty of time to put a bolt through his wrist to a loud grunt of pain and a dropped bow.

  “Wait, wait—” the man said, stumbling back, his other arm raised to block the next shot.