The Pattern Scars

by Caitlin Sweet

  It was Chenn. I didn’t want to know.”

  “How unlike you,” Orlo said with a smile that passed over his lips like a shadow. “Let me explain, since she did not. When blood has just been spilled, even if a person is dead, it is possible to Othersee with someone else speaking the words. The Otherworld is close, as long as there is blood, or something else that is from a body. As Laedon will show you.”

  I swallowed. “But he is not dead, and he is not . . . not . . .”

  Laedon was holding a small knife. It shone, clean and sharp; he could not have used it for vegetables or meat. His cloud-eyes rolled up toward the ceiling. He closed his hand around the knife’s blade and held it there.

  “Cast the bones, Nola.”

  I watched my fingers grasp and tighten on the plate. The bones were small and jagged and wet. The big ones are in the soup, I thought, with a part of my mind that was clear and separate. I held them and imagined that they were pulsing against my own vein-lined skin. I held them and remembered.

  “My mother,” I said. I had already told him about this memory, but it seemed like more than that, suddenly. “She spoke words, and she bled, and I was watching her blood on the tabletop, and that’s when I had my first vision. I used no Otherseeing tools.” I licked my lips, which felt cracked. “Is blood enough, then?”

  Orlo let out a long, slow breath that I could hear. “It is. Good girl; it is. But what do you think happens when an Otherseer uses both? What do think would happen if you looked at the shapes made by Laedon’s blood and by the bones?”

  “I . . . it would be very powerful.” I did not need to see his nod; I knew I was right. Maybe I should wait, I thought. Maybe this would be too much, or too soon. But I thought of him saying, “So it is strength you desire,” and knew that he, too, was right.

  I opened my fingers and scattered the bones away from me. I heard them skitter along the wood. I heard Orlo say, “Look at Laedon,” and I did. Laedon pulled the knife sharply, down and away from his body, and he shook his hand, and I saw blood spray—fat droplets hanging, then falling over the bones.

  “Tell him, Nola. Tell him what will come.”

  The kitchen flows away from me. All that remains is fire: two pale, blue fires, which I know are Laedon’s eyes. They are far away, so I push my Otherself forward—and I move, just as I did in my vision of Chenn. This time I am not a bird; I am something low and small, perhaps a snake, or a vole. I slither, scurry through a darkness that parts like water. As I do, the eyes multiply—two to four to six—and begin to spin. I twist so that I can catch them, and what is in them—because there are images there, limned in blue flame. A boy with a harp in the crook of his arm, singing soundless words; a skull pillowed on layers of coloured cloth; a field of tall russet grass. I am dizzy but strain to hold the other eyes too, and do. An eagle on a wall, its beak stained red; a naked woman asleep on her belly, one hand holding a lock of her own dark hair, as if she is a child (though she is plainly not). And in the last eyes, a wolf. My Otherself shrinks back, and I turn, seeking the boy or the lovely, empty field—but these eyes blur past me, and I know, anyway, that it is the wolf I must watch. It is a tawny brown. Its teeth gleam—a grin of sharpened knives—and yet its eyes are dull and flat. I ease closer, for the eyes are the most important, somehow, and maybe just one more turn, one more stretch will show them to me. I reach with fingers or claws I cannot see. The beast lunges. For a moment my eyes are filled with flames, and then the flames give way to a heaving blackness that presses on my nose and mouth and crushes my screams to silence.

  I was kneeling on the floor. I was making a low, rough noise—but no, the noise was not mine: it was Borl’s. He was standing by my head, too close. I did make a sound—a strangled one—and Borl snarled and snapped his jaws so that I felt wind and smelled a waft of meat.

  “Borl!” Orlo’s legs; his hand descending, grasping the brindled fur at the dog’s neck. The fur looked green, and Orlo’s skin looked orange, and slender black shapes darted over everything like a cluster of startled fish.

  Borl whined and padded away, his long, thin tail tucked between his back legs. Orlo raised me up as if I were a child and set me on my stool. He put a mug in my hands and helped me tip it against my lips. The wine was harsh and sour and I choked a bit, dribbling it, before I really swallowed.

  “Do not speak until you are ready. If—”

  “There were six things,” I rasped. “Six pairs of eyes with different . . . things.” Words hardly ever matched visions, but this was worse than usual. I clenched my fists.

  “Laedon,” Orlo said, as if he was reminding me.

  I blinked at the old man, who was standing where he had been before. His eyes were closed; the little black shapes squiggled across their lids.

  I told Orlo, the words halting, then smoother. When I was done, everything was the right colour again, though my dizziness remained.

  “And how was this time different?” he asked.

  “I felt like I could move—like I was inside the vision, not just seeing it. That happened with Chenn, too—when I was like a bird above her, and Prandel.”

  “You saw Prandel?” Orlo’s voice was sharp, and I flinched.

  “I . . . yes. Not clearly, though: he was far below me. I tried to drop closer to him, just like I tried to get closer to the wolf, to see . . . but I couldn’t. Or I did, with Chenn, but Yigranzi stopped me. I can’t remember.”

  Orlo smiled, though it looked strained. “What else? What else was different this time?”

  “There was more. I saw six things—six parts of his Pattern—and I think I could have chosen which one to look at, if I’d been more sure of myself.” I wanted Orlo to look like himself again, so I added, “Why did these different things happen?”

  It worked. He straightened, narrowed his eyes as he always did before he instructed. “Because visions grow more complex, the older you get. And yes, you must sometimes choose, from within the Otherworld, which one to follow. There is art to this choosing, and to the telling of it afterwards. For you should never tell the person all that you have seen. You must be clear and firm, and speak as if you saw but one Path.”

  He paused, leaned across the table toward me. Our fingertips were almost touching. “You will see and feel more strongly once your monthly bleeding begins. The vision you have just had gives me hope. The time must be close now—at last.”

  “Blood power,” I said slowly. “My own.”

  “Yes,” he said, and smiled in a way that sent heat and cold chasing through my belly. “There is so much more to learn, Nola. What we—what you will be able to do, when the time comes.”

  “Yes.” Only a breath of a word, but it filled me.

  Something moved beside me, and I turned. Laedon had lifted his arm; his hand was pointing at the ceiling. Blood was still easing from the wound on his palm, wending its way down pale, wrinkled flesh and beneath cloth that clung, sticky and damp. “Laedon,” Orlo snapped, “that’s enough—press the wound now, so the blood will stop”—but the old man stood still, staring at me with his blind blue eyes.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  My head aches today. Too many words already, and too many still to come; all of them as oppressive as they are exciting. (And how can they be exciting—even the ones that I fear?)

  I did not think that I would remember so much. Part of me is impatient: Just get to them, Nola! Get to the words that matter most! But it seems to me that they wouldn’t matter quite so much without all the others.

  And then I think: You’re delaying, dripping water into an ocean that will never be full. You’re afraid, Nola-girl—because beyond these pages there is something you have to do.

  All right—enough. One more sliver of lycus fruit from the platter Sildio left for me and then I’ll go back to filling up the sea.

  Bloodseeing was like a fever. It began as a shivering under my skin and stayed that way for a few weeks, while I wondered whether I was really feeling anything. I knew I wa
s when Orlo spoke the words of invitation and Laedon drew out his knife (sometimes he only pricked his finger, and I tried to ignore my disappointment). I knew I was when the Pattern’s spinning pictures spun me too, and when I blinked myself back afterward, to strange colours, dizziness, and terrible thirst. But when I was not Bloodseeing, my desire for it was quiet and sly. It rested in my own blood like fever does, waiting for weakness.

  I stayed away from Laedon when Orlo and I were not using him. I told myself that I did not want to intrude any further, but really it was just that he unsettled me. I had seen visions of his boyhood and youth—“When people age it is sometimes easier to see the Pattern that lies behind them,” Orlo told me—and strange, sometimes inscrutable ones that were obviously of time-to-come, but none of this truly unsettled me. Much smaller things did: his sallow, grizzled skin and his fingernails, which were yellow and so sharp that he could have used them instead of his knife. And that leather cap! He never took it off (or not that I saw), and the thought of what the hair and scalp beneath it might look like made me shudder.

  He was never in the kitchen when I ate. I had no idea where he went, but was always relieved when I entered and found only food, always freshly prepared, arranged neatly on plates and in bowls.

  In fact, I do remember looking up from my meal one night and seeing him. I glanced up and saw him by the door that led to the garden. He was staring at me. One of his hands was on the knob.

  “It’s locked, you know.” I don’t know why I spoke to him. Perhaps to prove to him that I wasn’t afraid—though of course I was. Uja wasn’t fooled; she plucked at my skirt and made the low, calming noise that made me feel as if I were her chick. That was one way I could tell that Orlo would not be arriving soon—when Uja let herself out of her cage and came downstairs with me.

  Laedon’s hand tightened on the knob. I thought that he must be scratching himself with his own fingernails. “You can’t get out,” I said, thinking, He must already know this—or maybe he’s as much of a fool as he looks. He did not move. I pushed the food around on my plate for a few minutes, but my hunger was gone, and soon I stood and left, hoping he would not hear my haste.

  And there were a few times, when Orlo and I were conducting our lessons without Laedon, that I saw him watching us. “Watching,” with his wobbly blind eyes, standing at the kitchen window while we were walking in the garden, or at an upper window, his hands pressed against the glass. I never mentioned these sightings to Orlo.

  When Laedon was with us, though, in our lesson room, he did not unsettle me. Then he was ours.

  I was in the library, the day my Bloodseeing-fever turned from shivering to heat. It was a rainy day in late summer. I was restless, listening to the rain on the windows, imagining how it would feel on my face and bare feet. I was not sure why I’d come to the library, since I had no desire to read. I sat in my favourite chair, which felt lumpy; I paced, whirling when I got to the room’s corners, to make my skirt billow.

  I saw the book in a still moment, between paces. I craned up at the top shelf. I was certain I’d never seen this book before, for it was bound in bright red leather with golden claw-clasps, and I would have noticed it. I pulled the stepladder over to its shelf and climbed. The ladder was not quite tall enough and I had to clamber up onto one of the shelves, leaning back and up at the same time, scrabbling for the book. I nearly fell when I pulled it free, because it was very heavy, and I could only grip it with one hand. I did not fall, but it did; it landed on the floor with a dull thud, its covers splayed. Some of the gold-edged pages were creased, and I smoothed at them frantically, then closed the covers as if this pressure would do the rest. I carried it over to the chair that looked like a throne and opened the book again, over my knees.

  The script was very old-fashioned, with curling lines and rows of dots that made it difficult to read. I squinted and concentrated, and after a few moments I began to understand.

  . . . a treatise on the use of blood for the Seeing of the Pattern; which use the King has forbidden, deeming it a peril and a threat to the goodness of his land and laws. We, the Otherseers of Sarsenay, do protest the King’s decree. Bloodseeing will give strength to our friends and weaken our enemies. Bloodseeing is Pattern and Path revealed, but also transformed. Who among us can deny the necessity of transformation? Who, though cleaving to writ and form and fear, can say with honesty that he does not desire transformation? . . .

  I read more—much more, even though I did not understand a good deal of it. There were diagrams drawn in many colours that had faded; I saw blues and reds that must once have been vivid but were shadows now. The diagrams were of arms, torsos, ribbons that could have been veins.

  Take care to make your enemies’ cuts in places that cannot be seen when he is clothed. Such care, along with a Bloodsight order of silence, will keep your actions hidden from those who might seek to stop you. When making cuts upon friends, however, such

  care is not required. There are many, indeed, who in the days before the King’s writ bore their scars with pride, knowing themselves to be true instruments of Pattern and Path.

  I stopped reading, here. There was a tingling, almost-sick feeling in my belly, because I was remembering Chenn, and the scars she had tried to hide beneath her sleeves. The scars she would not explain to me. But now that I had these words, these pictures, I was close to knowing. I sat with my hands folded on the book, and by the time I heard Orlo’s footsteps in the corridor, I was ready.

  “I need to know something.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “No ‘Good evening, Orlo’? No ‘I have a question; may I ask it’?” He looked and sounded tired. He was always either weary or restless; there was nothing in between.

  “Good evening, Orlo,” I said, to make him smile. He did, a little. “I have a question; may I ask it?”

  He sat down in the round chair, groaning as he did. “You may. But only if it has a simple answer, and only if you will bring me some wine after.”

  I ran my fingertips along the edges of the book. “I found this book today.” I watched his eyes shift to my lap. They did not widen, which meant I had to try harder to surprise him. “I’m sure it wasn’t here before. Was it?”

  He was smiling now, the lines around his eyes more amusement than weariness. “If you’re sure, why must you ask?”

  “What can you do with Bloodseeing? What can you really do?”

  I no longer wanted to surprise him, but his sudden stillness was gratifying. He stared at me and I stared back.

  “I’ve shown you,” he said at last, slowly, “how blood may open a person to Otherseeing, even without his spoken consent.”

  I shook my head. “But there’s more. This book says there is, but I don’t . . . it’s written in old language, and it’s hard to understand. It says you can transform things, if the blood is from two . . .” I cleared my throat. I felt a flush easing up along my cheekbones; I had had so much time to prepare what I would say, and now that he was here I could only stammer.

  “There is more. It is better to show than to tell, however, and—”

  “And you’re going to wait until sometime else to show me.” My indignation made my words smooth.

  “Yes,” he said. “Precisely. I believe you know me, just a little.” He paused and frowned at me, as if he was trying to understand something. “What else did this book tell you?”

  He was trying to distract me, and I wanted to resist—but I did think of another question. “Whatever this special transforming Bloodseeing is, it’s forbidden. It was whenever this book was written, and it must be now, for Yigranzi never taught me about it and you haven’t either.”

  “Yet,” he said, and the tingling in my belly spread, outward and down. “But you’re right, Nola—this use of Seeing is not permitted, not taught. And now,” he continued, holding up a hand, “you will demand to know why, and I will make you even more frustrated than you already are when I say, ‘No, Mistress Headlong Seer, this too must wait.’�
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  He stood and walked over to me. Bent a little to cover my hands with his. His palms were warm and very slightly damp. His thumbs traced circles on my knuckles. Maybe I was not breathing. “Your curiosity does you credit. Your questions deserve answers, which I will give. Perhaps”—he slipped his hands away from mine, drawing the book out of my grasp as he did so—“it is time that I allowed you another glimpse of what is to come. Time I gave you more.”

  I nodded. All I could see was the darkness of his eyes, lifting and falling like water.

  “Come,” he said, and I rose and followed him.

  Laedon was standing by the mirror. He was not usually waiting for us (Orlo would fetch him), and so I was surprised, and hesitated just inside the door. Orlo put his hand on my shoulder, turned me away from Laedon so that I was gazing at the cabinet.

  “Choose one,” he said. I knew that he did not mean a stick of wax or a kind of grain. I stared at him as he drew a leather cord out from the neck of his shirt. There was a ring of keys on the cord: four of them, all small and slender. I had never noticed these before—and now I noticed the hollow of his throat too, and the smooth ridges of his collarbone, and the skin below it. I swallowed, or tried to.

  “You will do no choosing while you are looking at me.” He smiled. The restlessness was about him again; waves I could sense, even without seeing them in the tensed muscles of his forearms and the tapping of his right foot. I smiled back at him—probably too pink already to flush any more deeply—and looked at the knives.

  They were all beautiful, and at various times I had imagined each of them in my hand, without imagining what I would do with them once they were there.

  But now that it was time—For what? a small, fading voice asked me—I pointed and said, “That one.”

  Orlo opened the glass doors. He took the middle knife down and held it out to me. My fingers closed around its hilt, which was wrapped in leather—thicker, darker bands than the one around Orlo’s neck. It was cool, but I had only been holding it for a moment before it felt as warm as my skin. The blade was the simplest of the five: curved, but not as much as the large one. A sliver of moon.