The Seer

by Kirsten Jones

  ‘Why –’

  Unless this is about Master Nox I don’t want to know! We are nearly half way through the main course and all you’ve done is gaze around aimlessly. Please focus Mistral!

  Mistral glared at Phantasm, wishing he could read her thoughts for once so that she could silently tell him where to stick his main course. He ignored her foul glare and raised an eyebrow, looking pointedly down the table to their right to where Malachi was sitting.

  In case you need reminding, that’s Master Nox over there. The person he’s whispering secretively to is his father, Bellicose La Monte, the head of the Isle’s only vampire tribe. Now please get on with reading them!

  ‘What fun.’ Mistral rolled her eyes and began to focus on the air just above their bent heads. Slowing her breathing she concentrated on clearing every thought from her mind, letting the vision his aura fill her vision. Murky and indistinct, Malachi’s aura drifted into view, the colours muted and somehow weaker, like a landscape seen through fog. ‘Damn it, he’s blocking me!’ Mistral hissed. Narrowing her eyes she redoubled her efforts, willing her gift to work harder and reveal his aura ... See his thoughts...

  After several long minutes of concentration Mistral was finally rewarded with a faint, sibilant whisper in her ear; Malachi’s thoughts. She tilted her head slightly, listening more closely to the low hissing sounds, her unfocussed gaze resting on the ornate plasterwork of the high ceiling. After a while she switched her attention to Bellicose La Monte, repeating the same slow process of calling up his aura to gain access to his thoughts. The apprentices appeared to clear away the main course, returning almost immediately heaped plates of almond and honey pastries; all completely unnoticed by Mistral who remained completely absorbed in the thoughts of Bellicose La Monte. Conversations flowed around and over her. The twins were beset with requests for their gift to be used on increasingly more frivolous matters as Floris’ heavy red wine dissolved any lingering inhibitions. Mistral eventually blinked to break the connection and sighed, reaching out to take one of the sticky honey-coated pastries before the first year apprentice could remove her plate.

  ‘Finally!’ Phantom muttered grumpily. ‘I thought you’d actually mastered the ability to fall asleep with your eyes open.’

  ‘No, but that would be a good one to have,’ she said, chewing thoughtfully on the pastry.

  ‘What did you See?’

  ‘Later –’ Mistral breathed as an icy thought entered her mind.

  Mage Grapple …

  Leo. Of course. Mistral dropped the half-finished pastry back down onto the plate and slowly wiped her fingers on a napkin. She could hardly refuse Leo’s instruction but she was reluctant to See into Mage Grapple’s mind. It wasn’t that he would be offended by the intrusion, in fact, he was probably expecting it … but he just looked so cold. She imagined his thoughts would be as barren and depressing as the characterless house he inhabited at the Council, plus, she also knew all about the tragedies that lurked in his past and didn’t particularly relish the prospect of sharing in them. Mistral briefly considered lying to Leo about having read Mage Grapple but quickly discarded the thought. Unfortunately, her ability to lie didn’t seem to have improved since mastering her gift. Blowing out her cheeks with a resigned sigh she focussed on the air above Mage Grapple’s close-cropped hair and found herself tensing, like a swimmer about to leap into water they know is icy cold.

  His aura glimmered into view in a haze of deepest royal blue... focus and purpose, as expected from the Mage in charge of the Council and ultimately responsible for every single being on the Isle. Mistral pushed the tendrils of her mind further, reaching beyond his aura until his thoughts rang inside her mind with bell-like clarity. She listened, cautiously at first and then with more interest until she was resting her elbows onto the table with her chin cupped in her hands, utterly fascinated by Mage Grapple’s thought process. He was totally systematic; listening to a question and giving it the undivided attention of his considerable intellect before replying and moving cleanly onto the next matter. Every question was dealt with using the same rigidly disciplined method. If he had any personal prejudices about the questions he was asked, they were not revealed; he did not permit anything other than logic to influence his decision. Not once did Mistral hear him consider his own wants and needs. As she had suspected, there were no light-hearted or even vaguely humorous thoughts but they were not as bleak as she had first feared they would be. The content of the thoughts themselves made little sense to Mistral since most questions were regarding Council matters. Occasionally she and the twins would enter his thoughts when he decided their gifts would be of use in a proposed meeting, but he never once glanced over at them. The fact they were even in the room was immaterial to his thought process, he had decided their skills were required and that was the end of the matter. She was impressed by his ability to set a matter aside once he considered it dealt with, leaving his mind free to focus on the next issue.

  Mistral …

  Mistral!

  MISTRAL!

  Mistral’s eyes snapped round irritably to meet Phantasm’s impatient look.

  You’ve been reading him for ages! Is there anything you should be letting us know?

  She quickly gave the coded signal for yes and Phantasm looked away again, knowing she actually meant the opposite. Mistral immediately dropped her chin back into her hands and gazed over at Mage Grapple again … he had been considering a Contract that was definitely right up her street …

  Vilius?

  Phantom’s tentative thought entered her mind, drawing her away from Mage Grapple once more. Lifting her head from her hands with a sigh she raised an eyebrow questioningly at her brother.

  He’s in the Council party, next to Mage Castledine. See him? You can’t miss Mage Castledine – he’s the one with the beard you could lose a herd of bestra in …

  Mistral smiled when she saw the Mage Phantom was referring to. He had a luxuriant beard that covered most of his face and reached down to the collar of his robes. His mouth was so completely concealed that when he spoke his beard appeared to move of its own accord, mesmerising Mistral until Phantom prompted her with a sharp thought.

  Vilius is next to him Mistral, not hiding in his beard!

  Mistral grudgingly dragged her gaze away from Mage Castledine’s beard to study the slightly built figure sat beside him. He had cold, pale grey eyes, rather like a fish and fair hair swept back from a narrow face. Vilius De’ath. The husband of the twins’ mother, the Mage who had assumed Count Putreo Darke’s position at the Council … but had he also taken on Putreo’s lucrative black market trade in illegal potions?

  She focussed on him, almost instantly calling forth the shimmering vision of his aura in an uninteresting fog of beige. Pushing further Mistral reached out to his thoughts. They seeped dutifully into her mind. Vilius was a boringly easy subject to read. Mistral listened to his private musings for a few minutes with growing incredulity. Laughing shortly she broke the contact with his mind and reached out for her tumbler of water. It tasted insipid and luke-warm, not unlike the inside of Vilius De’ath’s mind.

  Well??

  ‘Later brother.’ Mistral felt suddenly exhausted. The constant effort of using her gift all evening had drained her. She sought the comfort in her Mage again, meeting his dark eyes across the candlelit room. His thoughts flowed into her mind, shrinking the distance between them until the promises he was making whispered in her ear in a voice of brushed silk. A smile lifted her lips and her mood, filling her with the pleasant longing for the later in his promises to be now.

  I want you and the Gemini to go to The Cloak and Dagger and gauge the mood of the warriors.

  Mistral blinked, taken aback by the abrupt invasion of Leo’s icy voice into her warm thoughts.

  Now!

  Riled by his curtness, Mistral turned to glare at Leo but he wasn’t even looking in her direction. She was left glowering uselessly at the back of his blonde head while he
spoke with the foreign delegate sat beside him. She felt the twins’ quizzical looks and sighed, wondering how to signal to them that they were being ordered down to The Cloak and Dagger to spy on their fellow warriors. Seeing her coded command to stay, the twins immediately rose to their feet and stepped back from the table, waiting for Mistral to slide out from her seat before they all melted back into the darker shadows away from the candlelit table. They moved quietly across the room, any sound their footsteps made drowned out by the rumble of conversations, enabling them slip unnoticed from the room.

  ‘Oh!’ Serenity’s surprised voice greeted them in the dark corridor. ‘Are you leaving already?’

  ‘I am afraid so Mistress Lightwater,’ Phantasm said smoothly. ‘It has been an emotional day and Mistral is tired –’

  Look it!

  Mistral was about to glare at him contemptuously but quickly rearranged her features into what she hoped something suitably tired and emotional.

  ‘Of course she is! Finally gaining the Sight and losing the Divinus all at once! Such dramatic events so close together would exhaust the strongest of us!’ Serenity’s voice throbbed with compassion and Mistral almost expected her to recommend an overnight stay in the Infirmary to recover. ‘I am sorry that you will be missing my recital though,’ she added in a dismayed voice.

  ‘It is with great regret that we will miss your recital Mistress Lightwater.’ Phantasm murmured sincerely. ‘Your poetry is quite legendary.’

  Mistral shot him an astonished look. Was it?

  ‘Why, thank you Phantasm.’ Serenity gushed, holding up a roll of parchment. ‘I have written a piece in honour of the Divinus. It is rather moving, even if I do say so myself. Perhaps I could read it to you during your next visit to my Infirmary?’

  ‘That would be most welcome.’ Phantasm responded diplomatically. ‘However, we must bid you good evening for now.’

  ‘Of course! My audience is waiting!’

  They moved quickly away from the entrance to the Main Hall.

  ‘Wait!’ Phantom hissed, grabbing hold of Mistral and Phantasm’s arms. ‘I really need to hear some of this “legendary” poetry!’

  They paused, straining their ears to catch Serenity’s soft voice reciting lines of poetry.

  ‘Let silence by your shroud,

  May peace make you a shrine.

  Remain in spirit unbowed,

  Be in our memory, eternally divine –’

  ‘Yuk!’ Mistral exclaimed, looking disgusted.

  ‘Everyone’s a critic.’ Phantasm pulled her on again.

  ‘Did you see the size of that roll of parchment? That’s going to take all evening!’ Mistral continued while they moved down the corridor as quickly as her restrictive dress would allow.

  ‘Now, care to tell us why we had to leave?’ Phantom demanded. ‘Not that I’m complaining, it was getting a bit dull – there must have been a hundred guests in that room tonight and I swear every single one of them asked me to either make their wife leave or have their mother in law die suddenly from natural causes!’

  ‘Brother!’ Phantasm chided. ‘Show some respect!’

  ‘Fine, it was getting respectfully dull then.’ Phantom revised flippantly. ‘So, where are we going then Mistral? I assume it’s on Master Sphinx’s orders from the look on your face.’

  ‘We are going to The Cloak and Dagger.’ Mistral informed them grimly.

  ‘Which is usually a prospect that fills you with ale-fuelled glee,’ frowned Phantom. ‘What’s with the miserable face?’

  ‘We are going to The Cloak and Dagger to, and I quote His Holiness the Leo here, “gauge the mood of the warriors”’.

  ‘Ah, now I understand why you look so miserable.’ They paused outside Gleacher’s office while Phantom went in to retrieve their cloaks. ‘This could be a trifle awkward,’ he continued, coming out with his arms full.

  ‘You think?’ Mistral retorted sarcastically. ‘I can’t even play cards because I’m banned! We’re going to stick out like sore thumbs, sat there staring at everyone all night!’

  ‘Even more so now everyone knows you are the Ri’s Seer.’ Phantom agreed.

  Mistral made a grumpy noise and they walked to the Entrance Hall in silence.

  ‘I think there is only one answer,’ said Phantasm, automatically swinging Mistral down the steps of the Entrance Hall and ignoring her angry shout of protest.

  ‘Which is?’ Phantom enquired; running light down the steps behind them to sweep a surprised Mistral off her feet and over his shoulder.

  ‘Put me down!’ she howled in an outraged voice.

  ‘What? To walk down to the village at a pace slower than a snail on valerian?’ Phantom snorted. ‘I don’t think so! I want to get there before I die of hypothermia!’

  ‘We have to persuade Xerxes to let us join their card game so that Mistral can read the warriors without appearing to … you can do that can’t you Mistral?’

  Mistral paused in the stream of abuse she was directing at Phantom, ‘Of course I can!’ she bridled. ‘And I also possess the ability to walk!’

  ‘Very slowly.’ Phantom amended.

  ‘And that’s entirely your brother’s fault!’ Mistral snarled, struggling in his iron grip. ‘If he let me wear trousers like I wanted to then there would be no problem with me walking slowly!’

  ‘Hush!’ Phantasm said. ‘We’re nearly there … put her down brother.’

  ‘Thank goodness! You’re not getting any lighter Mistral!’ Phantom released her with a grunt. ‘I think it’s all that honey you’ve suddenly developed a taste for –’

  ‘What’re you saying?’ Mistral demanded, looking down at her stomach.

  ‘Oh! Not now you two.’ Phantasm muttered wearily. ‘We need to agree a strategy ... actually,’ he quickly amended, throwing his brother a meaningful glance unnoticed by Mistral who was too busy trying to see some of the extra weight Phantom had complained about. ‘Perhaps we just need to shift someone’s mind-set a little –’

  ‘What? Make Xerxes want me to join in a card game? Good idea!’ Mistral said, finishing her examination of her figure, oblivious to the twins shared look of concentration. ‘Make him buy the first round while you’re at it, he’s become so tight since his legion of sweethearts started hitting his pocket!’ Feeling suddenly confident, Mistral pushed open the door and stepped into the tavern’s noisy smoky warmth.

  ‘And here she is!’ Xerxes called out loudly. ‘The Seer to the Ri!’

  Not at all daunted by the silence that fell or the multitude of heads that swung around to stare at her; Mistral paused in the doorway and slowly drew back her hood. The Cloak was packed to the rafters with warriors who had returned for the Divinus’ funeral. Every table, stool and inch of floor space was taken up by warriors engaged in a variety of drunken pursuits, reminiscing loudly, gambling, arguing or just drinking heavily. Warriors were stood three deep at the bar, all clamouring for the attention of a harassed looking Floris, struggling to serve the huge influx of customers.

  ‘Ah, a game!’ Mistral smiled and made her way towards Xerxes’ table, ignoring the curious looks she was attracting. ‘May I join you?’

  ‘No chance!’ Xerxes scoffed, eliciting a loud bout of laughter from everyone within earshot.

  ‘And why not?’ Mistral enquired in a hurt voice.

  ‘Like I need to remind you! Thought spy! You’d cheat like a hob on manticore potion!’

  ‘Hmm … cheating … an interesting subject.’ Mistral mused, drumming her fingers on the battered pack of cards stacked on the table. ‘You and your brother have been using Elven Song for the last two years and Cain has a second pack up his sleeves –’

  ‘What?’ Cain and Brutus exclaimed, staring accusingly at each other.

  ‘How about we all agree not to use our respective talents and just play cards?’ Mistral suggested reasonably.

  Xerxes shook his head, ‘Not a chance in hell Mistral. I can take Cain’s extra pack off him and I can gag my b
rother so he can’t sing but I wouldn’t know if you were reading our minds or not … and I can’t afford to lose any more money right now. I’ve got some serious demands on my pocket –’

  ‘Xerxes, we really need to be in this game.’ Phantasm interjected in a low voice. ‘It’s an order from Master Sphinx.’

  Xerxes snorted disdainfully, ‘Like I believe that! His Loveliness the Leo order you to play cards? No chance! You’ve snuck out of that boring banquet because you can’t resist the opportunity to have a go at using your gifts on some unsuspecting victims! I don’t care if you tell me it’s an order from Mage Grapple himself! I’m not letting two mind controllers and a Seer play at my table and that’s final! Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a game to play.’

  Mistral remained uncharacteristically calm throughout Xerxes’ tirade and didn’t even react when he snatched the pack of cards from beneath her hand and began to deal. She gazed at him for a moment before speaking softly, ‘I swear to you on the life of our fallen brother that we will not use our gifts at your table.’

  Cain, Brutus, Xerxes and Grendel all turned to stare at her.

  ‘Don’t take Saul’s name lightly Mistral!’ Xerxes growled warningly.

  ‘I don’t.’

  Xerxes continued to hold her gaze for a long moment before drawing in a deep breath and turning to the others, ‘It’s your call,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Fine by me.’ Cain shrugged and looked down at the cards in his hand.

  Grendel grunted and chucked a bronze coin on the table to start the game.

  Brutus remained silent, studying her through narrowed eyes before replying, ‘Well, she’s not lying. We all know Mistral can’t lie to save her life, so I’m happy enough for her and the twins to join us.’

  Xerxes nodded unhappily. Keeping his eyes averted he gestured towards the empty chairs and began to deal cards out for her and the twins.

  I think it’s high time that you finally embraced all of your gifts now Mistral …