by Alex Paul
Zela ignored the mural. She swirled her long, white tunic around and lowered herself onto a cushion. She looked like an upside down white mushroom poised for pleasant conversation.
Arken remained on his feet as the Nander padded out of the room. Arken stared at the mural. It made him dizzy, as if he would fall off the cliff if he stepped forward.
The cliff ahead dropped to a jungle floor. Ocean extended to the horizon beyond the green jungle. A band of white beach sand lay between jungle and sea like the hem of a garment.
To his left, a wide river cut through the jungle to the sea. A wall of mist hung upstream of this painted river at the point where it met the long cliff Arken seemed to stand on. This had to be a waterfall. He pivoted to his left and followed the river upstream from the waterfall. Here it flowed across a vast yellowgrass plain. He stepped closer and made out the river’s origin in a distant mountain range. The setting sun hovered over a massive peak in the mural.
“Can you imagine painting this, Mother? Painting has never interested me, but this is a lifetime accomplishment!”
“Perhaps you should try painting.” Zela looked about with him. “The king favors artists.”
“But fortune favors the bold warrior.” Arken puffed out his barrel chest to show he intended to be a powerful warrior. “Father proved that.”
Zela said nothing, so he returned to his study of the mural. Great herds of animals dotted the yellowgrass plain.
“So you like the mural?” An old man in a dark blue robe entered the room, his voice a low rumble, like thunder from the far mountains in the mural. A deep tan gave his wrinkled face a glow. His blue eyes snapped at Arken with energy as their glances met. A long, white beard drooped from his jaw. White hair cascaded like a waterfall over broad shoulders as powerful as Arken’s father.
In fact, Arken realized, he was the first man he’d ever met who was as large and heavily muscled as his father.
“Oh, yes,” Arken replied. “It’s stunning.”
“Zela, welcome again.” Stroebel clutched her shoulder with his left hand. His deeply tanned hands with their long, ropy veins fascinated Arken. “Your messenger said your son wished a reading?”
“Yes.” Zela drew her white shawl tighter over her shoulders while looking down, as if embarrassed by Arken’s request.
“This SeaJourney we tossed bones for earlier?”
“Yes, I don’t want him to go, but he aspires to the trip.” Zela bowed her head in sorrow. “I do not wish to oppose his wishes. Though, perhaps if he hears what you said for himself, he’ll withdraw of his own choosing.”
“Excellent,” Stroebel said. “So, are you ready?” He turned to Arken.
“Yes, sir. And I want you to know I am so impressed with your mural. It reminds me of Zafron’s description of the Great Open in his exploration journal. So many animals grazing on endless grass!” Arken referred to the writings of a famous Lantish explorer they had studied at the Academy. Arken had spent hours pouring over the original written bark records in the library.
“You’ve studied Zafron?” Stroebel asked, surprise in his voice. “You didn’t mention he was a scholar as well as a warrior, Zela.”
“I didn’t know until now,” Zela answered.
“Well, I have spent time on the Great Open, Arken. Let me show you some amazing details.” The soothsayer walked to the mural with his hand extended. “Here you can see a pack of darwulf hunting a gastag, and here is a swordtooth crouching in the grass, ready to pounce on a toth.”
“I didn’t notice them,” Arken admitted. “I’d like to see the Great Open someday. Our instructors say it’s too dangerous to go there unless you travel with soldiers and harsemen accompanied by war toths.”
“Your instructors are right. A swordtooth can cut down a toth in seconds. Only with bowmen firing arrows from the toth’s back to drive away a swordtooth as well as troops with longbows and lances can you travel safely across the Great Open. And when such a force stops for the night, they can be preyed upon by hyna, bur, cuy, and lin. So they have to use circle fires around the entire camp to keep those animals away.”
“What if a person slept in a tree?” Arken asked, wondering how humans survived before cities and fire.
“Only if you sleep very high up in the thin branches of a tree are you safe from jalags.”
“Jalags?”
“The great black cats and smaller yellow ones that can climb trees.” Stroebel put his hands in the air to emphasize the hopelessness of such a venture. “They weigh more than humans so they can’t venture on to the slimmer branches.”
“How can anyone survive out there?” Arken asked. He couldn’t imagine lasting long in such a harsh world.
“Stroebel, I’m sorry,” Zela said, interrupting their banter, “but I must soon be busy with other matters.”
“Of course.” Stroebel nodded. “Let’s sit and perform a reading.” He gestured at the cushions surrounding the stone circle. They descended to sit cross-legged.
Arken felt embarrassed at his mother’s impatience. He felt he’d never met such an interesting person, and his mind buzzed with questions. What he wondered most was why the soothsayer had a swirling tattoo on his right ear and neck similar to the Nander slave’s tattoo.
“Umm.” Stroebel extended his hands across the stone circle of the small fire pit. “Give me both your hands, boy.”
Arken extended them reluctantly.
“Don’t be afraid. Relax your arms.” The old man’s heavily calloused hands scratched him. Arken considered his own hands tough from training but found them soft compared to Stroebel’s, which were more like the soles of Arken’s feet.
“Umm.” He inhaled deeply. “Well, there is violence and danger ahead, as I said earlier, but what can one expect from a warrior’s life?” Arken pulled his hands back quickly when Stroebel released them.
“I will toss the bones, though I doubt they will change, Zela. If anything, Arken’s presence will simply clarify matters. The bones are never wrong.” He withdrew a small gastag pouch from his robe and dumped the contents out in his hand.
“Take one.” His open palm contained a dozen flat, white bones, all as long as Arken’s pointing finger and almost as wide, all curved slightly, like the rib bones of a gastag.
Arken took one. It felt heavy in his hand, more dense than any rib. He tossed it in his hand to gauge its weight.
“Carved from a ton’s ribs,” Stroebel explained.
“A ton? What’s that?”
“Do they teach nothing in school anymore?” Stroebel sighed. “The ton is the toth’s cousin. You know the toth, correct?”
“Yes.” Arken felt embarrassed for asking the question. “Everyone knows our war toths.”
“Yes, well, the toth lives on the plains and eats only grass. The ton can live in forest or plain. He prefers the forest and prefers stripping leaves from low hanging branches.”
“I’ve never seen one.”
“They once lived just outside the city walls with the toth. But our ancestors hunted them away.”
Arken noticed small black characters carved into both sides of the bone.
“What are those marks?”
“A language dead long ago, used only by men and women like me to allow us to send messages without the fear of anyone else reading them.”
“Couldn’t another soothsayer read the message?”
“Yes, but that is not who we fear.” Stroebel raised his eyebrows to impart a sense of mystery to his comment.
The surface felt smooth to the touch. A tingling sensation came from the bone and Arken’s vision changed. Suddenly, the room vanished like the fort’s entrance when he blacked out. In place of the room, he saw a swirling motion, a huge animal running below him. He was aiming a bow. Strange voices yelled from behind. Then it felt as if the stone bit him, forcing him to drop it, and the vision disappeared.
“What was that? It bit me!” Arken blinked and looked around.
“Wh
at?” Stroebel picked up the bone.
“I took the bone from your hand and felt a tingling sensation,” Arken explained. “Then a vision came to me of the forest.”
“Tell me,” Stroebel said in his rumbling, deep voice.
“A giant animal was running below me. I was in a tree,” Arken explained. “I held a bow ready to loose an arrow, but someone yelled and startled me and I dropped the arrow. Then it felt like the bone bit me, making me drop it, and the vision left me.”
“The tingling and later pain normally accompany a vision. Though, it is rare for one untrained in the bones to have a vision. I’m surprised you had one.”
“Are these visions dangerous?” Zela leaned forward and listened with interest, her hazel eyes widening in alarm. Her silver bracelet tinkled the music of wealth as she clasped her hands.
“No, Zela, they are good. Your son is more powerful than I suspected.” He gave Zela a knowing look. “In fact, if you might leave the room for a few moments to give us privacy...”
“You need to speak to him alone?” Zela frowned.
“There are matters best shared only by men. You can wait where you came in, and I’ll have the Nander fetch you,” Stroebel insisted.
“Certainly.” Zela rose gracefully and left through the beaded curtain.
“Some people aren’t what they seem,” Stroebel said in a soft voice when he looked to make certain that Zela was gone. “I should have suspected this about you, given the fact your grandfather brought a Nander slave back with him years ago.”
“Suspected what?” Arken asked.
“Perhaps they haven’t told you?” Stroebel raised an incredulous eyebrow.
“I don’t know what it is I was supposed to be told,” Arken said. “So I can’t tell you if they told me.” Arken felt frustrated by Stroebel’s mysterious behavior. He just wanted to know if he should go on SeaJourney!
“I won’t even say the words,” Stroebel said, “for no good could come of me knowing. But having a vision is a very rare occurrence for a pure-blooded human. Your secret is safe with me.” His bright blue eyes felt like they were drilling into Arken’s skull to find the truth.
“I don’t understand.” Arken grew more frustrated.
“It doesn’t matter if you tell me,” Stroebel said. “In fact, it’s best you get used to this performance for your own good.”
“Performance?” Arken asked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Excellent. That’s well done, Arken. And your secret is safe with me.” He patted Arken’s knee as he rose. “I’ll fetch your mother. The Nander’s not about.”
“Why did I have to leave the room?” Zela asked as she settled on the cushions once again.
“Some matters must be discussed among men without women around, Zela,” Stroebel said. “Especially mothers, who should know better than to pry.”
“Oh.” Zela’s face reddened. “Of course, my apologies.”
Stroebel’s easy lie surprised Arken. He didn’t know if he should say anything to his mother. But then he started to forget about Stroebel’s odd behavior as the soothsayer began his reading.
Stroebel dropped the bones to the floor and leaned forward to study the yellow-white jumble inside the stone circle. He extracted three bones and laid them flat in his left hand, and then closed his right hand over them.
The Nander padded in carrying a large clay bowl and sat between and slightly behind Arken and his mother. His bare toes were short, thick, and wide like his body, and they poked into Arken’s thigh. He felt uncomfortable but had nowhere to move, so he put up with the Nander’s presence.
The Nander placed the clay bowl before him inside the stone circle. Chips of wood and greens smoldered in the bowl, producing smoke that drifted to the open hole in the ceiling. The Nander spoke to Stroebel in a voice so low it vibrated Arken’s stomach like the swordtooth’s scream had done in the courtyard before his test. Stroebel answered in the same Nander’s tongue, though at a slightly higher pitch. Arken recognized Nander because his grandfather often spoke it with Arlet around the house, though he didn’t know enough of the language to make out what they said.
They agreed on something because the Nander nodded and then looked directly at Arken with eyes that were deep, black, and piercing. Then he rose without effort and walked through the curtained door like the slimmest of dancers.
“Now I need to close my eyes and do trance work. You can keep your eyes open if you wish, Arken and Zela, or sleep if you become drowsy.” Stroebel closed his eyes and chanted. Arken watched the smoke swirl up to the ceiling hole where it hung in a small cloud before vanishing into the morning breeze.
High-pitched musical notes drifted into the room. Arken spied the Nander cross-legged on the other side of the beaded curtain, playing a carved wooden flute. He played a slow, wistful tune, pleasant to the ears, sounding sad and somehow old. Arken drifted off, though he hadn’t been sleepy. After some time passed, he woke. His mother sat still, cross-legged with her hands on her knees, breathing deeply, her eyes shut.
The soothsayer’s eyes snapped open, locking with Arken’s. He dropped the bones from his hand into the circle, waking Zela.
“No change,” he said in his deep voice. “There’s still danger and violence ahead. And he will face a smoker on his SeaJourney.”
“Oh, not again.” Zela’s voice shook.
“Again?” Stroebel asked.
“When he was young...” she said, her gaze on Arken. “You might not even remember. You fell off our ship. Your father ran for the stern to grab you near the tiller. I looked down to see a sharrk coming for you. I still have nightmares. The sharrk’s mouth was open, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. You couldn’t swim. Your father’s hand plunged into the sea and grabbed your leg. He lifted you just as the sharrk rose to take you forever.”
“I only remember screams and water and sparkling light.” Arken tried to remember more but could not. He had dreamt about this before but never understood it.
“We never told you,” Zela said. “It was so close.”
“What’s a smoker?” Arken asked.
“A smoker is a sharrk larger than many ships.” Zela sighed. She turned to look at Stroebel. “Will he survive the trip?” Zela asked, as if Arken weren’t in the room.
“Only if he is wise,” Stroebel pronounced.
Zela furrowed her brow in confusion.
Stroebel hastened to explain. “I’m sorry, Zela. Let me lay this out for you and the boy in greater detail. First, you must know a fine line exists between helping a person by revealing their future and ruining it. If I say too much about danger in someone’s future, that person might stay in bed all day out of fear, thinking he is saving himself. However, he would change his future to the life of a person spending his days safe in bed, but what future is that?”
“I understand,” Zela said.
“Look into my eyes, boy.” He took up Arken’s hands again.
“Yes, sir.”
“Although danger waits on this journey, if you are good with bow and arrow, you will be safe. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” He spoke rapidly now, because he felt excited. “I am already an excellent archer, but I can practice even more before I go. And my grandfather gave me a beautiful new bow, it’s—”
“Yes, yes,” Stroebel cut him off. “Then repeat my words.”
“If I am good with bow and arrow, I will be safe.”
“Excellent.” Stroebel clasped his huge hands together in a triumphant gesture. “You’ll be fine. Now, in my reading, I also noticed that you have an enemy and that he has been causing you trouble, especially recently.”
“Yes, his name is—”
“Please, no names. I have other clients.”
“Oh.” Arken felt his face turn red.
“Just know that this enemy... I sense that his name starts with a G, we’ll leave it at that.”
“Yes.” Arken felt stunned. How could the sooth
sayer know about Gart?
“You must stand up to him, only next time with real weapons. Your life will depend on it. He blames you for the failures in his life.”
“How can I stand up to him?” Arken protested. “He’s so much bigger.”
“Good point,” Stroebel said. He shut his eyes and seemed to leave the room. “Ah, it’s all in the choice of weapons.”
“My bow? Is that why I have to be good?”
“It’s more than that... Ah, it’s gone. Just remember, you need not fear him if you use a weapon. That much is certain, and that is all you need to know.”
Stroebel nodded to Zela. “There is danger and violence ahead in his life, but if he follows my advice, is good with a bow, and uses a weapon at the appointed time, he will come home unharmed from SeaJourney. Perhaps not at the appointed time, but safe enough and with a tale to tell.”
Arken was puzzled. Stroebel said to be good with a bow, but there were no instructions to bring bows on SeaJourney, probably because the ship afforded no space for practice. Then what weapon should he carry? A knife? But if he fought with Gart and used a knife, the Academy would expel him. He felt confused and wondered if it wasn’t all nonsense, but he resolved to keep the soothsayer’s advice in mind if that would convince his mother to release him to his SeaJourney.
“What must I pay you?” Zela asked as they stood at the beaded curtain.
“Nothing! You paid once to learn of his future. It hasn’t changed, so neither has the fee.”
“Then Arken, have you decided?” Zela turned to her son. Her hands reached toward him for a second and trembled slightly, so she squeezed them together in her lap.
To Arken, it seemed as if she wanted to hide her hands away to prevent her fear from influencing him. Her eyes gazed at him from her beautiful face as they had since he could first remember the world, peaceful, intense, trying to be fair to him, but obviously so worried about his future.
“I’m good with my bow, Mother. I won’t forget what he has said.” He looked around the mural in the circular room. “This mural proves there are amazing places in this world. I feel drawn to them, Mother. I can’t help it. I want to go.”
