by Fiona Patton
“As many as can be found on the bottom of Gol-Beyaz Lake, Oracle. What color do you seek?”
“A green tasting of spring rain beating down on tiny shoots of grain, and at the same time a green so dark it transforms your mouth into a forest of dark mystery.”
Used to such analogies, the artisan merely nodded. “And the creature?”
“A sea turtle.” Panos lifted her head to stare directly into the sun for a single breath, allowing the dazzling brightness to wash over her like the morning tide. “Young and fresh.” She returned her attention to the artisan. “About the size of my hand. It entered the water this morning and its spirit led me here on a trail of seaweed.”
“Ah, yes. I knew it was for something special.” Bending, the woman lifted the figure of a small turtle from beneath the counter. The light green of its back and belly was streaked with a much darker green that gave it a slightly striped quality. “I carved it last year,” she said, “as I watched the young struggle to the sea.”
“Yes.” Panos lifted the turtle until she could stare into its tiny marble eyes. “It’s so hard to be born, and harder still to grow. But we’ll help it.” She set it down carefully. “Wrap it up, please; it’s going on a very long journey.”
“Of course, Oracle. Will there be anything else today?”
Panos swept her gaze across the displayed figures, her black eyes narrowing in concentration. “No,” she decided after a moment. “I only need one gift in marble and anything wooden would only get burned up.”
The woman immediately looked concerned. “Burned, Oracle?” she asked worriedly. “Is there to be a fire?”
“Oh, yes, but not here. It’s being set far, far to the north in a tower by the sea.”
“Ah. Well, I hope it won’t get out of control,” the woman said politely as she handed Panos the figure wrapped carefully in oilcloth.
“I imagine it will,” Panos answered. “But I’ll be there soon to keep an eye on it.” Glancing back toward the mansion perched on the hill overlooking the marketplace, she watched as a royal delegation from Skiros arrived, standards rippling in the breeze. “Right on time,” she said happily. Stretching out one hand, she stroked it down the length of an imaginary lover in gleeful anticipation before she turned and made her way back to her mother’s home and the message from King Pyrros.
Far to the north, Illan Volinsk felt an unusually warm breeze whisper through his hair as he settled himself by Cvet Tower’s highest window and closed his eyes.
He smelled burning.
Lifting his face to the tantalizing aroma of smoke that drifted through his thoughts, he opened his mind to accept the powerful new vision taking form before him.
Burning. Burning grain and burning grass, burning fields and burning homes. A new power had been born into the world on the wings of last night’s storm, with creation and destruction in equal measure crouched beneath its feet waiting to do its bidding, waiting for three children to light the fire of its birthing bed; a fire that might catch up the whole of the southern lands in flame, scorching the land in preparation for something wholly new and terrible.
Three children.
Illan reached out and drew their names from the coals of possibility on a trail of whispering gray smoke:
Graize and Brax and Spar.
He knew it. His breath quickened in excitement as each one paraded his destiny before him: standing on the brink of adulthood, Graize had already taken on the mantle of power and prophecy and Brax awaited nothing more than his God’s direction to throw his life away at Her command. Only Spar remained uncommitted to this new fire, standing in the wings, half hidden behind the God of Prophecy’s gray mantle, still so young and inexperienced despite all his untapped potential to shift the future from one stream to another. It only needed a gentle nudge to set his feet upon the path of Illan’s choosing before he was old enough to truly choose one for himself.
Outside the tower window, rain pelted against the sea in ribbons of gray mist, warning him that a fire could as easily be snuffed out as unleashed. He must be cautious still. He nodded. Just a nudge for now.
Sergeant Ysav’s characteristic thump against the uneven nineteenth step brought him back to himself just before the man advanced to the center of the room and saluted.
“You sent for me, sir?”
Illan turned from the window, his eyes as misty as the sky outside.
“It’s raining,” he said simply.
The sergeant frowned. “Sir?”
“It’s raining,” Illan repeated. “Rain brings first obscurity and then sweet-smelling clarity to both the physical and the metaphysical worlds.” He took a deep breath and slowly his eyes returned to their naturally dark color. “But first it brings obscurity.” Crossing to the atlas table, he began to clear an area along the western shoreline of Gol-Beyaz. “Let me pose a question of clarity to you on this rainy day, Vyns. Let us say that this,” he gestured, “is the enemy’s territory—which, of course, it is. And these,” he held up half a dozen armed figures, “are their forces.” He set them down carefully in a line along the shore. “Let us also say that these,” he held up another half a dozen mounted figures, “are their traditional enemies. Not,” he raised one finger, “their traditional northern enemies—those remain in a position of watchfulness for now.” He turned the figure of Cvet Tower so that it faced the western shore. “Nor any possible new enemy from either the south or from their own midst, but rather, their traditional western enemies, the Yuruk.” He set the mounted figures in a line facing the others.
“And the first enemy is ... the Anavatanon, sir?” Vyns hazarded.
“Yes, Sergeant, the Anavatanon, with their warriors, and their Gods, and their great wall protecting all that they hold.” Illan set a strip of pale blue-painted wood between the two forces. “So, here we have two peoples, the Anavatanon and the Yuruk. Now, if these two peoples are resolved to fight, to whom goes the advantage?”
Vyns shrugged. “The Anavatanon, traditionally, sir.”
“Agreed, and,” Illan gestured at Cvet Tower, “the Volinsk, for there will be deaths on both sides and this is always to our advantage, albeit in the short term. However, there are always variables which might extend the advantage to the long term if handled properly.” He frowned down at the table. “If handled properly,” he repeated.
“The Yuruk are massing to attack the village of Yildiz-Koy,” he continued with uncharacteristic bluntness. “Despite their so-called seers,” he added, his lip curling in disdain, “the Warriors of Estavia seem blissfully unaware of this. So what is the most likely outcome?”
Vyns scraped at a bit of stubble on his chin. “Does the village have adequate militia to fend them off, sir?”
“Ordinarily, yes, but the Yuruk have amassed a much larger force than usual due to the emergence of a new prophet in their midst: a charismatic young savage with madness in his eyes and the destiny of a thousand at his fingertips.”
“Sir?” Vyns asked, confused.
“Never mind.” Illan set the newly painted figure of a mounted seer on the table. “The outcome, Vyns.”
The sergeant shrugged. “If the village militia cannot drive them off, then the village is taken.”
“Yes. But if the village is taken, will the spirits that hover about our new prophet’s head like moths around a flame have the strength to break through the wall and reach Gol-Beyaz and by doing so tip their hand?” He stared at the expanse of white-and-silver painted waves in the center of the table as if the answer could be found amidst their swirling patterns. “I had thought perhaps they might have been strong enough this spring but that did not materialize,” he mused, “so I’m thinking not quite yet. So our young prophet is not planning to breach the wall this season; rather this is simply a raid to test the strength of his forces and build his leadership skills. And if they weaken the wall even a little, this will be all to the good. But will it also be all to the good for us?”
He turned to sta
re at the sergeant, his eyes paling to the color of summer clouds.
“There’s a new power rising, Vyns, a power that could destroy the Warriors of Estavia utterly. It’s still young, weak, and vulnerable, but it will quickly grow stronger and my question is: will this attack help it or hinder it? Will it rouse the Gods enough to cause Them to take the field, and if They do, what then?”
“If the Gods take the field, They’ll likely destroy this new, young power to keep it from destroying Their warriors, my lord,” Vyns answered.
“Yes, likely They will.”
“But the Yuruk have been raiding the villages around Gol-Beyaz for centuries,” the sergeant continued. “It doesn’t generally rouse the Gods, sir, does it?”
“No, but that’s because the Gods’ seers generally have a slightly greater modicum of true sight than they seem to have of late and so the Warriors of Estavia have always been able to mount an armed response.” Illan frowned. “So why are they so blind to this attack?”
“Something’s shielding it?”
“Some thing or someone.” Illan lifted the mounted prophet between finger and thumb. “Are you strong enough to accomplish this, Graize?” he asked it, staring into its tiny, painted face. “I wouldn’t have thought you were, but then you are a tricky little creature, aren’t you, and you’ve made some very tricky friends of late.” He set the figure down again, with a thoughtful expression. “It could be Incasa,” he considered. “He’s a tricky little creature, too. However, regardless of who or what may be shielding it, I don’t think I want the Gods involved just yet,” he decided, “so the Warriors of Estavia must be warned.”
“How, sir, if all their seers are blind?”
Illan smiled coldly. “By lifting that blindness from the one seer least likely to raise suspicion,” he answered, “The one seer they really should suspect, but never will until it’s far too late.” He smiled. “My seer.” Lifting Spar’s figure from its place atop Anahtar-Hisar, he reached out.
He smelled burning.
Lying beside Brax, Spar jerked in his sleep as his dreams filled with smoke. His eyes began to sting. He couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. He found himself falling and threw out a hand to catch himself, but just before the panic awakened him, the tower’s voice rose up and he knew it had put the smoke into his head just to frighten him.
“Bastard!” he spat.
The voice ignored him. “The wall,” it intoned.
Spar growled inarticulately back at it. Even since its ominous promise above the practice yard, the voice had been nagging at him, invading his dreams as well as his thoughts with insistent messages of misery and death delivered in such a smugly superior tone that it made him want to slap it. It was hard enough to ignore it in the daytime, but at night it was nearly impossible and it knew it.
“The wall,” it repeated, “will not hold.”
And suddenly his mind was filled with the image of tumbling stones. A choking fog of smoke and dust broiled out toward him and he stumbled back in fear. Then, as if from far away, Jaq, pressed tightly against his side, grumbled in his sleep, and Spar turned to drive his face into the dog’s neck, breathing in the heavy scent of earth and fur and ... manure.
He’d been rolling again. In seagull shit.
The very commonality of the thought calmed him.
“It’s a just a buggerin’ dream,” he told himself sternly. “It isn’t real.” Folding his arms, he planted his feet in the dream’s dust and regarded the pile of rubble with a deeply cynical sneer.
“The wall’s always held,” he told the voice in a tone of cutting disdain.
“No, it hasn‘t,” it replied, unimpressed by his bravado, “and you know it.”
The image faded to become the rain-spattered cobblestones of Liman-Caddesi and Spar felt his heart begin to pound overloud in his chest as the faintest tracery of silver-white mist began to drift toward him.
“Stop it,” he grated.
“Stop what?” the voice asked in a curious tone that belied the underlying spark of triumph beneath the words. “This is no vision of mine. This is a memory.”
And suddenly lightning skipped across the sky and Spar saw Drove, alive again, leap forward to jab his blade at Brax’s face. As the other boy fell back, he swept his own knife up, slicing through Drove’s jacket but missing the arm.
The slow, numbing panic that had taken hold of him that night came over Spar again as the memory played itself out. He found himself bending down, scrabbling in the sand for the rock he remembered throwing at Graize, who was even now running toward him, intent on stealing their one, their only chance of safety.
“Safety from what, Spar?”
“Shut up.”
The rock’s jagged edges scraped against his palm as he let it fly. For a second he thought it might hit the other boy this time, but Graize only swayed out of the way and kept coming, but slower now as if he waded through deep water.
Spar looked down.
The mist had thickened, clinging to his feet and legs like strands of sticky sea grass. He kicked out at them, but for every strand that released its grip another took its place. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to see the savage teeth and claws that he knew were rising from their midst, but then the other boys were screaming and he opened his eyes.
Drove was struggling against a swarm of ghostly beings that tore frantically at his body, sucking up the blood that welled from a dozen wounds across his face and chest while Graize stared past him, frozen in terror. Brax was shouting at Spar to hide, but as he turned, Graize shook off his fear and, catching him by the collar, sent him spinning into the street toward a sea of blood-maddened creatures spewing out from between the buildings. Skidding on the slippery cobblestones, he tumbled into their midst.
The creatures leaped upon him at once, tearing at his hair and clothes, reaching flesh a second later. He heard himself scream, felt a blazing, numbing pain shoot through his mind, freezing his ability to sense the possibilities, and then Brax was wrapped about him, shielding him from their attack with his own body and, knife hand thrust into the air like a fiery brand, was shouting out the words that had saved their lives that night, the words that had summoned a God.
“Save us, God of Battles, and I will pledge you my life, my worship, AND MY LAST DROP OF BLOOD, FOREVER!”
The words seemed to explode all around them, blazoning across the night sky like a beacon. As the dream shattered under the force of Brax’s promise, Spar felt the voice flinch away from the brightness of it, and struggling to his feet, he began to laugh.
“That’s right!” he crowed. “Brax called Estavia and She came! He saved us!”
“What of it?” the voice replied. “The wall is breached. Next time it will fall, and everyone you know will die, including your precious Brax.”
Spar’s hands balled themselves into fists. “No, he won‘t!” he shouted. “Brax’ll be Her Champion, the greatest ever since Kaptin Haldin, and he’ll keep your stupid wall from falling; you’ll see!”
“Oh, will he? And how do you know that, little seer? How do you know that for certain?”
“I just do!”
The faintest outline of a figure cloaked in a spinning vortex of power suddenly towered over him. “Oh, no, you don‘t,” he said darkly, “but you soon will. You’re nine years old—remember, Spar—you’re not five, but neither are you fifteen. You’re a child, a child who may not make it to adulthood without my help.”
Hands snaked out from the vortex, clamping around Spar’s head like a pair of iron bands. He fought against them, but then his head was splitting open like an egg, sights and sounds and smells spilling out faster than he could catch them. He saw Brax struggling against a hundred sharp-clawed creatures of power and need in a sea of blood-flecked mist. He saw the waves crash over him, saw them knock him off his feet, and saw the creatures closing over his head as he went down. And for one brief moment he saw himself standing on a battlement in the pouring rain, holding the f
uture in his hands before Brax’s death washed over him again.
“I told you I would aid your sight and so I shall,” the voice thundered at him as a howling wind rose up all around them. “See! Incasa drew this vision from the very depths of prophecy, the God of Battle’s Champion overrun and vanquished! They know he will not stand!”
“That’s the past!” Spar shouted, knowing even as he said it that it was the truth. “I can feel it!”
“What of it?” the voice scoffed. “The vision wasn’t altered when Estavia took his oath, it was only delayed. The spirits drew strength from the unsworn on Havo’s Dance, and when they join forces with the Yuruk this season, the wall will topple. The riders of the wild lands will cut through all resistance like a scythe through a grain field and the spirits will flow after them. If they reach the shining waters of Gol-Beyaz, neither Gods nor Warriors, nor even gifted young Champions thrust all too unready into battle will be able to stop them. You know this; you can feel it, too.”
“So, what do you care?” Spar demanded, eyes narrowed in the wind.
“I don‘t, but you might. You might care just enough to stop it.”
And from somewhere deep within his mind a field of flaming grain rose up all around him. He heard screaming and the sounds of battle and, as the fire raced toward him, driven by a thousand years of madness and hunger denied, he knew this was the future unless—he struggled to catch the one illusive image that refused to come to him—unless ...
“That’s right, little seer, reach for it,” the voice urged. “Unless what? Unless the Warriors of Estavia take the field? Unless Brax does? Do they need your great Champion so soon? And will he survive it if they do?”
Throwing his mind out like a fishing net, Spar jerked the answer from the fire and saw Brax, bloody but alive, rising from the smoke, his eyes the color of blood. The relief he felt was almost physical.
