The Seer

by Rowan McAllister

  Ravi grimaced, and Daks took his hand under the table again, giving it a squeeze. “I can’t even tell you what I said. I don’t remember any of it. Sorry.”

  He braved a glance upward to gauge Lyuc’s response, but the man simply smiled knowingly. “I thought so. That’s the way prophecies usually work for the poor soul burdened with giving them. That’s all right. I just hoped it might be easier this time.”

  “You’ve heard prophecies before?” Ravi asked, curious enough to meet the man’s gaze dead on.

  Lyuc’s green eyes crinkled at the corners, and his teeth gleamed behind the copper strands of his beard. “I’ve been around for a few in my time.”

  Yan snorted, but it must have been an inside joke, because Daks didn’t seem to get it either.

  “Do you know what it means?” Daks asked.

  “I believe some, but not all,” Lyuc replied enigmatically. He sat back in his chair and stretched his legs out, mirroring Daks’s earlier pose.

  A pipe appeared in his hands, and he lifted it to his lips and sucked as he pointed a finger at the bowl. The shredded dried leaves flared to smoky orange life without benefit of any flame, and Ravi gasped. To his surprise, Daks also tensed at his side.

  “Show-off,” Yan murmured under his breath, and that actually eased some of Ravi’s fear.

  “Who are you?” Daks asked baldly. “You’re not of the Scholomagi. And you don’t work magic like any witch, priest, or shaman I’ve ever seen. How is it I’ve never heard of you?”

  “Oh, you’ve heard of me,” Lyuc said, his wry grin widening behind his pipe.

  Tas groaned, and Yan swatted Lyuc’s arm gently before saying, “It’s rude to tease a guest, oh great-and-powerful-one.”

  Yan’s last words held enough gentle mocking that Ravi was torn between smiling and scooting closer to Daks.

  “Mind enlightening us?” Daks asked with a hint of a growl behind his words, and Ravi clutched at his hand, hoping he’d get the hint that he needed to be careful.

  “Sorry,” Yan said, leaning forward with an apologetic grimace. “He can get a little puffed up from time to time. He was out in the wilds by himself too long.”

  Lyuc pulled his pipe away and stuck his tongue out at Yan, but Yan only smiled. “Suffice it to say, he’s a lot older than he looks… and acts. But maybe tonight isn’t the right time to get into all of that. You’re both probably tired from your journey, and we’ve taken you away from your friends. I’m sure Fara can help fill you in on some of it later.”

  Daks pursed his lips as if he were weighing his options, but after a few beats and a quick glance at Ravi, he nodded.

  “Maybe we should,” he agreed. “But before we go, I’d like to know what your intentions are for us.”

  “Intentions?” Yan asked, looking reassuringly confused.

  “Are we free to come and go as we please?” Daks clarified.

  The strangers exchanged glances until Lyuc said, “As long as you pose no threat to anyone here, you may do whatever you wish. I would like to talk to you a little more about any other Visions you may have had lately, Ravi, but it isn’t urgent.”

  “Did you discuss the prophecy at all with Fara?” Daks asked. “Does she know your thoughts on it?”

  “No. I have not,” Lyuc replied.

  “Then will you share them with us so we might discuss it amongst ourselves?”

  Everyone leaned forward, all eyes on the wizard.

  “If you’re sure you really want to get into this tonight,” Lyuc murmured, quirking an eyebrow.

  “I’m sure,” Daks replied with his usual bluster.

  “As you wish.” He took another puff of his pipe and settled back in his chair. “Now the first thing you must know is almost all prophecies are vague enough to be open to interpretation. Like with the one heralding the coming of Rassa’s blessed Harot.” He grimaced. “I’d heard it secondhand from a passing merchant and believed it meant one thing, but what actually happened was nothing like what I expected. I might have done something to stop it otherwise.”

  Ravi frowned in confusion. The man spoke as if he’d been there in person when Harot had returned from the Riftlands and ascended to join the gods, but that couldn’t be right.

  “Lyuc,” Yan murmured gently.

  The wizard glanced at him and smiled. “Right. Getting off topic. What I meant is that you should take my interpretation with a grain of salt. So, there’s the first lines: ‘To heal the wound, you will need the strength of all. Twin roses of the winds, ever after entwined: the pillar and the shield.’”

  Ravi listened closely, since it was his first time hearing it, but it meant absolutely nothing to him.

  “This may sound a bit conceited,” Lyuc continued, throwing at smile at Yan, “but if I choose to believe the prophecy was meant for me—or us—I have to conclude the ‘wound’ is referring to the Rift. If that’s the case, your prophecy could be very important indeed, particularly with regards to another prophecy I’ve only recently learned about.” He turned his gaze toward Tas. “Did Singer have anything to say about it today?”

  As Ravi gaped at Lyuc in growing fear and disbelief, Tas shook his head. “He asked to be alone with… his friends.” Tas shot a meaningful glance in their direction before facing Lyuc again. “But that’s where he prefers to be most of the time. If he had any thoughts, he kept them to himself.”

  “Stubborn rock,” Lyuc grumbled. “But it’s a fair guess that is what it’s referring to.”

  “Closing the Rift,” Ravi choked out. “Like, you’re talking about the Rift, the hole in the world that monsters come through.”

  Yan stood up and came around the table, while Ravi was still shifting his gaze between each of them, trying to determine if this was all some kind of joke. After sitting down next to him, Yan gave him an understanding smile. “This is why I tried to save this conversation for later. It’s a lot to take in all at once.”

  Ravi shifted backward, mostly on instinct. The last thing he wanted was another Vision involving these people, given what little he’d learned so far.

  Daks squeezed his hand again to get his attention. “Do you want to go?” he asked, ignoring everyone else. “I can come back to get the rest, but I think we really need to know what’s going on before we make any decisions.”

  Ravi shook his head. “No. I’ll stay. I’m the one that spouted it, after all. I’m not going to be just some vessel for fate or the gods. I control my own life.”

  He spoke with more determination than he felt, but Daks’s smile was proud as he placed his other hand over their joined ones.

  “Good for you,” Yan murmured encouragingly.

  Lyuc cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s attention back to him. “Shall I continue?”

  At Ravi’s nod, he explained, “So, as you all probably know, a rose of the winds is a compass rose, which could mean from every possible direction, or something more basic, like the rose itself, an eight-pointed star. The latter part of the prophecy makes me lean toward that, given it names eight things: three that we must ‘cleave to,’ four we must ‘gather,’ and one who will ‘come.’ That’s eight. But the ‘twin’ part leads me to believe there must be two of them—‘the pillar and the shield’—which would be sixteen and not eight.” He grimaced and took another puff from his pipe, his attention drawn inward. “‘Free the stones from Black Tower to Knowledge’s heart’ seems a bit more straightforward, but worrisome at the same time. Obviously, the Black Tower is in Blagos Keep. The Brotherhood built the keep around Ryarth’s black tower almost five hundred years ago, and it’s where the Thirty-Six go when they aren’t out on missions. With what Singer told us of the other prophecy, we already know we must gather their stones, but ‘Knowledge’s heart’ is something else altogether.”

  When Lyuc fell silent for several beats, frowning, Yan moved to his side again and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “Lyuc, what’s wrong?”

  “Something I thought was sa
fely locked away and forgotten a long time ago. I don’t like that someone or something remembers its existence.” Lyuc looked at Ravi as he said it, and Ravi shivered and turned away.

  “I don’t know where the Visions come from or what they mean most of the time,” he protested.

  Daks tensed next to him, and Ravi allowed himself to be pulled against his broad chest for comfort. So much in his life had gotten so complicated. He was having a hard time keeping up.

  “Right,” Lyuc said a little more gently. “Anyway. We need to collect the stones and gather the points of the star or stars—who or whatever they are. That seems fairly clear and only marginally troubling. But that warning he gave at the end concerns me more. The Seer looked right at me when he said it, and he called me Riftwielder. There aren’t any other Riftwielders in the three kingdoms… or there weren’t. ‘Another has returned,’ he said.” Lyuc paused and glanced at each of his companions. “Yan and I have told you about the magic-wielding Spawn we faced. And we all know what happened in the mountains last winter was no accident. Livestock missing or killed with no one knowing how. Food stores rotted inside their barrels and crates. Clan members disappearing, no matter how many shields or barriers we put up or how many times we tried to scry out the culprits… and the shaman and chief dying, of course.” Lyuc turned back to Ravi and Daks, his eyes grave. “Your friend will fill you in on the details, but the gist of it is, Girik’s clan was pushed out of the mountains by unseen forces, and other clans may have suffered similar fates. The energy contained beneath the Great Barrier Mountains is too strong and chaotic to get a good read on what was happening, or from where it originated. But the warning in the prophecy does not ease my mind on the subject, not after some of the things we’ve seen.”

  Ravi shivered, and Daks tightened his arms around him. “Sorry to be blunt,” Daks cut in, “but I think we’ve heard all we need to. It sounds like this prophecy doesn’t have much to do with us, even though Ravi had to be the one to deliver it. You all seem to have a lot to discuss, so, uh, we’ll just go and leave you to it. Thanks for dinner and everything else.”

  Without waiting for a response, Daks rose to his feet and tugged Ravi with him, leaving his mostly full tankard on the table. They’d only taken two steps toward the door when Lyuc spoke again, stopping them.

  “You may have more of a part to play than you think.”

  Ravi winced, and Daks let out a pained groan as they both slowly turned to the wizard.

  “Your Seer’s prophecy said, ‘Cleave to your heart, your sight, and the bearer of your burden,’” Lyuc continued. “Now, my heart could simply be a metaphor for my feelings, and my sight a clarity of thought or vision, but the last part makes me think not. Ravi, you could have said ‘cleave to my burden,’ but you didn’t. You said cleave to the bearer of my burden, which makes me think it’s meant to be a person.” He turned to look at Tas, who started, eyes widening. “We know what my burdens are. You are the bearer of one of them.” He tipped his head back to gaze up at Yan, who still stood behind him with hands on his shoulders. “Following that logic, you know who my heart must be.” They shared a sappy look before Lyuc leveled his gaze at Ravi again. “Who do you think my sight is, then? I tell you now, I have many talents, and power and knowledge no one else alive possesses, but the gift of Sight is not among them.”

  Ravi began to regret that stew he’d crammed down his throat. Daks stepped in close to his side, his body stiff.

  “But as you said, you can’t be sure of any interpretation of prophecy,” he argued. “And Ravi isn’t the only Seer in the world. The prophecy might not have even meant a Seer at all. ‘Your sight’ could be anything.”

  “But he is the Seer who brought us the prophecy, and he is the one standing here with us now,” Lyuc countered.

  “Exactly. He did his part. We’ll leave you to do yours. We’ll see ourselves out.”

  Daks covered the distance to the door in a couple of quick strides, grabbed their cloaks off the hooks, and lifted an arm to usher Ravi outside. Ravi stumbled into the dark in a daze, his mind awash with questions and anxieties. The comforting weight of the cloak Daks draped over his shoulders helped, but his head was spinning as they hurried to the cabin where Shura and Mistress Sabin waited, without a backward glance.

  He didn’t participate much in the conversation that followed, once they’d closed and bolted the door. He let the words wash over him as Daks explained what had happened, Shura and Mistress Sabin shared what they’d learned of their hosts, and all three of them argued possible interpretations of a prophecy Ravi couldn’t even remember saying. He should have been listening closer, particularly given everything Lyuc had said—and not even counting his love of fantastic stories—but he was too tired to make sense of it. His thoughts wanted to go in too many directions at once.

  The gods were making him regret all those times he’d wished and prayed to be in one of those tales from his childhood. He’d laugh if he wasn’t worried he wouldn’t be able to stop once he started. The Rift, Spawn, wizards, sacred stones, and cryptic prophecies? Not even counting the adventure he’d already had and the declaration of love he hadn’t even had a chance to let sink in. He was no hero from a tale, no warrior or magic user. Whatever magic he had used him, not the other way around. Tales were for childish dreamers. He was supposed to have been a scribe, or a scholar, or teacher at the very most. He hadn’t even been that much for the past ten years. What was he doing here?

  Dragging a hand over his face, he sighed.

  Tomorrow, he promised himself.

  He’d try to make sense of this craziness tomorrow when he’d had a chance to catch his breath.

  “Daks?”

  Daks stopped midsentence and turned to him.

  “Can we go to bed now? Please?”

  Daks’s eyebrows drew down for a second before his expression softened. “Sure. It’s been a long day for all of us. We’ll have clearer heads after some rest anyway. They shouldn’t bother us again tonight, if they know what’s good for them.”

  Despite looking drawn and pale, Shura quirked her lips slightly at the ridiculousness of his implied threat, given who and what was out there. She rose slowly from her spot at the end of the bed, and Mistress Sabin helped get her settled beneath the covers. Relieved everyone agreed, Ravi shuffled to the far side of the second bed, took off his boots, and stretched out beneath the blankets without bothering to undress any further.

  Both beds in the cabin were quite narrow, but no one seemed to mind as Shura and Mistress Sabin cuddled up together in theirs and Daks put out the lamp and slid in next to him.

  “Are you all right?” Daks murmured, tucking Ravi against his side and wrapping an arm around him to hold him close.

  “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “A lot has happened.”

  A breathy chuckle rumbled through Daks’s chest. “You could say that again. But we’ll figure it out.”

  Ravi smiled against Daks’s chest. When had that overabundance of confidence become more charming than annoying? He chose not to question it or him and closed his eyes.

  Chapter Seventeen

  RAVI FELT surprisingly good when he rolled out of bed the following morning. Even waking up entirely alone in a strange place didn’t seem to bother him as much as he thought it would. Someone had left him a small tray of bread, butter, and some now cold honeyed tea, and he ate unhurriedly as he pondered his odd newfound calm, poking and prodding at it with a strange detachment.

  He’d slept curled in Daks’s arms all night long, pressed together not for sex, but for comfort and connection. That could definitely be one reason why he was no longer feeling overwhelmed and anxious.

  He loves me.

  He rolled that thought around in his mind, but he had a feeling it would take a while before it really sank in and took root. Slowly and deliberately, he changed into the set of freshly cleaned and mended clothing someone had kindly left folded in a neat pile at the end of the bed. Man
y thoughts fluttered at the back of his mind, not frantic, fearful, or loud, but soft, determined, and possibly even hopeful. He felt… settled, which was a sensation he hadn’t experienced in a long time and seemed distinctly at odds with his current situation.

  After pulling on his boots and cloak, he stepped out into the cool, mist-shrouded morning without bothering to draw up the hood. A soft breeze caressed his cheeks, and he smiled despite the chill. For some reason, the fog didn’t seem anywhere near as unnerving or oppressive as it had the last time he’d been in the boglands.

  He started walking toward the muffled sounds of the villagers going about their day, but not in any rush. He needed just a little more time for his thoughts to finish taking shape and to fully understand where this new feeling came from before he went in search of Daks.

  With each welcoming or curious set of eyes he boldly met as he made his way through the village, his confidence grew. This might be Rassa, but he wasn’t alone in his strangeness here. These people lived alongside men far stranger than himself. If he had a Vision, no one would call the Brotherhood, and he doubted anyone would shun him. Hells, they all had to know about his prophecy by now, and they still greeted him kindly. It was a revelation of sorts.

  When he caught sight of Tas, the former pain priest, his newfound calm faltered a bit. Apparently, shoving aside a lifetime of fear wouldn’t be quite as speedy a process as he might’ve hoped. But when Tas spotted him and changed direction, Ravi lifted his chin and didn’t run away.

  “Good morning,” Tas greeted hesitantly.

  “Good morning.”

  “I, uh, hope you’re feeling better today, now that you’ve rested.”

  Tas’s awkwardness did much to ease Ravi’s fear of him—though the fact that he wasn’t wearing red robes or his holy stone helped immensely. Tas was only a man, and one who seemed almost as troubled by Ravi as Ravi was by him.

  “I am. This is all a bit much to take in, though.”

  Tas’s smile was sympathetic. “It is. I would be lying if I didn’t say I suffered through months of turmoil and uncertainty before wrapping my head around Singer, Lyuc, Bryn, and all the rest. I was very lucky to have Girik by my side, or I might have lost it altogether more than once, so I perfectly understand your feelings.”