Chapter 8 - The Seer

Ullden's own supplies were dwindling as he had not planned for more than a day here. He had also thought he would be able to resupply, and now knew that what he had would need to last him until the next town that wasn't innundated with refugees. He'd just left word with the cobbler that he was going to have to move on. He'd go and see if Vera had any news of Wellar. It was likely that she had seen him more recently than he had.

He made his way out of the keep and back to his small camp, where he finished packing up the last of his belongings. He had been hoping that the rain would stop and he could put some things away dry, but it seemed his hopes were in vain. While the canvas tent had managed to keep some things dry inside it, most of his belongings were soaked through. The rain was heavy and persistant.

He took the last of his dry blankets and used it to try and dry Banks down some before quickly getting his saddle into place. He could tell the horse was irritated too, but had nothing left to give the horse as a consolation. Instead, he loaded up the gear, trying to wrap the canvas tent around everything to keep it from getting any wetter than it already was. Once he was finished, he pulled himself up onto the horse, pulling the wet hood of his cloak further down over his forehead. It wouldn't keep him dry anymore, but at least it funneled the rain from going into his eyes. Once they'd picked their way through the crowds of people and encampments on the hillside, Ullden urged Banks into a gallop. At least they were heading a different direction than the storm itself, which meant that eventually they'd find their way out of it. He hoped it would be soon.

He rode through the day, and although the rain lightened a little, it did not stop. He eventually set up his wet tent in the rain and crawled into it. There was no dry wood around to make a fire with. He ate cold bread that had only just started getting damp. His food was about the only thing he'd been able to keep mostly dry.

The next day was only a light drizzle, and the morning after that he woke up to sunshine. The warm sun on his face lifted his spirits. Even Banks seemed to have a livelier step, and he sped up the pace just a little.

It took another day before he was able to get a fire going. The day after that he saw a majestic looking stag watching him from a stand of trees. Part of him regretted not having a bow to take it down with. Another part of him wanted to let the creature go in peace.

He continued on. He frequently passed others going the same direction as he was. Most of them walked or traveled with slow, ox-drawn wagons. They largely plodded along dejectedly. Very few looked up at him at all. Those who did he nodded at politely. Nobody smiled, and he never saw anyone going the other direction.

It was another two days before Ullden came to the next town. It was barely enough to even be called a town, mostly it seemed that a few merchants had set up shop around a corner where a couple of farmers had built their homes where the edges of their fields met. There were some homes and four shops. He had no interest in the metalworker, cobbler, or tailor, but did pay a visit to the general store. While the supplies were limited, he was able to replenish some food for his journey. While corn, apples, and other recently harvested crops were available, he found that most of what the store lacked was food that wouldn't spoil as easily. Their selection of bread was slim and mostly made from the coarser grains. Jarred goods were entirely out of stock, as was any form of nuts or preserved meat. There was some fresh meat available, but they were also out of stock, so he only bought enough to cook that night and eat the next day. It was probably one of the more obscure assortment of foods he'd bought over the course of his travels.

It would take him another two weeks of travel time to reach where Vera supposedly had gone. While he'd been in the area on previous occasions, he found himself traveling roads he hadn't been on before. He saw the occasional orchard in with the farms, sometimes as a side crop a farmer also maintained. He stopped at them here and there as most of them had put wooden painted signs along the road and would sell some of the yield to passing travelers. He was able to pick up some early squash and the occasional eggs in with the corn, apples, and other items they had harvested. He was also able to pick up some wheat bread from one farm where the farmer's wife had just made several loaves. He also had a better selection of grains for Banks to choose from and he purchased a couple of bags. He planned to keep them in reserve in case things got worse when winter came. He was suddenly glad he'd had some decent enough paying jobs not long ago.

The amount of people headed the same way as he was seemed to thin out as he got closer. While he was headed on a more northeast course, most people seemed to be heading as far north as they could get. On the few times he camped with others, he heard talk of the Elar coming in through the savage lands as well, not far southeast of the lands he was already in. While another Duke's lands were between this one's and the savage lands, people didn't seem to expect it to take long before the Elar made their way through. Within a few days of the Duke's keep, he began to hear talk of a seer that the Duke had in his employ who was giving the Duke warnings of the war coming to his lands. Ullden could only assume it was likely to be Vera. He hoped that she would remember him well enough, as it began to sound as if she held a rather esteemed position with the Duke.

The keep itself capped a rocky hill. It was surrounded by the small city of Argenstern, and was the seat of the duchy. The city was a sprawling affair of low, mostly single level buildings. There were some taller estate buildings for lesser nobles around the keep, but most of the city was considered somewhat poorly constructed. There wasn't even a wall around the city.

As he drew closer he could see that the city had almost doubled in size since his last visit. Most of the new growth seemed to have happened very recently. Many of the buildings were little more than impromptu shacks. There were whole villages of tents clustered around the fringes.

He rode into the edge of the expanded sprawl. Right in with tents were roped off corrals of pigs and cows. Chickens were everywhere. Children ran about, sometimes chasing the chickens. Boxes and crates and bags looked scattered almost at random.

He passed a tent that had been pitched on top of a farmer's cart, with the side ropes nailed to the edge of the cart rather than staked to the ground. An old woman sat on a rocking chair petting a small brown dog. She looked up at him and offered a very false looking smile short several teeth. Her hair hadn't been washed in far too long. He gave her an acknowledging nod and rode on.

Within the city itself the streets were far too crowded. He watched carefully to keep Banks from stepping on anyone. Street merchants hawked wares at prices only slightly lower than he'd passed in the prior weeks. Children and adults alike begged for money or scraps of food.

He passed several shops that had their awnings lowered over closed windows rather than propped up and open. Soldiers marched the streets keeping a tenuous looking order. The air even smelled of over-crowding. He could remember the smell of fresh bread that had seemed to welcome him to every corner the last time he was here. There was none of that now.

It took Ullden some time to pick his way through to the gates of the keep. He saw that the guard posted there was especially heavy and the crowded state of the city outside was being held at bay. He noticed that some people glared at the keep angrily as they passed it, and he suspected that the Duke was not overly loved by the people as of late. He dismounted and walked up to the gate leading Banks. The guards immediately stepped forward to stop him once he was within just a few feet of the entrance itself.

"Halt! State your business or remove yourself at once!" one guard said in a loud voice.

"I'm here to see Vera, the Seer," Ullden answered. "My name is Ullden."

"No one sees the Duke's Seer," the guard said.

"If you would please send someone to let her know I am here," he told the guard.

"That will not be necessary," said a feminine voice from a figure beyond the gates. She stepped forwards and pushed back the hood on her black cloak, and Ullden saw Vera smile. "I would not be much of a Seer if I hadn't seen you coming, Ullden," she told him. "Let him through."

To his amazement, the guards stepped immediately and neatly out of his way. Vera gestured him to follow her and he led Banks through the doorway and into the courtyard. The sound of their footsteps on the cobblestones seemed to echo against the stone walls, in sharp contrast to the crowded streets outside. She led him first to a stables, where she instructed some boys to take care of his horse and bring his belongings to some room she specified. Then she had him follow her into the large central building of the keep.

"You saw me coming?" he asked her, once they were alone in the hallways. "I only came here to see if you'd heard from Wellar."

"I've not heard from Wellar in some years, although he did visit with me shortly after Mekin's death," she told him. "But you have been in my visions as of late, Ullden. Something of great importance is coming and you will be a part of it."

"Now Vera," he said, touching her arm gently to stop her. She turned and looked at him. Her face had aged some since he'd last seen her and her blue eyes were filled with worry. Dark circles ringed her eyes and she'd lost a considerable amount of weight from the lively woman he'd met before. "You know I've never placed much faith in your visions..."

"Indeed," she admitted with a small nod. "But have you ever known them to be wrong, Ullden?" She didn't wait for an answer, but turned and continued down the hallway.

He followed her, his mouth open and lacking a useful reply. She had made a few predictions when they'd been together before, and he had had to admit even then that she never seemed to be wrong. But then there had been some confrontation with a priest and she had hastily left town. She never had told him about it.

"Come in and have some tea. I have some ready and waiting," she said as they came to a doorway and she stopped and opened it. She went in without waiting for him. He followed her and closed the door behind him.

She had a small apartment of her own. There was a small round central sitting room, with curtained doorways leading off to two other rooms. She went through one of the curtains, instructing him to sit. There were two smallish, padded armchairs facing each other across a minimal table.

He looked at the chair skeptically, afraid it would collapse under him and his armor. He sat in it carefully, and it didn't even creak.

She came back holding a tray that was bigger than the table she set it on. There were two steaming cups and a clay pot shaped like a dragon. The tail curved up to be a handle, with the mouth being the pour spout. Steam curled up out of the nostrils. She picked up both cups and handed him one of them before she sat down.

"Go on then, ask your questions," she said after they'd been sipping at the tea for a moment. "I'm sure you have plenty."

"First, let me express my sympathies," Ullden said, resting the cup on the top of the armored portion of his leg while he spoke. "Mekin was a good man."

"There was nothing that could be done for him," she said quietly, looking into her tea. "He would appreciate your words. The two of you always found much to discuss."

"Yes," he replied, taking a moment to remember the bookkeeper fondly. There had been times when he and Mekin had talked long into the night, theorizing on how a battle might have gone differently if slightly different tactics had been used, or comparing the attributes to different styles of armor and weighing their pros and cons. Mekin had been one to remember an odd assortment of facts about many things, and had read extensively out of the books he sold as well as others he managed to get his hands on.

"What brought you to this place?" He asked finally, moving his mind back to the present.

"Duke Radrek Lagenz," she said with a strange look on her face. "He heard of me and sought me out. The man is paranoid to a fault and likes to cover all bases. Apparently he and the local Bishop don't always see eye to eye so he was looking for an alternative means of self-preservation and found me to be easier to stomach than hiring a wizard."

"Easier to stomach?"

"Wizards who've earned enough reputation to be worth hiring on permanently are also expensive to keep happy," she replied. "Although I increased my expenses on him once he decided to make me his mistress from time to time too. His wife Elsa is far from pleased about that as he hardly bothers to make any pretense."

"Are you alright here Vera?" Ullden asked, his eyebrows rising in surprise.

"Oh, I'm fine," she replied with a look that he could only term as vindictive. "What the dear Duke doesn't know is that I've also forseen his death. And I fully intend to be there to watch. I'm tempted to let his wife in on that as well. She's actually quite sweet. It was an arranged marriage."

"I see." Although Ullden wasn't entirely sure he did see, the look on Vera's face left him little expectation that she might be talked out of staying for that event. He wondered just what kind of death she'd seen for the Duke, but he kept that thought to himself for the moment.

He suddenly realized that he didn't have a lot of questions after all. He felt on the spot just then. He looked into his tea feeling a little embarrassed. That had happened before around her, though. Sometimes she knew things that were just a little too insightful for his comfort. He took a sip of the tea, which was very tasty as her teas always were.

"So, any idea how bad things are going to get with the Elar?" he asked abruptly.

"Worse than most expect," she said. He looked up and she looked down into her own tea before continuing. "A dark time is coming, Ullden. But just when it seems that things are as bad as they can get, it will end abruptly and the Elar might will collapse like a wave that has run too far ashore."

"So what have you seen?" he asked, "How far will they get?"

"No army can stop them. There is no fortress they cannot overtake. And yet somehow there is a glimmer of hope. A child will defeat the source of their power. That is why you are here."

"No," he countered. "I'm here because I couldn't find Wellar and thought you might know something."

She smiled a very patronizing smile. She had used that smile before. Fortunately she had never quite been smug about it. But it meant she had won an argument he hadn't even known had started. He sighed, hating feeling not in control of his own life.

"So," he said with a sigh, "are you going to just tell me what it is you've seen about me in your readings? Or do I have to wait and try and decipher cryptic messages like you used to give some people to avoid giving them bad news?"

"It's not just readings anymore, actually," she told him. "I picked up one of those crystal spheres after I started having some extraordinarily vivid dreams come true. I spend some time with it each day and it seems to have made it so I can sleep nights again at least." She paused a moment and chuckled. "I've quite literally seen visions of you in it, Ullden. Although, I'd like to do a reading with the cards with you before I tell you more. I'd also like to take a look at that cup you're drinking from after you've finished the tea in it."

He nodded and sighed at her at the same time. He'd found out in the past that once Vera had set her mind to do a reading on someone they were hard pressed to get out of it. It didn't seem to matter whether they believed in her abilities or not, she still seemed to get accurate readings off the people. If he didn't agree now, she'd find some way to get him to touch the cards so she could do the reading anyway. He learned it was easier just to let her do it. It wasn't as if she was asking him for blood or anything.

"Wonderful. I'll be right back," she said. She quickly refilled their teacups before taking the tray off with her. When she came back she had a velvet-lined board she placed over the table instead, and a deck of elaborately painted cards. He recognized the cards themselves. She'd had them for years. He remembered her saying she'd gotten them from a gypsy artist she'd known. Apparently the man had painstakingly hand-painted them especially for her. They were well-used and getting worn at the corners, but had been painted with durable enough paints that the images were still visible. He suspected, however, that she must have had someone touch them up now and again to keep them that way.

She shuffled the deck a few times and then set the deck on the board in front of where he sat. He reached over and placed his hand on the deck for a moment, doing his best not to look overly resigned about it, before sitting back a bit to watch while he sipped his tea. The chair did creak a bit when he sat back and he winced and tried to be careful again. She picked up the deck again and began laying them out in some elaborate configuration of rows with cards connecting them in specific places.

"Hmm, The Maiden," she said, pointing to a card depicting a young girl dancing in a field with six oversized yellow flowers. "That's not surprising. And see, here's the Celebration card. She's coming here to a party the Duke's throwing. That's where you'll meet her."

"Is that the child you mentioned earlier? The one that saves everyone?"

"Yes," she said, drawing out the word in a strange crooning fashion. "There is also the journey card with the Six of Swords. You will be going somewhere. It will be a long journey with many hardships. Six of them in particular, I'd say."

"There is also the death card. One of you will not return from this journey. There is the nine of trumpets--you will succeed." She paused, looking over the rest of the cards. She studied them, now and then letting out a hurm.

"There is the Two of Rings--The Eyes card. Someone will be watching you, or perhaps watching out for you, or perhaps someone watching trying to stop you. Some of this is unclear." There was a whole branch of the pattern she had said nothing about. He considered asking her about it, but he knew she didn't like it when people did that. He held back for the moment. "Some of this is inconclusive," she said, gathering up the cards in apparent frustration. "Too much of it makes no sense. Perhaps later a meaning will be clear, but not today."

"You said you'd had visions as well?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied, stacking the cards neatly together and shuffling them a few times before setting them aside. "I saw you coming here very clearly. There is also a priest, a Father... Rolin. I only know his name because I saw the Duke's messenger speaking to him before the Duke ever sent the man. I got his name from the messenger when he returned. And certain cards keep showing up in every reading I do about the war. Some of it I just can't make sense of yet. I've taken notes though. When the time comes for you to leave, I'll give you the notebook. Perhaps some of the things I've written down will make sense to you as you go."

She leaned forward in her chair and looked at Ullden intently.

"Do you know how I've always maintained that what I do is a gift, granted by the Gods?"

"Yes," he nodded. "I seem to recall that's provoked some interesting arguments with more than one priest in the past."

"After Mekin died, I lost my touch for a while, Ullden. I couldn't get accurate readings on anything anymore. I was consumed by grief and it clouded everything."

"That's to be expected, Vera," he leaned forward and touched her arm, ignoring the protest of the chair. "I know you two loved one another very much-"

"It's how they came back that surprised me. The dreams began first. I saw the Duke. I saw myself leaving with him. The next day I did a reading and all manner of strange things turned up and everything was much stronger. I was accurate before, but now I'm getting more detail than ever. It's as if..." She trailed off, looking both excited and concerned at the same time. "Sometimes I feel as if I'm being led a little, made to see things so that I don't miss them. But I can feel that it's important. If you don't go on this journey, Ullden, we'll lose the war. I'm sure of it. I think you're supposed to protect this child, this girl. To make sure she does whatever it is she's supposed to do. I've never felt so sure of anything in my life."

She sat back in her chair again and let out a long sigh.

"I don't suppose you have any guess as to what it is she's supposed to do?" he asked, sinking into his chair a little. He knew she had committed him to going gods knew where on some apparently desperate quest. He sighed.

"No, but she won't do it alone. I'm pretty sure that she'll need to be taken to the priest. He won't know that she has anything to do with it. In fact, I don't think he knows what's going on at all."

"Wonderful," he commented wryly. "Let me guess, I can't tell him anything about it, right?"

"Actually, I think you should tell him about all of it. I think if anyone is going to make sense of what I've seen, it would be him."

"Oh, well that's a little better then. And how far away is this priest?"

"About a week from here," she replied. "I've already made some arrangements with local merchants to have the provisions readied."

"So," he asked a little reluctantly, "how long until the girl gets here?"

The Duke's annual ball is tomorrow night," she said with a smile that worried him. "She arrived this morning."