In the beginning, the lessons unfolded as they had at the brothel: with much talking and no doing. I hardly noticed, during those early weeks at the house, and I cared even less. For Orlo came to me at nightfall, or sometimes a few hours later, and he talked and talked as darkness held us close together, alone in the world. He spoke mostly of the history of Otherseeing, which should have grown dull. It did not. I watched him stride around the mirror (we never sat) or back and forth before one of the great garden trees, and every gesture, every quirk of lips or brows, made his words live. I remember him acting out the Betrayal of Seer Aldinior—all the parts, from the each of the foreign emissaries to the queen’s lady-in-waiting, who was actually a rebellious student seer in disguise. I remember laughing until I wept, and then—when the story turned tragic—weeping again so that the mirror’s metal and Uja’s feathers blurred.
He told me to read about these things in the books he kept in the library (another huge room, all wood and leather), after he discovered—to his surprise—that I could read. But beautiful and mysterious as these books were, with their gilt pages and ancient paper smells, his words were better.
I talked too, because he encouraged me to. He was mostly very patient with my castle questions, and asked me many questions of his own, which it seemed no one else ever had.
These lesson-talks are patchwork, now; I remember the bits, in their colours and textures, but they no longer exist individually. One long, breathless conversation that lasted all summer.
“How many Otherseeing students are there at the castle?”
“Only four, since Chenn left.”
“How old are they?”
“Ten, twelve, fourteen and eighteen. And before you ask, I will answer: two are boys and two are girls.”
“And how many teachers?”
“Two, and myself.”
“And Master Teldaru—does he teach, too?”
“He sometimes visits the classes, to observe. Now and then he speaks.”
“How old is he?”
“You should be able to answer that yourself, Nola. If he was five when he was taken to the castle, and he served King Lorandel for fourteen years, and if he has so far served King Haldrin for sixteen, then he is . . .?”
“. . . thirty-five? But that seems too young; he is so—”
“Yes, yes—his legend has lent him years beyond the ones he actually possesses, and he is said to be wise even beyond these. . . .”
“You sound impatient. Do you like him?”
“I like him very well—but if you do not stop asking questions about him, I shall have trouble liking you.”
“You’re jealous!”
“Perhaps a little. He and I are close in age—and no, I will not tell you how old I am!—and I have known him since we were both young. It is hard, sometimes, to be so close to greatness and to share none of it. But that is enough. You will meet him soon and have all the answers you desire. Until then you are mine.”
“And what of the king?”
“We were speaking of the properties of wine. What of the king?”
“He must be of an age with Teldaru—and you. Do you know him well? He and Teldaru must be like brothers, and—”
“Indeed, yes—they grew up side-by-side, and Teldaru is the elder by several years, and the king trusts him with his life—and they are both staggeringly handsome, though I am even more handsome, which makes them both sick with envy. Will this suffice, Mistress Overcurious Seer?”
This was the day that he first brought his dog Borl to the house. I remember that Borl burst from the bushes right after Orlo said, “Mistress Overcurious Seer.” He dropped a rabbit at Orlo’s feet and stood waiting, his lean flanks heaving and his tongue lolling from mottled, brown-and-pink gums. I drew back from him; I had never liked dogs.
The rabbit was small and brown and twitching. Orlo chuckled and said, “He pretends to be gentle, bringing them to me alive.” To the dog he said, “Well done!” Borl whined and rolled his long head on the grass.
Orlo crouched and picked the rabbit up. He twisted its neck in his hands and there was a cracking sound. I had seen Rudicol and Bardrem do this many times and had not flinched, but for some reason this time was different. I sucked in my breath, as the creature’s neck broke.
Orlo looked up at me. “Ah, Nola—so soft-hearted. You’ll be glad of Borl’s prowess when you’re eating rabbit stew. Though we’ll need a cook. I can manage soup and bread, but stew . . .” He rose, gazing thoughtfully at the shadows of the trees. “A cook,” he said again.
He brought Laedon with him the next day. The talking part ended, then, and the doing began.
At first I was excited.
“There’s someone you should meet, Nola,” Orlo said. “Someone who will cook you real meals and help us with our lessons.”
I uncurled myself from my favourite library chair. For a month I had sat in the one that looked like a throne, because even though its grandness made me feel a bit silly, there was no one else to see me. Recently, though, I had been using one that was low and round and fashioned from what seemed to be thick reeds—a strange thing that I thought must have been made in another country. But it had a deep, soft cushion, and I dozed in it as much as I read.
“Oh?” I closed the book I was holding—a slender tome on the Otherseeing uses of sparrow bones during the reign of the Boy King. Someone else here,
I thought, and this thought was followed by a flurry of others: It will not be us alone, any more, and I am sorry for this . . . I am not sorry—I’m lonely when he’s not here . . . a cook and a helper; by Pattern and Path, he’s brought me Bardrem. . . .
The kitchen smelled of simmering wine and meat and rich, dark broth. The table was covered with knives and platters stacked with vegetables and bones. It looked like a kitchen, and smelled like one; I thought, Bardrem, one last, breathless time—even as Orlo called, “Laedon?”
A very old man shuffled out of the shadows at the far end of the room. Maybe an old man: he was swathed in so many layers of cloth—coloured rags, really—that his body was shapeless. There was a tight leather cap on his head; wisps of yellow-white hair had escaped from it and were clinging to the stubbled hollows that were his cheeks. His eyes were white-filmed blue, and they wandered and rolled.
“Laedon can hear us,” Orlo said. “Can’t you, Laedon? But he’s been mute for years, and blind for even longer.”
“But he can still cook?” I said. Laedon’s head jerked in what might have been a nod, and I drew back, just as I did from the dog—who, I saw, was lying in front of the fire, gnawing on what looked to be a small skull.
Orlo walked over to the iron pot that was hanging above the flames. “Oh, he can cook. Come and see for yourself.”
I followed him, and the old man’s eyes swivelled to follow me, or the sound of me. Orlo held up a wooden spoon and I sipped from it. “Delicious,” I said loudly (because it was; it was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted).
“He is blind and mute, remember,” Orlo said, “not deaf. You do not need to raise your voice.”
“All right.” I glanced at Laedon. I wondered how he could bear the heat of fire, clothing, heavy midsummer air.
“He used to work in the castle kitchens—didn’t you, Lae?”
A twitch of the lips, this time. I saw two blackened teeth.
“He befriended me when I was new to the place, and missing home. His kitchen always reminded me of my tavern’s, though the two were really nothing alike. Perhaps you understand this, Nola?”
I nodded. Orlo waved me over to my customary stool; I sat, and he put a bowl of stew in front of me. Even though I was ravenous I ate slowly, placing the spoon carefully in my mouth so that none of the liquid dripped. Some moments in this house were for teasing and jests; others felt like practice.
“When Laedon lost his sight and then his voice,” Orlo said as I sipped and nibbled, “the castle kitchens grew too much for him. He worked in the seers’ kitchen, then. A smaller place, but his handiwork was much appreciated by the students. Recently even this job has seemed too difficult for him. How perfect, that I could bring him here.”
“So no one will miss him?” I asked—for Orlo had told me that this house was a secret from the castle folk, just as I was.
Orlo smiled a sad, gentle smile. “Likely not. I am the only one who’s paid him any mind, these last few years.”
I looked at Laedon—stared, now that I was sure his swivelling eyes were sightless. “You said he would help us with our lessons. How?”
Orlo stirred the stew, then knocked the spoon against the pot’s edge. “I will explain this to you when—”
“Explain it now,” I said. “Or better yet: show me.”
The broth wine, I thought; it has made me even freer with my words than usual. I kept my eyes steady on Orlo’s. He did not seem angry—though he had never been angry at me, and I did not know how it would look. He was silent for a long time. The only sounds were flame pops and the crunching of the skull between Borl’s jaws.
“Now,” he said at last. “You are certain?”
I pushed my stool back and stood up. My hair slid out from behind my ears. (Now that it was growing, it was as wayward as Bardrem’s.) “Yes. I’ve been here for a long time, and all I’ve done is read and talk to you. Which has been good,” I continued hastily as his eyes narrowed, “wonderful, in fact—but I’m ready. I want to do something.”
There was another moment of motionless quiet before he smiled slowly. Something in my chest pulled tight. “You remind me of myself,” he said. “How can I deny you?” He placed the spoon across the top of the pot and pointed at the table. “Choose something—an Otherseeing tool.”
I said, “But the mirror, or the wax—”
“You said now, Mistress Hasty Seer, and now it will be. Choose.”
Bones on a plate, dried herbs in a bowl, wine in a squat earthen pitcher.
“Remember,” Orlo said, “that some will bring on stronger visions than others.”
“Yes. Things that were alive, and recently, will be strongest. . . .”
“Things that have bled.” His voice was low.
I wanted to look at him but did not; reached instead for the plate.
“So it is strength you desire,” he said, more lightly. “An excellent choice. Laedon—come here to us.”
The old man’s feet scuffed on the floor as he walked to Orlo’s side. He was shorter than Orlo, and looked quite round (I thought this must be the bulk of his clothing, since his cheeks were so gaunt).
“You will Othersee for him,” Orlo said.
“But . . . but he is mute. He cannot speak the words of invitation.”
Orlo cocked his head to one side, just as Uja did when she was listening to me. “Remember Chenn,” he said.
“Chenn? I do, but—”
“Chenn dead beneath the tree, where you and Yigranzi found her. What did you do there?”
“I . . . We both had visions. Of her.”
“And did she speak any words of invitation?”
“No—of course not.”
“How did Yigranzi explain this to you?”
The golden light; the deep, curling wound. “She said only that there were things I did not yet know—mysteries. I never asked her, afterward. I was too . . .
It was Chenn. I didn’t want to know.”
“How unlike you,” Orlo said with a smile that passed over his lips like a shadow. “Let me explain, since she did not. When blood has just been spilled, even if a person is dead, it is possible to Othersee with someone else speaking the words. The Otherworld is close, as long as there is blood, or something else that is from a body. As Laedon will show you.”
I swallowed. “But he is not dead, and he is not . . . not . . .”
Laedon was holding a small knife. It shone, clean and sharp; he could not have used it for vegetables or meat. His cloud-eyes rolled up toward the ceiling. He closed his hand around the knife’s blade and held it there.
“Cast the bones, Nola.”
I watched my fingers grasp and tighten on the plate. The bones were small and jagged and wet. The big ones are in the soup, I thought, with a part of my mind that was clear and separate. I held them and imagined that they were pulsing against my own vein-lined skin. I held them and remembered.
“My mother,” I said. I had already told him about this memory, but it seemed like more than that, suddenly. “She spoke words, and she bled, and I was watching her blood on the tabletop, and that’s when I had my first vision. I used no Otherseeing tools.” I licked my lips, which felt cracked. “Is blood enough, then?”
Orlo let out a long, slow breath that I could hear. “It is. Good girl; it is. But what do you think happens when an Otherseer uses both? What do think would happen if you looked at the shapes made by Laedon’s blood and by the bones?”
“I . . . it would be very powerful.” I did not need to see his nod; I knew I was right. Maybe I should wait, I thought. Maybe this would be too much, or too soon. But I thought of him saying, “So it is strength you desire,” and knew that he, too, was right.
I opened my fingers and scattered the bones away from me. I heard them skitter along the wood. I heard Orlo say, “Look at Laedon,” and I did. Laedon pulled the knife sharply, down and away from his body, and he shook his hand, and I saw blood spray—fat droplets hanging, then falling over the bones.
“Tell him, Nola. Tell him what will come.”
The kitchen flows away from me. All that remains is fire: two pale, blue fires, which I know are Laedon’s eyes. They are far away, so I push my Otherself forward—and I move, just as I did in my vision of Chenn. This time I am not a bird; I am something low and small, perhaps a snake, or a vole. I slither, scurry through a darkness that parts like water. As I do, the eyes multiply—two to four to six—and begin to spin. I twist so that I can catch them, and what is in them—because there are images there, limned in blue flame. A boy with a harp in the crook of his arm, singing soundless words; a skull pillowed on layers of coloured cloth; a field of tall russet grass. I am dizzy but strain to hold the other eyes too, and do. An eagle on a wall, its beak stained red; a naked woman asleep on her belly, one hand holding a lock of her own dark hair, as if she is a child (though she is plainly not). And in the last eyes, a wolf. My Otherself shrinks back, and I turn, seeking the boy or the lovely, empty field—but these eyes blur past me, and I know, anyway, that it is the wolf I must watch. It is a tawny brown. Its teeth gleam—a grin of sharpened knives—and yet its eyes are dull and flat. I ease closer, for the eyes are the most important, somehow, and maybe just one more turn, one more stretch will show them to me. I reach with fingers or claws I cannot see. The beast lunges. For a moment my eyes are filled with flames, and then the flames give way to a heaving blackness that presses on my nose and mouth and crushes my screams to silence.
I was kneeling on the floor. I was making a low, rough noise—but no, the noise was not mine: it was Borl’s. He was standing by my head, too close. I did make a sound—a strangled one—and Borl snarled and snapped his jaws so that I felt wind and smelled a waft of meat.
“Borl!” Orlo’s legs; his hand descending, grasping the brindled fur at the dog’s neck. The fur looked green, and Orlo’s skin looked orange, and slender black shapes darted over everything like a cluster of startled fish.
Borl whined and padded away, his long, thin tail tucked between his back legs. Orlo raised me up as if I were a child and set me on my stool. He put a mug in my hands and helped me tip it against my lips. The wine was harsh and sour and I choked a bit, dribbling it, before I really swallowed.
“Do not speak until you are ready. If—”
“There were six things,” I rasped. “Six pairs of eyes with different . . . things.” Words hardly ever matched visions, but this was worse than usual. I clenched my fists.
“Laedon,” Orlo said, as if he was reminding me.
I blinked at the old man, who was standing where he had been before. His eyes were closed; the little black shapes squiggled across their lids.
I told Orlo, the words halting, then smoother. When I was done, everything was the right colour again, though my dizziness remained.
“And how was this time different?” he asked.
“I felt like I could move—like I was inside the vision, not just seeing it. That happened with Chenn, too—when I was like a bird above her, and Prandel.”
“You saw Prandel?” Orlo’s voice was sharp, and I flinched.
“I . . . yes. Not clearly, though: he was far below me. I tried to drop closer to him, just like I tried to get closer to the wolf, to see . . . but I couldn’t. Or I did, with Chenn, but Yigranzi stopped me. I can’t remember.”
Orlo smiled, though it looked strained. “What else? What else was different this time?”
“There was more. I saw six things—six parts of his Pattern—and I think I could have chosen which one to look at, if I’d been more sure of myself.” I wanted Orlo to look like himself again, so I added, “Why did these different things happen?”
It worked. He straightened, narrowed his eyes as he always did before he instructed. “Because visions grow more complex, the older you get. And yes, you must sometimes choose, from within the Otherworld, which one to follow. There is art to this choosing, and to the telling of it afterwards. For you should never tell the person all that you have seen. You must be clear and firm, and speak as if you saw but one Path.”
He paused, leaned across the table toward me. Our fingertips were almost touching. “You will see and feel more strongly once your monthly bleeding begins. The vision you have just had gives me hope. The time must be close now—at last.”
“Blood power,” I said slowly. “My own.”
“Yes,” he said, and smiled in a way that sent heat and cold chasing through my belly. “There is so much more to learn, Nola. What we—what you will be able to do, when the time comes.”
“Yes.” Only a breath of a word, but it filled me.
Something moved beside me, and I turned. Laedon had lifted his arm; his hand was pointing at the ceiling. Blood was still easing from the wound on his palm, wending its way down pale, wrinkled flesh and beneath cloth that clung, sticky and damp. “Laedon,” Orlo snapped, “that’s enough—press the wound now, so the blood will stop”—but the old man stood still, staring at me with his blind blue eyes.