My head aches today. Too many words already, and too many still to come; all of them as oppressive as they are exciting. (And how can they be exciting—even the ones that I fear?)
I did not think that I would remember so much. Part of me is impatient: Just get to them, Nola! Get to the words that matter most! But it seems to me that they wouldn’t matter quite so much without all the others.
And then I think: You’re delaying, dripping water into an ocean that will never be full. You’re afraid, Nola-girl—because beyond these pages there is something you have to do.
All right—enough. One more sliver of lycus fruit from the platter Sildio left for me and then I’ll go back to filling up the sea.
Bloodseeing was like a fever. It began as a shivering under my skin and stayed that way for a few weeks, while I wondered whether I was really feeling anything. I knew I was when Orlo spoke the words of invitation and Laedon drew out his knife (sometimes he only pricked his finger, and I tried to ignore my disappointment). I knew I was when the Pattern’s spinning pictures spun me too, and when I blinked myself back afterward, to strange colours, dizziness, and terrible thirst. But when I was not Bloodseeing, my desire for it was quiet and sly. It rested in my own blood like fever does, waiting for weakness.
I stayed away from Laedon when Orlo and I were not using him. I told myself that I did not want to intrude any further, but really it was just that he unsettled me. I had seen visions of his boyhood and youth—“When people age it is sometimes easier to see the Pattern that lies behind them,” Orlo told me—and strange, sometimes inscrutable ones that were obviously of time-to-come, but none of this truly unsettled me. Much smaller things did: his sallow, grizzled skin and his fingernails, which were yellow and so sharp that he could have used them instead of his knife. And that leather cap! He never took it off (or not that I saw), and the thought of what the hair and scalp beneath it might look like made me shudder.
He was never in the kitchen when I ate. I had no idea where he went, but was always relieved when I entered and found only food, always freshly prepared, arranged neatly on plates and in bowls.
In fact, I do remember looking up from my meal one night and seeing him. I glanced up and saw him by the door that led to the garden. He was staring at me. One of his hands was on the knob.
“It’s locked, you know.” I don’t know why I spoke to him. Perhaps to prove to him that I wasn’t afraid—though of course I was. Uja wasn’t fooled; she plucked at my skirt and made the low, calming noise that made me feel as if I were her chick. That was one way I could tell that Orlo would not be arriving soon—when Uja let herself out of her cage and came downstairs with me.
Laedon’s hand tightened on the knob. I thought that he must be scratching himself with his own fingernails. “You can’t get out,” I said, thinking, He must already know this—or maybe he’s as much of a fool as he looks. He did not move. I pushed the food around on my plate for a few minutes, but my hunger was gone, and soon I stood and left, hoping he would not hear my haste.
And there were a few times, when Orlo and I were conducting our lessons without Laedon, that I saw him watching us. “Watching,” with his wobbly blind eyes, standing at the kitchen window while we were walking in the garden, or at an upper window, his hands pressed against the glass. I never mentioned these sightings to Orlo.
When Laedon was with us, though, in our lesson room, he did not unsettle me. Then he was ours.
I was in the library, the day my Bloodseeing-fever turned from shivering to heat. It was a rainy day in late summer. I was restless, listening to the rain on the windows, imagining how it would feel on my face and bare feet. I was not sure why I’d come to the library, since I had no desire to read. I sat in my favourite chair, which felt lumpy; I paced, whirling when I got to the room’s corners, to make my skirt billow.
I saw the book in a still moment, between paces. I craned up at the top shelf. I was certain I’d never seen this book before, for it was bound in bright red leather with golden claw-clasps, and I would have noticed it. I pulled the stepladder over to its shelf and climbed. The ladder was not quite tall enough and I had to clamber up onto one of the shelves, leaning back and up at the same time, scrabbling for the book. I nearly fell when I pulled it free, because it was very heavy, and I could only grip it with one hand. I did not fall, but it did; it landed on the floor with a dull thud, its covers splayed. Some of the gold-edged pages were creased, and I smoothed at them frantically, then closed the covers as if this pressure would do the rest. I carried it over to the chair that looked like a throne and opened the book again, over my knees.
The script was very old-fashioned, with curling lines and rows of dots that made it difficult to read. I squinted and concentrated, and after a few moments I began to understand.
. . . a treatise on the use of blood for the Seeing of the Pattern; which use the King has forbidden, deeming it a peril and a threat to the goodness of his land and laws. We, the Otherseers of Sarsenay, do protest the King’s decree. Bloodseeing will give strength to our friends and weaken our enemies. Bloodseeing is Pattern and Path revealed, but also transformed. Who among us can deny the necessity of transformation? Who, though cleaving to writ and form and fear, can say with honesty that he does not desire transformation? . . .
I read more—much more, even though I did not understand a good deal of it. There were diagrams drawn in many colours that had faded; I saw blues and reds that must once have been vivid but were shadows now. The diagrams were of arms, torsos, ribbons that could have been veins.
Take care to make your enemies’ cuts in places that cannot be seen when he is clothed. Such care, along with a Bloodsight order of silence, will keep your actions hidden from those who might seek to stop you. When making cuts upon friends, however, such care is not required. There are many, indeed, who in the days before the King’s writ bore their scars with pride, knowing themselves to be true instruments of Pattern and Path.
I stopped reading, here. There was a tingling, almost-sick feeling in my belly, because I was remembering Chenn, and the scars she had tried to hide beneath her sleeves. The scars she would not explain to me. But now that I had these words, these pictures, I was close to knowing. I sat with my hands folded on the book, and by the time I heard Orlo’s footsteps in the corridor, I was ready.
“I need to know something.”
He raised an eyebrow. “No ‘Good evening, Orlo’? No ‘I have a question; may I ask it’?” He looked and sounded tired. He was always either weary or restless; there was nothing in between.
“Good evening, Orlo,” I said, to make him smile. He did, a little. “I have a question; may I ask it?”
He sat down in the round chair, groaning as he did. “You may. But only if it has a simple answer, and only if you will bring me some wine after.”
I ran my fingertips along the edges of the book. “I found this book today.” I watched his eyes shift to my lap. They did not widen, which meant I had to try harder to surprise him. “I’m sure it wasn’t here before. Was it?”
He was smiling now, the lines around his eyes more amusement than weariness. “If you’re sure, why must you ask?”
“What can you do with Bloodseeing? What can you really do?”
I no longer wanted to surprise him, but his sudden stillness was gratifying. He stared at me and I stared back.
“I’ve shown you,” he said at last, slowly, “how blood may open a person to Otherseeing, even without his spoken consent.”
I shook my head. “But there’s more. This book says there is, but I don’t . . . it’s written in old language, and it’s hard to understand. It says you can transform things, if the blood is from two . . .” I cleared my throat. I felt a flush easing up along my cheekbones; I had had so much time to prepare what I would say, and now that he was here I could only stammer.
“There is more. It is better to show than to tell, however, and—”
“And you’re going to wait until sometime else to show me.” My indignation made my words smooth.
“Yes,” he said. “Precisely. I believe you know me, just a little.” He paused and frowned at me, as if he was trying to understand something. “What else did this book tell you?”
He was trying to distract me, and I wanted to resist—but I did think of another question. “Whatever this special transforming Bloodseeing is, it’s forbidden. It was whenever this book was written, and it must be now, for Yigranzi never taught me about it and you haven’t either.”
“Yet,” he said, and the tingling in my belly spread, outward and down. “But you’re right, Nola—this use of Seeing is not permitted, not taught. And now,” he continued, holding up a hand, “you will demand to know why, and I will make you even more frustrated than you already are when I say, ‘No, Mistress Headlong Seer, this too must wait.’”
He stood and walked over to me. Bent a little to cover my hands with his. His palms were warm and very slightly damp. His thumbs traced circles on my knuckles. Maybe I was not breathing. “Your curiosity does you credit. Your questions deserve answers, which I will give. Perhaps”—he slipped his hands away from mine, drawing the book out of my grasp as he did so—“it is time that I allowed you another glimpse of what is to come. Time I gave you more.”
I nodded. All I could see was the darkness of his eyes, lifting and falling like water.
“Come,” he said, and I rose and followed him.
Laedon was standing by the mirror. He was not usually waiting for us (Orlo would fetch him), and so I was surprised, and hesitated just inside the door. Orlo put his hand on my shoulder, turned me away from Laedon so that I was gazing at the cabinet.
“Choose one,” he said. I knew that he did not mean a stick of wax or a kind of grain. I stared at him as he drew a leather cord out from the neck of his shirt. There was a ring of keys on the cord: four of them, all small and slender. I had never noticed these before—and now I noticed the hollow of his throat too, and the smooth ridges of his collarbone, and the skin below it. I swallowed, or tried to.
“You will do no choosing while you are looking at me.” He smiled. The restlessness was about him again; waves I could sense, even without seeing them in the tensed muscles of his forearms and the tapping of his right foot. I smiled back at him—probably too pink already to flush any more deeply—and looked at the knives.
They were all beautiful, and at various times I had imagined each of them in my hand, without imagining what I would do with them once they were there.
But now that it was time—For what? a small, fading voice asked me—I pointed and said, “That one.”
Orlo opened the glass doors. He took the middle knife down and held it out to me. My fingers closed around its hilt, which was wrapped in leather—thicker, darker bands than the one around Orlo’s neck. It was cool, but I had only been holding it for a moment before it felt as warm as my skin. The blade was the simplest of the five: curved, but not as much as the large one. A sliver of moon.
“Tell me,” Orlo said, stepping back toward the mirror, “what you have learned about Bloodseeing so far.”
I twisted my hand, watching the candlelight play along the steel. “I’ve learned that the blood of the person to be seen is enough; that the seer requires no other tools.”
“What else?”
“That the words of invitation do not need to be spoken by the person to be seen, if that person is bleeding, or if they have just bled.”
“And who has spoken the words of invitation, when Laedon has cut himself?”
I glanced at Orlo. “You, of course.”
“Yes.” He was tracing circles on the mirror, just as he had on my knuckles. “But I do not have to. A seer does not need another speaker at all. Not if . . .?”
I looked from him to Laedon to the knife in my hand. “If . . . if I—the seer . . .”
My throat was dry, closing in on itself. It was late; I was probably hungry and definitely thirsty, but this did not matter. “If I cut him.”
Orlo did not nod or smile, and yet I took a step backward, as if a sudden wind had pushed at me. He said nothing, which meant I had to say more. I straightened my shoulders. “So this is what I will do. I will . . . cut him, and I will ask his Pattern to show itself to me.”
“And will you use tools?”
I knew immediately that I would. I felt taller, stronger, as if I had grown older just since coming up from the library; there was no need for restraint or reluctance.
“I will.” Not wax on water, though, nor bones, nor mirror. “Uja,” I said.
For a moment I thought he would refuse; he had refused until now, saying that Uja was another thing I was not quite ready for. But this time he nodded once, almost sharply, and said, “Know that it will be like nothing you have seen so far.” I nodded too, because he seemed to be waiting. “Very well. Go to Laedon, then, and choose where you will cut.”
I heard Orlo behind me as I walked to stand with the old man. The cabinet doors opened again; a glass lid came off a jar with a ringing sound; grain sifted. I heard these things and I heard my own breathing. Only Laedon was silent. He stood like a statue, gazing over my head, pretending I was not there. I looked at his face quickly, then only at the cloth bulk of his body. I would have to touch the cloth; I would have to touch his skin.
“You will not need to make a deep cut,” Orlo said, “and you should not, this first time.”
I swallowed. The fingers of my left hand closed around the material that lay against Laedon’s right arm. It was more ragged, and trailed more ends of thread, than the layers above it. It was a light, washed-out blue—like his eyes—with darker patches that must have been cooking stains. I eased the cloth up, gingerly at first—but I had to be faster and firmer, so I pressed my fingers into his skin and thrust until the material was up above his elbow. It stayed there, even when I took my hand away. It was easy because I was not looking at his face. I took his wrist and turned it and his whole arm turned, and it was just a thing; just something I was examining. Despite this detachment, I did think, Please the Pattern, I will not have to look anywhere else for a place to cut. . . . I did not. I saw the place, and looked back at Orlo. He was waiting, one hand in a glass jar that was resting on his hip. I nodded at him and he scooped, pulled his hand out. He crouched and drizzled the grain on the floor in front of him. “Uja likes rye best,” he said. He turned himself around until he had covered a large, circular space with grain.
Only now did I look at Uja. She was on her upper branch, her wings and beak tucked in against her body. I could not see whether her eyes were open.
“Come here.” Orlo was speaking to me but it was Laedon who obeyed him. He shuffled past me, to the edge of the rye circle. I followed. When I was beside him he shifted a bit, so that he was almost facing me.
Orlo used another of the keys at his neck to unlock Uja’s cage. (Is it strange that I never wanted to tell him she could get out on her own? Some premonition about my own Path that kept me quiet?) She hopped from branch to branch and sidled out the open door. Waddle-walked around the circle and stopped precisely where she had begun. Straightened her head, at last, and looked at me.
She does not know me, I thought wildly—but after a moment she blinked and I realized that she did. She was readying herself, half in her own Otherworld.
They were all waiting for me.
Laedon’s arm was as heavy as a fallen tree branch. It was not that he resisted me; he simply did not help. I lifted it, angled it until I saw the hollow of his elbow, and the green vein that bulged there (so fat, while the rest of his arm was sinew and bone). I raised my right hand. The knife trembled until I set its blade against him. I gazed at it there. I was trembling too, somewhere very deep; maybe this should not be now, not yet. . . . My eyes flickered up and found his. He was staring at me as he had that once in the kitchen, as he had done through windows and probably from other places I had not even noticed—and suddenly I was angry. The anger was formless and cold, and I felt nothing else. I tilted the knife and pushed its tip into Laedon’s flesh. One push, and I drew the knife back and let it fall, for I did not need it any more.
The blood welled. It looked like one drop, blooming, blooming; then it burst into a thinning, snaking line. This one line became many, which branched around forearm and fingers and dripped, one by one by one and soon all together, onto the grain.
I gazed from blood to bird. “Show me.” I did not know how I managed to speak—or even why I had, since I realized it was not necessary—but the words were clear and felt right. “Show me what will come, for him.”
Uja began to walk. Not her customary waddle, punctuated by ungainly flapping, but a graceful dance, dainty, lifted feet and wings opened, poised, tucked softly back again. She lowered her neck, every few paces, and plucked up a bit of rye. And there it was, so quickly: a path made by talons, tail and beak. A pattern edged in blood.
The vision came on gradually. I was expecting shock and speed and glaring colours, but for many long moments there seemed to be nothing at all. My eyes leapt from Uja’s marks to Laedon’s with anticipation that soon became impatience. Where? When? Why not already? Nothing was heightened or more vivid; in fact, the corners of the room were paling, quite gently. Nothing to see.
Nothing, creeping up walls and across the floor. A whiteness that is more than lack of colour; a whiteness that is no sight, no sound, no touch. It seeps over my feet and up my legs, and I remember my mother, devoured by black mist. I am disappearing, and this is not even really about me; where is Laedon? Where is the boy I have seen in so many other visions; where are the wolves, the eagles? Frost crystals reach for one another in my lungs, and join, and I try to lift my hands to clutch at my chest. My hands are there—I feel them—but they do not move. I am mired in the whiteness and there is no Path, no Pattern—nothing ahead or behind. Yigranzi, I think, because she rescued me before, when I was lost in Chenn’s Otherworld. Yigranzi pulled me out and away—but she is not here, and there is no here. The white is filling up my nostrils, clotting my throat. I will die, and I will never see the castle. One last attempt at movement, but my bones are white now, bare and fused to nothing. I scream silence and they shatter.
I was choking. I was pressed to the floor, facedown. There was so much pain that I almost, almost wished the nothingness back. So much noise, as well: Uja crooning, rye grains skittering, the cabinet doors opening or closing—all too close, swollen as the inside of my head was swollen. The one thing I had none of was sight.
Orlo picked me up. I felt the muscles of his arms and chest, and when he said my name I felt it too, like a drumbeat that was inside, not outside, me. He smelled like wine and salt. He carried me and I thought I would vomit from the up and down, up and down, but I did not. He laid me on my bed, which was horribly soft—fleshy, sinking. I thrashed once, twice, and he held my wrists. I felt his breath on my face.
“I’m blind,” I said, in a whisper or a shout—I couldn’t tell.
“Not for long. Here—drink this”—cool clay, water a new kind of agony, tracing down—“and then sleep.” His hands and breath were gone. The bed creaked as he stood. “You did well, Nola.”
Well? I thought. Well? I saw nothing—truly, nothing—and now every one of my bones is broken and I am as blind as Laedon—but as long as I did well (and you would know, of course), then fine, I will simply go to sleep. . . .
I did, somehow. And when I woke the next morning, my own bleeding had begun.