IV
Impelled by Unseen Forces

Taláni snapped awake. A shadow loomed. A blade slashed.

Barely aware of what was happening, he rolled to his feet, his naked body tensed like a drawn bow. The blade stabbed into the cot where he had just been, tipping it and dumping Selolo on the floor.

The intruder lunged again, off-balance. Taláni dodged, grabbed the knife-arm as it flopped past, and sent the attacker face-first into the floor in one fluid motion. Heel on the man’s elbow, he yanked up until bones snapped.

The attacker groaned.

Taláni looped a blanket around the assassin’s throat, then yanked him upward for Selolo to drive a javelin into the man’s torso. She twisted the point toward his liver, while he twisted the ends of the blanket like a garrote until body and blanket slumped into a tangled heap.

Taláni cursed and spat on the body, shouts of profanity erupting from him like fire.

“You’re bleeding,” Selolo said, pointing at a splatter of red on his torso.

He swiped some up and tasted it. Weak and bitter, like bile. Not his blood.

Still panting, Selolo stretched out her hand to comfort him, letting the javelin clatter to the floor. Without a word, he swatted her hand away then turned his back as she disappeared into the cabin’s other room.

A guard poked his head inside. “Wekáru?”

In response, Taláni hurled a nearby clay tumbler at the man’s face. The guard retreated, yelping, blood splashing out from his nose.

The assailant’s face stared up at him.

Sway-toothed! Dung-biter! Who are you?

No familial tattoos or fealty brands. Hair silky, hands smooth — a noble, young, in the final stages of purification.

Did I kill his father? Or rape his sister?

There would always be revenge-seekers. He had stolen much and someday would repay, bone for bone and blood for blood. Not today.

Kaléntar shouldered his way into the room, waggling a spear clutched in stubby fingers. Several soldiers trailed behind him, along with Taláni’s mother and several eunuchs. He still wanted to rip faces and break bones — any would do. These would do.

Robe slung hastily over her sleeping gown, Selolo emerged from the other room with a skirt she wrapped around him. “Give him space!”

Everyone spoke at once. A crowd began to gather outside his cabin, murmuring.

An urge exploded in him, a need to perform, to give the people a demonstration of pure, theatrical rage, a mirror of their desire to see it, which he had so carefully, if unintentionally, cultivated in them.

Corpse slung over his shoulders like a game animal, he stomped outside. The others fell in line behind him.

Once outside, he whirled from person to person, demanding, “Who is this?” With each repetition, his voice grew louder, more ragged.

After dumping the body on the ground, he grabbed the nearest guard by the shoulders and sent him tumbling across the porch into the dirt beyond. Several people scattered to keep from being bowled over.

“Cowards! Traitors! You want me dead?”

One of them cried, “What have we done, wekáru?”

“No! What have you not done — your duty! Blind! Derelicts! Sleepers-at-the-watch!” Each word he underscored by kicking the corpse in the face: “This. Filth. Was. In. My. House!” The nearest guard became his next target, grabbed by his wicker breastplate. “I am everything! I am the life-blood of the people! Without me, there is nothing! You are nothing!”

Guard by guard, he grabbed them, shouted, tossed them aside. “Bribed? Drunk? Was it you, or you? Which of you would be ruler when I was dead?”

Enraged, trembling, he turned his ire to the crowd.

Doe-eyed, slack-jawed, calf-legged!

Not people, but hunks of meat. Not faces, but smooth, lifeless masks. Why not reach inside, tear them apart, blood and bone, joint and tissue, and make from their bodies something new? Something grand! Something to be proud of.

Beat the branches, sweeten the fruit.

At his orders, his personal guards were arrested, bound wrist and ankle, and locked inside the cabin. Were they guilty? Did it matter? Someone had tried to assassinate him — had nearly succeeded! The only possible response was swift retribution, clarity.

“Pile up dry brush around the cabin.” One of the onlookers gave him their torch. “You are not fit to join the ancestors. Your blood is cut off.” He tossed the torch into the brush, setting it ablaze. “Loyalty, first.” Orange flames lit up the night. “Courage, always.” His voice raised to cover the shouting inside the cabin. “Above all … vigilance!”

“Loyalty, courage, vigilance,” he chanted. Selolo joined first, followed by his mother, then everyone else.

The crowd encircled the burning cabin, dancing and singing loudly to drown out the screams of the guards.

Descend, descend, O mountain of fire!

Burn them to ashes! Send your winds,

Carry them out of the circle of earth!

Curse their blood to roam the void,

To lands untouched by the Crimson Sun!

No one dared mourn.

The blood stopped swirling in Taláni’s eyes, receding with the heat of crackling embers. Finally able to empty himself, he let the songs fill him, soothing him as much as he hoped they would torment his victims.

His mother told Selolo to gather the women of his consort, intentions written on her face. She, too, was about to perform for the people. For him.

She directed some nearby young men to pile up brushwood and put the assassin’s body on it, which they did eagerly. With a blade borrowed from a nearby soldier, she flayed the assassin’s back, rolled the skin up like a scroll, and handed it to a eunuch. After this, she directed Taláni to light the pyre.

Once Selolo and the other women had been gathered, she called out in a loud voice, “Kinsmen-brothers! There are still traitors among us.”

Suddenly, he realized what she intended. It was hateful to him; yet what could he do but play along? The stage was set, the performers arranged. All that was left for him to decide was the part he would play.

The singers fell silent and gathered around, leaving the burned-out shell of Taláni’s cabin to collapse. The people murmured anxiously.

With a hooked spear she borrowed from a gawping soldier, his mother raked the charred body off the fire, sending up a wave of sparks. “This man cannot tell us who his conspirators were — but his bones know!”

The blackened body curled into a grotesque contortion. She crouched, swept away flakes of fleshy soot, and exposed the two scapulae.

She makes a show of reading but the text is already set.

A moment later, she stood erect and dramatically pointed at the consorts. “These!”

The women were rounded up and forced to kneel in front of her. Hands folded behind her back, she strolled among them as though lecturing a group of rambunctious children.

One step beyond Selolo, she hesitated. Without turning, she retreated one step, snatched a wad of Selolo’s hair, and yanked her up, holding her body erect.

The girl looked like a deer-calf about to be drained on the altar, eyes white — not betrayer but betrayed.

“Loyalty?” His mother accused. “Courage? Vigilance? None of these rest here.”

Taláni held his breath. His part in the unfolding drama was now revealed to him. All that remained was the cue.

Drums pounded as the eunuchs danced and spat.

Slowly, his mother drew a long bronze knife and held it over her head.

There. With his loudest voice he bellowed, as much to the crowd as to her. “Stop!”

The crowd went silent. His mother’s knife hovered near Selolo’s throat, quaking.

He marched toward his mother, hand extended to take the knife. As she handed it over, she whispered in his ear, “The spirits never lie.”

Oh, but you do, don’t you, mother?

Now it was his turn to grab Selolo’s hair and hold the knife over her. The noise started back up again, more raucous than ever.

Her body tensed, anticipating the blow.

The knife descended. The crowd gasped. The girl slumped.

Taláni raised his arm to reveal a handful of thick black hair still in his grip. Slowly, deliberately, he unfurled his fingers and let each strand slip through. Again he grabbed her, and hacked off more hair, grasping and sawing in turns until the fullness of her glory littered the ground around her in matted clumps.

Knife tucked into his belt, he turned his head and spat. “I renounce you.” To the crowd he said, “Put all these out of the settlement, unharmed.”

You win, mother. They will be gone, along with their “distraction and delay” — but I will appear magnanimous in the process.

“But wekáru,” Selolo said, barely intelligible between sobs. “I … I love … you.”

Taláni turned his back to her, facing the remains of his cabin.

His mother pulled a burning stick from the fire and started toward Selolo. “Be silent or I will burn out your tongue — and your eyes, too!”

He caught his mother around the waist as she passed and drew her close. “Enough, mother,” he whispered. “We are on the path the spirits determined. There will be no more wandering.” As she struggled away from him, he said loud enough that others could hear. “It is done.”

The people began to head back to their cabins while the eunuchs beat errant flames with conifer branches. A flurry of soldiers pulled his consorts — his former consorts — to their feet and guided them toward the outer rim of the camp.

A circle of courtiers formed around him, praising him, currying his favor. His mother worked her way in close and handed him the now-cooled stick. “This night is not done, nedóru. Far from it.”

Selolo’s innards churned. The attack from Taláni’s mother had been a shock, but not a surprise; in return, she cursed the old woman silently, so only the spirits might hear. But Taláni himself? How could he betray her? Discard her? Why had he also attacked instead of rescuing her? He knew his mother’s declaration was a lie. He must!

How can I be a traitor? I killed the assassin myself!

Each time the knife drew back, she expected it to land on her neck. She hoped it wouldn’t hurt for long. The Silent Lands beckoned and she was prepared to go.

Murder me, so the spirits may repay me the injustice.

What happened next, she only half-remembered. The Matron’s rough hands. Dragged stumbling along. Soldiers. Jeers, curses. The consort house. All the while, she imagined running back to Taláni. Sometimes he murdered her, sometimes embraced her. Every time, it was worth the risk.

A group of soldiers loitered outside the consort house. Inside, the women packed whatever they could, tying up blankets and cloaks into makeshift rucksacks. Someone gave Selolo a tumbler of water to drink, which brought her back into her senses. A sudden chill tickled her neck. Her searching fingers recoiled from the touch of patchy hair and scalp.

One of the women, Gwahália, wrapped a heavy scarf around her head. “There, that’s better.”

Numb, Selolo had no response.

“Here, put your shoes on.” Gwahália was the motherly one, sturdy, with red cheeks and a smile that squished all the way up into her eyes. “You need to pack. They’re going to run us out of here soon.” Not smiling now. “Fine. Stay here to die if that’s what you want.”

Pack what? All my possessions were in the cabin.

Sílthi, the youngest consort, whimpered, “I don’t want to leave. We can’t live in the forest!”

Kilími, the eldest, consoled her. “Be brave, Sílthi.”

The Matron ambled over to Selolo. “You have nothing to bring, child?”

Selolo shrugged.

“This is all I was able to gather.” A heavy sack thumped on the floor, filled with cloaks and scarves, heavy cedar-soled shoes, and some cord. “Take whatever you need.”

“Aren’t you coming with us, Matron?” Kilími asked.

“I’d never survive.” The old woman’s expression drooped. “Some of you may not. Your only hope is to stay together. Care for each other. Camp together. Build a fire at night and never stray far away. I put a flake knife in the sack. Use it to sharpen sticks. Harden the points in the fire and carry them with you everywhere. There are wolves, bears — men. Above all, stick together.”

She dipped a bony finger into a soot-horn, smeared a sign on Sílthi’s cheek, then handed the little container over to Kilími. “Coal-black to give yourselves leper’s marks. You’ll need to beg, I fear. Wear this sign on your cheek or forehead so no one will question who you are or why you are there. Anyone good-hearted will help you. Everyone else will stay away.”

“Thank you, matron,” Kilími said. “We owe you our lives.”

The old woman stared off into the distance. “Wait until your journey is ended to say so.” Her voice began to falter. “Tell the spirits Mirílna helped you — I helped you. Tell them I’m sorry, for  everything.”

All thirty of the women closed in around her, lacing their arms together and swaying in lament, as though someone close to them had died. Selolo joined arms with the women nearest her but remained silent.

Once the lament ended, Selolo asked, “Where do we go?”

The Matron wiped her eyes on her sleeve and moved over to Selolo, cradling her head in both hands. “Oh! My little dreamer. The spirits have always led your way.”

Selolo disagreed sharply but had no energy to reply.

The Matron dug underneath her long mat of gray hair and took off a necklace: several beaded strands connected into an asymmetrical web. She held it up for everyone to view.

“This is a pathfinder.” She draped it over Selolo’s neck and traced the central strand down. “Here is the river. The beads are settlements and the strands are paths between them. Pik-Pik country up here. Skiptéli, Narála, Yipirimpíra, Felektáni, Malálekos, Thelegmára, Lolo.”

At the mention of her people, Selolo lunged forward and buried her face in the old woman’s breast as though she were her own mother.

For the past ten years, she has been, or the nearest thing to it.

Sílthi started singing, joined by the others a few at a time, Selolo last.

Sing, Lapsala, sing —

Sing the rivers and the sea,

Sing the mountains and the stones,

Sing the sky that brings the rain,

Sing the stars that float above,

Sing the sun and sing the moon,

Sing the land and sing the trees,

Sing the branches and the trunks,

Sing the roots and sing the leaves,

Sing every living thing that breathes,

Sing us all, sing us all, sing us all —

Sing, Lapsala, sing.

At first, she didn’t remember the words, but the tune brought them back. As she sang, Selolo imagined Huma-Lapsala, the World-Singer, with her long winding neck, her swirling arms, singing everything into existence, building with her voice.

To her knowledge, this song had never been sung within the walls of Taláni’s encampment. It was from a gentler time, when they were young, had homes, parents, friends, pets.

By now both the fire and the clamor had burned out, and the warriors assigned to expel them had grown restless, tapping on the cabin door with their spears, waggling their torches to hurry them along. The soldiers escorted them past the outer ring of cabins, the rough-hewn settlement wall, the burned ring of the perimeter, and finally, into the woods. As they went, the soldiers laughed and joked about the evening’s events.

Those who know how to pretend never have to forget. In the end, it doesn’t matter what’s real, only what you choose to tell yourself.

The last torch of the cabin circle winked out of view, lost behind tangled black shadows of sagebrush and conifer. Her inner vapors thrashed, collided, urged her to chase after the returning soldiers but also to flee as far as she was able, to Lolo, to the past.

For days, Atnan worried about the little urn lying hidden in the roundhouse.

I should destroy it and pretend it never happened — but it did happen and things happen for a reason.

The Five had led him to the scrolls. This much was clear.

He let it be known that he intended to reorganize the texts in the roundhouse. No one objected. His father wondered aloud what was wrong with the old way but returned to his own project, a series of stone pillars to mark the village. “Ought to attract more traders,” was his excuse, but everyone knew he enjoyed the time alone up on the bluff, chipping away.

Atnan’s fraud began by hiding the evidence. First, he pounded the urn into grit and sprinkled it around the roundhouse. Next, he wound each scroll inside a Fyrean text no one would ask for: epic poetry, genealogies, annals. Finally, he wrapped it all in a sealskin parcel hidden behind a loose stone in the wall.

Nearby he set up a study niche: mat, lapboard, some baskets. A few more random baskets and boxes completed the facade, a proper mess.

Cover story in place, he got to work.

As his first task, he made a complete inventory. There were seventeen scrolls, of varying lengths and materials, the longest about twice the length of his oar, the shortest just longer than his hand. All shared the same script, but in different hands with different inks. None had handles, standard since his great-grandfather’s time, which he reckoned made them quite old.

Copying several scrolls helped him get a feel for the script. The size of the writing varied but was generally small, as though the scribe were trying to conserve material. Each character required many strokes and some were quite difficult to reproduce.

A list of symbols came next. Taken together, what language might they encode? Was it phonetic, like the Fyrean runes, or logographic, like the petroglyphs of the hill folk? Something else? His catalog ended with eighty-three pictographs plus variations. Some were animals. Others, plants or persons. Most were unrecognizable.

The most common symbol by far was a circle with a cross-x inside and two dots in the upper quadrant. It might be a shield, or a barrel, or the dots might be eyes — or something he hadn’t thought of.

After several weeks of this, he learned much about the scrolls as artifacts. Yet as texts? Not a single word was legible. If the Five meant to send him a message, why a cipher? A riddle?

Mystery speaks in mysteries!

One afternoon, Atnan finished his chores and headed to the roundhouse. Nan’s door was ajar, which alarmed him. Quietly, he crept through the opening with his oar held like a spear. The lamps inside were unlit, but the dim shafts shining through the smoke holes were enough to illuminate a figure rifling through his baskets.

Atnan clacked his oar, at which the figure startled and whirled around, a rolled-up text in hand.

Ghoti-Dubarka?

“Worms in my teeth.” Old Dub returned to pawing through the baskets.

Atnan gently tapped his shoulder and indicated another basket of medical texts.

“Don’t want a spell, boy.” Dub straightened, grabbed his oar as though to leave. “No concern of yours.”

Atnan signed, gesturing at his own face, then the things in the room, then to his stomach.

My things, my concern.

“Oh, ho!” Dub swept his oar around. “All this belongs to the village. Besides, your father is the scribe here — not as we need any imperials meddling in our affairs! Bah! Got worms in my teeth.” Finger hooked around his cheek, he pulled it open and lolled out his tongue, talking all the while. “Made holes all over.”

Atnan had no intention of looking inside the elder man’s mouth.

Dub sniffed. “Holes in my boat, holes in my nets and baskets, holes in both my shoes, too.” He lifted each foot in turn, tapping it with the butt of his oar. “More than regular, mind you. Upland side of my roof fell in, now there’s a hole in my house.” He showed Atnan his finger. “Caught the nasty end of a squid beak there — now I got holes in my finger, too. Holes! It’s all holes! Ain’t normal, I tell you. Ain’t right.”

Atnan held out his hands in a quizzical gesture. He didn’t see what any of this had to do with him.

Dub held a stare for a few breaths then snorted. “Bah! Silent as a stone, ain’t you? Never can tell what’s going on in those innards of yours. Oh, I think you’re false. False, false! Can speak any time you like, but you’re in a thrall — ” He scowled and waved the end of his sentence away, as though it were too profane.

Atnan stepped between his desk and Dub. If only that were so.

The old man changed course. “Ever since you come back with them  — them clay bottles — well it’s been one thing on top of another, ain’t it? I dumped them ashes myself, to make sure they was out and gone.” His eyebrows leaped. “Sorta figured it would be heavier — ”

Atnan turned subtly to make the door Dub’s only path forward. The old man followed along, grumbling all the way.

“Bah! What do you know from what anyhow? Some kinda evil spirit’s got eyes on you — on all the rest of us, too! What we need around here is a good cleansing.”

Atnan followed him out the door to make sure he left.

He knows nothing but suspects everything!

Just then, Hennamis approached with a basket of food. “What’s all this?”

“Your grandson there’s a real crab-in-the-pants, that’s what all it is.”

“Atnan? Whatever happened, I’m sure he meant no disrespect.”

Dub thumped his oar on the patio. “His meaning don’t amount to half a gut-pile! Matters what matters — and what matters is — oh!” He traced a sign in Atnan’s direction, drawing a line first through his head, shoulders, midsection, and legs. “There’s a meaning for you! Take your bad luck back — and keep it this time!”

“Oh, no you don’t, Ghoti-Dubarka!” Hennamis caught him by the sleeve and yanked him back. “Nobody lays a curse on my kin and walks away with both his legs!”

Dub pulled away and waved her off. “Stones and adders, woman! That dumb-stump has brought a curse on this village from the very day he was born. Of all people, you ought to know! All I’m doing is sharing the wealth.” He feigned a benevolent smile.

Hennamis flared, eyes round, teeth clenched, rearing back to kick Old Dub in the shin. Atnan inserted himself between them, nearly taking the blow himself.

Dub shambled off, muttering.

Hennamis leaned around Atnan. “Go on, you old skunk! You sail clear of my grandson or … or I’ll take your liver out with a stick!”

Atnan embraced his grandmother.

“Oh, that Dub,” Hennamis said. “Don’t trust him any more than I could eat a rock!”

Once inside, Atnan quickly established that nothing had been disturbed, or discovered. Afterward, he carried the little bundle of scrolls in a satchel he carried with him. This escalation of his subterfuge troubled him, though less than the thought of Dub finding them.

Mekvat pored over his monument plans for weeks until it became no more sensible to him than porridge. Indeed, he began to see visions of the structure at the bottom of every bowl and cup, underneath every countertop, and around every corner. The perturbations in his fluids showed in the ledger he kept of his urinations: a tinge of color here, an unfamiliar waft there — to say nothing of the changes in frequency, duration, timing, and volume!

No amount of rest, or activity, or incense, or unguents, or salves, would chase the dishumour from him. Nor would eating only vegetables, or broth, or nothing at all. He whipped his shoulders with sprigs of oak and put garlic in his shoes. He walked around the gardens with a hunk of lavender jade balanced on his head. Nothing worked.

And how could it? The disease was not in his body. The proper prescription for his ailment was peace of mind; he simply needed to be certain, of the project, the contractor, the timing — all of it.

For that, he would need the services of a prognosticator — several, if he could manage. Kindhir’s First Decree notwithstanding, petty criminals of this sort could be found in the villages and farms beyond the city, if you knew how to interpret the folk-signs, which he did.

There is a certain sort of rabble, isn’t there? The shifty, grifting type. The hustlers. Wily, but not so clever as they think.

So-called “legitimate” forecasters plied their trade with some deference to the First Decree: lots and cards only, no sacrifices, no invocations, and absolutely no calculation. One could also find the shady sort who would read a goat’s liver, or throw a lock of hair into a spiderweb, or whatever else one could imagine — and afford.

Even so, no seer would dare read for the Sage Prime of the Academy of Mek, so he changed into shabby clothes and adopted what he thought of as a vulgar affect, just another winking old commoner hoping to peek into the future.

If nothing else, the weather is pleasant and I could use a nice stroll.

Indeed, the walk was so uplifting he very nearly skipped the consultation. Just as he was about to turn back, he noticed a country market in the shade of two oaks beside the road.

To call it a market would be generous, he thought. More like a loose collection of patchwork tents, each leaning on its neighbor like a pair of drunks stumbling home — neither firm, but each supporting the other. The usual wares were on display: beets, onions, beans, tools, lamps, shoes. He thought the whole thing might be a waste of time after all, until he spotted a booth with the flaps set just so, with fringes of a certain color and a rug out front with a pattern he found absurdly unsubtle.

A cheerless young woman sat outside. “Haven’t seen you around before.”

“Oh, I usually turn around up the road a bit,” he said, hoping to put her at ease. “I’ve a particular errand today, though. I suppose it’s up to me to … ask.”

“It’s only polite, things being as they are.”

He feigned concern. “I don’t want any trouble, of course. Just a — ” He cupped his hand and whispered the word “reading” at her.

Her face brightened, but only a bit. “Ah, no trouble here, friend. Just honest folks making a living. You’ll find my mother inside.” As he passed, she added. “Two for decision stones, one for dice, three for sticks.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Nothing grim, I hope.”

“Oh, just a simple confirmation — a building project.” He winked. “Want to know if I’m throwing my money away.” He dipped into his purse. “Speaking of — ”

The young woman accepted his payment, then announced him and his issue as he entered the tent. Perched on a cushion behind a casting mat, a gregarious portly woman waved him inside. “Welcome, friend! We are consulting the stones this afternoon, are we?”

“How about you do that and I’ll watch.” He took a seat on the cushion nearest the door.

Oblivious to his attempt at humor, she began to explain the house instructions. “You draw two stones out of the bowl. One in each hand. Then I draw a third.” She showed him a small clay tumbler. “We toss them in this here mystical container, I rattle them a bit, you thank the spirits of your choosing, and I dump them out under the cloth. Your part is to point out the lump you want.”

Every seer has their routine, each more flamboyantly arbitrary than the last!

“No jumping or flapping my arms?”

The woman scoffed merrily and shook the bowl at him. “Two stones.”

After she did her procedure, he gave thanks to Mek and picked the lump nearest himself.

“Ah, Bluejay! Blessings are headed your way. Music may be involved, or … a wedding?”

“How much to reveal the other two stones?”

“Not your first time?”

No, dear lady. Not my first time.

Once they agreed to a sum, she scooped up his money along with the cloth to reveal two signs: an axe and a salmon.

“Ooh, now this is mixed. Axe would have been negative. Division, conflict. Salmon is perseverance, faithfulness, plenty — all positive! Cancels right out. I’d say you got your money’s worth!”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

A way down the road he found the sort of place amenable to breaking the law more flagrantly. The proprietor was an average-looking man of average height and build, wearing nondescript clothes. The sort of person who had no intention of sticking out.

Mekvat asked if there were any “specials,” then followed the man into a dark tent and sat while the man ensured nobody was watching.

Satisfied, the man drew the curtain. “Numerological sums and ciphers.”

Mekvat handed over a scrap of parchment with the name “Lutoparak na-Bistalam” written on it. “Explain your method, if you don’t mind.”

“Each letter has an assigned value on the wheel.” He produced a round wooden disk with numbers and lines inscribed on it and a shallow depression in the center. “The values for all your letters are summed and the sum divided by the number of letters. The remainder tells how many steps to count off on the wheel to produce the first letter of the answer. The final letter of the question is removed and the process repeats. The answer comes from rearranging the letters we get back, so it can’t be longer than — ”

“I only need confirmation.”

Unfazed, the numerologist flipped his wheel over. The configuration was the same, except divided into three zones: YES, NO, and the sign for Talpu the Digger, god of concealment.

After some haggling, Mekvat laid out the money. “This wheel, what is its origin?”

“It was my father’s. It’s never wrong, so I keep it.”

“Hm, practical.”

The man took colored beads from a tray and transferred them in and out of the wheel with such rapidity that Mekvat lost track. At last, he counted fifteen steps around the edge of the wheel to the result: NO.

“Does it matter if the answer falls near the edge or the middle of the zone?”

The man scratched his nose. “Never thought about it, to be honest. If I had to say, I figure ‘yes’ is ‘yes’ and ‘no’ is ‘no’ and anything else is extra worry.”

Mekvat thanked the man and walked back toward the city.

One for. One against. Should he seek out a third opinion and break the tie?

No, he decided this was exactly the result he sought all along: not confirmation of the outcome, but confirmation that it was his decision alone to make. That being the case, he decided he was going ahead with the project, he was going to let Luto design and build it, and no amount of prophecy was going to change his mind.

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