“Suggestion noted, Roth,” said Disper with a wry grin.

“Perhaps I should go.”

“No, my friend. If it is there, it will be small. I’m not sure you could pass.”

“Roth will pass. Roth must go with you.”

The Seer and Roth shared a look, unfathomable to Tirielle, but somehow full of meaning. Roth was the first to look away.

Tirielle wondered again just how much the Seer foresaw…and how much Roth was keeping from her. Sometimes her friend was as inscrutable as the child. But all things in their place, she schooled herself. Perhaps it was best not to know the future, as the Seer often reminded her. If you knew what was in store, always, it would be impossible to lead a normal life. You would be ruled by the knowledge. Crippled.

“Very well. We will go together. I fear that we could meet a patrol.”

“There will be no patrol. We dally too long. The time is now.”

The Sard exchanged glance. “Is there something we should know?”

“They come.”

“Then we waste time here,” said Quintal. “It is time to leave.”

“I cannot go with you.”

“What are you talking about? We have lost one already, and one is too many. You must come with us, Sia. We have need of your knowledge, and I have need of your company.”

The Seer smiled kindly at Tirielle, but shook her head. Tirielle thought she saw sadness in those startling, multihued eyes. It had always been there, Tirielle realised only now, as they were parting.

“I cannot, Tirielle. I must go, and you all must follow your own path. Just remember,” she looked at Tirielle as she spoke, “that all things happen for a reason. Sometimes the path might not seem true, but though it meanders, it leads to the same end. Follow the path, and know that the future will right itself. Follow the path, Tirielle, to its end. There you will find what you seek.”

“What do I seek?”

“I fear that is for every one to figure out for themselves. I cannot change a person’s nature. I am not a guide. I am a Seer. That is all I am. It is my gift, and my curse, but a person’s heart is theirs and theirs alone. Follow the path, Tirielle. I only hope that you will find what you desire.”

Tirielle held her tongue at a silencing gesture from the Seer.

Sometimes, it sounded like she was a thousand years older than the child she looked.

“Briskle and Yuthran will come with me. I have work to do on this land.”

“We should stick together,” said Disper, his tone perhaps harsher than the Seer deserved.

“If we stay together we will all fall. You must go, I must stay. I need an escort, and I must draw the hunters away. I know where to go. We go to the north. Once more, I must return to Lianthre. There is one there who will need my help more than you. Reih is in need of guidance. You know where to go. You know what needs to be done. As do you, Roth. Now heed my words. It will be as I say, or all will fall. There is no other way. The red wizard is not the only goal. If the wizard awakes, or not, he will be of no use if he has no allies remaining. The Kuh’taenium is under attack. I must go there.”

“Then you need a larger escort.”

“No, I need Briskle for they will send Bayers against us, and I would not separate Yuthran from his friend. Enough. Go now.”

She mounted, and Briskle and Yuthran mounted behind her at a nod from Quintal. The Seer gave them no time for long farewells, but heeled her horse up the rise and set off.

“Sunlight on your swords, brothers,” said Yuthran, and spurred his horse after the Seer. Briskle merely nodded to his brothers, and headed after them.

Suddenly, Tirielle felt their loss, although Briskle and Yuthran rarely spoke to anyone, often conversing between just the two of them. To some, it would have seemed rude, but there was a bond there that could not be broken. To lose one would have meant the loss of both, anyway.

“Hide our saddles, Cenphalph. With luck, we will pass this way again. Set the horses free. They will find their way back home. I think your mare will be smart enough to follow. Don’t worry, Tirielle, you will see her again.”

“I will make sure of it,” said Roth, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. She had not realised how much she needed the comfort of the giant’s touch until that moment.

Briskly, she nodded her head. “Then let’s get going. There is no time. Already, Drun and Shorn will be at the portal. We cannot let them fight alone.”

“Let’s go,” said Quintal. Slowly, they walked to the rise, then they crawled as fast as they could to the fence.

Roth stumbled across the culvert first. It fed into a small stream, and it reeked of rot and slime. Tirielle crawled through the mud, crossing the stream. Long gone were the days when she worried over a muddy dress. If anything, it was like being a child again, playing in the woods, making stories up in her head.

In her stories, though, never would she have crawled through such muck to face her own death.

It was true, what her father said. An adult was someone who put away childish fantasies, and knew their death was certain. But even knowing death faced her, she was a woman. She would not shy away.

But, as she gazed into the dark, dank tunnel, how she wished she could.

High above the central city of Lianthre stood the poor houses and tents and shacks and carts that passed for homes. Outside a taller house Reih sat at a market stall, under the canopy, protecting her from the rain coming down here. The rain here was dirty and stained clothes. As the only person with clean clothes she stood out. There was no chance of getting robbed though, she thought — Reih was the only one with a personal guard as well.

She had looked out before and seen exactly what the Kuh’taenium had shown her. She had smelled the spice. Now she sat inside, her protector cold and silent behind her by the opening. She sipped some of the syrupy drink, some oil from Qit Wile Mines. It was said to enhance and envigourate the soul. Her soul was that of the Kuh’taenium though. It took much more than a drink to dull her sense.

The streets here stank, but Reih smiled to herself anyway, ignoring the sewage rot smell. The slums spread high on the hill, like a nose trying to escape the bodies own smell. It spread onto the hill in the east and higher than even the tallest towers in the centre of Lianthre, where the hierarch lived in their towering monoliths, plain and huge tower of sweeping beams and shining metal rooves. The slums stood higher though. Now she could see the city below she could see the sprawl, the buildings spreading like a stain, held back by the rich protected in their groves. Even the real rain migrated to them, like it prefered money. The rain was clean and sweet out on the West, where they all lived, the dirty rain fell to the east, on the poor.

The Hierarchs, the council themselves complicit, had pushed out the poor hundreds of years ago, the ones nobody wanted. They ignored them and dragged themselves down together. Would that it had been different, she thought. I too, am complicit. Perhaps it is not all a bad thing, though, she thought next; here in the slums Reih saw pride. The streets were filthy with mud and damp warm constant rain and passing carts splashed mud against the fronts of the buildings. Even in high summer the rain fell here. But inside each mud covered house she knew the building would be exquisite, they always were. The mud was just a shield. If you were poor you didn’t clean the outside of your house — that was just asking for trouble. You didn’t want to stand out. The poor themselves were greater at holding back their number than any hurdles the affluent set for them.

No, inside their homes was were they lived their secret lives. The artisans of the city thought they were talented. They worked with the finest materials, carving through heartwood or stone to manufacture something beautiful in its own way, but manufactured none the less. It was something they did everyday. There was no love in their carvings. These people carved their own, with flimsy knives and spikes and hammers. The materials they used were all they could get, and yet they created beauty. If a carving I was working on splintered, I would buy some new wood. These people couldn’t buy new wood. When their wood broke, they had to change the picture.