Chapter 6

All I Do Is See

A sensitive beast could taste wisdom in the valley's water. It was wise because it had traveled over the mountains and took a little of whatever it touched, but only a little at a time. As any seer worth her salt knows, the difference between knowledge and selfishness is a simple matter of quantity.

Lucivane stood at the edge of a stream. This particular stream flowed into the great Northvimer later on, but here it was called the Voloker, and it carried the water of the mountains. It gushed from a recent rain. Lucivane drank deeply of it.

"Help me," he told the stream.

There was a many-necked knot forming in his stomach for weeks now, almost from the moment he set foot in Mortspear's fort. Though he had tried all common remedies, nothing relieved it. That was of course because the problem was not entirely natural. The downside of visions is that they take a toll on the psyche. For Lucivane, the terminus of pain and strife was not just his mind, but his body.

The wisdom of the mountain waters, as it turned out, was also incapable of curing him.

He killed a swan on his hunt that evening. It was not hard to kill a large beast if one had a bow and arrows. One simply shot it, and followed, and waited. It was harder to bring the thing home for the table. It took the strength of both Lucivane and Amis, and the assistance and cleverness of a couple other beasts, to bear the massive bird up the hill, strapped to a pole. Two arrows poked from its snowy body, dripping a trail of blood all the way to the roasting spit. Beasts marveled and cheered at the first sight of the bizarre trophy, but ate reluctantly that night. The rats in the wildcat's crew, with their picky rodent noses, were most keenly aware of their master's misery written in the meat. They were afraid. The other vermin sensed this fear and became uncomfortable. It was a silent dinner.

There were tartans present in the yard of the lodge that evening. They sat together, as locals tended to do when they visited within the walls. Valpin, who was chieftain of the tribe of foxes that lived in the hills, was there. Kester, a large river shrew and unofficial head of the village below the church, tucked into her meat happily. And lastly there was an old vixen who lived alone somewhere deep in the forest. It was rumored that she, Harpess, was a witch, though both Amis and Lucivane doubted that was true. She was simply a beast who had a penchant for dramatic dress, for wearing a lot of bark and bone. Had they encountered a true witch, they would have gone running back west. A seer was no match for a witch, nor was a chieftain nor any mundane warlord with an army. Even Mortspear would think twice.

Lucivane did not know who invited the occasional local representative to his table. It was probably Amis who made such wise choices. And it paid off. Thanks to the shrew, the ancient lodge was being cleaned and repaired, and the fox's deference meant that no other of his kind would hunt around Mont Royal. Lucivane acknowledged the three by raising his goblet. They hailed him likewise.

At night, once the lamps and torches were put out, the darkness of his chamber suffocated him. He slept but briefly, and dreamt of something watching him from the rafters. When he opened his eyes, it was not gone. The darkness moved in angular shapes—as if an elbow here, a knee there. But all together, there were too many joints. At times it coiled instead, like a snake. At times, he saw long fingers.

Lucivane fled outside once more, as he had done on many a night since he came here. This time, Amis was outside, too. She had her long glass out as if to look at the stars, but they both knew she was really waiting for him. She cleaned her spectacles with a cloth.

"The same trouble, Nocto?"

"Something wants me dead."

"Aye, cousin. Then let's tonight see its face."

Lucivane tried his best to keep breathing. "Oh I have seen it, I'm sure. All I do is see. Trouble is, I know not what I am seeing. Is it a vision, or is it a ghost? Does it come from within, or exist without?"

"Then allow me to call Hicham," said Amis.

"Your student?"

"He has been able to talk to spirits before. I know you'd rather no one know about this, ah, problem, but at least then we could guess the nature of the thing."

Hicham was a ferret, a handsome and sleek little devil who had long been a favorite of Amis'. He was afraid of nothing, which was a necessity when one's mistress was a wildcat and a seer. When Amis returned to Lucivane, the ferret was in tow, jogging to keep pace with her. He was toting the supplies: a book and bell and various other things.

The three of them returned to Lucivane's chamber, which was still and felt hollow. It was a sparse room, with only a bed and wardrobe. Though it was the best one in the lodge, which is to say it was the least damp, it had no warmth, no life, no presence of the wildcat that slept in it, for Lucivane hated being there. The floors were bare stone; he had not even bothered to call for a rug.

Hicham directed Lucviane to eat a bit of gray powder.

"Ash?" he asked, once he had tasted it.

The ferret replied cheerfully, "Bone ash, sir. Luckily, the mistress had me add in the swan yew killed t'day. Should be a good sho—er, I mean, strong results."

They sat in a circle on the floor. At the center was a lamp, an old clay one where the holes were arranged eerily like a face, two eyes and a grieving mouth. Hicham lit the wick and cleared his throat to announce that he was beginning. He rang the little bell he had, for bells are heard in all worlds.

Lucivane felt his throat stir.

Hicham began his mollifications. "Be still, Misto, yew are not needed here. Be still, Vulpuz, we trespass not in yer lands. Be still, Tare, we shall not seek t' alter yer book. Be still, Putorious, for our interference is a pinprick to yer realm..."

One always did one's best not to bother the rulers of the afterlife. The list went on for some time. Hicham was fastidious in including as many names as he could, culled from the stories of many different types of beasts. Inevitably there were redundancies, as some of these mighty beings were said to perform the same function. But in this situation, overlaps were far preferable to gaps.

"I call upon that spirit which inhabits this keep, if indeed there be one," said Hicham. "Make yerself known, creature."

There was silence, and then the hairs of Lucivane's back stood on end. He thought he heard claws upon the flagstone behind him.

Hicham's eyes watered. "Don't turn around, Highness."

Lucivane glanced at Amis. Her eyes were wide, and fixed on the thing behind him. Her paw gripped his tightly.

"Aye, I will not look."

A lesser beast would have been unable to suppress the urge to turn, but Lucivane was sensible. In his life as an instinctive seer, he had witnessed many horrific visions. He had no desire to see more.

"It is a cat," Amis whispered, "or something that was once a cat."

"What does it want?" Lucivane asked. "Does it speak?"

Hicham continued to focus on the point behind Lucivane's shoulder. "It says it wants yew, Nocto, to leave. Because it doesn't recognize yew. Because..." The ferret clammed up.

"Go on."

"Forgive me, sir. It says that yew are an impostor."

Lucivane heard the final word in the apparition's own voice, as a chilling growl in his ear.

Impostor.

A/N: Major points to anyone who can guess what line out of the original series Tare is based on. As far as I know, Vulpuz, too, is only mentioned once, but throwing his name in was a quick way to give proper context to the things Hicham was saying.

Thank you Grey and Waycaster for the reviews as always.