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Far-Seer
by Robert J. Sawyer
Dramatis
Personae
Capital City
Afsan--apprentice astrologer
Dar-Mondark--doctor
Dy-Dybo--prince
Det-Yenalb--chief priest
Gerth-Palsab--citizen
Irb-Falpom--land surveyor
Jal-Tetex--hunt leader
Len-Lends--Empress
Pal-Cadool--butcher
Tak-Saleed--master astrologer
The Crew of the
Dasheter
Bog-Tardlo--sailor
Dath-Katood--sailor
Det-Bleen--priest
Irb-Hadzig--sailor
Mar-Biltog--sailor
Nor-Gampar--sailor
Paldook--sailor
Var-Keenir--captain
Pack Gelbo
Lub-Kaden--leader of a hunting pack
Val-Toron--rider
Wab-Novato--maker of far-seers
Pack Carno
Cat-Julor--
creche mother
Det-Zamar--
senior priest
Pahs-Drawo--
likely Afsan's father
Pal-Donat--
bloodpriest
Tar-Dordool--
leader
*1*
Afsan often escaped to this place. He remembered the first time he
had run up this hillside, half a kiloday ago, after his original
encounter with the formidable Tak-Saleed.
Formidable? Afsan clicked his teeth in humor, figuring that the
choice of adjective was a sign that he must be getting accustomed
to all this. Back then, after his introduction to the master
astrologer, the word he'd used was "monstrous."
That first time he'd run up here his only thought had been to get
out of the city, get back to his distant home Pack of Carno, back to
the simple life of a country boy. He was sure he'd
never get used to
this dizzying, terrifying world of apprenticeship, of scowling imperial
guards, of hundreds of people—ten or more gathered together in
the same place at once! Afsan hadn't experienced crowds like that
before, never felt such a wash of pheromones over him. He couldn't
stand the tension, the constant fear that he was encroaching on
another's territory or otherwise breaching protocol. He had found
himself tipping from the waist so often it made his head spin.
But on that day, as on this, Afsan had been calmed by the
magnificent view from here, tension slipping from his body, claws
retracting so far that Afsan thought he'd never see them again, tail
swishing back and forth in leisurely, contented movements.
The sun had set a short time ago. It had swollen to a bloated egg,
changing from its normal white to a deep violet, before dropping
behind the ragged cones of the Ch'mar volcanoes to the west of the
city. A beautiful sunset, Afsan had thought, the wispy clouds a veil
across the dimming disk, tinged with purple, with red, with deepest
blue. But then Afsan found all sunsets beautiful, and not just
because of the play of color across the clouds, although this evening
that was indeed spectacular. No, Afsan welcomed sunsets because
he preferred the night, craved the stars.
This will be a grand night for observing, he thought. The only clouds
were around the volcanoes, and those rarely lifted. Overhead, the
vast dome of the sky was immaculate.
Tonight was odd-night. Most adults slept on odd-nights. For that
very reason, Afsan did not. He preferred the peace and tranquillity
of the hillsides on those nights when—the thought came unbidden—
it was as if they were his own territory.
Of course, Afsan owned nothing of value, and, having entered a life
of quiet study, his chances of acquiring land were—how did the old
joke go?—about as likely as one of the Empress's eggs being used
as a game ball.
But even if he couldn't own land, he would always have the stars.
The sky was darkening quickly, as it always did, and there would
only be a short time of real night before even-day broke.
Afsan inhaled deeply. The air was as clear as the waters of spring-
fed Lake Doognar back home, the smells of—he flexed his nostrils,
wrinkled his muzzle—of wildflowers; the scent of a large animal,
perhaps an armorback (although how one of those would get this
high up a mountain he didn't know): urine on those rocks, likely
from a much smaller critter; and, underneath it all, faint, but more
prominent than when he'd first arrived in Capital City, the sulfurous
tinge of volcanic gases.
He had been straddling a boulder, his tail hanging over it, to watch
the sun go down. Now it was time to climb higher up the hillside. He
did so, the three broad toes on each foot giving him excellent
traction. Upon reaching the crest, he clicked his teeth in
satisfaction, then continued partway down the other side, placing
the bulk of the hill between himself and the torch-lit glow of Capital
City. Afsan lowered himself to the ground, and lay on his side to
look up at the panorama of the night sky.
As usual, Afsan found it uncomfortable with all his weight on his
right shoulder and hip, but what alternative was there? Once he had
tried lying on his belly in the sleeping position and had craned his
neck to look up instead of forward, but that
had given him a
stinging crick.
Dekadays ago, he'd asked Tak-Saleed why there was no easy
posture for Quintaglios to look at the stars, why their muscular tails
made it impossible to lie on their backs. Saleed had stared down at
young Afsan and declared that God had wished it that way, that She
had made the stars for Her face alone
to gaze upon, not for the
pinched muzzles of overly curious apprentices.
Afsan slapped his tail sideways against the soil, irritated by the
memory. He drew his nictitating membranes over his eyes. The
purple glow of the twilight still filtered through, but that was all.
Afsan cleared his mind of all thoughts of old Saleed, opened the
membranes, and drank in the beauty he had come here to enjoy.
The stars scurried from upriver to downriver as the brief night raced
by. Two of the moons were prominent at the start of the evening:
Slowpoke and the Big One. The Big One was showing only a
crescent sliver of illumination, although the rest of its disk could be
seen as a round blackness, obscuring the stars. Afsan held his arm
out and found that if he unsheathed his thumbclaw, its sickle
silhouette appeared about the same height and shape as the Big
One. The Big One's orange face was always intriguing—there were
markings on it, details just a little too small, just a little too dim, to
be clearly made out. What it was, Afsan couldn't say. It seemed
rocky,
but how could a rock fly through the sky?
He turned his attention to Slowpoke. It had been in one of its
recalcitrant moods again these past few nights, fighting its way
upriver instead of sailing downriver. Oh, the other moons would do
that occasionally, too, but never with the determination of tiny
Slowpoke. Slowpoke was Afsan's favorite.
Someday he would make a study of the moons. He'd read much of
what had been written about them, including Saleed's three-volume
Dancing the Night Away.
Such a whimsical title! How unlike the
Saleed he knew, the Saleed he feared.
Some of the moons moved quickly across the sky, others took
several tens of nights to cross from horizon to horizon. All went
through phases, waxing and waning between the extremes of
showing a fully lit circular shape and appearing as simply a black
circle covering the stars. What did it all mean? Afsan exhaled
noisily.
He scanned the sky along the ecliptic, that path along which the sun
traveled each day. Two planets were visible, bright Kevpel and
ruddy Davpel. Planets were similar to the moons, in that they
moved against the background stars, but they appeared as tiny
pinpoints, revealing no face or details, and their progress against
the firmament had to be measured over days or dekadays. A few of
the six known planets also showed the strange retrograde motions
that some of the moons exhibited, although it took kilodays for
them to complete these maneuvers.
Near the zenith now was the constellation of the Prophet. Afsan had
seen old hand-copied books that called this constellation the
Hunter, after Lubal, largest of the Five Original Hunters, but as
worship of them was now all but banned, the official name had been
changed to honor Larsk, the first to gaze upon the Face of God.
Lubal or Larsk, the picture was the same: points of light marked the
shoulders, hips, elbows, knees, and the tip of the long tail. Two
bright stars represented the eyes. It was like a reverse image,
Afsan thought—the kind one gets after staring at an object, then
looking at a white surface—since the prophet's eyes and Lubal's,
too, like those of all Quintaglios, must have been obsidian black.
Above the Prophet, glowing faintly across the length of the sky, ran
the powdery reflection of the great River that Land sailed on in its
never-ending journey toward the Face of God. At least, that was
what old Saleed said the dusty pathway of light crossing the night
was, but he'd never been able to explain to Afsan's satisfaction why
it was only during certain times that the great River cast a reflection
on the sky.
Saleed! Abominable Saleed! It had taken Afsan fifty-five days riding
atop a domesticated hornface in one of the merchant caravans to
get from Pack Carno, part of the province of Arj'toolar, deep within
Land's interior, to Capital City on the upriver shore of Land.
The children were the children of the Pack, of course—only the
creche operators knew who Afsan's actual parents might have
been—and the whole Pack was proud that one of their own had
been selected to apprentice to the court astrologer. The choice,
presumably, had been made based on Afsan's showing in the most
recent battery of vocational exams. He had felt honored as he
packed his sashes and boots, his books and astrolabe, and set out
for his selected future. But he had been here for almost five
hundred days now. True, that was something of a record. As he had
discovered after arriving here, Saleed had had six other apprentices
in the last four kilodays, all of whom had been dismissed. But, even
though he seemed to have greater endurance than the previous try-
outs, Afsan's dream of contributing to the advancement of
astrological research had been smashed by his master.
Afsan had idolized Saleed, devouring his books on portents and
omens, his treatise on the reflected River in the sky, his articles on
the significance of each constellation. How he had looked forward to
meeting the great one! How disappointed he had been when that
day finally came. Soon, though, Afsan would be leaving on his
pilgrimage. He thanked God for that, for he'd be away from his
master for a great many days—able to study in private, free from
Saleed's critical scowl.
Afsan shook his head slightly, again clearing his thoughts. He'd
come here to bask in the beauty of the night, not to wallow in his
own misfortune. One day the stars would yield their secrets to him.
Time slipped by unnoticed as Afsan drank in the glory overhead.
Moons careened across the sky, waxing and waning as they went.
The stars rose and fell, constellations hustling across the firmament.
Meteors flashed through the night, tiny streaks of gold against the
black. Nothing gave Afsan more pleasure than to behold this
spectacle, always familiar, always different.
At last, Afsan heard the
pip-pip
call of a wingfinger, one of the hairy
flyers that heralded the dawn. He stood, brushed dirt and dead
grass from his side, turned, and looked. A cool steady breeze played
along his face. He knew, naturally, that the air was still—for what
could move the air?—and, rather, that Land, the ground beneath his
feet, was sailing ever so smoothly down the mighty River, the River
that ran from horizon to horizon. At least that was what he'd been
taught, and he had learned painfully that one does not question the
teachings. And perhaps, he reflected, it
was
true that Land floated
on the River, for if you dug deep enough, did you not often come
upon water beneath the ground?
Afsan knew little of boats—although his pilgrimage would involve a
long water journey—but he did understand that the bigger the boat,
the less it rocked. Land was roughly oval in shape. According to
explorers who had traveled its length and breadth, it was some 3
million
paces from the harbor of Capital City to the westernmost tip
of Fra'toolar province and about 1.2 million paces from the
northernmost point of Chu'-toolar province to the southern tip of
the Cape of Belbar in Edz'toolar. Such a great rocky raft might
indeed float reasonably smoothly down the River. And, after all, the
journey was not always a steady one, for the ground shook,
sometimes severely, several times each kiloday.
Still, the floating was the part he always had a little mental trouble
with. But he himself had seen how the porous black basalts that
covered so much of Land's surface could indeed be made to bob in
a chalice of water. Besides, if there was a better explanation for the
way the world really was, he couldn't think of it—at least not yet.
His stomach growled, and, opening his wide mouth, Afsan growled
back at it. He understood that a ritual hunting party was going out
today, and that meant he might get to eat something other than
the usual fare from the imperial stockyards. He wondered what they
would bring down. Thunder-beast, he hoped, for it was his favorite,
though he knew that even the largest hunting packs had trouble
felling those great animals, with their massive pillar-like legs, their
endless necks, their lengthy tails. Probably something less
ambitious, he thought. Perhaps a shovelmouth or two. Stringy
meat, but an easy kill, or so he'd heard, even if they did almost
deafen you with the great bellowing calls they produced through the
crests of bone on their heads.
He ambled back up to the top of the hill. From there he could look
in all directions. Below him lay sleepy Capital City. Beyond, the wide
expanse of beach—sometimes completely submerged, but now
uncovered almost to its maximum extent. Beyond that, the River,
its waves lapping against the black sands.
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