“WHERE DO I FIND THEM?” Syr shouted into the man’s face.
The man, a burly, bald porter whose muscles had muscles, blinked in confusion. The girl who had seized the front of his shirt and shoved her face into his was as tall as he was, but surely weighed just a little less than half he did. He paused for a moment to try to understand, and as he sized up his assailant the situation began to make a bit more sense. Her red hair was matted and clumped with dirt, her dark eyes teary and puffy. They were thin and wide, set above a narrow nose and a pentagonal jaw—a foreigner, probably. Her clenched hands trembled. Her clothes were a mess; she wore baggy trousers and some sort of ragged chestwrap under a too-big cloak.
“Easy there girl, easy. Down dockside, right? Big long street…”
He gestured awkwardly with his hands as she refused to release her grip. But her eyes seemed to follow, at least.
“… right on the waterfront. On the south end, here, there’s a street that cuts this way uphill between a fishmonger’s stall and a cooperage. Follow that, almost to the end. Door has a string of beads on the knob.”
The girl, trembling, nodded.
“Be good, aye? Nobody gonna hurt you dockside. Be good?”
The girl managed to force a steely look through her tears, threw herself off of him and hurtled down the street toward dockside.
Poor lass, he thought to himself. Coming down off the first hit is never easy. And worse, she might already be hunting for the next fix.
Syr slumped with her elbows on the little round table, cradling her head in her hands and drawing ragged breaths.
The soothsayer hummed a few more bars of their strange song, and held the last note for a brief diminuendo into perfect silence. They turned to face Syr across the little table, a subtle movement made difficult to notice by the strange purple veil-hood they wore that obscured their face and left no obvious way for them to see out.
“Feeling better, I hope?”
“Yes… yes, I think so.”
“Good.”
They sat in silence in the soothsayer’s little shack for a brief span. It smelled of fish, cinnamon, and the faintest whiff of herbal perfume, probably applied to the red curtains that encircled the little table, in a vain hope to mask the scent of fish. Four candles burned peacefully, arranged in a square on the table.
“Will you accept my aid?” inquired the soothsayer in their reedy, androgynous voice.
Syr looked up. “I don’t know where to go. If you’re offering, then…”
The veil shook, sadly, Syr thought. “I cannot offer advice, but I would be full glad to tell you what I see. They are visions of great omen.”
Syr blinked. “Wait. Why?”
“All will be clear. You have my word.”
Syr barrelled forward into the silence, flustered.
“Fine! Tell me then.”
The soothsayer sat across from Syr, multicolored beads and rings clattering gently as they did so.
“You are foreign to this place but studied to its language. If, perhaps, not all its customs. You fled tragedy at home. Persecution. Your family. Now, you have stolen something. You do not understand it. You have come to me.”
“But…”
“All this is made clear by the eyes and ears.”
“But…”
“You are considering lying to me.”
Syr fell silent.
“Please. Tell me the truth of what happened. We shall summit that mount, and from there we shall see great distances.”
Syr drew in one more breath, and the soothsayer gave what she thought might be an encouraging nod, and she began.