X: Visions

When we met again in the morning, it was at a shaded overlook outdoors on the second story of the palace. The morning was gorgeous, although the fierce spring wind made me even more pleased to be reunited with my student’s gown. A brief flurry of servants laid out an impressive breakfast of fruits, greens, and sliced ham while we watched the alpine forests sway in the breeze.

The small talk was unusually spare given how lively the conversation had been the night before. Then, the final servant left with the empty water glasses.

Princess Lorea set her cutlery down. She had braided her hair up and was wearing what appeared to be the same white mantle as the day before, but atop a flowing blue morning dress. “Ae spoke to me in my dream last night,” she said.

“I heard her voice in my dreams, too,” Hester replied.

Gena nodded, looking reticent.

“I… had trouble sleeping last night,” I deflected.

“Hard travel does that sometimes, unlikely as that sounds,” Hester said. “Last night counts as hard.”

“Nevertheless, it is as you say, Hester,” Lorea said. “You are on a mission given to you by the goddess herself, your strength arrayed against the forces of evil.”

Hester nodded. Gena stared at her plate. I ate quietly.

Lorea looked across us. “It’s a heavy burden but I hadn’t expected you to look so glum about it.”

“Hard travel! Just as my friend here said. Very sorry,” I said between bites, trying to make a point of snapping out of it.

“Right,” Gena said, meeting Lorea’s eyes. “Forgive me, this is unbecoming. I am just unused to… this.”

“Hm?” Lorea prompted.

“It’s much to come to terms with. A noble quest. Ae speaking to me in a dream.”

“You wouldn’t be the first apostle to have heard her word firsthand.”

“Of course not,” Gena laughed. “By definition, almost. But the modern college is not the ancient following. Ae is satisfied that she has already said much of what is necessary to say. So every scholar devoted to the study of her world and her Word knows that much the meaning is found in the very effort of the search. A difficult undertaking requiring great discipline. But the goddess spoke to me in her own voice last night. Why, when she has been so silent for so long?”

“You worry for your studies,” I said, piecing it together in my own way. “That they seem… mooted by this.”

“You could say that.”

I also wondered if her pride had been wounded. At the start of all this, she had chided Hester for speaking of visions of Ae—she seemed so sure that the goddess did not favor mortals with visions or prophecies. It was one thing for Hester to have been vindicated by the evidence as he had. But it was another thing entirely to be visited by a vision of her own. I decided not to press this… not yet.

“There are mysteries yet unsolved here,” I said. “I expect the choosing of our persons was no accident. Well, yours and Hester’s, anyway.”

“Nor was yours, Howe. I’m sure of it. And I expect Lorea…” Hester was saying.

“I believe I have been called and I hope to live up to it. I shan’t be journeying,” Lorea hastened to add, “but you have a long way ahead and I know just the man who can get you started right.”

Hester lit up. “Nico?”

“He’d be happy to send you with the Windvalley Riders. They go to the east end of the plateau frequently, and from there you might be able to meet a caravan or another band.”

“Thank the goddess. You have no idea how many times I almost died coming west,” Hester said, much to my consternation.

“I have some other news. I sent a few trusted members of the household to inquire at the inn. They found it undisturbed from the outside, but real mess on the inside, just as you promised. But…”

“But…?” I said.

“We didn’t find anybody there. You said you left Theodric and the two men there, right?”

“Right.”

“Then the agents of the college have found them. I expect I will receive a missive announcing an inquisition in the next few days. I shall tell them quite truthfully that I have no answers that they do not already have themselves.”

Gena stared intensely at her plum tart.

“Lorea, Your Highness, this is a boon neither myself nor the House Eastmost will soon forget,” said Hester.

“There is no debt to repay. We have all been called upon to serve, have we not?”

King Nico was, indeed, happy to vouch for us to the Windvalley Riders. Hester was eager to begin the journey the moment Lorea told us, but she was forced to rein him in. We were fortunate to be striking out just as the riders were to begin their journey to their summer pastures, but that day was still three days away. I pointed out that this was much more convenient than their departure having been three days prior, but that seemed to do little to dilute his sour mood.

What did help was that Lorea offered to re-introduce Hester to Chethe, one of the riders’ elders and frequent hunting partner of the king. Hester seemed pleased for the companionship of a peer equestrian and no doubt was eager to talk his ear off about the quest and the journey.

This left me with an important opportunity that I seized immediately.

Afternoon tea was ending, so as Hester left with one of the household staff to seek out Nico and Chethe, I excused myself to my room—and my bed and my notes—and waited a short span of time. Then I knocked on Gena’s door.

“You have the look of business about you,” Gena said.

“I suppose I do,” I replied, feeling awkward. Gena motioned for me to have a seat, so I pulled up the little wooden stool, and I got right to it.

“What was your dream like last night?” I asked.

Gena paused, looking me in the eyes as she considered her reply.

“You can trust me, Gena. Please. I’ve been honest with you in truly the most absurd of circumstances.”

Gena couldn’t help but smirk. “True. You are honest. You have my respect. But…” the smirk had already faded. “It isn’t about you. I have duties to consider.”

“My dream was quite a bit different than Hester’s,” I offered. “I suspect your duty would compel you to interrogate that idea.”

She laughed. “Fine. Yours for mine.”

“Deal.”

“It was a simple vision,” she began. “It was the Doctrina Tempestas upon a lectern, open to a page dense with diagramming and labels. Dense with knowledge. A shadow seemed to loom over it, over the whole room—though I couldn’t tell you what the room itself looked like. The shadow… it was watching. It was at home. It must be the evil in possession of the tome.

“Hester entered, driving the shadow back, but as he stepped forward to claim the tome, he was struck by lightning. It was gruesome; he… convulsed. His skin cracked and split with the heat.

“It seems separate somehow, but when I awoke, I had a final memory lingering on my ears. Ae’s own voice, saying, ‘The knight needs your aid. The power needs a regent.’ And I could see myself, at the lectern, bathed in her light.”

“Astonishing,” I said.

“Yes. But… yours, now.”

“Right. Much shorter. I saw the lectern. The tome. What I supposed to be the tome, anyway. Have you seen it in person?”

“Yes. Bound in vulcan salamander leather¹, dyed blue. You wouldn’t mistake a tome like that if you’re familiar with bindings.”

“That was it, then. I saw… it’s hard to put it. I experienced the vision as though I were in my body seeing with my own eyes, but I was simply a visitor in that body. Or as if I were remembering something that had already happened. I stepped up to the lectern, driving out the shadow with my will, and then I claimed the tome, and darkness overtook me. My body, my mind, my soul. Complete oblivion. It didn’t hurt, physically. But the feeling of being destroyed, completely… it was terrible.

“And then I woke up.”

“No voice?” Gena asked.

“No. I thought the symbolism was quite clear, though. That I should not dare seize the power in that tome.”

“And yet…” Gena hesitated.

“And yet your vision was the inverse. That you should wield that power. No better way to interpret the word ‘regent,’ no?”

“Yes, as much as it pains me to say it.” Gena’s frown tightened. “Howe, every mortal to have ever claimed that they were meant to assume Ae’s mantle of godhead… every one I’ve ever read about, anyway… they were all heretics.”

I looked at her hardening eyes and then down at the floor in glum acknowledgement. The histories I had been educated in very much agreed on that point.

“Most of them get put to the sword,” she continued. “By an inquisition.”

“Well, the ones that don’t tend to disappear into obscurity. Maybe…?”

“… No, I’d rather not even that. I’d rather study her Word than flee into exile. I was meant for the good work. So suppose I reject this… quest. I avoid making a heretic of myself, and I return to my work. What am I supposed to do back at the college?”

“What do you mean? Study, as you have been.”

“What if I can no longer trust my senses? Trust my connection with my goddess?”

“What if,” I began slowly, making last-minute assessments on whether this was wise to say or not. “these weren’t visions from Ae at all?”

Gena tapped agitatedly at her chair. “What if… hm. What reason could we have to think that?”

“I was afraid that saying this would be an insult to you. And to Hester, and now Lorea. To imply you have all are mistaken. I pray you forgive me if I am wrong.”

“Get on with it,” Gena said. “You’re forgiven.”

“It’s a tenuous theory. But you said it yourself; Ae does not typically deal in visions. And if she were going to… why deliver three separate, different visions?”

“Three separate recipients because each plays a different role?”

“But these conflict. If these are divine omens, I am being warned away from the Doctrina Tempestas. In fact, I believe I am being warned to decline this quest altogether; the temptation toward the darkness might be too great if I am on the path. You, however, are being chosen to take the tome. And Hester… to deliver it back to the college.”

Gena was thinking hard now. “There is a theory consistent with all that, is there not? Suppose you are not pure of heart or faith. Suppose, further, that I am, which means I am a candidate to study the tome, and Hester is meant to protect me.”

“It’s plausible. But… does that seem true? That this is how Ae meant it all? Would she arrange for such a quest with these muddled prophecies? Or…?”

“Alternatively… this is not Ae’s will at all.” Gena’s eyes flashed. “Someone else sent these visions.”

“Like an evil wizard. I think so. Sister, I think this is a trap.”

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