The Diviner

coughed. Solanna gasped—and in doing so inhaled a full lungful of smoke.

“Forgive me,” Miqelo said softly. “But I must know.”

Belatedly, Qamar recognized the scents. Herbs, some spices to disguise the odor, scorched wool from the little bag Miqelo had stored them in. Only a few times through the years had he smelled this exact combination, and the recollection made him want to grab Miqelo by the throat.

Too late. Solanna was trembling beside him. He tried to put an arm around her but she shook him off, scuttled sideways, and began to rock back and forth as she stared blindly into the fire. No, not blindly, but what she saw was not the flames.

She did this rarely and unwillingly, because the future ought to be opaque to all but Acuyib in His Wisdom. Sight frightened her. It also compelled her—as it had when she had first come into his room on a rainy night long ago, to see if he was truly the one she had envisioned. That seeing, undertaken reluctantly at Princess Baeatrizia’s plea, had been of him, but old and with scars on his face—or so she had said. He had come to believe they were only the lines and wrinkles of great age. Another time, she had taken pity on Miqelo’s dying wife and tried to see whether or not he would be home in time to bid her farewell. She had not quite lied to her friend, saying that Miqelo would be at her side very soon. She had chosen not to mention that she had seen him beside a casket being lowered into the ground.

Her other seeings, those unaided by the herbs, were always spontaneous and always of that exact moment in some other location. The hand she had seen caressing a map, the hand wearing a ring of Shagara making that could only have been taken from the finger of a dead man, had been illuminated by the setting sun; the vision had come to her as dusk fell over the Shagara fortress. The seeing that had shown her Qamar himself, stealing from the maqtabba in Joharra, had come to her—as nearly as they could tell—at the precise moment he put his hand on the money drawer and opened it.

But these visions, the ones prompted by the smoke—they were always of the future. As she shivered and swayed with the smoke swirling around her, Qamar glared across the fire at Miqelo.

“I must know,” the other man repeated.

“How kind of your brother Yberrio to anticipate your need,” he snapped. “Did he prepare it himself, or have a healer do it? Ayia, did he remember to send along something to help her through the next day or two, as she returns to her right mind?”

“The hawk,” Solanna whispered, arms wrapped around herself. “The hawk flies from the empty mountain— across the river—”

Miqelo leaned toward her, his face obscured by flames and smoke. “Who is still alive?” he demanded. “Tell me what the hawk sees—”

“Be silent!” Qamar snarled.

Solanna heard neither of them. “Tents . . . carpets . . . the river and the hill . . . the white horses and—and —”

“And what?” Miqelo urged.

“—the book, the book—by lantern light—the boy has come, he’s finishing—”

“Qamar’s book? What boy? A Shagara, to take and preserve the book? Do you see our success? Solanna, answer me!”

But her eyes rolled up in her head. Qamar caught her as she collapsed toward the fire, barely keeping her from the flames. Without another word he gathered her into his arms and rose, carrying her to the deeper darkness beneath the trees. There he held her until dawn, ignoring the sounds of bridles and harness as the others made ready to go separate ways. At length all was silent. Qamar cradled his unconscious wife against his chest and did not stir from his place beneath the trees.

The boy Nassim eventually called out very softly, “Sheyqir, Miqelo and the others have departed. If the lady is well enough, we ought to go. Sheyqir?”

He rose to his feet, still with Solanna in his arms—and almost stumbled as his stiff knees grated with pain. So it was beginning for him, he thought; he could not blame this on the cold, for it was high summer, nor on the damp, for it had not rained in a month. It was beginning.

“Where is Tanielo?” he asked.

“Waiting with the horses. The others—”

“I don’t care about the others.” So Miqelo had assigned his son to protect Qamar, had he? Unable to face him or Solanna after what he’d forced upon her with the fire and smoke? “Bring my horse. We cannot ride far today, but we must ride.”

Tanielo was wise enough to stay as far as he could from Qamar. By midafternoon, his whole body aching now with the strain of holding Solanna secure in the saddle before him, Qamar was more than ready to call a halt. But this morning’s sharp ache had warned him that from now on he would have to learn how to hide pain. So it was nearly twilight before he reined in and told Nassim to bring Tanielo to him.

“Your father was my friend,” he said flatly. “I will treat you with the respect I would show to the son of a friend who has died. Because he is dead to me now, for what he did last night. Don’t even think of doing the same. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Qamar.”

“Sheyqir. You will address me as Sheyqir. All of you will. Bring Leisha to me now, and tell Nassim to make camp.”

Just after dark, Solanna woke. Qamar was still holding her, dozing at her side beneath a light blanket. That day they had climbed far enough so that the air was thinner, colder, sharper with the scent of pine. It reminded him of his journeys to Sihabbah.

“How much did I say aloud?”

Qamar jerked awake, arms tightening around her. “Don’t worry about that now. You need to eat.”

“Tomorrow morning,” she murmured. “Water will do, tonight.”

As he sat up and reached for the nearby jug of stream water, he said, “I can’t believe Miqelo did that to you.”

“It was wrong of him, but I understand it. Did I say anything?”

“Something about a hawk.” He handed her the water jug and wished there was a fire nearby, so he could see her expression.

“Nothing else?”

“No.”

“Good.” She drank long and deep, then set the jug aside. “Miqelo wouldn’t have liked it.”

He waited. At length she pushed her tangled hair from her face and sighed.

“The Sheyqa’s army was camped on a wide, flat plain. It was autumn—the trees were red-gold and the river was shrunken from its banks.”

“White horses, you said.”

“Yes. The—what did you call them? The Qoundi Ammar. Many tents, many flags. One tent especially, red with gold, on the highest ground, with carpets flung all around it, as if to spare someone actually touching the earth—”

“—with her exalted feet,” he finished. “The Sheyqa’s tent, then.”

“Likely.” She sipped more water. “There was another army, behind a hill to the north. Cazdeyyan, Ibrayanzan, Qayshi—but some were golden-skinned. Tza’ab, Shagara—” She shook her head. “There were no walls to be toppled. Only the plain, and the two armies. Thousands of men, thousands.”

Again he waited. When he could bear it no longer, he asked, “What did you see by lantern light?”

Solanna gave a start of surprise. “Did I say that?”

He nodded. “And something about the book.”

Her smile was weary and triumphant. “Your book, meya dolcho. I saw your book!”

Then she had seen success. He smiled back and kissed both her hands.

It was still high summer when they rode into a sanctuary that remains unlocated to this day. Miqelo Shagara had learned of it from his father, and he had told his son, and it was to this place that Tanielo guided the Diviner so that the great work might be accomplished.