The Seer (14 page)

This had all happened long in the past. None of it had anything to do with the case at hand, and Jesco pushed away from it. Amena’s memories pushed back, demanding their due, and there was so much of her in this ring . . . at the funeral when
that woman
dared to show with her ill-begotten brat, the vicious slap Amena delivered to the gasps of the mourners and the boy wailing like he was two and not six or seven . . . at the weddings of Faugnas and Silvestre where she stood proud . . . at the home of Alastasia in a heated argument, the daughter defiant that the sniveling brat was her half-brother and now he was a man and Amena could not dictate who entered Alastasia’s own house . . .

But Amena did not have to enter it again.

She had meant to give the ring to Alastasia as her elder daughter, but it passed to the younger in Livina. Sweet but silly, her daughter Livina, yet Amena preferred her now. It moved from hand to hand and he was-

-he was-

-she was-

-she was—

Livina was getting out! Out from this dirty air, away from these dirty people and dirty mines, oh, she was going to the city! Where every day was a festival and the shops never closed . . . Mama was not happy that she was leaving, but Livina was so happy to get away from the tide of anger washing from wall to wall in their tiny house . . .
some man is going to get you in trouble in Cantercaster and don’t think you can come back here
. . .

The train stopped at Vellen Station and she stepped out and into her future. Time skipped, since Livina did not always wear the ring. Her job at the slaughterhouse forbade jewelry, so she only wore it now and then on her days off. The city was not all that she had thought it would be but there was Colton, her brooding poet who wrote such fearfully dark verses and always looked so far beyond where anyone else could see . . .

When Jesco saw her next, her face was tight. Colton had blown away with the wind, but he had left something behind in Livina’s belly. She would not take drake root to rid herself of it. He would come back . . . oh, he would come back and see her with their beautiful child and the darkness in him would turn to light . . . then she was standing before the door of that cramped house she had been so thrilled to leave and her mother was staring silently at her and the baby . . . Mama was going to send her away and then she and Beri had nothing . . .
was he married
. . .
no, Mama
. . .
may as well come in
. . .

The sting of relief through Livina pierced the ring and left its mark, and pierced into Jesco and left a mark upon him as well. Relief to have a home, gratitude to be forgiven . . . Mama was a harsh and angry woman but she took in Livina and when Mama held Beri, when she dandled him upon her knee, something had grown softer in her. She was not as Livina remembered . . .

He pushed. Livina married a miner who raised her son as his own and gave her two redheaded daughters . . . Kyrad grew up in front of the ring and he sped it along until she was a young woman in a nightdress before a bathroom mirror . . . in disgust to climb into bed with that old man . . . he grunted and slobbered and snored but it was a trade, life was a trade, and she would trade on this so her back didn’t break in the mines and the dropsy didn’t take her . . . he was in poor health and not going to live more than a year and after that, after that she was free and she would
never
chain herself and her fortune to a man . . . how she loathed chains . . .

They hated her.

They wanted to take Naphates Mines away from her . . . not the role of a woman, a widow, just sell to us, sell and live in prosperity, buy wardrobes full of pretty dresses and let us do the dirty work . . . They came to her, one man after another with their fists already closing over her business but only to leave empty-handed. She would not sell so they pushed their sons at her . . . so young, so beautiful, so alone, so naïve . . . in the conviction that through marriage they could gain what she would not give.

But they were
her
damn mines now.

The boys, she loved her boys, she took in a girl here and there and loved that too, there was Jasper, Yannis, Stansen, Gorman, Hylo, Sulla, Ames, Tallo . . . Jesco experienced the giving of the timepiece from her perspective and she was smiling but filled with annoyance at this bratty man-child who would not face his reality like she once had . . .

She had no respect for that.

She was sick in bed and they came to her in ones and twos to keep her company. To read the news, to tell jokes, to warm away the chills . . . Jesco nudged and nudged to center himself at this period of time, but it held nothing more than what she had told them. While Hasten Jibb was being murdered, Kyrad Naphates was sniffling and coughing as the escort minding her for that night brought in medication and stayed at her side. It was the woman at the billiards table, who was named Rallie and she was one of the sweet ones . . . not sweet as was her job but genuinely sweethearted . . .
tell me what you’d like to do that you never have been able to . . . I want to see the ocean . . . you’ve never been? Not ever?
. . . All she wanted was the sea and Kyrad loved her all the more for it. They’d go in early summer, the two of them and a handful of the boys, rent out the top floor of . . .

Jesco pushed away from the scene, which was intimate though not sexual. There was no trace of Hasten Jibb anywhere within Kyrad’s ring, not his face, not his name, nothing at all. Jesco turned to the courier company but neither was there Ragano & Wemill here. She used a different service.

He was growing weary of trying to keep his focus, overwhelmed with Amena and Livina still clamoring in the background, there were beds and babies and parties and boardrooms and illnesses and dinners and there was that sniveling, redheaded brat with his mouth wide open in a shriek to see his mother slapped . . . there was Mama stepping aside to let Livina and Beri enter . . .
Mama, I made such a mistake never mind that what is his name? Beri? Beri after my father? Oh, Livina! Let me hold him
. . . there was handsome Vangelis with his cuffs and paddle and Kyrad had waited all day in those dull financial meetings to enjoy this . . .

. . . angels above, was she going to enjoy this . . .

. . . she had been a very bad girl . . .

He took his hand away from the ring and went limp. They were waiting for him, Kyrad and Scoth and two of the escorts, and he collapsed with a flurry of hands shooting out to break his fall.

“There is nothing for us here,” he said to Scoth, and blacked out.

Chapter Seven

He came to in the carriage. A drumbeat of rain was striking the roof, and a heavy and furious torrent was obliterating the world through the window. It was evening. The carriage shuddered in the wind, and no wind until now had been strong enough to do that. Jesco was Kyrad was Amena was Taniel and all of them quaked with the rocking of the carriage.

A man was sitting beside the wheelchair. Worry had folded his brow into two parallel tracks. His hair was wet and flat and Jesco stared at the detective, who he had never seen before in such disarray. A panel was lying on the seat, and a light flashed red above the buttons along the wall.

“It’s not her,” Jesco mumbled, his words coming out mashed. He was looking at the world sideways with his head bent. His neck could sway from side to side, but not hold up his head. The thrall had left him limp.

“I know,” Scoth said. “I knew that before you touched the ring. A guilty party would not have been so swift to offer herself to a seer. We just needed the proof.”

Home. Jesco had heard Scoth repeating
home
as his senses were returning.
Home. Destination home
. But what came out of his mouth was his previous remark, his brain looping upon it. “It’s not her.”

“I know, Jesco,” Scoth said, and hearing his first name broke the loop.

“Tallo . . .”

“Yes. The next step is to track down Tallo Quay of Ipsin.”

“Home . . . why were you saying home?”

The carriage swayed violently in the wind. Scoth kept his voice calm, but there was growing panic in his eyes. “The storm is getting vicious. It isn’t safe to travel. My home is much closer than the asylum, so I changed the autohorse’s destination.”

Jesco slipped into a whirling confusion of memories that were not his. The star shining in his mind’s eye was stormed and he was drowning within hundreds of individual histories. Then he saw Rafonse among them, and that was Jesco’s own history. He launched himself at the towering bear of a man just as he had done as a boy. The friendliest fellow in the world, that had been Rafonse, and his arms closed over Jesco’s back as the big man roared his welcome. There were a great many bones in the human body, but not one of Rafonse’s bore a scintilla of meanness or spite. He was not a handsome fellow to the objective eye, but five minutes in his company and he became radiant.

Isena was quieter in her greeting, but her husband’s joy always seeped into everyone around him and she was no different. Jesco was firmly in his own memories now, and he walked with them down the lane away from the asylum. He was twelve, giddy with excitement, and in his room were his brand new whirly-gig and tool case that they had given him for his birthday. There was a street fair several blocks away and they were going to buy a poof of pink cloud candy wrapped upon a white stick . . . listen to the music and wander through the shops . . . his brothers hated him but Rafonse was his brother-in-law, his new brother, and he liked Jesco just fine . . .

The carriage. Home. Scoth. The memories receded and Jesco said, “Your hair is a mess.”

“You aren’t looking so put together yourself,” Scoth said. Some time had passed since they last spoke. It was dark outside the window and the detective no longer looked so alarmed. The storm had not abated in the slightest, but the autohorse was slowing. They had arrived at Scoth’s home.

Little of it could be seen through the window save a tall, shadowy structure. The horse stopped and Scoth got out. Light blossomed within the doorway and he returned to the carriage. For a moment, he stared at Jesco and the chair in puzzlement. Then he retreated and came back with boards, which he leaned from the ground up to the open door of the carriage. Turning Jesco to face away from the house, he rolled the chair to the top of the boards and lifted it onto them. Then he rolled Jesco down to the ground and pushed him into the house. The bags were deposited beside him. Pulling out the planks, Scoth closed the door and ordered the autohorse to go to the stables with the carriage.

Jesco could only see his legs beside an umbrella stand. The chair turned and went forward. “Where . . .” he muttered, losing the strength to even keep his eyes open.

“I’ll set you up in the spare bedroom,” Scoth said.

“I can’t touch the sheets. You have to make it up with the things in my bag.”

“All right.”

“But you can’t touch them.”

The wheelchair stopped and Scoth said, “How am I to make the bed?”

“You have to make it with your hands covered.”

Scoth muttered a stream of vile oaths. Some time later, Jesco was lifted from the chair. His head tilted and his cheek touched a cool, smooth fabric.

-he was-

-he was-

-he was Laeric—

He was walking into The Seven Temptations and there was Collier . . .

Jesco was laid in the bed and the thrall ceased. “You know Collier. So do I.”

“How did you . . .” Scoth swore again and said crossly, “Get out of my mind.”

That was the last Jesco knew until morning, when he opened his eyes to a strange bedroom. It did not look like it had been intended in its construction to become a bedroom at all. The ceiling was high and the windows along the wall behind the bed were massive, filling the room with a weary gray light. Bookcases stood tall along the walls, crammed with books from end to end. Even more books and sheaves of paper were laid atop the uneven rows.

Jesco’s suitcase was beside the bed, as was his wheelchair. It was quiet outside of his room, and he assumed that Scoth was still sleeping. Rain pattered down and streaked the windows. He shifted in the bed and was startled that he could shift. It had been an intense thrall; however, he had not worn himself out in the days beforehand. His recovery would not take long, and the thrall from Scoth had been exceedingly small. His arms felt weak but he could move them with relative ease; his legs felt weaker but he could flex his toes and make tiny kicks. Control of his bladder had stayed with him, yet it was not going to remain that way if he didn’t find a lavatory. He recalled that he had packed for disaster, and he got hold of his suitcase to take care of the problem. Tucking the soaked pad into a bag and tying the handles, he set it down and dozed.

. . . she had been a very bad girl . . .

He woke up aroused. Whether it was his or hers, he couldn’t say. There was nothing to be done about it in any case. He distracted himself by thinking about Tallo Quay, who had had something in his possession that he was going to use against Kyrad Naphates. It couldn’t have had anything to do with her admirable drive for bedsports. She had made very good points that she was not so important that the whole country would take an interest in her sexual activities, nor was there anything scandalous when her partners were all consenting adults from escort agencies. Also, it made little sense that Quay would wait several years to reveal his stories. He had been up to something else, and Hasten Jibb must have inadvertently gotten involved.

There were footsteps upon the stairs, a steady thumping from Scoth coming down to the ground floor. Jesco scooted up in bed and pulled up his knees so that his erection was not as evident. The door opened.

Scoth at home was wholly different from Scoth at work, and just as appealing in a different way. Dressed in battered work trousers and a long-sleeved white shirt, his hair was as rumpled as a wind-scathed sea. Stubble covered his cheeks and a screwdriver was protruding from his pocket. “Came to see if you were interested in eating yet. Or if you needed anything else.”

The presence under the blanket twitched. “I could do with some food. There are-”

“Plates and utensils in your bag and not to touch them,” Scoth finished. Wrapping his hands in rags, he came forward and removed those items from the suitcase. “Might be a queer breakfast, or it’s late enough to be almost lunch, I suppose. I just keep odds and ends around.”

Jesco wouldn’t expect anything different from this man. “Whatever you have will be fine.” As Scoth straightened, the screwdriver almost fell from his pocket. “What is it that you’re doing?”

“Working on some things upstairs. You want a book to read to pass the time? I can’t drive you back to the asylum yet. The roads are flooded.”

“I can’t read.”

Scoth looked at him incredulously. “I’ve seen you read street signs just fine. You mean you can’t touch the books? Just wear those gloves you have and fumble a bit to turn the pages.”

“Yes, I know my letters, but no, I can’t read a book,” Jesco explained. “It happens with those who have strong seersight. Reading the author’s words will conjure a thrall in me if they wrote with strong emotions.”

Scoth stared in amazement from him to the books. Then he shook his head and retreated to the door. “Everything in the world is a bloody menace to you.”

The money set aside for a new whirly-gig was going to have to be rerouted to The Seven Temptations. Jesco argued with the lump under the blanket and lost. It did not flag until it had reassurance that its needs came first, and it had been so long since the last visit . . . No, it really hadn’t been
that
long. Perhaps it was a little of Kyrad’s insatiableness still within his mind.

Breakfast arrived and it was as promised, a hodgepodge collection of odds and ends rustled up from the kitchen. Scoth thumped back upstairs as Jesco ate. Then he slid down in the bed to rest. From many recoveries from thralls, he had learned to estimate how long each would take. By tomorrow, he would be upright. Neither running nor walking fast, but he would be able to get around with no more assistance than a cane.

He was dozing when he became aware of thumping on the stairs, and his eyes stayed closed as the sound incorporated itself into a hazy dream. Then his mind roused and he woke to Scoth in the room. The detective was setting a gigantic whirly-gig upon a side table. It looked similar to a phonograph, its most notable features being a large golden horn attached at its base to a black spinner. Jesco rubbed at his eyes as Scoth fiddled around with it.

Unfolding a collapsible music rack beside the horn, he went to the bookshelves, perused the many options there, and pulled out a thick green book. That was placed upon the rack. From behind the horn came an extension of slender black tubes that stretched down to the book and joined up above it at a flat black disk. Flicking switches and repositioning the book, bringing down two metallic eyes that opened and shut, Scoth stepped back.

The pleasant voice of a man filled the room. “Autohorse Races.” The black tubes moved with mechanical clicks and opened the cover of the book. The first page was blank. Working just like real fingers, they turned it to the next where the title was repeated, followed by the author and publishing house.

“I’ve never seen one like this!” Jesco said. “Did you make it?”

“More like I just stuck a bunch of whirly-gigs together,” Scoth said, looking at it with something akin to pride. “It reads me books when I’m busy. The only thing it can’t do is fetch itself another book when it finishes the one it’s reading.”

Up the stairs Scoth went once more, and Jesco listened to the voice and the clicks of the mechanical fingers turning pages, and many thumps and crashes and taps from upstairs. The rain tapered outside the window but did not cease, and strengthened by afternoon. Every angel in the heavens was weeping upon the world, as a nurse had said when Jesco was young, and it seemed like there was a divine sadness in how the sky poured inconsolably.

It was almost evening when the phonograph came to the last page of the book. Closing it, the fingers retracted and the machine turned off. Jesco could take no more curiosity about the noise from upstairs, and some strength had come back to him. He dressed himself and stood up, wobbled yet held, and started for the door. It helped to hold on to the furniture. Halfway up the stairs he felt like he might fall, so he sat down heavily and rested his gloved hand upon a bar of the railing. The clattering stopped and Scoth appeared at the landing. Embarrassed, Jesco said, “I’ll make it.”

“Could have just called for help.” Scoth came down, wrapped his hands under Jesco’s armpits, and pulled him up step by step. Dragged into a room, Jesco was lifted to a chair.

It was a workshop filled with tables, whirly-gigs both whole and disemboweled all over them. There were tools for wood and metal along the walls, strips of horsehair in multiple colors hanging from a bar, and clusters of jars filled with nails and screws and washers on a bench. What slim light the sky was offering came down through giant skylights in the ceiling, where they caught upon strings of crystal and reflected over everything. Scoth went to a corner of the shop that was further lit by lanterns and bent down to pick up screws that had been dumped all over the floor.

“What do you do in here?” Jesco asked.

“Make a huge mess most of the time,” Scoth said as he dropped a screw in a jar. “It was my mother’s, a lot of it. She had a gift.”

“What did she do?”

“Made things. She couldn’t see a machine without wanting to improve it.” Looking to a pale blue, mechanical bird hanging from the ceiling, its beak open in a silent cry, he said, “That was hers. I hated that thing. She would put destination cards in its chest and send it flying around to find me with reminders about my chores. When I kept coming home late from school, she sent it downriver where I was larking about and had it yell at me. She’d coded her scolding to the map. I ran home real quick, my friends laughing their fool heads off.”