Prophecy (24 page)

“So that the enemies of the Chosen will try stoppin’ us instead of them,” Vallant added, rounding out the explanation with a smile. “It makes a good deal of sense, and we don’t mind in the least. We’ll blaze the trail, so to speak, so the real five can simply walk in and do what they’remeant to.”

“I … don’t think it’s meant to work in quite that way,” Mohr said as he slowly seated himself. “Have any of you actually read the Prophecies, and I mean as they were written down? Not heard about them or had someone paraphrase or interpret them for you, but actually read them? And for that matter, how familiar are you with the ability of Guild members?”

Rion exchanged looks with the others, but none of them spoke up to say they’d read the Prophecies.
He
certainly hadn’t, nor had he ever heard anyone else say they had. And as far as being familiar with Guild practices went, everyone probably knew just what he did.

“It seems that our education is lacking in more than one way,” Rion told Mohr ruefully, speaking for them all. “It’s fairly obvious that none of us has read the actual Prophecies, and we also know almost nothing about the Guild. Your members are unable to use magic yourselves, but you’reable to judge the use of it in others—or so I interpret the matter.”

“Your interpretation is correct, if incomplete,” Mohr replied with a smile and a gesture of his hand. “But that subject may be left for later, after we’ve discussed the Prophecies. In point of fact there is just one Prophecy, with more … minor supporting statements which are also called Prophecies. The major statement is as follows: ‘Beware and be warned. In three hundred years will come a time of greatest crisis, a time when the teachings of wisdom are no longer followed. This will presage the reappearance of the devastating evil of the Four, which nearly destroyed our empire.’”

“Just a moment,” Jovvi interrupted the man, clearly as surprised as Rion felt. “That isn’t precisely what everyone claims the Prophecy says. There’s a difference between the reappearance of the Four, and the reappearance of their evil. Most people claim that it’s the Four themselves who are supposed to reappear.”

“I’m of the opinion that those who first interpreted the Prophecy were possessed of overactive imaginations,” Mohr said with a smile more wry than his previous one. “That or secret believers in the supernatural, which would certainly color their thinking. In point of fact the Prophecy reads exactly as I’ve quoted it, a matter I made sure of personally.”

“What about the rest of it?” Tamrissa asked, her brow furrowed with disturbance. “Is that also imagination?”

“The rest of the major Prophecy says, ‘In this time of crisis there will appear a Chosen Blending, and there will be no doubt of their identity. They will stand against the reemergent evil, and will do their utmost to triumph.’” Mohr looked around at all of them again, and his smile softened. “That part
I
interpret as there being no doubt to the Guild.”

“Which means what?” Lorand asked, taking his turn to speak for all of them. “Why would your people in particular have no doubt?”

“That goes to what I said earlier about our ability,” Mohr replied, and Rion noticed that two of Mohr’s companions were paying very close attention, as though what was being said was new to them as well. “Those of us who are of the Guild are actually able to see the strength of those who practice in the various aspects, and we have a scale we use for our own private files. Each level of strength, Low, Middle, and High, can be broken down into first, second or third level of intensity, with first level being the lowest. When people—other than Guild people—talk about a strong Middle, they’reusually referring to a third level Middle.”

“I’d be curious to know how the present Seated Blending was rated,” Jovvi said, her expression neutral except for a … gleam of sorts in her eyes. “Or hasn’t the Guild been allowed to rate them?”

“It isn’t a matter of ‘allowed,’” Mohr replied with a shrug. “As long as one of us is within range of them, they’rerated whether they want to be or not. And to answer your question, they’ve been rated as third level Highs.”

“And we must be rated the same,” Lorand said musingly. “But one thing I don’t understand is, why hasn’t the Guild come forward before this? Surely you and your people knew that the various Seated Blendings over the last hundred years or so haven’t been more than Middles? Why didn’t one of you tell someone?”

“To what end?” Mohr asked, his face set in lines of seriousness. “Most people, noble or not, consider Guild members freaks, so who would have believed us? If you and these others hadn’t tried your hands against the current Seated Blending, would you have taken my word for the fact that you’remuch stronger than they are? In the beginning we wouldn’t have been believed, and in these latter years the nobility would have kept us from spreading the word very far. Most of us would have been killed, and only those of us too frightened to disobey them—or those more than willing to work for them—would have been spared.”

“You now touch on a question
I’ve
had, High Master,” one of the three men with Mohr put in, drawing his attention. “In the past the Guild has done nothing but perform its job, but now your people move through Gan Garee, spreading the word that the Seated Blending was seated through trickery rather than through honest endeavor. Why have you suddenly changed tactics?”

“Surely you jest, Dom Ambor,” Mohr replied with a short laugh. “With the changed situation in Gan Garee… But forgive me. I meant to introduce everyone as soon as we entered, and the matter simply slipped my mind. Excellences, may I introduce Dom Gorlin Ambor and Dom Mirist Koln, the chosen representatives of the merchants of Gan Garee. The third gentleman there is Master Holdis Ayl, my second in command in the Guild.”

Rion joined his groupmates in nodding politely to the three men, also joining them in noticing that Mohr still addressed them as “Excellences.” Clearly they hadn’t yet convinced him of their … decoy status, which surely meant they must work harder at doing so.

“I’m familiar with the names of two of those gentlemen,” Tamrissa said to Mohr, showing an odd kind of satisfaction. “My father considered them his greatest rivals and yet completely unworthy of being his intimates, which is the best recommendation they can possibly have as far as
I’m
concerned.”

“Your father, lady?” Gorlin Ambor said, surprise in the question. “I wasn’t aware that we knew your father.”

“Oh, you know him all right,” Tamrissa said with a very unladylike sound. “His name is Storn Torgar, and my late husband was Gimmis Domon, who
was
worthy of being his intimate.”

“You have our deepest condolences, lady, on both accounts,” Ambor said after exchanging a glance with Mirist Koln. “No merchant with the least amount of integrity—or the slightest amount of self preservation—would ever have considered doing business with either of those two. They tend to prey upon those who are unfamiliar with their practices, a group which is unfortunately rather large. But I would appreciate your returning to my question, High Master. What has the changed situation in Gan Garee to do with the change in your Guild’s behavior?”

“That should be rather obvious, Dom Ambor,” Mohr said with more amusement than chiding. “With so many of their members dead or missing, the nobility is very much in a confused uproar. Oh, their agents still prance around pretending that everything is the way it used to be, but that’s utter nonsense. Most of the really powerful nobles are gone, and the majority of their heirs aren’t up to truly taking their places. Even the competent ones are having trouble finding out everything their fathers were involved in, and that sort is in the minority. The majority of the heirs are simply spending the gold they’ve come into, without worrying about how they’regoing to replace it. Their lackeys are busy trying to educate them, so there’s no one watching us as closely as they used to. We are, after all, no more than freaks, and who cares about what freaks do?”

“And now the people are believin’ you?” Vallant asked, a point Rion had meant to put if no one else did. “If your people are still freaks to them, and the trouble the nobility is havin’ shouldn’t change that, what makes the difference?”

“The whispering campaign makes the difference,” Mohr replied with satisfaction. “Right after the last competition we started the rumor about the Seated Five having cheated, and spread it all over the city. We waited a short while to let the rumor be spread, and then we staged ‘forced admissions’ in a number of places. Two of our people would go into … say, a tavern, separately, of course, and then the first would ‘recognize’ the second as a Guild member. The first would then demand to know if the rumor was true, and the Guild member would reluctantly admit that it was. Then the Guild member would look frightened and leave quickly, and that would convince everyone who heard him.”

“Now I understand why I noticed so many angry … mobs, I suppose you would have to call them,” Koln put in, the first words the man had spoken. “That was just before we left the city, and now I wonder if they’ve tried to do something about their unhappiness.”

“If our plan is working properly, they haven’t,” Mohr said, again speaking soberly. “We’ve also spread the word that ordinary people haven’t got a chance if they go up against the usurpers alone, and they need to wait for the Chosen to lead them. That part of it will hopefully save lives, because most of them really don’t have a chance against the usurpers, not by themselves.”

“They should make an impressive force once we get the real Chosen into the city,” Vallant commented, obviously making an attempt to reestablish their stance. “With enough ordinary people—and, hopefully, members of the guard—behind them, it might even prove possible for them to oust the usurpers without any fightin’. There have been enough lives lost in this, and we mustn’t forget about the army comin’ from Astinda. Takin’ over in Gan Garee won’t help any of us if that army follows us in and pulls it down around our ears.”

“Then there really is an army?” Holdis Ayl, Mohr’s second, asked, his face having paled. “Messages have come in by pigeon from some of our people, but they seemed disjointed and were hard to read. We were hoping it was just a rumor without any validity behind it…”

The man’s voice trailed off in partial questioning, but Vallant’s headshake killed the faint spark of hope.

“No, unfortunately it’s no rumor,” Vallant said heavily. “Our own army—which we weren’t supposed to have—has been destroyin’ large parts of Astinda, and now their army means to return the favor. We’ve learned that they have more than one Blendin’ in it, so we’regoin’ to need all the help we can get to keep our country from bein’ completely destroyed.”

“But we have to settle matters in Gan Garee first,” Jovvi added as the four men exchanged disturbed glances. “When the time comes for the Chosen to turn and face the intruders, we don’t want them to have to worry about what’s going on behind their backs.”

“I think it’s time I returned to that explanation of what the Guild actually does,” Mohr said with a sigh, apparently ignoring Jovvi’s comment. “It should help to clarify matters… Well, as you know, we begin to examine what talent people have when they reach the age of five. No five year old has ever come anywhere near his or her potential, of course, but there are certain … echoes of what that potential will be which become obvious to the trained Guild member. The echoes are examined carefully while the children are put into one of the five categories—or six, if you count the ability of Guild members, but certainly not seven. Those who have unfortunately been born nulls are … eased away from their parents and sent to one of the preserves, where they’retaught to live as normal a life as is possible for them.”

Rion looked down at his hands in discomfort, a reaction everyone else in the room undoubtedly shared. It was considered very much in bad taste to discuss the crippled, those who were born without any ability whatsoever. That sort was quickly sent to a place where normal people would not be disturbed by their lumpish, talentless presence, and that was very much a kindness for them. To do otherwise would have exposed them to taunting ridicule from their peers while they were children, giving them pain over something that couldn’t possibly be considered their fault. Even sweet Naran tightened her grip on Rion’s hand, showing her disturbance at the topic under discussion, and Rion patted her hand encouragingly.

“Now, those echoes I mentioned are only hints,” Mohr continued, his expression showing he was partially lost to distraction. “They
suggest
what the child might become as he or she matures, letting our people know who should be watched most closely over the following years. We have files on every third level High in this empire, files which have been updated as the Highs grew older and more adept. Over the years it’s been possible to detect and delineate the upper level of every single one of them—except for you five. We were looking for the Chosen, you understand, so we were extremely careful and thorough. That’s why the Chosen can’t be among those following you; there are any number of Highs who have approached your strength, but none have ever matched it. If you five aren’t the Chosen, Excellences, then no one is.”

Rion added his silence to that of his groupmates, also refraining from exchanging glances with them. Mohr seemed to have them trapped, but there might still be a way out for them. The plan of Naran’s which Rion had mentioned to Jovvi and Lorand, the one they hoped would bring Vallant and Tamrissa closer together again… Possibly that could now be used for a double purpose…

“Excuse me, sir, but I believe you’redeliberately overlooking something rather important,” Rion said into the awkward silence. “Those minor Prophecies you mentioned earlier, which you never went into fully. Unless I’m mistaken, I
have
seen something in writing referring to them, and one segment has stuck in my memory. It’s the part about the Chosen blending in their ordinary lives as well as they do in the Blending of their aspects. Is
that
part, at least, accurately recorded?”