Pursing his lips thoughtfully, running the handkerchief over his damp head, Friedrich replied, "I don't think he broke it so much as cracked it. Whatever happened, it still hit him, but how it ultimately affected him, I could not say. Anything could have happened: he could be mad, he could have no mind at all, he could be missing parts. There is no way to know, but without knowing, I cannot track him. It was definitely the same man who killed those Sentinels, though. I suppose that is something."
Karl nodded. "So what do we do?"
Friedrich was prevented from replying by the loud arrival of the Master Sorcerer and four others. "High Seer. I am informed that his excellency the High Sorcerer is dead."
"Yes, I felt it," Friedrich said coolly, not liking the man's tone. "Do you question me, Master Sorcerer Boris?"
Boris seemed to withdraw slightly, clearly aware he had overstepped. "No, High Seer. I am only—"
Friedrich cut him off with a gesture, and then nodded curtly at the other sorcerers. "You may wait in the dining hall until you are called."
"Yes, High Seer," the men chorused and, turning neatly around, strode out of the Hall of Vision.
"What we say here is confidential, Master Sorcerer. You should already be aware of that. If you are to take up the mantle of High Sorcerer, you had better learn it quickly."
Boris nodded stiffly, a spark of anger in his eyes. "Of course, High Seer. I do appreciate that and apologize for my slip. I am confused, I confess. No man should share his fate, but my understanding was that High Sorcerer Torben had many years left to serve in his noble capacity."
"He did," Friedrich replied, drawing his hands into his voluminous sleeves and staring down into the vision pool as he said. "Unfortunately, a man of chaos is wreaking havoc across Schatten. He has killed at least three adult Sentinels and now has slain the High Sorcerer and those who accompanied him. But we may have a chance to stop him—the High Sorcerer cast a Web of Madness. It did not work as it should have, but it still struck the man. He will not be acting right, though what manner of wrong he will be acting I cannot say."
"A curse should be an easy thing to feel out, even if it is corrupted or fractured," Boris replied.
"Do not underestimate a man, even damaged, who was strong enough to counter that curse and then slay the High Sorcerer," Friedrich said sharply. "The High Sorcerer underestimated the power of a man who walks in chaos and now he is a frozen corpse in the snow somewhere. I would wager they were in the Haunted Mountains; that is where all reports of slain Sentinels have thus far originated and where his last missive said he was headed. You will travel to Oak Hill, his last point of communication, and you will retrace his steps. You will find the man responsible for all this chaos and you will kill him unless Lord Teufel bids you do otherwise."
Turning to Karl, he said, "You will go with them. The powers of a Master Seer will prove useful, I sense, in tracking down this intruder."
Karl stiffened. "Seers do not leave Unheilvol, High Seer, not until age Blinds them."
Fury poured through Friedrich. Jerking his head at Boris, he said, "Leave us."
Boris immediately obeyed, and in mere seconds Friedrich and Karl were alone. "How dare you question my orders, and in front of others no less!"
"But it is Lord Teufel's will that we—"
"You obey me!" Friedrich said. "If I command that you leave the temple to accompany the sorcerers, then you do it. Lord Teufel speaks through me, and by his hand I am always guided. You question me, you question him. Is that what you are doing?"
Karl paled, having at least enough sense to realize his possible transgression. "N-no, High Seer. I—forgive me—I only fear what effect this chaotic element will have and whether the Seers can handle—"
Friedrich cut him off with a sharp gesture, sneering. "No, you fear that if I send you out, you will die and lose your chance to usurp my position."
"High Seer, I would never presume—"
"Oh, you presume," Friedrich cut in, laughing, feeling tired and bitter. "Do you think you hide it, Karl? That glint in your eye that says you are just waiting for the day when the visions break me? We both know you long for that day when you will step into my shoes and order me killed out of mercy. But be careful what you wish for Karl, because all too often we get it—and live to regret it."
Karl's mouth tightened. "You're not special just because you See without implements."
"Your tone says you do think I'm special, and you resent it, think it should be you," Friedrich said. "Stop fretting because someday it will be."
"You can't know that," Karl said. "The Seers are the only ones in Schatten not privy to their own fates. We sacrifice that knowledge of ourselves to give knowledge to others. It is a price we pay willingly, happily."
It is not a gift, not when Lord Teufel arranges it before they are even born. Once, it was an honor, but a choice to be accepted or rejected.
Friedrich scowled inwardly.
Shut it. Now is not the time for your blasphemy.
Teufel is the blasphemous one.
Enough!
Karl was giving him an odd look, and Friedrich determinedly took back control of the conversation. "A Seer cannot look into his own fate, that is true. But should I desire it, I could know the fate of every man here. I knew yours the day I looked into your eyes and declared you my Master Sorcerer."
"That is forbidden!" Karl bellowed, but Friedrich saw the hunger burning in his eyes, the need to know. It was often a bitter reality for the Seers, to know they could see all but their own fates, that they must live in darkness to bring that light to others.
Friedrich stepped toward him. Karl stepped back once, twice, then froze. He trembled slightly as Friedrich reached out to press his fingertips to the circle in Karl's forehead. Karl drew a sharp breath and started to jerk away, but then fell still. His breath was sour, skin clammy, but Friedrich ignored it all as he reached out for the fate he had looked at nine years ago.
"Born last, the smallest of nine, but blessed with the mark of the Seers. Your family relieved to be able to get rid of a mouth they could not feed. Affection is useless. Family is nothing. Power is the key to stability, to being someone who matters. Seer to Master Seer, there to pause. But madness grows, two voices war, and despair will make you High Seer."
He broke away, panting softly. Karl stood still, taking in the words, losing himself in them, myriad emotions rippling across his face. Finally he seemed to shake himself and stared at Friedrich. "You shouldn't be able to do that," he said quietly. "It's more than just each priest not being permitted his own fate—we shouldn't be able to foretell each other's. Otherwise the rule would be too easy to break. Why are you an exception? You're an exception to everything."
"I am High Seer," Friedrich said. "In this life, in every life, over and over again. I am the power of centuries, the power of many lives. That's all I know."
"Two voices. Despair. You are going to go mad," Karl said, and for a single moment there was something like sympathy in his eyes. Then it was gone, replaced by the more familiar ambition and contempt. "Soon, I think."
Friedrich nodded. "Yes, probably."
It doesn't have to be that way.
What other way could it possibly be? I am High Seer. We all die the same. It is the price we pay—
It was not always that way! The Seers of Schatten were once revered, honored, and well-cared for so that we—
The words broke off on a scream of pain that drove Friedrich to his knees with a scream of his own.
"High Seer!"
Friedrich panted for breath, feeling nauseous again, part of him hoping his breaking point had finally been reached. He was tired of it all: the visions, the weakness, the pain, the envy of his peers, and the constant presence of Drache.
Who had gone terrifyingly silent in his head, and the realization sparked a panic.
Drache? Drache? Drache!
He stood up hastily, forcing himself to shut the fear away until present matters were attended, but inwardly he could not stop panicking. He had not meant it, he did not really want Drache to go away!
"Recall the Master Sorcerer," he said curtly.
Karl gave him a look, but with a soft, derisive noise, obeyed. When they both returned, Friedrich said, "Locate the fallen High Sorcerer and hunt down his killer by any means necessary. He looks like one of us, save his skin is too fair and he bears no diamond upon his brow. Show the man no mercy, give him no quarter. Bring me his head unless Lord Teufel wills otherwise. Stay on your guard and work together. The powers of chaos are treacherous and, by their nature, unpredictable. Go."
The men bowed, then left, and Friedrich quickly retreated to his own rooms. He sat down on his bed and covered his face with his hands, tears falling hot as he tried in vain to get Drache to come back to him.
Throughout everything, Drache had been there. Mysterious, blasphemous, frustrating, and at times infuriating—but also faithful, reliable, and the only one who had never turned away from him. Friedrich didn't care if Drache was purely of his own imagination, he was
something
. When he went to sleep, sank into the only place where he could see and touch Drache, he was beautiful and breathtaking and the only thing Friedrich really needed.
And now he was gone, silent in a way he had never been; there was a hole instead, cold and dark and deep.
Why had he gone? What had Friedrich done? He played the whole conversation over again, trying to figure it out. Drache's last words replayed the loudest:
It was not always that way! The Seers of Schatten were once revered, honored, and well-cared for so that we—
We
That was what had done it.
We.
Drache had never given anything about himself away before, often claimed he could not. Friedrich tended to take it as proof that Drache was pure imagination, since it seemed like him to want to keep such details vague. But that word … so Drache had been or was a Seer? But if he was a current Seer, he would be in Unheilvol. There was no such thing as a rogue Seer; Lord Teufel would never permit it.
So likely he had been a Seer at one point, perhaps he lived Blinded somewhere and somehow managed to live through Friedrich's mind. Was that possible? He thought he would have heard of it before if that was the case. Even if it was possible, it didn't seem likely a Blinded could manage it. They were old, too weak to See, sent off to smaller temples to guide and teach the children of shadows how to love and worship Lord Teufel.
He would have to do research—late at night, when everyone else slept and no one would take it as overly strange that he was too restless to sleep. Given the toll his recent visions were taking, he was certain the temple was rife with gossip about his time being up soon. But he had lived in Unheilvol since he was a child, turned dutifully over at the age of ten. By fifteen he was Seeing for those who most often had simple fates: farmers, shop clerks, and other mild peasants. At nineteen, his power was too great to ignore and he'd been granted the position of High Seer.
That had been twenty-one years ago. Most High Seers made it to fifty, but he knew for a fact that the last High Seer with his power had lived a hundred years ago—and he had died at the age of forty.
It amused Friedrich, in a tired, bitter way, that Karl and the others thought that it was impossible for them to learn their own fates. If they ever bothered to go down into the archives and read through the records of all the previous Seers, they would see their own lives repeated breath for breath over the last nine hundred years.
The patterns weren't hard to find, not when he knew his Seers, knew fate. Knew there was no point in resisting.
Except someone was resisting. Someone he had to destroy at all costs because absolute chaos would be no better than absolute fate.
His hands trembled when he realized where his thoughts were going, what he was risking. He was the High Seer, appointed by Teufel. He was the very last person who should have been entertaining thoughts that went against everything he had been taught—everything he knew.
At least, everything he thought he knew. But without Drache there to whisper blasphemous thoughts, it was suddenly far too easy to listen to his own.
What was the point, though? His fate was sealed, no matter what happened. Eventually, they would kill the chaotic intruder who had invaded Schatten, and Teufel would reassert his will. There was absolutely no point in doing anything other than obeying.
Obedience is well and good, but defiance has always had its place.
Hot tears stung Friedrich's eyes.
Drache.
Of course. Who else.
I thought you were gone. You went so abruptly, and there was nothing but cold silence …
Defiance has a price, but I am back and shall have more care. I would never leave you, beloved. I couldn't, even if I wanted, which I don't.
You said 'we'.
Yes.
You are, or were, a Seer.
What I was, what I am, I cannot say. It little matters anyway. I am as bound by fate as the rest of Schatten.
Despair crawled through Friedrich's gut, and he tried to fight it—but knew it was futile. What he wanted didn't matter. Eventually, despair would conquer him, and like all his previous incarnations, he would die of madness and alcohol and freezing cold.
That may not be true,
Drache whispered, the words a soft caress across his mind.
Chaos walks the land, and with his every action, he breaks another thread.
Friedrich ignored him, refusing to get his hopes up, and slowly stood to return to the dining hall. He had Seers to reassure and wine to drink.
David cried as he stood at the edge of the cliff, unable to sing the hymns along with everyone else as the priest cast Reimund's ashes into the wind. Reimund had been strict, at times even downright hard with him, but he'd taken care of David when the rest of the village would have left him to die as a lesson on why it was foolish to act as his parents had.