Asunder: A Gathering of Chaos by Cameron Hopkin (electronic book reader .txt) 📗

Could be? Probabilities predicated on permutations not present… I… damn. It was so clear.” She shook her head in frustration, disheveled black hair swaying in front of her face. “I understood it a second ago. I think maybe it was real.”

Renna licked her thin lips. “How do you know?”

Nira looked up at her through the fall of black hair, inscrutable, a point of light dancing deep in her eyes. “I just do.” She shivered, then spoke more normally. “It’s weird. It feels… complete. Right. Like lying down and falling asleep. Effortless. I don’t know.”

The Weaver woman hesitated. “But you could be wrong.”

“I suppose.”

But did we see the same thing? Maybe I saw what I wanted to see. “The savage… who stood behind him?”

The girl shrugged, nonplussed. “Savage?”

She felt a pang of fear. “The northerner! Dressed in a weird black robe, big beard, wore a… a crown?” Had she seen a crown?

“Oh, the Warrior Lord. Behind him?” She paused. “It was you.”

Renna sagged in relief. It was real. “Why do you call him Warrior Lord?”

Nira took a breath as if to speak and then paused, unsure of herself. “I don’t know. That’s his name.”

The tall woman sat back on the bench, thinking it through. Her plans from earlier lay scattered about her mind like discarded toys. “And the glowing glass? What was that?”

“Was that glass? But glass is illegal.”

Renna regarded her flatly with green-tinged eyes. “You’ve just seen an impossible vision of things yet to come. Try not to say such stupid things.” The girl flushed, caught off-guard by her rudeness. “Of course glass is illegal. It’s terribly rare, and more than a little dangerous. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or can’t be used. I’m telling you that shard was glassine. What. Was. It?” She bit off the words, too caught up in her pursuit of knowledge to play it nice.

The urchin girl had a sullen twist to her lips but answered readily enough. “Power. It was power.”

“That doesn’t help me.”

She gave that peculiar one-armed shrug from where she sat with her back against the desk. “Sorry, Your Honor,” she said with more than a hint of snideness. “That’s all I’ve got. The education on visionary objects of power in my village was a little lacking.”

Neither of them mentioned the demon.

Renna sat in silence as she sorted through the possibilities in her mind. An object of unspeakable power. A king from a people with no kings. An ally? A tool. Herself, standing behind the seat of power. Am I being played for a fool? It was a very real possibility. Such things simply didn’t happen. She came to a decision and strode over to where the girl sat, snatching up her hand before the dirty little thing could pull away.

Again the vision rolled over her, but she had braced for it this time. She was paying attention. Once more she saw the land burning, the hulking sharp-toothed thing raining down destruction from a glass shard that shone with a terrible light. She could see details she hadn’t noticed the first time – the wrongness of the pitch black man-thing, the cries of the frightened and the dying, the shard of glass shining brightly and seeming more real than anything else around it. And there was the king of the savages, and she saw now that it was no crown that he wore, but rather a simple band of leather with a crystal embedded at the forehead, the kind used to hold back long hair such as the graying mane that adorned this mighty man. Not a king, then? But no, everything about the man proclaimed majesty, strength, and wisdom. He would be known for a king if he were found naked in a dung pit. He was draped with long, soft black robes of a curiously shaggy weave, and his proud, stern brow held no mercy as he faced the ravening beast with the object of power in his hand. How did he get it? Did the demon never have it? Was that merely something that could happen, rather than something that must happen?

And there, most glorious of all, stood she, herself, within the vision. She seemed… grander somehow. Her angular features seemed kinder, wiser, more knowing; she seemed less gaunt and ugly in a shimmering robe of office than she ever had while dressed in the silly, midriff-baring uniform of a Hand of Gaia. She wanted to kneel before her vision self to be blessed.

And, as she released the girl’s hand, fighting dizziness and disorientation, it all felt… possible. Likely. Inevitable. It resonated within her like a crystal chime vibrating in response to a perfectly sung tone. She understood what the child meant when she said she couldn’t deny it. A terrible excitement like she had never known filled her breast. They were wrong, those dull-minded biddies clutching their authority and keeping me down. I am one of the great ones! I have seen it – I will not be denied!

Her tongue unstuck itself and she addressed the prone village girl, whose far-focused eyes were running with tears again. It wasn’t weeping, exactly. She didn’t sob or shake, but her eyes poured water in streams down her delicate cheeks. “Child. Attend me. Child!” She slapped her lightly, and the girl flinched, zeroing in on her at last. She wiped the girl’s tears from her hand onto her tunic, grimacing. “I’ve changed my mind. I’ll be back for you later tonight. We’re going to see the Governor.”

“The… the Governor?” the girl asked, husky with fear and sudden confusion. “You said he’d have me executed!”

“He might like to, but I won’t let him. And once you show him what you showed me, he’ll be eager to pardon you.” She was already thinking three steps ahead, wondering at what point to jettison the Far East governor once she’d made good use of his resources. He was a small fish in the larger scheme of things.

“I don’t… I’m sorry, Your Honor, but