Archer had never seen the sea before. For the previous two days he had become increasingly aware of the salt pang in the air, and had actively noticed the changes in the landscape and environment, his mind full of wonder and questions about all nature of things, from the nature and composition of the trees and soils, to the startling range of insects here in these parts.
Neardra was indeed a magical land, he thought as they rode along under the great corroded sandstone cliffs that divided the high country from the low river flats ahead. In his youth he dreamed of travel, adventurous of his inquisitive mind failing him in his disciplines as a man of the cloth, his time spent as much in the study of histories and theologies as in exploring the geography of the opposite sex. Studies which had shortly earned his expulsion from that particular profession, also earning some of the public ridicule that now troubled his name.
Something other than the fresh salt smell caught his nose, and he mistook it for the gracious pollen of an unseen flower before noticing the company riding beside him; again lost in thought he had not detected one of his riding companions trotting along beside him now.
“Adrift on the sea of thought again, my lord?” Archer heard a light voice beside him ask in a mild humour.
“Again.” he mused. “In this honeycomb mess of trails I could take a wrong turn and end up back where I started and not know it, I’m afraid.”
“You already have,” giggled the young woman beside him.
Archer pulled his horse to a standstill and took in the scenery around him, noting his displacement from his caravan, some hundred yards down the track. He laughed out loud, and turned to inspect his companion, inclining with his head that she should lead the way back to their companions.
As they rode, she spoke. “I’ve noticed you fall behind a few times. You’re new to these parts, if I’m not mistaken.”
“New to Neardra, in fact.” Archer edged his mount forward to match her pace, and turned to inspect her face. She wore her somewhat carmine hair in an unfamiliar way, with what may have been the faintest blue ribbon woven into a single braid that hung nearly halfway down her back. Her nose was not round nor angular, yet somewhere in-between, a gentle concavity ending with what could only be described as a blob. Above, under thin black bows eyes of the richest blue met his.
“You’re looking at my nose.”
Archer had the decency to blush and broke her gaze. “I’m afraid I was. Though for good reason; it’s probably the prettiest nose I’ve seen.”
“Cheap flattery will get you nowhere with me,” she said, then after a pause, added “Although that’s no reason to stop.”
Archer smiled and was going to pursue the matter but a whistle from ahead took their attention. From this distance he could pick one animal down and a number of items strewn about the track. Taking cue from his companion, he spurned the horse into a light gallop down to the caravan, careful not to be swiped from the saddle by low-hanging branches and vines.
Still mounted he could see that a packhorse at the lead had broken a leg after stepping in a sharp, shallow crevice in the stone. Had it happened near a town or farmhouse, the horse could have its leg set, however here on the narrow downwards path the horse would have to be put down and then tossed over the edge to make way for traffic. The luggage would have to be dispersed amongst the other pack horses, but it would not slow them. At most they would be put back half an hour; this early in the day that was of no consequence.
Archer turned his horse and rode back a ways, dismounted and sat in the warm sunlight. Soon he was joined by his female companion, who tied both the horses and came to sit at his right and lean back against the sandstone cliffs.
“What brings you this way?” Archer asked her.
“You haven’t told me your name.”
“No? Have you not guessed?”
“I don’t understand. Should I know you?”
“My name is Archer.”
The woman paused before answering, squinting as she looked up at the morning sun. “Just Archer? It’s an odd name. You haven’t a last name?”
“No. In fact I do, but I won’t speak it. I owe my family that much, at least.”
“You’ve shamed them?”
“You’ve not heard of me?”
“No.”
Archer scratched his ear. “Well, that’s one, I guess. I have earned an air of bad reputation in my land.”
“But as you say, you’re new to Neardra.”
Archer turned to the woman and grinned ruefully. “That’s true, I suppose. I was forgetting.”
The woman sidled up beside him. “You haven’t asked me my name yet.”
“You were talking so much I thought you’d just blurt it out.” Archer said with a poker face, and patted her on the arm. He sighed, leaned back against the rock, and closed his eyes, enjoying the appalling silence.
It took a minute or so for her to respond to this. Archer found it hard to keep his face straight, however he still managed. Eventually the woman said “My name-”
“Your name is Lilla Marrakech, daughter of the exiled Lord Alchemist of the same name.” Archer opened his eyes and looked directly into hers, a stare that somehow empowered what he had spoken.
Lilla turned away. “How could you know?”
Archer turned her face back to his and he had lost all sense of what may have been humour in his eyes. “I see what I see. Your secret is safe with me; nobody else has guessed. Or shall. You seem to require this privacy, at least. I guess I should know the name by which you travel.”
Again Lilla turned away, this time her face ashen. “You have Power?”
“There is no Power, only science. As I said, I see what I see.”
The woman turned to him once again, sunlight playing shadows across her face so that her eyes blinked in dark sockets. “Whatever may be passed through generations was not passed on to me. My sisters have the Power: I have seen it with my own eyes. And I am not even a Seer, as is the right and duty of the first born. I am the exception to the rule.”
“You may well be a seer, as blinded to yourself as you are. It’s in your mind.” Archer harried.
Lilla sat upright, stood. “What do you mean? That I lie? I have the right to Power, and yet I possess none. There is Power, that I know. Science is merely tricks with words to explain what is obvious.”
Clever, she ‘thinks’, Archer’s voice sounds in the privacy of his mind. He stood to confront her. “I am sorry. I was wrong to offend you this way. Please accept my apology.”
Lilla strode over to her horse, prepared to mount. “If there is no Power, how is it that you can read my thoughts?”
“Merely a trick, as you might phrase it, there is a science to it. I see it in your eyes. In your body. The way you ride your mount, the way you talk. Perhaps there is Power, as you say, and there is power. You come to me to talk, you draw me out of my reverie to converse and yet you now want to ride away, though your body speaks as though you are neither offended by my withdrawn presence or my recluse nature. Therefore I must assume you are afraid of what I have to say, and to offer. Perhaps what I see does not need Power, only a little reasoning and educated guessing: Isn’t this what we call Science? Perhaps if I can see what I see, then others may too. Does this disturb you? What is it you run from?”
Lilla was on her horse, and had turned it back down the path. She spoke nothing, and rode away. Perhaps there was a reason. But perhaps she was just seeing things where things didn’t actually exist. That was it.
Archer thought exactly the same thing.