Page 56 of Into the West

“And speaking of passive observation, we have a friend, a mage name of Angia, wants someone with her on yonder hillock in a couple of marks, and she’d prefer it to be you. Angia wants to watch the Red Forest at night to learn if it behaves differently with the sun down.”

“Why me?” Kordas answered between bites. Strange how the things we dreaded as children become what we want more of when we’re older. We hated sitting still and taking naps, but now they’re treats. “I need a nap.”

“You and me both,” the Old Men answered in unison.

Kordas trudged carefully, using a hiking stick to test the going just a step ahead. His cohort was a well-bundled, stocky middle-aged woman. Angia was said to have a knack with plant magic—and insisted they go no closer than this gentle swell in the field. “Why are we out here, specifically?” he asked, huddled in his sheepskin coat and hoping that whatever she thought was going to appear would do so soon, so he could go collect some dinner and fall into another strange bed. Even if this time it wasn’t a bed so much as a pad made of sheep fleece on the floor of a kitchen-barge. They closed the shutters on their dark lanterns and let their eyes adjust.

“Because things sometimes show themselves by night that don’t by day,” Angia replied patiently. “Any plant, or plant-like thing, is part of a system. It seems to me that if there is something behind this place, it might come out once the sun is down. I didn’t want to sit here alone, and I don’t do anything handy like tossing fireballs. And if it comes to it, I think I can run faster than you.”

“Good points,” he conceded, and finally found a boulder to sit on. It was ice cold, and his rump complained bitterly about the way the rock seemed to suck all the heat out of his body. He almost wished he was back among the trees, where at least it was warm.

Almost.

Rather telling that no one has offered to tie up there overnight. Not that I’d let them.

“Huh,” Angia said, catching his wandering attention. “Either those dragonflies don’t sleep at night, or a whole new bug comes out after the sun sets.”

He squinted, and sure enough, he could just make out little lights, like red sparks, flying among the trees. And the haze that always filled the place glowed ever so faintly as well. Not red, but a sort of yellow-green, a little like the color a will’o’wisp had, but much dimmer. So dim that if he hadn’t been far enough away from the forest that he could contrast it with the normal countryside, he wouldn’t have seen it.

“I need you to know some things,” Angia finally said. “Now that I’m certain no one is around, and nobody scrying. There are those of us among the expedition’s number who have kept our nature secret, and I know you will come to understand why.”

Kordas frowned, a fact hidden by the darkness, but his short exhale from his nostrils betrayed how he felt. Spies? Is it spies? Did I let myself be lured out alone?

Angia continued. “For as long as our history is known to us, our kind have been mixed among the regular population. Most of us have kept our secret, but enough has gotten out that we haven’t felt safe in generations. We are seldom discovered, because the nature of our abilities warns us of danger. We take precautions to keep it that way.”

Kordas heard his neck pop as he unclenched. “All right. Well, you succeeded in picking a dramatic setting. Tell me,” he said.

“Tell you your fortune?” she chuckled. “It isn’t that simple. But you’re close. Funny, I should have seen that coming.”

“This is an ominous place for a game of riddles, Angia, if that is who you are,” Kordas replied. An edge of anger was in his tone that he hadn’t intended.

“Angia is what I am known by, but only I know who I am,” she answered as if that was a perfect response, then took on the tone of—a teacher. That is what snapped to mind.

Someone who knows how to get attention, and is there to educate and dominate any setting. Someone who knows how to orchestrate. All right, then. Let’s see what she’s got.

“Let me ask you, Baron. Have you noticed, in your quietest moments, that you are unreasonably positive about what lies ahead? By strict reasoning, you’re constantly gambling with all our lives. You know this. Haven’t you thought, if this land supports creatures like we’ve met so far, how can regular people, not great soldiers and mages, hope to survive even passing by? Why aren’t there more of them, and why hasn’t the expedition been overrun by disease and misadventure? Have you asked yourself, why am I sure this is the right way?”

Kordas exhaled a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding. “I admit, I’ve wondered all of that and more. When I think upon how lucky we’ve all been, something in me screams, ‘We shouldn’t be.’”

“And then you stop worrying about it, and you assume you’re just being fatalistic. You aren’t. You aren’t being fatalistic enough, except that you can sense what we’re doing and it reassures you. This expedition should fail miserably at every turn, yet it goes on with very few losses. We have guided this expedition by watching and guiding you. When you’ve faced deadly decisions, we could tell they were coming. When you were anxious, we could look at the most likely results of your many decisions, then make you ‘feel better’ about the most fortuitous choices.”

Kordas turned to face her, though both were still obscured by the night. “And things sometimes show themselves by night that don’t by day,” he quoted. “You can foresee the future.”

“Likely futures, Baron,” she corrected. “Some of us can tell likely futures, and others of us can affect how someone feels, or take away their emotions entirely. We cannot tell the future, because, heh, as you put it so well, ‘There is no one true way.’ The future depends upon factors we cannot fathom in full. We can narrow down what might happen into what is the most likely to happen. Also, we can’t choose everything we See. But, I assure you, even that is enough to turn tides, if we can interpret it and nudge small, important moments. Ponds, rocks, ripples and all that.”

Kordas did feel angry now. “I’m insulted. Not just for the treachery of effectively drugging me, but for secretly acting against the wishes of your Baron. You think I should feel happy with this? You’ve just told me you lot have mucked with my free will,” he growled.

“We have mucked with you getting us all killed,” she snapped back. “Your confidence is infectious. Even when you’re wrong. People want to believe you. You back that up with a record of success, so they trust you more and more. You use the word ‘wish’? I’ll tell you about wishes, and what that really means. No, we don’t overrule your free will, because by prayer you’ve asked for guidance many a time. You may have expected glowing figures to speak unto you, but we are who responded to your pleas. We’ll continue to do so, unless you go mad. Then you’ll just become very calm.”

Kordas fumed. “That didn’t help your case any,” he snapped, then let himself calm down. After a few long breaths, he continued. “I’m not abdicating my self, or my rule, just because I like the results! Taking away the freedom to fail removes what someone could have been. Failures make us stronger and wiser.”

“And, bluntly, your failures cost lives. That has to be a consideration,” she observed, and Kordas didn’t like it, but he had to admit it, she was right. “So think about this. Do you abdicate your free will by accepting help from others? No, because it was your decision to consider help, and it is your choice whether to accept that help. What you’re bristling at, Baron, is not being in control. Learning how wrong you could have been, while you were certain you were always choosing right, stings your concept of your self. The fact is, we are acting as agents of your free will, because we guide you toward what your declared goal is, and yes, we prosper by it too. You’ve already freely asked for aid from the unseen.” Whether she meant the spirit realm, or her secret society, wasn’t clarified at all.

“So I don’t like the fact I’ve been given what I asked for, because it hurts my pride? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I say you dislike the way you’ve been given it. Personally, I think you could always feel that fate itself guided you, and you wished it had been in some open way, visible to all that you were Destined.” She accentuated “destined” as if it were a call from a stage. “You didn’t get the heavens opening up and birds flying and drama you secretly dreamed of. But you did get us. All of us, Baron.”

“What do you mean, all of you?”