Far-Seer

“Rings?” Saleed’s head moved slightly on the sleeping pallet. “So that’s what they are. My old eyes weren’t good enough, I’m afraid, or maybe my old mind was incapable of realizing what it was seeing. Rings. That makes sense, yes.” Although still as attenuated as a pre-dawn wind, Saleed’s voice had taken on a wondering tone. “Not solid, I’d warrant. Particulate?” Afsan nodded. “Particulate rings.” The air escaped from him in a sigh. “Of course.”

“They form when moons around other planets move too close to them.”

“That makes sense.”

“But, master, our world is too close to our planet to be stable.”

Saleed tried to lift his head from the pallet, failed, and grunted weakly. After a moment, he said, “So the student has exceeded the master. Hmph. That’s what every teacher wants. Congratulations, Afsan.”

“Congratulations? Master, the world is coming to an end!”

“Whether it does or not, I won’t be here to see it. It appears I’ve given you an even tougher job than I’d thought and for that, my boy, I do apologize.”

Afsan felt his fingertips itching, a response to surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Well, Afsan"—and then, maddeningly, the old astrologer fell into a fit of coughs again. When it was done, he continued, ‘Well, Afsan, if the world is coming to an end, then we must—” and here Afsan saw in his master’s wizened face some of the spark, the excitement he was used to seeing there, saw the brilliance of the mind that had written the definitive works on the stars and planets and the moons, saw his genius “—we must get off this world.” He found the strength to lift his head slightly. “And you must convince the people to do just that.”

Afsan fell back on his tail, stunned by Saleed’s words. “Get off the world? Master—”

But Saleed was coughing again. When he finished, he said, “I had to wait until you came back, Afsan. I had to know that you would be the one.” And then his black eyes closed and Afsan saw his torso collapse beneath the leather sheet as the breath went out of him.

“Master?”

There was no reply. Afsan fished in his sash’s pouch for the object he had stopped by his quarters to get, the traveler’s crystal, hexagonal and ruby red, that Saleed had given to him before he had left on the Dasheter. He placed it on the sleeping pallet next to the senior astrologer’s head. “Have a safe journey, Saleed.”

*28*

Afsan was heading from Saleed’s home to the palace grounds, where he intended to inform the authorities of his master’s demise. Clouds were gathering, and the sun appeared as nothing more than a mauve discoloration behind them. Afsan wasn’t really paying attention to where he was going. He was lost in thought about what Saleed had said.

“Aren’t you Afsan?”

The voice caught him off guard. He turned to face his inquisitor, a female just shy of middle age, perhaps twice his own weight.

“Yes, I’m Afsan.” He peered up into her face. She made no move to bow concession. Afsan didn’t recognize her. “And you are—?”

“Gerth-Palsab,” she said. Gerth, derived from the miracle worker, Gerthalk, was a praenomen syllable often chosen by deeply religious females, just as Det, from Detoon the Righteous, was a frequent choice among males, especially those who had entered the priesthood.

“Hello, Palsab,” said Afsan. “How do you come to know me?”

She placed hands on broad hips. “I’ve seen you around.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. You work at the palace.” She said it as though it were an accusation.

“I’m an apprentice astrologer, that’s right.”

“I hear they go through those the way I go through teeth.” A rude thing to say, thought Afsan, but he made no reply. Palsab continued in a harsh tone. “You’ve recently returned from a pilgrimage.”

Afsan felt wary. His tail swished through a partial arc before he quelled the gesture. “Yes, my first.”

“I’ve heard stories about you.”

Afsan clicked his teeth, feigning good humor. “At day or at night?”

She ignored his remark. “You blaspheme God!”

Two others were passing in the opposite direction. Afsan saw them stop short at Palsab’s outburst, and one half turned to listen.

Afsan thought about simply walking away, but he’d been brought up to respect his elders. “I’ve said nothing that isn’t true,” he replied softly.

“You looked upon the Face of God, and called it a fraud.”

The two passersby were making no effort to hide their eavesdropping now, and another couple who had been heading in the opposite direction had stopped, as well, startled by what Palsab had said. Calthat’ch—fraud—was a word rarely heard, since the very idea of a blatant deception lasting into the daylight was so difficult to believe.

’’I suggested no deceit, good Palsab,” said Afsan.

“But you said that the Face of God was not, well, the face of God.”

Afsan looked at the ground, black sand strewn with pebbles. When he looked up again he saw that a fifth pedestrian had tarried to see what the commotion was about. “What I said,” Afsan replied, “was simply that the Face of God is a planet. Like Carpel, Patpel, and the rest.”