Fool’s Quest

Corioa, the first Servant, wrote thus of his White Prophet: “He is not the first to come, nor will he be the last. For to every generation is given one who walks among us and, by virtue of his ability to see all the possibilities, guides us to the best future there may be. I have chosen to call myself his Servant, and to record the dreams of my pale master, and to keep count of the ways in which he makes the crooked path straight and safe.”

So Corioa was the first to name himself Servant. Some think he was also Terubat’s Catalyst. As to that, the records from that day are so fragmented that this Servant thinks it an unsafe assumption.

And contrary to many Servants who have gone before me, and been the primary recorders of the deeds of the White Prophet of their days, I will state clearly what some may rebuke me for. Must there be only one? And if this is so, who determines who that single White Prophet is from among those who show us a pale face and colorless eyes? And exactly when, pray tell, does a “generation” begin and end?

I ask these questions not to spread discord or doubt, but only to plead that we Servants open our eyes as wide as those of the White Prophets we serve. Let us admit there are many, many futures. At countless crossroads, the future becomes the past and an infinite number of possibilities die as an infinite number are born.

So let us no longer call the pale child Shaysa, Who Is the One, as we used to name him in our most ancient tongue. Let us call him Shaysim, Who May Be the One.

Let us no longer be blind to our own vision. Let us recognize that when the Servants select, as we must, the Shaysa, then we have determined the fate of the world.

—Servant Cetchua, of the 41st Line

We traveled.

They were a bigger group than I had thought. There were the soldiers, about twenty of them, and Dwalia’s followers, also about twenty. I rode in the big sleigh, and we followed two other smaller ones full of supplies. The soldiers and Dwalia’s followers rode horseback. We traveled by night for the most part. We did not move quickly, for we avoided the king’s highway, instead crossing pastures and following wandering farm roads. We seemed to skirt forest and cross unsettled land, avoiding the farmsteads I sometimes glimpsed. Darkness and cold and the steady thudding beat of the trotting team filled my senses. At other times, the team dragged us through unbroken snow, surging forward with the sleigh sawing and tipping behind them.