Fool's Quest

“Catalyst.” I tried the word on my tongue. It sounded like a spice or a healing herb. Both of those were things that changed other things. A spice that flavored a food or an herb that saved a life. Catalyst. Once it had meant my father, in some of his scrolls that I had read.

Dwalia used the word to pry at me. “The one you might use to set the world on a different path. Your tool. Your weapon in your battle to shape the world. Have you seen him yet? Or her?”

I shook my head. I felt sick. Knowledge was welling up in me like vomit rising in my throat. It burned me with cold. The dreams I’d had. The things I’d known to do. Had I provoked the manor children to attack me? When Taffy had struck me, the web of flesh that had kept my tongue tied to the bottom of my mouth had been torn free. I’d gained speech. I’d gone out that day, knowing it must happen if I was going to be able to speak. I rocked in my wrap, my teeth chattering. “I’m so cold,” I said. “So cold.”

I had been ready to trigger that change. Taffy had been my tool to do that to myself. Because I could see the tumbling consequences of being where the other children would see me. I had placed myself where they could catch me. Because I had known that I had to do that. I had to do that to put myself on my path. The path I’d seen in glimpses since before I was born. Anyone could change the future. Every one of us changed the future constantly. But Dwalia was right. Few could do what I could do. I could see, with absolute certainty, the most likely consequences of a particular action. And then I could release the bowstring and send that consequence arrowing into the future. Or cause someone else to do so.

The knowledge of what I could do dizzied me. I didn’t want it. I felt ill with it, as if it were a sickness inside me. Then I was ill. The world spun around me. If I closed my eyes, it went faster. I clutched at the blankets, willing myself to stillness. The cold gripped me so hard I thought I had already died from it.

“Interesting,” Dwalia said. She made no move to aid me, and when Odessa shifted behind her she flung her hand out and down in a sharp motion. The lurik froze where she was, hunching her head between her shoulders like a scolded dog. Dwalia looked at Vindeliar. He cowered into himself. “Watch him. Both of you. But no more than that. This was not predicted. I will summon the others and we will pool our memories of the predictions. Until we know what has been seen of this, if anything has been seen, it is safest to do nothing.”

“Please,” I said, not knowing what I begged of them. “I’m sick. And I’m so cold.”

“Yes.” Dwalia nodded. “Yes, you are.” She moved an admonishing finger at both her luriks, and then she left the tent.

I sat very still. If I moved the spinning became unbearable. But I was cold, so cold. I wanted to reach for the blankets and furs, to pull them up around me. But any motion woke the vertigo. I braved it, and then, for my bravery, I retched. I vomited on myself and it soaked my shirtfront and made me colder. Neither the fog man nor Odessa moved. She watched me with sour-milk eyes and Vindeliar watched me with tears brimming his eyes. They watched until I was retching a thin yellow fluid that I could not spit clear of my mouth. It clung to my lips and chin, and still the tent spun and I was so cold. I wanted to be away from the wet and the stink of my vomit.

Do it. Move away. The dizziness would be bad no matter if I moved slow or fast. So just move.

I scooted back and dropped over on my side. The vertigo that struck me was so severe I could not tell up from down. I moaned, I think.

Someone lifted a blanket and tucked it around me. It was Shun. I could not bear to look at her for the spinning, but I knew her scent. She put another something over me. A fur, a heavy one. I felt a tiny bit warmer. I drew my body up into a ball. I wondered if I could speak without vomiting. “Thank you.” I said. Then, “Please. Don’t touch me. Don’t move me. It makes the dizziness worse.”

I focused my eyes on a corner of the blanket. I willed it to be still, and for a miracle, it was. I breathed slowly, carefully. I needed to be warm but even more, I needed the spinning to stop. A hand touched me, an icy hand on my neck. I cried out wordlessly.

“Why don’t you help him? He’s sick. He burns with fever.” Her voice sounded sleepy but I knew she was not. Not really. Her anger was too strong for her to be sleepy. Could the others hear that, too?

Odessa spoke. “We are to do nothing until Lingstra Dwalia returns to instruct us. Even now, you may have disrupted the path.”

Another blanket settled over me. “Do nothing, then. Don’t stop me.”