"I have to tell the others. This will mean purification rites if the temple was profaned." As we ascended the steps to the temple, he said, "You noticing will be a point in your favor. No one else did." "You don't see what you don't expect to see." The temple was poorly lighted inside. Just as well. It was ugly in there. The architects had dreamed some of my dreams, then had recreated them in stone. Narayan collected several jamadars, told them what I had found. They fussed and cussed and grumbled, spread out to see if the infidels had defiled their temple. I wandered.
They found where the invaders had done their cooking. The place had been cleaned but smoke stains are hard to erase. The stains suggested that someone had camped there for a long time.
Narayan sidled up, gave me his grin. "Now would be a good time to impress them, Mistress."
"Like how?"
"By using your talent to find out something about whoever was here."
"Sure. Just like that. I've maybe got enough skill to find their latrine and garbage pit."
He eyed me, wondering how I could know they had had one, then reasoned it out. There was no garbage or human waste around. "That could tell us a lot."
One of the jamadars told us that now they were looking they had found plenty of evidence of an extended occupation. "One man and one woman. The woman slept near the fire. The man stayed near the altar. They don't appear to have bothered that. Mistress? Would you look?"
"An honor." I did not immediately understand how they knew a woman had slept near the fire. Then one produced a few strands of long black hair. "Can you tell anything from this, Mistress?"
"Yes. She didn't have naturally curly hair. If it was a she." Some Gunni men let their hair grow long. Shadar and Vehdna tended toward curls. Vehdna men wore their hair short. But everyone at this end of the earth had black hair, or very dark brown when it was clean.
Swan was a real curiosity with his golden locks.
My sarcasm did not escape my companions. I said, "Don't expect me to see the past or future. Yet. Kina comes to me only in dreams."
That even startled Narayan.
"Let's see the other place."
They showed me where the man had slept. Again, they had determined sex by length of hair. They had found one strand three inches long, fine, a medium brown. "Hang onto those hairs, Narayan. They could be useful someday."
Deceivers scurried around seeking more signs. Narayan suggested, "Let's find that pit."
We went out. We wandered. I located the place. Some lowlife candidates to the cult got to open it. I wandered while I waited.
"Mistress. I just found this." A jamadar offered me a small animal figure someone had made by bending and braiding and twisting strands of grass, the kind of time-killing thing people do when they have nothing to do. But the man looked disturbed.
"It's just something somebody did for the hell of it. It has no power. But if there are more around I'd like to see them. They might tell us something about whoever made them."
Less than a minute passed before another turned up. "It was hanging from a twig, Mistress. I guess it's supposed to be a monkey."
I had a brainstorm. "Don't move anything. I want to see them right where they are."
Over the next few hours we found scores of those things, some made of grass, some twisted from strips of bark. Someone had had a lot of time and nothing to do. I knew a man once who did that with paper and never realized he was doing it.
Most of those things were stick figures, monkeys hanging from twigs, four-legged beasts that could have been anything. But a few of the four-leggers carried riders. The riders always carried twig swords or spears.
I must have made a noise. Narayan said, "Mistress?"
I whispered, "There's something important about those things. But I'll be damned if I understand what." Someone found a whole mob of figures where someone had sat on a rock leaning against a tree making them and maybe daydreaming. It was a little clearing about ten feet across. A stump stood in the middle.
I knew I was onto something the instant I arrived. But what? Whatever, it stayed way down below consciousness. I told Narayan, "If there's anything to be earned, it's here." I whispered again. "Get everybody back to what they're supposed to be doing." I perched on the rock. I pulled some grass and started twisting a figure. The men went away. I let my mind drift into the twilight state. Wonder of wonders, dreams did not intrude.
Minutes passed. More and more crows dropped into the trees. My interest must have been too obvious.
Were they watching to see if I found out something? Like maybe something about those who had been staying here? Ah! The birds had more to do with them than with the Deceivers. They were not omens-in the sense the Stranglers hoped. They were messengers and spies.
Crows. Everywhere and always, crows, seldom behaving the way crows should. Tools. Their sudden interest suggested they feared I would learn something I ought not. Which meant there was something.
My mind leaped from stone to stone across a brook of ignorance. If I did discover something I had best not be obvious.
Realization.
The clearing felt familiar because it recalled a place I had lived. If that stump represented the Tower, whence I had ruled my empire, then the scatter of stones might represent the badlands I had created so the Tower could be approached along just one narrow, deadly path.
Patterns emerged. They were almost imperceptible, as though put there by someone who knew he was watched. Someone surrounded by crows? If I let my imagination loose, that scatter of rocks, debris, and twisted figures did make a fair representation of the Tower's surroundings. In fact, a couple of sticks and a scatter and a boot scuff and a little soil pushed into a mound described a situation that had existed only once in the history of the Tower.
I had trouble pretending calm and indolence.
If the rocks and twigs and such were significant, so must be the creatures of grass and bark. I stood up for a better view.
One thing jumped right out.
A leaf lay at the foot of the stump. A tiny figure sat upon it. A lot of care had gone into creating that figure. More than enough to make the message clear. The Howler, my then master of the flying carpet, was supposed to have been killed by a fall from the heights of the Tower. I had known that was not true for some time now. The message had to be that the Howler was somehow involved in current events.
Whoever set this up knew me and expected me to visit the grove. That should mean that someone knew what I was doing. That someone must have access to what the crows reported but was not their master. Else there was no reason for such an elaborate and iffy means of passing a message. There was more.
Many great sorcerers had been involved in the battle where the Howler was supposed to have died. Most of them were supposed to have been killed. Since then I have discovered that several had fled after faking their deaths. I checked the figures again. Some were identifiable as representing some of those sorcerers. Three had been crushed underfoot. Those known to have been destroyed?
I gave it all the time it needed and still nearly missed the critical message. It was almost dark when I spied the clever little figure carrying what appeared to be a head under its arm. It took a while after that to understand the significance of the figure.
I had told Narayan that we do not see what we do not expect to see.
A lot of things fell into place once I realized that the impossible was not impossible at all. My sister was alive. I saw a whole new picture of what was going on. And I was frightened.
And, frightened, I missed the most important message of all.