PodCastle 938: Tales From the Vaults - Scry

This week's story is a tale from the Vault, and it is described by Anne Ivey, read by Elizabeth

Green and produced by Eric Valdes and Priya Wood, rated R with content notes for violence and sex.

Welcome to Podcastle, the flying castle of fantasy fiction. It is my privilege to present for

your enjoyment, scry, by Anne Ivey, narrated by Elizabeth Green. This story was first published as

a giant episode, 292, on December 26, 2013, and originally appeared in beneath Seaseless Skies.

I'm Alicia Caporaso, Assistant Editor at Casta Wonders, Podcastles Young Adult Sister Podcast.

Come check us out after you listen to this wonderful story. I am so happy to be visiting the flying

castle. My first and last trip was way back in 2010, when Podcastle ran one of my own stories.

Hopefully it won't be another 16 years until I'm back again.

Scry is written by Anne Ivey. Anne Ivey is the pen name for twin sisters who collaborate

when writing fiction. Anne has a law degree from William & Mary and practices law in Atlanta.

She is a previous recipient of a young Georgia author's writing award. Ivey has a medical

degree from Duke University and practices as a doctor in Atlanta. Scry is narrated by Elizabeth

Green. Elizabeth Green lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, where they work in communications,

hobbies and knitting, reads voraciously, and does their level best to keep their midlife super

queer. And now pay attention for our tale is about to begin.

Scry by Anne Ivey

By dawn the house of air ethloon had fallen. Dead soldiers and laser-cauterized pieces of soldiers

littered the stairs and bridges into the palace. The sun rose slowly over the spires,

flushing the sky, pink and pale blue, gleaming off-proken glass, bringing color to the gore.

Anubis is wading into the midst of the detritus, carried the bodies away. The dead, victorious,

and defeated alike, all went to the crematorium together. The metal gates into the house hung

warped and melted on their hinges, the inside echoed empty, threatening. The first set foot on

the foray's metal floor had been electrocuted. Air ethloon and his leech, the fugitive prince

Ben tour Ibrin, were long gone. Some of Carnin nameless days followers hoped their quarry,

Loon and Ibrin, was hiding somewhere in the house, sure to be flushed out. Most knew better.

Loon soldiers had fought with a desperate furor of those who knew themselves dead.

They'd been fighting to buy their master's time to escape, not to save their own lives.

They'd succeeded, and their ranks, brave, loyal, and dead, lay an unflinching testament to the

cost of Loon's contingency plan. Air is re-est, sat on a metal chair in a metal closet,

barely big enough to fit her and the chair. She held the key cards to her house and her hands,

running them through her fingers idly. Their transparent and gently glowing edges provided

the only light. Beneath her chair she'd stashed the last gift her husband, Air ethloon,

had ever given her, a vile of poison. She knew that no one would find this closet. She had

scried it. She could stay here until she died. The scent of her rotting corpse would be the

finger that beckoned the partisans of Carnin' Day, who would overrun her house to her hiding place.

She had seen that this place was safe. She had not seen that she would be abandoned here in the end.

Perhaps she should have looked deeper. She had feared scrying her husband's defeat,

capture or death. Scrying was a dangerous art. Seeing a future would make it happen.

In many cases it was better not to look. Long ago she had seen the acid that would burn her face

and change her life. The acid sent Loon from her bed, caused him to father his heirs on concubines.

Air is re-est was an aristo from an ancient and honorable family. She did not flinch from fate.

She could have run and had the acid find her out in fear. The burn would have happened anyway,

as the result of her attempt to evade it. Instead she made the best of things.

Acid and fire were the best tools for scrying, better than water and silver, better than blood and

wood. She became the greatest scrier of her generation. She could give Loon that, even if he

would be robbed of her beauty. She could give herself that, a sure antidote to the pity of others.

When the acid found her, it found her brave. But she always wondered in her secret heart,

whether it would have spilled at all if she had not spent so many years braced for its burn.

After that, she had focused her scrying on others. She used it for Loon. She brought him great power.

He never divorced her, never considered it. He valued her as a wife, her brilliance,

her power, her insight, her peerless family, long after he ceased to value her as a woman,

repelled by the scars. She had hidden Loon's prints from Carnin Day's strange black scrying

for three years. When at last he was discovered, she had misdirected day's nameless powers for long

enough to secure an escape. Then came the false identity cards with all their faces. Loon's face,

the princess's face, the concubine's faces, Loon's son's faces, the bodyguards even his valets.

Loon, her eth whom she had loved so fiercely once, told her that he'd left her

card with her scrying things packed away in this hidden room. She had gone to find it and found the

vile instead. She had never imagined that Loon lacked the courage, lacked the respect to tell her

the truth. She had never imagined that she, the greatest scryer of her generation, could be

lied to and tricked by her own husband. It was so common, so despicable.

Worse, he could not have lied to her if she had not lied to herself. It should have been obvious,

no false name on an identity card could hide her scars, the infamous scars of heir eth Loon's

reclusive and witch-like wife. Security would have arrested her on-site, no matter what her identity

card said. Consciously or not, he had not wanted to save her. He had not wanted to see her

scarred face, carefully schooled to hide any traces of jealousy beside his beautiful concubine,

Jane Lynn Ells. Loon had even less tolerance for guilt than he did for ugliness.

He didn't want her spilling his secrets at the last either. Loon knew she was high-born,

a ristow by blood and breeding to her bones. To be tortured to death by carnanday,

to scream and spurt and squeal her secrets at the end, was beneath her. Suicide was dignified

by comparison. Loon trusted her to clean up this last mess for him, like so much detritus

burdening his flight, even though the mess was herself. She was not detritus. She would not

passively hand herself over to the annobuses, even if she could not save herself. She could avenge

herself. The greatest danger a scryer faced was to scry her own death. It was the one utterly

forbidden vision. Est had killed days Loon scryer by tricking her into seeing herself toppled

dead from her scrying chair. Now that Est knew she herself was certain to die, by her own hand,

or by days she could skim closer to that risk. She had no acid and no knife,

but she had a little light from the key cards. She bit her tongue hard and spat blood into her hand.

Within it she saw, not for the first time, that carnand nameless day was not a human man.

He was Nininky, alien. Like all Nininky, a lie would cost him his life.

Having promised to kill all who sheltered the prince, he would never spare her life.

She saw that it was too late to escape him. She also saw that she would not die in this closet.

By mid-morning the technicians had disarmed the worst of the traps in the central part of the palace,

the Forier and the main hall. Their troops had filled it, and the head technician was briefing

Carnand Day on the traps that awaited them in the rest of the house. In the midst of all the chaos,

Carnand Day stilled and turned his head. He held up a hand to quiet the technician. Silence spread

outward through the people in the hall. Est emerged from a door hidden in the wall. Both her hands

showed, but one of them was full of key cards. She walked slowly and purposefully toward Carnand Day.

A gesture from day made the security hang back. When she reached day, she knelt, spreading the

key cards on the ground before her. Then she looked up and let her hood fall back. In the surrounding

company a gasp sounded and was stifled. Est's shaven head marked her as an aristo,

and the scars disfiguring the right side of her face left no doubt as to her identity.

These people who got to her had never dreamed of seeing her at all, let alone seeing her

kneel on the floor. All was silent, and then she spoke.

Carnand Day, I know that you never lie, she said, her voice clear and strong.

And you have said that you will kill all who shelter and aid Ben to her Ibrin.

At the request of my husband, I have sheltered and aided Prince Ibrin. I know that by your word,

my life is forfeit. My husband has broken his word to me. He has fled with Ibrin.

He left me here, knowing that you would break in and kill me.

I do not ask that you spare my life. My death sentence has already been issued.

Because you keep your word, it is final. You have not said when it should be carried out,

however, I ask only that you delay my death. As long as I remain alive, I will serve and aid

however you desire, say that I will not harm my family, by which I do not mean my husband,

but the family of my birth, my parents and my siblings, cousins, nephews and nieces,

in all other respects I will do whatever you will.

Further, here are the keys to my house. They will open all the doors without harm to you or your

servants. Carnin was silent, considering. Everyone else simply stared. People had whispered about her

for years. Much had been made of her scars, how horrible and monstrous they were,

beyond the can of medics to fix. They distracted the eye, shiny runnels,

spreading down the front and right side of her face. Aside from the scars, she was not bad looking.

In her thirties, tall, slender. Arithloon was a connoisseur of women, and he'd married her for

more than her family connections. She knew that Carnin would know her offer was genuine.

Nine inky always knew lies when they heard them. They were jealous of human's ability to lie,

and Carnin nameless day would have her screaming on the floor if she were telling one.

Knowing she was truthful, did not mean day would accept her offer, though.

The safer move would be to kill her, straight off.

Your family members are numerous and powerful, Carnin day said.

Can you bring them to my side? There was a pause.

No, she said it last. Not if you intend to replace the Aristos as rulers of the world.

I can help you accomplish that goal. My family's political standing means nothing to me,

but I cannot persuade them to change sides. Day paused, contemplative.

Est's value as an ally was compromised by her inability to recruit and unwillingness to harm her

family. Your offer stands no matter how short a time I let you live. He asked it last.

While I live, I am your servant, she said. Then change into drudges grey and scrub the blood off

the stairs in front of your home. There was a beat of complete silence.

I appreciate the gift of your keys, they said, and his face was almost gentle.

If you wish to rescind your offer now, I will kill you swiftly and painlessly.

No, she said, rising. I know where to find drudges grey.

Partisans and supplicants who approached Loon's home that day were sometimes shocked,

sometimes horrified, and often awed to see air is re-est, the airst wild lady of the house,

scrubbing the blood of her husband's soldiers off the stairs. A defeat of sorts.

Carnenday had taken the house, but lost his quarry, turned to a display of power.

Est ignored their reactions. It took her a long time to finish her task. A lot of blood had washed

over the white stairs, and she was not practiced in handling a scrub brush.

Still, she attacked the job with perfectionist determination.

Drudges Grey's had no hoods, but she did not dain to show any shame at having her scars stared at

by so many. As the light slanted from the west and dimmed to Golden, the stairs gleaned.

She gave herself this. She got them as clean as they had been when she had ruled the house the day

before. Finally, she set the brush down into the pale, her slender arms quivering with exhaustion.

She felt eyes on her, but she did not return the gazes. Even in drudges grey,

crouched on the stairs, she had dignity. She turned and realized that Carnenday was there.

All day he had conducted business without pause, apparently unmindful of his new aristo drudge.

Yet now he arrived just as she finished her task. He looked down at her with eyes

blacker than human pupils. Whites showed around his irises, but she knew the whites were just

for show, not real sclera like humans possessed. She did not rise, but bowed her head,

the correct manner of a drudge toward an aristo. It was a strangely easy gesture for her to make.

Carnenday wore his hair barbarously long like a prisoner rather than shaved like an aristo.

He had not been born of any aristo house if indeed he had been born at all.

As an inky, even his corporeality was a mere technicality, but meeting him in the flesh,

even if it only looked like flesh, she thought there had never been a more natural aristo than

Carnenday. It was the stage of the afternoon when shadows lay dark on the earth,

but the sky was still full of light, selectively illuminating open patches in gold.

One beam hit the black clad Carnenday, turning his gold hair to a cornet finer than any owned by Ben

to her ebren. If I kill you now, he said his voice soft. I will have given you no less than what

you asked for. She said nothing, keeping her eyes still cast downward. Servants did not answer back

when their masters made statements. She was aristo enough still to know how to play her role.

Do you disagree? Carnen asked her.

No, Carnenday, she said. You have delayed my death by several hours, and I have served you.

Delay it further, and I will serve you further. He placed his hand lightly on her bare head.

Will you accept death from me, Carnenday asked? She was silent a moment. Her spirit silently railed

against quiet death as it had that morning, screamed against dying a drudge. But better a drudge

treated honestly, whose tail would curdle her husband's spirit when he heard it, than a wife cast

aside with lies. I would prefer that you delay it longer, she said at last. But it is a better death

than I faced this morning. She looked up at him then, meeting his eyes like the aristo she was.

Please remember that, air is re-est, can't Carnenday said, taking his hand off her head and holding

it out to her. Because I always keep my word, and I have promised that you will die,

but you will not die today. She took his hand, the strength and warmth of his grip surprised her.

He helped her rise to her feet. Take off those grays, he said. You have convinced me of your resolve.

There are others here who can scrub stairs. He bent and kissed her hand. He was gone again before

she could react. It was the first time anyone had kissed her. Almost the first time anyone had

touched her since the acid. A moon later, Est stood in her lab. Its metal surfaces covered in gas

jets, spurting blue and yellow fire, and bowls brimming with acid. In flame and glass-bound acid,

she saw the future. She saw Medea Station, the private rail station of her cousin, Calven Otec.

Long strips of clear glass rounded in the corners, and soldered between iron and steel supports,

filled the ceiling in symmetrical and streamlined patterns. Through them beams of light

shone down from the white sky to paint patterns on the floor. Aero-dynamic train cars,

opinioned between cables, whooshed in and out with a minimum of noise, but a great deal of air.

Drudges carried crates on and off, their shoulder-length hair tied back against the blowing air.

The platform raised high on pillars amid the tower peaks of Otec's house, was cold,

and the wind biting. Fur-lined vests and moths were everywhere among the people crowding on and off.

Beneath the platform Est saw a series of small storage rooms. In one, a portable iron stove

warmed the air, and a number of people rested on furs, cloaks, and blankets that had been draped

across some crates to keep them off the cold floor. Ben tour Ebron lounged on one, fiddling with

the settings on some expensive gadget. Her husband, Lune, lay across another, his head in the beautiful

Jane Lynn Ells' lap. Ells' slender hands stroked his head. He looked relaxed.

They were among friends. When footsteps sounded outside the door, no one tensed.

Uben and Dern, their bodyguards moved between the prints and the door, but nothing else changed.

Ells' hand continued its rhythmic stroking of Lune's head.

The locked to the door sprang, but the bar was still in place.

Let me in, Otec's voice, brusque and rough. Uben lifted the bar, one hand on his laser and pulled

up on the door. Otec stomped in. He looked unhappy. He addressed Lune. The most powerful scrier of

our generation, and you left her behind for days people to find? Alive? His voice was quiet,

but he trembled with the effort of holding his temper in check.

Est is still alive? Ibrahim said.

She couldn't escape with us, Lune said. I left her another way out. Of all people I thought Est

would be strong enough to take it. Anger bubbled up, but Est forced it down, breathing deeply,

not wanting to destroy her cousin Otec along with her husband. Lune felt what Lune felt.

Lune thought what Lune thought. He would learn better eventually.

Why hasn't day killed her? Lune said. He said he would kill all of us, and he's niningy.

He said he would kill her. Otec said, but he didn't say when.

Our enemy isn't stupid enough to throw away the generation's most powerful scrier.

I wish I could say the same for my allies.

What's your tone, Otec, Ibrahim said? Like Lune told you, we couldn't take her with us.

I apologize, my prince. Otec said. But you should know that now Carnin Day has a scrier again.

He was furious, but holding it back in front of the prince. Est is a risto, Ibrahim said.

She would not have betrayed us unless he broke her mind, and a broken mind cannot scry.

He is trying to trick us into thinking he has a scryer. She is a shell. No more.

It's a tragedy, but not a threat. Ibrahim spoke with a thoughtless assurance

bred into him by years of people agreeing with everything he said. Est remembered his confidence

well. It amused her to hear it now. We have another problem in that case, my prince, Otec said.

Because the scriers I have in my household both say that Est is scrying for day.

I have found a third illicitly trained who says the same thing. So, if Est cannot scry, neither can

our own scriers. Otec was being diplomatic to avoid contradicting the prince. They all knew

that if three separate scriers said Est was scrying for Carnin Day, then she was.

But why would she, Moon said? She is in a risto. It was her scrying that told us that day intended

to get rid of the aristos, that unified the aristos against him. Why would she undo all that if he

hasn't broken her mind? I think you've forgotten that in addition to being an aristo Est is a woman,

Otec said. And the scriers tell me that day, the vision tore. The image of the men beneath

Medea Station replaced by a vision of the rail station itself once more. It appeared empty,

safe for three scriers in the station, standing with their backs to the empty rails, all facing her.

She recognized Zoo Den Ein, the daughter of a dead aristo named Wool, and Kosh Levere,

a consumptive aristo by blow, who Otec employed as a scrier. The third was a man who wore his hair

half-shade and half-long, the style of an anubis. She saw why Otec had said he was elicitly trained.

To train one of such a bloodline was forbidden. Otec had stretched to find three to oppose her,

three to force her into seeing themselves rather than the visions she sought.

We have seen your death, air is reest, Ein said. You think you are prepared for death, but you will

not be prepared for this one, this from the anubis. When every living member of your family is dead,

he will abandon you as your husband abandoned you. He will choose a path you cannot follow,

theer said. But he will not leave you the choice, air-eth loon left you, he will use you and kill

you. Ein spoke again, taking her turn. He will kill you. He will kill you. Show me then,

est said. If it's true, then prove it. The vision of the rail station dissolved again,

this time for good, leaving her staring into the naked blue flame of her burner.

She knew why they did not show her own death. They lacked the power to make her scryot.

But that didn't mean they were lying. It would be difficult to check without accidentally viewing

the underlying truth. Her death, she was cornered. She wrestled with an temptation to see her death,

to see if she would be betrayed once more. But how could she be betrayed again?

Carnanday had promised her nothing, absolutely nothing except death, and that was all Otexcrier's

promised as well. What was she going to do, live? All she wanted from Carnanday, he had already

sworn to do. Defeat her husband's prince and kill her husband. And Carnanday could not break his

promises without breaking himself. She sat and thought and then scried out Carnand nameless day.

She looked for him alone so there would be no risk of seeing herself die in the vision.

He was sitting at his desk in her house, looking at a map of rail lines and roads and rivers and

skyways. The maps were translucent, set to the same scale, and layered one atop the other.

Their edges were lit, and together they illuminated all the means at his disposal to move armies.

He looked up, and, impossible as it was for one who himself was not scrying, met her gaze.

Est, he said after a moment, I always know when I am watched. I am two floors above you and five

minutes ahead. Come and see me. Est gasped, and the vision broke. She sat and waited five minutes

before she got up to go see him. She did not want to arrive early and tell him that she would be

watching. That would create a dull explanation for his prescience. If he really could tell every

time who was watching and where they were watching and when they were watching, it would be wondrous.

Wondrous the way little had been, ever since her infant scrier powers spelled a vision of bubbling

skin and a barren womb. It took her another minute to reach his office. He was waiting for her.

He had set aside the maps and poured two glasses of flavorless distilled liquor.

Her sat, clear and harmless looking as water on the edge of his desk.

Est, he said, why are you scrying me and not my enemies? She felt a free soul of fear.

It gave her a certain grim pleasure to ignore it. She was well-practiced at conquering fear.

Lately, whenever I scry out your enemies, I see only my family members. No one else, she said.

The remaining scriers all unify against me, luring me to forbidden visions.

It may be that I cannot serve you any longer and must die.

She would be damned, as well as dead, if a scrier, especially a mere enubis, could scry her a death

for which she was not prepared. She wanted to live to be a widow. She wanted to live to see

lune regret abandoning her. But even if she did not see it, she was sure it would happen. That

was enough. O tech, your cousin is the one who has unified the scriers against you, isn't he?

Day asked. I know that he is hiding your husband and the prince now. She said nothing.

Perhaps day would become angry and torture her. Perhaps that was the death for which she was

not prepared. She let her fingers rest on her shot glass of liquor, but she did not let herself drink

it yet. You still won't tell me what you scry about O tech, even though he is working against you,

day said. You helping me will ultimately lead to his death anyway you realize.

I will serve you in any way, except against my family, she said. If I am useless to you now,

I will accept my sentence. Carnin day smiled and lifted his glass.

Drink your drink, he said, drinking his own. She tossed her back. It tasted like water in her

mouth, but burned like fire going down. It had been a long time since she had drunk liquor.

And crossed her mind there would be a certain poetry to killing her with the very poison her

husband had left behind. But, ruthless as he was, Carnin day was not sadistic. There was no

suspicious aftertaste, no pain driving her to her knees. The reason why you only see your family,

day said, pouring them a second round, is because you have helped me kill all my other enemies,

those on this world anyway. There aren't any left, except the ones who are hiding with your

excessively numerous relations. He drank his second shot. The fact that your relatives linger in

your visions suggests that you keep your word not to harm them, he said, putting the glass down.

Your refusal to betray them is why they will no doubt continue to pester me for some time.

He poured himself a third shot. She eyed her second one dubiously, knowing it was powerful stuff.

He was an ininky. He could taste the liquor, could probably taste nuance as humans missed,

but it would not make him drunk. For sheltering Prince Ebron, Calvin Otec is a dead man,

they continued, if you keep scrying after loon you'll see Otec dead. You need not,

Otec's death will happen with or without you.

Est took her second shot. A memory gripped her, a youthful vision she had dismissed as incompetence,

or a dream, of herself drinking in a room with an alien idol, golden and black. She had not known

then what an ininky were. Otec's daughter, Calais Leary Lyle, is going to marry Ebron, they said.

My former scrier saw it. She will swear to be Ebron's until death parts them.

Her name will change to Bene Leary Lyle. Est took a third shot, he poured, and she felt it hit

warmer than the others. She was drunk. She could not scry drunk. The servants had never carried liquor

to her side of the table, not since she was 19. My former scrier, they said, died of an aneurysm,

bleeding in her brain. My followers assured me that you scried it. The question is,

did you murder her or merely witness her death? I wanted to see her die, Est said. Such a strange

experience being drunk. It made her more aware of his beauty, painfully aware. He had no body,

wept no tears, blood no blood, spilled no seed, but that hardly mattered when she could see a body,

hear a voice, want a man, even if he wasn't really a man. I wanted to make her see herself die.

I knew scrying for it might make it happen. I'm not innocent. Your morality is not exactly my concern,

he said, not being a moral creature myself. Some said Nyninky were demons, forced to honesty by the gods.

Tell me, he said, pouring her a fourth shot. Do you believe a scrier has power over what occurs?

Is the future the future whether you look or not? Does scrying merely reveal things or does it make

them happen? My teacher told me that it had changed things, Est said. But he wanted scriers seen

as powerful. Without the ability to change things, we are impudent, omens and harbingers,

fear for only in terms of what we represent, not in ourselves. What do you think?

She shrugged. Her fingers wrapped around the glass. She was a little frightened of what she might

reveal if that fourth shot began to course through her blood. It's a philosophical question,

she said. Like most philosophical questions, it is what it is whether I agree or disagree.

But I err on the side of believing that I can change things. I proceed cautiously.

And how does one proceed cautiously when viewing the future? I don't scry when I am frightened,

for fear of seeing my fears come to pass. I don't scry when I am angry,

less my anger bring blood and ruin on the future. I don't scry when my mind is muddled.

The reasons are obvious. She took the fourth shot. It spread through her like warmth.

Most of all, I don't scry when I am in the midst of a run of misfortune,

because the taint of my misfortune will spread to everything I touch.

Yet your scrying redoubled after you were scarred, he said. He stood up and his golden

fingers brushed her face. She held herself still by an effort of will, but she wanted to flinch.

It hurt her to have something so beautiful as his fingers, touch something so ugly as her scars.

It was a relief, she said. A moment later she was surprised to have been so honest with him.

I knew it was coming. I've always been afraid that I made it happen, though it might have happened

anyway. Fate could be fate and scrying just a lens that catches its forward reflections,

but every night my husband and I spent together, I worried would be the last night.

I felt responsible for destroying our happiness. When at last I was burned,

I was ready for it. I'd already mourned my beauty. I mourned it before it was gone.

Isri, he said, using her middle name, the intimate one, running his fingers down her face again.

It isn't gone. Her breath caught, and she had to put her hand on the table to study herself.

If you must step away from the acid and the flames for a while, so be it, he said. He poured her a

fifth shot. Drink liquor. Let your mind wander. Fall to sleep without worrying your dreams will turn

real. Possibly you only see what will be, regardless. It's useful for spying, for anticipating

enemy action, but it isn't vital for my plans. If you can influence the future you see,

well, I can wait until this war is over to have a full range of scrying powers at my disposal.

She did not drink the fifth shot. Instead she wrapped her hand around the glass and met his eyes,

those black voids in his angelic face. I thought you weren't going to send me back to

scrubbing stairs, she said. Is this just some last night with liquor and talking?

He smiled again, his white teeth dazzling. I am not known for such mercies, he said.

He came close, his scent as golden and strange as his face. He was a freak of beauty,

deadlier than scrying and more seductive. There are things you can do for me. Besides scrying,

he whispered, and his breath, false breath for what Nininky needed to breathe, brushed warm against

her skin. There was no hint of liquor on it. It had all burned away in the void where his soul

should be. Her mind veered away in disbelief as he kissed her. His gold lips seared her like

fire shooting to her core. He pulled back and looked at her. His eyes were all black, the whites

vanished. His smile was devilish. You doubt me, history, but I never lie, and you are beautiful.

He took her face in both hands. She felt his touch burn through scars and skin and pulled her

in for another kiss, deeper, hotter. When he released her, she touched her scars herself.

Then she touched his flawless face and pulled him close for a kiss of her own.

Now, he said, breaking the kiss to let her breathe, take off your robes.

She woken the night, hearing eyes say, he will use you and kill you.

The bed was warm, not her bed. Loons bed, the nicest bed in the house.

Carnin' Day lay stretched out beside her, awake. Nininky did not sleep.

He rolled toward her in the dark. She could feel his eyes on her. He was waiting for her to speak.

They, the other screiers, have been trying to trick me into scrying out my own death, she said.

The heat of him was reassuring and disconcerting both at once. He wrapped himself around her,

spooning her body in his own and leaned in close. In a voice so quiet she could barely hear it,

even with his lips against her ear. He whispered, they're watching us now.

For an instant, only an instant she stiffened. Then as his hands moved over her body,

she realized what he wanted, what he wanted his enemies to see.

She wanted them to see it, too. She wanted loon to see it. And with a stab of triumph,

she realized that Otec had been on the verge of telling him when Otec's screiers had ripped the

vision away. Let this be what terrified them. She would enjoy it in more senses than one.

Carnin Day was an amazing lover. He was far better than ever her husband had been,

and Loon's skill had been famous among the concubines and cortisans.

But then Loon was thirty-five. Day, as an ininky, could easily be ten times his old.

Older. He'd had ten times as many women, and not just a risk to cortisans to teach him their secrets.

And he wanted est. He turned the lights up, made them blaze.

Over the course of their love-making, he ripped the bedsheets off the bed,

and knocked the maps off Loon's old desk. He put her on glorious display,

every side of her, every part, and never had she felt so beautiful.

She screamed and gasped her way through seven or eight orgasms before they collapsed,

her panting for breath on the bed.

She shivered a bit from the sweat, cooling on her body, and post-Orgasmic weakness.

Laughing, he wrapped her in one of his own robes.

They stopped watching. He said, an enormous grin, humanizing his face.

The young male watched the longest, unsurprisingly.

The Anubis, est said, making an expression of distaste. I don't know his name.

Then she gave in and laughed too.

It must take them a while to get the courage to tell, she said,

because they were in the past when they saw that, and, well, as of the last time I

described someone was only just getting around telling the prince and my husband,

and that was still to come.

Don't know how far in the future it was. We can't judge time gaps precisely.

They were about a day and a half behind us, they said.

But I don't know how long until your vision will come true. I know nothing of the future.

She felt some of her joy slip away. Her enemy's warnings sneaking in.

You know how I will die, she said, because it is up to you.

He ran his hand along her skin, scarred and smooth. I don't know how you will die.

Not yet, he said, his voice quiet.

You could change your mind. You could betray me. You don't want to, but you still love Lune.

She opened her mouth to deny it. Then wisely she silenced herself.

Nine Inky did not tolerate lies.

As to risk scrying again, she knew her former teacher would say she should not,

not with the three hunting for her, not when she was in the grips of a run of fortune she could not

understand. Carnin nameless day, or Nine Inky Carnin day as she privately thought of him,

calling him Carnin in the depths of the night, made love to her once or twice a day.

The servants and drudges treated her not with fear and well-hidden reluctance as they once had,

but with genuine deference. She was reclusive no longer. She did not lurk within her lab,

she did not hide her face behind hoods. Day adorned her with rare gems, draped them over her face

and body until she forgot that face or body had ever looked different than they did today.

Scars meant nothing to him. He told her that he wanted her, and he never lied.

He did not love her and did not pretend to. It made her feel safe. She had nothing to lose,

no seemingly substantial feeling that would dissolve to nothing tomorrow.

She did not have to scry. Not a mere concubine she had a voice among day's advisers,

a use for her unmistakable aristo education. Day was satisfied, but her sorceress skills would

atrophy if she stopped using them. And feeling his mouth move up and down both sides of her body

indiscriminately, the only significant fear her life had held, the fear of the coming acid,

seemed irrational to her. Watching day and herself having sex in the mirror of Luna's old wardrobe

room, she swore off all forms of fear. She decided to scry again. Risk meant nothing when she was

dead anyway. The three had watched her for such a moment. They had prepared well.

Instead of the vision she sought, a vision of the next time Ibrin felt himself to be alone,

another vision enveloped her. There was her mother's dressing room, the chairs burned by lasers,

a miasma of perfume and blood thick in the air. There was a faceless body, her father's by its

rings, clutching a gun in its slack hand. Next was her brother and his bride, older than when she

had seen them last, kneeling in chains. Next was Otec, his bearded face defiant. He knelt

chained before day, both of them on a podium before a mob. Est could not make out the screams and

cries of the masses, but she knew they wanted blood. It was an old practice, meeting out public and

bloody deaths for non-aristo offenders. In darker ages, the aristose had personally slit the

throats of drudges who had killed aristose, demanding life for life. They had allowed the blood

to fly out over the witnesses. Once more enlightened airs arose, they eliminated the practice in favor of

more hygienic killings. Public throats letting was exactly the kind of practice that would strike her

god-like lover as fitting to resurrect, this time for execution of aristose. Est did not want to see

this. She liked Otec. She knew he liked her. Even learning she had betrayed the aristose, he had

blamed loon. He wanted her dead, yes, but that was because he respected her abilities. He warranted

better than to be killed for the gratification of a mass of drudges. She struggled to break away

from the vision and could not. The three would make her watch this. They would force her to push

the vision one way or the other. If she helped Otec, she would betray Karnanday. If she did not,

she would betray her family, the only people who had ever loved her, the only people besides loon,

whom she had ever loved. When every living member of your family is dead,

fear whispered, and day's men forced Otec's head back. At least she noticed his scalp was

shaved. They had not made him grow his hair out in prison. But if they had, she realized,

the mob would not know to mark him as aristose. The knife came up.

Your skriers are watching, Karnanday said to Otec with a bloody bright smile.

Did they warn you? She felt the three skriers flinch, shocked. The knife came down, the sun glinting

off the blade in a flash of light, hot blood splashed out over the crowd. In that instant, while the

other three reeled horrified to find that in watching Karnanday, he was watching them back.

Est took control of the vision. She targeted fear, the consumptive,

who she could sense was the brainchild behind the plan to show her loved ones destruction.

Scrying showed more than the eyes saw. Fears lungs were hidden from light,

but Est could see them even in darkness. The tuberculosis had eaten pockets into his lung tissue,

soupy tumors that his body had walled off. His breath hissed in and out of the fraction of his

lungs that was still viable. It began to hiss in and out faster, as future veer began to hyperventilate.

Est felt a sick and fascinated excitement as the vision gave her an understanding of anatomy,

such as only medics and enumuses had. Part of scrying, an addictive part, was knowing the meaning

behind things she watched. There, right beside the toxic tubercular pocket in his left hand lung,

was a huge pulmonary artery, pulsing with blood straight from the heart. As future veer panicked,

the pressure in the pulmonary artery grew, and there, quite suddenly, the pocket broke through

the artery wall. Blood flooded everything, forcing its way through the thin barrier that separated

sick and healthy tissue, filling veer's lungs with fluid. Each beat of his heart sent more

blood spurting into his alveoli, drowning him. He gasped and choked and spluttered until at last

his heart stopped pumping blood into his lungs because his heart stopped pumping altogether.

Veer whom she had forced to watch with her now began to hyperventilate. The vision broke.

Est rose from her laboratory seat. Stiffened muscles, screamed and joints popped as she shook

herself loose of the clinging remnants of the vision. She emptied the bigger of acid carefully into

the proper receptacle. She needed to tell day one of the enemy's cryers was dead.

A consumptive is an easy kill, she said. The enubis will be the hardest because he is numb to the fear

of death. Focus your efforts on the iron, Carnanday said. Hold off on the enubis.

She did as he said and did not ask why, but she wondered.

She wondered until the day she saw a vision of iron in the flickering light of a flame shining

through a beaker of acid. She saw iron's face flush, purple, and her eyes bulge as the enubis pulled

a garot tight. No longer was Est Carnanday's only scryer. He had recruited the enubis, or would soon.

She went to find day in his command center. He stood by a map he had had built, a three-dimensional

glass cube with subways and airways and tunnels, hills and lakes and domes all present.

He could slide colored lights through the glass to symbolize the movements of soldiers,

trains, carriers, and tanks. She knew he could sense her distress. He did not need to be a

nininky to do it. Tension radiated from her spine to her fingers, curled into fists. His eyes

stayed on his map however. An enubis should not be scrying, she said.

I'm destroying your caste system. His voice was cool. Hadn't you noticed?

She forced her hands open, forced them into a more relaxed shape. Her voice did not, could not

follow suit. Do you want the future to be steeped in death because that is how an enubis will

scry it? He looked at her and his black eyes were flat and unamused.

Your prejudices strained my patience, he said. He turned back to his map. He made a minute

adjustment in the position of a light. You may go. She left. Left before she could fling out

foolish accusations. Left before she could smash his map on the floor and scream like an air sailor.

A courier brought S. the news that day's troops had captured Lune. S. was in her lab.

The overhead lights were dark. All around her bowls of fire burned.

She had turned off the gas jets and surrounded herself with containers of different fuels.

Each one burning in its own particular color. Most in shades of yellow and gold and red,

but one violet and one under eventing hood, a noxious green.

Facing the courier, S. took one last glimpse through the glass bubble of acid she held in her hand.

Then she placed it with careful precision into its stand.

She had not been able to find Ibrin in her visions. Having seen Ein's death, S. could not

scry her as soon as one, and meanwhile Ein had discovered and revealed S. self-imposed limitation

concerning her family members. Ibrin now stayed close to S.'s family on purpose.

His marriage to Lyle, her cousin once removed, had been performed. They sheltered with still more

of S. family. S. hoped not her brother. She had not scried his destruction and she held on to

hope that he would live. Thee's words that she would not die until all the living members of her

family were dead, haunted her. The courier said that Day was with the prisoner.

S. kept her face in mobile, a task the scars made easier, and asked the courier one question.

Day did not have Ibrin, the courier told her, only Lune.

She wondered if Fear had included Lune as a member of her family when he said they would all die

before she did. She had not included Lune in her prohibition today. Why was it she could see Otec

and her parents dead, but not her husband? Carnin Day's mandatory truthfulness bound him to kill

Lune as it bound him to kill her, but Carnin Day could fit a great deal of leniency into a death

sentence as she had every reason to know. If S. betrayed him, he would give her a terrible death

but he might give her a terrible death even if she stayed loyal. Lune would never betray Ibrin,

but if he would, just if, what deal might Carnin Day be willing to strike with him?

She had made Lune a cuckold before the eyes of the world, a laughingstock to the very allies

for whom he had sacrificed so much. Carnin Day could offer him revenge.

Est dismissed the career. Then she took out the keys to her house, copies of them at any rate,

and rose from her chair. She put out the fires and turned on the lights.

She retreated two specific vials. One was acid, the same kind of acid that had burned her,

that acid worked best for her scrying. The other was Lune's parting gift.

She put the vials into the pockets of her red dress. The dress was new, cut wide at the neckline

to show her collarbone. She locked her lab behind her and strode down into the metal bowels of her house.

The Clidham Wing in the lowest basements held the secure rooms. Rooms where treasures and prisoners

were kept. She strode the dark halls without fear, heating neither cries nor echoes. She knew where

Lune would be, the deepest cell. In front of the door she encountered one of day soldiers.

He stood immobile, his armor twinkling with lights, his body bristling with weapons,

his face plate a shatterproof screen. He barred her path. She demanded passage.

The soldiers spoke into the calm in his helmet, listened to the earpiece reply and stepped

aside. Her keys opened the door. She entered without hesitation, letting the door shut behind her.

Day's golden presence dominated the space. In the odd reversal common to him,

his unshorn hair and simple black clothes marked him as a prisoner, but he alone was free.

There on a bench before day sat Lune. Stubble showed on his head and lines cut deep around his

eyes. He needed a shower, but his clothes were rich and fine. He was unshackled.

In chains beside him sat her brother. The sight of him cut est somewhere deep where it did not show.

For a moment the three of them stared at her, saying nothing. She was an interloper in their

tent a tent. I thought he'd fixed your face, Lune said. He was not taunting her. His voice held

mild surprise. In the pockets for gown Est had the vile of acid. Her fingers flexed with the impulse

to throw it on Lune. And then day was there beside her. His black will was a palpable thing.

What is it you have in your pocket, he asked? Her fingers closed on a vile. By its etchings she knew

it to be the poison, not the acid. It would do no good flung in Lune's face. She took out the poison.

I thought to return his parting gift to me, she said. Too soon perhaps?

Day smiled, amused. He took the vile from her hands. Too soon, he said.

She hoped suddenly, hope like a sharp pain, that she would not need that poison herself.

Why was her brother chained, but Lune free? Lune stood and walked stand beside day. He smiled at her.

His schooled expression of contempt was undercut by a glint of vicious triumph.

He's offered me the same deal that you have, Est. Lune said.

Lune had always looked so handsome to her. Beside day's gilded perfection, however, his

gloating face was a welter physical flaws, twisted and ugly. But day's face was an illusion,

a corporeal mask over a being that was not limited by corporeality. Not a moral creature,

Day said. Not known for his mercies. And day never lied. She looked today. I have made the

offer, Day said. He can give me Ibran. S. hand closed around the vile remaining to her.

The acid. Something dangerous appeared in Day's lightless eyes. Something hard. He could move

as fast as Gail wins when he wanted to, and acid would not hurt him.

It looks like your lover is even less attached to you than I was, Lune said. S. keys opened the

cell door, letting her escape. She fled back to the hidden closet where she knew she would not die.

Sitting inside it once again, she took out her keys and the vile of acid and held them in her hands.

The little vile. So like the vile, Lune left her, glittered mocking in the light. She was twice a fool.

Her imagination ran wild, promising visions of Day and Lune laughing together, mocking her as she

died at their feet. She envisioned her family dying and Lune living for years and happiness and

luxury before his execution. Morbid fear whispered of herself broken on a wheel before a mob.

With such dread, with tears pricking her eyes and devastation in her heart, it would be madness to

scry. She could not scry Day and Lune in that room, not with her brother there, not feeling like she

did. Day would know. Worse, it would doom her brother to the very fate she feared. That was why

Day kept her brother with Lune, she realized. He knew that Est would not scry against her family,

not deliberately. Every vision she saw of them was either forced on her by Otex Scryers or one

where she scried others and her family entered during the vision. Day knew that she served him,

not from fear of death, but rather from a desire to be avenged on Lune. He could not count on her

support once she'd scried out her victory, or alternately Lune's victory over her.

All Day had to do to keep her from scrying Lune was to house Lune with her captured family members.

Day knew that was the way to hide from her what was coming, to keep her guessing, to keep her working

for him. Day had told her that she no longer needed to scry. What was it he had not wanted her to see?

If she scried, she would bring on her own doom, but she sought it out. She did the forbidden.

She scried her own death. She saw herself lying on a circular bed in a tower room.

It looked high in the air, nothing but bright blue skies showed through the windows that surrounded

the room and strange, jewel-green birds flew by. She looked no older than she was now. If anything,

she looked younger. The faint lines on her forehead and at the corner of her unscarred eye smoothed away.

She wore rubies at her throat, but she was naked otherwise. The bedclothes were rumpled.

Carlin' days stood at one window, looking out. He was naked too.

I know I've scried this room before, she heard herself say. It's familiar, the way scried things are.

Do you remember what you saw? He asked, leaving the window and lying beside her.

Her future self regarded him for a moment and smiled a lazy smile.

No, she said. It can't have been important. I usually remember visions. It must have been

lifetimes ago. He kissed her then. She nestled in his arms. Time passed. The blue sky outside deepened

in hue, and wisps of cloud showed gold in the west. Her eyes slipped closed.

Good night, she murmured. Good night, he whispered in return.

Her heavy sleeping breaths slowed, and then stopped. He looked up and his eyes met her scrying once.

I have to leave, asry, he said. I know you want to face your death, to know it's coming.

But you have lived more than 500 years. Years of life untouched by age or illness make death harder.

I do not want you to suffer, isry. He was still holding her. He looked away from her scrying

self to the body in his arms. I would take you with me if I could, he said. But humans cannot pass that

way, and I cannot break my promise. He caressed her face, and the vision dissolved. She had finished dying.

The same hour that Ibron fell into day's hands, day told Lune that there was no further need for

his service. Lune's execution took place in a small metal room. There was a drain in the middle of

the floor, crude plumbing to accommodate the crude plumbing of a human body. Est watched

impassively. Her attendance felt strangely beautiful. No one gave any speeches. Not day, not her,

not even Lune. He spared her adult glare, but most of his attention went to carnivorous day.

Day was the one person who did not seem to belong in that room.

Everyone else shared the crude plumbing of the condemned, from the soldiers and their electric

armor, to Est in her everyday finery. Est in prison brother, there to deter her past self-scrying

eyes, wore drudges gray and did not meet her gaze. Her brother had never personally sheltered Ibron.

Day had spared him and his family as a gift to her. Lune's blood ran down the drain,

spilled by a bloodless nining key, and the rest of them went back to their lives.

Far from glorying, Est surprised herself by feeling sad.

Est went on to scry hundreds of thousands of visions over her life,

until the early ones faded into the dim shadows of old dreams. Above all the things she ever

scried, seeing her lover kill her, was the most comforting.

And welcome back, that was scry by Ann Ivey. When I offered to guest host details from the vault,

I was told that I could choose any of the first 750 podcast stories that hadn't already been

rerun. 750 stories. Before I even started to consider the list, my brain popped out scry.

Who might argue with the neurons? The odd thing is, I hadn't listened to scry since

it first ran on podcast all over 12 years ago. That 644 stories ago. I've been a podcast

listener from the beginning, so why this story? Why had scry warmed its way so deeply into my brain?

As I relist into it, it all came flooding back. Scry is an excellent story.

There are mystery and suspense, which I love almost as much as fantasy and science fiction.

But fundamentally, stories impact us most when we can relate to the characters.

And back in 2013, I was going through something similar to what Est was feeling,

feeling similar emotions. I had forgotten that part, but I remembered that the story was

important to me. I hope that the stories we run are meaningful for you too.

That was our show for this week. On behalf of everyone at podcast, your co-editors,

Winini Kimmimea, and Evan Martin, assistant editor, Katelyn Zavanovich,

audio engineer, Eric Valdes, and our many wonderful first readers,

Andrew K. Ho, Bollywood Conte, Craig Jackson, Amalia Harrington, Habiba Dokubo, Julia Pat,

Kirin Corsini, Tarnina Bari, Tava Nova, Tirena Bailey, and Ziv Whitties.

And myself, Alicia Caparossa from Casta Wonders. Thank you for letting us share another story with you.

Podcastsle has long survived under nations alone. And even though there's ads now,

subscribing through our Patreon remains the best way to ensure we can keep bringing you one story

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with any questions and someone will get back to you. The legal bit. Podcastsle is part of the

Escape Artist Foundation, a 501 C3 nonprofit, and this episode is distributed under the creative

commons attribution, non-commercial notarivatives 4.0 international license. That means you can share it

and please do, but you cannot sell it and you cannot change it. If you want specifics, check

creativecommons.org. Our music is by Shiva and exile. We'll be back next Tuesday with another

fantastic tale. In the meantime, you might care to check out our sister podcasts. Escape

pod for science fiction, pseudopod for horror, cast of wonders for YA speculative fiction,

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we'll see you next week. Be safe and be kind.