In the city of Hemm on the river of Em in the colder and hillier parts of the country lived many sorcerers, and of those sorcerers the most esteemed were the diviners, and among the very greatest of those diviners was Margimore the Knowing. She could see next year’s weather in a passing cloud; she could read your palm with a glance at your heel; once she had performed no less than seven acts of haruspicy using the guts of a single underfed sparrow.
All had been unerringly accurate. This was as it was to be, for Margimore the Knowing deserved her title. But among the many and much and myriad things she knew, there was one thing that tested her sorely, and this was thus: within the city of Hemm, she was the second-greatest diviner in matters of the sight.
This, she could perhaps bear in the abstract. But in the real her superior was – by all rumours heard – Gortrude Greetle.
Margimore the Knowing was tall, and cold, and severe, and had a chin that was strong and foreboding and eyes that looked through you and into your metaphysics. Her hair was long and braided in the most wizardly of ways.
Gortrude Greetle was short, and round in a lumpy sort of manner, and distracted, and had no chin to speak of, and when she looked at you she flitted her eyes aside as if afraid you would steal them if you got a good look at them. Her hair was frizzy and thinning.
Thus, Margimore the Knowing set forth her mandate: if she could not be the greatest diviner in all of Hemm, she could at least supplant Gortrude. Some people – according to some other people – are disgraces to their profession’s name by their existence alone.
***
A pigeon set forth from the tower of Margimore the Knowing. It flew to its home roost and delivered its message, whereupon the message was burned and it was eaten.
Volderros the Lurk was a professional. He did not believe in evidence.
He did, however, believe in Margimore. She had paid him several times to do several interesting and profitable things, and at all times had been very clear that she knew more about him than he’d like without ever once implying she’d anything about it. He appreciated her discretion as much as he resented its hold over him.
Though not as much as he appreciated her money.
So Volderros the Lurk set forth in the deepest night, which was his friend, and walked the crooked narrows of the city of Hemm, which were his siblings, and slipped into the abode of Gortrude Greetle like it was his own home – that is to say, through the window and being mindful of the potential presence of deadly and dangerous traps.
There were none. It was a little disappointing and just a sliver ominous: if a sorcerer’s home appears unguarded, it’s because the guard is either so small it’s invisible or so huge it’s unnoticeable. But this was not the first or second or even sixteenth wizardly manse invaded by Volderros, and so he put thoughts of what he could and could not see out of his mind and slunk through the foyer (littered with elderly and dying chairs) down the hallways (laden with little desks of plants and trays of metal tools) and into the building’s heart, where the outside chill was kept at farthest bay and the secrets of Gortrude’s genius were certain to nestle.
There were no locks.
There were no guards.
But at last Volderros heard the shiffle-shuffle of careless feet and knew that the sorcerer was nearby, and with practiced ease he stepped to the nearest doorway, slipped its frame wide without so much as a creak, and vanished into it.
Inside was a cramped chamber and on its walls were ten broad shelves and on each shelf were a hundred glass jars and in each jar were a pair of eyes of various sizes and shapes and shades and glassiness.
The ones closest were a shade of blue that reminded Volderros of his mother.
He fled, but without screaming. He was a professional.
***
The next day a pigeon arrived in the tower of Margimore the Knowing, informing her that her payment was unnecessary and also that Volderros the Cutter was leaving Hemm for a city less fruitful but less troubling by prying eyes. This told Margimore nothing that she did not already know by other means, but somehow made her mood even worse regardless.
“Apprentice!” she snapped, and from her cauldron in the corner peered the wary and unscrupulous pale gaze of Chox the Waiting, who had been tending this brew day and night for half a week in a trance because someone had to do it and Margimore considered her time better spent.
“Yes, ma’am?” said Chox.
“You will go to the home of Gortrude Greetle, and you will present yourself as an apprentice in need of tutelage, and you will thus discover her secrets and bring them to me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Chox.
“And finish that brew first.”
“Yes ma’am,” said Chox.
Margimore knew that Chox had already finished the brew six hours ago and was avoiding further tasks with it. Chox knew that Margimore knew this. Margimore knew that Chox knew that Margimore knew this, but did NOT know that Chox knew that Margimore knew that Chox knew that Margimore knew this. And Chox knew it.
Chox was a very cunning apprentice. She could see both sides of anything with a mere glance of one eye, and she had two eyes, both as pale as an underfed leech. Neither were very impressed with what she beheld at the door of Gortrude Greetle: the greatest diviner in Hemm was fussing at her doorstep, failing to shoo a raccoon from her trash and failing.
“Git!” she shouted. The raccoon didn’t even bother to sneer at her, distracted as it was the trash can it was elbow-deep inside. “Git!” repeated Gortrude, this time flapping her hands. “Git!”
“I have come to the abode of Gortrude Greetle, greatest diviner among all in the city, and I plead entry to seek apprenticeship so that I might learn from her unfathomable wisdom,” said Chox the Waiting with an admirably straight face.
“Oh? Oh yes, sure, certainly, why not, yes yes yes,” said Gortrude, wasting Chox’s time by looking at her ear instead of her expression. “Super, fantastic, just wonderful. Tell me, do you mind if I run a few tests first?”
“Of course not,” said Chox the Waiting, who had faced no fewer than six trials to gain entry to the tower of Margimore, and six more before she was worthy of meeting her and undergoing the last six.
“Marvelous, just marvelous. Come on in and let’s take a look at you.”
So Chox was led inside as a guest and brought to the very innermost sanctum of Gortrude’s abode without one jot of suspicion apparent or evident, and placed in a chair of surpassing comfort and admirable suppleness such that Chox was brought near to sleep even before Gortrude pressed a hidden switch on it that tipped it back at a most relaxing angle.
“Look up, please, and try not to blink too much,” said Gortrude, and as Chox followed these directions a most alarmingly stinging substance was deposited in her eyeball. She bore it without flinching.
“Great,” said Gortrude. “Now just wait a moment, and I’ll get the rest ready-” and as the sorcerer said this Chox blinked, and when her eyes opened again the world was out of focus and bright, so that the dim laboratory she sat in was filled with the glare of a sunless midsummer day on the water, and she couldn’t so much as count her own fingers without squinting.
She could, however, see simultaneously way too much and very little of the gigantic metal mask that Gortrude Greetle was bringing towards her face. Its many many many eyes glistened like a spider’s.
Chox the Waiting had taken eighteen trials to apprentice herself to Margimore the Knowing. Chox knew herself and her strengths. She was both patient and cunning.
“LOOK BEHIND YOU!” said Chox.
Gortrude did this, and when she looked up, the comfortable chair was empty and Chox was halfway to the city gates.
***
When Margimore the Knowing knew that Chox was never coming back – about four minutes before Chox decided to flee – she swore six oaths so powerful that the air at her desk darkened and splintered, and that gave her an idea, and that idea moved her hand, and before she had weighed her options and made her plans she had opened the deepest drawer of her desk and cracked the most devious lock that held it shut.
Inside was a tiny box that would kill anyone but her to open, and she opened it, and inside was a thing that was a little older than matter.
It had no name, but she called it by one anyway, and it came from the black opal she’d trapped it within and listened with impossible patience as she gave instruction, and then it left, and before the sun had sunk another fraction lower in the evening sky it was at the doorstep of Gortrude Greetle, or rather under it. It was a creature of promiscuous omnipresence: wherever there lay a shadow of any size, it could fit its entire self within, though it was a bit bigger than the planet. It pranced underneath a passing rat in the gutter; skipped to the side of a crossbar in a pane of glass, then trickled down into the underside of an ugly overstuffed armchair and thusly it invaded Gotrude’s demesne in the time before Margimore could blink once after giving it instructions.
Before her second blink, all the exterior of the house was known to it. It invaded the chambers and the cupboards and the kitchen and the cellar and the attic and the library; it slid between every page of every book, rolled over each stone and plank and bag and box; explored the cracks inside each cranny.
And just as Margimore’s eyes began to flicker for the third time, it made its way into the very heart of Gortrude Greetle’s lair, where she sat at a desk and slouched over something insignificantly solid, twiddling.
There. That was the last of the things that it did not know. It would know it, and it would return it, and it would be free, for Margimore the Knowing was unaware of what she did NOT know and did not realize that it was to be truly unbound after this task was accomplished, and even less aware of those consequences.
This was a very small planet it found itself immersed in. It would take but a little squeeze to get the juice out.
But as it flowed towards the desk and the heedless form of its target, Gortrude straightened from her hunch and made certain motions and from the tangled matter of her laboratory bench emitted a light so thin and bright and impossibly pure that the spirit discovered, experienced, and was overwhelmed by terror all at once in a moment of utter devastation. It fled wailing to the seven winds and came to Margimore on bended limb begging to be hidden away in its opal once more where the terrible light would not find it, and so once again she was left with nothing but a headful of hate and a mouth itching for a fouler curse than the several she had already spilled for it.
She stewed there, staring moodily at her bookcase, then pointed a finger at the form dusting it. “You.”
“Me, ma’am?” asked the servant.
“You will go to the dwelling of Gortrude Greetle and make yourself available to her as a servant, and bid her examine your sightlessness, and thus you will discover her secrets and return them to me,” said Margimore the Knowing. “And you’re going to do this because I’m taking the light out of your eyes and will not give them back until you’re done.”
“What, ma’am?” asked the servant, but Margimore had already whistled and pointed.
***
“And what’s your name? Sorry, I know I asked before, but I was writing and I’m an awful multitasker.”
“Morsly,” said Morsly.
Gortrude Greetle, the greatest diviner in all of the city of Hemm, nodded and cursed as her ink blotted on the page. “Shit. Sorry, sorry. I’ll be just a moment. There. Sorry. Morlsy the what?”
“Ma’am?”
“Everyone in Hemm is So-and-so the so-and-so, aren’t they?”
“The Duster, ma’am,” said Morsly, who hadn’t gotten to where she was by disagreeing with her employers. Then again, she hadn’t gotten to the state she was in by disagreeing with her employers.
“Fantastic, fantastic. I have to warn you though, you’ll be earning that title a little lot around here – why, the number of jars I have to keep clean alone is, well And your vision is…?”
“Gone entirely, ma’am. I can still work though. I’ll pay for the spellery.”
“Oh no no no, no goodness no. Examining something like this is its own reward. If you’ll follow me, please – here, this way, this way.”
So Morsly was led down creaking halls that smelled like tea and dust and a hint of formaldehyde and placed in the most comfortable chair she’d ever known –
“Look up, please”
– where something unpleasantly stinging was drizzled into her eyes like oil on bread. It tingled and fuzzed at them.
“Look left now. Right. Down. Up again. Hmm. Well, it’s definitely nothing material. We’ll need to check more comprehensively. Hold still, please – got to put the lenses against your face.”
Cold metal brushed against Morsly’s nose and cheekbones, and something began to click rhythmically. “Hmm. Hmm. How’s your precognition these days, Morsly?”
“I’ve never had any, ma’am.”
“Yes, that makes sense. Well, your second sight’s retina is well in place then. Can you please repeat after me-” and here she spoke some words that did not enter Morsly’s ears and turned her tongue to eels when she repeated them even as she was asked, unprompted. “Alright, your third eye is unobstructed – no signs of a membrane. Hmm. Let’s try the strong light.”
So there was a moment’s more clacking and crackling nearby, and then – shock of shock – Morsly could see something. Just a little something, a faint blur, but it was enough to bring her to near-tears with relief.
“Oh, that’s interesting,” said Gortrude. “You can see the laser?”
“Yes,” said Morsly. “Ma’am. Yes.”
Scribbling and fussing noises. “Interesting. It seems the light’s gone out of your eyes – never seen that before. Have you run afoul of any sort of sorcery recently?”
“My last employer was a sorcerer,” said Morsly carefully, “but I never touched their work.”
“Huh. Very bad luck then. Anyways, I think I have something here that might help. Let’s bring back the lenses.”
Cool metal again, but warmer now, still touched with the lingering traces of her body heat. Click. Click. Click. CliBRIGHT.
“Ah!”
“Oh, that did it! Dimmer?”
“Please.”
This time she was ready for it; but it still left red marks on the back of her eyes. Red marks. She could see them. She could see the light. She could even see the slightly horrible metal mask in front of her face she was looking through, and Gortrude Greetle behind it, watching carefully with her watery little eyes. They were wide with joy.
“Got it! The sunblack lenses should do you just fine. I’ll give you a frame and you can take the set – I’ve got loads to spare, made a good dozen during the last eclipse back when I worked in Klorsimore. Stake out a sheet of obsidian right before the umbra hits and BAM, bakes that sunlight right in, black-hot. They’ll be good for at least a century. Now, there is one thing I really must caution you: do NOT let anyone else wear these. You need the light to see, but someone whose eyes already have their own, it could – well. Just never let anyone else wear them, alright? Maybe don’t even let them hold them. Or touch them. Actually I tell you what, I’ll give you a case with a lock on it, is that okay?”
“Yes,” said Morsly. She could see every wrinkle and hair on Gortrude’s weak, flabby chin and she wanted to kiss all of them. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
“Oh it’s nothing, really. This was wonderful to help with. Eyes are my life. Always loved them. If you want to repay me, I can show you around the storage on your way out – I’ve got hundreds in there, even got a couple from a WHALE, I kid you not. Fascinating organs.”
She did. They were. And some hours later, when Morsly had one foot out the door and one on the stoop, she hesitated.
“I would still very much like to work here,” she explained. “But there is one thing I have not been truthful with: I am currently employed elsewhere.”
“Oh, that’s a shame-”
“BUT,” said Morsly firmly, “I am certain she will permit me my leave when I explain things to her. I will see you again tomorrow morning, ma’am.”
“Just Gortrude is fine, it’s fine. And no rush, and no worries. Don’t take any risks on my account.”
This was the second piece of advice Morsly received from Gortrude Greetle that she did not follow.
***
Margimore the Knowing’s study door was open and unlocked, as it always was. She knew who was coming and what to do about it, as always. And if it was a bit of a surprise to have her servant return so quickly, not one day after she’d dismissed her on her mission, well, she could keep that pleasantness to herself.
“I have been to the workplace of Gortrude Greetle, ma’am,” said Morsly. “May I have the light of my eyes back?”
“I know,” said Margimore the Knowing, and “maybe later. Tell me everything.”
“She examined my eyes, and she showed me her secrets, ma’am,” said Morsly. “May I have the light of my eyes back?”
“Good,” said Margimore the Knowing. “Not yet. Describe them to me.”
“A serum for the eyes that tingles. A metal mask with little lenses. A bright light that even I could see. And these glasses.” And she held up a small and study case and popped its lock open. “May I have the light of my eyes back?”
“Not ever again if you continue with such impertinence,” said Margimore imperiously. “Now let me see.” And so Morsly gave them, and she took them, and she did.
Briefly.
After that instant Margimore the Knowing saw very little at all, which was odd for someone who now possessed an extra set of eyesockets in the back of her skull.
***
The dusting wasn’t so bad, really – Gortrude was just short enough that reaching the backs of the shelves had been troublesome for her. And when Morsly was done cleaning she would memorize them by name and type and sort them, then go and read the books in the library, and in the evenings she practiced with the devices under Gotrude’s supervision.
It was an interesting feeling, to wake up in the morning and realize that within the city of Hemm, she was the second-greatest diviner in matters of the sight.
And someday, maybe she’d be even more than that.