CHAPTER FIVE--Forthsight

The city of destination on Tobias's map was called Quell. He had never been there, nor did he know anyone who had. In addition, he had no idea where the window was located within the town. But he knew that it was his only hope, and so he must make an effort.

Weeks of basically uneventful countryside traveling passed. Tobias and his dæmon were good and practiced foragers, so they did not go hungry. It was late summer in the foothills, thus the weather was relatively warm, so they did not freeze.

They passed through many small villages, but Tobias never emerged into public unless he needed to replenish his supplies. He had rather not risk showing the scar upon his forehead that denoted what he was.

Little by little, his violent flashback dreams began to subside. Not entirely, though; Tobias was certain that a few of his memories would stick around forever inside his dreams. But when he was able to purge the thoughts from his head as he walked along the windy, dusty sunlit roads with his dæmon, he actually found himself harboring a shred of hope that he hadn't felt in many years.

Almost a month had passed when he finally reached the city of Quell. It was larger than he had expected: many times more populous than every village he had passed through thus far. But even so, that particular part of the world was by far not the industrial area. Tobias's hometown was a huge technologically and industrially advanced city; Quell was a village compared to it.

Few motor vehicles passed on even fewer paved roads, none of which exceeded two lanes. Tobias saw many more people on foot or on bicycle. No hover-mags here at all, Tobias noted, though they were just about the only method of transportation where he was from. Shops lined the streets on both sides, and stray dogs passed through the streets.

Tobias found an inn and stayed the night for the first time in many weeks. He had gotten so used to sleeping under the stars that he felt quite claustrophobic when sleeping in a low-ceilinged room.

The next day he checked out of the inn and immediately went to a tiny diner across the street for a meal as well as to begin his search for the window. When he arrived, he took a booth near the back and picked up a tattered paper menu.

Two ragged old men were talking and guffawing rather loudly in the booth across from Tobias's. They were the only other people in the diner aside from him, so Tobias figured that they were a good a place as any to begin seeking answers from. He knew that he could search their minds for the answer, but when he tried there was so much other trivial information that he knew it would be far easier to simply ask.

"Excuse me?" Tobias piped up rather meekly when the men had stopped laughing at a rather inappropriate joke long enough to get a word in edgeways. They looked over at him. One was heavyset with blonde stubble and a fat face, and the other had a neck the size of a barrel. Tobias knew that either of them could snap him in half like a twig.

"Whaddaya want, kid?"

The blonde one's dæmon, an equally heavyset beaver, twitched her nose at Aerotsierma, who lowered her eyes in submission. The beefy one's dæmon stared impassively at the fox as a grey wombat from the tabletop.

Tobias cleared his throat polity and said, "Sirs, do either of you know anything about the window into another world that was left in this town?"

Beefy Neck whooped and slapped his thigh. "Yeh hear that, Mike? This kid's lookin' for the winder!"

Pudgy Face glared at his friend and growled, "I done heard 'im, numbskull. Naw, kid, that there winder's been all closed up goin' on . . . what, goin' on a year now. We 'uns all thought the knife bearer wouldn't find 'er, but 'e explained what was goin' on, and that it was necessarily to keep all the winders shut. Where yer been, kid? In a hole?"

Tobias narrowed his eyes briefly at the reference. More like a hellhole, he thought, but instead replied steadily, "No sir, I’m not from around here. I'm from a long ways off, and I don't get out much. Thank you anyway."

As he stood up to leave and then men returned to their conversation, Tobias searched the man's mind to make sure he wasn't lying, and when he found that he was indeed telling the truth, only then did he allow his heart to sink.

He scooped Aerotsierma up and left without eating. He wasn't hungry much now either. Once outside, he sat down on a bench and buried his face in his hands. "Oh Aero," he moaned helplessly. "There's nothing we can do now. You heard him. It's been closed for a year. I searched his mind just in case, and found that he was even there when the knife bearer closed the window. He saw it happen. It's hopeless."

His loving dæmon nuzzled his hand gently. "Tobias, are you sure that there's no other alternative? You're awfully smart, you know. Remember the equation you solved in fourth grade? What if we discovered some way to pass through the worlds?"

Tobias closed his eyes tight, squeezing tears out from under his eyelids. "That filthy equation was what got my family killed, Aero." Even as he said it he knew it was a lie. He knew that it was his reaction to the whole situation that had put him and his family in the danger.

"Anyway, Aero, we've been in captivity for years; I haven't practiced that sort of thing for years! I'm behind in education. It's totally impossible."

Aerotsierma knew he wasn't being honest with himself. She knew that he could teach himself all his years of lost schooling in just a few weeks, probably. She remembered how he had scratched equations upon the dirt floor of the cell with a stick in Dunestone. But that only lasted for several months, to pass the time, then he stopped. He didn't care anymore.

So instead of reminding him of this, his dæmon said, "Then maybe there's something else. Something inside of you, even. There has to be some way, Tobias. We can't give up yet. We can't!"

For some reason what his dæmon had said stuck in his head until he lay down to sleep at the inn that night. It would be his last day in Quell before he left. Where to, he did not know. But now that he knew the window was closed, he saw no reason to stay there any longer.

But when he dreamed that night, it wasn't the horrors of the past that surfaced in his mind, but of a conversation with his father many years ago, just several months of captivity in Dunestone.

*

"Dad . . . I've wanted to ask you for a while now. I know we've never really talked about it before, it had never really come up, but I really want to know. The whole Forthsight thing. What exactly is it for?"

His father had closed his eyes as if in resignation, briefly touching the Roman numeral twelve scar on his forehead. After a moment he spoke.

"The Forthsight is a wonderful gift and a terrible curse, my son. It is extremely rare in occurrence, and usually passed through genes, but ours is one of the only families where the Forthsight is present in all members. There are only about one hundred of us in the world, I'm told.

"There are several ancient prophecies that go along with it. One says that the Forthsight will be the fall of civilization. Another says that it will be the rebirth of it. And yet another says that it will be both . . ." A strange look entered his father's eyes, and Tobias was beginning to regret having asked the apparently troubling question.

He continued. "But anyway, most children discover that they have the Forthsight before their dæmon settles. You discovered yours much earlier than many children, probably because of your intellect. Usually children find that they are able to 'hear' other people's thoughts. That is always the first step. However, there is a lot more to the Forthsight than that. Everybody with the Forthsight has their own special gift, which is usually not discovered until your dæmon has been settled for at least several years. Your mother is able to heal, as you know, and I can move objects with my mind. I'm sure that you haven't noticed it yet, but there is some sort of block in this place that prevents any type of Forthsight uses outside of hearing people's thoughts. I cannot move things with my mind, and your mother cannot heal.

"The one thing concurrent in all of the ancient prophecies, however, is that a great disaster will strike upon the people of the Forthsight, and the One with a very special gift will restore our people."

His father grew silent. Presently Tobias asked quietly, "What gift is this, dad?"

"The gift to make just about anything happen if you will it enough."

Tobias didn't understand exactly, as his 'gift' had not surfaced yet, but he took his father's word for it. And what else had his dad said? A great disaster will strike? A great shudder passed through his body. And then he awoke.

*

Tobias's eyes stung with tears when he awoke, and his pillow was wet. For some reason he was incredibly exhausted upon waking, instead of refreshed as one usually is when emerging from sleep. It was completely dark in the inn room, and he fumbled for the bedside lamp. He couldn't find it and cursed quietly. Aero, still-half asleep, nuzzled his side gently.

Suddenly a bizarre sensation passed through his body and a cool breeze blew as if from out of nowhere, ruffling his hair and tingling the unshed tears in his eyes. He knew that he had closed the windows before going to bed. And the air that passed through was cold and damp; it had been warm and dry outside when he went to bed, with no sign of approaching rain.

A distant boom of thunder reached Tobias's ears. In the darkness he fumbled around until he was on his feet and groped through the black room to the window, which he blindly pushed open, sticking his head out. The outside air, however, was warm and dry.

"What the hell?" he said aloud.

Aero padded across the room and nudged his leg. "Tobias, what's the matter? Where's that cold air coming from? There are no vents in here!"

"I know, Aero," he murmured, panic rising inexplicably as he fumbled desperately for the light. Finally he found it, and the room was instantly flooded with light.

Tobias stared openmouthed at the space above his bed. There was a bizarre and rather irregular shape hovering there, like a picture cut out and stuck in the air. The picture seemed to be of dark hills, viewed only from the light of his room, with a few patches of snow, large water droplets falling sparsely accompanied by distant rolls of thunder. Damp wind blew through, chilling Tobias's face.

At first he thought that he was dreaming, then he though that he had gone insane after pinching himself. Tentatively, he placed a hand through the picture, not expecting but wildly hoping for it to actually go through. It did. He reached through the 'picture' and touched the damp grass. It was real.

He remembered his dream. He felt about ready to pass out, and turned to Aero, speechless. Finally he forced himself to smile wryly, and spoke to his dæmon.

"Aerotsierma . . . we made a window."

Chapter Six --->

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