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is happening there, and I want to know what it is. If
only it was just the fishmen!
    He sighed and moved to the ewer he kept next to the door for
visitors to use to wash their hands. There were towels next to it, and he
dipped the corner of one into the ewer. Then he turned to his table. It needed
a good scrubbing….

 
    7
    Visions need riddles , Taro thought as he hobbled down
the road. No, visions are riddles. How can I explain them to others? He sighed. He had tried to explain the visions to the villagers who knew him,
but they had looked at him as if he had finally lost his wits, even though he
had just found them again. He couldn’t blame them, though, could he? “I have to
find a wizard,” he told them, his voice excited and his eyes wide. “He has a
black robe and walks through fire. He plays two invisible lutes at the same
time, and they make an awful screech, like pigs being butchered. No, that was
what happened at the Wizards’ School. His lutes were silent, and….”
    He would have thought himself crazy if he hadn’t had the
visions. In a way, it was good that they thought him crazy, since they had
given him some coins and food to help him along when he finally told them he
was leaving for Hellsbreath. He accepted their gifts graciously, as if they
were donations to the Order instead of alms to a raggedy, crazy old man. And
those were the villagers who knew him. The next village over was less kind,
even though they had heard of the strange old man at the shrine. It was worse
at the next one, and he had finally given up on trying to explain his mission
to them—and it was a mission! He had been granted these visions by the
gods, and he was going to see them through! But he needed a better way to relay
the content of the visions; one that wouldn’t leave him sounding like his mind
had fled from him.
    What did the Seers of old do? he wondered. Nothing, he answered. The people trusted the Order back then—and there were Elders to
guide initiates through their visions to help them understand what they meant.
Maybe I ought to find my mentor? He shook his head. No time. I have to
reach Hellsbreath. He hobbled forward, his walking stick tapping out a
rhythm on the cobblestones. They were interesting cobblestones, large,
alternating slabs of colored rock that formed a grid pattern, like the streets
of Hellsbreath. Most of them were gray and white, but every now and then there
was a stretch of green and white or black and white or green and gray or black
and gray. No doubt each little king had their own color preference. He smiled
and rattled off a playful verse:
    There once was a king with a sword
    who ruled over all with his word
    and by writ and decree
    he demanded there’d be
    no gray cobblestones on his road!
    He chuckled and shook his head. It was a pointless verse,
but it helped him to pass the time as he plodded forward. He probably had heard
it somewhere on his travels before reaching the shrine. Some bard or other must
have sung it as a quip between songs? Yes, it had to be something like that.
    He frowned and listened to the tapping of his walking stick.
It had a simple melody, one that was slow and ponderous. It was almost ominous,
like the kind of omens he had heard diviners give. But the diviners’ omens were
always vague, pompous warnings—or vague, hopeful tidings. It always sounded to
him like the diviners were making things up to suit their audience, but what
did he know? Maybe their magic only gave hints of the future? Maybe all they
got were vague impressions? But when they spoke of those impressions, they
sounded so important . Taro knew it was only the ritual and their voice
that made them seem that way, since what the diviners said always seemed like
empty words to him. Peasants ate it up like it was their daily gruel. “The gods
will look upon you with favor this spring!” Really? What kind of favor? Which
gods? He really didn’t care, of course, but if that was all they could