divination, part i - E

Meera gives the man in the soiled tunic fifty dolse.

He hesitates a moment, long enough to feel the weight of the coins in his grubby palm and determine their approximate value and authenticity. He seems satisfied, and produces a lumpy sack from the underside of his cart. Like him, it smells of earth and moss.

She slings it over her shoulder with the others. Today, the market was quite kind. On her back she carries salted meats, as well as onions, potatoes, and carrots.  She will make a stew with these, one she hopes will last for several days. While her foraging has been prosperous, her business has not.

Meera makes her way through the thinning crowd. She knows that the best time to haggle and beg is when the merchants are closing their stalls, packing their stock, leaving for home. Dusk is when old stock is cycled out, and if the gods are good then she might come into some slightly old beef. The gods are not often good to Meera.

As she leaves the market, Meera stops to let a wagon by. It is a rich family, she can tell. Some of the middle caste. A butcher's brood, maybe, or a mason's. Meera sees this in their clothes, their skin, the language of their hands and faces. A stocky man with great big forearms drives the cart, guiding the reins in his young son's hands. In the cart bed, his small brother dozes in the lap of a fair faced woman, who keeps watch over their packed wares as well. Meera sees this, and remembers.

She remembers a lifetime ago, how she taught the little girl at her side how to mend cloth. A beautiful girl, with long black hair like her own, and eyes as brown and rich and deep as the swelling waters of the Lykanse when the rains come. A little girl with a mind like a knife, quick to carve knowledge and understanding from mystery. A sweet girl with a ravenous curiosity, even as her eyelids fluttered helplessly against sleep as she lay her head in Meera's aproned lap.

Meera remembers, and she feels nothing. She is aware of the sensation in her heart-- a hollow feeling, as empty and brittle as her old woman's bones --but it is not surprising to her. Not upsetting. To Meera, it is simply the state of her existence. It stretches vastly before her, into tomorrow, into next week, into all the years to come. She will travel in an endless arc across the sky toward it, over an eternal wasteland, until she sinks into the twilight horizon and is taken by the night.

It is all-encompassing.

It simply is.

Meera makes her way through the market and out into the blocks of the middle caste. There, candlelight spills into the street in slats. She imagines each open doorway makes a ladder rung, part of a great ladder carrying her down to her home in the slums.

This section of the city has been named many things over many decades, and for many reasons. The people know it now as the Blind Quarter. It has been said that this is because of the many seers and charlatans who end up there. Some believe it is named for the milky-eyed beggars who are known to seek shelter there. To Meera, it seems an appropriate name, as most seem to pretend the quarter does not exist at all. The Blind Eye Quarter.

To Meera, this is fine. It allows her to carry on her divination in solitude. The weight of prestige no longer fetters her progress. Business has ceased to impede her work.

The food, she stores carefully in the main room.

The earthen sack, she carries to the cellar.