The Seer

In a far-off corner in a distant land that you have never heard of (nor ever will again, once my story is done), there is a great, old tower. I do not remember ever having seen it, but indeed, I know every inch of it, through every eye but my own. I do not remember ever meeting a person outside those walls, but they tell every traveler who has ears to listen to stay away from the tower. The great secrets inside will kill a thousand men, they say, and rob us all of our souls.

Of course, no one listens to those people. The men who come through this place come here to have their fortunes told, and that is their doom. Mine is that I must tell them.

The village has no name. It sits in the middle of the desert, and only now and then will a traveler ever see it. Its houses are made of little bricks that the brown-faced women bake in the sun, and the grains are small and smooth after years of windy skies. The only buildings are the earth-brown houses-no stores, because no one will ever need to buy anything, and no inns, because no one will ever visit.

The village has no name because it doesn't need one. Everyone who is born there lives and dies there; and only now and again will a sullen stranger trod through one way. The strangers never come back. Whether they make it to where they're going, or whether they lose themselves in the sand, no one in the village knows. They'll peer out of the windows in their little brick houses until the stranger has drunk from the well and moved on, and then they'll come back outside again. They all know that it's best to keep the outside out and the inside in.

So few great people are born these days; Destiny must surely know by now not to birth them into villages like this one. But about the only thing I do not know is if She has ever learned.

Not as many women as men climb the tower hoping to hear some favorable tale of their futures, and yet their number is still so infinite that, although I know each and every one of them better than I know the room around me, I cannot possibly think of them all at once. The girl who climbs the tower now is one of those many few; her muscles are lean and strong, her thick black hair tied back tightly from her handsome face. She jogs up the stairs for a while, until she counts fifty steps, then leans on the spear she carries for a moment and closes her eyes. Perhaps she is imagining the sorts of things that could be there for me to tell her.

I know every part of her life. I know where she was born, I know where she will die, and I know how she will live. I also know her name.

In this village, one day, a mother gives birth in one of the tiny brick houses. The hot sun outside grills the floor where the window lets it peek through. The whole village lingers near the door as the midwife goes to fetch warm water from the well. "How is the child? How is the mother? Is it a boy? What is the name?"

The midwife takes her time. She slowly dips the ladle, making sure just the right amount of water dribbles into the pail before she is ready to speak.