PA4-09 | The Sealed Saintess Beneath the Reservoir

  — The Blind Seer —

  Silas Nightseer's house stood at the western edge of the village—a single-story dwelling of bare, unadorned brick. It was the kind of place you might pass without a second glance.

  Yet a line had formed outside. Men and women of different ages and dialects, some from distant towns, waited quietly in the afternoon light. Their presence spoke louder than any sign: belief in the uncanny still ran deep in these hills.

  I was about to guide Jasper and Clara to the end of the queue when a voice, aged but clear, cut through the murmur from inside:

  "The young man who just arrived. Please, come in."

  The words were directed at me. After a moment's hesitation, I stepped forward.

  Before I could speak, the figure inside rose slowly from his seat. Though his face was turned toward the door, his eyes were two deep, shadowed hollows. He gave a slow, formal nod in my direction.

  "Last night, I felt a shift—a presence approaching. A significant one." His voice rasped like dead leaves. "I did not expect it to be so... youthful."

  He then turned his sightless gaze toward the waiting crowd. "My apologies to all of you. An urgent matter requires my attention today. Please return tomorrow at first light. Your places in line will be honored in the exact order you stand now."

  There were murmurs of disappointment, a few discontented shifts, but no one openly protested. The crowd thinned and drifted away like mist in sunlight., leaving only the three of us before the weathered door.

  "Sir," Silas said, gesturing inward. "Please."

  I nodded and entered, Jasper and Clara following closely.

  The interior was sparse: a square wooden table, a few stools, shelves holding simple clay jars. Instead of sitting, Silas moved with unsettling certainty toward a back room to prepare tea.

  Clara leaned close, her whisper barely audible. "Rhan, are you sure he's blind? He's not... feeling his way at all."

  "He sees," I replied quietly. "Just not with his eyes."

  Before she could ask more, Silas returned, carrying a simple teapot and four coarse ceramic cups. He poured with a steady, practiced hand, setting a cup before each of us without spilling a drop.

  "Please," he said, gesturing.

  We raised our cups. As I considered how to begin, he spoke first, his empty sockets seeming to hold my gaze.

  "You have come about the reservoir site."

  It wasn't a question.

  "You already know," I said.

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  A low, rumbling laugh escaped him. He reached for a worn wooden pipe on the table, packed it with tobacco, and lit it with a match. After drawing deeply, he exhaled a plume of smoke that hung between us like a veil.

  "I know," he said, the humor gone from his voice. "They all whisper my warning: 'Step into that place, and you'll lose a decade of your life—ten years of bad fortune, minimum..' You wish to know what lies beneath the dirt and rumors."

  "I do."

  "Good." He tapped his pipe against the table's edge. "But before an old man shares his secrets, he should first hear what the young one has already uncovered."

  I saw no point in evasion. I told him everything—the rats and their frenzy, the sudden warmth from the earth, the chilling vortex of mist.

  He listened without interruption. When I finished, he was silent for a long moment, the pipe smoldering in his hand.

  "You arrived only yesterday?" he finally asked.

  "Yesterday at noon."

  "A single day," he mused, a note of respect in his voice. "For most, it would take weeks to sense even half of what you've described. You have a rare sensitivity." He took another slow draw from his pipe. "You've felt the pulse of that place, haven't you? The thing sleeping below?"

  ---

  — Secrets in the Bones —

  I didn't answer directly. Instead, I turned the question back on him. "Since you've already 'seen' my purpose, perhaps you can 'see' more. What am I to that place?"

  Silas's thin fingers drummed softly on the tabletop, a silent deliberation. He then turned his face fully toward me, the dark hollows of his eyes somehow focusing.

  "Young man," he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper.

  " Would you permit an old blind fool to... read your bones? "

  It was his phrase, spoken with the gravity of a ritual.

  "Proceed."

  I leaned forward. His hands rose—thin, spidery, their skin strangely smooth and cool, not calloused like a laborer's.

  The moment his fingertips touched my forehead, I closed my eyes.

  His touch spoke in a language older than words.

  Slow and deliberate, his fingers traced the contours of my skull the way a scholar might read a forgotten script etched in stone.

  He began at my brow, fingers lingering over my temples, then slid down the ridge of my cheekbones, the line of my jaw, finally cradling the base of my skull. Each point of contact lasted several heartbeats.

  A faint, tingling warmth emanated from his touch, but beneath it was a pulling sensation, as if he were drawing forth a story written in my very marrow.

  Time stretched. Then, abruptly, his hands froze.

  A tremor ran through them.

  He snatched them back as if scalded.

  I opened my eyes.

  Silas was pale, a sheen of cold sweat glistening on his brow. His chest rose and fell rapidly.

  Before I could speak, he pushed himself up from his chair, gripping the table for support. Then, to my surprise, he bowed deeply—a formal, almost reverent gesture.

  "I... I was blind in more than sight," he stammered, his voice thick with awe.

  "Forgive my presumption," he whispered, voice trembling with awe.

  "I did not realize... I stood before a Dragon-Slayer."

  Dragon-Slayer.

  The title struck a chord deep within, a vibration in a forgotten chamber of my mind. Fragments surfaced—Valeria's voice speaking of a mountain called Kunlun, a sky-black serpent, a blade that could cut divinity, a storm of blood and glory. They were memories that didn't feel like my own, yet the title fit like a key turning in a rusted lock.

  If Silas could sense this, it meant the power and the past were no longer separate from me. They were merging, awakening.

  "Dragon-Slayer?!" Jasper blurted out, nearly knocking over his teacup. "Rhan, you... you actually killed a dragon?"

  I met his wide-eyed stare with a calm, silencing look. He snapped his mouth shut, but disbelief remained etched on his face.

  A heavy quiet filled the room, broken only by the steady tick of an old clock and Silas's gradually slowing breath.

  I looked at him. "Will you tell me the truth of that place now?"

  Silas lowered himself back into his chair, wiping his brow with a cloth. His expression was grave.

  "If you were not what you are, I would take this secret to my grave. The karma is too vast, the knowledge itself a curse for ordinary souls."

  The air seemed to tighten around us. I felt a faint chill creep up my spine, though the chamber was warm.

  He drew a long, steadying breath. "But a Dragon-Slayer... your fate and the power in your veins may be the only counterweight to what sleeps there."

  "What lies beneath that reservoir is no ordinary blight," Silas said quietly.

  "It is a fallen divinity—sealed, wounded... and not yet dead."