Shadows in the Orchard House
The seer’s entire body tracked the course of her crystal ball as it swayed in rhythmic circles around the palm of her oppressor. The casual indifference to the fate of the ball horrified the zaftig woman beyond reckoning. Her fingers clawed into wishful lengths, willing her digits to cross the distance and retrieve the heirloom. She could not beg. Such groveling would only spur the vindictive man on further. She had witnessed the escalation of tyranny amply to have learned its finer nuances.
“Sire,” the seer said, dizzy gaze circling, “I would be unable to offer further insight should the crystal be broken.”
“I know that, wretch,” he snarled, allowing the ball to drop from one hand to the other, where he caught it with ease and lifted it up in defiance between them. “But what good is it in truth? When you babble such incoherence as to be indecipherable. ‘Shadows in the orchard house.’ What by the sands is that? There is no orchard within a hundred wheels. We live — on the edge — of the desert!”
His rage washed over him with the dull pink throbbing he so cherished. His own fingers snarled into a claw and squeezed the crystalline sphere, raising it high in the air behind him.
Wind sucked in through the seer’s lips as she saw the sphere pulse with faint amber light, the brightness of it stronger where the man’s fingers touched glass. The tyrant took her intake of breath solely as concern for her toy, and he paused in the ball’s crashing descent.
“I–I can elaborate, my lord,” the woman uttered in pinched tones, “I am quite sure that I can explain the mysteries of the crystal to your satisfaction. Perhaps if I read your cards in conjunction?”
The man’s eyes narrowed in scrutiny as he sought any inkling of falsehood or impudence. The air tangled thickly between them for several moments, before he flipped the ball to the woman’s clutches. “Fine,” he said, “But do not try my patience further with your blathering. I have a Ministers’ meeting this afternoon, and I must have some resolution for this gods angered suffering in my throat!” His hand rose to the soft flesh between head and shoulders and caressed the gravelly ripping which ate at his reserves of patience and propriety.
The seer nodded sagely and slipped the crystal ball into the sequestered regions of her flowing attire. Her mind danced across the images she had seen in the ball’s first pass. The snaking tendrils of darkness which uncoiled from her oppressor’s mouth originated deep within his throat. The translucency of his existence was evident, and the progression of that which resided within him was nearing completion. She needed only to wait for the harvest.