“Am I speaking to emptiness? Am I alone?” He shouted, then pointed to a boy in the front row. “You! Answer me.”

            “I’m from the village of Irwallis,” a quavering voice began.

            “I ask how you were chosen.”

            “The rock, Mi’Lord,” the boy, nearly inaudible, tried again. “I found the painted rock in the rubble.”

            “Ha!” Elymas laughed and kept on laughing, barks of contempt that might have gone on indefinitely except the unthinkable happened. An apprentice a few heads down from Jessum began to laugh as well. Then another, and another. Soon everyone was laughing but Jessum. The idiots, he fumed, couldn’t they see he was laughing at them?

            Suddenly, the light eyes focused on him with an intensity that told Jessum that he’d been the target all along. 

            “You!” he ordered. “Speak.”

            I’m not a dog to command, Jessum wanted to say but when he replied his voice was steady. “Euli, dedicated to the God Who Is Everywhere, chose me. Euli is a blind seer, highly regarded for his wisdom and insight. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.”

            As soon as he’d said the words, he regretted them. He’d been a fool to dare.  

            “The God Who is Everywhere is named Jah and you’d do well to remember it,” Elymas replied. “As for Euli of Larnes, I haven’t had the pleasure. I must invite him to court.”

            Now they were laughing at him. A few craned their necks to stare. Jessum, hunched over in embarrassment, listened with half an ear as Elymas moved to explain the duties they’d assume at the castle. They’d be rotating between time in the kitchen, the stable, gardens, the brewery, also as pages, and if one showed exceptional promise, assisting the Red Robes during Night Watch.  Most would be sent home, he warned. 

Jessum didn’t listen. Silently, he was turning over Euli of Larnes, Euli of Larnes.

            But he hadn’t said Larnes, only Euli.

            Elymas knew the blind seer but refused to admit it.

            Why?