Listen to the Water | FULL SERIES | Wattys 2022 Shortlist | ✔

(36) Taiki: The Seers

There's a logic to the lights in the water. They move like water and everything that lives in it, but if you watch it for long enough, you start to see that it has an origin. The curls of the waves, ripples of the currents, paths of Nekta, and even the ways the ghosts of Kels move and glance all emanate subtly out from somewhere in the canyon, and we're now directly above it.

The Seers are here, if this is what these patterns are coming from. I don't know what else they could be—I've never heard of anything else that deals in visions. Stories say the Seers practice singing every day for the one day of the year when they gather in a circle and sing together, blending all their songs in hopes that one of them will see a glimpse of the future. Sometimes it works. Most of the time it doesn't. But they do it their whole lives... or at least, the stories say they do.

The stories don't say anything about lights in the water. They don't say anything about what the Seers' home looks like other than that it's near a canyon. And they don't tell us how to call out or talk to them, either. How to ask for what we need, or any kind of offering or ritual we may need to offer in return. Ande and Sar are both looking to me for direction. I'm the one here who knows the most languages—at least, as far as I know. Sar might know just as many, coming from Rapal. But if they can't talk for any reason, I'm the one who stands the best chance at communicating... assuming the Seers know any surface languages at all.

There has to be a way. Both the Karu queen in the story and Ande's people have spoken to the Seers before, and both times, the Seers spoke back. We'll just have to figure out how.

I approach the edge of the canyon and face down the impossible depths ahead of me. I can't tell how far away the Seers are, but the water here is so silent, I'm sure any sound I make will travel more than far enough. I hum a note to make sure my voice will work. Then I take a deep breath and sing the seeking song down into the canyon. If the Seers are Kels—I realize I'm not actually sure—they should hear or feel it.

Almost as soon as the song pierces the darkness, the lights and patterns in the water fade. Then the water in front of me brightens. I jet back in alarm. A shape materializes where I was hovering a moment before. Ande appears beside me with her dagger drawn. We watch the light together as it swirls in on itself, taking the shape of... something. It's a curl with more curls off the sides of it, all turned the same way but spiraling inward into infinite, shrinking copies of themselves.

Ande's hand whispers, "What does it mean?"

I have no idea. After a long moment, the shape seems to shiver, then collapses in on itself. It swirls for a moment. Then its edges come together in a new pattern. This one is a shell: a common one from the Karu waters. It too lingers, then collapses. Again, it re-forms. This time, it turns long and thin and sinuous, and I think I know what it's representing even before it takes its final form. It's a snake-eel that only lives in the mid-water Shalda-sana.

I jet forward, then hesitate. I don't know how to interact with the shape. I don't know if touching it will do anything, but then again, I don't know if it can hurt me either way. I tap it with the tips of my fingers. It scatters immediately. I lurch back as the light surges towards me. It's faster. It encases my whole body and hovers there for a long moment as I freeze in the water. It doesn't hurt. I can't feel it at all,

Then it's gone. My breath releases with it. A shout from Ande makes me whip around. The light has come for her instead. She holds still as it encases her, concentrates briefly over her dagger handle, then shatters off her, too. It makes for Sar instead. They recoil. The light pursues them until they run into a rock and cower there. The light slithers to envelop them. This time, though, it stops short as its first motes make contact. It recondenses in front of Sar and takes the same spiral shape as before.