The Heir (Fall of the Swords Book 3) by Scott Michael Decker Page A

this Flaming Arrow and this Seeking Sword wielded that blade. I can't tell you now what the dreams meant. I can only bid you to walk with the Infinite, Lord Brother.”
    As the message ended, the courier should have regained consciousness. An eternity later, Snarling Jaguar emerged from his thoughts and noticed the stench of voided bladder and bowel.
    * * *
    “Infinite blast it, why didn't the Usurper die?”
    Easing Comfort chuckled. “That's the fourth time you've said that.”
    “So?
You
tell me why he didn't die, eh?” she replied across a table of half-emptied plates.
    Smiling, unperturbed, Easing Comfort looked from her to the girl. “Lady Quick,” the Wizard-medacor said, “tell us what happened, eh?”
    “Everything went as planned, Lord Comfort: His profligate son responded to the implant exactly as he should have, but…” Thinking Quick closed her eyes, then shook her head. “I don't believe it! He
fades
from my sight!”
    “What do you mean—'he fades'?” Purring Tiger asked.
    “Remember I told you how I can't see Flaming Arrow and Seeking Sword? It's as if they're not even present when I consult the past, eh? Guarding Bear, though, is like a wraith—sometimes solid, sometimes insubstantial, sometimes invisible!”
    Thinking Quick's talents included three types of time sight: Present, past and future, respectively called Extant, Temporal and Prescient.
    Extant Sight, or viewing the present, was merely watching someone's current activities at a specific geographical location. As distance increased, clarity decreased proportionally. Anyone farther than five hundred miles was an indistinct blob, beyond recognition.
    Temporal Sight, or viewing the past, was simply seeing what had happened at some moment in the past, whether a minute, an hour, a year, or a century ago. The further back Thinking Quick searched, the less distinct events became. Clarity regressed from the specific actions of specific people, to the movements of small groups, to the general migrations of whole populations. Anything further in the past than a millennium was a blur.
    In comparison, Prescient Sight, or viewing the future, was more complex than either extant or temporal sight or their combination. Looking into the future was analogous to—and infinitely more complicated than—watching ocean breakers while lying with one's head on the sand. The glimpses afforded were of the wave crests only. The events between waves hidden, the farther away the crest was the farther in the future and the more obscure the event. The waves came at her from every point in three dimensions—above and below, left and right, front and back, and every point between.
    The four axes of Prescient sight were the geographical axis of extant sight, the base axis of temporal sight, all futures springing from some causal past, the time axis, and the axis of probability, the most intricate and multi-dimensional of all four axes.
    The three sights grew exponentially more complex. A person might have only extant sight. Since temporal sight enabled the person to see the past up until the present, a person with temporal sight by default also had extant sight. The only distinction between them was the
when
of the event. Similarly, a person with prescient sight had to have both temporal and extant sight.
    “He fades from my sight,” Thinking Quick said again. She looked at Easing Comfort. “You've talked with Leaping Elk, eh Lord? He has some prescient sight, mostly latent, right?”
    Easing Comfort nodded.
    “He told me not long ago that I'm invisible to his talent, which makes sense.” Thinking Quick chuckled. “I can imagine what would happen if two or more full-blown prescients tried to kill each other. What a tumult! Anyway, when he consults the future, I can't see him, but he doesn't fade as Guarding Bear does. I wonder if Guarding Bear has latent prescience. What do you think?”
    “I don't know, Thinking Quick. His talent
is
remarkable. It protects