The Artisan and the Eye -- Bonus Snippet

“Sir?”

John kept his eyes on the pot until it was complete. Only then did he carefully lean back from the potter’s wheel and look up at his apprentice. The boy… what was his name? Benjamin? B-something… shuffled nervously. He didn’t way anything else.

“Yes?” John prompted.

B-something swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously in his lean neck. Puberty had stretched him up but not filled him out yet, and everything about him seemed lumpy and pointy. “There’s a lady here to see you.”

Probably to complain about some detail in a purchased piece. John sighed and touched his fingertips to the newly created pot, allowing his power to flow through the clay. Within seconds it was dry and glossy, and harder than any kiln-fired clay could be. He carefully kept any sign of irritation from his face as he wiped his hands clean on a rag and exited the workshop. He wasn’t going to take off his apron for this; if some wealthy woman wanted to complain to his face, she could deal with a dirty apron.

But the woman wasn’t one of his customers. He’d never seen her before. She wasn’t English, that was for sure; tall, dark-skinned, and dressed in some foreign style that was clearly unsuited for physical labour but bore none of the markers of English high society fashion. Probably from somewhere over the ocean? He couldn’t think of why anyone would spend months at sea and come to seek him out by name. She stood ramrod-straight, hands folded in front of her, appearing neither interested in nor put off by her humble surroundings.

“You are Johnathan the Potter?” she asked without preamble.

“It’s a common name and a common job,” he answered.

“You are Johnathan, the potter who carries the spark of an artisan in his fingertips?”

Johnathan stepped back. His gift wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, of course; it was what put his work in such high demand. It was why he was on his fourth apprentice, despite it being generally well-known how terrible he was to work with; everyone wanted to at least try to learn something from such a skilled artisan and maybe, if they were worthy and lucky, someday inherit that skill. This wasn’t some backwater village ready to burn a local witch at the stake just because the wheat crops failed or something.

But you heard rumours, recently. Even in more enlightened, accepting areas, you heard rumours. And some foreigner showing up out of absolutely nowhere to ask something like that, as if it wasn’t even an indecent question… well.

“Who is asking?” he asked.

“I apologise. My name is not important. I am carrying the Eyes and a speaker for the World’s Crown.”

“What does any of that mea – ?”

“I am speaking for Duniyasar.”

It took a moment for John to parse what she meant, since she pronounced the word wrong (or, he supposed, it was probably in her language so really he pronounced it wrong, but no matter). He had heard of Duniyasar, of course; home of the great prophets across the sea. He wasn’t entirely sure it actually existed, but it would be a strange thing to lie about.

Someone had travelled months across the sea from the home of prophecy to seek out him. That couldn’t possibly be good.

“What is going to happen?” he asked.

“War. The greatest war that has ever befallen the land. Fire will rain from the skies and there will be more dead than there have been people that everyone in your entire family has ever even seen in their lives. It will leave a scar across all of history and across the entire world, and it cannot be avoided.”

John swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Why are you telling this to me? I’m a potter! I can’t stop a war or – ”

“Nobody can. The war will come to pass. It cannot be avoided.”

“Then why – ?”

“The was cannot be avoided, but it can be lessened. If we do nothing, England, as well as multiple other nations, will be entirely destroyed. If we act, the world may yet recover. And you are going to help us.”

“How? I’m just a potter; I can’t – ”

“You and your family are going to move to Duniyasar, where you will help the Eye in saving the world.”

“I most certainly am not! I don’t know you, I have no reason to believe anything you say, and you have some nerve coming to my workshop to demand I move across the ocean for – ”

“I make no demands. I am merely informing you of your future as a courtesy. We will be coworkers, so it seemed polite. You will come to Duniyasar, and you will help to save the world. I cannot give you an exact timeline, but it will be soon.”

“I have no reason to believe – ”

“Then don’t believe. That is your choice. You work in clay – have you ever worked your gift on stone?”

“That’s not any of – ”

“It would be to your advantage to familiarise yourself with stone. Until we meet again, Johnathan with the artisan’s touch.”

And then the woman left, drifting gently down the street as if her feet weren’t touching the ground. John would have thought the whole thing a figment of his own fancy, were it not for the apprentice gaping down the street after her.

“Sir?” the apprentice asked.

“I have pots to make,” John snapped, heading back into his workshop. He didn’t have time for whatever scam the foreign witch was trying to pull on him.

But perhaps he should ask a mason friend about stone. Just in case.