Then again—hadn’t it? How much of the dread he’d felt these past several moons had been due to his Gift? It didn’t always give him visions; sometimes it only gave him warnings.

“The ForeSeers just confirm that the agents are right. But since the decision was evidently made in their council a few days ago, and only just announced to the general troops, I expect that will change.” Talamir sounded confident, and he had every right to be.

Mutable and unknowable Future…

Well, perhaps. What the Writ had to say on that subject was a matter of philosophy rather than reality—meant more to keep people from closing themselves off to all of the possibilities that free will gave them. And this was particularly true when Karsite Writ met Valdemaran reality, and the Gift of ForeSight—which, often as not, showed many futures, not just one.

And if Vkandis really abhorred the knowledge of the future, would he have given me that particular Gift? For Alberich, like the Heralds, had used it to change the future he saw for a better one…

He began making calculations in his mind, trying to reckon how long it would take the Tedrels to coax or coerce the Sunpriests into adding Karsite troops to their numbers—or, more likely, come up with more gold and silver—how long it would take to get all the supplies together for such a campaign—establish a base four times larger than any they’d had before—

Then he realized that there were better heads than his who were already working on that very problem, and that their agents-in-place would be able to give Valdemar infinitely better information about what was actually happening than he could with what was only speculation. But there was one thing he could and would do.

“Two targets, and two only, they will have, should the King and Heir the field take,” he told Talamir and Dethor. “Sendar to slay, and Selenay to take or slay. Take Selenay, they would prefer, and sword-wed to—whatever leader survives. It is the land they want. Behead the leadership, they must, to take the land. Better still, to behead the leadership, and make all right by wedding the Heir. Live with their neighbors, they must—” Now he could deliver his warning, the warning that Geri had delivered to him.