Seeds of Earth (36 page)

Chel almost smiled, imagining how Gregori would answer such a comment.

'Yes, Pathmaster, surprise was indeed one of the emotions I experienced when I came out of the
vodrun'

'Your importance cannot be overstated, newest of Listeners,' the Pathmaster said. 'Segrana has not husked forth one such as yourself since the War of the Long Night when hundreds of Seers were needed to guide the Scholars. There were battles in the high skies, but there were also battles here on the ground against the lesser servants of the Dreamless, metal things that crept, ran, flew and swam and which infested the forests and the plains, the hills and the valleys. They strove to disrupt the defiant unity of the Uvovo but ultimately failed.

'Segrana knows that we need the Seers again but she is weak - the War of the Long Night took something from her that can never be replaced, thus she can only do what she may with the little strength that remains.'

'Venerable one,' Chel said. 'I thought my abilities were similar to those of a Listener, yet you named me a Seer . . .'

'There are aspects to your senses that will make themselves known to you in time. Realise this, too - the path from Scholar to Listener to Pathmaster is in the gift of Segrana, but a Seer cannot become a Pathmaster.'

Chel was intrigued. 'So what
does
a Seer become? What
will
I be?'

'After the upheavals and struggles that lie ahead?" the Pathmaster said. 'Alive, with any luck.' The Pathmaster's form blurred a little. 'Now, please leave me to converse with the well's Sentinel - go with the Human back to the encampment above. I will come to you in a while and relate what has happened.'

The Pathmaster fell silent. Chel stared at the attenuated form, hazed, almost fragmentary outlines quivering in the golden heat-haze of the lamp. Then he glanced at Listener Weynl, who gave a slight shrug and bowed to the Pathmaster. Chel did the same and both Uvovo stepped off the patterned surface of the well and headed round towards the chamber exit.

'Phruson,' Weynl said thoughtfully as they crossed the room of the four pillars.

'Excuse me, Listener?'

'Phrusonemejas was one of the three great Pathmasters who survived the War of the Long Night in the centuries that followed all three eventually gave up their failing flesh and began their journey to the Eternal. Although the remains of two were discovered where they had lain down for the last time in the embrace of Segrana, Phruson's were never found.'

'Do you believe that
he
is this Phruson?'

Weynl smiled. 'It would be hard to determine, but it is an explanation of sorts, which is better than no explanation at all.'

But if it is wrong,
Chel thought,
is a wrong explanation better than none at all!

35

PATH MASTER

All was silent now in the cold gloom at the rock's heart. The Pathmaster let the outlines of his old physicality, maintained for the younger Uvovos' benefit, drift and blur like the vestiges of a snuffed candle's smoke trail. Before him yawned the great aperture of the ancient warpwell, its inscribed control patterns stretched faint and wispy across those penumbral depths. The Pathmaster's senses could cut through appearances to essences and he knew that the Sentinel of the well was always there, always alert, always listening.

'Greetings,' he said in the long-forgotten language of the Great Ancients. 'I do know that you could have responded in the Uvovo tongue yet you did not. I wonder why.'

I WAS NOT ACCORDED MY DUE RESPECT NOR ADDRESSED CORRECTLY ... IT HAS BEEN MANY CYCLES OF THIS SUN SINCE ANY OF THE AUXILIARIES HAVE VISITED THIS DORMANT PLACE, APART FROM YOU AND THE WEARER OF THE EXTREMITY COVERINGS.

The Pathmaster smiled to himself, knowing that this was a reference to the Human Scholar Greg's boots. In any case, the Sentinel knew that the War of the Long Night had killed most of the Uvovo on the planet and trapped the rest on Segrana's forest moon, until the arrival of the Humans - it was just being petulant.

'The times of peace are ending,' he said. 'War is almost upon us. You know of the Humans and the interest being shown towards this world?'

I HEAR MUCH AND BELIEVE LITTLE. THAT WHICH IS KNOWN IS INVARIABLY SHOWN TO BE INCORRECT OR INCOMPLETE.

'A commendable scepticism, if kept within limits,! the Pathmaster said. 'This place is now known to our enemies, an immense empire of the stars called the Hegemony - they are secretly dominated by their servants, machine-minds whose power extends to the underdomains of the Real.'

THE DREAMLESS! I HAD THOUGHT THEM DESTROYED ALONG WITH ALL THEIR INSTRUMENTALITIES.

'This appears to be a distinct genus with no apparent links with those earlier counterparts,' he said. 'Their need for aggressive domination is nearly identical, however.'

THE UVOVO MUST BE MADE READY FOR BATTLE - UMARA'S DEFENCES MUST BE STRENGTHENED.

'Such preparations have begun, but resources are thinly spread and untried, and Segrana is seriously weakened. I would like to speak with the Construct, if he still exists, to ask for advice and aid.'

I CONVERSED WITH THE CONSTRUCT A SHORT TIME AGO - HE SAID THAT YOU WOULD SOON VISIT ME WITH THE INTENTION OF CONTACTING HIM.

The Pathmaster felt a quiver of surprise. 'Did he say more?'

HE TOLD ME TO SAY THAT AID WOULD BE RECIPROCAL. HE SAID TO ASK YOU TO PROVIDE HIM WITH AN ENVOY, PREFERABLY ONE OF THE HUMANS BUT A UVOVO SCHOLAR WOULD SUFFICE - THIS ENVOY WILL HELP TO OBTAIN THE AID YOU REQUIRE. THERE WAS NO FURTHER MESSAGE.

Possibilities flickered through the Pathmaster's mind. Until his husking, Cheluvahar would have been ideal for such a task, but now he had a new purpose and the abilities to go with it. It would have to be another of the Scholars, or . . . or a Human, such as the scholarly Gregori? It seemed unlikely that he, or indeed any of the Humans involved in the work of the intellect, would consider an undertaking like this. Then there was the matter of secrecy. Keeping the Humans ignorant of the warpwell and its entrance would prevent such knowledge falling into the hands of the Sendrukans and the Hegemony machines, although that might delay them only for a while.

'Did the Construct reveal the nature of the aid that he might provide?'

HE DID NOT, BUT IT IS CLEAR THAT HE IS EXTENDING HIS CAPACITIES AND AWAKENING SELECTED CADRES OF THE AGGRESSION IN RESPONSE TO SOME THREAT IN THE LOWER

DOMAINS OF HYPERSPACE. IF YOU WISH
0 SPEAK WITH HIM IN PERSON I CAN TAKE YOU TO HIM.

The Pathmaster almost laughed out loud. 'My incorporeal state makes it impossible for me to undertake such a journey. However, please convey to the Construct my gratitude at his offer -1 shall give it the most intense and immediate consideration, and return with a repl) tomorrow. In the meantime, if you would excuse my younger companions their earlier lack of courtesy and engage them in dialogue, I am certain you would find them a most appreciative and respectful audience.'

I SHALL DO THIS. DO YOU WISH ANY LIMITS PLACED ON WHAT I MAY SAY TO THEM?

'None, although perhaps you should be vague about some of the warpwell control patterns.'

NOW THAT I AM APPRISED OF YOUR UVOVO COMPANIONS, I SHALL ENSURE THEIR SAFETY.

'Thank you - I am gratified.'

There was no response. The Pathmaster listened carefully in the deepening silence, widened senses soon confirming that the Sentinel's immediate presence hail receded.

The Pathmaster thought on what he had learned. The Construct, a near-mythical ally of the Great Ancients, had apparently known or guessed that he would try to make contact: did that imply that the Construct was somehow monitoring events here on Umara? Then he recalled the reporters who kept up a flow of information to their offworld organisations and the arenas of the tiernet beyond, and realised that the Construct had access to more than he could know.

The request for an envoy was strange, however, and curiously lacking in detail, which he would return to tomorrow. Also, the mention of cadres of the Aggression being awoken to deal with an unspecified threat was sufficient to provoke unease. Many centuries ago, when he was young enough to still have a physical form, he had travelled via the warpwell to the Construct's stronghold in the unsettling underdomains of hyperspace, the Garden of the Machines. During his stay he had been taken to a gloomy vastness where the Aggression waited, sleeping, an immense phalanx of war machines: he remembered the inactive hush that hung over the motionless serried rows, columns and files stretching back into shadow, thousands upon thousands, yet knowing that even these great numbers would have been swallowed by the Legion of Avatars.

None of the Aggression had been awoken during the War of the Long Night, but some were now. It was a conundrum which implied much and begged many questions.

Which I intend to have answered tomorrow,
he thought as he drifted from the chamber.

36

CATRIONA

The darkness of the
vodrun
was broken by the tiny flame of a luring candle, the kind some Uvovo used to catch certain insects for the wing casings they shed. Catriona lay back against the cushion she had brought for her back, both hands cupping a beaker of turnsprij tea, breathing in its vapour and occasionally sipping as she waited for it to cool. There was no way to get hole
of the special sapdrink that the Uvovo used in their rituals, so she had made up a flask of turnsprig for its relaxing, de-stressing properties, which turned out to be invaluable.

And so here she was, following the mystic utterances of the spectral Pathmaster whom she might or mighr not have seen. In fact, the stress of the situation derived not from the Pathmaster's promptings but from the possibility of being discovered. True, this
vodrun
was part of a high-canopy town which was empty due to the steady migration down to Darien, but travellers and traders, humans and Listeners still tramped along the nearby branchways. It was not impossible that someone might chance to pass by and see that foliage had been cleared away from the
vodrun .. .

Catriona smiled, shook her head, and took a mouthful of her tea, which had lost some of its heat. Eyes closed, she could feel the warmth spread through her, calming, relaxing. She sipped again, cleared her throat and, with a yawn, settled further back into her cushion's comfort. Suddenly it was easy to keep her eyes closed, to breathe deeper, to feel that simultaneous heaviness of limbs and lightness of thoughts that floated free to pursue the whims of unfathomable intent.

The first definite thread of her dream was the thing she was holding in her hands: a datapad, a tech-functions model with a battered alloy casing and worn keys. She turned it over, examining it, recognising it as the one she had used during her early Enhanced years. Deliberately she looked up and found she was standing in the small, cramped room she had occupied at Zhilinsky House. There was the bed, the desk, the bookshelf, the always-closed window shutters, yet everything was pale, colourless and grainy. She was also aware that she was dreaming, conscious that she was still in the
vodrun
while also standing there in the doorway, staring along an empty corridor. Out the corner of her eye she caught sight of herself in a square, wooden-framed mirror - dark hair tied in a bun, grey nondescript uniform, a face that looked on edge and showed her to be about twelve or thirteen.

Catriona walked, datatpad in hand, shoeheels rapping loudly on wooden floors. Zhilinsky House seemed deserted and she smiled as an idea occurred to her.
It's my dream, so let's go and take a look at the director's office, see what my file really says!
She took the main stairwell to the second floor and was halfway along the south gallery overlooking the senior dining room when a door opened in the north gallery on the opposite wall and Julia Bryce stepped into view. Amid the mono chrome surroundings, the soft greys and inky blacks. Julia was a knot of rich colour, the pale pink of her skin, the dark mahogany of her hair, the sky-blue dress uniform, the shiny brown shoes. The moment she saw Catriona, her eyes widened and she rushed to the railing.

'Catriona! - I need to speak to you . . .'

But Catriona didn't wait to listen and dashed for the door at the gallery's end. Then it was up the fire stairs to the next floor and quickly along to the opening that led into the annexe. As she fled she noticed other students beginning to emerge, peering out from behind cupboards or sitting in corners or ducking back into doorways as she passed.

'Join us, Catriona! Join me!'

She gasped. She was up on the balcony in the minor gym and Julia was down in the centre of the court, gazing up.

'I need you, Catriona!'

She ran.

Out the annexe side door, down the garden, past the brollyberry trees and back into the main building. A windowed corridor led past the junior canteen where a few others sat singly here and there, their colouring as grey-shaded as the environment and the food on their plates. Then a boy hurried down a stairway in the centre of the canteen, and came over to the window where Catriona stood on the other side. Like Julia he was in full colour - red hair, blue shirt and shorts, and a grin that she knew, although he had never been at Zhilinsky, simply because he was a normal. She placed him at perhaps fifteen, but it was definitely Greg.

'This is my dream,' she said. 'Why are you and Julia here? I'm aware that I'm dreaming so I should be able to guide it where I like ...'

'That would be true,' said the young Greg. 'If this was a dream. Cat, you've got to speak with her.'

'What, with the Julia in my head? Aye, as if I'm going to waste my time.'

Greg smiled. 'She's not in your head, Catriona you're in hers.'

Suddenly fearful, she stepped back and continued along the corridor which she remembered led to the east lobby, but once through the door she found herself in one of the lecturers' offices, a small wood-panelled room with a cluttered desk, a wall of filing cabinets, a small window up high . ..