The Red Queen (2 page)

That voice could only have belonged to Atthis.

Now memories came thick and fast. I saw the human-hating Brildane arrive at the Skylake, pouring over the lip of the moonlit valley in a swift and furious silvery tide. The leader of the pack had sent me there to await his decision as to whether they would join me on my quest, but the wolves had come without their leader and Rheagor had arrived just in time to thwart a coup and stop one of the older wolves killing me. I had been profoundly relieved when he had announced that the pack
would
accompany me, for although I had never desired the company of the Brildane, Atthis had told Maruman my quest would fail if I could not convince the wolves to go with me. Characteristically contrary, Maruman had refused to explain
why
I needed the wolves. Nor would Rheagor tell me what had made him decide to allow the pack to go with me, save that it had involved the mysterious practice of
seliga
, which enabled beasts to look into the future.

The wolves led us from the mountains to an enormous subterranean Beforetime pipe they called the
graag
, which would enable us to pass safely beneath an expanse of virulently tainted Blacklands lying across the way we must go. Maddeningly, I could not recollect
why
we had needed to go beyond the Blacklands nor could I recall what happened after we had entered the
graag
. I strove fiercely to remember, and was rewarded with a flashing vision of Gavyn staring fixedly upward, his filthy face lit by a greenish yellow glow. His customary vagueness had been replaced by an intent eagerness that completely transformed him, but before I could try to widen the memory, the Tumen loosened the restraining band about my forehead, breaking my concentration.

‘Where . . . where are my companions?’ I croaked after he had trickled more water into my mouth.

‘They have been resurrected,’ he answered, as the band again tightened about my head.

The words froze my heart, because the Herder Faction used that term to describe a person who, having confessed and repented their wickedness, was burned at the stake. The thought of my friends being tortured and given to the Herder flame roused the horrific memory of the burning of my parents. I had not seen their execution because my brother Jes had clasped me to him, pressing my face to his chest to prevent the dreadful vision being scoured into me. But the stench of charred flesh and my parents’ screams of mortal agony had seared themselves into my brain.

I thrust the appalling memory from me, telling myself that I would hardly be treated so gently if my companions had been burned. The word
resurrection
must have some other meaning for the Tumen. Most likely the others were sleeping in cryopods and the term was connected to that. Since none of them had the dark spirit strength I possessed, they would have been unable to wake themselves. But imagining them trapped in sleep was a good deal better than imagining them dead. At least if they lived I could rescue them.

But first, I must rescue myself.

I considered my captor. It was impossible to believe he should have no interest in his captive, and yet the Tumen had asked me nothing. Perhaps I had been interrogated before being put to sleep. Torture could have affected my memory, though it was hard to imagine the passionless, pleasant Tumen torturing anyone. Of course another more violent Tumen might have performed that service, but it seemed more likely to me that the blank spots in my memory were the result of my time in the cryopod.

The question that needed answering was why the Tumen was trying so hard to make me sleep, given his claim that I was not a captive. If I knew what he wanted, I might be able to muster an argument that would make him free me. Failing this I would have to escape or coerce him. Before I could do anything, however, I had to regain my strength. Fortunately, no matter what was wrong with my body, its self-healing capacity would tend to any injury in time. My inability to produce a stable farseeking probe was more worrying, though most likely it was simply the natural outcome of my use of spirit strength, which always drained me.

All at once I felt the heaviness of exhaustion, and I wondered if the cryopod was trying to draw me back into its power. I would heal far more quickly if I gave in to sleep and there was no need to fear it now that I knew I had the power to wake myself. The only problem was that evoking spirit power would drain me all over again, leaving me conscious but in the same uselessly depleted state.

I decided to question the Tumen, since he appeared willing enough to supply answers, and for the moment there was nothing else I could do. The more I learned about him and his people, the better my chance of finding a way to free myself. If only I could see his facial expressions, for his polite serenity seemed like another kind of wall and I needed to discover what lay behind it.

I made an effort to establish his whereabouts in the room. This was only a passive use of my Talent so my weaknesses ought not to matter, but strangely, I could feel nothing. The Tumen must have slipped out while I was lost in thought. I decided to take advantage of his absence and used as much physical force as I could muster on the bond about one wrist to test its strength.

‘Do not struggle,’ advised the Tumen.

I started violently and tried again to locate him, but either my mind was weaker than I had thought, or he was wearing a device to deflect my Talents, for I could not discern his presence at all. The idea that he might be shielding himself frightened me because it meant he knew what I was, and Herders had a fanatical hatred of Misfits. But my initial fear quickly cooled – I was far from convinced that my dispassionate attendant was a Herder. More likely I was too weak to exert even passive Talent.

The Tumen cupped my head to lift it and feed me water again and this time I strove to use the physical contact to reach his mind. Still I could feel nothing and the uneasy thought came to me that perhaps my time in the cryopod had affected more than my memory.

‘Did you put my companions into cryopods?’ I asked.

‘All viable human specimens entering the catchment zone are put into cryopods,’ the Tumen said.

I relaxed slightly at having one guess confirmed. ‘What of the animals that were with us? Did you put them into cryopods, too?’

‘There are a limited number of cryopods suitable for animal specimens available at this facility,’ the Tumen said. ‘Eden is the designated repository for animal specimens. When the current program was activated, animal and bird specimens entering the catchment zone were acquired, but when there was no response from Eden to repeated requests for collection of specimens, their acquisition was discontinued.’

So he and his people had no interest in capturing Maruman or Gahltha, which meant they must be free and waiting to hear from me.

I wondered incredulously if he could possibly be talking about the same Eden that Doktaruth had mentioned in my Beforetime dreams. It seemed very likely, given she had talked of it as the destination for cryosleep pods containing animals.

I would have tried to farseek Maruman then and there, but since I was too weak to make even passive contact with the mind of someone touching me, I knew I would have no hope of reaching the old cat’s singular mind. In any case, he might be far away. Had I not dreamed of him prowling through a ruined Beforetime city in the midst of a white desert as I slept?

Unless I was in that city!

The thought opened another crack in the wall of forgetting and I remembered that we had left the high mountains seeking such a city. I had been following in the footsteps of the Beforetimer Jacob Obernewtyn, whose dreams of this city had led him to abandon his lonely vigil at Obernewtyn in the hope of locating other survivors. Unfortunately for me, he had taken Cassandra’s key, given to him for safekeeping by Hannah Seraphim. She had obviously not foreseen that he would leave Obernewtyn, forcing me to follow him to retrieve it, because it was vital to my quest.

The thought that I might have reached the city of Jacob’s dreams thrilled me. Certainly we had entered the
graag
on the way to seeking it, led by a wolf pack whose ancestor had been captive there; maybe this Tumen who had taken us prisoner was an inhabitant of that city. I could not imagine he was one of the ‘shining beings’ that inhabited Jacob’s dream city, referred to in his journal. More likely the original inhabitants had died out and the Tumen had happened on the city and taken up residence there.

‘Where
am
I?’ I wondered, only realising I had voiced the question aloud when the Tumen answered.

‘You are in a cryopod base unit on the lowest level of the Galon Institute in the Pellmar Quadrants.’

The name Pellmar Quadrants was familiar, though for the moment I could not place it. More importantly, the Tumen had not said we were in a city. He had spoken of a
facility
, which as far as I understood it, was the word Beforetimers used to describe a settlement dedicated to a particular purpose. ‘What is the Galon Institute?’ I asked. ‘What is it
for?
’

‘The Galon Institute is a complex created by the government to develop a program for preserving viable specimens in the wake of a major catastrophe,’ he answered.

I was astonished to think I might be imprisoned in a place built by the same organisation that had kidnapped the Beforetime Misfits from the first Reichler Clinic. But it was hard to believe an organisation that would ally itself secretly with weaponmachine makers would care enough about the aftermath of conflict and destruction to want to find ways to rescue survivors. Unless the govamen people had realised that they too would have to survive, whatever befell their world.

Or maybe the people behind the Galon Institute were different from those who had kidnapped the Beforetime Misfits. Garth always insisted the govamen organisation had been vast, with tentacles stretching into all of the main Beforetime powers; he had reasoned that since each of the five great powers differed radically in their ideology and methods, it stood to reason that the govamen in each might diverge as well. It was even possible that there had been a conflict of ideals and purposes between different govamens.

I had a sudden vision of Rushton scolding me for pondering the machinations of a long-dead Beforetime organisation while I was a helpless prisoner. He would tell me that I ought to be concentrating on how to free myself and continue my quest. He had always possessed the ability to concentrate single-mindedly on the needs of the moment, and in any case he believed that delving into the distant past was a waste of time. I did not agree. Yet it was true that there were times when one must concentrate on the present, and this was undoubtedly such a moment. I could not just get up and free myself, but I ought to prepare a plan, and essential to that plan was an understanding of my captors.

‘How did you know where to find us?’ I asked aloud.

‘God identified your whereabouts when you entered the catchment area,’ the Tumen said. ‘Do you wish to converse with God?’

‘No,’ I snapped, irked by his mockery.

The Herders had always claimed that Lud spoke inside their minds, bidding them do this or that, but I did not believe they had obeyed anything save the voice of their own corrupt will. It might well be that the god of the Tumen was a less vicious and venal god than the Lud of the Herders, but I had no doubt that it would prove just as silent, were I to bespeak it.

I yawned and realised it was becoming harder and harder to think clearly. As I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness it struck me with the force of a slap that the last mouthful of water had left a bitter flavour in my mouth. And I knew that bitterness. It was the aftertaste left by a draught of sleep potion!

I forced myself to be calm, knowing my self-healing capacity would burn away the effects of any potion, but what if the Tumen administered another and another dose? Would I be able to wake myself from the sleep imposed by the cryopod if I was under the sway of a sleep potion, even if I had regained my strength? I tried desperately to weave a coercive net to entrap the potion flooding my senses, but to my horror, my mind would not obey me. Abandoning the effort I simply concentrated my whole will on resisting sleep. If the Tumen could be made to think the drugs had failed, he might cease giving them to me.

‘Your delta waves show an unusual level of activity,’ the Tumen observed, his mild voice sounding far away. ‘This pattern of activity occurred during your initial rejection of cryopod deepsleep, and in the delta waves of the first anomaly. Do you feel pain or discomfort?’

I did not waste energy trying to answer him. It was taking every ounce of the strength I had to fight the sleep potion. Despairingly, I felt myself beginning to give way.

You must fight,
a voice inside my mind urged.
If you sleep now you will fail your quest.

‘Who speaks?’ I demanded.

‘I am Astyanax of the eldar
,
’
the voice responded immediately, urgently.

Shock splintered the glassy downward drift of my mind into unconsciousness. ‘You are one of the fliers Atthis sent to fetch me when I was dying in the White Valley!’

‘I am,’
he answered.

And in that moment, I remembered Maruman telling me
Atthis was dead
. The ancient bird had perished before we could have the long-promised meeting; she had used the last of her strength in helping me to save Rushton when he might have died on Norseland.
‘There will be a price,’
she had warned, and I had sworn to pay it, never knowing that it was Atthis who would pay.

And yet it seemed that I, too, would pay, for I must now try to complete my quest without the guidance of the ancient bird.

‘You are not alone,’
Astyanax said calmly.
‘I will help you.’

‘How?’ I asked dully. ‘Atthis was my guide.’

‘Atthis was your guide because she encompassed the oldOnes and so was the Elder of the eldar,’
Astyanax answered
. ‘I now strive to encompass the minds of the oldOnes. It was in the doing of this that I saw a vision of your plight and knew I must try to reach you. You must fight this sleep, ElspethInnle, for if you give way now, unprotected, the machine will claim your mind again, and though you will wake eventually, you will not do so in time to complete the quest appointed to you. The world will fall to final darkness.’

Hope faded as I saw that he had nothing to offer me but words. Yet some impulse made me ask a question that had long puzzled me; something I had meant to ask Atthis. ‘How can the Destroyer succeed in using the weaponmachines if I never find Sentinel? Ariel has always said he needs me. If he is right, then without me, the Destroyer will also fail.’

‘The Destroyer will fail if you do not pursue your quest beyond this place and time, ElspethInnle. But after you are both dead, others will seek out Sentinel and evoke the destructive powers it controls and there will be none to stand in their way. Only if you pursue your quest in this time, engaging and defeating the Destroyer, will you ensure that no funaga can ever evoke these forces. So saw Eldest.’

‘Eldest?’

‘He that was first of the eldar and the first Elder,’
Astyanax said.
‘His mind, too, have I tasted as I strive to encompass the oldOnes.’
There was wonder as well as fatigue in the young bird’s tone. Then I realised what he was saying. If Astyanax succeeded in encompassing the combined spirits of the oldOnes,
he
would be the new Elder of the eldar!

‘I thought the Elder were all female,’ I said.

‘All Elder have been female, save Eldest,’
Astyanax answered.
‘And me, if I succeed. Some spoke against me because I am male, but they could not prevent me attempting to encompass the oldOnes because Atthis chose me as her successor. Yet this striving is difficult. Far more so than any who have not attempted it can understand. The oldOnes are not passive, nor joined in desire or intent. Without an encompassing mind, they quarrel and pull in different directions. Some dislike being taken into the mind of a male. They oppose me as females of our kind oppose the mating conquest of a male. Some test me to be sure I am the correct vessel. I do not know if I have the strength to encompass them all, yet I must, for though they pull and push at one another, they are merged. If I fail to encompass one, all will be lost.’

‘Have you . . . absorbed Atthis?’ I asked, and heard the longing in my voice.

‘She was the first and the easiest, for she was willing. It is her memory links to your mind that enable me to speak to you. Now, Seeker, you must tend to your striving as I must tend to mine. Do not sleep unprotected.’

Becoming aware of myself again, I realised with horror that I was sinking deeper into unconsciousness, and yet there was no sign of the mindstream below me. Dangerous as it was with its endless siren call to merge, this thick sticky blackness into which I was now descending felt far more deadly, for I sensed it was a bottomless abyss and I would fall into it forever, never coming to the natural end of life that was the release of the spirit from flesh, embodied by the mindstream.

‘Help me,’ I begged.

‘You are ElspethInnle!
You must fight your battle even as I fight mine.’
Astyanax said, his words sharp with admonishment, and yet muted too, as if I were now entering a realm he could not reach. Ever more faintly I heard his voice, and this time it seemed I could hear Atthis’s voice, joined to his.
‘When you wake, seek the grave of Jacob Obernewtyn. There will you find Cassandra’s key.’

Jacob’s grave? I thought confusedly, thinking of the empty crypt with Jacob Obernewtyn’s name on it, which the teknoguilders had discovered on an overgrown path beside the greenthorn maze at Obernewtyn. There had been no body in it, only the journal Jacob had left in the vain hope that Hannah would come to read it and follow after him. That journal had revealed that Jacob left Obernewtyn to seek the city of his dreams. In it, he had scribed of his recurring dream of the city and its shining denizens, and it detailed his preparations to journey thence, intending it to serve as a guide for Hannah. But Hannah had never come, and I had used the journal to follow in Jacob’s footsteps.

I remembered something else.

While travelling through the high mountains, I had found other words left by Jacob for Hannah, carved into the stone floor of the shining white observing house. He had scribed his belief that the city of his dreams was the settlement of Pellmar Quadrants where once Hannah had gone!
That
was where I had encountered the name of the settlement before.

Once more, against all odds, I had come to exactly the place my quest required me to be and this realisation brought with it the same strange bonelessness that assailed me whenever I was confronted with proof that my life was subject to some greater force than my own will or even the vagaries of fate. This had sometimes angered me, but I was beyond that now. Had I not accepted that I was the Seeker? Perhaps if I had turned my back on my quest the first time Atthis had spoken of it, all would have turned out differently. But I
had
accepted it, and it would be foolish and cowardly to weep that I had not understood what it would mean.

No. I was the Seeker and despite all the forces that had conspired to bring me here, I was not a powerless pawn. I was trapped, however, and if I did not find a way to free myself, my quest would fail. Therefore my will mattered, my ability to act.

‘Astyanax!’ I cried, but there was no response.

For a moment, I felt only blank terror. It was the thought of falling forever into black nothingness that gave me the strength to halt my downward drift, but I had no way to wake myself, and knew I could not stay motionless for long.

I thought again of Astyanax, fighting his own battle, and knew I could do no less, with the world and all its creatures at stake. Had I not sworn an oath, facing out onto the endless Blacklands visible from the high mountains, that I would make sure that could never happen again? Yet what could I do? I had too little strength to reach down into my mind to draw on the dark spirit-force I had used to help me wake the first time.

I thought of Rushton, then, as a drowning person might grasp at an outstretched hand, remembering how his mind had wrested mine from the grasp of the Zebkrahn machine. There had been others with him, but his mind had encompassed their merge, steadying and strengthening it, so that they had been able to drag me from the avid grasp of the machine. He had saved me and it had been this memory as much as love and longing that had made me seek Rushton’s mind again when I had been trying to wake from what must have been the deepsleep imposed by the cryopod. Rushton had been impossibly distant, and at sea besides, but the golden spirit cord that loving had forged between us had let me find him. To my dismay, he had been near death, his ship having foundered after a storm when he was already ill. But his deepest mind had opened to me and I had found his battered spirit there and begged him to live so that I would have the strength to go on and complete my quest.

I did not know if he lived yet, but the memory of his gallant determination to cleave to life because I asked it renewed my flagging courage, and all at once I knew what to do.

Astyanax had not urged me to wake, but had only bidden me not to sleep
unprotected
. That meant I could sleep if only I could find a way to protect my mind from the cryopod mechanism. I sloughed off despair as if I were shrugging off a rain-sodden cloak, and summoned up the image of the black sword. I concentrated my will on the power gathered in the sword and imagined a coercive sheath. Dark threads of spirit matter spun out from the sword, surrounding me in a glimmering cocoon.

Too spent for subtlety by the time it was complete, I infused the cocoon with pain and commanded it to wake me if I slipped deeper into sleep than a shallow doze. This would prevent the cryopod gaining control of my mind, whether or not I was given more sleep potion. Unfortunately it would also prevent me sleeping properly. I would wake over and over, but eventually my mind would adapt to sleeping lightly and I would be able to gather strength enough to transform the rough cocoon I had woven into a more complex armour that would enable a proper deepsleep. Once I was recovered enough, I would wake myself again. That would weaken me of course, but I would be healed physically, and likely my Talents would be restored.

The disadvantage of the plan was that it would take time, but truly there was no alternative.

I sank like a stone into sleep, only to be roused immediately by a stab of fierce pain. I gasped, knowing it was just the beginning, but I was so tired that I was already drifting back to sleep.

I slept and woke a hundred times, or so it seemed later when I looked back on that period of feverish, broken sleep. Over and over, I woke to pain, heart racing, skin damp with sweat. The only good thing was that, upon each waking, more of my memories resurfaced.

I remembered walking along a high narrow ledge that had turned out to be the remnant of a Beforetime road, and gazing down from it into a jagged black flint vale. I saw Analivia’s brother Moss, eyes glittering with pain and madness as he held the battered Dragon as a shield in front of him, knowing Atthis had led them to one another, in order that Moss should bring Dragon to me. I remembered being buried alive when part of the
graag
collapsed, the nightmarish taint-mutated
rhenlings
held in thrall by Gavyn while the rest of us escaped the Beforetime pipe. I saw a wolf lying dead beside a tumble of broken stones, eyes and throat agape, after the pack leader, Rheagor, had slain him in harsh lupine mercy.

Sometimes I drifted closer to consciousness, and became aware of the Tumen speaking. No doubt he was sorely puzzled by the fact that my slumber never became deep enough for the cryopod to take control of my mind. But the pull of cryosleep was unmistakable – an occasional deep painful tugging, as if something sought to pull the marrow from my bones. I was grateful for the cocoon of spirit matter protecting me.

At last – at long last – I garnered enough miserly scraps of sleep to transform the rough coercive cocoon into a supple, intricate armour that would protect me from the cryopod no matter how deeply I slept. But before I could allow myself to fall into the longed-for sleep, I became aware of a fluttering movement beneath my body, or to be more precise, under my legs. At the same time it struck me that I could not feel the cryopod pulling at me, nor was there any residue of sleep potion coursing through my veins.

I forced myself to wake completely, suddenly certain the Tumen had given up trying to force me to submit to the cryopod. I tried and failed to open my eyes. Heart beginning to pound, I tried to speak to the Tumen, but I could not make my lips move. I could not even move my fingers or toes. Fighting to stem a rising tide of panic, I told myself firmly that whatever had been done to me, I would find a way to fight free.

Something sharp was driven simultaneously into the soft inner elbow of both arms and I would have screamed had I been capable. Fighting a surge of mindless hysteria, I suddenly remembered the tiny hollow needles trailing slim plast tubes through which food and water had been fed into the deeply unconscious coercer Domick. Taking deep, slow breaths, I told myself that the Tumen knew something about Beforetime technology and so it was reasonable to assume the needles had been inserted to feed and water me.

It was harder to remain rational when needles stabbed painfully into the heels of both feet. Especially when the needles at my elbow had not been removed, but the ones driven into my heels were immediately withdrawn, only to be thrust into the tender arches of my feet. Then they were withdrawn and pushed mercilessly into the soft pad between the biggest two toes. The pain of each needling brought tears to my eyes and the wetness seemed to dissolve the resistance in my muscles.