The Seeker (24 page)

“Then there is nowhere for me to go,” I said despairingly.

“You must remain on the farms until the weather clears. They will not be able to search there until the storm ends, and since the maze is snowed in, they are unlikely even to think of the farms to begin with. As soon as the moment is right, I will return for you, and I will tell you of a place where there are supplies enough to last you until the wintertime ends.”

“But if the maze is impassable, how are we going to get to the farms?”

Rushton crossed restlessly to the window and peered through the shutter. “We will go outside the grounds and around. They won’t imagine you would escape only to come back inside the walls.” He frowned. “I thought I heard something.…” He shook his head and came back to the fire, pulling on his own coat.

“The wolves?” I asked, thinking of poor Selmar.

Rushton only smiled. “They are locked up.” He looked at me searchingly. “You are pale. I hope you are properly recovered. You took the medicine I gave you?”

I nodded. “It was herb lore, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “One of my friends has great skill in the art of healing, as did my mother. I know there is no evil in those old ways. The Council and Herder Faction are fools, frightened of everything. Now they have decided you are a danger because they don’t understand you.” He shook his head again and glanced out the window. “We must go now.”

“Yes, I …,” I began, but Rushton waved his hand urgently. We both listened, and this time I heard something, too—the sound of running footsteps.

“Lud take it! I think they have discovered that you are missing. That was surely a coach I heard some while back. The Councilmen must have changed their minds about waiting in Guanette until morning. We have to get you out of the house
now
, or you will be trapped.”

There was a loud knock on the door, and we both froze in horror. Rushton tore his coat off and gestured me toward the shuttered window, behind which lay a balcony. It was snowing hard outside. I pulled the door nearly shut and pressed my ear up against it.

“All right, all right,” Ruston called grumpily after a second knock. “What is it?”

“Still dressed?” I heard Ariel ask him suspiciously.

“I was reading in front of the fire. I fell asleep,” Rushton said casually. “What’s going on? I heard a commotion.”

“One of the Misfits has escaped,” Ariel said. “Elspeth Gordie. Skinny girl with dark hair and a proud look. Sly bitch.” There was a pause, and when Ariel spoke again, his voice was full of mistrust. “In fact, you must know her. She has been working on the farms.”

My heart thumped wildly.

“I know the one you mean,” Rushton said with a smothered yawn. “Quick with the horses but insolent. Anyway,
why all the fuss over one Misfit? Lots more where she came from,” he said coolly.

“The Council has sent some men here after her. She’s wanted for questioning,” Ariel said evasively.

“She’ll be dead before morning if she’s out in it. Storm’s nearly on top of us.”

“I don’t doubt she will die,” Ariel said viciously. “I have let the wolves out.”

“A bit drastic, don’t you think?” Rushton drawled through another yawn. “I suppose you want me to help look for her.”

“You are paid to work,” Ariel snarled.

There was a long pause. “I am paid to manage the farms,” Rushton said at last, his voice cool. “But I might as well come. Otherwise I’ll be up all night listening to your beasts.”

“Good. It’s snowing, so you’d better put on boots and a coat. I’ll come back for you,” he added imperiously. There was the sound of footsteps and the outer door closing; then I heard Rushton’s voice.

“You can come in. He’s gone.”

I obeyed, shivering with cold. “He sounded suspicious,” I said worriedly, but Rushton shook his head.

“He’s always like that. But Alexi must want you badly to conduct a search while the Councilmen are here. Though I doubt very much that he has any intention of handing you over.” Howling sounded in the distance, and he scowled. “We can’t go out the front gate now, but there is one other way to get to the farms: pipes running under the maze. It is a foul labyrinth and hard going, but you are small enough to fit. The problem is there will be dogs in the courtyard, barring the way.”

“Dogs or wolves?” I asked, my heartbeat quickening with hope.

“Half breeds and a few pure wolves Ariel has cowed
enough that they will obey him,” Rushton said in open disgust. “Why?”

“I … I can control them,” I offered hesitantly. “With my mind.”

Rushton nodded slowly, and instead of the astonishment I had expected, there was a touch of humor in his eyes. “You can control these beasts? You know they have been tormented near to madness and only obey Ariel out of terror and hunger?”

“I can manage them,” I insisted with more certainty than I felt, knowing there was no other choice but to try, and the longer I stayed, the more dangerous it was for Rushton. Yet I hesitated.

“Before … when you caught me, you said you would kill me if I didn’t cooperate,” I said in a low voice. “Did you mean it?”

Rushton looked at me with the same unreadable expression I had seen on his face that day in the barn.

“It would have been safer for me if I could have,” he said at last. “Best for my friends and for yours. If you are caught, you will reveal my role in your escape, for no one resists Alexi. And if the Council gets you, the Herders will make you talk. Alive you are a danger to all I have planned.”

“Is your plan so important, then?” I asked softly.

“More than you could possibly imagine,” Rushton answered simply.

I stared at his troubled face and willed myself to be strong. “Tell me the way through to the farms. I will not betray you. And I will manage the wolves.”
Or die trying
, I thought.

“The drains run from the courtyard to the farms and are like a maze themselves, but they were not designed to confuse. Remember to always take the right turn and you will be safe. To get from here to the courtyard, you will have to use the
tunnels. I am not so certain about them. My mother told me of them, but she had never seen them herself, and I have had little opportunity to explore.” He explained about the tunnels, then looked up warily as footsteps echoed past his door.

“When you get to the farms, keep to the walls. The storm will be much worse by then, and if you get lost, you will die. Follow the walls to the farthest silo. The door will be open. Hide there until I come.”

“But … but is that all? For that I am to risk wild beasts and capture?” I asked.

“You risk no more than I,” Rushton said coldly.

“But what if you don’t come? Where is the refuge you mentioned?” I faltered.

He shook his head regretfully. “Understand this. I have already told you too much. If I tell you any more and you are caught, I will endanger others. It is my decision to risk my life for you. I will not decide that for them.”

Chastened, I nodded, for what he said was surely the truth.

“You do not know what an irony it would be if you betrayed me,” Rushton said cryptically, moving to the door. He pressed his ear against the dark wood and listened before opening the door and looking out. He motioned for me to go into the hall. “Go quickly. Ariel will be coming from the other direction. I will try to direct the search toward the front of the house.” Rushton looked into my eyes, and I marveled at how green his were. Like deep forest pools.

“Perhaps someday we will have the chance to talk properly,” he said. “There are many things I would like—”

He stopped abruptly. We could hear footsteps again. “Go quickly,” he said urgently.

“Goodbye,” I whispered as I slipped away from him and descended into the darkness.

23

I
FELT MY
way along the hidden passage, walking as carefully as possible, but there were several unpleasant crunches under foot that made me wonder what I was treading on. The smell and the veils of dusty cobwebs I pushed through told me that the tunnel had not been used for a very long time, and I wondered again how Rushton had known about it. The darkness was total, and I only hoped there was not a fork or turning I had missed.

Then I heard voices coming from the other side of a wall. I stopped and listened.

“She must be found,” said a voice. “If it weren’t for the Council …” It was Madam Vega.

“I am glad they came,” said Alexi. “They have shown me that she is the one we have been seeking.”

Ariel spoke. “She won’t get past my hounds.”

“I want her found, not torn to pieces. That affair with the other girl was quite unnecessary. You are a barbarian,” Alexi added, almost as if he found that amusing.

“She will be found alive,” Madam Vega promised soothingly.

It terrified me to hear her certainty. It did not enter any of their heads that I might get away.

“The beasts have been trained to mutilate,” said Ariel sulkily. “They kill only on command.”

“She must not be allowed to die,” said Alexi in a flat voice that sent ice into my blood. “It might be years till another like her is found. A pity we wasted so much time on that last defective. I was so certain, but she had only minor abilities after all.”

They passed out of my hearing, and despairingly, I knew they meant Cameo. What had they done to her?

I forced myself to continue. The tunnel seemed endless, but after some time I bumped headlong into a stone wall. I gave an involuntary cry as I staggered back, and then stopped to listen anxiously, fearful that someone might have heard.

“Greetings,” came a thought.

My body sagged with relief and astonishment. “Sharna?” I asked incredulously.

“I dreamed you were in danger, so I came,” he sent. “If you make yourself low, you can come through the wall.”

I did as he suggested and felt a low gap in the wall. I reached my hand through it and brushed the soft scratchiness of a tapestry. I had never noticed it before, but when I crawled past it, I saw that I had come out in the kitchen pantry.

Sharna pressed his nose against my leg as I emerged, and I remembered what he had said.

“What did you dream about me?” I asked.

“I dreamed your life has a purpose that must be fulfilled, for the sake of all beasts,” he answered.

It was late at night, and I squinted into the darkness of the kitchen, trying to see his face and thinking of the dreams Maruman had experienced in which I had figured. The old cat had always insisted that my life was important to the beastworld and that it was his task to aid me and keep me safe. But I had taken this as something he had imagined in his disturbed periods.

Sharna interrupted my reflections to ask how he could help. I explained that I had to get out of the kitchen and into the courtyard adjacent to the maze. From there, I could reach the farms.

“There are beasts in the yard,” Sharna returned, projecting an image of huge doglike shapes moving about, sniffing at the wall and the maze gate.

“I know. I will talk to them and ask them to let me pass,” I said.

“They will not hear you,” Sharna warned. “They were once wild wolf cubs, but they were caught by the funaga-li and made mad with rage. There is a red screaming in their heads that stops them from being able to hear anything but their own fury. Best to come back when they are locked up.”

“I have to pass them
now
,” I sent. “Maybe I can find a way to distract them long enough for me to get into the drain.”

There was a long pause while he ruminated. “I will go to them,” he told me at last. “Innle must be shielded.” I started, because “Innle” was what Maruman sometimes called me when he spoke of my appearances in his dreams. It meant “one who seeks” in beast thoughtsymbols, and I had always thought it some queer term of affection.

“Come,” Sharna commanded, crossing the kitchen. I followed down a short corridor and unlocked the outer door, opening it only a crack. The chill of wintertime bit deep into my skin. Then I saw the glimmer of red eyes and heard a low, savage growling that filled me with icy fear.

“Greetings, sudarta,” Sharna sent, flattering them with a title that applauded their strength. It seemed to have no effect on them.