The Seeker (32 page)

“What is a safe house?” Miryum asked.

“A refuge that will form the nexus of our inner defense. It
means we can move with more confidence among the lowlanders. Most important, it means we will be in a better position to know what the Council is up to.”

“What if someone is caught and … tortured into giving up its location or, worse, to tell th’ truth about us and Obernewtyn?” Matthew asked. A few nodded fearfully at this.

“Don’t you understand that we are no safer hiding up here?” Rushton demanded. “Even if the rumors are just gossip, the soldierguards will come to hear of it, especially if they set up camp in the high country. The question is, do we wait until the Council descends on us before we act, or do we act now, while we can still move with relative freedom?”

A thoughtful silence greeted his words.

“Then, do you propose two expeditions to the lowlands?” Roland asked.

Rushton smiled slightly. “I vote that we accept the expedition proposed by Elspeth, with the addition of another person, whom I will choose, who will leave the main party after Rangorn and venture into Sutrium to investigate the possibility of establishing a safe house. An expedition that can have two purposes can as easily have three. Now we will vote on the expedition with its threefold purpose, and on the establishment of a safe house in Sutrium. Yes, first.” He lifted his own hand.

I raised mine, hiding a reluctant smile. Rushton was as sly as ever. He knew Garth would never have agreed to the move on Sutrium without the lure of the coveted library. In the end, the vote was unanimous. Perhaps all felt that the time had come, whether we liked it or not, for a less passive strategy. At any rate, no one liked the idea of waiting like a lamb to be slaughtered.

Rushton rose to close the meeting but was interrupted by a commotion outside the doors.

Christa entered, her face betraying her worry.

Seeing me, the Futuretell guilden beckoned urgently. “Elspeth, it’s Maruman. He’s returned but is unconscious, and we cannot waken him. You had better come quickly.”

3

M
ARUMAN HAD BEEN
taken to the Healer hall. As usual after days of wandering, often on tainted ground, his fur was filthy and singed in places; dried blood matted the fur on one paw. But he looked no worse than he had on any other return. The wan afternoon light slanted obliquely from a high, slitlike window to lie across his body, making it seem insubstantial, while candles burning all around the hall gave the room a ghostly orange tinge.

In the bed alongside the old cat’s was a girl, heavily bandaged. She had been literally wrested from the Herders’ purifying flame and had been unconscious since her arrival. One of Christa’s fellow futuretellers sat beside her, sunk in deep concentration.

I looked up to see Alad come through the door.

“He looks like he’s asleep,” I said.

Christa shook her head, then gestured at the meditating futureteller. “She can hardly think for Maruman’s emanations. I don’t understand how you can’t feel them,” she added.

“I have my shield up,” I explained. I dissolved the protective mental barrier and almost staggered beneath the force of gibberish flowing from Maruman’s mind. “I see what you mean.”

I saw from Alad’s expression that he had lowered his own
shield. “Usually I find the flow of beast thought soothing,” he said ruefully.

“He was lying outside the Futuretell wing when we found him. It looked as if he had dragged himself there,” Christa said.

“Can you reach his mind to find out what he’s been doing?” I asked.

She looked down at the old cat. “The truth is, his mind is generally such a mess that it is a wonder he can think straight even some of the time. I can’t imagine what caused the damage in the first place—perhaps a traumatic birth. For the most part, his mind seems to have adapted itself amazingly well. There are the most extraordinary links and bypasses—somehow it all functions. The fits he occasionally has are the result of some sort of upward leak in his mind, where material from the deepest unconscious levels rises to distort his everyday thinking, hence the wild futuretelling, but this …”

“What do you make of it?” I asked Alad.

He sighed. “I’m a simple beastspeaker. This is beyond me. I’ve sent for one of the few strong beastspeakers with a small Talent for deep probing. Christa suggested it since Maruman will not allow her to enter his unconscious mind. Perhaps he will permit a beastspeaker to deep-probe.”

“I can deep-probe,” I said.

Christa raised her brows, then she looked at the cat pensively. “You could try. He’s less likely to oppose you. I’m afraid if it goes on much longer, he’ll die of exhaustion. He looks calm enough, but this is pulling him apart.”

I stared down at the battle-scarred old cat, tears pricking my eyes. He looked so vulnerable. He would have hated that. I stroked him, fighting for control.

“Is there no healer free to ease him?” I asked gruffly.

Christa shook her head. “They have done all they can. He’s in no pain.”

“What can I do?” I asked.

“Go into his mind,” she answered. “See what you can find out. Make him wake if you can.”

“I’ve never tried to deep-probe him before. What if he resists? I might hurt him.”

Alad broke in impatiently. “He’ll die if we can’t help him. He is more wild than tame, and you know as well as I that the wild ones are hardest to reach, even in a normal communication. But you must try.”

With a feeling of dread, I sat on the chair beside the bed. I stroked Maruman’s coarse fur gently, willing him to wake. I was repelled by the idea of entering my old friend’s most private mind. I could not have borne such an intrusion myself.

Alad squeezed my shoulder. I bit my lip, then closed my eyes. Loosing a deep-probe tendril gently into the first level, I forced myself to ignore the screaming babble that assaulted me. For a moment, I was swept along like a leaf in the dizzy maelstrom of Maruman’s unconscious mind. I had a fleeting temptation to let myself go but concentrated on Alad’s hand on my shoulder, forcing myself to the next level.

I slipped through effortlessly. Maruman was letting me in.

I drifted deeper, concentrating to avoid the forgetfulness that was one of the greatest dangers inherent to entering an unconscious mind.

Deeper still and suddenly the clamor of the upper levels ceased. It was very quiet and still.

“Maruman,” I whispered. “Maruman?”

I sensed a ripple in the fabric of the cat’s unconscious
mind. In a sense, I knew I was inside his dreams. I went deeper still. Again I whispered his name.

This time he responded. “ElspethInnle …”

“Come with me,” I invited, hoping to draw him to the upper levels and wakefulness. I was buffeted gently by his refusal.

“Cannot. Must wait,” he responded.

I was puzzled. “Wait for what?”

“Must wait until Seeker comes.”

This was a name Maruman sometimes called me. More confused than ever, I said, “I am the Seeker.”

“Deeper. Must come deeper,” Maruman responded instantly.

“Why must?” I asked.

“The oldOne wishes it.”

I shivered violently, becoming suddenly conscious of my physical presence in the Healer hall. I forced myself to concentrate, but I was unnerved. It struck me that Maruman had let me in easily, because he had wanted me to enter his deepest mind. Why? I could only know that by slipping deeper, but I was almost at my limit. The desire to rise was powerful, and my energy was running out quickly. Before long, I would have no choice. I would not have the strength to remain. If I wanted to go deeper, I had to do it immediately.

Yet I hesitated.

At the depths of the mind is a great unconscious mindstream. It was into this that the futuretellers dipped for their predictions. Without training, it was possible for a mind to literally dissolve at that depth. And I was already deeper than I had ever gone before.

I braced myself. Fighting an irresistible urge to rise, I
pushed my mind lower, fraction by fraction. All at once, the void seemed to brighten, and below, I was aware of the shining silver rush of the mindstream.

Now I felt an opposite tug from the stream, a siren call to merge. My innate fear of losing myself gave me the strength to resist.

“I have come,” I grated.

“Deeper,” Maruman urged. “Must come deeper.”

I was truly frightened now, for it was possible Maruman did not realize the danger. I hesitated and felt myself begin to rise. Then I clamped on my probe and forced it deeper. I could feel the wind of the stream and its incredible cyclonic energy below. It seemed to sing my name in an indescribably lovely voice, willing me to join. Again fear helped me to resist. Then, suddenly, the pull to join the stream and the pull to rise equalized exactly, and I floated motionless.

I was on a high mountain in the highest ranges, the air around me filled with cold gusts of wind. I was inside the body of Maruman. I felt the wind ruffle his/my fur.

An illusion, but real as life.

He/I licked a paw and passed it over one ear.

Then I felt the calling. It was not a voice so much as an inner compulsion. Maruman/I rose at once and began to walk, balancing with easy grace on the jagged spines of rock leading to a higher peak. It was there, I sensed, that the calling originated.

Then I heard my own name, but the voice was not Maruman’s.

I was so astonished that the mountain illusion wavered, and for a moment I saw the Healer hall overlay the mountain.

“Do you know me?” I ventured.

“I have always known you,” came the response.

“Who are you? What are you?”

“I/We are the Agyllian,” it answered in a tone a mother might use when speaking to a small child. “I have used the yelloweyes to communicate with you, ElspethInnle. The strangeness of his mind and his pain make him receptive to us and allow us to use him. He is weary to death, and it would be kind to let him join the stream, but he is not ready to go yet, and nor, I think, are you ready to let him go.”

“So it’s you who is making him sick,” I said indignantly.

“Be at ease. He will suffer no harm, though he cannot sustain us much longer. I come only to warn you that your tasks have not ended, and to remind you of your promise. The deathmachines slumber, waiting to be wakened. While they survive, the world is in danger. When the time is right for you to seek out the machines, you must be ready to act swiftly and without doubt. You must not allow the concerns of your friends or your own needs to sway you. When the time for the dark journey is near, you must come to us, and we will provide you with help.”

“Journey? What journey?” I cried, but I was alone.

The mountains dissolved, and I used the last of my strength to rise to where the upward drift would carry me to the surface of Maruman’s mind. I was vaguely aware that the upper levels were now quiet.

“Are you all right?” Alad asked tensely as I opened my eyes. I was slumped in the chair, soaked with perspiration and vaguely amazed to find it was dark outside.

He reached out and touched Maruman gently. “He’ll recover. He’s sleeping normally now. What did you do?”

I was too tired to answer. Seeing I was nearly asleep in the chair, Alad and one of the healers helped me to my room.

Yet lying in bed, I found myself unable to sleep, so disturbed was I by what I’d experienced in Maruman’s mind.

I told myself that my visit to the Teknoguild caves had caused a deep probe illusion based on the memory of the misfit Cameo, who had died there some years before, after she whispered to me that it was my destiny to destroy the weaponmachines that had caused the Great White. Or more likely, the dream was simply the product of Maruman’s distorted mind, for he believed that I was a figure in beast mythology named Innle, or “the Seeker,” destined to save what remained of the world.

It was foolish to dwell on what had happened as if it were real, yet the voice that had spoken to me had felt so real. And I knew, as no one else did, that the weaponmachines that had destroyed the Beforetimers were intact and might be used again.

The next morning, I came across Dameon and Matthew making their way toward the kitchen. I watched them approach, wondering what kept Dameon from running into things. His empath ability could not help him see, yet he was never clumsy.