The Seeker (34 page)

The beastspeaker had ended up buying the horse from the gypsy troupe and bringing him to Obernewtyn. Despite a deep hatred of humans, the horse had chosen to remain, becoming almost at once the spokesman for his kind. He had arrived a dusty, bedraggled bag of bones. Now he was lean and muscled, his coat gleaming and sleek. Only his eyes were unchanged, still filled with anger and suspicion. Suddenly I was sure this equine was behind Alad’s difficulties with the horses.

“I remember when you came to Obernewtyn,” I sent gently.

The horse tossed his head, nostrils flared wide. “I was brought here a slave. I did not choose to come.”

Taken aback, I sent, “We had to do it that way. It would
have looked odd to buy a horse and set it free. But you chose to stay.”

“That is so, for there is no place in the world not infected by the funaga. Here is the same as anywhere else.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Alad approaching.

“We are not like the people who owned you before,” I sent. “Here, all work together. We are equals.”

The horse snorted savagely. “You talk like a fool. We have no place in the funaga conclaves.”

“It’s only a matter of time—” I began, but the horse cut me off with his own thought.

“Alad-gahltha asked that we be treated as true equals. Again this was set aside. ‘Wait,’ they say. We have waited long enough. Now we are tired of waiting. From now on, we work only for our food and shelter. We will carry no funaga, and we will pull no cart beyond these mountains. We will not risk our lives to help the funaga. We will not fight the funaga’s battles unless they are also ours.”

There was no doubt in my mind that the proud, bitter horse meant what he said.

“That won’t make anyone like you or take—”

He snorted violently in my face. “Like! I care nothing for the likes and hates of the funaga. Allies we will be, or nothing. I have heard the funaga plan a journey to the lowlands. We will see how they fare with no equine to draw their carts or carry them in the dark lands.”

I blinked. “But we’re not going to the Blacklands.”

“The places where the funaga-li dwell are dark,” the horse sent bleakly.

“I tried to warn Rushton. And it’s not just the horses,” Alad said from behind.

I ignored this and addressed the horse again. I knew as well as Alad that no expedition could be undertaken on foot, especially one so far and through such terrain. We needed the horses. “What if the journey were a test—to see if your kind and mine could really be allies, working together, trusting one another?”

The black horse stood very still, but he did not respond.

“A way to find out if your kind and mine can work in accord,” I went on softly. “A test in which we funaga must pretend to have no special abilities, and equines must pull carts, be ridden by funaga, and reined.”

The horse reared violently, and Alad started swearing. I had expected the reaction, knowing the younger horses would not even tolerate a modified rein and would only work with beastspeakers.

For long moments he bucked and reared, driving bladelike hooves deep into the ground. At last he calmed and turned to face me, his coat dark with sweat. “What if all who journeyed were slain? What if this journey fails?”

“If the equines do their part faithfully, the test will be judged a success—regardless of the outcome. And one of your kind will sit at guildmerge.”

I knew I was offering what I had no right to offer, but I had no doubt Rushton would concur. He knew we needed the horses.

“It shall be as you have stated, funaga,” the horse sent finally. “I will find those to draw your cart for this testing. But I will join your expedition also. Not to draw a cart, but to bear
you
. Then we will see whose kind is best fitted to lead.”

“Elspeth, you can’t!” Alad cried aloud. “A guildmistress on an expedition? Rushton would have a fit!”

The black horse did not take his eyes from mine, and there
was challenge and cold amusement in his look. He was daring me to agree, certain I would refuse.

I took a deep breath, ignoring the horrified Beastspeaking guildmaster. “It will be as you say, equine. Together we will deceive the lowlanders into thinking I am your master.”

The horse neighed his laughter.

5

“W
HO ARE YOU
? Where are you? I know you’re there. I feel you.”

The probe was clumsy, its movements graceless and badly focused. “He’s young,” I assured Ceirwan. Even so, I was surprised he had sensed my presence, since I was tightly shielded. I let my probe brush against his fleetingly, testing.

His mind stabbed out in fright. “Are you the demon?”

Even while he grappled with my shielded probe, I entered him at a deeper level, deep-probing to find trace memories of his encounter with Zarak. The meeting had made a huge impact on his mind, for he thought Zarak a minor demon come to test his faith.

I decided to risk outright contact. If he reacted by calling out to his masters, I would stun him, and Domick would manufacture a coercive block.

Rushton had insisted Domick monitor the attempt after being reluctantly convinced we had to establish whether Zarak’s probe had been traced back to Obernewtyn. I suspected Domick had orders to cripple the boy’s mind if there was any risk of the Herders using him.

“Do your elders know of us?” I sent.

The boy’s mind recoiled from my mental blast. I had deliberately made it harsh and even painful. While the boy believed he was dealing with demons, we were in no real danger.

“It is the way of a priest to undergo his tests in silence, demon. My master has warned me your kind would try to shake my faith,” the young Herder sent proudly.

I had read from his thoughts that he was a novice, or apprentice, priest. After his initial training in the main cloister in Sutrium, he had been sent to Darthnor’s cloister to serve out his apprenticeship in the highlands. It was only the town’s proximity to Obernewtyn that had made it possible for Zarak to stumble upon the novice’s thoughts. Ironically, he had become aware of his powers under the rigorous mental training of the priesthood. But Herder teachings said that anything outside normal abilities was a mutation. The boy had tried to refuse his abilities, refusing to accept that he might be a Misfit.

Despite all his reactions, he was no hardened fanatic. And the Herder boy’s youth was a mark in his favor. We rescued few older folk, since most were unable to accept that their mutant abilities might not be evil. Those we encountered whom we judged a bad risk, we simply blocked, making it impossible for them to use their powers. This horrified the healers, but, in truth, the Misfits were happier to seem normal. Many believed Lud had cured them.

It was this boy’s youth that stopped me from simply having Domick expunge the memory and block his mutant powers. That and an instinct that told me he was worth rescuing. But because he was a Herder, I had to be sure he would respond the right way. I had promised Rushton I would do nothing until I was certain he could be trusted.

“How do you know I am a demon?” I asked, curious to see how much dogma he had swallowed.

The response was immediate. “You are a greater demon. The other was a lesser novice. Only demons can talk inside a
man’s head. My master says many are driven mad by such things, but you will not find me easy to break.”

I sensed Ceirwan’s amusement. “A puppy,” he sent in ardent relief.

“If we can bring him in, we would have an insight into the Herders’ world,” I said. “It’s always possible those men asking questions about Obernewtyn were from the Herder Faction.”

Ceirwan looked unconvinced. “He is a novice, unlikely to know their inner secrets.”

“He is one of us,” I insisted stubbornly. “If we leave him, the Herders might end up finding out what he is anyway, sooner or later. Then he might betray us at their behest. He is not fully committed to their way, and I believe he would do well among us.”

“A rescue would have to be completely foolproof,” Ceirwan warned.

“Are you still there, demon?” the boy sent.

The wistful inquiry in his voice reminded me of my own long-ago loneliness, thinking myself a freak, living in fear of disclosure.

“Do others of your kind speak to demons?” I asked.

There was a significant hesitation in his mind before he answered evasively. “Demons test many priests.”

“They do, but I have not encountered any other human who could communicate with me,” I sent, trying to sound like a demon.

Still probing his lower mind, I thought again of my childhood in the orphan home system. I had not known at once that I was a Misfit, but some instinct of self-protection had kept me silent about my developing abilities. My brother, Jes, had been even more frightened. His hatred of my mutant abilities had
warred with his love for me. He had spent a lifetime suppressing, even from himself, the fact that he, too, was a Misfit. In the end, he had been killed trying to escape from an orphan home after I was sent to Obernewtyn.

“I want to bring him out,” I told Ceirwan aloud.

The memory of Jes made me determined to rescue the boy before leaving for the lowlands. With this in mind, I contacted him for several consecutive nights, working on his buried fears. At last he broke down, confessing that he was a Misfit—and his fear that his masters had begun to suspect him.

“Surely such a small mutation would not matter,” I said, at the same time evoking an old nightmare in the boy’s mind based on a burning he had once witnessed.

I was startled at the strength of his reaction. He screamed.

The noise brought an older Herder. Fearing the worst, Domick struck to wipe the boy’s mind clean. I deflected his blow with an ease that made him glare at me suspiciously.

“I said I’ll handle this,” I hissed aloud.

I was relieved to hear the Herder boy tell his master he had been dreaming, and I injected my own calm control over his outward expressions. The priest departed with a final hard stare. My own heart was thudding, reacting to the boy’s fear.

“He knows,” he sent forlornly. I had not meant to make an approach so soon, but the desperation I sensed in his thoughts decided me.

“You could run away,” I suggested.

“Where could I go that they wouldn’t find me?” he asked miserably. “If they suspect, they won’t let me get away. They are interested in Misfits. They don’t send them to the Council.” I saw a fleeting thought that confirmed the rumors of the Herder interrogation methods and shuddered. What would happen to the boy if they guessed the truth?

“You know I am no demon,” I sent gently, after a moment.

“Yes,” the boy sent simply.

“Once, I was an orphan. Like you, I was different. I didn’t fit in, and I was afraid of being found out and burned or sent to the farms. Now I live free, with others like me.”

“Misfits,” he sent, using the hated word.

“Other people like you,” I sent. “You could join us,” I added lightly.

Hope flared, swamped by a sudden regressive fear that I might, after all, be a demon tempting him to the loss of his soul. “The other one. The first one I met. Is he there?”

I called Zarak and shielded his beam while they talked. In the end, the young Herder agreed to join us.

“He wants to know if he can bring his dog,” Zarak asked with a grin.

Zarak, Matthew, and Ceirwan brought him out. Officially, Zarak was still in Coventry, but the Herder boy trusted him and had insisted he be present.

Over a matter of days, the boy gradually gave his Herder masters the impression he was becoming increasingly homesick. He talked constantly about his family and refused to eat. He let his masters think he was having trouble with the mental disciplines of the priesthood. When he escaped, it was made to appear as if he had run away with his dog and had drowned trying to cross the Suggredoon.

It was a good scenario, one of the best we had designed. It had to be, or Rushton would never have approved it. It was artfully managed, even to the point of having clothes washed up on the bank and beastspeaking scavenger birds to hover ominously about the spot when the Herder search party
arrived. It was one of the few rescues that had gone off without a single hitch.