The Seeker (36 page)

Rushton adjured us to work together and not to forget that each of the three aims in the expedition was equally important.

At the last, he wished us good fortune. “This journey is the beginning of a new stage for us. I wish you success, for your sake and ours.” If anyone else noticed the slightly ominous note in his final words, it was not apparent.

All Obernewtyn turned out to see us go, but the festival air did not last long. We had barely finished preparations when it began to rain heavily.

I climbed awkwardly into Gahltha’s saddle, ignoring his derisive whinny. He might not want to be ridden, but he knew an incompetent rider when he had one.

Wrapping an oiled cape about my head and shoulders, I nodded to Domick. We had decided he would ride in front of the carts and I at the rear, at least until we left the main road.

The rain had sent everyone running inside, but looking back, I had a final glimpse of Rushton standing alone on the top step, apparently oblivious to the downpour.

Even at that distance, I could see the same odd tension in his stance that had puzzled me in the turret room.

I wondered what he was thinking and impulsively lifted a hand to wave.

Instantly, he responded, raising his own hand. I stared over my shoulder until the gray curtain of rain came between us.

I felt an unexpected regret at the thought that I would not see him again for a long time, perhaps many months if we failed to make it back before the pass froze.

PART II
T
HE
L
OWLANDS

7

I
HAD BEEN
nervous about riding and found it only slightly less traumatic than I had expected.

Gahltha began instructing me the moment we left Obernewtyn. Under his terse instructions, I tied the reins to the saddle. When I did not know what to do with my hands, I clutched at the saddle, hanging on for dear life. Gahltha forbade this, saying I must learn to ride by balance before we reached the lowlands. A gypsy did not rely on hands or stirrups. This seemed impossible enough, until he warned me that I would also have to be able to ride without a saddle, since gypsies rarely used them. And no gypsy would be so inept a rider as me.

It took great concentration to coordinate all the contortions Gahltha seemed to feel riding required.

“Heels out so you do not jab me in the ribs, or I may forget and buck you off,” he sent. “Knees tight or you will be off the first time I stumble.”

The first hours were punctuated by the horse’s staccato instructions. He made no comment to me except to give me orders. I had the feeling he was enjoying every minute of my discomfort.

I noticed Domick casually slouched in his saddle as if it were an armchair and envied his skill and confidence.

The rain continued throughout the remainder of the day,
drumming steadily on my oiled coat and on the roofs of the caravans. The weather was so bleak that we traversed the tainted and storm-wracked pass almost without noticing. The last time I had gone over the stretch of tainted grounds, I had been journeying to Obernewtyn for the first time, filled with apprehension for the future. Now I was leaving, still full of apprehension.

We passed the area without mishap and soon after left the main road for the White Valley. Fortunately, the floor of the valley was flat, and there was little undergrowth beneath the trees, else the carts would have been useless.

I felt Jik clumsily seeking entrance into my thoughts. “Will the caravans be able to go through the Olden way?” he asked.

“Pavo thinks so. He believes it was once an important Beforetime thoroughfare,” I sent.

“Why doesn’t anyone else know about it?” he wondered. “I never heard any of the priests in the Darthnor cloister here mention it, and I never saw it on any of the maps.”

The question had also occurred to me. “Pavo says it is probably because there has been no need of it, what with the main road. And no one much uses the White Valley. The highlanders believe it to be haunted.”

When night fell, it was still raining. After a hasty conferral, we decided to go on as long as we could, since it would be impossible to make a proper camp or cook in the sodden valley.

In the end, Gahltha was the one to call a halt, saying the horses pulling the cart needed to rest. I was surprised at his consideration, then reminded myself his concern was for the horses, not the humans. But I was glad to stop just the same. Climbing down from his back stiffly, I was convinced every bone in my body was fractured and wondered if it could possibly be any worse to ride bareback.

Relieved of the hated trappings, the horses wandered off to graze, untroubled by the rain. Domick and I hung our soaking oil cloaks under an eben tree in the hope that they would dry by morning.

We all climbed into one carriage to talk. Darga had jumped out the moment the cart stopped; even so, it was too cramped to change my damp clothes, so I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders.

“We might as well close th’ flaps an’ keep out th’ night air,” Matthew said, tying the strings.

Kella had lit two candles in shielded sconces, and the interior of the van glowed dimly in the flickering light. It warmed up quickly with the flaps closed, and I felt myself drifting off to sleep watching Jik and the healer prepare a simple nightmeal. I felt so tired, it was an effort to eat, but Kella insisted.

I tried to shift my position, but my legs seemed to have set in their riding stance. Laughing, Kella produced a strongly scented green paste that she promised would ease the muscle strain.

I sighed regretfully and imagined sinking into my favorite chair in front of the turret-room fire when Jik interrupted my weary daydream to ask why he had been included on the expedition.

I had imagined Dameon would have provided some plausible reason, but it appeared he had left it to me. Trying to give myself time to think, I asked Jik why he had not asked Dameon himself.

He shrugged diffidently. “I thought somebody would tell me why eventually.”

I nodded, deciding that I could not burden him with the true reason. “Your knowledge of Herder lore will be useful to us. We know so little about the practices of the priesthood
or of their ambitions. They seem to be growing stronger and more powerful. And, of course, there is your knowledge of Sutrium.”

Jik frowned. “I was taken by the priests when I was very young. I hardly remember it. I don’t know any more about Sutrium than you,” he concluded in a troubled voice.

I patted his arm reassuringly. “Don’t worry about why you’re here. Just concentrate on remembering everything you can about Sutrium and the Herder Faction.”

I heard squelching noises outside just as Gahltha’s cold probe slid into my mind.

I pulled aside the flap and looked into his dark, wet face, almost invisible in the night. Directly behind him, Avra was a pale blur.

“What is it?” I sent, matching his brevity.

“Avra found fresh equine tracks nearby, less than a day old. Funaga rode the equines,” Gahltha sent. “They traveled the opposite way to us, making for the main road.”

“Maybe someone else knows about the Olden way,” Domick said when I told the others.

I sent a questing thought to Avra. “Do you know how many funaga there were?”

“More than here—two times more than here,” Avra sent, as shy as Gahltha was arrogant. I bit my lip.

We had been incredibly lucky to miss the riders, but that did not solve the question of where they had come from. There were no mapped villages in the White Valley. But Louis said the highlands were full of small settlements unknown to Council mapmakers, made up of people who wanted to be free of Council domination without openly opposing it.

“Perhaps the riders came from such a settlement,” he offered without conviction.

“Perhaps they were hunting,” Domick said.

I weighed the options. “We’ll stay the night here and leave at dawn.”

I asked Gahltha to warn Darga and the other horses to keep an eye out for any sign of funaga that might give us a clue about why they had been in the White Valley. Then I dropped the flap, shutting out the bleak night.

“He doesn’t like you,” Jik said in puzzled wonder.

I nodded wryly. “Gahltha was badly abused by his old masters. I don’t think he likes any human.”

“But it’s different at Obernewtyn. No one would hurt him there,” Jik said indignantly. “It’s not fair for him to blame us.”

I smiled gently at his loyalty to his adopted home. “Not much in life is fair.”

I realized Jik had not been able to hear Gahltha but had sensed the horse’s dislike. Such sensitivity to a beast’s emotions seemed to be a new use of empathising, or perhaps a new Talent altogether. I made a mental note to discuss it with Dameon when we returned.

“What do you think those people were doing here?” Kella asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But if they are in hiding, they won’t want to see us any more than we want to stumble into their midst. I’m going to farsense the way ahead. If there is any sign of a settlement, we’ll change course and bypass it.” I closed my eyes.

For a moment, I was half mesmerized by my own exhaustion and the monotonous sound of rain on the canvas roof of the caravan. I had forgotten how storms could affect my range. Pavo’s theory was that rain occasionally contained some sort of mild taint to which humans had adapted but which nevertheless acted upon Misfit abilities.

I forced myself to concentrate, and then my probe was flying swift and low along the path we had planned to take. I touched briefly on the minds of various nocturnal creatures but found no human mind. At one point, I was startled when a cloud of shadowy birds rose, flittering and shrieking indignantly, disturbed by my scrying. Finding nothing, I came back along the same path, swinging out on both sides.

My probe brushed briefly along the static barrier on the fringe of the Blacklands; then I went farther ahead, along the banks of the Suggredoon. I was surprised to realize we were less than an hour’s ride from the river. We planned to follow the Suggredoon down to where it disappeared underground at the foot of the Gelfort Range. Not far from there, we would find the Olden way.

Making a last sweep of the area, I encountered a blank spot. I tried to penetrate it, but it was like trying to see in a blinding snowstorm.

Defeated, I withdrew and opened my eyes.

“Are ye all right?” Matthew asked.

“Did you find anything?” Domick asked.

I told them the result of my farsensing. “It sounds like Blackland static,” Matthew said.

“It was like that but denser and cloudier,” I said. “Maybe it was tainted water.”

“But no settlement,” Domick persisted.

“I couldn’t sense even a single person, let alone a settlement,” I said, feeling relieved. “Maybe it was a hunting party.”

Matthew looked doubtful. “I dinna think anyone would come here to hunt. T’would be like takin’ midmeal in a graveyard. Maybe it were soldierguards lookin’ for escapees or robbers?”

I chewed my lip. “It wouldn’t be possible to have a machine
that would create that kind of blocking static, would it?” I asked.