The Seeker (41 page)

Rising, I sent a final, vital question. “Where is the blocking machine?”

She frowned. “Machine?”

“The block on our minds. Surely you can feel it?”

“Feel what?” Gilaine sent.

Confused, I sent a brief impression of the block.

“Oh, that,” her mind sent, amused. “No machine. Lidgebaby.” She pointed to a cot near one of the walls. “Lidgebabymind.”

My mouth fell open. The incredible numbing effect blanketing the camp that had resisted all my strength was the uncontrollable mental static of a Misfit baby!

11

S
OMETHING WOKE ME
.

It was a dark night, with no moon showing beyond the window glass. Rain was falling softly on the roof of the washhouse and its adjoining sleeping chambers.

Then I heard a voice, calling softly. “Elspeth?”

I sat bolt upright in bed, afraid to answer in case it was a trap. Trying to think how a real gypsy would react, I climbed out of bed and went across to the window.

“Who’s out there?” My voice came out low and anxious, not quite a whisper.

“Shh!” the voice hissed urgently.

Apprehension prickled along my spine. “What do want? Who are you?”

There was a pause, as if the caller was wary, too.

“I come from a friend,” the voice whispered at last, reluctantly.

I frowned. “I have no friends here.”

Again there was a pause. “Gilaine,” the voice grated, with a hint of irritation.

I bit my lip and peered into the rain-streaked night, wishing there was a moon. Whoever was out there had the perfect cover. I could see nothing.

“I have a key to unlock your door,” the voice said.

I made up my mind. If it was a trap, I would blame gypsy curiosity.

A moment later, there was a faint click, and the door opened to reveal a man wearing a dark hooded cloak pulled low across his face. Pulling my own cape hastily over my nightdress, I padded out barefoot, closing the door behind me.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“My name is Saul. And you don’t need to know any more than that,” he added brusquely.

We hurried along, keeping close to the walls, cloaks flapping in gusts of wind that blew along the dark, empty streets. Coming to a cobbled square, Saul stopped, intently scanning the square and the streets leading into it. Trees growing up through the cobbles flung bare branches about, sighing mournfully. After a long moment, he flicked his hand curtly and strode directly across the square.

On the other side, I stopped. “Wait a minute. This isn’t the way to Gilaine’s house.”

“It is the way to mine,” Saul answered.

His house proved to be as small as Gilaine’s but looked dark and deserted. He opened the door, and light spilled out onto the wet ground. Dark heavy curtains had hidden the light from prying eyes. Reassured, I followed him inside.

Removing his cloak, Saul shook it and hung it on a peg in the wall. Studying him covertly in the light, I decided he was handsome in a cold sort of way. He was tall but too thin, and his skin was pale. His hands were as long and slender as a woman’s, his facial features sharply defined beneath a fringe of straight light brown hair. He looked at me fleetingly with eyes the color of mud-stained ice. I smiled tentatively, but he
did not respond. I pretended to stumble as I followed him along the hallway, clutching at his arm to steady myself.

I had a brief impression of an intelligence bordering on brilliance, resting on a frighteningly unstable personality.

“Get out!” commanded an icy mental voice. He pushed me away with a look of revulsion.

I followed him wordlessly into the kitchen, knowing I had seen such stress before in people unable to tolerate the realization that they were Misfits. I guessed Saul had been ruthlessly orthodox before discovering his true nature. His very personality was disintegrating under the stress of being what he loathed. I wondered if the others knew how poorly he was coping.

The kitchen was almost the exact replica of Gilaine’s but without cooking smells or flowers. It reminded me of an orphan-home kitchen before Council inspection.

Seated at a scrubbed timber table were Gilaine, the two musicians I had seen at the Druid’s nightmeal, and an older heavyset man I had not seen before.

For a moment, they looked up at me with collective appraisal. Then Gilaine rose. Smiling welcome, she touched my arm. “I am glad you came. See? I am getting better at this strange way of communicating. But Lidegbaby does not like it. You know Saul. I think you have seen Peter and Michael.” She gestured at the musicians. “And last is Jow, the brother of Daffyd.”

“This is dangerous,” I said aloud.

Gilaine nodded gravely. “You told me this afternoon that you meant to escape. We want to help, but you must answer questions first,” she sent.

From the expressions on the faces of the others, I guessed they had been less eager to help than Gilaine. I wondered
what she had said to convince them—especially to Saul, who made no pretense of liking my presence and was prowling back and forth like a caged animal.

“The others with you—Misfit also?” Gilaine asked.

I nodded, aware we would not get out of the camp without help. I had to take the risk. And I did trust Gilaine. I guessed she was reporting my answers to the others but could find no trace of their communication, though her hand rested on my arm. She seemed not to need physical contact to farseek with the others.

She looked back at me. “Have you really been to Obernewtyn?”

I nodded, and again told the story I had told the Druid, with one difference. I told her we had welcomed Pavo’s illness as an excuse to split off from the rest of the troupe. “It was getting too dangerous for us to stay. Most gypsies hate Misfits.”

“Then you never meant to rejoin your father?” Saul asked accusingly when Gilaine had relayed my answer. “You say Obernewtyn is a ruin. How can we believe you?”

I shrugged. “Believe what you want. Why would I bother to lie?”

It was odd how everyone seemed to know that the firestorm story was a lie, though no one but our own people had been up to the mountains since Rushton had staked his claim to Obernewtyn. I decided to ask my own questions.

“How did you discover your powers?”

Gilaine smiled. “It happened the night Lidgebaby was born,” she sent.

The baby coercer had woken the entire group to operancy. Gilaine sent a graphic impression of the night the baby was born. She had been in bed asleep when the sound of a baby
screaming woke her. She was in the street in her nightgown before she realized the cry she was hearing was inside her mind. She had gone back inside and dressed quickly, her mind reeling at the effort of fighting the summons. Only when she reached the street outside the birthing house did she begin to understand what had happened, for she was not alone. They had all answered the call: Saul, acolyte apprentice; Jow, an animal handler; his younger brother, Daffyd; and the two musicians.

Daffyd had sobered first to the peril of such a gathering, and they had dispersed at his urging, planning to meet again in less dangerous circumstances. It would prove the first of many such meetings. They all understood two things at once, though. They would never again be alone in their own minds, for Lidgebaby was with them constantly, linking them irrevocably to one another. And they were in terrible danger.

In that dramatic birthbonding, Lidgebaby had forged an indelible emotional link between himself and the group. None could ever consciously harm the baby. All were coerced to love and protect.

Little monster
, I thought, keeping my mind shielded. No wonder I could not hear their communication. They talked through the baby, using their own powers only to maintain contact with Lidge. It was the combined network of minds, and the child’s mental overflow, that was blocking me.

This incredible situation gave me a clear idea of Lidgebaby’s mental prowess. A baby, his coercive demands were selfish but basically innocent. But what would happen when he grew up and became conscious of the power he wielded? I shuddered, seeing them smile in the collective memory of that first enslavement/wakening of their Misfit minds.

Seeing my eyes on him, Saul frowned and turned away.

“Where will you go, if we help you?” Gilaine asked.

“We hadn’t thought that far ahead. We meant to use an Olden pass we’d heard about to reach the lowlands without going along the main roads.”

Saul snorted. “No one can get through that pass alive.”

I stared. “You mean there
is
a pass?”

Gilaine nodded. “But Saul is right. No way to go there. Dangerous.”

Jow shifted in his seat and the others fell silent. For the first time, I glimpsed a hint of Daffyd’s features in his face. “Where are you headed?” he asked aloud.

I shrugged. “To the west coast. We thought of getting a boat. I’ve heard there are places …” I hesitated.

“Over the sea,” said the boy musician wistfully.

“I have heard there are places over the edge of the world, where there is no Council or Herder Faction,” Jow said pensively.

“Why do you stay here?” I asked. “It’s terribly dangerous.”

Jow shook his head. “Better to wait until winter is over. And we must wait until Lidgebaby is weaned.”

“Couldn’t you get the mother to go with you?”

“The mother is bonded to an acolyte and has already had one babe burned. She denounced it,” Jow said.

I stared at him in horror. “Why are you offering to help us?” I finally asked.

Jow frowned. “You are a danger to us as long as you stay. You are a danger to Lidgebaby. We’ll help you, but you must understand we can’t let you talk if you are caught. The acolytes are very persuasive.”

I nodded, understanding what he left unsaid. “How can you help?”

“There are two things,” Jow said. “First, we can absorb Lidgebaby’s emanations so that you can communicate with your friends in the compound. Second, we will organize a diversion to give you all time to get away. The timing is good because soldierguards from the training camps below Gelfort Range will leave in a few days to witness the ordination of new Herders in Sutrium. That will mean the main road will be safe for a week or so, and you can cut right through their camp and make for the coast between the lower mountains and Glenelg Mor.”

I bit my lip. It would take several days to go that way, but it seemed there was no choice.

At a word from Jow, Saul seated himself at the table, and the group linked hands. “Be quick,” Jow said. “I’m not sure how long we can hold it.”

They closed their eyes. For a long moment, there was silence. A log cracked noisily in the fire, spitting out an orange flame. Beads of perspiration stood out on Jow’s face.

Then the block was gone.

I gasped in delight, realizing how greatly the restriction had oppressed me. I sent a specific probe tuned to Matthew’s mind. There was too little time to locate him physically. He was asleep when I found him, and I woke him with an ungentle mental jab.

“Wha?” his mind inquired stupidly. “Elspethelf?” he sent.

“I don’t have much time, so listen carefully,” I sent. “Some Misfits here are going to help us escape. They’ll create a joint diversion to give us the chance to get away.”

“We canna use th’ Olden way,” Matthew warned.

I told Matthew about Jow’s alternate route. “They still believe us gypsies—I can’t let them know the truth about Obernewtyn if they intend on staying here. So I told them
nothing about Domick. I’m going to try to reach him now.”

Matthew interrupted eagerly. “I was able to farseek with him.” I was astonished. It was impossible to communicate over significant distance with anyone but another farseeker unless communicator and communicant each possessed some deep-probing ability. It seemed Ceirwan was right about Matthew’s developing powers. But there was no time to think about that now.

“Are the horses with Domick?”

“An’ Darga,” Matthew sent. “Wait a minute! If ye haven’t escaped, how can ye be contactin’ me? We’re in a compound, outside the settlement, but you—”

“The Misfits here helped me stop the block temporarily. It’s not a machine. The static is caused by a baby with coercive powers.”