The Seeker

  I SLEPT MORE deeply than I’d intended, but it was a healing sleep. When I woke, I felt rested and alert, and I lay still, enjoying a feeling of well-being and warmth. Outside I could hear the whirling roar of the wind. The storm had worsened, and though it prevented me from leaving, it might also mean I was safe for the moment.

  I heard a knock at the hut’s main door and sat up, terrified it was Ariel. Had I slept too long? Perhaps the soup Domick had given me had been laced with sleep potion.

  “Who is it?” Domick asked from the other room.

  “It’s me. Roland,” said another voice. I did not know the name. I heard Domick unlatch the door.

  “Is Louis here?” asked the newcomer. I crawled out of the bed, crossed quietly to the door, and listened.

  “He hasn’t come yet,” said Domick. “Where is Rushton?”

  “He didn’t turn up, though I near froze my eyebrows off waiting,” said Roland, sounding aggrieved. “Alad says there is some sort of search going on at the house. Guess who has run away now?”

  “Elspeth Gordie,” Domick said. My heart began to thump wildly. There was a surprised silence.

  “How could you know that?” Roland demanded.

  “Because she’s here,” said Domick. “I was out getting wood when I saw her stumbling about like a blind ewe. I locked her in there. She says she came through the drains under the maze, but I don’t know how she could know about them.”

  “She could not have come that way,” said Roland. “Alad said Ariel’s beasts are out, all around the house.”

  “From the look of her knees, it is true just the same,” said Domick. “You might take a look at them when she wakes. They could use healing.”

  “We have other concerns,” said Roland impatiently. “I want to know what we are to do about the Druid’s man. He was supposed to meet with Rushton, but he turns up dead. How are we going to explain that?”

  “Rushton will have to tell Henry Druid the truth,” said Domick. “The man got himself caught. The question is, did he mention Rushton?”

  Roland gave a grunt. “Fortunately, we won’t have to explain anything to the Druid until spring, for tonight’s snowfall will certainly close off the pass.”

  “I wish Louis were here,” Domick said.

  “That old nutter,” Roland snapped.

  “Well, he was the first to help Rushton,” Domick said defensively. “And I know he has spent some time with her.” I imagined him gesturing toward my door.

  There was another silence.

  I debated what to do. It sounded like these two and Louis Larkin were allies of Rushton. But where did the Druid fit in? Was Rushton working for him? He had told me that he had no interest in digging up the past, but Alexi had indicated the Druid was after the same thing he was.

  “We ought to look for Rushton,” Roland said.

  “He said to wait and do nothing,” Domick said.

  “If Rushton’s in trouble, I’m not going to sit back and do nothing.”

  “We don’t even know if he is in trouble,” Domick insisted.

  A log in the fire cracked loudly, and I heard the sound of boots outside. There was a knock, and the outer door opened.

  “Louis!” Domick sounded relieved.

  “Where’s Rushton?” Roland asked swiftly.

  “They’ve taken him prisoner,” Louis said in an angry growl. “Alexi and Vega and that demon’s whelp, Ariel. They think he helped Elspeth Gordie to escape.”

  My heart plummeted. Impulsively, I unlocked the door.

  For a moment, all was still, like a wax display. Louis, warmly clad with snow melting and dripping in a pool at his feet, and Domick and a man, Roland, near the fire. We all stared at one another, then Domick made a little warding-off movement that unfroze the tableau.

  “I locked that,” he said faintly.

  “You!” Louis said, and to my astonishment, a look of anger filled his face as he stepped threateningly toward me. “You have some explainin’ to do!” he growled. “Why do th’ Council seek ye?”

  “The Council?” Domick echoed.

  Louis flicked him a quick quelling glance. “Aye, th’ Council. Two Councilmen came up tonight. They have a permit to remove Elspeth Gordie. They said th’ Herder Faction wanted to question ye as well.”

  I felt my face whiten. The Council wanted me, but I dreaded the fanatical Herders, who had burned my parents, far more.

  But there was Rushton to think about. “I had a brother. He was involved in some sedition, and they think I can tell them the names of his accomplices,” I said, leaving out a world of detail.

  Louis squinted his eyes and looked at me skeptically, but I pretended not to see.

  “You say they have Rushton? Where?” I asked.

  No one answered.

  “Look, Rushton did help me tonight,” I said urgently. “He told me to hide in the silo, but I got lost in the storm.”

  “Why would he help you?” Roland asked sharply.

  I looked at him helplessly, for I did not know that myself.

  “She is not important now,” said Domick. “We can deal with her later. I don’t know how she undid that lock, but I’ll tie her up in there and then we can talk.”

  “No!” I shouted. “Rushton helped me, and now I want to help him.”

  “Do you know what Rushton is doing here?” Louis asked very carefully.

  I hesitated, and then shook my head. “He wouldn’t tell me. He said it would put other people in danger. His friends—you, I suppose,” I added soberly.

  “Where have they got him?” Roland asked Louis.

  “Somewhere outside Obernewtyn. It would have to be close,” Louis said.

  “How could they get outside Obernewtyn in this storm?” Roland demanded. “And why would they bother? They can interrogate him just as well in the doctor’s chamber.”

  His words sparked my memory of the passage concealed behind the doctor’s fireplace. Coming from it, Alexi and the others had been outside and they had spoken of the Zebkrahn machine. “I think I know where they have taken him,” I said, trying to contain my excitement.

  Louis looked at me, his eyes faded with age and watering from the cold but sharp as a knife. “An’ where would that be?” he asked noncommittally.

  Seeing that I must trust them if I wanted to be trusted, I told them nearly everything I had seen and heard that night in the doctor’s chamber. The three men exchanged a long glance, and then Louis said, “Selmar once mentioned something about a track leading from a secret tunnel out of the grounds. The place is fair riddled with tunnels and hidden passages. And maybe it comes out close to a cave or rift where they found this Zebkrahn. The best way to find it would be to start in the doctor’s chamber, but the house is in an uproar.”

  “We have to search outside the grounds for the other end of the passage,” Roland said.

  But Louis was still looking at me. “Perhaps you can find him,” he said quietly.

  The other two stared at him in bewilderment.

  “You can ask him where he is and what he wants us to do,” Louis continued.

  My heart skipped a beat at the knowledge in his look. Slowly, I nodded. “It will be better if I can get outside the walls of Obernewtyn first. The closer I am, the better. And I won’t be able to do anything until the snowstorm stops.”

  “My bones tell me that this storm has near worn out its malice. The minute it stops, I will take ye to the farm gate.”

  Realization dawned on Domick’s face. “You … you are like Selmar was before,” he said.

  That was something I had not guessed, and it made what had been done to her even more of a tragedy. “I’ll help,” I said. “But I don’t have much courage.”

  Louis spoke briskly. “There’s strong an’ weak in th’ world. If yer born without courage, ye mun look in yerself an’ find it. From what Selmar said, this place is a good step from here, so I’d say it mun be closer to the front gate of Obernewtyn. We’ll head that way.”
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  Roland stiffened. “What about the granite outcrops? No one bothers going near them because they are all jagged stone and brambles, but there could easily be a cave in them.”

  “It is the most likely spot for a cave,” Domick agreed.

  “Well then,” said Louis, looking at me. “We’ll start out walking in the direction of the outcrops as ye seek Rushton. I’ll show ye when we get outside the gate, and from the sound of things, that won’t be long, fer the storm is fading.” We all listened a moment, and it was true that it was growing quieter.

  “This is it, then, isn’t it?” Domick said, bright spots of color in his cheeks. He grabbed his coat, then he handed me the one Rushton had given me.

  Roland pulled on his own coat and said to Domick, “You get the swords and arrows from the weapons cache, and I will call the others together. Then we will come after you two.” He nodded to Louis.

  “Let’s gan,” Louis said to me, and hauled open the door. A few flakes of snow whirled in on the icy air, but the night was again still, the land glowing white and the sky black. We parted from the other two without any more words, and Louis took the lead, walking swiftly and unerringly over what the snow made a trackless, featureless terrain that went as far as my eyes could see. After some time, I saw the wall looming up in the bleakness, a gray band between the black sky and the white ground. As we walked along it, I asked him how he had known about me.

  He glanced back. “Selmar told me just before she tried to escape fer th’ last time. Most of her was long ago lost, but there were moments when she came to herself. She said you were like her, but stronger. She dreamed that you were coming, and that your coming would change everything.”

  I did not know what to say to that.

  Louis stopped when we reached the farm gate. He unlocked it with a key, and after we had gone through, he locked it from the other side. Then he looked at me expectantly. Knowing what he wanted, and feeling strangely self-conscious, I was about to farseek when I remembered what had happened the last time I had loosed my mind on the farms. The Zebkrahn machine had caught hold of me. On the other hand, if it was being used to interrogate Rushton, surely it could not also be able to entrap roaming minds. I shrugged, knowing I had no real choice but to try. I sent my mind out, but after a time, I breathed a sigh.

  “I can’t feel him. But maybe the cave wall is blocking me. I have to get closer.”

  Louis led me along a snowy track that followed the outside of the wall. After some time, he stopped and pointed. I saw the dim outline of several high stone mounds, gray against a slightly lighter sky. I tried again to farseek Rushton, and this time I felt something. The old man saw the look on my face and leaned forward eagerly.

  “It was just the merest flicker, but I think the others were right. I think he’s there. I need to go closer.”

  Louis nodded, then his face fell and he cursed. “I am a blatherin’ fool! I locked the gate without thinking, an’ th’ others will not be able to come after us.”

  “Go back then,” I urged. “I can see the outcrops now, so I don’t need any guiding.”

  “I will, but ye be careful, lass. Find him, but dinna go close enough to be caught,” Louis warned. “We’ll need ye to guide us.”

  “You be careful, too,” I said.

  Louis nodded, and without ceremony turned to hurry back along the wall.

  25

  I WOKE TO the dense whiteness of a blinding snowstorm. The events before my fall were tumbled together in a wild kaleidoscopic dream. The last thing I remembered clearly was that I had been walking toward the granite outcrops as the snow fell more and more thickly, until all at once I could see nothing at all. Then I was running. And now here I was, lying in a deep ditch, my head aching and a numbness creeping over my limbs.

  I forced myself to sit up, and all at once I remembered what had made me run. I had seen the glimmer of eyes, and the memory of what Ariel’s wolves had done to Sharna had sent me into a headlong, mindless flight. That was when I had fallen.

  I climbed out of the ditch as carefully as I could for the sake of my aching head, only belatedly realizing that I might have crawled into the mouth of the very wolf that had sent me hurtling into the ditch in the first place. Fortunately, there was no wolf in sight. Brushing off the snow and stamping my feet hard, I looked around and wondered how long I had been unconscious. The fact that I had not frozen suggested it could not have been long. Then I thought of Rushton, and a sense of urgency filled me.

  I heard a noise behind me and turned to find myself looking into a pair of gleaming yellow eyes. I would have run, but terror drained the strength from my legs.

  Then a familiar voice spoke inside my mind.

  “Greetings, ElspethInnle.”

  “Maruman?” I whispered incredulously.

  “It is I,” he answered.

  I burst out laughing, half in relief and half in hysteria.

  “You fell,” Maruman observed disapprovingly as he came closer.

  I felt the laughter rise again but fought it down. “How on earth did you get here?” I asked.

  “You did not come, so I/Maruman came,” he sent. He sounded offended, but there was no time to soothe him.

  “I could not come to you,” I told him. “I have been a captive until this very day. But now I have escaped, and I have to help a friend who is in trouble.”

  He mulled that over for a moment, then sent in a less haughty tone, “This night I came over the poisoned snowy ground in the wheeled creature drawn by the equines. Funaga rode within. I came because I saw that your nameshape was in their thoughts. But when the horses stopped, I could not sense you anywhere. I slunk into the house, and then I slept and dreamed of you.”

  “You were clever to find me,” I sent quickly. “But there is no time for mindspeak.”

  “Your friend?” Maruman inquired with pointed politeness.

  “He helped me; now I must help him,” I sent.

  Maruman’s thoughts showed he approved of that, at least. “Where is Innle friend?” he asked.

  I explained that I did not know exactly where Rushton was. “He’s in a cave nearby. I was walking to the mounds of stone, but I fell and now I don’t know where I am.”

  “I will lead you to the mounds of stone,” Maruman told me.

  I told him cautiously that I thought it would be better if he stayed behind and waited for me, but he fixed me with a penetrating look.

  “Innle must seek the darkness, and I/Maruman must go with her to watch the moon.” I shivered and felt a mad impulse to forget everything and flee as fast as I could from the mountains and from all of the dangers and mysteries that lay within them.

  But then I thought of Rushton and his cool green eyes, and knew there was a debt I must pay.

  “Come then,” I sent. “But we have to move quickly. I have wasted too much time here.”

  I had run right by the mounds of stone, as it transpired, and as we retraced my steps, Maruman proved to be an expert guide. Twice he prevented me from stumbling into holes filled with snow. Another time he stopped me from walking onto wafer-thin ice covering a frozen pool of water and camouflaged by a dusting of snow.

  So when he stopped just ahead of me, fur fluffed, I froze immediately.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He told me that his nose had caught the faint spoor of wolf. I picked up a stout stick before we continued, but saw almost immediately the large humped shapes of granite.

  “That is where we will find my friend,” I told Maruman.

  Given my delays, I had no idea if Louis Larkin and the others had already come and gone, but I did not want to risk using the energy it would require to perform an open farsensing so close to the Zebkrahn machine. First I needed to locate Rushton, and a mental probe shaped to find him would use far less energy. I waited until we reached the bramble-covered rocks that formed a spiky barrier around the mounded stone humps, then I closed my eyes and loosed my mind. I strove about the granit
e hillocks and several times felt something, but the contact was too slight for me to know if it was Rushton.

  “There is danger here,” Maruman observed. Then he gave a low, eerie call, and his spine twitched convulsively. “Forever and forever is pain …,” he yowled, his eyes whirling.

  “Please, not now,” I begged. But it was a useless plea, for Maruman’s fits were not his to control.

  “Here is darkness, ElspethInnle, but it is not the same darkness you must seek out and end.” He was trembling from head to toe now and I longed to gather him in my arms, but I knew from experience that he would attack me tooth and claw if I did.

  I stared at him, wondering how I could look after Maruman and search for Rushton at the same time.

  “The flies!” Maruman shrieked suddenly into my mind, then he swooned sideways and lay still. It was almost a relief to be able to wrap his limp form up in my coat. I laid him in a small hollow in a rock, fairly sure he would not wake until I returned. Then I clambered as fast as I could over the bramble-covered rocks, toward the larger hillocks in their midst.

  Five minutes later, I was in a narrow flat space between the prickly scree and the mounds of stone. Almost at once, I found the entrance to a cave, though I saw no sign of any tunnel leading back to Obernewtyn.

  26

  THE CAVE ENTRANCE was hidden behind a rockfall. Its placement was too convenient, concealing the cave perfectly without blocking it off. I had no doubt that it had been purposefully placed, though only the machines of the Beforetimers could have shifted such weight.

  Up close, I realized that the rockfall and the hillock itself were not true granite at all but some kind of smooth, hard stone the likes of which I had never seen.

  I entered the cave and found that it was a tunnel burrowing into the largest of the mounds. I could see light ahead and approached with trepidation, but it was only a great shimmering cluster of insects gathered on a damp patch of rock. The light they gave out revealed the tunnel for some distance, and then I found a lantern hanging from a peg of wood that had been driven into a crack in the wall. It was the first certain proof that someone was using the cavern.