The Seeker

  “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.

  “Elspeth?” he said unexpectedly in his soft, well-spoken voice. His father had been a member of the Council before his death, and Dameon had been a product of that privileged class before a cousin had arranged to have him judged Misfit in order to claim the deceased’s estate. For the Council, one of the beauties of the Misfit charge was that it could not be absolutely proven or disproven.

  “Are ye sure ye canna see?” Matthew asked the empath.

  Dameon smiled sweetly. “I possess neither sight nor the wondrous magic of your precious Oldtimers,” he teased. “I knew Elspeth was there because of your reaction to her.”

  “You empaths!” Matthew exploded. “I thought I had th’ shield in place then. Ye’d think emotions at least ought to be private.”

  “You need to perfect that shield,” Dameon admonished. “Do you think I want to be privy to your emotional turmoils, entertaining though they are?”

  Matthew blushed to the roots of his hair. “One canna always be screenin’ every thought,” he muttered.

  I bit my lip to conceal my amusement, but Dameon laughed aloud. He smiled in my direction. There was a touch of sadness in his face that had not always been there. Even as I wondered what had caused it, I caught Matthew’s knowing look, as if he knew something I did not. I was tempted to deep-probe him when Dameon said pointedly that we ought to go into the kitchen before midmeal became nightmeal. He could not read my mind, yet I felt a flush rise to my cheeks.

  Rushton always called the empath his conscience, and suddenly I understood why.

  Dameon took my arm and said, with a smile in Matthew’s direction, “I hear young Lina has been up to her tricks again.”

  Matthew scowled blackly. “That girl an’ her pranks. She had me so flustered at nightmeal that I accidentally sat next to Miryum, who has as much grace an’ wit as a lump of stone.”

  “Yet she is guilden,” Dameon said with faint reproach.

  Matthew looked put out. “She has Talent, I grant ye. But all she ever thinks about is the latest way to make people do things they dinna want to do.”

  The sound of cutlery clinking and laughter flowed down the hall from the kitchen to meet us. There had long been vague plans to open up another room as a separate dining area, but somehow the alcoves adjoining the kitchen remained the main eating area.

  Guilds had gotten into the habit of sitting together for meals, but most of the guildleaders and some others sat at the table by the door with Rushton, who treated meals as another kind of strategy meeting. But Dameon went to join his guild members.

  Though empath guildmaster, Dameon spent most of his time working with Rushton, and he had offered to forgo his place as master of the Empath guild to make way for Miky and Angina. The twins had refused emphatically, and their refusal had been echoed by the rest of the guild. No other guild had quite the same love for their master as the empaths. They made little official demand on Dameon’s time, but at social occasions they were possessive.

  Rushton and Domick were both absorbed in something Gevan was saying, and I noticed that Rushton’s soup was untouched. I sighed and wondered if he ever noticed anything he ate or enjoyed a conversation just because it was fun.

  I saw Louis Larkin hovering just inside the kitchen courtyard door, peering about nearsightedly. He hated coming up to the house, and I wondered what had been important enough to bring him up through the maze.

  I sent a probe to Matthew, telling him to find out what Louis wanted. “He says he must talk with you,” Matthew sent after a moment. “Ye’ll have to come. I can’t crack grouchy bugger’s shield.”

  I sighed. Louis was just as hard to get along with as he had always been. His white hair stuck out like coils of wire on each side of his head but was sparse on top. His cheeks and nose were red with cold, but he insisted I come out into the maze courtyard before he would talk. Matthew came with us, closing the door behind him. It was growing colder, and my breath came out in little puffs of cloud.

  “What is it, Louis?” I asked tersely.

  “Hmph,” Louis grumped. “I’m surprised ye’ve any time to spare for a beastspeaker.” Though himself an unTalent, Louis had a natural affinity for animals and held an honorary place in the guild. He regarded my decision to lead the farseekers rather than the beastspeakers as the worst sort of traitorous defection.

  “What is it, Louis?” I asked resignedly. Sometimes he reminded me of Maruman at his most difficult.

  “No need to snap my head off,” Louis said smugly. “T’were a bit of gossip I heard I thought might interest ye.”

  Louis was a remarkable source of odd bits of information. He hardly ever left Obernewtyn, but he always seemed to know what was going on in the highlands. And he knew everything that went on at Obernewtyn.

  “I heard ye were wonderin’ if th’ Druid has left th’ high country,” Louis said, looking over his shoulder as if he thought someone might be listening. I was never sure how much of his eccentric behavior was affected and how much was genuine.

  “Have you heard anything?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Th’ word is that th’ Druid has nowt left th’ high country. No one has seen a sign of his p
eople in many a long day, but now an’ then there are disappearances.”

  “That could be our fault,” Matthew said. “Them missin’ could be Misfits we rescue, despite th’ trouble we gan to to make the disappearances seem natural.”

  “Ye’d be right, of course! It could nowt be that th’ Druid is doin’ his own recruitin’. ’Tis nowt possible the disappearances are the reason th’ Council takes an interest in th’ high country!” Louis huffed sarcastically.

  “But if the Druid is taking people, where is he? An why haven’t we been able to locate his camp in farseeking searches?” I asked.

  The outrage on the old man’s face melted into genuine puzzlement. “ ’Tis strange enow. I would have said th’ Druid had gone. But if he’s nowt away from th’ White Valley, yer expedition route mun be more dangerous than goin’ th’ main way.”

  “Have you mentioned this to Rushton?” I asked.

  Louis gave me a look of sly entreaty. “Fact is, I only just heard it. Ought to tell th’ master, but I’ve a yen to go on this expedition. I’d like to see th’ lowlands once afore I die,” he added. “Ye could put in a word for me.”

  “Ridiculous,” Matthew said. “Ye’ll live forever, ye ol’ fake!”

  “I will speak to Rushton,” I said.

  Louis’s eyes were fixed on my face, and whatever he saw there made him smile sourly. “Ye do that,” he said.

  After he had gone, Matthew looked at me incredulously. “Why did ye let him bluff ye? Rushton’ll nivver agree!”

  “Because if Rushton heard this, he would be bound to cancel the expedition or at least delay it. And Louis knows it. Besides, he might …”

  “What th’ devil?” Matthew muttered, hearing a wild yell from the courtyard behind us.

  Zarak and Lina of the Beastspeaking guild ran up to us. Both were white-faced.

  “Guildmistress, we have to talk to you!” Lina gasped.

  “Well?” I snapped, in no mood for their antics. Then Zarak looked up, his eyes miserable and frightened, and suddenly I was filled with apprehension. “What is it?”

  Lina answered, “We were sitting in the kitchen garden, and Zarak was …” She trailed off and glared at Zarak, who was now staring at his feet. I restrained an urge to shake him.

  He burst out, “I know I’m not supposed to farseek, Guildmistress, but you don’t know what it’s like—being able to make your mind fly and not being allowed to do it. I only meant to go a little way, but it felt so wonderful. Then I bumped into someone. A stranger!”

  I stared at him coldly. “You know even farseeker novices do not farseek beyond the mountains.” He nodded. “Do you know why we have this rule?” He nodded again. “Tell me,” I snapped.

  “Because they might bump into a wild Talent … and not be able to shield well enough to stop them … tracing back to Obernewtyn,” he mumbled. “But I swear it was someone as untrained as I am. He couldn’t have traced me. He thought I was an evil spirit.”

  I felt a sneaking sympathy for Zarak, who was in the wrong guild because his father was a beastspeaker. But I showed none of these thoughts on my face. Zarak had to learn to curb his curiosity, for all our sakes.

  “Then since you know the rules, it is not a matter of ignorance but of deliberate disobedience,” I said coldly. Zarak hung his head, flushing. “You will go at once to Javo and tell him you will be available for heavy kitchen work until I say otherwise. You will be suspended from the Beastspeaking guild for the same period. I will speak to Alad and your father. Or do you want to lodge an appeal at the next guildmerge?”

  Zarak shook his head.

  Matthew nodded approvingly. “A fool who knows he is a fool is near to becomin’ wise.”

  Lina fidgeted and looked at Zarak. “You’d better tell them everything,” she advised.

  Zarak bit his lip. “I might be wrong. It was so quick,” he said, then floundered to a halt.

  “What now?” Matthew asked.

  Zarak said nothing.

  “The person Zarak bumped into,” Lina said with a sigh. “He thinks it was a Herder.”

  4

  “DO YE THINK it were truly a Herder?” Matthew asked dubiously when the Farseeker guild met the following day.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Misfits have come to us from almost every walk of life. Why not from the Herder cloisters?”

  Matthew frowned. “But would nowt they just burn any Misfit they found among themselves? They have th’ right to do it.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. The Council might, but the Herders are subtle enough to think of using a Misfit for their own purposes.”

  “You think this accidental meeting was no accident?” asked an older farseeker.

  I shrugged. “Accidental on Zarak’s part.”

  “Maybe Zarak was wrong about not being traced,” Ceirwan said.

  I shook my head. “I think he would have been able to tell, but we’ll have to make sure, pending Rushton’s approval. Have you traced the path from Zarak’s memory?”

  Ceirwan nodded. “Whoever he touched minds with was in a cloister, all right—in Darthnor, of all places.”

  “Darthnor. A town full of pro-Herder bigots and fanatics. Wonderful,” Matthew said darkly.

  Later that day, I went down to the farms. Ostensibly, I wanted to organize wagons for the expedition to the lowlands. But I was also curious to talk to Alad about the horses. The Beastspeaking guildmaster was nowhere to be seen, but I noticed a dark stallion grazing nearby.

  He looked up warily at my approach. “Greetings, funaga.”

  I was surprised at his guarded tone. “Greetings, equine,” I sent. “Do you know where Alad Beastspeaking guildmaster is?”

  The horse looked at me measuringly. “Who knows where the funaga go?” he sent coolly.

  All at once, I realized whom I was talking to.

  Alad had encountered the black horse in the town of Guanette. Half starved, he had been trying to pull a cart loaded with furniture, five plump children, and a fat, dirty gypsy man cursing and lashing out with a whip. Alad had told me the horse’s imaginative mental curses had attracted his attention—that and his strength of mental projection.

  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 vi
olently 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!”