The Seeker

  Renewed, we went on.

  Not far ahead were more trees. The bandages on my feet were filthy, and I suspected the wounds were bleeding again, but the pain was less intense.

  We trudged the remainder of the day without stopping. The trees proved less dense than they had been in the first belt, and gradually, the slope became slighter and walking less arduous. Darga assured me we were still some distance from the poisoned region, which was close to the other end of the pass. Obernewtyn still seemed far away. I could hardly believe that in a few days we would be home.

  I looked up through the trees at the dim, bleary afternoon fading into a smoky twilight, and shivered, glad of the blankets Brydda had insisted we carry. Winter had begun. It struck me that the first falls of snow would have blanketed the higher mountain valleys. Very soon, snow would fall at Obernewtyn, if it had not already. I shivered again and pulled my cloak around my shoulders. The moon had begun to fatten in its cycle and should have lit our way clearly, but though visible, it produced a wan, strained light, and we were forced to set our torches to flame. We halted momentarily at Darga’s warning that we were on the verge of badly poisoned ground.

  “Can you find a safe way across it?” I asked him.

  He sniffed. “I can smell clean ground ahead,” he assured me. We both knew it would be safer to wait until daylight to go on, but I had the queer feeling the delays were bringing us close to some disaster.

  I looked over to where Jik was continuing his language lessons with the bemused Dragon. “Ready?” I asked.

  Jik looked across at me unsmilingly, and for an instant he looked suddenly old and frail, as near to death as Pavo. Then he smiled, and the impression vanished.

  We walked single file from then on, Darga leading the way through a stand of giant trees with monstrously gnarled and misshapen trunks and thick, dark roots writhing up out of the ground. I thought I had seen such trees beyond the compound wall in Matthew’s vision and hoped it meant we were nearing the other end of the pass.

  At the same time, the ground beneath our feet became wet and soft. Our feet made sucking noises that echoed in the silence. The torchlight flickered on dark, odorous puddles of water that seeped into the slightest depression of earth. There seemed no source for the dampness. The light made a bizarre shadow play on the twisted tree trunks, making them look like the faces of ancient men and women. Dragon eyed them doubtfully as we passed.

  After a time, the wind rose, and leaves flapped sluggishly, heavy with moisture. We waded through a thick blanket of them, and the smell of the festering layers of leaves below filled the air with a sweet, rotten scent that made us all gag.

  Darga sent a constant dialogue of instructions as the way became more fraught with danger, and I began to regret not stopping. He warned against certain plants, trees, and even areas of bare ground, guiding us through the poisonous labyrinth. Without him, we would have been helpless, for there was scant outward sign of the poisons other than the distorted sizes and shapes of the trees and bushes growing all around us.

  In the end, the dog called a halt, saying he needed to rest. We went on until he found a patch of ground relatively clean of taint. My feet no longer gave me any trouble, for an ominous numbness had deprived them of all sensation. I felt I could walk over flames without feeling anything. I did not dare undo the bandages, afraid of what the loss of feeling might mean.

  We ate the last of our store of perishable foods and sipped at the meager remnant of water. I had wanted to fill the containers along the way, but Darga had pronounced all water in the pass tainted enough to make a person sick. We would have to ration what was left of the water to make sure it would last us out.

  I was drifting into a light, troubled sleep when a terrible, savage growling rent the air around us.

  21

  THE GROWLING SEEMED to vibrate in the air, even after it had ceased. Nothing stirred in the silence that followed except for a faint breeze tugging at our blankets.

  “What was that?” Jik whispered.

  I set my mind loose, searching, hampered by the static given off by the poisons. I found nothing. “Do you know what that was?” I asked Darga.

  “Some kind of animal,” he suggested unhelpfully.

  Dragon was crouched near a tree, her eyes wide with fright. I opened my mouth to reassure her, but another of the blood-chilling growls cut off my words. My skin puckered into gooseflesh.

  Again the growl faded, but still there was no sign of the creature that had made it. Neither Jik nor Darga were any more successful at locating the mind pattern of the monster. I encountered a number of barely sentient minor patterns, but these were mere flickers of instinct rather than thought.

  We gave up and sat around staring uneasily into the darkness around us.

  Five more times the eerie sounds shattered the night, and I began to suspect that it was not, as we had all feared, a signal for attack or a hunting cry. Even so, I could not help thinking that a creature who could make such a noise and conceal its mind might be clever enough to hide its intention.

  But there was no attack.

  Morning found us bleary-eyed and ill rested, for the sounds had seemed to grow nearer and more frequent as the night wore on. In the end, we decided there was more than one of the creatures, or one was circling us. Either prospect made for uneasy slumber.

  To our further dismay, we had not been walking long the next day before the giant stand of trees gave way abruptly to a seemingly endless mire reminiscent of the blighted Berryn Mor. Here the few trees that managed to grow in the sodden ground were thin and sickly looking, bereft of leaf and shrouded in a furry gray mold.

  The only reassuring thing about the spindly skeletons looming out of the mist was that they told us the water was quite shallow. The ground lay only a few handspans below the surface and, though soft, was firm enough to walk on. Darga went ahead, warning us to step exactly where he did, since there were holes and trenches all through the swamp. He said the water was tainted but only slightly.

  Tired and thirsty, we plodded doggedly after Darga. There was no possibility of resting until we reached dry ground. Soaking through my boots and stockings, the swamp water was tepid. An evil-smelling mist hung low over the surface of the water and swirled about our feet as we passed.

  We walked in silence, concentrating on keeping our footing and moving as quickly as we could, until Jik ventured a question.

  “If I fell in this water or touched one of those poisoned plants, would I die at once or slowly like Pavo?” he asked gravely.

  Repressing a flare of anguish at the thought of Pavo, I said, “I don’t know. I guess it depends on how potent it is. If it’s strong, it could work quickly. But if weak, like in the places we find whitestick, you have to be exposed to it over long periods of time before it does any harm.”

  He nodded thoughtfully, his brow furrowed. “What is whitestick, anyway?”

  I smiled. “Your guess is as good as anyone’s. Pavo says it is what was left by whatever caused the Great White, like ash from a fire. Once cleansed, it’s used for everything from starting fires to making medicines. But surely you know that much?”

  “I heard that the Herders make a kind of gas with it that makes your skin burn,” Jik said.

  I looked at him curiously. “I’ve never heard of that.”

  He shrugged. “It’s a secret. I heard them talk of experiments. A man who they tested it on was said to have gone blind from the gas, and then his skin blistered. It was terrible. I think he died.”

  The thought of whitestick being used for such a purpose disturbed me deeply. But perhaps it was only a story.

  “The Herders told us Lud sent the Great White because the Oldtimers were evil. But the Teknoguilders say the Beforetimers made the Great White happen on their own. Why would they do that?”

  I smiled at his insatiable curiosity for taboo subjects. “I doubt anyone meant to cause the Great White,” I said. “I believe it was a kind of accident. But no
one knows for sure. Not even the Herder Faction, even though they think they know everything.”

  “Did weapons make the Great White happen? Pavo told me some of the Oldtime weapons and poisons might still be hidden someplace, like the skyscrapers under Tor,” Jik said seriously.

  I forced myself not to react. “It’s possible,” I said slowly.

  “What would happen if someone found that kind of weapon? Someone like Ariel or the Druid? There might be another accident.…” His voice trailed off.

  “This is a bad place for such talk,” I said.

  The water bubbled all around us now, issuing clouds of colored gas. I noticed a greenish vapor first and pointed it out to Darga. He told me it was a poisonous gas but too weak to harm us. One virulent yellow gas was dangerous enough for Darga to give a wide berth, while a sickly blue shade made him backtrack hastily.

  The region of gases was narrow but seemed to take hours to negotiate. My nerves felt ragged by the time we left the mists behind. Suddenly, right in front of us, a bluish gas coalesced. Jik almost fell over in his effort to back away from it. I sent a quick command, and he steadied himself. “It’s Dragon,” I said. “She’s mimicking the gases.” Jik nodded, staring at the apparition unhappily. Noticing his expression, Dragon’s triumphant smile faded and the mist vanished.

  “Bad?” she asked contritely.

  “Good,” I said firmly. “Very good.”

  “More?” Dragon asked eagerly, waving her hands to indicate that she would make something huge and mysterious and complex.

  “Uh … maybe later,” Jik said sheepishly.

  As soon as the sun set, the dim day gave way to a starless night, and the air resounded again with the mysterious growling noises. They sounded much closer, and I could not get over the feeling that we were being stalked, despite another fruitless mind search.

  We were all relieved to stand on solid ground, though the darkness kept us from seeing what sort of land lay ahead. I decided we needed a break, having been unable to stop at all while crossing the swamp. We drank the last of our water with a feeling of recklessness. Already light-headed from lack of food, I prayed we were close to the compound.

  Lying with my back against a tree, I heard Darga beside me sniffing delicately, tasting the various scents of the night. I could smell nothing but the noxious swamp gases and my own filth. The dog was proving an invaluable member of our company. I wondered if his presence was the real truth that lay behind the vague futuretelling of Jik’s importance.

  A slight breeze ruffled my hair, and Darga lifted his head. “A storm comes,” he sent.

  I nodded impatiently. “But can you smell any funaga yet?”

  “I smell them,” Darga sent, confirming that we were nearing the end of the pass.

  I decided we would rest for a time and leave the pass in the very early morning hours. I slept heavily and dreamlessly. I woke only once to the sound of Jik’s laughter echoing in the darkness.

  He explained that he had been walking around to keep himself warm and alert on his watch, when he had nearly stepped on a small, lumpy-skinned swamp dweller with bulging eyes. Immediately, the frightened creature’s neck had blown up to three times its diminutive size, and it had let out the incredible growling rumble that had so mystified us. We had seen dozens of the creatures since leaving the area of bubbling mists, sitting on logs and blinking sleepily at us, but we had not connected the giant noises with such harmless life-forms.

  Jik’s suggestion that the dreadful calling was a kind of love song made me laugh until my stomach ached. I lay back to sleep finally, with a smile on my face. It was good to laugh. I had been doubly amused to find that Darga took Jik’s guess quite seriously. Beasts lacked only one funaga virtue that I regretted, and that was a sense of humor.

  “You may call it a lack,” Darga broke into my thoughts. “So might I lack a pain in my head.” That made me laugh again.

  I had intended to stand last watch, but Jik had not woken me, saying he had felt wide awake and thought I might as well sleep while I could.

  I stretched, feeling oddly lethargic. I threw the blanket away from me, realizing it was hot. At once, my feet began to ache with a new pain, and my head and neck felt damp. I looked down at my feet uneasily. Standing carefully, I could not stifle a gasp of pain at the hot fire shooting up my legs.

  “What is it?” Jik asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “My feet have gone to sleep.” It was not easy to lie to an empath, but Jik was young and untrained.

  I turned away from him to hide the fear in my eyes. The numbness that had enabled me to climb the Olden way had been too good to be true. I forced myself to face something that I had known for a while. My feet had become infected. Fighting off a dull drowsiness, I roused the others, deliberately isolating the awareness of the pain.

  This was a dangerous thing to do, and Roland forbade it in all but the most extreme need. Pain suppressed was pain in waiting. Eventually, it had to be endured, and the longer it was allowed to accumulate, the more devastating its final effect. It was possible to suppress minor pain for so long that the accumulation, when released, could stop one’s heart. I knew I would pay dearly for my suppression, but if I could suppress it until we reached home, Roland could have the healers siphon off some of the pain.

  Resolutely, I went on, refusing to allow myself to think about the consequences if I failed to reach Obernewtyn before the pass was closed.

  We had been walking less than an hour when Darga stopped abruptly, his fur bristling. “Funaga. Just ahead,” he sent.

  I told the others to wait and limped through the trees. Catching sight of a low wall, I had to fight back tears of relief. This was the last obstacle between us and Obernewtyn.

  I peered over the wall warily.

  Three or four armsmen stood talking near the diggings. The yellow sky cast an ivory light on their faces, turning their flesh a sickly, sallow hue.

  On the other side of the clearing, nearest the gate, an armsman was deep in an argument with a white-robed Druid acolyte. The acolyte looked angry. A few steps away stood another armsman, leaning on his spear and yawning. There was a lot more open space than I remembered from Matthew’s vision and no way of passing over it unnoticed without a diversion.

  Jik brought Dragon up to the fence just as a low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. Dragon shuddered from head to toe, pointing at the sky and gibbering fearfully. I patted her arm, realizing she was afraid of the storm. That was all we needed.

  I turned to Darga, who was looking up and sniffing the wind.

  “We’ll have to go straightaway. Dragon’s frightened of the storm, and she might not be able to make a vision if she gets any more agitated.”

  As if to underline my words, lightning flashed directly overhead, and Dragon cowered to the ground, hands over her ears. I had a sudden impression that time was folding back on itself. My general sense of apprehension had increased to the point where it bordered on premonition, but I knew the suppression of pain could confuse the other senses. And Dragon’s growing agitation made it imperative we move at once.

  I stroked her face gently, and slowly she relaxed. It took some time to make her understand what was needed, but in the end she nodded.

  A moment later, the man leaning on his spear gave a muffled shout, and another man actually screamed with such terror that my hair stood on end. Then chaos broke out across the compound. For a moment, there was a hail of cries and panicked shouts. Peering through a crack in the fence, I could see no sign of any apparition and wondered what Dragon had conjured up. I watched until the clearing was deserted, then hissed at the others to run.

  Lightning flashed as we thrust aside the barrier of stakes, but no one cried out. I saw a lone man running frantically for the huts; everyone else was already inside.

  Lightning flashed with lurid brilliance, and for a second, our shadows ran before us, elongated and sharp edged, merging with the tree line just before us.

&n
bsp; We had reached the White Valley!

  Thunder crashed again, and this time the air vibrated with its force.

  As soon as we reached the trees, I urged the others to run ahead and slowed to a limping walk. There was no more need to run, and I did not want to aggravate the suppression any further. Preoccupied, I failed to notice a rock in the grass and tripped, sprawling on the ground. Hearing my involuntary cry, Dragon turned as if to help me. Then she froze.

  I looked up at her, puzzled, and my heart jerked with sickening force. Her face was a grotesque mask of terror. She began to shriek hysterically. I looked over my shoulder to see what she had seen.

  Less than fifty spans away ran a wall of fire, and there was no mistaking the greenish tint of the flames or the blue crackle in the air. I had seen it before—the miscolored sky, the dull, bleared light—but I had not recognized it.

  A firestorm, and we were out in the open!

  22

  “GET UP AND run, girl, unless you want to die!” cried a voice.

  Wrenched violently to my feet, I found myself half dragged, half carried along by a tall, brown-faced youth. Dragon ran ahead of us, wild with terror.

  “That way. There are caves,” he shouted, pointing. Dragon swerved the way he indicated, disappearing into the trees. The acrid smoke billowed around us, and dimly, I heard the muffled crash of thunder in the distance. A wave of heat flowed over us. I dared not glance over my shoulder to see how near the flames were. All I could think of was the burning of my mother and father. The screams and the dreadful smell.

  “Thank Lud!” the youth said harshly as the trees parted to reveal a rough hill of granite knolls.

  “Inside, there,” he said, thrusting me unceremoniously into a shallow cave in the side of the steep, stony hillock. “This is not deep enough, but there’s no time to search further. Pray the wind changes, or we’ll fry.” He had to shout over the roar of the flames bearing down on us.