The Seeker

  For a moment, he actually seemed taken aback; then he shrugged. “I hardly think the opinions of one Misfit will trouble me too much,” he said. “Now get up. It is time for you to return to the house.”

  I got to my feet, knowing I had been stupid to speak up as I had, for an overseer would certainly have power enough to make me regret my outburst. The weariness in my body had somehow crept into my spirit, and I said nothing as we made our way to the maze gate, collecting others along the way. Rushton left us with an older girl who unlocked the gate and led us through the maze.

  I did not see Matthew or Dameon, and guessed they had gone back with an earlier group. I felt isolated and dispirited.

  I thought of Enoch’s warm recommendation of Rushton, wondering how they had become friends. Certainly it was impossible to imagine the cold, stern Rushton as anyone’s friend.

  Thinking of Enoch made me think of Maruman and wonder again where the story of a cat searching for a funaga had originated. If only he were safe with the friendly old coachman. Surely it must be so. The coach horses could easily have told one of the animals on the farm about Maruman when Enoch came to Obernewtyn. But again I remembered that I’d seen no new faces recently. And what other reason would Enoch have for coming to Obernewtyn save to deliver a new Misfit?

  13

  I WAS IN one of the tower rooms at Obernewtyn, a room I had not seen before. It was very small and round. There was a tiny window and a door leading to a balcony.

  I was about to go outside when I heard voices and realized I had no right to be there. I cringed against a wall, seeking a place to hide. Then I heard a strange keening noise, a grinding sound like metal against metal, only more musical. There was a note in the noise not unlike a scream.

  As I drifted out of the dream, the noise seemed to carry on into my waking state. It was a tantalizingly familiar sound, I realized, not something that I had ever heard in my life, but a sound that oft came to me in dreams.

  Thunder rolled in the air.

  I opened my eyes to see Cameo hasten into my room. I usually woke to the sound of the bedroom door being unlocked in the morning, but I knew I had overslept when I saw the other beds were empty.

  “Are you all right?” Cameo said. “You yelled out, and I was passing.…” She faltered, unsure of her welcome.

  I forced a smile. “I was having a nightmare that a horse was about to trample me,” I said lightly as I climbed out of bed.

  Uninvited, Cameo sat and watched me dress. She was very pale. “I have dreams that frighten me, too,” she said in a grave tone. I stared at her curiously, but she seemed lost in her thoughts.

  “Nightmares,” I suggested gently.

  A tear slid down her nose and dripped onto her clasped hands. “True dreams,” she said. “That’s why they sent me here. But they are getting worse. I dream something is trying to get me, something horrible and evil.” She dropped her head into her hands and wept in earnest.

  I patted her shoulder awkwardly. “Perhaps it only feels like a true dream. I have heard it’s hard to tell,” I said.

  She looked up, and a wave of exhaustion crossed her face, making her look suddenly much older. “I am so tired,” she said. “I try not to go to sleep, because I’m scared of what I will dream.”

  I did not know what to say. She reminded me of Maruman in one of his fits, and there was never anything I could do to soothe him when he was under the sway of his strange dreams. Then the hair on my neck prickled, and I looked up to see Ariel watching us from the open doorway.

  “What is going on here?” he demanded.

  I glanced at Cameo, who sat white and silent, staring at her feet, and I remembered how she had happily chattered to Ariel when he had taken us to the farms. Yet now she would not look at him, and he regarded her like a hunter deciding when to loose the killing arrow. Perhaps he had appeared in her true dreams.

  “What did you want?” I asked insolently, wanting to draw his attention from Cameo. He gave me a hard look, then told us to hurry up and assemble at the inner maze gate, for we had already missed firstmeal.

  Thunder rumbled all morning over the farms but no rain fell. The sky was a thick, congested gray with streaks of milky white clouds strung low in fibers from east to west. I ate midmeal with little appetite, despite having missed firstmeal. A foreboding feeling filled me. I could not talk to Dameon and Matthew about Cameo, because two other boys sat near us and engaged them in conversation.

  Before we went back to work, Matthew did manage to tell me quickly that the boys he had been talking to were acquaintances of Rushton’s. Matthew found their sudden friendliness suspicious.

  “We’d better be careful,” he warned. “I wouldn’t like anyone to find out what we can do. I can just imagine the doctor wanting to experiment on us.”

  His words made my blood run cold. “Doctor?” I asked, the word unfamiliar.

  “It is an Oldtime word meaning a person who studies healing,” Matthew said.

  I wanted to ask more, but there was no chance, for Rushton had arrived and was looking pointedly at us.

  Since my outburst at the milking sheds several weeks before, the overseer had been curt, but he did not say anything to me apart from giving me instructions. I had expected some punishment, but nothing happened. That afternoon I was to spend with Louis Larkin learning how to make butter. I spent quite a lot of time with Louis and was looking after the horses and some goats. Best of all, I liked the time I spent alone with the horses. Sharna, who lived with Louis, usually spent that time with me.

  I spent midmeals with Dameon and Matthew, and when it was safe, we talked, insatiably curious about the very different lives each of us had lived. Matthew had come from the highlands not too far from Guanette and had been able to hide his abilities under his mother’s guidance. After she died, he had lived alone in her shack, poaching and fishing and generally living close to the bone, and he developed a reputation for being odd. A group of village boys constantly tormented him. Finally, several of the ringleaders in the gang came to harm. One fell from a roof, and another ate poisoned fish. The village called in the Council and claimed Matthew was dangerous. No one could explain how Matthew, with his lame foot, had hurt the boys, but the Council had been convinced, and he was declared a Misfit.

  Astonishingly, Dameon was the son of a Councilman, who had left him vast properties upon his death. But a cousin had conspired to have him declared a Misfit. I was amazed at Dameon’s lack of resentment. But he said he had never really felt like a Councilman’s son. Because of his ability, he had always felt less than certain about his future. “And, after all, despite my cousin’s lies, I am a Misfit,” he had laughed.

  Whenever Cameo came to work on the farms, she would join us. I had thought I would have to argue for her inclusion, since she had no abilities beyond dreaming true, but as it turned out, Matthew was quite fond of her, and Cameo swiftly came to adore him. I wondered what Dameon felt of what was growing between them, thinking it must be odd always to be feeling what other people felt. I was curious how he could tell the difference between other people’s feelings and his own.

  Midway through one afternoon later that week, Matthew came to the milking shed with a message for Louis and stayed on talking. Usually Louis discouraged gossip during work time, but that day he seemed inclined to conversation.

  “Any news?” Matthew asked casually.

  Louis was at times a fountain of highland news. It was hard to tell where he got it from, since he appeared to hate almost everyone. I suspected some of it came via Enoch, who was certain to know the old Misfit.

  “Nowt much,” the old man answered Matthew.

  Matthew grinned at me and waited, and presently the old man went on. “Mind ye, rumor has it something is gannin on in th’ highlands.” Our interest quickened as he took his pipe out, for it was a sure sign he was in an expansive mood.

  “I’ve known for an age something was up,” he continued. “Too many strangers up in the high c
ountry, sayin’ they lived out a way when it was a lie. ’Tis nowt enough just to listen to what people tells ye. Ye have to look in their eyes an’ watch what they do. An’ them folk belongs to th’ towns.”

  I exchanged a puzzled look with Matthew as Louis relit his pipe.

  “But why would they lie?” Matthew prompted.

  “Think, boy,” Louis retorted with sudden scorn. “What would towns folk be doin’ up here to begin’ with? They’re up to some mischief.”

  “I heard Henry Druid lived up there still, that he wasn’t dead. Maybe the Council is sending people to look for him,” I suggested.

  The old man looked at me sharply. “ ’Tis nowt th’ Council; I’ll say that straight. They stay away from th’ mountains. They get paid to stay out.”

  “I nivver heard the Druid was alive,” Matthew said, looking at me curiously.

  “A man like Henry Druid would not be easy to kill,” Louis said, almost as if he knew the man.

  Matthew looked at me, sending a quick thought that trouble in the highlands would detract attention from any escapes. We had spoken of escape, but not with any real intention. Yet there was a seriousness in his mind that told me he had thought of it more often than I’d realized.

  Matthew persisted. “Th’ last trouble in the high country was his defection, wasn’t it?”

  Louis frowned. “Aye. That’d be some ten years ago now. A long time ago past,” he said after a pause.

  “Maybe he’s planning to attack the Council,” Matthew said. “For revenge.”

  Louis shook his head. “Henry Druid must be over forty now. Not a hothead anymore. He was smart, I heard, and smart turns into cunning when ye get old. He’d never win in an outright battle against th’ soldierguards. He’d find some other way. Though he would hate th’ Council enough, to be sure. His son an’ one of his daughters were killed in th’ troubles,” Louis added.

  “What was it all over anyway?” asked Matthew.

  “Nobody knows for sure what started it,” Louis answered. “Ye’ll hear th’ Council say he was a seditious rebel settin’ to take over an’ drag the Land back into the Age of Chaos, but that’s only one side to th’ story, an’ Henry Druid ain’t here to talk in his defense. But he was a scholar, not a soldier. I dinna think he would even consider war. Not unless he were sure of winnin’.”

  “I heard he was a Herder,” I said. “No wonder there was such a fuss. It was all over forbidden books, wasn’t it?”

  Louis nodded his head approvingly. “Aye. That’s what began it. The Council decided to burn all Oldtime books. Henry Druid had a huge collection of ’em, an’ he looked after th’ Herder library, too. The Herders agreed with the Council, but Henry Druid refused. He was a popular man, an’ he called on friends to help him. I dinna think he had any idea of what would happen. The soldierguards killed some of his friends and burned his whole house down, books an’ all. The Herder Faction disowned him, and they were plannin’ to execute him as an example. But he escaped with some followers, an’ no one’s seen them since. Leastways, no one who’s talkin’,” he added craftily. “It seemed a good idea at th’ time, to burn all th’ books that had caused th’ Oldtimes to go wrong. But now … I ain’t so sure.” Louis’s eyes were troubled, as if he recalled some long past battle with himself.

  “He should have been able to keep th’ books,” Matthew declared, ever the advocate of the Beforetime.

  “I dinna know about that either,” Louis said sternly. “Maybe Henry Druid only wanted a look at th’ past an’ had no mind to seek trouble. Then again, maybe he was after some of th’ power th’ Oldtimers had.”

  “You mean th’ Beforetimers’ magic?” Matthew asked.

  “Magic! Pah!” Louis scoffed. “I dinna think for one moment they was any more magic than us. Not th’ sort of magic ye find in fairy stories, anyhow. Some of th’ things they could do might seem like magic to us now. But ’tis my feeling they was just mighty clever people—too clever for their own good.”

  “Well, I think they were magic!” Matthew said stubbornly. “An’ I think Lud would never have destroyed them.”

  That was as close as you could get to outright sedition—and to Louis, who we all agreed was interesting but probably not to be trusted.

  But the old man only puffed at his pipe for a minute. “Boy,” he said finally. “Ye mun be careful of what ye say. It ain’t safe to be blatherin’ out every crazy notion. As to what ye said, well, ye could be right. But if ye are, then who made th’ Great White? Yer wonderful Beforetimers, that’s who.”

  Matthew’s face was stricken, and he did not answer. I remembered that Maruman believed much the same thing.

  “However it happened, everything was changed by the Great White,” Louis told him, almost gently. “Even th’ seasons have changed. Once they were all a similar length. Nothing is like it was in th’ Beforetime. The Great White killed th’ Beforetime, an’ it woke lots of queer things. It ain’t th’ same world now.”

  He puffed at his pipe again before continuing. “But maybe th’ Beforetimers left some things hidden. Maybe there might be something left, and maybe Henry Druid’s books were nowt harmless. Just in case Matthew is right an’ th’ holocaust were man-made, it might be better to leave that stuff hidden. After all, we dinna want to be finding out how they did it.”

  “But we wouldn’t have to use the magic like they did,” Matthew said at last.

  Louis shook his head. “Dinna say it, lad. Ye dinna know what ye’d do. Power has a way of … changin’ a person. In th’ end, what would all that power do to yer good intentions?”

  From that day on, thoughts of escape began to plague me.

  Discovering I was no solitary freak had given rise to the notion that life seemed worth more than just endurance. Obernewtyn hadn’t turned out as badly as I had feared, but any way you looked at it, the place was still a prison. And I wanted to be free. I wanted to find Maruman and make a home for us. I imagined a remote farm where we could live quietly with Dameon and Matthew. Cameo, too.

  One cloud-filled morning that same week, I was thinking of how useful our abilities might be in throwing off any pursuit, when I was assailed by a premonition of danger as potent as the one I had experienced before Obernewtyn’s head keeper had come to the Kinraide orphan home. I had such strong premonitions rarely, and they never revealed much—only that some threat loomed.

  Later that day, the promise of rain was fulfilled with a vengeance. The dark skies opened, and the raindrops that fell were big and forceful. Everyone took shelter; those in the orchards ran for the nearest buildings, and even the cows and horses came under cover. I stayed in the shed, milking the cows and listening to the drumming noise the rain made on the tin roof. The disquiet that the premonition had roused gradually faded, and the downpour ended obligingly just before I was due to go back through the maze.

  Ariel was waiting at the gate with the others when I arrived, and I was surprised by the air of gloom among them. I thought it was on account of the rain until, when Ariel turned to unlock the maze gate, one of the girls leaned near and whispered, “Madam Vega has returned. Ariel just told us.” Her eyes were frightened, and I felt that old fluttery terror come back into my stomach.

  It wasn’t as if anything had really changed, but all at once I realized what had struck me about the atmosphere at Obernewtyn since I had come here. It had been waiting.…

  14

  I HAD THOUGHT I would be summoned by Madam Vega at once. But as the days passed much as before, I wondered whether I could have been wrong about the premonition.

  Then I discovered something that drove my nagging worry over the head keeper to the back of my thoughts. Dameon told me he heard Cameo had been receiving “treatments” from the doctor since Madam Vega’s return. No one knew precisely what the treatments were, but I remembered the talk at my trial concerning a “cure” for Misfit minds. I found it odd and rather frightening that so little was known of the treatments when Cameo could not have
been the first to receive them.

  Strangest of all was Cameo’s reaction when I asked about her visits to the doctor’s chamber. She just stared at me in surprise and said she didn’t know what I was talking about. With anyone else, I might have thought they were lying, but not Cameo. She was not made for guile.

  Dameon suggested that Cameo and perhaps all those who received the doctor’s treatments had been subjected to an Oldtime technique called hypnosis, which could prevent them from remembering what had been done to them. Hypnosis sounded to me like a form of what I called coercion, and I almost said as much. But I had not explained my ability in this area to Dameon or Matthew, fearing they might react uncomfortably to a companion capable of tampering with their minds.

  But we agreed, under the circumstances, that I should probe Cameo. To my astonishment, I found a series of blocks at different levels in her mind. They were not natural shields, and I did not see how hypnosis, as Dameon had described it, could have produced them. The worst thing about them was that they were clumsily made and had damaged her mind. This, I thought, might be the reason for both her nightmares and her physical weakening. I suspected I could have forced my way through the blocks, but to do so might hurt Cameo even more.

  I withdrew from her, feeling confused and helpless. Most of all, I wondered why her mind had been blocked. What had this Doctor been doing to make him so determined to conceal the nature of his treatments?

  It was a week before I saw Cameo again, at a nightmeal. She looked terrible, and Matthew went nearly as white as she was when he saw her enter the dining chamber. He hastened to bring her to join us. When Dameon asked gently where she had been, she would not meet any of our eyes, and said only that she had been ill and resting in a place where they kept sick Misfits. It was impossible to press her any harder. She was clearly happy to see us, and she talked and laughed more as the meal progressed, but there was a brittleness to her behavior, and she had lost a frightening amount of weight.