“Ariel’s prohibitions,” Mendi corrected.
I was lying in a puddle of water I had vomited up, marveling bitterly at the irony that I had told them the truth about Ariel, yet for all their suspicions and doubts about him, they did not believe me. They were now arguing about whether to go on asking about Ariel or to try finding out how I had come aboard the Stormdancer. They were convinced that I had been in alliance with the mutants aboard the sunken Orizon, but they could not see why a group of mutants would come to Herder Isle at all, when there were thousands of Hedra to oppose them even if they managed the impossible and breached the wall and the black gates.
I felt a renewed ache of sorrow for the coercers who had drowned when the Orizon was sunk. My thoughts shifted to Ariel, and I wondered what plans he could have had that would involve allowing us to find Rushton.
I stifled the urge to cough, knowing it would draw the deadly attention of the Threes. If only I could faint, I thought. They would not be able to do anything to me until I woke. But for all Mendi’s sneering, Grisyl was a skilled torturer. Darkness had fluttered at the edge of my vision many times since we had entered the cell, yet Grisyl had never once allowed me to lose consciousness. And he had known when I had tried to pretend. Time and time again, I swallowed the foul water into which I was dipped, but the moment I could hold my breath no more and sucked it into my lungs, I would be hauled out, thrown on the floor, and the water pushed out of me by Bedig.
And all this was a prelude to what Ariel would do when he returned. Fear slipped through me like a cold blade, but I thought of the scribed words of a Beforetimer that Pavo had once quoted to me: A brave person dies but once; a coward many times. I thought of Lark and wondered wearily whether he and his father and the crew of the Stormdancer were even now in the compound being interrogated, too. Save them, I prayed to the three goddesses worshipped by the Norselanders.
“Try again,” Mendi said, dragging my head up by the hair. “Make her tell you how she got aboard the ship.”
“Why don’t you try?” snarled Grisyl.
“Defeated already?” Mendi asked scornfully. “You have no stamina. I will show you how to have her begging to speak the truth. Bedig, remove her clothes.”
Before the Hedra captain could obey, boots approached the cell door. Mendi dropped me to the floor as the door swung open with a rusty whine. I forced my eyes open, wanting to see who entered, but the barrel into which I had been repeatedly dipped blocked my view.
“Zuria,” Mendi said warily.
“You are to come at once, both of you. The One summons us,” announced a cold, haughty voice.
“We have spoken to our master already, Zuria. You will have to make your report yourself,” Mendi said slyly.
Zuria replied sharply, “It was the One who sent for all of us to attend him. Shall I go and tell him you two are otherwise occupied?”
“We will come, naturally,” Grisyl said.
“Of course we will, but I do not understand this summons when we were with the One not two hours past,” Mendi grumbled. “Are we to bring the mutant with us?”
“Mutant?” Zuria asked.
“The mutant found hiding aboard the Stormdancer. The one Ariel’s null foresaw,” Mendi said irritably, pointing down at me.
Footsteps came toward me. Someone knelt beside me, and I clenched my teeth to steel myself against the pain of being lifted by my hair. But instead I was turned gently onto my back and the sodden curtain of my hair lifted away from my face.
If I had possessed any breath for it, I would have cried out in astonishment, because staring down at me, clad in a split Herder robe, his head shaven, was the Misfit coercer Harwood.
“GUILDMISTRESS!” HARWOOD CRIED, shock draining his face of color.
“Har, what are you …?” The face that appeared above his shoulder was that of another coercer, Veril. He, too, wore a Hedra robe and was shaved bald. Seeing me, concern became incredulity. “Guildmistress!” he gasped. “But how … ?”
“Quiet,” Harwood told him urgently, keeping his voice low. His eyes sought mine. “Guildmistress, can you speak? Are you badly injured?”
I managed to shake my head and relief flashed in his eyes, but it was nothing to what I felt—astonishment so great that it was as if a hot river surged through me, warming my overwrought flesh and numb spirit. Harwood bent closer to examine the demon band and then shook his head. “It needs a key.” He turned his head and looked at someone out of my sight. After a moment, he sighed in frustration. “None of these bastard Threes or the Hedra have one! Help me get her up, Veril.”
They lifted me to my feet, but I was so dizzy and nauseated that it took me some seconds to notice that Zuria, Mendi, Grisyl, and Bedig were standing docilely in a row against the wall, staring at the floor. My knees buckled and I retched, but I had already voided the contents of my stomach. Harwood helped me to a stool against the wall, looking worried.
“How … how did you both get here?” I rasped.
“Aboard the Stormdancer. Eleven of us came as part of the so-called retreating Hedra force. But you?”
“I was aboard the Stormdancer, too.… I didn’t sense you.”
“We wore demon bands. We had to or we would have been recognized as impostors, and there was no time to have false ones made. But how did you get aboard the Stormdancer?”
“Later,” I said. “What happened in the Land?”
Harwood shrugged. “I don’t know a lot of it. After you left for the cloister, Linnet sent the eleven of us down to the sea caves with supplies and instructions to wait for the invading ships. She told us to board if we had the chance. We shaved our heads and planned to steal robes from Malik’s men and coerce them to ease us on board. We had plenty of demon bands that we had taken from Vos’s armsmen. But Linnet and Reuvan came to tell us that the Land was swarming with Hedra who had been hiding within the old cloister.
“Reuvan said that Aben died trying to probe Malik when they reached Sutrium. Dardelan had immediately begun assembling a force to ride back to Saithwold. Reuvan had been sent to warn us and rode into the middle of the fighting.” The coercer took a steadying breath and said, “Linnet said the knights, Vos’s armsmen, and all the fighters Noviny had been able to muster were concentrating on keeping the invaders away from the beach, because they had learned from a captured Hedra that three ships were to drop hundreds of Hedra on the beach where we were hiding. Reuvan said that Dardelan had specifically charged him with making sure that the ships didn’t leave.”
“Why were they keeping the invaders away from the beach?” I interrupted.
“Because Linnet had coerced a Hedra captain and his men into believing they had been defeated. The plan was to send them rushing to meet the arriving Hedra with such dreadful tales of massacre and mayhem as would turn them back, convinced that the force from the sea cavern were all dead except these few. The retreat would give us cover to board the ships. As soon as they had retreated, one of the coerced men was supposed to break down and admit that he had been forced to say what he had said, and then he would tell them that the battle was still raging. The Nine would immediately command the Hedra ashore again, and that would leave the way clear for us to take control of the ships. And hopefully by the time the Hedra did get ashore again, Dardelan and his people would have arrived to reinforce Linnet’s band of fighters.”
“So what happened?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Everything went according to plan to begin with. The Hedra went ashore, and after a time, they began to retreat. Then things started going wrong. We had intended to get aboard the Orizon. We talked it over and decided to focus on one ship rather than spread ourselves over three, and the Orizon was anchored closest to the caves. But when the retreat started, the Orizon got under way much faster than we expected, so by the time we had caught our eleven men, stripped them, and donned their clothes, we had no choice but to board the Stormdancer.”
“You know that the Orizon …”
/> He nodded soberly. “We saw it from the deck of the Stormdancer. I guess Ariel’s null envisioned us talking about the Orizon in the caves and missed the last-minute change of plan.”
“Maybe,” I said. “So what happened when you got aboard?”
Harwood sighed. “None of us had reckoned on the ship’s actually leaving, because the coerced captain was supposed to break down and admit he had been made to lie, whereupon everyone would rush ashore again. Unfortunately, Kaga was so furious about the retreat that he killed the captain who had ordered it, so no one could reveal that the Hedra were not truly defeated. We dared not call attention to ourselves by suggesting the dead captain might have been coerced, so before we knew it, we were on our way to Herder Isle. We were not too worried, because Linnet had told us the bands were always taken off once the ships lifted anchor. We figured that once that happened, we would take control and coerce the shipmaster of the Stormdancer to put in at Sutrium. But the Nine was so frantic about the Hedra captain’s description of our force that he commanded everyone to keep their bands on. We might still have managed to get control, but then the Black Ship turned back and sank the Orizon, and we knew that if the Stormdancer did turn toward Sutrium, Salamander would destroy it. So we had no choice but to let the ship come here. Before we knew it, we were marching with the rest of the Hedra through the black gates. I have to tell you that when they closed behind us, I thought we were all doomed.” He shook his head. “Then up comes a boy in black with a basket, and we all take off our demon bands! By the time Kaga had marched us to our barracks, we had control of him and a good many of the other Hedra.
“Our initial plan was to escape from the compound, but when Zuria marched in demanding to know what had been happening, I realized that we could take him with us to ease our way, for who would dare to oppose a Three? Taking him with us would also give us a unique chance to learn more about the Herder Faction and its long-term plans. I was just beginning to coerce him when a message came from the One summoning all the Threes. Veril suggested we take all of them with us as prisoners. In one stroke, we would deprive the Faction of its head and have the means to learn everything about its inner workings! It was a brilliant idea, so I coerced Zuria to take Veril and me with him to find the other Threes. That is when we found you!”
I looked at the Threes, still standing in a row, their faces bland. “You have coerced them all now?”
“And the Hedra captain, Bedig, but Zuria is the only one deeply enough coerced that I can send him out to act alone. How do you feel now? Could you walk?”
I nodded absently. “Harwood, you said you thought it would be a good idea to take all three of the Threes with you. But take them where?”
“Why, to the Stormdancer, of course,” Veril said eagerly. “Once we get out of here, we will have Zuria dismiss the men guarding it, hoist the anchor, and be gone before anyone realizes. The beauty of it is that no one can follow us, because all other ships are anchored in Main Cove in Norseland.”
“You can’t sail the Stormdancer back across the strait,” I said. “The hull is damaged. Surely you heard the shipfolk speak of it when you were on board? That is why the Stormdancer was lagging behind the Orizon. The shipmaster has grounded her so she can be repaired, but I do not know when that will happen, because Mendi ordered the entire crew to be brought in for interrogation.”
Harwood and Veril exchanged a look of consternation. “I’d better let the others know,” Harwood muttered. “We will have to hide on the other part of the island. I heard one of the Hedra speak of it as a wilderness.”
“Wait,” I said, realizing that he was about to send out a probe. I told him what I had learned from Lark and his father about Fallo. “From what I could see in Lark’s mind, the swamp is full of quicksand and sinkholes, as well as poisonous plants and swift, deadly vipers. No one lives there for good reason, and we would not survive it without a Norselander to aid us. But how can we ask for their help when I am already responsible for bringing disaster to the shipfolk from the Stormdancer? Even if they were willing to fight, they have no arms and would be outnumbered by Hedra. There is only one thing we can do. We have to take over the compound.”
Both men stared at me as if I had lost my wits. “You can’t be serious, Guildmistress,” Harwood said. “This place is the size of a city, and there must be thousands of Herders living here. We can’t coerce or kill them all.”
“We don’t have to control all of them, just the ones who control the rest,” I said. “The way the Faction is set up, those with real power are few. We have three of them right here in this room—and an invitation to see their master. We can use them, and the One, and their power and knowledge to get the ship repaired and to keep anyone from realizing we are here. When we are ready to leave, we will take the Threes with us as you suggested, plus all the Hedra captains that can be fitted in the brig cells in the hold, as well as the crew, the shipmaster, and their families, so that they will suffer no retribution.”
Harwood had begun to nod. “We will need a safe location to operate from within the compound.”
“And we need to find out if the shipfolk are here yet. Where are the others coercers?” I asked.
“In the barracks with Kaga,” Harwood said. “We could go there.…”
I shook my head. “We need a place where fewer people will come but where the Threes can logically be seen coming and going.” Inspiration struck and I smiled. I was amused to see that this caused Veril to adopt the same apprehensive look Ceirwan sometimes had when I proposed a difficult rescue plan.
“Guildmistress—” the coercer began, but I cut him off.
“The One’s chambers lie within the wall surrounding this compound. You can only reach them through a very long passage that runs inside the walls. The One is very old and obese and uses his assistant, Falc, to summon anyone he wants to talk with. If we go there now and coerce the One and Falc, and we have the Threes, we will virtually control the entire compound, so long as no one guesses they are not acting under their own volition. We can send Falc straightaway to demand that the shipfolk be brought to the One.”
“You did not tell us how you got aboard. Or how the Herders discovered you,” Veril said.
“For now I will tell you only that my getting aboard was an accident. I was discovered because Ariel foresaw it and told the One before he left for Norseland with Salamander. He forbade anyone to interrogate me until he came back to do it himself. He has some machine he would use upon me, which he keeps in his residence on Norseland.”
Harwood interrupted. “We will have to leave Herder Isle before Ariel returns from Norseland on the Black Ship, else the Stormdancer will suffer the same fate as the unlucky Orizon.”
“We have a little time,” I said. “The Black Ship has only just left, and Ariel has an errand to perform on the west coast before returning to Herder Isle to deal with me.”
“What errand?” Harwood asked.
I shrugged. “The Threes don’t know, but we can find out from the One, for it was he who sent Ariel. All I know is that it has something to do with a couple of special nulls. Have you heard aught of nulls?”
Both men nodded, grim-faced. Veril said, “We guess that they are weak futuretellers whose minds Ariel has damaged to make them passive and biddable.”
Harwood frowned. “Have you considered that one of these nulls may discern our activities here and that Salamander might return immediately, cut us off in the strait, and sink us as he did the Orizon? Or that he will come here with a ship full of demon-banded Hedra? Even if we stay here and coerce the gate guards to lock them out, Salamander could simply bring the Black Ship close to shore and use the same weapon he used on the Orizon to break open the wall.”
I nodded soberly, remembering what Lark had said about the destruction of cities using Beforetime weapons. But I only said, “You may be right, but I don’t see what we can do other than trying to get the ship repaired as soon as possible.” I explained how to reach
the wall passage that led to the One’s chamber and bade Harwood ask the other coercers to meet us there. It was unwieldy having to explain in words instead of being able to farsend directions, but I had no alternative until I could remove the demon band. Harwood suggested that one of the knights remain in the barracks with Kaga and the other coerced Hedra so we could summon an obedient force if something went wrong. While he contacted the others, I bade Veril find out if the shipfolk from the Stormdancer were in any of the cells. He hurried off, taking Bedig with him to use as a source of knowledge.
Harwood asked, “Are there any guards with the One?”
I nodded. “A couple of Hedra guard the door and, as I told you, the younger priest who serves the One, Falc, but he is no fighter. In any case, all are unbanded, so you can easily coerce them. Oh, there are also several boys dressed in hooded black robes. I don’t know how they fit in, but they will have to be coerced, too.”
“Maybe not,” Harwood said unexpectedly. “From what I can make out, they are mute slaves. The priests call them shadows, and they seem to have no more will than a shadow. I don’t think we will have any trouble with them. It is the Herder warriors—the Hedra—that we need to be careful about. So far as I can see, they are vigilant and stern watchdogs who don’t hesitate to speak against a Herder priest of any level if they believe he is infringing Herder lore.”
“Maybe you can gradually put their captains under sleepseals in their rooms,” I suggested.
“There are too many to put sleepseals on, because they would all need to be watered, fed, and kept clean,” Harwood said. “I would rather deeply coerce them and use them. But that will take time, too.”
“We can’t do anything until we knew more about how this place works,” I said. “We must coerce the One, and then Mendi and Grisyl must be deeply coerced so we don’t have to keep a constant watch on them, and during that process, we will gain the knowledge we need. Then we will begin to coerce the inner-cadre Nines and the highest ranked Hedra.”