Veril returned with Bedig to report that the Norselanders were not in any of the interrogation cells, but he added that there were several other places within the compound where they might have been taken.
“You’d best investigate,” Harwood said. “Take one of the Threes to smooth the way. Take Zuria, since he is deeply coerced. The guildmistress and I go to meet the others in the passage to the One’s chamber. Follow us if you do not find the shipfolk, and send a probe if you do. If you cannot reach us, send Bedig.” He paused, obviously offering Veril the directions I had given him. Veril nodded.
“See if you can find keys to unlock this demon band as well,” I said.
“And some shoes,” Harwood said, pointing to my bare feet.
Veril looked at Zuria, who suddenly barked an order for the young man to follow him. The Three stalked out followed by Veril, who winked at us over his shoulder.
Ironically, while we had been in the cell, I had felt safe. Saved. But as Harwood took my arm and we followed Mendi through the labyrinthine interrogation buildings, I thought of the hundreds and hundreds of fanatical Herders within the compound, and my hasty plans began to feel childishly, dangerously foolish. Yet what else could we do? We were on an island controlled utterly by the Faction, with no immediate means of escape and the possibility that Ariel and Salamander would eventually arrive with a shipload of Hedra.
We came through a door into bright daylight, and I stopped in astonishment, hardly able to believe that the whole stormy night had passed while I was in the cell. Unlike the night before, when the rain-swept streets had been all but deserted, now many acolytes, novices, and ranking priests passed back and forth, most accompanied by several of the black-clad shadows.
We set off toward the front of the compound, and I found myself leaning heavily on Harwood, for the hours of watery torment had taken their toll. I was almost trembling with relief when at last we reached the entrance hall where Falc had appeared to command Mendi to bring me to the One. As before, two of the shadows appeared with lanterns. I would have liked to dismiss them, but I knew the long passage was dark enough that we would need light, and it would look odd if we took the lanterns ourselves.
Soon we were following a lantern-bearing shadow along the passage inside the wall, the second shadow following close behind. After some moments, Harwood murmured very softly, “Am I imagining it or does the floor of this passage slant up?”
I was uneasy about speaking aloud, but I was still demon-banded. So I said softly, “The One’s chamber is probably halfway up the wall. He has no need to be easily accessible. Indeed, he has probably found it effective to be mysterious and elusive. And he can use the Threes to do anything beyond his rooms.”
“It is a wonder the Threes don’t overthrow him,” Harwood replied. I saw the hooded head of one of the shadows tilt slightly and guessed he had heard the coercer’s voice. I nodded pointedly at him, but Harwood shrugged and said softly, “Don’t worry about the boy. If he looks like giving us any trouble, I will coerce him, but until then I might as well conserve my energy. When we stop to wait for the others, I want to coerce Mendi and Zuria more deeply so that I need not probe them continually.”
Despite my anxiety about the shadows overhearing us, I answered his earlier comment. “The One is not just the head of their order. The priests believe he is the Chosen of Lud and beloved for that reason.”
“Feared more than loved, I would say,” Harwood said. “But tell me how you got aboard the Stormdancer.”
Keeping my voice low, I told him what had happened.
“A ship fish,” the coercer marveled at the end of my tale. “I had no idea they could be beastspoken.”
“How should we know it?” I asked. “We Misfits have never had that much access to the ocean, and we avoid water because it inhibits our Talents.”
“I have always thought it odd that water produces such a strong barrier,” Harwood mused. “It has less substance than the earth, after all.” He frowned. “There is light ahead.” Again I saw the shadow’s head lift slightly. He might be mute, but he was certainly not deaf.
“It is coming from the One’s audience room,” I said softly. “We had better stop here and dim the lanterns or the sentries outside it will see their light.”
Harwood made Mendi bid the shadows halt and lower the wick of their lanterns. As they obeyed, I caught a fleeting glimpse of a shadow’s face, and though it was unknown, it struck me that there was something odd about it. Before I could discern what it was, Mendi commanded both shadows to sit. I sat down, too, and massaged my cold feet, noting that the shadows sat with their heads lowered. Harwood was now staring fixedly into Mendi’s face.
After a time I glanced in the other direction and noticed a light approaching. I stood hastily and touched Harwood’s shoulder to get his attention.
“It’s all right,” he said after a moment of concentration. “It is Sover and the others. Give me another ten minutes, and I will have finished here.” He turned back to Mendi.
It was not Sover but Yarrow whom I saw first. He grinned in delight, mugging his incredulity, and then I was surrounded by Hilder, Colwyn, Sover, Geratty, and Ode, all of whom had come to my guild at one time or another to learn to hone and control their coercive probes so they could use them to farseek. Each greeted me with a dozen questions, and then I saw Reuvan, who had hung back slightly.
“It is good to see you,” I said. The seaman laughed and embraced me with some of Brydda’s painful force.
“It is astonishing to see you here,” he countered, releasing me.
I remembered the shadows then and turned to look at them to see how they regarded our greetings. Two had accompanied the coercers, and now there were four, all standing, for the other two had risen. Rather than gazing steadfastly at the ground, they looked at me. All had thin, pale, delicate faces and unfathomable expressions.
“I forgot,” Yarrow said suddenly, drawing my attention back to him. “Veril said you might find a use for one of these.” He withdrew a small gray key from his pocket with a triumphant flourish, and in a moment, the demon band lay on the passage floor. I prayed I would never feel one of the foul things about my throat again.
“I have done as much as I can do now,” Harwood announced, looking weary as he turned away from Mendi. He cast his eye over us and asked, “Where are the others?”
“I left Asra with Kaga in the barracks, and I sent Tomrick to the watch-hut atop the walls to keep an eye on Hevon Bay and report on any approaching ships,” Yarrow said. “Veril said to tell you he cannot farseek you, but he has gone to the black gates to find out if the Stormdancer’s shipfolk were brought into the compound.”
“The stone in this wall must be too thick or tainted,” Harwood muttered.
When we reached the Hedra standing before the door to the One’s audience chamber, Mendi barked at them to stand aside. Instead of obeying, one of them said sternly that no one was permitted to enter the One’s apartment unless summoned, and no one had been summoned. Then the eyes of both Hedra glazed, and they turned and went into the firelit audience room. We followed, and I had a brief glimpse of a startled Falc leaping up from the One’s carved chair before the expression was wiped from his face and he moved to join Mendi, Zuria, the two Hedra guards, and the shadows, all of whom had gone to stand against the wall.
“According to this Falc, the One is asleep through there,” Harwood said after a moment, nodding toward the door through which Falc had gone the previous day. “There are also six shadows in there.”
We looked at the four who had accompanied us, and they looked back, but their faces revealed nothing. Harwood gently bade them sit down, and they obeyed at once. Then he turned back to me and said in a low voice, “I think the ones inside are like to be as docile as these four, but you’d best be careful just the same.”
I nodded and bade Ode, Sover, and Colwyn to come with me. We entered a large dressing chamber hung with gray robes, their gold edging glitter
ing in the light of the lantern held up by a slender shadow who had risen at our entrance. Immediately, he dropped his gaze to the floor.
I wasted no time on him and passed into the next chamber. This was a small but lavishly appointed bathing room, complete with a gold-tiled bath sunk into the floor. There were two shadows here, and both rose to their feet, one holding a lantern, but these also kept their heads meekly bowed and made no attempt to hinder us.
At last we came to the One’s bedchamber. The One lay snoring softly on an enormous carved bed piled with white quilts and silken pillows. Three more black-robed shadows sat on the floor in front of a curtained wall, but I ignored them. The overlapping fleeces on the floor swallowed the sound of my footsteps as I approached the bed, but as if he felt my movement in the air, the One opened his eyes and stared up at me in dim confusion.
“You are not Falc. Where is Falc?” he said in a high, quavering voice. Then he came properly awake, and his expression was one of affronted disgust and malice. “You are a woman! How dare you! Who allowed this? Falc!”
“He cannot come at this moment,” I said softly, and reached out to probe his mind. The old man gave a thin scream, clutched at his head, and cringed back against the pillows. I withdrew in astonishment and said to the others, “A block has been constructed to cause him excruciating pain if there is any intrusion. If I press deeper, his mind will collapse. Indeed, it seems the block is intrusive enough that it has already eroded his sanity.”
“But who could have done this to him?” Sover asked in a low voice. “Such a block would require great coercive skill.”
“Ariel,” I said bitterly. “This certainly explains how he got the Herders to take him in and why the One favors him so strongly. Go and get Falc.” Sover went out and returned with the priest and Harwood. I directed Falc to approach his master, who lay whimpering and clutching his head.
“What is it, Master?” Falc asked in a crooning voice. “Did you have another nightmare?”
“Night … nightmare?” the One echoed, peering up at the Nine as if through a mist. “Yes. It was a terrible nightmare! I saw that female mutant that Mendi brought in. The one Ariel wants to question. She was leaning over my bed seeking to possess my mind. I want her killed. Bring her here and do it before me.”
“It was only a nightmare, Master,” Falc assured him. “The mutant is even now in a cell, awaiting the return of our good Ariel from Norseland.”
“Norseland?” The One sounded confused and distressed. “But he will not come from Norseland. He must go to the west coast first.” He gave a groan. “Why must he go there? I told him that I need him here. But he said it was Lud’s will.… My head aches so.”
“Master, you sent him to the west coast, because he has a vital mission to perform,” I made Falc say in his smooth, oily voice. “Don’t you remember?”
“Of course I remember, fool,” snapped the One. “I ordered him to take the null and unleash the wrath of Lud on the Ludless.” He groaned. “My head aches. Where is Ariel? He is the only one who can take away the pain. Lud bestowed upon him the power to heal me.”
“I am sure that he will return quickly,” Falc soothed.
“Of course he will return swiftly, dolt, else he would be doomed,” snarled the One.
“What does he mean?” Harwood farsent urgently.
I shrugged and prompted Falc to speak again. “Master, Ariel will not die. No one would dare to harm him. Lud would protect him from—”
“Shut up!” screamed the One. “No one will harm Ariel. He knows well enough not to linger after he sets the null ashore, lest he perish with all the rest on the west coast.” The priest ground his teeth together and rocked in agony, clutching his head.
“The null must have some sort of weapon, and we need to find out what it is,” Harwood said softly. “Can’t you ease him?”
I shook my head. “Aside from the block, Ariel has constructed a pain mechanism that will worsen each day until he releases it,” I said softly. “I can’t get into his mind to stop it without breaking open the block. If Ariel does not return within a day or two, the old man’s mind will crumble under the pain.”
“But Ariel will only just have reached Norseland,” Colwyn said. “And a journey from there to here via the west coast will take at least a fiveday.”
“ ‘Perish with all on the west coast.’ ” Ode echoed the One’s earlier words bleakly, and I remembered that Ode’s sister was among those assigned to the west coast during the rebellion and trapped there still.
“Nothing but a Beforetime weapon could kill everyone on the west coast,” Sover said.
“The Herders used Beforetime weapons to gain control of the Norselands,” I said. “Whatever they used was capable of destroying cities. Maybe the null is supposed to go from city to city destroying each.”
“That was my thinking, too,” Harwood admitted. “I will see if I can dig up any scraps of information from the two Threes about a store of Beforetime weapons. Meanwhile, Sover, perhaps you can ease the One somewhat.”
As he departed with Zuria in tow, I looked at Sover, who said, “I have a secondary empathic ability. I can empathise acceptance and serenity in the One so you can question him further.” He bent over the Herder, who squinted up at him through streaming eyes. “Who are you! How dare you come in here? I don’t want you. I need Ariel!”
“Ariel is serving Lud on the west coast,” Sover said soothingly from the other side of the bed. “But he knew you would suffer in his absence, Master. He sent me.”
“You are a healer?” the One quavered, his eyes flickering fearfully to Sover.
“I am not gifted, as Ariel is, but I can help you, Master,” the coercer said gently. “If you will permit me to touch your head?”
“No! No!” The One cringed back; then he screamed, a horrible thin sound that made the hair on my neck rise. “Yes …,” he gasped. “Help me.”
Sover placed a gentle hand on the old man’s brow, and as the One sank back with an exhausted exhalation, the coercer’s face contorted with empathised pain. His expression gradually became one of intense concentration.
“It is working,” Colwyn murmured. I forced myself to relax as we waited. Then Sover turned to nod.
“Master,” Falc said. I had made him sound too eager and modified his tone before continuing. “Master, I fear that our good Ariel places himself in danger. Surely Lud cannot have intended that.”
The One stirred and mumbled, “No man can presume to know Lud’s intention.”
I decided to risk a direct question. “Can the gain of this dangerous mission be worth the risk?”
The One stirred irritably under his quilts. “I have told you, fool. There is no danger as long as Ariel does not linger after leaving the null ashore. The sickness will not become infectious for some days.”
Sover gave me a horrified look, and the One groaned. Immediately, the coercer returned his attention to the older man.
“A plague,” Ode hissed into my ear. “It can be nowt else. It were always rumored that the Herders were responsible for the first plague.”
I nodded. “But one in three were affected, and only a third of those became seriously ill. Fewer still died.”
“Then it is a different plague,” Colwyn said. “One that kills three in three if all are to die.”
“Why?” Ode asked. “What possible use can it be to th’ Faction to kill everyone on the west coast?” His voice had risen in his agitation, and the One heard him but appeared not to realize that someone other than Falc had spoken.
“Lud’s will is not to be questioned,” he answered dreamily in his strange girlish voice. “He used pestilence in the Beforetime to signal his divine wrath, and he showed Ariel where the plague seeds were hid upon Norseland. All who look upon the desolation that will result from this plague shall know the power of Lud’s wrath. And the west coast will be purified so it can be populated with the pure of heart who worship Lud and obey his servants.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Colwyn hissed. “Why invade one part of the Land if you intend to unleash the ultimate lesson on the rest?”
I could not think past the horror of a sickness deadly enough to kill everyone on the west coast. Everyone. “He must be stopped!” I said. “Ask him where the null is to be taken on the west coast.”
Sover obeyed, but the One spoke only of a city where sickness would spread like wildfire.
“He means one of the cities,” Ode said.
“Even if we could sail the Stormdancer within the hour, it would take days to visit and search every city on the west coast,” Colwyn said. “And we have no idea what this null even looks like!”
“We need not search every city. We need only put into every port and ask if the Black Ship has been there. And Ariel can only just have got to Norseland. He has yet to travel to the west coast before he can think of coming back here. That will give us a couple days’ grace. Send someone to find out if Veril has news of the shipfolk yet.” I stopped, horrified to realize that I was on the verge of tears, for aside from the thousands of innocent people who would die if Ariel succeeded, among them would be Merret, Jak, Dell, and Ode’s sister Desda, all of whom I had sent to the west coast. Mastering my emotions, I turned to Sover. “Keep trying to find out where the null will be taken.”
Sover nodded, his expression blank with dismay.
I left the bedchamber and found Harwood focused on Mendi, but Yarrow, Geratty, and the others turned to look at me as I entered the firelit audience chamber, followed by Colwyn.
“What is happening?” Yarrow asked.
I gathered my wits and told them, seeing their faces reflect the shattered dismay I felt. Harwood had ceased probing Mendi, and he asked in disbelief, “Did you say everyone will die?”
“Everyone,” I said, and I seemed to hear the high mocking sound of Ariel’s laughter.
“SOMEONE MUST GO to Fallo to speak with the shipfolk,” I said when Veril arrived to say that the shipfolk had not been brought into the compound, even though a number of Hedra had been sent to summon them. None of us could imagine why they had not yet returned, unless the Norselanders had fled rather than be brought in. The more I thought about it, the more likely this seemed, for what had the Norselanders to lose by fighting?