“What will Dameon do if he gets his farm back?” Fian asked curiously. “I canna believe he wants to run it himself.”
“He means to establish it as a cooperative farm run jointly by beasts and unTalented humans. He hopes ordinary Landfolk will see that it is possible to work with beasts to our mutual advantage, even without Misfit translators. It is a brilliant idea. I am only sorry that it will not be established in time for the elections.”
“Alad thinks Dardelan ought to present the Charter of Laws and his Beast Charter at the same time.”
I shook my head. “If he did, both would be rejected. By keeping the two charters separate, no matter what happens in the elections, Dardelan will have at least established a basic set of good and fair laws for the Land. And people who dislike the idea of rights for beasts might still vote for him, since Dardelan is known for listening to the opinions of many different people and might be talked out of it.”
“He’ll nowt change his mind,” Fian said stoutly.
I smiled. “I don’t think so either.”
More teknoguilders came toward us now, but my attention was caught by the long, low, curving building I could see in the clearing beyond them. Constructed from wood and stone, it faced the section of the Suggredoon River from whence I had once set off on a raft to escape the renegade Herder Henry Druid. I had a fleeting but vivid memory of the gallant, red-haired druid armsman Gilbert. He had been one of the few to survive the firestorm that had killed his master.
“Ye see how the buildin’ masks th’ openin’ to the subterranean city?” Fian pointed out enthusiastically. “Garth designed it that way, because he said we want to distract strangers from noticin’ the cave an’ wonderin’ where it leads.”
I nodded, impressed by how much had been achieved in the few weeks since thaw. But as I came closer, I saw that there was no glass in the windows, and when I looked through one of them, I saw that the floor had yet to be laid.
“It’s nowt finished,” Fian said unnecessarily. “Guildmaster Garth felt it were more important to get the whole thing up so that from a distance it would look finished. In case any Landfolk come into the White Valley. We are about fencin’ the land now to keep anyone from comin’ too close. We can complete th’ inside of the homestead later.” This was said so carelessly that I wondered if the Teknoguild would ever finish it. Their researches were generally so compelling to them that anything not utterly vital was put off. It would not surprise me to find that in a year, when wintertime returned, the Teknoguild homestead still lacked a floor and windows.
Fian led me around the back of the building to the tents and shacks that presently housed the resident and visiting teknoguilders in the White Valley.
At first glance, the camp reminded me of a Sadorian desert camp, which was not surprising since the excellent cloth huts the guild used had been gifts from the Sadorian tribal leader, Jakoby. But there was also something of a gypsy encampment about the settlement, for there were boxes and bales piled haphazardly and clothes laid out on the grass to dry. Sadorians possessed little, so they did not produce clutter, whereas for both teknoguilders and gypsies, clutter seemed a natural consequence of busy and active lives. Indeed, as with any gathering of teknoguilders, a quiet but intense sense of purpose and concentration pervaded the scene. Here and there, teknoguilders sat cross-legged on the grass, scratching their heads over notes they were making, or perched on barrels or bales reading or poring over some queer Beforetime object brought out of the subterranean city. The day was warm enough that most wore shirtsleeves or light shifts, but there was a fire burning in a stone-lined pit in the midst of the rough semicircle of tents. Judging by the smells coming from pots suspended over it, something good was simmering away. It was long past midmeal, but the teknoguilders never bothered with formal mealtimes except on special occasions.
“Are ye hungry?” Fian asked, seeing my gaze. “We expected ye hours ago, but there is still plenty of soup.”
“Starving,” I said, my mouth watering. I had skipped firstmeal, unable to face Rushton sitting stiffly by me and making polite, meaningless conversation with everyone in the dining hall looking on, knowing something was amiss yet being unable to help. The only time we seemed able to behave normally was during guildmerge, when we were guildmistress and Master of Obernewtyn.
Fian hastened to lay his kerchief over a bale for me to sit on, and Garth looked about vaguely as if he wondered where the table and chairs had been put. But the idea did not gain sufficient focus for him to realize that furniture was something else put off until later. Instead, he found a wide barrel, sat on it, and began examining something one of the teknoguilders wanted to show him. Katlyn, Kella, and Dragon came slowly to the fireside with Darius. The gypsy’s crooked body, awkward movements, and prematurely gray hair always made me think of Darius as old, but when he laughed at something Katlyn said, it struck me that he was only a few years older than Rushton.
We all ate with good appetite, but afterward, instead of someone producing an instrument and suggesting a song, as would happen around other campfires, Garth heaved himself up and said that he needed to go into the mountain to see something too large to be carried out. He invited anyone interested to accompany him, and most of the teknoguilders stood at once, as did Zarak. Darius and Kella said they had better see to the soldierguards, and Katlyn wanted to look for certain herbs that did not grow in the high mountains. The herbalist intended to try growing them in a cave high above Obernewtyn where the teknoguilders had discovered a hot spring. At Katlyn’s request, the cave’s top opening had been roofed in thin, nearly transparent plast sheets, for she was sure the warm, moist atmosphere would allow all sorts of unlikely plants to grow there. For her, the gathering of seeds was the expedition’s main purpose, apart from seeing her son. When the older woman rose, Dragon went with her, giving me a backward glance that told me her desire was less to gather herbs than to avoid me.
Garth looked at me expectantly, but I shook my head, pretending not to see his disappointment. I had been into the subterranean city many times, and my mood was already too melancholy to endure the complicated mixture of wonder and dismay I always felt at seeing it. Louis Larkin made no response to Garth’s invitation, for straight after eating, he had stretched out on his back and now snored loudly.
Once the others had gone, I regarded the old man with fond amusement and thought about the day, many decades past, when he had seen two gypsies come to Obernewtyn to offer carvings to Marisa Seraphim, then Mistress of Obernewtyn.
The carvings, containing secret messages from the seer Kasanda, had become part of the front doors to Obernewtyn. I had long since learned their secrets, but I wanted to be able to see and hear the gypsies who had brought them to Obernewtyn in the hope of learning how they had come by the carvings.
Of course, I could not delve into Louis Larkin’s memories without seeking his permission first.
Feeling restless, I farsought Maruman, but I could find no trace of the cantankerous old cat. No doubt he had gone to sleep somewhere. It was almost impossible to probe a sleeping mind unless you knew where the sleeper lay or could make physical contact; even then it was sometimes impossible to enter Maruman’s mind. Gahltha had once told me this was because the old cat often went seliga when he slept. This was one of the few beast words I did not understand clearly. It meant something like “before” and something like “behind.”
I decided to walk to the monument created by the Twentyfamilies gypsies in memory of the Misfits and beasts who had perished in the White Valley because of Malik’s betrayal. A lone teknoguilder sat on a log by the fire, engrossed in a book. I did not know her name, but when I touched her arm to tell her my intention, she looked at me in astonishment. I told her where I was going, and she promised to let the others know if they returned before me.
I had not been walking more than fifteen minutes when I sensed that someone was following me. I sent out a mindprobe but found only the minds of numerous burrowe
rs and other little creatures dwelling in the valley. It occurred to me that Dragon might be following me. It would not be the first time she had done so, and she was the only Misfit whose coercive strength would allow her to evade my probe.
I stopped, shaped a probe to her mind, and swept the area again, but it would not locate. Yet my sense of being watched was stronger than ever. I considered turning back but decided against it; if Dragon was following me, she might finally allow me to talk to her. If it was not her, then it must be a large animal with a small brain. This did not frighten me, for all beasts seemed to recognize that I was the Seeker when I beastspoke them. For animals, the Seeker was not the person who was supposed to find and end the threat of the Beforetime weaponmachines but was a legendary figure destined to lead beasts to freedom from humans. I was fairly sure that the mystic Agyllians had concocted this legend to ensure that beasts would protect me, for the ancient birds set my quest to destroy the weaponmachines above the welfare of any individual creatures, human or beast.
Reaching the track leading to the cul-de-sac where Malik had instructed us to lure the pursuing soldierguards, an eerie sense of the past stole over me, and I forgot about the possibility of being followed. I seemed almost to see the empath twins Angina and Miky; the handsome, ebony-skinned Sadorian warrior Straaka, towering over sturdy Miryum; all arrayed about me, and I glanced up to the tree-lined lip of the cul-de-sac, as I had done during the rebellion, wondering why Malik and his men were taking so long to show themselves and order the soldierguards we had lured there to lay down their weapons. Then the soldierguards had begun to shoot their arrows.
I shivered, thinking how many more might have died that day if the Twentyfamilies gypsies had not intervened. I brought my gaze to rest on the white marker stone that the gypsies had carved. Swallow, who had succeeded his father as D’rekta of the Twentyfamilies, had shown it to me once before, but it seemed less white today. Maybe it was my imagination, for when I came closer, I could see that the stone showed no signs of weathering. I knelt to look at the names carved so beautifully and minutely into it, knowing that the Sadorian mystic Kasanda had taught the Twentyfamilies gypsies their famous stone-carving skills. I had no absolute proof that Kasanda and the original D’rekta were one and the same person, nevertheless, there was no doubt in my mind that Cassy Duprey, the young Beforetime artist of whom I sometimes dreamed, had adopted both titles at different points in her long life.
I continued reading the names of the dead, beast and human, chiseled into the marker. The last name was Straaka’s, although he alone of the dead was not buried in the valley. The coercer Miryum, whom he had died to shield, had taken his body and vanished, and we had neither seen nor heard of her since. The coercer-knights she had once led were convinced that Miryum had taken Straaka’s body to Sador, for Sadorians believed that their bones must rest alongside those of their ancestors lest their spirits wander. That seemed as likely a possibility as anything else, for Miryum had been out of her mind with grief and guilt.
The coercer was not the only guilty survivor of that day. The empath Miky constantly anguished over her twin brother, Angina, for although he had recovered from his wounds, he would never regain his former strength. Once, I had used spirit eyes to look at the lad’s aura, and I had seen clearly how the red slashing mark, which echoed the fading scar at his temple, leeched brightness from the rest of his aura, draining it of vitality. The boy’s body had been healed, but his spirit had been savagely wounded, and no one knew how to heal such a thing.
I spoke each name on the marker aloud, remembering the owners of the names with a grief that made my eyes sting.
“Do you pray to Lud to mind their souls?” a voice asked.
I gasped and overbalanced trying to turn and stand at the same time. A tall woman with short silken yellow hair and piercing blue eyes stood a little distance away, hands on hips, watching me.
“You are Bergold’s sister, Analivia,” I said, recognizing her, for she had once saved me from a whipping.
She nodded to the marker. “I heard that many of your people died here. Those are their names scribed on the marker?”
I nodded and said, without really knowing why, “There are the names of animals as well as humans. How did you …?” I stopped, finding it hard to speak of my Misfit abilities openly, even now.
A mercurial smile played about her mouth. “You wonder how your Misfit powers did not detect me? I have always had a knack of being able to remain hidden.” Her smile dimmed. “In the house where I grew up, it was wiser to be invisible.”
That did not surprise me. Her father had been the brutal and oppressive Councilman Radost, who had once ruled the Council and Sutrium with an iron hand and heart. Not long before the rebellion, he had sent his sons, Bergold and Moss, up to the highlands to establish new Councilfarms, since one man was permitted to hold only so much land. Analivia had lived with Bergold, the eldest of the three. Since the rebellion, Moss and his father had been sentenced to long terms on Councilfarms, but Bergold, a fair and kindhearted young man, had been permitted to continue running his orchards, as a cooperative venture. The fruit-bottling industry he had established was so successful that they had employed many Darthnor miners who could not work while the road to the smelters and west coast industries remained closed.
“Are you hunting?” I asked politely.
“You might call it hunting, if curiosity can be called a weapon and knowledge prey. I have been watching your people. I have been inside the mountain. The Beforetimers must have loved darkness to build in such a place, but what do your people seek there?”
“Some of us are curious about the Beforetimers and how they lived,” I said, realizing that she must have explored the caverns when the teknoguilders were inside them. Given how little awareness the teknoguilders had of anything outside their studies, I was not the least bit surprised, but Garth would be horrified.
“Why are you curious about us?” I asked.
She shrugged. “It interests me that you survived when so many people wanted to kill you. I am interested in survival.” She glanced down at the memorial marker. “I suppose you know that Malik is not the sort to give up his hatred because of agreements and treaties. My brother and father were like him. Hatred ran through their veins like fire, devouring all else.”
“I heard that they were killed trying to escape from the Councilfarm,” I said, uncertain whether to express sympathy, since it was known that Analivia’s brother and father had both mistreated her.
But she merely said rather cryptically, “Hatred does not die so easily.” She looked around the cul-de-sac. “This is a pretty place to be marked by so much hatred and death.”
“Marked?” I wondered if she was referring to the carved monument.
She saw my confusion and said soberly, “I think that terrible happenings mark a place so whoever comes there after feels a kind of echo.”
I said slowly, “Do you feel the mark of what happened here?”
She did not answer, seeming suddenly distracted.
“Will you come to the encampment with me?” I asked presently.
She shook her head but said that she would walk some of the way back with me. I half expected her to interrogate me, but instead, as we walked, she told me about her life as a girl. Her father had bonded only for a son to inherit his properties and power. It soon became clear that Bergold, his firstborn son, was nothing like his sire, lacking Radost’s ruthless ambition and brute will. So Radost turned his attention to his second son, Moss; they were like two vipers in a nest. Only his desire to increase his properties and extend his area of influence had made Radost send Bergold and Moss to establish Councilfarms in the highlands. He had intended, in time, to weld the properties together as one, under his control, but the rebellion had ended his ambitions.
“I am glad of the uprising,” she said. “I prayed for many years that the rebels would have the courage to do it.”
“Not all Landfolk welcome the
change,” I said mildly.
She shrugged. “People fear that if the old ways come back, they will be punished for failing to oppose the usurpers. They have to learn not to be afraid. When the Council ruled, fear clogged the air like mist above a moor. You could not breathe without drawing it in.”
Abruptly she stopped, and I saw the wagons. Analivia said goodbye and in the twinkling of an eye, she was gone. I tried to probe her but to no avail. I made my way toward the Teknoguild camp, wondering if the yellow-haired woman had learned to conceal her presence because of her childhood or whether she had a trace of Misfit ability. I was passing the second wagon when I noticed one of the soldierguards sitting up and gazing out. I stopped reluctantly to ask if he needed anything.
“I was just thinking that it had been a peaceful wintertime.” He laughed humorlessly. “The truth is, I am uneasy about going back to the city. Everything will be changed, and I don’t suppose it will be easy for an ex-soldierguard to find employment.”
“I am sure that High Chieftain Dardelan will find a place for you,” I said coolly.
“You don’t like me, do you?” the soldierguard said. “I do not blame you for it, but you don’t realize how it was back then for us. How your kind was made to seem …” His voice trailed off, and though I waited politely, he appeared to have forgotten what he meant to say. I bid him good day.
“I am not a forgiving sort of person,” I muttered as I walked on.