Suddenly the chamber’s blinding white light dimmed and turned a soft rose. Whether the computermachine or Jak had changed the light, I was relieved. I sat back in my seat and wondered why I was not cold, so deep under the earth. Doubtless, Jak had asked a computermachine to make the air warmer. How comfortable he seemed amidst the machines and instruments of a lost age. And it was not only the teknoguilder; Dell was the same. “You get used to it,” she had said of the elevating chamber. And Seely seemed not only confident in her new surrounds but also content. She had lost her tremulous uncertainty, blossoming into a quiet, competent young woman with steady hands.
Domick moaned, and I leapt to my feet, my heart thudding hard against my ribs. Misty ghost hands formed where I rested my hands against the glass, and my mind raced as I tried to think what to say to the coercer. But his eyes remained shut.
He moaned again and writhed, and the machine reached out its plast hand to touch a circle that must have been loosened by the coercer’s movement. Again Domick stirred restlessly, rocking his head from side to side. I watched, fascinated, as bolsters rose slowly from the bed on either side of his head to cushion the movement. He fell quiet again, and after a time, I sat back down.
This time when I relaxed, fatigue flowed through me, and my eyes began to close. Despite willing myself to stay awake, each blink seemed longer than the one before, and it was harder and harder to open my eyes. My mind was beginning to drift. I thought about Rolf, Erit, and Iriny, and I hoped they were safe. Had Merret left yet for Halfmoon Bay? No, she had said she would sleep and go early in the morning. Besides, I had yet to tell her how to find Rolf. I leaned my head against the glass and looked at Domick’s glowing white body. How dark his brows and lashes seemed in that gaunt, bone-white face.
I must have slipped into a dreamless slumber sitting like that, for the sound of steps coming lightly toward me wakened me. It was Seely with a tray of food, and I wondered how she managed to walk so lightly in her heavy boots. “Perhaps you do not feel hungry, Guildmistress, but you ought to eat,” she said, and without waiting for an answer, she set down the tray on the floor beside me. Instead of leaving me, she moved closer to the glass to gaze through it at Domick.
“Kella used to talk about him sometimes when I was back at Obernewtyn,” she said softly. “I wonder what happened to bring him into the hands of the Herders.”
“When he recovers, he will tell us,” I said, realizing that the others were probably discussing such questions over a meal. I pictured them, sitting in a room with a warm light and the scents of food, speculating. Most of all, they would be relieved that the threat of plague had been averted, elated that their time of exile might be nearly over. I envied their comradeship and closeness, but I did not truly yearn to join them. The sight of Domick lying so still and wounded by all that had befallen him made it impossible to contemplate talking and laughing and eating.
“Jak is in one of the other laboratories,” Seely said, turning from the glass wall, “where the computermachines are looking at Domick’s blood. He said he will come soon. It will take time to find out anything.”
“You seem so calm,” I said. I was commenting on her tranquility, but she misunderstood me.
“I am not afraid,” she said. “If Dell is wrong, then we will die. Being afraid will not change that.”
“You are right,” I said. “But fear does not usually heed reason.”
“Fear produces its own reasons,” Seely said. “I know because I have heard its craven voice so many times. Sometimes I feel that I have been afraid for most of my life: afraid of losing my mother and then afraid for my friend, and then afraid for Gavyn and for both of us when we were runaways and Lady Slawyna and her son wanted Gavyn dead. Then I was afraid of coming to Obernewtyn. But it turned out to be a true refuge, and Gavyn belonged there. But there I learned a new and more subtle fear. I was frightened of being pointless. You see, I am not a Misfit. I have nothing special about me that would let me belong. I realized there that I had made looking after Gavyn my reason for existing. And when that was gone and he did not need me…Well, in truth, he never truly needed me. He is not like that. But we had a purpose together….” Her voice trailed off.
“Working with Jak has helped you not to be afraid?” I asked softly, wondering what she would think if I told her that Gavyn and the white dog Rasial had entered a merge with Dell and others to save my life.
She gave me a quick look. “At first, he was just kind, letting me help him. I knew that, but I liked being with the teknoguilders, for they did not seem so…so impossibly Talented. They were only passionate about their research, and I could be useful, because although I did not have their passion for knowledge, I liked doing things, sorting and making careful observations. It was peaceful and I was good at it. It was so nice to feel useful. Then…” Her cheeks flushed a little in the chilly light. “Then he suggested I come here with him, with the expedition. I knew there would be danger, but I didn’t care. I would be useful.”
“And now?”
“I am happy,” she said, radiant. “I almost feel ashamed to say it when so many people have died here or have been taken away. Merret and Orys and Blyss…The others often speak of Obernewtyn with longing. But Jak does not long to be anywhere save where he can pursue his work, and I am happy to be of use to him. Of course, I will never be like him—so lost in curiosity and so hungry to discover. But I am interested, and I am good at thinking and doing practical tasks.” She gave me a sudden, direct look. “I love him,” she declared, almost defiantly. She laughed softly. “He would not allow it to begin with. He said he was too old. But”—a shimmer of pure mischief lit her eyes—“I convinced him.”
“I am glad you are happy,” I said gently.
“That is why I am not afraid of the plague,” Seely said earnestly. “If I must die for what I have had, then I will die. Jak and I will not be parted, and I will not be afraid.”
“Who is there?”
We both swung to face the glass, and I saw that Domick was awake, leaning up as far as the restraining bands would allow.
“I will get Jak,” Seely whispered, and hastened away.
8
“DOMICK?” I SAID, wondering if he could hear me.
He squinted in the direction of my voice, but the central room was dimly lit, and I realized he was unable to see me from within his red-lit chamber. He struggled to sit, only to discover that he was restrained. He struggled hard at his bands for a moment and then sank back, saying hoarsely, “That is not my name. I am Mika. Domick was a fool and a coward.” He squinted again, struggling to see me. “Who are you? I recognize your voice. You hide in the shadows.”
“I am not hiding,” I said, pressing my face to the glass. “We are friends. Don’t you remember? Can you see me now?”
He glared toward me, and then something flickered over the gaunt pale features, a kind of pain, and the slyness faded from his expression. “Elspeth? Guildmistress?” There was sorrow in his voice, but he sounded himself. My heart leapt, but before I could shape any response, his face clenched and he gave a groan. Again he fought against the bands binding his forehead and wrists, trying to break them. When he grew calm again, sweat gleamed on his brow and upper lip. He smiled ferociously at me, a vicious baring of teeth. “Of course! He knows who you are. He thinks you will rescue him. He is a fool. My master understood that perfectly.”
I felt as if I were in the elevating chamber again. “Who is your master?” I asked.
The mad smile widened. “He knew you would want to know. He told me you would ask.” I stared into his glowing face, the dark eyes like small black pits of wickedness and malice, and I told myself that it was not possible that he meant Ariel; that Ariel had known what I, specifically, would say in this moment. For that to be true, he would have to have foreseen that Domick would be here, with me. If he had foreseen that, he would have known his attempt to spread the plague had failed.
“Tell me what your master sent
you here to do,” I said.
The slyness became a demented exultation. “I am the instrument of Lud. I come to punish the wicked. All who sin will fall ill and die. The seeds of Lud’s divine retribution are planted in me.”
These words matched the rantings of the One, but Ariel had been in control of the One. Striving to think how to reach Domick, I asked, “Have those at Obernewtyn sinned? Has Kella sinned?”
The gaunt face twisted at the name, becoming Domick’s face. “Kella.” The word came out a half-strangled sob.
“Domick,” I whispered, frightened of drawing forth Mika again. “How did they catch you?”
“We were talking, and they were suddenly all around us. They had demon bands on, which was why I had not felt them. Rushton fought, and so did I, but there were too many. They took us to him. To…Ariel.” Fear shimmered in his eyes.
I had to fight to breathe slowly, to calm myself. Rushton had been taken at the same time! “Where did they take you?” I asked, wondering if they had been parted immediately or if both had been taken to the Sutrium cloister before Domick was taken to Herder Isle.
“They took us to the Black Ship. Ariel was waiting. The ship took us to…to Norseland, to his place. To their place.” He was beginning to tremble now, and his fists were clenched. I had the feeling he was striving to hold on to himself, to hold Mika back.
“Us?” I asked softly. “Rushton was taken to Norseland?” My mind was racing, because how could we have found Rushton in the Sutrium cloister if he had been taken to Norseland?
“Rushton would not…would not open his mind to Ariel,” Domick croaked. “He fought. I…I was…weak….” Domick arched his back horribly and shuddered violently from head to toe. If the plast bands had failed, he would have hurled himself to the floor. One of the circles fixed to his temples had been torn away, and the metal form twitched its hands and pincers but did nothing. Perhaps it was waiting for him to be still again. Domick stayed arched like a taut bow for a long, terrible moment. He whispered hoarsely, “Ariel…entered my mind. I am strong, but he…he is an empath. He uses empathy in some twisted, dreadful way. Like coercing but worse. It hurt…. I could not stop him….” He flopped back, and when his eyes opened again, Domick was gone. The bloodless lips stretched into a sneering smirk. “He has gone,” he sneered.
“Mika.”
He snickered, and his expression grew petulant. “You helped him take control. You should not have done that. I shall not allow it again.”
“He spoke of Rushton,” I said. Mika made no response. “Rushton was taken to Norseland, too, wasn’t he? But then Ariel sent him back to the Land because he defeated your master.”
“He was useless. He went mad rather than submit,” Mika said. Alarm flickered in his face. “You will not trick me again,” he snarled.
“I couldn’t trick you,” I said, letting admiration tinge my voice. “You survived, which means you must be smarter than Rushton or Domick. They were the fools.”
His eyes narrowed, and he gave a shivering laugh. “Mika is no fool. Mika understands the necessity for suffering. For failure.”
“That is why your master trusted you, isn’t it? Because you are no fool. He sent you, knowing he could trust you. He couldn’t send Domick, because he would not obey. Ariel has no need of guards or manacles, because you serve him faithfully.” I spoke swiftly, obeying my instincts. “What were you to do?”
“I was to come to the west coast to bring the wrath of Lud,” Mika said. Exultation died in his face, and he went on sullenly, “Then master told me he had found out Elspeth Gordie would be there. You,” he hissed. “He said you must not be harmed, because he needed you.” He glared at me. “He said it was Lud’s will that you would stop me and that we must not question Lud’s will.”
I stared at him, utterly baffled. “Why did he send you, if he knew you must fail?” I asked.
“He sent me because of you, Elspeth Gordie. He said that you would ask who my master was, and I was to say it was Ariel. He said I was to tell you that you are his tool, no matter what you believe, and that you will pay for interfering with his plans.” All of this was said in a mumbling sulky voice, which trailed off uncertainly. Domick seemed unaware that he was trembling and sweating copiously, and I was certain that the plague was now infectious.
“How am I to pay?” I asked.
He giggled horribly. “He said you would ask that, too. See how clever he is? He said I must tell you that you will pay in pain.”
“Guilden Domick,” I said sharply and with authority.
Mika stared at me, his mouth slackly open, and then he closed his mouth, and there was pain in his eyes. “Elspeth,” Domick rasped. His voice was stronger than before. “You must not…enter my mind. He has…set up traps. You would not die, but you would suffer, and that is what he wants. He hates you…. You can’t imagine how he hates you. And he sees so much. More than Maryon and Dell. More clearly. But there are gaps! There must be since he did not know I would be able to take control and talk to you. He did not see that you would make me strong.”
I was afraid to say Ariel’s name in case it brought Mika back. “Tell me about Rushton.”
“It is as Mika told you. The Herders got us. Ariel told the warrior priests where to find us. Rushton was trying to make me come…come back to Obernewtyn. I was…I could not. I told him that. What Mika had done was too…I could not go back to Kella with blood on my hands. If she sensed what I had done…”
“So the Hedra took you to Ariel, and he took you both to Norseland. What happened then?”
“Ariel has a machine that gets inside your head. Noises and colors and pain come from it…He used the machine to try to open our minds so he could empathise us. He is a weak coercer, you see. But Rushton would not let him in. I fought, too, but he found Mika, and he summoned him and made him strong. Mika opened my mind for Ariel. He…came inside my mind with empathy, but—Elspeth—he is like an empath turned inside out. He…he made me feel such terrible things. He made me imagine hurting Kella. He made me take pleasure from it. I fled inside myself, which left Mika. It was what Ariel wanted. Mika coerced Rushton, and Rushton had no defense against him because they had been…we…were friends.” The last words were spoken in a sobbing hiss. “Ariel entered Rushton’s mind, but still Rushton fought. He used your face and form as a shield against hatred and despair and pain and all that Ariel used on him, but with Mika and the machine, Rushton could not hold out forever. When Rushton broke, Ariel took his revenge. He made Mika help him to…distort Rushton’s memories so whenever he thought…of you, of Elspeth…he would feel pain and he would see the most dreadful…”
“Why would he do such terrible things to Rushton?” I asked through clenched teeth, sickened to the heart by what he was telling me.
“Ariel said Rushton must suffer for opposing him. But in truth, his anger at Rushton is small compared to his hatred of you. I…Once I asked him why he hated you so. He said that he had dreamed you would find something he greatly desired, something from the Beforetime. Only you could find and claim it, and no matter how many times he sought for another outcome, it was always the same. You found what he desired. He realized that the only way for him to possess what he wanted was to let you find it and then take it from you!” Domick almost screamed this last word. Then he lurched forward and vomited thin yellow bile onto the white sheet. Two more of the circles had been torn away, and I heard a muffled beeping sound. Domick laughed, a thread of saliva hanging from his lower lip. “See? He is a thing I can vomit out.” It was Mika’s voice, crafty and malicious.
“That is because you are stronger,” I said smoothly.
Mika nodded eagerly. “Domick had locked me away. I was hidden in the darkest place in his mind, but the master let me out and made me strong. He laughed and laughed when he discovered me, and Domick wept.” There was contempt in his tone. “The master gave me power, and I obeyed him. He locked Domick in the darkness where he had hidden me.”
“He used you,” I said slowly. “He used the plague to make me find you so you could tell me what he had done to Rushton.”
Mika’s eyes glowed blackly in his ashen face. “He trusted me to do his will—me, not Domick. I wanted him to kill Domick, but he said that he could not be killed or I would die.” His face twisted with rage. “But he said Domick would never get out. Never.” The triumph in his face dwindled to an irritable fretfulness. “But you made Domick want to come. You tricked me.” Now there was anger again, but I ignored it, for I felt that something still eluded me.
I said coldly, “Your master failed you. Because he made a mistake about Domick’s strength, and he made a mistake about Rushton, too, didn’t he? He took him to Norseland and tried to use him, and in the end, he could only hurt him.”
Mika sneered. “Rushton held you before him like a shield, but we broke him and then the master gave Rushton to the Herders to let him rot in a cell.”
“But Rushton is not in the cell. He is free and works against your master. That was a mistake, too, wasn’t it?” Some part of me was sickened by my cruelty, for it was Domick I was taunting. Mika was just a poor twisted part of his mind. I forced myself to go on. “You were supposed to be the instrument of Lud, bringing plague, but instead you are just Ariel’s messenger boy.”
“It is your fault.” Mika’s face was as confused as a child’s.
“Yes,” I said. “The seeds of sickness in you will flower and you will die, but only you. Why did Ariel infect you with the plague when he knew you would never be allowed to spread it to another person? Why didn’t he trust you to pretend?”
“He…he said it would change things if he did anything differently. He said…he said he must act as if…as if he had seen nothing. It was the only way….”
“So you alone are to die from the plague you carry? Maybe he kept that from you. Maybe he didn’t trust you after all….”
“He did! He trusted me. He said I must wait, and you would find me. He said you had to find me because of the plague.” The words became a labored gasping and a breathless sobbing. Then he was still, his head hanging down. When the face lifted, Domick’s eyes looked out at me, tortured and bleak.