The Stone Key

  “Almost like a computermachine plague,” I murmured.

  Dell looked startled and nodded. “Being effectively Ines’s human user now, I understand very well how a computermachine program would suffer, for she has an insatiable hunger to know things. Lacking that connection to her sister computermachines, she has no other source of new information but what we give her. Fortunately, that seems to satisfy her. Most fascinating is that when I tell her something that does not agree with the knowledge she possesses, she is able to consider both sets of knowledge and decide which to believe. Sometimes she decides that neither is completely correct, and she formulates a modified or merged version of the information. This capacity for assessing information and discarding those parts she has judged obsolete or irrelevant makes me certain that the right argument or piece of knowledge could make her discard the imperative that requires certain keys and codes before she will allow me to know all that she knows. Then she will simply open her deeper self to me.”

  “What do you hope to learn?” I asked.

  “I do not know. But I am curious about why certain information in her memory was considered to be so important or valuable or dangerous that it had to be kept secret.”

  She got up from the stool and crossed to the window. Without turning, she said, “I care for Obernewtyn and the people there. But I have found a true purpose for my life with Ines.”

  “What about your futuretelling ability?” I asked.

  Dell looked over her shoulder and smiled at me gently. “Perhaps that is at the heart of it. I have the ability to see the future and the past, and at Obernewtyn that is how I defined myself. But when I came here, I realized that I had never really thought about what I wanted. It had never occurred to me that it might be separate from what I was. Maybe these thoughts were beginning to form in my subconscious mind, and that is why I volunteered for this expedition. When I think back on the things Maryon said before I left…I think she guessed. Maybe she even foresaw this. It would not be unlike her to see and say nothing, leaving it for me to discover.” She looked over her shoulder at me again, her gaze speculative. “I think you might understand better than anyone that a person can have an unexpected destiny.”

  It was a question if I wanted to answer it. I did not. The prohibition against ever speaking of my quest was too strong. “Do you know what is causing the smoke coming from beyond the Suggredoon?” I asked.

  She smiled faintly, signaling her acceptance of the abrupt change of subject. “I have seen nothing of an invasion in Sutrium or of the city being razed by fire. But that does not mean anything. You know that.”

  I nodded. “Do you foresee anything of what is to come in these next sevendays?” Then I added quickly, “For all of us?”

  She sighed and nodded. “I have seen a time of fighting and bloodshed in the future. Your face is at the center of it.”

  “I am not the cause…,” I began.

  She shook her head. “No. You are a change-bringer. Whatever choices you make lead to change for the rest of us. But it is not something you chose.” Then she said, “When you leave this place, we shall not meet again.”

  I stared at her, my skin sprouting goose bumps. I could see from the vacant look in her eyes that she had sunk into a futuretelling trance. I did not want to ask, but I had to know. “What do you mean?” I whispered.

  “Before the next wintertime ends, you will bid farewell to all that you love and journey far over land and sea to face the beast.”

  “All that I love?” I echoed.

  “All,” Dell said, serene and implacable.

  10

  I WAS DREAMING of the dreamtrails. I could tell by the overvivid colors of the wild, churning green landscape about me, the way things bled and blurred into new shapes.

  I heard a voice. “Merimyn!”

  I turned to see a young woman. She reminded me strongly of the stone figure of Hannah Seraphim as a girl on Stonehill.

  “Where are you?” she called. She scowled in mock anger and set her hands on her hips. Her eyes narrowed, and a clump of bush beside me melted away. There, to my astonishment, sat a small motley-colored cat. Maruman! But not as I knew him, old and scarred. He was whole and young, and his two eyes gleamed as he grew wings and sprang into the sky.

  “Merimyn!” the girl cried, laughing. “That’s cheating!”

  I thought myself wings and sprang after Maruman. He rose into the clouds, which became a snowy landscape. He padded through the snow, jumped skittishly at a piece of twig protruding from a drift, and then went on, making a little soft trail of blue paw prints. He showed none of the loathing he usually expressed at the sight of snow. Suddenly, he turned his yellow gaze on me. Two eyes.

  “Who are you?” he asked curiously.

  It was Maruman’s mindvoice, but the sharp ironies that enriched his older mindvoice were absent. This was a younger, lighter voice with a constant ripple of kitten mischief threaded through it. I felt a stab of grief, for this was a Maruman I had never known. How was it possible that I was dreaming of Maruman as a young cat?

  “I have dreamed your face, funaga,” Maruman said thoughtfully.

  A voice called, and he sprang up and vanished. The snowy landscape about me immediately dissolved, and I made no attempt to hold on to it. I fell for a time, and then I was standing in a green lane between towering hedges. I recognized the mountains rising in the blue distance on one side and knew that I was in Obernewtyn’s maze, yet the hedge was formed of a different small-leafed plant with no fragrance. Cassy Dupray and Hannah Seraphim were walking arm in arm, their heads close together as they spoke, and I realized this was the Obernewtyn of the Beforetime. Neither seemed any older than on the last occasion I had seen them.

  “…sorry Jacob was not here so you could meet him,” Hannah was saying.

  “So am I. I wish I didn’t have to go back,” Cassy added with real regret.

  “I wish it, too, yet it will not be long before you will come to Newrome to study. Besides, we will see one another when I come to Inva for the conference. Once I have arranged my flight, I will let you know the details, and then you must try to arrange to visit your father’s institution at the same time. We cannot get the others out unless you are inside the complex.”

  “What about the birds?”

  “You must release them and instruct them to find their way here. If they are as intelligent as you believe, they will manage it. Indeed they must, for there are a multitude of questions I would ask this bird that sent you to find me,” she said with a half laugh. Then her face became serious. “Will you be able to get your father to invite you back again?”

  “My father won’t be a problem, and I don’t expect the vile Masterton to object, since I did his precious logo. The problem might be my mother. She won’t understand why I want to return, and she won’t like it. She hates what my father is doing.”

  “The Sentinel project,” Hannah said, nodding. “I can’t say I blame her. It troubles me as well. The idea of putting all that weaponry around the globe into the hands of a single master computer program.”

  “My father says it will be more rational and less prejudiced than any human could ever be, because all five powers are involved in programming it.”

  “I don’t doubt it will be less prejudiced than a human, but will it be as wise as the wisest man, as compassionate as the most compassionate woman?” Hannah asked. “Perhaps what bothers me most is that I cannot see why the government would embrace a project that will take power out of their hands. It doesn’t fit with how they operate. What do they get out of it?”

  “Safety?” Cassy offered. “No more accidents wiping out countries.”

  “That might work, if the company running this project didn’t have strong links to weapon manufacturers. That is what those papers you got for me prove. Why on earth would armament dealers support a project that is supposed to end any need for warfare?”

  “Maybe they see the writing on the wall, and they figure t
hey might as well get paid for something.”

  “That would be a pragmatic approach, except that those who wage wars and think in terms of arms races would see that as defeat. It seems more likely that these people have taken on the Sentinel project to ensure that it fails. If that is their aim, I am not sure it would be bad. But I feel the need to know more. That is part of what I will investigate when I am in Inva for the conference. If you can get inside before then, please ask our friends if they will use their abilities to learn about Sentinel. They are in the perfect position to poke around. It is actually rather incredible that they are being held in the same compound as the Sentinel project. But it would not be the first time the government played both ends against the middle.”

  “My father said there are lots of top-secret projects being run there, and each has no idea what the other is doing,” Cassy said. “So you want the paranormals to spy for you?”

  “Can a prisoner be said to spy?” Hannah countered.

  “I can nose around as well,” Cassy offered after a moment.

  “No,” Hannah said firmly. “You can’t get yourself barred from the place. You must play the obedient and dutiful daughter.” Cassy looked despondent, and Hannah laid an arm about her shoulders and smiled. “Stay in touch, my dear, but be careful. Even with all of our controls, we could be in trouble if someone decides to take a more serious interest in you.”

  Someone grasped me by the shoulder and began shaking me.

  I woke to find Seely looking anxiously at me. I gazed around the brightly lit room for a confounded moment, memories of the interview with Dell and my later fruitless attempts to farseek Merret tumbling through my mind, muddled with my dreams. I had been so exhausted that I did not remember entering the sleeping chamber or going to sleep.

  “Is it Merret?” I asked, sitting up and pulling on the Beforetime boots.

  “It is Domick. He is awake.”

  In a moment, we were hurrying along the passages to the elevating chamber. “Is he better or worse?”

  “He has broken out in buboes. Some of them have already burst,” Seely told me as we entered the elevating chamber.

  “But Jak said that it would not happen until the final stage,” I said in dismay.

  “In the last plague, Jak says, it took a sevenday for anyone infected to get buboes. He says this plague is so very like the last that it might be a mutation of it, and one of the differences is the swiftness of the plague to run its course.” She saw my expression. “I’m sorry. Those are all Beforetimer terms. It is easier for Pavo if we use words he knows.”

  I nodded and forced myself to think beyond my fear for Domick. “Is there any news from Merret?”

  “Kader rode out to see if he could get close enough to communicate with Merret. Two hours ago, he sent back a message saying that Iriny had crossed the Suggredoon. Merret went close enough to the river to see Hedra on the other bank. She saw one kill someone in ordinary clothes. A rebel, we have to suppose. She told Kader there are many Hedra at the river now, and they want to cross. They are arguing with the soldierguards about it.”

  “What of the rebels here?”

  “Alun has ridden to Murmroth to speak with Gwynedd. Neither he nor Orys have yet returned.” As we emerged from the elevating chamber into the green-lit passage, she shook her head and confessed, half ashamedly, “So much time passed with so little happening, and then you arrive and suddenly everything seems to be happening at once.”

  Change-bringer, Dell had called me. Catalyst, Merret had named me. Seeker to the Agyllians. Not one of these names had I chosen for myself, and I felt belated sympathy for Dell’s desire to choose her own path.

  In the dim circular healing room, Jak sat at the computermachine as he had when I last saw him, and although he must have rested, I felt ashamed, seeing how tired he looked.

  “I should have come sooner,” I said flatly.

  The teknoguilder turned slowly to look at me, and when I saw the expression on his haggard face, I grew frightened and turned to look where Domick lay.

  The coercer’s pale skin was now covered in livid bumps of purple and sickly yellow, each so swollen that the skin was thin and shiny-looking. One of the ugly buboes had formed on his face, distorting his eye and mouth, and Domick gasped in each shallow breath as if his lungs had too little room for air. His hair and face glistened with sweat, and his lips were torn and bloody as if he had chewed at them. Where the restraining bands passed lightly over his body and forehead, there were dark red pressure marks as if he had pressed himself so hard against them as to bruise his flesh. He was so emaciated that I could see his ribs clearly.

  “Seely said he was awake,” I said.

  Domick’s eyes opened at the sound of my voice, but the buboes made it hard to read his expression as he squinted in my direction. The central room in which we stood was now brightly lit, and I knew he could see me.

  “It is you,” Domick rasped.

  I exhaled and leaned against the glass. “Domick,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

  Domick produced a ghastly smile. “Mika is glad to give way to me now, because he does not want to bear the pain this body must endure. I am…glad…to be free before I die.”

  I blinked rapidly to clear my eyes of a hot rush of tears. I wanted to tell him fiercely that he would not die, but I had seen the truth in Jak’s exhausted face. Domick nodded as if my silence had spoken to him. He let his head fall back, moaning softly as if even this slight movement hurt him. I turned to the teknoguilder and said almost angrily, “Is there nothing you can give him for pain?”

  “Pavo has given him a good deal already,” Jak said gently. He had left his stool and come to stand a little behind me. “More would send him to sleep, but he—”

  “I don’t want to sleep,” Domick gasped, and I turned quickly back to him. “I do not mind dying, but I…I wish I could have seen Obernewtyn one last time.” Then he fell silent and closed his eyes.

  I bit my lip and listened to his harsh breathing; then I remembered how Dameon had comforted me in Saithwold, and I began softly to speak of Obernewtyn. I described the new cave garden that Katlyn had begun and how she had made the Teknoguild seal the openings with plast and wood so the air would stay warm and humid even in the winter. I told him of the discovery of Jacob Obernewtyn’s tomb and all that had been found in it. I described Rasial, whom he had never seen, and told the story of the white dog who had killed her brutal master and led his domestic beasts, including chickens, up to Obernewtyn. I described Gavyn, the strange beastspeaker-enthraller who had become Rasial’s constant and wordless companion, along with a giddy little owlet that never left his shoulder. I spoke of the last moon fair and of the tapestry the Futuretellers presented to Obernewtyn that depicted the rebellion and of the coercer games.

  As I spoke, the lines of rigid tension in the coercer’s ravaged body relaxed. Still speaking, I glanced at Jak, who nodded encouragement. Seely stood beside him, holding his hand, tears streaming down her face.

  My voice was cracking now, but I did not stop. I told of my journey across the strait from Herder Isle with the ship fish Ari-noor. I was no songmaker, and I left out any mention of my role as the Seeker, but I strove to make my telling beautiful enough to contain the truth of that journey, and I knew I had succeeded when Domick’s lips curved up in the slightest smile.

  But the smile vanished, and suddenly Domick asked where Rushton was. I had been very careful not to speak of Rushton, but I could not lie or evade the question. I swallowed hard and said that we had found him in the cells of the Sutrium cloister. “Roland and Kella healed him, and now he leads us again at Obernewtyn.”

  Domick frowned and looked distressed, but when he spoke, he said, “Tell Kella that I loved her, Elspeth. I truly did. But then Mika came. I was afraid of what he might do if he came while I was with her. All that I loved, he hated. All that I hated, he loved. That is why he was so cruel to Rushton. He knew that I had loved him, too.” Now he wept,
and sobs racked his poor ravaged form.

  I had no words to ease him, so I stood silent. It seemed so cruel that he should be in physical pain while suffering such anguish.

  “That ship fish…sang in your mind?” he asked softly after a while.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “I…would like to…hear a fish…sing,” he murmured, and closed his eyes.

  I looked around to find that Jak had returned to the computermachine. Seely stood in his place. “He will sleep now,” she said.

  “Do you know how long before…?” I was unable to complete the question.

  She shook her head. “This is a dreadful death. I can hardly bear to think anyone would wish to inflict this fearsome ugly suffering on thousands of people.” She shivered.

  Jak came back to draw Seely into his long arms, and she leaned her head against his chest. The teknoguilder’s face was lined with sorrow and regret as his eyes met mine over her bowed head. “I am so sorry, Elspeth. I tried but…there is just too little time.”

  “How long?” I asked again.

  “Tomorrow. Maybe tonight,” he said heavily. “It might even be longer, for we do not know how this new form of plague will work. Perhaps this later stage will be longer than with the last plague. But I doubt he will become conscious again.”

  Perhaps it was cowardly, but I could not stay there, watching him die. I felt a passionate desire to feel the wind on my cheeks and to see the true sky. I went up to the ruins, only to find a cold, windy evening, the night sky once again full of fleeting clouds that gave only misty glimpses of the stars and the moon. I thought I could smell smoke as I headed to the watchtower, intending to take my mind off Domick by farseeking Merret. The boy Pellis was on watch, and he greeted me with awe-filled eyes that made me want to weep. I leaned against the top of the wall and gazed toward Sutrium. I could see the shape of the vast obscuring cloud of smoke that rose over the Suggredoon, and I thought of what Merret had told Kader. If she really had seen Hedra on the opposite bank killing ordinary people or rebels, the Hedra who had been abandoned in the Land must have rallied against the rebels. Perhaps they had found other weapon caches. Who knew what sort of weapons they would have hidden? I thought, remembering what we had been shown in the armory on Herder Isle. I thought of Iriny and prayed she had safely reached the other side.