Their recent history is one of gentleness and wisdom, and this is due at least in part to the influence of a woman they rescued from the New Gadfians—whom they call Kasanda. She was very ill when they brought her to Sador, for she was not young and had been savagely beaten over and over. Not for failing to bear a normal child—she was too old for that—but for defending the women. I wish I could learn more of her. She was no Gadfian; that much is clear. She had a profound effect on the Sadorians, teaching them to heal even as they healed her, but whence came the knowledge she taught them of healing and of other things? What did she say to unite the tribes and draw them finally away from the warlike path of their ancestors, and how did she convince them to establish the cliff caves as the Earthtemple? For that was her idea as well. The Sadorians will not speak of her to me, and I do not know why, for they are entirely open about all else. I have even been taken to their precious spice groves.
He went on to describe the immense trees and the many uses of the spice they produced. I let my fingers slide over the long description, eager for more of the mysterious Kasanda. In the labyrinthine tunnels of the Temple the previous year, I had been shown a chamber that housed a series of relief carvings of the Beforetime made by this Kasanda. Seeing them, I had understood for the first time that the Great White had not been a terrible accident but the inevitable conclusion to the arrogant, greedy, self-centered age of the Beforetimers.
The stone carvings had been true works of art, but I had been struck by their resemblance to the wood carvings on the front doors to Obernewtyn and wished the latter had not been burned, so I could compare them. I had intended to look into their history, but more immediate matters had always demanded my attention.
“It is your path/purpose to bring the funagaglarsh to the longsleep, ElspethInnle,” Maruman interrupted the flow of my thoughts pointedly. Glarsh was the beast thoughtsymbol for “machine.” I felt there was reproach in his single yellow eye.
“I have sworn to find the glarsh and bring them to the longsleep, but the oldOnes have bid me wait,” I sent.
Maruman merely laid his chin on one paw and closed his eye.
I shrugged. I needed no reminder of the dark road I must walk, for it was foretold that if I failed, one would come whose destiny was to resurrect the Beforetime weaponmachines and their deadly potential, bringing the poor, battered world to a final doom. I could not imagine why this Destroyer would wish to unmake the world, since it must mean his own doom as well. Perhaps, like the Gadfian fanatics Dameon had spoken of, he believed his reward would come after death.
Or maybe he was no more captain of his fate than I of mine.
3
“ROLAND BEGAN IT,” Ceirwan said over his shoulder as he preceded me down the narrow spiral of stairs. “He accused Miryum of pursuin’ a selfish vision of glory to th’ detriment of Obernewtyn an’ said she mun as well be takin’ coin from th’ Council fer her work against us.”
“He said that?” I muttered, but I did not doubt it. Roland was blunt and choleric at the best of times.
“Miryum asked if he was calling her a traitor, and he said he was calling her a fool but that she was too stupid to realize it. She said she pursued glory in order to make unTalented folk revere Misfits. You know how pompous she can be these days.…”
I knew. Since our return from Sador, we had applied ourselves to the problem of rendering ourselves less abhorrent to the unTalented folk of the Land, in the hope that they would someday come to accept us. Each guild had found its own means of approaching the matter.
The Empath guild had decided that they would use their abilities wherever they traveled to encourage people to feel compassion for others. More dramatically, they and the coercers had worked together to manipulate dreams so that unTalented people could momentarily experience life as hunted and reviled Misfits. During the last guildmerge, there had been a long discussion about the nature of dreams and whether or not manipulating them was any more immoral than writing a song about events that had passed, reshaping them for effect. The matter was yet unresolved, but it had become a favored topic of debate.
The Coercer guild had begun creating teaching entertainments for unTalented children using simple songs and jokes, good puppetry, and acrobatics, which made use of their hard-won physical skills. The few times they had so far performed, they had disguised themselves as halfbreed gypsies and called themselves magi. Unlike true gypsy performances, the magi show had hidden depth; beneath the jokes and stories there was always some subtle lesson designed to make the audience examine their prejudices.
Miryum had devised her own way of changing people’s thinking after reading a Beforetime book about warriors who rode about their land performing noble deeds. Inspired by these knights, who had lived by a system of ethics called chivalry, Miryum had begun riding out regularly wearing a black mask, performing good deeds, and preaching her code of chivalry to anyone who would listen. Before long, several of the younger and more volatile coercers, chafing under our new vow of pacifism, had joined Miryum’s expeditions.
No one had done anything at first, in the hope that her zeal would fade. But gossip about her eventually reached even Sutrium, and a warning came from Domick that the Council was becoming interested in talk of the mysterious coercer-knights.
Ceirwan and I came onto a narrow path that ran from the kitchen garden to the maze courtyard, and we heard Roland bellowing. “Blasted woman. You will see us all dead with your antics!”
Coming round the corner, I had a clear view of the craggy Healer guildmaster glaring ferociously at Miryum. Behind the stocky Coercer guilden were two of her coercer-knights, identifiable by the black scarves around their necks that doubled as masks. Beside Roland stood the Healer ward, Kella, a long-suffering look on her delicate features. A group of goggling youngsters stood around them.
“What is going on?” I demanded.
Roland jabbed his head toward me. “You try to make her see sense!” he growled. “She dares to claim that she is doing no worse than my healers in galloping about the Land playing the heroine!”
“Do you say we should not help people in need?” Miryum asked frostily.
“I am saying you might consider the value of a little discretion!” Roland shouted.
“To be discreet would defeat our purpose,” the Coercer guilden said with composure.
“You are naive beyond belief,” Roland said.
“Miryum.” I intervened firmly before the Healer guildmaster gave up on words and throttled the coercer. “Is it not true that at the last guildmerge, the coercers agreed to restrain the activities of the knights, given that they could cause the Council to resurrect its plan to set up a soldierguard outpost in the highlands?”
“Gevan agreed to that suggestion, not the knights,” Miryum said.
“Are your blasted knights not coercers, who should obey their guildmaster? Or do you think to replace him?” Roland raged.
Miryum did not rise to the jibe. “I do not wish to take Gevan’s place, but my philosophy and that of my fellow knights sits uneasily within the charter of the Coercer guild. I do not wish to undermine the guild’s work, but more is needed to change the status of Misfits than teaching plays. If people fear us because they see us as superior to themselves, we must ensure they know that we will use our abilities for the betterment of all who dwell in the Land.”
Roland almost danced with fury. “Gevan’s plays are subtle, and people will not resist what he teaches because they do not know they are being taught. But your performances are as delicate as a hammer blow! Not only that, but they also indicate that we see ourselves as an elite. Do you think that will incline people to look on us with favor?”
“The people we aid are genuinely grateful,” Miryum said with rather touching dignity.
I could not help but admire her aplomb, but like Roland, I thought exaggerated heroics far too simple an approach to an old and complex problem.
“Miryum,” I said sternly. “Gevan is g
uildmaster of the coercers, and in your guild’s name, he made an undertaking to Rushton. As a coercer sworn to that guild, and an office bearer within it, you are bound by its rulings. Are you not also bound by your own code of chivalry, which demands that your word be as enduring as stone?”
Miryum was silent, and the color rose slowly in her cheeks. “You are right,” she said simply. “We will not ride out again until this matter is resolved.” She bowed to me and then to Roland, and departed, followed by the two other coercer-knights.
“Say what ye will of Miryum, but this code of hers bestows great dignity,” Ceirwan murmured as the children drifted back to their games.
Roland gave the Farseeker guilden a black look before stalking away.
“What on earth started it this time?” I sighed.
“Roland went into Darthnor and was questioned by a rabble of miners as to whether he had seen this band of murderin’ masked rebels sent out by Henry Druid,” Kella said softly.
“But Henry Druid is dead!” I said, taken aback. The rebel Herder priest had perished in the White Valley in a terrible firestorm that destroyed most of his followers along with his secret encampment. “Where would such rumors come from?”
“I dinna ken, but Roland is right in sayin’ it will make things difficult in the highlands if people start becomin’ jumpy,” Ceirwan said.
A young teknoguilder had been among those watching the confrontation. I called him over before he could leave and asked if he or others of his guild had noticed anyone snooping about the White Valley. The Druid’s encampment there had been secret, but there had been rumors aplenty. If there were soldierguards in the highlands looking for him, that was where they would go.
The teknoguilder said that he had not heard of anyone wandering around, but that in any case Garth had most of them in the city under Tor. They had learned that the Reichler Clinic had kept its most important records in the basement of the building that housed the Reception Center.
I was puzzled. “Then they are lost to us still, for the bottom of the building is under water and earth. Unless Garth has found some way to transform people into fish.”
The teknoguilder opened his mouth, then shut it again. But I received a clear visual image of someone swimming beneath the water.
“What is Garth up to?” Ceirwan sent to me, for he had seen it, too.
I told the teknoguilder to let his guildmaster know that I would call on him in the Teknoguild cave network that afternoon. But he flushed and said apologetically that Garth had gone down to Tor three days before. This surprised me, because Garth seldom left the caves just outside Obernewtyn’s wall.
As the teknoguilder hurried away, I turned to speak to Kella, but she had slipped away. “That girl is like a wraith,” I muttered.
“She grieves,” Ceirwan said gently.
My fleeting annoyance at Kella dissolved into pity, for I knew Ceirwan was right. The young healer still mourned the end of her relationship with the estranged coercer Domick.
This brought me back to the Coercer guild, for I felt sure that it was Domick’s defection that had paved the way for Miryum and her knights to consider forming a splinter group. The guild had always been somewhat troubled because of the mind-controlling aspects of its members’ Talent, and the shift to pacifism had been more difficult for them than any other.
More than ever I missed Dameon, for he had the gift of seeing to the heart of such impossible disputes.
Taking a side corridor, I came out of the building onto a path that ran along the west side of Obernewtyn. A wall constructed too close to the other side of the path meant that almost no sun reached the narrow walkway; as a consequence there were still deep drifts of snow along each side. The path would originally have been used by servitors bringing wood to the front-room fires, but there were now more convenient ways in and out.
The wall enclosed the area that had once held Ariel’s wolf pens. Bars and gates had long since been removed and an herb garden planted in the enclosure, but it still had a grim feel, as if tainted by the cruelness of our nemesis long after he had left Obernewtyn and become a Herder agent.
I went straight through the garden and out a gate on the other side of the enclosure to a flat patch of grass, as gray and dull as an old man’s hair. This was where Ariel had tortured the wolves and half-wolves he had bred. “Training them,” he had called it, curling his pretty lip.
On the other side of the grass was the outer wall that surrounded all of Obernewtyn. A scraggy line of dead-looking shrubs ran parallel with it, continuing to the greenthorn wall of the maze. At a glance, it looked as if the maze and outer wall were one, but in fact there was a hidden lane between them.
I pushed my way through the shrubs to where a weathered bench stood against the wall. Behind it, a creeper hung in spidery tendrils that spring would transform into a thick, shiny tapestry. Beside the bench grew a small rosebush that offered the deepest crimson blooms right through spring and summerdays and even the Days of Rain, if it was not allowed to run to seed.
I did not know how the seat or the rosebush came to be there, and I could not ask without giving away my secret retreat. Only Maruman knew of it. Sitting, I realized I had half hoped the old cat would be here, but no doubt the snowdrifts had put him off.
I never thought of Maruman as intruding on my solitude. He spent so much time with his mind curled around mine that my shield took him as part of my own self and would not keep him out unless I concentrated on excluding him.
The lane was choked with weed and tough shrubs gone wild, but cleared, it would make a swifter route to the farms than the maze path, which had been designed to confuse. The maze was now clearly marked by carved posts, and some sections of the wall had been removed for ease of access on the other side of Obernewtyn, but it was still slow going during wintertime when the snow clogged every turn. My conscience pricked me, and I knew that I should mention the path. It would mean the loss of my retreat. But, after all, it was only a matter of time before one of the teknoguilders discovered it. A greater number of them explored the grounds of Obernewtyn more than even the submerged ruinous city beneath Tor.
Ever since we had stumbled on the Reichler Clinic Reception Center in the Beforetime city, the Teknoguild had been obsessed with learning more about it. We knew that the clinic had been a Beforetime organization devoted to researching Talented Misfits, then called paranormals. This was proof that Talents existed before the Great White and were a natural development in human evolution. Our amazement was redoubled when we discovered that the Reichler Clinic had been founded by a woman whose second name was the same as Rushton’s—Hannah Seraphim. Hannah had had some dealings with a man named Jacob Obernewtyn, who we believed had constructed a home, the ruins of which provided the foundations of our current Obernewtyn.
The real Reichler Clinic, too, had been sited in our valley, although there had been an earlier Reichler Clinic in a different location, which had been destroyed. The establishment of a “reception center” in the city under Tor had been a ploy to divert the attention of the Beforetime organization called Govamen, which had developed a sinister interest in the use of paranormal abilities as weapons. The Reception Center served to distribute what Beforetimers named misinformation. Anyone who tested paranormal was immediately spirited away to the real Reichler Clinic.
Hannah and her people had begun publicly to falsify their researches, claiming the abilities they had detected were weak and generally uncontrollable, but Govamen continued its surveillance. This led Hannah to undertake her own inquiries, whereupon she discovered that the destruction of their original headquarters had been contrived by Govamen to cover the kidnapping of a group of paranormals. The Teknoguild had found documents detailing the prisoners’ whereabouts and the various experiments performed upon them—documents that indicated Hannah had had a spy within Govamen. The last clear information the Teknoguild had compiled suggested Hannah had intended to rescue the paranormals. Whether or not she had do
ne so, we had no idea, for the time of the holocaust was nigh.
Most of us accepted that we would probably never know the true history of the Reichler Clinic, and Rushton openly disapproved of time being spent on historical puzzles. He could not see any point in learning more about Beforetimers, because they were all dead and gone. What did it matter if he was related to Hannah Seraphim? It neither helped nor hindered us in our struggle to find a legitimate place in the Land.
But the teknoguilders continued to pick at the mystery like an old scab. Suddenly I had no doubt Garth had deliberately timed his trip to the White Valley to coincide with Rushton’s absence. Which meant the Teknoguildmaster was almost certainly up to something he knew Rushton would not like.
There was a crackling sound, and I glanced up to see the Futuretell guildmistress, Maryon, push her way through the shrubbery. Her expression was so blankly preoccupied that I thought she was in a trance. But then her eyes widened in surprise.
“Elspeth! I was just thinkin’ of ye.”
I did not much like hearing that. I was all too conscious that I appeared often in the futureteller’s inner journeying.
“Do ye mind if I sit by ye?” she asked.
“Of course not,” I lied.
Sitting down, she gave me a wry sideways look, and I was uncomfortably reminded that she discomposed me.
I did not dislike her. I did not know her well enough for that, and this fact alone said much, for I had met Maryon at the same time as I had met Roland, Alad, and Gevan. I thought of the latter three as friends but not Maryon. I had almost hated her when the young Herder novice Jik was taken on an expedition at her futuretelling insistence, only to die. In addition, she had allowed the young empath Dragon to follow me secretly to Sutrium, knowing this would lead to her current comatose state. All because her visions demanded it.
It was this quality of remoteness from the things she foresaw that disturbed me. Possibly I was being unfair, for many novice futuretellers lamented their helplessness in the face of what they saw. Older futuretellers were silent, perhaps becoming resigned to what they had learned could not be changed. Certainly it seemed that futureteller remoteness was not a personal trait but part of what they did with their minds and Talent. Like all coercers and some farseekers, futuretellers used the Misfit ability known as deep-probing. But whereas coercivity used a deep probe to dig into the unconscious of other minds and bend another’s will, futuretellers delved only into their own minds.