Obernewtyn

  But then I thought of Rushton, and his cool green look when he told me he did not mind risking his life for me. There was a debt I must pay.

  "Come then," I said. "But we have to move quickly. I have wasted too much time here."

  Several hours later I knew that I had sadly underestimated Maruman. I had expected him to slow me, but he was still as fresh as ever, stepping daintily and scarcely leaving a mark in the snow while I floundered along heavily, feeling exhausted and depressed. I had not expected the cave to be so far. There was a tickle in my throat that warned me I had not escaped my sleep in the snow unscathed, but the air had warmed marginally and there was no numbness in my feet or hands.

  We reached a wide, flat plain. Now that the snow had stopped I could see, and though there was no moon, the snow itself seemed to give out a ghostly luminous light. The land around us was barren but strangely fascinating, as if it were a dreamscape—alien yet beautiful.

  Maruman revealed an unexpected instinct for avoiding trouble and many times prevented me from stumbling into a hole filled with snow. Once he stopped me from walking onto wafer-thin ice covenng a frozen pool of water and camouflaged by a deceptive layer of snow. It was a strange, treacherous journey, and I admitted to myself that without Maruman, there was every likelihood I would not have made it.

  Another time he stopped just ahead of me, his fur fluffed in a manner that I now recognized as his uncanny instinct for danger.

  "What is it?" I asked of his thoughts.

  He told me there was no immediate problem but that we had just entered wolf territory and that we should pass through it as quickly as we could. We went on very quietly and he would not even let me slow down when we reached the border of that area, saying it was unsafe even on the perimeters of such land. Wolves were beasts, not funaga with lines on bits of paper signifying borders, he told me.

  I thought how patronizing I must have sounded, trying to talk him into staying behind. Looking up absently, I noticed several big humped shapes along the horizon, and farther back, framing those humps, the faint jagged line of the western mountains. We were almost there.

  "That is where we will find my friend," I told Maru-man.

  His eyes roved wanly along the horizon, taking in the dark hillocks. "There is danger here," he observed.

  There was no answer to that. I knew trouble lay ahead. We went on, but warily, watching for any movement that nnght indicate we had been seen.

  It took less than an hour to reach the granite outcrops, but though we searched diligently and with increasing frustration, we could find no path or cave opening.

  "The snow must have hidden it," I said despairingly.

  Maruman gave that low eerie growl that had so terrified me before. I looked down, wondering what had prompted it. His eyes were glowing and his spine twitched convulsively. At first I thought he had heard or seen something, but when I questioned him he did not respond. I knelt and looked into his face with consternation.

  "Forever and forever is pain.. . ." Maruman said, his eyes whirling. Helplessly, I touched his paw. The cat was heading for another period of madness.

  "Please, not now," I begged, but hopelessly, knowing the time or length of his fits was impossible to direct. He turned his raggedy head to look at the hills, then back to me.

  "Here is danger but it cannot be avoided. It is necessary so that you can come to know your task," he said. "Here is darkness, but it is not the darkness you must destroy."

  I stared at him wishing this had not happened now. It was growing colder.

  "The flies!" Maruman shrieked suddenly into my mind. I reeled back with intensity. He trembled violently from head to toe, then fell sideways like a stone. Poor, tormented beast. I picked him up. He was surprisingly heavy. I carried him to a very small cave we had passed some minutes before. Taking off my outer coat, I wrapped it around him and lay him inside the hole. At least he would be warm until he woke. I was torn between worry for him, because his fit was so much more devastating than any I had witnessed before, and fear that I would be too iate to help Rushton.

  I stood irresolutely, knowing I must reach out with my thoughts. Farseeking. But this would open me to another attack from the strange machine I had defeated only with the help of my unknown rescuer. Would it be better to wait simply until the others arrived, and keep looking for the cave entrance, or should I call? I felt the light touch of snowflakes on my face and looked down at Maruman.

  He was safe enough for the moment. I would try once more to find the path and the cave opening, then I would farseek Rushton.

  I walked away from Maruman quickly, and when I looked back only moments later, the gently falling snow hid the cave from me.

  Five minutes later, I found the entrance.

  XXVIII

  It lay hidden from sight behind a rockfall. Now I could see where other feet had scaled that height. Or perhaps the fall was deliberate to keep the place from prying eyes. The entrance was wide and artificially smoothed as if someone had filed the rock down. Some distance in, I saw the faint light of a lantern, suspended from a jagged bit of rock. Farther in I could see that the tunnel leading into the hill was strangely glassy, and perhaps was not even rock.

  Carefully, I reached out a seeking probe. Not enough force to make it dangerous, but enough to tell me if someone approached from the other direction. My heart thumped madly as I crept along the wall. Wonderingly I noticed the tiny glowing insects that Louis had mentioned. I passed the lamp and saw another in the tunnel some way ahead, but there was only darkness beyond that. The farther I went into the tunnel, the more musty it smelled. It began to slope down slightly and was very smooth where the wall changed from stone to a dull gray surface.

  Near the second lantern the surface was broken and the stone wall of the tunnel protruded. A thick pool of multicolored ooze lay below the gap and slowly, drips of the substance slid from the fissure down the wall. I kept well away from the slimy mess, certain it would be tainted. Quite possibly the caves lay beneath the Black-lands.

  Somewhere ahead I heard the sound of running water. The tunnel curved around and opened abruptly to a huge warm cavern of monstrous proportions. The cavern was lit not by lanterns but from a round white sphere on top of a stand. The shining ball hummed faintly and the light it gave out was extremely bright, like summer sunlight, but less cheerful.

  There was no one in the cavern, but there were three other entrances besides the one I had left. They might lead out or they might lead to other caves. The cavern was walled in the same gray metallic substance as the tunnel. Each of the tunnels leading in was ragged and broken as if the entrances were late additions to this ancient place. There was no doubt in my mind this was built by the Beforetimers. The light source stood in the center of the room and all around the walls were square silvery boxes of varying sizes, but all higher than my head. Buttons and gleaming jewel-colored lights covered the surfaces of what must surely be machines. There was a faint patina of dust along the surfaces of all but one machine, which had been forced away from the wall and tampered with. It was a very large machine, with a flat extension and lots of thin, colored strands. I guessed this might be the machine with which I had grappled. I could not tell if it was operating or not.

  I felt a whisper of movement in the outer edge of my thoughts and reached out, but it eluded me. That brief touch of thought was familiar, though it could not belong to Alexi, Ariel, or Madam Vega. Nor could it belong to Rushton, since I had never touched any of their minds. Praying that I had been mistaken, and that Madam Vega and the others were all back at Obernewtyn searching for me and dealing with the ire of the Councilrnen, I went to the nearest tunnel.

  If Rushton were here, one of the passages would lead to him. I did not dare farseek him. I would have to find him physically, Once I could see him, I would be able to make mental contact without using enough power to engage this machine, if it was operating. I hoped Rushton would not turn out to be one of those people with a natural men
tal block that would prevent contact.

  There was no source of light in the tunnel I entered, and the wall felt faintly damp to the touch. As I proceeded, it widened, becoming, I assumed, another chamber. The darkness seemed dense and the lantern I held made little impression. Nervously, I stared about, trying to tell if there was anything in the room.

  All at once the light reflected back from two small round eyes. Paralyzed with fear, I dropped the light. But when moments passed and nothing happened, I realized there had been something unnatural about the eyes. Still trembling, I retrieved the lantern and held it up. Again the eyes flared unblinkingly. I stepped closer, seeing now that there was no life in them.

  To my disgust, the eyes belonged to a stuffed Guanette bird. Revulsion filled me at the sight and I was struck anew by the way the bird continued to crop up in my life. Even in death, the bright, round eyes of the bird seemed penetrating and full of wisdom.

  "Who could do this?" I whispered to myself, then froze as I heard a sound a bare distance away.

  Trembling, I turned and held the light up, but no one had entered behind me. Puzzled, I looked around. I saw a movement in the farthest corner of the cavern. Someone lay on a bed.

  "Rushton?" I whispered.

  But it was not Rushton. To my astonishment, I saw that it was Cameo! The light fell on her face as I approached, making her skin look marble white.

  Her eyelids flickered. "Elf?" she murmured, but vaguely, as if she were dreaming. Her eyelashes fluttered open like tired butterflies. She was gaunt-faced and painfully thin, great dark bruises under her eyes. Hesitantly I reached out and touched her face. She frowned. "Elf?"

  "I'm here," I whispered.

  Consternation crossed her features, bringing them to life. "You mustn't be here. He ... he wants you. I heard him say it. You must go now."

  "Don't talk," I begged. Her voice was barely audible and even that much speech had taken its toll. She fell back, exhausted. She closed her eyes, obviously gathering her strength. Then she looked at me again.

  "I knew you would come," she whispered. But too late, I thought to myself.

  "No!" she protested and I gasped. She had read my inner thought. "I don't know why, but somehow whatever they did made me ... able to do this. It made me .. . smarter. But I couldn't do what they wanted. I'm not strong enough. While they used their machines, I had a true dream, only I did not sleep. I dreamed there is something you have to do. You alone. I dreamed it was more important than anything else in the world. It has something to do with this place and with the map that Alexi

  seeks. The map ... shows the way to a terrible evil...

  It shows the way to the machines that made the Great White."

  "No!" I gasped.

  "They don't know that. I saw it in the dream and I did not tell. They think only that it is a weapon." Her eyes fluttered and I saw the effort it took for her to go on. "You have to stop them from finding it. You have to destroy it." She faltered, sighing softly. The veins in her neck stood out like cords.

  "Stop," I begged, my mind whirling. So Maruman had been right—men were responsible for the Great White.

  "You are the Seeker," she croaked. I could feel her life force flickering. "So long as it exists, fate will draw you to it."

  "Please," I cried, not understanding, and discovered that tears were running down my face. She was dying.

  "You came," she whispered, as if she understood my horror and despair, and perhaps she did in this brief awakening of her mind. I buried my face in her side and she stroked my hair with hands no heavier than a breath of air. Then her hand was still.

  I cried until I could weep no more. Only then did I hear someone. I recognized Ariel's cruel laughter and a rage such as I had never known filled me. I stood then, vowing that he and the others would pay for what they had done to Cameo and to Selmar. I could not bear to think about what Cameo had said. That was too much.

  Listening, I became aware they were in the cave next to the one I was in. Blowing out the lantern, I crept along the wall, making sure no one was in the main cavern, and crossed to the other tunnel. Like the one leading to the other cavern, this was rough, but a lantern hung to light the way. I could hear nothing from the main cavern and reasoned that the wall between the two caves was thin.

  I went along the tunnel, careful but determined, certain this was where I would find Rushton. In helping him I would find a way to exact revenge.

  Vega suddenly spoke, so near that I held my breath. She walked right past the cavern opening. The light was dim, obviously candlelight.

  "You are with the Druid, aren't you?" she said. "I suspect you know something about most things here. What the Druid's man told us reveals that much. Did you really imagine we would let you come in and establish yourself? You should have gone straight to the Council and told them your story."

  "I didn't know then," said a voice I recognized as Rushton's. "My mother sent me here; she thought Michael Seraphim was alive and would recognize me as his son."

  "Too bad." Madam Vega laughed.

  I listened with a sense of amazement. That explained so much. All along I had possessed the clues to the truth about Rushton. But there had been no obvious reason to link them. Even the unposted letter Michael Seraphim had written to his lover was a piece of the puzzle. Rush-ton had even told me he had a half brother.

  "I will enjoy killing you," Madam Vega said softly. "As long as you were ignorant of your true status, it suited me to let you live. But first, there are a few questions I want answered."

  "Bitch! I will tell you nothing," Rushton grated savagely, and there was the sound of a sharp blow.

  "Have some respect," Ariel said silkily.

  Creeping forward, I could see what looked to be the tip of Rushton's boot. I reached out my thoughts carefully.

  "How obliging of you to come to us," said Alexi, behind me.

  Something heavy crashed into my head and a wave of blackness filled my mind.

  Alexi and Madam Vega were talking when we woke. Through my eyelids I saw a bright light and knew I was in the main cavern.

  "Why did you have to hit her so hard?" she complained. "You could have killed her!"

  "She will not die," Alexi said grandly.

  "What about him then?" Ariel said. "He fainted and you said he wouldn't We'll have to wait till he wakes to finish questioning him."

  "I'm not interested in him," Alexi said coldly,

  "I bet he helped her," Ariel persisted. "Why else would she have come here?"

  "Perhaps they are allied," Alexi said, after a thoughtful pause. "She might respond if we threaten him."

  "He'll talk if we use her as a lever," Ariel said. "You should have seen his face when we came to that mess the wolves had made in the courtyard. He thought it was her. So did I at first. He seemed to go mad. That's why I had to shoot him."

  "I'm not interested in any of that," Alexi snapped. "I want that map."

  "We will have it soon," Madam Vega said soothingly. "And what power it will give us over the Council. They will grovel in terror. And if they do not, we will give them a demonstration."

  Horrified, I realized she meant to use whatever the map led her to. If Cameo's dream was true, what they sought were the very machines that caused the Great White. Did she and Alexi know that?

  I felt a caressing touch on my face and my eyes flew open.

  "Awake ..." purred Alexi, his face close to mine, his dark yellow eyes curiously like Maruman's. I shuddered away from his hands, but he laughed wildly until Madam Vega took his hand.

  "Calm yourself. We don't want to make any mistakes mis time. We don't want another Selmar."

  "She will be able to do it," Alexi said, ignoring her. "If she can unlock doors, she will unlock the thoughts behind Marisa's diaries." His nose wrinkled delicately. "She is sweating. That might affect the machine. Clean her," he ordered imperiously, looking over his shoulder, before he strode away.

  "Am I a servant?" Ariel hissed. Obviousl
y Alexi was out of his hearing.

  "Be silent," Vega snapped.

  Sullenly, Ariel wiped my face with a cool cloth. "Crazy as a loon he is. Lud but he's creepy with those monster eyes," he muttered under his breath.

  "You forget yourself, Ariel," Madame Vega said. "You have proved useful since your arrival at Obemewtyn as a Misfit. But do not forget, your place and presume you are more than that now, for all my generosity and your privileges. Without him, all of my plans will come to nothing. Only he understands these infernal machines. Now come with me."

  They went out and I heard their voices receding in the distance and surmised they had entered one of the tunnels. Bitterly I reproached myself for failing to obey Louis's instructions to remain outside until help arrived. I had practically given myself as a gift to them.

  And they meant to use me.

  If Marisa had written her notes thinking about where she hid the map, then I would know too, where she concealed it. I only had to think of Selmar and Cameo's fate to know that I could be made to tell where it was, and I would be directly responsible for unleashing the horrors of the Great White on the world again. Bleakly I hoped I would have the courage to hold out until the end, but I had no illusions about myself.

  Remembering why I had come, I considered trying to contact Rushton now while we were alone. I was lying flat on a table, and when I turned my head, I found that I was strapped to the extended table on the machine I had seen earlier. Beyond that, I could see from the corner of my eye a hand tied to a chair—Rushton's.

  "Rushton?" I whispered.

  "Elspeth?" he croaked in disbelief. "I thought you were dead."

  "It was Sharna the wolves killed," I said sadly. "You ... you gave yourself away because of me," I added, not knowing what to make of that.