The Farseekers

  I bit my lip. It would take several days to go that way, but it seemed there was no choice.

  At a word from Jow, Saul seated himself at the table and the group linked hands. 'Be quick,' Jow said. 'I'm not sure how long we can hold it. Tell your friends the word firestorm will be used to identify us.'

  They closed their eyes. For a long moment, there was silence. A log cracked noisily in the fire, spitting out an orange flame. Beads of perspiration stood out on Jow's face.

  Then the block was gone.

  I gasped in delight, realizing how the restriction had oppressed me. I sent a specific probe tuned to Matthew's mind. There was too little time to locate him physically. He was asleep when I found him and I woke him with an ungentle mental jab.

  'Wha?' his mind enquired stupidly. 'Elspethelf?' he sent, recognizing my probe.

  'I don't have much time so listen carefully,' I sent. 'Some Misfits here are going to help us escape. They'll be using the word firestorm as a password. They'll create a joint diversion to give us the chance to get away.'

  'We canna use th' Olden way,' Matthew warned.

  I told Matthew Jow's alternate plan. 'They know nothing about Domick. I'm going to try to reach him. He may have gone back to Obernewtyn.'

  Matthew interrupted eagerly. 'I farsensed him.' I was astonished. It was impossible to communicate over distance with anyone but another farseeker unless communicator and communicant possessed some deep-probing ability. It seemed Ceirwan was right about Matthew developing deepprobe powers. But there was no time to think about that now.

  'Are the horses with Domick?'

  'An' Darga,' Matthew sent. 'Wait a minute! If ye haven't escaped, how can ye be contactin' me?'

  'The Misfits here helped me stop the block for a bit. It's not a machine. The block is caused by a baby with coercive powers.'

  'A baby!' Matthew echoed.

  'Where is this compound? Show me,' I demanded.

  Matthew made his mind passive so that I could use his eyes. At once a ghostly vision unfolded in my mind. He was looking down a long narrow rift between two mountains. There was a fence dividing a bare foreground from a heavily vegetated background. I thought I could see patches of glowing gas in the moonlight beyond the barrier. It took a moment for me to realize what I was seeing.

  'The Olden pass . . .'

  Matthew confirmed it. 'Poisonground/poison gas an' gigantic growling beasts.'

  'Why build a compound there?' I wondered.

  In answer, Matthew turned again. Dirt, rocks and dispossessed trees lay in mounds on either side of a broad gape in the ground. On one side of the hole were a row of rough huts. Th' ground here is safe. We're here to pander to th' Druid's favourite obsession. Oldtime ruins. He thinks th' machine what made th' Great White is here somewhere. Mad as a snake is our Druid, to think it would still be workin' after all this time.'

  Not so mad, I thought with a feeling of cold dread.

  'How is Pavo?' I asked.

  'He says he refuses to die in a dirty, damp Druid hole,' Matthew sent. 'He's convinced you'll be along any minute to rescue us. Elspeth is a survivor, he keeps sayin'.'

  'I wish I shared his faith. There's no hope now of getting to the Lowlands and back before winter. And Maryon has predicted disaster for Obernewtyn if we don't make it.'

  'If only you could farseek Ceirwan at Obernewtyn,' Matthew said.

  I shrugged. He knew as well as I that our ability to farsense over long distances grew progressively weaker the closer we came to the coast. Pavo believed this had something to do with the density of air. As well, the tainted mountains threw up a violent static impossible to penetrate from below. Only the Zebkrahn could penetrate the static, but it did no more than register Talents. There was not even the hope the Teknoguild would see from the Zebkrahn that we had stopped moving, since we were veiled in Lidgebaby's mental static. The one slender chance was that Domick would register on the machine, and Rushton might wonder at the lone Talent and send someone to investigate. But we could not afford to wait.

  I want you and Louis to take Mira and Lo and go back to Obernewtyn as soon as you're free. Make sure you don't leave tracks or get caught. Someone has to warn Obernewtyn about the Druid,' I told Matthew. I made him repeat my news until he was word perfect, before bidding him goodbye.

  Next I sought Domick. This was harder, and he responded by trying instantly to repel me.

  'You!' I saw him assimilate my ease in demolishing his defences. 'Have you escaped?'

  I told him all I had told Matthew.

  'Then we are still going?' Domick asked when I had finished. 'You know we can't make Maryon's deadline if we go that way. We are already cutting it fine because of the delay here.' Rushton had told him of the future-teller's prediction.

  'We dare not head back to Obernewtyn anyway, since the Druid would follow,' I said flatly. 'I'm sending Matthew and Louis to warn Rushton. The rest of us will continue, if only to draw the Druid's attention away from the high mountains. I'll contact you as soon as we get outside the baby's static. In the meantime, stay out of sight. A group of armsmen went out this morning to hunt. Now where are you?'

  Domick was unable to let me use his eyes, but projected a picture with painful force into my mind. Cross guild farseeking had its drawbacks. The coercer was right at the foot of the mountains. Tor, he sent in explanation. 'I've been hiding in the cave where the Suggredoon goes into the mountain. There's a good wide ledge. Pity it doesn't go right through. That would be a quick way down, but the ledge breaks off a short way in, and the walls are smooth as soap.'

  Severing the contact, I found myself back inside the room. The group was still hand linked. Gathering my exhausted senses, I reached out to Jik. He was overjoyed to hear Darga was safe and little else registered. I was in the middle of explaining the escape plans, when the contact was severed neatly as Lidgebaby's static filled the air.

  I opened my eyes in time to see Gilaine pitch forward. Jow picked her up gently and laid her on the floor, using his coat as a pillow. She moaned and her eyes fluttered open. I went to her side, stricken with guilt.

  'She was the focus. Lidge likes her best,' Saul said petulantly.

  'Did you get through?' Jow asked.

  I nodded. Gilaine reached out for my arm, and projected a message to us all. 'It will be difficult. Perhaps they should stay and leave when we go.'

  "They can't stay!' Saul broke in angrily. 'They endanger the baby. They endanger us all. It was bad enough to reveal ourselves . . .'

  The older musician shook his head reproachfully. 'Saul. Saul. We have already gone over this. Once Gilaine was revealed, it was the same as if we were all exposed. If the Druid forced her name from Elspeth, she in turn would be forced to betray us. I'm sorry, Gilaine, but it would be better for them to go.'

  Gilaine hung her head.

  A queer expression flitted across Saul's intense features, and I felt certain he was thinking Gilaine's death would have solved everything.

  'We won't be staying,' I said firmly.

  Jow nodded. 'You'll have to move quickly then. The best way for you to go is also the most dangerous. You'll climb above the place where the Suggredoon flows into the mountains, and scale the river that way. It will give you a good start over the Druid's armsmen. We'll make sure it looks as if you've gone round the river.

  I knelt down beside Gilaine. Dark pools lay under her eyes, a curious white dot in the centre of the shadows, as if someone had set a floury finger there. I looked at Jow. 'You'll never have cause to regret this,' I promised. 'And some day, you might be glad.'

  Lying back in my bed later, too overwrought to sleep, I kept thinking how strange life was, moving people about like pawns on a gamesboard. I had met Daffyd as a complete stranger years before, and now he had come back into my life. And he, too, was a Misfit and one of our kind! I vowed I would bring Gilaine and her friends out when I got back to Obernewtyn. I fell asleep wondering what Daffyd would think when he heard the story. I dreamed
of running again, and of someone calling my name.

  I woke to Rilla shaking me impatiently. 'Elspeth. Ye sleep like th' dead,' she scolded.

  Outside, rain was falling steadily, and thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. Hurrying across the gap separating the wash house from the kitchen I glanced up at the drear grey sky with faint apprehension.

  To my surprise Emmon was sitting at the kitchen table with Kella. Seeing me, they both stood abruptly.

  'What's the matter?' I asked.

  'Gilaine sent me to tell ye,' Emmon said. 'Only ye mun nowt let on ye know or she'll be in for it.'

  'I promise. Now what?'

  'Ye to be bonded tomorrow,' Emmon said, refusing to meet my eyes.

  To whom?' I asked in a strangely distant voice.

  Emmon made a warding-off gesture with his hand. To . . . Relward. The gatewarden. This is Erin's doin',' he added in a rush.

  'But why?' I asked faintly.

  'She's jealous. She thinks Gilbert means to request ye in bonding. He's gone off to hunt an' by th' time he gans back, it will be too late for him to protest,' Emmon explained.

  I blinked rapidly, fighting off an unexpected rush of tears. I had always used Rushton's stern, dark face as a talisman against despair, but this time the thought of him only evoked a fierce pain in my chest, and a bittersweet longing to be home.

  Then the irony of it struck me, helping me gain a measure of calmness. Here was Erin violently jealous of the fleeting and surely light-hearted interest Gilbert had taken in me, willing to go to incredible lengths to stop something I had no more desire for than she.

  'I can't let it happen,' I said, and in that moment a daring idea came to me. With Emmon's help, I managed to speak privately with Gilaine. She agreed the bonding must be avoided and said she would talk to the others about an immediate escape. As well, I told her I had heard Pavo was sick and wanted to make sure he would be able to walk unaided. But that night, when Gilaine and her friends damped Lidgebaby's emanations, I contacted Domick.

  'Has something gone wrong?' he asked, responding to the agitation in my thoughts.

  I told him emotionlessly of the intended bonding. I was surprised at the vehemence with which he said it must not be allowed to happen. 'If I can help it, it won't,' I sent. 'Our friends here have set their plans for tomorrow night. But after we get away from here, I have an alternative to going round the mountains. It's dangerous. Rushton would never approve, but if it succeeds, we will be on the other side of the mountains in less than two days.'

  'Impossible. Unless your undisclosed Talents include teaching giant birds to carry us across them.'

  I ignored his sarcasm. 'I want you to build a raft. A strong raft.'

  'A raft. But . . . you can't mean . . .?'

  'We're going to raft through the mountains,' I sent determinedly.

  12

  Erin smiled.

  A gust of wind wrenched the door from my grip and flung it shut with a resounding crash. Inside the Druid's house, it was unexpectedly quiet.

  'Wait in here,' Erin said. She opened the door to a small musty-smelling ante-chamber.

  The room was dark though it was not yet evening. The day had been dreary, overshadowed by banks of foreboding storm clouds. A single candle burned in a sconce on the wall near the door, offering meagre light.

  As soon as Erin's footsteps faded, I crossed to the window facing the street, and pulled aside a gauzy pleat of curtain.

  It had begun to rain again. The wind changed direction abruptly, pelting handfuls of bitter rain against the glass. I peeped into the rainswept street. A brilliant flash of lightning gave the fleeting impression of a blighted daytime. Then it was dark again.

  I hoped nothing had happened to delay the others.

  There was another flash of lightning and I wondered uneasily at the building storm. Firestorms seemed to occur less in the mountains. Pavo had a theory that firestorms were increasing on the coast. He had explained that they were not real storms, despite the lightning and thunder, but an electrical imbalance in the complex forces holding the earth together, another legacy of the cataclysmic disturbance of the Great White. No one knew why firestorm rain burned, or why the flames could only be extinguished by firestorm rains. One thing was certain though - there had been no firestorms in the Beforetime. The Herders believed firestorms followed the Holocaust, and would continue ravaging the earth until the world was again pure. Naturally, the only way to achieve such a state of grace was to adhere to Herder doctrine.

  I squinted, searching for tell-tale movements in the shadows. If there were a firestorm brewing, we could not think of escape. Firestorm flames even burned stone, but there would be more protection in the Druid encampment than in the open at the mercy of the lethal flames.

  Outside, the wind muttered sullenly, echoing my inner disquiet. Erin and her traditional lecture about the duties of a bondmate were the least of my worries. Though not yet officially told I was to be bonded that night, I was already used to the idea.

  Scanning the length of the street visible from the window, I wondered anxiously if Kella had managed to get a message to Gilaine. She should have contacted her as soon as I was sent to the Druid's house. Jow had decided that was the best time to make our move. But if they did not come . . .

  Again lightning flashed, followed by a sharp crack of thunder. The time lapse between the flashes and the thunder was growing shorter. Rain fell in light flurries, but the heaviness of the clouds illuminated in the intermittent light indicated a deluge was pending.

  Hearing a movement at the door, I dropped the curtain and moved quickly away from the window. Erin came in cautiously, as if she had thought I would be waiting to attack her. Her hand rested lightly on the hilt of a short knife she wore in a jewelled waist scabbard.

  'You have been sent here so that I can tell you some wonderful news,' Erin said, her eyes glittering vindictively. I was taken aback at the force of her dislike.

  'Yes?' I asked calmly.

  Her lips stretched across her teeth in a smile that looked more like she was baring her teeth at me. 'You are to be bonded - to Relward. The gatewarden.'

  Knowing took the force out of my reaction, and I was glad to see her look disappointed. 'This is your news?' I asked sourly.

  For a moment Erin looked nonplussed, then her cheeks mottled with anger. 'You are to be bonded tonight,' she added viciously.

  I shrugged. 'What does it matter, bonding or no,' I said lethargically.

  'You . . . What?' Erin stammered.

  'A man, bonded or not, has no appeal for me. What does it matter to be bonded or not? It is all the same in the dark,' I added crudely.

  Erin's face reddened and she stepped away from me as if she thought I would contaminate her. 'You dare speak of such things to me?'

  I shrugged. 'If you don't like such talk, why are you the one to tell me of this bonding?' Taking advantage of her loss of balance, I stepped towards her.

  Her hand groped for the knife in her belt and she held it up between us. 'Stay back.' There was a loud noise in the street and we both jumped. 'What was that?'

  'The wind?' I said quickly, stepping forward again in my haste to distract her. She lifted the knife, her eyes narrowed, flicking to the window and back. 'What's going on?' she asked, suspicion flaring in her eyes. She backed to the door, holding the knife out menacingly.

  Unable to think of a way to stop her, I stood still, heart banging against my ribs. If she were to catch the others and give the alarm, we would all be lost. Erin groped behind her, opening the door without turning her back or taking her eyes off me.

  My knees felt weak with relief. In the hall behind her were Kella and Jik. 'That is an old trick,' Erin sneered. Trying to make me think there's someone . . .' She stopped abruptly as Kella's arrow tip pressed into her neck.

  Jik reached round and took the knife carefully out of her fingers.

  'Get inside the room,' Kella ordered, her face pale but determined. I was mo
mentarily astonished to see a healer waving a knife in such a businesslike way. Erin obeyed, shock turned to fury.

  'You will all die for this. My father will Burn you,' she snarled.

  'Did you bring the rope?' I asked Jik, ignoring her. He nodded. 'Tie her up.'

  Erin stood rigidly erect, as Jik bound her hands and feet. 'What do you think this will get you?' she grated. 'There are men in all the watch towers and guards on the gate. And even if you get out, he will come after you. You will be caught and then you will wish bonding were the only fate awaiting you.'

  I touched Jik's arm sending a swift thought. The next time she opened her mouth to speak he thrust a ball of cloth into her mouth, then tied another round her head to stop her spitting it out. It was a relief to have her quiet. I checked the ropes. They were tight and I guessed Erin's hissing threats had made Jik more efficient than he would otherwise have been.

  I forced myself to face her. 'Daughter of Henry Druid, we are gypsy folk, and not meant for staying in one place. My father waits for me in Arendelft and I mean to meet him. I bear no ill will to your father, but I cannot stay. That is why you have to be tied up. To stop you raising the alarm too soon.'

  'Perhaps we should kill her,' Jik said, obeying my covert prompting.

  I pretended to consider it, gratified to see the first sign of real fear in Erin's eyes. Slowly, as if reluctant, I shook my head. 'I would be just as happy to kill her, but that might make her father annoyed. Besides we will be long gone round the head of the river and down the main road before they find her.' I had no doubt Erin would faithfully relay all I had told her, sending her father off in the wrong direction.

  I nodded to Jik and he opened a large chest under the window.