17

I ARRIVED BACK at the safe house to see the rebel Reuvan mounting a tan mare. I was taken aback to recognize the horse as one that had come to Obernewtyn for refuge the previous wintertime.

“Greetings, ElspethInnle,” the mare sent, her dark-flecked eyes solemn.

“Greetings, Halda,” I responded, concealing my surprise.

Ever since Brydda’s beloved mount, Sallah, had chosen to remain with him after he set her free, animals would occasionally come to Obernewtyn claiming that Sallah had sent them and asking for Avra, mistress of the Beastguild. Most would remain only a short time, supposedly to be trained to live in the wild, before going out into the vast mountain wilderness.

Alad, the Beastspeaking guildmaster, was convinced that some were trained in a different sort of survival and sent back to Sallah. He believed she was the leader of a lowland arm of the Beastguild and a sort of animal network of spies, organizing their own rescues or sabotages.

I had thought this unlikely, but seeing Halda made me wonder, for she had been one of the equines who supposedly had gone into the wild.

Reuvan had not noticed my approach, so I coughed to get his attention. When he turned, the flesh was bloodless beneath his tan.

“What is it?” I demanded, wondering if there was ever to be a moment in Sutrium unmarred by disaster.

“Idris is missing,” he answered in a hoarse voice. “Brydda sent me to see if he had come here.”

“Was he sent here?”

The seaman shook his head and took up the rein. “I must go. There are other places he might have gone if he was injured. Brydda asked me to try them all.”

“Can I help?” I asked.

Reuvan appeared not to hear me. He lifted his hand in a distracted farewell gesture and urged Halda on.

I hurried upstairs and into the kitchen.

“Where have you been?” Kella cried, jumping to her feet.

Matthew rose, too, his face pale and set. “Idris …”

I nodded wearily. “I know. I’ve just spoken to Reuvan. Did he ask you to farseek Idris?”

“It would ha’ done no good fer him to ask me to farseek anyone here. Too many minds an’ too much holocaust tainting.”

“But he would not realize that,” I said impatiently. “I suppose he was too distracted. I’ll try.”

I shaped a probe to Idris’s mind-set, but since I had never farsought him before, I did not know his exact mind signature, which meant it was not a strongly defined probe. Forced to compete with the miasmic static rising from the sea and the river, and from various areas of the city, I had no great hopes of locating him.

I opened my eyes and shook my head. “I didn’t find him, but I’m still weak from the business this afternoon.” In fact, though I did not say it, I felt as if all my energy were being siphoned away through some secret channel. I forced myself to concentrate.

“Did Reuvan say how Idris disappeared?”

“Apparently, he dinna come back two nights ago from some errand he had been sent on,” Matthew said.

This puzzled me. Reuvan had seemed dreadfully upset considering Idris had been missing so short a time.

“Greetings, ElspethInnle,” Maruman sent.

The old cat was curled on a blanket beside the hearth. I went to kneel beside him and warmed my hands at the fire. “I am tired,” I sent.

He turned one flaring yellow eye to me, and for a fleeting moment, there was a mindless emptiness in it. Then his gaze sharpened. “You are tired because your body heals its hurts. This is a place/barud where there is much hurting. No matter. Soon we will leave.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“Soon we/you will go far away. Very far …” His eye was cloudy again. I felt a surge of alarm at the thought that the old cat was on the verge of another fit of madness. Yet he had recently returned from a period of wandering madness, and the attacks did not usually happen in such quick succession. Perhaps he was simply tired. Lud knew that could make you a little mad.

“I/Maruman am weary,” the cat sent as if to confirm my thoughts. “The H’rayka searches in the dreamtrails of ElspethInnle, and I have fought many battles to guard the way.”

Abruptly, I was wide awake.

“Maruman, who/what is H’rayka?”

“H’rayka is the one who brings destruction,” the cat sent.

I felt a rush of pure terror. Atthis had told me that if I did not find the weaponmachines and disable them, another human, whose fate path twinned my own, would locate and activate them, raining a new doom on the world. She had called this person “the Destroyer.”

And now Maruman said a Destroyer was searching my dreams.

I had never considered that the Destroyer might be someone I would have to confront. I had seen our search for the weaponmachines as a sort of parallel race. Surely Atthis would have warned me if this person was hunting me.

Another possibility occurred to me. What if Maruman was trying to tell me that the Destroyer had begun searching not for me but for the weaponmachines? This seemed far more likely.

Suddenly I was more angry than scared. If the Destroyer was searching for the weaponmachines, why was I wasting time in Sutrium?

Why hadn’t Atthis called me?

“The oldOne called,” Maruman answered my despairing thought. “You do her bidding here in barud-li.”

I stared at him. “I do the bidding of Maryon/tallone.”

“Maryon/tallone hears the ashling of the oldOne/speaks the oldOne’s words to Innle.”

I struggled to stay calm. “Are you … are you saying Atthis sent a dream to Maryon to make me come to Sutrium?”

“A path forms itself like snow in the high valley of the barud,” Maruman sent dreamily. “First there is this piece of coldwhite and that piece, and they are alone and nothing. But soon they join and cover the earth.”

The obliqueness of his answer exasperated me, for past experience told me this was his way of indicating that he was sick of a subject. Any further questions would be met with increasingly obscure answers.

The old cat gave me a sly look, then curled to sleep.

I tried reading his subconscious thoughts but could not penetrate the drifting mists of distortion.

I sat back on my heels and stared into the fire.

Could it be true that Atthis has sent Maryon’s visions? If so, then the need to return the gypsy to her people must be somehow connected to my secret quest to find and destroy the weaponmachines. Or perhaps the return of the gypsy had been nothing more than an excuse to get me to Sutrium. Yet the deadline Maryon had given fitted with the Twentyfamilies’ departure, and I had learned, at least in part, what Swallow meant.

But why even bother to send messages through the futureteller instead of speaking to my mind directly? I had sworn to heed Atthis’s direction, so it could not be through fear that I would refuse to obey.

Yet there was a precedent. The first time Atthis summoned me had been through Maruman’s mind. In any case, if Maruman spoke the truth, I had no more cause to fret at leaving Obernewtyn or fear I would somehow miss a summons.

It struck me suddenly that rather than spending my time worrying about my destined quest, I should simply live and trust in the fates to bring me where I was needed.

I stared into the flames with a feeling of having perceived a tremendous truth.

For a moment, in spite of weariness and concern over Idris and the rebel alliance, I felt a sense of clarity and purpose such as I had not experienced since standing on the high peaks of the Agyllian Ken. It seemed that simply by existing, I fulfilled the purpose of my life.

“There is blood on your shirt,” Kella said, sounding startled.

“Some louts in the market whipped me,” I said.

“Let me see,” she commanded.

I flapped my hand for her to leave me be. “It has already been cleaned and treated—by a gypsy herb lorist.”

In a tired way, I enjoyed the amazement on their faces. I let them speculate a moment before telling them what had happened—leaving out the gypsy’s kiss. It shamed me to think of it. Nor did I complicate matters by telling them about the triple Guanette bird design or the mysterious Swallow.

But what I did tell them was enough to have them all agog.

“When will ye take her to them?” Matthew asked.

“When Kella says it is safe for her to travel. After that business with Dragon in the market, all the eyes in every rat hole and cranny of the city will be peeled for gypsies, so even if she was able to move now, I’d wait a day or so. Unfortunately, neither of us will be able to move about too easily, Matthew, and certainly not together.”

“Iriny,” Kella said. “Strange to give her a name after so long. She is sleeping naturally now, and her wounds have begun to knit nicely.”

I nodded and looked around. “Where is Dragon?”

“Sleeping still,” Kella said. “It’s not surprising. You must have had to hit her hard to knock her out right through her shield. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

The stair door slammed and Domick came in. Kella recounted the day’s events to him, but the coercer seemed more concerned about Idris than anything else.

“When did Reuvan say he was seen last?” he demanded.

“Last night. Or mayhap yestermorn,” Matthew said.

“He has only been missing a day and a half,” I pointed out as the coercer began to pace back and forth. “Surely this is a little soon for everyone to be panicking.”

“Did ye try farseekin’ him?” Domick demanded.

“I did, but I could not find him. It was an unfocused probe, though, and there’s a lot of static in the city; he could be in a blank spot. Or he might just be sleeping. You know it is much harder to find a sleeping mind even with an attuned probe.”

“He might also be dead,” Domick murmured.

I glared at him. “Do you take pleasure in being so miserable and hopeless?”

His hard eyes met mine. “In suggesting Idris is dead, I offer hope. If he is not, he may very well wish he were.”

“Wh-what?” Kella gasped faintly.

“None of you seems to have grasped what Idris’s disappearance may mean,” Domick said. “If someone has him and questions him, he will be made to tell all he knows.…”

“The safe house,” Kella whispered, lifting a hand to her lips. “He knows where it is and all about us.”

“He knows everything about Brydda and the rebels, too,” Domick reminded us brusquely.

I groaned, seeing more than that. “Lud save us. He knows about Obernewtyn!”

“He’d nivver give us away,” Matthew said stoutly.

Domick turned a bleak look on the Farseeker ward, and suddenly they seemed decades apart in age.

“You don’t have any idea, do you? Faced with a skilled torturer, you or I, even Rushton, would tell all. And Idris is a boy. Make no mistakes—if those who have him want information, he will tell them everything he knows.”