The Seeker

by Isobelle Carmody

  The black horse did not take his eyes from mine, and there was challenge and cold amusement in his look. He was daring me to agree, certain I would refuse.

  I took a deep breath, ignoring the horrified Beastspeaking guildmaster. “It will be as you say, equine. Together we will deceive the lowlanders into thinking I am your master.”

  The horse neighed his laughter.

  5

  “WHO ARE YOU? Where are you? I know you’re there. I feel you.”

  The probe was clumsy, its movements graceless and badly focused. “He’s young,” I assured Ceirwan. Even so, I was surprised he had sensed my presence, since I was tightly shielded. I let my probe brush against his fleetingly, testing.

  His mind stabbed out in fright. “Are you the demon?”

  Even while he grappled with my shielded probe, I entered him at a deeper level, deep-probing to find trace memories of his encounter with Zarak. The meeting had made a huge impact on his mind, for he thought Zarak a minor demon come to test his faith.

  I decided to risk outright contact. If he reacted by calling out to his masters, I would stun him, and Domick would manufacture a coercive block.

  Rushton had insisted Domick monitor the attempt after being reluctantly convinced we had to establish whether Zarak’s probe had been traced back to Obernewtyn. I suspected Domick had orders to cripple the boy’s mind if there was any risk of the Herders using him.

  “Do your elders know of us?” I sent.

  The boy’s mind recoiled from my mental blast. I had deliberately made it harsh and even painful. While the boy believed he was dealing with demons, we were in no real danger.

  “It is the way of a priest to undergo his tests in silence, demon. My master has warned me your kind would try to shake my faith,” the young Herder sent proudly.

  I had read from his thoughts that he was a novice, or apprentice, priest. After his initial training in the main cloister in Sutrium, he had been sent to Darthnor’s cloister to serve out his apprenticeship in the highlands. It was only the town’s proximity to Obernewtyn that had made it possible for Zarak to stumble upon the novice’s thoughts. Ironically, he had become aware of his powers under the rigorous mental training of the priesthood. But Herder teachings said that anything outside normal abilities was a mutation. The boy had tried to refuse his abilities, refusing to accept that he might be a Misfit.

  Despite all his reactions, he was no hardened fanatic. And the Herder boy’s youth was a mark in his favor. We rescued few older folk, since most were unable to accept that their mutant abilities might not be evil. Those we encountered whom we judged a bad risk, we simply blocked, making it impossible for them to use their powers. This horrified the healers, but, in truth, the Misfits were happier to seem normal. Many believed Lud had cured them.

  It was this boy’s youth that stopped me from simply having Domick expunge the memory and block his mutant powers. That and an instinct that told me he was worth rescuing. But because he was a Herder, I had to be sure he would respond the right way. I had promised Rushton I would do nothing until I was certain he could be trusted.

  “How do you know I am a demon?” I asked, curious to see how much dogma he had swallowed.

  The response was immediate. “You are a greater demon. The other was a lesser novice. Only demons can talk inside a man’s head. My master says many are driven mad by such things, but you will not find me easy to break.”

  I sensed Ceirwan’s amusement. “A puppy,” he sent in ardent relief.

  “If we can bring him in, we would have an insight into the Herders’ world,” I said. “It’s always possible those men asking questions about Obernewtyn were from the Herder Faction.”

  Ceirwan looked unconvinced. “He is a novice, unlikely to know their inner secrets.”

  “He is one of us,” I insisted stubbornly. “If we leave him, the Herders might end up finding out what he is anyway, sooner or later. Then he might betray us at their behest. He is not fully committed to their way, and I believe he would do well among us.”

  “A rescue would have to be completely foolproof,” Ceirwan warned.

  “Are you still there, demon?” the boy sent.

  The wistful inquiry in his voice reminded me of my own long-ago loneliness, thinking myself a freak, living in fear of disclosure.

  “Do others of your kind speak to demons?” I asked.

  There was a significant hesitation in his mind before he answered evasively. “Demons test many priests.”

  “They do, but I have not encountered any other human who could communicate with me,” I sent, trying to sound like a demon.

  Still probing his lower mind, I thought again of my childhood in the orphan home system. I had not known at once that I was a Misfit, but some instinct of self-protection had kept me silent about my developing abilities. My brother, Jes, had been even more frightened. His hatred of my mutant abilities had warred with his love for me. He had spent a lifetime suppressing, even from himself, the fact that he, too, was a Misfit. In the end, he had been killed trying to escape from an orphan home after I was sent to Obernewtyn.

  “I want to bring him out,” I told Ceirwan aloud.

  The memory of Jes made me determined to rescue the boy before leaving for the lowlands. With this in mind, I contacted him for several consecutive nights, working on his buried fears. At last he broke down, confessing that he was a Misfit—and his fear that his masters had begun to suspect him.

  “Surely such a small mutation would not matter,” I said, at the same time evoking an old nightmare in the boy’s mind based on a burning he had once witnessed.

  I was startled at the strength of his reaction. He screamed.

  The noise brought an older Herder. Fearing the worst, Domick struck to wipe the boy’s mind clean. I deflected his blow with an ease that made him glare at me suspiciously.

  “I said I’ll handle this,” I hissed aloud.

  I was relieved to hear the Herder boy tell his master he had been dreaming, and I injected my own calm control over his outward expressions. The priest departed with a final hard stare. My own heart was thudding, reacting to the boy’s fear.

  “He knows,” he sent forlornly. I had not meant to make an approach so soon, but the desperation I sensed in his thoughts decided me.

  “You could run away,” I suggested.

  “Where could I go that they wouldn’t find me?” he asked miserably. “If they suspect, they won’t let me get away. They are interested in Misfits. They don’t send them to the Council.” I saw a fleeting thought that confirmed the rumors of the Herder interrogation methods and shuddered. What would happen to the boy if they guessed the truth?

  “You know I am no demon,” I sent gently, after a moment.

  “Yes,” the boy sent simply.

  “Once, I was an orphan. Like you, I was different. I didn’t fit in, and I was afraid of being found out and burned or sent to the farms. Now I live free, with others like me.”

  “Misfits,” he sent, using the hated word.

  “Other people like you,” I sent. “You could join us,” I added lightly.

  Hope flared, swamped by a sudden regressive fear that I might, after all, be a demon tempting him to the loss of his soul. “The other one. The first one I met. Is he there?”

  I called Zarak and shielded his beam while they talked. In the end, the young Herder agreed to join us.

  “He wants to know if he can bring his dog,” Zarak asked with a grin.

  Zarak, Matthew, and Ceirwan brought him out. Officially, Zarak was still in Coventry, but the Herder boy trusted him and had insisted he be present.

  Over a matter of days, the boy gradually gave his Herder masters the impression he was becoming increasingly homesick. He talked constantly about his family and refused to eat. He let his masters think he was having trouble with the mental disciplines of the priesthood. When he escaped, it was made to appear as if he had run away with his dog and had drowned trying to cross the Suggredoon
.

  It was a good scenario, one of the best we had designed. It had to be, or Rushton would never have approved it. It was artfully managed, even to the point of having clothes washed up on the bank and beastspeaking scavenger birds to hover ominously about the spot when the Herder search party arrived. It was one of the few rescues that had gone off without a single hitch.

  The boy proved not only to be a powerful farseeker, which we had known already, but also a strong empath, which explained how he had sensed my presence when I was shielded. The joint ability was unusual. There were only two other farseekers among us with weak empath Talent. To my regret, the boy chose the Empath guild—little wonder, since Dameon had taken him gently in hand from the start. Within days, he had developed the empaths’ traditional adoration for their gentle leader.

  His name was Jik.

  The expedition was due to depart in only a week when I met with Rushton to discuss the final plan. Discovering my name on the list of those to go, Rushton had exploded. He was furious to hear of my agreement with the black horse and even angrier that I had not spoken of it to him sooner.

  “I won’t be threatened,” he said.

  “It is an agreement,” I said calmly. “We really don’t have any choice. We need the horses. And I am the strongest farseeker and a perfectly good candidate for this expedition.”

  Rushton shook his head. “I will agree to this test in principle, but you won’t be the one riding the black horse. I won’t risk a guildleader on an expedition.”

  Using Alad as translator, Rushton argued with the black horse, but it was useless. “He asks why the equines should risk their leader if the funaga will not,” Alad explained. “He says a test should involve leaders.”

  “Then offer me as his rider,” Rushton said grimly.

  The horse agreed this would be a fair exchange, but guildmerge outvoted Rushton, saying he was more valuable than any other at Obernewtyn, being the legal master. Incensed, Rushton found his own rule, permitting a unanimous guildmerge to outweight his lone vote, used against him.

  I was taken aback at his reaction. I understood his reluctance to risk a guildleader, but to offer himself as a replacement was senseless. Even he must see he was more important to Obernewtyn than I.

  Ceirwan, along with two other farseekers, was to run the Farseeker guild in my absence, since Matthew had also been appointed to the expedition. Unspoken was the knowledge that Ceirwan would become guildmaster if I failed to return.

  Rounding out the final list were Pavo, Kella, and Louis Larkin, with the Coercer ward Domick as Rushton’s choice for our spy in Sutrium. The expedition was to be disguised as a gypsy troupe. The carts had been built by the Teknoguild.

  The black horse snorted his loathing at the sight of the gypsy rig. He had appointed two older horses to draw the carts. “Finer horses will encourage robbers,” he sent in terse explanation.

  “What about you?” I asked.

  The horse pricked his ears forward. “They will not find me desirable,” he sent cryptically.

  The night before we were to leave, Rushton came to my turret chamber, which had been his own room in his time as farm overseer. He had collected our false Normalcy Certificates. Written on old discolored parchment, they were good forgeries, but I hoped we would not need them.

  “It’s done, then,” Rushton said. He stared into the fire. There was a drawn-out silence, and the fire crackled as if the lack of sound made it uneasy.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “Are you afraid?” he asked unexpectedly. I had a sudden vivid memory of him asking me the same question in that room when it had been his.

  This time, I nodded soberly. “It will be dangerous, despite bypassing Sutrium and the main ways.”

  Rushton turned to face me, his green eyes troubled. “Don’t … risk too much for this Talent,” he said. “Whoever it is might not even want to join us. You … are perceptive, but you don’t always see what is in front of your eyes.”

  I had the notion he had meant to say something else and shifted uncomfortably. I had never felt really at ease with him since the awkward intimacy of being forced into a mindbond with him two years earlier.

  Rushton stood abruptly, shook his head, and walked across to open the window shutters, breathing deeply as if the air in the turret room were too thin. He turned, leaning back against the open window, his face in shadow. “You … are important to Obernewtyn. We can’t afford to lose a guildmistress. Even now it is not too late to change your mind.…”

  I shook my head. “I want to go. Besides, I promised.”

  “You belong here,” Rushton said sternly.

  I wished he would come back into the room so I could see his face. There was an odd note in his voice that puzzled me.

  “Have you been so unhappy here?” he asked.

  I laughed. “I’ve never been more content in my life. But I am glad to go away for a while. It’s as if I’m too safe and comfortable—like an old house cat. As Maruman would put it, I’m being tamed by comfort.”

  “And look at him,” Rushton said darkly. “Someday you will have to come out of your ivory tower.”

  I shrugged, not understanding the reference. “Alad said Maruman is recovering, though he still sleeps.”

  Rushton nodded. “He will miss you.”

  Before I could answer, there was a knock at the door.

  I was surprised to find Dameon and Maryon outside. Their eyes went beyond me to Rushton.

  “What is it?” he asked brusquely.

  “I have futuretold th’ expedition,” the Futuretell guildmistress announced in her soft highland accent.

  “What have you seen?” Rushton demanded. “Will it be a success? Will those who travel return?”

  I held my breath.

  Maryon merely want on, looking grave and serene. “I have seen that th’ boy Jik mun travel with th’ expedition. If he does nowt go, many, perhaps all th’ rest, will nowt return.”

  “Surely another, more experienced empath?” Rushton said.

  Maryon shook her head. “The prediction deals specifically wi’ th’ boy, but it is unclear. I dinna see any direct action on his part. It is my belief that he matters in some obscure manner—perhaps something he will do or say will offer a turning point for the journey.”

  “That settles it; the expedition will have to be put off until Maryon can clarify the prediction,” Rushton said.

  Again the Futuretell guildmistress shook her head. “The boy was only part of the foreseeing. Th’ fate of Obernewtyn hangs in th’ balance of this journey, an’ it mun proceed as planned. The expedition mun return to th’ mountains wi’ their prizes before winter freezes th’ pass, else we will fall to our enemies.”

  Rushton shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of this.”

  “You need not fear Jik will betray us,” Dameon said.

  Rushton looked taken aback. “I don’t doubt his loyalty if you vouch for him. But he’s a boy! It’s bad enough …” His eyes darted momentarily in my direction.

  “I don’t think we have any choice,” Dameon said. “For some reason or other, Jik has to go on the expedition. There is no time to wait for clarification.”

  “Which might never come,” Maryon added.

  Rushton ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I felt it was time to end our isolation, but I little thought what that would cost.” He turned and nodded at the stack of Normalcy papers. “Jik will have to use the blank one I had made for the Talent you hope to find. It’s too late to make another.”

  When they were gone, I went to the window and breathed in the cool night air, thinking how strangely things came about. A fortnight before, Jik had been a Herder novice. Now, suddenly, he was vital to Obernewtyn’s future. If Zarak had not disobeyed me …

  I shook my head. One could go mad thinking of alternate possibilities. Kella was right. The present was enough to deal with.

  6

  THE DAY OF the departure dawned
, grim and unseasonably cold.

  Gray clouds scudded across a metallic autumn sky. Wind blustered and rain fell in short, violent flurries.

  I shivered, staring out over the gardens from my window. In that moment, I could imagine vividly the mountain valley blanketed in ice and snow, the mournful sound of wolves echoing across the frozen wastes. The lowlands would be much warmer than the mountains, even in wintertime. Perhaps at last the scars on my feet would have the chance to heal completely. I had avoided speaking to Roland about my feet for fear Rushton would hear of it and use them as reason to ban me from the expedition. Fortunately, Kella understood and had been treating me without telling Roland.

  Thinking of the healer made me remember Maruman. I had gone to see him before firstmeal, but, though conscious, he was still dazed and barely coherent. I had wanted desperately to talk to him about the vision I had seen in his unconscious mind, but it was impossible.

  As with all expeditions, no amount of forethought could avoid the last-minute rush as remembered necessities were rounded up. Feeling harassed with preparations, I looked up with relief to see Ceirwan and Matthew approach.

  “See, I’ve been practicin’,” Matthew sent on a tightly shielded probe. The momentary mischief in his eyes faded as he looked around.

  “Until today, it hardly seemed such an important thing to be doin’,” he said pensively.

  Those who were part of the expedition knew we carried the fate of Obernewtyn on our backs, though the general population of Obernewtyn knew nothing of Maryon’s prophecy. And Dameon had requested I tell no one, including Jik, of the part of the prophecy that concerned Jik. “It would not be fair to the boy,” he insisted.

  Jik was even younger than Lina and Zarak but was more serious and quieter of nature. He seemed bemused by the news that he was to be part of the expedition, though it seemed he would prove useful, for he had been to Sutrium more recently than any of us and would give Domick some idea of the present shape and disposition of the town as we traveled.

  Jik had insisted that his companion, Darga, accompany us as well. A nondescript short-haired dog with a ferociously ugly face, he was one of a breed used by the Herders to guard the cloisters. Darga had been a miscolored runt in his litter, expected to die when Jik had volunteered to nurse him. No one had any objections to the dog’s inclusion.