I wondered why Ariel had not foreseen what was going on, unless, like the Herders, he simply never focused his attention on the shadows.
Yarrow was hovering, and when I rose, apologizing to Cinda for interrupting her story, he drew me into the dressing room where Geratty waited. The older man told me that the healing Herder had given the One medicines to soothe his pain but that his mind, already teetering under the weight of Ariel’s block, was broken altogether now. Certainly it would be some time before they could even attempt to enter it.
I nearly shuddered at the thought.
“Has Harwood been in contact yet?” I asked them.
Geratty shook his head. “Asra has been outside trying, but neither he nor Tomrick has heard a peep from him since he summoned Hilder down from the wall, and now they can’t reach him either. They will keep trying.”
Yarrow said suddenly, “You know, I don’t think Ariel ever meant to come back here.”
I stared at him. “We know he is going to the west coast before he returns to Herder Isle,” I said.
“No, I mean I don’t believe he meant to come back here at all.”
“What makes you think that?” I asked.
“Because he must have known that he would not return from the west coast in time to save the old man’s mind, and yet he set no safeguards against its being destroyed. Why on earth let him die or go mad when he had been so useful? Unless Ariel had no further use for him.”
“Maybe he plans to let one of the Threes take his place. After all, the One’s mind is disintegrating.”
“True enough, but it is more than that,” Yarrow said. “Ariel has always contrived never to be there when something he is involved in falls apart. And now, when we are making a good start at bringing this place down, Ariel is elsewhere. Maybe he foresaw that Herder Isle would fall.”
“If he did, then why didn’t he take steps to stop it?” I asked.
“Maybe he foresaw that it can’t be stopped,” Yarrow suggested.
“He has access to an army of Hedra on Norseland,”
I said. “He could have had Salamander blast the wall down.”
“He could if he wanted to protect the Faction, but why would he? He has just been using them to further his own interests, hasn’t he? The way he used Henry Druid and the Councilmen. He has never hesitated to betray people in the past.”
“You are saying you think he has left this place for good? Left it to us?”
“That is what it seems like to me.”
“Where would he go after he has poisoned the west coast?” I asked. Even as I spoke, my mind flew to the Red Land.
But Yarrow said, “He has a stronghold on Norseland. It seems to me that he will return there after he has left the null on the west coast. I was speaking to the Per about Norseland, and it sounds as if it is virtually unassailable, being all high cliffs, save for Main Cove, where there is a single narrow road leading up to Covetown, overlooked by the cloister. Not far from there the Hedra have their own permanent encampment, inhabited by an army in waiting. I do not doubt that Ariel can coerce its captains into accepting his authority, but maybe he would not need them to defend himself. I was also poking around in Zuria’s mind on our way back here, and it seems that Ariel found other weapons from the Beforetime when he found the plague seeds, and the Threes believe he keeps them in his residence.”
My blood ran cold at the thought of Ariel in possession of Beforetime weapons.
“But if Ariel knew he would not return to Herder Isle, why leave instructions that the guildmistress be left unhurt until he came to interrogate her?” Geratty asked.
Yarrow frowned. “Hmm. I had forgotten that.” He fell silent, mulling it over, but I knew why Ariel would have ordered me not to be harmed. He needed the Seeker alive. He may even have foreseen that I was the Misfit aboard the Stormdancer and acted to make sure I would not be tortured before the coercer-knights took control of the compound. That he had not stayed to take me captive himself meant he knew that I had not yet gathered all I needed to find and disable the weaponmachines that had caused the Great White. Perhaps Yarrow was exactly right, and Ariel would return to Norseland once he had done with the west coast, to wait until he futuretold that I was ready for the final stage of my quest. Then what? Did he plan to capture me then or simply follow me to the weaponmachines so he could snatch victory from my hands?
What did not fit was that at least one of the remaining clues was on the west coast, and though Ariel need not know it, he must know it might be possible. Yet he was willing to spread a deadly plague. Did he know that my body’s capacity to heal itself could survive even exposure to a deadly sickness, or had he reasoned that once the last plague victim died on the west coast, the plague itself would die?
Suddenly Yarrow stiffened, and seeing his absorbed expression, I waited impatiently for his eyes to clear, my heart sinking at the grim expression on his face.
“That was Tomrick. He says that Harwood farsent him,” he said at last. “Colwyn and Hilder are trapped with the Hedra. Harwood wants all of us to come now, and we are to bring Zuria and Mendi.”
Less than half an hour passed before Geratty, Reuvan, Yarrow, and I approached the dye works where Harwood had bidden us meet him, having left Asra to watch over the shadows, the Hedra guards, Falc, and the One. Cinda and two other shadows had accompanied us, bearing lanterns for pretense more than need.
Harwood looked pale and grim as he ushered us through the door of the dye works and closed it behind us. A row of Herders tied up along the wall glared at us, watched by a composed Ode and a little cluster of frightened-looking shadows hovering in the back of the large room. Cinda went to greet them as Harwood explained that he had taken over the place, because we would draw attention if we were all standing out in the open.
“You did not coerce them?” I nodded to the bound priests.
“I did not want to waste my energy, for we may need it,” Harwood said.
“How were Colwyn and Hilder caught?” I asked.
Harwood shook his head. “I did not say they were caught. They are trapped. About two hours ago, one of the shadows came to us to say that a group of shadows had locked a Herder in a cellar. He had been beating one of them, and instead of standing back and watching as they would normally, the shadows attacked him. Fortunately, they had the sense to send to us for help. Ode and I came to sort it out. I coerced the Hedra to believe he had fallen down some stairs and sent Ode to take him and Grisyl to Sover while I calmed the shadows. I was growing concerned about Colwyn, because I had not been able to reach him since I had sent him to investigate the armory. So when Hilder farsought me to say he might as well come down from the watch-hut because the mist made it impossible to see anything, I sent him to look for Colwyn. As I discovered later, Hilder found him still awaiting an opportunity to sneak across the Hedra yards to the armory. I had not been able to reach his mind, because he was too close to the tainted wall.” Harwood sighed and said that before the two coercers could retreat, one of the Hedra captains spotted them and commanded them to take their places in the ranks for the evening exercises. They had no choice but to obey, for every Hedra in sight was streaming down to the exercise yard.
“I knew none of this yet, of course, because now I could not reach Hilder either,” Harwood continued. Worried, he had gone close enough to the armory to discover that the wall was tainted, but there was no sign of either coercer. “Finally, I spotted Hilder going through an exercise movement with a vast troop of Hedra. I tried to reach his mind, but it was locked to me. It was the same with Colwyn.”
“The Hedra must have been wearing demon bands,” Yarrow said. “If there were enough—”
“No,” Harwood interrupted. “In exercising together with such precision, concentrating their whole minds upon the synchronized movements of the rest, the Hedra create a group mind that is impenetrable save to one who would mesh with it. Colwyn and Hilder would have had no choice but to mesh.”
Y
arrow and Geratty looked horrified.
Harwood said heavily, “That is why I summoned all of you here. I want to get control of the armory tonight, and it might take all of us to break the group mind.”
“But surely Colwyn and Hilder will be free as soon as the exercise ends?” Yarrow said.
“That is what I believe. If not, I will send Zuria in. I did not send for the rest of you to rescue them. I want to go ahead and penetrate the armory, but if something goes wrong, it may be that the Hedra will form a group mind when they fight. If that is so, I will need your help to break it.”
“What is your plan?” Yarrow asked.
“We will wait until this exercise ends, in the hope that Hilder and Colwyn will be released. I should be able to reach them then, and I will send them to the armory to tell whoever is in charge that Zuria and Mendi are on their way to make an inspection at the One’s behest. Soon after, we will march in with the Threes, and during our so-called inspection, we will coerce every Hedra we encounter until we have control. If at any point the Hedra form a group mind, we merge to crack it open.”
“Who controls the Hedra group mind?” Yarrow asked.
“I have been thinking about that,” Harwood said. “In an ordinary unconscious group mind, the group itself has a natural leader, but in the case of the Hedra, there is no central mind. That is what makes it impossible to probe. I think the group mind is actually centered on some sort of shared illusion of the Herder Lud, and the group does what it believes this Lud desires. Our one advantage is that the Hedra form this group mind unconsciously, so they are unaware of the advantage it gives them over us.”
“What if you can’t crack it?” Reuvan asked.
“Then we had better discover that sooner rather than later,” Harwood said grimly.
I drew a deep breath and bade Geratty explain what had happened to the One. Harwood grimaced as Geratty told his story, and once it was concluded, he remarked almost sadly, “I thought we could take over this place as stealthily as beetles burrowing into wood and with as little bloodshed as when we took the Land from the Council. But it is the Herders we are dealing with, and the Faction traffics in death and brutality so readily that it is no wonder even the shadows have learned it.” He glanced at a time candle he had set on the table. “According to the shadows, each set of exercises goes on for two hours, which means we have less than an hour to wait.”
Harwood turned his attention to Yarrow, asking what had been happening on Fallo. The coercer explained all that he had told me and concluded, “Veril will farseek Tomrick as soon as he gets across the channel with the Norselanders, but given what the Per said, I doubt that will happen much before morning. Maybe it’s just as well given what we are about to do.”
Harwood nodded.
The others began to discuss the need to find somewhere to put prisoners, for we could not be forever rearranging the priests’ memories, and unless deeply coerced, they had to be coerced again frequently. I left this to the others and wrapped myself in my cloak to sleep while I had the chance.
It seemed but a moment before Harwood was shaking me gently awake.
“I just spoke to Sover. He says the rumor you began is spreading like wildfire. Several Hedra have come to the healing center to ask if there is plague in the compound. Hard to believe a rumor could spread so swiftly from such a small event. It seems that the failure of any of the Threes to return to their cottages these last two nights is being seen as proof that something is wrong. I have told Sover he might as well put Grisyl into a bed and let it be known that he is ill, for it occurs to me that the rumor of sickness could serve us very well.”
“The rumor of sickness was already established,” I said. “Remember, Elkar told us he had heard talk that the Hedra aboard the Orizon had caught plague in the Land and that this was the real reason Salamander had sunk the ship.”
Harwood opened his mouth to speak and then stiffened. A moment later he nodded and looked relieved, saying aloud, “That was Colwyn. He and Hilder are both fine, but they are being marched to a meal with the other Hedra. They will have to wait until after the meal to go to the armory.” He fell silent again, and as I waited for him to finish communicating with Colwyn, I farsent Tomrick and bade him check how the One was. After farsending Asra, Tomrick reported that the One was still alive and that several shadows had come looking for Cinda, as had Elkar. “Asra said the lad insisted on knowing where Cinda was, so I told him you were in the dye works. He is like to be there any minute.”
I withdrew and told Harwood what I had learned. He nodded, but I could see that he was preoccupied. When I asked what troubled him, he said that he thought we should use the enforced wait to search Ariel’s chambers, given that they were so near the dye works. We quickly decided that he and I would go alone. Yarrow was left in charge and, in case anything went wrong, was bidden to take the armory as planned.
“Do you expect anything to go wrong?” I asked as we left the dye house.
Before he could answer, a figure emerged from the thick misty darkness, but it was only Elkar. Once he heard what we intended, he insisted that he lead the way, for Ariel’s chambers were through the labyrinthine library. He also insisted that Harwood wear the cloak of an ordinary priest, for Hedra never went to the library. Once the dye-works master had been divested of his cloak, we set off again.
The lanes and streets we passed along were thick with mist and very dark, but Elkar now carried the lantern I had been carrying, having pointed out that no Herder priest of rank would do such a thing. Glancing at the stark black stone buildings on either side of us, I marveled aloud that anyone would deliberately create such a dreary place to live. The mist was so thick, muffling even the noise of our steps, that I had no fear of speaking aloud. “Do these priests think their Lud dislikes beauty as well as women?”
Elkar gave me a quizzical look and answered softly, “My master would say that a woman’s beauty is an illusion.”
“Is the beauty of a tree also an illusion, then?”
“I do not think that Lud objects to trees,” Elkar said. “It is only that trees will not grow here, nor any flower or plant or lichen.”
“But what of the walled garden if the land is so barren?” I asked.
“It is barren, save for the earth behind that wall,” Elkar insisted. “It was many years before I was born, but the One commanded a garden to be created to honor Lud, so earth was brought from Norseland to allow things to grow.”
I gaped at him, unable to imagine how much earth would need to have been shipped to Herder Isle from Norseland to allow trees to grow.
“Here,” said Elkar, gesturing to an open gateway in a wall. Beyond was a cobbled yard swathed in mist. “The library is on the other side of that yard,” whispered the novice. “There are no guards outside.”
We went through the gate with some trepidation, but as Elkar had said, there were no guards at the entrance to the large library building. But after we had entered the doors, two young Hedra stepped forward. Elkar nodded to them familiarly, introducing Harwood and myself as his master’s new assistants, and they moved aside to let us enter. In a moment, we had passed out of their sight. Almost at once we came to shelves full of books separated by narrow aisles. Interspersed between them were tables where priests sat poring over tomes and making crabbed notes, lanterns pulled close to their elbows. I tried to look studious, though Elkar had promised they would pay no heed to us, as long as we did nothing to draw their attention.
We passed through two more chambers and then came through a door to a small courtyard. From the smell of it, there were privies here, but Elkar indicated a door set into a wall on the opposite side of the yard, saying this was the entrance to Ariel’s chambers.
The door was locked and a taint emanated from it, strong enough to make it hard to focus my mind as I laid my hands over the lock and closed my eyes. The mechanism was so astonishingly complex that it could only have come from the Beforetime. I took a deep breath and
concentrated all of my will on it. Then I stepped back, the cold chill of premonition touching my heart. My mind had shown me that anyone opening the lock without a key would set off a small explosive device. It was so small that I doubted it would have force enough to break the door down, yet the premonition of danger had been so strong that nothing would bring me to try disarming the lock.
“What is it?” Harwood asked.
My mouth was so dry that I had trouble speaking. “No one must touch this door,” I said. “There is…some terrible danger here.”
“You had a premonition?” Harwood guessed.
I nodded, and shivered. “No one must enter this chamber.”
“Very well. Let us return to the others, then.”
We had been gone scarcely a half hour, but by the time we got back to the dye works, Yarrow and the coercers had gone, taking Zuria and Mendi and leaving Cinda and the shadows to watch over the trussed and rather red-faced Herders. She explained that Yarrow had tried to reach us, and when he had failed, he had elected to go on with the plan, for Hilder and Colwyn had got away sooner than expected and had gone at once to the armory.
I bade the shadows loosen the Herders’ gags slightly so the priests could breathe but to have a rock handy in case they tried anything. I spoke more as a warning to the Herders than as a direction to the shadows, until it occurred to me the women were all too likely to batter the priests’ heads in, given what had happened to the One. I bade Elkar wait with them.
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