The Dreamtrails: The Obernewtyn Chronicles

by Isobelle Carmody

  No one thought to question the boys, who had been immediately taken inside the compound for the cleansing period of isolation and silence the priests claimed was needed to prepare them for the Faction. Indeed, the king was often heard to comment that life in the Land across the strait must be harsher than it had been when Norselanders had gone there to trade, for why else would any lad agree to join this loveless order?

  “Eventually,” Lark continued, “by dint of wheedling and begging and demanding, the Faction took over an entire section of Herder Isle. The Norselanders gave little protest because the area included a patch of deadly Blacklands. But there were some rumblings of discontent when the Faction began to build a high wall around the land they had been given. The Herders claimed this was merely to protect the compound and its farmlands from bitter sea winds.”

  I guessed that this must have happened about the time the Council had formed an alliance with the Faction, bestowing upon them land to build their cloisters in each province. No doubt they had recognized that an alliance with a terrifying religious order could only strengthen their hold upon the Land. I had not realized that the Herders had first established themselves upon the Norselands, but I had no doubt that the boys who had supposedly wanted to become novices were given no choice. “But you still have not said how they took control,” I prompted.

  Lark nodded and went on to explain that the old king had been interested in the order’s apparent vigorous growth and the stern discipline it imposed on its converts. They worked very hard and did not speak, and their silent dedication seemed to him admirable. He thought his own son an overindulged weakling, too much under the sway of his mother, grandmother, and aunts, so when the One of the Faction offered to educate the boy in the austere ways of the cloister, he agreed. By the time the king died, his son was a devout believer in the Herders’ Lud.

  Lark went to get some water from a wooden barrel behind a wall panel and to listen awhile at the door. Then he came back to sit on the bed and continued his tale. “By the time the old king died,” he went on, “there were many more priests, and the Faction all but ruled the Norselands through the old king’s son. He came to be known as the Last King, for when he died, the Herders claimed that he had abdicated in their favor. There was no proof of it, and there was an uprising to oppose it. That was when the cities of Hevon and Fallo were destroyed and Herder Isle divided.”

  “But how …?”

  “The Faction used Beforetime weapons. My father believes they brought them when they came to Herder Isle, though then it was all named Fallo Isle. In any case, once they had taken over, they sailed to Norseland. Instead of fighting, they released several people who had witnessed the destruction of the cities on Fallo and the Girdle of the Goddess. The Pers—they are our leaders—refused to surrender, for how could the invaders manage to get their dread weapons up onto the land?

  “Again the Herders struck, using some terrible weapon that flew like a bird, and the great city of Kingshome and the cliff upon which it stood, broke away and plummeted into the cove. Not one person survived. What else could those who remained on the island do but lay down their arms? The Herders have ruled the Norselands ever since. To begin with, they ruled from Norseland, but after the compound was complete, that became the center of power,” Lark concluded solemnly.

  A picture rose in his mind of great black metal gates, set in an impossibly high stone wall, opening slowly to reveal a big black square surrounded by stone buildings similar to cloisters, save that they were formed of black rock instead of the gray of the Land. The compound buildings had the same high narrow windows and sloping roofs as Land cloisters, but they were roofed in some dark stiff thatch instead of being tiled, as was the custom in the Land. Herders passed back and forth in gray robes, and there were smaller figures in white or black robes. All moved like objects underwater, as if driven not by their own will but by a slow inexorable current. The vision was very dark and loomed oddly and unnaturally, which told me that the memory was distorted by Lark’s emotions. Even so, it was clear that it was not just a large cloister behind the wall but a city. A city of Herders.

  I slept on and off through the long slow day that followed. The moon had risen before I was roused by the sound of the horn, which Lark had told me would signal our approach to Hevon Bay. I could see nothing from the porthole in Oma’s cabin but open sea; however, I was able to catch glimpses of the island in Lark’s mind. At my request, he made a careful point of visualizing whatever he thought might interest me. In this way I saw that unlike the Land, there were no high dark cliffs to be surmounted. Like the west coast, the moonlit island was very flat, yet it was impossible to see the channel that now divided the island, or the villages on Fallo, or even the hill that was said to rise from its swampy heart, for an immense stone wall rose up all along the island’s coastline, so high that it obscured everything behind it. It had been built so close to the edge of the island that it looked like a wall rising straight from the sea. Indeed, when the tide rose high or was storm driven, it must crash against the base of the wall. From Lark’s description, I knew that the wall surrounded all the land that had once been Hevon City and that it ran right along the channel that separated it from Fallo Island. The only bit left unwalled was a wide flat spit of land that curved around the beach that formed Hevon Bay. As we passed along the wall, which surely could not be as high as Lark’s mind showed it, I noted the watch-house overlooking Hevon Bay and remembered that Lark had spoken of another surmounting the corner of the wall facing the channel. No wonder he had said I could not swim it without being seen.

  “Why build a wall?” I asked when Lark came down a little later.

  “No one knows, but it is said that they were matching a bit of Beforetime wall at the end of the island near the patch of Blacklands,” Lark said. We heard a shout, and the boy stiffened and listened a moment before saying, “We are about to anchor. I had better go up on deck. Remember, stay hidden until the third watch is sounded, and find a place in the rocks to hide as close as possible to where the ship boats will be tethered. You will see the places where pegs have been driven into the stones,” he told me earnestly. Then he muttered a curse and added, “I am a fool. I forgot to tell you that the Black Ship is not here.”

  “Not here? But it was coming here to report to the Herders.”

  “It was here not two hours past, the flagman on the walls signaled. But now it has gone to Norseland. The route passes on the other side of Fallo, which is why we did not see it leaving. You will be pleased to know that Ariel has gone with him.”

  I was more than pleased; I was relieved. After Lark had gone, I climbed into the locker and locked the door. I could undo it from inside the cupboard, but we had agreed that it would be safer for me to be locked in since each new watch would make a cursory inspection of the ship when they came aboard. I was trying to find a comfortable position that I could maintain for some hours, when the ship lurched hard and gave a loud creak. It was coming about, I guessed, and then I heard the rattle of a chain as the anchor was lowered. The noise of disembarking that followed seemed to go on forever, but I distracted myself from the cramped locker by watching it in flashes in Lark’s mind. In the end, I left him because his fear for his father now filled his thoughts and had begun to rouse my own fears. When I tried to reach Lark a little later, I could not contact him, which meant that the Norseland crew had gone ashore, and the boots I could hear now all belonged to Hedra.

  It was hot and stuffy in the locker, but I resisted the temptation to unlock the door and get out. Better to be uncomfortable and alive, I told myself. Suddenly, I heard footsteps coming down from the deck. From the sound of the boots, several people were coming along the passage toward the cabin where I was hidden.

  “… that is what he told us …,” a man said.

  I heard the next cabin door open and then close. Then Oma’s door opened, and I held my breath.

  “This is it,” said a man’s voice.

 
Footsteps and then the locker door rattled. “It’s locked,” said another man’s voice.

  “Break it open,” said the first speaker. “She must be there.”

  THERE WAS A great crash, and wood splintered under the force of a hard heel. I had a brief glimpse of a group of Herder priests, bald, robed, and demon-banded, peering at me, and then the sundered remnants of the locker door were torn aside and a rough hand reached in to haul me out by the hair. A Hedra captain stared into my face with eyes that burned with a fanatical icy fire above a thin nose and a lipless slash of a mouth.

  “A woman!” he said in disgust.

  “Not a woman, Bedig,” said the slow quavering voice of an old man.

  The Hedra dragged me around to face a tiny wizened priest with coal-black eyes set in a face collapsed into a nest of wrinkles. The thick gold band about his upper arm denoted him a Three and one of the most powerful men in the Faction, save for the mysterious One. Ignoring the younger priest’s half-incoherent bleating, he drew closer to me and peered into my face.

  “A female mutant,” he said with a soft, hissing emphasis that brought gooseflesh to my arms.

  Another younger priest appeared at the cabin door, panting, “Master, the Norseland shipfolk have already gone across to Fallo, including their master. He was dismissed by the Nine.”

  The Three turned to look at the younger priest. “I bade you inform me the moment the Stormdancer anchored.”

  “Master, the null said the ship was damaged and that it would be near morning before—”

  “It is a fool who relies upon the visioning of a single null. Did you confirm the vision, Daska?”

  The other seemed to shudder under the old man’s glaring disapproval. “Master, there was only the one null left,” he whispered. “They die so easily.…”

  “I know that, you fool. Why do you think I bade you organize a watch?”

  “I spoke to the watch—”

  “I told you to organize a separate and specific watch for the ships.”

  “The Orizon …,” Daska began.

  “Ariel told us what happened to the Orizon at the same time he informed us of the null’s prediction that another mutant was hidden aboard the Stormdancer. But none of that is your concern. Why did you not do as I commanded?”

  The other priest cringed. “Master, forgive me.…”

  The Three turned to the Hedra holding me. “Bedig, see that Daska is whipped and then confined to a tidal cell for a fourday,” he said indifferently. “Let the crabs teach him obedience.”

  “Master,” the Hedra captain intoned.

  “Also, I want this ship’s master and his crew brought back for questioning immediately.”

  “Their families, Master?” Bedig asked.

  The Herder considered it, then shook his head. “Not yet. Let the Norsemen hope that they can prevent us from punishing their families by offering us information. Then when we bring the families in, the pain of learning that they have been taken will be much greater because it will contain true despair.” He spoke blandly as if he was telling someone how to arrange a vase of flowers or lay a table. “Now let us get this mutant into the compound and see what we can learn about why it boarded this ship, rather than the Orizon.”

  “Master, is not the interrogation of the mutant to wait until Ariel returns from Norseland with his interrogation machine and the special null?” asked Bedig.

  “Ariel left instructions that the creature not be damaged, for the interrogation will be vigorous and requires a subject in good condition. However, despite his undeniable usefulness, Ariel is not one of the inner cadre. Now band the mutant,” snapped the Three.

  The demon band was heavier than the one Malik’s armsman had put on me and the taint so strong that it made me feel sick. But it turned my stomach less than the knowledge that Ariel had known I was aboard the Stormdancer. Bile rose in my throat, and I leaned forward and vomited.

  The Three uttered a disgusted sound and went out, leaving Bedig to drag me after him. Strangely, after that first overwhelming moment of sick terror, I felt no fear as they marched me through the ship and up onto the deck. It was as if I had vomited it out. It was dark enough that lanterns had been lit, for the tide of black clouds I had seen from Oma’s cabin now covered the face of the moon, and even as I was hurried down the ladder and into the ship boat, I heard the rumble of thunder, and it began to rain.

  I ought to have felt guilt, knowing that the shipfolk would be taken into the compound because of me, but my emotions seemed to be locked in a distant room. Once the boat had run aground, Bedig pulled me out and marched me up the shore. A flash of lightning revealed a monstrous wall, which was easily as high as Lark’s mind had shown, and giant metal gates opened to receive us like a great black maw. As I was ushered through them, there was a long, low growl of thunder, and it came to me that I would never leave this fearsome place alive. As if to underline this truth, the gates swung closed behind me with a dull clang that rang in the air with deadly finality.

  It was so dark now that I could see no more than patches of the wall’s great hewn stones where lanterns hung. Lightning flashed, and I saw that we had entered the wide yard surrounded on three sides by the black buildings I had glimpsed in Lark’s mind. The façade of buildings was broken here and there by narrow streets. From one of these, a number of bald, white-robed novices came hastening with lanterns. No doubt the gate watch had seen us approach and had summoned them. One carried a fresh cloak for the Three, and the old man allowed himself to be ministered to without acknowledging the novice. For his part, the boy replacing his wet cloak was so self-effacing that I had the feeling he strove to be invisible. Thunder rumbled again as another novice held out the basket he carried, and the Three and the other priests removed their demon bands and placed them in it. Then Bedig barked a command, and the other Hedra departed, the terrified-looking Daska in their midst. The novices left, too, save one with a lantern, and at an impatient signal from Bedig, he set off and we followed, the Hedra once again grasping my arm.

  I tried to control my mind’s skittering by mentally building a map as we passed along one narrow street after another. I had invented the technique and taught it to farseekers as a way of controlling and calming the mind as well as gaining useful information. Its effectiveness was weakened by my knowing that I was unlikely to have the chance to use that knowledge.

  As we passed along yet another black, rain-swept street, lightning flared on the long blank face of the buildings on either side of us, and it struck me that I had not seen a single door in any of the buildings, which meant that all the buildings must be connected. Indeed, there were even elevated stone walkways passing overhead from one side of the street to the other, linking the buildings. This was not a city filled with Herders working and living individual lives; it was a nest such as ants or bees construct, with the whole community living for one single idea and purpose.

  At last we came to a deep-set black door atop a short flight of steps. There were Hedra standing before it, but seeing the Three, they pressed their hands to their throats as if in salute and stepped smartly aside. The novice with the lantern ran up the steps to open the door, and as we followed the Three inside, I thought, I will never leave this place alive.

  This time, strangely, the cold weight of the thought calmed me.

  Two boys clad in hooded black robes awaited us in the shadowy foyer, each bearing a lantern that swung from a stick. There was no sign of the white-clad novice, and I realized that he had probably departed when we entered the building. I had no idea what the black attire signified, but if the novices had seemed to wish themselves invisible, these boys were invisible, for neither Bedig nor the Three even looked at them. I could not make out their expressions, for they kept their heads tilted forward.

  The Three had taken two steps across the foyer when a young Herder priest, accompanied by yet another black-clad lantern bearer, emerged from the door farthest to the left and bowed to the Three. His
armband revealed him to be an inner-cadre Nine, which surprised me, for Farseeker research had shown that seniority ruled all matters in the Faction, yet he was no more than Rushton’s age. He commiserated with the Three about the rain, and there seemed something in his voice less obsequious than there ought to have been, given that he was speaking to a Three. Perhaps the Three thought so, too, because the old man made an impatient silencing gesture and asked sharply what he wanted.

  The young Herder bowed and said, “Master Mendi, the One bids you come to him at once. He wishes to see the mutant whose presence upon the Stormdancer was foreseen by Ariel’s null.”

  The Three frowned. “The One cannot wish to trouble himself with this creature, Falc.”

  “I do not presume to know what the master wishes. I tell you only what he told me to say, Master Mendi.” The delicate malice in his words was unmistakable.

  The Three hesitated a moment, then snapped, “I will come as the One commands, of course. I am only concerned for his comfort and health.”

  “The comfort and health of the One have been much disturbed by the failure of the invasion,” the young priest said, going back through the door by which he had entered.

  “That has disturbed all of us,” Mendi responded coldly, keeping pace with him and ignoring the hooded lantern-bearer who had slipped ahead to light the dark passage. “It is only a pity that Ariel’s nulls did not foresee it or the loss of the Orizon in time to avert it,” the Three added.

  “Perhaps you will convey your displeasure with Ariel’s nulls to the One, Master Mendi,” Falc said with an arch smile. “Or maybe you would prefer to wait until Ariel returns so you can make your complaints directly to him.”

  Mendi’s lips tightened. “Shall we make haste? I am sure the One will not be pleased that I was slow to answer his summons, because you felt the need to air your thoughts on the way.”