Once we got into the valley, I resolved to use the time we spent waiting for the wolves to gather some fodder for Gahltha and to amass another small supply of wood. It would not last long and it would make riding on Gahltha’s back awkward, but on expeditions I had always made a point of taking what the trail offered, no matter how meagre. I would also bathe and wash my hair if the lake was clean, and light a fire to cook a proper meal. I might even manage to get my coat and boots completely dry, whereupon I could apply some more of the waterproofing oil.
I was beginning to feel sleepy, so I stretched out, glad it was not freezing cold. Maruman curled up on my belly without waking, sinking in his claws a little. The slight discomfort made me feel tender towards him. Overhead, the sky was now clear save for a few unravelling grey skeins of cloud, and I marvelled at the incongruity of thinking about clouds and the prick of Maruman’s claws when I was engaged in a quest to find an ancient Beforetime machine that had the capacity to end all life in the world. But how could anyone think about such a task constantly without being crushed by the weight of it?
Maruman heaved a sigh and I lifted my head for a moment to look at him. He ought not to have been very tired since he had ridden the whole day on my shoulders, but ever since telling me the truth about Atthis, he had been calm and amenable. Instead of being relieved, I found his serenity unnerving and even unnatural. Almost, I could wish that he would wake up and snarl at me to stop gnawing. Laughing at my own contrariness, I stroked his head tenderly and a brief dim image floated from his mind into mine of my windowsill at Obernewtyn, bathed in sunlight.
I was struck by how little he weighed and how many scars he bore, for all the new shine to his coat and the youthful spring in his step. For no matter what the Agyllians had done to him, age was not a thing that could be healed. I thought of the terror that had burned through me when Rheagor had been about to attack him, and of the way I had used the spirit sword to strengthen the part of my mind and Talent that I needed to hurl boiling water into the wolf’s face. I had never used that power in such a way before.
It was fear that had enabled it, and I realised that it had been fear that had made me use my Talent in the first place. I had been very small, perhaps five, playing a thrilling game of hunt with my brother. I had crept into my mother’s cupboard, which had a lock, pretending to be a fox. I had always pretended to be a beast when I played this game, though I had not then known I could communicate with them. I had been unable to lock the door from the inside, of course, but when I heard stealthy movements in the room outside approaching my hiding place, a hot surge of terror filled me and instinctively I pushed it into the wish that the door would be locked. Then I had heard the soft turning of the mechanism inside the simple lock.
Jes had been beaten, I remembered, when my furious mother had found me an hour later locked in the cupboard and weeping hysterically, for she thought he had shut me in as a nasty jape. I had been too distraught by then to defend him, even if I had known what words to use. I had not clearly understood that I had locked myself in until much later.
Poor Jes, I thought, with the same soft echo of sadness that always smote me whenever I thought of my brother. He had loathed and feared my Talents, and he had been instrumental in the events that had led to my being charged Misfit and sent to Obernewtyn. Yet we had parted with love. It had been a terrible irony to learn that, after my departure, Jes had discovered that he too possessed Misfit Talents. It was those Talents and his discovery of them that had brought him to his untimely end.
My thoughts drifted back to the spirit-force. It would be interesting to experiment and see if it could be used to enhance or strengthen my other Talents. But I had to remember that using the spirit-force would deplete me. If I had needed my Talents that day, I would have been hard-pressed to muster them. Even the attempt to farseek Gahltha had made my head ache. At least I must not do anything to weaken myself before Rheagor came.
There was no question in my mind that the pack leader would come to the valley of the Skylake, and Maruman seemed convinced that the wolf would accede to my request, though I did not know why I needed wolves on my quest. I had to assume it had something to do with finding Cassandra’s key, since Atthis had told Maruman I would learn what I needed when the wolves came to the valley of the Skylake to meet me. Maybe Rheagor would see the way to the key when he was seliga. But there must be more to it than simply learning the whereabouts of Cassandra’s key, else the wolf could simply tell me where it was, and Atthis had told Maruman the wolves had to go with me, lest my quest fail.
I thought of the tale I had been told of Gobor and Descantra being captured by Ariel and then of their escape. Had they escaped, or was it possible that they were among the wolves freed by Sharna’s mother? It would be an incredible coincidence that I should have come to their pack for help, especially when Sharna had been slain by the half-mad wolves that had resulted from Ariel’s breeding experiments and cruel training methods, or maybe no coincidence at all.
Knowing what Ariel did to the poor beasts that had been at his mercy, I could not blame Descantra or Gobor for their hatred of humans like him. But Gobor was truly mad. I wondered if his pack leader understood that. It was possible he did, for beasts saw madness differently from humans. Once Sharna had told me they saw it not as a flaw but as a unique and different way of seeing the world, which had its own value. Certainly Maruman’s mad, fey phases had garnered important information, and often as not he spoke truths and omens when his madness was upon him.
I had closed my eyes but now I opened them to see a half moon had risen high enough to spill its silvery light down into the defile. The sky was clear and there was a dusting of stars visible. It was cold, but less cold than I had feared it would be. A bird fleeted over the waxing face of the moon, reminding me of something I had wanted to ask Maruman. I sensed he was drowsing rather than asleep, though his eyes were closed.
‘Who will rule the Agyllians now that Atthis is dead?’ I asked him, knowing that he was less like to be furious at being questioned when he was sleepy.
‘A new Elder,’ Maruman said, drowsily. ‘The Agyllians seek her now.’
This startled me and yet of course the eldar must have a new Elder. I ought to have realised it at once.
‘They seek one in their midst capable of finding and absorbing the oldOnes,’ Maruman continued.
I was baffled. The old cat seemed to be referring to the collective memories of the previous Elder, which Atthis had carried in her mind. But how could they exist outside of Atthis? Would not they have been drawn into the mindstream at the moment of her death? Or was the task of an Elder to go to the mindstream and draw those racial memories into her own mind?
I had never before wondered about the mechanism by which Atthis had taken the minds of the past Elder from her predecessor, assuming that a dying Elder would pass on the oldOnes’ minds directly to the new Elder by some means at the moment of her passing. But Maruman had said the Agyllians were seeking a new Elder, and Atthis was already dead.
Perhaps I had been wrong to think of the oldOnes as memories absorbed from the dying Elder by her successor. I had sometimes heard their voices when Atthis had spoken to me, and that had made me wonder if the oldOnes were not merely the memories of the previous Elder, but some part of their spirits. I thought of what Bruna had said about Straaka’s spirit haunting the living. I had dismissed it because I had felt a spirit would not be able to resist being absorbed by the mindstream without flesh to anchor it to life, but perhaps a spirit could linger after the death of its flesh.
Despite the complexity of my thoughts, or maybe because of it, I felt my eyes growing heavy. I closed them again and drifted into a half-waking dream of looking down on the valley of the Skylake from above as if I were a bird flying over it, or a spirit-form with waking eyes. But instead of a lake, there was a flat pale-grey stone oval alongside a cluster of low, square grey buildings with shining windows that showed only a reflection of the world
outside, rather than what lay within. I heard a distant roar that caused the earth to tremble and I looked up to see something long and narrow and immense flying high overhead; a giant dart of metal with a tail of flame. Then there was another sound from below and I looked down to see that the flat grey oval had split through the centre along a perfect seam and each side was drawing back into the earth to reveal the dark, gaping crater beneath it.
Deep down in the shadows I saw something glimmer and then there was a humming sound and several enormous metal darts like the one that had flown overhead rose slowly out of the darkness and into the sunlight. There was a long, high-pitched whine and then an earsplitting explosion of noise and all of the metal darts shot into the air.
Missiles, I thought, remembering the name the teknoguilder Pavo had used for the deadly flying weapons of the Beforetimers; the kind that could be directed in their course and in their destination by their human controller. Was I seeing the past or a glimpse of a future in which the weapons controlled by the Balance of Terror computer were evoked? Either way it would mean that the weapons were not in one single location, as I had always supposed. If that were so, perhaps that was why my quest had always focused on Sentinel and the need to prevent it from activating the Balance of Terror computers, which controlled the mechanism that would trigger the weapons. In truth I had never understood why Sentinel was not in direct control of the weaponmachines, but it would make a good deal more sense if the Balance of Terror weapons were in a whole lot of different locations. Certainly I had come to understand that there was a distance between the two computers, but I had assumed that all of the weapons must be in the same place as the BOT computers.
I was wide awake now, and the horror I had felt at seeing the weapons fly up from the valley faded as I realised that my vision had not shown a lake, therefore what I had seen must have been a vision of the past. The lake would have formed after rain had filled the hole from which the missiles had flown. And of course the missiles I had seen might not be connected to the Great White, given that there had been many different caches of weapons held by the five powers and even by private Beforetimers, and frequent accidents in which they had been used. And yet, the idea that the Balance of Terror arsenal might not be located in one place resonated with me too strongly to be dismissed. I had only to think of the vast, strange complex that I had seen beneath Ariel’s demesnes on Norseland, which had once been a storage place for some immense unknown weaponmachine, to believe that the deadly weaponmachines linked to the Balance of Terror computer could be scattered all over the world. At the very least it would make them harder to find or sabotage.
Maruman and Darga were both deeply asleep now and snoring on either side of me, but when I rose, the old cat roused and snarled irritably. I was relieved, though I was careful to shield the thought from him.
It was not yet dawn when we set off again, nor had the sun risen when we reached a great tumble of stones at the end of the defile. Beyond it lay the tree-filled gorge I had envisaged. We still could not see into the valley as we entered the gorge, because there were too many trees, not to mention a light morning mist.
Despite thirst and hunger and my eagerness to be reunited with Gahltha, I did not hurry, for the trees in the gorge were very old and very beautiful. I found myself wondering how many such hidden green pockets of fertility there were in a mountain range I had always accepted as being almost entirely lifeless. Was it only coincidence that the hidden crevice where the wolves dwelt, this valley, and the ravine I had come through when I had first entered the mountains, had a supply of clean water? And water was not all they had in common. I thought of the taint-devouring insects that had dwelt in the ravine and in the scalding spring water in the wolf vale, and found myself imagining a vast river running through subterranean caverns under the eastern side of the mountains, full of the taint-devouring creatures. What if they had been adapting and moving through the mountains cleansing them? It might truly be so, for was not that exactly why Jak was trying to introduce them to the desert?
Suddenly I saw the Skylake ahead through the trees and the sight of it drove all other thoughts from my mind. It did not look so perfectly round from ground level, and I might have dismissed the notion that it was unnatural, save for my dream. Yet it was a pretty sight seen through the trees, with skeins of morning mist hung above it like gauzy veils, perfectly reflected in the mirror-still surface. Somewhere out of sight the sun had risen and the sky was a clear deep blue, reflected in the lake and framed by an inverted ring of sun-touched peaks, but in the shadows at the edge of the lake cast by trees overhanging it, the lake water was black.
The hoot of an owl close by startled me. I looked around but could see no sign of it. Doubtless it was the same owl I had seen the night before flying across the moon, and now it was settling to sleep before the sun sent its rays down into the valley. Seeing Maruman’s ears prick and his eye shine, I hoped the bird had built its nest in some inaccessible place.
I had not gone two more steps before I saw a paw print on the ground ahead of me.
I froze, wondering if the wolves were already here, waiting. Maybe they had some more direct route from their deep secret crevice to the Skylake. My heart lurched in fright at the thought of the wolves finding Gahltha alone in the valley, but Darga sent calmly, ‘There are no wolves here.’
I heaved a sigh of relief, deciding the paw print must be an old one. Since Rheagor had chosen this as our meeting place, it must be familiar to him. Indeed, he was a mountain wolf and doubtless knew all such green and fertile places. Thinking of Gahltha made me want to farseek him, but my head still ached slightly from drawing on the spirit-force in the depths of my mind the previous day, and I knew he would come galloping to me as soon as he scented me.
The fright I had given myself had made me feel slightly sick and I realised I was cold, too, despite my exertions. Doubtless it was hunger making me feel cold, and I decided I would have a fire after all. The wolves would have to tolerate my flame if they came. With this in mind I began to gather dried twigs and branches as I went, and mindful of my decision to forage while I could, I kept a watchful eye out for herbs, nuts and berries. The thought of cooking myself a hot meal was so enticing that I actually imagined I could smell mushrooms frying in butter and even the pungent scent of a wood fire.
When I came through the last trees and saw the whole of the Skylake spread out before me, I stood mesmerised by its beauty, somehow all the more potent because of what it had once been. It took me some time to notice a pale pebble beach jutting out into the water further around, which I had not noticed from above. I was startled to see a grey horse standing on it half hidden by the drifting scarves of mist, dipping its head to drink. Then something bright caught my eye on the shore just beyond the pebble beach and I was utterly astounded to see the orange flicker of a campfire.
As I stood there gaping in disbelief, a man came striding out of the trees to the fire with an armful of wood. He turned to call something over his shoulder and a smaller man emerged. The two spoke and then the larger knelt to poke at the fire while the smaller went out to meet the horse, who was now coming towards them.
I had no idea what to make of what I was seeing, for I had never in my wildest imaginings thought to find any people in the high mountains. Whoever they were, I would need to coerce them to get them out of the valley before the wolves arrived.
The man squatting beside the fire threw on a piece of what must have been pitchwood, for it gave off a sudden fierce flame, and by its light I saw the lean, handsome face of the leader of the Twentyfamilies, Swallow.
I drew in a shuddering breath and began to make my way around the lake towards him, noticing now that his companion was not a man but a woman with pale, short-cropped hair. Neither of them had seen me yet, but the horse walking back with the woman scented me and lifted its head to neigh. I knew him. It was Sendari, whom Swallow had ridden the first time I had seen him.
The woman was looking a
bout her now in a way that suggested that Sendari had communicated his awareness of me to her, and I saw Swallow rise slowly. At that moment another man emerged from the trees further around the lake, his hand resting between the ears of a pony.
Dameon and Faraf, and Gahltha was walking with them. I saw his ears prick as he scented me and then he broke into a trot, neighing his own greeting.
‘It is good to see you,’ he beastspoke me, and I was glad of his mental strength and the closeness between us that made it possible for him to communicate with me. I turned my gaze back to Swallow, who was striding towards me, his teeth very white in a wide smile.
‘Greetings Elspeth! We have been waiting for you!’ he said.
21
‘I am glad to see you got here safely,’ Swallow said. He nodded to Gahltha, who was nuzzling my shoulder, now that Maruman had leapt down from it in disgust at having to endure our emotions. Swallow took my arm through his and led me towards the fire. ‘Your pack and the other things Gahltha carried are by the camp. You know Analivia?’ He gestured to the yellow-haired woman waiting by the fire.
I nodded, too astonished for speech.
‘And Dameon, of course.’ Swallow pointed to the empath. ‘Gavyn is here too, but he is off foraging with Rasial. Despite his lack of sparkling conversation, the lad has proven adept at it, which is fortunate since these mountains offer little bounty.’
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