The Sending

by Isobelle Carmody

Beyond the city I saw a plain shining white in the moonlight.

  I saw Maruman leap up onto a large Beforetime machine sitting on the side of the black road. Parts of it were rotted to black lace but I guessed by its shape and position at the side of the road that it was one of the machines the Beforetimers had used to ride along the ground. Horseless carriages, as Garth named them.

  Sitting neatly atop the immobile hulk, the old cat looked utterly at home in the deserted city lit by its many reflected moons, yet his ears pricked and twitched and his eye was dark and there was an alertness to his bearing that told me he was in the midst of stalking something.

  But what? I wondered, as the dream slipped away and once again I floated in the vast darkness. I could not find the levels of my own mind. I did not know which way was up or down. A great heavy stupidity seemed to possess me.

  I drifted down, deeper than I had ever gone, and yet there was no mindstream. I tried to rise, but a great hand seemed to press me gently but inexorably down into a void of shadows. I grew afraid at the realisation of my powerlessness, but I could do nothing to fight it. I thought of the spirit-force I had for so long feared as a murderous power that had taken up residence in me.

  It is part of you, Rushton had told me just before I chained my secrets in the great inner vault that was his Talent. To pretend it is not is as foolish as binding your eyes and pretending to be blind.

  Rushton, I thought, with a surge of grief and longing so potent that it disrupted the dreadful downward drift.

  Then I was lying on my back beside a greatship driven up onto a sandy shore. The mast was broken and the sails hung in tatters. People stood around me talking.

  ‘There had better be water here or we’re done for even if the storm did spit us out,’ said one. I recognised the voice of the seaman Reuvan. Above him the sky was the colour of tarnished metal streaked with sickly yellow.

  ‘Can’t you help him?’ someone asked. ‘He won’t last much longer like this.’

  ‘He has lasted longer than I thought he would, but we need to gan the heat out of him,’ said someone else. A woman?

  ‘Dunk him in the waves and ye might as well drown him in this state,’ said a man. ‘His heart won’t take it.’

  ‘He’s awake,’ said another voice. ‘Surely that’s a good sign.’

  ‘He is not truly awake, poor lad,’ said another voice I knew; Gwynedd who was high chieftain of the Westland and king of the Norselands.

  ‘Rushton has survived a lot worse than this bitty storm an’ a wee flux,’ said Brydda Llewellyn stoutly, but when he leaned over me, his face was haggard with weariness and worry.

  I am inside Rushton again, I thought, and then my heart leapt for if that were so, then this was no mere dream! He lived.

  ‘The trouble is he was sick and then the storm came,’ said Gwynedd. ‘One or the other he might have managed.’

  ‘He nivver says owt but Elspeth,’ said an older man. ‘Who’s that I’d like to ken.’

  There was a profound silence.

  ‘That is the woman he loves,’ said Brydda at last. ‘Elspeth Gordie. Guildmistress of the Farseekers of Obernewtyn Shire, and a stronger woman I never met. If she were here, she would nowt let him slip away. Once before he near died and she held onto him and forbade it and he lived.’

  ‘Ask me an’ I’ll tell ye he dinna hold to life because she dinna be here,’ said the old man. ‘Ye ken he asked her to bond and she left him, or so his ravings’d have it.’

  Another silence, then Brydda growled, ‘A man’s ravings ought not to be spoken of, and the way I heard it, she left only because there was a task she had to do. A matter touching on many lives.’

  I have to help him, I thought, fighting the stupor that sapped my will by imagining the black sword. This time, I felt its weight. Gathering myself, I summoned it into me more strongly than I had ever dared to do before. It was as if I had swallowed a hive of dark, furious bees. I rose up from Rushton’s body and felt the steady muscular beat of the wings of my spirit-form as the world of matter faded into vague shapes and silence. I lifted my hands to look at them. They were greenish white, though I had no memory of creating a spirit-form or of transferring my consciousness to it.

  The black sword is me, I thought, just as Rushton said.

  Sometimes even funaga speak wisely, said Maruman. Maybe that is why Marumanyelloweyes troubled to hold him to life. The cat stood before me in his greatcat spirit-form of gold slashed with black. His long snaky tail lashed and his two eyes flashed, one gold and one diamond bright and white glittered fiercely. Now it is up to Elspethlnnle, he said, and vanished.

  I looked down at the dull brown form that was Rushton’s body and saw the red and sickly green streaks in the spirit-form overlaying it. I thought of the golden link that bound us and as if the thought had summoned it, the link showed itself to my eyes, shining bright as sunlight on waves. I put my hand into it and felt the hot red ravenous heat of Rushton’s sickness shot through with a longing for me so great that even as I willed myself into him, he was drawing me to him.

  Then I was standing on a silent sea-shore. It was dark and very quiet save for the soft whisper of the waves against my feet. There was no moon and the stars overhead were none I knew, but the sea itself was alive with phosphorescence.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Rushton.

  ‘My love,’ he said, and took me in his arms.

  Oh, the joy and wonder of that embrace. I breathed deep, smelling his warm body, relishing the feel of his hard muscular arms wrapped so tightly around me. Never let me go, I thought, but I said, ‘You are ill.’

  He only kissed me. His lips were on my brow, on my cheeks, on my neck, and finally, hungrily, on my mouth. At last, he said, ‘I will die content holding you, for though this be but a dream, it is a sweeter dream than life without you.’

  I drew back from him and looked up into his face. ‘This is no dream, my love. I am real. We are linked whether we are together or apart. I am here because of that link. Only if you die will the link be severed. Live, for me, my love. Draw on that which binds us, and live. For if you live, I can endure, I can do what I must do no matter where it leads me. Because I will know you are in the world.’

  ‘Elspeth, you are fading,’ Rushton said urgently. His face grew grim and desperate. ‘I will not let you go again.’

  ‘Then hold to life, my ravek,’ I sent, even as I slipped from his grasp into the darkness. Then I was lost in the shadow sea, and once again I felt the inexorable hand pressing me down ever deeper, but I fought it for the sake of the quest I must complete and for the sake of all I loved.

  And I rose.

  Characters of the Obernewtyn Chronicles

  Ahmedri: Sadorian, brother of Straaka

  Alad: Beastspeaking guildmaster, highlander

  Alden: highlander, coercer

  Analivia: daughter of Radost, sister of Moss and Bergold

  Angina: Empath guilden and enhancer, twin brother of Miky

  Ariel: distorted Talent, abilities unknown

  Ari-Noor, Ari-Roth: shipfish

  Atthis: Agyllian or Guanette bird or oldOne, Elder of the eldar, survivor of the Great White

  Avra: Gahltha’s mate, leader of Beastguild at Obernewtyn

  Bergold: son of deposed head Councilman Radost

  Blyss: empath healer, heartfasted to Merret

  Brildane: mountain wolf pack

  Brocade: rebel leader in Sawlney

  Bruna: Sadorian, daughter of Jakoby, bondmate of High Chieftain Dardelan

  Caldeko: halfbreed gypsy bondmate of Iriny, executed by Herders

  Cassy Duprey: Beforetimer

  Catrin: coercer

  Ceirwan: Farseeker guilden

  Christa: Futureteller

  Cinda: Norseland shadow

  Daffyd: highlander, former guardsman of Henry Druid, brother to Jow, beloved of Gilaine

  Dameon: blind Empath guildmaster

  Dardelan: rebel son o
f Bodera, High Chieftain of the Land east of the Suggredoon

  Darga: Herder-bred dog of Jik

  Darius: Twentyf amilies gypsy, beasthealer

  Declyn: coercer

  Dell: Futuretell guilden

  Descantra: she-wolf of the Brildane

  Doktaruth: Beforetime scientist at Inva complex

  Domick: once Coercer guilden, spy and bondmate of Kella

  Dragon: empath-coercer, daughter of the Red Queen

  Druid, Henry: renegade Herder priest and charismatic leader of secret community, father of Gilaine and Erin

  Edric: coercer and farseeker

  Elii: rebel leader in Kinraide

  Elkar: Herder novice, bondmate of Cinda

  Elspeth: Farseeker guildmistress, powerful coercer-farseeker- beastspeaker, known as ElspethInnle and the Seeker by beasts and as Elaria in gypsy disguise

  Enoch: coachman loyal to Misfits

  Erlinder: Beforetime scientist

  Evander: son of Cassandra

  Falada: Sadorian horse

  Faraf: pony ridden by Elspeth in Sadorian Battlegames

  Fedan: teknoguilder

  Fell: teknoguilder

  Fian: Teknoguild ward, highlander

  Freya: empath-enhancer

  Gahltha: guardian of Elspeth, known as Daywatcher, Avra’s mate

  Garth: Teknoguildmaster

  Gavyn: boy with unknown Talents

  Gevan: Coercer guildmaster, leader of Magi performers

  Gilaine: mute farseeker, daughter of Henry Druid, twin sister to Erin

  Gobor One Ear: wolf of the Brildane

  Grufyyd: father to Brydda Llewellyn, bondmate of Katlyn

  Gutred: Norslander woman, bondmate to Helva, mother to Lark

  Gwynedd: Norselander king, high chieftain of the Land west of the Suggredoon

  Hannah: Beforetime paranormal and director of revived Reichler Clinic

  Hannay: farseeker

  Harwood: powerful coercer

  Helvar: Norselander, father of Lark, shipmaster of the Stormdancer

  Hilda: coercer from Oldhaven

  H’rayka: one-who-brings-destruction, equated with the Destroyer

  Iriny: halfbreed gypsy, halfsister to Swallow

  Jak: Teknoguilden

  Jakoby: Sadorian tribal leader, mother of Bruna

  Javo: head cook at Obernewtyn

  Jes: brother to Elspeth, killed by soldierguards

  Jik: Herder novice rescued by Farseekers, killed in firestorm

  Jil: coercer

  Kader: healer

  Kasanda: mystical leader of Sadorians

  Katlyn: herb lorist, mother to Brydda Llewellyn, bondmate of Grufyyd

  Kella: mistress of Cloister Healing Centre in Sutrium, former bondmate of Domick

  Khuria: beastspeaker, father to Zarak

  Lark: Norselander

  Larkin, Louis: unTalented friend to Misfits

  Leander: farseeker novice

  Lei: Beforetime laboratory assistant

  Lidgebaby: powerful coercer-empath baby, bonded to Misfit group in Henry Druid’s secret encampment

  Lina: beastspeaker

  Linnet: powerful coercer-knight

  Llewellyn, Brydda: rebel leader formerly of Aborium, now right hand of Dardelan in Sutrium, son of Katlyn and Grufyyd

  Lo: Obernewtyn horse

  Luthen: brother to the Red Queen

  Malik: treacherous rebel leader

  Marisa: second wife to Lukas Seraphim, scientist who resurrected Beforetime brain scan machine called Zebkrahn

  Maruman: one-eyed cat, friend of Elspeth, known also as Yelloweyes and Moonwatcher

  Maryon: Futuretell guildmistress, highlander

  Masterton, Petr: Beforetime assistant to director of government complex in Old Scotia

  Matthew: farseeker with deep probe abilities, slave in the Red Land

  Merret: powerful coercer with beastspeaking Talent, heartfasted to Blyss

  Miky: Empath guilden and twin sister to Angina, gifted musician

  Miryum: leader of the Coercer-knights

  Moss: son of deposed head Councilman Radost

  Mouse: son of Sabatien

  Nerat: Agyllian healer

  Noviny: former Councilman of Saithwold and grandfather to Wenda

  Obernewtyn, Jacob: wealthy Beforetime friend and benefactor of Hannah Seraphim

  Okan: defective with healing Talent washed ashore on the Land

  Olinden: teknoguilder

  Oma: Norselander, first shipmate to Helva, shipmaster

  Per Vallon: Norseland village leader and kinehelt or king’s hand

  Powyrs: captain of The Cutter

  Radost: head Councilman of Sutrium, father of Analivia, Moss and Bergold

  Rasial: white dog with coercive abilities

  Reul: teknoguilder

  Reuvan: former seaman, right hand to Brydda Llewellyn

  Rheagor: pack leader of the Brildane

  Roland: Healer guildmaster

  Rolf: chieftain of Halfmoon Bay

  Rushton: master of Obernewtyn, halfbrother of Stephen Seraphim, Misfit with latent Talent

  Sabatien: ex-Herder priest, father of Mouse, leader of Norseland rebels

  Salamander: slave trader and mysterious shipmaster of the Black Ship, ally of Ariel

  Sarn: farseeker

  Seely: unTalented girl, once nanny to Gavyn, now companion and assistant to Jak

  Selmar: Talented Misfit killed by Ariel’s mad dogs

  Sendari: horse who travels with the gypsies

  Seraphims: Hannah, director of the Beforetime Reichler Clinic; Lukas, first master of Obernewtyn; Michael, son of Lukas and Marisa, father to Rushton and Stephen

  Sharna: dog and friend to Elspeth

  Sover: coercer with a secondary Talent for empathy

  Straaka: Sadorian tribesman under Jakoby, heartfasted to Miryum

  Swallow: D’rekta of the Twentyfamilies gypsies half brother to Iriny, grandson of Maire

  Tomash: farseeker

  Vega, Madam: head guardian at Obernewtyn, killed while trying to torture Rushton

  Vinderlin: mare who travels with the gypsies

  Wenda: granddaughter of Noviny

  Wila: farseeker

  Zade: stallion, Obernewtyn horse

  Zarak: beastspeaker and farseeker, son of Khuria

  Question & Answer with

  ISOBELLE CARMODY

  What inspired you to write the Obernewtyn series?

  Like a lot of children growing up at the same time as me, in the aftermath of the Manhattan Project and the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, I was afraid that adults were going to destroy the world and I thought it would be by war or some terrible bomb. I felt my helplessness to do anything about it very keenly. I always wondered if human beings would learn anything if it happened and some of them / us survived.

  I started the Obernewtyn Chronicles at fourteen, which is a pretty stormy age, partly to think about whether I could believe that the ultimate lesson would enable us to evolve ethically and morally as a race, and partly to think about my own place in the world, because I was a bit of a misfit. The main character is a girl only a little younger than I was when I started to write the first book. She lives after a nuclear holocaust and possesses forbidden abilities such as being able to talk telepathically to animals. Like me, she is a Misfit, and like me she was trying to figure out how to belong and yet be herself. I think that is why I was able to write and rewrite the book for so long without showing anyone before I finally sent it off to a publisher, because it was a place where I could think about things that really mattered to me. My own Room of Requirement.

  You’ve been writing since you were a teenager. Has your approach to writing changed over that period?

  In some ways, no. I started out writing like I was flinging myself down a steep slope on skis, half terrified and half thrilled to be negotiating unknown terrain, and knowing the run might be too tough for me.

  That made
sense when I was fourteen and writing in the midst of a tempestuous relationship with my mother, seven wild siblings, and no one felt writing had much to do with anything. The important things were getting everyone fed and bathed and so on, and keeping the house clean. We played a lot of games where I was basically making up stories, but that felt like a whole other thing. The writing was always this private slightly manic activity where I would work like hell because at any minute I was going to be interrupted. It was like reading a terrifically exciting book when you were being interrupted every other minute. A bit of me was always stitched into the book, so that I could go back to it in a second. Story was like this river that flowed through my mind, to which I always returned, and its glitter and its soft rushing sounds were always audible, visible, there – just under real life.

  I was always just a little bit distracted from reality.

  When I left home and was on my own, there was university and work, and they were a lot more interesting than housework and family chores, but I missed the wild games, and in the end, writing was still this glittering, mesmerizing thread running under everything. Keeping me distracted when I was not ferociously writing. For a while, I really got into journalism, but in the end it seemed to me that I was getting closer to some sort of cellular truth when I wrote my stories than when I interviewed a politician or even the victims of a bushfire. So I quit.

  Then there was this incredible period, which was actually quite short, where I really just wrote. Well, I wrote and went to the beach a lot. What I loved most about the beach was that I was going there when everyone else was suiting up to go to work or to all those things real people did, which I had somehow miraculously evaded. I was too young to feel worried about the future. I lived on what I had got together and I lived very, very simply. I was incredibly happy all the time. I wrote, and I was working on the same story I had been working on at fourteen – the first Obernewtyn book.

  Then I finished it and I sent it off to the first publisher on a long list I had made, because I had been told that you had to get rejected hundreds of times before being accepted. But it was accepted by the first publisher I sent it to. I felt so lucky. In fact, I felt so lucky it made me nervous. I thought I would probably have to be in a terrible accident as a way of balancing all that luck!