I missed the empath, and perhaps that was what made me strive for the essence of him within his letter, carrying it about with me despite its bulk and snatching what moments I might to read a few lines. With him gone, it was as if Obernewtyn had lost something vital to itself, some necessary spark so modest as to reveal its importance only in its absence. I did not know what name to give to it. Miky said we lacked our heart without him, and Angina said it was the soul we missed with their master away. Rushton called Dameon his conscience and regretted the loss of his sharp-honed ethical sense. But I thought it had some finer shading than all of those things. To my mind, Kella told it best when she said she missed Dameon’s sweetness.
“Funaga-li need names for all things, even that which cannot be named,” Maruman sent from where he lay on the bench seat behind me.
The old cat used the derogatory form of funaga, which was the thoughtsymbol beasts used for humans, but his mental voice lacked its usual bite. No doubt because he had been lolling in the sun all afternoon.
“Maruman does not loll,” he sent indignantly. I turned to find his single yellow eye regarding me balefully, but the rest of him—his many scars, his battered head and torn ear, the empty socket of his ruined eye—was hidden in my shadow and the general darkness.
He was bad-tempered and difficult at the best of times, yet there was no beast so close to my heart. His had been the first mind I touched with my own. Later, he had followed me to Obernewtyn, convinced that I was destined to lead beasts to freedom from humans. I had long argued with him that I was not the Innle, or “Seeker,” of beastlegend, but I had been called by that title now in too many strange circumstances to reject it outright. Nonetheless, I sometimes wondered why, desiring freedom from humans, beasts would want a human savior.
“One does not want a tree or the sky, but they are. No more do beasts desire a funaga to lead them. But we accept/know/see what is/will be. Unlike the funaga always asking whywhywhy,” Maruman sent rudely. “Funaga-li rushrush body and mind here/there/otherwhere to prove they exist.”
I made no response other than to give the old cat’s intrusive probe a mental shove to shift it outside my mindshield, much as I sometimes pushed him from my lap when my knees had grown stiff from his weight. But he was right. We humans did seem to love our busyness for its own sake. Possibly it was the nature of our kind, for though our thoughts did flurry here and there, from that frenzy came whatever shaped us.
I smiled at myself wryly, for was I not guilty now of another human trait, which was to take ourselves too seriously, ever devising clever ways to prove to ourselves that all we do is vital simply because we do it?
My smile faded, for it came to me that this very characteristic was responsible for the doom that the Beforetimers had brought to their world. “Their” world—I always found it difficult to think of them as our ancestors, even though all who live in the time after the Great White were descended from the survivors of the holocaust and dwell in what little remains habitable of their world.
What we knew of them was incomplete and difficult to understand, being gleaned from ruinous bits and pieces left over from their time, most of it utterly disconnected from whatever context gave it meaning. We knew that they were very numerous and had divided themselves into a number of great nations. We knew their civilization had spanned the world and they had ruthlessly used nature for their gain and their amusement, to the detriment of all nonhumans.
We knew from the Teknoguild’s researches that they had created machines that enabled them to think with incredible speed, fly and speak from one land to another, and build their cities of shining towers. This ability to make machines whose powers exceeded their own had been the secret of their might, but it had led them into folly, for they had made weaponmachines that had finally put an end to all their terrible cleverness.
I wondered what had possessed them to create the means of their own doom. How had they not lived in terror that the machines would be used? The Teknoguildmaster Garth said it was pride that led them to create such things and believe they could control them, but that did not explain why to my satisfaction. For their wars, Rushton said. To be sure they would win. But what good was a weapon that destroyed everything, including its user? There could be no winner in such a game. Yet they had made them and used them, and so had they severed themselves from us and become naught by the mythical beings of stories and nightmares.
Some said it did not matter that our memory of them was fragmented and fantastical, since their time was gone forever, along with all they wrought.
I wished that were truly so.
Chilled by where my pondering had brought me, I folded Dameon’s letter into my pocket, arched my back to stretch the ache from it, and gazed about the company beginning at last to assemble. I could see only the parts of them that faced the fire, and at first glance it seemed that disjointed fragments of people and beasts were about me. Things that held the light caught my eye: the gleaming gold of the Beastspeaking guildmaster’s armband; the shining curls of the empath-enhancer Freya; the pale shimmer of Avra’s mane and ear tips; and the ruff of the white ridgeback she-dog that sat between them.
I studied her with interest. The ridgeback had come to the mountains at the melting of the wintertime snow that each year blocked the narrow trail connecting us to the rest of the Land. She had led a great limping horde of half-starved domestic animals. One of the coercers on duty at the pass had notified Obernewtyn of their approach, and Avra had hastened out to meet the unlikely company.
The mountain pony explained that Obernewtyn was a secret refuge for humans and beasts. The newcomers could find food and healing there, and other help if they wanted it. At first, the travelers had refused the invitation, patently dismayed to learn that the freerunning barud the white she-dog had promised them was occupied by humans. Avra had explained mildly that the humans who dwelt in the valley did not interfere with them. As the travelers were exhausted and in need of food and treatment, she argued persuasively, they might just as well come to Obernewtyn and see for themselves.
It was the Beastspeaking guildmaster, Alad, who told me their story. They had all come from a farm just below the Gelfort Range. One day, the white ridgeback, Smoke, had turned on her master and killed him. Then she had convinced the other animals to come with her to seek the fabled freerunning barud.
It was a remarkable journey they had made, all the more because the beasts had no survival skills, being bred and reared by humans. But for the will and determination of the she-dog, they would doubtless have been recaptured or killed by wild beasts, or they would have perished simply because of their inability to shelter and feed themselves. She had made them travel at night, fighting off predators, hunting for food, and forcing those who could not eat meat to forage for roots and grains to sustain them. When they would have given up, she drove them with threats that she would eat them if they fell by the wayside. Arriving in the White Valley at last, they managed to eke out a bare existence waiting for the pass to thaw.
After their initial disappointment, the beasts began to see that Obernewtyn was not like any funaga place they had known. They were nursed back to health by our healers, and they learned the fingerspeech devised by the rebel Brydda Llewellyn, through which humans could mimic the gestures and movements that animals used to communicate at the most rudimentary level. When Avra finally offered the choice of remaining and working as free beasts and members of Obernewtyn’s community, with the right to speak in Beastguild, many chose to stay. For those few who wanted to leave, the Beastguild appointed teachers to show them how to survive in the wild.
The ridgeback had been among those who stayed, though she was clearly capable of fending for herself.
Without intending it, I reached out to her with my mind. Immediately, I felt her awareness of me, but before I could address her mind, it spat out a rush of images that flowed so fast it took my breath away.
I saw a man cut the throat of a cow. The red line a
t its throat was like a gaping mouth, and when the beast fell, a bloody froth stained the snowy ground. I heard the keening anguish of its newborn calf and felt the departing mindforce of the dying cow brush me, felt the sweet sigh of its farewell to her calf and the watching dog. The man turned to lift the tottering calf’s head back, baring its throat, and I felt the hot, terrifying fluidity of the dog’s fury roar through her veins.
I tried to deflect her rage, but to my helpless horror, it drove down like a dark fist into the very deepest part of my mind, where my most lethal ability lay coiled and almost forgotten.
I felt her surprise as it stirred.
“No!” I cried in my mind, and thrust her violently from me.
I stared across the fire pit into her eyes, which were so pale a blue as to be almost colorless.
“The master-li killed the bovine and would have killed her calf because it lacked an ear,” she sent in a powerful mental voice. “I do not know why. All beasts know not all of a kind are born alike/exact. None can know what darkness/madness drives the funaga.”
“Why did you show that to me?” I sent, shaken to the depths of myself by the hot, hungry power that she had almost roused.
She ignored my question, sending, “Oldstories tell that the Innle who will lead beasts to freedom from the funaga has the power to kill by will alone.”
“I have that power, but I do not use it,” I temporized.
“I felt/smelled the use of it on you.”
“Once only. Knowledge of it first came when the life of my mate was in danger, and I used it to save him. But not now/nevermore.”
The dog gave the mental equivalent of a shrug. “It is nature to defend one’s mate. It is nature for some beasts to kill and for others to be killed. The funaga are meateaters, and killing is nature for them, but they seldom hunt their meat with courage. They trap/breed/chain/fence until the killing, which is done without respect/dignity. Beasts eat flesh, but the funaga do what no beast would. Funaga eat freedom.”
“No funaga here eats flesh. We/I think it is unnature for our kind of funaga to kill for any reason. Is it not unnature for your kind to kill in revenge/anger? Nature wills beasts to kill for food/protect the young. That cow was not your kind.”
“She was not. I am unnatured, as are all beasts who dwell with the funaga-li. I am what the master/funaga-li made of me.”
“Why did you come here?” I asked. “Why do you stay?”
She turned her pale eyes on me. “I came to seek my death.”
“We all journey toward the longsleep, for that is where the road of life leads,” Gahltha sent, his cool mental probe cutting between us. “But now Avra would speak, and we must listen.”
As the black horse moved to stand behind me, I reached up to lay my hand against his long neck, disturbed by the white dog’s chilly pronouncement. The pulse of Gahltha’s blood beat soothingly against my palm, muted by his shaggy winter coat. The she-dog could not know it, but upon his arrival at Obernewtyn, Gahltha had shared her hatred of humans. Much had befallen him since then that had humbled him and soothed his rage, and he had appointed himself my guardian whenever I was away from Obernewtyn. Despite a hostile beginning, we have grown very close.
Avra began to address the beastmerge, and I noticed Alad lean near to Freya to translate softly. Though she could sense the emotions of beasts and communicate her feelings to them, Freya was no beastspeaker. If it was not beastmerge, Avra would, out of courtesy, use the signal language, but it was clumsy and limited compared to mindspeech. As it was, Avra left Freya to Alad and spoke mind-to-mind with the rest of us.
“Greetings. We welcome to this merge ElspethInnle, Alad Beastspeaking guildmaster, and Freya. Greetings also to those beasts who come new to this barud.” Her gentle eyes fell to Smoke. “You have come far. We are glad/enriched by your coming.” Then, to my astonishment, she asked if the dog wished to lead the Beastguild.
I saw the look of dismay on Alad’s face, but none of the animals seemed even surprised.
“The whitecanine is strong-minded,” Gahltha sent privately to me. “More than Avra, and so she offers her place. It is the beastway for the weak to yield to the strong.”
“I will not lead,” the she-dog responded gravely to Avra, “but I will stand with/by you.”
Now there was a reaction. Gahltha sent that with these words, the she-dog had virtually appointed herself Avra’s second-in-command.
The mare ignored the murmurous buzz and merely inclined her head gracefully. “Let it be that you will always run by me. Be strong when I falter. Lead if I fall.”
“I will run by/with you, lead if you fall, but I think you will not, for the heartfire burns bright in you. I will be a glad-shield to it.”
Even I knew that this was a very fine compliment, and Gahltha snorted softly in pride, for Avra was his mate.
“I name you Rasial, if you will accept my naming,” Avra sent. “Cast off the funaga leashname.”
The white dog bowed her great head, and Gahltha told me with some amusement that the word literally meant “white shield” in human speech but could also be interpreted to mean “silver tongue.”
“Enough sweetsaying,” Maruman sent in irritation. “Speak less and say more.”
There was a ripple of sound from the assembled company that was akin to laughter in humans.
“Peace, yelloweyes,” Avra sent gently. “Things should not be said in haste, for swiftsaying means littlethinking.”
She went on to speak of the truce among beasts that existed within the walls of Obernewtyn and asked that those not present be reminded that any who would hunt must do so beyond the barud walls.
One of the younger horses sent that Obernewtyn was becoming crowded, and before long they would have to turn beasts away.
“Before that day, Innle will lead us from this place to the freerunning barud where no funaga dwell,” a little goat sent piously.
Some of the animals looked at me fleetingly, and to my discomfort, Alad gave me an amused grimace. He knew that Maruman had named me Innle, but he had no reason to believe I was the hero of that name foretold in beastlegend.
The merge moved on to discuss farms where beasts were raised in large numbers for butchering, and a mental cry went up to rescue those condemned to such places.
“I would speak, who am newnamed Rasial,” the she-dog sent, and a respectful silence met her scything mental voice. “To save one beast or ten is useless. More will be bred to take their place. Avra has told me that you have a network of beasts throughout this land and that you perform rescues of beasts. We must use this network to destroy these deathfarms.”
I agreed that the deathfarms should be targeted but warned that open sabotage would rouse the fury of the Council.
“If they learned beasts had worked against them, they would rise up in fear and rage and destroy many beasts, and those that did not die would be chained and punished.”
“Do you say we should not act against the deathfarms?” one of the younger horses demanded with some anger.
“I say only that your sabotage/rescues must seem mischance with no one to blame, beast or funaga.”
I offered the help of the Farseeker guild, but there was a murmur of discontent at this. Some of the animals muttered that I was implying they could not act without human help. I pointed out that every human rescue and expedition we had undertaken had been accomplished with the help of beasts, so why should beasts not be repaid with our assistance?
Avra spoke then of gelding, and the meeting fell into uproar, for the practice of rendering beasts incapable of bearing young was horrendous to all of them. Freya rose and, using the signal language, explained that her father had been a horse trader. She had traveled about the Land with him before they parted company and had seen horses gelded.
“Beasts are bred for selling by the funaga-li, who desire strength or what they think of as the beauty of a certain color or other attributes. They think of breeding as an art.”
&
nbsp; Avra questioned Freya closely about the beast sales, learning they were held in the upper lowlands during harvest season and were attended by many hundreds of folk who traveled from as far away as the west coast. Once sold, most equines were gelded so that breeding could be controlled by the Council. I was interested to hear that pureblood gypsies also attended these harvest fairs but would buy only un-gelded beasts and paid very high prices for them.
Rasial asked how one distinguished a Council funaga-li from another funaga, but no animal could answer. I sent that there was no way to tell, for Councilmen were merely powerful humans descended from those who had united to take control of the Land after the Great White. Their original aim had been to establish order, which later grew into a determination that humans would not again go the way of the Beforetimers.
“Do they not?” the she-dog asked bitterly.
“They do, who most claim to prevent it,” Alad sent sadly. “But we here at Obernewtyn oppose them and so do many funaga who are not Talented. If the Council fell, things might be different.”
“If funaga fight funaga, whoever wins will still be funaga,” Rasial sent.
They began talking about which beasts should labor in what manner during the planting season at Obernewtyn. It went on so long that I fell asleep.
The night was darker than any night I had known, and silent but for the sound of liquid dripping into liquid.
Then the sun came near to rising above a distant horizon, and I saw by the dawn’s gray light that I was standing on a high, rocky plateau. Below the place where I stood, trackless Blacklands stretched on all sides.
I heard a cry in the distance and saw something rise above the horizon. It flew, and yet no bird was ever made that size or shape. I squinted my eyes and thought it looked red.
Could it possibly be a red-plumed Agyllian—those which Landfolk call Guanette birds and which Maruman called oldOnes—the very birds that now guided me in my destined task to destroy the Beforetime weaponmachines?
The Rebellion Page 41
