Ashling

by Isobelle Carmody

  "What... what is it?"

  She let my shirt fall, her expression bland. "Nothing. You are right. The whip marks have healed."

  I searched her face, but there was nothing of the amazement I had seen a moment before. I had imagined it perhaps. After all, why would the mere sight of my back healed by her own potions give rise to such a look?

  "I... I'd better go," I said to her. "I hope Iriny recovers completely." I turned to Swallow, forcing myself to meet his eyes; their black longing. "I do not think we will meet again, but I thank you for this." I touched my arm gingerly. "I swear that I will be careful and sparing in my use of it, and that no harm will come to you because of it. Goodbye."

  He bowed. "I will say only: ride safe, for whether you believe it or no, we will meet again."

  Gahltha made no comment as I climbed into the wagon, though he had been privy to much of what had taken place. I had felt the light touch of his mind several times through the night.

  Well, why would he object, I thought somewhat bitterly. He, too, believed I was part of higher matters, and relished his own role in them. Too bad that I had no choice.

  As we passed from the green, I glanced back through the forest of wagons to Maire's elaborate rig. Neither she nor Swallow was to be seen, and even as I watched, the last ragged flame from the fire into which I had stared for so many hours, flickered and died in the rising wind.

  Threading through the streets back to the safe house, I felt bewildered by all that had taken place. The tattoo had, in the end, been the smallest part of it. Why was it that whenever I looked for answers, I only came away with more questions?

  I thought of Swallow's dream voice summoning the gypsy to my aid. Surely it could only be Atthis? She had sent him to save me from the whipping. But why not simply warn me in advance of the danger? Why had she seen fit to let Swallow believe I was connected to these ancient promises? So that she could use him, just as she used Gahltha and Maruman's belief in beastlegends to make them watch over me?

  I shook my head, wondering for the thousandth time why the bird always worked in such secretive ways.

  The tattoo on my arm throbbed and I hoped it would heal as well as my back had. I imagined Garth's amazement when I showed it to them at Obernewtyn and told them that swallow was not a password as we had imagined, but the outlaw name of the future king of the gypsies, a man who, incidentally, bore the very mark they had found on documents in the Reichler Clinic Reception!

  I would say nothing of the other things that he had told me; I would say I had been given the mark in gratitude for Iriny's return. Swallow's impassioned words and the oath of fealty seemed to belong to the hidden part of me— the secret self that obeyed dreams and commands from blind birds.

  I was exhausted. No doubt the legacy of the long night and the painful process of receiving the gypsy tattoo. I closed my eyes and pulled the blanket tight about me.

  Gahltha sent to me that we were back at the safe house, and his voice in my mind was like a jab in the ribs. Incredibly, I realized I had drifted off to sleep sitting up.

  I still felt tired; this irritated and puzzled me. I always seemed to be tired lately, as if there was some hidden but constant drain on my energies.

  Gahltha almost ran the wagon headlong into Matthew, who was coming out the gate at a breakneck pace mounted on Jaygar. I braked the wagon and the rig slewed to a halt.

  "Where have ye been?" Matthew cried, his accent thicker than usual. "I were about to go out lookin' fer ye."

  I stared at him wearily, too tired to be bothered with his histrionics. "I have been with the gypsies. You knew that. And what do you mean charging out of the gate like that. You might have killed someone."

  I brought the wagon properly into the yard and climbed down to release Gahltha from the harness. He did not trot away but turned to nuzzle at me.

  "Elspeth, it's Dragon ..." Matthew slid clumsily down from Jaygar's back.

  "What is it?" I asked. "Has she run off again?"

  "She ... she were complainin' that her head hurt earlier.... " Matthew passed a shaking hand over his eyes as

  if to erase a nightmare.

  Suddenly I was wide awake. "Tell me?"

  He opened his mouth but, before he could speak, tears spilled down his cheeks.

  I swung around and ran into the shed and upstairs to the safe house.

  "Dragon!" I yelled, slamming open the door. "Dragon, where are you?"

  Kella emerged from the healing hall, her face grave and sorrowful.

  "Dragon ... is she ... ?" I stammered, suddenly as inarticulate as Matthew.

  "Inside," Kella said.

  I followed her into the healing chamber on shaking legs. She cannot be dead if she is here, I thought numbly.

  She lay on the mattress bed nearest the door. The gypsy had occupied the same bed, and it was as if one pale corpse had been exchanged for another. The empath-coercer's red-gold hair lay like frozen flames over the pillow.

  "What happened to her?" I whispered.

  Kella shook her head. "I don't know exactly. I was not in the kitchen. Matthew was there with her. They were arguing. I was coming up the stairs, and I heard a thump, then Matthew burst out of the kitchen yelling that Dragon had fainted."

  "She fainted?" I cried. "Is that all? You scared the living daylights out of me! Matthew met me at the gate as if someone had been killed."

  "Elspeth, you don't understand," Kella said. "This is no ordinary sleep. Dragon has fallen into a coma. I can't reach her!"

  XXIV

  "How long has she been like this?" I demanded.

  "Not more than half an hour," Kella said. "It happened not long after we had eaten firstmeal."

  I felt sick. "A coma. I don't understand. How could it just happen like that for no reason?"

  From the corner of my eye I noticed Kella open her mouth and then close it again.

  "What is it?"

  The healer bit her lip. "It's possible that you damaged the blocked part of her mind when you forced your way past her mindshield to ..."

  "Are you saying I caused the coma?"

  "You go too far and too fast," Kella said, the softness of her tone a protest at my stridency. I resisted an urge to shout at her that it did not matter how loudly I talked— Dragon would not hear it. Kella pulled the covers around the empath-coercer's neck and gestured for me to follow as she left the room.

  In the kitchen, the scent of food cooking only served to heighten my feeling of unreality. A fire blazed on the hearth, but it was some minutes before my mind registered that Brydda was sitting in a chair before it.

  He rose to greet me.

  "I had gone out to the market to get some milk and was returning when I bumped into Brydda," Kella explained. "We were coming up the stairs together when we heard them arguing. When we came into the kitchen, Dragon was lying on the ground."

  "I struck too hard," I said.

  The healer sighed. "There is no certainty of that. Damage to a blocked memory is not uncommon. Sometimes an eruption occurs spontaneously, but once disturbed, the memory inside will develop and shift until the block is shattered. Often that is the best thing, but Dragon's memory block is very deep-seated. The chances of her mind being able to deal with a flood of unresolved memories is slim. The whole healthy mind would be sucked into a sort of mental whirlpool revolving around whatever has been repressed. Eventually all normal thought would be absorbed and there would be nothing left in her mind but that single matter replaying itself again and again."

  My skin prickled with horror as the meaning of her words sank in. "You mean she will be defective when she wakens?"

  Kella held up her hands. "I said that would have happened, but Dragon's mind retreated, which is the best thing that could have happened under the circumstances."

  "You call a coma the best outcome?"

  "Everything is relative," the healer said firmly. "At some level Dragon obviously sensed the block was damaged and likely to break open, and wille
d herself inside it. This means that, right now, she is caught up in a loop of blocked memories: reliving what she has repressed over and over as she tries to resolve whatever caused her to block it out in the first place."

  "Then she'll come out of it when she has sorted herself out?" Brydda asked, struggling with unfamiliar concepts.

  Kella shook her head helplessly. "That is what we must hope. But there is no predicting how long it will take. It could take a year or a day or a minute."

  I stared into the healer's face, seeing only my own culpability. With a flash of despair I thought of Jik and Cameo and wondered if it would always be my fate to lead those around me to destruction.

  "Elspeth, you blame yourself too much," Kella chided.

  I glared at her. "Too much? How much should I blame myself then? And who will take the rest of the blame? Dragon?"

  "Perhaps," the healer said quietly. "It may be that this is indeed her doing."

  "It is my fault she's in a coma," Matthew said, hearing the last as he entered the kitchen.

  Kella gave him a weary look. "I wish the pair of you would stop fighting over who is to blame and listen when I say the coma might be a natural development."

  "Natural?" he murmured.

  She nodded vigorously. "Exactly. Sooner or later this would have happened because Dragon never intended to forget her past. She didn't push her unwanted memory into her subconscious, the way the gypsy woman tried to do.

  "She encysted it in her conscious mind—forgotten, yet not forgotten. She stored it as if whatever she has suppressed contained both something unbearable and something precious."

  I tried to decide if her words contained hope or absolution, but my weariness had returned with redoubled force. I felt numbed.

  "I have to get some sleep," I mumbled, but did not move.

  "I am sorry for what has happened to Dragon. Truly I am," Brydda said sincerely, shifting forward to look into my face. "But life rarely permits us time to regroup or to mourn. I have come here because I need your help and, sad as this is, it does not change my need."

  "Again?" I asked with bleak irony. "I could not help you last time. And I have been out all night. Even if I wanted to I couldn't summon any power just now.... "

  The rebel shook his head. "I do not need you until tonight. You can sleep until then."

  "What then?"

  Brydda's expression hardened. "Daffyd has not come and I am supposed to take the slaves to the warehouse for the slave supplier's people tonight. I mean to deliver them as agreed, so that I can track them back to Salamander. Eventually they will have to come to him. I cannot have them followed because Salamander will certainly have someone watching. He would be a fool if he did not. But you could use your mind to track the slaves safely."

  "I could," I said. "If they are not shielded and if they are not taken over tainted ground or water. And if a thousand other things that could go wrong don't."

  Brydda looked taken aback at my fierceness.

  I tried to explain. "It is difficult enough to farseek a Talented and a known mind this close in a city streaked with impenetrable tainted areas and among all these other mind patterns, let alone someone who is both unTalented and unknown."

  Matthew sat forward, a flare of eagerness driving away the despairing guilt of moments before. "Th' slave you use as a marker need not be unknown or unTalented."

  I stared at him, uncomprehending.

  "I could take th' place of one of th' slaves," Matthew said.

  I stared at him, slightly sickened by his eagerness. He took my silence for approbation. "Ye'd have no trouble keepin' a probe on me. Ye could do it from here."

  "No," I said. "If you are taken over water or to some place that is tainted, I would lose contact with you.... "

  "Nowt fer long if ye follow physically as well," Matthew interrupted. "Further back than anyone would bother with, but close enough to feel where I am, even if ye can't farseek me, I'd have my mind open to ye all th' time."

  "It's out of the question," I said.

  "Very well," Brydda said firmly, stopping Matthew's protest before it was uttered. "But you will trace the slaves?"

  "If I lose them, they will be condemned to live as slaves."

  The rebel's face hardened. "As they would have done had I not intercepted them. Perhaps they would think it fair chance, since I am trying to stop this foul trade altogether."

  "The end justifies the means?" I asked cynically. "Have you given them a choice?"

  The rebel frowned. "As far as they know, they are still captives held by slavers. They are resigned to their fates. This is the real world, Elspeth, and I am doing the best I can. I will not lose this chance," he added harshly.

  I sighed. "I will track them. But I'll have to come to the warehouse so that I can get a fix on one of their minds."

  Brydda rose and took a scrap of paper from his pocket. "Here is a map to show where it is. The slave supplier said he would send his people to pick up the slaves before dawn, so I suggest you arrive well before that. I will be waiting for you."

  "He also told you to get rid of me, so it will be better if I do not come inside."

  Brydda frowned. "I doubt he will come in person, but perhaps you are right. We should not take the chance. You will have to get into position somewhere outside. Will that be close enough?"

  I nodded and committed the route and warehouse location to memory before handing the paper back.

  "You should assume you are being watched as soon as you get into the area."

  "Am I nowt to come then?" Matthew asked, caught between pleading and demanding.

  Brydda looked at me.

  "You had better come with me," I decided. "When we arrive, you will go inside the warehouse with Brydda and pretend to be his assistant. With different clothes and in the darkness, you can pass yourself as a seaman's lad. The skin stain has faded enough. With you inside, I can use your eyes to see what is going on there, and communicate with Brydda even as I track the slaves."

  The rebel nodded. "When you let us know where they have been taken, we will ride after them." He frowned. "No. On second thought, Salamander may have the warehouse watched for some time after the slaves are taken to ensure we don't try to follow. I will have some rebels stationed nearby. Can you ride to them and tell them where the slaves are?"

  I nodded, feeling incapable of more. Brydda stood and squeezed my shoulder. "Get some sleep," he murmured, and departed.

  "Ye should have let me do it," Matthew said sullenly after he had gone. "There would have been no risk."

  "There is risk in everything," I said, thinking of Dragon. I stood up.

  "Wait!" Kella protested. "You haven't told us what happened about taking the gypsy ..."

  Kella and Matthew were both staring at me expectantly. I yawned and rubbed at my eyes. "I'm too tired to go into it all now, but I took her back." I looked at Kella. "The gypsy healer said you were a good healer."

  She flushed with pleasure.

  I stumbled down the hall and into my bedchamber, falling into the bedding fully clothed. Dimly, I wondered if it was possible that there was something wrong with me. I felt incredibly fatigued, and this was not the first time. I had felt the same unnatural tiredness after being struck by the acolyte's knife in Guanette, and again after the whipping. Perhaps this time it was because of the tattoo. Every time I was injured, my mind and body seemed to withdraw. ...

  My mind drifted and I dozed, shifting in and out of sleep....

  So much had happened: Dragon in a coma; Daffyd's failure to appear; Idris' death; Domick's and Kella's estrangement. And behind everything it seemed to me that a shadow loomed; a hint of some greater disaster.

  I flung my hand out, seeking the comfort of Maruman's rough, warm fur, but the place where he slept by my head was cold and empty. I wondered, with an ache, where he was, and if he was safe.

  "Sleep the shortsleep.... " I heard Gahltha's voice in my mind. "I/Gahltha will guard the dreamtrails in place of
Maruman/yelloweyes."

  And sleep claimed me again.

  I woke to darkness and Matthew shaking me urgently.

  "Whaa?" I grunted, feeling as groggy as if I had been drugged.

  "Wake up, Elspeth. It's time to go."

  Time? Then I remembered Brydda's request. Incredibly, at least thirteen hours must have passed if it was night.

  "Get the horses ready," I said, sitting up and rubbing my eyes.

  My limbs felt stiff and sore, but there was no need to dress since I had gone to bed fully clothed. I was much refreshed though it felt peculiar to wake in the middle of the night as if it were morning. The numbing exhaustion had vanished altogether.

  In the kitchen, I splashed my face with water and accepted the bowl of hot, sweetened oats Kella pressed into my hands.

  "Is Dragon ... ?" I asked, when I was done, half hoping I had dreamed the nightmarish business of her coma.

  The healer shook her head gravely. "I will watch over her. There is nothing you can do here. Do what has to be done, but be careful. Getting yourself killed will not bring her back." In her agitation she brushed against my tattooed forearm. I flinched, only then registering that there was no pain.

  "What is wrong with your arm?" Kella asked.

  I shook her off. "Nothing. It is Cameo we should be worrying about. Not me."

  "Cameo?"

  I blinked, startled at myself. Cameo had died at Obernewtyn long ago. An odd slip of the tongue. "I meant Dragon," I corrected.

  At that moment Matthew yelled from the bottom of the stairs for me to hurry up. I pulled myself together, bade the healer farewell and hurried down to him.

  In the lantern light, I saw that he had dressed himself as a seaman's lad. His skin was some shades darker than it ought to have been, but in the night he would pass. Mine was far darker because I had continued to use Katlyn's stain but, with a little coercion, the seaman's disguise might be one I could make work for me.

  Gahltha suggested we both travel across the city on his back and I concurred, since one horse would be easier to cloak than two.

  "Let's go," I said.