The Keeping Place

by Isobelle Carmody

  When I saw the three lavishly decorated magi wagons loaded up outside the entrance to Obernewtyn, I had the sudden premonition that our lives were about to change forever. A small crowd of well-wishers had assembled to see the wagons depart, including Rhianon, a silent blue-eyed woman who had been left in charge of the Coercer guild. Her shoulders were bowed as if already she felt the unaccustomed weight of her new responsibility. Gevan had confided to me that he had intended to raise her to wardship during the next Choosing Ceremony but that he had hastened the promotion informally. It was significant that he did not leave Miryum in his place and that she did not protest.

  It was a beautiful day, and the elaborately carved wagons decorated with ribbons and garlands of herbs and flowers lent the whole occasion a brave, festive air.

  “Don’t look so woebegone,” Gevan said. “You’ll be riding after us in a few days.”

  “It’s seeing so many of you leaving that makes me feel sad,” I murmured.

  “There are a motley lot of us, to be sure.” He grinned, casting his eyes over his troupe. There were ten magi, including himself, Merret, and Hannay; three empath musicians; and Freya, Ceirwan, and Kella. There were also six horses, two apiece to a wagon; two goats that had offered to provide milk and take part in the tricks; and three chickens, as well as a small cooing flock of homing birds. The birds and fowls had no minds to say whether or not they were willing to join the traveling show, but they looked content enough.

  Gevan wanted to ride straight by Guanette without stopping. The magi would then stay three nights in Arandelft, perfecting their performance before the rustic locals and investigating the area we thought might be a prime location for a safe farm, since it lacked both rebel and Council affiliates. Leaving the forest village in the afternoon, they would arrive in Sawlney with a day to spare before the bonding of the Councilman’s daughter. The rebel meeting was to take place the following night, when the festivities were at their height. I would time my own journey to arrive the night before the meeting.

  “Be careful,” I said softly.

  “Always.” Gevan squeezed my arm and gave the whistling gypsy signal for his troupe to ready themselves for departure. Watching him scold and chivvy everyone into their places, I could see he was already becoming the irascible halfbreed gypsy-troupe leader. He looked every inch the part, and I had no doubt the magi would be safe under his guidance.

  “Ri-ide,” Gevan sang in the gypsy way, and the travelers broke spontaneously into a well-known gypsy song as the wagons rolled away down the drive. I heard the faint trill of pipes and the soft thunder of a coercer drum as the last wagon passed out of sight around the curving drive. The sound of the music lasted for some minutes after the wagons had gone out of view, but eventually it faded, too, until there was nothing but the murmur of wind in the trees bordering the drive and the intermittent trill of birds.

  With faint melancholy, I reflected that I seemed to be always bidding friends farewell these days.

  “Well, that’s that,” Alad sighed beside me. “It’s funny how you always feel so flat and dull when people go off on a journey and you’re left behind. Yet, I don’t envy them, truly.”

  I was only half listening, for I had caught sight of young Gavyn over near the tree line, standing very still and holding up a small, chubby hand. He smiled in delight as a bird came to light on his finger and tilted its head to study him.

  “He is an odd one,” Alad said softly. “It’s often said of people that they charm the birds off trees, but he really does. All he has to do is focus his thoughts on them and they can’t resist him.”

  “Are the animals in thrall to him somehow?” I asked.

  Alad shrugged. “He’s not capable of deliberately enthralling anyone. Indeed, I can’t make him sit still and concentrate long enough even to finish a sentence. The best I can say is that it is some rare combination of empathy, coercion, and beastspeaking Talents.”

  When Alad left, Gavyn trotted after him with Rasial at his heels. The others drifted away, and presently I was alone. Enjoying the rare solitude, I stood drowsing pleasantly in the sunlight.

  At supper that night, there were a lot of empty seats with the magi and coercer-knights absent. People sat in little clumps looking subdued and talking softly until a couple of empaths, picking up on the general melancholy, played some comic songs inviting participation. The atmosphere lightened perceptibly.

  I was sitting with Aras and Zarak and had been explaining that they must run our guild while Ceirwan and I were away. The duties were not onerous, since the majority of those left would be youngsters needing only to be encouraged to practice, and older folk with work of their own to be getting on with. To my surprise, Zarak said he thought it would be better if I left a small council of farseekers in charge, since he and Aras were working very hard on the whiplash variation. He had drawn up a list of names, saying the job of leadership would be better shared out among all of them.

  Impressed with his reasoning, I conceded and bade him let those on his list know. I noticed Aras give him a glowing look and experienced a prickle of unease, for he was all but betrothed to Lina of the Beastspeaking guild. Since the tragedy of Dragon’s feelings for Matthew, I was wary of unrequited love.

  “Guildmistress?” Aras said timidly. “A few of us were talking, and we were wondering why we don’t just shut the pass altogether. It wouldn’t be too hard for the teknoguilders to cause an avalanche to block it. Then no one could get to us.”

  “Who is taking my guild’s name in vain?” Garth boomed, coming up to the table behind the wards. Aras yelped in fright, but Zarak pulled a seat out for the big man courteously and repeated Aras’s suggestion.

  “We could do it, and don’t think for a minute that we have not thought of it,” the Teknoguildmaster said, grunting as he lowered his bulk into the seat. “The trouble is that no beast or human wanting refuge could find their way to us once we had done it. And we have our own reasons for wanting and needing access to the rest of the Land.”

  “I didn’t mean we should cut off access altogether,” Aras said shyly. “I thought maybe we could make another way to come up here. Something smaller that would be almost impossible to find by accident. We could have the beasts pass on the location.”

  Garth waggled his beetling brows at her. “You’re a clever little puss, aren’t you? Unfortunately, to create another way would require boring through the mountains. Apart from the sheer impossible weight of stone that would have to be shifted, they’re still tainted enough to do us harm.”

  “Oh.” Aras looked deflated.

  “If the pass wasn’t so big, now, we could obscure the opening with a false rockfall to deter anyone looking for a way in. We’re using that technique on our Teknoguild caves.”

  “False rockfalls? I thought you were going to close up the caves with real rockfalls. I hope you’re not envisaging creeping back and doing a bit of work when the valley is occupied by hostile forces?”

  “Of course not,” Garth said blithely.

  I gave him a stern look. “I know your research is important to you, Garth, but you cannot put it before our need to make it look as if we have abandoned the mountains. If just one of your people is seen or caught, we would all be exposed.”

  He looked faintly penitent. “I see your point, but our current research—”

  “Will not go anywhere!” I snapped. “It is the past you are researching, Garth, not a bird about to fly away….” I broke off at the sight of Fian approaching.

  “Greetings, Guildmistress,” Fian sent courteously; then he turned to his master. “Alad says he can talk now about which beasts are willing to help us dig or haul dirt.”

  Garth heaved himself to his feet to leave. Fian made to follow, then swung round to me. “I almost fergot.” He dug in his pocket and withdrew a sheet of crumpled paper. “Here’s that translation ye wanted, but it doesna make much sense.”

  I was glad that Garth had walked out of earshot, immediately
aware how hypocritical it seemed for me to pursue my own research of the past. And, of course, it couldn’t be worse timing in a way. But I had long ago accepted that, to some extent, what happened at Obernewtyn was connected to my larger secret quest to find and disarm the weaponmachines. The two might seem to be separate matters, and even at times opposing, but if I succeeded, then Obernewtyn must survive to become the seed that would change forever the way Landfolk lived their lives.

  I took the sheet, and though I was aware of Zarak and Aras watching me curiously, I could not resist a glance. Fian had given me back the copy I had made of the rubbing, having written between the lines and along the edges of it. My heart sank to see gaps and question marks, and in some places, two or three possible meanings. I folded the sheet and slipped it into my sleeve as if it was nothing very important and went on speaking to the two wards of other guild matters until Zarak’s father appeared, giving me the chance to escape.

  In my chamber, I cursed and struggled to light the fire. I had grown accustomed to Ceirwan doing it. He had been concerned enough about leaving me to offer to instruct another farseeker to serve me, but I had not wanted to be bothered getting used to someone new fussing around me when in only a few days I would be away to the lowlands myself.

  With the fire lit at last and a lamp glowing at my elbow, I flattened the paper. There were the six lines that I had copied out as exactly as I could from the dream rubbing.

  Fian had written above the top line,

  I, [Carandy?], have left [steps/signs/things] behind me that the [leader/wanderer/searching one] must find before

  Fian had tried a couple of spellings of “Carandy” in the margin, but I did not doubt what was meant.

  I had been right about the doors. They did contain a message from the mysterious Kasanda. And “the searching one” could only mean “the Seeker.” A cold finger ran down my spine at the thought that I was reading words left by a dead woman who had long ago foreseen my coming.

  I studied the abrupt end of the first line, where there had to have been a gap in my rubbing. The seeker had to find the signs left by Kasanda before…what? The overguardian of the Earthtemple in Sador had claimed that I must find four signs before seeking the fifth there, so the end of the line probably said something like that. But was this message to be counted as the first sign, or was it merely a notification of where the signs would ultimately be found? I read on.

  That [key?] which must be used [before all else?] is [with/given/sent to] she who first dreamed of the [leader/wanderer/searching one]—the hope beyond the darkness to come.

  Fian was clearly unsure about the word key. Did it mean I had to find an actual key, or was it a key in some other sense? And who was the “she” referred to? If Kasanda had kept it with her, then it must lie in Sador with her body. But the overguardian had said that the four signs were to be found in the Land.

  Perhaps “she” referred to some other woman who had dreamed of me. The fact that Kasanda referred to herself as “I” in the first line suggested that she did mean someone else, but how was I to know who, much less find her? If Kasanda had known her, she would be long dead now.

  I sighed and turned my attention to the third line. Over it Fian had written:

  Who [would/must] enter the [sentinel/guard/ watcher] will seek the words in the house where my son was born.

  I frowned. If Kasanda had borne a son, how on earth was I to learn where he had been birthed? The only people who had known her were the Sadorians, and she had been past childbearing when they rescued her from the New Gadfians. If she had given birth to a child, it must have been long before she came to Sador.

  I bit my lip. The overguardian had said that on my return to Sador, I would be accompanied by one of Kasanda blood. I had thought at the time that he was using the word as a title, for the Sadorians called any person with futuretelling ability “kasanda.” But if I read the word blood literally, he could have meant that I would travel with someone descended from Kasanda.

  I blinked into the fire, considering the possibility that Kasanda had been in the Land as a young woman. It would explain how she had been able to distribute her signs. But why and how had she left the Land to end up in the hands of the Gadfians?

  I set that aside and continued to read.

  That which will reach the [heart/center/core] of the [sentinel/guard/watcher] seals a [pact/promise/vow] that I did forge, but never [witnessed/saw].

  I frowned, for this was less clear. Was this “guard” a person? Was I to somehow seal a pact that Kasanda had made? Or was I to find something that had already sealed the pact?

  A carved monument could sometimes be used to symbolize a pact between parties. Such a thing would make use of Kasanda’s talents, and it would be much more likely to endure than an agreement on paper. If Kasanda had left a physical symbol of some allegiance that I was to find, it would have to be something that would endure for generations.

  The final section was longer than all the others and had in fact been the hasty second half of the rubbing.

  That which will [open/access/reach] the darkest door lies where the [?] [waits/sleeps]. Strange is the keeping place of this dreadful [step/sign/thing], and all who knew it are dead save one who does not know what she knows. Seek her past. Only through her may you go where you have never been and must someday go. Danger. Beware. Dragon.

  The paper slid from my fingers at the realization that the final words could only mean that the futureteller had foreseen Dragon’s dream beast attacking me at the very instant I was reading her message on the doors.

  I took up the page again and read the lines together, striving to reduce all the words and possible meanings and nuances to simple essentials.

  I was to find something left with a woman who had dreamed of me. Possibly an actual key. I was to find some words in the house where Kasanda had birthed her son. I was to find something that sealed a pact, possibly some sort of carved monument. Finally, I was to find another thing with the help of a woman who did not know what she knew, in a place where I had never been. That could only mean the farthest reaches of the west coast, for I had been everywhere else in the Land.

  I sat back in my chair, confounded. For the life of me, I could not see what these cryptic signs, nor indeed Kasanda herself, had to do with my finding the weaponmachines left dormant by the Beforetimers.

  My heartbeat accelerated as I remembered where I had heard the word sentinel before. It was the name of the computer system being developed by the Beforetime World Council to gather information about patterns of aggression and violence among countries. It was supposed to be capable of eventually deciding for itself who was to blame if any incident occurred. In the final analysis, it was to have sole power to activate a worldwide retaliatory system known as the Balance of Terror.

  Cassy’s “Guardian” and Garth’s “Sentinel” had to be the same thing. And what if it had been completed before the Great White? The whole point of the system was that it could operate outside of human influence; so, what if the deadly computermachine was even now standing somewhere in the world, needing only to be activated? Learning of the devastated world, wouldn’t Sentinel then rouse BOT?

  I felt truly sick at the thought of a second Great White initiated by a mindless machine and cursed the Beforetimers with every foul word I knew for making an evil that would outlive their own rotten lifetimes.

  I ran my eyes down the page.

  A key that must be used before all else…Words that would let me enter Sentinel…Something that would reach its core…Something that would open a door.

  My mouth felt dry as I saw that Kasanda’s “signs” could in fact be the means by which I gain access to the site of Sentinel and to its weaponmachines. No wonder I needed to find what Kasanda had left before walking the dark road.

  But why had she made it so difficult for me? Even as I thought of the question, I knew the answer. She had foreseen the existence of my fated opposite: the Destroyer, destined to activ
ate the weaponmachines if I failed to disable them.

  Kasanda must have known she was making it difficult for me as well as for the Destroyer. Of course, nothing about futuretelling was certain, and Kasanda could have overestimated my abilities. But knowing what was at stake, she would have done her best to transform possibilities into probabilities.

  That meant the balance of chance was in my favor. It struck me that the purpose of the message I held might even have been to ensure that I understood that. I felt awed at the thought, for in a way, she had also been telling me that no matter how lonely my quest seemed, I was not alone.

  I laid the page aside.

  The quest before me was no less dark than it had ever been, but the feeling that I was not alone was new and welcome. Staring into the glowing embers on the hearth, I had the feeling that I need find only one clue, and it would lead me inevitably to the rest.

  20

  I DID NOT sleep until Maruman came into my room looking so shifty I suspected he had been chasing mice. Instead of scolding him, I lifted him onto the bed and curled my body around his furry warmth. On top of everything else, I was worried about the old cat. He had been behaving oddly for days, and though he had not fallen into one of his mad states, his mind had been un-focused. We had last communicated normally just after my nightmare about Ariel, and his confusion in the following days reassured me that it had been merely a period of mental instability that had led him to suggest my nightmares were anything out of the ordinary.