The Keeping Place

by Isobelle Carmody

  “What will you do now?” Swallow asked.

  I shrugged, suddenly dejected. “Return to Obernewtyn and hope that Roland has learned enough from your Darius to help Rushton,” I said. “Wait for news from the west and also from the rebels.” I gave him a straight look. “As to the rest, we shall see.”

  “It is better not to speak of matters that involve fate,” Swallow agreed. “Our old people say that to do so is like discussing the affairs of the wind. I will send Darius with you tomorrow, if you like. Aside from helping your Rushton if he can, he could learn this beast fingerspeech you spoke of earlier.” Now his voice was businesslike rather than fey, and he was every bit the leader of his people.

  All at once, we came upon the track leading into the cul-de-sac. I followed Swallow wordlessly and drew in my breath when we came to it. Fresh burial mounds were limned silver in the moonlight.

  “There,” Swallow said, pointing to a pale pillar at the end of the mounds. It reminded me eerily of a Beforetime column that stood on the way from the Kinraide orphan home to the Silent Vale and had always caused our Herder escort to gibber prayers and make fierce warding-off signs. I went closer to read the lettering and realized the stone was finely carved into an intricate stylization of fire.

  “It is beautiful,” I murmured, noticing despite myself that the work owed much to Kasanda’s style.

  “It is fitting that their deaths should be marked,” Swallow said.

  I read through the list of names again, noting that the soldierguards had been listed as well. No doubt their names had been scribed on the small silver tags they wore on chains about their necks.

  “Let us return,” Swallow said after some time.

  That night, I dreamed I was back in the dark foyer with the glass monument, only this time the statue contained the faces of Selmar and Cameo, Matthew and Dragon, Jik and Pavo, all wound dementedly together. The severed head was Rushton’s, and it lay at the top of the steps. I tried to pick it up, but as my hands closed around it, I found it was all jagged edges. I gasped and drew back, my palms covered in blood. Without warning, an inexorable flood of water swept the severed head from my sight. I struggled against the onrush, groping for the head, somehow knowing that unless I could find it and restore it to the monument, Rushton would be lost to me, like all of the others.

  32

  “HIS MIND IS gone,” Darius said decisively. “I cannot help him.”

  I stared at the hunchback in disbelief. “What do you mean? He has been drugged to madness, but—”

  He shook his head. “He is not mad. I could help him if he were. His mind—his spirit—is gone. There is nothing to work with but flesh, and that is not sickened.”

  I looked at Rushton lying in the bed between us. His face was calm, and his chest rose and fell smoothly. He looked as if he had simply fallen asleep. I had a mad urge to kiss him on the lips.

  “When we left Sutrium, he was having fits, raving and frothing at the mouth,” Kella said. “Someone without a mind does not rave.”

  “That is true,” Darius said. “But if he was mad when you left Sutrium, then something further has happened since he has been here.”

  “He came out of the sleepseal late last night, but instead of waking, he has lain like this ever since,” Kella said. “Just like Dragon.”

  Darius asked curiously what a sleepseal was, and Roland explained. They were too calm. I could feel myself beginning to shake, when Kella gave me a look of profound pity and sorrow.

  “I am afraid I can do nothing,” Darius said again. “But this Dragon you mention; she is the comatose girl whose restless spirit torments your dreams?”

  “Her mind went into a passive state last night, so there is not much for you to examine,” Kella said softly. “It seems to go in cycles, running from this state to some sort of powerful agitation. That’s when she troubles our minds.”

  “I should like to look at her, just the same.”

  Roland nodded to Kella, who led the old gypsy from the tiny chamber. The Healer guildmaster made to follow them; then he hesitated and returned to press my shoulder. “Elspeth, don’t take this too much to heart. Darius is a healer of beasts, after all. Perhaps he is wrong.”

  “Rushton lives,” I muttered. “If he lives, he can be healed.”

  Roland sighed and said that he would return later. Left alone, I sank to the floor at the side of the bed and laid my hand on Rushton’s cheek. He did not stir, and though his skin was warm, there was a waxen lifelessness to it.

  “My love, don’t leave me,” I whispered, and tears I had not felt gather spilled down my cheeks.

  Later, I heard Roland and Kella speaking outside the door.

  “Let her stay with him until it’s over,” I heard the Healer guildmaster say in a voice roughened with sadness. “Darius says a body cannot live long when its mind is gone.”

  I wept until there were no more tears in me, only a rusty kind of dryness. Then I whispered into Rushton’s deaf ears all the thousand endearments I had been too shy or stubborn to say to him in life. It seemed that I had withheld the deepest part of my love from him, giving only what mean crumbs I had felt I could dispense with. I had been a miser, taking all that he lavished and giving little in return.

  When sleep stole me from his side, I dreamed again of the city under Tor. I was swimming through the murk, searching for Rushton. I knew he was trapped somewhere under the rubble, and if I did not find him quickly, he would suffocate. But the harder I swam, the more slowly I moved, and the submarine foliage seemed to clutch at me with flabby fingers. Then a swift current caught hold of me, and I was propelled upward. I came suddenly to the water’s surface, but I had not reached the outside. I had come up inside a cave.

  Dragging myself from the water, shivering and gasping, I struggled to my feet. The only source of light was the ghostly glow of the insects clustered on the walls. It was enough to illuminate several tunnels leading from the cave.

  I chose one at random. Some way into it, I heard a noise and stopped to listen. It was the sound of water dripping into water.

  “No!” I cried. “I can’t be here. I have to find Rushton!”

  I turned back, but the tunnel behind me had become a great, carved niche, and within it stood a stuffed Agyllian bird. Not Atthis, as in the old nightmare, but the smaller Beforetime equivalent I had seen in my dream of Cassy.

  “I made no promises to you,“ I said in a weak, sullen voice that shamed me.

  The light around me faded until I was standing in darkness.

  “You are the promise,” a voice whispered into my mind. “You are the end of all the promises.”

  “What of my promises?” I cried.

  Then a familiar mindvoice called my name.

  “Come, ElsepthInnle,” Maruman sent. “There is not much time.”

  I woke to find myself slumped over Rushton’s bed in the healing hall. Sitting up, I saw that Maruman was crouched on Rushton’s chest and peering intently up at me. His single eye flared brilliantly in the candlelight.

  My heart seized in terror. “Is he…?”

  “He lives,” Maruman sent calmly. “But Rushtonmind far from here.”

  I gaped at the old cat. “Wh-what? They said his mind was gone.”

  “Rushtonmind hurt. Fled to dreamtrails. Did not know where belonging. Could not return to flesh.”

  “I will travel the dreamtrails and bring his mind back!” I cried, springing to my feet.

  “Rushtonmind no longer on dreamtrails. Is with Mornirdragon.”

  “With Dragon? I don’t understand.”

  “Mornirdragon took Rushtonmind beyond gray fortress wall.”

  “She what?”

  “ElspethInnle must follow.”

  “But…you said before that I shouldn’t do that.”

  “OldOnes say ElspethInnle must go beyond gray fortress wall. Summoned ElspethInnle from lowlands for this journeying/signseeking.”

  “Signseeking?”

 
; “Sign! What else?” Maruman demanded irritably.

  Was it possible the glass monument under Tor had not been the sign I was summoned from Sutrium to see? I had no doubt that the glass statue had been created by Kasanda who was both Cassy and the first gypsy D’rekta. So what was the statue if not a sign?

  Unless it was one of the other signs?

  “But I thought…“I stopped, remembering Kasanda’s enigmatic words.

  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 words had fit the glass statue, but incredibly, they also fit the current situation. Dragon’s mind was the strange keeping place for the sign. Her lost memory contained something that I needed for my quest.

  “Must go,” Maruman sent firmly. “Search for Rushtonmind will bring ElspethInnle to Mornirdragon for signseeking.”

  I understood all too clearly from this what he did not say: that bringing Rushton back was not the point. That he was irrelevant.

  “Did the old Ones say how I get back?”

  Maruman chilled me by ignoring this. “Marumanyelloweyes will come,” he sent.

  I opened my mouth and then closed it. I wanted to argue with him. He was my dearest friend, but he was also an implacable guardian of my sworn quest, and maybe his presence would tip the balance in my favor. That he would not speak of returning revealed how dangerous this journey was. If I failed to return, Rushton, Maruman, and probably Dragon would die; and because I would die, too, then the world would fall to the Destroyer.

  I took a deep breath. If Atthis had not foreseen my success, she must have foreseen at least the possibility of it. It must be that there was no other way.

  “Let’s go, then,” I sent.

  The old cat curled up on the pillow beside Rushton’s head and bade me lay my body in a comfortable position.

  I climbed onto the bed beside Rushton and lay full length against him. Taking his hand in mine, I looked over at Maruman.

  “Must prepare/change to travel the dreamtrails,” he sent.

  I closed my eyes, put myself into a light doze, and sank through the levels of my mind until I could hear the humming song of the mindstream. I locked myself in balance and visualized a tiny stream of the river flowing up toward me. This time, the response was immediate, but still it cost an enormous effort to bring it to me. When the gleaming thread was within reach, I took hold of it and gasped as the stream flowed into me. I willed myself to rise, and as the thread connecting me to the mindstream payed out, it occurred to me that what I was doing was oddly similar to diving, the silver cord as much a lifeline as the air hose.

  Once I had willed myself to see through the eyes of my light form, the room was transformed into torrents of vibrating color. I concentrated until I could make out Rushton’s aura beside my own. His was dim, and the cord running away from his body seemed so smoky and insubstantial that a cold fear ran through me.

  “Fly with me.”

  The tyger of light that bore Maruman’s consciousness gathered itself and leaped up. I jumped instinctively after it. The air around us was filled with flowing color, but as before, this faded first to a pure white light and then to a brilliant blue. Now I could see the tips of the mountains I had seen before and wondered whether they were real or some sort of etheric echo.

  Then we were approaching the glimmering road laid impossibly through the billowing clouds. Maruman landed lightly upon it, and I, clumsily beside him. Only when I touched down did I become aware of my nakedness. I visualized trousers and a loose tunic and sandals, and immediately I was dressed.

  “You learn swiftly,” Maruman assayed a rare compliment. He was now fully a tyger in appearance rather than a light form, and his eyes glimmered like mismatched jewels.

  “Let us go,” I sent, suddenly impatient.

  “Look,” Maruman sent.

  I did and found that the road was now crossed by the fortress wall. Black it looked to my eyes, not gray as it had been before.

  “It becomes more and more solid. Soon, even Mornirdragon will not be able to cross.”

  I was chilled, for he was clearly saying that Dragon was on the verge of being truly lost to us. “That is why the old Ones summoned me back. Why didn’t they tell me sooner? I could have tried before….”

  “No,” Maruman sent. “Before, all possibilities were dark. Only now, at this last moment, is there hope of success. But only hope.”

  Intuitively, I understand it was because Rushton was there. He was the Misfit I had needed to bring back from Sutrium so that his battered mind could be sucked into Dragon’s. Somehow, he changed things.

  “I will bring them back,” I sent.

  “Do not be overambitious,” Maruman warned. “Beyond this wall lies a world real/unreal. Memory and nightmare are grown strong by brooding on themselves. We must first summon dragonbeast, but will not be easy.”

  I opened my mouth to ask why, then remembered that Dragon was at a passive state in her cycle of madness.

  I looked at the wall. It was formed of great blocks that no man could lift. Such a wall could only be an unreal thing, no matter how solid it looked.

  “Call,” Maruman sent. “Call Mornirdragon.”

  I took a deep breath and shouted. “Dragon! Come out. I am here.”

  “Call with mind, “Maruman sent with slight exasperation.

  Feeling like an idiot, I focused my mind and called. There was no answer. I called again and again, to no avail.

  “The wall grows ever more solid,” Maruman urged. “Use all of your strength.”

  I meant to tell him that I was using every bit of my ability, but then I realized it was not true. But surely he could not mean for me to use the dark power coiled at the base of my mind?

  He growled under his breath, and I knew that this was exactly what he intended. I took a deep breath and reached down into myself, summoning up the power that had so recently seared through me, praying I would be able to control it. It surged up, thick and potent, and I thought suddenly that it would be delicious to fly about using that power rather than to risk my life on an arduous quest.

  I fought the insidious desire and managed to shape it into a probe. This done, I sent it rocketing up and over the wall, seeking Dragon.

  “DRAGON! COME TO ME!”

  And she came. Snarling and screaming her fury, she rose above the wall on leathery wings.

  “Dragon, take me over the wall,” I commanded, this time using my dark power to coerce her. She fought me, but I could sense that part of her wanted to obey.

  When she had landed on the road before me, I realized I was no longer afraid of her. I strode up to her, Maruman padding calmly beside me.

  She snarled like a thousand cats as we climbed aboard her. Then she leapt into the air.

  When we rose above the fortress wall, I looked beyond it expectantly. But I could see nothing but a dense roiling mist. As we descended into it, I felt its damp touch on my skin and shuddered.

  And suddenly, with no sensation of movement, I was no longer flying on the dragon’s back but was standing on a road. It was night, and the land about was swathed in a light mist that coiled along the ground and licked up against a few leafless trees growing on the bare hills. It looked like wintertime, and yet it was terrifically hot.

  Sweat was already trickling down between my shoulder blades.

  I willed myself to be wearing lighter clothing, but nothing happened. Shrugging, I removed my overshirt and slung it round my shoulders. Maruman was sniffing the ground in his tyger form, but he sent that there was no sign of Dragon.

  “Mornirdragon does not dwell in dragonbeast form on this side of wall,” he added.

  I tried to scry out Dragon’s mind, but I found nothing. I guessed this must be
because everything around us was a product of Dragon’s mind; a probe could not locate her, because in a sense she was everywhere.

  Broadening the focus of my probe, I let it run along the road, but I could not find Rushton’s mind either. It was hard to ascertain anything very clearly.

  “Nothing stable here,” Maruman sent.

  “I think I felt some sort of town or settlement ahead. We might as well go there as stay here. I don’t understand why I can’t feel where Rushton is.”

  “OldOnes said Rushtonmind will lead you to sign,” the tyger sent, reminding me pointedly of the purpose of this journey.

  We walked, and the mist thickened appreciably, hiding all but fleeting glimpses of the land on either side of the road. It seemed to change constantly and impossibly. One minute I would see a flat snow-covered plain, and then I would see a thick-forested cliff; two steps on, I would be looking at the shore of an ocean. But the heat was unchanging.

  Eventually, I heard the sound of voices on the road ahead of us.

  “I say we sell it,” said a man; or maybe it was a boy, I thought, for though masculine, the voice was curiously high-pitched.

  “I say we train it and make it dance for the crowds,” a second man spoke. His voice was sharp and sly.

  “It will never dance.” This was a third voice and sounded as if it belonged to a querulous old woman. “We ought to offer it to the queen. She will reward us for our goodness.”

  “The best place for it is the arena. It’s been cut up pretty bad.” This was the first voice again, and now I was close enough for my eyes to penetrate the mist and make out the speakers. As I had thought, there were two men and an old woman, but all three were little people of the sort sometimes born to ordinary-sized Landfolk.

  Just as it occurred to me that a woman with a tyger might be judged a dangerous oddity, the three turned to stare at us.