The Seeker

by Isobelle Carmody

  Idris had never seen his father or sisters again. He met Brydda after his mother had gone to the rebel for help. She had died shortly after learning her husband and daughters had been sold to slavers. Brydda had taken the shattered boy in, and though Idris did not say it out loud, it was clear he worshipped the big rebel.

  It was near midnight before Brydda and Reuvan found us. They had dealt with the Herders quickly, binding and locking them into their own hold before setting the ship adrift. Brydda said in casting off he had offered up a fervent prayer that the ship would be seized by slavers. They had gone back to Brydda’s hovel for supplies since they would not be returning to Aborium.

  Hearing my amazement at the ease of leaving the city, Brydda grinned and said the real gatekeeper and three soldierguards had been tied up securely and uncomfortably in the watch hut to ease Brydda’s departure. All we had to do now was wait for a message from the city to tell us how the Herders had reacted and if it was safe to move.

  We were all weary, but Brydda’s suggestion that hot food would do us more good than sleep was met with enthusiasm. We deferred serious talk until after we had eaten. “It is bad for the stomach,” Brydda said with a comic roll of his eyes. Kella and Idris unpacked and prepared a meal, and Brydda regaled us with stories of his travels on the sea and his adventures as a seditioner. He made it sound like a game. I suspected he was telling only the brighter side of the tales, but even Pavo laughed at some of his more absurd stories, and we sat to eat at last in good spirits.

  With shining eyes for his rescuer, Jik asked shyly how Brydda had come to spend his time fighting Herders. Brydda said it was a long tale and refused at first, but finally, when we all pleaded, he agreed to tell his story.

  “I traveled to Aborium as a lad to get a trade as a seaman. Like many a boy, the sea called me. While I sought work, I heard rumors of slavers. I thought them no more than another salty tale at the time, but as I grew and worked on different ships, I learned that there were indeed slave boats that called at our shores. No one said openly how the slavers got their cargo, but it was whispered that the Herders filled their moneybags by selling prisoners and innocent folk they brought in for questioning.

  “I pitied those taken, but I thought it was none of my affair and meant to mind my business,” Brydda said.

  “Then a lad who was the son of my landlord, and very dear to me, was taken. He had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I had no hope of doing anything, for I did not learn of it till days after when I came back from a fishing trip.

  “I swore then that I would never again stand aside and let some injustice happen simply because it was none of my business. From that, it was not far to the next step, finding others who thought as I did and were prepared to fight back.

  “And so we have done these long years past, stealing their cargo and silver when we could, disrupting their festivals and plans, rescuing prisoners and spiriting them away. And we have bided our time, longing for the day we might be strong enough to revolt openly.”

  He looked at me speculatively. “If I had a hundred like you, I would dare to try it.”

  “Don’t you fear and despise me for my deformed mind?” I asked so coolly that Kella gasped.

  Brydda spat into the flames. “If the Herders are normal, then let me also be called Misfit. As to fearing you, I fear no man—or girl. Even if she can talk to dogs.”

  Pavo and Kella exchanged a quick look, and Idris regarded Brydda in confusion. I took a deep breath. “Then maybe one day you’ll have your wish.”

  Brydda’s eyes flashed. “What do you mean? Your people would fight with me?”

  I shook my head. “You go too fast. I’m not the one to decide.”

  Brydda looked angry, then he laughed aloud. “That’s me all over. My mother always said I was like a wild bull at a fence. Yet I think we will one day be allies.” His eyes had a familiar faraway look.

  I was more convinced than ever that Brydda had some sort of Misfit ability, a combination of empathy and futuretelling—just enough to make him an infallible judge of character and a lucky guesser. But if he wanted to think of it as a “knack,” past experience told me to say nothing of my theories.

  “I have always thought of Misfits as unlucky mutants, but maybe I was wrong,” Brydda mused. “Life is too short for all there is in it. A man with his eyes open learns something new every day,” he added so ironically we all laughed.

  Gradually, the others dozed, but Brydda and I stayed up talking far into the night.

  The rebel organization was very large, extending throughout the Land. By comparison, Obernewtyn was a very small operation. But Brydda was far from dismissive, saying more like me might shift the tide of a battle. He was taken aback to discover how young most of us were but still believed we could help one another. I agreed to advocate a meeting between him and Rushton, but I was not sure the extent to which our aims coincided.

  “At the bottom of everything, we are Misfits, and few men would have reacted as you did. Can you say for certain all your people would think as you do? Not be disgusted by us or frightened?”

  Brydda looked thoughtful at this. “I don’t know. Maybe the thought of someone who can talk inside your head or make animals do anything they want would seem frightening. Yet if people are frightened, it is because of their ignorance and the Herders’ lies about mutations. They could learn,” Brydda said at last.

  “Maybe, but we have to be sure,” I said. “There is no good in our exchanging one kind of tyranny for another.”

  The others rose, too anxious to sleep for long, and we discussed our plans. Brydda asked Pavo where he thought we would find the Beforetime library. He frowned at the teknoguilder’s mention of ruins.

  “I don’t know about a library, but there are ruins of an old city near here.”

  Pavo looked excited. “That must be it,” he said, then his face fell. “But if it is near and common knowledge, the library is sure to have been found and ransacked.”

  Brydda shook his head. “No one goes there.”

  “Why?” Pavo asked in a puzzled tone. “It’s not in Blacklands territory. It is not even tainted badlands.”

  “It is haunted by ghosts of the Beforetime,” Reuvan said.

  Pavo gaped at him, then burst out laughing. “But there are no such things.”

  Brydda looked at him without smiling. “So I once thought, but these are real enough. I have seen them.”

  “And I,” Reuvan said with a shudder. “Terrible, monstrous faces twisted in mortal agony.”

  “Ghosts?” Pavo echoed, confounded by their joint testimony. I stared from one to the other, just as astounded.

  “Ghosts,” Brydda said decisively.

  18

  WELL BEFORE DAWN, a man rode out from the city with news for Brydda. The Black Dog’s attack on the Herder ship and the escape of three dangerous seditioners were the talk of the town. Huge rewards were being offered for information leading to their recapture. There was also a reward for a girl, escaped from custody at the Inn of the Cuttlefish, believed to have been an associate of the Black Dog.

  The Herder ship had been found floating aimlessly, and those on board had described Brydda’s attack as ruthless and bloody, claiming thirty cutthroats had descended without warning.

  “Now you see where I came by my terrible reputation,” Brydda said.

  He was delighted with the way the Herders had linked the events. “How they will sweat wondering what a Herder novice has to do with the Black Dog,” he crowed.

  More disturbing was the messenger’s report that a search party of soldierguards was combing the town. “It will only be a matter of time before they come upon the unguarded north gate and realize you have got out. There are enough of them in Aborium that they would attempt to pursue you into the plains,” the messenger said grimly.

  After he had ridden away, Brydda turned to us. “There are four watchtowers with a clear view together of the plains. They will be scann
ing for any movement away from the main roads, and all roads will be guarded. We must go at once, while it is dark. I have no desire to visit your ruins, but right now it is probably the safest place for us.”

  We packed up the camp and left immediately. Reuvan and Brydda rode the two horses they had stolen to leave the city, I rode Avra, and the rest went in the cart with Idris at the rein. We could not gallop or trot because although most of the west coast was plains, they were stony and pocked with holes that a horse might stumble into in the darkness.

  To while away the time, Brydda asked me to help him devise a method of signaling that would let him communicate directly with the horses. He was intrigued by their intelligence. “I always liked animals better than people,” he confided.

  Later, he asked Jik to demonstrate his empathy. He was amazed to find his emotions swayed by the boy. “Imagine such an ability in battle. He could shatter the nerve of a dozen good men without firing an arrow.”

  “It wouldn’t be very fair to make brave men act like cowards,” Jik said.

  Brydda gave him an incredulous look.

  Pavo spotted the ruins first.

  He had always seemed ageless to me, but now he looked ancient, shrunken with pain; Kella told me the illness raging freely through his body had progressed more quickly than she had anticipated. Yet he seemed untouched by his physical transformation, in better spirits than anyone, apart from his perplexity over Brydda’s ghosts.

  We had been riding in silence, each busy with his own thoughts, when Pavo stiffened and pointed.

  At first we could see nothing. Then I saw the square shapes of buildings barely distinguishable from the dark night. Up close, they were in far worse condition than the ruinous buildings we had seen under Tor. Here the walls rose only slightly above our heads, the stone cracked and grown over with a weedy beard of green scrub and moss. The faint moonlight gave the buildings an intangible look, as if they were a mirage that might dissolve any second.

  We were within two lengths of the first building when Brydda called a halt. “We’d better stop here. The ghosts will rise if we go nearer. I think it will be safe enough. No one would dream of us taking refuge here.”

  I looked at Pavo’s determined face. “Pavo and I will be going in to look for the library. The rest of you may wait here with Brydda or come, as you please,” I said.

  Idris said he would wait with Brydda, but the rest, even Reuvan, said they would come. We left all the horses except Avra, who would draw the cart to bring back the books we found. Pavo and I rode while the others walked. The teknoguilder held his precious drawings and maps tightly but did not even look at them; he had pored over them so often that he knew them by heart. Occasionally, he led us to a road that rubble had made impassable, then he would frown and take us another way.

  I did not believe in ghosts, but the deeper we went into the dark maze of stone and crumbled walls, the more uneasy I became.

  It was clear some disaster had befallen the ruins, for there was far more damage here than to other ruins I had seen on the Blacklands fringes. In one place, pale moonlight glimmered on a charred wall that showed the burned, black shape of a man running. I did not know what it could mean, but I felt a deep chill in looking at it.

  I began to think of all the stories I had heard of the Beforetime ghosts, how vengeful they supposedly were when their territory was invaded. The cold crept into my bones, and I wished we had waited until dawn to begin searching. My apprehension increased with each step, though there was no overt reason for it other than the strangely compelling atmosphere of the city.

  The others were showing signs of disquiet, too. Kella’s breath was coming fast despite our slow pace, and Jik stayed very close to the side of the carriage. Even Pavo’s enthusiasm gave way to a distracted frown.

  Then there was a faint moaning noise, and we all froze, looking around nervously.

  “What was that?” Kella whispered.

  “The ghosts,” Jik said in a high, frightened tone.

  “The wind,” I said, but my voice sounded uncertain. I looked at Pavo.

  “I don’t understand it,” he said. “I am afraid, too, but what have I to fear?” He reached out and took up a brush torch and set a flint to it. The flame flickered and blazed, throwing light onto his bony face. “We are not far from the library now. Just down here.”

  Yet the lane ended in a mass of twisted metal and rubble.

  “We’ll have to clear this,” Pavo said.

  I looked at him in dismay. “It will take weeks.”

  He frowned, then climbed out of the cart with an energy that belied his illness. Taking the torch, he clambered over the rubble.

  “It doesn’t matter about the light,” Reuvan said gloomily, mistaking my look of concern. “We often see ghost lights moving around the city. No one will come to investigate.”

  Watching Pavo peering about, then scrambling higher, I found myself unable to believe anything could have survived the devastation that had overtaken the city. Nothing was left but enduring stone, and even that was greatly weathered with time. Paper was a thousand times more vulnerable. But Pavo seemed undaunted by the look of the city.

  My neck prickled, and I had the queer feeling we were being watched. With shaking hands, I lit another torch.

  “Here!” Pavo shouted, disappearing over the crown of the rubble mound. “The entrance is over here.”

  I had no desire to go into the dark alley, which waited like a toothless mouth. But Pavo was alone and calling for me. I climbed after him, the pain in my feet a welcome distraction from the fear. The mound did not extend very far into the alley, and Pavo was kneeling on the ground beyond it, scrabbling in the dirt and muttering to himself.

  He looked up excitedly. “This is the entrance according to my maps, but the lock is strange. It seems to be locked from the inside. Do you think you can open it? It will be complicated.” He described the mechanism, which was indeed complex. I wondered why such a lock would be wanted to protect books when they had been so plentiful in the Beforetime.

  I looked around, not liking the way the dark seemed to crouch just outside the wavering circle of torchlight. Pavo had marked out the squarish shape of a door. There was a great deal of earth layered over it, but he assured me it would make no difference. I let my mind feel out the lock until I understood how it worked. It was as much a seal as anything, more secure than any door I’d encountered—all the more so because the mechanism had malfunctioned, jamming so that it could not be opened from either side.

  After a long moment, I had it. There was a distinct whirring sound, and the door swung inward. The mounded earth near our feet seemed to drop, sliding away into the revealed space, showering dirt onto the metal steps that ran down from the opening. I had expected the air to smell bad, but it was odorless, dry, and cool.

  I knelt and peered in, instinctively raising my hands in defense, certain something was about to leap out at me.

  “I’ll go first,” Pavo said impassively.

  “Wait for me,” I said.

  Climbing back to the top of the rubble, I told Reuvan to stay with Avra. Kella and Jik came to help, carrying their own torches.

  “Warn us if there is any danger,” I sent to Avra.

  We descended into the dark with as much joy as if it were our own grave. Except for Pavo—he went first, fearless. I came next, and behind me, Kella and Jik holding hands. As soon as my head was below ground level, I realized the ground was slightly tainted—enough to prevent me from staying in contact with Avra.

  The steps took us down to a long, dark corridor.

  I was struck by the smooth sameness of all the surfaces. There was no hint of the owner’s personality, no feeling that human beings had ever been there. Now that we were inside, my attack of nerves had faded, and I found myself curious about the library. Why would a library be built like a secret fortress?

  “What is this place?” Jik whispered.

  “Why are you whispering?” Kella
whispered. They stared at one another, then exploded in a fit of nervous giggles.

  “It was more than just a library,” Pavo said in a normal voice. “The Oldtimers eventually used machines to store their knowledge, and books became less important, even old-fashioned. Luckily for us they never fell completely from favor. This place was an historical storehouse. Among other things.”

  I did not like his tone, but before I could ask what he meant, we rounded a bend in the corridor.

  Pavo stopped dead ahead of us with a hiss of indrawn breath. I looked over his shoulder and gagged. Kella screamed, and Jik looked close to fainting.

  Before us, leaning against the side of the hall, were a number of human skeletons. One was small, the size of a young child. Almost certainly the skeletons of Beforetimers.

  “They’re dead. They can’t hurt you,” Pavo said, but he sounded shaken, too.

  “What … what happened to them?” Kella whispered.

  Pavo sighed. “There was evidence that this storehouse … was meant to store more than just books. The Oldtimers actually wrote about the possibility of the Great White, which they called ‘First Strike.’ This place was supposed to be a possible shelter, because it could be completely sealed off. They must have survived the holocaust only to be trapped here. And there was no one alive on the outside to help them escape.”

  “They … they were trapped?” Kella said, aghast.

  Pavo patted her arm, and we passed single file and ashen-faced.

  There were no other unpleasant surprises, although we walked down the corridors leading to the main storage area with as much trepidation as if skeletons might wait around every turn. Eventually, we came to a series of solid and immovable doors. Pavo explained the locking mechanism. I rested my hands on the cool metal and went to work on the locks. Each time a door opened, there was a hiss.

  Opening the last door, we found ourselves in a gigantic storage room filled with endless rows of books on shelves, reaching high above our heads and running away into the shadows.