But when he had perished saving Miryum’s life, the coercer had vanished with his body. Initially we thought that she had taken it to Sador for burial since the tribesman had once explained the import of this ritual among tribesfolk. But Miryum had never arrived in Sador and after a time it began to be whispered that she had carried Straaka’s body off in guilt and grief, only to stumble into Blacklands and die.
‘Straaka’s body must be returned to Sador,’ Bruna reiterated. ‘Until this happens his spirit will continue to walk.’
‘What do you mean, walk?’ I asked, taken aback.
‘Straaka’s spirit plucks at the dreams of those who knew him when he lived,’ Bruna answered. Now she straightened and said very formally, ‘I bring a message from the overguardian of the Earthtemple, to Elspeth Gordie, guildmistress of the Farseekers of Obernewtyn. Straaka’s spirit must find peace. One of the men who rode here with me is the brother of Straaka. His name is Ahmedri. He will remain with you until he learns where Straaka’s bones lie, for they must be returned to the desert lands.’
‘With me …?’ I echoed.
‘The overguardian is a kasanda,’ Bruna continued. ‘She foresaw that when you free Straaka’s betrothed, she will lead Ahmedri to his brother’s bones.’
‘I, free Miryum?’ I asked, dumbfounded. ‘Are you saying she is a prisoner?’
‘The overguardian said that Straaka will lead you to the woman and when she is freed she will reveal the whereabouts of his bones to Ahmedri. I do not know who holds her prisoner.’
‘Wait, even if Miryum is being held captive somewhere, how can you speak of Straaka’s bones and then tell me in the same breath that he will lead me to her?’ I demanded.
‘The overguardian said that his spirit will find yours.’
I stared at her. If she spoke of spirits then she was speaking of the dreamtrails, that mysterious echo of reality, which rose up like smoke from a fire, and was visible only to spirit-eyes. It was true that I could summon up a spirit-form and will myself to the dreamtrails, but Atthis had warned me explicitly to avoid them because the Destroyer would seek me there. I thought of the dark spirit-form that had pursued me in my nightmares and shivered.
But even if I were willing to risk encountering the Destroyer to search for Straaka on the dreamtrails, there would be no point. Straaka was dead and a spirit severed from its flesh would have been drawn immediately into the mindstream. Even if Straaka’s spirit had found some way to delay that final merging, how was I to find him when spirit-forms did not mimic the flesh they had inhabited, but expressed a potent aspect of the character or the dominant emotion of the person or beast? It would be like trying to recognise someone wearing a mask.
Bruna regarded me sympathetically, then she reached out to rest a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘I must go to Domina now.’
When Ceirwan arrived a little while later, he brought Tomash to guide the tribeswoman through the maze, for the direct path was the site of much activity since it had been designated one of the places where visitors would set up camp for the moon fair. All of the cloth tents we had were in the process of being pitched there, despite the rain, for those who came without covered wagons.
When they had gone out, Ceirwan sat down beside me by the fire, mopped his face dry and then poured us mugs of the steaming spiced ferment he had brought with him. ‘Why did she really come?’ he asked when I took the mug he handed me.
‘The Temple overguardian sent her to tell us that Straaka’s bones have to be returned to Sador for burial.’
‘Ye told her we searched high an’ low fer Miryum an’ Straaka’s body after she disappeared?’ His dark blue eyes were puzzled for he knew we had sent several missives to this effect to Jakoby after Miryum had first vanished.
‘The overguardian says I am going to find Miryum and that she will lead us to Straaka’s bones,’ I said.
‘Find her where?’ the farseeker asked incredulously, and I caught his suppressed thought that the coercer was surely dead.
‘The overguardian didn’t say,’ I replied. ‘Bruna also said her mother will master the Umborine on the journey to the Red Land, and that Jakoby thinks Daffyd is right about Salamander being Sadorian.’
‘But you dinna believe it?’ Ceirwan said.
He knew me very well. ‘We will learn the truth of it in the Red Land.’
‘So ye do mean to go on th’ voyage?’ he murmured. ‘I kenned as much as soon as ye told me who Dragon is.’
‘Did you send word to Maryon that I was coming to see her today?’ I asked.
‘Before I could, Maryon sent word that she is expectin’ ye,’ Ceirwan responded with a twinkle of malice. Then he got to his feet. ‘As a matter of fact, ye’d best gan there now fer she said she’d see ye about midday.’
‘Wonderful,’ I sighed, dismissing a contrary impulse to put off going until the evening, just to thwart the futuretelling.
As we made our way back to the main part of the building, I shouted over the noise of the rain to ask the guilden to have Javo organise travel food for two riders, because Bruna wished to leave for the lowlands before dusk.
‘Two riders?’ Ceirwan echoed.
‘One of the Sadorians that rode in is the brother of Straaka. He is supposed to stay and wait until I find Miryum and she tells him where Straaka’s body is buried.’
I made a mental note to ask the tribesman not to speak of spirits walking in dreams. The last thing we needed was for inexperienced Talents to be blundering around trying to find the dreamtrails.
‘Maybe the overguardian merely meant ye are to true-dream of what happened to Miryum after she took Straaka’s body,’ he suggested, when we were out of the open corridor and could hear ourselves think.
I nodded, and told him what Bruna had said about freeing Miryum. Ceirwan scoffed at the idea of anyone holding the powerful coercer against her will.
‘Nevertheless this Ahmedri is to remain and so perhaps I had better have a talk with Linnet,’ I murmured. ‘It was under her command that the knights searched for Miryum after the massacre in the White Valley and I need to refresh my mind about what they discovered.’
‘Nowt much, as I recall,’ Ceirwan said. We had reached the entrance hall to Obernewtyn, and the farseeker smiled to see Freya waiting for him. He gave me an apologetic glance and said, ‘I promised to eat midmeal with Freya but she will nowt mind if I put her off …’
‘Go,’ I sent, smiling, and I watched them depart hand in hand with a stab of envy before I went on alone.
4
The Futuretell guilden opened the door too quickly and I felt myself growing tense as I followed her down the bare little passage that led to the small chamber that served as Maryon’s audience room. Christa opened the door and stood back to let me go in before her. The chamber was simply furnished with a thick, sound-muffling rug on which two chairs faced one another over a small, exquisitely carved table. A circular room, like my bedchamber, it was built within a turret that rose above the roof of the Futuretellers hall, but neither this nor the fact that I had been here on other occasions eased me.
Christa invited me to sit down and I obeyed, trying to quell the babble of doubts and anxieties overwhelming my thoughts by concentrating my attention on my surroundings. The audience chamber was smaller than my bed chamber because the turret it occupied was higher and narrower than the one above the Farseekers hall. There were other differences, too. The windows that rose long and narrow either side of a small fireplace had insets of violet-coloured leaded glass that gave the grey light streaming in a bruised tinge, and made it hard to see outside. Indeed, there was no open window and so the sound of the rain was barely audible. Instead I could hear the pleasant crack of logs in the fire and I shied away from the thought that it had been heated in anticipation of my visit.
It was irrational, but the thought that Maryon had foreseen our meeting made me feel as if I were being manipulated. I told myself that futuretellers only saw the future; they did not
make it happen. Yet a cold voice inside me pointed out that when Maryon told what she saw, she knowingly affected events. Had she not sent Jik on the journey that had ended in his terrible death, and was it not her futuretelling that had sent Dragon to the lowlands where she had vanished? If the Futuretell guildmistress had not spoken, both of them might even now be safe at Obernewtyn. Maryon would argue that she spoke only to ensure the best possible course for the future, but how could it be best for Jik to die so horribly? Was it truly possible that worse would have happened if he had never left Obernewtyn? Of course, Maryon might not have foreseen that sending Jik to the lowlands would mean his death, but I was unsure it would have made any difference to her foretelling if she had.
It was not only Maryon. I had been uneasy around those with futuretelling abilities ever since Atthis had made me promise to keep secret my quest to find Sentinel. There was no question that the futuretellers saw glimpses of my quest and maybe more than just glimpses. Dell had spoken of me leaving Obernewtyn and Maryon had made enough references to my quest over the years to make it clear that she knew far more than she said. The fact that she had only ever spoken obliquely of it suggested she understood the need for discretion, maybe better than I did. I little liked that thought, either.
‘Greetings, Elspeth.’ The soft highland-accented voice of the Futuretell guildmistress broke the silence of the small room.
‘Greetings, Guildmistress Maryon,’ I said, turning to face her, and winced inwardly, hearing resentment in my tone.
Maryon’s wide mouth was grave but a faint glimmer of amusement lit her grey eyes as she glided across the room, telling me she was well aware of my discomfort. I had a sudden revelation that it was the futureteller’s ability to see too much of what was going on in my mind and heart that, more than her futuretold commands or her discomfiting knowledge of my quest, lay at the core of my unease around her. This was a paradox because, as a powerful empath, Dameon was often aware of my feelings, yet I did not mind being with him. Indeed, the opposite was true. I loved him and missed him keenly when he was absent.
Perhaps it was the remoteness of the futureteller’s regard that made the difference. Being privy to so much information made her far more perceptive than ordinary people, but in order to retain her selfhood within the welter of knowledge that daily assailed her, Maryon had to shield herself with detachment. The result was that I felt as if she saw into me and through me, saw all of my pretences and motivations and fears. Yet she was no more than a cool observer.
The futureteller made a graceful gesture that bade me sit and only then did I realise I had risen to my feet. We sat down together and she shook her head so that her long sleek hair spread like a shawl about the shoulders of the pale blue gown she wore. It struck me with a little start of surprise that she was beautiful. It was not the first, nor even the second thing one noticed about her. She spread a swatch of embroidered cloth efficiently over a small frame, unsnagged a needle from it and began sewing tiny stitches. No doubt it was a part of the tapestry her guild would present at the moon fair, and I wondered fleetingly what they had chosen to highlight of the year past.
‘Do ye wish to drink something?’ Maryon asked.
I had a churlish urge to remark that she must know the answer already, but I shook my head and said, ‘I have not thanked you for sending Rushton and the coercers to my aid in Saithwold last year.’
‘Ye blame me because I dinna send them sooner,’ Maryon said calmly. ‘But ye ken, too, that if I had done so, all that ye achieved following events there would nowt have come to pass. Those enslaved upon Herder Isle would be enslaved still and all on the west coast would have perished of plague.’
‘I meant it when I thanked you,’ I said tersely.
‘Ye mean your thanks, aye. But ye are also angry,’ Maryon said with a small bleak smile.
I swallowed a surge of irritation at being told what I felt, no matter that it was true, and said tightly, ‘There are some things I need to ask you. You have often told me that futuretellers do not see all that there is to be seen. How much of the future could be seen if the futureteller had a very great Talent?’ I was thinking of Ariel who possessed futuretelling Talent strong enough to let him see the four ships being prepared for the journey to the Red Land and maybe even to see Dragon and me aboard.
‘A powerful futureteller could see a great deal, particularly if they have trained their Talent an’ if that which they scry out is nowt too far in th’ future. But all futuretellers see vastly less than there is to be seen, which is why they may ken what will happen out of all that might happen no more accurately than a futureteller novice.’ My face must have shown my bewilderment, for Maryon went on in the slightly lecturing tone she used on the novices in her guild. ‘No matter how it mun seem, the future is nowt fixed, Elspeth. That is a hard thing fer folk to grasp when they think of futuretelling. There are limitless possible futures and a futureteller only sees some of these. The greater the Talent, the more possibilities they will see, and some differ only in small and unimportant ways while others differ in small but vital ways. An’ still with all a futureteller can see, they will not see all.’
‘And yet not seeing all, you speak of what you see; you act,’ I said, unable to prevent an accusing note from creeping into my voice.
‘A wise futureteller will focus on the best possible future of those they have seen, an’ then follow the thread of events leading to that future, to see if anything can be done to strengthen it. Sometimes speaking of the seeing is part of that.’ She gave me a sharp look. ‘It is our practice to say as little as we can, and rarely to recommend a course of action unless we see some great evil that must be averted, whatever the cost.
I cut in. ‘When you bade me journey to Sutrium last spring –’
‘I had a random true dream of the west coast as a wasteland, corpses plague-scarred and rotting in desolate cities, a feast for crows and rats. I sought out the vision apurpose afterwards, expectin’ to find it easily fer it was a vast event an’ would affect thousands of people. But instead I saw fightin’ betwixt th’ rebels an’ soldierguards and the Herder priests on th’ west coast, but no plague and nowt near so many dead as in th’ first vision. I scried again an’ saw the plague future an’ I scried again an’ saw th’ future with war but no plague. I tried again an’ again, an’ it was always the same – two possible futures, equally balanced in likelihood, both dark, though one immeasurably more so than the other. I traced back the events leadin’ to th’ future with the battles an’ no plague, tryin’ to identify what might be done to strengthen it an’ I narrowed the balancing event down to your journey to Saithwold. Simply put, in visions when ye went to Saithwold, th’ future containing the plague did not come to pass. But when ye dinna enter Saithwold, th’ plague future dominated.
‘Of course I looked into what would happen once ye gan to Saithwold, but there were a multitude of possibilities as there often are, when you are the central figure of a scrying, Elspeth Gordie,’ Maryon said. ‘The best I could see was that there was a small possibility that you would die an’ that risk seemed worth taking when I thought of how many would die in a plague.’
‘Why didn’t you just tell me to go to Saithwold to prevent the plague?’ I heard anger in my voice.
‘Ask yerself if ye would have believed that going to Saithwold would prevent plague on the west coast,’ Maryon asked softly. ‘I think ye would have asked me how that could be, an’ I would have had to say that I dinna ken. Ye would almost certainly have decided not to waste time gannin’ to Saithwold, but to gan straight away to the west coast. Ye had the means an’ that was a possible future I saw arisin’ from my speakin’ to ye of th’ plague. But if ye’d done that, ye would have arrived on the west coast with no idea of who carried the plague an’ without the information ye acquired in the Norselands that allowed ye to avert it, besides which ye’d nowt have brought about th’ overthrow of the Faction on the Norse Isles.’
I heard in h
er tone the weariness of one who has explained a thing too many times, and sighed, feeling the tensions in me loosen. ‘It is hard to know that the danger you have faced might have been averted if you had been told what was coming, even when there was a reason for keeping silent.’
‘Harder to be the futureteller deciding whether or nowt to speak,’ Maryon said flatly. Then her face softened. ‘It is hard for you, Elspeth, I ken it well. But nivver doubt that yer equal to it. There is somethin’ in ye – some mettle, which could be called rigidity or stubbornness – that gives ye the strength to hold to yer own course. Ye will have great need of that in th’ days to come.’
Her words had the faint but unmistakable overtone of prophecy and I felt myself tense again. Perhaps she sensed it for she gave me a penetrating look and added, ‘In every future I saw in that time, after gannin’ to Saithwold, ye did come to th’ west coast, an’ I would guess that was because of Ariel leavin’ Domick fer ye to find. Th’ link between ye is strong.’
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