But no one would find me.
Eventually Rushton would ask Maryon. I knew that the Futuretell guildmistress had foreseen my departure, and I prayed that, at the least, she would tell him that he must not seek me, and would remind him that he had sworn to go with the expedition to the Red Land. He always put duty before his own wishes and desires and it was better he travelled to the Red Land than stayed behind hunting the Land fruitlessly for me.
The hedge that bordered the road from the front gate to the main house came in sight, putting an end to my tangled speculations. There was a narrow space between the end of the hedge and the outer wall and Maruman slipped through it without hesitation. I pushed through too, fending off the thin odorous branches of the hedge and manoeuvring the heavy stone sword after me.
I was standing on the road just inside the main gate into Obernewtyn. I looked back towards the house, but the mist cast a veil over it. Whether it was real or spun out of memories, as I stared I seemed to see the enormous grey façade of the rambling many-winged building that was Obernewtyn, which had so intimidated me when I first set eyes on it years before.
And somewhere within it was Rushton, unaware of the pain that awaited him.
‘I am so sorry, my love,’ I whispered.
‘Come, Elspethlnnle,’ Maruman sent.
And so I turned my back on the great house and passed through the gates of Obernewtyn for the last time with as little idea of what lay ahead of me as when I had first come through them, years before.
17
The mist seemed thicker outside the wall, as Maruman glided through it to enter the dark cleft of forest on the other side of the road that ran from the main gate along the outside of the wall to the farm gate. Crossing it, I glanced along it to see a great long line of wagons standing nose to tail, which meant all of the areas set aside within the walls for visitors were full.
At least I am spared the visiting crowds, I thought, as I entered the trees. Maruman had turned in the direction of the Teknoguild caves, though there was no path or trail to them from this direction, nor was there any other path that I knew of. We could have travelled far more swiftly along the road, but the old cat continued to work his way deeper into the trees. I followed, pushing laboriously through sodden undergrowth and interwoven tree branches. It was slow work for I was badly hampered by all I carried. The stone sword was particularly irksome, for it seemed to catch every outstretched branch or curling bramble.
Maruman did not stop until we reached a small stony clearing, just as the sun rose, sending several spears of pink light through the mist. I was breathing hard and could feel sweat trickling down my back, but Maruman seemed utterly unaffected as he leapt up onto a lichen-dappled boulder and composed himself, coiling his tail neatly about his body. Assuming we were waiting for Gahltha, I went up to Maruman and leaned against the boulder, resting the stone sword on it to ease the weight. A short time later, the black horse emerged from a thick stand of trees, under which the mist and the night seemed to linger. I went to wrap my arms around his glossy neck before moving to rest my forehead against his, only now admitting my fear that Maruman meant to leave him behind.
‘Did you think I would let that happen?’ Gahltha asked, for all beasts have a touch of empathy, and none more than horses.
There was another movement at the edge of my vision and Darga entered the clearing. He looked huge and more ferociously ugly than ever. It was hard to believe he had once been the runt of a litter bred by the Herders as guard dogs.
‘Greetings ElspethInnle, Gahltha,’ he sent solemnly.
‘Greetings Darga,’ I replied, equally solemnly. ‘It has been long since I last saw you and far from here.’ It was not a question, but the forerunner to one.
‘Yes,’ he sent, his tone so sombre that I guessed he was thinking of the boy Jik, to whom he had been devoted, and after whose dreadful death he had vanished. I wondered if Darga blamed me for Jik’s death. It hurt me still to think of the boy I had rescued on a farseeker expedition, only to see him die in a firestorm in the White Valley. For a long time I had believed Darga dead, too, until the Agyllians had told me he lived, and that when I next saw him, it would be time for me to leave Obernewtyn to fulfil my quest.
‘I will come with you,’ Darga sent, as if he heard my thoughts. Perhaps he did, for unlike many beasts, his mind was strong enough, like Gahltha’s, to read unshielded thoughts forming in my mind as well as those I projected as beastspeech.
‘To the ken?’ I asked.
Instead of answering, Darga cocked his head and pricked his ears. I listened, too, but could hear nothing other than the chorus of birds greeting the dawn. Gahltha butted me gently and bade me mount. There was urgency enough in his mindvoice that I did not do as I had intended and take out the webbing to attach the sword to his back. Yet my burdens were heavy enough that I had to ask him to draw close to the boulder so that I could climb up on it to mount.
Once I was seated, I arranged a small towel I had taken from my pack as a cushion for Maruman, who leapt up onto it and settled with his head on my thigh. Gahltha moved across the clearing and back into the trees. I looked back to see Darga following in our mist-swathed wake. Behind him, sunlight gleamed and glittered on the dewy foliage in the little clearing, but when I looked ahead again there were shadows and mist and no clear path.
We had been pushing through the wet dank undergrowth under the close-growing trees at a snail’s pace for over an hour when I ventured a shielded question to Gahltha.
‘I know only that we go into the high mountains,’ the black horse responded.
‘The oldOnes sent me back to guide you safely where you must go,’ Darga sent, for Gahltha had not shielded his answer.
His words suggested that it was his task to guide us through the parts of the mountain where there were patches of tainted ground, for Darga had the ability to scent tainted ground or water. I looked back at the dog. ‘You were at the ken?’
‘I wandered long after the fire that killed the boy/Jik, anguished to madness and lost,’ Darga said, yet queerly the heart-rending words were said without emotion. ‘I did not care about my life. It was slipping from me when the oldOnes sent the fliers. They carried me up to the ken and they healed my body and my memories of the funaga child.’
‘How could they heal your memories?’ I asked.
‘I was needed, they said. I told the oldOnes that I could not serve them while grief crippled me. Thus were the memories of my feelings for the funaga child sealed in the depths of my mind, so that they cannot ever break free. I know there was a funaga child that died in the firestorm, but I cannot remember the time I spent with him or what made me feel for him, so the knowledge of his death no longer has power over me. It is better thus.’
I was appalled. I wanted to tell him that the loss of his memories of Jik’s love and laughter and his delight in those things were too great a price to pay for the cool calm numbness he had attained, but Darga’s serenity was like a wall of ice that could not be surmounted. I was glad to be distracted from my conversation with him by the sight of the great mound of boulders and rocks that contained the caverns and tunnels of the Teknoguild. Since we were approaching the complex from behind, there was no sign of its entrance and no danger of our being seen, but as we circled it, Gahltha moved slowly and cautiously, knowing as well as I did that there were oft-used paths and trails crossing the area on the other side of the caves.
We moved parallel to the first path we came to, which led away from the Teknoguild caves to the west, and then Gahltha cut across it and we plunged into the forest on the other side. Later we came to another path, which we also crossed. For the remainder of the morning we continued in this slow, careful way, finding and crossing, swiftly and carefully, any path or trail we came upon, moving ever northward. By midday the last shreds of night mist had burned off even in the damp shadows under the biggest trees, and shafts of light cutting down through the branches transformed the dark tangle to a cage of green lit b
y an occasional splash of colour from a flower or cluster of mushrooms. The weight of the stone sword and the pack were making my back and shoulders ache, but when I suggested a stop so that I could rearrange them, Maruman only said that we must go on.
I thought it highly unlikely that we would encounter anyone in thick forest this far from Obernewtyn, but I made no protest. As the afternoon wore on, Gahltha continued doggedly to ignore trails and paths, but when we reached a proper wide stream instead of the narrow rills that criss-crossed the sodden ground, he announced that we should stop for a short time.
I was very glad to set down the stone sword and my other burdens. My shoulder felt bruised while the rest of my body was a mass of aches from having to bend and lean to avoid branches and creepers. I knelt stiffly and cupped water to my mouth, and then I splashed my face and refilled the water gourd I had already emptied. Unsure how long we would stay here, I resisted the desire to sit down and rest and took out the straps I had packed to fasten the stone sword to Gahltha. Since no one at Obernewtyn used saddles and reins, Grufyyd and Alad had produced a web of straps that could be fastened in various ways, so that a horse might carry a burden without being chafed by ropes.
Gahltha read my intention and came amiably over to me, dropping his head to crop at the grass while I, after some thought, laid the sword lengthwise along his back to prevent it constantly catching on greenery. Once it had been strapped down, I tied the pack and the bow and quiver to loops set at intervals along the webbing straps. I left no room for myself, for as I told Maruman, we were moving so slowly that I might just as well walk. Maruman did not respond, though Gahltha said that he could carry me as well as the things I had strapped to his back, if only I rearranged them.
‘Later,’ I sent, stroking his nose fondly.
‘Let us go,’ Maruman said impatiently, and he leapt up onto a low-hanging branch then onto Gahltha’s back, making himself comfortable atop the pack.
Gahltha went on and I walked behind with Darga. Since Gahltha was opening up a path and crushing the undergrowth, it was relatively easy to follow in his wake, and I was very glad to be unencumbered. I would have been concerned about the trail we were leaving, if there were not so many horses moving about the valley who might have left it. My footsteps would be far more telling, save that they began in the middle of untracked wilderness.
By mid afternoon we had broken through to a wide somewhat overgrown trail that looked familiar. Taking my bearings from the glimpses I could catch through the trees of the mountains surrounding us, I recognised it as a trail that led from Obernewtyn to hot springs at the foot of the high mountains, which had been a favourite destination for everyone at Obernewtyn until the discovery of the caves in the west of the valley where hot springs bubbled up into pools that heated the air. That the Teknoguild were cultivating their wintergarden there, and had constructed a kitchen and several sleeping chambers, ensured that the cave pools were now more popular than the more distant open-air springs. The trail to the wintergarden caves had also been widened to enable the passage of small wagons, which meant there was a good deal more traffic along it. These days almost no one used the older trail save for Rushton and me on the rare occasions when we had managed to get away alone, and we had found it even more appealing for the privacy it had offered us.
Gahltha bade me mount up and I realised that he meant me to ride along the trail. I did not argue, for aside from not wanting to leave boot tracks, I could sense the horse wanted to gallop. Rearranging the sword along one side of the webbing, and balancing it with the pack on the other, I mounted up carefully. When I was settled, Maruman sat between my thighs as before and, aware of Gahltha’s impatience, I settled back and gripped hard with my knees. He moved in a few steps from a walk to a canter and stayed at that pace for some time. I knew he would have liked to gallop after the maddeningly slow pace of the morning, but that was out of the question while encumbered with so much baggage.
Thinking of the open-air springs had roused thoughts of Rushton and Obernewtyn and while the coercive net kept me from grief, I was still troubled by thoughts of how Rushton might have taken my disappearance so soon after his offer of the handfasting wreath. Yet there was no point in fretting on it, for I could not communicate with him, and very soon the mountains would offer a tainted barrier that I could not cross with my mind, no matter how I longed to do so. Better not to look back.
Yet the thought of seeing the hot springs where we had swum ached my heart.
The feeling was a warning that the coercive net I had woven to prevent me being disabled by grief and regret was reaching its capacity. As soon as we stopped for a proper rest, I would need to unmake it and endure what I had put off feeling. I did not relish the prospect, for any emotion held back distilled and became more potent, but at least repressed grief would not kill me as netted pain stored up too long could do. I wondered if I could bear to suggest that we stop at the springs to rest and eat before heading up into the mountains. If Gahltha kept to the trail we were on, it would be dusk by my reckoning when we got there, too soon for anyone to think of seeking me in the high mountains. No matter how it would hurt, the hot springs would be a fitting place to release the coercive net and mourn what I must leave behind, to endure the pain of that loss. Though it was a lesser thing by far, I would also be able to soak the aches out of my bones before we went on.
Gradually the trees thinned either side of the trail where the ground was broken by stony outcrops and soon I had an unobstructed view of the jagged row of mountains that girded the northernmost end of the untainted Land and the valley of Obernewtyn. They were the highest mountains ringing the valley and yet they were only the lowest outliers of the immense wide range that marched northward across the vast Blacklands.
I wondered if we would enter the mountains in the same place as Gahltha and I had emerged from them, after the Agyllians had healed me. That was a good way west of the springs, but there were places closer to the springs where it would also be possible to ascend and I did not doubt that Gahltha would be able to make his way to the high plateau where he had waited for me, since it was Atthis who had showed him the way in a dream, and he would be able to summon that memory. Beyond the plateau, we would be reliant upon Darga to find a passage and to stay clear of tainted ground.
Of course the worst tainted ground would give off a greenish glow that I would be able to see, but only when both the moon and sun had set, and travelling after dark in the steep and stony mountains would have its own perils. Aside from the possibility of a deadly fall, only slightly less poisonous land could look harmless to the eyes because it was not quite virulent enough to glow, and yet it might still cause blistering or internal bleeding and blindness, followed by a swift and painful death.
I had always reckoned that I would survive exposure to such terrain, and perhaps Maruman and Darga would, too, if the Agyllians had given their bodies the same healing ability as they had given mine, but Gahltha would certainly die if we moved for long over such terrain, and the rest of us could not go on healing indefinitely without burning up all of our resources. We would survive only if, after crossing tainted ground, we could get clear of it.
Our best protection would be to stay away from tainted ground altogether and Darga’s senses would ensure that we avoided it unless there was no other choice.
I wondered again why Atthis had not simply sent fliers to fetch me. The obvious answer was that she wanted the beasts to accompany me, but perhaps it was not the only reason she wanted me to complete the journey on foot.
The trail we had been following began to skirt one of the long mountain meadows that marked the upper portion of the valley, and without warning, Gahltha turned onto it and broke into a canter. I was worried about the stone sword, but it was well wrapped and tied so I simply gave myself to the pleasure of the ride, knowing that there would be little chance of moving at anything but a snail’s pace once we got up into the mountains. The meadow narrowed and widened into anot
her long meadow, this one sloping slightly upward. From memory, these were the first of a series of meadows girded by fir trees that ran in a chain tending slightly north-east. Going this way, especially at a gallop, would bring us far more directly to the foot of the high mountains than the trail we had been following. But we would end up a good way east of the springs, and further still from the trail that Gahltha and I had used to descend from the high mountains.
I suppressed the urge to ask the animals why we had come this way. I told myself sternly that I had given up my life and my right to choose what I would do the moment I set eyes on Darga. I was in the hands of the Agyllians now and it would be better to give up the habit of speculating about possible courses of action and their likely outcomes since I had no power to decide these things. Logic and common sense were not to rule me, if they ever truly had. I was no longer the mistress of Obernewtyn or guildmistress of the Farseekers, I was a tool in the hands of the Agyllians, to be used as they saw fit, to prevent the coming of a second holocaust.
Later in the afternoon we stopped for a time so that I could get out some food for myself and for Darga and Maruman, and while we ate, Gahltha grazed. When we set off again, Gahltha alternated between walking and cantering, as we moved through patches of forest separating the lush meadows. Steadily the mountains loomed ever higher and more distinct, ever more formidable. Darga kept pace with the horse, seemingly tireless, though his tongue lolled redly when he caught up with us after Gahltha had galloped for short bursts. But he did not complain and it occurred to me that it was the same for the beasts as for me, whether or not Maruman or even Darga knew more than they cared to tell me. We were tools, to be used mercilessly, and there was no point complaining since we had all accepted our roles. How could we not, given what was at stake?
By the time we reached the foot of the mountains at the upper end of the valley, the sun hung just above the western peaks. For the last hour, we had been tracing the downward course of a little glittering stream, which I had supposed flowed from the mountains, but now I saw that it ran along the foot of the mountains from the east before turning to cut down the valley. Maruman said we should rest, and when Gahltha obligingly stopped, I wasted no time in dismounting. I was stiff and sore from the long day of riding and I stifled a groan as I moved to unstrap Gahltha’s burdens, but Maruman bade me leave them. We would not be stopping long. I sighed and apologised to Gahltha before I knelt by the stream to drink and splash my face with water.
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