The pack leader came to me. ‘Come tha and tha pack follow,’ he commanded, and turned to lope away. There was a little flurry of activity as we hastened to mount up and follow the wolves. Analivia rode behind Swallow on Sendari and Ahmedri rode behind them alone. He had offered to have Gavyn ride with him, but the boy had refused, setting off at a loose, easy run after the wolves, his face wreathed in delight. Rasial bounded by his side, red tongue lolling. I rode behind on Gahltha, and Darga loped beside us. Maruman lay across my shoulders, sinking in his claws, and Dameon brought up the rear on Faraf. High overhead, the owl soared and dipped.
We were headed back towards the gorge at the southern end of the valley when some impulse made me turn to look back. The mist had thinned and now the Skylake lay still as glass beyond the trees. Two pale stone mountain peaks rising sharply above the rim of the crater caught the moonlight, and reflected in the water, they looked like nothing so much as the horns of some vast dark animal.
And Jacob’s journal had spoken of horns …
We led the horses over the rubble and into the defile, then the wolf led the way along it until, close to morning, we were standing once more above the valley and looking into it. Bathed in the subtle radiance of moonlight, the lake had an eldritch air. The others stopped to gaze down into it in wonderment, for they had entered the valley from the east and so had not seen it from above.
‘It looks like an eye,’ Analivia muttered and Ahmedri made a warding-off gesture towards her that I had sometimes seen tribesmen make, though never, I thought, Bruna or Jakoby.
The wolves continued north, leading us up a low slope to a higher slope. The latter was very steep, but there was another remnant of a Beforetime road cut into it, which eased our passage, though it was narrow enough that we had to travel single file. Now that I had recognised these flat broken-edged ledges as the remnants of roads, I could not see them as anything else, but the others, who evidently had not encountered any such roads on their journeys to the valley of the Skylake, merely marvelled at the flatness of the stone.
I was debating how to tell them what I had guessed when Dameon suddenly commented that the way was so smooth we might be walking on a road. Then the others stared about with thunderstruck expressions much as I must have done when I had realised the truth. For the remainder of the night they speculated endlessly about the road and why the Beforetimers would build such a thing in the middle of the mountains. Curiously, although Dameon took part in the conversation, he did not mention my past-dream about the Skylake, which would have given one very good reason why the road might have been constructed. Perhaps he thought I had told him in confidence.
We continued northward for the remainder of the night, although I had half expected that the wolves would lead us east, which would be the quickest route out of the mountains and down to the Blacklands. But it might be that the city that was our immediate destination lay a good deal further north, in which case it made sense to stick to the mountains, where there was untainted ground. It might even be that we were to traverse the whole of the range to its distant and unknown end, before descending to the Blacklands to find a city that lay even further north. That was not a prospect I relished, for the mountains further along the range were higher than any I had climbed, and they were said to be completely tainted besides. But even if the taint was less than I had heard, and there were Beforetime roads to ease our passage, it would be very cold and we would have to contend with snow.
The sky was growing lighter in the east and the stars were beginning to fade when the Beforetime road ended abruptly under another great rock fall, and the way beyond it was broken and difficult to negotiate by moonlight. The ruddy flush of dawn was showing in the east and firing on the peaks of the highest mountains by the time we made our way down the side of a narrow canyon that had looked as dark as a river of shadow from a distance. I found myself yawning repeatedly and struggling to keep my eyes open as we reached the bottom of the gorge and continued along it. I was not especially tired, having slept well the previous afternoon, but I was not accustomed to staying awake all night.
The canyon widened into a gorge carpeted in a thick, soft, white lichen of a sort I had never seen before. At first sight, I thought snow had fallen, even though the gorge was too well protected by the surrounding peaks for it to be snow. Once again I thought we might turn west, for there were many canyons running away from the gorge in that direction, but Rheagor merely led us to where a narrow cascade spilled down the grey stone wall of the gorge into a stream that flowed away down a narrow ravine. Darga went to drink from the stream and the others did the same, but Rheagor made his uncomfortable contact and bade me and my pack rest and sleep for the day. He and the wolf pack would return at dusk. He added that if we wished to continue, we should go along the water-filled ravine beside the fall and then head north. He would be able to find us by tracking our scent.
Before he could sever the connection between us, I asked quickly how many days he thought it would be before we went down from the mountains to cross the glowing Blacklands.
‘Many days,’ he sent, and then he broke contact and loped purposefully back the way we had come, the other wolves streaming after him.
‘Wonderful,’ I said drily.
Swallow came to stand by me, yawning widely. ‘I gather we are to stop. I cannot say I am sorry. This walking all night will take some getting used to. Should we take the packs off the horses?’
I nodded absently. Once unburdened, the horses refused the oats Swallow offered, Gahltha explaining that the white lichen was very good to eat. When the horses wandered off to graze in a little herd, Ahmedri built a modest fire with swift skill and a small tinder box, and made a drink with herbs that gave off a strong, strange scent. Filling a mug, he offered it to Analivia, saying the brew would help us relax so that we could sleep, even though the sun was rising. She drank, wrinkled her nose and then shrugged and finished it.
‘I had better have one as well because I need to sleep,’ Dameon said, stifling a yawn. ‘If it was not for Faraf flicking me with her tail, I would have fallen off sound asleep a half dozen times already.’
I regarded him sympathetically, seeing how it might be a good deal harder to stay awake when one could not look about. In the end, we all drank, and it was only as I finished the bitter dregs of the draught that I realised with dismay that Gavyn and Rasial were missing.
‘Do not fear,’ Gahltha sent, responding to my consternation before I could even voice it. ‘They are only back in the canyon. The funaga pup found something that interests him, but Rasial is with him and she will watch over him.’
‘He has not had anything to eat,’ I objected.
‘The dog hunts/the boy forages,’ Gahltha sent.
I decided I was too tired to waste so much energy in worrying. Lying down on the soft lichen with a sigh, I thought how very pleasant it was. The lichen had a delicate scent I had not noticed before, either. I gazed up at the sky listening to the others conversing as they prepared a meal, and wondering how long it would take us to grow accustomed to being nocturnal. Maruman stepped up onto my belly and stretched out to sleep. I lifted my head and stared at him indignantly, but he stared me down. I noticed Analivia hiding a grin as she turned back to continue her conversation with Dameon and Swallow.
‘If this city Jacob dreamed about was inhabited by people who had lived there since the Beforetime, we would surely know about it,’ the empath told her.
‘Unless they chose to keep themselves apart,’ Swallow said. ‘Imagine what it would be like to have lived beyond the end of your world. If they had any means of seeing how the new world had turned out, the sight of the Herders and the Council, not to mention the Gadfian slavers, would hardly have enticed them into wanting to make contact.’
‘I hope you are wrong,’ Dameon said. ‘Because if you are right about them rejecting the world, they are not likely to welcome visitors with open arms.’
‘If they are Beforetimers,
they might have healing skills so superior that they can even heal taint sickness,’ Analivia said. Then after a little pause she added, ‘It might also be that only a few people live there. Garth told me once that cities were often the targets when the Beforetimers warred. Maybe most of the inhabitants fled and these efari are just the ones that stayed behind.’
I was beginning to see why Garth and Fian liked Analivia. She thought and talked like a teknoguilder and she appeared to have taken in many of Garth’s convictions, for all her fights with the Teknoguildmaster.
‘No one would deliberately make war on cities full of people who were not warriors,’ Swallow scoffed. ‘Think of all the children and old folk and innocent beasts who would have perished.’
Analivia shrugged. ‘It sounds appalling to me, too, but Garth said that when one of the Beforetime powers was at war with another, it was judged by their leaders that all of their people were at war, whether or not they fought or even wanted to fight.’
‘That still does not tell us anything about the efari,’ Swallow said. ‘What sort of people would stay behind if they thought a city would be destroyed?’
‘Maybe those who had to stay,’ Analivia suggested.
‘What door does Cassandra’s key fit?’ Dameon asked. He had turned to me, sensing that I was listening. I sat up cross-legged, and lifted the now slumbering Maruman gently into my lap.
‘I don’t think it can be a key such as would unlock a door,’ I said. ‘I already have a device that is supposed to unlock all doors that stand between me and Sentinel.’
‘But what is a key that does not unlock a door?’ Swallow asked curiously.
‘There were many things called keys in the Beforetime,’ I said. ‘One of the small parts of a computermachine is called a key, and tapping on it allows you to communicate with a computermachine. That is called keying. A code is also a kind of key. That can be numbers or words that need to be said or keyed to make a computermachine listen to you. And even in our time, a key can be an answer to a puzzle as well as the code to let you read a map correctly.’
‘So this Cassandra’s key could be anything,’ Analivia said. ‘How will we know how to find it then, and how will you know how to use it when you come to Sentinel?’ Before I could speak, her face cleared. ‘But of course, the voice will speak in your dreams!’ In that moment she reminded me very much of the farseeker Matthew.
‘We must hope the key is with Jacob Obernewtyn’s body, gruesome as that sounds,’ Swallow said. ‘And that he is in a grave with his name scribed on it, though I do not much relish digging up his bones.’
‘What I wonder is why Hannah Seraphim made Jacob promise to keep the key with him,’ Dameon mused. ‘It is almost as if she knew it was important to you.’
‘And where did she get it in the first place? That’s what I’d like to know,’ Swallow asked.
‘Probably from the place where the Beforetime Misfits were being held captive,’ Analivia suggested. ‘Garth told me she was very concerned about accidents with weaponmachines which had been happening but which she did not think were accidents at all.’
I stared at her, fascinated. Naive she might be, but she was clever too, and capable of putting bits of information together to give her answers. In this case it was the right answer but the wrong reasoning. I said, ‘There is much I need to tell you about my quest, but I could not tell it all at once, even if there was the time for it. But while we wait for the food to finish cooking, I will tell you of Cassandra.’
They all turned their faces avidly towards me, and I felt as if I were about to perform a storysong.
‘I am almost certain that Cassandra is the younger of the two Beforetime women that you dreamed of when you came to the valley of the Skylake, Ana, the ones gazing at a computermachine. The older woman was Hannah Seraphim.’ Analivia’s eyes widened in astonishment, but I went on before she could speak. ‘It was Cassandra who gifted the key to Hannah before it was ever given to Jacob. That is why it is called Cassandra’s key. It was also Cassandra who first alerted Hannah about the Before time Misfits being held in secret captivity. The reason Cassandra knew about them was because her father ran the Beforetime institution where they were being held captive. It was the same place where Sentinel was being developed. I don’t know how she acquired the key, but I think that the imprisoned Beforetime Misfits helped her.’
‘What a strange coincidence that the Beforetime Misfits were being held in the same place as Sentinel was being developed,’ Swallow murmured.
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘You see the Misfits were captured so that Govamen could find out if their Talents could be used as weapons, and Sentinel was being developed to try to find a way to control people with weapons. The only trouble is that the people developing it had ties to the weaponmakers of the Beforetime.’
There was a silence as they digested this, then Analivia said, ‘But if they were making Sentinel to take control of weapons why develop Misfits as weapons in secret?’
‘I doubt we will ever understand their reasoning,’ I said.
‘Was it the Misfits who told Cassandra about Hannah and Obernewtyn?’ Analivia suddenly asked. Seeing Swallow’s puzzled look, she explained. ‘Fian once told me that some of the Beforetime Misfits who used Obernewtyn as a refuge had been stolen from a place where Hannah Seraphim worked, the original Reichler Clinic.’ She gave me a questioning look and when I nodded, continued. ‘Garth told me about it, too. He is very interested in Hannah Seraphim.’
‘Say obsessed and be done with it,’ Dameon muttered and I had to laugh, but Swallow interrupted to say that the food was ready. He had cooked something fragrant and spicy, and now he handed out bowls of it. I took mine, thanking him, and as if by unspoken consent, no one spoke of my quest or Cassandra. Instead, Swallow began earnestly discussing the virtues of various spices and herbs with Ahmedri.
Gavyn wandered into camp just as we were finishing and Swallow gave a bowl to the boy and the pot to Rasial. When they had finished, the boy unceremoniously stretched out to sleep, using the ridgeback as a pillow. I left the others to relieve myself and when I returned I saw that the dog’s enormous paws were twitching as she dreamed. When I noticed the boy’s eyelids were flickering rapidly too, I wondered what they were dreaming about. When I returned to the fire, Analivia urged me to continue telling them about Cassandra as Ahmedri prepared yet another herbal drink, which he claimed would aid our digestion.
I drew a deep breath and said, ‘You mentioned before how odd it was that Hannah Seraphim gave the key I would need to Jacob, but in fact, Cassandra gave it to her because they knew I would need it. You see Hannah was a Misfit with a strong futuretelling Talent and she futuretold the Great White. She told Cassandra what she had seen. It was some time later that Cassandra developed her own futuretelling Talent. We have found at Obernewtyn that futuretelling is one of the Talents more likely to manifest later in life. Hannah began by thinking she could do something to prevent the Great White, but at some point she discovered that it could not be stopped. Maybe that was when she dreamed of one who would be born long after the Great White in one of the few places in the world that had not been destroyed, and who would have the potential to prevent a second and more complete Great White. Me. So she and Cassandra made a pact to prepare all that I would need. Hannah foresaw a lot of my life and that enabled them to see what I would do, so that they could leave messages and other things for me. But in the case of Cassandra’s key, Hannah made a mistake. She foresaw a future in which the key would be buried with her and Jacob at Obernewtyn, but in the future that came to pass, she was far from Obernewtyn when the Great White came, and because of that, years later, Jacob left Obernewtyn and took the key with him.’
‘She must have told him why the key mattered if they were in love,’ Analivia said.
Despite everything, I had to repress a smile at how thoroughly the lowland woman had absorbed Garth’s certainties. ‘We know Jacob loved Hannah because he scribed of it in the
journal but we have no way of knowing if she returned his love. Yet they were true and deep friends and it is my belief that she told Jacob that it was vitally important. Unfortunately she did not tell him to leave it at Obernewtyn.’
‘Did Hannah see what caused the first Great White?’ Swallow asked. ‘I have always wondered.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It is my belief that it happened because something went wrong when the people who created Sentinel tested it. Certainly, not long before the Great White, Govamen was ready to test Sentinel. That is, the original Sentinel developed in the same place as the Misfits were held. Once it had proven itself, there was another computer with the complete Sentinel program situated in a remote and well-fortified compound that was supposed to be the permanent Sentinel. But because of the Great White, that Sentinel still sleeps, waiting to be awakened. It is only a guess of course, but I think that is the Sentinel I am meant to find.’
I looked at Analivia, who had seen visions of the devastation that would result if I failed, and saw that she was pale to the lips. The others all began to ask questions which I answered as best I could without venturing into other areas which would require long explanations. Finally, I fell silent and let them speculate to their hearts’ content about Cassandra and Hannah Seraphim, Sentinel and the Great White and the Balance of Terror weapons. I was conscious they were assuming that I had received my knowledge from the same anonymous voice in my dreams that had led them to me. None of them had yet wondered whose voice it was, so I had not told them. Nor did I tell them that my dreams had come directly from the mindstream as visions of Cassy and Hannah in the Beforetime, though never yet Jacob. There were so many things that would have to be told, but aside from being tired of talking, I felt again a weary reluctance to tell them the secrets I had guarded for so long.
When they fell silent, I took up the last subject they had been worrying at. ‘I don’t know where the weapons are – likely in many different locations. Nor do I know where the Balance of Terror computer is, which controls them. My quest concerns Sentinel. I have to get to it and I have to make sure it can never set off the Balance of Terror weaponmachines. The difficulty is that Sentinel was created to be impervious to human manipulation or control. But I think that is where Cassandra’s key will come in.’ I noticed Ahmedri, who had doled out his potion – this one rather more pleasant than the first – had stretched out a little way from the fire and closed his eyes, but I had no doubt that he was listening.
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