The Red Queen

by Isobelle Carmody

  “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. I returned to the fire, and 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 that 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.

  Dameon said pensively, “Hannah must have been an astonishingly powerful futureteller to be able to see so far into the future to know that you would need the key, even if she did wrongly see where it would be.”

  “She was powerful,” I said. “But so was Cassandra. She left messages for me in the Land in the form of great heavy carvings that would be unlikely to be moved and were impervious to erosion, but she had to make the messages cryptic so I was the only one who would understand them. Somehow she saw enough of my life to be able to do that. I think she got the idea after she made a sculpture to gift to the Reichler Clinic Reception Center, which Hannah had established in Newrome. She hid the key in the sculpture and sent it to the Reception Center. I think in the end the sculpture was a message of commitment to Hannah, as well as a means of getting the key to her, because in a way, I was the subject.”

  “Ye gods! You are speaking of the glass statue that once stood in the Reichler Clinic Reception Center in drowned Newrome!” Analivia said, half starting up in her excitement. “Fian told me you dived down to see the rest of it after you saw the head that had broken off, because it looked like you!”

  I gave a soft laugh. “You cannot imagine the strangeness of seeing my own face on a statue carved in the Beforetime.”

  “It would be a queer thing, truly,” Analivia said.

  Swallow said nothing and there was a pensive look on his face that made me wonder if he had guessed yet that Cassandra had become the first D’rekta of the Twentyfamilies. Seeing that Analivia and Dameon were eager for more, I got out Jacob’s journal, suggesting that Analivia read it aloud to the others. As she began to read, I moved a little apart and lay down again, pulling my blanket over me.

  The wolves returned at dusk, and making no apology for their tardiness, Rheagor bade us follow them. By the time the moon was directly overhead, we were threading our way along a stony gully running northeast between two mountains streaked with white taint. The stones were speckled with white, too, and it seemed they glowed slightly, though that might only have been a reflection of the moonlight. Darga had pronounced the gully tainted, but Rheagor had insisted that the taint was very weak. This told me that the wolves had the ability not just to discern taint but also to judge its virulence. It must be this ability that would enable them to lead us safely across the graag. Jak had explained to me once that few Blacklands territories were uniformly poisonous. There were places where the taint was less or had faded and other places where it was concentrated.

  I believed that we would take no great harm from the pale gully, given Rheagor’s assurance; nevertheless, it reminded me unpleasantly of the Silent Vale and I was very glad when the wolves led us up a scree slope to a low peak that turned out to be the beginning of a ridgeline connecting a row of peaks that ended in a long spur. This ran eventually to a high saddle between two immense mountains in the east.

  A steady, chill wind blew all that night as we made our way along the ridgeline. The sound of it whining sullenly throug
h gaps in the rocks was unnerving, especially since occasionally the wind would utter a bloodcurdling shriek that sounded like the cry of a woman. The moon was fattening and rode in the sky most of the night, clouds flying across its face like tattered black rags. It was a good deal colder, too, for we were higher now, and we were all glad when the pink of dawn stained the sky.

  The wind was still blowing hard and I saw great banks of purple to the north that had the look of snow clouds. We were not far from the final ascent to the saddle, which was even longer than it had looked from afar.

  Rheagor bade us climb up to the top and wait there until he and the wolves returned. Once more, he gave me no chance to ask questions before leading the pack down the side of the ridge we had just traversed. When I told the others what he had said, Swallow suggested we wait until the sun rose a good bit higher before we tackled the climb, since there was no great haste now the wolves had left us, and this early it was like to be wet and slippery, if not coated in ice.

  “It will be midday before the sun strikes the spur, if it shines long enough,” I objected, gesturing to the clouds. “Better to have the climb over with before they spill whatever is in their belly.”

  In the end we decided to rest for at least an hour or two and then make the climb, because Analivia had pointed out that Rasial and Gavyn had again fallen behind. Indeed, there was no sign of them anywhere on the ridgeline, which meant they were a good few hours behind us. Ahmedri did manage to light a fire despite the wind and produced a small mug each of a truly foul tisane, which he said would strengthen us for the climb. He promised to prepare a proper meal once we had got through the pass, and then he and Analivia and Swallow fell to discussing herbal preparations. I left them and walked a little way back along the ridge.

  I was determined to try farseeking Rasial, despite the fact that my senses buzzed with the nearness of tainted ground. Rheagor had said none of it was strong enough to cause us any trouble, so I might be able to push through it.

  Gahltha came after me, nibbling at tufts of lichen that Darga had pronounced free of taint. He insisted that there was no need for me to worry about Rasial or the boy. Maruman had said the same thing but I was too anxious to heed them. I summoned a probe and farsought the ridgeback. To my surprise and relief, Rasial was quite close. She and the boy were not visible because Gavyn had found a ledge path that snaked along the side of the ridgeline.

  I saw this much before Rasial ejected me so forcefully from her mind that it made me feel sick.

  “I warned you,” Maruman sneered as I returned to the windblown, raggedy little fire.

  I said nothing, but as soon as Gavyn and Rasial arrived, I insisted that we pack up and make the climb to the saddle, for I was worried about the clouds collecting overhead. They had grown steadily darker and the wind was colder than it had been when we had first arrived. I did not want to wait any longer since it would be a far more difficult climb if we had to do it in the rain. No one objected, for it was not pleasant or restful perched on the bare mountainside with the wind blowing fiercely. Swallow went up first with Dameon roped between him and Analivia. I came behind them with Darga and Maruman, and Ahmedri came last, with Rasial and Gavyn. But the boy was swift and nimble and in no time he had scrambled past the rest of us to take the lead, Rasial in his wake. We had left the horses to come up last, for they would need to get up speed for some of the steeper stretches. It was a hard climb, not so much because occasionally the angle of the spur sharpened, but because of the relentless, harrying wind. Gavyn alone had seemed untroubled by it and he and the she-dog reached the pass and vanished long before the rest of us. I could only hope Rasial would make sure Gavyn did not wander off while we completed the ascent, but I did not make the mistake of trying to farseek her again.

  “Gnawing,” Maruman observed scornfully, and leaped ahead as well.

  Glumly, I stopped to rest, telling myself he was right. Even if Gavyn had not seemed perfectly able to take care of himself, Rasial was devoted to the boy and would not allow anything to harm him. I wondered suddenly if they had been deliberately falling behind to avoid the wolves. Now that I thought about it, I realized that ever since the wolves had joined us, Rasial and Gavyn had lagged well behind in the night and rejoined us after the pack had departed for the day. Then they would stay with us until the wolves returned. It was the ridgeback’s doing, I was sure, because the cubs always appeared to be attracted to Gavyn, and although he did not seek them out, he certainly seemed to enjoy their play. The older wolves clearly disapproved. They would snap at the cubs to drive them back from the boy, but they did so without showing any aggression or malice toward Gavyn. It was as if they perceived him to be a danger, but a passive one, such as a frozen lake or a cliff edge. It was different with Rasial. The wolves raised their hackles and bared their teeth whenever the ridgeback chanced to come too close, regardless of the fact that she was female and offered no challenge. Rheagor alone ignored her, but then he seemed to ignore most things. I would have assumed the wolves were shunning Rasial because she had aligned herself with funaga, except that they paid little attention to Darga or even to Maruman, who hissed and swore at any wolf that looked sideways at him.

  I might have asked Rheagor about it, but he never gave me any opportunity to question him. When I did manage to ask him something before he cut me off, his answer was always terse and utterly uninformative. Clearly he had no intention of altering his stance toward humans, whether or not he had decided to help me in my quest.

  It was close to midday before we all reached the saddle. It was windier than ever at the top, for the land fell steeply away on the other side to a tumble of boulders and broken stone far below. But the nearest mountain to the north crumpled sideways as if it wanted to touch foreheads with the mountain forming the southern side of the saddle, leaving an opening that would have looked natural if solid stone had not been shaped into a perfect arched doorway. It was not a doorway such as one might find in a house. It was big enough for a carriage to pass through and deep enough to be a short tunnel, yet beyond this grandiose entrance lay only a small plateau. It was flat, as if it had been shaped by the machines of the Beforetimers, but to what purpose?

  We all wondered again at the strangeness of the Beforetimers as we passed through the archway and went down to the plateau. I was baffled to see that it was raining hard on the other side, but the moment I stepped out onto the plateau, the rain stopped. Only when I turned to look back at it did I see that the rain was a cascade of water running down from above and dropping past the opening. When he came through, I asked Darga if the water was clean and he agreed that it was.

  I was relieved because we had passed several rills in the night that Rheagor had rejected, and I had been afraid we might have come to the end of clean water. That I had not worried at the matter told me how differently I saw this journey from any other I had made. I would never have set off on a farseeker expedition without knowing I had enough water and food for myself and my companions, human and beast, or certain knowledge of where more might be acquired. But my quest had always required me to proceed with little or no information and a good deal of faith. In a strange way, I felt the mountains were testing both my resolve and my faith in my quest.

  I turned from the weeping archway and gasped, for now I could see that the small plateau offered a truly spectacular view across a great wide chasm, at the bottom of which, far below, glittered the bright thread of a river. High, snowcapped mountains marched northward along the other side of the chasm, snow blowing in long white plumes from their summits. On the eastern side of the chasm, spread out below the plateau, was a great long vale of low peaks. Over it all arched the endless sky, and even the gathering clouds could not detract from the spectacle.

  I could not see to the east because the mountain upon which we stood rose up beside the plateau, as did the mountains huddled on either side. I could see no obvious descent, save to climb down the cliff below the plateau, and even if we humans co
uld manage it, the horses could not. Most likely the wolves had led us here because it was out of the wind and there was grass for the horses and clean water. But I hoped we would not have to climb back down the spur when night fell.

  The others had begun to set up camp in a hollow to the right of the gate, while I stood gazing at the view. Ahmedri was already lighting a fire in readiness for cooking the meal he had promised. It was always the way with expeditions that people would swiftly fall into roles and routines that suited their skills. No one had elected Ahmedri fire lighter, yet he was better at it than anyone else, and he and Swallow cooked most often, because they were better at it than the rest of us. I bestirred myself and went to help Swallow unpack the horses so that they could graze unencumbered.

  Gavyn took no part in any preparation of food, although he often had something in his hempen bag that he had found while foraging. Today it was birds’ eggs, Analivia announced with delight when he had carelessly handed a sack to her. I thought the birds whose nests he had raided would be a good deal less delighted, but Maruman had vanished the moment we reached the plateau and I had no doubt he, too, was seeking eggs and the birds that had laid them. Now the boy was lying asleep on the bare stone, hands out-flung, palms facing the sky so that the fingers curled loosely upward. He looked very young and I found myself wishing I had been able to prevent him from coming. It was bad enough to bring the others into danger, but they were adults, beast and human, and had chosen to come. Gavyn had chosen only to accompany Rasial. He could not possibly understand the significance of what I had to do or the dangers inherent in the journey I was undertaking.

  “The boy understands more than you know,” Darga sent.