“But there are not enough anyway,” Miky said. “Maryon said thirteen of us would go over the water.”
“It is possible this battle will not happen. Perhaps we must go to Sador for some other reason that has yet to be revealed,” Dameon said slowly. “Maybe we will have the chance of proving to this Malik and the other rebels that we are human.”
I hesitated, then shook my head, not wanting to give anyone false hope.
“There is no point in us going into this imagining we can all be friends afterward. We will never be accepted by the rebels. But the Battlegames are at least an opportunity for a temporary alliance. And they will also provide us with a chance to show the Maliks of the Land that we can defend ourselves from them!”
“A show of strength,” Miryum said approvingly.
“If you like. Or maybe just revealing ourselves for what we are.”
“And what are we?” Dameon asked, his voice threaded with sadness. “Warriors? Misfits? That is part of our trouble. We do not know what we are, and so we are constantly reacting to things, rather than taking the initiative.”
“Maryon said we would find the road to tread on this journey over water,” Rushton said pensively. “We have to see what happens.”
“There is another thing you should know,” I said, remembering. “After the contest, the rebels plan to meet and to decide once and for all when and how the rebellion will be staged.”
Rushton’s eyes flared with an unholy green fire. “Well, that puts it in a very different light. By winning, we would have gained the right to take part in their councils.”
“And of course we will win,” Miryum said. “Whatever the nature of these games, I do not think we need be frightened of ten unTalents. Hannay, Elspeth, and I could deal with them between us.”
It was late the following day before we stood on the deck of a ship bound for Sador.
Contrary to Maryon’s futuretelling of thirteen, there were only eleven of us, counting Dragon. We could not leave without her, and Kella had assured us that the journey would not hurt her. Domick had embarked on a Council errand to Morganna, and he wouldn’t be back for a day. And we were forced to leave the horses behind in Sutrium—much as Gahltha disapproved—for fear that the travel and the climate would do them harm.
No amount of searching had located Maruman. I couldn’t help worrying, though I knew the old cat could fend for himself. He had made his own way to Obernewtyn before; he could do it again.
Reuvan, calling to drop off a homing bird at Brydda’s instruction, had learned we meant to travel to Sador at once. Advising that we leave it to him to organize a ship, he arranged passage to Sador’s Templeport with a seafaring friend and longtime rebel supporter.
Powyrs turned out to be a jolly, bold, brown-faced man with twinkling eyes and a habit of winking that startled us somewhat until we were accustomed to it. He had no qualms about carrying gypsies. I had the feeling he would not have given a damn if we told him we were Misfits.
I was standing on the deck of Powyrs’s sturdy little ship, The Cutter, waiting for the Council inspectors to give final clearance to sail, when Kella pinched my arm to get my attention. Leaning close, she whispered into my ear in an absurdly furtive way that Reuvan was coming. I was not surprised that he had come to see us off, but I was startled to see that Dardelan was with him, as was a long-limbed, exotic girl with yellow, almond-shaped eyes and a satiric smile. She could only be Jakoby’s daughter. If anything, she was more beautiful than her mother.
“You are the first to leave, but the rest of us will not be far behind,” Reuvan said as they approached us. “Malik and his cronies are traveling tomorrow, and I will travel with Jakoby and the rest on the Sadorian ship, the Zephyr, on the next day.”
“Am I to be presented, or shall I stand like a nameless dolt?” the dark Sadorian girl asked haughtily.
Dardelan flushed and apologized. “This is Jakoby’s daughter, Bruna; Bruna, this is Elspeth.”
“I am pleased to know you,” I said.
“Ah. I-am-pleased-to-know-you,” Bruna said, exactly mimicking my intonation.
Unnerved a little by this and by her frank scrutiny, I busied myself introducing the others. When Dardelan and Rushton shook hands, they exchanged a measuring look and seemed satisfied by what they saw.
“You will like my land, of course,” Bruna said haughtily. “Your people are welcome there, for like the tribes, they have no need to mark the ground where they have been, like a rutting beast marking its territory. Unlike these Landfolk.” Her eyes ran over our halfbreed gypsy attire approvingly, but she gave poor Dardelan a look of amused contempt.
“In Sador, there is room to run with the wind and ride the kamuli,” she went on, seeming to address all of us now. Wearing little, despite the gray, chilly weather, she was as oblivious to the cold as she was to the stares of passersby. No wonder Jakoby had looked amused when she said Sadorian women needed scant looking after.
The girl waved an imperious finger under Dardelan’s nose. “And now you will guide me to the place of many trees. The forest. These I do not see in my own desert, and there might be some beauty in them worthy of a song.”
“Of … of course,” Dardelan stammered, and she bore him away.
“A pup watching over a bear,” Reuvan said.
“A bear cub,” I corrected, thinking that for all her imperiousness, Bruna lacked her mother’s subtlety and dangerous grace.
It began to rain lightly as the inspectors arrived and set about searching the ship from top to bottom, seeking any Landgoods that were being exported without tax being paid to the Council. When Powyrs suggested we go inside, I was glad enough to do so. The fishy smell of the ship’s oiled deck and the movement of it running up and down the swelling waves were making me feel distinctly queasy.
“I will want to cast off as soon as this is over to catch the out tides. Go into the main salon,” Powyrs said. He looked at Reuvan. “I will come there and warn you before we are to depart.”
As we trooped along the deck, I could not help but think of Matthew being led onto The Calor Lady’s gangplank in chains. Had he felt this strange, unsettling nausea? Was he somewhere out over the ocean being rained on, too?
I glanced back and noticed an old beggar in filthy brown robes come up to Powyrs and speak with him. At first the seaman shook his head decisively, but then he stopped and seemed to be listening intently. I was curious enough to farseek, but the queer static from whatever had tainted the sea about Sutrium’s shores prevented this.
“Come on,” Miky said, tugging at me.
The salon turned out to be spacious and light, despite dark wood paneling and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. This was due to three enormous box windows along the outside wall, crisscrossed by wide-spaced metal grilles. Cushioned seats were built into the windows, and a table, chairs, and various other pieces of furniture were fixed to the floor. The salon adjoined the galley, and Kella’s eyes lit up as she surveyed its miniature neatness.
Rushton dropped into a window seat and gestured to Reuvan, Miryum, and Hannay to sit beside him. They talked in low, serious voices while Angina and his twin began to tune their instruments. Kella came out of the galley and stood at a window. Her eyes looked out to the sea, but I was sure she saw nothing but the face of her bondmate.
Powyrs had taken Dameon below to a cabin with Dragon. I moved to the door with the thought of going to sit with him, but Powyrs returned, blocking my way.
“Casting off!” he warned in a stentorian bellow. “All who will not sail should get ashore.”
Reuvan rose. “I’d better move. A seaman is ruled by the tides, and if catching the tide means an unwilling passenger or two, then so be it.”
The ship lurched suddenly, and all of us pitched sideways save Reuvan, who was accustomed to walking on a shifting deck.
He smiled somewhat wistfully. “You must learn to dance with the sea—not tread on her toes.”
We went out on deck to bid him
farewell. The rain had ceased, and the clouds had parted to reveal the sun sinking toward the horizon.
As the ropes were cast away by Powyrs’s crew and the shore began to slip away, a curious but definite feeling of loss assailed me, a feeling that I had somehow cast off from my life and was sailing toward a new one.
From the look of those gathered along the edge of the deck, I was not alone in this feeling. The others gazed back to the shore, their faces reflecting their unease. This was the first time any of us had left the Land. There were numerous disaster stories Landfolk told about the perils of the seas, and suddenly the wildest tales seemed to gain substance.
The sun sank into the sea, becoming increasingly large and orange as it did so, staining the gray-edged clouds that framed it a livid pink. I was intrigued to feel the taint in the water fading. That meant whatever had caused it was confined to the shore area. Perhaps some Beforetime container had broken under the sea, spilling its poisons.
“That’s that, then,” Kella said huskily when the sun finally vanished and Sutrium fell into a purple haze that merged with the horizon. “I feel as if I’m leaving a part of myself here.”
I forbore pointing out the obvious.
“To Sador,” Miky sighed dreamily on the other side of me.
“I feel sick,” Miryum said, and I was startled to see that she looked bright green about the face and lips.
“I do not feel so well myself,” I murmured.
34
KELLA SET ABOUT adjusting our senses to the movement of The Cutter, but some of us responded better to her treatment than others.
The empaths were only mildly affected by the motion of the waves and were quickly eased. I was less fortunate.
Because of the instinctive blocking ability I appeared to have developed as a response to intrusion, I had to hold my mind open to the healer. This was not easy, and when she was done, the wooden decks continued to pitch, rendering me queasy and disoriented.
Disappointed, I asked Powyrs if there was not some seaman’s remedy that would settle my stomach.
He looked at me intently for a moment, then shook his head. “Your illness is not physical. It is a matter of the will. You resist the ocean as if it were an opponent. But you cannot defeat the sea—it is too great and too uncaring. You can only surrender to its power. While you fight, you will suffer.”
I laughed and said he talked as if the sea were alive. He only shrugged. “Laugh, but it is true. All things that exist live, though maybe they do not measure life as we do.”
I thought this absurd. The fish in the sea lived, but not the sea itself. It was just water. But seafolk were as notoriously superstitious as highlanders, and I liked Powyrs too much to make fun of his beliefs.
The coercers suffered worst of us. That was not unexpected, for coercers were always disturbed by anything that altered their balance or perceptions. Roland believed this had something to do with the nature of coercing and how the deep probe was shaped to serve their Talent. The more powerful the coercer, the more severe the response. Accordingly, Hannay was nauseous but Miryum violently ill. All Kella could do was render her unconscious with a sleepseal.
Like me, Hannay resigned himself to an uncomfortable few days.
That first night, my stomach churned at the thought of food, and I sat a little apart as many of the others ate a mushroom stew and regaled Kella with news from Obernewtyn.
Turning to a window, I looked through the reflection of the room and its ghostly occupants to the dark sea beyond.
I shook my head at the sudden melancholy that assailed me. Perhaps it was that I had grown accustomed, these last two sevendays, to strife and activity and urgency. Sea travel was not like travel on land where there were always things to be done, if only to break camp and set up bedding at night. We journeyed, and yet we went nowhere.
I sighed, wishing it was not my nature to see life as if it were the reflection in a window. I could never just accept it. I had to be squinting my eyes and looking to see what was underneath it, tormenting myself with doubts and questions. And it was worse when I had nothing to distract me.
The moon penetrated the clouds for a moment, lighting up a small cluster of rock spikes. Powyrs had said these were good shoals because you could see them. But there were many more such shoals hiding just below the surface that could tear the bottom from a boat if the seamen were not vigilant. The ocean’s teeth, he had named them, winking.
I was like a wary seafarer, never trusting the smooth, glimmering surface of life for fear of the hidden teeth. Perhaps that was why I could not settle as the others had and enjoy the enforced idleness. Even when there was no need, I watched for the teeth.
I scowled at my own face in the glass, telling myself again that I should be content. After all, Maryon’s dream had solved my immediate problems.
I bit my lip, understanding that this was what lay at the root of my strange discontent. I had left Obernewtyn driven by Maryon’s dreams. But once away, I had done as I chose. I made decisions and acted on them and felt as if I owned my life. Now Maryon and her dreams had reached out to wrest control from me again. I was not the wary seaman after all. I was a ship, floating on the tides and eddies of capricious fate just as The Cutter was driven by the sea. But at least the ship had a captain. Who was the captain of my voyage? Atthis? Maryon? Certainly not me.
I thought of the futureteller. How did Maryon feel to know that she had only to speak of her dreams to be obeyed? It was true power. But Maryon did not control her dreams, so, in a sense, the power was not hers. The dreams controlled her, pulling this way and that, demanding to be told or acted upon. Was the self-knowledge she and all her fellow futuretellers sought worth this slavery to their dreams?
The salon door banged open, and I turned to see Rushton enter.
Of us all, Rushton had adapted most easily to the movement of the ship. From almost his first steps on deck, he had mastered the graceful rolling walk affected by Powyrs and his crew. His cheeks were red, his hair wildly tangled, and his eyes bright as they swept the room. He was clearly finding his first sea journey exhilarating.
“I am ravenous,” he said.
The door behind him burst open again to reveal the old beggar who had been speaking to Powyrs at the bottom of the gangplank just before we departed.
“You can’t come in here …,” Hannay began firmly.
The beggar threw off the hood of his brown robe to reveal a familiar tanned face in the candlelight.
“Daffyd!” I murmured. There were cries as the others recognized him, too.
He ignored them, his eyes sweeping the room to settle on me. I gasped, for only when he faced me properly could I see that his left eye socket was swollen to twice its size, his lip split, and his cheek marked with bloody striations.
“What in Lud’s name has happened to you?”
“I escaped from Ayle,” he said hoarsely.
“Sit down, man,” Rushton said, steering him to a window seat beside me.
“He found you out?” I asked.
“Ayle found nothing out. Salamander told him I was a spy.”
I was confused. “He can’t have returned already?” My heart rose. “Unless the slaves have only been taken to Morganna or Aborium …”
Daffyd shook his head. “Salamander told Ayle, the day he came to take the slaves, that I was to be locked up until he got back.” He shuddered. “Lud knows how he learned I was a spy or what he planned to do to me when he returned. As soon as I got a chance, I broke out and fought my way free. I headed straight for the city gates, but Ayle was quicker. I spotted his people just in time. I would never have made it, and I knew if they were watching one gate, they would be watching them all.”
“You went to the safe house?”
He nodded. “It was all locked up. I had no choice but to try sending out an attuned probe to you. It near killed me to hold it together when it got near the sea, but it locked on to your mind a split second before the static got th
e better of me. That was long enough for me to learn that you were sailing at dusk for Sador. I told your captain that I was a friend. I hope you do not object to another traveling companion.”
“We are glad to have you,” Rushton said, but he spoke as if his mind was elsewhere.
“That’s twelve of us,” Miky breathed beside me.
“Elspeth believes she saw Ariel on board the Herder ship that took Matthew away,” Rushton said. “Did you see him?”
Though I would not have thought it possible, Daffyd paled further.
“It seems unlikely, since there is no connection between Ariel and this Salamander …,” Rushton said.
Daffyd stood up abruptly and stared down at him. “You are wrong.” His face was clenched in misery, and he began to pace. “I said at the safe house that there was not enough time to tell my story. Now I wish I had taken the time.”
“It would be a simple matter if lives were lived by hindsight,” Rushton said. “There is much we would not begin if we could see how it would end.”
Daffyd would not be consoled. “Matthew was my friend, and I ought to have done something. If Ariel was aboard …”
“From what Elspeth said, there was nothing you could have done,” Rushton said firmly. He pulled Daffyd back down and motioned to Kella to wash his wounds. When the healer was settled and bathing the gashes, Rushton asked Daffyd what connection there was between Salamander and Ariel.
“I will tell you,” Daffyd said, “but I must start at the beginning. After leaving Obernewtyn with Kella and Domick last summerdays, I traveled to the White Valley and the site of the Druid encampment. My plan was to see if I could find any clue as to what direction the survivors might have taken.” His eyes were distant, as if he truly gazed into the past and saw the events he described unscrolling before his eyes.
“I left the valley without any sign to give me hope and tracked all through and around the Gelfort Range. I found some few scattered camping places, but there was never any way of knowing whose they had been. I went about small settlements in the highlands and in the upper lowlands, talking and asking questions. I sometimes pretended to be a Councilman and at other times a Herder agent.
The Rebellion Page 31