And what then of Bruna, who, for all her apparent coolness, never shifted her eyes far from his face?
Brydda moved to draw some ale from a stone jug and reseated himself beside me. There were dark rings of fatigue under his eyes, but the eyes themselves were bright. He took a deep pull from his mug. “I never imagined such things as we saw today; though, when I think back, Domick mentioned the cells a number of times.”
“You think he had any real idea what it was like?”
“I think more than any of us gave him credit for,” the rebel said sadly. “Perhaps, in that sense, we failed him.”
When Brydda turned to talk to another rebel, Ceirwan took the opportunity to speak to me. “I heard from Zarak,” he said. “He and Lina are camped outside Saithwold, because the town is bein’ held under siege by Noviny’s people. Apparently, they broke free from their rebel guards an’ locked them in th’ cloister as hostages before taking control of th’ town an’ blockin’ th’ road. Khuria sent to Zarak that Noviny intends to discuss terms with th’ rebels, which is a good sign in its way. But th’ whole matter is lookin’ very sticky, because Vos will certainly complain if we negotiate with Noviny.”
“Does Noviny know Khuria is in contact with Zarak?”
“No. He thinks Khuria is just another rebel.”
“What does Noviny want?”
“That is th’ interestin’ thing. He wants nowt fer hisself. Just a guarantee that his family an’ th’ soldierguards loyal to him will not be harmed, an’ he wants assurances that we are not goin’ to rape an’ pillage Saithwold’s inhabitants. He wants to ken th’ rebels’ intentions.”
“Reasonable enough. Even admirable in its way. Was anyone hurt when they took control?”
“One man got a bump on th’ head, Zarak says. I’d say Vos simply didn’t leave enough guards, because he underestimated th’ old man with his usual arrogance.”
“I don’t see there is any serious problem, then. Noviny is a fair man by all accounts, and his wants seem absolutely modest to me,” I murmured.
“Ironically, that’s th’ trouble. It would have been easier if he were a tyrant. Th’ rebels could simply rush in an’ liberate th’ town. But Noviny is not seen by his people as a tyrant. Indeed, th’ locals are with him, which means that if th’ rebels want to take Saithwold by force, they’ll have to fight ordinary Landfolk.”
“We won’t be doing that,” Brydda said, returning to the conversation. “Dardelan is going to Saithwold tomorrow after he gives his speech, and he will offer Noviny the assurances he wants about his family and the locals. But the soldierguards must be handed over. And, of course, Noviny himself must surrender and face trial for his support of the Herders and his toleration of their atrocities, as all Councilmen will do. Of course, quite a bit of what Dardelan will say is saber-rattling. Privately, he wants to come to an arrangement with the old man, because it will be very useful to have an ex-Councilman recanting the Council’s hold over the land. It will take some clever talking to sort it out, but Dardelan can do it if anyone can. Truly he seems as wise as his father in these matters, which is fortunate.”
I opened my mouth to speak, then sensed Tomash was struggling to make contact.
“What is it?” I farsent, locating him just outside the cloister grounds.
“I … Elspeth, you’d better come,” he sent in a queer tone.
“Why? What is the matter?”
“It’s … it’s Rushton,” he sent shakily. “He … he was one of the people brought from the cells. Kella didn’t recognize him until she was bathing his wounds.…”
I was already on my feet. The others about the table looked up at me in astonishment.
“What is it?” Brydda demanded.
“Ruh-Rushton,” I stammered. “He was in the Herder cells. I … I have to go.”
“It’s the middle of the night. I’ll go with you,” Brydda said firmly.
I didn’t care who came. I hurried out into the chill night, repressing a hot slither of fear.
29
WHEN I REACHED the cloister gates, Tomash was waiting.
“Where … where is he?” I panted, hurrying through the gates and into the dark, dew-wet gardens.
The farseeker took my hand and led me wordlessly into the healing center. Once inside, I felt him. Pushing off Tomash’s restraining hand, I passed through the beds in the large hall and entered into a second, smaller chamber. All the beds were occupied, but my eyes went unerringly to the one nearest the window.
Rushton lay on his back in a pool of candlelight, his eyes closed. A blanket was pulled up to his chest, but aside from being pale and slightly thinner, he seemed otherwise unmarked. He bore neither the chemical burns nor the bruises and sores that every other prisoner had in common. His dark hair lay long and black over the pillow, damp as though freshly washed, and I stared in wonder at a streak of premature gray at one temple.
Without thought, I reached out to touch it. Rushton’s eyes snapped open, green and luminous.
“Rushton, my dear love,” I breathed, and cupped his face in my hands.
But instead of smiling, he began to laugh—a terrible howling cackle that threw my hands back and turned my blood to ice.
Kella appeared at my side. Pushing me away, she forced a piece of wadded cloth between his teeth as he began to convulse violently. The blankets slipped away, and I saw with horror that Rushton’s arms and legs were held down with leather restraints.
Kella grasped his head between her hands and focused her healing Talent on him, but still it took a long time for the maniacal struggles to fade. At last his eyes closed, and he was still again.
Panting hard, the healer turned to face me. “I’m sorry. I would have warned you, but I didn’t see you come in.”
“What … what is wrong with him?” I whispered. She reached out to me, but I batted her hand away and repeated my question.
“Physically, very little,” she answered. “Unlike most of the other prisoners, Rushton has not been tortured physically. But his system is full of drugs. I’d say they’ve had him on something for as long as he has been here. I don’t recognize the drug traces, but it must have been something powerful to have had this effect in such a short time. I went into him, but he’s … Well, it’s as if his personality is torn to shreds. Nothing connects properly.”
“What are you saying?”
Kella’s face was grave and sad. “I am saying that, right now, Rushton is completely insane.”
I was standing on the cloud-road that was the beginning of the dreamtrails, trying to understand how I had got there without creating a body of light as Maruman had shown me. There was no sign of Ariel. I looked over my shoulder and was relieved to find that at least I was not burdened with wings. I was merely my own self, though my skin appeared to be a pallid lilac color and my hair a vibrant blue.
All at once, the old cat manifested before me in his tyger form, his eyes gleaming.
“Did I dream you up by thinking about you?” I sent.
“Maruman is no more tame to dream masters than to any other,” Maruman sent with his usual contrariness. I felt like singing, because his mindvoice was clear and incisive again.
“Where have you been? Ariel has been trying to get me. Did you know he is the Destroyer?”
He ignored my questions. “OldOnes drew you from deep unconsciousness onto the dreamtrails so that I/Marumanyelloweyes can give their message to you,” he sent, licking a great, tawny paw.
“What message?”
“ElspethInnle must return to barud,” Maruman sent. “Must bring all Misfits back, for one is needed.”
“Needed for what?”
“To help Innle fulfill quest.”
“My … But you can’t mean I am to leave now to seek the weaponmachines?”
“The oldOnes said return to Obernewtyn to discover/possess last sign, else too late.”
“The last sign is at Obernewtyn?” I echoed stupidly. “The fifth is in Sador.
Do you mean the fourth sign?”
“Come swiftly/now, or will be lost.”
My mind whirled with questions. “How can the fourth sign be in the mountains? It is supposed to be somewhere I have never been.… And what about the other signs? I haven’t found …”
The road began to lose definition.
“You fade!” Maruman sent, though to my eyes it was he who was fading. “Come. Obey your vow.…”
“Maruman! Maruman!” I cried, but the road disappeared, and again I was falling and falling, but this time there were no wings to save me.
I fell into a dream in which Rushton and I were on the deck of The Cutter, watching ship fish at play. I was leaning back against his chest, clasped securely in his arms, and it seemed that I was truly and utterly content for the first time in my life, wishing for nothing but what I had and uncaring of what would come.
“It is said that ship fish have aided seamen who fall overboard by carrying them to shore,” he murmured into my hair.
I turned and wound my arms about his neck, loving the feel of his body against mine. But his green eyes seemed as fathomless as the ocean and as unknowable, and there was a terrible sadness in them that smote at me. Then he began to fade, too, until he was no more than a translucent shimmer in the sunlight.
“Where are you going?” I cried. “Don’t leave me.”
The sunlight seemed to brighten, absorbing his glittering outline, and then once again I was falling into the light.
“Wake, Elspeth,” someone murmured softly.
I opened my eyes and found it was morning. Dameon was leaning over me. He smiled, sensing that I was awake. I thought of my dream, and a babble of words burst from me.
“Dameon. I had such strange dreams. Maruman was there, but he faded before my eyes, and then Rushton vanished, too. You aren’t a dream, are you? You won’t disappear? Everyone disappears in the end. Matthew and Dragon, Cameo and Domick … I always thought I would be the one to leave, but instead it’s I who am left.” I realized I was sounding hysterical, and with some difficulty, I made myself stop.
“It’s all right,” Dameon promised huskily. “I am here, and I will not leave you.” I registered the distress in his voice with sudden dread.
“What is the matter? Am I …” I looked around in bewilderment, not recognizing anything.
“You are fine. You just fainted,” he explained. “You were … very tired.”
“Tired? No … There was something.…” A thrill of fear ran through me as shadows flickered around the edges of my vision. I was tempted to let them fold around me like a cloak and draw me away from the knowledge that seemed to be pressing just outside the edges of my consciousness.
“What is the matter?” I made myself ask, but before he could speak, it came back to me.
Rushton!
All the strength in me seemed to trickle out like water from a leaky pot. Dameon laid his hand on my cheek, and I saw that his eyes were wet, though whether from my empathised grief or his own, I did not know.
“I have heard it said more than once that you are a woman ruled by her mind to the detriment of her passions, Elspeth. But those who say so do not know you,” he murmured.
“Rushton is—”
“Ill,” Dameon interrupted firmly. “Very ill. But he lives. And while he lives, there is hope he can be healed.”
I brushed my cheeks dry, loving the empath for his gentle optimism. “It was such an awful shock seeing him like that.”
He nodded. “Kella said she could bring you round but that it would be better to let you wake naturally. You’re in one of the smaller rooms of the healing center.”
“Healing center,” I echoed bitterly.
“Forget what it was. It is now a center for healing, and in time, all of the dark memories imbedded in this place will fade.”
“I can only think of it as the place where Rushton …” I swallowed a hard lump in my throat. “Kella said he had been drugged. I remember that much.”
“Bruna has had some training in Sadorian medicines, and she thinks Rushton was given a powerful derivative of their spiceweed. It does not so much cause unconsciousness as a state of vivid hallucination through which the mind blunders until the drug wears off. In effect, if she is right, Rushton has been lost in an endless nightmare for so long that his conscious mind or his sense of himself has disintegrated under the strain.”
“What will happen now?”
“The drug is terribly addictive, and that convulsion you witnessed was a withdrawal symptom. But the physical withdrawal from the drug, though painful, is short-lived. The trouble is that a mind is not able to withdraw so easily from its influence.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Having existed in a delusional state for such a period, Rushton’s mind is simply mirroring it endlessly back to him. He now perceives it as normality.”
I sat up and pushed away the blankets. Someone had left new clothing by the bed, good sturdy Land attire, including new boots.
“You should rest,” Dameon protested when I swung my feet out of the bed.
“I am not sick,” I said, pulling on the trousers. “What time is it? How long have I slept?”
“It is near midday.”
“Dardelan’s speech?” I threaded a belt through the waist loops and tucked in my undershirt.
“Was made this morning. I have a scribed copy of it that you can read. It is to be posted all through the Land and contains a list of laws by which all people will temporarily be ruled. The list ends by asking people to make any suggestions that would better the laws.”
Dameon shook his head in admiration. “They are fine and fair laws, truly, and I doubt much would better them, but they made less of an impact on the general folk than did Dardelan himself. The lad understands people and their deepest hearts the way sea folk know the hidden currents. I was monitoring the crowd. I saw hope rise in them with every sentence he spoke—and not just hope, but a kind of yearning for integrity and a cleaner way of living. He appealed to what was best in them. I could feel that they wanted to be their best, if only to please him. There is not a shred of cynicism in him, and people knew it.”
“I am sorry I did not hear him,” I said. “Has he gone to Saithwold yet?”
“He rode out about an hour past.”
“Too bad. I should have liked to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?”
I nodded. “We are leaving for Obernewtyn this afternoon.” Dameon looked startled, but I did not give him time to speak. “I want to get Rushton home to the mountains. If he heals anywhere, it will be there. And I want to see how the others are faring.”
“Shall I let the others know we are to leave so soon?” he asked.
“Tell anyone in the cloister. I’ll go outside the grounds and farseek everyone else when I’ve finished dressing.”
Dameon nodded and withdrew. I pulled on the boots, thinking of what he had said about my being perceived as unemotional.
I poured myself a glass of water from a jug and drank it, staring out at the cloister grounds without seeing anything. The water had an unpleasant metallic taste, but maybe that was shock distorting my senses. I did not feel myself, for all my apparent self-control. Every action seemed to require too much thought and effort.
Brydda knocked at the door and entered the chamber.
“Dameon said you want everyone to leave this afternoon. Is it true?” he asked.
“As soon as possible,” I said.
“You risk losing all the ground you have gained,” the rebel protested.
“That can’t be helped. We need time to withdraw and reflect so that we can decide how to proceed,” I said.
Brydda flung himself into a seat by the bed. “I hope you know what you are doing,” he said morosely. I said nothing, and he sighed, his expression softening to resignation. “ ‘Little sad eyes’ I named you when I first saw you, and your eyes are sad now. Maybe more sad than I have ever seen them.”
“Elspeth, the Misfits need not feel tainted by their part in this rebellion. In fact, the low number of casualties and injuries is entirely your doing, and Dardelan intends to make very sure the general populace realizes it. That’s why your staying is important. No matter what he says, people will think ‘monster’ when he mentions the word Misfit. If your people were here, Landfolk would be able to see that you are far from monsters. But with you gone … Elspeth, I wish you would reconsider. Can anything at Obernewtyn be more important than securing your place in the Land?”
“If all we have done is not enough to ensure us a place in the Land,” I said brusquely, “I doubt our presence here over the next sevendays will change that.”
Brydda shrugged. “You are resolved, and so I must respect your decision. It seems we always part this way, does it not? We should have at least shared a mug or two of mead to celebrate what we have achieved. It is no small thing to free half a land from black tyranny.”
“I am glad for you rebels that the rebellion thus far is a success, but I do not know yet whether to be glad for Misfits,” I said. “Will you walk with me? I want to get outside the walls so that I can beastspeak the horses.”
Brydda rose with a grunt, and we walked together from the healing center. There were many people about the gardens and outside the cloister gates; the streets were suddenly as busy as ever. Foolishly, I had thought the city would feel different with the rebels in control, but there was nothing at all to tell that the rebellion had even occurred.
As if reading my thoughts, Brydda said, “If it looks the same, it is only on the surface. Underneath, everything has changed.”
I sent out a probe to locate Gahltha and found him on his way to the cloister. “We are being led, for free horses are still liable to be enslaved,” he sent disparagingly.
The Rebellion Page 79