Ashling

by Isobelle Carmody

  He had looked at me intently for a moment, then shaken his head. "Your illness is not physical. It is a matter of the will. You resist the ocean as if it were an opponent. 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 had laughed and said he talked as if the sea were alive.

  He had 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 deepprobe 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 to render her unconscious with a sleepseal.

  Like me, Hannay resigned himself to an uncomfortable few days.

  Powyrs showed us the empty chambers and we chose our beds before making our way back to the main salon. I offered to sleep in a room with Dragon, but Dameon said he would stay with her.

  "There is no real need," Kella said. "She has no knowledge of the world around her, so she will not care that she is alone."

  "I do not like to think of her laid out as if she were dead," Dameon answered gently. "Better to act as if she might wake at any moment and want something. Besides my blindness makes it hard for me to walk about at sea, so I might just as well remain here."

  He went on to suggest that Miryum be laid to sleep in the same chamber so he could keep an eye—he smiled as he said this—on her as well.

  When the hefty coercer had been shifted, we left Dameon and went to the salon where Hannay and the twins had prepared a simple nightmeal. Freya and Rushton were absent, and Fian was reading.

  My stomach churned at the thought of food and I sat a little apart. The others ate a mushroom stew and regaled Kella with news from Obernewtyn.

  The horses had finally decided to teach a few humans to ride—surprisingly, some chosen were not beastspeakers. Use of Brydda's finger signals enabled non-beastspeakers to commune with their mounts. Miky was elated because Avra had chosen her, though the account of her first lessons made it sound as if this was a dubious privilege.

  I listened with only half an ear to their chatter. There had been some attempt to put Aras' new mindmerge into practice, as yet with no success. A skirmish had taken place between Darthnor miners and some of the coercers. Fortunately the miners had believed them to be Henry Druid's people, for it was not widely known that his camp had been destroyed, but this had also increased the likelihood of a soldierguard outpost being established in the White Valley. There was now little doubt that it would be set up in the next summerdays. More animals had come to the mountains seeking refuge.

  This last bit of news made me think of the sad-faced little mare, Faraf, who had claimed me for the beastheart. Could she have been among the recent refugees? I hoped so.

  Turning away from the room, I looked through the reflection of the room and its ghostly occupants to the dark sea beyond. It was a clouded night, but a brisk wind stirred the clouds and, when they parted, moonlight gilded the waves and the occasional rock shoal that rose above the waterline. In rough seasons, the shoals would be hidden beneath the chop of the wave but Reuvan had told me there were seldom high seas during the Days of Rain.

  "If it were wintertime you would have cause to fear, for sometimes the waves rise up from the ocean like mountains, and when they fall an entire ship can be crushed." He had meant to reassure me but I could not help wondering if this might not turn out to be one of the rare occasions when high seas would occur during this season?

  I shook my head at the sudden melancholy that had assailed me. I had been utterly relieved to find there was no need for a mad dash to Obernewtyn; no need to turn myself inside out convincing Rushton and guildmerge to take part in the Battlegames. So why did I feel so unsettled? The sorrow I felt at Matthew's loss, and the fact that no amount of searching had located Maruman were part of it, but it was more than that.

  Perhaps it was that I had grown accustomed, these last 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 teeth hidden. 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 it 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's body 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 beggarman 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 dim candlelight.

  "Daffyd!" I murmured. There were cries, as the others recognized him too.

  He ignored them, 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 bloody striations marked his cheek.

  "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, thinking his disappointment over failing to get to Salamander had made him reckless, and he had tried to farseek Ayle. But I was wrong.

  "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 onto your mind a split second before the static got the 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, and gave him a bit of a push with my mind to get him to take me on board. 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.

  He turned to me. "Are you sure?"

  "I thought I was, but I might have been mistaken."

  "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 back and forward. "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 mere 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, he 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 Ranges. I found some few scattered camping places, but there was never any way of knowing whose they had been. No convenient badges or signals had fallen by the way.

  "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.

  "Then one night at a dingy inn in a tiny settlement, I came face to face with one of the Druid armsmen from the camp!"

  Daffyd's face reflected the elation he must have felt at this first breakthrough in his long search. But the smile faded at once. "He told me that shortly before the firestorm destroyed the camp—mere days—Ariel came to see the Druid."

  I seemed to see that pale, impossibly fair face turning to me on the deck of The Calor Lady.

  "As you know," Daffyd went on, "Ariel was working as an agent for the Herder Faction back then, and for the Council, while at the same time styling himself a secret friend to Henry Druid. On this last visit he told the Druid that the Council had learned the location of his secret camp, and that soldierguards were being despatched to clean it out. He advised the Druid to prepare his people for battle, and suggested sending the young, the frail and the elderly out of harm's way up into the foothills of the Gelfort Ranges. Ariel claimed he dared not remain to help drive off the soldierguards, since it would betray his identity and put an end to his usefulness as a spy. But he offered to lead those who would not fight to a safe place in the hills until it was over."

  Daffyd's face twisted in a spasm of uncontrollable rage. "The Druid thanked him for his friendship and loyalty, and did as he suggested.

  "When he had gone, Henry Druid decided on the spur of the moment to send out a small advance party to give warning of the soldierguards' approach. The three scouts rode out a bare hour before the firestorm razed the camp to the ground—the man who told this story to me was, of course, one of the three. He and the other two came back when it was over, to find nothing remained of their camp. They looked for Ariel and the women and children who had been led away, but there was no trace of them.

  "Nor in the days that followed, did any soldierguard force materialize."

  It took a moment to understand what this must mean.

  "Ariel lied!" I said incredulously.

  Daffyd nodded, his eyes bleak. "What other answer could mere be? I suppose he true dreamed the firestorm

  and saw it as a natural and anonymous way to end a potentially embarrassing and no longer necessary connection with an outlawed priest. The visit was simply to ensure that everyone was in the camp when it burned." His voice was choked with rage and despair.

  I saw that Rushton had grown pale. At first I thought he was experiencing the same shock as I, at this irrefutable evidence that Ariel had powers like ours, but then I remembered that, long ago, the Druid had befriended Rushton and treated him as a son. He had not seemed terribly affected when the firestorm destroyed the camp, but there was a difference between being killed in a firestorm from nature's random arsenal and being lured into a deadly trap. Ariel had even found a way to use nature for his perverted ends.

  "What of the women and children he led out?" Kella murmured.

  I could guess what was to be told next—the answer was threaded through all that had happened.

  "When the three surviving armsmen could not find them they split up. Two went up the coast following some obscure lead. The third man remained, and it was he that I met. For a time we traveled together, but we found nothing to give us any clue what had become of the others. He began to fear they had all been, killed and that taking them from the camp had simply been Ariel's means of getting out before the firestorm struck. A ruse, and that he had killed them after. But I could not accept they were dead. So we parted, too, Gilbert went after the other two arms-men to the west coast and I..."

  "Gilbert?" I said, remembering vividly the red-haired armsman who had befriended me when I was captive in the Druid camp.

  First Daffyd, then Elii, and now Gilbert. Who else would I meet out of the past, circling back to merge their lifepaths with mine? Did it mean anything or nothing?

  Daffyd frowned. "You remember him? Strange that you should recall one face out of all the Druid's men. He spoke of you, but thought you were dead. Of course I did not enlighten him."

  I nodded. The last time I had seen Gilbert had been on the banks of the upper Suggredoon, a look of helpless anguish on his face as my raft was swept away by flood-swollen waters into the depths of Tor. He had thought me doomed.

  The armsman went on. "Well, we parted as I said. I came to Sutrium and it was here that I met another from the Druid camp; a woman. She was calling herself by another name and tried at first to pretend I was mistaken, but eventually she admitted the truth. She told me she had been a slave fleetingly, but had escaped being transported and sold with the help of a seaman who had fallen in love with her. He threw her clothes overboard and pretended she drowned herself, but warned her never to speak of it, for if the truth was known they would both be killed.

  "I asked how she had been taken by the sl
avers in the first place. "Taken?' she mocked me. 'I was given to the slavers. Betrayed and sold with no chance to run or fight My bondmate saved me, but he could not save all of us. The others have gone over the waves wherever slaves are taken.' "

  Kella gasped aloud. "Oh Lud. Ariel sold those he had taken from the camp to the slavers!"

  Daffyd nodded. "I was a fool not to have seen it sooner. The woman told me they saw the camp burn and could do nothing. There had been men and women, hired thugs, waiting in the hills to bind them and lead them away. Ariel had sold them to a slaver called Salamander."

  Daffyd ran his hands through his hair. "You know, the thing that gnaws at me is that I can have been only a little distance from their camp the day they were taken out of the mountains by the slavers. If only I had thought to far-seek Gilaine as soon as the storm ended."

  There was such anguish in his voice. That he had not gone looking for them at once was my fault. I had been injured terribly, and we had just found Jik's charred body. I had begged Daffyd to take Dragon to Obernewtyn for me before the pass to the mountains was closed by snow.

  "I felt... helpless. Hopeless," he went on in a barely audible voice. "It had been months since they had been sold and they were long gone on the slave ships. For the first time I felt they were truly lost to me. I wanted revenge on Ariel. You cannot imagine how badly. But he had gone by then to Herder Isle.

  "So I turned my mind to the slave trade with the idea that perhaps I could inveigle myself a job, and learn where they had been taken. It is madness of a kind to be so persistent, yet somehow I felt that if they lived, I must find them."

  The ex-Druid's eyes burned with near-fanatical hatred; the search for Gilaine and Lidgebaby defined his existence now. Truly, he was not so far from madness.

  "I suppose this woman from the camp did not actually see Salamander?" Hannay asked.

  Daffyd laughed harshly. "No. No one has ever seen Salamander's face—except perhaps Ariel. It was only after the sale of the Druid's people that Salamander moved in properly on the slave trade, killing anyone who stood against him, terrorizing the rest, and streamlining the operation into one smooth, efficient monopoly. I thought Ariel's connection with him was a passing thing, but if he was aboard the ship with him, perhaps there is more to it."