“Do you believe the world has a heart of fire?” Gilbert asked, looking at me curiously.
“I do not know how something with fire inside can have ice and snow upon the surface, but the longer I live, the more it seems that life is full of the unexpected and impossible. Why should it not be so of the land as well?”
“That is neither a yes nor a no,” the armsman observed dryly.
I laughed. “I suppose the answer is that I don’t know. But the teknoguilders seem very sure.”
“You sound as if you don’t think their certainty is a good thing.”
I sobered. “Let us say that I have too often seen certainty as a sort of blindness.”
“How did one so young become so wise?” Gilbert asked.
“For the second time today I have been called wise, but I do not think myself so,” I said wryly.
He did not smile. “Perhaps not thinking oneself wise is the modesty that must form the heart of all true wisdom. On the other hand, my father used to say that fools and wise men were made so for a reason.” I made no response, and he continued in a soft, distant voice. “Last night, I dreamed of you standing in a black and barren place surrounded by snarling wolves.”
“It was just a dream,” I said, though his words sent a trickle of ice along my spine, for the previous night, I, too, had dreamed of wolves, though I had attributed it to Rushton telling me that Ariel had called him a wolf.
A burst of laughter made us both turn to see Dardelan holding open the door to my cabin for Brydda and Gwynedd, who were supporting Rushton between them. They were all laughing at their awkwardness, but even from this far away, I could see the knotted black line of stitches that ran almost to one brow. Rushton was smiling, but this faded into an intense seriousness as he leaned closer to hear something that Dardelan was saying. A fierce love for him rose up in my breast as I thought how I loved that look above all others upon his face, that grave solemnity.
Seeming to feel my gaze, he turned to look in my direction, and our eyes locked and clasped for a long moment. I had a sudden dizzying memory of the first time I had seen him coming from the pigpen at Obernewtyn. He had looked at me in the same way, unsmiling, intent, as if there was nothing else in the world but me. Then Dardelan reached out to clasp his shoulder, and he turned away.
I sighed and then started when Gilbert said softly, “He is the one you love. The Master of Obernewtyn. I do not know why I did not see it before.”
Whatever response I might have made was lost in the ululating cry from the lookout and the commotion that followed as everyone on deck crowded to the side of the ship. Gilbert offered me a hand, and I let him heave me up, lifting a grumbling Maruman onto my shoulders as we went to gaze at the long purple shadow on the horizon. Gwynedd called out to Gilbert, and the armsman smiled at me and went to his chieftain.
Maruman demanded tersely to be put down, and I realized that my heightened emotions were irritating him. I lifted him to the deck, turned to lean on the edge of the ship, and gazed out at Sador.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and did not need to turn to know that Rushton had come to stand behind me. He stepped closer and I trembled, feeling the heat of his body through the linen shirt he wore and through the silk and woven vest. Softly he said, “When last we came to Sador, you told me that you loved me. I will never forget how it felt to hear you say those words for the first time, for I had believed that you could not love one whose Talent was locked uselessly inside him.”
“You were wrong,” I said.
“It would not be the first time,” Rushton murmured, a smile in his voice.
The white-haired tribal leader Bram was at the front of the crowd that had gathered to meet us on the sand-covered point of rock that extended a little way out and then dropped off steeply at one side, allowing even greatships to anchor very close to shore. A ramp was laid down to allow the horses to leave, and I led Gahltha across it with Maruman draped about my shoulders. The minute his hooves touched the sand, Gahltha announced a powerful need to gallop. Laughing, I bade him go. The crowd parted for him and the other horses and then closed about us again. I looked at them uneasily, fearing their presence had some connection to Jakoby’s trip to Sutrium and my quest, but I need not have worried, for Bram greeted us fulsomely, explaining that the fall of the Faction and Council in the West and the Norselands had been foretold by more than one kasanda, as well as by the Earthtemple’s overguardian. He made a long, effusive speech about the value of freedom and then called for a strange evil-smelling brew, which we all drank to celebrate our victory.
Maruman hissed at the strong acrid scent of the brew and insisted on being put down. I was not troubled, for he disliked crowds and would sniff his way to me in a while.
Once the toasts had been drunk, Bram announced that tents had been set up in expectation of our arrival, and we were to be shown to them so we could rest in order to be fresh for the feasting that would begin when the moon rose.
As we made our way along the sand spit to the road to the desert lands proper, I noticed Jakoby speaking to Bram. From his grave expression, I guessed that she was telling him of Maryon’s futuretelling, and it occurred to me that some of the Sadorian seers or the overguardian might also have foreseen the slavemasters’ coming. I said this to Rushton, who agreed that Bram might already know why he had come; nevertheless, if he had understood Jakoby, he would still have to put the matter of the ships formally before the tribes. I asked him exactly what Zarak had told him of Maryon’s prediction, but he had no more detail to offer than Brydda had shared. I would have to wait to learn more from Maryon herself. Again I was tempted to tell Rushton about Dragon, but I could not do so while hemmed in by tribe children and adults chattering in gadi and in the common tongue of the lands. Hearing that language reminded me that I still had not shown Jakoby the book and the brooch from Ariel’s residence.
“It was fortunate that the Umborine had not left when Zarak rode up. Indeed, at the time, it seemed so suited to my need that I hardly questioned it, yet I do not know why Jakoby came for you with such urgency.”
“She has not told me clearly, but I think the overguardian wishes to speak with me,” I said. We reached the noisy trade area, and I sniffed the scents of spices and perfumes and frying fish with pleasure, regretting that I lacked coin to exchange for the temple tokens used as currency in the desert lands. Nevertheless, later I would walk through the trade tents and stalls, for I liked the market here.
It was hard to imagine how the area must look outside the annual period of conclave, which included the gathering and drying or smoking of the schools of fish that once a year mysteriously cast themselves upon the sandy spit. Yet the Sadorians believed deeply that they must leave nothing of themselves upon the earth when they moved on. So the tribes would take their tents and their kamuli and leave Templeport to go wandering in the desert or take their turn at tending the spice groves, and their departure led to the traders’ departure. In no time, Templeport would be deserted, save for a few traders who would trade with the occasional small shipmasters, who put in at Templeport to take on fresh water and do a little trading with the Earthtemple, which was built into soaring cliffs honeycombed with tunnels and chambers, its stony face carved into a thousand faces that looked out to the sea.
At last we reached the area where dozens of white guest tents rose up from the pale gold sand like an armada of tethered sails fluttering in the wind and the warm, clear light of dusk. Bram made another short speech, this time welcoming the Norselanders, and then he once again bade us rest before the feasting. Once the speech was done, Jakoby drew Rushton aside, and I left them to it, hoping he would not overtax himself. I moved through the tents until I found one tethered with its flap facing the empty undulating dunes and crawled into it. I had just let my pack slide to the floor when Rushton came in and stretched out on the bedroll that had been so neatly laid out.
“What did she say?” I asked.
He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “She told
Bram about the slavemasters and my intention to request the use of the Sadorian greatships. It seems their kasandas made some prediction that would fit the coming of these slavemasters, and for this reason, I will be heard with sympathy. But Bram told Jakoby that the Sadorians will not simply hand their ships over. They will regard my request as an invitation to take part in a war. This will likely result in a vote to extend the conclave a sevenday so the matter can be examined thoroughly before a vote is taken.”
“A sevenday,” I said, my heart sinking.
Rushton turned his head to look at me, and he might have read my mind. “I, too, ache to return to Obernewtyn, but gaining these ships is too important a duty to shirk, and it will be worth the time, if they agree. Meanwhile, Dardelan, Gwynedd, and I will begin to plan the journey to the Red Land and all that must be done before it.” He was silent for a little, and then he said, “Jakoby also told me that I must present my request in gadi.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “But you cannot speak gadi.”
“I do not have to speak it, only to announce my request in it. Apparently, that request can be stated very simply. But it is a formal requirement and cannot be waived. Bram has agreed to teach me the words, and my tuition will begin tonight, at this feast.” He sighed again. Then he looked around and said I had clearly been given preferential treatment, since my tent was larger and more luxurious than his.
I told him he was a fool, for all tents were exactly alike, and I had chosen my own at random. He complained that I lacked the proper respect for my chieftain. Then he caught my hand and pulled me down alongside him, wincing as he jarred his splinted wrist. I tried to sit up, scolding him for failing to mind his wounds.
“You mind them for me,” he said. “I have other matters to mind.” Then he pinned my legs under a knee, ignoring my laughing protests that he was being unfair, since I could not wrestle an injured man.
“Of course not,” he said loftily. “The only honorable thing to do is to surrender immediately.”
Laughing, I tried to wriggle away but froze when he winced. I drew back from him in dismay. “We should be careful.”
“Maybe so,” he sighed, and lay back against the rumpled bedding. “I am not completely healed, it is true, but I am healing. Inside as well as out, this time.” It was the first time he had referred directly to what Ariel had done to him. Not that we had avoided the matter or feared to speak of it; we just seemed to have come to some unspoken agreement to put it off for a time. His eyes met mine, jade green and gravely tender. He said, “You risked your life to save mine.”
“I saved myself,” I said fiercely, and reached out to brush the thick silky fall of black hair from his brow. I frowned at the great puckered gash there. “That will leave a scar,” I said.
He took my hand and kissed the palm. “Each scar is a wisdom learned. My grandmother told me that.”
“I have never heard you speak of a grandmother,” I said, relaxing beside him. This mood of his, which allowed laughter and childhood confidences, was so welcome after his long, relentless coldness that I wanted to prolong it.
“My grandmother died before my mother became ill and sent me to Obernewtyn in search of my father. But I remember her very well, because she was strange and embarrassed me dreadfully with her eccentricities. The other boys in my village whispered that she was a witch, and oft times I thought so, too.”
“What did she do?” I asked curiously.
He laughed. “Not much. It does not take much in a village to be thought peculiar.”
“But what?” I persisted.
He shrugged. “She liked to walk about the forest at night, and when the moon was full, she would go out and glare up at it. ‘Moonhater,’ they called her.”
It was an odd coincidence that Rushton’s grandmother had hated the moon, for Maruman hated it as well. “A strange distant thing to dislike so much,” I said tentatively. “Did she ever say why?”
He shook his head. “She talked to herself, and she had many queer dislikes.”
“Had she any Talent?” I asked.
“My mother definitely had a touch of empathy. That is what made her such a good herb lorist. Perhaps her mother was the same. The Twentyfamilies gypsies who passed through our village each year on the way to tithe the Council made a point of visiting her to pay their respects.” He laughed ruefully. “I remember their bringing her gifts: little carved creatures or some special fruit or sweet. My mother was convinced they made my grandmother worse. I think it was true, because sometimes, after they had come, my grandmother would walk through the forest to the mountains and stand staring at them for hours as if they were a puzzle she must solve. Back then, they were still so dangerously tainted that most people avoided going anywhere near them. People in the village said my grandmother’s habit of staring at the black mountains was hereditary and came from a queerness in our bloodline. Once I asked my mother about it, and she said we had another ancestor who had been just as fascinated with the mountains. But she had believed there was a marvelous settlement of wondrous shining people living beyond them and was always yearning to go to them. She vanished one night, and people said she must have just walked into the tainted mountains and died.” Rushton suddenly smiled. “I remember that I asked my mother if she was planning to go mad, and she said she would endeavor not to do it, for my sake.”
His voice trailed away, and I stared at him, wondering.
Rushton went on, “After I came to Obernewtyn and Louis told me who my father was, I remember wondering if my mother falling in love with Michael Seraphim was just another form of our ancestral fascination with the high mountains.”
I drew a breath and said as casually as I could manage, “Louis Larkin once told me that Lukas Seraphim had been determined to build a home in the mountains, because he had dreamed of a wondrous settlement of people living there. Apparently, he was bitterly disappointed to find only a Beforetime ruin.”
“Perhaps Lukas Seraphim heard a tale that arose from the mad notions of one of my ancestors.”
“But it wasn’t just a tale or mad notion,” I persisted. “There was a settlement in the mountains that some might call miraculous, only it existed in the Beforetime.”
“Are you saying that my ancestor and Lukas Seraphim both had true dreams of the Beforetime Obernewtyn?” Rushton asked skeptically.
“They were both your ancestors,” I reminded him. “But it was not dreams I meant. What if Hannah Seraphim started the rumor about the settlement in the mountains? She was not at Obernewtyn when the Great White came, as we now know, so maybe she was in Newrome and escaped before it collapsed. If she did, she would have been unable to return to Obernewtyn, because the mountains were now a deadly barrier. What if she just stayed there and waited, watching the mountains and longing to go over them, knowing it was impossible?”
Rushton gave me a sleepy-eyed smile. “Do I hear one of Zarak’s theories?”
I laughed. “Now that you mention it. But really, it makes sense. She gazed at the mountains and talked about Obernewtyn, and that was how the rumor of the wondrous place there began.” I was silent a moment, thinking hard. Then I drew in an excited breath. “What if she remained up in the highlands and eventually bonded and had children? Might they not have talked of her obsession with the mountains, even generations later?”
“You think my illustrious ancestor Lukas Seraphim built Obernewtyn because of stories told to him by his ancestor, and then my mother’s mother came to hear of the tale and took to staring at the mountains, too? A very convoluted theory,” Rushton laughed, yawning.
“Rushton, I know it sounds strange, but think of it. If Hannah Seraphim lived through the Great White and had children, they could be your ancestors on both sides! Hannah would have been trapped on the other side of the mountains during the Age of Chaos, and while the worst of the madness was happening in the cities, we know that it was much calmer in remoter regions. Just the same, people from the cities came to the Land, and
they brought upheaval and fear enough that a family might easily be scattered and lose one another. If I am right, it would explain your name, Lukas’s determination to build Obernewtyn, and your great-grandmother’s fascination with the mountains.”
I looked at Rushton to see how he had taken my revelations, but his eyes were closed. The slow rise and fall of his chest told me that he was asleep. I glared at him indignantly for a moment and then laughed softly. No matter, for I could not tell him the last part of my speculations: that the main reason Hannah would have yearned to cross the mountains was because she knew her bones were supposed to lie with Jacob’s and with the key Cassy had given her, for the Seeker to find.
Rushton stirred, and I realized he had woken from his drowse when he reached up to capture a strand of my hair in his fingers, distracting me from the wild tumble of my thoughts. “Like silk,” he murmured, stroking it between his fingers. “Black silk.” He reached out, and this time I did not resist as he drew me onto his chest. He studied my face with a hungry longing that made my blood sing.
I said unsteadily, “We are supposed to be preparing for a feast.”
“That is exactly what I am thinking,” he said very purposefully, and his mouth closed on mine.
THAT NIGHT WHEN the moon rose, as ripe and golden as a peach, a desert horn sounded, announcing the start of the night’s festivities. A Sadorian tribeswoman named Kaman had been sent to bring me fresh clothes and desert sandals, saying they were gifts from Jakoby. She had imperiously shooed an amused Rushton out to make his own preparations and sent a boy running off for hot water so she could help me bathe and dress. I had tried to tell her I needed no help, but very politely she made it clear that my wishes were irrelevant, since they conflicted with Jakoby’s command. Seeing no other course than to submit, I had allowed myself somewhat self-consciously to be disrobed, sponged down, and toweled. Then she had oiled my skin in a massage so delicious that I had actually fallen asleep. Which was just as well because the hairdressing that followed had been a very long and wearisome business. I had managed to endure it only because Kaman had begun describing the process of smoking and drying and salting the fish they gathered each year.