The Elder was right. It was inevitable the machines would someday be unearthed and used. Atthis said I was the only one who would be in the right place at the right time, the only one with any chance of destroying them. So that made me the Seeker. But even she had not been able to say if I would succeed.
I wondered who was destined to revive the machines. The Destroyer, Atthis had named him, even as I was called the Seeker.
Resolutely, I thrust the machines and the Agyllians from my mind.
I looked at Gahltha. 'I will be glad to go from this place and its foreboding lessons.'
Gahltha blew air from distended nostrils. 'I did not bring you here for lessons. See, there is where we will go down.'
I followed his gaze and saw a natural stone path leading unevenly to the next plateau, cleaving to the edge of the slope. The path began not far from where we stood, moving this way, then that, ever lower, across the face of the cliff.
Gahltha looked at me. 'You are weak still. Ride on my back and we will travel more quickly.' I looked at him curiously.
'You want me to ride?' I asked.
'One warrior will carry another, if the strength of one proves greater. Each has his own strength, but also his own weakness.' He spoke with the air of repeating a well-learned lesson.
'Wise words,' I said simply. 'I am glad to ride on your back if it will bring us more quickly to the Barud.' Barud was the equine word symbol for homeplace.
And so began the last stage of my long journey back to Obernewtyn.
We travelled through that day and the next through the monotonous snow-bound terrain of the high mountains, and on the third day we came upon a few scant green shoots, thrusting their tips through the snow. 'It will be more dangerous now that the thaw has begun,' Gahltha said. 'But I think tomorrow we will reach the valley of the Barud.'
The afternoon darkened as snow clouds gathered overhead, and I shivered in the cold. With the bleak afternoon came unexpected doubts. I began to fear Obernewtyn had changed, and that I would find there was no longer a place for me there. My whole life had been spent as an outsider and, even at Obernewtyn, I had felt misplaced, until the journey to the coast. Ironic if I discovered too late where my own Barud lay.
Just on dusk, for the first time, we encountered another creature. A wolf.
The wolves which frequented the mountains were savage, pale-eyed wraiths with coats the colour of mist and snow. They were nearly impossible to spot deliberately, and it was sheer luck that I saw this one. I had been plodding along, shivering and staring aimlessly into the distance when the landscape appeared to shift fractionally. I realized I had been staring right at one of the white wolves without seeing it. The wolf had been watching us but, realizing it had been seen, turned, melting into the white landscape.
Later I heard several desolate calls in the distance. I fancied the howls were messages concerning the travelling funaga and equine. I was tempted to try communicating, but the wild keening calls across the frozen wastes made a desolate song of the night and did not invite a response.
The calls went on for hours, then abruptly ceased.
I was glad of the respite but Gahltha seemed more disturbed by the silence than by the bloodcurdling howls. I was too tired to worry and slept leaning against his warm flank. Gradually I felt him relax too. Exhausted and half-starved as we were, we needed sleep. Initial hunger pains had long since given way to an empty ache that was easier to bear. If sleep were all that remained, then that would have to be enough to get us home.
Suddenly, Gahltha stiffened and I was jerked awake. I looked around in the pitch darkness fearfully. Dense clouds obscured the moon.
'What is it?' I sent.
'The Brildane . . .' Gahltha responded.
I laid a gentle hand across his back, wondering why he stayed so still, if there were danger.
'What or who are the Brildane?' I asked.
'I do not know what name is given them by the funaga, but Brildane is the name they call themselves. We name them gehdra because they are invisible. They have no time for any creature but their own kind. But they hate the funaga because funaga trap and slay their young.'
'Are they hungry?' I asked trying to understand what sort of animal it could be.
'If they were, we would already be dead,' Gahltha sent. 'They called in the night to gather their brethren. The mountain equines know a little of their strange speech. Their calls concerned us. They wonder what we are doing here. The gehdra claim the high mountains as their own world. Here we are intruders.'
'Wolves! The Brildane are wolves!' I cried, suddenly understanding. I looked at Gahltha. 'Are you telling me they're just curious?' I asked.
'The curiosity of the gehdra is as savage as its hunger,' Gahltha sent quellingly.
I looked around uneasily, wondering how he had known of their presence. Even now, I could sense no minds but ours. The wolves must have some ability to cloak their minds. And I had not heard a sound.
'Would it help if I sent a greeting?' I suggested.
'No!' Gahltha sent urgently, as if he expected me to leap up and rush into the night with a cry of greeting on my lips. 'The gehdra do not think like any other kind of creature. It is impossible to predict what they will do. Speaking to them would not stop them eating us, if that were their desire. If they wanted to confront us, they would do it. But I think they came to look, not to feed or speak. Better to do nothing. With the gehdra, it is always safest.'
Gahltha's warnings were underlined by his own tangible fear. I found myself too frightened to move in case it was taken by the wolves as a threat. Bleakly I realized these were the very wolves Ariel had hunted and trapped. Some he had killed. Others he had driven mad and used to hunt their own kind. The wolves were the same kind as the maddened beasts who had torn Sharna apart. I dared not stir a limb until Gahltha reported that they had gone, melting back into the night as mysteriously as they had appeared.
'Are you sure you didn't imagine them?' I asked.
'In the morning you will see,' was all he would say.
It was hard to go back to sleep but eventually I fell into a light, troubled slumber. The night grew steadily colder and even Gahltha's considerable body heat could not keep me warm. Towards morning, I gave up trying and lay waiting for the horse to wake.
During the night, I had dreamed of Ariel as he had been, a boy with almost unearthly beauty and a sadistic turn of mind that had delighted in causing pain.
Ironic that we had let him escape, so certain he could not survive the winter and the wolves. And how had he survived? That was a mystery in itself. Of us all, Matthew, grief-stricken over Cameo's death, had wanted to make sure Ariel had perished. He, alone, had believed Ariel might have survived. There had been talk of a search, but there had been so many things to do before the pass thawed that it had been forgotten.
Of Alexi, Madam Vega and Ariel, I had disliked Ariel most. Alexi had been insane and dangerous, and Madam Vega power hungry, but I had never known what motivated Ariel. He had a perverted delight in tormenting anyone weaker than himself.
I felt Gahltha stir with relief. It was barely light before we were off, but light enough to see that Gahltha had been right the night before. The snow all around us was covered in paw prints, some a mere handspan from where my feet had lain.
The Brildane.
I shivered, and suddenly it began to snow. Just a few flakes at first, but blown with stinging force into our faces by a hard, icy wind. The snow was already thick underfoot and made walking tiring. Gahltha offered to carry me, but he could only walk a little faster than I, and was easily as tired, so I refused. I knew neither of us could go much further without proper rest and food.
Near to dropping, I was trying to remember how long since I had eaten when Gahltha neighed loudly. Squinting against the wind and flying snow, I realized he had rounded a spur of rock and was out of sight. Forcing weary limbs to hurry, I caught up.
'What is it?' I sent, wondering if I had streng
th enough left to deal with another obstacle.
'We have reached the valley of the Barud.'
I blinked stupidly. Barud? 'Obernewtyn!'
All weariness fell away from me then, but alongside joy was the nagging fear that something had gone wrong. I was close enough to have sent a questing probe, but something kept me from it, a desire to have my first glimpse of Obernewtyn unhampered by greetings and explanations.
I had just begun to recognize some of the hills and stone hummocks when the wind fell away and the snow stopped making our first glimpse of Obernewtyn clear and unmistakable.
A cry of happiness died in my throat, stillborn. I stumbled to a halt, unable to believe my eyes.
All that remained of Obernewtyn was a charred ruin.
26
Only a firestorm could have done so much damage.
Little remained of Obernewtyn but rubble. Walls and buildings were no more than jagged blackened stumps of stone. The wind-blown snow adhered to the crevices and a rambling kind of thorn-brush thrust its roots deep into the cracked stone.
It looked like a ruin of years rather than moons. How had it degenerated so quickly? I blinked, for when I stared hard, I seemed to see the ghostly shape of Obernewtyn as it had been.
Tears blurred my vision, and the wind froze them before they could fall. It was bitter cold on the hillside, but I scarcely felt the chill. To have travelled so long and far, and find Obernewtyn a ruin was beyond a nightmare.
'Come,' Gahltha sent.
I stared at him incredulously.
He asked doubtfully, 'Do you not want to go to the Barud? I am sworn to take you wherever you will.'
I shook my head, disturbed by his lack of emotion. Perhaps he had changed less than I realized, and welcomed the downfall of any funaga institution. I looked back at the wreckage and wondered whether any had escaped the firestorm.
Stumbling forward, I prayed I would find some clue as to where everyone had gone. The ground was sodden from the melting snow, and fresh flakes fell like salt on the dark wet earth. What a tragic irony for the lie that had protected us for so long, to come so horribly true.
Abruptly I stopped and stared, squinting against the cold wind blustering across the valley. I thought I had seen a smudge of smoke.
It had come from somewhere on the far side of the valley, near the pass to the Highlands. My heart beat faster as I made out a number of dark shapes that might be buildings. It seemed to me I was looking at a small settlement.
Gahltha offered to carry me, though he seemed puzzled at my instruction not to pass too close to Obernewtyn. It occurred to me that equines might not know that a poisonous residue was left behind by a firestorm.
Coming closer to the settlement, I saw a movement that warned it was not deserted. Some obscure instinct of caution stopped me riding directly into the camp. I asked Gahltha to take us into a clump of trees a short distance away. With the mountains behind and on one side, and the ruins of Obernewtyn on the other, we were safe from detection.
Peering through the greenery, I could see several roughly constructed stone-and-thatch huts, set in a circle, and surrounded by a wall of stripling branches. Even at a distance, it was clearly a poor settlement and an air of hopeless dilapidation hung over it.
Two men emerged from one of the hovels. I bit my lip.
Soldierguards! There was no mistaking the yellow cloaks they wore as a badge of office.
They could only have come through the pass. That meant the thaw had opened the way. Bleakly I reflected that the Council would have no more cause to doubt Rushton's word, if he had survived the firestorm. A strange feeling of despair filled me at the realization that he might be dead.
I felt Gahltha's restive movements and looked at him. 'Perhaps we should go to Obernewtyn to find out what has passed here,' he suggested.
I shook my head impatiently. 'What good will that do? Besides it would be dangerous to go there now. I want to get a better look at that camp. The soldier-guards can't have built those huts. I want to know who did. We'll go back the way we came, and right around to the other side. There are trees close to the settlement there and we can get much closer without being seen. Whatever happens, we will be able to shelter in the teknoguild cave network. Who knows, perhaps we will find someone there.'
Gahltha made no response. Puzzled by his peculiar behaviour, I stood to mount when he neighed softly and sent a warning that someone approached.
I prayed whoever it was would not walk right into the trees.
To my horror, it was three soldierguards. Fortunately, they stopped in a clearing a span from where we were hidden. Grumbling about the cold, they sat on logs, rubbing their hands and faces.
'I tell you I am weary of this hellish place,' said one man resentfully. '"Get wood," the Captain orders, but what is the use of it? Quick as the fire warms you, the wind chills you to the bone.'
'That fellow Rushton does nowt seem to feel th' cold. It whistles through t' holes in his clothes an' he nary shows a shiver. His blood must be as cold as th' snow,' said a big burly man with a Highland accent.
'No sense, no feeling, they say,' said the first. 'No sane man would want to stay up here, yet that fool claims he will rebuild Obernewtyn once the taint is faded.'
The big man nodded. 'I heard he were offered a billet in th' Lowlands, but chose to come back here. Is that th' act of a sane man?'
'He is proud enough to want his Claim rebuilt. But I think pride is a kind of madness in him. They say he fought off Seditioners to make his Claim on Obernewtyn. If that's so, why would he then become a Seditioner and risk it all? It makes no sense. I swear this is a fool's errand,' said the first speaker, rising and stamping his feet.
'Three suns have risen on this barren valley since we came here. And why?' he went on.
'Why indeed?' asked the third man who had not spoken yet. He had an unpleasant hissing sort of voice and quick, sly eyes. 'The story is that we are to find out if Obernewtyn is truly burnt, and if there is truth in rumour of Sedition here.'
'One look answered those questions,' said the first man.
'Did it?' asked the third in an insinuating tone.
His two companions eyed him curiously.
'Do ye say there is Sedition here? I have seen no sign of it,' said the big Highlander at length.
'I say neither yes nor no to it. But the Captain is no fool. He would not stay here for pleasure. Perhaps he knows something we do not.'
'What do ye mean?' asked the Highlander.
'Just this: Captains, as a rule, know more than rank and file soldierguards. I heard the Captain had his orders direct from the Council's agent. Who knows what was told him,' said the hissing man.
There is somethin' strange about these mountain folk,' opined the Highlander after a moment of thought. 'I dinna know what it is, but when I am among them, my skin creeps.'
'Mine too,' said the first man. 'Ariel spoke certain of Sedition, and he's seldom wrong.'
'Call him not by name!' snarled the third man, glancing about as if he feared immediate reprisal.
'His name is not so secret,' sneered the first.
'Well then call him by it when next you see him, fool. There is one to make a man's skin crawl,' offered the third man.
'I say we mun just as soon kill them all, miserable creatures,' the big Highlander pronounced. 'Then we need not trouble ourselves with findin' out if they be Seditioners.'
'Usually, we are told to bring back prisoners alive. But I have heard it whispered the Council's agent wants none to come alive from the mountains. I wonder if it is true, and why,' pondered the first man.
'I wonder what Ariel suspects ... or fears,' said the third soldierguard.
After a long pause, the Highlander shook himself like an oxen. 'I wonder only how long before my head rests on a real bed, an' my tongue tastes a sweet fement . . .' he sighed plaintively.
'Never if I catch you idling again when I have given an order!' came a new authoritative voice, s
o close my heart skipped a beat. Cautiously, I moved and saw that two more men had entered the clearing. From the markings on his collar, the tall, sallow-faced newcomer was the Captain. The other stood hidden behind him.
Then the Captain moved and I caught sight of the other's face, but it was no soldierguard. I stifled a gasp at the sight of Rushton!
Clad in shabby trews and a ragged jumper, he was grim faced and gaunt. The wild, dark gleam in his eyes told me why the soldierguards had judged him mad. He looked like a man possessed, and deep lines of suffering and despair made him appear far older than his years. There was a bitter twist to his lips that I had never noticed before and I was filled with pity at the thought of what the destruction of Obernewtyn had meant to him. He must have loved it more than life for its demise to mark him so.
As if he sensed my scrutiny, his head turned and I shivered, for it seemed to me he stared straight into my eyes. I shuddered at the emptiness in his face and was glad when he turned aside to follow the Captain and his men from the thicket.
I slumped back, aching all over from tension. I could not forget Rushton's face, for it warned me worse might have happened than I could even imagine.
I went afoot as we made our way back along the valley, but this time we went more warily and stayed close to the walls of Obernewtyn where trees grew thickly, offering shelter. I noticed fumes of faint blue smoke rising from the ruins and was struck by the feeling that I had seen them before. Gahltha stirred beside me.
'Elspeth?' came a voice from behind. I whirled in fright and found myself looking into the astounded face of Daffyd. Gahltha, who did not know him, moved aggressively between us, until I reassured him.
Daffyd came forward slowly, as if he thought I would disappear. 'By Lud, it is you!' he cried. 'I thought I was dreaming with my eyes open. But how? We thought you dead. Your feet . . .' He looked down.