“She … she were complainin’ that her head hurt earlier.…” Matthew passed a shaking hand over his eyes as if to erase a nightmare.
Suddenly I was wide awake. “Tell me.”
He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, tears spilled down his cheeks.
I swung around and ran into the shed and upstairs to the safe house.
“Dragon!” I yelled, slamming open the door. “Dragon, where are you?”
Kella emerged from the healing hall, her face grave and sorrowful. “Inside,” she said.
Dragon lay on the mattress nearest the door. The gypsy had occupied the same bed, and it was as if one pale corpse had been exchanged for another. The empath-coercer’s red-gold hair lay like frozen flames over the pillow.
“What happened to her?” I whispered.
Kella shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. She and Matthew were arguing. I heard a thump; then Matthew burst out of the kitchen yelling that Dragon had fainted.”
“She fainted?” I cried. “Is that all? You scared the living daylights out of me! Matthew met me at the gate as if someone had been killed.”
“Elspeth, you don’t understand,” Kella said. “This is no ordinary sleep. Dragon has fallen into a coma. I can’t reach her!”
23
“HOW LONG HAS she been like this?” I demanded.
“Not more than half an hour,” Kella said. “It happened after firstmeal.”
I felt sick. “A coma. I don’t understand. How could it just happen like that for no reason?”
From the corner of my eye, I noticed Kella open her mouth and then close it again.
“What is it?”
The healer bit her lip. “It’s possible that you … damaged the blocked part of her mind when you forced your way past her mindshield to—”
“Are you saying I caused the coma?”
“You go too far and too fast,” Kella said, the softness of her tone a protest at my stridency. I resisted an urge to shout at her that it did not matter how loudly I talked—Dragon would not hear it. Kella pulled the covers around the empath-coercer’s neck and gestured for me to follow as she left the room.
In the kitchen, the scent of food cooking only served to heighten my feeling of unreality. A fire blazed on the hearth, but it was some moments before my mind registered that Brydda was sitting in a chair before it.
He rose to greet me.
“I had gone out to the market to get some milk and then bumped into Brydda downstairs,” Kella explained. “We were coming up together when we heard them arguing. When we came into the kitchen, Dragon was lying on the ground.”
“I struck too hard,” I said.
The healer sighed. “There is no certainty of that. Damage to a blocked memory is not uncommon. Sometimes an eruption occurs spontaneously, and once disturbed, the memory inside will develop and shift until the block is shattered. Often that is the best thing, but Dragon’s memory block is very deep-seated. The chances of her mind being able to deal with a flood of unresolved memories is slim. The whole healthy mind would typically be sucked into a sort of mental whirlpool revolving around whatever has been repressed. Eventually, all normal thought would be absorbed, and there would be nothing left in her mind but that single matter replaying itself again and again.”
My skin prickled with horror as the meaning of her words sank in. “You mean she will be defective when she wakens?”
Kella held up her hands. “I said that would have happened, but Dragon’s mind retreated, which is the best thing that could have happened under the circumstances.”
“You call a coma the best outcome?”
“Everything is relative,” the healer said firmly. “At some level, Dragon obviously sensed the block was damaged and likely to break open, and she willed herself inside it. This means that, right now, she is caught up in a loop of blocked memories: reliving over and over what she has repressed as she tries to resolve whatever caused her to block it out in the first place.”
“Then she’ll come out of it when she has sorted herself out?” Brydda asked, struggling with unfamiliar concepts.
Kella shook her head helplessly. “That is what we must hope. But there is no predicting how long it will take. It could take a year or a day or a minute.”
I stared into the healer’s face, seeing only my own culpability. With a flash of despair, I thought of Jik and Cameo and wondered if it would always be my fate to lead those around me to destruction.
“Elspeth, you blame yourself too much,” Kella chided.
I glared at her. “Too much? How much should I blame myself, then? And who will take the rest of the blame? Dragon?”
“Perhaps,” the healer said quietly. “It maybe that this is indeed her own doing.”
“It is my fault she’s in a coma,” Matthew said, hearing the last as he entered the kitchen.
Kella gave him a weary look. “I wish the pair of you would stop fighting over who is to blame and listen when I say the coma might be a natural development.”
“Natural?” he murmured.
She nodded vigorously. “Exactly. This would have happened sooner or later, because Dragon never intended to forget her past. She didn’t push her unwanted memory into her subconscious, the way the gypsy woman tried to do. Instead, she encysted it in her conscious mind—forgotten, yet not forgotten. She stored it as if whatever she has suppressed contained both something unbearable and something precious.”
I tried to decide if her words offered hope or absolution, but my weariness had returned with redoubled force. I felt numbed.
“I have to get some sleep,” I mumbled, but did not move.
“I am sorry for what has happened to Dragon. Truly I am,” Brydda said, shifting forward to look into my face. “But life rarely permits us time to regroup or to mourn. I have come here because I need your help, and sad as this is, it does not change my need.”
“Again?” I asked bleakly. “I could not help you last time. And I have been out all night.…”
The rebel shook his head. “I do not need you until tonight. You can sleep until then.”
“What then?”
Brydda’s expression hardened. “Daffyd has not come, and I am supposed to take the slaves to the warehouse for the slaver’s people tonight. I mean to deliver them as agreed so that I can track them back to Salamander. Eventually, they will have to come to him. I cannot have them followed, because Salamander will certainly have someone watching. He would be a fool if he did not. But you could use your mind to track the slaves safely.”
“I could,” I said. “If they are not shielded and if they are not taken over tainted ground or water. And if a thousand other things that could go wrong don’t.”
Brydda looked taken aback at my fierceness.
I tried to explain. “It is difficult enough to farseek a Talented and a known mind in a city streaked with impenetrable tainted areas and among all these other mind patterns, let alone someone who is both unTalented and unknown.”
Matthew sat forward, a flare of eagerness driving away the despairing guilt of moments before. “Th’ slave you use as a marker need not be unknown or unTalented.”
I stared at him, uncomprehending.
“I could take th’ place of one of th’ slaves,” Matthew said.
I only stared at him.
“Ye’d have no trouble keepin’ a probe on me. Ye could do it from here.”
“No,” I said. “The blind spots … I could lose contact with you—”
“Nowt fer long, if ye follow physically as well,” Matthew interrupted. “Farther back than anyone would bother with but close enough to feel where I am, even if ye can’t farseek me. I’d have my mind open to ye all th’ time.”
“It’s out of the question,” I said.
“Very well,” Brydda said firmly, stopping Matthew’s protest before it was uttered. “But you will trace the slaves?”
“If I lose them, they will be condemned to live as slaves.”<
br />
The rebel’s face hardened. “As they would have done had I not intercepted them. Perhaps they would think it fair odds, since I am trying to stop this foul trade altogether.”
“The end justifies the means?” I asked cynically. “Have you given them a choice?”
The rebel frowned. “As far as they know, they are still captives held by slavers. They are resigned to their fates. This is the real world, Elspeth, and I am doing the best I can. I will not lose this chance,” he said harshly.
I sighed. “I will track them. But I’ll have to come to the warehouse so that I can get a fix on one of their minds.”
Brydda rose and took a scrap of paper from his pocket. “Here is a map showing where it is. The slaver said he would send his people to pick up the slaves before dawn, so I suggest you arrive well before that. I will be waiting for you.”
“He also told you to get rid of me, so it will be better if I do not come inside.”
Brydda frowned. “I doubt he will come in person, but perhaps you are right. We should not take the chance. You will have to get into position somewhere outside. Will that be close enough?”
I nodded and committed the route and warehouse location to memory before handing the paper back.
“You should assume you are being watched as soon as you get into the area.”
“Am I nowt to come, then?” Matthew asked, caught between pleading and demanding.
Brydda looked at me.
“You had better come with me,” I decided. “When we arrive, you will go inside the warehouse with Brydda and pretend to be his assistant. With different clothes and in the darkness, you can pass yourself as a seaman’s lad. The skin stain has faded enough. With you inside, I can use your eyes to see what is going on there and communicate with Brydda even as I track the slaves.”
The rebel nodded. “When you let us know where they have been taken, we will ride after them.” He frowned. “No. On second thought, Salamander may have Matthew and me watched for some time after the slaves are taken to ensure we don’t try to follow. I will have some rebels stationed nearby. Can you ride to them and tell them where the slaves are taken?”
I nodded, feeling incapable of more. Brydda stood and squeezed my shoulder. “Get some sleep,” he murmured.
“Ye should have let me do it,” Matthew said sullenly after Brydda had gone. “There would have been no risk.”
“There is risk in everything,” I said, thinking of Dragon. I stood up.
“Wait!” Kella protested. “You haven’t told us what happened with the gypsies.…”
Kella and Matthew both stared at me expectantly. I yawned and rubbed at my eyes. “I’m too tired to go into it all now, but I took her back.” I looked at Kella. “The gypsy healer said you were a good healer.”
She flushed with pleasure.
I stumbled down the hall and into my bedchamber, falling into the bedding fully clothed. Dimly, I wondered if it was possible that something was wrong with me. I felt incredibly fatigued, and this was not the first time. I had felt the same unnatural tiredness after the whipping. Perhaps this time it was because of the tattoo. Every time I was injured, my mind and body seemed to withdraw.
I flung my hand out, seeking the comfort of Maruman’s rough, warm fur, but the place where he slept by my head was cold and empty. With an ache, I wondered where he was and if he was safe.
“Sleep the shortsleep.…” I heard Gahltha’s voice in my mind. “I/Gahltha will guard the dreamtrails in place of Maruman/yelloweyes.”
And sleep claimed me again.
24
THUNDER GROWLED IN the distance, and it began to rain.
I felt a prickle of unease, for a storm could play havoc with farseeking powers, and it would make retaining a link with one of the slaves that much more difficult.
Incredibly, I had slept all day, waking only when Matthew had roused me after dusk. But I was much refreshed; the numbing exhaustion was gone.
We had decided to ride together on Gahltha, for one horse would be far easier to cloak than two. As usual, Matthew’s emotions impeded his ability to shield. This, combined with our close physical proximity, meant that I was shortly awash in his remorse over Dragon’s coma.
Strengthening my shield to block his emanations, I felt a touch of anger that he would wallow in his guilt after having treated Dragon so shabbily.
“You should dismount here,” I said. We were still several streets over from the warehouse, but I wanted to take no chances. “You had better get your mind fixed on what is ahead of us, rather than on what cannot be helped.”
I ignored the farseeker’s sudden rigidity and the belated, mortified strengthening of his mental shield as he dismounted.
“You go on to the warehouse,” I said, “and after a bit, I will follow. When I’m in place, I will farseek you to find out where Brydda’s people are waiting.”
Matthew nodded; then he shuddered violently.
“What is it?”
“I dinna know. I felt as if someone walked over me grave. Maybe ye should come inside, too. Anyone might spot ye in th’ street.”
Touched by his concern, my irritation at him faded.
“I will make sure no one sees me,” I promised. “I have to stay out here so I can trail the slaves without being seen.”
Matthew still hesitated.
“Go on,” I urged, giving him a push. He turned to go. On impulse, I called, “Be careful.”
“You be careful, too,” he called in a low voice, and loped off.
I let a small farseeking probe drift with him. When he had gotten inside the warehouse, I signaled Gahltha, who turned into a lane a short way along the street. I dismounted, and he moved swiftly into the shadows at the end of the lane. It was a dead-end alley with no doors opening out into it, which meant no one could come up behind me. On one side, the sloping roof of an adjoining building had sagged into a dip at the center and thereby cast a deeper pool of shadow. This was where Gahltha positioned himself.
I stayed farther up the lane and leaned against the corner in the shadows. From this position I would be all but invisible even without coercion, and I could see both ways along the street leading to the warehouse. I set loose a general farsensing net, which would alert me to any movement in the streets, then shaped a probe to Matthew’s mind signature and sent it flying in the direction of the warehouse.
As soon as he felt me, the farseeker opened his mind to permit me access to the synapses and nerves that would enable me to see through his eyes. I occupied these only passively for the moment, taking in the cavernous warehouse as Matthew looked around slowly for my benefit. The view was wavering and indistinct as if I were peering through a stream of water, but the image would sharpen if I took active use of his sight.
Dimly, I watched Brydda approach. The big man’s face looked slightly less battered than usual, and it took me a moment to realize Matthew’s hero worship of the older man was coloring his view. If I took over his sight, I would see Brydda clearly. Or rather, I would see him as I usually did. Intrigued with this thought, I wondered how much my own view was shaped by my emotions.
They spoke for some minutes, but I could not hear what they were saying; then they came down to the end of the warehouse.
“He is taking me to see the slaves,” Matthew sent.
The five men stood passively in a little group, and I was puzzled by their stillness until Matthew sent to me worriedly that they had been drugged by Brydda to prevent their being questioned by whoever came for them, which could give the whole thing away.
I suppressed a surge of consternation at this news. I had not thought to warn Brydda that drugs would bar me from the slaves’ minds.
Matthew and Brydda spoke again at some length. Through the farseeker’s eyes, I saw the rebel’s look of surprise. Then he shrugged and nodded.
“What is he saying?” I asked Matthew curiously.
“He is saying the drug will take about three hours to wear off.”
/>
“I will have to—”
I broke off at the touch of Gahltha’s soft muzzle against my shoulder. At the same time, I became aware of the warning tug of my farsensing net. I had been so engrossed in what was going on inside the warehouse that I had not felt a thing.
“Funagas come,” Gahltha sent succinctly before moving back into the inky shadows at the end of the alley.
My senses told me there were two people walking swiftly along the street toward the warehouse, talking in low, intent voices. I poked my head out a fraction. They were some distance away, but I could see in the light of the single street lantern that they were both men; one was small and slender, while the other was at least twice his companion’s size.
I shaped a probe and tried to enter the larger man. He was a Misfit but not Talented. His mind was buckled and distorted—hopelessly defective. I could pick up nothing more than a miasmic desire to cause pain, and I could not enter.
Shuddering, I withdrew and entered the smaller man’s mind. It was something of a relief that he was neither defective nor naturally shielded. It was a moment’s work to learn that he had been hired by Salamander, but there was no memory that would show me what the slavemaster looked like. He had simply been approached in an inn by a beautiful dark-haired woman bearing a note with Salamander’s mark. It offered a relatively large amount of coin for what seemed to him a minor job. He had hired the defective because of his strength and brutish appetites, and because it never hurt to have a bit of muscle on one’s side.
His thoughts showed that he admired Salamander’s ruthless efficiency as much as he feared him. Apparently, the slavemaster had a reputation of being generous to those who performed their given tasks well and utterly vicious to those who failed.
He did not expect to fail, though.
His instructions were simple. Just before midnight, he was to go to the warehouse where he would find a man named Bollange waiting with five men. Though it had not been said, he understood that these men were to be sold as slaves. The woman had given him a bag of coin, which he was to give to Bollange once an examination of the slaves had proven them sound of limb. He was to bind and gag the slaves, then bring them outside where a wagon would collect them.