Their training focused on enabling them to descend through the conscious and subconscious layers of their own minds, all the while shielding themselves at the levels where minds lose individual focus. Here, dreams and longings both dark and bright swim like exotic fish in a thick, seductive soup. A descending mental probe could easily become lost in a memory or a nightmare or some delicious imagining. It was their goal, and I sometimes thought their addiction, to descend to the point where the barriers between all minds faded. This was the level at which myth moved from mind to mind and generation to generation. Beneath this level lay the glittering mindstream, which called to all minds to merge and surrender their individuality. This surrender would mean individual death, but twice in my life I had come so dangerously close to it as to hear the unearthly loveliness of its call-song to a final merging.
Futuretellers spent a good deal of their time hovering above the mindstream, and perhaps it was the effort of resisting the longing for that lovely death that caused their remoteness. They saw much as they hovered in this way, for the mindstream threw up bubbles of memory from the minds absorbed. Occasionally, bubbles of what would be rose, since the stream contained both all that had been and could be, but it was not the express purpose of their delving to see into the future. The futuretellers’ desire, as far as I understood it, was to know themselves deeply and, through this, to know life. They claimed that thinking intensely of a matter at this level drew thoughts from the mindstream of others, long dead, who had pondered the same questions. They believed that knowledge could be best obtained on the brink of dissolution of the individual.
Their purposes seemed strange to me, and oddly self-centered, but it was not my place to judge them. Indeed, their ability to penetrate minds had profoundly enabled them to draw healers deeper than they could go alone, and on more than one occasion, this had saved someone’s life or sanity.
“I have sometimes wondered who made this wee garden,” Maryon said, breaking her silence at last. It seemed an innocuous enough comment, but I was not deceived. Futuretellers took charge of the dreariest household duties, because the monotony allowed their minds to soar. If Maryon was talking of gardens, I had no doubt her attention was on something far more complex.
“I suppose it must have been part of Lukas Seraphim’s design,” I said blandly.
“No. The maze existed before Lukas Seraphim had Obernewtyn built. He simply had the maze replanted.”
I stared at her in surprise, for I had always assumed the maze had been the creation of Obernewtyn’s reclusive first master.
“I dreamed of Rushton last night,” Maryon went on, and now her eyes were distant and fey. “I saw him swimmin’ in dark waters.…”
Her words made me think of the image I had seen in the young teknoguilder’s mind. “Was it a true dream?”
She gave me a long look. “If ye mean was he truly in th’ water, I can nowt say. Of late, clear futuretellin’ has been difficult.”
“Difficult?” I echoed.
“It happens from time to time that there are disturbances. Lately, much of our futuretellin’ is of th’ past. ’Tis as if a storm rages above th’ mindstream, wrenching up what has been an’ drivin’ it at us like rain afore wind.”
“Do you think Rushton is in danger?” I pressed worriedly.
Maryon sighed. “I said nowt of danger.”
I debated telling her of the picture I had seen in the young teknoguilder’s mind that so disquietingly paralleled her dream, but she went on before I could speak.
“I have been wantin’ to speak wi’ ye on th’ subject of dreams,” she said. “All folk dream, an’ most sometimes dream true whether they ken it or no. Even unTalents. We recognize a true dream because it recurs. If it comes only once, whether or no it feels true, we dinna mull on it. But lately I have come to believe that true dreams can recur in a number of people, rather than in only one, an’ so my guild has begun to create dreamscapes that show th’ patterns of our dreams. T’would make the dreamscapes more accurate to include the dreams of those of other guilds, but it is impractical for my guild to record all dreams. Dell suggests that each guild keep its own dream journal.”
“So long as it does not require another meeting,” I said. Maryon’s mouth curved into a rare smile, but almost immediately a breeze blew up out of the stillness, and as the bare branches of the trees clattered together, the futureteller gazed up at them, her expression once again distant and serious. My own vague apprehensions hovered and refused to settle.
I wondered if Maryon knew anything about the dreamtrails Maruman spoke of and, on impulse, asked. She gave me a long look. “Dreamtrails is too tamish a name fer them. It suggests some windin’, pleasant path to wander on. Dream-rapids, I would sooner call them, or perilous dreamslopes.”
“Have you traveled on them, then?” I persisted.
“Traveled? I would nowt say so. I have stumbled onto them by accident, an’ sometimes I have been affrighted by encounters on them. But I will nowt speak more of them. There are many things better left unsaid. Ye’d ken that well enow, Elspeth Gordie.”
Her eyes were again on my face, as pure and direct as a beam of sunlight. I felt suffocated under her intense regard. I told myself that she must once have been a child, playing and singing, a girl who had loved and hated and feared as passionately as half-grown folk do when trying out their emotions. But it was impossible to imagine her as anything but a lofty futureteller. Wanting to break through her shell, I asked how she had come to Obernewtyn.
She lifted her dark brows, unperturbed by the personal nature of my question. “A man desired me, but I rejected him. I had foreseen he was cruel an’ violent behind his honeyed mouth an’ pretty eyes an’ made th’ mistake of sayin’ so aloud. He gathered friends an’ tried to take me. My family defended me an’ died fer it. I saw my sister killed by his hand, an’ my wits left me. I remembered nothin’ more until one day I woke here. I found that I had been condemned defective, but rather than sendin’ me to th’ Councilfarm, I was sent to Obernewtyn. Or sold mebbe.”
Maryon told her story without any visible emotion, but I could not blame her for that. I had seen my parents slain in front of my eyes, and when I thought of it, something in me turned to stone, too. More gently, I asked if her family had known she was a futureteller.
She answered in the same clear, distant tone. “I had no name then fer what I was. I nivver considered that seeing what would come from time to time made me Misfit any more than peepin’ round a corner ahead of friends. My family knew of it an’ did not speak of it as evil but only warned me nowt to tell anyone. We were seldom among folk, as our farm was remote, so there was little danger of givin’ myself away. Th’ night before they attacked our farm, I had a nightmare that my sister would die. It was so terrible, I could nowt believe it. I was even ashamed of it, because I had quarreled with her over a length of ribbon th’ day before an’ thought th’ dream some nastiness of mine comin’ out. If I had spoken, my father would have acted, fer he trusted my visions mebbe more than me. I could have saved them, but I didna speak.”
“I’m sorry,” I said inadequately.
She looked at me calmly. “There is no need fer sorrowin’. I ken now that my nowt speakin’ out back then was fer a reason, as was th’ death of my family. I dinna ken what that reason is, but I have faith that life’s purpose is finer an’ more profound than th’ purposes of me or my sister or father, an’ I serve it with my whole self willingly. That is what bein’ a futureteller means.”
She was silent for a time; then suddenly she said, “ ’Tis cold here without th’ sun. I will go in now.”
I watched her depart and found myself pitying her for the first time. I could see that she had given herself to fate as its instrument as a way of bearing the destruction of her family. Possibly, learning to see things in the way she did now was all that had enabled her to return to her senses.
I shivered, realizing she was right. The breeze had developed a shar
p edge. Pulling my coat tight around me, I rose and made my way back inside.
4
“CAN’T YOU HOLD on!” Zarak gasped aloud.
The young coercer beside him glared. “I could, if you would keep your mindprobe still and not shake it all over the place. It’s like trying to hold a fish!”
“I wasn’t shaking!” Zarak sent indignantly.
“You were,” Aras sent gravely.
“You were, son,” Khuria murmured in his quiet rasp of a voice.
Zarak reddened. Ignoring his father, he turned on Aras furiously, but Ceirwan forestalled his outburst by directing them all to make their minds quiet. “There is no point in accusations,” he sent firmly. “It didn’t work, an’ that’s that. I ken yer all tired. So am I, but let’s try one last time an’ concentrate very hard.”
“I was,” Zarak cried aloud.
“There is no point trying again unless Zarak can see he was not concentrating and remedy it,” Aras sent.
“It’s a stupid, impossible idea anyway!” Zarak snarled at her, a tide of red rising in his cheeks. “You think you’re so smart!”
At that moment, Freya entered with a gust of wind that slammed the door behind her.
“I’m late,” she said.
Ceirwan went to take her by the hands. “It doesna matter that yer late. It’s wonderful that yer here. We were just about to have a last try.”
I saw Zarak’s mind shape a continuation of his attack on Aras and sent sharply that I would speak with him after the practice. This transformed his anger into alarm, for Ceirwan handled all guild matters except ones considered serious enough to warrant my direct intervention.
The boy’s lack of concentration itself was not usual. He had been something of a handful since we had permitted his transfer from the Beastspeaking guild to the Farseekers, but he was not usually given to temperamental outbursts.
Whatever was bothering Zarak, his lack of concentration and his silly refusal to admit it were ill-timed, as they interfered with what was clearly the most promising group we had assembled to attempt Aras’s unusual mindmerge. What had come to be named the whiplash would be a great achievement if we could ever make it work, for it would enable us to farseek farther than any of us could manage alone or even within a traditional merge, which increased power but not range. Theoretically, Aras’s merge could enable us to reach mentally from one end of the Land to the other.
The merge required groups of three to form traditional mindmerges, which would be linked to one another to form a line that could be used as a conduit and directed by a farseeker with coercive abilities. But so far, every attempt to put it into practice had failed. The difficulty was in having each participant hold consciously into both triple and line merges while also making themselves passive enough to be used as a conduit. What kept happening was that the moment they attempted to become passive, the conscious links relaxed their connection, and the whole thing fell apart.
We had been seeking a complementary combination of minds for over a year, first trying with farseekers and then ranging into all the other guilds. The current merge was the most harmonious yet.
“Let’s try again,” Ceirwan said. “We’ll form up in a circle around Freya.” Those attempting the merge had been physically linking in the hope that this might help retain the connection when their consciousness faded.
I was not taking part in the actual merge. I would monitor it. If they succeeded, I would attempt to use them as a conduit.
“Let’s begin,” Aras said aloud.
Again the triple merges formed, and with Freya’s enhancing presence at their center, the links were flawless, even those formed by members of other guilds.
Aras worked to connect the triples into a continuous line. One by one, the triples were joined, and finally Aras came to the team made up of Zarak, the young coercer Hari, and Ceirwan. It was to link into the meld containing Zarak’s father, and then from within, Ceirwan would smooth the individual merges into a single long strand.
Whether or not Freya’s presence was enhancing my confidence as well, I began to feel we really might manage it at last, for as the last triplet was linked in and Ceirwan began to smooth the merges into a single strand, the line remained stable instead of falling apart at once.
Then Zarak’s mind skittered, and the whole thing crumbled again.
“It’s not my fault!” Zarak shouted.
“Control yerself,” Ceirwan sent sternly. Then he said aloud and more gently, “Dinna let’s be disheartened. Th’ process was completed fer th’ first time, no doubt due to th’ encouraging presence of our visitor.” Freya smiled wanly. “I am certain we have th’ right combination, but it will take time to perfect. We’ll meet again in a few days.”
Ceirwan thanked those of the other guilds for coming, telling them he would speak with their guildleaders to ensure they would be free henceforth for practices. Zarak’s father left last, with a worried glance at his son, who stood mutinously to one side, avoiding his eyes. When only farseekers remained, the guilden directed everyone to take a short break before the guild meeting started.
Then I was alone with a pale-faced Zarak.
“What is the matter with you?” I snapped. “You know it was your fault the merge could not hold.”
He hung his head.
“I do not blame you for failing the meld, but it was nasty and cowardly to attack Aras, especially when she only spoke the truth.”
“She thinks she’s so perfect,” he said angrily. “I’m sick of her always telling me what to do. She can’t even farseek as well as me, and she can hardly coerce at all. I don’t know why you would make her into a ward—” He stopped, aghast.
I stared at him coldly. “How did you know that we were considering making Aras a ward?”
“It was … I overheard it. I didn’t mean to. Lina and I were in that tunnel that runs alongside the main wing and … you and Rushton were going past. I heard you tell him that Aras was a brilliant theoretician, and you wanted her to be a ward.”
I cursed myself for having failed to sense their presence, but I tended to focus on Rushton’s so strongly, I could be somewhat deaf and blind to anything else.
“I’m sorry,” Zarak muttered.
“Sorry?” I said icily. “I don’t think so. I think you don’t care at all that you violate privacy when you creep about in the walls. I don’t think you are sorry about anything except being caught out. Your behavior tonight was abominable, and your reasons for it disgusting. You are jealous of my considering Aras as a ward, and you have no right. She is not a strong farseeker or coercer, as you say, and she would never presume to pretend she is. Unlike you, she is very aware of her limitations, and she strives hard to overcome them. Unlike you, she does not secretly covet wardship. In fact, she refused when I proposed it.”
Zarak looked stunned.
“Yes. Because she does not have the conceit to think she deserves it. You might be interested to know that she suggested you be made a ward instead.”
Zarak paled.
“Had I offered you the wardship, which you so clearly feel you deserve, you would have accepted it without ever wondering if you were worthy. Being gifted as a farseeker and being crossguilded does not qualify you for the position. You must also have a refined sense of responsibility and genuine concern for the guild. You think of nothing but yourself, and you spend too much time involved in Lina’s silly pranks.”
I stopped, anger threatening to make me cruel. “Go away now. I don’t want you at the meeting. Go to the kitchens and tell Javo you are his for two sevendays.”
When Ceirwan returned, he frowned. “I could feel yer anger from outside th’ hall.”
“Zarak learned that I was offering Aras a place as a ward, and he was jealous,” I said tightly.
“Ahh. Did ye tell him ye were considerin’ him, too?”
“I did not, and his behavior tonight has shown that he’s not mature enough.”
“I dinna know,
Elspeth. Some people need responsibility to grow. I think Zarak will remain a child until he is treated as somethin’ else.”
My anger faded, for Ceirwan had some small ability to empathise, and if he thought Zarak needed responsibility, maybe he was right.
“Zarak needs th’ chance to prove himself to himself.” Ceirwan hesitated. “Ye know, part of his problem is that he reminds ye of Matthew. Yer too careful of him, an’ somethin’ in him knows it an’ interprets it as lack of faith.”
I stared at Ceirwan, stunned because I realized Zarak did remind me of Matthew. Was it true that I had held him back because of my own fear that he would go the same way?
The others filed in for the guild meeting. When they were seated, Ceirwan made an opening speech mentioning various matters, then told them of Maryon’s request for a record of dreams. An elderly woman named Sarn, who had come to us with her pregnant daughter, offered to establish a dream journal for our guild. Next, Ceirwan invited Tomash to deliver a report.
The plump, good-looking Tomash rose, pushing back his dangling mass of black curls. “You asked me to put together all the information we’ve gathered on the rebels and on the Council in some easily accessible form. I’ve made a chart.” He unrolled a large sheet of paper showing a list of towns and villages in the Land. Beside each was a series of names.
He looked at me. “I ought to begin by telling you all that there are now Councilmen in the highlands.”
The hair on my neck rose.
“Where?” I asked.
“In Darthnor, there is Councilman Moss. And in Guanette, another called Bergold.”