“Ye mun rest,” Ceirwan said, sounding exasperated.
Ignoring his fussing, I told him of Wila’s findings, and he looked as stunned as I had felt. “So many Herders? Does Rushton know?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “He does not consider the Herders a specific threat, but only an aspect of the threat posed by the Council.”
“The thing that always shivers me is that Ariel is a Herder acolyte,” Ceirwan said.
Incredibly, I had forgotten that, and it was not a thing to be forgotten. Nor was it wise to forget that the ruthless slave trader Salamander also had some mysterious connection with the Herders.
After Ceirwan had left, I allowed myself to long for Rushton. Nothing would be changed by his presence, really, but just having him slide his arms around me would comfort all the vague and nameless fears that haunted me. And where was he? Riding still, perhaps, as it was not yet midnight. Or more likely he was sleeping under a tree, curled up by the equine that had volunteered to carry him to the lowlands. Or sitting at a bench, drinking ale in some roadside hostelry, sifting through gossip and drunken maundering for useful information.
“Rushton, love,” I whispered to the fire. “Time you were home.”
10
SLEEP DID NOT come easily that night. I tossed and turned for an age, thinking of the Herders and how ruthlessly they had dragged me from my bed to watch my parents’ burning. At some point, the face of my father became Rushton’s face, and this was too much. I got up again and stirred the fire before wrapping myself in a blanket on the chair. Before long, I sank deeply into sleep, past disjointed images from the day, and down into the chaotic swirl of dreams and imaginings. I sank as if something pulled at me. And I dreamed.
I was in a sunlit garden. It was cold, and there were mountains in the distance beyond a high wall. A girl was seated on a low stool with her back to me. She wore a mustard-colored woolen coat and a scarf. Long dark hair flowed down her spine in a thick plait. Before her was a square, white sheet of paper, clipped to a board held aloft by a three-legged metal stand. There were a few lines on the paper, and as I watched, she reached up with a stub of black charcoal to scratch another line that intersected the others. I was amazed to see the essence of the dark, bare mountains emerging in these few simple lines.
All at once, there were footsteps, and when she turned to see who was approaching, I found myself staring into the face of the girl from the flying machine. I was startled to see how dark her skin was away from the winking lights and tinted glass. She could easily have been taken for a Twentyfamilies gypsy. Her look of curiosity faded into a scowl, but it was not aimed at me. The man approaching was the target of her displeasure. Clad much as the man in the flying machine had been, he was younger and very handsome, but his eyes were the same flat gray as his coat, and the smile that lifted his curved mouth did not change them.
“Good morning, Cassy,” he said in a smooth voice.
“Mr. Masterton,” she responded coldly, and turned back to her drawing.
His smile did not falter. “I have asked you to call me Petr.”
Cassy made no response. Instead, she began rubbing one of the lines on the paper, smudging it with quick, finicky movements.
“The director showed me the sketches you made of the flamebirds,” he went on, still smiling. “They’re very good.”
“He shouldn’t have done that,” Cassy said icily, still rubbing at her line, still looking obstinately away from him. “I don’t like anyone seeing unfinished work.”
“Of course. Artistic temperament is permissible when there is true talent. But you do understand that his allowing you to paint the birds is an infringement of the rules here?” There was a hard note in his mellow voice now, as if velvet was laid over stone.
Cassy turned at this, standing and facing him squarely, her expression defiant. “What do you want?”
He ignored her manner and went on pleasantly. “It is an infringement of the rules, which, as head of security, I have to regard seriously. It was agreed you could spend time here only if you were kept under control. This is, after all, a top-secret establishment, and there is a great deal of delicate research going on. Those birds were part of a very sensitive project, and although they are no longer being used, your painting them is a serious breach of security. But there is a solution. I am sure the director mentioned that we have engaged a firm to design a logo for our organization.”
“He doesn’t tell me anything.” Cassy’s voice was rudely uninterested.
“Then he will not have told you that we were displeased with the designs. I would like to suggest to the director that your drawing of the flamebirds would serve very well as a logo. You would even be paid for your efforts.”
“Me design a logo for this place? You must be crazy,” Cassy sneered. “I’d as soon design a logo for a gang of axe murderers!”
The man smiled, and if anything, his eyes became flatter. “That is a pity, because I am afraid, in that case, I will be obliged to convey news of the director’s transgression to our superiors. I am sure you are aware that they are also your mother’s superiors, and they might well be interested to know of your … liaison, shall we say, with a Tiban rebel?”
“That is blackmail, Masterton,” Cassy snarled.
“Petr, please,” he said suavely. He unrolled a sheet of paper and handed it to her. “You will produce a full-color work of this. It is my own design.”
I peeked over his shoulder and gaped to see, sketched crudely, the now familiar Govamen logo of three Agyllian birds flying around one another in an ascending spiral.
“I’ll need to see the birds again,” Cassy said sulkily. I could not see her face, because her head was bent over the design.
“I’m afraid that is impossible.”
“Then what you want is impossible,” Cassy said, still looking down. “I work from life. The drawings I made are quick, thoughtless sketches. I would need to do a detailed study if you want anything worthwhile.”
The man was silent, his expression still. At last he nodded decisively. “Very well. I will see what can be arranged.” He turned and walked away, and Cassy lifted her head to stare after him. I expected to see her look ashamed or angry, but her expression was of ferocious triumph.
I heard a screeching cry overhead and looked up to find the red dragon, its scaly wings outlined by the sun.
“Dragon!” I cried, and lifted my hands, but even as I spoke, the creature swooped, madness glittering in its eyes.
I flung myself sideways and out of the dream. Almost immediately, I was absorbed by a memory of myself as a young child in Rangorn.
I was in the little wood on the hill behind our home. My brother Jes was with my father in the fields, and my mother was hunting an herb she used to season our soups in wintertime. I had gone with her but had wandered apart, drawn by a golden butterfly. I lay passively inside my child self, enjoying my own wonder at what I had imagined was a piece of flame that had escaped the fire. The butterfly vanished from sight behind a tree, and I ran after it on my short legs.
I stopped, for behind the tree lay Maruman in his dreamtyger shape.
“Greetings, ElspethInnle,” he sent languidly, yawning and baring his red mouth.
“Maruman!” I cried, and the child self fell away, leaving me in my own form. “I’m so glad to see you. I was worried that Dragon had done something to you.”
“Marumanyelloweyes is safe. But Mornirdragon seeks ElspethInnle,” he sent.
I gaped at him. “You knew the dragon was her/Mornir?”
“Now know,” Maruman sent succinctly. “Wake now, for the beast seeks you.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to wake yet, Maruman. I need to see the doors of Obernewtyn. You said they still exist on the dreamtrails.”
“They do,” he sent.
“Take me there now,” I requested.
He looked troubled. “Dreamtrails danger filled. Mornirdragon confused by feelmusic but seeks ElspethInn
le.”
“I have to see those doors, Maruman,” I sent. “It is part of my quest to destroy the glarsh. The oldOne would wish you to help me.”
He gave way suddenly. “Come, then. You must prepare/change to travel the dreamtrails.”
I did not argue, though I had no idea what he meant me to do. The thoughtsymbol he had used for prepare was unfamiliar to me. I drew close enough to his mind that I could see him rise nearer to consciousness—he took on his true, one-eyed form. But he did not wake.
I sensed a surge of energy and gasped as a silvery snake arose from his body like some fantastical umbilical cord. Light began to flow along the cord as water through a hose. It ran from his sleeping form and spilled from the end of the cord into a widening pool of silver that soon assumed the dimensions of Maruman’s tyger shape. But it was a form of pure light with no substance and remained attached by the cord to the body. Maruman’s consciousness was still within his flesh, but all at once, I felt his will flow away from it, up the silver cord and into the shape of light. Then the eyes of the shining tyger opened, and golden light flecked with blue swam in one, while a diamond-bright white light shone from the eye that had been removed in his true form.
“Must do same as Maruman. Only in such form/shape can fly dreamtrails.” Maruman’s voice sounded far away and oddly distorted.
I brought myself close to waking as he had done, then tried to coerce a silver cord out of myself. Nothing happened.
“Must draw on mindstream,” Maruman’s voice whispered.
I did not know what he meant, for surely the mindstream could only be accessed from deep below consciousness, yet he had remained close to wakefulness. Then I remembered that in Maruman’s strange mind, all levels merged and flowed. I sank swiftly through the levels of my mind—too swiftly to attract the dragon, I hoped—stopping only when I could hear the humming song of the mindstream. I locked myself in balance between the pull to rise and sink.
I thought of the way the silver light had run up the snaking spirit cord like water up a tube. I thought of how bubbles of past existences rose from the stream and concentrated on visualizing a tiny tributary flowing up toward me.
At first, nothing happened. Then a silvery thread rose from the mindstream. It moved very slowly toward me, and each fraction of its journey cost me a tremendous outpouring of energy, as if I pulled the entire stream from its natural course. I became afraid as the tendril approached, for to merge with the stream was death, and maybe this was just another form of merging.
Steeling myself, I reached out a hand to grasp both my courage and the silvery thread. A cold clarity filled my mind, as if I stood atop a mountain buffeted by icy gusts of air. I let the stream flow into me until I felt as if it were running through my veins in place of blood. Heady delight filled me, but instinctively I forced myself to remain passive and very slowly willed myself to rise until the upward urge to consciousness was strong enough to overcome the urge to sink. The thread linking me to the mindstream paid out behind me as I ascended through the levels, thinning until it was no more than the wet glimmer of moonlight on a spiderweb. I became aware of my flesh again and vaguely sensed Maruman’s presence nearby, but I dared not let it distract me.
I concentrated on calming myself and then tried again to coerce the thread to run from my being. This time, I felt it slip through me and rise like a snake from my belly, wavering and coiling. I had the distinct sensation of the mindstream and all of those levels of my mind that it ran through. It was like hearing the distant prattle of many voices, and I realized this must be what Maruman heard constantly, this mad seductive babble.
Steadying myself, I felt the distant mindstream flowing upward and spilling light out the end of the cord. For some reason, the gathering whiteness made me think of the soft downiness of Kella’s owlet. I waited until it seemed the form of light was complete—humanoid but somehow indistinct—knowing I must now take the final step and transfer my consciousness to it. I was not sure how to do this, but the light-tyger had opened its eyes when it assumed Maruman’s consciousness, so I willed myself to see through the eyes of the silver shape.
There was a rushing sensation, and I opened my eyes.
I gasped, for now I was floating above my body, which slumped awkwardly sideways in the chair before the dying fire. It took some time to realize what I was seeing, because it was not so much a body as a human-shaped shadow surrounded by a shifting halo of light. Everything in the room was thus, glowing in a wash of shimmering color, although far brighter halos surrounded other forms, perhaps because my will was now contained within the detached spirit shape. Though my body’s aura was dullish, it was chiefly gold and a deep violet, with a single flash of white marred by a seam of dark crimson.
“That is the life you took,” Maruman sent, his voice now quite clear.
“Life?” I echoed, but even as the question formed in my mind, I understood that the red stain had been caused by my killing Madam Vega when she would have cut Rushton’s throat.
The halo’s various colors gradually merged into the thread of light that connected me to my sleeping form.
“If the link/cord is broken, mindspirit will flow into stream and you will be longsleeping,” Maruman warned. “Ride on me. I will fly to dreamtrails. Mornirdragon will not be able to follow/smell/see/distinguish you from me.”
I moved awkwardly onto the tyger’s back and wondered if in time my use of this strange new form would be less clumsy. I seemed to have no proper feeling for it, but the second I touched Maruman, I felt myself absorbed by his form and grace. He gathered himself, leaped, and went on rising. It struck me suddenly that I had never used my Talent to rise from the point of consciousness before. Always I had descended. How much would our minds be capable of, I wondered, if we only knew them better?
The air around us was full of colors merging and reforming, but as we ascended, they faded into pure white.
Then all at once, I was indeed sitting on Maruman’s broad furred back, my hands wound in the ruff of thicker fur at his neck, my legs locked around his belly. We were flying through the blue sky, and the wind tugged my hair and chilled my flesh. I seemed to be naked except for some sort of heavy cape weighing me backward. I would have liked to shrug it away but dared not loosen my hold on Maruman.
Thinking about the gradual shift from flowing, weightless color and light to this semblance of solidity, I reasoned that we had reached a place so light and high that even our current evanescent forms gained substance by comparison.
“See,” Maruman commanded.
I lifted my head and saw a broad glimmering pathway set into the clouds like a road through undulating hills. Maruman landed lightly upon it, and at his bidding, I climbed gingerly down. At once, my sense of individuality and separateness established itself as clearly as the unfamiliar drag of the heavy cloak down my back. Irritated, I reached up to unfasten it from my neck, but I could not find cloth or fastening. Instead, my hand encountered a hard bony protrusion covered in feathery down. I twisted my head and gaped to find I was looking at a set of wings.
“Things take their shape from your mind on the dreamtrails,” Maruman sent complacently. “You may change if you wish/will it but must first master trick of it.” His tyger shape darkened to pure black and became longer and sleekly lean. “No time now for you to practice shape-shifting.”
I wondered at the wings. I had no particular affinity to birds, except for my relationship with the Agyllians. I had thought very fleetingly of Kella’s little owl, and that might have been enough to give me wings, but I had had no conscious choice or desire for them. Thinking of the wings caused them to shift fractionally as a hand might flex its fingers. They were as much a part of me as a hand. With a flash of wonderment, I thought I might even truly fly.
“Come,” the now shadow-hued Maruman sent impatiently. The path was solid underfoot, but the dust glittered unnaturally. On either side, clouds swirled, as insubstantial as smoke.
“This
is a dreamtrail?” I asked. My mental voice had a strange echo, as if I whispered underneath speaking.
“Many trails there are,” Maruman sent cryptically. His almond eyes glowed gold and diamond white. “Think of the doors now, ElspethInnle. I remember them not, and so you must recall. Think of looking at them.…”
I thought of them as I had last seen them, and at once I became aware of the heat and sound of flames. A huge bonfire with the doors in the center began to take shape.
“No,” Maruman sent sternly. “Think of before burning. Think of first time you saw.”
The sensation of crackling heat faded, and the skies darkened dramatically. I cried out in fright, but Maruman merely stood by my side, swishing his midnight tail. All around us, clouds ran through the sky at an impossible speed. They boiled and churned as though an entire day of slow progress through the skies was crammed into a few seconds. The sun set in an instant, the clouds dimming rapidly from wild rose and crimson to violet and deepest blue. Then it was night.
The moon rose and was lost in cloud, then showed again through a ragged patch of darkness like an eye peering through a tear in cloth. A cold wind blew, and I heard the rustling of leaves and branches. Trees began to materialize around me, full of creaking gestures. They formed up along both sides of the road behind us, but ahead, on one side, they gave way to a high, neatly trimmed hedge.
Everything slowed and was all at once so real and solid that I truly felt myself to be standing on a road at night. I could hear the howl of a wolf in the distance. The chill in the air told me it was not far from wintertime.
“Come,” Maruman sent, and padded swiftly up the road, a black shadow barely visible in the night. He stayed close to the high, smooth-trimmed hedgerow and frequently lifted his black muzzle to sniff the air. I followed, leaning forward to compensate for the weight of the wings.
“Be swift,” Maruman demanded. His lambent eyes shone back at me. I hurried as best I could, and when I stood by him, I saw that, around the bend, the road vanished into what seemed to be a mass of dark cloud. But even as I watched, a building took shape. It was enormous—more like a number of buildings awkwardly joined together than a single construction. In some places, it was two or three stories high, and on either side, turrets rose up, with steep little roofs ending in spires.